Handbook of Finnish, 2nd edition, section 8 Nouns:

Summary of case forms

Nouns, adjectives, numerals, and pronouns have case inflection in Finnish. The same principles apply to all these parts of speech, but there are some specialties. The following presentation includes the accusative case, even though it exists for some pronouns only.

Traditionally, Finnish is described as having 14 or 15 cases, depending on whether the accusative case is counted or not. The cases correspond to English prepositions roughly as shown in the following table. For each case, the first row shows the singular, and the second row shows the plural, except for the comitative, which always appears in plural form. The uppercase A denotes either a or ä, according to vowel harmony. The asterisk (*) denotes a copy of the last vowel of the stem.

#	Name	Suffix	English prep.	Example	Translation
1	nominative	– t	–	talo talot	house houses
2	genitive	n jen, ien, iden, itten, ten, in	of	talon talojen	of (a) house of houses
3	essive	nA inA	as; in the role of	talona taloina	as a house as houses
4	partitive	A, tA, ttA jA, itA	–	taloa taloja	house houses
5	translative	ksi, kse- iksi, ikse-	to (role of); for	taloksi taloiksi	to (a) house to houses
6	inessive	ssA issA	in	talossa taloissa	in (a) house in houses
7	elative	stA istA	from (inside)	talosta taloista	from (a) house from houses
8	illative	n, hn, seen in, ihin, isiin	into	taloon taloihin	into (a) house into houses
9	adessive	llA illA	at; on	talolla taloilla	at (a) house at houses
10	ablative	ltA iltA	from	talolta taloilta	from (a) house from houses
11	allative	lle ille	to	talolle taloille	to (a) house to houses
12	abessive	ttA ittA	without	talotta taloitta	without (a) house without houses
13	comitative	ine	together with	taloineni	with my house(s)
14	instructive	n in	with (the aid of)	taloin	with house(s)
15	accusative	t idät	–	minut meidät	me us

The names used for cases in this book are the Finnish names (nominatiivi, genetiivi etc.) in English form. Most of them are not used in grammars of other languages. The origin of the names is explained in section Finnish grammar terms.

The cases also have names formed from Finnish words with the suffix ntO, e.g. nimentö, omanto. They were used at school decades ago, but they have mostly fallen into disuse.

The cases are listed somewhat differently in different grammars and references. The order used in this book differs from the one used in Iso suomen kielioppi in two ways: the accusative, being marginal, appears last and not as the 3rd; and the essive and the partitive appear in different order, since this order matches the role of the essive, the partitive, and the translative in the system of locational cases.

Words are divided into inflection types in order to describe variation in inflection. They are briefly discussed section Inflection types of nouns and listed in more detail in the appendix-like part Inflection types. The descriptions of inflection types summarize the general inflection rules as applicable to certain classes of words.

Next part: Plural of nouns