grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...

, the inessive case ( abbreviated ; from "to be in or at") is a locative

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is in Finnish, in Estonian, () in Moksha, in

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

, in Lithuanian, in Latgalian and in Hungarian. In Finnish the inessive case is typically formed by adding . Estonian adds to the genitive stem. In Moksha () is added (in Erzya ()). In Hungarian, the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

is most commonly used for inessive case, although many others, such as and others are also used, especially with cities. In the Finnish language, the inessive case is considered the first (in Estonian the second) of the six locative cases, which correspond to locational

preposition Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...

s in English. The remaining five cases are: * Elative case ("out of") * Illative case ("into") * Allative case ("onto") * Adessive case ("on") *

Ablative case In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages. It is used to indicate motion away from something, make ...

("from")

Finnish

The

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...

inessive uses the

or (depending on

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

). It is usually added to

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

s and associated

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s. It is used in the following ways: * Expressing the static state of being in something. :: = ''we live in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

'' * (with time expressions) stating how long something took to be accomplished or done :possible English

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

s include ''in, within'' :: = ''within 2 years, during 2 years'' * when two things are closely connected :English translations can include ''on'' in phrases of this type :: = ''N.N. on the phone'' :: = ''the ring is on my

finger A finger is a prominent digit (anatomy), digit on the forelimbs of most tetrapod vertebrate animals, especially those with prehensile extremities (i.e. hands) such as humans and other primates. Most tetrapods have five digits (dactyly, pentadact ...

'' *as an existensial clause with the

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

(to be), to express possession of objects :: = ''the

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

has 68 pages'' *with the verb , :: = ''I visit the bar'' *There are both singular and

plural In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...

forms :: = ''I visit the bars''

Dialectal variants

In a large part of the southwestern, south Ostrobothnian, southeastern as well as in some Tavastian dialects, the suffix is simply ''-s'' (e.g. ''maas'', ''talos''), similarly to Estonian. This is an example of

apocope In phonology, apocope () is the omission (elision) or loss of a sound or sounds at the end of a word. While it most commonly refers to the loss of a final vowel, it can also describe the deletion of final consonants or even entire syllables. ...

. When coupled with a possessive suffix, the result can be like in standard Finnish "''maassani, talossani''" or a shorter "''maasani, talosani''" depending on the dialect: the former is more common in Tavastian and southeastern dialects while the latter is more common in southwestern dialects. Most

central and northern Ostrobothnian dialects Central and Northern Ostrobothnian dialects () are Western Finnish dialects spoken in Northern and Central Ostrobothnia, as well as in the Ranua municipality in Lapland. The dialects have been influenced by the Savonian dialects, the influen ...

as well as some southwestern and Peräpohjola dialects use a shorter suffix ''-sa/-sä'', e.g. ''maasa, talosa''.

References

Grammatical cases {{grammar-stub

Finnish

Dialectal variants

Further reading

References