Elatiivissa

Elatiivissa is Finnish grammar’s elative case, used to express origin or starting point, typically meaning from inside something or from a source. It answers questions like “Where does something come from?” and is also used to indicate material from which something is made or the source of movement away from a place.

The standard elative suffix in Finnish is -sta or -stä, attached to the noun stem. The choice between -sta and -stä follows vowel harmony: most back-vowel stems take -sta, while front-vowel stems take -stä. There are irregular forms due to stem changes or assimilation in some words (for example, ves- in vesi becomes vedestä). Examples include talosta (from the house), vedestä (from the water), puusta (from wood), maasta (from the ground/earth), metsasta (from the forest). Demonstratives and other words also form elatives, such as tästä (from this) and siitä (from that).

In use, elative is common with nouns but can extend to phrases indicating material, origin, or movement away. It often appears with verbs of motion or description of source: Suomi -> Suomesta (from Finland); puusta tehty (made from wood; literally from wood); veden kautta (via water), though veden kautta uses a different construction for “via.” It can also express abstract origins, as in tästä syystä (for this reason) where tästä marks origin in a discourse sense.

Compared with other Finnish cases, elatiivilla primarily marks origin or source rather than mere location. It coexists with related cases like inessive (inside) and ablative (varied directional meanings), forming part of Finnish case system used for precise expression of spatial and material relations.

See also Finnish grammar, elative case, other locative cases.