Possessiivis

Possessiivis refers to the possessive form in Finnish grammar, a system of suffixes attached to the possessed noun to indicate ownership by a person or group. It is a productive part of noun morphology and interacts with vowel harmony, affecting which allomorph of the suffix is used.

The standard possessive suffixes cover six persons and numbers: 1st person singular -ni, 2nd person singular -si, 3rd person singular or plural in the two allomorphs -nsa / -nsä, 1st person plural -mme, and 2nd person plural -nne. The choice between -nsa and -nsä is determined by the stem’s vowels to comply with vowel harmony. Example forms with the noun talo (house) include taloni (my house), talosi (your house), talonsa (his/her house), talomme (our house), talonne (your house, plural), talonsa (their house).

In ordinary use the possessor is encoded in the suffix, and the possessed noun remains the syntactic head of the noun phrase. To stress or specify the possessor more explicitly, speakers may add a separate possessive pronoun phrase, as in minun taloni (my house) or taloni minun (less common). Possessiivis can attach to proper nouns as well, producing forms like Mikkoni or Mikkosi in spoken Finnish, where the suffix marks possession on names.

The possessive suffix system is a central aspect of Finnish noun inflection, distinguishing possession from other relationships expressed by case endings. It also interacts with other grammatical constructions such as genitive and partitive in phrases involving possession.