Puhelimessaan

Puhelimessaan is a Finnish inflected form that means “on his/her/its/their phone.” It is formed from the noun puhelin (phone) combined with a third-person possessive suffix and the inessive case ending. In practical use, the inessive -ssa indicates location on or inside the phone, while the possessive suffix shows ownership by the subject of the sentence.

The form is commonly used to refer to content, data, or features located on a person’s phone, such as apps, photos, messages, or settings. For example, Puhelimessaan on paljon valokuvia translates to “There are many photos on his/her phone.” It can also describe actions performed on the device, as in Hän selaa uutisia puhelimessaan, meaning “He/she browses the news on his/her phone.”

Because Finnish allows long, compound inflected nouns, puhelimessaan may appear in several related variants depending on the owner and number. For example, puhelimissaan would express “on their phones,” illustrating how the possessive and locative endings adapt to the subject. In everyday language, forms like puhelinensa and puhelimistaan may be encountered in context, but puhelimessa or puhelimessaan are most common when the owner is specified—as in “on his/her phone.”

See also: Finnish possessive constructions, Finnish inessive case, compound inflection in Finnish.