Sõnas

Sõnas is the inessive singular form of the Estonian noun sõna, which means word. In Estonian grammar, nouns are declined for case, and the inessive case expresses a location inside something, commonly translated as "in" or "inside." Therefore, sõnas literally means "in the word" or "inside a word," depending on context.

The base word sõna refers to a unit of language with meaning or usage in speech and writing. Its inflected forms follow the general patterns of Estonian noun declension. The inessive singular suffix -s attaches to the stem sõn-, producing sõnas. Other cases modify the noun differently, for example nominative sõna or genitive sõna. Like many Estonian words, the full paradigm includes singular and plural forms across several cases, each serving distinct grammatical or semantic roles.

In usage, sõnas appears in linguistic descriptions, text analysis, and everyday speech when specifying location within a word. It is common in phrases discussing morphology, word formation, or orthography, such as when examining a syllable, a root, or a specific morpheme inside a word. The form is primarily a grammatical tool rather than a content-bearing term, though it can occur in quoted examples or explanations about how words are constructed.

Etymologically, sõna derives from a Proto-Finnic root related to the concept of a spoken or written unit, with cognates in related Finnic languages. The inessive form sõnas reflects the regular Estonian pattern of indicating location within a word, phrase, or larger unit. Sõnas thus serves as a concise grammatical marker rather than a standalone lexical item.