elatiivplurali

Elatiivplurali is the elative plural form in Finnish grammar. It marks origin or source from multiple items or groups and translates roughly as from the Xs in English. In practice, it is used to indicate movement or quantity coming from several things, for example “the dogs from…”, “from the houses,” or “from all the books.”

Formation can be described as a modification of the plural stem. From the nominative plural, the final -t is replaced by -ista or -istä, depending on vowel harmony. In general, the choice between -ista and -istä follows the vowel harmony of the word: -ista is used with back vowels, while -istä is used with front vowels. For example, koirat (the dogs) becomes koirista (from the dogs), and talot (the houses) becomes taloista (from the houses). A common example with assimilation is kirjat (the books) becoming kirjoista (from the books). Note that due to stem changes and assimilation in Finnish, some nouns may produce slightly different surface forms, even though they reflect the same underlying rule.

The elative plural contrasts with the singular elative (which ends in -sta/-stä after a singular stem, e.g., koira -> koirasta). In usage, elatiivplurali is typical when referring to several sources or origins, as in phrases like “kaikista koirista” (from all of the dogs) or “taloista” (from the houses).