elativelajittelut

Elativelajittelut is a term used in Finnish linguistics to describe how the elative case endings are organized and classified in Finnish and related Finnic languages. The elative expresses origin or movement from something and is part of the locative case system. In practice, elativelajittelut refers to how different stem types, phonology and vowel harmony shape the form of elative endings.

In Finnish, the basic pattern for the elative is formed with the suffixes -sta or -stä for singular, and -ista or -istä for plural, with the choice governed by vowel harmony and stem alternations. The endings attach to the word’s stem and may involve irregular phonological changes in certain nouns. Regular patterns coexist with irregulars, and dialectal variation can produce additional variants. The study of elativelajittelut thus covers regular suffixation rules, exceptions, and how stem- or vowel-driven changes interact with harmony rules.

Examples illustrate the system. Singular: talo (house) becomes talosta (from the house). Singular with a stem ending in a front vowel may show different behavior in some dialects or lexical classes. Plural: talot (houses) becomes taloista (from the houses). The noun vesi (water) shows a traditional irregular pattern: vedestä (from the water). Its plural elative form is vesistä (from waters). These examples highlight the mix of regular suffixation and stem-level changes that elativelajittelut aims to organize.

The concept is used in linguistic analysis, language pedagogy, and natural language processing to describe and predict elative forms across words, with attention to harmony, stem type, and irregularities. It provides a framework for understanding how Finnish handles a core locative meaning through structured endings.