inessiivillä

In Finnish grammar, the inessive case (inessiivi) marks location inside something and answers the question where is something located. It is a locative case used with nouns to indicate being in or inside a place or object.

The inessive forms are formed by adding specific endings to the noun stem. In the singular, the common endings are -ssa or -ssä, for example talossa (in the house) and kissassa (in the cat). In the plural, the endings shift to -issa or -issä, as in taloissa (in the houses) and puissa (in the trees). The choice between -ssa/-ssä and -issa/-issä depends on the phonological structure of the noun, but the general pattern follows the singular and plural distinction rather than a separate possessive or article.

The inessive is typically used with bare nouns and often appears in expressions of static location, spatial descriptions, or with verbs that denote existing state or location. It contrasts with other locative cases such as the elative (out of), illative (into), and adessive (on, at).

In linguistics, the form or label inessiivillä can appear as a descriptive term to indicate plural inessive forms or to discuss inflectional patterns in grammars or dictionaries. While not a commonly spoken word itself, it functions as a label in scholarly or instructional contexts to refer to the plural inside- locations, such as phrases that would be glossed with -issa/-issä in plural usage.

Related topics include the other Finnish locative cases (illative, adessive, elative) and their respective singular and plural endings, as well as general Finnish noun inflection.