inessive

The inessive is a grammatical case used to express location inside or within something. It is a type of locative case found in several languages, most notably in the Finno-Ugric family, including Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, where it is often described in grammars as the inessive case.

In Finnish, the inessive is formed with the suffix -ssa or -ssä, depending on vowel harmony and spelling. Examples include talo → talossa (in the house) and koti → kodissa (in the home). In Finnish, this case typically answers the question “where is X?” and contrasts with other locatives such as illative (into) and adessive (on/at).

In Hungarian, the inessive is expressed with the suffix -ban or -ben, as in házban (in the house). The choice of -ban vs -ben follows vowel harmony rules of the word. Hungarian uses the same suffixal strategy to denote “inside” or “within” a location.

In Estonian, the inessive is marked by a suffix such as -s, yielding forms like majas (in the house) and toas (in the room). Estonian examples illustrate how the same spatial meaning is encoded with a language-specific suffix.

The inessive is typically used for static interior locations, such as being inside a building, container, or defined area. It is one of several locative cases in these languages, often contrasted with illative (into), adessive (on/at), elative (out of), and allative (onto). While the term “inessive” is common in descriptive grammar, the exact forms and availability of the case can vary between languages and may be replaced by postpositions in others.