kurssista

Kurssista is the elative singular form of the Finnish noun kurssi. Kurssi has several senses, most commonly a course of study or a class, and less commonly a rate or price. The elative case, marked by the ending -sta/-stä, expresses movement from a source or, in discourse, the topic of discussion. Accordingly, kurssista is used when something relates to the course or when the course is the subject of talk.

In practice, kurssista appears with verbs that take the elative, such as puhua (to talk about), kertoa (to tell about), or olla kyse (to be a matter of). Examples: "Puhuin kurssista" (I talked about the course); "Kurssista on kyse" (It is a matter of the course); "Keskustelussa puhuttiin kurssista" (The discussion concerned the course).

Kurssista can also be used to describe content or topics connected with a course, such as when summarizing what a class covers or when citing discussions about a course. It is important to distinguish kurssista from kurssin (the course’s, genitive) and kurssia (the course, partitive), as different cases of the same noun convey different grammatical functions.

Etymology: kurssi originates from Finnic roots meaning a path or course, a sense that extended to both a course of study and, in other senses, a trajectory or rate. Morphologically, kurssista is one of several case forms that Finnish uses to express topic, source, or relation in a sentence.

Notes: kurssista is a common, neutral form in everyday Finnish and does not carry specialized connotations beyond its grammatical meaning.