puolisoilla

Puolisoilla is a Finnish word formed from the noun puoliso, which means spouse. The ending -lla is the adessive plural suffix, so puolisoilla refers to a group of spouses in a way that can denote location, association, or possession. In practice, the form is often found in formal or legal contexts, for example when describing rights or responsibilities that pertain to spouses as a group. A typical usage is to indicate possession or entitlement by the spouses, as in sentences like “Puolisoilla on oikeus saada tietoa” (The spouses have the right to receive information).

Grammatically, puoliso is a singular noun, with the plural nominative form puoliso- becoming puoliso- t in common usage: puoliso + t = puoliso s. The genitive plural is puolisoiden, used to express “of the spouses.” The adessive plural, the form in question, is puolisoilla and is used to mark location or association: “with the spouses” or “at the spouses.” Finnish often uses the adessive to mark possession in phrases where the possessor is in focus, rather than using a separate possessive suffix on the possessed noun.

Usage and context: puolisoilla mainly appears in formal language, including law, policy, and demographic or statistical texts, whenever writers refer to rights, duties, or characteristics belonging to couples or married partners as a group. In everyday speech, speakers may prefer the nominative puolisoiden or other constructions depending on the sentence’s focus and structure.

See also: puoliso, pariskunta, avio-oikeus, perhe.