sanasta

Sanasta is the elative singular form of the Finnish noun sana, meaning "word." In Finnish grammar, the elative case expresses origin, source, or basis, so sanasta can be translated roughly as "from the word" or "of the word." The form appears in clauses that indicate where information comes from or what a statement is based on. A widely used idiom that features sanasta is sanasta sanaan, meaning "word for word" and used to indicate verbatim quotation.

Etymology and morphology: sanasta is formed from sana with the elative suffix -sta/-stä, applying vowel harmony rules. It is not a separate lexical item; it is a grammatical variant of sana. The same root yields many other case forms, depending on the syntactic role in a sentence.

Usage notes: In everyday language sanasta helps specify source or origin, but its use is most common in fixed phrases or linguistic descriptions. In reading and language-learning contexts, it serves as an example of Finnish case endings and how noun inflection works.

Related forms: Other grammatical forms of sana include sana (nominative), sanan (genitive), sanaa (partitive). The word sana itself is a central term in Finnish morphology and appears frequently in dictionaries and grammar references.

See also: sana, sanasto.