ylä

Ylä is a Finnish combining form, or prefix, meaning "upper" or "higher." It is used in compound words to indicate the upper part, top, or elevated position of something. In everyday Finnish, ylä- appears in a range of common terms and is part of the standard productive vocabulary for describing levels, sections, or positions.

Common examples include yläkerta (the upper floor of a building), yläosa (the upper part), and yläpuoli (the upper side). Another widely used example is yläaste, which refers to the upper grades of comprehensive school (lower secondary education) in Finland. In many cases, the prefix is written as one word with the root, such as yläkerta, yl ä-osa, or yl ä-aste.

As a prefix, ylä is primarily a bound morpheme and is not typically used as a free-standing word in modern Finnish. Its role is descriptive rather than lexical in isolation, functioning in conjunction with a base noun to form a new meaning related to the upper part or position.

Etymology traces ylä to the Finnish adjective ylä, meaning upper or higher, and it has a long-standing status in Finnish morphology as a prefix for compound formation. The form is analogous to how other Finnish compounds express spatial or hierarchical relations, such as upper versus lower parts or levels.

See also: prefixes in Finnish, compound formation, Finnish vocabulary for spatial relations.