Adessive case

Adessive case

In Finno-Ugric languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, the adessive case (from Latin "adesse" "to be present") is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "on". For example, Estonian "laud" (table) and "laual" (on the table), Hungarian "asztal" and "asztalon" (on the table). It is also used as an instrumental case in Finnish.

In Finnish, the suffix is "-lla/-llä", e.g. "pöytä" (table) and "pöydällä" (on the table). In addition, it can specify "being around the place", as in "koululla" (at the school including the schoolyard), as contrasted with the inessive "koulussa" (in the school, inside the building). The meaning distributes along time, too: "at (someone's) lunch break" is "ruokatunnilla", whereas "ruokatunnissa" is "within a lunch break".

In Estonian, the ending "-l" is added to the genitive case, e.g. "laud" (table) - "laual" (on the table). Besides the meaning "on", this case is also used to indicate ownership. For example, "mehe"l" on auto" means "the man has a car".

As the Finno-Ugric languages don't possess the verb "to have", it is the subject in the adessive case + on (for example minulla on= I have, literally at me is)

The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are:
*Inessive case ("in")
*Elative case ("out of")
*Illative case ("into")
*Allative case ("onto")
*Ablative case ("off")


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