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Adessive case
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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, "mehel 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 ("from off of")