Nouns, adjectives and pronouns in Finnish
In Finnish, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns are grouped together under the name nominals. That’s because they follow the same rules when it comes to grammar — they behave similarly in sentences and are inflected in the same ways.
- Nouns are "things". They can be very concrete, such as "a car", "a house", or more abstract such as democracy, "beauty". Some nouns are derived from verbs and in English they may look like verbs, for example "a walk".
- Pronouns are used instead of nouns, for example, instead of using a word "car" you can point at it and say "that". Read more about pronouns.
- Adjectives describe things, words like "small", "red" and "beautiful" are adjectives. The special feature of adjectives is, that they have comparative forms, for example: "small, smaller, smallest". In Finnish, adjectives agree with the noun they describe, which mean they are in the same case and number.
Different forms of nominals
Nominals are inflected in cases. Here are some examples and English equivalents. NB! All the examples are very artificial because there's no exact translation. Read all the articles behind the links to understand the case system in whole.
Singular
| nominative | talo | a house |
| genitive | talon | house's |
| partitive | taloa* | a house |
| essive | talona | as a house |
| translative | taloksi | into a house |
| abessive | talotta | without a house |
| inessive | talossa | in a house |
| elative | talosta | from a house |
| illative | taloon* | to/into a house |
| adessive | talolla | on/by a house |
| ablative | talolta | from a house |
| allative | talolle | to a house |
*=several variants.
NB!Consonant gradation!
Plural
| nominative | talot | houses |
| genitive | talojen* | house's |
| partitive | taloja | houses |
| essive | taloina | as houses |
| translative | taloiksi | into houses |
| abessiivi | taloitta | without houses |
| inessive | taloissa | in houses |
| elative | taloista | from houses |
| illative | taloihin | to/into houses |
| adessive | taloilla | on/by houses |
| ablative | taloilta | from houses |
| allative | taloille | to houses |
*=several variants
Plural marking is -t in nominative case, and otherwise i (j when between two vowels )
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