Adessive case


An adessive case is a grammatical case generally denoting location at, upon, or adjacent to the referent of the noun; the term is most frequently used in Uralic studies. In Uralic languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "on". For example, Estonian laud and laual, Hungarian asztal and asztalnál. It is also used as an instrumental case in Finnish.
In Finnish, the suffix is -lla/-llä, e.g. pöytä and pöydällä. In addition, it can specify "being around the place", as in koululla, as contrasted with the inessive koulussa.
In Estonian, the ending -l is added to the genitive case, e.g. laud - laual. Besides the meaning "on", this case is also used to indicate ownership. For example, "mehel on auto" means "the man owns a car".
As the Uralic languages don't possess the verb "to have", it is the subject in the adessive case + on.
The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are:
The Finnish adessive has the word ending -lla or -llä. It is usually added to nouns and associated adjectives.
It is used in the following ways.
Other languages which employ an adessive case or case function include archaic varieties of Lithuanian, some Northeast Caucasian languages such as Lezgian and Hunzib, and the Ossetic languages, both ancient and modern.