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 used most frequently for Uralic studies. For Uralic languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, it 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.
For 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", the concept is expressed as a subject in the adessive case + on.
The other locative cases in Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian are:
Finnish
The Finnish adessive case has the word ending -lla or -llä. It is usually added to nouns and associated adjectives.It is used in the following ways.
- Expressing the static state of being on the surface of something.
- As an existential clause with the verb olla to express possession
- Expressing the instrumental use of something
- In certain time expressions expressing the time at which events occur
- Expressing the general proximity in space or time at which something occurs