In grammar, the inessive case (abbreviated ; from Latin: inesse "to be in or at") is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is Finnish: talo·ssa in Finnish, Estonian: maja·s in Estonian, Moksha: куд·са in Moksha, Basque: etxea·n in Basque, Lithuanian: nam·e in Lithuanian, sāt·ā in Latgalian and Hungarian: ház·ban in Hungarian.
In Finnish the inessive case is typically formed by adding . Estonian adds Estonian: -s to the genitive stem. In Moksha Moksha: -са is added (in Erzya Erzya: -со). In Hungarian, the suffix Hungarian: ban/ben is most commonly used for inessive case, although many others, such as Hungarian: on/en/ön and others are also used, especially with cities.
In the Finnish language, the inessive case is considered the first (in Estonian the second) of the six locative cases, which correspond to locational prepositions in English. The remaining five cases are:
The Finnish language inessive uses the suffix Finnish: -ssa or Finnish: -ssä (depending on vowel harmony). It is usually added to nouns and associated adjectives.
It is used in the following ways:
Finnish: asumme Suome'''ssa''' = we live in Finland
possible English translations include in, within
Finnish: kahde'''ssa''' vuode'''ssa''' = within 2 years, during 2 years
English translations can include on in phrases of this type
Finnish: N.N. puhelime'''ssa''' = N.N. on the phone
Finnish: sormus on sorme'''ssa'''ni = the ring is on my finger
Finnish: sanomalehde'''ssä''' on 68 sivua = the newspaper has 68 pages
Finnish: minä käyn baari'''ssa''' = I visit the bar
Finnish: Käyn baareissa = I visit the bars
In a large part of the southwestern, south Ostrobothnian, southeastern as well as in some Tavastian dialects, the suffix is simply -s (e.g. maas, talos), similarly to Estonian. This is an example of apocope. When coupled with a possessive suffix, the result can be like in standard Finnish "maassani, talossani" or a shorter "maasani, talosani" depending on the dialect: the former is more common in Tavastian and southeastern dialects while the latter is more common in southwestern dialects.
Most central and northern Ostrobothnian dialects as well as some southwestern and Peräpohjola dialects use a shorter suffix -sa/-sä, e.g. maasa, talosa.[1]