Understanding the Finnish Genitive Case for Possession

What is the Genitive Case in Finnish?

In Finnish, the genitive case is primarily used to express possession. It answers the question "whose?" and is marked by the suffix -n added to the end of the word. For example, "Mikon talo" means "Mikko's house."

Forming the Genitive

To form the genitive in Finnish, the suffix -n is added to the singular form of a noun. If the noun ends in a vowel, the process is straightforward, e.g., talo becomes talon. For nouns ending with a consonant, special rules may apply, such as consonant gradation.

Consonant Gradation

Consonant gradation affects the internal structure of words in Finnish when forming cases, including the genitive. For example, "matto" (carpet) changes to "maton" in the genitive case. The 't' softens to 'd', illustrating this morphophonemic phenomenon.

Examples of the Genitive Case

Let's look at more examples to understand how the genitive case is used in sentences:

Using the Genitive in Sentences

The genitive case doesn't just indicate possession but also connects nouns to show relations between different objects. Here's how it's used in a sentence:

Opettajan auto on punainen. (The teacher's car is red.)