The set of local cases has a natural threefold division (§40): both internal and
external local cases can express static location, movement towards or
movement away from. In Finnish, adverbials associated with some verbs
expressing change or direction appear in one of the directional cases (elative,
illative, ablative, allative), wheras in many Indo-European languages the
equivalent expression would contain a ‘static’ preposition. These verbs
include etsiä ‘look for’, jättää ‘leave’, jäädä ‘stay’, löytää ‘find’, ostaa
The six local cases 121
‘buy’, pysähtyä ‘stop (intrans.)’, pysäyttää ‘stop (trans.)’, rakentaa ‘build’
and unohtaa ‘forget’.
Hän etsii avainta tasku/sta. He looks in his pocket for the key.
Hän löytää kolikon kadu/lta. He finds the coin in the street.
Hän löytää avaimen tasku/sta. He finds the key in his pocket.
Elanno/sta löysin uudet kengät. I found new shoes at Elanto.
Aion jäädä Ruotsi/in. I intend to stay in Sweden.
Paavo jäi luoka/lle.
Paavo failed to pass into the next form (‘stayed in the class’).
Jätän auton autotalli/in.
I will leave the car in the garage.
onko hän unohtanut avaimen lukko/on?
Has he lef(‘forgotten’) the key in the lock?
Unohdin kirjat huonee/see/ni.
I lef(‘forgot’) the books in my room.
Ostan olutta Alko/sta.
I’ll buy some beer in Alko.
Ostammeko kartan kirjakaupa/sta?
Shall we buy a map at the bookshop?
Rakennamme uuden hotellin Turku/un.
We shall build a new hotel in Turku.
Juna pysähtyi asema/lle.
The train stopped at the station.
Poliisi pysäytti auton kadunkulma/an.
The policeman stopped the car at the corner of the street.
