【芬兰语语法】§51 ABESSIVE, COMITATIVE AND INSTRUCTIVE

 These three cases are all rare; the instructive and the comitative appear

mainly in fixed expressions like idioms.

The abessive ending is -tta ~ -ttä, which is added to the inflectional stem

in the singular and plural and causes consonant gradation. Its meaning is

‘without’.

Hän lähti ulkomaille raha/tta ja passi/tta.

He went abroad without money and without a passport.

Hänet tuomittiin syy/ttä.

He was condemned without cause.

Joka kuri/tta kasvaa, se kunnia/tta kuolee.

He who grows up without discipline will die without honour.

The preposition ilman ‘without’ is usually used instead of the abessive; it

takes the partitive, e.g. ilman raha/a ‘without money’, ilman passi/a

‘without a passport’.

The instructive ending is -n. It occurs almost exclusively in a few fixed

plural expressions.

om/i/n silm/i/n with (one’s) own eyes

kaik/i/n puol/i/n in all respects

palja/i/n pä/i/n with bare head

nä/i/llä ma/i/n in these parts (areas)

kaks/i/n käs/i/n with both hands

The comitative ending is -ine-, and this is always followed by a possessive

suffix. Because the -i- of the ending is in fact a fossilized plural -i-(cf. §26),

there is no difference between the comitative singular and plural. The

meaning of the case is ‘with, accompanied by’.

128 Finnish: An Essential Grammar

Läsnä oli Viljo Kohonen vaimo/ine/en.

Present was Viljo Kohonen with his wife.

Läsnä olivat Viljo Kohonen ja Esko Kallio vaimo/ine/en.

Present were Viljo Kohonen and Esko Kallio, accompanied by their

wives.

Rauma on mukava kaupunki vanho/ine talo/ine/en ja kape/ine

katu/ine/en.

Rauma is a pleasant town with its old houses and narrow streets.