Included in this article are the rules for inflecting nouns in most of the plural location cases.

The plural marker that all plural cases have in common is an -i-. Depending on the word, the plural location cases can have -i- or -oi- before their case ending. In the tables below, I will be adding any of the cases I mentioned in section 1. I’m doing this because their case endings are all added to the exact same stem, so they’re identical apart from their case ending (e.g. taloissa, taloista, taloilla, taloilta, taloille)

1. The plural cases included in this article

This article deals with the formation of the plural location cases. It contains the rules for the following location cases:

• The inessive case (missä – taloissa, busseissa, öissä)
• The elative case (mistä – taloista, busseista, öistä)
• The adessive case (millä – taloilla, busseilla, öillä)
• The ablative case (miltä – taloilta, busseilta, öiltä)
• The allative case (mille – taloille, busseille, öille)

Technically the same rules also apply to the the translative case (-ksi – taloiksi, busseiksi, öiksi), but this is not typically considered a location case as it has other, more prominent functions.

The plural illative (mihin) is not included on this page, regardless of the fact that it is one of the plural location cases. This is due to the fact that it inflects in a different way than all the cases above. If you want to move on to other plural cases, you can click through to one of the following pages:

• The plural illative (here)
• The plural partitive (short words – long words)
• The plural genitive (short words – long words)

The plural cases are a pretty complicated system with many rules. On the page you’re currently at, we’re looking at what are typically called “short words” in course books. This is an important distinction because words of three syllables or more usually have different rules for their plural cases than the shorter words do. I have a separate article all about the plural location cases of long words for you to look at once you’ve made yourself familiar with the rules on the current page.

2. Words ending in -u/-y, -o/-ö: add -i-

3. Words ending in –ä: replace the –ä with –i

4. Words ending in –a

Just like in the plural genitive and the plural partitive, we’re dividing words ending in –a in “kissa-words” and “koira-words”. These two words are easy to remember and each belongs to a different group of words ending in -a. If you can remember “kissa – kissoissa” and “koira – koirissa” and apply that rule to other, similar words, you’re on your way to mastering the plural location cases!

4.1. Words of two syllables (kissa-words): -oi-

Kissa-words are words of two syllables. Their final letter is –a. In the first syllable, you will have either –e-, –i– or –a-. In other words, the vowels of these words can look like:

• a…a (kana, maksa, sana, marja)
• e…a (herra, tela, teema, leija)
• i…a (kissa, tina, hinta, silta)

When you inflect these words in the plural location cases, you will replace the final –a with –oi- before the case ending.

4.2. Words of two syllables (koira-words): -i-

Koira-words are also words of two syllables. Their final letter is also –a. They differ when it comes to the first syllable: for koira-words you will have either –o- or –u- in the first syllable. In other words, the vowels of these words can look like:

• o…a (koira, konna, honda, nokka)
• u…a (kukka, sukka, suora, juoma)

For koira-words, you will replace the final –a with –i– before adding the case ending.

5. Words ending in –i

Words ending in –i are once again divided into several groups. The following rules only applies to short words. Long words (e.g. lääkäri, paperi) have their own rules.

5.1. New words ending in –i: add -ei-

5.2. Old words ending in –i and –si: no change before the case

Find out more about the inflection of the different types of words ending in –i! This table contains three different types:

1. Words that inflect like OVI
2. Words that inflect like PIENI
3. Words that inflect like UUSI

6. Words ending in –e: add -i-

7. Words ending in –nen: replace the –nen with -si-

8. Words ending in two vowels: remove one vowel, add -i-

9. Words ending in diphthongs -ie, -uo, -yö

For words ending in a diphthong, you will remove the first vowel of the diphthong and add -i- to the end of the word before adding the case marker. However, if the diphthong ends in an –i (e.g. täi), you will not remove the first vowel.

10. Words ending in a consonant

10.1. Words ending in -as: replace -as with -ai-

Words ending in -as (or –äs, depending on vowel harmony rules) belong to wordtype B, so they will have the weak grade in their basic form (e.g. rakas, opas) and the strong grade in the plural (e.g. rakkaissa, oppailla). Read more about words ending in -as here.

10.2. Words ending in -is: two groups

For words ending in -is, we have two groups. Firstly, words like kallis that get -ii- when inflected. These words will look the same in both singular and plural: kalliissa could be both singular or plural. Secondly, words like roskis which get -ikse- when inflected, will have their –e- replaced with –i- (e.g. singular: roskiksessa → plural: roskiksissa).

10.3. Words ending in -us/-os

In the singular, words ending in -us or -os can belong to two types and that inflected in a different way, some get -ukse- (e.g. vastauksessa), others get -ude- (e.g. rakkaudessa). You will want to check out this article to get the specifics.

In the plural missä form, this difference disappears: both types get -uksi- in the plural.

10.4. Words ending in -ton: replace -ton with -ttomi-

Words ending in –ton undergo consonant gradation (wordtype B) in their stem, so you get -ttoma- in the conjugated forms. In the plural, the -a- at the end of the stem gets replace by the plural’s –i- so you end up with a stem ending in -ttomi-. Read more about words ending in -ton here.

10.5. Words ending in -in: replace -in with -imi-

In the singular conjugation, –in gets replaced with -ime-. In the plural, you get –imi– because the plural’s –i- replaces the singular stem’s –e-. Read more about words ending in -in here.

10.6. Words ending in -ut: two groups

Words that end in -ut/yt can belong to two wordtypes. The smallest group of the two contains words such as olut, kevyt and lyhyt. For these words, you will replace the final -t with an –i- before the case ending. So the singular form oluessa becomes oluissa in the plural.

The much larger group is made up of NUT-participles such as väsynyt and tottunut. For these words, you will replace the -ut/yt with -ei- before the location case ending. So the singular form väsyneellä because väsyneillä in the plural.

10.7. Words ending in -tar

Words endin in -tar are rare, but at least tytär (daughter) is a common word. In the plural location cases, these words get -ttari- in place of the basic form’s -tar.

11. Consonant Gradation in the Plural Location Cases

All the cases in this article has a similar marker: they consist of two consonants and one vowel (e.g. -ssa, -lta, -stä), both in their singular and in their plural form. As such, words inflected in these cases follow the exact same rules in the plural as in the singular.

This means that wordtype A words will always become weak and wordtype B words will always become strong.

I have a separate article on wordtype A.

I have a separate article on wordtype B.

That concludes the article on the plural location cases!

Related posts:

Plural Location Cases of Longer Words The Ablative Case (Miltä) – Finnish Grammar Finnish Question Words – Interrogative Pronouns Plural Partitive of Long Words