Finnish is called an agglutinative language; that is to say, the words,
as they appear used in a sentence, are formed of roots, to which have
been added certain terminations: thus =taloiltansa=, meaning _from his
farms_, is made up from the root =talo=, and the suffixes =i= (a sign of
the plural), =-lta= (giving the idea of from), and =-nsa= (his).
Every root in Finnish ends in a vowel or a diphthong.
In adding suffixes to a root the rules for the changes of letters must be
carefully observed. The result of applying them is that from the original
full root there may be produced three modifications:—
(1) The closed form. Root =vete=, _water_, closed form =veden=.
(2) The shortened form, =paimen= for =paimene=.
(3) A form both closed and shortened. =tantere=, nominative =tanner=.
_Declension._
The Finnish noun is declined by adding suffixes to the root, which
undergoes any modifications required by the rules of Euphony.
There are fifteen cases, which, with the exception of the nominative,
may be regarded as the noun followed by a preposition, or rather
postposition. The Finnish word =maalta= corresponds to the English _from
land_, only the _from_ is put after _land_, and the two are written as
one word. =maalta= is analogous to such an expression as the Greek γῆς
ἀπό, only that in this case we have both a case-form and a postposition.
Most of the terminations have two forms, one with a hard, one with a soft
vowel. Roots with hard vowels take the hard termination, those with soft,
the soft ones. Thus we find =maa-ssa=, but =työ-ssä=.