# vauvansa



## oloekis

...koska hänen vauvansa syntyi.


Heippa! I would like to know what does this "-nsa" as in "vauvansa" ending mean in the above example. I know that the sentence means "because her baby was born", but the form of the word "vauva(baby)" is pretty strange to me.


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## Hakro

The ending "-nsa" is called the possessive suffix that is generally used in Finnish. The form of the possessive suffix varies according to the subject:

My baby – minun vauva*ni*
Your baby – sinun vauva*si*
His/her baby – hänen vauva*nsa*
Our baby – meidän vauva*mme*
Your baby (pl.) – teidän vauva*nne*
Their baby – heidän vauva*nsa*

I hope this helps.


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## Gavril

[Hakro posted his response as I was writing this message, but I'm going to post it anyway because it took me at least 10 minutes to write. ]

-_nsa_ means the same thing as _hänen_, i.e., "his"/"her".

In standard written Finnish, when _hänen_ precedes a noun, it has to be combined with the ending -_nsa_ after the noun. Thus, it's considered incorrect to say _hänen vauva_ by itself, without -_nsa_, but it is possible in some contexts to say _vauva*nsa*_ "her baby", without _hänen_ at the beginning.

If the case form of a noun ends in a vowel, the form -*an*/-*en* is normally used instead of -_nsa_: thus _vauvalle*en*_ "to her baby", _vauvasta*an*_ "from her baby", and so on. The only exception to this is the partitive: since the partitive suffix of _vauva*a*_ is -*a*, the possessive form is _vauvaa*nsa*_, but when the partitive suffix of a noun is -_ta_ (as in _käsi_ : _kät*tä*_), the possessive ends in -_an_ (_kättä*än*_).

Hopefully that was a clear explanation -- let me know if you have questions about it.


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## oloekis

Kiitoksia paljon kaikkille! 



Gavril said:


> If the case form of a noun ends in a vowel, the form -*an*/-*en* is normally used instead of -_nsa_: thus _vauvalle*en*_ "to her baby", _vauvasta*an*_ "from her baby", and so on. The only exception to this is the partitive: since the partitive suffix of _vauva*a*_ is -*a*, the possessive form is _vauvaa*nsa*_, but when the partitive suffix of a noun is -_ta_ (as in _käsi_ : _kät*tä*_), the possessive ends in -_an_ (_kättä*än*_).


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