The nominative is the case with no ending: koira, kylä, käsi, opettaja — exactly the form printed in the dictionary. Because it is the bare form, it is easy to think of it as "the noun with no grammar happening." But the nominative is a working case with real jobs, and one of those jobs will surprise you. This page is about what the nominative does in a sentence; for how the bare form relates to the inflectional stem, see the nominative as dictionary form page.
The subject
The nominative's main job is to mark the subject — the doer, the thing the sentence is about. In the singular it has no ending; in the plural it adds -t.
Koira nukkuu koko päivän sohvalla.
The dog sleeps on the couch all day.
Bussi on taas myöhässä.
The bus is late again.
Lapset leikkivät pihalla.
The children are playing in the yard.
English marks the subject only by word order and by pronoun case (I / me). Finnish marks it by the nominative — which is why a Finnish subject can move around the sentence and still be recognizable as the subject: it is the noun standing in the nominative, wherever it sits.
The predicate noun after olla
When you equate two things with olla ("to be"), the noun on the far side of the "equals sign" is also nominative. English does the same — "She is a teacher" — so this one feels natural.
Hän on opettaja.
She/He is a teacher.
Isäni on lääkäri ja äitini on insinööri.
My father is a doctor and my mother is an engineer.
Helsinki on Suomen pääkaupunki.
Helsinki is Finland's capital.
Two nominatives frame the verb olla: the subject on the left, the predicate noun on the right. (Some predicates take the partitive instead — masses and open-ended qualities, as in maito on hyvää, "milk is good" — but for a plain "X is a Y" identity, both nouns are nominative.)
The surprising job: total object after imperative, passive, necessive
Here is the part that catches every learner. Normally a whole, completed object takes the accusative, which for singular nouns looks like the genitive -n: ostan auton ("I'm buying the car"). But in three specific frames the singular total object appears in the nominative instead:
| Frame | Example | Object |
|---|---|---|
| Imperative | Osta auto! — Buy a car! | auto (nominative) |
| Necessive (must / have to) | Minun täytyy ostaa auto. — I have to buy a car. | auto (nominative) |
| Passive | Auto myydään huomenna. — The car will be sold tomorrow. | auto (nominative) |
Why these three? They share one thing: none of them has an ordinary nominative subject. The imperative addresses "you" without naming it; the necessive puts the person in the genitive (minun täytyy); the passive names no doer at all. With the nominative "subject slot" empty, the total object slides into it. Learn the three triggers as a single set with a single cause, and you won't need three separate rules.
Sulje ovi, ulkona on kylmä.
Close the door, it's cold outside.
Minun täytyy ostaa uusi puhelin.
I need to buy a new phone.
Talo myytiin viime viikolla.
The house was sold last week.
The plural subject and object: -t
The nominative plural adds -t to the plural stem. It marks both the plural subject and the plural total object.
Kaupat ovat kiinni sunnuntaisin.
The shops are closed on Sundays.
Näin kadulla vanhat naapurit.
I saw the old neighbors on the street.
Careful: this -t plural is the whole/definite plural, not the "some" plural. Kaupat means "the shops / all the shops"; "some shops" would be the partitive kauppoja. Keep the contrast in mind — it becomes central once you meet the partitive.
Why the nominative never gradates or harmonizes here
Two features of the bare nominative flow from its having no suffix.
First, in most words the nominative singular shows the strong grade, because the final syllable stays open. Compare katto (roof) with its genitive katon: the -n closes the syllable and softens tt to t, but the endingless nominative keeps the strong tt. (A minority of words — like opas → oppaan — do the reverse; that whole story lives on the gradation pages.)
Katto vuotaa, ja katon korjaus maksaa paljon.
The roof is leaking, and fixing the roof costs a lot.
Second, the nominative singular never shows vowel harmony at work, because harmony only chooses between a/ä, o/ö, u/y inside a suffix — and the bare nominative has no suffix to choose for. Harmony becomes visible only once you start adding endings.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ostan auto huomenna.
Incorrect — an ordinary total object is not nominative; with a real subject it takes -n: auton.
✅ Ostan auton huomenna.
I'm buying a/the car tomorrow.
❌ Osta auton!
Incorrect — after an imperative the singular total object IS the nominative: auto.
✅ Osta auto!
Buy a car!
❌ Hän on opettajaa.
Incorrect — a plain predicate noun after olla is nominative, not partitive: opettaja.
✅ Hän on opettaja.
She/He is a teacher.
❌ Kaupat on kiinni.
Incorrect — a plural nominative subject takes a plural verb: ovat.
✅ Kaupat ovat kiinni.
The shops are closed.
Key Takeaways
- The nominative has no ending in the singular and adds -t in the plural.
- It marks the subject (koira nukkuu) and the predicate noun after olla (hän on opettaja).
- It is also the singular total object after an imperative, necessive, or passive — because those frames have no ordinary nominative subject.
- The plural -t is the whole/definite subject and object, not the "some" plural (that is the partitive).
- The bare nominative shows no vowel harmony and, in most words, the strong grade (katto, not katon).
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Start learning Finnish→Related Topics
- Genitive -n: Possession and MoreA1 — The genitive -n (talon, käden, Helsingin) marks possession, the singular total object, and the case every postposition demands — attached with weak gradation.
- The Accusative: A Case Without Its Own EndingA2 — Finnish marks the total object with a borrowed ending — genitive -n, nominative, or -t; only pronouns keep a true accusative (minut, sinut, hänet).
- The Nominative (Dictionary Form)A1 — The nominative is the bare dictionary form: subject, predicate noun, and total object of imperatives, passives and necessives; the plural adds -t (talo→talot).
- Nominative Objects: Imperatives and PassivesB1 — After an imperative, passive, or necessive verb the singular total object is the bare nominative, not -n — these clauses have no nominative subject.