Minulla on aavistus.

I

Breakdown of Minulla on aavistus.

• olla: to be
• aavistus: the hunch; inkling

Questions & Answers about Minulla on aavistus.

Why is it minulla on instead of using a verb meaning to have?

Finnish does not normally use a separate verb like English to have for ordinary possession.

Instead, it uses this pattern:

X:llä on Y
literally: At X there is Y

So:

• minulla = on/at me
• on = is
• aavistus = a hunch / an intuition / a suspicion

So Minulla on aavistus literally works like At me is a hunch, but in natural English it means I have a hunch.

What form is minulla?

Minulla is the pronoun minä (I) in the adessive case.

The adessive ending is usually -lla / -llä, and one of its main uses is in possession sentences.

Here:

• minä = I
• minu- = stem
• -lla = adessive ending

So minulla means something like:

• on me
• at my place
• in my possession

In this sentence, it marks the possessor: I have.

Why is the verb on and not olen?