something about local cases

[garoowood]

It seems that the six local cases in Finnish not only have the meaning of place and direction but, very commonly, are used for other purpose as well.

For example:

Inessive:
Veneessä on kaksi mastoa.--Used one something is firmly attached to another.
Nenä oli veressä(Talo on tulessa). --Shall I think about it as The nose was covered by blood(in blood) or The nose was bleeding? Just like Olen menossa ostoksille.

Elative:
Lapset huusivat peloista.-The children screamed with fears. For a native english speaker, one would immediately think about the Finnish instructive case. But should I interpret it as The children screamed (from fears)?

Illative:
Sometime it is really hard for me to choose Finnish local cases such as:
Lamppu ripustetaan kattoon.--I believe many beginners would use elative instead to mean from sth.
Panin ruuan pöytään.--Wouldn't allative be more suitable here?

Ablative:
Opetus alkaa kello yhdeksältä.--I though when you use kello, you use yhdeksän instead?
Viini on vuodelta 1879.--Vuodesta makes sense here?

It seems people just have to memorize them when local case does not actually have the meaning it's name implies?

[Rob A.]

It seems that the six local cases in Finnish not only have the meaning of place and direction but, very commonly, are used for other purpose as well.

For example:

Inessive:
Veneessä on kaksi mastoa.--Used one something is firmly attached to another.
Nenä oli veressä(Talo on tulessa). --Shall I think about it as The nose was covered by blood(in blood) or The nose was bleeding? Just like Olen menossa ostoksille.

Elative:
Lapset huusivat peloista.-The children screamed with fears. For a native english speaker, one would immediately think about the Finnish instructive case. But should I interpret it as The children screamed (from fears)?

Illative:
Sometime it is really hard for me to choose Finnish local cases such as:
Lamppu ripustetaan kattoon.--I believe many beginners would use elative instead to mean from sth.
Panin ruuan pöytään.--Wouldn't allative be more suitable here?

Ablative:
Opetus alkaa kello yhdeksältä.--I though when you use kello, you use yhdeksän instead?
Viini on vuodelta 1879.--Vuodesta makes sense here?

It seems people just have to memorize them when local case does not actually have the meaning it's name implies?

Good post....I think one has to resign one's self to the fact there are different perspectives ....which seems to be particularly so with conceptual ideas. This is discussed a bit in the thread....Näköala Haminalahdesta......in English the usual perspective is the view from you "to" the object ...which usually is stated in terms of the view "of" something. In Finnish, though, apparently not consistently so, it's the view "from" something to you....

The only option, I would say, if you want to be able to communicate with Finnish speakers is to try to figure out the "perspective" that is generally accepted and use it. But I suppose that takes a long time to "fine-tune"... and there may be inconsistencies...

It's useful to remember with English prepositions you can have similar issues.... Such as, ..."The boy is "in" (or "at") school" ....both are equally correct, but probably most people will habitually tend to use one or the other.... "He is at work." versus "He is in work."...the latter just doesn't sound right to me, though I have heard people say it this way ....

[Pursuivant]

Elative:
Lapset huusivat peloista.-The children screamed with fears. For a native english speaker, one would immediately think about the Finnish instructive case. But should I interpret it as The children screamed (from fears)?

Well this isn't logical. If the children scream they scream in fear, Lapset huusivat peloissaan.
Lapset puhuivat peloista(an). The children talked about (their) fears. Lapset kertoivat namusedästä.

[Upphew]

Elative:
Lapset huusivat peloista.-The children screamed with fears. For a native english speaker, one would immediately think about the Finnish instructive case. But should I interpret it as The children screamed (from fears)?

Well this isn't logical. If the children scream they scream in fear, Lapset huusivat peloissaan.
Lapset puhuivat peloista(an). The children talked about (their) fears. Lapset kertoivat namusedästä.

Or Lapset huusivat pelosta (instead of joy).

[kentan]

The website Uusi Kielemme (uusikielemme.fi) describes those as Verbs Rections: http://www.uusikielemme.fi/mihinsta.html
Some are logical, from an English point of view, but many are a lot less.

[MikeD]

Ablative:
Viini on vuodelta 1879.--Vuodesta makes sense here?

One use for "vuodesta" is to indicate that something began that year:
"Olemme valmistaneet viiniä vuodesta 1879."
"Suomi oli osa Venäjän keisarikuntaa vuodesta 1809 vuoteen 1917."

[Jukka Aho]

Inessive:
Veneessä on kaksi mastoa.--Used one something is firmly attached to another.

Yep.

Autossa on neljä pyörää.
Tässä junassa on veturi ja viisi vaunua.
Taajamajunassa ei ole ravintolavaunua.
Puissa on jo lehdet.
Tavallisessa toimistotietokoneessa on yleensä hiiri ja näppäimistö.

However,

Ihmisellä on kädet ja jalat.
Kissalla on häntä.
Koiralla on kaulapanta.
Hevosella on valjaat.

Nenä oli veressä(Talo on tulessa). --Shall I think about it as The nose was covered by blood(in blood) or The nose was bleeding?

It can mean both. It usually means that the nose is - or at least has been - bleeding, though, and suggests that the person whose looks you're describing has been in a fight or in an accident. The blood is still visible on his face; his nose (or the area around it and especially below it) is smeared with blood... which is either running or starting to set in.

Elative:
Lapset huusivat peloista.-The children screamed with fears. For a native english speaker, one would immediately think about the Finnish instructive case. But should I interpret it as The children screamed (from fears)?

This one's usually used in singular: Lapset huusivat pelosta. ("The children screamed from fear"; they screamed because they were experiencing the emotion called fear.)

Illative:
Sometime it is really hard for me to choose Finnish local cases such as:
Lamppu ripustetaan kattoon.--I believe many beginners would use elative instead to mean from sth.

I think this one is related to the "attached to one another" sense of the inner locative cases which you referred to in the above with your inessive example (Laivassa on kaksi mastoa.) Compare:

Lamppu ripustettiin kattoon.
Katossa on lamppu.

Laivaan pystytettiin kaksi mastoa.
Laivassa on kaksi mastoa.

So if the inessive case can refer to things which are already fixed to one another, it's only logical that the illative case would refer to the actual process of affixing those two things together. And the remaining inner locative case, the elative, would be used when you're breaking them away from each other:

Lamppu otettiin pois katosta.
Mastot irrotettiin laivasta ja pilkottiin polttopuiksi.
Pyörät irtosivat autosta kesken ajon.

Panin ruuan pöytään.--Wouldn't allative be more suitable here?

Panin ruuan pöydälle (the allative case) refers to the literal act of putting something on the table. (There's no implication that the food would have been put on the table for the purpose of making it available for others to eat. Maybe you're, say, just temporarily resting it there, then packing it away for storage or transport.)

Panin ruuan pöytään is an idiom which means you have prepared a meal and served it on the table; made it available for people to eat; "presented" it on the table in its full glory, so to speak.

Ablative:
Opetus alkaa kello yhdeksältä.--I though when you use kello, you use yhdeksän instead?

Both the nominative and the ablative can be used for referring to scheduled events and the time-of-day when they begin or end. In so far as I can see, there's no practical difference as to which one you should choose.

Viini on vuodelta 1879.--Vuodesta makes sense here?

What MikeD said.

It seems people just have to memorize them when local case does not actually have the meaning it's name implies?

That's how it goes. Basically just like with the English phrasal verbs... ;) See the rektioverbit list already referred to in this thread.

[garoowood]

Panin ruuan pöytään is an idiom which means you have prepared a meal and served it on the table; made it available for people to eat; "presented" it on the table in its full glory, so to speak.

Idiom
But very clear explaination, thx!
Opetus alkaa kello yhdeksältä.
I actually mean I would use Opetus alkaa kello yhdeksän. or Opetus alkaa yhdeksältä., not kello and yhdeksältä together.
Viini on vuodelta 1879.
I know the usage explained by MikeD, but I am a bit confused with my own example. It means the wine is from year 1879? Would Viini on vuodesta 1879 have the same meaning?

[EP]

Would Viini on vuodesta 1879 have the same meaning?

No, that is just grammatically wrong.

[Jukka Aho]

I know the usage explained by MikeD, but I am a bit confused with my own example. It means the wine is from year 1879?

Yes, viini on vuodelta 1879 means the wine was produced that year.

Would Viini on vuodesta 1879 have the same meaning?

Nope, that's just grammatically incorrect or unidiomatic usage, as EP said. You could say something like olemme valmistaneet viiniä vuodesta 1879 lähtien, where the word lähtien ("beginning from", "starting from", "since") is optional.