Page "Locative case" Paragraph 92

Estonian, like some Indo-European languages ( Latin, Russian, Irish ), does not normally use the verb to have to show possession.

The adessive case and the verb to be is used instead.

For example, I have a house in Estonian would be Mul on maja in which mul is in the adessive case, on is the third singular of to be ( is ), and maja is in nominative, not accusative.

So maja is the subject, on is the verb and mul is the indirect object.

This could be translated to English as At me is a house or A house is at me or There is a house at me.

For this reason, it has been argued that the Estonian adessive case is really a dative one.

Statistically, the majority of the occurrences of the exterior locative cases show possession, not location ( also Ta andis mulle maja ' He gave ( to ) me a house ', Ta võttis minult mu maja ' He took from me my house ').