Adjektiivinpäätettä

Adjektiivinpäätettä refers to the inflectional endings that adjectives take in Finnish. Unlike in some other languages where adjectives might agree with nouns in number and gender, Finnish adjectives primarily agree with the noun they modify in case and number. The specific ending of an adjective depends on the grammatical case and number of the noun it describes. For example, in the nominative singular, the adjective usually ends in -a/-ä or is uninflected. However, in other cases, such as the genitive, partitive, or illative, the adjective receives a specific ending that mirrors the noun's case ending. This phenomenon ensures that the adjective and noun form a cohesive unit within the sentence, indicating their grammatical relationship. For instance, 'kaunis talo' (beautiful house, nominative singular) becomes 'kauniin talon' (of a beautiful house, genitive singular). The system of adjective endings is a key feature of Finnish grammar, contributing to its agglutinative nature. Understanding these endings is crucial for constructing grammatically correct Finnish sentences. The patterns of adjective inflection are largely regular, although some irregularities can occur with certain adjective types.