Avioliitostaan

Avioliitostaan is a Finnish grammatical form that functions as a noun meaning “of/from his/her marriage” or “about his/her marriage.” It is not a standalone lexical item, but a case- and possessive-inflected form derived from the noun avioliitto, which means marriage.

Morphology and formation: The base concept avioliitto is placed in the elative case to express movement from or reference to the marriage (avioliitosta, meaning “from the marriage” or used in an about sense). The third-person possessive suffix -nsä/-nsä (alternating as -an/-än in speakers’ vowels) is attached to form avioliitostaan, indicating possession by the subject of the sentence. The overall meaning then corresponds to “about his/her marriage” or “from his/her marriage,” depending on the syntactic context.

Usage: Avioliitostaan is used when referring to something related to a person’s marriage. For example, in the sentence Hän puhui avioliitostaan, the phrase means “He spoke about his marriage.” The form can also appear in broader contexts discussing private life, relationships, or marital history, always tying the statement to the marriage belonging to the person referenced.

See also: avioliitto, the Finnish word for marriage; elatiivi (elative case) in Finnish grammar; possessive suffixes in Finnish.

Notes: As with many Finnish case forms, avioliitostaan is highly dependent on context for nuance, and its exact interpretation—whether “about” or “from” the marriage—will be guided by surrounding words.