Deskriptiivisinä

Deskriptiivisinä is a Finnish word form: the essive plural of the adjective deskriptiivinen, meaning “descriptive.” It is used to express a temporary state or role of multiple entities in predicative clauses, typically after the verb olla (to be). In academic and linguistic contexts, it can indicate that something is to be understood or described in a descriptive, non-normative sense.

Morphology and usage

The base form is deskriptiivinen (descriptive). For plural essive, it becomes deskriptiivisinä when modifying plural subjects in the predicative position. The genitive plural form is deskriptiivisten, and the nominative plural is deskriptiiviset. Deskriptiivisinä can occur with nouns or pronouns as predicative complements: for example, Nämä tilastot esitetään deskriptiivisinä, and Kuvaukset ovat deskriptiivisinä osatekijöinä tutkimuksessa.

Usage notes

Deskriptiivisinä is typically found in formal or technical Finnish, where authors distinguish descriptive approaches from prescriptive or normative ones. The form conveys that the described items are to be considered in a descriptive capacity rather than judged against normative standards. The exact syntactic construction depends on sentence structure, but the essence is a predicative description of a plural subject.

See also

Deskriptiivinen, deskriptivismi, tilastotiede, linguistics. These related terms provide background on descriptive approaches in language, statistics, and scientific description more broadly.