Edeltävinä

Edeltävinä is a Finnish grammatical form, specifically the plural essive form of the present active participle edeltävä, meaning “preceding” or “former.” The essive case expresses a temporary state or role, roughly “as X.” In singular the form is edeltävänä; in plural it becomes edeltävinä. This form is used to describe multiple items or periods that function in a preceding or prior capacity.

Formation and usage: The base is the participle edeltävä, which comes from the verb edeltää (“to precede”). When describing several subjects in the essive, the ending changes to -inä, yielding edeltävinä. The phrase edeltävinä + noun conveys “in the preceding [years, times, etc.].” For example:

- Edeltävinä vuosikymmeninä teknologia kehittyi nopeasti. (In the preceding decades, technology developed rapidly.)

- Edeltävinä aikoina tutkimuksessa oli rajoitteita. (In the earlier times, there were limitations in the research.)

Context and tone: edeltävinä is most common in formal, academic, or historical writing. It can appear in analyses, reports, and historical narratives to refer to periods, events, or items that preceded the current discussion or status.

Relation to other forms: edeltävä is the present active participle meaning “preceding,” and edeltävänä is its singular essive form, used for a single item or period. The term edeltävinä highlights a plural scope and is part of the broader Finnish system of participial and case-based expressions.

In summary, edeltävinä is the plural essive form of edeltävä, used to describe the preceding ones in a given context, typically within formal or analytical Finnish prose.