Esimerkillisettermiä

Esimerkillisettermiä is a Finnish linguistic term that combines esimerkillinen ("exemplary") with setteriä, a plural form of setteri (“setter” or “delimiter”). It is used in the analysis of sentence structure to refer to the specific, illustrative delimiters that mark the boundaries of syntax units in written or spoken Finnish. The concept emphasises how particular punctuation marks or prosodic cues serve as clear, pedagogical examples of syntactic division in language learning materials.

In morphological studies, esimerkillisettermiä often refers to the use of quotation marks, brackets, and parentheses to isolate subordinate clauses or to provide annotations. In spoken Finnish, intonation patterns that signal clause termination are also considered esimerkillisettermiä because they give learners explicit, exemplary cues for parsing complex sentences. The terminology is most common among Finnish linguists, educators, and textbook authors who aim to clarify how boundaries are identified and explained.

The term contrasts with hinnoitteliset setteriä, which denotes implicit or implicit markers that are less obvious and harder to teach. By focusing on esimerkillisettermiä, curriculum developers can systematically introduce students to the most transparent markers of syntactic structure before progressing to more nuanced forms. As a result, esimerkillisettermiä plays a pedagogical role in Finnish language instruction, helping learners develop accurate sentence parsing skills through explicit, exemplary instruction.