Esimerkkisanasta

Esimerkkisanasta is a Finnish linguistic term meaning “the example word.” It is formed from the words esimerkki (example) and sana (word). The term is used in teaching, dictionaries, and grammars to label a word chosen to illustrate a particular linguistic feature or rule. A typical use is to present inflection, pronunciation, or word-formation patterns with a concrete, easy-to-understand instance rather than a generic description.

In practice, esimerkkisana is chosen to reflect the feature under discussion. For example, to illustrate vowel harmony a word with harmonious vowels like talo (house) can be used as an esimerkkisana; to illustrate plural formation different endings may be shown. The form esimerkkisanasta appears when the phrase refers to the example word in a sentence, such as pointing from the example word to another element, or when describing the example word itself.

The concept is common in language-learning materials and reference works, where multiple esimerkkisanoja are provided to cover a range of phenomena. It is not a fixed vocabulary item; any ordinary Finnish word can serve as an esimerkkisana depending on the point being illustrated. See also esimerkki, sanasto, morfologia, kielioppi.