Grammattiset

Grammattiset is a term used in linguistics to refer to the grammatical aspects of language, or to a category of grammatical phenomena described in descriptive grammars. In Finnish-language scholarship, grammattiset is used as an umbrella label for grammatical categories and their inventories across languages. Grammattiset phenomena include tense, aspect, mood, voice, case, number, person, negation, and word order rules.

Descriptive grammars present grammattiset inventories as paradigms, with affixes or stem changes modeled to show how forms are chosen in different syntactic contexts. The concept supports cross-linguistic typology by enabling comparison of how languages encode relations such as subject–object, agreement, and temporal relations.

In practice, grammattiset analysis relies on data from fieldwork, corpora, and elicitation to build grammatical inventories and maps. It is commonly used alongside discussions of semantics and pragmatics to separate grammatical meaning from lexical content.

Limitations and debates: some linguists argue that focusing on grammattiset categories can obscure variations in linguistic performance and the role of usage in grammar. Others emphasize that grammatical descriptions should be complemented by functional and sociolinguistic perspectives.

See also: Grammar, Morphology, Syntax, Language typology, Grammaticalization.