Jälkimmäisten

Jälkimmäisten is the genitive plural form of jälkimmäinen, a Finnish adjective meaning “the latter” or “the second of two or more.” The term is used to refer to items or groups that come after others in an ordered set or to the portion of a referenced group that is considered the secondhalf. It contrasts with ensimmäiset/ensimmäinen, meaning “the first.” In practice, jälkimmäinen can modify a noun (jälkimmäinen vaihtoehto, “the latter option”) or appear in predicate position in comparison constructions.

In Finnish grammar, jälkimmäinen forms a full set of declined forms like other adjectives. Plural nominative is jälkimmäiset; plural genitive is jälkimmäisten; plural partitive is jälkimmäisiä. Singular forms include nominative jälkimmäinen, genitive jälkimmäisen, and partitive jälkimmäistä. The genitive plural form, использования kuten jälkimmäisten, is used to indicate “of the latter ones” or in phrases referring to the group of latter items.

Etymologically, jälkimmäinen is built from the root jälk- meaning “behind, following” with the ordinal suffix -immäinen, which marks order in a sequence. The word and its inflected forms have long been part of standard Finnish, especially in formal or descriptive discourse when distinguishing between the first and the subsequent item(s).

Typical contexts include academic writing, reporting, and argumentation where two or more items are weighed or contrasted. The form jälkimmäisten appears when the speaker or writer needs to refer to “the latter ones” in possessive or relational constructions, such as “jälkimmäisten mielipiteet” (the latter ones’ opinions) or “jälkimmäisten ryhmä.”