Jäsenten

Jäsenten is the genitive plural form of the Finnish noun jäsen, meaning member. It denotes possession or relation to more than one member and is used in noun phrases where a head noun is in the genitive case, such as yhdistyksen jäsenten oikeudet (the rights of the members of the association). In practice, jäsenten is common in formal or administrative language, where it marks what belongs to a group of people who are members of an organization.

Morphology: The genitive plural form jäsenten is created by adding the genitive plural ending -en to the stem jäsen-. It is distinct from the nominative plural jäsenet (the members) and from the partitive plural jäseniä (some of the members).

Usage notes: The phrase jäsenten is used with nouns referring to groups defined by membership. It is often preceded by another noun in the genitive, for example yhdistyksen jäsenten määrä (the number of the association’s members) or yhteisön jäsenten oikeudet (the rights of the members of the community). The choice between jäsenten and other genitive forms depends on the number and the grammatical role of the possessed noun.

Related terms: jäsen (member), jäsenyys (membership), yhdistys (association), oikeudet (rights), velvollisuudet (obligations).