Kätensä

Kätensä is a Finnish noun phrase meaning “his/her hand.” It is the singular third-person possessive form of käsi (hand). In Finnish, possession is expressed with a suffix attached to the noun, so käsi combined with the third-person possessive suffix -nsä yields kätensä. This form indicates ownership by the subject of the clause and does not require a separate possessive pronoun in most sentences. For explicit reference, one can also say Henkilön kätensä or Hänellä on kätensä, but the possessive suffix on käsi is the usual marker of ownership.

Morphology and related forms: Finnish nouns decline in cases, but the possessive form kätensä is a fixed combination used to express “his/her hand.” Related forms for käsi include käden (genitive singular), kättä (partitive singular), kädet (nominative plural), käsien (genitive plural), and käsiä (partitive plural). These forms show how Finnish combines base nouns with case endings and, separately, with possessive suffixes to express different grammatical meanings.

Usage and notes: Kätensä is common in everyday Finnish and in literary language when the speaker or writer wants to refer to someone’s hand without repeating a name. The specific possessor is usually clear from context or can be made explicit with a pronoun or noun phrase, such as hänen kätensä. Because Finnish relies heavily on affixes rather than separate possessive adjectives, kätensä demonstrates a typical pattern of possession in the language.

Etymology: Käsi means hand, and the possessive suffix -nsä is a standard third-person singular possessive marker in Finnish, historically deriving from Proto-Finnic possessive endings.