Kirjanduslikke

Kirjanduslikke is an inflected form of the Estonian adjective kirjanduslik, meaning “literary” or “related to literature.” It is used when describing plural nouns in certain grammatical cases, most commonly the partitive plural and the genitive plural. The form illustrates how Estonian adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case.

In practical usage, kirjanduslikke appears in phrases such as kirjanduslikke teoseid, meaning “literary works” in the partitive plural (as in Kaua on mitmeid kirjanduslikke teoseid, meaning many literary works). It also appears in the genitive plural context, for example kirjanduslike teoste, meaning “of literary works.” The distinction between these forms reflects Estonian’s rich case system, where the same adjective can take different endings to align with the noun’s grammatical role.

The base adjective is formed from kirja- (related to writing) and -duslik/-lik, yielding kirjanduslik, literally “literature-related” or “literary.” It is widely used in literary studies, criticism, theory, and journalism to denote phenomena attributable to or characteristic of literature, such as kirjanduslikud suundumused (literary tendencies) or kirjanduslike nähtuste uurimine (the study of literary phenomena).

See also: kirjandus (literature), kirjandusteooria (literary theory), kirjandusteadus (literary studies).