Koivat

Koivat is a Finnish term that appears mainly as a grammatical form rather than as a standalone lexeme. It represents the third-person plural past tense in standard Finnish and is used to indicate that a group of subjects performed an action in the past. The precise meaning of koivat depends on the verb it is attached to, since Finnish past tense forms are derived from the verb stem.

In Finnish morphology, past tense for third-person plural is typically formed by adding a plural past ending to the verb stem, with phonological adjustments. The form koivat thus arises from a stem to which the -ivat suffix is applied and, depending on the verb, may involve assimilation or sound changes. Because Finnish verbs vary widely in their stems, koivat does not convey a fixed meaning in isolation; it must be interpreted in the context of the accompanying verb.

Usage of koivat is common in narrative prose and reported speech, where the subject is a plural group and the action is completed in the past. In everyday modern Finnish, you are most likely to encounter koivat in written text rather than in casual speech, particularly in formal or literary contexts.

Etymologically, koivat reflects the broader Finnic verb-conjugation system, where past tense forms for third-person plural share the -ivat ending, with variations driven by the consonant and vowel structure of the verb stem. As with many grammatical forms, koivat gains meaning from its syntactic context rather than any independent lexical content.

See also: Finnish grammar, Finnish verbs, past tense in Finnish.