Lausetyyppi

Lausetyyppi is a term in Finnish grammar that refers to the classification of sentences by their communicative function or illocutionary force. It describes what the speaker aims to achieve with the sentence, such as stating information, asking a question, or giving a command. The concept is used in language education, grammar descriptions, and linguistic analysis to help explain how sentences convey meaning beyond their literal words.

The most common lausetyypit are declarative, interrogative, and imperative. A declarative sentence states a fact or opinion and typically ends with a period, for example: Tänään on vapaapäivä. An interrogative sentence asks a question and ends with a question mark, for example: Onko sinulla aikaa? An imperative sentence gives a command or request and usually has the verb in the imperative mood, for example: Tule tänne. In addition, many grammars recognize exclamative sentences that express strong emotion and often end with an exclamation mark, for example: Voi miten kaunis päivä!

In practice, lausetyyppi is signaled by punctuation, prosody, and, in some cases, verb mood and word order. Yes/no questions and open-ended questions are both interrogatives but differ in how they are formed and answered. Understanding lausetyyppi aids in grammar instruction, language learning, and natural language processing, where recognizing sentence type informs parsing, response generation, and sentiment or intent analysis.