Menetelmiinsä

Menetelmiinsä is a Finnish inflected form derived from the noun menetelmä (method). It expresses the notion “to their methods” or “into their methods” and is used when a voice refers to methods belonging to a third person or group. The form often appears in formal or analytical writing, especially when discussing approaches or procedures used by others.

Morphology and formation: Menetelmiinsä is built from the illative plural of menetelmä- plural, namely menetelmiin, which marks direction into or toward the methods. A third-person possessive suffix attaches after the case ending, producing the complete form menetelmiinsä. In Finnish, the sequence is base word + case ending (illative) + possessive suffix, so the exact referent (his/her/its/their) is determined by context.

Usage and nuance: The construction is most common in scholarly or evaluative texts, where the writer refers to someone’s or some group’s methods as a target of discussion, critique, or citation. It can also be used with verbs that govern a directional or referential object, such as viitata (to refer to) or nojautua (to rely on).

Examples:

- Raportissa viitattiin menetelmiinsä. (In the report, they referred to their methods.)

- Organisaatio on pitänyt kiinni menetelmiinsä. (The organization has stuck to its methods.)

See also: Finnish grammar topics such as the illative case, plural possessive suffixes, and the interaction of case endings with possessive forms.