Merkityksellään

Merkityksellään is a Finnish inflected form that expresses the idea of “with its meaning” or “by its significance.” In scholarly and literary Finnish, the form is used to attribute significance or meaning to a subject within a clause, rather than as a common everyday word in ordinary conversation. The base idea is tied to the noun merkitys meaning meaning or significance, and the form shows a combination of case and possessive marking that foregrounds the subject’s own significance in the context.

In descriptive linguistic terms, merkityksellään illustrates how Finnish builds phrases that relate an object or concept to its meaning. The construction exemplifies the broader system in which adessive-like endings and third-person possessive suffixes attach to nouns or adjectives to indicate “with” or “in relation to” a property of the subject. The result is a compact, nuanced phrase that can function as an adjunct within more complex sentences.

Usage of merkityksellään tends to appear in formal writing, semantic analysis, rhetoric, and literary criticism, where authors discuss how a concept or artifact carries its own significance within a broader argument or narrative. It is less common in everyday speech, where speakers typically opt for more standard expressions such as “merkityksellinen” (significant) or “merkitys” with simpler constructions.

See also: Finnish grammar, adessive case, possessive suffixes, semantic analysis, rhetoric in Finnish.