Monikkomuodon

Monikkomuodon is the genitive form of the Finnish term monikkomuoto, a label used in Finnish grammar to refer to the plural form of a word. The concept describes how a lexical item—typically a noun, pronoun, or adjective—changes to indicate more than one referent. In Finnish, the monikkomuoto serves as the base from which further inflection is built for different grammatical cases.

In practice, forming the nominative plural (a common reference point for the monikkomuoto) typically involves adding endings such as -t to many nouns, with vowel harmony and, for some stems, consonant gradation influencing the result. Examples include koira → koirat (dogs), talo → talot (houses), and lapsi → lapset (children). It is important to note that the monikkomuoto does not itself convey spatial or relational meaning; case endings (in, on, by, etc.) are applied on top of the plural base to express roles like location, possession, or movement.

Finnish plurals also interact with adjectives and pronouns, which agree in number with the noun they modify. The monikkomuoto thus provides a central reference for agreement and inflection across the sentence. Some words exhibit irregular or dialectal plural forms, and older Finnish or loanwords may show less predictable patterns.

In linguistic descriptions and dictionaries, monikkomuoto is discussed as the plural form’s structural role within a word’s full inflectional paradigm. While speakers may simply refer to “plural,” grammars use the term monikkomuoto (and its genitive monikkomuodon) to analyze how plurality is encoded in the language.