Muistilla

Muistilla is a Finnish morphological form built from the noun muisti, meaning memory, combined with the adessive suffix -lla. In linguistic terms, muistilla functions as a means or resource marker, indicating that something is done with memory or uses memory as a supporting basis. It is not a standalone lexical item with a wide-range dictionary definition, but rather a grammatical construction that can appear in texts to emphasize memory as a tool or reference.

Etymology and formation: The base muisti denotes memory, and the suffix -lla marks the adessive case, which in Finnish can express instrument or means. When used as muistilla, the phrase conveys “with memory” or “by means of memory” in a figurative or specialized sense. This formation is more common in written or aim-for-literary registers than in everyday speech.

Usage and considerations: Because muistilla is a particular grammatical construction rather than a fixed word with a broad everyday use, its appearance is relatively rare outside academic, poetic, or technical writing. It tends to surface in discussions that foreground memory as a resource—such as cognitive discourse, memory-based reasoning, or memory-centric design—where the author wants to foreground memory as an operative factor.

Relation to other forms: Finnish offers several related expressions to convey memory-related ideas, such as muistista (from memory), muistiin (into memory), and muistina (as memory). Muistilla remains a more specialized instrument-marking option and is chosen for stylistic or analytical emphasis rather than for everyday communicative clarity.

See also: muisti, muistaminen, muistiin, muistista, muistina.