Määriteenä

Määriteenä is a term used in Finnish grammar to describe the role of a word or word group that modifies and specifies a noun within a noun phrase. In this sense, it corresponds to what many grammars call a determiner or attribute. The form -nä/-nä in the essive (as, in the capacity of) is used in Finnish to express the idea of acting in a particular role, and thus the expression määriteenä conveys “as a modifier” or “in the capacity of an attribute.”

In practice, a määriteenä can be realized by various parts of speech that attach to a noun to provide qualities, quantity, or identification. Adjectives, demonstratives, possessives, numerals, and certain noun phrases can function as määritteet. For example in the noun phrase punainen omena (a red apple), punainen functions as a määrite describing the noun omena. Similarly in kolme pientä taloa, the words kolme and pientä (numeral and adjective) help define the noun taloa, with pientä acting as a määrite identifying size.

The term is most often used in linguistic descriptions, dictionaries, and teaching materials to label the syntactic function rather than in everyday prose. It emphasizes that the element is not part of the core core noun but rather adds descriptive information to it. Understanding määriteenä helps learners and analysts parse how noun phrases are built and how different modifiers relate to the nouns they describe.