Neljännän

Neljännän is a nonstandard Finnish form associated with the ordinal numeral neljäs, meaning “the fourth.” It is not part of contemporary standard Finnish grammar and is mostly found in historical texts or regional dialects. In modern Finnish, the genitive form of the ordinal is neljännen, so neljännän is generally considered archaic or dialectal.

In usage, neljännän appears mainly in dialectal or reconstructed examples where the ordinal adjectives follow older inflection patterns that attach a genitive-like ending to the stem. The semantic function is the same as for neljännen: it denotes possession or association with the fourth item as in phrases equivalent to “of the fourth ….” Because neljännän is not part of standard grammar, it is rarely seen in formal writing and is mainly of interest to dialectologists, philologists, and readers studying historical Finnish.

Examples cited in dialect descriptions often gloss neljännän päivän or neljännän kiven, with standard Finnish rendering being neljännen päivän or neljännen kiven. Such instances illustrate regional variation in how ordinal numerals can be inflected and integrated with nouns.

Overall, neljännän is a historical or dialectal variant rather than a current, widely accepted form. For everyday use and formal Finnish, neljännen remains the correct genitive form of neljäs. See also Finnish numbers, ordinal numerals, and Finnish dialectology.