Osoittavansa

Osoittavansa is a Finnish grammatical form derived from the verb osoittaa, meaning to indicate or show. It combines the present active participle stem with a possessive suffix that marks the possessor, producing a possessive participial construction. In linguistic analyses it is typically treated as a nominalized participial form, whose meaning centers on the act of showing performed by a specific person or entity.

Morphology and function: The base is the present active participle osoittava (showing), and the form is extended with a third-person possessive suffix to indicate ownership of the action. The resulting form can function like a noun phrase, referring to the act of showing conducted by someone, for example in contexts where the speaker needs to attribute the action to a particular subject. This construction is part of Finnish’s broader system of participial and nominalized forms that allow verbs to take on noun-like functions.

Usage and register: Osoittavansa is relatively uncommon in everyday spoken Finnish and is more frequently encountered in written language, including literary, historical, or formal legal-style prose. It is a specialized grammatical device used to foreground or attribute the act described by the verb to a specific subject, rather than to state a simple action.

Relationship to other forms: The form is related to the broader category of possessive participles in Finnish, which attach possessive morphology to participial stems to produce noun-like expressions that denote ownership of an action or state. It illustrates how Finnish can blend verb, participle, and possessive morphology to create nuanced expressions of agency and attribution.