Puuttuvana

Puuttuvana is a Finnish grammatical form derived from the adjective puuttuva, meaning missing or lacking. It functions as the essive (state) form of the present participle, indicating a temporary or situational state of being missing. The term is most often encountered in written or technical language rather than in everyday speech.

Morphology and meaning: The base is puuttuva (the missing). By adding the essive suffix -na/-nä, the form puuttuvana expresses “as being missing” or “in the state of being missing.” The corresponding plural form is puuttuvina. This construction is used to describe items or data that currently do not exist or are not available in a given context.

Usage: Puuttuvana is relatively rare in casual conversation and more common in documentation, reports, and data descriptions. It is used to label or describe a state of absence, especially in inventories, datasets, or analytical contexts. For example, puuttuvana oleva tieto or puuttuvina olevia arvoja refers to information or values that are missing and need handling or imputation.

Examples:

- Tietokannassa on puuttuvana osa kentistä. (Part of the fields is missing in the database.)

- Puuttuvina olevia arvoja on korjattava ennen analyysiä. (Missing values must be addressed before analysis.)

- Puuttuvana oleva tieto pitää merkitä raporttiin.

Related terms: puuttuva (missing), puuttua (to be missing), essive (the Finnish case marking that expresses a temporary state), present participle forms in Finnish grammar.

Puuttuvana thus occupies a specific grammatical niche: a participial adjective in the essive case used to denote a temporary state of absence or lack in descriptive, formal, or data-related text.