Päiväaikaista

Päiväaikaista is a Finnish inflected form of the adjective päiviäikainen, meaning daytime or daytime-related. Specifically, päiväaikaista is the partitive singular form used when the noun it describes is in the partitive case. The base concept refers to things that occur during the day or relate to daytime hours.

Etymology and form: The word is built from the compound noun päiväaika (daytime) and the adjective suffix -inen, yielding päiväaikainen (daytime). In grammatical use, the partitive singular form -aista/-äistä is applied to adjectives when modifying a noun in partitive. Thus päiväaikaista is the form that appears with partitive nouns or quantities.

Usage and examples: Päiväaikaista is most likely to appear in sentences describing non-count or indefinite quantities of daytime-related things. Examples include: päiväaikaista ruokaa (daytime food), päiväaikaista valoa (daylight), or päiväaikaista liikennettä (daytime traffic). It can also occur in more general expressions referring to activities or conditions that take place during the day. In contrast, the nominative form päi­väaikainen would modify a noun in the nominative case (e.g., päiväaikainen ravinto as a descriptive phrase in a different syntactic context).

See also: The related terms päi­väaika (daytime) and päi­väaikainen (daytime-related) provide the base concepts for understanding valmis taivutus.

Note: Päiväaikaista is a relatively specialized form used for grammatical reasons rather than a common everyday adjective in all contexts.