Pääsanateeman

Pääsanateeman is the genitive form of the Finnish term pääsanateema, meaning the central lexical focus or main keyword of a text or discourse. The nominative form pääsanateema denotes the word or phrase that encapsulates the subject matter most directly. The concept is commonly used in Finnish language education, text analysis, and basic information retrieval tasks to identify what the text is mainly about.

In practice, identifying the pääsanateema helps students summarize content, write concise abstracts, and organize notes. It is often related to the teema-rhema (theme-comment) structure in Finnish linguistic tradition, where the teema marks what the sentence or text is about and the rhema provides the comment. The pääsanateema tends to be a content word (a substantive or noun phrase) that recurs across the text and anchors the main idea.

The term is not universal in formal linguistics and is more commonly found in school curricula and general discussions about writing. It is closely related to, but not identical with, terms such as pääaihe (main topic) and avainsana (keyword).

Example: A short article about renewable energy might have pääsanateema ilmasto or energia. In a climate policy piece, the word ilmasto or kestävyys might function as the pääsanateema, depending on emphasis.

Notes: The exact usage may vary by author or institution. The concept helps in quickly conveying the central subject of a text in summaries and keyword lists.