Sihtvormi

Sihtvormi is a term used in Estonian linguistics to describe the target form a word is expected to take in a given sentence. It denotes the inflected or conjugated form that satisfies the grammatical requirements of context, such as person, number, tense, mood for verbs, or case and number for nouns and adjectives. The word itself is formed from siht, meaning target or goal, and vormi, the genitive form of vorm, or form.

Definition and scope: The sihtvormi represents the morphologically realized form required by a speaker to convey the intended meaning and to align with syntactic structure. It is distinct from the lemma or dictionary form of a word, which is the canonical base form without explicit inflectional ending. The sihtvormi is one member of a word’s inflectional paradigm and varies according to grammatical role and linguistic context.

Usage and examples: In linguistic analysis and language teaching, sihtvormi is used to explain how inflectional systems map to sentence structure. For example, the Estonian verb kir- has different sihtvormi depending on the subject: kirutan (I write), kirjutad (you write), kirjutab (he/she writes), reflecting person and number in the present tense.

Relation to technology and theory: In natural language processing and computational linguistics, determining the correct sihtvormi is part of morphological tagging and surface realization, enabling proper agreement and fluent text generation. Understanding sihtvormi helps learners and analysts track how forms change to fit grammatical requirements.