Siirtyviksi

Siirtyviksi is a term that appears in a limited number of Finnish-language linguistic discussions as a proposed or hypothetical concept. It is not an established category in standard Finnish grammar, but rather a neologism used by some scholars to describe a potential class of expressions that encode a change of state through movement or transition. The word is built from the verb siirtyä, meaning to move or transfer, and the translative suffix -ksi, which in Finnish marks becoming or turning into something.

The idea behind siirtyviksi is to examine how certain constructions may foreground the process of transitioning into a new condition, rather than simply indicating a static state. In this view, forms that combine a movement or process meaning with the translative ending would emphasize the dynamic aspect of change. Proponents use the concept to discuss semantic nuance in verbs and adjectives that describe progression, relocation, or role changes, and to illustrate how Finnish morphology can encode change along with action.

Reception in the academic literature is mixed. Some researchers see siirtyviksi as a useful heuristic for analyzing dynamic meaning and the interplay between motion and state change. Others criticize it as overly broad or insufficiently defined, arguing that the translative system already covers becoming and changing state without needing a separate labeled category. The term remains peripheral and is not widely adopted in descriptive grammar references.

See also: Finnish grammar, translative case (-ksi), siirtyä, change-of-state constructions.