Systeemisiä

Systeemisiä is a Finnish grammatical form of the adjective systeeminen, meaning systemic or system-wide. It is the partitive plural form used to describe plural nouns in the partitive case, often indicating properties that pertain to a whole system rather than individual parts.

Morphology and usage

In Finnish, adjectives decline to agree with the nouns they modify. For example, with a plural noun in the partitive case, the form systeemisiä is used: systeemisiä ongelmia (systemic problems), systeemisiä riskejä (systemic risks), systeemisiä vaikutuksia (systemic effects). The base adjective palvelu is not involved here; the standard forms include nominaalinen pl. systeemiset and genitive plural systeemisten, while the partitive plural remains systeemisiä.

Meaning and contexts

Systeemisiä is employed across disciplines to indicate characteristics that emerge from or affect an entire system. In medicine, it can describe systemic diseases or systemic effects that influence the body as a whole. In sociology and economics, it refers to systemic inequality or systemic reform. In ecology, engineering, and information systems, it denotes phenomena or failures that are inherent to the system’s structure rather than localized issues.

Etymology and related terms

The adjective derives from systeemi or system concepts, with the ending -nen forming an ordinary Finnish adjectival derivative. Related terms include systeeminen (the basic form meaning systemic) and systemaattinen (systematic), which has a somewhat different nuance, focusing more on organized or methodical processes.

See also

System/järjestelmä (system), systeeminen (systemic), systeemisesti (adverbial form meaning systemically).