Taivutuskuvio

Taivutuskuvio refers to the inflectional pattern of a word in Finnish grammar. Finnish is an agglutinative language, meaning words are formed by adding suffixes to a stem. These suffixes change to indicate grammatical information such as case, number, and tense. A taivutuskuvio essentially outlines the series of changes a word undergoes when it is inflected.

Different classes of words, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs, and pronouns, have their own distinct taivutuskuviot. These patterns are determined by the word's stem and its phonological structure. For example, a noun might have one taivutuskuvio for singular forms and another for plural forms, with further variations for each of the fifteen Finnish grammatical cases.

Understanding taivutuskuviot is crucial for correctly conjugating and declining Finnish words. While there are regular patterns, Finnish also exhibits irregularities and vowel harmony rules that influence how suffixes are attached. Linguistic resources often tabulate these patterns to provide a systematic guide for learners and linguists studying the language. The concept helps in predicting and explaining the form of a word in different grammatical contexts.