Tapauksellinen

Tapauksellinen is a Finnish adjective formed from the noun tapaus, meaning both “case” and “instance,” and the suffix -ellinen. In Finnish scholarly usage the term denotes phenomena that are tied to a particular case, instance, or situational context rather than to general rules or universal properties. It is therefore a specialized, often technical expression used mainly in linguistics, philosophy, and related disciplines.

In linguistics, tapauksellinen describes features or patterns that depend on a specific grammatical case or discourse context. For example, it can be used to discuss forms or functions that only occur under certain conditions or in particular syntactic environments, rather than as part of a uniform, cross-case rule. Because the concept focuses on context-sensitivity rather than broad generalizations, it is most common in analytic discussions of inflection, syntax, or meaning that vary by case or situation.

In philosophy and logic, tapauksellinen may be used to characterize contingent or context-dependent statements and judgments. A tapauksellinen claim is one whose truth value depends on particular circumstances rather than being universally true or false. The term helps distinguish between statements about actual cases and those that hold across all possible cases.

The word is relatively specialized and is not part of everyday Finnish outside academic discourse. Related concepts include contingency, context-dependence, and case-based analysis in respective fields.