Tarkoituksilleen

Tarkoituksilleen is a Finnish noun phrase used to express “to/for their purposes.” It is formed from the noun tarkoitus (purpose) inflected in the plural allative case with the third-person plural possessive suffix, resulting in tarkoituksilleen. The allative suffix -ille marks direction or destination, and the possessive suffix indicates ownership or relation to a group.

Morphology and usage considerations: In Finnish, the allative case often translates to the English “to” or “for” in contexts of aims, goals, or recipient relations. When combined with the possessive suffix, tarkoituksilleen specifies that the purposes belong to or are pursued by a third party plural subject (they). The phrase is common in formal, analytical, or policy-related writing, especially when describing actions taken to satisfy others’ aims.

Nuances and alternatives: There are related forms such as tarkoituksilleen vs. tarkoituksilleen, which can reflect different subjects or contexts. Depending on the speaker, the same sense can sometimes be conveyed with paraphrases like “their own purposes” or “for their aims,” but tarkoituksilleen provides a compact, idiomatic way to reference those specific aims.

Example usage:

- Yritykset käyttivät ohjelmaa tarkoituksilleen. (The companies used the program for their purposes.)

- Hallituksen päätökset vaikuttivat järjestön tarkoituksilleen, eivätkä kaikkien sidosryhmien tarpeisiin. (The government’s decisions affected the organization’s purposes, not all stakeholders’ needs.)

See also: tarkoitus, illatiivinen ja allatiivinen taivutus, possessiiviset suffiksit, Finnish grammar.

In summary, tarkoituksilleen is a specific grammatical construction in Finnish that compactly means “to/for their purposes,” combining the allative case with a third-person plural possessive suffix to indicate ownership or aim belonging to a group.