Tekamisistään

Tekamisistään is a Finnish grammatical form derived from the noun tekeminen, meaning doing or making. It is formed by combining the elative case suffix -istaan/-istään, which signals origin or source, with the third-person plural possessive suffix -nsä/-sä. The result tekemisistään expresses the idea “from their doings” or “of their doings.” The form is used when referring to actions or deeds carried out by a group that has been previously mentioned in the text.

The use of tekemisistään is typical in formal or documentary writing, such as historical accounts, investigations, or analytical summaries. It allows the writer to attribute observed actions to a specific group without naming individual members repeatedly. In everyday speech, speakers more often rely on simpler constructions, but tekemisistään can appear in reported speech or literary narration to convey a more precise sense of source and agency.

Examples:

- Tekemisistään voidaan päätellä, että ryhmä toimi suunnitelmallisesti. (From their doings one can deduce that the group acted systematically.)

- Tekemisistään ja motiiveistaan riippuu, miten tapahtumia tulkitaan. (From their doings and their motives it depends how events are interpreted.)

Notes:

- Tekemisistään refers to the doings of a plural subject and is therefore used when discussing actions attributed to several agents.

- It is distinct from tekemiensä or tekemisestä, which convey related but grammatically different meanings (different case or possessive combinations).