Todennäköisiä

Todennäköisiä is a Finnish adjective form meaning likely or probable, used to describe plural nouns. It is the partitive plural form of todennäköinen, which expresses a level of probability rather than certainty. The word is commonly found in journalism, research, and everyday language when discussing what is more likely to occur.

Grammar and usage: Todennäköisiä is used with plural nouns in the partitive case. For example, todennäköisiä syitä (probable reasons), todennäköisiä seuraamuksia (likely consequences), or todennäköisiä vaihtoehtoja (likely options). It can also appear in predicates with a plural subject: Nämä tapahtumat ovat todennäköisiä (These events are likely).

Nuances: todennäköinen conveys a higher likelihood than possible (mahdollinen) but does not imply certainty. It is often contrasted with monetio, "varmasti" (certainly), to indicate probability rather than guarantee. In statistical or analytic contexts, todennäköisyys (probability) is the related noun describing the degree of likelihood, while todennäköinen focuses on the evaluative quality of a specific item or scenario.

Etymology: The term forms part of a family of Finnish words built around probability and belief, with todennäköinen functioning as the descriptive adjective and todennäköisyys as the corresponding noun branch. The form todennäköisiä reflects standard Finnish inflection for plural partitive adjectives.

See also: todennäköisyys, todellisuus, mahdollinen.