Viitesanan

Viitesanan (plural viitesanat) is a term used in Finnish linguistics to refer to a word or word class that signals a referential relation in discourse. A viitesana acts as a pointer to an entity that is either mentioned earlier in the text or present in the situational context.

The class typically includes demonstratives (tämä, tuo, se), personal pronouns (minä, sinä, hän), and certain relative and interrogative words that function referentially (joka, mikä, kuka). Viitesanat contribute to cohesion by allowing the writer or speaker to avoid repetition and by marking perspective and distance (deixis). Their form can be inflected for case, number, and possessive relationships, consistent with standard Finnish morphology.

In Finnish, viitesanat are typically considered a closed class of function words rather than content words. They can be reduced in informal speech, with pronouns sometimes omitted or shortened, depending on context. Different linguistic analyses may vary in terms of precise subcategories; some treat demonstratives, pronouns, and relative/interrogative words as separate subtypes within the broader viitesana category.

The term is primarily used in academic linguistic discussions rather than everyday grammar descriptions; its exact scope and terminology can differ among sources. See also referential expression, pronoun, demonstrative, anaphora, deixis, and cohesion.