ajatteluaan

Ajatteluaan is a Finnish grammatical form that refers to someone’s thinking. It is formed from the noun ajattelu (thinking) in the partitive form ajattelua, plus the third-person possessive suffix -nsa, yielding ajatteluaan. The construction expresses ownership of the thinking and is typically used when the content of the thinking is not specified or is being considered in a general sense.

Grammatical use and nuances

Ajatteluaan functions as a possessive complement referring to thinking possessed by a subject. The partitive ajattelua signals indefiniteness or an abstract concept of thinking, which is common when the exact content is not spelled out. The phrase is often used as the object or complement of verbs that require a non-definite or evaluative reference to thinking, such as kertoa (to tell), tarvita (to require), arvioida (to assess), or esittää (to present).

Examples

- Hän kertoi ajatteluaan. (He/She spoke about his/her thinking.)

- Tarvitsemme hänen ajatteluaan tässä asiassa. (We need his/her thinking on this matter.)

- He arvioivat ajatteluaan kriittisesti. (They evaluated their thinking critically.)

Related forms

Ajattelu (thinking) is the base noun, with other possessive forms such as ajattelunsa (his/her thinking) used in contexts where the owner is explicit and the form may shift toward the nominative or genitive. Ajatteluaan contrasts with more concrete expressions like ajatukset (thoughts) or mieli (mind), which position the content differently in a sentence.

See also

Finnish morphology, partitive case, possessive suffixes, ajattelu as a concept.