endingillä

Endingillä is a term used in Finnish linguistics and language pedagogy to describe the use or discussion of grammatical endings in inflected forms. The word is a compound built from a base meaning “ending” together with the Finnish suffix -llä, which marks adessive location or means in many contexts. In practice, endingillä functions as a metalinguistic label rather than a standard lexical item: it refers to a specific ending or to the general process of adding endings to words.

Role in Finnish morphology: Finnish nouns and verbs change form through endings that mark case, number, tense, mood, and other grammatical functions. The term endingillä can appear in grammars, glossaries, and teaching materials to indicate the particular ending under discussion, such as when contrasting different cases or verb conjugations. It is especially useful in explanations where the focus is on the inflectional mechanism rather than on a single word form.

Usage: Endingillä is most common in descriptive or methodological sections of linguistic texts rather than in everyday language. It helps students and researchers talk about inflection succinctly, without listing every individual suffix each time.

Limitations: Endingillä is not a fixed, universally defined technical term with a single dictionary sense. Its meaning can vary across sources and contexts, and it is largely a meta-terminology used to discuss endings rather than a standalone lexical item.

See also: Finnish grammar; Pääte (suffix); Taivutus; Morfologia; Adessive.