havaittavan

Havaittavan is a Finnish grammatical form that functions as the genitive singular of the adjective havaittava, meaning detectable or perceptible. The word is used primarily in analytic discussions of Finnish participial adjectives and their inflection, and it commonly appears in noun phrases where a property or feature is described as observable or detectable.

Etymology and morphology: The form havaittava derives from the verb havaita, meaning to perceive or detect, with the participial suffix -ttava that turns the verb into an adjective meaning “able to be perceived.” Its genitive singular, havaittavan, is used to link the adjective to a noun in possessive or relational constructions, as in havaittavan ominaisuuden mukaan, “according to the detectable property.” The base adjective has other cases and numbers, such as nominative havaittava, partitive havaittavaa, and plural forms, which are used to fit different syntactic roles within a sentence.

Usage: In linguistic descriptions of Finnish, havaittavan is primarily encountered in descriptive phrases that discuss observable characteristics or properties. It appears in technical writing, corpora annotations, and pedagogical examples to illustrate how participial adjectives interact with case endings and noun phrases. While most native speakers would interpret havaittavan as part of a larger expression rather than a stand-alone word, its function as a modifier is an important example of Finnish inflection patterns.

Examples: Havaittavan ominaisuuden mukaan data analysoitiin, which translates to “The data was analyzed according to the detectable property.” Another instance is, “Havaittavan ilmiön tutkimus jatkuu,” meaning “The study of the detectable phenomenon continues.”

See also: Finnish grammar, participles, -ttava suffix, genitive case.