instrumentaalisiin

Instrumentaalisiin is a Finnish linguistic term used to refer to a specific inflected form associated with the concept of the instrumental case in linguistic descriptions. The base word instrumentaali denotes the instrumental category, which marks means, tool, or manner in some languages. In Finnish academic writing, instrumentaali and its inflected forms appear when discussing languages that distinguish an instrumental case; modern everyday Finnish typically expresses instrumental meaning through other constructions rather than a dedicated case.

The term originates from instrumentaali, a scholarly borrowing based on the Latin word instrumentum, adapted into Finnish grammatical terminology. The form instrumentaalisiin represents a plural inflected form used when referring to the instrumental forms as a group, rather than to a single lexical item.

Usage in literature is largely confined to grammars, typological surveys, and dictionaries that catalog grammatical cases across languages. It is not a term encountered in common spoken Finnish, but rather in technical discussions about language structure and cross-linguistic comparison. When writers discuss how different languages encode instrument, they may use instrumentaali and instrumentaalisiin to label the relevant category or its plural set of forms.

Related terms include instrumentaali (the instrumental category itself) and instrumentaalinen (instrumental, as an adjective describing features related to the instrumental). In Finnish-language linguistic works, instrumentaalisiin serves as a precise label within inventories of grammatical cases and in discussions of typology.