isestipäätteinen

Isestipäätteinen is a label found in some Finnish linguistic discussions to classify a subset of words characterized by a particular ending pattern. It is not part of standard Finnish grammar and is mainly used as a theoretical, teaching, or corpus-annotation term rather than as an accepted category in reference grammars.

In practice, the term is defined by researchers who adopt the category to refer to words that end with a specific suffix cluster treated as a productive pattern in a given dataset. Because there is no universal consensus on its exact definition, different studies may mark different endings under the isestipäätteinen heading. The label is therefore best understood as a provisional or descriptive tool rather than a fixed grammatical class. Its use reflects broader issues in morphological typology, such as how to categorize complex word forms that combine stems with multiple suffixes. As with many such labels, the utility of isestipäätteinen lies in enabling comparisons across languages, corpora, or instructional materials, rather than in prescribing a rigid set of rules.

For illustration, a fictional stem such as "koti" (home) could be shown with the pattern "koti-stipäätteinen" to demonstrate the ending-focused classification, and similarly "talo" (house) could be analyzed as "talo-stipäätteinen." These examples are not meant as authentic Finnish forms but to convey the typological idea that certain endings encode a recognizable, repeatable pattern within analysis.

See also: päätteinen, Finnish morphology, derivational suffixes.