kaupoiksi

Kaupoiksi is a Finnish inflected form that appears as the translative plural. It is used to express a change of state or a role, roughly functioning as “into shopkeepers” or “as shopkeepers” in contexts where the stem conveys the sense of a shop or merchants. In everyday Finnish, more common forms for referring to merchants are kauppias (singular) and kauppiaat (plural), with the translative forms kauppiaaksi (singular) and kauppiaiksi (plural) used for role changes. Kaupoiksi is therefore relatively rare and tends to occur in literary, historical, or dialectal usage, where the focus is on a group being viewed in the capacity of shops or shopkeepers.

Morphology and etymology: kaupoiksi is formed with the translative suffix -ksi, which marks a change into a certain state or role. The plural form -iksi indicates that multiple actors are involved. The underlying stem is related to kauppa “shop” or kauppa- roots found in related merchant terms, but kaupoiksi is not as productive in modern standard Finnish as kauppiaaksi/kauppiaiksi.

Usage notes: Because kauipoiksi is not a common everyday form, it can sound archaic or stylistically marked in contemporary prose. When signaling a change into the role of a merchant in standard Finnish, writers typically prefer kauppias or kauppiaaksi/kauppiaiksi. Kaupoiksi may appear in historical narratives, poetry, or analyses describing collective groups associated with commerce.

See also: Finnish translative case, kauppa, kauppias, kauppiaaksi, kauppiaiksi.

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