kolmantena

Kolmantena is a Finnish adverbial form derived from the ordinal adjective kolmas, meaning “the third.” It functions in time and sequence expressions to indicate position, typically signaling when an event occurs or where an item stands in a series. Kolmantena appears in both historical and contemporary Finnish, especially in more formal or written contexts, and is often used with time nouns to specify a date or moment.

In practice, kolmantena is used to express “on the third [day/time/occurrence]” and can pair with phrases such as päivänä or sunnuntaina to situate an event in time. It is common in dates and schedules, as well as in literature that enumerates days or stages in a process. The form reflects Finnish grammar in which ordinal numbers are inflected to function as temporal adverbs. In everyday speech, simpler phrases like “kolmas päivä” or explicit day names may be preferred, but kolmantena remains standard in certain registers and historical texts.

Examples of usage include phrases like kolmantena päivänä elokuuta (on the third day of August) or kolmantena sunnuntaina (on the third Sunday), illustrating its role in precise dating and sequencing. The term is one member of a broader set of ordinal adverbs in Finnish, which also includes forms corresponding to other positions such as ensimmäinen, toinen, ja neljäs.

See also: Finnish language, ordinal numbers, Finnish grammar, date expressions.