käyvää

Käyvää is a Finnish word form that functions as the partitive singular of the present active participle käyvä, which is derived from the verb käydä (to go, to visit, to occur). As a participle, käyvä describes something that happens regularly or is characteristic in a recurring sense, and käyvää is the form used when the modified noun is in the partitive case.

In use, käyvää commonly appears as an attributive participle or in predicative constructions, where it modifies a noun in partitive or appears with a copula in certain stylized expressions. The exact sense of käyvää depends on context, but it typically signals habituality, frequency, or a general, ongoing quality rather than a one-off event. For example, phrases like käyvää ilmiötä (a recurring phenomenon) or käyvää ajattelua (habitual thinking) illustrate how the form conveys a sense of regularity rather than a specific instance.

Morphologically, käyvää is formed by taking the present active participle käyvä and applying the partitive singular ending -ä, which results in -ä becoming -ää in the partitive stem. This form is standard in standard Finnish but is more common in written language, academic descriptions, and literary usage than in everyday speech.

Etymologically, the form reflects Finnish verb-construction patterns that build participles from verbs and then adapt them to adjective-like usage. Käyvää thus sits within Finnish grammar as a functional, non-lexical inflected form, used to convey ongoing or habitual action linked to the noun it describes.

See also: Finnish grammar, present active participles, partitive case.