käändelised

Käändelised are inflected forms of words in Estonian, i.e., the different variants a word can take to express grammatical information such as case, number, or possessive relation. The concept is central to Estonian morphology: many word classes—most notably nouns, adjectives and pronouns—form multiple käändelised forms that determine how a word functions in a sentence. Verbs also have inflected forms through conjugation, but käändelised typically refer to the inflectional endings used with nouns, adjectives and pronouns.

Endings (käänded) attach to a word stem to signal its grammatical role. The choice of ending depends on factors such as the word’s declension class, number (singular or plural), and the syntactic or semantic position of the word. Adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case, while pronouns have their own full paradigms. In nouns, a rich system of endings marks various cases and relationships, and in some forms the stem can undergo alternating patterns such as consonant gradation. Phonological considerations and historical development also shape which käändelised forms exist for a given word.

Understanding käändelised is essential for parsing sentences, learning word paradigms, and performing linguistic analysis. They enable speakers to convey who does what to whom, where, and under what circumstances, without relying on word order alone. In teaching and reference works, käändelised forms are described through morphological paradigms and tables that illustrate the various inflected forms a word can take.

See also: Estonian grammar; inflection; declension; case.