laskevan

Laskevan is a Finnish linguistic term referring to a specific inflected form of the adjective or present participle laskeva. The base verb laskea has senses related to counting, calculating, or lowering, and laskeva is used to describe ongoing action or a characteristic state. The form laskevan is the inflected form you encounter when laskeva modifies a noun in certain grammatical cases, most commonly in phrases that require a genitive or other case of the noun.

In practice, laskeva and its inflected form laskevan appear in noun phrases describing something that is decreasing or descending. For example, laskevan trendin means “the downward (or decreasing) trend,” and laskevan määrän arvo means “the value of the decreasing amount.” The sense of decreasing or lowering is the most common interpretation in contemporary Finnish usage, though the underlying root can also relate to the act of counting in some contexts, depending on how laskea is used.

Etymology and morphology: laskeva is formed from the verb laskea plus the participle suffix -va; laskevan is the declined form used where the adjective participates in a syntactic structure requiring the genitive/other case form of the noun it modifies. This pattern is part of Finnish adjective and participle concord, where the ending reflects the noun’s case and number.

See also: Laskea (Finnish verb), Finnish grammar, Present participles in Finnish, Adjective declension in Finnish.