llisuuspäätteestä

llisuuspäätteestä refers to the Finnish suffix -llisuus, a productive derivational ending used to form abstract nouns that express a state, condition, or quality. The suffix is typically attached to adjectives, especially those in the -llinen or -ellinen forms, to create nouns such as safety, legality, or reality. In practice the formation involves removing the -inen/-ellinen ending from the adjective and adding -llisuus, with the resulting word often containing a double l due to the base ending.

Formation and examples

Common examples illustrate the pattern: turvallinen (safe) leads to turvallisuus (safety or security); laillinen (legal or lawful) yields laillisuus (legality); todellinen (real or true) becomes todellisuus (reality); kohtuullinen (reasonable) gives kohtuullisuus (reasonableness). The process may reflect a phonological assimilation where the stem ends in -ll-, producing spellings with double l in the noun form. The suffix thus acts as a means to nominalize adjectival predicates into broad, abstract concepts.

Semantics and use

Words formed with -llisuus denote properties or states rather than concrete objects. They are common in formal, administrative, and legal language, but also appear in everyday Finnish when discussing general qualities such as safety, legitimacy, or fairness. The nuance is typically evaluative or descriptive, conveying the presence or absence of a given quality in a system, rule, practice, or situation.

Relation to other suffixes

The -llisuus suffix is part of the broader -isuus/-isyys family of nominalizing suffixes. It is specifically linked to adjectives in -llinen or -ellinen, and its usage is favored when the intended concept is tied to a definable quality or state associated with those adjectives.