lõppkuju

Lõppkuju is an Estonian linguistic term used to describe the final, inflected form of a word as it appears in a specific grammatical environment. It denotes the surface form that includes the word’s endings, marking grammatical categories such as case and number for nouns and pronouns, or tense, mood, person, and number for verbs. The concept helps distinguish between the base or stem form (algkuju) and the form that results after inflection (lõppkuju).

Use and scope

In Estonian morphology, many words have multiple lõppkuju depending on the required grammatical category. In dictionaries and grammar texts, inflection tables present the various lõppkuju for a word under different rows, such as singular nominative, plural genitive, or other cases and numbers. The term is applicable across parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, and verbs, where each grammatical setting yields a distinct lõppkuju.

Terminology and relation to other concepts

The term lõppkuju is standard in Estonian linguistics and education. Some authors use lõppvorm as a synonym, though lõppkuju is more common in formal discussions of morphology. The concept is central to morphologic analysis, lexicography, and language teaching, where understanding the different inflected forms helps describe how words change to express grammatical meaning.

See also

Estonian morphology, inflection, grammar, lexicography.