merkitsemässään

Merkitsemässään is a Finnish linguistic form that appears in written Finnish to express “in their marking” or “as they marked.” It is a participial construction derived from the verb merkitä (to mark) and the participial stem merkitsemässä, combined with the possessive suffix -ssaan/-ssään to indicate the owner of the action. The result is a dependent participial phrase that can introduce a clause describing how something was marked by a specific agent.

In grammar, merkitsemässään functions as a subsidiary, adverbial participial expression. It compresses information that might otherwise be stated in a full relative or subordinate clause. The construction is most commonly found in formal or literary Finnish, including descriptive, historical, or academic prose. It is less typical in everyday speech, where simpler constructions are preferred.

Semantically, merkitsemässään signals simultaneity or contemporaneity between the main clause and the marking action, while the possessive suffix links the marking to the agent responsible for it. In translation, it can correspond to phrases such as “in their marking,” “as they marked,” or “by the marks they made.” The nuance often emphasizes the act of marking as one aspect of a broader description or narrative.

See also: Finnish participles, possessive suffixes, participial constructions.