minuutiksi

Minuutiksi is a Finnish grammatical form: the translative case of the noun minuutti (minute). The translative marks a change of state or a designation of something as a member of a category. Consequently, minuutiksi is used to indicate that something has become, or is regarded as, a minute rather than simply counting minutes.

In everyday Finnish, minuutiksi is relatively rare and is mostly found in linguistic descriptions, dictionaries, or formal prose. It appears when the author wants to discuss time units in a classificatory sense or when illustrating grammar. The form can occur with verbs of becoming, such as muuttua, or in theoretical constructions that treat time units as categories.

Morphology and usage: minuutiksi is formed from the base minuutti by adding the translative suffix -ksi. Other cases of minuutti exist, such as nominative minuutti and partitive minuuttia, but those are used in much more common expressions about duration rather than classification.

Examples and note: Because the usage is specialized, examples are primarily didactic. A grammarian might discuss “minuutiksi muuttuminen” to illustrate how the translative marks a shift into the category of a minute, rather than to describe a concrete duration of time.

See also: Finnish translative case; minute; Finnish grammar; -ksi suffix.