myöstästä

Myöstästä is a Finnish linguistic and legal term that refers to a specific form of the partitive case used in certain archaic legal and literary contexts. The word is derived from the older form *myöstät*, a composite of the base *myö* (meaning "after" or "later") and the auxiliary suffix *-stät*, used to form belonging or relation. In this sense myöstästä denotes something that belongs to or is connected with a subsequent event or condition.

In the evolution of the Finnish language, the standard partitive singuliary has been *-ta/-tä* for uncountable or indefinite nouns and *-t* for plural. Myöstästä is an exception that survives mainly in legal texts from the 17th to the 19th centuries. It occurs in phrases such as *“myöstästä valitusta”* (the judgment made later) and *“myöstästä sopimuksesta”* (regarding the subsequent agreement). Because of its rarity, contemporary Finnish speakers rarely encounter it barring the reading of old documents or specialized legal scholarship.

The form can also appear in idiomatic expressions in older poetry where the partitive is used to create a sense of looming inevitability, e.g. *“Tai siis myöstästä, sellaisuus *”* (And thus what will come later). The use fades after the modernisation of Finnish orthography in the early 20th century.

Today, myöstästä functions primarily as a historical or philological term. Lexicographers of Finnish dictionaries include it as a note on archaic use, while scholars of jurisprudence cite it when analysing civil law codes. The term exemplifies how legal discourse can preserve older grammatical structures that are otherwise out of use in everyday speech.