määrälliseen

Määrälliseen is an inflected form of the Finnish adjective määrällinen, meaning "quantitative" or "numerical." The term is used to describe data, methods, or findings that are expressed with numbers, statistics, or counts. In Finnish discourse on research and analysis, määrällinen contrasts with laadullinen, which denotes qualitative approaches.

In Finnish, adjectives agree with the noun they modify in case and number. When the noun is in illative case, the adjective also takes an illative form, producing määrälliseen. For example, in the phrase "määrälliseen tutkimukseen," the adjective määrällinen is inflected to correspond with the illative case of the noun tutkimus, yielding "määrälliseen tutkimukseen" meaning "to quantitative research" or "into quantitative research."

Common contexts for the term include academic research, statistics, and data analysis. It is frequently used to describe approaches, data sets, and results that are based on numeric measurement. Examples of related expressions include "määrällinen tutkimus" (quantitative research) and "määrälliseen tutkimukseen perustuva analyysi" (an analysis based on quantitative research). The term helps distinguish numerical, count-based evidence from qualitative descriptions.

Etymology and grammar: määrällinen is formed from the stem määrä ("quantity") plus the productive adjective suffix -llinen. Finnish adjectives decline to agree with the noun, so assuming an illative noun like tutkimus, the corresponding form becomes määrälliseen. This pattern illustrates how Finnish adjectives modify meaning through case endings.

See also: laadullinen, tutkimus, tilastollinen.