määräävän

Määräävän is the genitive singular form of the Finnish present active participle määräävä, which comes from the verb määrätä, meaning to determine or to prescribe. The present active participle describes someone or something that performs the action of determining or prescribing. In practice, määräävä functions as an adjective and can modify a noun in a genitive construction, for example in the phrase määräävän viranomaisen päätös, meaning “the decision of the prescribing authority.”

Morphology and usage. The base form is määräävä. Like other -va/-vä adjectives in Finnish, määräävä inflects to agree with the noun it modifies in number and case. Its genitive singular form is määräävän, which is used to link the modifying participle to the head noun in genitive constructions. The partitive singular form is määräävää, and other inflected forms follow standard Finnish adjective agreement patterns. The participle functions primarily as a descriptive attribute, conveying that the noun it modifies has the role of prescribing, determining, or setting rules.

Semantics and register. Määräävän carries a formal, authority-related nuance and is most common in administrative, legal, or policy language. It may appear in discussions of regulatory bodies, decisions, or guidelines that involve issuing or enforcing rules. In everyday language, simpler expressions or the bare verb forms are more common, while määräävän appears where a precise, attributive characterization is desired.

See also. Finnish grammar; present active participles; adjectival participles; legal and administrative Finnish.