nimellisiä

Nimellisiä is a term used in Finnish linguistics to refer to nominal expressions—forms that function as nouns or noun phrases within sentences. The root nimellinen means nominal or pertaining to a name, and the form nimellisiä is the plural, often used when describing multiple elements that behave like nouns.

In Finnish grammar, nimellisiä encompasses a range of elements that can occupy syntactic positions typical for nouns. This includes simple nouns, pronouns, numerals when they function as stand-alone or head elements of a noun phrase, and nominalized forms of adjectives or participles. In practice, nimellisiä are the parts of speech that can serve as subjects, objects, or complements, and they often carry case endings and other nominal inflections.

The concept helps describe how Finnish organizes words that do not behave as verbs but play nominal roles in clauses. For example, a word like koira (dog) is a nimellisiä element; a pronoun such as minä (I) is also nimellisiä; and a nominal phrase like kolme koiraa (three dogs) functions as a single nominal unit within a sentence. Finnish grammars may use nimellisiä to distinguish these nominal units from verbal or adjectival elements when outlining sentence structure.

In English-language linguistics, the closest equivalent concept is typically called nominals or noun phrases. Nimellisiä thus corresponds to the broader idea of units that function as nouns in Finnish syntax. The term is mainly used in Finnish descriptive grammars and is less common as an import into English-language analyses. See also nominal, noun phrase.