observatiivinen

Observatiivinen is a linguistic term used to describe an observational mood or direct evidential marking in some languages. It indicates that the information in a clause is based on the speaker’s direct sensory perception, rather than inference, deduction, or reported information. The concept sits within the broader field of evidentiality, which catalogs how languages encode the source and reliability of asserted information.

In languages that distinguish an observatif or observativelike category, the marking typically appears on the verb through morphology, affixes, or clitics. This marking signals that the proposition is witnessed or experienced firsthand by the speaker or a known observer. The observative marking may interact with tense, aspect, and other mood or evidential markers, and its exact realization varies considerably between languages.

Observational marking is not a universal feature of all languages. It is described in typological and descriptive work as part of a larger evidential system rather than as a standalone grammatical core in most widely studied languages. Where it exists, the observative or observational mood complements other evidential contrasts such as inferential or reportative forms, offering a way to convey the speaker’s relationship to the information’s origin.

Etymology and usage notes: the term is commonly used in Finnish-language grammars and in linguistic literature as a way to refer to this concept in general, not as a single language-wide category. The exact realization of observative marking is language-specific and may be absent in many language families.

See also: Evidentiality, Mood, Direct perception.