pienemmällä

Pienemmällä is the adessive singular form of the Finnish adjective pienempi, meaning “smaller.” It is used to indicate that something is smaller in size, amount, or degree, when the noun it modifies is in the adessive case. The base pienempi is the comparative form of pieni (small), and Finnish adjectives decline for case like nouns, so pienempi yields forms such as pienemmällä, pienemmässä, and pienemmän depending on the case.

In practice, pienemmällä conveys “with a smaller …” or “in a smaller …” and appears in phrases that describe constraints, means, or scales. Examples include: “pienemmällä budjetilla” (with a smaller budget), “pienemmällä vauhdilla” (at a slower pace), and “pienemmällä mittakaavalla” (on a smaller scale). These constructions are common in everyday speech, journalism, and writing when comparing degrees, resources, or extents.

Notes on usage: pienemmällä contrasts with inessive pienemmässä (in a smaller), genitive pienemmän (of the smaller), and other case forms, reflecting Finnish’s rich case system attached to adjectives. The form is not a separate noun but a grammatical inflection of the comparative adjective, used to express relative size or extent within a given context.

Etymology: derived from pieni (small) plus the comparative suffix -empi, with subsequent case endings applied to the resulting stem. Pienemmällä thus functions as a versatile tool for nuanced comparison in Finnish.