pinnallisten

Pinnallisten is the genitive plural form of the Finnish adjective pinnallinen, meaning superficial or surface-level. In Finnish, adjectives decline to agree with the nouns they modify, so pinnallinen becomes pinnalliset in the nominative plural and pinnallisten in the genitive plural. The form pinnallisten is therefore used to indicate possession or association in phrases describing multiple superficial things or people, for example pinnallisten ihmisten mielipiteet, “the opinions of the superficial people,” or pinnallisten asioiden hoito, “the handling of superficial matters.”

Etymology and derivation: pinnallinen is built from pinta, meaning surface, plus the adjectival suffix -llinen, yielding a meaning akin to surface-related or superficial. The genitive plural pinnallisten follows standard Finnish adjective declension patterns, and it appears whenever the noun it modifies is in the genitive case or when the phrase requires a genitive construction.

Usage notes: Pinnallisten is a grammatical form rather than a standalone lexical item. It appears in descriptive or evaluative contexts to refer to superficial attitudes, analyses, or content. In everyday speech or writing, speakers typically use pinnalliset (nominative plural) when the noun is in the subject position, and switch to pinnallisten only when a genitive construction is needed.

Overall, pinnallisten functions as the genitive plural inflection of a common Finnish adjective describing superficiality, and it is used within noun phrases to attribute superficial characteristics to a plural referent.