selittäviä

Selittäviä is Finnish and functions as a form of the adjective selittävä, meaning explanatory or explaining. It is used to describe something that provides explanations or clarification. In everyday and academic language, selittäviä appears most often in phrases describing plural nouns in the partitive case, such as selittäviä huomautuksia (explanatory notes) or selittäviä tekijöitä (explanatory factors).

In Finnish grammar, selittävä is derived from the verb selittää, “to explain,” and belongs to the class of present active participles that can be used as adjectives. The form selittäviä represents the partitive plural or other case configurations of this adjective when it modifies a plural noun. Because it is an inflected form rather than a standalone noun, its exact ending changes with the case and number of the noun it describes.

Usage of selittäviä is common in technical, scientific, and educational texts where explanations, justifications, or clarifications are being discussed. It helps to qualify content as having an explanatory purpose or character, rather than merely descriptive. The term can be contrasted with selittävä (the base singular form or a more general, non-plural usage) or with other related adjectives that express similar ideas of explanation.

See also: Finnish grammar, adjectives and participles, partitive case, linguistic terminology.