sijamuotoina

Sijamuotoina is a Finnish term used in linguistics to mean “as case forms.” It refers to the inflectional forms a word can take when expressed in different grammatical cases. The word is the plural form of sijamuoto, a term naming a single case form, and the suffix -ina is used to indicate the role of something being described “as …” or “in the form of ….” Thus sijamuotoina is typically employed when discussing several case forms collectively.

In practice, sijamuotoina is used to describe how a word can appear across the various cases in a language with rich inflection, such as Finnish. It is common in grammar explanations, dictionaries, and language-learning texts to list or reference the different forms a word may take in its plural role as “sijamuotoina.” For example, a noun like kissa can appear in multiple sijamuotoina: nominatiivi (kissa), genetiivi (kissan), partitiivi (kissaa), inessiivi (kissassa), elatiivi (kissasta), and so on. When a description speaks “sijamuotoina,” it is addressing these various case forms rather than a single form.

Relation to other terms: sijamuoto refers to a specific grammatical case form, while sijamuotoina points to the collective set of these forms. The concept is central to understanding Finnish morphology, where nouns, pronouns, and adjectives change form to signal grammatical functions such as subject, possession, object, location, or direction.

See also: sijamuoto, taivutus, Finnish grammar.