substantiivipäätteistä

Substantiivipäätteistä is a Finnish term referring to the suffixes attached to stems to form or inflect nouns. They are a fundamental part of Finnish morphology, enabling nouns to take different roles in sentences and to derive new nouns from verbs or adjectives.

Inflectional endings express case and number. Common endings include -n for genitive (talon), -t for plural (kissat), -ssa/-ssä for inessive (talossa), -sta/-stä for elative (talosta), and -lle for allative (talolle). These endings can combine with the stem and, in some words, with consonant gradation or vowel harmony.

Derivational noun suffixes create new nouns from other parts of speech. Examples include -minen (opiskelu, the act of studying), -us/-ys (hiljaisuus, quietness), and -ja/-jä (laulaja, the singer). Such suffixes expand vocabulary and provide nouns with more specialized meanings without changing the base word's syntactic function.

Notes on usage: Substantiivipäätteet attach predictably to stems but may trigger occasional changes in the stem, especially with consonant gradation or vowel harmony. They also show patterns of allomorphy depending on the phonological environment. Mastery of these endings helps in predicting noun forms and in understanding sentence structure.

See also: Finnish grammar, noun phrase.