taivutusjälkiliite

A taivutusjälkiliite, often translated as a "inflectional suffix," is a morpheme added to the end of a word in certain languages, particularly Finnic languages like Finnish and Estonian, to indicate grammatical function. Unlike derivational suffixes which change a word's meaning or part of speech, inflectional suffixes modify a word's form to agree with other words in a sentence or to mark its role.

These suffixes can denote various grammatical categories such as case, number, tense, mood, or person. For example, in Finnish, adding the accusative case suffix -t to a noun like "kirja" (book) changes it to "kirjat" (books, accusative), indicating it is the direct object of a verb. Similarly, verb conjugations in Finnish rely heavily on inflectional suffixes to show who is performing the action and when. The concept is crucial for understanding the syntax and morphology of languages that employ it, as it dictates how words interact and convey meaning within a sentence. The term "jälkiliite" literally means "after-suffix," highlighting its position at the word's end.