taivutuspäätteinä

Taivutuspäätteinä, a Finnish grammatical term, refers to inflectional suffixes that are added to the end of a word to indicate grammatical case, number, or possession. These suffixes are crucial for conveying the grammatical function of a word within a sentence, as Finnish relies heavily on inflection rather than prepositions or word order to express these relationships.

There are fifteen grammatical cases in Finnish, and each case has its own set of inflectional suffixes that are attached to the stem of a noun, adjective, or pronoun. For example, the nominative case, which is the basic form of a word, often has no suffix. However, the genitive case, indicating possession, might add a suffix like -n, and the partitive case, used for indefinite quantities, might add -a or -ä. The choice of suffix often depends on the vowel harmony of the word's stem.

In addition to case, taivutuspäätteinä also express number, singular and plural. Plural forms are typically marked by a distinct suffix, which then combines with the case suffix. Possession is also indicated through specific suffixes, particularly when referring to the possessor of a noun. Understanding these inflectional endings is fundamental to comprehending and constructing grammatically correct Finnish sentences. The system of taivutuspäätteinä contributes to the agglutinative nature of the Finnish language, where multiple morphemes, including these suffixes, are added sequentially to a root word.