tilapäisinä

Tilapäisinä is the plural essive form of the Finnish adjective tilapäinen, meaning "temporary." The essive case expresses a temporary state or role, and tilapäisinä is used when describing multiple subjects or objects that are regarded as temporary in that moment. In practice, tilapäisinä is typically used together with a noun in the essive plural, for example tilapäisinä työntekijöinä, meaning "as temporary workers."

The form is most common in formal, administrative, and journalistic Finnish. It appears in contexts where a group is described as temporarily occupying a specific role or status, such as employment, participation, or representation. In everyday speech, speakers often opt for simpler constructions, such as using the base adjective with a plural noun or rephrasing to avoid the double essive construction.

Examples of usage include phrases like tilapäisinä työntekijöinä or tilapäisinä toimijoina, which communicate that a group is acting in a temporary capacity. The expression emphasizes temporary, non-permanent status rather than a lasting attribute.

Related concepts in Finnish grammar include the essive case itself and the general use of adjectives in oblique cases to indicate roles or states. Tilapäisinä serves as a clear example of how Finnish can encode temporality and plurality within a single grammatical form, without requiring additional auxiliary words.

In summary, tilapäisinä denotes a temporary plural state or role, used mainly in formal language to describe groups temporarily occupying a position or function.