vääntötapauksessa

vääntötapauksessa refers to a grammatical construction that has been described in Finnish linguistic literature as the “pivot case” and is noted for its role in older forms of the language. The term is derived from the Finnish words vääntö, meaning pivot or turn, and tapaus, meaning case. In historical Finnish, the pivot case was used to signal a nominal element that acted as the anchor or reference point for a subordinate or relative clause. Its function was similar to that of the genitive in modern usage, but it was applied in specific syntactic environments, such as when a noun governed another noun’s case marking or when a nominal core marked the pivot of a descriptive structure.

Modern Finnish has largely abandoned the pivot case as a distinct grammatical category, and it is now considered an archaic feature that survives mainly in literary and dialectal contexts. Philologists studying the 18th‑ and 19th‑century Finnish language, including the works of Jakob von Uexküll, Aleksander Białuś, and the Vätensköld dictionary, have documented examples of vääntötapauksessa in early texts. Linguists use this case to illustrate the evolution of case marking in Finno-Ugric languages and the interaction between morphology and syntax in historical stages of the language. The study of vääntötapauksessa remains a niche but valuable area for researchers interested in the diachronic development of Finnish grammatical structures.