äänneellinen

Äänenneellinen is an adjective in Finnish linguistics used to describe things relating to sounds or phonemes. It is formed from äänne, meaning "sound" or "phoneme," and the suffix -ellinen, yielding a sense akin to "phonemic" or "sound-structural." The term is not as common in modern Finnish as the standard terms foneminen ("phonemic") and fonologinen ("phonological"), and its use is largely confined to older texts or specific stylistic contexts.

In practice, äänneellinen can refer to aspects of a language's sound system at the level of phonemes—units that can distinguish meaning in contrastive contexts. It may be used when discussing the inventory of sounds, phoneme contrasts, or other properties relevant to phonemic analysis, rather than to the articulatory detail emphasized in phonetics.

Relation to other terminology: äänneellinen sits near the concept of phoneme, but contemporary Finnish scholarship typically prefers foneminen for "phonemic" and fonologinen for "phonological." The distinction mirrors the broader contrast between phonemes as functional units and spoken realizations (phones) studied in phonetics.

Etymology: from äänne "sound/phoneme" and the suffix -ellinen, paralleling similar formations in Finnish and other Finnic languages.