ühesõnaline

Ühesõnaline is an Estonian linguistic term used to describe a sentence that consists of a single word. The word is formed from the genitive form ühe or the numeral üks combined with the suffix -sõnaline, which signals a property related to words. In linguistic descriptions, ühesõnaline lause refers to a complete utterance that communicates an intention despite containing only one word, relying on context, intonation, and punctuation.

In practice, ühesõnaline lause typically appears as an interjection, an imperative, or a brief response. Common examples in written Estonian include "Tere!" (Hello), "Lähme!" (Let’s go), "Jah." (Yes), "Ei." (No), and "Aha." (Aha). The form is often used in informal speech, dialogue, poetry, or headlines where brevity is stylistically desirable. Such sentences are usually punctuated with an exclamation mark or a period, depending on the force of the utterance.

Grammatical and stylistic notes: a single word can function as a complete sentence when it carries sufficient pragmatic force, and the subject or verb may be omitted due to ellipsis. Ühesõnaline lause thus illustrates how Estonian relies on context and prosody to convey meaning with minimal syntactic material. The concept helps linguists describe sentence structure and discourse patterns in Estonian, and it is often contrasted with longer, multi-word sentences that explicit specify grammatical roles.