Parts of speech

Words in Finnish can be divided into the following broad classes:

• Noun-like (or name-like) words: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and numerals. There is no suitable name for this class in common use in English, though the word “nominals” is sometimes used; the Finnish term is nominit. These words have inflection in cases and singular/plural distinction.
• Verbs. They have inflection in person, tense, and mood. Some inflected forms of verbs, namely participles and infinitives, have dual essence: they also have properties of name-like words, like case forms.
• Particles. This covers all other words: adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, postpositions, and interjections. They have no inflection as such, though many adverbs are originally case forms of nouns, and some words might be interpreted either as adverbs or as noun forms that have special use.