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Finnish Tutorial written by Josh

 

Pronunciation

Pronouncing Finnish will certainly not be the hardest part of learning the language.  There are some very simple rules that will facilitate the understanding of the phonological system of this language.  First, stress in Finnish is completely predictable: you stress the first syllable in every word, regardless of its status either as a native Finnish word or as a foreign borrowing.  Second, there exist certain phonotactic constraints in Finnish: there can never be more than one word-initial or word-final consonant.  The word Franska, then, would have to undergo a change because the cluster Fr- is not allowed.  Consequently, the language spoken in France is referred to as ranska in Finnish.  Word-medially, though, as many as three consonants are allowed, provided that the first one is a sonorant, i.e. a consonant that can only be voiced, such as /l/ or /r/ or /m/ or /n/.  Finally, remember to pronounce everything you see, including double consonants or vowels.  Doubling is phonemic in Finnish, unlike English.  This means that where we see two p’s in English approach, only one is pronounced.  In Finnish, if there are two of any letters, they must be pronounced double, or the speaker runs the risk of not being understood.  For example, Finnish kuusi ("six") has a radically
different meaning from Finnish kusi ("urine"); Finnish tapan (“I kill”) similarly has a different meaning from Finnish tapaan (“I meet”).

 

Finnish Vowel Orthography      English (or Other) Equivalent                                        

a                                              “uh” as in the name “Dullah”

aa                                             “ah” as in “father”

ä                                              similar to “a” as in “hat” (consider German ä)

ää                                             similar to “bad” but without the glide

e                                              “eh” as in “met”

ee                                             longer “eh”, no real English equivalent

i                                               “ih” as in “sit”

ii                                               long “ee” as in “read”

o                                              “aw” (but without the drawl) as in “cot”

oo                                            like British “sort”

ö                                              like British “erm” (consider German ö)

öö                                            like British “further”

u                                              halfway between the sound in “foot” and “boot”

uu                                             like “shoot” but further back in the mouth

y                                              similar to French u or German ü           

yy                                             longer version of y, somewhat like Scottish “stew”

 

ai                                              “eye” as in English “line”

äi                                              “eh-y” as in Australian “say”

ei                                              “eh-ee” as in “day” but with both vowels full

oi                                             “oy” as in “toy” but with both vowels full

öi                                             like Bronx “heard”

ui                                              like “ooh-ee” but far back in the mouth

yi                                              consider Chinese /üi/

au                                             “ow” as in “sour”

ou                                            “oh” as in “owe”

eu                                             “eh-oo” but without glides

iu                                              “ee-oo” but without glides, similar to Portuguese

äy                                             no English equivalent (ä+y)

öy                                            similar to British “oh”

ie                                              similar to Spanish “sierra”
uo                                            “oo-oh” but without glides

                                            no English equivalent (ö+y)                                          

 

Finnish consonants are very similar to their English counterparts.  (Notable in Finnish is the lack of certain consonants, such as c, q, f, w, x and z.)  Exceptions are as follows:

 

Finnish Consonant Orthography            English Equivalent                                            

j                                                           “y” as in “yes”

h                                                          always pronounced, even before consonants

r                                                           trilled, as in Spanish or Italian

nk                                                        /ŋk/ as in “bank” (not as in “non-king”)

s                                                           always hard, as in “sod” (not as in “rose”);

                                                            however, it is palatalized more than in English

                                                            (primarily due to the lack of  /z/ and /š/ and /ž/).  So

                                                            technically it’s halfway between “sod” and “shod”.

 

Vowel Harmony

Finnish has vowel harmony, which means that roots that contain front vowels will couple with endings that too have front vowels.  Finnish has eight pure vowels: three front (ä, ö and y), three back (a, o and u) and two “neutral”: e and i.  This means that if a word such as loma- can only take one of -llä or -lla as an ending, it must take -lla (back vowel harmony).  This yields lomalla (“on leave”).  Within a root, only the neutral vowels can coexist with both front and back vowels.  Exceptions to this are compound words such as äänihuulet (“vocal cords”).

 

Consonant Gradation

Plosives (stops) in Finnish undergo a process called gradation.  Whereas some forms will naturally exist in “strong” grade, double consonants will appear, such as pp or kk.  Some forms within the inflection, however, will require a “weaker” grade, in which case the doubling is removed, or a sonorant is inserted.  Consider the following:

 

Strong Grade                Weak Grade                                                                           

pp                                p                                              as in tappaa > tapan

kk                                k                                              as in kakku > kakun

tt                                  t                                               as in tyttö > tytön

k                                  - or j                                        as in arka > aran

p                                  v (in the absence of b)               as in saapua > saavun

t                                   d                                              as in katu > kadun

nk                                ng                                             as in Helsinki > Helsingin

mp                               mm                                           as in vanhempi > vanhemman

nt                                 nn                                             as in antaa > annan

lt                                  ll                                               as in kulta > kullan

rt                                  rr                                              as in ymmärtää > ymmärrän 

 

Some Basic Phrases

 

English                                                  Finnish                                                 

Hi!                                                       Hei!  (Hei hei!)

Good morning.                         Hyvää huomenta.

Good day.                                            Hyvää päivää.

Good evening.                                      Hyvää iltaa.

Good night.                                          Hyvää yötä.

How are you?                                       Mitä kuuluu?

                  -Fine, thanks.                                 -Kiitos hyvää.

Thanks a lot.                                         Paljon kiitoksia.

Pleased to meet you.                             Hauska tavata.

I’m sorry.                                             Valitan.

How’s your family?                               Mitä perheellesi kuuluu? (informal)

                                                            Mitä perheellenne kuuluu? (formal)

Merry Christmas!                                 Hauskaa joulua!

Happy New Year!                                Iloista uutta vuotta!

I love you.                                            Minä rakastan sinua.

Goodbye (when said in person).            Näkemiin.

Goodbye (when said on the phone).      Kuulemiin.

I don’t speak Finnish well.                    Minä en osaa suomea hyvin.

Do you speak English?              Puhutteko Te englantia?

I don’t understand.                               Minä en ymmärrä.                                         

See ya!                                                 Moi!  (Moi moi!)                                             

 

Numbers

1                    yksi

2                    kaksi

3                    kolme

4                    neljä

5                    viisi

6                    kuusi

7                    seitsemän

8                    kahdeksan

9                    yhdeksän

10                kymmenen

11                yksitoista

12                kaksitoista

13                kolmetoista

14                neljätoista

15                viisitoista

16                kuusitoista

17                seitsemäntoista

18                kahdeksantoista

19                yhdeksäntoista

20                kaksikymmentä

21                kaksikymmentäyksi

22                kaksikymmentäkaksi

30                kolmekymmentä

100            sata

200            kaksisataa

500            viisisataa

1000    tuhat

 

Finnish Basics: An Introduction

Finnish is a language that has no grammatical gender.  Therefore, there is no need to worry about whether nouns are masculine or feminine or neuter; they are all neuter.  Even the personal subject pronouns hän (“he”/”she”) and he (“they” masculine & feminine) are without gender, despite the existence of se (“it”, colloquial “he” and “she”) and ne (“they” neuter).  This means that when students learn that there are fifteen cases in Finnish, they don’t have to be as worried as they might think.  (In Hungarian, there are 22!)  The endings are placed on singular and plural stems, so there are no fused endings; the Finnish taloissa (“in the houses”) is comprised of talo (“house”) + i (plural marker) + ssa (inessive ending, meaning “in”).  The singular would be simply talossa (“in the house”).

 

The above examples should also illustrate that there is no definite or indefinite article in Finnish.  The notions of count and mass are grammaticalized in other ways, as will be seen in due time.

 

The challenge, then, is to master the principal parts of the twenty-two different nominal types (we’ll use the word “nominal” to mean nouns and adjectives) and those of the eleven different verbal types.  Once those are committed to memory, then it becomes easier to predict how nominals found in the dictionary will be inflected.  This will hold true for verbs as well.

 

What exactly is inflection?  It simply means that where English uses a complex array of modal and verbal operators, prepositions and adverbials to show the relationships between the grammatical constituents in a sentence, Finnish can express the same relationships with suffixes, as seen in the example above.  Finnish is an agglutinating language, like its closest relatives, Hungarian and Estonian.  However, because of the relatively small number of its speakers around the world, Finnish has not developed the myriads of exceptions and irregularities commonly found in more widely-spoken languages.  So in the end, the student of Finnish won’t necessarily be overwhelmed by the different endings (there really are only fifteen or so, as opposed to the over sixty that are found in Russian thanks to the various consonantal—palatalized and non-palatalized—and vocalic endings, in six cases and three genders).

 

Verbs inflect according to person and number, much like prototypical Indo-European languages.  Endings will come later.  The personal pronouns are as follows:

 

minä, often pronounced mä in spoken Finnish (“I”)

sinä, often pronounced sä in spoken Finnish (“you” singular informal)

hän (“he”/”she”)

se (“it”, colloquial “he”/”she”)

 

me (“we”)

te (“you” plural; capitalized, “you” singular formal, somewhat similar to French)

he (“they” masculine and feminine)

ne (“they” formally neuter only, colloquially for all sexes)

 

Cases: an Introduction

The cases will be expanded on later in the tutorial.  It is important to introduce them, however, before going into the forms of the principal parts mostly because the principal parts are made up of some of the cases.  The word “case” is the word we use to signify a specific ending and its form/use.  Unlike Russian, where cases are few but each carries a large number of grammatical functions, Finnish cases are quite light; they each carry no more than two or three functions, often no more than one. 

 

The cases are divided into the four syntactic cases, which make up the principal parts of nominals, and eleven semantic cases, three of which have become quite obsolete and are no longer productively used.  The four syntactic cases are the nominative, accusative, genitive and partitive.  The nominative case is the dictionary case: when you look up words in the dictionary, you will find these.  This is the “default” case, but the stem is not predictable from the nominative form.  The stem is taken from the genitive form.  The genitive case is used mostly for possession and it always ends in -n; like English but unlike Latin, the possessive form comes before the possessed noun in Finnish.  (I bring up Latin because it too has a genitive, which also yields stems onto which case endings are placed in the oblique cases.)   The partitive is the case that is used almost as commonly as the nominative in Finnish; it carries the meaning of partial, or mass, whereas the nominative carries the meaning of the entirety.  In English, we grammaticalize this with the use of definite and indefinite articles.  The accusative is almost a non-case in Finnish, as it carries the same form as either the nominative or the genitive, depending on the sentence type.  When we need to determine the declensions of nominals, we look to the nominative singular to give us the dictionary form, the genitive singular to give us the singular stem, the partitive singular (which will always end in -a/-ä or -ta/-tä, but is otherwise unpredictable), and the partitive plural, which yields the plural stem.  The plural stem, incidentally, will always carry an -i- or a -j-.

 

The semantic cases are grouped into different subsections: the internal locative cases, which show location in, into and from within, and the external locative cases, which show location on, onto and from on top of.  There is also a translative case and an essive case, which are called role cases.  The three obsolete cases are the abessive, instructive and comitative.  The functions of these will come later.

 

Nominals: Principal Parts

The following are notes on each of the nominal types in Finnish.  Remember that the principal parts are as follows: nominative singular, genitive singular, partitive singular, partitive plural.

 

Type 1 (N1): kirkko, kirkon, kirkkoa, kirkkoja (“church”)

 

This basic nominal type is characterized by the low vowel endings: back -o, and -u, front -ö and -y.  Note the weak gradation in the genitive.  This means that if case endings are added to the stem kirko- (genitive form minus the -n) there will always be weak grade.  There is an exception: the illative case always has strong grade.  This is why we see kirkosta (“from within the church”), but kirkkoon (“into the church”).  Again, specific endings will be discussed later.  Strong gradation is reinserted for the partitive singular and plural, but wherever there is weak grade for the singular (as in kirkosta), weak grade will be reinserted in the plural: kirkoista (“from within the churches”); strong grade will be reinserted, again, in the illative plural: kirkkoihin (“into the churches”).  Notice how the -j- from the partitive plural form becomes -i- before a consonantal ending: -j- between vowels will always become -i- before a consonant.

 

Type 2 (N2): lapsi, lapsen, lasta, lapsia (“child”)

 

This nominal type exemplifies native Finnish roots with an ending in -i, which changes to -e- in the genitive.  This particular word undergoes some other changes too, though.  They are perfectly predictable and logical.  The loss of p in the partitive form is simply a result of the partitive ending –ta being added to a consonantal stem.  The form should be lapsta, but remember, Finnish phonotactic constraints dictate that there shall not be three consonants in a cluster unless the first one is a sonorant (i.e. voiced consonantal non-obstruent n, l, r or m).  The sound /p/ is not a sonorant.  It is an obstruent (a plosive, more specifically).  It is subsequently dropped, but reinserted in the plural.  There are a few such curious N2s in Finnish, such as the adjective uusi (“new”), whose principal parts are uusi, uuden, uutta, uusia.  Historically, the s was a t, and so the principal parts were originally uuti, uuden (regular weak grade), uutta (regular strong grade with the –ta ending added to a consonantal stem), uutia.  The t > s is simply a result of palatalization, which is the same process which yields the “sh” pronunciation in station in English.  The high front /i/ triggers palatalization in many languages.

 

Type 3 (N3): lääkäri, lääkärin, lääkäriä, lääkäreitä (“doctor”)

 

Words that enter Finnish from abroad (such as taksi, posti, etc) are instantly entered into this very productive nominal type.  (The easiest way to make a non-Finnish word ending in a consonant into a Finnish word is to simply add -i to the end of it.)  Some partitive plurals do not use the consonantal -ta/-tä ending; instead, the vocalic -a/-ä will be used, as in siisti, siistin, siistiä, siistejä (“tidy”, “neat”).

 

Type 4 (N4): hyvä, hyvän, hyvää, hyviä (“good”)

 

This type is very similar to N5 in that they both end in -a/-ä.  N4 nominals end in the front vowel (ä) variant, whereas N5 nominals end in the back (a) variant.  Note, as always, the partitive ending added to a vocalic stem.

 

Type 5a (N5a): tupa, tuvan, tupaa, tupia (“cabin”)

Type 5b (N5b): kala, kalan, kalaa, kaloja (“fish”)

 

N5a shows us something called the “Dog and Cabin” rule.  It simply states that two-syllable words such as tupa (“cabin”) or koira (“dog”) with the low vowels o or u in their stems do not add the o in the partitive plural.  The Dog and Cabin rule also governs N4 (front vowel) nominals.

 

Type 6 (N6): voi, voin, voita, voita (“butter”)

 

This type features nominals that end in two vowels or a diphthong (other than the combinations -ie, -yö or -uo).  Where the vowels are the same, as in maa, maan, maata, maita (“land”) the plural stem comes after only a single vowel, otherwise we’d violate a phonotactic contraint: three vowels cannot coexist in Finnish.  The partitive plural *maaita is not correct.  This rule also explains why the consonantal partitive -ta/-tä is added to a vocalic stem.

 

Type 7 (N7): työ, työn, työtä, töitä (“job”)

 

N7 is made up of nominals that end exclusively in diphthongs.  Historically, these nominals were of type 6, and ended in -oo, -öö and -ee, which have since been replaced by -uo, - and -ie respectively.  The first vowel drops in the partitive plural to allow for the maximum 2-vowel rule in Finnish.

 

Nominal types N1 à N7 reflect the STRONG + WEAK + STRONG + STRONG pattern of gradation within the principal parts.  N8 à N17 will reflect a different scheme: WEAK + STRONG + WEAK + STRONG.  (Again, some cases, such as the illative and the essive, as we’ll soon see, always require strong grade, so it is reinserted.) 

 

Type 8 (N8): tarve, tarpeen, tarvetta, tarpeita (“need”)

 

This nominal type is easier to see in its historical context, when there was a consonant at the end of the nominative singular.  In the genitive, -en was added to that consonant stem, and in the partitive, -ta was added to that stem, yielding a double tt.  Since the consonant t disappeared, tarvet became tarve; tarpeten became tarpeen; tarvetta remained, as did tarpeita. 

 

Type 9 (N9): rikas, rikkaan, rikasta, rikkaita (“rich”)

Type 10 (N10): allas, altaan, allaita, altaita (“pool”)

 

These two types are almost identical.  The only difference is in the partitive singular, where N10 merges with N9 in the plural stem.  In both, historically there was an -h- separating the two vowels in the genitive; in fact, some dialects still refer to the genitive of rikas as rikkahan.

 

Type 11 (N11): mahdollisuus, mahdollisuuden, mahdollisuutta, mahdollisuuksia

                                                                                                                        (“possibility”)

 

This complex nominal type is characterized by the endings -us or –ys (which come after a vowel), where the s was historically a t (hence the change to d in the genitive).  Historical gradation is also prevalent here; the vestige of N2 can be seen in this example (remember uusi, uuden, uutta, uusia from N2?)  N11s tend to denote adjectives that in English would never become plural, such as vanhuus (“old age”), pimeys (“darkness”) and leveys (“width”); as a result, the plural stem is taken mostly from the N12 stem.

 

Type 12 (N12): vastaus, vastauksen, vastausta, vastauksia (“answer”)

 

This nominal type looks curiously similar to N11, but historically the nominative singular ending was not simply -s, but rather -ks.  Given that Finnish no longer allows consonant clusters word-initially or -finally, the k drops from the nominative singular; from the partitive singular, which would otherwise be vastauksta, which is not allowable (can’t have three consonants in a row) the k is also removed.

 

Type 13 (N13): sydän, sydämen, sydäntä, sydamiä (“heart”)

Type 14 (N14): hapan, happaman, hapanta, happamia (“sour”)

 

These two types are similar with the only exception is that the vowel stem in the genitive includes a/ä in N14 instead of e in N13.  Historically, the word-final -n was -m.  Epenthetic -e- is inserted between m (which still survives word-medially) and the genitive –n in N13.  In the plural, both types behave similarly.

 

Type 15 (N15): ahven, ahvenen, ahventa, ahvenia (“key”)

 

There is no historical change in N15; the -n ending has always been -n, unlike N13 and N14.

 

Type 16 (N16): lyhyt, lyhyen, lyhyttä, lyhyitä (“short”)

 

Historically, in the weaker grade in the genitive, which should yield lyhyden, the d has dropped, yielding the present lyhyen.  The -e- in the genitive is the same epenthetic vowel used in N13.

 

Type 17 (N17): mahdollinen, mahdollisen, mahdollista, mahdollisia (“possible”)

 

This is probably Finland’s most famous ending: -nen.  It is a very productive nominal type; all nationalities are found in N17, such as kanadalainen, amerikkalainen, egyptiläinen, etc.  Both nouns and adjectives are found in N17.

 

N1 à N17 all include both nouns and adjectives, hence the name nominals.  The final five nominal types are all specially derived adjectives: comparatives, superlatives, ordinals, caritives and past participles.

 

Type 18 (N18): lämpimämpi, lämpimämmän, lämpimämpää, lämpimämpiä (“warmer”)

 

N18 is the comparative form.  Note the Finnish lämmin, lämpimän, lämmintä, lämpimiä (N14) (“warm”).  The ending -mpi is just added to the oblique stem, taken from the genitive: lämpimä- + -mpi à lämpimämpi (N18).

 

Type 19 (N19): lämpimin, lämpimimmän, lämpimintä, lämpimimpiä (“warmest”)

 

N19 is the superlative form.  Note the same Finnish N14 nominal that is being used in both N18 and N19.  The ending -in characterizes the superlative, whereas other vowels signify the comparative.  Compare: lämpimimmässä talossa (“in the warmest house”) and lämpimämmässä talossa (“in the warmer house”).  Note than all word-final vowels in adjectives such as vanha (“old”), köyhä (“poor”) completely disappear in N19: they become vanhin (“oldest”) and köyhin (“poorest”).  N2 adjectives such as pieni, pienen, pientä, pieniä (“small”) become pienin because the -e- vowel in the genitive singular stem drops, as it does in -a- and -ä- in N4 and N5 adjectives.   N3 adjectives (those with the vowel -i- stem) face the following changes: kiltti, kiltin, kilttiä, kilttejä (“nice”) where kilti- + -in à kiltein (“nicest”).  N10 adjectives also behave this way: kaunis, kauniin, kaunista, kauniita (“beautiful”) has the genitive singular stem kaunii- + -in à kaunein (“most beautiful”).

 

Type 20 (N20): kolmas, kolmannen, kolmatta, kolmansia (“third”)

 

Again, historical reasons account for the awkward distribution of t vis-à-vis d and s.  As Finns tend to write out numbers in full before twenty and inflect all numbers (which all fall into the categories of the nominal types) and number segments, it’s reassuring to know that beyond 20, the ordinal numeral is written instead of the word.  This means that instead of writing “twelve thousand five hundredth” as kahdestoistatuhannes viidessadas, it is written simply as 12.500.  Not even the -th that is included in English is written in Finnish.

 

Type 21 (N21): asumaton, asumattoman, asumatonta, asumattomia (“uninhabited”)

 

These adjectives are specially formed with the –ton/tön ending, which means “lacking”.

 

Type 22 (N22): kiinnostunut, kiinnostuneen, kiinnostunutta, kiinnostuneita (“interested”)

 

This nominal type is reserved exclusively for past participles.  These will make up the fourth principal part of all verbs, as will be seen in the verbal section.  The participial ending is any consonant plus -ut or -yt.  Quite often, these can act as nouns referring to a class or group of people.  For example, ajatellut, ajatelleen, ajatellutta, ajatelleita means “someone who’s thought”; juossut, juosseen, juossutta, juosseita means “someone who’s run”; etc.

 

Nominal Declensions

As mentioned earlier, there are fifteen cases in Finnish.  Some of the forms of the declensions are not predictable, but rather are the product of knowing the principal parts for each of the nominal forms.

 

The nominative case, as mentioned before, is used as the subject of a personal sentence.  Because it is a principal part, the singular form is unmarked and unpredictable in form.  The nominative plural, however, is formed from the genitive singular stem.  The -n is removed and replaced with -t.  The nominative singular tyttö (N1 “girl”) has as its plural tytöt (“girls”).  Note that a weak grade in the genitive has yielded a weak grade in the nominative plural as well.  The plural of vastaus (“answer”) is vastaukset (“answers”), and so on.

 

The accusative case has no separate form; in the singular, it looks like the nominative or the genitive, depending on the sentence type.  (In impersonal sentences, it looks like the nominative.  Generally, otherwise it looks like the genitive.)  In the plural, it always looks like the nominative plural, i.e. with the -t ending.  This case is one of two used for direct objects.  The other is the partitive.  If the accusative is used, it usually means the entirety of the object was acted upon and the action of the verb was complete.  If the partitive is used as direct object, it means that the action was either incomplete, or that there was a lot of effort required on the part of the doer.  (Please keep in mind that these are generalizations intended to give the first-time visitor to Finnish syntax a general idea.  More information on this is included in the section on sentence types.)

 

The genitive case is used to show possession.  It is also the case used in a few prepositions and postpositions in Finnish; again, the partitive also takes certain prepositions and postpositions.  (They are becoming more and more common in Finnish.)  The form of the singular is not necessarily predictable, other than the fact that we know it ends in -n, without fail.  The plural is not as easily formed.  To form the genitive plural in Finnish, you must look at the partitive plural ending (i.e. the plural stem).  If it ends in the vocalic -a/-ä, then simply add -en.  The noun poika, pojan, poikaa, poikia (N5 “boy”) has  as its genitive plural poikien (“of the boys”).  If the consonantal -ta/-tä is present, then the ending -den is used.  The noun perhe, perheen, perhettä, perheitä (N8 “family”) carries the genitive plural perheiden (“of the families”).  Some people still use a similar genitive plural ending in this situation: -tten, yielding perheitten (“of the families”).  Some genitive plurals are formed from the consonantal partitive singular ending -ta/-tä.  This is especially common with N2 nominals, such as suuri, suuren, suurta, suuria (“great”), and N17 nominals, such as nainen, naisen, naista, naisia (“woman”).  The genitive plural can be formed as above, i.e. suurien and naisien, or by removing the -ta/-tä ending and replacing it with -ten, giving suurten (“of the great…”) and naisten (“of the women”).  It is ultimately more common with N2s and N17s than adding the -ien ending.

 

The partitive forms for singular and plural are both part of the principal parts, so they should be memorized along with the nominative singular and the genitive singular.  The purpose of the partitive is to be a predicative complement (either a predicate noun/adjective) or an object complement.  The sentence types will further illustrate.

 

There are three external locative cases in Finnish: the adessive, ablative and allative.  (The Latin root LAT- is found in many of the locative cases; Latium itself was the district in which Rome existed, which may explain the use.  The Latin ad- + -lat- would therefore mean “towards -lat-“  The prefix ab- means “away from”.  The Latin root ESS- has the meaning of “being”, as found in the Latin infinitive esse (“to be”).  The d in ad- has been assimilated to al- for English language reasons in our terminology.  The uses of these cases, therefore, should be clear.  The adessive case answers the question missä? (“where?”) and is formed by adding -lla/-llä.  Se on kolmannella kadulla means “It’s on the third street.”  Note how the ending is added to the second principal part, the genitive, after removing the -n from it.  The ablative answers the question mistä? (“from where?” or archaic “whence?”) and is formed by adding the ending -lta/-ltä to the genitive stem.  Se on kolmannelta kadulta means “It’s from the third street.”  The allative answers the question minne? (“where to?” or archaic “whither?”) and is formed by adding -lle.  This case is as close to other languages’ dative case as you’ll find.  “(On)to the third street” would then be expressed as kolmannelle kadulle.

 

The internal locative cases are the inessive, elative (formed from ex-lative) and illative formed when in- assimilated to il-).  The endings for these cases go as follows: -ssa/-ssä for the inessive (giving us lämpimimmässä kirkossain the warmest church,” again answering the question missä? “where?”), -sta/-stä for the elative (giving us lämpimimmästä kirkostafrom inside the warmest church,” again answering the question mistä? “from where?”), and a variety of formations for the illative, which will again answer the question minne? “to where?” or mihin? ”into where?”  If there is only one vowel in the genitive, before the -n ending, it is doubled before the -n is reinserted.   Strong grade is then reinserted, for the illative always has strong grade.   Our example would then become lämpimimpään kirkkoon (“into the warmest church”).  Monosyllabic N6 nominals such as pää (“head”) or maa (“land”) cannot prolong a vowel that is already double, so to form the illative, they add an -h-, then repeat the vowel, then add -n.  This yields suureen maahan (“into the great land”) or isoon päähän (“into the big head”).  If the genitive stem ends in two vowels and the word has more than one syllable, then the endings -seen for the singular and -siin for the plural are added.  This yields kauniiseen perheeseen (“into the beautiful moon”).

 

Plurals for the first five locative cases should not prove difficult (it’s simply a matter of adding the same endings to the partitive plural stem):

 

Adessive:    kolmannella kadulla        >          kolmansilla kaduilla (weak grade reinserted)

Ablative:     kolmannelta kadulta        >          kolmansilta kaduilta (again)

Allative:      kolmannelle kadulle         >          kolmansille kaduille (and yet again)

 

Inessive:     lämpimimmässä kirkossa  >          lämpimimmissä kirkoissa (here too)

Elative:       lämpimimmästä kirkosta  >          lämpimimmistä kirkoista (and here too)

 

The plural of the illative presents a small difficulty: the plural stem usually ends in two vowels, at which point the –hVn ending is prevalent: nominative talo (“house”) > genitive talon > illative singular taloon > illative plural taloihin (“into the houses”).  If the illative singular was marked by -seen, then the plural shall automatically be marked by -siin: nominative rikas (“rich”) > genitive rikkaan > illative singular rikkaaseen > illative plural rikkaisiin.

 

Finnish has two “role” cases: the essive case (which, like the illative, always has strong grade) and the translative case.  The essive takes on a -na/-nä ending, such as tyttö (“as a girl”), plural tyttöi (“as girls”), and poikana (“as a boy”), plural poikina (“as boys”).  Whereas the essive denotes a state, the translative denotes change, such as when we need to say that one thing turned into another.  The ending is -ksi-, but it’s not always an ending.  In fact, it’s rarely an ending, as Finnish usually makes use of possessive suffixes, such as -ni (“my”) and -si (“your”).  The i in the suffix then changes to e: “into a man” is rendered as mieheksi; “into my man (i.e. husband)” would be miehekseni.  (The word for “man” is N2: mies, miehen, miestä, miehiä.)

 

And finally, the three remaining cases: the obsolete abessive, instructive, and comitative.  These are used in frozen expressions because prepositions and postpositions are entering the language more and more frequently now.  The abessive once showed the absence of something; it carries the ending -tta/-ttä it’s used in expressions such as pitemmittä puheitta (“without further ado”, lit. “without longer speeches”) and in what we’ll call the third infinitive (Finnish has four infinitives).  Where in English we use the preposition without + a gerund, Finnish uses simply the third infinitive, which has the endings -ma/-mä and then behaves like N4 and N5 nominals, in the abessive: puhuma (“speaking”) > puhumatta (“without speaking”).  The instructive case is much like the instrumental cases in the Slavic languages, denoting the meaning of “by means of.”  The ending is -n, which makes it look similar (at least in the singular) to the genitive.  It’s most often used in the plural, though, in set expressions such as omin käsin (“with one’s own hands”).  The nominative form is oma (N5) käsi (N2).  The comitative case also has the meaning of “with” but rather with accompaniment, not manner.  The ending for the comitative is -ne-, which must always be added to the plural stem, and which, like the translative, often uses a personal possessive suffix.  The term “small family,” pieni (N2) perhe (N8), takes the comitative pienine perheineni (“with my large family”).  Remember, -ni added to any form of any nominal means “my.”

 

Let’s see what a complete inflection looks like, then.

 

Singular

Nominative:      iso maa (“great land”)              rikas tyttö (“rich girl”)

Accusative: ison maan / iso maa                      rikkaan tytön / rikas tyttö

Genitive:           ison maan                               rikkaan tytön

Partitive:           isoa maata                              rikasta tyttöä

Adessive:          isolla maalla                           rikkaalla tytöllä

Ablative:           isolta maalta                           rikkaalta tytöltä

Allative:            isolle maalle                           rikkaalle tytölle

Inessive:           isossa maassa                          rikkaassa tytössä

Elative:             isosta maasta                          rikkaasta tytöstä

Illative:              isoon maahan                         rikkaaseen tyttöön

Essive:              isona maana                           rikkaana tyttö

Translative: isoksi maaksi                                rikkaaksi tytöksi

Abessive:          isotta maatta                           rikkaatta tytöttä

Instructive:  ison maan                         rikkaan tytön

Comitative: isoine maine-                                rikkaine tyttöine-

 

Plural

Nominative:      isot maat (“great lands”)          rikkaat tytöt (“rich girls”)

Accusative: isot maat                           rikkaat tytöt

Genitive:           isojen maiden/maitten            rikkaiden/rikkaitten tyttöjen

Partitive:           isoja maita                              rikkaita tyttöjä

Adessive:          isoilla mailla                           rikkailla tytöillä

Ablative:           isoilta mailta                           rikkailta tytöiltä

Allative:            isoille maille                           rikkaille tytöille

Inessive:           isoissa maissa                          rikkaissa tytöissä

Elative:             isoista maista                          rikkaista tytöistä

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