Language Tutorials • English Linguistics • Assistants in France • About Me • Blog • Site Map
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
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
yö 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 -ä 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, -yö 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
kirkossa “in the warmest church,” again answering the
question missä? “where?”), -sta/-stä for the elative (giving us lämpimimmästä
kirkosta “from 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 tyttönä (“as a girl”), plural tyttöinä
(“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
tyttönä
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