Finnish: an Essential Grammar
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FINNISH: AN ESSENTIAL GRAMMAR This is the ideal reference grammar for the student of Finnish. It gives a systematic account of the structures of the written language and also features the characteristics of colloquial Finnish as spoken in Helsinki and its surroundings. Finnish: An Essential Grammar is grounded in fundamental insights of modern linguistics. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader and grammatical rules are clearly explained without jargon. Features include: • pronunciation guide • thorough descriptions of morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) • inflection tables • subject index Finnish: An Essential Grammar is a revised and updated edition of a volume first published in 1983, since when it has proved popular with students and professional linguists worldwide. It has been translated into several languages, including Finnish. Fred Karlsson is Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Helsinki. FINNISH: AN ESSENTIAL GRAMMAR Fred Karlsson London and New York First published 1983 as Finnish Grammar by WSOY, Helsinki New edition published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. © 1983; 1999 Fred Karlsson Translated by Andrew Chesterman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Karlsson, Fred, [Finsk grammatik. English] Finnish: an essential grammar/Fred Karlsson; [translated by Andrew Chesterman]. p. cm.—(Routledge grammars) Revised and updated version of: Finnish grammar. Helsinki: WSOY [Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö], 1983. Finnish grammar is a translation of Suomen peruskielioppi, 1982, a translation of: Finsk grammatik. Originally published: Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura), 1978. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Finnish language—Grammar. 2. Finnish language—Textbooks for foreign speakers—English. I. Chesterman, Andrew. II. Title. III. Series. PH135.K35 1999 494′.5415–dc21 98–55439 CIP ISBN 0-203-01822-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-18753-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-20705-3 (pbk) ISBN 0-415-20704-5 (hbk) CONTENTS Preface ix List of abbreviations x 1 Introduction 1 §1 The relation of Finnish to other languages 1 §2 Finnish past and present 2 §3 The basic characteristics of Finnish 4 §4 What are the special difficulties? 6 2 Pronunciation and sound structure 9 §5 Letters and sounds 9 §6 Vowels and consonants 10 §7 Short and long sounds 12 §8 Diphthongs 14 §9 Syllables 14 §10 Stress and intonation 15 §11 Vowel harmony 16 3 A survey of word structure 18 §12 Nominals and their endings 18 §13 Finite verb forms and their endings 21 §14 Non-finite verb forms and their endings 24 4 Two important sound alternations 28 §15 Consonant gradation (p, t, k) 28 §16 Vowel changes before -i- endings 38 5 The declension of nominals 44 §17 General 44 §18 Nominals with a basic form in -i 46 §19 Nominals with a basic form in -e 49 §20 Nominals with a basic form ending in a consonant 50 v vi Contents 6 The conjugation of verbs 55 §21 General 55 §22 Infinitive endings 56 §23 Inflectional stems 57 7 Basic sentence structure 61 §24 Present tense personal endings 61 §25 The nominative (basic form of nominals) 63 §26 Singular and plural 67 §27 The verb olla ‘(to) be’ 68 §28 ‘To have’ in Finnish 69 §29 Negative sentences 69 §30 Questions and answers 71 §31 Concord of attributes 74 8 The partitive 76 §32 Formation of the partitive 76 §33 Use of the partitive 82 9 The genitive, possessive suffixes and the accusative 91 §34 Formation of the genitive 91 §35 Use of the genitive 95 §36 Possessive suffixes 97 §37 What is the accusative? 100 §38 The accusative endings 102 §39 Quantity adverbs taking an object case 105 10 The six local cases 107 §40 General 107 §41 Inessive 108 §42 Elative 110 §43 Illative 112 §44 Adessive 115 §45 Ablative 117 §46 Allative 119 §47 Directional verbs 120 §48 Place names 121 11 Other cases 123 §49 Essive 123 §50 Translative 125 §51 Abessive, comitative and instructive 127 Contents vii 12 Numerals 129 §52 Cardinal numbers 129 §53 Ordinal numbers 134 13 Pronouns 136 §54 Personal pronouns 136 §55 Demonstrative pronouns 138 §56 Interrogative pronouns 140 §57 Indefinite pronouns 142 §58 Relative pronouns 149 14 Tenses 152 §59 Present tense 152 §60 Past tense 152 §61 Perfect tense 156 §62 Pluperfect tense 158 §63 Negative forms 159 15 Moods 162 §64 Indicative 162 §65 Conditional 162 §66 Imperative 165 §67 Potential 169 16 The passive 172 §68 General 172 §69 Passive present 173 §70 Passive past 175 §71 Passive perfect and pluperfect 177 §72 Passive moods 180 17 Infinitives 182 §73 General 182 §74 First infinitive 183 §75 Second infinitive 184 §76 Third infinitive 188 §77 Fourth infinitive 192 18 Participles 194 §78 General 194 §79 Present participle active 195 viii Contents §80 Present participle passive 196 §81 The past participles 198 §82 The participial construction 200 §83 The temporal construction 205 §84 The agent construction 207 19 Comparison of adjectives 211 §85 Comparative 211 §86 Superlative 214 20 Other word classes 218 §87 Adverbs 218 §88 Prepositions 221 §89 Postpositions 222 §90 Conjunctions 226 §91 Particles 228 21 Word formation 231 §92 General 231 §93 Derivation 232 §94 Compounding 241 22 The colloquial spoken language 244 §95 General 244 §96 Omission and assimilation of sounds 245 §97 Differences of form 246 Appendix: Inflection tables 249 Subject index 267 PREFACE Finnish: An Essential Grammar is a slightly modified version of the book Finnish Grammar published by WSOY in Helsinki in 1983. The second edition went out of print in 1995. Finnish Grammar was a translation of the Finnish book Suomen peruskielioppi published in 1982. The original Swedish edition Finsk grammatik appeared in 1978. These versions were published by the Finnish Literature Society (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura), Helsinki. Finnish: An Essential Grammar is primarily intended for those wanting to learn the basics of the language. The book covers the grammatical core; rare forms and constructions have not been included. I have tried to formulate the grammatical rules as precisely as possible using reasonable terminology. At the same time, all essentials should be easy to find in the numerous examples. The book relies on some basic insights of modern linguistics and might therefore serve as an introduction to the structure of Finnish for professional linguists as well. Chapters 3 and 7 contain surveys of the word and clause structure, respectively, and for those readers unfamiliar with the basics it is recommended that these are read first. In this edition, compared to the previous versions, I have changed the typography of the grammatical rules, written more on Finnish pronunciation, and updated many examples. The Internet page http://www.helsinki.fi/~jones/finn–books.html provides a list of books available for studying practical Finnish. The home page of the Research Center for the Languages of Finland, http:// www.domlang.fi/, provides a wealth of information concerning the Finnish language. The Internet page http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~fkarlsso/ genkau2.html is a full list of the 2,000 distinct forms that a Finnish noun can take. My sincere thanks are due to Professor Andrew Chesterman, who skilfully and critically made the translation, to the anonymous referee of Routledge who suggested several improvements, and to the Finnish Ministry of Education for financially supporting the original translation in 1982. Last but not least: thank you, Sylvi, as well as Max, Linn and Maj for continuous support! Fred Karlsson Helsinki. November 1998 ix ABBREVIATIONS -V- a vowel which is the same as the nearest preceding vowel + resulting weak grade in consonant gradation = internal word boundary ~ sound alternation : relation between different stems of a word, e.g. käsi ‘hand’ : käde/ssä ‘in the hand’ / boundary between stem and ending, or between endings, e.g. käde/ssä/ni ‘in my hand’ § section ablat. ablative adess. adessive allat. allative cf. compare cond. conditional elat. elative emph. emphatic ess. essive gen. genitive illat. illative imp. imperative indic. indicative iness. inessive inf. infinitive intrans. intransitive lit. literally masc. masculine nom. nominative p. person part. partitive pass. passive pl. plural pot. potential pres. present sing. singular sth. something trans. transitive transl. translative x 1 INTRODUCTION • The relation of Finnish to other languages • Finnish past and present • The basic characteristics of Finnish • What are the special difficulties? §1 THE RELATION OF FINNISH TO OTHER LANGUAGES The Finnish language is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family. This is quite different from the Indo-European family, to which languages such as Swedish, English, French, German, Russian, Persian and Hindi belong. Only four of the major Finno-Ugric languages are spoken outside Russia: Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and the Sámi (‘Lappish’) languages in the north of Finland, Norway, Sweden and the far north-west of Russia. The term ‘Lappish’ is derogatory. The languages most closely related to Finnish are Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian, Ludian, Votian and Livonian, which are all spoken around the south and east of the Gulf of Finland. Of these Finnic languages Finnish and Estonian are spoken most widely. These two are so similar in grammar and vocabulary, so closely related, that after a little practice Finns and Estonians can understand each other’s languages fairly well.