=Pronouns= The pronouns are inflected in the Finnish language much in the same way than their referent nouns are.
Since Finnish verbs are inflected for person, personal pronouns are not required for sense and are usually omitted in written Finnish except where used for emphasis. In spoken Finnish, however, the pronouns are generally used.
In common with some other languages, the second person plural can be used as a polite form when addressing one person. This usage is diminishing in Finnish society.
;Nominative: The basic form of the noun
Personal pronouns
Unlike in English, the personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. The personal pronouns in Finnish in the nominative case are:
;Singular
;Plural: me = we
;Polite: Te = you Demonstrative Pronouns
The demonstratives are used of non-human animate entities and inanimate objects. However, se and ne are often used to refer to humans in colloquial Finnish. Furthermore, the demonstratives are used to refer to group nouns and the number of the pronoun must correlate with the number of its referent.
;Singular
;Plural
Interrogative Pronouns
Relative Pronouns
Reciprocal Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Indefinite Pronouns
A large group that entails all of the pronouns that do not fall into any of the categories above.
Some indefinite adjectives are often perceived as indefinite pronouns. These include:
=Noun forms=
The Finnish language does not distinguish gender in nouns or even in personal pronouns: 'hän' = 'he' or 'she' depending on the referent. This causes some unaccustomed Finnish speakers to muddle "he" and "she" when speaking languages such as English or Swedish, which can be a source of confusion.Cases
Finnish has fifteen noun cases: four grammatical cases, six locative cases and five marginal cases.Grammatical Cases
The grammatical cases perform all the important grammatical functions.
;Genitive: Characteristic ending: -n possibly modified by consonant gradation: mäki -> mäen, talo -> talon. The weak vowel stem of a noun comes from the genitive singular.
;Accusative: This is the case of the direct object and is sometimes used as a label when the genitive form is used in this role. The accusative role only has a separate form for personal pronouns
;Partitive: characteristic ending: -a/-ä or -ta/-tä. The consonant stem of a noun (if any) comes from the partitive singular
Locative Cases
The most important function of the locative cases is to indicate location. They are often divided into two groups: the internal locatives and the external locatives.
Internal Locatives
;Inessive: Characteristic ending -ssa/-ssä added to genitive stem
;Essive: Characteristic ending -na but with strong consonant gradation. The strong vowel stem (if any) comes from the essive singular. NB the consonant stem used to be quite common in the essive, and some nouns and adjectives still have this feature.
The stem for these words removes the '-nen' and adds '-s(e)' after which the inflectional ending is added:
The result is that the partitive singular adds a 't' followed by the partitive ending appropriate to a consonant stem 'ta'. Other case forms add an 'e' followed by the case ending:
There are very few irregular verbs in Finnish. In fact, only 'olla' = 'to be' has irregular endings (and then only in the present tense for the 3rd-person forms). A handful of verbs, including 'nähdä' = 'to see', 'tehdä' = 'to do/make', and 'juosta' = 'to run' have mildly irregular stems.
As a final oddity, Finnish does not have a verb corresponding to 'to have' - possession is indicated in other ways. For animate possessors, the adessive case is used with 'olla', for example 'koiralla on häntä' = 'the dog has a tail' - literally 'on the dog is a tail'.
"talo maalataan" = "the house is being painted"
The time when the house is being painted could be added:
"talo maalataan marraskuussa" = "the house will be painted in November"
The colour and method could be added: "talo maalataan punaiseksi harjalla" = the house is being painted red with a brush"
But, nothing more can be said about the person doing the painting ! There is no mechanism for saying "the house is being painted by Jim".
Hence the form "maalataan" is the only one which is needed. Notice also that the subject of the verb (i.e. the object of the action) is in the nominative case. Verbs which govern the partitive case continue to do so in the passive, and where the subject is a personal pronoun, that goes into its special accusative form: "minut unohdettiin" = "I was forgotten"
It can also be said that in the Finnish passive the agent is always human and never mentioned. A sentence such as "the tree was blown down" would translate poorly into Finnish because of a mental image of a group of people huffing ang puffing and trying to blow the tree down...
Because of its vagueness about who is performing the action, the passive can also translate the English "one does {something}", "{something} is generally done": "sanotaan että..." = "they say that..."
In modern spoken Finnish, the passive form of the verb is used after "me" to mean "we do {something}" ("me tullaan" = "we are coming") and on its own at the beginning of a sentence to mean "let's ..." ("mennään!" = "let's go!"). In the first of these cases, the "me" cannot be omitted without risk to comprehension, unlike with the 'standard' form "tulemme".
Formation of the passive will be dealt with under the verb types below.
In the former case, and unlike in English, the conditional must be used in both halves of the Finnish sentence:
"ymmärtäisin jos puhuisit hitaammin" = *"I would understand if you would speak more slowly"
The characteristic morphology of the Finnish conditional is 'isi' inserted between the verb stem and the personal ending. This can result in a 'closed' syllable becoming 'open' and so trigger consonant gradation:
'tiedän' = 'I know', 'tietäisin' = 'I would know'
cf. 'haluan' = 'I want', 'haluaisin' = 'I would like'
Conditional forms exists for both active and passive voices, and for present, perfect and pluperfect tenses.
The characteristic morphology of the Finnish conditional is 'ne' inserted between the verb stem and the personal ending.
Potential forms exists for both active and passive voices, and for present, perfect and pluperfect tenses.
Finnish verbs are described as having four, sometimes five infinitives:
The second infinitive is formed by replacing the final 'a'/'ä' of the first infinitive with 'e' then adding the appropriate inflectional ending. If the vowel before the 'a'/'ä' is already an 'e', this becomes 'i' (see example from 'lukea' = 'to read').
The cases in which the second infinitive can appear are:
;Active Inessive (while someone is in the act of)
The third infinitive is formed by taking the verb stem with its consonant in the strong form, then adding 'ma' followed by the case inflection.
The cases in which the third infinitive can appear are:
;inessive: 'lukemassa' = '(in the act of) reading'
Note that the '-ma' form without a case ending is called the 'agent participle' (see 'participles' below). The agent participle can also be inflected in all cases, producing forms which look similar to the third infinitive.
The third infinitive is formed by taking the verb stem with its consonant in the strong form, then adding 'minen'. It then inflects like all other nouns ending with '-nen'.
Another important verb of this type is 'voida' = 'to be able/allowed to'.
The stem is formed by removing 'da' with no vowel doubling in the third person singular: juon, juot, juo, juomme, juotte, juovat.
There is an exception to this rule if the stem already ends in an 'i' - for example 'voida' or the '-oida' verbs mentioned earlier. In this case the stem does not change between present and imperfect indicative, so the imperfect forms are the same as the present forms, and the distinction between them must be made from context.
The inflecting stem is formed by dropping the 'a' changing the final consonant into its strong form:
The stem is formed by dropping the final 'a' and adding 'se': tarvitsen, tarvitset, tarvitsee, tarvitsemme, tarvitsette, tarvitsevat.
The stem for this type is formed by removing the 'ta' then adding 'ne' with the additional change that the final consonant of the stem is in its strong form:
However, depending on the verb's stem type, assimilation can occur with the 'n' of the ending.
In type II verbs, the 'n' is assimilated to the consonant at the end of the stem:
There are two main ways of forming a question - either using a specific question word, or by adding a '-ko/kö' suffix to one of the words in a sentence. A question word is placed first in the sentence, and a word with the interrogative suffix is also moved to this position:
'mikä tämä on?' = 'what is this?'
'tämä on kirja' = 'this is a book'
'onko tämä kirja?' = 'is this a book?'
'tämäkö on kirja?' = 'is this a book?'
'kirjako tämä on?' = 'is this a book?'
'eikö tämä ole kirja?' = 'is this not a book?' (note the '-kö' goes on the negative verb)
The singular imperative is simply the verb's present tense without any personal ending (that is, chop the '-n' off the first person singular form):
The Finnish language has no simple equivalent to the English "please". The Finnish equivalent is to use either 'ole hyvä' or 'olkaa hyvä' = 'be good', but it is generally omitted. Politeness is normally conveyed by tone of voice, facial expression, and use of conditional verbs and partitive nouns.
Twenty is simply 'kaksikymmentä' = 'two tens' (with kymmenen appearing in the partitive after a number as is normal for nouns). Then the decades are kolmekymmentä, neljäkymmentä ... yhdeksänkymmentä.
100 is 'sata', 200 is 'kaksisataa' and so on.
1000 is 'tuhat', 2000 is 'kaksituhatta' and so on.
So, 3721 = 'kolme-tuhatta-seitsemän-sataa-kaksi-kymmentä-yksi' (actually written as one long word with no dashes in between).
Numbers can be inflected in cases; all parts of the number except 'toista' are inflected. For example:
Like cardinals, ordinal numbers can also be inflected:
Inflection of pronouns
The personal pronouns are inflected in the same way as nouns, and can be found in most of the same cases as nouns. For example:
Noun/adjective stem types
Vowel stems
! MORE HEREConsonant stems
! MORE HERE-nen nouns
This is a very large class of words which includes common nouns (for example 'nainen' = 'woman'), many names, and many common adjectives. Adding -nen to a noun is a very productive mechanism for making adjectives ('muovi' = 'plastic' -> 'muovinen' = 'made of plastic'). It can also function as a diminutive ending.
Here are a few of the rare diminutive forms that are still in use:
The diminutive form mostly lives in surnames which are usually very old words to which most finns have forgotten the meaning. Some of the most common:
At least in one place the name has also been left into a place. There is a peninsula called "Neuvosenniemi" in one lake. "Neuvonen" means "a bit of advice/direction" and the peninsula was where people rowing tar barrels across the lae would stop and ask if wheather etc should make it safe to continue across the other side.-e nouns
These nouns look as though they should behave like vowel stem nouns, but in fact behave like consonant stem nouns due to the historical loss of a final consonant. There are some common nouns in this class, for example 'huone' = 'room', 'kirje' = 'letter'Adjectives
! MORE HEREComparative formation
! MORE HERESuperlative formation
! MORE HEREIrregular forms
! MORE HEREPostpositions and prepositions
Postpositions are more common in Finnish than prepositions. Both postpositions and prepositions can be combined with either a noun or a possessive suffix to form a P-positional phrase. Postpositions
Postpositions indicate place, time, cause, consequence or relation.
In postpositional phrases the noun is usually in genitive:
The noun (or pronoun) can be omitted when there is a possessive suffix:Prepositions
There are few important prepositions in Finnish. In prepositional phrases the noun is always in partitive:
Some postpositions can also be used as prepositions:Verb forms
Finnish verbs are usually divided into six groups depending on the stem type. All six types have the same set of endings, but the stems undergo (slightly) different changes when inflected.Tenses
Finnish verbs have present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect tenses.Voices
Finnish has two possible verb voices: active and passive. The active voice corresponds with that of English, but the passive voice has some important differences.Passive voice
In fact, the Finnish passive would be better described as a "vaguely personal" form since there is no way of connecting the action performed with a particular agent and hence there is only one form of the passive. This should become clear through an example:Moods
Indicative
The indicative is the form of the verb used for making statements or asking simple questions. In the verb morphology sections, the mood referred to will be the indicative unless otherwise stated.Conditional
The conditional mood expresses the idea that the action or state expressed by the verb may or may not actually happen. As in English, the Finnish conditional is used in conditional sentences (e.g. "I would tell you if I knew") and in polite requests (e.g. "I would like some coffee").Imperative
The imperative mood is used to express commands.Potential
The potential mood is used to express that the action or state expressed by the verb is likely but not certain, and is rare in modern Finnish, especially in speech. The potential has no counterpart in English.Infinitives
First infinitive
The first infinitive short form of a verb is the "dictionary entry" form. All first infinitive short forms end in a/ ä. This corresponds to the English 'to' form, for example:
The first infinitive long form is the translative plus a possessive suffix.
The first infinitive only has active form.Second infinitive
This corresponds to the English verbal noun (-ing form), and behaves as a noun in Finnish in that it can be inflected, but only in the inessive and the instructive. In the inessive it has both active and passive forms. The instructive has only active form. A possessive suffix can be added to the active inessive.
The second infinitive is relatively rare, especially in the spoken language, except in certain set phrases (for example 'toisin sanoen' = 'in other words').
;Active Inessive + Possessive Suffix (while themselves in the act of)
;Passive Inessive (when or while in the act of something being done)
;Active Instructive (by means of/ while in the act of)
Third infinitive
This corresponds to the English verbal noun (-ing form), and behaves as a noun in Finnish in that it can be inflected, but only in a limited number of cases. It is used to refer to a particular act or occasion of the verb's action.
;elative: 'lukemasta' = '(from just having been) reading'
;illative: 'lukemaan' = '(about to be / with the intention of) reading'
;adessive: 'lukemalla' = '(by) reading'
;abessive: 'lukematta' = '(without) reading'
A rare and archaic form of the third infinitive which occurs with the verb pitää:
;instructive: 'sinun ei pidä lukeman' = 'you must not read'
The third infinitive instructive is usually replaced with the first infinitive short form in modern Finnish.Fourth infinitive
This corresponds to the English verbal noun (-ing form), and behaves as a noun in Finnish in that it can be inflected. It is used to refer to the action of the verb in general.Fifth infinitive
This is a fairly rare form which has the meaning 'on the point of ...ing / just about to ...'Verb Conjugation
Type I verbs
These are verbs whose infinitive forms end in vowel + 'a' (or 'ä' for front-vowel containing stems) , for example 'puhua' = 'to speak', 'tietää' = 'to know'. This group contains a very large number of verbs. Here is how 'tietää' conjugates in the present indicative:
The personal endings are thus -n, -t, -(doubled vowel), -mme, -tte, -vat. The inflecting stem is formed by dropping the final '-a', and has a strong consonant in the third-person forms and weak otherwise. Note that for third person plural, this is an exception to the general rule for strong consonants.Imperfect indicative
In the simple case (which applies to most type I verbs), the imperfect indicative is formed by inserting the charateristic 'i' between the stem and the personal endings, which are the same as in the present tense except that the vowel does not double in the 3rd person singular:
However, the insertion of the 'i' often has an effect on the stem. Of type I verbs, one notable exception is 'tietää':
'ymmärtää' = 'to understand' also follows this pattern. Changes of stem for other verb types will be discussed in the relevant sections below.Passive
;Present passive: The present passive is formed by adding '-taan' to the inflecting stem of the verb with the consonant in its weak form:
;Imperfect passive:This is formed in the same way as the present passive, except that the ending is '-ttiin', hence 'puhuttiin' = 'it was spoken', 'tiedettiin' = 'it was known'.
;Conditional passive: This is formed in the same way as the present passive, except that the ending is '-ttaisiin', hence 'puhuttaisiin' = 'it would be spoken', 'tiedettaisiin' = 'it would be known'.
;Potential passive:This is formed in the same way as the present passive, except that the ending is '-ttaneen', hence 'puhuttaneen' = 'it may be spoken', 'tiedettaneen' = 'it may be known'.
Type II verbs
These are verbs whose infinitive forms end in two consonants + 'a', for example 'mennä' = 'to go'. This is another large group of verbs.Present indicative
The stem is formed by removing the 'a' and its preceding consonant. Then add 'e' followed by the personal endings: menen, menet, menee, menemme, menette, menevät.Imperfect indicative
The 'i' of the imperfect is added directly to the stem formed as for the present tense, then the personal endings are added:
'pestä' = 'to clean', 'pesen' = 'I clean', 'pesin' = 'I cleaned' etc.Passive
Present passive
In this group, the passive has the same '-aan' ending as for group I verbs, but no 't'; the easiest way to form the passive is to extend the vowel on the end of the first infinitive and then add 'n':
All other forms of the passive are related to the present passive in the same way as for type I verbs, including the 'extra t', except that since there was no 't' to start with, the passive forms only have one ! Also the double consonant before the ending becomes single.'Olla' ('to be')
Strictly, 'olla' belongs to this group. 'To be' is irregular in most languages, and Finnish is no exception, but the irregularities are confined to the 3rd-person forms of the present tense - everything else is regular:
Type III verbs
Verbs whose infinitives end in vowel + 'da', for example 'juoda' = 'to drink', 'syödä' = 'to eat'. This is a fairly large group of verbs, partly because one way in which foreign borrowings are incorporated into the Finnish verb paradigms is to add 'oida', for example, 'organisoida' = 'to organise'.Imperfect indicative
For these verbs whose stems end in two vowels, the first of the vowels is lost when the 'i' is added in the imperfect:
'juon = 'I drink', 'join' = 'I drank' etc.Passive
Passives in this group are formed in the same way as for group II verbs:
Type IV verbs
This, and the following two groups, have infinitives ending in vowel + 'ta'. Most commonly, type IV verbs end with 'ata', 'ota', 'uta', but the other two vowels are possible. Examples are 'tavata' = 'to meet', 'haluta' = 'to want', 'tarjota' = 'to offer'.
In the present indicative, the final 't' mutates into an 'a' ! After this, the personal ending is added (or the vowel doubled in the 3rd person singular) as usual:
Imperfect indicative
The same stem is used as for the present except that the final 't' becomes 's' rather than 'a'. This is followed by the imperfect 'i' marker and the personal endings: 'halusin' = 'I wanted', 'tapasimme' = 'we met' etc.Passive
Passives in this group are formed in the same way as for type II verbs, except that since the present passives will all have a 't' (from the first infinitive) the 'extra t' appears in the other forms as for type I verbs:
Type V verbs
All the verbs in this groups have infinitives ending in 'ita'. There are not that many of them, the most 'important' being 'tarvita' = 'to need'Imperfect indicative
! MORE HEREPassive
Passives of this type are formed in the same way as for type IV verbs.Type VI verbs
Almost all the verbs of this type have infinitives ending in 'eta'. There are not many verbs which fall into this category of their 'own right', and these don't tend to be be commonly used. However, it is a reasonably common route for turning adjectives into verbs (for example 'kylmä' = 'cold', 'kylmetä' = 'to get cold')Imperfect indicative
! MORE HEREPassive
Passives of this type are formed in the same way as for type IV verbs.Irregular stems
Finnish has mercifully few irregular verbs, and apart from 'olla' discussed above, the personal endings are always regular. The three common verbs with irregular stems are 'tehdä' = 'to do, make', 'nähdä' = 'to see', and 'jousta' = 'to run'. Their present indicatives go as follows:
Participle
Finnish verbs have present and past participles, both with active and passive forms, and an 'agent' participle. Participles can be used in different ways than ordinary adjectives and they can have an object.Present participle, active
! MORE HEREPresent participle, passive
! MORE HEREPast participle, active
Basically this is formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding '-nut/nyt' (depending on vowel harmony). For example 'puhua' -> 'puhunut', 'syödä' -> 'syönyt'
In verbs of types IV-VI, the 't' at the end of the stem is assimilated to the 'n':
Past particple, passive
! MORE HEREAgent participle
The agent participle is formed in a similar way as the third infinitive (see above), adding -ma or -mä to the verb stem. It indicates something done by someone and can be inflected in all cases. The party performing the action is indicated by the use of genitive. For example:
Negation
Present indicative
Verbs are negated by using a 'negative verb' in front of the stem from the present tense (in its 'weak' consonant form):
;Singular
;Plural
Note that the inflection is on the negative verb, not on the main verb, and that the endings are regular apart from the 3rd person formsPresent passive
The negative is formed from the third-person singular "negative verb" - 'ei' - and the present passive with the final '-an' removed:
Imperfect indicative
The negative is formed from the appropriate part of the negative verb followed by the nominative form (either singular or plural depending on the number of the verb's subject) of the active past participle. So for 'puhua' the pattern is:
;Singular
;Plural
Note one exception: when the 'te' 2nd person plural form is used in an honorific way to address one person, the singular form of the participle is used: 'te ette puhunut' = 'you (s, polite) did not speak'Imperfect passive
The negative is formed from the third-person singular negative verb - 'ei' - and the nominative singular form of the passive present participle (compare this with the negative of the imperfect indicative):
Note that in the spoken language, this form is used for the first person plural. In this case, the personal pronoun is obligatory: 'me ei menty' = 'we did not go'Interrogatives (questions)
Imperatives
Imperatives are the forms of the verb used for giving commands. In Finnish, there is only one tense form (the present-future). The possible variants of Finnish imperatives are:
Active, 2nd person imperatives
These are the most common forms of the imperative: "Do this", "Don't do that".
To make this negative, 'älä' (which is the active imperative singular 2nd person of the negative verb) is placed before the positive form:
To form the plural, add '-kaa' or '-kää' to the verb's stem:
To make this negative, 'älkää' (which is the active imperative present plural 2nd person of the negation verb)is placed before the positive form and the suffix '-ko' or '-kö' is added to the verb stem:
Note that 2nd person plural imperatives can also be used as polite imperatives when referring to one person.Passive, 2nd person imperatives
3rd person imperatives
1st person plural imperatives
The 1st person imperative sounds archaic, and a form resembling the passive indicative is often used instead: 'mennään!' = 'let's go!'Adverbs
! MORE HEREComparative formation
! MORE HERESuperlative formation
! MORE HEREIrregular forms
! MORE HERENumbers
Cardinal numbers
Numbers in Finnish are highly systematic. Here are 1 to 10:
To get 'teen's, 'toista' is added to the base number: yksitoista, kaksitoista ... yhdeksäntoistaOrdinal numbers
Ordinal numbers are formed by adding an '-s' ending (with some irregularities):
For teens, you change the first part of the word; however note how 'first' and 'second' lose their irregularity in 'eleven' and 'twelve':
For twenty through ninety-nine, all parts of the number get the '-s' ending. Note that 'first' and 'second' take the irregular form only at the end of a word. (For 'second', the regular form is also possible.)
100th is 'sadas', 1000th is 'tuhannes', 3721th is 'kolmas-tuhannes-seitsemäs-sadas-kahdes-kymmenes-ensimmäinen'. (Again, dashes only included here for clarity; the word is properly spelled without them.)
Also note that the 'toista' in the 'teens' is actually the partitive of 'toinen', which is why 'toista' gets no further inflection endings. (Literally 'yksitoista' = 'one-of-the-second'.)Names of numbers
! MORE HERE