Declension of superlatives

[Talvi]

Hi,

I learnt that superlatives have a partitive singular in -tA, so for instance lähin, lähintä, but then my book has sentences where the partitive is in -impAA:

Leena tulee lähelta.
Kalle tulee vielä lähempää.
Eila tulee kaikkein lähimpää.

And the Wiktionary template for Finnish superlatives gives the endings -impAA and -impAtA as alternatives for the partitive singular, as well as -innA for the essive singular, but these forms don’t show up on the individual words’ pages, and they are not listed by KOTUS (type 36) either.

So I’d like to know if these forms are common alternatives, or if they are used only for some words, or in some constructions.

[Rob A.]

You're into the area of comparative and superlative forms for adverbs....they tend to differ from adjectives.

But I think you....as I often tend to do...may be taking a bit too analytical an approach to this....

Probably better to get the general idea of how these forms work, then make all those "mistakes" and other verbal gaffes until you gradually fine tune what works and what doesn't.... Few foreigners can pass as native Finnish speakers and I certainly will never be one..... [I speak French better than I can speak Finnish, but no one will ever think of me as a native French speaker....heck, even the "proper" pronunciation of the letter "d" is beyond the ability of almost all anglophones... ]

Languages have been built up over the eons and have complex and intricate reasons for why they are the way they are...but only the basic rules are actually needed to be able to use a language and all those subtle details are only needed if you plan to be a linguist....

But, yeah, analyzing Finnish to death can be fun...I like doing it...

[Talvi]

I know it’s not very important but I’m just surprised to see these forms used but not referenced in grammar books.

But you’re probably right, I found things like Leirit ne oli mukavimpaa aikaa intissä on the internet but according to googlefight these forms are very uncommon for adjectives so they are probably considered incorrect, they seem to exist only as comparatives of adverbs of movement: kaukaa – kauimpaa, läheltä – lähimpää, alhaalta – alimpaa, ylhäältä – ylimpää.

[You meant the pronunciation of “r”, right?]

[onkko]

heck, even the "proper" pronunciation of the letter "d" is beyond the ability of almost all anglophones...

There is NO D in my dialect, i would burn you as witch.

[onkko]

I know it’s not very important but I’m just surprised to see these forms used but not referenced in grammar books.

But you’re probably right, I found things like Leirit ne oli mukavimpaa aikaa intissä on the internet but according to googlefight these forms are very uncommon for adjectives so they are probably considered incorrect, they seem to exist only as comparatives of adverbs of movement: kaukaa – kauimpaa, läheltä – lähimpää, alhaalta – alimpaa, ylhäältä – ylimpää.

[You meant the pronunciation of “r”, right?]

Leirit olivat mukavinta aikaa intissä would be nearest of "proper finnish" i as native can think and get (i got 6 (of 10, min 4) on "mother language" so...), differs on dialects. Dont assume finns can or do speak finnish as it "should" be spoken/written. There are dialects, "rednecks", "assholes", name it etc... To me there is no incorrect as long as i understand meaning and to me thats only thing what matters, i understand what your sentence said but i would cringe if i hear it.
You mate goddit thad talkn!

[jahasjahas]

Adverbs are by definition missing some or all of their cases, so trying to figure them out by using a list of declensions might seem a bit futile. They might also be using forms that aren't used in the same way (or at all) in modern Finnish.

Case in point: why is "läheltä" seemingly in the ablative while "lähempää" and "lähimpää" are seemingly in the partitive? Kaukaa/kauempaa/kauimpaa are all in the partitive. And then you realise that *lähi and *kauka don't exist as separate words in modern Finnish (I'm not sure if they ever did, but I'm guessing so)...

[Talvi]

Case in point: why is "läheltä" seemingly in the ablative while "lähempää" and "lähimpää" are seemingly in the partitive? Kaukaa/kauempaa/kauimpaa are all in the partitive.

Personally rather than grouping positive/comparative/superlative together, I group towards/in or at/from, and I consider that there are three sets of possible cases:
– illative, inessive, elative;
– allative, adessive, ablative;
– translative (or rarely -s (lative)), essive, partitive;
with the third set used only with a small number of words such as ulos—ulkona—ulkoa, luokse—luona—luota, kauas—kaukana—kaukaa, and comparatives and superlatives: kauemmaksi—kauempana—kauempaa, kauimmaksi—kauimpana—kauimpaa, lähemmäksi—lähempänä—lähempää, same with lähin, alempi, ylempi, alin, ylin, pohjoisempi…

I don’t know if grammars present things that way and there are some exceptions or words that don’t fit (at least kotiin—kotona—kotoa, ylös, alas), but it allows me to remember which case to use.