How important is word order in Finnish?

[Kysymästä]

I'm taking the online course Tavataan Taas, which can be found here: http://donnerwetter.kielikeskus.helsink ... -index.htm

I'm doing quite well, but I've encountered sentences with confusing word order. For instance, one lesson on the genitive case offered the sentence "Kenen tämä kirja on?" Translated literally, this means "Whose this book is?" This looks terribly wrong in English, but I'm not sure about word placement in Finnish. Is sentence structure important in Finnish? If so, want rules govern it?

[Pursuivant]

The word order denotes emphasis.

Kenen kirja tämä on? (one book on the table, whose book is this?)
Kenen tämä kirja on? (many books on the table, whose book is THIS?)
( you could also say: This book, whose is it? Tämä kirja, kenen se on? With the structure agreeing with English, but I guess reflexive subsentences come further on )

And yes, you will get a lot of similar sentences which all are correct, but word order means the emphasis is on a different aspect. "This and that" travel pretty freely...

[PäähäniSattuu]

The word order denotes emphasis.

Kenen kirja tämä on? (one book on the table, whose book is this?)
Kenen tämä kirja on? (many books on the table, whose book is THIS?)
( you could also say: This book, whose is it? Tämä kirja, kenen se on? With the structure agreeing with English, but I guess reflexive subsentences come further on )

And yes, you will get a lot of similar sentences which all are correct, but word order means the emphasis is on a different aspect. "This and that" travel pretty freely...

This is not entirely correct, in 'kenen kirja tämä on' the sentence parsing is different than from 'kenen tämä kirja on', in the former the subject of the sentence is 'kenen kirja' whereas the predicate is 'tämä', literally 'whose book is this', whereas in the latter case the subject is 'tämä kirja' and the predicate is 'kenen' as in 'whose is this book' literally.

However, the OP's question is different. In English the sentence ''Whose is this book', the movement of the verb to after 'whose' rather than 'whose this book is' differentiates a question from a relative clause. In finnish, this difference is typically expressed by different pronouns altogether. As in 'missä tämä kirja on' means 'where is this book' whereas 'talo jossa tämä kirja on' means 'the house where this book is'

Finnish asks questions by generally moving the question word to the front of the sentence but retaining the word order otherwise. So If we want to turn 'Tämä kirja on Jonnin' (this book is John's) into a question we retain 'tämä kirja on' as a basic word order where the verb comes after the subject and put 'kenen' (whose) at the front.

That said though, Finnish word order is basically almost completely free. Even though there are more natural word orders than others, you can basically scramble sentences around as you see fit with some very few limitations because what is the subject and object of the sentence is not determined by word order but by grammatical case.

[Pursuivant]

The subject in both is "kirja". "Kenen" and "tämä" are both pronouns.

[PäähäniSattuu]

Tämä is a determiner, not a pronoun, kenen is a (genitive) pronoun. The entire subject is tämä kirja. Even in a sentence like 'Tämä kirja jonka minä luin on hyvin iso.' the subject of the sentence is 'tämä kirja jonka minä luin'

[Upphew]

Tämä is a determiner, not a pronoun, kenen is a (genitive) pronoun. The entire subject is tämä kirja. Even in a sentence like 'Tämä kirja jonka minä luin on hyvin iso.' the subject of the sentence is 'tämä kirja jonka minä luin'

Wouldn't the correct punctuation be: Tämä kirja, jonka minä luin, on hyvin iso.

[Kysymästä]

The word order denotes emphasis.

Kenen kirja tämä on? (one book on the table, whose book is this?)
Kenen tämä kirja on? (many books on the table, whose book is THIS?)
( you could also say: This book, whose is it? Tämä kirja, kenen se on? With the structure agreeing with English, but I guess reflexive subsentences come further on )

And yes, you will get a lot of similar sentences which all are correct, but word order means the emphasis is on a different aspect. "This and that" travel pretty freely...

This is not entirely correct, in 'kenen kirja tämä on' the sentence parsing is different than from 'kenen tämä kirja on', in the former the subject of the sentence is 'kenen kirja' whereas the predicate is 'tämä', literally 'whose book is this', whereas in the latter case the subject is 'tämä kirja' and the predicate is 'kenen' as in 'whose is this book' literally.

However, the OP's question is different. In English the sentence ''Whose is this book', the movement of the verb to after 'whose' rather than 'whose this book is' differentiates a question from a relative clause. In finnish, this difference is typically expressed by different pronouns altogether. As in 'missä tämä kirja on' means 'where is this book' whereas 'talo jossa tämä kirja on' means 'the house where this book is'

Finnish asks questions by generally moving the question word to the front of the sentence but retaining the word order otherwise. So If we want to turn 'Tämä kirja on Jonnin' (this book is John's) into a question we retain 'tämä kirja on' as a basic word order where the verb comes after the subject and put 'kenen' (whose) at the front.

That said though, Finnish word order is basically almost completely free. Even though there are more natural word orders than others, you can basically scramble sentences around as you see fit with some very few limitations because what is the subject and object of the sentence is not determined by word order but by grammatical case.

I see! So I just keep the word order and place the word which asks a question at the front? That seems easy enough. Thanks for your help.