Finnish help

[Rob A.]

But ...further to your discussion below about the instantaneous nature of pelästyä, would minua be correct?? I assume it must be, or you wouldn't have written the sentence that way, so I guess the question becomes..."Why would it be correct??...

Well, why wouldn’t it be? >:) But I see garoowood already explained that one.

Thanks...I'm still not totally grasping this... But that's OK for now...I'm probably looking at it from the wrong angle... Presumably, according the prevailing analysis, pelästyä has some aspect of "incompleteness" to it... I would have thought that after "I had frightened the dog"...the dog might have settled down and would no longer be in a state of "fright", which would suggest to me "completion" and hence some case other than the partitive, maybe accusative,minut ....but maybe I'm getting hung up on "transitivity" and "intransitivity"....I think I'll leave this for now...if anyone else wants to jump in and carry it further, please feel free...

Oh yes..thanks for the link... Minulla ei ole hämähäkkikammoa, mutta teen poikeuksen jos näkisi jahtihämähäkkiä....

Minulla ei ole hämähäkkikammoa, mutta tekisin poikkeuksen, jos näkisin jahtihämähäkin.

or

Minulla ei ole hämähäkkikammoa, mutta teen poikkeuksen, jos näen jahtihämähäkin.

The latter sounds better, in my opinion.

Thanks...Forgetting the compound k in poikkeuksen was a bit of carelessness...and näkisi instead of näkisin was a "typo".... And, of course, I can see why it should be jahtihämähäkin.... it is implied that the "whole spider" is being "seen"...at least in the context of the statement I have made...

[Edit: Well...after further consideration, I think I'm still looking at this from the wrong angle... Maybe it's the "act of seeing" that is "completed" ...so it wouldn't really matter if I saw the "whole spider" or just a "part" of it... The spider, or a part of it, is merely the object of a "completed" action.... Hmmmm... ...]

Your examples, though, are leading me to think that with conditional clauses such these, in Finnish, the verbs must be "balanced"....and I do seem to remember reading about this....

[Rob A.]

There is an equivalent for the English passive voice “by+agent” structure in Finnish but it is considered stilted, awkward style: Minua pelotettiin koiran toimesta; “I was (being made) scared by the (action(s) of the) dog”. But that just sounds awfully, ridiculously contrived. There’s no need for that kind of indirection. Finnish teachers usually warn against using the agent + toimesta pattern, and the whole thing is sometimes said to be a bastard loan from some other language, and hence not “needed” for the Finnish language anyway. But bureaucrats and politicians of course love anything and everything that will further obfuscate the true meaning (or emptiness) of their texts and speeches...

It seems that you do not use passive voice the same way as they usually do in English. I am a bit confused about this "by+agent" structure(do you use agent participle +-ma/-mä). How do you say "I was scared by the dog"? Just "Koira säikäytti minut" or "Koira pelästytti minut"? Do you use passive to express this?
If I would like to say "The bills have been paid by sb." can I express like "laskut on maksettu", but how to say by automatic teller machine, by hands, by Liisa? can "Liisan maksama laskut" be used here?

This link to a paper on the Finnish Noun Phrase, supplied above by Jukka, has a nice discussion on the Finnish passive and this "by agent" structure.... It seems, though, that it has a limited use in Finnish and is definitely "frowned on" by serious Finnish speakers...

Here's a short excerpt....The paper...part of an MA thesis, is very academic and written in a precise ...and slightly ESL, style....but I quite like it...very analytical...I think from your posts you'll probably like it, too....and for more than this immediate discussion:

2.3 Passive Nouns

In the literature, the Finnish passive has been considered different from languages such as English and Italian in that, for example, there are no real agentive constructions with by-phrases, either in the nominal or in the verbal construction. Moreover, passivization is possible only with understood human, or, at least highly personified, animate Agent.

...so it seems this passive, "by agent" structure should be very sparingly used, and pretty well only when the implied agent is, more or less, human...

[Rob A.]

Luoja on luonut lumen...

Nice, sammy... I hope I got it... ...a play on the concepts of "shoveling snow" and "creating snow"....


...and there are other uses for the verb, luoda....and I like some of the examples they give in wiktionary....

Käärme alkoi luoda nahkaansa....

...."The snake began to exuviate its old skin."

...and

Kun hummeri kasvaa, se luo kuorensa.

"As it grows, a lobster will exuviate."

..."exuviate"!!... ...I think you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of native English speakers who would know the meaning of the word, "exuviate".......I think the operative verb here is "shed"...

[Jukka Aho]

But ...further to your discussion below about the instantaneous nature of pelästyä, would minua be correct?? I assume it must be, or you wouldn't have written the sentence that way, so I guess the question becomes..."Why would it be correct??...:D

Well, why wouldn’t it be? >:) But I see garoowood already explained that one.

I'm probably looking at it from the wrong angle... Presumably, according the prevailing analysis, pelästyä has some aspect of "incompleteness" to it... I would have thought that after "I had frightened the dog"...the dog might have settled down and would no longer be in a state of "fright", which would suggest to me "completion" and hence some case other than the partitive, maybe accusative,minut

Hmm. The original (corrected) sentence was:

Pelästyin vihaisesti haukkuvaa koiraa.
[verb+subject] [attributes] [object (in partitive)]
“I got startled by an angrily barking dog.”

The sentence you suggested was:

Vihaisesti haukkuva koira pelästyi minua.
[attributes] [subject] [verb] [object (in partitive)]
“An angrily barking dog got startled by me.”

So it’s the reverse situation of the original, but otherwise completely analogous.

Perhaps you meant this:
Vihaisesti haukkuva koira pelästytti/säikäytti minut.
[attributes] [subject] [verb] [object (in -T accusative)]
“An angrily barking dog startled me.”

Note how verb is no longer the same in this last one.

Pelästyä or säikähtää refer to a sudden change in the subject’s psychological state (and how the object, which is always in the partitive, causes that change.)

Pelästyttää or säikäyttää refer to a sudden change in the object’s psychological state. Here, it is the subject that is causing that change. (The object can either be in the partitive or in the accusative case, according to the circumstances.)

....but maybe I'm getting hung up on "transitivity" and "intransitivity"....I think I'll leave this for now...if anyone else wants to jump in and carry it further, please feel free... :D

Well, I just stumbled upon a paper I think you might find quite interesting and which explains how the division into “transitive” and “intransitive” verbs might not be that clear-cut, after all... although it’s (again) a rather long and heavy academic discussion (but it does contain lots of examples):

• Aspects of a Systemic-Functional Grammar of Finnish (by Susanna Shore)

See page 277 (PDF page 285)

[Jukka Aho]

Oh yes..thanks for the link... Minulla ei ole hämähäkkikammoa, mutta teen poikeuksen jos näkisi jahtihämähäkkiä....

Minulla ei ole hämähäkkikammoa, mutta tekisin poikkeuksen, jos näkisin jahtihämähäkin.

or

Minulla ei ole hämähäkkikammoa, mutta teen poikkeuksen, jos näen jahtihämähäkin.

The latter sounds better, in my opinion.

:D Thanks...Forgetting the compound k in poikkeuksen was a bit of carelessness...and näkisi instead of näkisin was a "typo".... And, of course, I can see why it should be jahtihämähäkin.... it is implied that the "whole spider" is being "seen"...at least in the context of the statement I have made...

[Edit: Well...after further consideration, I think I'm still looking at this from the wrong angle...:D Maybe it's the "act of seeing" that is "completed" ...so it wouldn't really matter if I saw the "whole spider" or just a "part" of it... The spider, or a part of it, is merely the object of a "completed" action.... Hmmmm... :? ...:D]

The latter interpretation is more to the point, I’d say. Even if you had only seen a part of the spider, you’ve seen a “complete” spider in the grammatical sense if the animal is recognizable as a spider in the first place. If it needs to be emphasized that you didn’t see the whole animal but only some part of it, you’d usually specify that part and apply the accusative to it (Näin hämähäkin jalkojen pilkistävän seinäkellon alta. or Näin hämähäkin jalat, mutta en koko eläintä.)

Your examples, though, are leading me to think that with conditional clauses such these, in Finnish, the verbs must be "balanced"....and I do seem to remember reading about this.... :D

Yes, I think that describes the underlying “rule” quite well. :)

[Rob A.]

Thanks Jukka...very helpful....I understand what you are saying, though it'll take a while for it to "sink in"..... I also find I'm slowly developing the ability to "sense" when something written in Finnish "doesn't look right", though, of course, I may not know what to do about it...

And thanks for this new link....Terrific!! I don't know how you find this stuff...

[Jukka Aho]

Thanks Jukka...very helpful....I understand what you are saying, though it'll take a while for it to "sink in".....

If you have any specific, further questions on the above, just fire them away. While it might sometimes seem that the “answer” has already been given – and in a couple of different ways, even – of course it does not follow that it would have been a fully satisfactory answer. Perhaps there’s some peculiar usage in the sample sentences which was never discussed in any depth, and it was instead just assumed you would know about it already. (Which might not be the case after all, but it’s hard to know about those kind of stumbling blocks without being a mind reader.) So if there’s something about it that’s bothering you , just keep those questions coming ...

And thanks for this new link....Terrific!! I don't know how you find this stuff... :thumbsup:

I think I searched for “finnish transitive intransitive "take an object"”...
 

[Rob A.]

I found another link to a paper on the Finnish passive voice....it seemed rather interesting. And it reinforces the view that in modern Finnish the passive should have only an implied agent....

http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/julkais ... LQVIST.pdf

...the interesting part starts at the bottom of the first page and carries on into the next page...


It also says that it was not always this way, that in older Finnish the passive with an overt agent did occur, but the efforts of 19th century grammarians sorted this out...

So it seems clear to me that the Finnish passive is a different thing than the English.... another example of making the language more compact...

They give some interesting examples including this apocalyptic passage from the Bible...in old, (...now considered grammatically inappropriate) ....Finnish....

Ja Jerusalem pite tallattaman Pacanoilda

...which basically says, "And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles."

...this is from the 1776 version of the Finnish bible...the 1938 version turns this into an active form:

...ja Jerusalem on oleva pakanain tallattavana....

..."and Jerusalem will be pagan (Gentile) -trodden...."

...and the 1992 version uses an active form as well:

ja vieraat kansat polkevat Jerusalemia...

...my translation..."strangers" will trample Jerusalem...

The paper has another interesting example which raises a question for me. It says this sentence can mean only one thing:

raha vietiin varkaalta.....according to the paper, this means, "The money was taken from the thief.", though, previously, it might have been possible to interpret this as, "The money was taken by the thief."....

The question I have concerns the verb, vietiin.... Would that not indicate the passive voice and that, raha, was the object...and therefore, varkaalta, the agent?... The 3rd person, singular past form for "steal" is vei.... And what if, raha, was changed to, rahan???

Hmmmm ....This isn't what the paper is saying.... Am I missing something???

[vincebel]

And what if, raha, was changed to, rahan???

actually when using the passive voice you dont use the genetive (n-words)

me ostamme auton

me ostetaan auto

he rakentavat talon ensi vuonna

talo rakennetaan ensi vuonna (someone that we dont know or we dont want to tell names)

i hope its right tough...

[Jukka Aho]

And what if, raha, was changed to, rahan???

actually when using the passive voice you dont use the genetive (n-words)

me ostamme auton
me ostetaan auto
he rakentavat talon ensi vuonna
talo rakennetaan ensi vuonna (someone that we dont know or we dont want to tell names)

i hope its right tough...;)

Those sample sentences seem OK to me. But it should probably be noted that me ostetaan auto is colloquial usage [1], so as not to confuse those who are trying to learn the rules of written language.

_____
[1] The 2nd person plural (me ostamme auton) has been replaced with the passive, or 4th person form, which is common in speech. (Or the norm, even.) Although it works grammatically like the passive – including the rule about “n-words” – the meaning remains the same as with the equivalent 2nd person plural expression in kirjakieli. It can be told apart from a genuine passive by the presence of a subject: the pronoun me. (True passive forms never mention the subject.)