Another new Finnish learner confused by the use of essive.

[linforcer]

I've tried reading through the two other threads I had already found about usage of the essive but am not entirely enlightened yet.

In the sentence:

"Mitä tapahtuu, kun pikantteina pikkueroina osapuolten välillä ovat puoli vuosisataa ja elämänkatsomus"

I'm wondering what the essive was implying. When I asked my girlfriend, she answered that the difference between this and, say,

"Mitä tapahtuu, kun pikanttit pikkuerot osapuolten välillä ovat puoli vuosisataa ja elämänkatsomus"

Would be that when the essive is in use "there might be more to it than that".

After reading an article linked in one of the other threads, I get the impression that the essive can express subtle doubts about things, but then my question is what is being doubted? Does the essive here imply that the "erot" may indeed not be so "pikku" as is indeed implied by the second half of the sentence, or really that they are merely a subset of a larger set of things between the parties involved, or is essive used because the half century and view on life are in the role of piquante little differences?

And oh yeah, "hi."

[jahasjahas]

Here's my guess.

"Omena ja viinirypäleet ovat erilaisia hedelmiä. Erot ovat koko, lukumäärä ja kasvupaikka. / Eroja ovat koko, lukumäärä ja kasvupaikka."
Without the essive, we're listing some significant, meaningful differences. The first option seems to imply that these are all the differences, while the latter leaves some room for more.

"Omena ja päärynä ovat aika samanlaisia hedelmiä. Eroina on vain muoto ja väri."
With the essive, we're sort of saying "ok, there are these things as differences", "filling the role of a difference", if that makes sense to you.

So in your example sentence, we use the essive because we're sarcastically claiming that these major differences are actually "piquant and minor" . Without the essive, there would be a weird clash in meaning.

As you said, usually the essive is used when "X is in the role/position of Y", "X is acting as an Y": "Hän työskentelee opettajana" = "He's working as a teacher".

I don't see the doubt interpretation here.

[linforcer]

Right. Eroja is the partitive, right? Something along the lines of "Some (of the) differences are..." or "Some differences include"

On an unrelated note, is there any English language source about "temporaalirakenne" that you know of?

P.S. Nice Kabouter Wesley.

[jahasjahas]

Right. Eroja is the partitive, right? Something along the lines of "Some (of the) differences are..." or "Some differences include"

Yep.

P.S. Nice Kabouter Wesley.

Yep.

Edit: You asked about the temporal structure. I tried to copy and paste from my PDF of Fred Karlsson's Finnish: An Essential Grammar, but it messed up the formatting. Maybe you can find the book yourself.

[linforcer]

Alright, thanks. I found a the book and have a feeling it will come in handy often.

[Rob A.]

Right. Eroja is the partitive, right? Something along the lines of "Some (of the) differences are..." or "Some differences include"

On an unrelated note, is there any English language source about "temporaalirakenne" that you know of?

P.S. Nice Kabouter Wesley.

Maybe you'll find something in here:

http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/sc ... 5&as_vis=1


....and here's a Google "scholar" search...using the search criteria.."paul kiparsky" +finnish.......Kiparsky is quite the prolific "paper writer"....

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en& ... =&as_vis=1