"myöhässä työstä" : explanation needed

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Nicolas69
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:26 pm

"myöhässä työstä" : explanation needed

Post by Nicolas69 » Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:42 pm

Hello everyone,

I think this question has never been asked in this forum so far, since I could not find the answer by googling it.

I am currently learning Finnish, mainly by using the French version on the Assimil method (I am French, so sorry if my English is not perfect by the way, it is not my mother tongue :-p)
In this method, I saw the sentence "Nuori nainen on yleensä aina myöhässä työstä", for which the translation is something like "The young lady is generally late when she goes to work" ("La jeune femme est en général en retard au [à son] travail").

In this sentence, I really do not understand why the elative is used for "työ". She is late when GOING TO work, not when she COMES BACK FROM work, so why do we use the elative after "myöhässä" ? Why do we say "työstä" and not for example "työhön" (illative) or "työlle" (allative) ?

Could someone explain me this ?

Kiitos paljon ^^



"myöhässä työstä" : explanation needed

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Jukka Aho
Posts: 5237
Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 1:46 am
Location: Espoo, Finland

Re: "myöhässä työstä" : explanation needed

Post by Jukka Aho » Sat Jun 21, 2014 11:28 pm

Nicolas69 wrote:In this sentence, I really do not understand why the elative is used for "työ". She is late when GOING TO work, not when she COMES BACK FROM work, so why do we use the elative after "myöhässä" ? Why do we say "työstä" and not for example "työhön" (illative) or "työlle" (allative) ?
I’m afraid you’re trying to overanalyze the supposed “concrete” meaning of the elative case.

There’s no logically deducible reason for the choice of the grammatical case. The elative case is chosen simply because the phrasal verb / expression...

olla myöhässä jostakin

...calls for the elative case.

When a verb always requires a particular case, it is called rektio (“rection”) in the Finnish grammar terminology.

Check out the following links:

https://www.finlandforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=57492
http://people.uta.fi/~km56049/finnish/cases (the links at the bottom of the page)
http://www.uusikielemme.fi/mihinsta.html
http://uusikielemme.livejournal.com/3141.html
http://www.backhomebooks.net/tarkista-t ... -rektioita

The English phrasal verbs are quite a similar concept, but they call for the use of certain particles, instead.
znark

Nicolas69
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:26 pm

Re: "myöhässä työstä" : explanation needed

Post by Nicolas69 » Mon Jun 23, 2014 6:00 am

Thank you for your help, and the links you sent seems to be very useful, kiitos!

Yes you are right, whenever I learn a foreign language, I always try to understand the reason of everything, but sometimes there is just no reason, I have to admit that. :-)


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