small questions from the news

[Rob A.]

"Water did not get carried by me."
Vettä ei saatu kannettua minun toimesta..

Vettä ei saatu kannettua minun toimestani. Grammatically right, but sounds clumsy. En onnistunut kantamaan vettä. or simple Minä en kantanut vettä.

OK....En onnistunut kantamaan vettä....which literally would translate as: "I did not succeed at carrying water."...I think kantamaan must be
a noun form with an illative ending...?? And a nice simple statement as your second sentence... "I did not carry water."...And thanks for the reminder...the possessive ending should be used....toimestani...

Naista ei saattu elvytettyä helikopteri Ilmarin miehistön toimesta.

Helikopteri Ilmarin miehistö ei onnistunut elvyttämään naista. Much better. OR Helikopteri Ilmarin miehistö epäonnistui naisen elvyttämisessä.

OK...nice direct statements are preferred in Finnish as well as English....English style guides tend say that it is usually best to use the active voice...less boring that way, I guess...

Tranlated: "The Ilmari helicopter crew did not succeed at resuscitating the woman." And..."The Ilmari helicopter crew failed in resuscitating the woman."

Of course, this leads to another question.... Why do we have naista in the first sentence and naisen in the second??...I think I know, but want to check... I believe the negative statement requires the partitive form...naista. However, in the second sentence, even though the outcome is negative......the action...the "failure" is complete ....and so the ending must be in the accusative... Right???

[Rob A.]

I'll go through this again and see if I can clean it up a bit....

That was much better, the problem is this whole formation is not used really that often, but its a grammatical thing.

"Water did not get carried by me."
Vettä ei saatu kannettua minun toimesta.....again all in the passive voice...but I would like to hear from a native speaker how else this might be said in Finnish.....

Minä en saanut vettä kannettua. that minun toimestani version is a bit awkward phrase you might see in some legal text where people try to appear pompous.

Note the "saada" might be sometimes used as "I was not let" as in "may do", as well as "can do" so that might confuse the heck out of you if you're on one track. Lapset eivät saa kantaa vettä. vs Lapset eivät saa vettä kannettua.
:

I think I get the distinction here...."Children were not permitted to carry water." ....and "Children may not carry water."....

Naista ei saattu elvytettyä helikopteri Ilmarin miehistön toimesta.

....and same here... Is there a better way of saying this?? In my post above, I should have used saatu...the passive past participle, not saataisi... a conditional present participle....

Well, it still sounds a bit pompy. Maybe I should find you one of these books on "proper writing style" as in modern style, as those old grammars sometimes make people write like it was 1938.

OK...and some of it even sounds a bit awkward to me....but at this point if I can write understandable and relatively clear sentences in Finnish, I'm progressing....the fine-tuning will take awhile....

[David O.]

Of course, this leads to another question.... Why do we have naista in the first sentence and naisen in the second??...I think I know, but want to check... I believe the negative statement requires the partitive form...naista. However, in the second sentence, even though the outcome is negative......the action...the "failure" is complete ....and so the ending must be in the accusative... Right???

That ending in the second sentence is genitive, not accusative. There's no direct object.

elvyttäminen = resuscitation (verbal noun)
naisen elvyttämisessä = in the resuscitation of the woman
naisen elvyttämiseen = for the resuscitation of the woman

Naisen elvyttämiseen tarvittiin nopeaa toimintaa.

What I'm not sure about, though, is whether there's any difference between elvyttämiseen and elvyttämiseksi in sentences like my example above...

[Pursuivant]

Note the "saada" might be sometimes used as "I was not let" as in "may do", as well as "can do" so that might confuse the heck out of you if you're on one track. Lapset eivät saa kantaa vettä. vs Lapset eivät saa vettä kannettua.


I think I get the distinction here...."Children were not permitted to carry water." ....and "Children may not carry water."....

Ah no, you fell into the snag : Children may not carry water (mama said no)... Children can not get water carried. (buckets too heavy)

It is confusing, but saada is can/may depending on the grammar of the other words.

[Rob A.]

Note the "saada" might be sometimes used as "I was not let" as in "may do", as well as "can do" so that might confuse the heck out of you if you're on one track. Lapset eivät saa kantaa vettä. vs Lapset eivät saa vettä kannettua.


I think I get the distinction here...."Children were not permitted to carry water." ....and "Children may not carry water."....

Ah no, you fell into the snag : Children may not carry water (mama said no)... Children can not get water carried. (buckets too heavy)

It is confusing, but saada is can/may depending on the grammar of the other words.

I think I've got it now.... "Children are (physically) unable to carry water." I think the literal translation might be: "Children unable to get carried water." ?? So I'm now wondering why kannettua is in the partitive... ... [kannettua seems to be a passive past participle in the partitive....] I think my literal translation may not be quite right...???...What I'm I missing???....

And taking this a little further...how would you say:

"Children might not get the water carried."....with the sense of having been asked to carry the water, but being children they might just go off to play somewhere and not get the job done....

Probably something like:

Lapset eivät saattaisi vettä kannettua. ....??

[Jukka Aho]

And taking this a little further...how would you say:

"Children might not get the water carried."....with the sense of having been asked to carry the water, but being children they might just go off to play somewhere and not get the job done.... :wink:

Lapsilta vesi jäisi kantamatta.
Lapsilta vesi saattaisi jäädä kantamatta.
Lapset eivät välttämättä saisi vettä kannetuksi.

[Rob A.]

And taking this a little further...how would you say:

"Children might not get the water carried."....with the sense of having been asked to carry the water, but being children they might just go off to play somewhere and not get the job done....

Lapsilta vesi jäisi kantamatta.
Lapsilta vesi saattaisi jäädä kantamatta.
Lapset eivät välttämättä saisi vettä kannetuksi.

Gulp!!.... Well...I guess it's only going to get more difficult...

I'll give them a try:

Lapsilta vesi jäisi kantamatta....."From children (ablative), water (nominative) would remain (third pers. sing. pres. conditional) not-carried (abessive)."... which in smooth English would be: "The water would not get carried by the children."

Lapsilta vesi saattaisi jäädä kantamatta.
"From children (ablative) water (nominative) might (third pers. sing. conditional) remain (infinitive) not-carried (abessive)."

"The water might not get carried by the children.""

Lapset eivät välttämättä saisi vettä kannetuksi.

Hmmm...a little tougher...but a more direct statement...at least I think it is...???..

"Children (plural nominative) might not (third pers. plural negative) necessarily (adverb) get (cond. neg. participle ) water (partitive sing.) carried (passive past participle in the translative)."

"Children might not necessarily get the water carried."

A few questions...why the switch from vesi to vettä ??? At this point I think in the first two sentences we are concerned with some specific water, but in the last sentence seems to shift to the children, and "water" is in the partitive because it is indefinite and the action incomplete...the use of the translative seems to indicate the ongoing nature of the "carrying".... But this is all a bit tough....

[garoowood]

Jukka is back from holiday?

2,5-vuotias poika löydettiin lopulta hyvässä kunnossa tänään noin kello 14 aikoihin noin kilometrin päässä katoamispaikasta.

Why aikoihin,plural illative case is used? What if I used noin kell0 14 without the aikoihin?

Alla olevassa kuvassa pojan löytöpaikka kartalla kynän osoittamassa kohdassa.

I can't find the verb here. Should it be Alla olevassa kuvassa pojan löytöpaikka kartalla on kynän osoittamassa kohdassa.?

[EP]

Should it be Alla olevassa kuvassa pojan löytöpaikka kartalla on kynän osoittamassa kohdassa.?

Yes.

Why aikoihin,plural illative case is used? What if I used noin kell0 14 without the aikoihin?

"Kello 14 aikoihin" and "noin kello 14" are the same. But you can also say "noin kello 14 aikoihin" or "noin kello 14 aikaan". All the same.

But I am so relieved, I have been so sad and worried about this case. Think about a two-year-old, dressed in a blue T-shirt and diapers, all by himself in a forest for 22 hours.

[EP]

And Rob, all your sentences are right. Sorry, I cannot really explain why it is vettä and not vesi.

[Jukka Aho]

Lapsilta vesi jäisi kantamatta....."From children (ablative), water (nominative) would remain (third pers. sing. pres. conditional) not-carried (abessive)."... which in smooth English would be: "The water would not get carried by the children."

"... would remain not-carried" sounds a bit like the children would never even begin the job. That might actually be the case, of course, but - and even though it is not obvious from the grammar alone - the sense of the original Finnish sentence is closer to "the task of carrying the water, even if it were started, would be left in an incomplete, unfinished state; it would never be carried out to its full completion." Compare to jäädä kesken, jättää jälkeensä.

Lapset eivät välttämättä saisi vettä kannetuksi.

Hmmm...a little tougher...but a more direct statement...at least I think it is...???..

"Children (plural nominative) might not (third pers. plural negative) necessarily (adverb) get (cond. neg. participle ) water (partitive sing.) carried (passive past participle in the translative)."

In these kind of sentences, the translative means "[fully] into the -ksi state".

A few questions...why the switch from vesi to vettä ???

I think the translative just forces the object into the partitive... or maybe someone else has a better explanation?

[David O.]

A few questions...why the switch from vesi to vettä ???

Vesi when it's the subject, vettä when it's the direct object of a negative sentence (or the subject of a negative existential sentence, e.g. kannussa ei ole vettä).

Lapsilta vesi jäisi kantamatta. The water is the subject (which should be clear because the verb agrees with it, not with the children), so we have vesi, nominative.

Lapset eivät välttämättä saisi vettä kannetuksi. Subject is lapset (again, obvious because of the plural verb form), negative direct object goes in the partitive.

Note also that vettä in the last sentence could refer to either a definite or indefinite quantity of water; in either case, the fact that it's the negative direct object forces it into the partitive.

[garoowood]

Should it be Alla olevassa kuvassa pojan löytöpaikka kartalla on kynän osoittamassa kohdassa.?

Yes.

Why aikoihin,plural illative case is used? What if I used noin kell0 14 without the aikoihin?

"Kello 14 aikoihin" and "noin kello 14" are the same. But you can also say "noin kello 14 aikoihin" or "noin kello 14 aikaan". All the same.

Is it like mihin aikaan which means at what time? Minhin aikaan lähdit työpaikalta eilen? Kello 17? Kello 17 aikaan? Kello 17 aikoihin?

[Pursuivant]

I can't find the verb here.

Its one of these "self-evident so can be omitted" - especially the newspapers who are tight of lettering abuse this.