Translative....

[Rob A.]

OK...I thought I would bring this over to kielikoulu....
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=53212&p=421040#p421040

Here are my original sentences:

Joo...jos p*skaa nimitti ruusun, se haisisi kuten löyhkäävä. .... (..Hopefully, I haven't screwed up the grammar too badly....)

Or conversely...Jos ruusua nimitti p*skan, se tuoksuisi kuten ihana....

...I'm advised that this would be better:

Jos p*skaa nimitetään ruusuksi, se haisisi kuitenkin löyhkäävältä....
Jos ruusua nimitetään p*skaksi, se tuoksuisi kuitenkin ihanalta.

Some of this I understand....using the passive...nimitetään, and using the ablative suffix -alta....Remembering this stuff is just practice, practice, practice... But why use the translative....????

All I can think of is that it must have something to do with the conditional statement...jos..... The idea being: "if something [b[becomes[/b] something" ???

Is it as simple as that???? ...

[AldenG]

From my point of view, it's more a characteristic of the verb(s) in this particular sense than it is about the translative case per se. Nimitetään (which sounds like appointing a minister, BTW) wants translative because sanotaan and kutsutaan want translative. Who knows who originally established the precedent, but when I do these things more by intuition (analogy, really) than by memorized rule, if I were appointing a minister I would do it this way because it's so much like the bulk of similar constructions.

One can easily learn to pose questions and statements like these without even knowing that -ksi has a name, much less that it is translative. Indeed that's how all Finns learn to make these questions and statements. ON EDIT: I started out saying that's how Finns learn to use the translative. But in fact, Finns never do learn to use the translative, at least not at any kind of developmentally relevant stage. "Translative" is just a name that gets stamped on a variety of already-understood usages at some point in middle school, long after learning to use them. So a native learner learns that one set of situations uses -ksi. Then on another occasion they grasp that another set of situations also uses -ksi. And so on.

So the question to ponder IMO is less "what are all the things this particular case is used for" and more "how do we express various types of naming or designating things?"

The use of passive here is not related to conditionality, though there is a conditional form of the passive that does connote conditionality.

Jos (kun) ruusua kutsutaan (sanotaan) omenaksi, sen haju ei muutu ollenkaan (miksikään).

If (when, whenever) a rose is called an apple, its scent doesn't change at all (into anything [else] at all).

Jos (vaikka) ruusua kutsuttaisiin (sanottaisiin) omenaksi, sen haju ei (silti) muuttuisi ollenkaan (miksikään).

If (though) a rose should be called an apple, its scent would (nonetheless) not change at all (into anything [else] at all).

If I've often repeated myself that the most fundamental nature of language is imitation, that could also be expressed as language being fundamentally, neurologically, generated by analogy. Admittedly that leaves the chicken-and-egg question. (Where did we get the bulk of usages to which any one usage is seen to be similar?)

Kutsua is more often about invitation, but it has this other meaning of "how (what) something is called", just as appeller in French and chiamare(?) in Italian llamar(?) in Spanish. In Finnish the question is expressed Miksi(kö) tätä/tämä kutsutaan (sanotaan)?

(Fixed a couple of hopefully unnoticed typos.)

[AldenG]

You could use nimetä (instead of nimittää) for a somewhat more formal way of talking about naming something. That's presumably what you were trying for.

None of these others needs to be in passive, but I think they happen to be used more often in passive to talk about naming or nicknaming a thing.

I went looking for Robinson Crusoe in Finnish and didn't find it, but here's a phrase from the Wikipedia synopsis.

...ja nimeää hänet Perjantaiksi.

"and names him Friday."

Note the difference between nimeää hänet and kutsuu häntä. It's subtle (and maybe not absolute, I'm not sure) but in the first we're talking about bestowing a name on the whole person, creating an identity between the person and the name Perjantai. In the second it's only about calling someone something.

[David O.]

To me, the clearest explanation for the use of the translative with sanoa/kutsua/nimittää (as well as luulla, as in luulin häntä ystaväksesi - "I took him for your friend") is that there isn't any other form that would make any more sense. Imagine that you were creating the language yourself and deciding which case should be required there. You certainly wouldn't pick accusative or partitive, because it's not a direct object, it's an object complement. And none of the local cases would make any particular idiomatic sense either.

So what's left? Essive and translative. And then you just ask yourself whether you're describing a state (essive) or a change of state (translative); the latter feels a lot more logical to me (the hänet nimitettiin ministeriksi example is excellent here, because naming someone a minister means making them a minister, which is the very essence of the translative).

[AldenG]

Well that's a good point you make, and it also brings up how essive and translative are their own little "third" case group, neither internal nor external locative but rather, say, "existential" -- being and becoming.

Being at the office without any Finnish books, I don't recall whether there's already an existing category for essive and translative with that name or some other name, but they do work together in a way analogous to the internal and external locative case groups.

Hän oli Tamperella opettajana. She was a teacher in Tampere. (She was in Tampere "as a teacher.")
Hän meni Tamperelle opettajaksi. She went to Tampere to be a teacher.

Luulin häntä (sinun) ystäväksesi. I believed her to be a friend of yours.
Pidin häntä (sinun) ystävänäsi. I considered her your friend.

Here again the English is not entirely dispensable in case someone doesn't quite "get" the sentences themselves, but we need to be careful not to read too much into the exact wording of the English. The true logic is the logic of the patterns in the untranslated Finnish. The use of an existential case is dictated by the conceptual role of "friend" in the context. But which particular existential case to use (essive versus translative) is an attribute of the verb.

[Rob A.]

To me, the clearest explanation for the use of the translative with sanoa/kutsua/nimittää (as well as luulla, as in luulin häntä ystaväksesi - "I took him for your friend") is that there isn't any other form that would make any more sense. Imagine that you were creating the language yourself and deciding which case should be required there. You certainly wouldn't pick accusative or partitive, because it's not a direct object, it's an object complement. And none of the local cases would make any particular idiomatic sense either.

So what's left? Essive and translative. And then you just ask yourself whether you're describing a state (essive) or a change of state (translative); the latter feels a lot more logical to me (the hänet nimitettiin ministeriksi example is excellent here, because naming someone a minister means making them a minister, which is the very essence of the translative).

Thanks... These grammatical constructions become quite subtle for native English speakers raised in a lingusitic environment of word order and single form words...

But, yes, I can now see that ruusuksi is a complement and, therefore, the accusative would not make sense. In my sentences I wasn't totally comfortable with using the accusative as I could see that p*ska was the direct object, but I couldn't think of what else to use....so I thought maybe I was making it all too complicated... Well, I guess it actually is complicated ...

So, it seems with this construction, ruusu being a complement, the choice is between one of the two "state of being" cases....essive or translative, ....The "movement toward" sense of the sentence suggests the translative.

[Aside: in ancient times Finnish had a third "state of being" case....the exessive...movement away from"....so I suppose we should be grateful, in modern times, we only have to deal with the complexity of two such cases....]

[Edit: typos]

[Rob A.]

From my point of view, it's more a characteristic of the verb(s) in this particular sense than it is about the translative case per se. Nimitetään (which sounds like appointing a minister, BTW) wants translative because sanotaan and kutsutaan want translative. Who knows who originally established the precedent, but when I do these things more by intuition (analogy, really) than by memorized rule, if I were appointing a minister I would do it this way because it's so much like the bulk of similar constructions.

One can easily learn to pose questions and statements like these without even knowing that -ksi has a name, much less that it is translative. Indeed that's how all Finns learn to make these questions and statements. ON EDIT: I started out saying that's how Finns learn to use the translative. But in fact, Finns never do learn to use the translative, at least not at any kind of developmentally relevant stage. "Translative" is just a name that gets stamped on a variety of already-understood usages at some point in middle school, long after learning to use them. So a native learner learns that one set of situations uses -ksi. Then on another occasion they grasp that another set of situations also uses -ksi. And so on.

So the question to ponder IMO is less "what are all the things this particular case is used for" and more "how do we express various types of naming or designating things?"

The use of passive here is not related to conditionality, though there is a conditional form of the passive that does connote conditionality.

Jos (kun) ruusua kutsutaan (sanotaan) omenaksi, sen haju ei muutu ollenkaan (miksikään).

If (when, whenever) a rose is called an apple, its scent doesn't change at all (into anything [else] at all).

Jos (vaikka) ruusua kutsuttaisiin (sanottaisiin) omenaksi, sen haju ei (silti) muutuisi ollenkaan (miksikään).

If (though) a rose should be called an apple, its scent would (nonetheless) not change at all (into anything [else] at all).

If I've often repeated myself that the most fundamental nature of language is imitation, that could also be expressed as language being fundamentally, neurologically, generated by analogy. Admittedly that leaves the chicken-and-egg question. (Where did we get the bulk of usages to which any one usage is seen to be similar?)

Kutsua is more often about invitation, but it has this other meaning of "how (what) something is called", just as appeller in French and chiamare(?) in Italian llamar(?) in Spanish. In Finnish the question is expressed Miksi(kö) tätä/tämä kutsutaan (sanotaan)?

Yes...I certainly agree with all this....with enough exposure to the language, it becomes innate which grammatical forms to use.... I think it is always good to remember that languages were largely developed first....then grammatical analysis came along to try to explain how and why they work....though, there have been "feedback loops", so that to some extent most modern languages show significant "academic" influences... Though not so much on the shape of basic language.... But, still, it's practice, practice, practice if you want to use a second language well...

Oh yes...and it's good that you have used more "dignified" examples.... though coarser language tends to stay in the mind a bit better...

[onkko]

You guys confuse me, i dont recognise my language from your weird "translatives"

[AldenG]

[Aside: in ancient times Finnish had a third "state of being" case....the exessive...movement away from"....so I suppose we should be grateful, in modern times, we only have to deal with the comoplexity of two such cases....]

I was wondering about that. I suppose that at some point it came to seem . . . excessive?

[Rob A.]

You guys confuse me, i dont recognise my language from your weird "translatives"

Heh.... But then you learned the language at your mother's knee... You know what works and what doesn't...but for us ulkomaalaiset....it takes lots of practice....and I, for one, don't get enough of that.

Though, I suspect that if Finnish were explained using Finnish case names instead of Latin, you might find it easier to recognize....

nimentö....nominative ...talo
kohdanto....accusative ...talo, talon
omanto.....genitive ...talon
osanto....partitive ...taloa
olento.....essive ....talona
tulento....translative ....taloksi
sisäolento.....inessive ....talossa
sisäeronto.....elative ...talosta
sisätulento.....illative ...taloon
ulko-olento.....adessive ...talolla
ulkoeronto.....ablative ...talolta
ulkotulento.....allative ...talolle
vajanto....abessive ....talotta
seuranto....comitative ...taloineni
keinonto....instructive ...talon

And here's something that I think would "stump" most second language speakers, but you probably would "intuitively" know what they mean...and likely would think of them as "dialect":

1. tärähtäneentä terveeksi
2. Auto ajoi eteen kolmion takaanta.....

[onkko]

Well i just listened how my granma explained how "katokko mutkasta tulivat etehen aiva huomaamatta, kukaha kerenny mitähä tekemähä" and that was to me totally proper common finnish she also claimed that "ny ko oot saanu kamppehes kasaha siihe kämppähä ni katotaha jos siihe jotaki kukkiaki saahas, kai siinä ny o tilaa?"

Ja lappilaine lähetys päättyy tähä, tämä o sitä mu oikeeta suomea ja jos ootta eriä mieltä ni saunan takana nähä

And to be honest i understand but i cant explain "taloittaansokanhokan" so...

[Rob A.]

Well i just listened how my granma explained how "katokko mutkasta tulivat etehen aiva huomaamatta, kukaha kerenny mitähä tekemähä" and that was to me totally proper common finnish she also claimed that "ny ko oot saanu kamppehes kasaha siihe kämppähä ni katotaha jos siihe jotaki kukkiaki saahas, kai siinä ny o tilaa?"

Ja lappilaine lähetys päättyy tähä, tämä o sitä mu oikeeta suomea ja jos ootta eriä mieltä ni saunan takana nähä

And to be honest i understand but i cant explain "taloittaansokanhokan" so...

Tämä on minulle täyttä hepreaa.....

I'll have to seek some external input in order to understand any of this....

[onkko]

Tämä on minulle täyttä hepreaa.....

I'll have to seek some external input in order to understand any of this....

Few years ago "thou shalt" was hebrew to me too

[silk]

Though, I suspect that if Finnish were explained using Finnish case names instead of Latin, you might find it easier to recognize....

nimentö....nominative ...talo
kohdanto....accusative ...talo, talon
omanto.....genitive ...talon
osanto....partitive ...taloa
olento.....essive ....talona
tulento....translative ....taloksi
sisäolento.....inessive ....talossa
sisäeronto.....elative ...talosta
sisätulento.....illative ...taloon
ulko-olento.....adessive ...talolla
ulkoeronto.....ablative ...talolta
ulkotulento.....allative ...talolle
vajanto....abessive ....talotta
seuranto....comitative ...taloineni
keinonto....instructive ...talon

I learned the Latin case names in school, so I actually find the Finnish case names strange and...hmmm... awkward. The Finnish ones are not necessarily self explanatory.

[Rob A.]

Though, I suspect that if Finnish were explained using Finnish case names instead of Latin, you might find it easier to recognize....

nimentö....nominative ...talo
kohdanto....accusative ...talo, talon
omanto.....genitive ...talon
osanto....partitive ...taloa
olento.....essive ....talona
tulento....translative ....taloksi
sisäolento.....inessive ....talossa
sisäeronto.....elative ...talosta
sisätulento.....illative ...taloon
ulko-olento.....adessive ...talolla
ulkoeronto.....ablative ...talolta
ulkotulento.....allative ...talolle
vajanto....abessive ....talotta
seuranto....comitative ...taloineni
keinonto....instructive ...talon

I learned the Latin case names in school, so I actually find the Finnish case names strange and...hmmm... awkward. The Finnish ones are not necessarily self explanatory.

Oh well...I'm trying.....

nimentö....nimi...."name"
kohdanto....kohde ..."target"
omanto.....omata..."to own"
osanto....osa....."part"
olento.....ole....olla...."to be"
tulento....tule....tulla...."to come"
sisäolento.....sisä ja olla...."in-to be"
sisäeronto.....sisä ja erota...." in-to separate"
sisätulento.....sisä ja tulla...."in-to come"
ulko-olento.....ulko ja olla ...."out-to be"
ulkoeronto.....ulko ja erota...."out-to separate"
ulkotulento.....ulko ja tulla..."out-to come"... sense of coming to the outside of something
vajanto....vajaa...."to lack"
seuranto....seurata..."to accompany"
keinonto....keino...."means" or "a way"

Once you learn the meanings of the Finnish basic words, this seems a bit easier to me. When using the Latin terms, whether in English or Finnish, unless you remember the meanings of the Latin prefixes and the basic Latin words, and even some aspectives of Latin grammar...such as the "il-" in "illative" equals "in-".....the names are just labels that you have to memorize....