News in Finnish: Kaupunkihuuhkajat

[Jukka Aho]

Would it be correct to say:

Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla lintu...? ....if I'm understanding the discussion above correctly, I think this would NOT be correct....I think you would have to have some sort of verbal adjective there...

There are situations where you can’t do that, but here it would actually be possible:

Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla lintu lauloi heleän laulun.

But that gives the phrase “kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla” a special emphasis. It reads as if you were trying to underline the importance of the bird being (or having been) on the windowsill of the 6th floor (and not someplace else) when the act of singing happened. Or it’s almost as if you were trying to contrast the whereabouts of the bird at that moment with some other place where the bird was doing something else just moments ago. Compare to this English translation which would seem to have a similar emphasis:

“On the windowsill of the 6th floor, the bird sang...”

Then again, if you’d say...

Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla lintu lauloi heleän laulun huoneessa oleville ihmisille.

...there’s no way you could completely remove the verbal adjective oleville in the last part. (As you note yourself in your previous post, you could replace it with another verbal adjective, though.)

[Keravalainen]

...Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla oleva lintu ... ollut lintu...kävelevä lintu ...itkevä lintu .... kirkuva lintu....yms....... Is that so??? And then there comes the problem of remembering all the case declensions when relevant...

This is simple...
The sentence "Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla istuva lintu" indicates, that the bird is still there right now and doesn't go away. Some kind of statue?
Still the incident it's related to happened in the past.

- "Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla istumut lintu" indicates that the bird was sitting there at that time, but it obviously may not be sitting there any more.

[David O.]

Just to add on to Jukka's post... getting rid of the verbal adjective will fundamentally change the sentence structure, in terms of what modifies what. Whether the result is a coherent sentence is a separate matter entirely.

Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla istunut lintu is all one noun phrase... istunut directly modifies lintu, and kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla directly modifies istunut. But if you remove istunut, the phrase kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla can't modify the noun lintu, because it's not adjectival... it's just an adverbial of place, which you can see from the fact that you could move it to the end of the sentence (lintu lauloi kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla). In other words, kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla lintu is two phrases, not one.

Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla istunut lintu lauloi. The bird sitting on the 6th-floor windowsill sang.
Kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla lintu lauloi. It was on the 6th-floor windowsill that the bird sang.
Lintu lauloi kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla. The bird sang on the 6th-floor windowsill.
*Lintu lauloi kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla istunut. (Ungrammatical, because you can't put the adjective phrase after the noun)
Lintu lauloi kuudennen kerroksen ikkunalaudalla istuneena. The bird sang, seated on the 6th-floor windowsill. (Sounds a little weird, sure).

[Rob A.]

Thanks all...

Here's another example, though this one seems more difficult to rearrange....except by using an että clause immediately following the word, bakteeri......

Espanjalaisista kurkuista löytynyt bakteeri on aiheuttanut jo kymmenen kuolemaa Saksassa.

""Found-from-Spanish-cucumbers bacteria have caused already ten deaths in Germany." You could rearrange this with a different emphasis...

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanut bakteeri on löytynyt espanjalaisista kurkuista..... Is this grammatically correct?...
bakteeri appears to be a "collective" noun in Finnish and is singular, though in English it would be viewed as a plural noun...
"Ten-deaths-in-Germany-already-having-caused bacteria were found on Spanish cucumbers."

[Jukka Aho]

Here's another example, though this one seems more difficult to rearrange....except by using an että clause immediately following the word, bakteeri......

Espanjalaisista kurkuista löytynyt bakteeri on aiheuttanut jo kymmenen kuolemaa Saksassa.

""Found-from-Spanish-cucumbers bacteria have caused already ten deaths in Germany."

Rearrange... to what end?

You could get rid of the lauseenvastike by saying:

Bakteeri, joka on löytynyt espanjalaisista kurkuista, on aiheuttanut jo kymmenen kuolemaa Saksassa.

A Finnish teacher in school would call that a kiilalause, “wedge phrase”.

You could rearrange this with a different emphasis...

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanut bakteeri on löytynyt espanjalaisista kurkuista..... Is this grammatically correct?

Yes. It’s proper Finnish, grammatically speaking.

If there’s something logically irritating in that sentence, I think it must be the fact that the bacteria is first presented as having caused deaths in Germany, but the same bacteria is now found to hide in Spanish cucumbers. Almost as if it had caused the deaths first and then, somehow, jumped in the Spanish cucumbers, in an attempt to flee from the police, or something? To prevent that interpretation, you’d use the partitive:

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanutta bakteeria on löytynyt espanjalaisista kurkuista.

Now it says some “amount” of the bacteria (strain) that caused the deaths in Germany has (also) been found in Spanish cucumbers. Of course, we have now drifted some way off from the idea of the original sentence where the Spanish cucumbers were identified, more or less, as having been the direct cause of the deaths.

bakteeri appears to be a "collective" noun in Finnish and is singular, though in English it would be viewed as a plural noun...
"Ten-deaths-in-Germany-already-having-caused bacteria were found on Spanish cucumbers."

The word bakteeri can take two different roles.

You can use it to refer to the individual cells you study under the microscope, in both singular and plural (bakteeri, bakteerit). In this usage, it behaves just like any normal noun.

Or you could use the word to refer to the different populations, strains or types of bacteria... also in singular or plural, depending on whether you’re referring to a single strain/type or several different ones. This usage also allows collective/uncountable interpretation for a single strain (or cell population) when used in singular.

[Rob A.]

Thanks....

Rearrange... to what end?

I think you might have indirectly answered that for me.... Why, so I could see what insights I might gain from using different grammatical constructions ...

If there’s something logically irritating in that sentence, I think it must be the fact that the bacteria is first presented as having caused deaths in Germany, but the same bacteria is now found to hide in Spanish cucumbers. Almost as if it had caused the deaths first and then, somehow, jumped in the Spanish cucumbers, in an attempt to flee from the police, or something? To prevent that interpretation, you’d use the partitive:

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanutta bakteeria on löytynyt espanjalaisista kurkuista.

Would using a passive/impersonal construction seem better, or would it give a different nuance?

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanutta bakteeria löydettiin (ensiksi) espanjalaisista kurkuista.....

[Jukka Aho]

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanutta bakteeria on löytynyt espanjalaisista kurkuista.

Coming back to that sentence for a moment, I just realized it can also be interpreted as follows:

In Germany, there has already been found ten (individual/different) “having-incident-of-death-caused” bacterium (cells) in Spanish cucumbers.

Would using a passive/impersonal construction seem better, or would it give a different nuance?

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanutta bakteeria löydettiin (ensiksi) espanjalaisista kurkuista.....

Yes, that’s better. In this version, bacteria having been found in those cucumbers is no longer breaking news. It’s just a restatement of a previously known (?) fact.

[Bavarian]

Why not (mis)use takia?

Kymmenen ihmistä ovat kuollut Saksassa bakteerian espanjalaisissa kurkuissa takia.

Ten people have died in Germany because of bacteria in Spanish cucumbers.

[jahasjahas]

Why not (mis)use takia?

Kymmenen ihmistä ovat kuollut Saksassa bakteerian espanjalaisissa kurkuissa takia.

Ten people have died in Germany because of bacteria in Spanish cucumbers.

That should be

Kymmenen ihmistä on kuollut Saksassa espanjalaisissa kurkuissa olleen bakteerin takia.

(On the other hand, "olla" is an empty and clunky verb in that sentence, so in real life you'd replace it with "espanjalaisista kurkuista löytyneen", "espanjalaisissa kurkuissa kasvaneen" or something similar.)

[Rob A.]

Would using a passive/impersonal construction seem better, or would it give a different nuance?

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttanutta bakteeria löydettiin (ensiksi) espanjalaisista kurkuista.....

Yes, that’s better. In this version, bacteria having been found in those cucumbers is no longer breaking news. It’s just a restatement of a previously known (?) fact.

OK... a little more:

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolema aiheuttanutta bakteria löydettiin alloittamasta espanjalaisista kurkuista....How is this? [It doesn't look quite right to me, though.]

...I think I'm saying:
"The bacteria which has already caused ten deaths in Germany was found to have originated in Spanish cucumbers."

[Jukka Aho]

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolema aiheuttanutta bakteria löydettiin alloittamasta espanjalaisista kurkuista....How is this? [It doesn't look quite right to me, though.]

...I think I'm saying:
"The bacteria which has already caused ten deaths in Germany was found to have originated in Spanish cucumbers."

I guess in newsspeak you’d say something like this:

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttaneen bakteerin alkuperä on varmistumassa / varmistunut / saatu varmistettua / pystytty varmistamaan espanjalaisiksi tuontikurkuiksi.

Then again, the Spanish would beg to disagree!

• Espanja kiistää kurkkusyytökset, jo 14 kuollut (Helsingin Sanomat)
• Ruotsissa jo 36 tartuntaepäilyä – espanjalaisviljelijöille jättitappiot (Aamulehti)

[Rob A.]

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolema aiheuttanutta bakteria löydettiin alloittamasta espanjalaisista kurkuista....How is this? [It doesn't look quite right to me, though.]

...I think I'm saying:
"The bacteria which has already caused ten deaths in Germany was found to have originated in Spanish cucumbers."

I guess in newsspeak you’d say something like this:

Saksassa jo kymmenen kuolemaa aiheuttaneen bakteerin alkuperä on varmistumassa / varmistunut / saatu varmistettua / pystytty varmistamaan espanjalaisiksi tuontikurkuiksi.

Thanks...I'll have to think about this a bit...I'm wondering why the translative is being used...But let me think about it for a while...

Then again, the Spanish would beg to disagree!

• Espanja kiistää kurkkusyytökset, jo 14 kuollut (Helsingin Sanomat)
• Ruotsissa jo 36 tartuntaepäilyä – espanjalaisviljelijöille jättitappiot (Aamulehti)

Yes....Deny, Deny, Deny....until a court finds you guilty...and then keep denying it...

But I'm curious why people are dying because of this in Germany, but apparently only getting sick in Sweden.... Makes you think that while the bakteeri may have been introduced to the kurkut in Spain, perhaps subsequent handling has made the problem worse....

And, of course, all Spanish vegetable farmers will feel the jattitappio...even the careful ones ...

[silk]

Yes....Deny, Deny, Deny....until a court finds you guilty...and then keep denying it...

Another word for "deny"... kieltää...

http://www.hs.fi/viihde/artikkeli/Ruots ... 5266536584

[Upphew]

I couldn't deny these:

[Jukka Aho]

• Saksa: Espanjalaiset kurkut syyttömiä ehec-tapauksiin