Lauseenvastike....

[Rob A.]

I saw this headline and lead in today's Helsinki Sanomat...second story from top:

1. Ikkunasta Croydonissa hypännyt nainen liian järkyttynyt puhuakseen.

2. Nainen, joka hyppäsi palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta maanantai-iltana, on nyt tunnistettu. Nainen on maaliskuussa Puolasta Britanniaan muuttanut 32-vuotias Monica Konczyk, kertoo Guardian.

...which I would translate literally as:
1. "From-window-jumped woman too shocked in order for her to speak."

..and in standard English:
"Woman who jumped from window too shocked to speak."...the verb is understood..typical headline... puhuakseen...is an example of a long form first infinitive...

And the second part:
2. "Woman who jumped from window of her burning apartment is now identified. Woman is in-March from Poland to-Britain-moved 32 year old Monica Konczyk, says Guardian."

Or..."The woman who jumped from the window of her buring apartment has now been identified. The woman is 32 year old Monica Konczyk who, in March, moved from Poland to Britain., says the Guardian".... So the construction here is partially similar to English and partially lauseenvastike...

My question: If I were to re-arrange this sentence how would it sound to a native speaker:
From:
Nainen, joka hyppäsi palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta maanantai-iltana, on nyt tunnistettu. Nainen on maaliskuussa Puolasta Britanniaan muuttanut 32-vuotias Monica Konczyk, kertoo Guardian.

To:
Maanantai-iltana palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta hypännyt nainen on nyt tunnistettu. Guardianin mukaan nainen on 32-vuotias Monica Konczyk, joka maaliskuussa muutti Puolasta Britanniaan.

Does this sound as good as the original...???..Or not....

[Jukka Aho]

Maanantai-iltana palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta hypännyt nainen on nyt tunnistettu. Guardianin mukaan nainen on 32-vuotias Monica Konczyk, joka maaliskuussa muutti Puolasta Britanniaan.

Does this sound as good as the original...???..Or not....:D

Looks fine to me and would work as a drop-in replacement for the original.

(While you’re at it, see here for another article on the topic... :-| And listen to the original audio interview linked to that article...)

[Rob A.]

Thanks...as to the two girls talking on the video, I don't think it should seem as shocking as some people seem to think....I think being caught up in something like that would be a real "adrenalin-rush"....a bit like being in a hurricane or a dramatic thunderstorm... Reactions takeover and critical reasoning disappears...

Being immature they probably didn't really bother thinking about the dangers and the financial impact on other human beings.... Not their problem at that time, so to speak....

And somewhat similar, though on a dramatically smaller scale, to my experience some years ago of being chased by an upset mother bear....instinct took over and I seemed to do all the right things that I could to protect myself, without any apparent logical reasoning.... The fact I escaped uninjured was probably as much to do with luck as with the actions I took...at its closest the bear was probably within a metre of me, maybe less. But it was exciting nevertheless and something I've never forgotten.... It took a good few years for me to be able to wander around in the forest without thinking about bears...

Back to the topic....

Maanantai-iltana palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta hypännyt nainen on nyt tunnistettu.
"The woman who jumped from her burning apartment's window Monday eveing has now been identified."

...if I were to change things a bit:

"The car of the woman who jumped from her burning apartment's window Monday evening has now been identified."

Maanantai-iltana palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta hypänneen naisen auto on nyt tunnistettu.

And if it were more than one woman jumping from different apartments:

Maanantai-iltana palavien asuntojensa ikkunoista hypänneiden naisten autot ovat nyt tunnistettu.

Are these correct...??

This really is not that easy for me to work through.... If I heard someone say something like this on a newscast...I probably would get the general idea of what they were saying, but in no way would I really understand the message...

I assume you can keep on adding descriptive elements to these lauseenvastike constructions, but does it all get so unwieldy at some point that a native speaker would get confused??

[Jukka Aho]

Thanks...as to the two girls talking on the video, I don't think it should seem as shocking as some people seem to think....I think being caught up in something like that would be a real "adrenalin-rush"....a bit like being in a hurricane or a dramatic thunderstorm... Reactions takeover and critical reasoning disappears...

My cynical self suggests maybe there never was any to begin with... :P

Being immature

They’re 17, not 7. In my times..., etc.

What people “like” about that interview is how it lays bare the extent of justifiable political protest about the riots. Which is to say there’s apparently not a whole lot – it was all just a shallow pretense for going on a carnivalistic rampage and macabre “fun and games” for those simpletons participating in that.

For further practice, read the first comment to that HS.fi article, below the Keskustelua aiheesta heading... (You can read the other comments by clicking the said heading.)

"The car of the woman who jumped from her burning apartment's window Monday evening has now been identified."
Maanantai-iltana palavan asuntonsa ikkunasta hypänneen naisen auto on nyt tunnistettu.

Correct.

And if it were more than one woman jumping from different apartments:
Maanantai-iltana palavien asuntojensa ikkunoista hypänneiden naisten autot ovat nyt tunnistettu.

Correct except for “autot ovat tunnistettu”, which should be “autot on tunnistettu”. (It’s a passive/4th person construct. Autot is not the subject.)

This really is not that easy for me to work through.... If I heard someone say something like this on a newscast...I probably would get the general idea of what they were saying, but in no way would I really understand the message... :(

I assume you can keep on adding descriptive elements to these lauseenvastike constructions, but does it all get so unwieldy at some point that a native speaker would get confused?? :wink:

Probably so. ;)

Mind you, those lauseenvastike (“equivalent-of-a-clause”/“substitute-for-a-clause”) constructions are mostly a handy device for packing a lot of information in a compact space in a single written sentence. When producing speech during a live conversation you tend to opt for much simpler sentences and generally do not use lauseenvastike constructions much, if at all.

(The exception is, of course, when reading aloud written texts... which is how we get back to those newscasts: they may feature complicated lauseenvastike constructs as they’re essentially written news articles prepared in advance and then read from the teleprompter. Still, a competent news reporter/anchor would probably avoid crafting too complicated sentences as they know their audience can’t see the original text or jump back in it for a retake of the complicated parts.)

The whole thing is basically about maintaining a good balance between several simple sentences (or separate subordinate clauses) and a single compact sentence/clause with greater information density. If you err on one side, you’ll get text which has lots of conjunctions, commas and subordinate clauses or which will appear a bit simplistic, maybe jarringly so, should it be broken into separate little sentences. If you err on the other side, the stacked-on lauseenvastike constructions start getting unwieldy...

[Rob A.]

And if it were more than one woman jumping from different apartments:
Maanantai-iltana palavien asuntojensa ikkunoista hypänneiden naisten autot ovat nyt tunnistettu.

Correct except for “autot ovat tunnistettu”, which should be “autot on tunnistettu”. (It’s a passive/4th person construct. Autot is not the subject.)

Yes...it didn't fully sink in that it was in the passive voice...to be precise the present perfect passive in English and the perfect passive in Finnish.... And this answers another thought I had...How on tunistettu could be interpreted as "has been identified", and not "is identified"....the grammatically intent is the exactly the same in Finnish as in English, but he grammatical "clues" are different... In English it's the form taken by the auxillary verb(s), in Finnish, it's the form of the participle takes....

Passive Tense Forms

1. Present .......The car/cars is/are designed.....Auto/Autot suunnitellaan... Finnish tense name...Preseens..??..="Present".

2. Present perfect....The car/cars has been/have been designed....Auto/Autot on suunniteltu......Finnish tense name...Perfekti="Perfect"

3. Past..... ...The car/cars was/were designed....Auto/Autot suunniteltiin........ Finnish tense name... Imperfekti="Imperfect"

4. Past perfect.....The car/cars had been/had been designed....Auto/Autot oli suunniteltu.... ...Finnish tense name...Pluskvamperfekti="Pluperfect"

5. Future...The car/cars will be/will be designed....Auto/Autot suunnitellaan......the future in Finnish will be inferred from the context of the sentence...

6. Future perfect The car/cars will have been/will have been designed.....Auto/Autot on suunniteltu....

7. Present progressive The car/cars is being/are being designed....Auto/Autot on suunniteltava......I'm not sure about this one..???

8. Past progressive The car/cars was being/ were being designed.....Auto/Autot oli suunniteltava.......Not sure about this either...???

I adapted this from what I found on this link...any errors???...

I'm not suggesting that these tenses in English would all be grammatically considered as tenses in Finnish, but I think there would be a grammatical construction that would convey the same idea.....