endings of words

[laciethier]

Hello Finnish Lovelies!
I am attempting to get a basic set of rules down in regards the endings of words. This is just as I interpret them. If I have something wrong please correct me. Any help is greatly appreciated.

(-t) is nominative, meaning it turns the word into a something.
For example: in English we use “a” (“a” book)

(-n) (-in) is genitive, meaning it shows a relationship between two important topics in a sentence, it shows which one is the subject
For example: in english we use “’s” (Mary’s book)

(-it) (-i) is accusative, meaning it refers to a specific object
For example: in English we use “the” (the book)

(-a) (-ta)SINGULAR, (-ia)(-ita) PLURAL these are partitive, meaning it is speaking of something that is not specific
For example: in English we have “s” (the books)

(-ssa)(-issa) these are saying “to be in” or “to be at”

(-sta) (-ista) these say “out of”

(-n) (-seen) (-iin) these say “into”

(-lla) (-illa) these say “on”

(-lta) (-ilta) these mean to move away from something or to stop doing something

(-lle) (-ille) these say “onto”

(-na) (-ina) is a state of being something
For example: In English we use “was””is””as”

(-ksi) (-iksi) helps to describe a change of state or is becoming something
For example: In English we have “ing”

(-tta) (-itta) referring to an absence of something
For example: in English we have “less” or “without”

(-ine) says “with”

(-in) says “by” its used when giving instructions

(-ni) says “my” or “mine”

(-si) says “yours”

(-mme) is for plural and says “my” or “mine”

(-tte) is for plural and says “yours”

(-vat) says “his/hers”

(-kin) says “also” or something like me “too”

(-nen) makes the word personal or about a person

(-ko) used when questioning about a specific object

(-han) I cannot understand this one at all. Perhaps because it just does not translate.

When (-i) changes to (-e) at the end of the word, is it just so you can say it easier?
Ex: lapsi changes to lapseni

(-si) changes to (-te), I don’t understand this one well either.

(-nen) changes to (-se) are these ones just to make it easier to say?

(-us), (-ys),( -os), (-ös), (-is), (-es): remove the -s and add (-kse) this is referring to possessive case right?

(-as) remove the –s and add a double vowel, this one is to emphasize the syllables that are spoken?

(-ine) become (ime) this is a possessive case again right?


Besides what they mean and plural/singular, how do I decide which one to use at the end of a word. Some are rather self explanatory, some are not. (ex: (-n)(-seen) ) Anybody have some examples? Is this where vowel harmony is so important?
When we use plural we add an “i” before the suffix, is this correct?
Am I missing any important endings?
I have barely found anything on Finnish grammar here in Canada. A lot of this is quess work, thanks for your patience.
Hope everybody is having a good day.
Laci

[laciethier]

On the opposite side, are there Finnish translations to these English endings? Are they listed in my previous message?
"someone who" (-er, -or, -ant, -ent, -ard, -ian, -ess)
"someone who does" (-ist)
"action or process" (-ade, -age, -ism, -ment, -ure)
"material" (-ing)
"a place for" (-arium, -orium, -ary, -ory)
"a state, or quality of" (-ance, --ence, -ation, -dom, etc.)

[tuulen]

The best and easiest answers to your questions could be found in a Finnish grammar published in English, Finnish: An Essential Grammar (second edition), written by Fred Karlsson and published internationally by Routledge. That book will get you off to a good start.

[AldenG]

Many of your observations are correct or almost correct but some are incorrect or distorted. It's difficult to critique in detail, as one begins to write a treatise on how Finnish grammar does work.

So far it looks like your idiosyncratic approach, though interesting for its novelty and giving you some insight, is too simplistic to be of much practical use to you going forward. Also understanding word endings alone, even if you had much more understanding of them than you appear to now, isn't going to get you far by itself. The spark of life is in the combinations of word endings across a phrase. Just knowing endings like these and using them to assemble sentences in a way that makes sense to you will yield mostly unintelligible gibberish.

Therefore I agree with tuulen's comment.

I don't want to discourage you because having worked these things out for yourself, you appear to be smart and possibly capable of learning Finnish. But from what you've written and how you've written it, it appears that to achieve success, you will need to modify your methods and find more resources.

[Pursuivant]

Have you tried http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_grammar

[Jukka Aho]

(-t) is nominative, meaning it turns the word into a something.
For example: in English we use “a” (“a” book)

There’s no clear-cut distinction between “definite” and “indefinite” objects/subjects in the Finnish grammar. Or, the distinction is not made as explicit as in languages which use grammatical articles, such as “a/an” and “the” in English. The nominative mies, for example, can indicate either “a man” or “the man”.

However, there are ways to infer definitiveness in a context, or to make it explicit. For example eräs mies would only translate to “a [certain] man”.

(-n) (-in) is genitive, meaning it shows a relationship between two important topics in a sentence, it shows which one is the subject
For example: in english we use “’s” (Mary’s book)

Usually, that relationship is “possession”. However, there’s also a beast called “genitive-like accusative form” which is indistinguishable from the normal genitive in form, but different in its usage. (Some people argue this grammatical explanation misrepresents the true Finnish language, whatever that is, and tries to forcibly shoehorn it into grammatical classifications that are similar to e.g. Latin.)

(-it) (-i) is accusative, meaning it refers to a specific object
For example: in English we use “the” (the book)

See above. Or for the gory details, you might want to read “The choice of case for the object in a sentence”.

(-a) (-ta)SINGULAR, (-ia)(-ita) PLURAL these are partitive, meaning it is speaking of something that is not specific
For example: in English we have “s” (the books)

The partitive is often used when dealing with uncountables; mass nouns, especially when only manipulating a part (some amount) of the (sometimes imagined or abstract) whole.

(-na) (-ina) is a state of being something
For example: In English we use “was””is””as”

Or to act in a certain role, capacity.

(-ksi) (-iksi) helps to describe a change of state or is becoming something
For example: In English we have “ing”

Yes, the name of the -ksi case is “the transitive”, which kind of hints in that direction. ;)

(-han) I cannot understand this one at all. Perhaps because it just does not translate.

We’ve had a couple of threads about it. See here, for example. You might also want to take a look at this page in the Unilang Finnish Grammar Wiki.

I even found a related thesis, but only the abstract seems to be available in the Internet.

When (-i) changes to (-e) at the end of the word, is it just so you can say it easier?
Ex: lapsi changes to lapseni

(-si) changes to (-te), I don’t understand this one well either.

(-nen) changes to (-se) are these ones just to make it easier to say?

(-us), (-ys),( -os), (-ös), (-is), (-es): remove the -s and add (-kse) this is referring to possessive case right?

(-as) remove the –s and add a double vowel, this one is to emphasize the syllables that are spoken?

(-ine) become (ime) this is a possessive case again right?

Here you’re in a territory that probably requires further study and where you might not find definite answers but just theories and rules or “patterns” to learn. It’s a bit difficult to even work back to individual words from the suffixes you’re listing and they might be grammatically and linguistically more complex beasts than simple suffixes, anyway. For example, check out Kimberli Mäkäräinen’s explanation of consonant gradation.

I have barely found anything on Finnish grammar here in Canada. A lot of this is quess work, thanks for your patience.
Hope everybody is having a good day.

I kind of like your hands-on investigative approach! ;) Many language learners start out with the basic grammar books and dictionaries, trying to work through them methodically, but maybe never seeing “the language” behind “the rules” — or at least suppressing such insight for a much later date. You, on the other hand, already seem to have begun to recognize patterns in the language and approach their likely meanings by the means of inductive reasoning. While you probably need some formal grammar under your belt to draw some of the pieces together, your approach, in general, can only be a good thing for getting a hang of how the language “works”.

That said, I agree with both Tuulen and AldenG: buy a basic grammar book for reference, such as the one suggested by Tuulen. And as for finding patterns in the language, the oft-repeated/reusable multi-word grammatical patterns in common expressions and phrases are the thing you’d eventually like to focus on, just like AldenG suggests, since they’re the actual building blocks of a sentence. If you focus too much on the individual case endings and try to infer the conveyed message directly from the individual suffixes, interpreting each word in isolation instead of as a part of a fixed multi-word pattern, you may miss this bigger picture.

[MagicJ]

This site should be useful for you. Basic grammar, basic vocab and some 'endings'
www.uusikielemme.fi/vocabulary.html

[Rob A.]

I have barely found anything on Finnish grammar here in Canada. A lot of this is quess work, thanks for your patience.

I'm in Canada as well and I've had no problem at all finding resources for Finnish grammar online.... Doesn't matter where you are...as long as you have an ISP....and, i guess, electricity.

Here are a couple of links:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/finnish-cases.html

I found Korpela's sites quite useful...


http://ir.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jspui/handle/2237/9283

...a rather "dense" academic paper...but you might get some insights from it...this guy has some other papers you can find online.

...and another academic paper...

http://www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Paper ... rticle.pdf

There's lots more of this kind of stuff online....
.

[jahasjahas]

I am attempting to get a basic set of rules down in regards the endings of words.

I think a major problem with your analysis is that there are many things on your list of "endings of words" that are very different from each other and really don't belong on the same "list". You also seem to be looking for perfect equivelance between the two languages ("the Finnish form X is the same as the English form Y") which simply isn't there.

You have case endings...
lapsi+lta = lapselta = from a/the child

possessive suffixes...
lapsi+ni = lapseni = my child

particles...
lapsi+kin = lapsikin = a child, too

some endings used in word formation...
lapsi+uus = lapsuus = childhood.

You also seem to have some examples related to how letters change when words are inflected/conjugated (like how lapsi suddenly has an e), but they were a bit hard to understand without context.

So, I agree with the others. You should study the basic grammar of the language some more, so you'll know what you're actually looking for when you start reading and analysing words. But don't be discouraged, you'll figure it out!

[tuulen]

So, I agree with the others. You should study the basic grammar of the language some more, so you'll know what you're actually looking for when you start reading and analysing words. But don't be discouraged, you'll figure it out!

The saying is true, that Finnish is not difficult, but simply is different.

English and Finnish are COMPLETELY different languages.

A study of Finnish grammar really is necessary.