Consonant gradation

[afrench]

Hi guys,
This is my first piece of activity in this forum and I have been trying to learn Finnish for a very short period of time and allready have a huge respect for those who have allready accomplished fluency as a second language.
My question is on consonant gradation;
Hoitaa, a type one verb, undergoes qualitative consonant gradation when conjugated in the present tense (t -> d for all but the third person sing. and pl. as is standard for type on verbs)
why do muistaa and ostaa not. As far as I can tell they are both type one verbs, am I missing something?

Thanks for any help guys, I really appreciate it.

Also, I am more or less doing this with the help of my girlfriend who is Finnish and simply learning tables and rules at the moment. My girlfriend is by no means a hindrance but she does not have intricate knowledge of the specifics of the rules of grammar which is understandable. So any advice on HOW to go about learning this beautiful language would be greatly appreciated.

My plan is to get enough of a grasp of the basics; how to conjugate a verb properly, get used to the idea of the cases etc. to the point that I can read a sentence or at least recognise some words in a text and then move on to reading Finnish news articles and the like. Any constructive advice would go down really well this end; any links to free language instruction software or anything similar would be excellent as I am currently a penniless student and can't afford to purchase software, useful though I'm sure it is.

Again thanks for any help

[Upphew]

Very short period and trying to figure out consonant gradation... good luck.

You know that kids don't learn consonant gradation in the beginning. Try to start with easier stuff, children's books and comics before news speak. If you prefer to learn by rules, use some material that is aimed to do so, learning tables and lists on their own doesn't seem like fun nor productive. Get a text you don't understand and learn the words from that instead of learning words and trying to decipher some text that might or might not have the words.

GF is good for telling if something is right or wrong, why might be harder question to answer. She would also know what to look from dictionary.

http://www2.edu.fi/ymmarrasuomea/index.php
http://www.verbix.com/languages/finnish.shtml

[jahasjahas]

"Astevaihtelu on sanavartaloissa ilmenevää äännevaihtelua, joka koskee klusiileja p, t ja k (marginaalisesti myös b, g), silloin kun klusiilia edeltää soinnillinen äänne eli vokaali tai soinnillinen konsonantti."
http://scripta.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=41

Consonant gradation only happens when the consonant is preceded by a vowel or a voiced consonant. The s in muistaa and ostaa is a voiceless consonant (p, t, k, s).

Consonant gradation is one of those things that a native speaker will have no idea how to explain. It just comes naturally.

[AldenG]

It may be of some use in this process to recognize that although verbs are formally catalogued according to the infinitive form 1, the truly basic (and useful) form of the verb is the simple imperative. The reason it's helpful is that the imperative gives you most of the personal forms and eliminates or reduces "surprise" mutations from the infinitive. Basically, the infinitive is a devolved form that often loses some of the complexity found in the imperative.

Thus you have

hoida -- hoidan, hoidat, hoitaa, hoidamme, hoidatte, hoitavat -- hoitaa

muista -- muistan, muistat, muistaa, muistamme, muistatte, muistavat -- muistaa

osta -- ostan, ostat, ostaa, ostamme, ostatte, ostavat -- ostaa

juokse -- juoksen, juokset, juoksee, juoksemme, juoksette, juoksevat -- juosta

The most compact form I've devised for summarizing verbs is the following. It has possibly quirky (a)symmetries -- for instance, you can't label the columns, though there is internal, intuitive logic to the overall structure -- but does a good job of highlighting some critical contrasts. If I recall correctly, it encapsulates all the conjugational information about a verb required to avoid any surprises (except for rare defective verbs, verbs that do not exist in certain forms). It would probably work well for a small set of flashcards used as an aid to exercises in conjugation or in rephrasing sentences.

Code: Select all

sano/n (sanoo)        sanoi/n (sanoi)      sanonut sanoneet
sanotaan              sanottiin            sanottu
---
sanokaa! (sano!)      sanoisi/n            sanone/n
sanottakoon!          sanottaisiin         sanottaneen
---
sanoa                 sanoakse-            group [i]sanoa[/i]
---
sanova                sanoma- (minen)      sanoe/ssa
sanottava                                  sanottae/ssa

Code: Select all

juokse/n (juoksee)    juoksi/n (juoksi)    juossut juosseet
juostaan              juostiin             juostu
---
juoskaa! (juokse!)    juoksisi/n           juosse/n
juostakoon!           juostaisiin          juostaneen
---
juosta                juostakse-           group [i]juosta[/i]
---
juokseva              juoksema- (minen)    juoste/ssa
juostava                                   juostae/ssa

It sounds like you recognize the limits of drill, which is good. I agree with your approach to shift to reading once you have enough understanding of conjugation and declension to parse successfully.

[AldenG]

Usually you'll see all the vowel and consonant changes you need to recognize in some combination of He-present, I-present (imperative+n), and 1st infinitive. Add the present participle for good measure. That way it's not about learning to recognize a clue in the infinitive and then applying all sorts of rules and magic; it's only about learning a handful of forms all together. There aren't that many verbs in common use anyway. It really is easier to learn these 3-4 forms of each than it is to master a set of supposed rules that really are only after-the-fact attempts to systematize a messy reality.

[afrench]

Wow! Thanks guys, I hadn't realised this forum was so active That's some really good advice there, I really appreciate it. I look forwards to implementing some of the ideas suggested and if I run into any more difficulties I now know where to come.

Thanks again, keep smiling everyone!

[afrench]

He-present, I-present (imperative+n), and 1st infinitive. Add the present participle for good measure.

One query; you say He-present then I-present. Am I to take that you mean the English word "he" ie. 3rd person singular or are you referencing the Finnish "they"?

[AldenG]

He-present, I-present (imperative+n), and 1st infinitive. Add the present participle for good measure.

One query; you say He-present then I-present. Am I to take that you mean the English word "he" ie. 3rd person singular or are you referencing the Finnish "they"?

Good point. I meant to simplify but created ambiguity instead. I meant English "he," i.e. 3rd person singular.

I think it's helpful to move as far toward example and away from description as possible. Thus you'll sometimes see me doing experiments like that in explaining things. Hence "he-present" and "I-present."

Yes, it would be good if everyone could learn and communicate easily using the "official" formal names for things, but in practice most do not. And even for those who do, formal terminology still creates one or more levels of indirection between the thing and its name or discussion about it, in other words mental disconnections between them. The result is that people sometimes know more "about" a thing than they know the actual thing. They may know the rule but completely lack the reflex, and that's the opposite of fluency.

[afrench]

Awesome, thanks for the help and I agree totally about more example and less description.

Take it easy guys, happy travels!