Rule that determines a Finnish verb's ending?

[fabi182]

Hello,

Does anybody know of a rule that determines when a Finnish verb ends in 'taa' and when in 'ttaa'?

For example:
When/why is it muistaa and not muisttaa?
When/why is it lopettaa and not lopetaa?


Thanks in advance!

[jahasjahas]

What you're seeing here is consonant gradation

muistaa - muistan (no consonant gradation)
lopettaa - lopetan (a tt-t consonant gradation)

I think you should read up on consonant gradation before trying to understand what's going on in these specific examples.

Here's an introduction:



(I don't remember watching this particular video by her before, and can't hear the audio at the moment, but let's hope it's useful.)

Some previous threads on the consonant gradation of verb forms:

https://www.finlandforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=68092
https://www.finlandforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=69586

[Rekkari]

fabi182 asked:

Does anybody know of a rule that determines when a Finnish verb ends in 'taa' and when in 'ttaa'?

For example:
When/why is it muistaa and not muisttaa?
When/why is it lopettaa and not lopetaa?

Isn't that sort of like encountering the English infinitives 'to raise' and 'to rise' and wondering when to put in the 'a' and when to leave it out?

Well, I suppose there may be some orthographic rules that one can apply:

• The consonant cluster stt does not occur in Finnish, so in the case of muistaa vs. muisttaa, the latter is ruled out.
• Not really a rule, but I know of no infinitives that end in -etaa (-etää does occur, however), so lopetaa doesn't work.

If there ARE rules, I think they are probably numerous and complicated to the point of being too cumbersome to apply. For the most part, I think one just has to memorize the spellings.

[jahasjahas]

Well, I suppose there may be some orthographic rules that one can apply:

• The consonant cluster stt does not occur in Finnish, so in the case of muistaa vs. muisttaa, the latter is ruled out.
• Not really a rule, but I know of no infinitives that end in -etaa (-etää does occur, however), so lopetaa doesn't work.

If there ARE rules, I think they are probably numerous and complicated to the point of being too cumbersome to apply. For the most part, I think one just has to memorize the spellings.

Saying it's a matter of ortography and spelling isn't quite right, since obviously the length of the consonant affects pronunciation. We haven't ended up with these forms because someone decided that we should write them this way and not another; the spelling represents a sound change caused by inflecting the word.

"One just has to memorize the spellings" almost sounds like you had to learn the gradation for every word separately, even though there are clear patterns that you can learn to recognize. (And then you just have to learn all the exceptions )

Though obviously you are correct in that the consonant cluster "stt" isn't allowed in Finnish phonotactics - but things like "ltt" and "rtt" are. I'm guessing that recognizing the incorrect combinations automatically will take quite a while of getting used to "how Finnish should sound".

[Rekkari]

...sounds like you had to learn the gradation for every word separately, even though there are clear patterns that you can learn to recognize.

In the beginning I didn't know about consonant gradation. I learned the infinitive along with it's three most useful forms (from which ALL other forms can be derrived):

• löytää - löydän, löysi, löytänyt
• voida - voin, voi, voinut
• ottaa - otan, otti, ottanut
• pyytää - pyydän, pyysi, pyytänyt
• antaa - annan, antoi, antanut
• tulla - tulen, tuli, tullut
• haluta - haluan, halusi, halunnut
• merkitä - merkitsen, merkitsi, merkinnyt

Spelling was commited to memory just like any other new word. The rules of consonant gradation came later and were easier to memorize and made alot more sense because by then I had plenty of examples in my vocabulary with which to check their application.

What I meant was that I know that muistaa is correct while muisttaa is incorrect simply because I learned it that way. It's not like I've ever had to guess what the ending is when encountering a new inifinitive:

Choose the correct ending for the following infinitive stems:
1. muis?

1. taa
2. ttaa

2. lope?

1. taa
2. ttaa

One can make an educated guess on the first (-stt not allowed), but both forms could be correct in the second: Minä lopedan, Minä lopetan. There's is no rule that will yield the correct answer - one just has to know that lopettaa is correct.

I've always memorized the ending not as a separate entity added to the stem but just as a continuation of a single word. In other words, it's just how it is spelled. And yes, over time I have developed a sense of 'spelling correctness' so that I sense that something's not quite right when I see a word like muisttaa.

Isn't this how it works when learning any language? One learns the spelling along with the definition, right?

[Rekkari]

I forgot to mention:

I also learned that all Finnish infinitives end in either -a/ä or -ta/tä. Using this knowledge, I can always deconstruct the infinitive into its stem and ending. I can not, however, always construct the infinitive given just the stem.

puhua -> puhu + a
tuoda -> tuo +da
muistaa -> muista + a
lopettaa -> lopetta +a

BUT one cannot always go the other way:

puhu + a => puhua
puhu + ta => puhuta
puhu + ttaa => puhuttaa
puhu + taa => puhutaa

Minä puhun, puhuan, puhutan, vai puhudan? Which one is correct? Again, one just has to know.

[Rob A.]

I forgot to mention:

I also learned that all Finnish infinitives end in either -a/ä or -ta/tä. Using this knowledge, I can always deconstruct the infinitive into its stem and ending. I can not, however, always construct the infinitive given just the stem.

puhua -> puhu + a
tuoda -> tuo +da
muistaa -> muista + a
lopettaa -> lopetta +a

Hmmmm...kind of right but maybe there is a bit more you need to consider...

How would you deconstruct syödä, or haluta, or häiritä?

Also a word like oppiakseni is considered in grammar analysis to be an infinitive....

It is worth keeping in mind that taking a "rules of grammar" kind of approach to learning some languages ...and Finnish is one of those...will present a few difficulties. This approach is actually very ancient...the Greeks and Romans developed it centuries ago and grammarians still try to "shoehorn" other languages into this framework...with problems here and there.....

Finnish has other ways of doing things ..... Consider this simple sentence:

Minulla on punainen villatakki.

The subject of this sentence is..... well, it gets debated, and for practical language learning purposes the answer is "obvious"... but the subject in strict terms is implied....minulla is the indirect object.....

How about this sentence:

Ruotsia puhuttiin suomessa...... The subject?

Here's another sentence to consider:

Jos tulee ajoissa, saa paremman paikan.

And here are some consonant gradation links:

http://www.stanford.edu/~laurik/fsmbook ... ation.html

http://people.uta.fi/~km56049/finnish/gradtables.html


The letter "s" before "k","p", and "t", prevents the application of the rules of consonant gradation.

The following link is quite good for many aspects of Finnish grammar:

http://www.uusikielemme.fi/grammar.html

[Rob A.]

Playing around with grammar can be fun....

Consider these two sentences:
Mikko pyörtyi ja kannettiin ulos.
*Hän pyörtyi ja kannettiin ulos.

...the first sentence is grammatically correct and acceptable...the second is not...

Native speakers will know this instinctively...the rest of us have to learn the "hard way".....

The reason is that verb forms such as pyörtyi require a nominative subject, and passive verb forms such as kannettiin require indirect..[or should that be direct???...I'm not sure] object nouns to be nominative and pronouns to be in the so-called accusative case....

Finnish grammarians debate endlessly about whether or not the accusative is actually a "case" in Finnish, but the explanation is so complex that for practical language teaching purposes an accusative case is assumed and is explained by saying that in some instances there will be a nominative-type noun, in others a genitive-type noun and yet others...pronouns.... a "t" ending...easier to teach it in terms of exceptions to general rules rather than try to teach it in terms of what even the grammarians can't fully agree on...

[Rekkari]

First, I haphazardly wrote:

I also learned that all Finnish infinitives end in either -a/ä or -ta/tä.

Then, Rob A cautioned:

Hmmmm...kind of right but maybe there is a bit more you need to consider...

Woops! I failed to properly regurgitate the rules (it was late).
The corrected rule(s):

1. Finnish verbs end in -a/ä.
2. The infinitive ending is -a/ä if it ends in two vowels.
3. The infinitive ending is the preceding consonant + a/ä if it doesn't.
4. The above rules apply only to the basic form of the 1st infinitive (i.e., the dictionary form), and NOT to the long form (e.g. oppiakseni).

So syödä, haluta, and häiritä follow easily: syö-dä, halu-ta, and häiri-tä

Interesting sample sentences, too, BTW:

• Minulla on punainen villatakki.
• Ruotsia puhuttiin suomessa.
• Jos tulee ajoissa, saa paremman paikan.

I'm mulling them over and will probably pipe in later.

[jahasjahas]

Should probably be "Ruotsia puhuttiin Suomessa." (Unless Swedish was spoken in(side) Finnish.)

[Rekkari]

Rekkari warned:

I'm mulling them over and will probably pipe in later.

Well, I've mulled them over and it's later...

Minulla on punainen villatakki.
I'm curious why the subject is implied. Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Minulla on punainen villatakki." appears to be no different than "Pöydällä on punainen villatakki.":

• There is a red sweater on the table.
• There is a red sweater on me.

Both are then examples of so-called there is/there are, or existential, sentences, where the explicit subject sweater is being introduced for the first time. Or does using Minulla instead of Pöydällä somehow change things?


Ruotsia puhuttiin Suomessa.
Because this sentence is in the passive voice, there is no explicit subject. The implicit subject, I guess, could be people.


Jos tulee ajoissa, saa paremman paikan.
Impersonal sentences, while not passive, have similarly implied subjects: someone/somebody, anyone/anybody, everyone/everybody. Passively, one could also say "Jos tullaan ajoissa, saadaan paremman paikan.", no?

[jahasjahas]

Minulla on punainen villatakki.
I'm curious why the subject is implied. Correct me if I'm wrong, but "Minulla on punainen villatakki." appears to be no different than "Pöydällä on punainen villatakki.":

• There is a red sweater on the table.
• There is a red sweater on me.

Both are then examples of so-called there is/there are, or existential, sentences, where the explicit subject sweater is being introduced for the first time. Or does using Minulla instead of Pöydällä somehow change things?

Yes, the omistuslause (possessive sentence) is a subtype of the eksistentaalilause (existential sentence). Iso suomen kielioppi calls the subject of an existential sentence an e-subjekti. It points out that although the subject of a possessive sentence is quite similar, it's also pretty object-like: if the possessed thing is a personal pronoun, it takes the "-t" accusative case, which should only happen to an object. "Onneksi minulla on sinut." = "I'm lucky that I have you."

Jos tulee ajoissa, saa paremman paikan.
Impersonal sentences, while not passive, have similarly implied subjects: someone/somebody, anyone/anybody, everyone/everybody. Passively, one could also say "Jos tullaan ajoissa, saadaan paremman paikan.", no?

This sentence is particular uses the nollapersoona (zero/null person). If we could see the zero subject, the sentence would be "Jos ∅ tulee ajoissa, ∅ saa paremman paikan."

The passive version of the sentence would be "Jos tullaan ajoissa, saadaan parempi paikka." (or maybe "paremmat paikat" in the plural), since the total object takes the nominative-accusative in passive sentences (instead of the genitive-accusative that it takes in active sentences).

[fabi182]

Thanks for the answers!

Great to get so many replies!

[Upphew]

Minä puhun, puhuan, puhutan, vai puhudan? Which one is correct? Again, one just has to know.

Minä puhun and Minä puhutan are correct.

[jahasjahas]

Minä puhun, puhuan, puhutan, vai puhudan? Which one is correct? Again, one just has to know.

Minä puhun and Minä puhutan are correct.

Correct as in they mean something, but they aren't forms of the same verb.