Finnish verbs with more than one meaning

[maximumforum]

I'm wondering about verbs that have more than one meaning with different stems, but with the same dictionary infinitive. The one I know is tavata > tapaa- (meet) & tavaa- (spell). Is there more like this?

[onkko]

I'm wondering about verbs that have more than one meaning with different stems, but with the same dictionary infinitive. The one I know is tavata > tapaa- (meet) & tavaa- (spell). Is there more like this?

http://naurunappula.com/1147031/kuusi-plussaa.png

[ml14]

If we relax the requirement to include conjugated forms, rather than just infinitives, then

soi can be either

- the 3rd singular past tense form of suoda "to allow, give" or

- the 3rd singular past or present tense, or 2nd singular imperative, of soida "to ring, resound"


kylvin / kylvit / kylvimme / kylvitte can either mean

- "I / you / we bathed" (kylpeä "to bathe") or

- "I / you / we sowed" (kylvää "to sow")

[jahasjahas]

If you want an explanation for the tavata/tavata situation:

The meeting one is derived from tapa. It might have been "tapata" originally, if it existed before the sound changes that gave us consonant gradation.

The spelling one is a more recent* loan from the Swedish stava. We tended to simplify word-initial consonant clusters back then, so you could think that the verb was originally "sta(a)vata", which then became "ta(a)vata".

It's mostly a coincidence that they eventually ended up looking the same.

*(=whatever century it was when Finns started going to schools taught in Swedish, I guess)

[Oombongo]

Nain eilen Annan.
Nain eilen Annaa.

may lead to very unpleasant situation and/or whole a lot of explanations.

[ml14]

I tried to give an example using kaivata "to miss" vs. kaivaa "to dig", but then I realized that it didn't work. The forms kaivetaan "(something) is being dug" and kaivataan "(something) is being missed/needed" only differ by one vowel, but they aren't completely identical.