Translative....

[Rob A.]

Now, how about this statement:

Tulen ravintolasta syömästä ateriaa ....aterian.. Which would seem correct?

That would need some meat around... if you said ateriaa when you bump to old friend at the lobby of hotel, the friend most likely would assume that you will return to finish the meal, at least I would. Aterian on the other hand seems bit much in that situation, why would you say aterian? What else would you eat? If you meet the friend at the door of strip bar/restaurant, then the aterian would be a ok.

I'm starting to see it now...no fixed rule...just whatever makes sense in the particular situation.

If it is ateriaa, then maybe saying, Sotilaat palasivat äsken tappamasta Bin Ladenia....is a bit like saying... "The soldiers returned from killing (a) Bin Ladin." ....the "Bin Laden" part simply is not "definite" enough to attract the accusative-genitive case...

Sotilaat palasivat äsken tappamasta Bin Ladenia, we're still waiting for the results. If they succeeded, then you would use some other construct, as that one isn't definite about the result.

OK...I guess my original sense was more or less right...the main point of the statement is the return of the soldiers.... If the the outcome of the tappamasta was the main point, then, as you say, a different construction would be used....

[AldenG]

I finally got a chance to run this by my better-Finnish half this morning. (It's been a busy week.)

She showed no hesitation at all. With both tappamasta and ampumasta the case she'd use would depend on the outcome.

Sotilaat palasivat ampumasta bin Ladenia. They returned from shooting at bin Laden.

Sotilaat palasivat ampumasta bin Ladenin. They returned after shooting and hitting him.

Similarly for tappamasta, though she wouldn't actually use that verb unless they succeeded, since that's the nature of the verb.

Of course this all still suffers from the syndrome of choosing a verb form first and then contriving a sentence to fit it. Chances are she would spontaneously have used some other way to explain the action (though she didn't say that).

Now in fairness to the unit, they would not particularly want to be called soldiers. Erikoisjoukot ("special forces") is the generic term, though I gather than in Finnish and English, it's awkward to apply that to a specific small group of individuals. I think SEALs call themselves "operators" as discrete individuals, if not simply SEALs. News reports would probably refer to a "special forces team" or something like that.

Now why is it erikoisjoukot but erityisopettaja?

Erityisopettaja on erityisopetukseen erikoistunut opettaja. Got it straight now? That will be on the test.

[Jukka Aho]

Erikoisjoukot ("special forces") is the generic term, though I gather than in Finnish and English, it's awkward to apply that to a specific small group of individuals.

You could use the singular alternatives: erikoisjoukko, iskujoukko, iskuryhmä.

I would tend to agree with your suspicion about the example being somewhat forced. I guess if you were discussing such thing, the mission assigned to the team would already be known ahead of time so no need to repeat it when they return.

But here are my suggestions (a bit tongue-in-cheek):

Erikoisjoukko palasi onnistuneelta osamantapporeissultaan.
Iskujoukko palasi onnistuneesti loppuun viedyltä osamantapporeissultaan.

[AldenG]

That's an interesting contrast you bring up.

Troop is also a collective singular in English, like joukko, but we couldn't any longer, I think, really talk about sending a troop on a mission.

We can talk about a troupe [sic] of actors, and there was once a popular TV show called F-Troop. And for state police, one might refer to Troop 16 or something like that. But when people talk about "Bring the troops home," they're thinking about many individuals more than they're thinking about many little collections of individuals, almost as though 1 troop equaled 1 person. In a military context, I'm not aware of being able to say in modern American English anything like sending a strike troop or a special troop. Possibly you could say a troop of something but I can't recall hearing that used for anything but monkeys. There's paratrooper, but no paratroop that I know of.

Now if you look at the term special forces, we can easily talk about a strike force or iskuryhmä, and of course special forces is pretty much an ordinary plural of special force -- though you would rarely hear "special force" anywhere. And if you did, it would be two separate words coming together for a specific circumstance, where "special forces" has become a fixed expression.

[AldenG]

I see that the Finnish title of *Force 10 From Navarone* was uncharacteristically non-literal, somewhat poetically becoming Navaronen haukat while other Nordic countries stuck with the vanilla translation.

[Bavarian]

I finally got a chance to run this by my better-Finnish half this morning. (It's been a busy week.)

She showed no hesitation at all. With both tappamasta and ampumasta the case she'd use would depend on the outcome.

Sotilaat palasivat ampumasta bin Ladenia. They returned from shooting at bin Laden.

Sotilaat palasivat ampumasta bin Ladenin. They returned after shooting and hitting him.

Similarly for tappamasta, though she wouldn't actually use that verb unless they succeeded, since that's the nature of the verb.

I would have thought you use accusative when you kill all of Bin Laden, and partitive when you only kill part of him. Or something like that. There's a reason why I have trouble with the partitive.

Possibly you could say a troop of something but I can't recall hearing that used for anything but monkeys.

Boy Scouts (or is it Girl Scouts?) are organized into troops. And of course, with collective nouns, there's the lovely difference between British and US usage over whether one should use a singular or plural verb.

[silk]

I have a question about special forces that has nothing to do with language. Why do they often wear balaclavas when on mission? Why do they have to be any more incognito than the rest of the military or police?

[Jukka Aho]

Troop is also a collective singular in English, like joukko, but we couldn't any longer, I think, really talk about sending a troop on a mission. [...] when people talk about "Bring the troops home," they're thinking about many individuals more than they're thinking about many little collections of individuals, almost as though 1 troop equaled 1 person.

Andy Rooney went on a rant about this on 60 Minutes some years ago... (here’s the transcript)

[Jukka Aho]

I have a question about special forces that has nothing to do with language. Why do they often wear balaclavas when on mission? Why do they have to be any more incognito than the rest of the military or police?

From Yahoo! Answers:

Why do special ops soldiers wear balaclavas?

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Several reasons:
1) Hides identity of operatives,
2) Protects skin from debris (Breaking doors/windows), burns (Explosives, pyrotechnics), irritants (CN/CS Gas etc) and other harm (cold etc.).
3) Camoflague (twofold - both removes the form of the face and darkens the face)
4) Dehumanizing effect on hostiles.

There are special balaclavas (made of Nomex) which are fire and cut resistant.

To keep on the topic, the balaclava is called kommandopipo in Finnish. (Balaclavas can be rolled up in a configuration that resembles an ordinary skiing cap / beanie.)

[AldenG]

Andy Rooney went on a rant about this on 60 Minutes some years ago... (here’s the transcript)

When you know even Andy Rooney's material better than I do, it becomes clear to me that one of us has a sadly misspent youth.

Which of us, I'm not sure.

[AldenG]

Possibly you could say a troop of something but I can't recall hearing that used for anything but monkeys.

Boy Scouts (or is it Girl Scouts?) are organized into troops. And of course, with collective nouns, there's the lovely difference between British and US usage over whether one should use a singular or plural verb.

Oh, yeah. You're definitely right about that. So now it's monkeys and scouts.

Trooper is sort of a member of a troop, but you can't use it about just any kind of troop. It works for state police but not for Boy Scouts or soldiers, for instance. Unless they have a special name like paratrooper.

Now you could talk about an F-Trooper. But that's really sort of a coincidence, since you can put -er on the end of almost any group name. ACLU'er. NRA'er, etc.

Then of course there is trouper, a seasoned veteran. Or at least a hardy slogger.

[Jukka Aho]

When you know even Andy Rooney's material better than I do, it becomes clear to me that one of us has a sadly misspent youth.

Which of us, I'm not sure.

:D

Trooper is sort of a member of a troop, but you can't use it about just any kind of troop. It works for state police but not for Boy Scouts or soldiers, for instance. Unless they have a special name like paratrooper.

When searching for that Andy Rooney piece I found this discussion/debate. (Linking directly to the most relevant post but maybe you’d like to read the thread in its entirety.)

[AldenG]

When searching for that Andy Rooney piece I found this discussion/debate. (Linking directly to the most relevant post but maybe you’d like to read the thread in its entirety.)

Well if I go from this reasonable summary of the non-consensus there:

Rorshach says

September 18, 2008, 12:14am

Well this is still quite confusing. The only military people who responded to this board have all said that a "troop" can be singular. Everyone else has had mixed opinions. I am still confused, but if our own military people say that it can be singuar, then it must be so- they would know, you know?

Then I would say it's pretty clear: a singular "troop" can very well refer to an individual soldier, Marine, etc. -- but only when used in the plural.

I guess it's not so different from yhdet ranskalaiset.

[jahasjahas]

Of course this all still suffers from the syndrome of choosing a verb form first and then contriving a sentence to fit it. Chances are she would spontaneously have used some other way to explain the action (though she didn't say that).

Quite true. I would say "Sotilaat palasivat ammuttuaan bin Ladenia / bin Ladenin." The previous examples don't sound too fluent, but I suppose it might be more about "how would a native describe the situation" and not "what is correct".

I tried to come up with a guideline on when the construction "palasivat tekemästä" works and when it doesn't, but failed. Is it semantic or grammatical? All I can say is that "Sotilaat palasivat ampumasta sorsia." sounds much better than "Sotilaat palasivat ampumasta bin Ladenin.".

[Bavarian]

Then I would say it's pretty clear: a singular "troop" can very well refer to an individual soldier, Marine, etc. -- but only when used in the plural.

I guess it's not so different from yhdet ranskalaiset.

That would be a plurale tantum.

Wiktionary has a list in Finnish which naturally includes nouns like like häät and housut, but I'll let the native speakers inform the rest of us how many of the others are accurate or even common.

I see orgiat on the list. Apparently Finns have so many orgies that they can't conceive of just one. I must be missing out on something.