Genitive?

[ICEMAN]

hey all,

wondering if anyone is good with grammar and might be able to help me. Studying Finnish by myself and hoping to learn an acceptable amount to live with my gf over there in august, but anyway enough about me. Right now Im studying the declension of nominals (which is pretty confusing in a lot of ways, mainly with plural, but right now i won't get into that) but my main problem falls with the genitive. I don't quite get it. I know that with genitive you can tell the owner of something and with names it's easy, it's just like the ('s) in english

"Jani/n koti" = "Jani's house"

and I get it for personal pronouns like my and your, but i don't quite get why the genitive is therefore added to nominals and other things? My book says it "literally" becomes "of the..." ex. maido/n hinta - the price of milk, that kind of makes sense, but other examples i dont understand

for instance:
Suome/n kansa = the finnish people
lapi/n mies = a man from lapland
talve/n tullessa = winter is coming

there is a load more, and my girlfriend asked me about a big sandwich = haluatko iso/n voileivän

my question is why is the genitive used in these circumstances??

thanks a load in advance for helping me everyone! sorry if i seem ignorant if im missing the answer right in front of me or something, but i just cannot get my head around it!!

much thanks for your time, patience and help!

[Timbeh]

for instance:
Suome/n kansa = the finnish people
lapi/n mies = a man from lapland
talve/n tullessa = winter is coming

The literal translations would be something like this:

Suomen kansa = the people of Finland
Lapin mies = Laplands man
talven tullessa = with the coming of the winter

[ICEMAN]

ahh i see, so in a way it's just trying to understand the context of the wording?? see im still pretty damn new to this hehe. i probably shouldn't be jumping ahead far into grammar yet but its intriuging

still dont quite get the "haluatko iso/n voileivä/n?" though, and my gf didnt "study" finnish she just knows it so she can't really help me on the subject

[EP]

I am Finnish so I cannot explain it. That´s just the way it is

This is not an official explanation, but this is how I see it: the preceding adjective takes the same form as the noun:

Ostan punaise/n pusero/n. (I´ll buy a red blouse)

Näin lihava/n miehen. (I saw a fat man)

Laulan pienen laulu/n. (I´ll sing a little song)

[Pavlor]

I am Finnish so I cannot explain it. That´s just the way it is

This is not an official explanation, but this is how I see it: the preceding adjective takes the same form as the noun:

Ostan punaise/n pusero/n. (I´ll buy a red blouse)

Näin lihava/n miehen. (I saw a fat man)

Laulan pienen laulu/n. (I´ll sing a little song)

As you can see ICEMAN, the object of all these sentences is in the "same" case as the genitive. Objects in Finnish must be defined (just as nouns in English must be, most of the time. I saw a/the man - a/the defines the man, doesn't it?) and cannot be in its basic form. There are exceptions to this, but don't worry about that at this stage.

So,

Haluatko iso/n voileivä/n

The voileipä is in the object form (voileivän) and all adjectives (iso in this case) has to be inflected accordingly.

Not sure if this is clear or not. What's your native language ICEMAN if I may ask? English doesn't inflect the object (usually it's done by word order), but in many languages, it's important to show the object as the speakers of those languages are clearly too dim to work it all out themselves...

[Sopheline]

*pokes nose in, looking confused*
Butbutbut accusative? I'd have thought that in the examples EP provided, the -n ending on those nouns was the acusative because they're the objects of the sentence

Ahh ok *reread* It's the weekend, my mind's already left.

[Chiugate]

there is a load more, and my girlfriend asked me about a big sandwich = haluatko iso/n voileivän

my question is why is the genitive used in these circumstances??

This sentence is not written in the genitive case. The case is called "accusative", but for all means and purposes it looks the same as the genitive... One of the uses is when you want to stress that there's only ONE of something. There's more to it, but now that you know the name of the case, I guess you can google it.

[enk]

This is a common fight in Finnish, if there's actually a separate accusative
(which is supported by pronouns, which show a difference in the accusative and genitive (hänet vs. hänen)) or if it's something someone
just decided there is and some newer grammar books don't talk
about it at all as the accusative.

Just one of the fun things about learning Finnish

-enk

[Pavlor]

I think this is one of the problems when learning Finnish: too many grammatical terms (unless you are like me and Enk/Enk and me who enjoy linguistic purgatory). I remember being in class and the teacher asked us what the prolatiivi was. Do we really need to know what it means just as long as we can say: Haluan lähettää tän postitse and know that -tse means by...

For me, the cases in Finnish vaguely ring a bell and the more proficient I become in the language, the less I remember their names. It's the same with the object case: it simply sounds *wrong* if the object is wrongly defined, or its meaning changes according to what the speaker is saying.

If you say: Haluan iso voileipä the iso voileipä sounds like its standing alone, waiting to be defined as the object. So that Finns know what you want, you have to specify it and say Haluan ison voileivän. That little n at the end of both the adjective and noun tells the listener that you want it... It just so happens that this form is the same as the genitive - lucky us!

I suppose it's the same in English when you say: I saw him
The him is in the object case which changes from he (normal case) to him. Here you have to change otherwise, if you were to say: I saw he , the listener would be waiting around for you to qualify it and say, possibly, he... who did what?.

English does have a case system so we can make a comparative study!

[ICEMAN]

thanks everyone! that actually cleared A LOT of stuff up

still willtake a while to fully get to grips with that but that is expected, at my mind is more clear on the topic now! Again much thanks for the help!

[muhaha]

The accusative is just coincidentally similar to genitive, because a "m" sound (e.g. the accusative ending) becomes "n" when it is the last sound of a word.

[Pecchio]

The accusative is just coincidentally similar to genitive, because a "m" sound (e.g. the accusative ending) becomes "n" when it is the last sound of a word.

Dear Fellow of the Finnish Accusative and Instructive Society,

There really was an -m ending to all the words of said intents and purposes (define every word as such and afford legal counsel...)

It (as far as science is worth believing was, once upon their time, a deep sea where we (i.e. us) happily got along and went about our little business. When someone caught a fish, he [translitterated] said "Sain kalam." And even the verb of 1st person singular might have had the -m ending. So: "Saim kalam." Everyone therefore spoke like idiots in that time...


It is really the loss of the partitive case that is more worrying among those who care about a certain precision of language. Who finds natural to say: "Näitkö tuota kukkulaa tuolla?". I have learned anew this beautiful way of speaking. And with all my might, propagate it (secretly) among my friends.

Language does change, we are here to change it. And then come others.

P.

[Hank W.]

Papa bilong mipela
Yu stap long heven.
Nem bilong yu i mas i stap holi.
Kingdom bilong yu i mas i kam.
Strongim mipela long bihainim laik bilong yu long graun,
olsem ol i bihainim long heven.
Givim mipela kaikai inap long tude.
Pogivim rong bilong mipela,
olsem mipela i pogivim ol arapela i mekim rong long mipela.
Sambai long mipela long taim bilong traim.
Na rausim olgeta samting nogut long mipela.
Kingdom na strong na glori, em i bilong yu tasol oltaim oltaim.
Tru.

[Pecchio]

I have gathered from the language that this is "Our Father" in a creol language. I do not recognize language.

I would strongly advise our best humourist in the Forum, my friend in the Internet, not to post messages of this kind anymore. We are not all as open minded as you might think.

I truly find this kind of whimsical posting a (certain) little offensive and regrettable. There's a responsibility to all to be a humourist.

And there you have it, my comment.

Pecchio

[enk]

Looks a heck of a lot like Tok Pisin, maybe because it is.

-enk