word koti -> kotona, kotoota, kodista..

[se1ene]

I'm trying to teach finnish to my husband.. but I'm struggling.. He wants to know why this is like that and why that is like this..
and I don't know it myself!

So.. how come, word koti..

At home -> olen kotona (why not kodissa?)
(To) home -> Menen kotiin
(From) home -> kodista? kotoota? Is it kotoa or kotoota? What case is that? What word is that??
I leave home now, how would you say that in Finnish?

I'm confused...

[AldenG]

Very common words like koti are often not treated in a way that would be typical of random words out of the gray mass of a language.

There is no real answer to "why." At most there is sometimes history to explain a thing. Usually the asking of "why" is an attempt to learn or create rules that will make it easier to say the right thing without a long period of absorbing a language. But language is fundamentally about absorption, imitation, and (for clever people) adaptation. That is how native speakers of any language learn it and how the language evolves over time. Apt or witty adaptations become popular and part of the standard language. Inept adaptions don't. Non-native speakers also inevitably reach the point of learning by imitation before they achieve fluency.

That's an interesting question about kotona versus kodissa. Again there isn't a real why -- there is only an it-is-this-way. It could just as easily have evolved to be the other way. But it didn't. The reason the question is interesting is that -na and -ssa are actually quite close in meaning. There are other words where you might ask why it is -na or -ssa instead of the other way around. And again, it just is. Any made-up explanations are just. . . made up. Useful, perhaps, but not the real reason it's one way or the other. Nonetheless that's a good perception for an early learner, that -na and -ssa are so close in meaning and evolution.

The big question with menen kotiin is whether it would be kotiin or kodille. It has simply evolved to be kotiin.

For the last one, it is lähden kotoa although if you were talking about school, you's say lähden koulusta. Evolution again. Why is one tree frog blue and another one red? They just are. (It would not surprise me if there are dialects where people say lähden kotoota, but I haven't personally heard that before.)

The most important insight from all this is that you can't learn Finnish well by learning all the smallest pieces (individual words, different case endings,etc) and a bunch of rules for how to connect them. (This is more true of Finnish than it is of many other languages.) It is helpful, maybe necessary, to be aware of the smallest pieces and what they generally contribute to the meaning of a phrase. But learning Finnish is about learning phrases and pieces of phrases and recognizing how they are both similar and different from each other. "Why" is generally a waste of time -- the useful question is how is this like a similar example and how is it different.

Both native and fluent non-native speakers alike build sentences out of phrases that pop into mind -- not from individual words inflected and pieced together one at a time. The most important single piece of advice I'd give to a new student of Finnish is to focus more on many, many examples known to be good than on the supposed "rules" that make them good.

[jahasjahas]

That's an interesting question about kotona versus kodissa. Again there isn't a real why -- there is only an it-is-this-way. It could just as easily have evolved to be the other way. But it didn't.

Of course, we still have "kodissa" for "in a home". "Vanhainkodissa", "Lapsen on hyvä kasvaa tällaisessa kodissa", etc.

(It would not surprise me if there are dialects where people say lähden kotoota, but I haven't personally heard that before.)

There are, and it's quite common. "Lähen kotoo" or "Lähen himasta" for me, though.

[AldenG]

Of course, we still have "kodissa" for "in a home". "Vanhainkodissa", "Lapsen on hyvä kasvaa tällaisessa kodissa", etc.

In these particular kotona versus kodissa examples, both forms can be said to refer to a state of being, but kodissa is more chronic and kotona is more temporary. Someone is "at home" at the moment but might not be there ten minutes from now. Someone who is vanhainkodissa may walk to the supermarket but is unlikely to move away.

I don't think we can generalize much from that, though. Examples can be found that go either way. For instance, kännissä is a temporary state of being like kotona. But then so is päihtyneenä. Both drunk, one inessive, the other in essive.

In the end one throws up one's hands and just begins to imitate.

I had piano teachers on both sides of the *imitation* divide. Some said you should never listen to someone else's recording of a piece you're working on. Others encouraged listening. (Actually I think it's best to listen not to one but to a variety of recordings.)

For me, that question and similar ones finally resolved to this: Shakespeare did not become Shakespeare (whether he was actually Shakespeare or merely some lesser writer who went by the name) by ignoring everyone else's use of the English language and inventing in a vacuum. Nor did Nabokov develop his ear for English while reading grammar books. The road to fluency in language or in music begins in imitation, progresses through technique and variation, and eventually leads to an idiolect.

[Rob A.]

Very nicely explained, Alden....and as you say language learners eventually get to the point were they have enough knowledge that the learning process becomes imitative.... they no longer care about the "why" and are more interesteded in the "what"... I'm almost getting there myself ... Though I still have this fascination with the "why"...

Kotona....and there are others which, of course, don't come to mind at the moment.....is one of those words which for some reason ...and I'm sure the linguists argue over it, has developed an etrenched usage pattern.....

[Jaskahko]

Very nicely explained, Alden....and as you say language learners eventually get to the point were they have enough knowledge that the learning process becomes imitative.... they no longer care about the "why" and are more interesteded in the "what"... I'm almost getting there myself ... Though I still have this fascination with the "why"...

Kotona....and there are others which, of course, don't come to mind at the moment.....is one of those words which for some reason ...and I'm sure the linguists argue over it, has developed an etrenched usage pattern.....

There is indeed "why" for this phenomenon: in Proto-Uralic the only locative case ('in/at') had an ending *-na, and the only separative case ('from') had an ending *-ta. Here the mark * stands for a reconstructed form, although both these endings have preserved in Finnish:
1. In few old words and postpositions they still have local meaning: koto-na 'at home', koto-a 'from home' (in the weak grade t has disappeared); luo-na 'near/at', luo-ta 'from near/at(?)'.
2. In most words these old cases have developed into more abstract cases: essive -na ('being as something') and partitive -(t)a (marking mainly partial object): maa-na 'as a land', maa-ta '(at) some land' [as an object, like näen maata 'I see some land'].

In Mordvin we can still see this kind of abstractization development in progress, and probably it happened in Proto-Finnic (ancestral form of Finnish, Karelian, Lude, Vepsian, Ingrian, Votian, Estonian and Livonian) somehow like: otin vet-tä 'I took from water' --> 'I took some water'.

Here is an introduction to Proto-Uralic in Finnish, but I'm slowly translating it in English:
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/Kantaurali.xps or
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/Kantaurali.pdf

There is usually a big mental gap between the fennists (studying Finnish) and fenno-ugrists (studying Finnish [and related languages] as a Uralic language) - we the latter are still very interested in "why's" of different phenomena.

[Rob A.]

There is indeed "why" for this phenomenon: in Proto-Uralic the only locative case ('in/at') had an ending *-na, and the only separative case ('from') had an ending *-ta. Here the mark * stands for a reconstructed form, although both these endings have preserved in Finnish:
1. In few old words and postpositions they still have local meaning: koto-na 'at home', koto-a 'from home' (in the weak grade t has disappeared); luo-na 'near/at', luo-ta 'from near/at(?)'.
2. In most words these old cases have developed into more abstract cases: essive -na ('being as something') and partitive -(t)a (marking mainly partial object): maa-na 'as a land', maa-ta '(at) some land' [as an object, like näen maata 'I see some land'].

In Mordvin we can still see this kind of abstractization development in progress, and probably it happened in Proto-Finnic (ancestral form of Finnish, Karelian, Lude, Vepsian, Ingrian, Votian, Estonian and Livonian) somehow like: otin vet-tä 'I took from water' --> 'I took some water'.

Here is an introduction to Proto-Uralic in Finnish, but I'm slowly translating it in English:
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/Kantaurali.xps or
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/Kantaurali.pdf

There is usually a big mental gap between the fennists (studying Finnish) and fenno-ugrists (studying Finnish [and related languages] as a Uralic language) - we the latter are still very interested in "why's" of different phenomena.

Thanks...that material looks interesting....I'll wade through it when I get a bit more time ... There are many of these "obsolete" forms in Finnish...as in many other languages, of course...which often show up in modern fixed-form expressions, or in dialects. With dialects it often seems to give others the opportunity to become snobby and turn up their noses at the "uneducated peasants" ... Scottish English is a good example of this. Scottish English has many unusual words and word forms, which speakers of standard English usually just assume are some kind of strange dialect, but the reality is that Scottish English...derived from Anglo-Saxon with signficant Viking input.... was well on its way to becoming a separate Germanic language, but this language was essentially overrun by English from the south hundreds of years ago.

In Finnish you might encounter expressions such as, tärähtäneentä terveeksi, which is an example of the ancient exessive form along with the still productive translative. Other interesting forms are seen in words like, postitse....this could have remained a viable modern case, but it didn't. It's a sort of fixed form when it occurs and has a bit of an adverbial flavour to it. Other interesting developments are the accusative with the "-n"suffix, which, of course, is always difficult for us language learners as it looks like the genitive. But the accusative didn't start out that way...the ancient suffix was "-m", which because of modern Finnish phonetic preferences was no longer acceptable. Modern Finnish doesn't like words ending in "m"....

[Upphew]

With dialects it often seems to give others the opportunity to become snobby and turn up their noses at the "uneducated peasants" ... Scottish English is a good example of this. Scottish English has many unusual words and word forms, which speakers of standard English usually just assume are some kind of strange dialect, but the reality is that Scottish English...derived from Anglo-Saxon with signficant Viking input.... was well on its way to becoming a separate Germanic language, but this language was essentially overrun by English from the south hundreds of years ago.

I'm derailing this thread, but that reminded me of this: http://satwcomic.com/trans-fear

[Pursuivant]

kotona is my home
kodissa is in a home - someone elses or mine

in savo/kainuu they say "pihhaan"

onko ämmä pihassa?

Im not asking if the old woman is in the yard, but if your ma is at home, if i asked "onko akka pihassa" I'd be asking if your wife is at home...

[Jukka Aho]

kotona is in my home
kodissa is in a home - someone elses or mine

Added the missing word ‘in’ in the above.

[silk]

in savo/kainuu they say "pihhaan"

Oh yes, I remember having to get used to this expression of being in one's yard when my born and bred in Savo brother-in-law used it. Coming from Ostrobothnia we never used it at home. But I never heard him use the words akka or ämmä...