Interchange of adpositions in Finnish

[Twan]

Hey, I started learning the Finnish language a few months ago after becoming fascinated by it while visiting Helsinki. Thus far I think I'm making nice progress, with the biggest problem being the for me unfamiliar lexicon. However, I've been wondering for a while about a feature where I can't seem to find an answer to in any grammar book available to me (and lacking a Finnish community in my hometown). This is about adpositions. I understand that the prepositions take a dependent noun in the partitive case and the postpositions a noun in the genitive. However, in a lot of songs I notice the usage of postpositions as head first, with the noun it governs following it in the genitive case as well. I assume this is some kind of topicalisation or change of structure because of the poetic character of the lyrics, can anybody confirm this? Especially since case marks the role of the different constituents within the clause I assume it should be possible to move them about freely? Thanks in advance, Twan

[Pursuivant]

Tä?

[Jukka Aho]

However, in a lot of songs I notice the usage of postpositions as head first, with the noun it governs following it in the genitive case as well. I assume this is some kind of topicalisation or change of structure because of the poetic character of the lyrics, can anybody confirm this? Especially since case marks the role of the different constituents within the clause I assume it should be possible to move them about freely?

Yes, that’s basically it. The word order in Finnish sentences can be mutated quite freely — within certain limits, of course. But if you break away from the norm, you will usually introduce a special kind of emphasis on one of the words, or the sentence as a whole may begin to sound “biblical” or “poetic”. Song lyricists often (ab)use this feature of the language by opting for a less typical word order when it rhymes better or simply fits the flow of the song in a nicer way.

If you’re interested in Finnish song lyrics and their translations/meanings, you might want to check out LyricsTranslate.com. They also take requests.