Question about "Vowel change I > E"

[skparallax]

Here I found grammar about Vowel change I > E.

http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suo ... eluen.html

Maybe somebody knows, if it is a group of words that SHOULD BE MEMORIZED and there are no more such kind of words, or these are just some examples with common words?

thanks

[Rekkari]

That list shows just some examples (there are more).

See Finnish Declension and Types 7 and 23-31. That's ~1500 words that follow an I->e mutation, and there are certainly more.

I learned basic sets of rules that govern the formation of the partitive and genitive from the nominative (most of the time!), and just memorized the four basic forms as new vocabulary was introduced:

ovi, ovea, oven, ovia
vesi, vettä, veden, vesiä
poika, poikaa, pojan, poikia
mies, miestä, miehen, miehiä
nainen, naista, naisen, naisia
meri, merta, meren, meriä

It really wasn't that much more difficult to memorize all four forms for each new word. You'll start to automatically classify words correctly (most of the time) according to patterns that you'll come to recognize. Doing so helped me immensely later on when learning other structures (like the plural case endings!).

[skparallax]

...and just memorized the four basic forms as new vocabulary was introduced:

ovi, ovea, oven, ovia
vesi, vettä, veden, vesiä
poika, poikaa, pojan, poikia
mies, miestä, miehen, miehiä
nainen, naista, naisen, naisia
meri, merta, meren, meriä

ops! does it really work? i was gonna to memorize all these stuff:

http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suo ... eluen.html
http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suo ... varen.html

and could you name all four basic forms please?

thanks

[Rekkari]

ops! does it really work? i was gonna to memorize all these stuff:

Well, it worked for me. In the beginning, I had no feel for how or when a given word stem changed due to consonant gradation (kpt changes) and substitution (like i->e). An incorrect construction like henkin sounded just as good to my ear as the correct genitive of henki, hengen. I learned about consonant gradation, vowel harmony, the basic word types, and the rules that govern them. Gradually, the correct forms of new words became more or less intuitive and began to *sound* right or wrong.

I wouldn't recommend sitting down and memorizing random lists of words, though. Instead, learn new words (along with the principle forms) as you encounter them in context so that they have meaning. Your vocabulary will still grow AND you'll know how to actually use the words in sentences.

...and could you name all four basic forms please?

For nouns and adjectives:

1. nominative (the basic dictionary form) - veli, katu, lumi, lämmin
2. partitive singular - veljeä, katua, lunta, lämmintä
3. genitive - veljen, kadun, lumen, lämpimän
4. partitive plural - veljiä, katuja, lumia, lämpimiä

For verbs:

1. 1st infinitive (the basic dictionary form) - puhua, nähdä, tulla
2. 1st person present - puhun, näen, tulen
3. 3rd person past - puhui, näki, tuli
4. past participle - puhunut, nähnyt, tullut

[ml14]

Is there any clear logic to the partitive stem of words ending in -mi, or do you have to memorize them one by one?

Compare

lumi : lunta
nimi : nimeä
toimi : tointa/toimea
seimi ("manger") : seimeä(/seintä?)

etc.

[Rekkari]

Is there any clear logic to the partitive stem of words ending in -mi, or do you have to memorize them one by one?

I don't think I ever learned a rule for words ending in -mi. I just memorized the partitive of such words along with the nominative and genitive: lumi, lunta, lumen, lumia

I found this at Suomen kielioppi:
"If a word ends in -mi, in front of which there is a vowel, the partitive stem is formed either by replacing the i by e, or the mi by n."

The question then becomes, which replacement do you use? Why Is it lunta and not lumea? To make THAT determination, you probably need to know something about the word's etymology (where did it come from, how old is it, etc.).

While it can be interesting to dig into the origins of a word, it's probably more straight forward and easy to just memorize the principle forms.