# sano/ta/an vs. sano/tta/isi/in



## wreck_a_nice_beach

The passive ending for sano/a takes the ending +ta in the present, and +tta in the conditional mood and past tense according to [Finnish - An Essential Grammar by Fred Karlsson 2nd Edition, pg 32]:

sano/ta/an -- one says, it is said (1)
sano/tta/isi/in -- one would say (2)
sano/tt/i/in -- one said (3)

I understand the +tt in (3) is consonant gradation (tta -> tt), and initially thought (1) might be too (tta -> ta), but I don't think that's right. The book doesn't offer an explanation on this difference (at least in Chapter 3).

What rules govern when to use +ta and when to use +tta? Is it just consonant gradation?

Thanks!


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## Gavril

wreck_a_nice_beach said:


> What rules govern when to use +ta and when to use +tta? Is it just consonant gradation?



Consonant gradation may be the historical reason for the alternation -_tt_-/-_t_- in this case, but in modern-day standard Finnish, there is no trace of the consonants that would have caused this gradation. (I say "standard Finnish" because these consonants might still be present in dialectal pronunciation.)

I would suggest simply memorizing the rule that you learned in the book: -_t_- in the present/future passive, -_tt_- in the past and conditional. Consonant gradation is not necessarily going to be helpful in remembering this.

Also, as you might already know, there are different rules for verbs with one-syllable stems:

- To form the present/future passive, add -_an_ to the same stem as the infinitive: 

_tuoda_ "to bring" > _tuodaan
purra_ "to bite" > _purraan_

- For the past/conditional passive, remove the infinitive suffix and add -_tiin _(past) or -_taisiin _(conditional): 

_tuoda > tuotiin, tuotaisiin
purra > purtiin, purtaisiin_


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## DrWatson

This phenomenon does resemble consonant gradation and it has, as Gavril thought, its roots in it. The passive present tense form used to end in _*aksen_ as in *_sanot̆taksen_ in Late-Proto-Finnic, and because the syllable after the passive morpheme was closed, it resulted in the weak grade (LPF *_t̆t _later became _t _in Finnish). The passive past form in LPF was *_sanottihen_, i.e. the grade was strong because of the syllable was open. This grade alternation was preserved even after the Finnish passive present tense ending changed to -_aan_ (probably via analogy of the past tense form) and the -_h_- in the past tense form disappeared, rendering the resulting syllable closed.


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## wreck_a_nice_beach

Fantastic! What an amazing forum. For the record, the Karlsson book does go on to describe this in more detail in a later chapter, but not in such great detail as DrWatson gives. Thanks very much for this information.


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