# nominative/partitive



## 盲人瞎馬

Kentällä on talo = There's a/the house at the field / The house is at the field
Kentällä on taloa = There's a house at the field (?)
Kentällä on taloja = There are houses at the field

What I want to know has to do with the second phrase.
In the third example, the speaker is talking about an undetermined number of houses at the field. In the first example, he's saying that there's a specific house at the field.
If in the first example, the speaker would most likely be addressing the house with a definite article while in the third example, most likely with no articles at all.

So, what's happening in the second sentence? If "house" in the partitive plural means "undetermined number of" and "house" in the nominative singular more often than not means "the house", wouldn't it make sense to translate the second sentence as "There is *a *house at the field"?
It's singular (one house) and partitive (unspecified one), hence it should be "a house".

But for some reason (I suppose?), from what I've seen, the second phrase might also have the same meaning as the third one.
So where's the logic here? How do I know which one to use in case I want to say "There are houses at the field", example 1 or 2?

I hope this is not too confusing. I'm just trying to find logic in this usage of the partitive.

Btw, thank you all for being so active in this forum, you guys are great teachers!


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## Hakro

Hi Vitalore,

I'm sorry that Finnish is not always logical, but also all the other languages are illogical every now and then.

You can say "kentällä on hiekkaa" or "kentällä on ruohoa" or other uncountable words but not "kentällä on taloa" because _talo_ is a countable word.



> Kentällä on talo = There's *a/one* house at the field -- The house is (situated) at the field = _Talo on kentällä_
> Kentällä on taloa = There's a house at the field (?)
> Kentällä on taloja = There are houses at the field


I hope this helps. If not, please ask again.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Hakro said:


> Hi Vitalore,
> 
> I'm sorry that Finnish is not always logical, but also all the other languages are illogical every now and then.
> 
> You can say "kentällä on hiekkaa" or "kentällä on ruohoa" or other uncountable words but not "kentällä on taloa" because _talo_ is a countable word.
> 
> 
> I hope this helps. If not, please ask again.



There are so many rules around the usage of the partitive that every time I think I found a blank spot, I'm wrong.
Well, living and learning.
Thank you.


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## pearho

This is of course off-topic, but to me it sounds more natural to say "in the field" than "at the field". What do you native English-speakers say?


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## Hakro

pearho said:


> This is of course off-topic, but to me it sounds more natural to say "in the field" than "at the field".


I agree but as it was not the main point of the thread I didn't care to mention it.


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## fsm*

Just to confirm what pearho and Hakro have already said, "at the field" should be changed to "in the field" in all the original examples.


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