# Any "eel-sentence" in Finnish?



## kimko_379

Does Finnish, too, have these constructions?
Eel-sentences | WordReference Forums
Eel sentences (I'm eel) | WordReference Forums


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## Keb4b_

I'm very curious about your question but can you explain it better? Do you mean like "I'm coffee" or "Who's steak?" sentences when ordering in a restaurant?


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## kimko_379

Yes.  But Japanese goes further and allows expressions like:  "Amerika wa Nihon no nibai da."  ( = "US is the double of Japan ( [in terms of the population/population-wise.] )  = "US has a population twice as large as that of Japan."  Japanese has a clipped-style/broken-Japanese grammar:  the easiest, loosest, "sloppiest" grammar in the world.

We can also say "Amerika wa ni-bai da."  = "US is the double."
The semantic structure is:
"Amerika wa ( = US [is]:  the top-strata/supreme nominative subject/topic as a presupposition),
(  (jinkoo ga = the population [is]:  a second-sub-strata nominative subject/topic as a focus)  (Nihon no = of Japan; a third-sub-strata genitive subject/topic as a focus)  )
ni-bai ( = the double:  the predicate as a focus)  da ( = is)."
We can make double, triple, quadruple, ... (etc.) constituents-frontings including "topicalizations" and "left-dislocations".   Namely, we can put as many subjects in a sentence as we want to put.
And we can omit as many of them as we want to, if they are on the intermediate semantic strata/level.
Is the same possible in Finnish, a sister language of Japanese = an Ural-Altai language?


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## DrWatson

Do you mean that an expression such as "Amerika wa Nihon no nibai da" would be understood in Japanese even as is? Or is there preceding context that makes it clear that we are talking about population sizes and not something else? Or does the speaker just have to guess?

Finnish is pro-drop and allows for more possible omissions than English, but it's still not like Japanese, since we don't have the grammatical means to indicate the topic in a sentence; it is often placed first in the sentence, and the word order is flexible, so you can topicalize most constituents in a sentence. So in a restaurant, you could say something like _Minulle ankeriasta _(= "to-me eel") when the waiter wants to know what you'll be having, i.e. the verb can be omitted in this case. But you couldn't reply _(Minä) olen ankerias _to the waiter as it would mean you are an eel.

Also, Finnish is not Ural-Altaic and definitely not a sister language of Japanese. The Ural-Altaic hypothesis is long obsolete. Granted, there are some typological similarities in many of the languages of central and eastern Eurasia, but nothing points to a common origin.


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## kimko_379

DrWatson said:


> Do you mean that an expression such as "Amerika wa Nihon no nibai da" would be understood in Japanese even as is? Or is there preceding context that makes it clear that we are talking about population sizes and not something else? Or does the speaker just have to guess?
> 
> Finnish is pro-drop and allows for more possible omissions than English, but it's still not like Japanese, since we don't have the grammatical means to indicate the topic in a sentence; it is often placed first in the sentence, and the word order is flexible, so you can topicalize most constituents in a sentence. So in a restaurant, you could say something like _Minulle ankeriasta _(= "to-me eel") when the waiter wants to know what you'll be having, i.e. the verb can be omitted in this case. But you couldn't reply _(Minä) olen ankerias _to the waiter as it would mean you are an eel.
> 
> Also, Finnish is not Ural-Altaic and definitely not a sister language of Japanese. The Ural-Altaic hypothesis is long obsolete. Granted, there are some typological similarities in many of the languages of central and eastern Eurasia, but nothing points to a common origin.


Yes, we need preceding utterance-contexts or situational contexts to make or interpret  the omissions above.  
Thank you so much for your reply.


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## Keb4b_

I'm not sure if this is related to the discussion, but in Finnish you can also say, for example, "Luen (Agatha) Christieta", which is "I read Christie" in English meaning that "I read a book by Agatha Christie".


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## kimko_379

Keb4b_ said:


> I'm not sure if this is related to the discussion, but in Finnish you can also say, for example, "Luen (Agatha) Christieta", which is "I read Christie" in English meaning that "I read a book by Agatha Christie".


Thank you.
Yes, it IS kind of related:
I'm eel. = My order/merchandise/fish-catching-game[ = catch]-today/etc. is  (an) eel(-dish).
It is a metonymy.   Metonymy - Wikipedia
All eel-sentences use metonymies as a language-economy method to reduce the numbers of words in utterances.
To further the argument, all the words, both content words and function words alike, are kinds of metonymies including metaphors.
(What you call) this ( , what you call) book is (what you call) fun!
( = This thing incorporating generally-accepted intensions/contents/traits of this ( = the thing nearby) and a book is a thing incorporating the generally-accepted intension/content/trait of fun-[thing]-ness ! )
(This place is) (what you call) POST OFFICE.
(What you call) John is (what you call) a lion(-hearted person).


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## kimko_379

I re-word the above:
All clauses seem to have this structure:
The "part"/meronym of the subject-noun-phrase is/does/etc., so to say/speak, the "part"/meronym of the object/complement-nominal(including adjective)-phrase.
(The "part"/meronym is either the whole noun/nominal-phrase itself or a proper "part"/meronym of the noun/nominal-phrase like a proper-subset of a whole set.
You can also say that the "part"/meronym is a thing only related to the noun/nominal phrase in some concrete or abstract way or other; thus, you can call metonymy as a kind of abstract meronymy; the metonym incorporates an abstract part of the whole abstract attributes-set.)
Meronymy - Wikipedia)


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