# Genetiivi Case



## Emanresu

*genetiivi* (genitive) indicates mainly relations      similar to those expressed using the genitive or the "of"      preposition in English, but it is also one of the cases of an object

Im having trouble understanding what it means, how would i say:

The Juice is made of raspberrys - ?

We are out of time - me ollan en aikan?

This is of that - Tämä on senn?


Do you just add an "n" after the word? Like talon = of a house?

thxs


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## jonquiliser

Not quite sure what your doubt is. Anyway:

1. The juice is made of raspberries - as there is no actual genitive in your English phrase I take it you mean "raspberry juice", which would be _vadelmatuoremehu  _or _vadelmatäysmehu. 

_2. We are out of time: again, no genitive, but you could probably say it "Aikamme on loppu"


3. This is of that: ...sen..., yes (se, sen, sitä).

4. A genitive is marked by an _n_, yes, and sometimes it's as simple as adding it to a word. (As in talo, talon). In many cases the stem changes, though, there is a prolongation of the preceding vowel or a shortening of a consonant. 
Vene, veneen (boat)
Kauppa, kaupan (shop)
Vesi, veden (water)
Veitsi, veitsen (knife)
Parta, parran (beard)

etc ad infinitum. The best is to learn the genitive and partitive forms along with each word you learn. A good dictionary provides any "irregular" forms (most of these are not really irregular, they just follow different patterns).


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## Hakro

Hi Emanresu,

I think that here your main problem is not the Finnish genitive but the many different situations where "of" is used in English. My English-Finnish dictionary gives nine different uses for "of", and genitive or proprietary relationship is only one of them. Mostly "of" must be translated using other cases than genitive (usually partitive or elative), or it may be a part of an idiom that can't be translated directly.

 The juice is made of raspberrys = _Mehu on tehty vadelmista_ (elative case)
A glass of juice = _Lasi mehua_ (partitive case)

"We are out of time" and "This is of that" are idiomatic phrases that can't be translated directly.

You are right that genitive is used for the case of an object. Some linguists say that it's in fact the accusative case, it only looks like genitive (or nominative, depending on the sentence construction), but as there's no way to distinguish the accusative from genitive, it's generally called genitive.

The Finnish genitive ending is generally "-n", but if the word ends with a consonant the ending is "-en" or "-in", for example _askel, askelen_ (= step). (There may also be a change in the word body but I don't want to confuse you more at this stage.)

I hope that this helps you although it's a quite complicated explanation.


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## Emanresu

The juice is made of raspberry's = _Mehu on tehty vadelmista_ (elative case)

using the elative case in this situation would mean it came from something or made of something right?

so could i say

paperi on tehty puusta? - paper is made "of" wood?

if i wanted to say someone has alot of something would this be correct?

H_än on paljon koirra(n) - He has alot of dogs


thanks


_


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## DrWatson

Emanresu said:


> The juice is made of raspberries = _Mehu on tehty vadelmista_ (elative case)
> 
> using the elative case in this situation would mean it came from something or made of something right? Exactly.
> 
> so could i say
> 
> paperi on tehty puusta? - paper is made "of" wood?  Perfect
> 
> if i wanted to say someone has alot of something would this be correct?
> 
> H_än on paljon koirra(n) - He has alot of dogs
> _


As you may remember, Finnish doesn't use a verb like "to have" meaning possessing something. Instead, there's the "at someone there is ..." type construction. Also, the adverb *paljon* requires partitive case (and more precisely partitive plural because dogs are countable):
*
Hänellä on paljon koiria.* - He has a lot of dogs.


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## Emanresu

> * Hänellä on paljon koiria.* - He has a lot of dogs.



so if i wanted to say

They have alot of Dogs - Nellä on paljon koira

You have alot of dogs - Sinullä on paljob koira

I have alot of dogs - Minulla on paljon koiria


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## jonquiliser

Emanresu said:


> so if i wanted to say
> 
> They have alot of Dogs - *Heillä* (colloquially, n*ii*llä) on paljon koir*i*a
> 
> You have alot of dogs - Sinull*a* on paljon koir*i*a
> 
> I have alot of dogs - Minulla on paljon koiria
> 
> Excellent!


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