# Tutkijat löysivät / havaitsivat / etc.



## Gavril

Iltaa kaikille,

In Finnish newspapers, it seems common to see the following phrase in the headline, or near the beginning of the article: _Tutkijat löysivät / havaitsivat / jne. _"researchers have found / discovered / etc.".

Here are some examples I just found by searching online:
_
Tutkijat ovat havainneet uuden vakavan epämusikaalisuuden muodon,    rytmikuurouden._
"Researchers have discovered a new form of severe amusicality: rhythm-deafness"

_Tutkijat havaitsivat pikasupernovan
_"Researchers have found a mini-supernova"_

Tutkijat löysivät_ _kaikkien mustien aukkojen äidin_
"Researchers have found the mother of all black holes"

All of these examples are either headlines or one of the first few sentences of the article. Why, then, is the nominative form _tutkijat _used, and not the partitive _tutkijia_? Based on my current understanding of Finnish, the plural form _tutkijat _should be used when

- The researchers have already been mentioned (which they haven't in this case, since these are the headlines or the very first sentence mentioning the researchers)

- It is clear from the context how many researchers there are (which it isn't in this case, since the examples are from the very beginning of the article, and nothing has been said yet about the number of researchers involved)

- If neither of these applies, the partitive plural (_tutkijia_) should be used.

Can anyone help me understand why _tutkijat _is used in sentences like those above? How would the meaning be different if the partitive form _tutkijia_ were used in these sentences instead of _tutkijat_?

(This question is related to one I asked on an earlier thread, but I've decided it's better to start a new thread.)

Kiitos


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## hui

I believe nominative is used because _tutkijat_  is the subject of the sentence. _Tutkijoita _(partitive) would be the object of the sentence, e.g.:_ Tutkijoita koulutetaan yhä enemmän.
_


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## akana

I think this is why we are always cautioned against using partitive subjects  Everything starts to get very confusing once they're in the picture. 

I have also struggled with this question, partly because I want there to be a grammatical equivalent of the English indefinite plural subject. In other words, one without any articles:

Researchers have found...
People enjoy watching TV.
Children learn new words very quickly.
Dolphins communicate by means of clicks.

But in Finnish, if I am not mistaken, all of these would begin with a plural nominative, because it serves both functions for definite and indefinite subjects. 

_Tutkijat löysivät...
Ihmiset nauttivat TV:n katsomisesta.
Lapset oppivat uusia sanoja oikein nopeasti.
Delfiinit kommunikoivat pitämällä naksahduksia._

These statements may or may not be universally true for all researchers, people, children and dolphins. 

The sentence starter, "_Monet ihmiset_" is a good example that shows this. _Monet_ makes it logically impossible for _ihmiset_ to be definite. In English, "The many people..." sounds very odd. So we know that a plural nominative in the subject position is not always a marker of definiteness in Finnish. Granted, _moni_ is a strange word, and _moni ihminen_ means the same thing is _monet ihmiset_.

But the singular nominative subject works in the same way:
_Koira meni ohi.
_(A/The) dog went past. 

Where in English, the initial "A" signifies singular indefiniteness, in Finnish this is derived from context, or by using a different sentence structure, such as that of an existential sentence.

Not sure if this helps...


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## Gavril

hui said:


> I believe nominative is used because _tutkijat_  is the subject of the sentence. _Tutkijoita _(partitive) would be the object of the sentence, e.g.:_ Tutkijoita koulutetaan yhä enemmän.
> _



I'm sure I've seen partitive plurals as subjects of a sentence: for example, if you search for "tuli ihmisiä" or "ihmisiä tuli" on Google, there are several thousand results in all, and at least some of these seem to mean "people came", where "people" (_ihmisiä_) is the subject of the sentence.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I've ever seen the partitive plural used as the subject of a transitive sentence. Would it sound correct to say, e.g.,

_Varkaita varasti museosta arvokkaan maalauksen _
"Thieves stole a valuable painting from the museum"

?


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## Gavril

akana said:


> I think this is why we are always cautioned against using partitive subjects  Everything starts to get very confusing once they're in the picture.
> 
> I have also struggled with this question, partly because I want there to be a grammatical equivalent of the English indefinite plural subject. In other words, one without any articles:
> 
> Researchers have found...
> People enjoy watching TV.
> Children learn new words very quickly.
> Dolphins communicate by means of clicks.
> 
> But in Finnish, if I am not mistaken, all of these would begin with a plural nominative,



I think there's an important difference between the first sentence ("Researchers have found ...") and the last three. In the last three sentences, you're referring to all people, all children, and all dolphins; in other words, you're talking about what is generally true of people, children and dolphins (even though there may be individual exceptions). However, in the first sentence, you're referring to an isolated group of researchers, and there is no implication that your statement is true of all or most researchers.

English doesn't recognize the above distinction (grammatically), but many other languages do: in Romance languages like French, the word "researchers" in the first sentence would be translated with an indefinite article (_des chercheurs_) or no article at all; in sentences 2-4, the subject would be translated with the definite article (_les gens _"people (in general)"_, les enfants _"children (in general)", etc.).

My understanding (at least up until now) was that Finnish is closer to the Romance languages in this respect than to English. In other words, I would expect _tutkijat _to mean "the researchers" or "researchers (in general)", but not "some researchers" (i.e., "a previously unspecified group of researchers").

Would you say that this understanding is incorrect (assuming, of course, that what I wrote above is comprehensible )?



> because it serves both functions for definite and indefinite subjects.
> 
> _Tutkijat löysivät...
> Ihmiset nauttivat TV:n katsomisesta.
> Lapset oppivat uusia sanoja oikein nopeasti.
> Delfiinit kommunikoivat pitämällä naksahduksia._
> 
> These statements may or may not be universally true for all researchers, people, children and dolphins.
> 
> The sentence starter, "_Monet ihmiset_" is a good example that shows this. _Monet_ makes it logically impossible for _ihmiset_ to be definite. In English, "The many people..." sounds very odd. So we know that a plural nominative in the subject position is not always a marker of definiteness in Finnish.



True, there are some adjectives ending in _-t _(_monet, useat_) that can never precede a definite noun. But, unless a noun is preceded by one of these adjectives, it seems to me that a noun with the _-t _plural suffix almost always corresponds to a definite plural noun in English.

Exceptions would be nouns like_ jalat, __hampaat, __valjaat_ etc., which refer to objects that usually exist in the plural, and in a fairly well-defined quantity (2 legs, ~32 teeth, etc.).



> Granted, _moni_ is a strange word, and _moni ihminen_ means the same thing is _monet ihmiset_.
> 
> But the singular nominative subject works in the same way:
> _Koira meni ohi.
> _(A/The) dog went past.
> 
> Where in English, the initial "A" signifies singular indefiniteness, in Finnish this is derived from context, or by using a different sentence structure, such as that of an existential sentence.
> 
> Not sure if this helps...



I don't know if this issue will ever be clear to me, but at least we're making an effort.


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## akana

> I think there's an important difference between the first sentence ("Researchers have found ...") and the last three. In the last three sentences, you're referring to all people, all children, and all dolphins; in other words, you're talking about what is generally true of people, children and dolphins (even though there may be individual exceptions). However, in the first sentence, you're referring to an isolated group of researchers, and there is no implication that your statement is true of all or most researchers.



Good point, I guess my examples aren't quite the same, though I think they're similar, as I'll explain. I'm having a hard time thinking of others more closely similar to yours. Typically, the phrase "researchers have found," is used as a way of underplaying the actor, much like a passive is used, possibly because being very specific would distract from the real focus of the sentence. In a way, "researchers have found" sort of _does_ refer to all researchers in that they are lumped into an amorphous research community. In English, the phrase is almost indistinguishable from the even more vague "research shows," which in Finnish might be rendered _tutkimus näyttää_. Here again, _tutkimus_ refers to an indefinite entity, but since it is in nominative, we only know that from context. More specific structures are also common, such as, "researchers at the University of Arizona have found..." but again, I believe this would be rendered in Finnish as _Arizona:n yliopiston tutkijat löysivät_...



> My understanding (at least up until now) was that Finnish is closer to the Romance languages in this respect than to English. In other words, I would expect tutkijat to mean "the researchers" or "researchers (in general)", but not "some researchers" (i.e., "a previously unspecified group of researchers").
> 
> Would you say that this understanding is incorrect (assuming, of course, that what I wrote above is comprehensible )?



I really shouldn't be the one to make any cross comparisons, so I'll leave that one alone. My understanding of Finnish, however, is exactly as you describe here: 



> In other words, I would expect tutkijat to mean "the researchers" or "researchers (in general)", but not "some researchers" (i.e., "a previously unspecified group of researchers").



If you really wanted to say "some researchers," you could always say "jotkut tutkijat," again sticking to the nominative plural. Of course, that shifts the emphasis of the sentence to the quantity of the researchers, and perhaps the validity of the research, rather than on the findings of the research, just as, I suspect, using a partitive subject might. It would be interesting to hear how native Finns would interpret a partitive subject in this instance.


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## pearho

Gavril said:


> I'm sure I've seen partitive plurals as subjects of a sentence: for example, if you search for "tuli ihmisiä" or "ihmisiä tuli" on Google, there are several thousand results in all, and at least some of these seem to mean "people came", where "people" (_ihmisiä_) is the subject of the sentence.


"tuli ihmisiä" is an *eksistentiaalilause*, so partitive subjects are permitted.


> On the other hand, I'm not sure I've ever seen the partitive plural used as the subject of a transitive sentence. Would it sound correct to say, e.g.,
> ***_Varkaita varasti museosta arvokkaan maalauksen _
> "Thieves stole a valuable painting from the museum"
> ?


_Varkaat varastivat museosta arvokkaan maalauksen 
_ As you point out, that's a transitive sentence and therefore cannot have a partitive subject. But you can get your intended meaning across using other means:
_Museossa kävi varkaita, jotka varastivat arvokkaan maalauksen 
_ _Muutamat varkaat varastivat museosta arvokkaan maalauksen 
__Ryhmä varkaita__ varasti museosta arvokkaan maalauksen 

_Disclaimer: I'm not a native Finnish speaker. It would be very nice to have some native feedback in this thread.


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## DrWatson

pearho said:


> "tuli ihmisiä" is an *eksistentiaalilause*, so partitive subjects are permitted.
> 
> _Varkaat varastivat museosta arvokkaan maalauksen
> _ As you point out, that's a transitive sentence and therefore cannot have a partitive subject. But you can get your intended meaning across using other means:
> _Museossa kävi varkaita, jotka varastivat arvokkaan maalauksen
> _ _Muutamat varkaat varastivat museosta arvokkaan maalauksen
> __Ryhmä varkaita__ varasti museosta arvokkaan maalauksen
> 
> _Disclaimer: I'm not a native Finnish speaker. It would be very nice to have some native feedback in this thread.


Couldn't have put it better myself.

So, *existential sentence* -> partitive subjects allowed
*transitive sentence* -> partitive subjects not allowed, the meaning has to be conveyed via other means (as pearho suggested, use a relative clause, _ryhmä/joukko_ + PART PL or _muutamat/jotkut_ + NOM PL)


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## pearho

DrWatson said:


> So, *existential sentence* -> partitive subjects allowed
> *transitive sentence* -> partitive subjects not allowed, the meaning has to be conveyed via other means (as pearho suggested, use a relative clause, _ryhmä/joukko_ + PART PL or _muutamat/jotkut_ + NOM PL)


Thanks for confirming!

And what about the following? It's not a transitive sentence but not really an existential one either.
?_Museoon murtautui varkaita_


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## sakvaka

That sounds good: _museoon_ is, after all, a locative expression, not the object of the sentence. 

Compare: _
Kinkun söi varkaita. _NO!
_Museoon oli kokoontunut varkaita syömään kinkkua. _YES!


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