# taloissanikinkohan



## Nino83

Hello everybody.

I've read here that a word can have up to six consecutive suffixes in Finnish.
Talo-i-ssa-ni-kin-ko-han (also in my houses?!).
Is this the maximum number of suffixes that one can add to a *single* word in Finnish, or are there cases where more than 6 suffixes can be added?

Thank you


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> Hello everybody.
> 
> I've read here that a word can have up to six consecutive suffixes in Finnish.
> Talo-i-ssa-ni-kin-ko-han (also in my houses?!).
> Is this the maximum number of suffixes that one can add to a *single* word in Finnish, or are there cases where more than 6 suffixes can be added?



All I can think of is that -_han _is sometimes also preceded by the enclitic -_pa_ (which implies unexpectedness, among other meanings): e.g. _eipähän _is composed of _ei_ "doesn't" + -_pa_ + -_han_.

However, I am not sure whether the combination -_pahan_ is productively used: it may only show up in a few isolated cases like _eipähän_.

By the way, it seems more accurate to describe -_ni_, -_kin_, -_ko_, and -_han_ as enclitics than as suffixes, because they aren't subject to agreement rules.

E.g. _punaisissa taloissani_ "in my red houses" shows agreement in the case affixes, but -_ni _("my") only attaches to the noun. The interrogative enclitic -_ko_ normally only attaches to the most emphasized word in a clause (_Punaisessa talossako se tapahtui? _"It happened in the red house?"), and to my knowledge the same is true of -_han_ (_Punaisessa talossahan se tapahtui _"It happened in the red house (as we know)").

-_kin_ is not restricted to the most emphasized word in a clause, but it is still rare in my experience for -_kin_ to be attached to more than one word per phrase (e.g. I don't remember ever seeing a phrase like _punaisessakin talossakin,_ where both the modifier _punainen_ and the head noun _talo _have an enclitic).


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## Nino83

Thank you very much, Gavril. 
So, are not possible words like ev-ler-in-de-ydi-siniz (house-s-their-in-did-we are, we were in their houses) or ev-ler-imiz-de-ki-ler-in-ki-ydi-ler (house-s-our-in-those who-plural-of-those who-did-are, those belonging to those who were in our houses) in Turkish. 
So the limit of grammatical suffixes (not the derivational ones) in Finnish is equal to 4 (plural, case, possessive, "also") plus one or more emphatic suffixes up to 2, for a total of 6?  
So, Finnish is less agglutinative than Turkish, isn't it?


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> Thank you very much, Gavril.
> So, are not possible words like ev-ler-in-de-ydi-siniz (house-s-their-in-did-we are, we were in their houses) or ev-ler-imiz-de-ki-ler-in-ki-ydi-ler (house-s-our-in-those who-plural-of-those who-did-are, those belonging to those who were in our houses) in Turkish.



I don't know much about Turkish, so I'm not sure how to parse those verbs, but in Finnish, you cannot incorporate case suffixes or possessive markers into a verb form.



> So the limit of grammatical suffixes (not the derivational ones) in Finnish is equal to 4 (plural, case, possessive, "also") plus one or more emphatic suffixes up to 2, for a total of 6?



For nouns, I would say that the limit of grammatical affixes is two (plural + case affix). _-kin_, -_ko_, -_han_ and the various possessive markers are more like enclitics, because modifier agreement rules don't apply to them.



> So, Finnish is less agglutinative than Turkish, isn't it?



Maybe. There are also some (perhaps many) affixes in Finnish that are not perfectly agglutinative to begin with: for example, the past passive suffix -_tiin_ cannot be decomposed into "past" + "passive", unlike e.g. the suffix -_ivat, _which can be parsed into "past + 3pl. subject".


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## Nino83

Gavril said:


> I don't know much about Turkish, so I'm not sure how to parse those verbs, but in Finnish, you cannot incorporate case suffixes or possessive markers into a verb form.


These sentences are correct (I've just asked in the turkish forum), it's the verb "to be" that in turkish can be added to a noun and the same happens with the relative pronoun "ki", which can be used recursively after the genitive and the locative cases. Both are attached to the noun "ev" (house). 



Gavril said:


> For nouns, I would say that the limit of grammatical affixes is two (plural + case affix). _-kin_, -_ko_, -_han_ and the various possessive markers are more like enclitics, because modifier agreement rules don't apply to them.


Thank you 


Gavril said:


> Maybe. There are also some (perhaps many) affixes in Finnish that are not perfectly agglutinative to begin with: for example, the past passive suffix -_tiin_ cannot be decomposed into "past" + "passive", unlike e.g. the suffix -_ivat, _which can be parsed into "past + 3pl. subject".


Yes, Finnish seems to be more fusional. 
For example, in Turkish you can attach something like 8 consecutive suffixes on a verb. 
gör-üş-tür-ül-mü-yor-muş-s-am (see-each other(reciprocal)-make-passive-not-progressive aspect-past-if-I), it means "if I was not being made to converse" (see + reciprocal = converse). 
As far as I know Finnish uses a modal/auxiliary verb for the potential form. 
In Turkish you can use recurively the causative marker. 
Pişmek = cook, intrantisive 
Pişirmek = cook sth, transitive (litterally to make sth cook)
Pişirtmek = make sb cook sth 
Pişirttirmek = ask sb to make sb cook sth 

Is it possible in Finnish?


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## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> For example, in Turkish you can attach something like 8 consecutive suffixes on a verb.
> gör-üş-tür-ül-mü-yor-muş-s-am (see-each other(reciprocal)-make-passive-not-progressive aspect-past-if-I), it means "if I was not being made to converse" (see + reciprocal = converse).
> As far as I know Finnish uses a modal/auxiliary verb for the potential form.



The verb _voida_ means "can" or "may". The meaning "if" (as in your Turkish verb above) is expressed by a single word, _jos_.

There is also a verb form called the potential mood (_mahtotapa_) which expresses possibility or probability: e.g. _Hän lähtenee_ "He may leave" or "He is likely to leave". In the modern language, though, the potential mood is less common than auxiliary constructions (_Hän voi lähteä_) or the use of adverbs like _ehkä_ "perhaps", _todennäköisesti_ "probably", etc.



> In Turkish you can use recurively the causative marker.
> Pişmek = cook, intrantisive
> Pişirmek = cook sth, transitive (litterally to make sth cook)
> Pişirtmek = make sb cook sth
> Pişirttirmek = ask sb to make sb cook sth
> 
> Is it possible in Finnish?



I don't think it is theoretically impossible to do this with causatives -- e.g.
_
keittää_ "cook, boil"
_keitättää_ "to have (someone) cook (something)"
and then perhaps
_keitätyttää_ "to have (s.o.) make (s.o.) cook (sth.)"
etc. etc.

But in practice, I think it is very rare to get to the third level (_keitätyttää_) or beyond. This seems like the same level of possibility (more or less) as a theoretical English word like _foolishnessishness_, where _-ish_ and _-ness_ have been stacked onto each other twice.


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## TomiH

Gavril said:


> But in practice, I think it is very rare to get to the third level (_keitätyttää_) or beyond. This seems like the same level of possibility (more or less) as a theoretical English word like _foolishnessishness_, where _-ish_ and _-ness_ have been stacked onto each other twice.



Don´t know about others, but I´m guilty of using words like 'teetätyttää' sometimes. (Tehdä -> teettää -> teetättää -> teetätyttää). 

For example: Olen teetätyttänyt tämän osan siellä ja siellä. 

Not sure if it´s really necessassary to say it like that, but if it´s possible, so why not use it ?


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## Nino83

TomiH said:


> For example: Olen teetätyttänyt tämän osan siellä ja siellä.


Does it mean "I caused somebody to make somebody else make this part"/"I made somebody have this part done"?


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## TomiH

Good question. I´m not sure about the first sentence, but the second one (I made somebody have this part done) is about what it says. I guess


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