# Comprehend/comprendre - and the structure of Finnish verbs



## ThomasK

_[I am just interested in Finnish as a non-IE language and in underlying metaphors, but I hope I can ask this question here...] _

I have been wonderingd whether any of the four verbs that I found while looking for translations for 'to comprehend', viz. *käsittää, ymmärtää *[both meaning something like 'to understand, I believe],* oivaltaa *[lore like 'perceive', I think], *tajuta *[be aware of ?], have a 'underlying' root, as in 'com-prendre' (= something like 'together' + 'take, grab, grasp'), or 'under-stand'. Or is there some other root in it referring to a noun or something else?


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## fennofiili

The four verbs have rather different origins, even conceptually.

_Käsittää _is a derivation of _käsi _(hand) and probably originally had a rather concrete meaning “to get into one’s hands”, but it means a) more generally “to catch, to reach” and b) more abstractly “to understand, to grasp, to realize”. Meaning a) has now mostly been lost, so _käsittää _is now practically limited to denote mental acts and processes.

_Ymmärtää _is related to words like _ympäri _(around) and _ympyrä _(circle), and probably its meaning was originally similar to that of the verb _ympäröidä_ (surround). In old language, ymmärtää was sometimes used to denote physically catching something, but in modern language it only means a mental act or process of understanding. Its meaning is partly broader than that of _käsittää_, which tends to mean intellectual processes, whereas ymmärtää can also mean “deeper” and emotional understanding, like understanding a person’s motives and life.

_Oivaltaa _is a momentaneous verb: it denotes the emergence of understanding, often an abrupt and intuitive process, a flash of “seeing” how things are. It is a derivation of _oiva_, which means “very good, excellent” in modern language (and is stylistically somewhat poetic), but its original meaning is “head”. Thus, _oivaltaa _seems to have originally meant “to get into ones head”. (This is somewhat uncertain, though, since the original meaning “head” for _oiva _has been inferred from the meanings of correlated words in remote relatives of Finnish.)

_Tajuta _is mostly momentaneous and means “to get to know, to gain understanding”, though it may at times also mean just “to understand”. It is a derivative of _taju_, which means “consciousness” and “sense (of humor/beauty/...)”. The word _taju _has been explained a derivative (with the -_u _suffix) of the word stem *_taje_; another derivation of this stem would be _taipua _(to bend). It is difficult to say what the original meaning of *_taje _and _taju_ might have been—the meanings of correlates of *_taje_ is other languages vary, but some of them suggest an original meaning like “to be suitable, to fit”.


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## DrWatson

fennofiili said:


> _- - _Thus, _oivaltaa _seems to have originally meant “to get into ones head”. (This is somewhat uncertain, though, since the original meaning “head” for _oiva _has been inferred from the meanings of correlated words in remote relatives of Finnish.)


This seems to be the case. Cognates include for example Northern Saami _oaivi_, Mari _wuj _and Nenets _ngæwa_, all of which mean 'head'.

An excellent and exhaustive reply to the question, by the way


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## ThomasK

Thanks a lot. I had not imagined the answers would have been this interesting. Would I then be wrong in making these "broad" associations: 
- _Kâsitää _is basically like *grasp*ing? 
- y_mmärtäa i_s like '*com*-prendre' (taking around/...) ? 
- _oivaltaa _is like realising indeed (becoming aware, let it 'penetrate' [become 'real(ity)'] *into one's head*? 
- _tajuta _reminds of sudden insights but then comes close to realising, *perceiving*? 
 I am just paraphrasing to see whether these associations somehow hold. Could some of these be based on calques of other European languages somehow? --- These links would help me a lot, I think, to learn the language as well. 

 Do you have many Finnish verbs that for sure cannot be traced back to an underlying root, like the above ones?


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## fennofiili

Well, as broad associations, yes, I think. The origin of tajuta is easy in the sense of being based on _taju_, so _tajuta _means getting something into one consciousness or awareness; the origin of _taju _is more obscure.

The semantic development of _käsittää _(from concrete use of hands to understanding things) seems to be affected at least to some extent by Swedish, where _gripa _means “to take, to catch” and _begripa _“to understand”. Finnish lacks verb prefixes, so in Finnish, the verb _käsittää _just got a second meaning and the original meaning was later lost (more or less).

Does your last question mean whether Finnish has verbs that are not derivations? Yes, surely. Let me see... looking at a frequency list of words, the most common verbs are base words: _olla, ei, voida, saada, tulla, antaa, pitää, tehdä_. Next we encounter a derived verb _sanoa _(to say), from the noun sana (word; originally: utterance, expression, message), then _käyttää_, a derivation of the verb _käydä_.


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## ThomasK

Thanks a lot for this valuable information...


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