# t-plural followed by a colon/list



## Gavril

(Scroll down for English)

Heipps,

En ole vielä täysin perillä siitä, millainen suhde on _t_-monikon ja heti seuraavan (useimmiten kaksoispisteellä alkavan) listan välillä.

Käykö _t_-monikko vaikkapa näissä esimerkeissä? Ja mikäli käy, onko se välttämätön, siis mahdoton korvata partitiivin monikolla?


_Vaikka viime sijoittajat ovat perääntyneet, meillä on vielä vaihtoehdot: mennä konkurssiin tai myydä jäljellä olevat varamme.

Korjattuani viime sadon ryhdyin viljelemään maissia, mutta pian tuli uudet ongelmat: toukat, koit ja muita hienoja elukkoita.

Arveltiin hankkeen viivästyneen omistajan silmäleikkauksen vuoksi, vaikka itse asiassa kyseessä oli aivan muut syyt: rahapula, kustannusten aliarvointi ja ankara sää._

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I still don't completely understand the connection between the _t_-plural form and a following list (which would usually be introduced by a colon).

Are the highlighted _t_-plural forms appropriate in the above examples? And if so, are they obligatory, i.e. impossible to replace with the partitive plural?



Kiitos


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## ocelot

Your first list contains infinitives, which of course are neither partitive nor nominative. _Vaihtoehdot _sounds unidiomatic however. It should be _vaihtoehtoja. _If you want to use the nominative, some determiner is needed to make it sound natural: _meillä on vielä *nämä/seuraavat/jne *vaihtoehdot:_

The second sentence (_pian tuli uudet ongelmat) _is ungrammatical. The verb before _uudet ongelmat _should be in the plural. If a singular verb is used with a plural subject, that subject must be partitive_ (pian tuli uusia ongelmia).
_
The third example absolutely needs a plural verb (_olivat)_ and the partitive is not an option.

I rather doubt there's a hard-and-fast grammatical rule dictating the case of nouns appearing in a list. I do suspect, however, that the items within a list should generally have the same case. The switch from nominative to partitive in list 2 sounds a little unharmonious and weird; such case-switches within one list should probably be avoided unless there's a very good reason to use one. Not sure what a good reason could be.


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## Gavril

ocelot said:


> The third example absolutely needs a plural verb (_olivat)_ and the partitive is not an option.



As far as the optionality of the partitive plural, does it make any difference if_ muut _is replaced with a different modifier?

_Arveltiin hankkeen viivästyneen omistajan silmäleikkauksen vuoksi, vaikka itse asiassa kyseessä olivat aivan tavallisemmat syyt / tavallisempia syitä: rahapula, kustannusten aliarvointi ja ankara sää._

And if the partitive plural works here, how does it affect the meaning of the sentence?



> I rather doubt there's a hard-and-fast grammatical rule dictating the case of nouns appearing in a list.  I do suspect, however, that the items within a list should generally have the same case.



Do you mean "preceding/introducing a list"? (Otherwise, I don't understand the contrast between this and "within a list" in the next sentence.)

Kiitos


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## ocelot

For some reason, it seems to me that _olla kyseessä _cannot take partitive complements at all, regardless of what the noun premodifier (if any) is. I can't seem to think of an example where it would work.

..._kyseessä olivat *tavallisemmat syyt. *_<- The partitive does not work. Also, note that _tavallisemmat _is a comparative adjective. _Aivan _cannot combine with comparative adjectives.

What I meant to say about the case of list-items was that I don't think there's a rule for what case to use for the list-items, but whichever case you use, be consistent throughout the list. Switching from nominative to partitive (or vice versa) mid-list sounds odd unless there's a good reason. I can't think of a good reason right now. It can happen if the list items function syntactically as direct objects of which, semantically, some are perfective and others partitive (_evääksi hän otti *voileivät*, *mehupullon *ja *kananmunia*_), but I can't seem to make it work when they're subjects.


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## Gavril

ocelot said:


> For some reason, it seems to me that _olla kyseessä _cannot take partitive complements at all, regardless of what the noun premodifier (if any) is. I can't seem to think of an example where it would work.



Thanks, this is a useful observation.

I was inspired to start this thread by sentences (from various texts I've read) that contained a t-plural form after _olla kyseessä_ or a nearly-synonymous construction. But, because these examples were followed by a colon and list, I thought (apparently wrongly) that the presence of a list might be affecting the choice of the _t_-plural rather than the partitive plural.


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