# olemme valmiit



## Gavril

(scroll down for English)

Päivääpä,

En ymmärrä sijavalintaa tähdentämässäni lauseessa:



> Liettua sanoo olevansa välittömästi valmis ottamaan vastaan turvapaikanhakijoita, mutta että harva on valmis asettumaan maahan.
> 
> –    Olemme valmiit ottamaan vastaan turvapaikanhakijoita välittömästi, mutta Italiassa ja Kreikassa ei juuri ole turvapaikanhakijoita, jotka olisivat valmiit siirtymään Liettuaan, Liettuan hallituksen korkea virkamies Rimantas Vaitkus sanoi uutistoimisto Reutersille maanantaina.



Miksi _valmii*t*_ eikä _valmi*ita*_?

Todennäköisesti tämä lause sanottiin alun perin liettuaksi tai englanniksi, joten ehkä kyseessä on pelkkä käännösvirhe.

-----[English]-----

I don't understand why _valmii*t*_, as opposed to _valmi*ita*_, is used in the above quote (from a news article).

Is there a reason why the _t-_plural form is used above, or could it simply be a translation error (since the quote was probably originally said in Lithuanian or English)?

Kiitos
G


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## fennofiili

The text is from Yle news and is generally not exemplary written language (the first sentence quoted here is poor: ”sanoo olevansa [...], mutta että” is wrong structure), but the use of _valmiit _instead of _valmiita_ is acceptable. This is perhaps best expressed in _Kielitoimiston kielioppiopas _(issued this year), p. 145:

”Monikkomuotoista subjektia (esim. _oppilaat_) luonnehditaan tavallisesti monikon partitiivimuotoisella (_iloisella_) adjektiivipredikaatilla [...]. Tällöin kutakin yksilöä luonnehditaan ikään kuin erikseen: ’kukin joukon jäsen on kyseisenlainen’. Monikon nominatiivissa (_samanlaiset_) oleva adjektiivipredikaatti taas luo vivahteen, että joukkoa luonnehditaan tyhjentävästi kokonaisuutena [...]. Aina merkityseroa ei käytännössä ole: Oppilaat olivat *valmiita *~ *valmiit *lähtemään retkelle.”

Thus, according to this guide, there is no difference in meaning between _Olemme valmiit_ and _Olemme valmiita_. I’m not sure about this. There might be a difference as described in the general statement above, i.e. so that _Olemme valmiit _means “We (as a group) are ready” vs._ Olemme valmiita _“We are (each of us is) ready”. But my gut feeling is that the difference in style is different, so that _Olemme valmiit_ is more determined, meaning “We are (really completely) ready”. Others probably see a different difference, or no difference.

There is a different, less readable explanation in _Iso suomen kielioppi_. In § 948 Jaollisuustulkinnat monikossa: _Ne ovat vaikeat_ ~ _vaikeita _it says: “Kun subjekti voi viitata joko jaottomaan entiteettiin tai entiteettien joukkoon, edellinen tulkinta osoitetaan predikatiivin nominatiivimuodolla [...] ja jälkimmäinen partitiivimuodolla [...]. Tämä koskee sekä adjektiivi- että substantiivipredikatiiveja.” Interpreted according to this, _Olemme valmiit_ would refer to us as an “indivisible entity”, and _Olemme valmiita_ would refer to us as a “set of entities”.


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## Gavril

Hmm, I have to admit that I don't remember ever seeing the _t-_plural used in a predicate construction like this before.

I often see t-plural predicates used when the subject is an abstraction -- e.g. _Erot ovat suure*t*_ "The differences are large" -- and when the subject is a noun that appears in a consistent/standard quantity -- e.g. _Kenkäni olivat likaise*t *_"My [pair of] shoes were dirty" -- but not when the subject is a normal, concrete plural noun. 

In other words, I have rarely if ever seen sentences like _Norsut_ _olivat nälkäise*t*_ "The elephants were hungry" [as opposed to _nälkäis*iä*_], _Lapset olivat onnellise*t* "_The children were happy" [_onnellis*ia*_], _Vanhempani ovat siivooja*t*_ "My parents are janitors" [_siivooj*ia*_], etc. Are these types of sentences (relatively) common in your experience? Or are they mainly found in certain set phrases?

[Some side-questions:

- In your initial quote, shouldn't it be _ilois*ia*_ rather than _iloise*lla*_? The context where it appears in that sentence makes me expect a partitive plural form.

- You say "the difference in style is different" between _olemme valmiit_ and _olemme valmiita_ (I take it that by "style" you mean "tone"). Isn't the tone different because the basic semantics are different, as you described in the previous sentence? In other words,

1.the subject of _olla_ is seen as a unified group (as shown by the predicate form _valmiit_)
2.therefore, there is less emphasis, or no emphasis at all, on the possible exceptions to this statement (i.e., on those who may not be _valmiita_)
3.therefore, the overall tone of the sentence is more confident.

Does this seem right to you?]


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## fennofiili

Gavril said:


> I often see t-plural predicates used when the subject is an abstraction -- e.g. _Erot ovat suure*t*_ "The differences are large" -- and when the subject is a noun that appears in a consistent/standard quantity -- e.g. _Kenkäni olivat likaise*t *_"My [pair of] shoes were dirty" -- but not when the subject is a normal, concrete plural noun.



The use of nominative vs. partitive in a predicative is rather complicated. _Kenkäni olivat likaiset_ sounds normal, but in_ Kaikki kenkäni olivat likaisia_ the partitive looks like the only possibility to me. I’m afraid the description in _Iso suomen kielioppi_, despite being rather complicated, does not describe all the variation.



> In other words, I have rarely if ever seen sentences like _Norsut_ _olivat nälkäise*t*_ "The elephants were hungry" [as opposed to _nälkäis*iä*_], _Lapset olivat onnellise*t* "_The children were happy" [_onnellis*ia*_], _Vanhempani ovat siivooja*t*_ "My parents are janitors" [_siivooj*ia*_], etc. Are these types of sentences (relatively) common in your experience? Or are they mainly found in certain set phrases?



They sound somewhat odd to me, and the last one even plain wrong.



> In your initial quote, shouldn't it be _ilois*ia*_ rather than _iloise*lla*_? The context where it appears in that sentence makes me expect a partitive plural form.



Yes. It was my mistake in typing the text.



> You say "the difference in style is different" between _olemme valmiit_ and _olemme valmiita_ (I take it that by "style" you mean "tone"). Isn't the tone different because the basic semantics are different, as you described in the previous sentence?



I’m not sure whether the difference is in meaning, in style, or in tone. By “style” I referred to stylistic issues, to personal and possibly context-dependent choices of words and expressions.



> In other words,
> 
> 1.the subject of _olla_ is seen as a unified group (as shown by the predicate form _valmiit_)
> 2.therefore, there is less emphasis, or no emphasis at all, on the possible exceptions to this statement (i.e., on those who may not be _valmiita_)
> 3.therefore, the overall tone of the sentence is more confident.
> 
> Does this seem right to you?]



That’s a plausible explanation, though it’s not really about being more confident but about expressing the idea more strongly: _all of us_ are ready, and we are _really _ready.

This may relate to the meaning of _valmis_. To me, it sounds much more natural to say _Olemme valmiit_ than _Olemme iloiset_ or _Olemme tyytyväiset_.


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## Gavril

fennofiili said:


> That’s a plausible explanation, though it’s not really about being more confident but about expressing the idea more strongly: _all of us_ are ready, and we are _really _ready.



If I heard someone say in English, "All of us are ready, and we are really ready", then I would think that someone is trying to dispell possible doubts about whether we are all ready: maybe other people's doubts, maybe our own (or maybe both).

Either way, the effect is to make the sentence sound more certain (against possible doubt). If this is the meaning you had in mind, then we can replace "confident" in my earlier explanation with "certain". (The two words seem very similar in this context, but it's true that _confident_ can have e.g. a more specific emotional meaning than _certain_.)

The main meaning of constructions like _olemme valmiit _still seems to be that a plural subject is being viewed as a unit (just as in sentences like _Hampaani ovat valkoiset, Kenkänsä olivat kiiltävät_, etc.) -- features like certainty being further (possible) implications of this meaning.

By the way, I found the English-language Reuters article that seems to contain the original quote, or an earlier version of it:



> "We are prepared to accept refugees immediately, but there are no refugees in Italy or Greece who agreed to resettle in Lithuania," Rimantas Vaitkus, deputy chancellor of the Lithuanian government told Reuters on Monday.



Based on the explanations in this thread, maybe _olemme valmiit_ was chosen to translate "we are prepared" here because "we" refers to Lithuania as a country, as a unified whole. It's less clear why _valmiit_ was used in the translation of the second clause ("refugees ... who agreed to resettle") -- maybe it is meant to be a stylistic "echo" of the first one? (I.e., "We are ready to accept refugees, but we haven't found the refugees who are ready to choose us")


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## fennofiili

Gavril said:


> If I heard someone say in English, "All of us are ready, and we are really ready", then I would think that someone is trying to dispell possible doubts about whether we are all ready: maybe other people's doubts, maybe our own (or maybe both).



What I meant is not (primarily) the certainty of being ready but the level of readyness. In the context of the quote, my guess is that they are not comprehesively and really ready – the situation is very difficult and not very predictable –, but in my understanding, “valmiit” suggests a higher level of readiness than “valmiita”. Maybe not much. And maybe not to everyone.

I hope I won’t unnecessarily confuse people by mentioning that the essive case (-na/-nä case) could have been used, too, with somewhat different connotations. “Olemme valmiina” emphasizes, I think, the state of being ready: we are in a state of readiness.



> The main meaning of constructions like _olemme valmiit _still seems to be that a plural subject is being viewed as a unit (just as in sentences like _Hampaani ovat valkoiset, Kenkänsä olivat kiiltävät_, etc.)



I agree.

By the way, I found the English-language Reuters article that seems to contain the original quote, or an earlier version of it:




> Based on the explanations in this thread, maybe _olemme valmiit_ was chosen to translate "we are prepared" here because "we" refers to Lithuania as a country, as a unified whole. It's less clear why _valmiit_ was used in the translation of the second clause ("refugees ... who agreed to resettle") -- maybe it is meant to be a stylistic "echo" of the first one? (I.e., "We are ready to accept refugees, but we haven't found the refugees who are ready to choose us")



Maybe not a stylistic echo, but rather simple use of the same form without thinking.


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