# todeta



## Gavril

I believe that _todeta _means both "discover, find out" and "state". Therefore, if you said,

_Pirkko toteasi, että jarrut olivat petäneet

_it could mean,

1) "Pirkko discovered that the brakes had failed"

or

2) "Pirkko stated that the brakes had failed"


Is one of these meanings more common than the others?

If not, is there a less ambiguous way to express these meanings?


Hyvää suununtaiiltaa


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## Grumpy Old Man

_Pirkko *totesi*, että jarrut olivat *pettäneet*.
_
1. huomasi / havaitsi
2. sanoi / mainitsi

I have no idea which of the meanings is the most or the least common.


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## Ригель

Gavril said:


> I believe that _todeta _means both "discover, find out" and "state"


_
Todeta _usually implies that the agent in question is rather passive and unconcerned, as if it were a blunt scientific statement/assessment that he's making which doesn't have any kind of impact on his emotional state. Maybe the grammatically different translations "to become evident" or "to perceive as a true state" would cast more light upon the idea of this verb. _Discover_ and _find out_ commonly suggest a more active role for the agent than _state_. Overall, it would seem somewhat strange to encounter a sentence like



Gavril said:


> _Pirkko toteasi, että jarrut olivat pettäneet._



Obviously, if she found out that the brakes had failed then she probably would have been on the brink of panic. Your phrasing suggests that the events taking place in her mind were more like: _Oh my, the brakes just failed. How curious indeed. _In other words she's indifferent to the event. If you wish to underline her concern on the implications of the failing of the breaks then it's better to use words like _huomasi, tajusi, ymmärsi._


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## pearho

I think _todeta_ could be used if Pirkko is investigating another person's accident, or she's a very cold-blooded person, or a racing driver.


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## Gavril

Ригель said:


> _Todeta _usually implies that the agent in question is rather passive and unconcerned, as if it were a blunt scientific statement/assessment that he's making which doesn't have any kind of impact on his emotional state. Maybe the grammatically different translations "to become evident" or "to perceive as a true state" would cast more light upon the idea of this verb.



"to perceive as a true state" fits with the "discover" meaning of _todeta_, but it doesn't quite get me to the meaning "mention, state".

What still puzzles me about _todeta_ is that, if it's fully equivalent to the English verbs "discover" and ”state” (which it may not be), then you can't tell without context whether a sentence like ”_Juha totesi, että ...”_ means that Juha discovered something, or merely that he claimed it (maybe untruthfully).

Is there something about the semantics of _todeta_ that makes it unlikely to be used for a false statement?

Kiitos vielä kerran


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## Spongiformi

You could say it's a statement based on a discovery. I find it difficult to understand how something fundamentally couldn't be used falsely, though. Perhaps if it's used in narrative and everyone, the reader included, knows it's false, it would be a wrong word to use because it clearly wouldn't be anymore based on perceivable facts (discovery). If nobody knows any better, then something observed might as well be true until proven otherwise, right?

A) Totesimme joukkueemme hävinneen ottelun. B) Kaksi päivää myöhemmin voittajajoukkueen jäsenten todettiin syyllistyneen dopingin käyttöön ja heidän suorituksensa hylättiin, joten joukkueemme julistettiinkin voittajaksi.

(A) is true and correct at the time. When (B) happens, (A) is suddenly false.


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## Gavril

Spongiformi said:


> You could say it's a statement based on a discovery. I find it difficult to understand how something fundamentally couldn't be used falsely, though.



What I meant is that the verb _discover_ (and similar verbs like "observe") generally implies that the speaker/writer believes in the truth of what follows: thus, the sentence "Juha discovered that the other team had cheated" means that the cheating is being presented as a fact.

This is not true of the verb _state _or its synonyms: the sentence "Juha stated that the other team had cheated" is not presenting Juha's words as something necessarily trustworthy -- maybe the next sentence will present evidence that Juha was lying, or simply wrong.

What about the Finnish sentence "Juha totesi toisen joukkueen rikkoneen sääntöjä"? Does this present it as a fact (discovered by Juha) that the other team broke the rules, or just as a claim on Juha's part?


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## Spongiformi

In my opinion _"todeta"_ is always highly bound to discovering. So, _Juha_ wouldn't merely be claiming that offhandedly (truthfully or falsely), but it's a result of a discovery or deduction. It's a different matter if that evidence is true or false. It might be also a statement using authority, I reckon, under some circumstances (_"sotilasjuntan vallan aikana kaikki epäillyt todettiin automaattisesti syylliksi"_).


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## Gavril

Spongiformi said:


> In my opinion _"todeta"_ is always highly bound to discovering. So, _Juha_ wouldn't merely be claiming that offhandedly (truthfully or falsely), but it's a result of a discovery or deduction. It's a different matter if that evidence is true or false.



So, would either of these sentences make sense with the normal meaning of _todeta_?

1)_ Juha totesi toisen joukkueen rikkoneen sääntöjä, mutta sitten hän osoitauttui valehtelijaski._

2) _Juha totesi toisen joukkueen rikkoneen sääntöjä, mutta hänen osoitauttui olevan väärässä._


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## Spongiformi

I don't really have problems with either one. In both cases we can assume Juha at least pretended to be basing the judgement on something or to have been in a position where others would assume he knew what he was talking about.


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## Gavril

Spongiformi said:


> I don't really have problems with either one. In both cases we can assume Juha at least pretended to be basing the judgement on something or to have been in a position where others would assume he knew what he was talking about.



OK, I think I'm getting the picture. Based on what you say, ”discover” or ”observe” would not work as translations of _todeta_ in the two sentences I wrote – you would have to say ”state” or similar.

Kiitos



PS – I wanted to respond to something you wrote in post #6:



> If nobody knows any better, then something observed might as well be true until proven otherwise, right?



If something really has been observed, this means (according to how I use the word _observe_) that it is true, not that it might as well be true until proven otherwise. If there's uncertainty about whether something was in fact observed, then I don't think it's accurate to use the word _observe_/_observation_ in this case without qualifying it in some way (_a stated observation_, _a remembered observation_, etc.). The same restriction applies to _discover_/_discovery_ and similar words.


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## Spongiformi

"Discover" and "observe" do not strictly speaking contain the meaning of someone publicizing what was found. _"Todeta"_ can include that meaning, even if it's not obligatory. It would be weird to imagine someone purposefully observing something falsely (even though it's a known fact people only see what they want to see, but that's not a voluntary condition), whereas it's easy to understand someone lying or being wrong about their discoveries.

I'm not saying uncertainty should be allowed about the observation itself (that it happened), just about the interpretation of what was observed. Furthermore, if it's someone else doing the observing, you have no choice but to trust in it. Like I said earlier, if it's being used in narrative (such as in a novel), then the author needs to judge how to formulate his text because sometimes the reader would know the observation is false and the verb would seem strange there. I guess the same would apply even to news articles.

I'd really wish for someone wiser to give their input here. It feels like I'm not helping you at all anymore here.


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## Gavril

Spongiformi said:


> I'd really wish for someone wiser to give their input here. It feels like I'm not helping you at all anymore here.



No, I think I understand: based on your description, _todeta_ means to observe/discover something, or to state something as if one had observed it. (The "as if" allows for the possibility that one is lying, or wrong about one's observation.)

The only English verb I can think of that has this kind of dual meaning is _witness, _which usually means ”to perceive (a thing or event)” (_He witnessed the other team cheating_), but can also mean ”to testify”, i.e. to state something with the authority of a witness (_He witnessed that the other team had cheated_). The latter meaning is often accompanied by the word _to_: e.g. the sentence _He witnessed to cheating by the other team_ describes a testimony, not a direct observation.


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## TomiH

Propably not correct, but I would translate it like this:

Pirkko noticed that the brakes had failed.


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