# consonant gradation



## garoowood

As in Finnish, both the nouns, adjectives and verbs undertake consonant gradation, I found a problem bothering me quite much and I would like to see if sb can kindly give a hand.

ruveta, if we change this word, then it becomes to rupean, rupeat etc. It means v becomes to p which is reasonable.
But when we change selvitä or hävitä, it becomes to selviän, selviät; or häviän, häviät etc. Why it is not selpiän and häpiän? Because they don't have k,p,t changes in verbs end with "ita/itä" although they change like verbs end with "ata/ätä"?


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## Perkele

Verbs ending in -eta/-etä have always this "reversed" consonant gradation. It's just the way it is.

hävitä - häviän: lose; disappear
hävetä - häpeän: be ashamed

Note that there are two types of verbs ending in -eta/-etä and there's no way to tell which type the verb is - you just have to know it.

teljetä - telkeän: lock out
seljetä - selkenen: clear up


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## garoowood

thanks for the help.

For me, even if both hävitä and hävetä changing to strong consonant p seem reasonable.

reserved consonant actually happens many word types, for example words ending with lla/llä, ata/ätä and eta/etä. I think it is just that verbs ending with ita/itä do not have consonant gradation. Am I right?


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## dinji

Historically the weak grade is a function of the strong grade, not vice versa.
Thus whenever -p- appears in the strong grade -v- appears in the weak one, like in _lapa_ 'blade' and _lavan_, genitive or accusative of the same.
Now wherever -v- appears in the strong grade, the weak grade is also -v-, like in _lava_ 'stage' and _lavan_, genitive or accusative of the same.

The examples of verbs above are merely special cases of these rules.

Then to make it more complicated loanwords or other recent formations might be exempted from consonant gradation altogether, like in _Roope_ 'Bobby' and _Roopen (not **Rooven)_, genitive or accusative of the same.


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