# Finnish verbs



## Tjahzi

Greetings, dear contributers to the Finnish language forum (and Sakvaka in particular)

I have come here to ask you about an issue which has been on my mind for a while. As an avid student of grammars of various languages, mainly Indo-European languages, I have come to realise that it is a very common practise, among all branches of IE to use prefixation as way to generate new verbs. As such, I am very curious of if, or how, this is done in a such a genetically distant language as Finnish, in particular since adpositions* are (at least so I have been told) almost non-existant. Another possible way would be to use different cases (since those could be said to correspond to prepositions) such as in the case of _naida_. 

So my question is simply, does Finnish have any system to "avoid" having to have an awful lot of roots? English examples, due to massive borrowing, are hard to spot, but both Swedish, se, utse, inse, avse, bortse, as well as Russian, ходить, выходить, приходить, уходить, and Spanish, venire, avenire, convenire, provenire, intervenire, use this practise to varying degree.

Looking forward to your replies.


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## Tappahannock

I've often felt that Finnish creates more different words and meanings from a smaller pool of roots than any other language I've been exposed to.  But I don't have the background in linguistics to substantiate that impression.

It's not just the cases.  Since you ask about verbs, there are all sorts of things that can be stuck on the end of a verb root before conjugating it that alter the nuance of the meaning or even change it quite dramatically.

I'll have to leave it to others to come up with a better explanation and examples in line with what you're looking for.


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## Tappahannock

Here is one broader-than-verbs example that occurred to me as I walked out the door just now.

_Ilma_ is air.
_Ilmasto_ is climate.
_Ilmastointi_ is air conditioning and _ilmastoida_ is the 1st infinitive verb form.
_Ilmanvaihto_ (air change, change of air) is one sense of circulation.  Wiktionary also says it can also mean ventilation, though it wouldn't be my first choice for that.

If you look in a dictionary where words begin starting with _hyp-_, I would expect you will see at least a dozen single-word verbs (and probably some interesting nouns) relating to _hypätä_, to jump.  That family of words is one of the most classic examples of the flexibility of Finnish verbs.


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## sakvaka

This has almost been discussed before. Too bad that there wasn't a longer debate:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1743284

Finnish doesn't form new verbs in a way of adding verbal prefixes. Most of such verbs are calcues from Swedish or just normal idiomatic expressions in a new setting.

At least I have had problems with the Swedish and Dutch prefixes. A simple Finnish verb such as "potkaista" can become upp-, ned-, över-, med-, till-, be-, för-, av- ... sparka (this is just an exaggerated example, don't take the list seriously ). Or then ohjata becomes be-, van-, af-, uit-, ge-, in- ... sturen.

Tappahannock already mentioned the Finnish ability of deriving verbs by using certain verbal aspects, for example causative and frequentative.

pyöriä - rotate (intr.)
pyörittää - rotate (tr.)
pyöritellä - rotate (tr. freq.)

kaataa - fell
kaatua - fall

ajaa - drive; chase
ajella - drive (freq.)
ajeluttaa - drive sy (caus. freq.)
ajautua - veer
ajelehtia - drift

hypätä - hop
hypähtää - hop suddenly (moment.)
hypellä - hop (freq.)
hyppelehtiä - ...

In many occasions, direct translating may prove out impossible for a nonnative. Besides, these forms don't always correspond the IE prefixes. That's why my translations aren't very practical (any Englishman willing to help?)

The problem with _naida_ is more related to choosing the type of an object. There are total and partial objects in Finnish, which combine the concepts of definiteness (folk, folket), continuousness (Läsa på en bok. / Läsa en bok.) and negation in a system of two cases. 

"To make love" is certainly a long-term action (no matter what some men may think...), and on the other hand, "to marry" isn't very continuous. In English, this distinction is pointed out with continuous and simple tenses.


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## Tappahannock

This is such a great subject because it seems to me the richest and one of the most appealing qualities of Finnish.

I avoid Finnish-English translation at almost all costs, but I can add a few marginal comments to sakvaka's examples.

The _kaataa/kaatua_ pair is very typical.  The "u" makes the latter one not quite passive, not quite reflexive, but something akin to both.  (Is there a name for that form?)  In this case it means to be felled, but there is no agent implied other than the grammatical subject.  To "fall" in a war is _kaatua_.  For a tree to fall is _kaatua_.  It means to go from standing to fallen, where _kaataa_ without the "u" means to make a thing fall.  A person or a circumstance can 'knock down' (_kaataa_) a decision, a sports team, etc.

I want to get to _ajautua_, a prince among Finnish verbs, through another example.

_Loma_ is vacation.  An employer may _lomauttaa_ employees, resulting in a _lomautus_.  This is a furlough or (American) lay-off in the sense of a temporary redundancy with the expectation (or at least the possibility) of a later return to work.  It's an active verb because it ends in -ttaa, but it represents someone ending up in, getting shoved into, an involuntary state of being on vacation.  That involuntary component is represented by the "au" before the -ttaa.  There is that "u" again, doing a similar thing in a different part of the word.  There could hypothetically be a verb _lomautua_, to end up on lay-off, though I'm not aware that such a verb is actually used.  Certainly there are many other verbs ending in -autua with this meaning of ending up in some state.  For instance, there is _antautua_, meaning to surrender oneself, from _antaa_ (to give, tr.).

And so we come to _ajautua_, from _ajaa_ - drive.  A ship may _ajautua kivikkoon_ or _ajautua rannikolle_, being driven (sort of) by wind and currents onto rocks or to the shore, respectively.  (I hope I chose the right cases there.)  I say "sort of" because it's more like just ending up there.  It could come from being rudderless in relatively calm weather and does not necessarily have to involve a storm with driving winds.


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## locutus

During the short time I have been learning Finnish, I have observed a few things about Finnish verbs: [Aside: First though, I'm neither a linguist nor a language teacher....just an amateur interested in the Finnish language...as well as Latin and the Romance languages generally]

Back to Finnish verbs:

1. They frequently have a basic stem word that is shared with many other Finnish words...nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs....though sometimes these stems can become a bit "opaque" if one doesn't properly remember the rules for consonant gradation, "s" assibilation, etc. The stem _"aja-"_ is common, as is _"yksi"_...."one", in its various guises..._"yhd-"/"yht-"_.

2. The basic infinitive form of the word will end in an "a"/"ä"....

3. Various suffixes will be added to create a variety of different verbs. Certain patterns of letter use are common, indicating causative/factitive, frequentative, momentane, transitive/intransitive, reflexive, etc. I don't as yet have a full understanding of all of this, though I can regularly, though not infallibly, recognize many of these patterns.

4. These verbs can then have other suffixes added: first, of course, for conjugation, but also such things as emphasis and question.

From what I can tell so far, prefixes are not a common feature of verb formation, though one that comes to mind is _"epä-"_....which carries a negation sense....but I don't think that is used very often with verbs. And I think a distinction has to be made between word compounding and particles prefixes. Compound words are a "classic" feature of Finnish, but I don't at this point know how frequently they might show up as verbs.


Which leads me to a question....

I found two ways of saying, "to manhandle"....

_"pahoinpidellä"_ and _"pidellä pahasti"_... _"pidellä"_..."to handle", is the freqentative form of the basic verb, _"pitää"_ ...

To me both look typically "Finnish"....My question: Which one would be better Finnish??.... Should I be thinking that _"pahoinpidellä"_ is a calque?


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## Tappahannock

locutus said:


> ...though one that comes to mind is _"epä-"_....which carries a negation sense....but I don't think that is used very often with verbs.


Right, there is _epäonnistua_ (to fail or to 'mis-succeed', as our former President might have described it), which works by direct prefix to _onnistua_, to succeed.  Then there is _epäröidä_, to hesitate.  But there is no _röidä_.  You get some sense of the word from the _epä-_ but I don't know where the rest comes from.  It's almost like someone just put the verb-making suffix _-oida/öidä_ directly onto a "not" -- which is an almost-apt description of hesitating, I suppose.  There aren't a lot of others and offhand, I can't think of another one.

I remember that in one forum, Finns were poking fun at a supposedly Finnish(?) model, perhaps a Finland Swede, for her _epä_-mastery of the language.  (I wish I could find that old thread, but so far my searches have failed.)  I recall that they were attributing to her non-existent words like _epähelppo_ (non-easy) for _vaikea_, difficult, as in _Suomen kieli on epähelppo_, and _epäkaunis_ (non-beautiful) for _ruma_, ugly.  But I may be remembering wrong, because searching that forum for those words comes up empty.


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## sakvaka

Behind this link are presented approximately half of the Finnish verbal suffixes, in Finnish, though.
http://www.finnlectura.fi/verkkosuomi/Morfologia/sivu2723.htm

_Pahoinpidellä_ is the common form. _Pidellä pahoin_ is way rarer but not wrong.

I think in some occasions there is a parallel with Swedish: the connected form is mostly metaphoric while the separable form's more concrete. _Han bröt pennan av_ (He snapped the pen) but _Han avbröt diskussionen_ (He interrupted the discussion), if I remember it correctly.

The Finnish Swedish word could've been "epämahdollinen" (möjlig - omöjlig). The correct form is naturally _mahdoton_.


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## Tappahannock

And while we're at it, I figured out the root of epäröidä using pure logic.

It is:

r


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## locutus

Tappahannock said:


> Right, there is _epäonnistua_ (to fail or to 'mis-succeed', as our former President might have described it), which works by direct prefix to _onnistua_, to succeed. Then there is _epäröidä_, to hesitate. But there is no _röidä_. You get some sense of the word from the _epä-_ but I don't know where the rest comes from. It's almost like someone just put the verb-making suffix _-oida/öidä_ directly onto a "not" -- which is an almost-apt description of hesitating, I suppose. There aren't a lot of others and offhand, I can't think of another one.
> 
> I remember that in one forum, Finns were poking fun at a supposedly Finnish(?) model, perhaps a Finland Swede, for her _epä_-mastery of the language. (I wish I could find that old thread, but so far my searches have failed.) I recall that they were attributing to her non-existent words like _epähelppo_ (non-easy) for _vaikea_, difficult, as in _Suomen kieli on epähelppo_, and _epäkaunis_ (non-beautiful) for _ruma_, ugly. But I may be remembering wrong, because searching that forum for those words comes up empty.


 
Thanks T.

I've done a bit more searching around and it seems the origins of the "particle", _epä,_ are not particularly obscure, at least not as obscure as learner such as I might have thought.

Apparently, _epä_ is an old form of, _evä,_ which is simply, in grammatical terms, the active present participle of the negation verb, _ei, _...._ei + vä._ 

So this would seem to explain a few things. _Epä,_ is essentially an adjective, and over the years has simply merged with the main part of the noun....not really a prefix, but rather a part of a compound word. This tends to support my view that characteristic of Finnish are compound words and suffix, not prefix, endings. It also lends support to the idea that this prefix/ verbal "element" is more frequently found with nouns and adjectives, not so much with verbs. Which would mean a verb, which became a participle, now becoming a verb again....not unknown, but not so common either.....

Should I be thinking about this in some other way?...


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## locutus

sakvaka said:


> Behind this link are presented approximately half of the Finnish verbal suffixes, in Finnish, though.
> http://www.finnlectura.fi/verkkosuomi/Morfologia/sivu2723.htm
> 
> _Pahoinpidellä_ is the common form. _Pidellä pahoin_ is way rarer but not wrong.
> 
> I think in some occasions there is a parallel with Swedish: the connected form is mostly metaphoric while the separable form's more concrete. _Han bröt pennan av_ (He snapped the pen) but _Han avbröt diskussionen_ (He interrupted the discussion), if I remember it correctly.
> 
> The Finnish Swedish word could've been "epämahdollinen" (möjlig - omöjlig). The correct form is naturally _mahdoton_.


 
Thanks, Sakvaka. I didn't think about it yesterday....so I did a "Google Fight"....which confirms your view:

_pahoinpidellä_....25,900 hits
_pidellä pahasti_........66 hits

Looks like a "knockout" to me...

And, thanks also, for the link. I've looked at a few parts of it...it looks like it will be useful to me. though with my level of Finnish, I'll be going through it slowly...


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## Gavril

Here's _Nykysuomen Etymologinen Sanakirja_ on _epäröidä_ (translated from Finnish):

"The verb is a derivation of the negative verb's participial form, _epä_-. The immediate base of this verb may be the dialectal adjective _epärö_, which means 'distrustful' [_epäilevä_]."

(So glad that I picked this book up on my Finland trip!)


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## Tjahzi

Thank you all for your replies.

I was aware of the fact that Finnish verbs could be modified by the addition of a number of modal affixes. Also learning of the _kaataa - kaatua_ distinction was very interesting, although the very same thing exists in Swedish; _sitta - sätta, stå - ställa, falla - fälla_ (_sit, stand, fall, respectively)_. 

What I was really after however, was the Finnish correspondance to affixes that create new verbs. That is, not changing the transitivity, voice, telicity or mood. To further explain what exactly I'm after, I will take some examples from two languages, Swedish and Russian, that use prepositions in two slightly different ways in order to create new verbs.

*Russian* employs a strict system in which prepositions are always prefixed to a verb in order to create a new verb based on the original. For example, if the verb is идти _idt'i - to go, to walk _([ɪˈtʲi] due to assimilation, which will also affect spelling of the upcoming derived verbs)_, _then the derived verbs will have something to do with going/walking. Hence we get выйти _výjt'i_ -  _to exit, to leave_, with _vy _being the preposition "out, out of", прийти _prijt'í _  - _to arrive, to come_, with _pri_ meaning "by, at", пройит - _projt'í - to pass by, _with "_pro_" meaning "about, concerning". 

There are more of course, but these should be enough to illustrate. Also, of these verbs have broader usages, stretching beyond their spatial meanings, but there is always a core spatial interpretation. 

Next up is *Swedish*, which also uses prepositions to create new verbs, but with two main differences from Russian. Firstly, the prepositions must not be prefixed, they can also stand independently following the verb. Secondly, their meanings can be clearly different and independent from that of their root-verbs. So for example, if we add the preposition _av_, meaning both "of" and "off", to the verb _gå _- _to walk, to go_ we can get _avgå - to resign, step down,_ but also _gå av_ - _to break_ (_passive_), _to get broken_ or _to step of, to go off, to leave_. Furthermore, if we add _in _meaning "into", we get both _ingå - to be part of, to be included in, _and _gå in - to enter. _Similarly, adding _på _"on, at" gives us _pågå _- _to be ongoing_ as well as _gå på - to continue _or_ to board, to step on.
_
This means we get the theoretical amount of combinations by multiplying the amount of prepositions with the many verb roots with two. Despite the fact that you can't combine most verbs with most prepositions, this obviously means a lot of possible verbs, at least twenty per verb root. It could also be worth mentioning that both Russian and Swedish can make verbs passive (as could be expected, Swedish uses this more randomly) which again doubles the amount of possible forms.

Now, I was thinking of something corresponding to a system like this when I asked my initial question. Are _to agree _(_hålla med - "hold with")_, _explain (förklara - "for clear") _and _decide (avgöra - "of(f) make")_ independent roots in Finnish or are they derived from other verbs, like in IE languages? And if they are derived, what do these affixes mean, if anything?

(Also, by now I suppose you have all realized that English does indeed work very much like Swedish and Russian, with the difference being that both its verb roots and prepositions are loaned from Romance languages (usually as entire compounds)).

Again, looking forward at a continued interesting discussion.


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## sakvaka

I thought I answered that already in #4. 

Additional examples concerning your latest post:

förklara = olla samaa mieltä (< miel-) *Finno-Ugric*
förklara = selittää (< sel-) *Finno-Ugric*
avgöra = päättää (< pää-) *Finno-Ugric*

se = nähdä (< näk-) *Finno-Ugric*
utse = valita; määrätä (< val-, määr-) *Germanic*, *Slavic*
inse = käsittää; tajuta (< kät-, taj-) *Finno-Ugric*, *Finnic*
avse = tarkoittaa; aikoa (< tark(k)-, ai(k)-) *Unknown*
bortse = sivuuttaa; jättää huomiotta (< sivu, huom-) *Unknown*,* Germanic?*

As you can see, there are many different roots from different language groups. 

Other ways of forming new words: _

- alteration_ of meaning ("going and seeing nets for fish" has turned into "learning", "touching with a long hooked tool" has turned into "inventing" etc.)
- _sharing _similar meanings (johtaa = derive, conduct, lead, direct, head _v._)
- using a noun and a _longer phrase_ (to agree = vara av samma åsikt)


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## Tjahzi

Well, yes, or at least you almost did, but mainly I felt that you outlined various ways to conjugate according to mood, transitivity etc, which of course is interesting and, for a native speaker of a quite analytic language, very fascinating, yet not exactly what I was looking for. 

I must admit that the loaning of roots never struck me as a way to "solve the problem". 
The _alteration_ method is also very fascinating, a bit like Icelandic, but more authentic, it seems. 

However, I will focus on the examples you did present above; 

ajaa - drive
ajautua - veer
ajelehtia - drift

Here we have a few verbs with different meanings, but that obviously share the same root. So, do _-(a)utua _and _-ejelehtia_ mean anything? Are they nouns or adjectives? Do they appear in other verbs?


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## sakvaka

Tjahzi said:


> Here we have a few verbs with different meanings, but that obviously share the same root. So, do _-(a)utua _and _-ejelehtia_ mean anything? Are they nouns or adjectives? Do they appear in other verbs?



They are meaningful suffixes (or actuqlly combinations of them). I am not a linguistic, but with the help of the abovementioned _Finnlectura online grammar_, I found out the following:

aja.utu.a is a "passive verb", it indicates, that something happens to the subject without any reflexive actions.

aj.ele.ht.i.a has both continuative and frequentative suffixes (intensive, ongoing action). The reference page doesn't explain the part "-hta", so the meaning of that one is buried into dust.

These can be used for other verbs.
rikko.a (break) - rikko.utu.a (fall apart)
istu.a (sit) - istu.skella (more "intensive" sitting)
hyp.ätä (jump once) - hypp.i.ä (jump many times)

By the way, can this hypätä-hyppiä distinction be pointed out in Swedish in any way? Some example sentences:

_Pojat hyppäsivät kalliolta alas mereen._ The boys jumped down the cliff into the sea.
_Pojat hyppivät kalliolta alas mereen._ The boys were jumping from the cliff into the sea (and returned after each jump for a new try).

BTW:
_Pojat hyppelivät kalliolta alas mereen._ (The same as above, but the tone is more playful, frequentative! )


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## Tjahzi

That makes sense, however, it also somewhat disappoints me since that means those were indeed also modal/aspectual affixes. Though there is nothing wrong with that, it more and more seems Finnish lacks any system which I beforehand had expected, or could imagine, which leaves the remaining "solutions" to be, as you have been concluding above; loaning of roots, combinating verbs and nouns, forming verbs from nouns (?) and to some degree I suppose, using these modally/aspectually derived forms for similar verbs.

Now, to your question; obviously it can be expressed, in a number of ways, though not exclusively through the verb. It could be said too, that it feels somewhat awkward to have both a "from x" and "into y" in the same sentence. However, the initial phrase

_Pojkarna hoppade i sjön från klippan.

_could be modified to be continuative either by adding a "continuative phrase" such as _"om och om igen"_ or "_höll på och_" or by giving a time during which the action was to have taken place, such as "_i en timme"_. 
_
Pojkarna hoppade i sjön från klippan om och om igen._ 
_Pojkarna hoppade i sjön från klippan i en timme._

It does however, not come off as naturally as in languages with a natural way to make aspectual distinctions such as Finnish or Russian.


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## Gavril

Tjahzi said:


> That makes sense, however, it also somewhat  disappoints me since that means those were indeed also modal/aspectual  affixes.



I don't think you can say that they are only modal/aspectual affixes. The verbs _hyppiä _and _hypellä _are both frequentative, but as Sakvaka mentioned, there are further shades of meaning contained in the suffixes _-iä _and _-ellä_. Similarly, the verbs _ilmestyä _"appear" and _ilmoittautua _"register, sign up" are both intransitive, but the meaning contributed by _-styä _and _-autua_ is more than just passivity/intransitivity.

In an earlier post, you said, 



> What I was really after however, was the Finnish correspondance to affixes that create new verbs. That is, not changing the transitivity, voice, telicity or mood.



I don't see how, e.g., _ilmoittautua _ (based on _ilmoittaa, _which is in turn based on _ilma_) is any less "new" a verb than _avse _< _se_. The suffixes on _ilmoittautua_  are relatively common, but they aren't inflectional suffixes: in other  words, they can't be added on to any verb with a completely predictable  resultant meaning.

Also, as mentioned, the meaning contributed by many (if not most) of the suffixes in question is more than just transitivity, voice or telicity. _ajaa_ means "drive", but _ajatella, _with the transitive and frequentative suffixes, means "think"; _kantaa _means "carry", but _kannella_ means "complain" or "tattle (on someone)".

(I'm not sure what you meant by "mood" above -- if you meant  subjunctivity, indicativity and so on, none of the suffixes discussed contribute this kind of meaning.)



> Though there is nothing wrong with that, it more and more seems  Finnish lacks any system which I beforehand had expected, or could  imagine, which leaves the remaining "solutions" to be, as you have been  concluding above; loaning of roots, combinating verbs and nouns, forming  verbs from nouns (?) and to some degree I suppose, using these  modally/aspectually derived forms for similar verbs.



And the use of adverbs with verbs: _lähteä pois _"go away"_, tulla sisään _"come into/inside"_, mennä ohi_ "to go past" et cetera. These adverbs can sometimes be prefixed to various forms of the verb: _poismennyt _"deceased", _sisäänkäynti_ "entrance", _ohimennen _"in  passing". However, as far as I know, this prefixing isn't as common or  productive as in languages like Swedish, English etc., and that's why  words like _pois, sisään, ohi _and so on are considered adverbs rather than prepositions.


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