# the passive



## plmk

I was thinking about the passive in Finnish and how the passive structures (_sanotaan_) seem to be in many contexts replaced by the Indo-European passive (_on sanonut_). I was about to ask here why it is so, when I suddenly realized what the problem is. _Sanotaan _is the passive and _on sanonut_ is the perfective. Two completely different things. And apparently the Finnish perfective just sometimes happens to occur in the contexts where I would expect the passive.

But I still have a question concerning the passive.

  I’ve always had an impression that the Finnish passive is not a "full passive", but a semi-passive. By semi-passive I mean that e.g. _sanotaan_ corresponds to the German _man sagt_ or the Spanish _se dice_. I think that’s actually how it is normally introduced in textbooks, as corresponding to the English _one says_ or _they say_. And, although now I know that there’s no way that _on sanonut_ is the "full passive", I’m still not sure whether the Finnish passive is used in the same way in which the Polish or English passive is.

  The way I understand the so called “full passive” is that it should involve an agent and a patient. For example:
_The woman was bitten by a cat._

  Is it possible to translate it into Finnish using the passive?
_Nainen purtiin [by a cat] _(I have no idea how to decline _kissa_ here.)
Or does Finnish use different structures in this context? Like maybe the perfective, which I earlier suspected to be a passive structure modeled after the Indo-European passive? I think I have never seen such structures in Finnish, but again I haven’t read so much in Finnsh to be able to verify whether such structures are correct.


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## Spongiformi

You are correct. There's such a difference between the Finnish passive and the passive of some other languages.

However,

The woman was bitten by a cat. <-> A cat bit the woman.

_Naista puri kissa. <-> Kissa puri naista._

As  far as I'm concerned, that's hardly anything more than a method for the  English language to be able to switch the order of the subject and  object. In that particular case, Finnish doesn't need a passive with an  agent because our language happens to allow us to shuffle the word order  a lot without the basic meaning changing. Only the emphasis changes (as  intended).

Sometimes you see dodgy passive sentences with an agent of a sort in Finnish as well.
_Yökerho tyhjennettiin poliisin toimesta._ (Nightclub was emptied by the police.)

Or  so it should be, but in fact isn't. To be exact, the Finnish sentence  would mean that the police arranged the club to be vacated but the  officers weren't necessarily anywhere near the place personally. They  just saw to it that it was done. However, that _"toimesta"_, or some other similar magic words, are sometimes used to unnaturally force an Indo-European looking passive structure into Finnish.

I'll leave the rest to the experts.


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## sakvaka

Another point: English language doesn't usually approve of sentences that don't have subjects. Even passive sentences have them.

The woman (S) was bitten (P).

However, in Finnish passive sentences don't have grammatical subjects. This is verified by the fact that in the following example, 'the woman' is declined like an object.

Naista purtiin.
The woman (O) was bitten (P).

As mentioned above, agent forms don't belong to good Finnish. This is because you either have to mention the subject (by means of active sentences) or not specify it at all (by means of passive sentences).

There are two common formulations of the agent, both of which are unfortunately wrong and clumsy in standard Finnish:

Naista purtiin KISSAN TOIMESTA.
Naista purtiin KISSAN TAHOLTA.

The correct way to say this, however, is by turning the sentence into active:

Kissa puri naista. /
Naista puri kissa.


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## DrWatson

plmk said:


> [...] And, although now I know that there’s no way that _on sanonut_ is the "full passive", I’m still not sure whether the Finnish passive is used in the same way in which the Polish or English passive is.


I'm a bit confused about this sentence right here. I can't think of an instance where one would use e.g. _on sanonut_ in a passive meaning. The NUT-participle is active perfect participle;_ sanottu_ would be the corresponding passive form (passive perfect participle), e.g. _on sanottu_ ('it has been said'). Finnish, unlike many IE languages, differentiates between the two:

_(Kirjan) kirjoittanut mies_ = A/the man who wrote/has written (the book)
_Kirjoitettu kirja_ = A/the written book

Is this what you meant? If not, do you have an example sentence so I could better understand what you're after?


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## plmk

Thank you for your answers.
  I think the problem is that I  didn’t really know there was a distinction between a passive and an active participle. Knowing that e.g. _sanonut_ is a participle I’ve always wanted to use it in the formation of the passive structures. And I’ve seen something similar (a passive sentence with the _olla_ verb), but you’re right that it wasn’t the active participle _sanonut_, but the passive _sanottu_.

  But I still have a question. If there’s a sentence in the perfective passive:

  Mistä se on tehty?

  is it possible to have such a sentence in the present tense: 

  Mistä se tehdään?

  Or similarily the sentence _Kakku on tehty jauheesta_ turn into _Kakku tehdään jauheesta_, in the present tense, meaning that it is an universal truth that anytime you make a cake you have to use flour? I'm not sure whether I've seen the present tense passive in this context. Is this use of the passive correct?


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## Gavril

The distinction between

"Kakku on tehty jauheesta"
and
"Kakku tehdään jauheesta"

is the same as the diff. between

"(the/a) cake has been made with flour"
and
"(the/a) cake is made with flour" (or, "... will be made with flour")

As far as I know, you can't tell whether either of the Finnish sentences is a universal or a particular statement without further context; in English, you could express this distinction with the presence or absence of an article, or the choice of article.



plmk said:


> Thank you for your answers.
> I think the problem is that I  didn’t really know there was a distinction between a passive and an active participle. Knowing that e.g. _sanonut_ is a participle I’ve always wanted to use it in the formation of the passive structures. And I’ve seen something similar (a passive sentence with the _olla_ verb), but you’re right that it wasn’t the active participle _sanonut_, but the passive _sanottu_.
> 
> But I still have a question. If there’s a sentence in the perfective passive:
> 
> Mistä se on tehty?
> 
> is it possible to have such a sentence in the present tense:
> 
> Mistä se tehdään?
> 
> Or similarily the sentence _Kakku on tehty jauheesta_ turn into _Kakku tehdään jauheesta_, in the present tense, meaning that it is an universal truth that anytime you make a cake you have to use flour? I'm not sure whether I've seen the present tense passive in this context. Is this use of the passive correct?


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## Gwydda

The problem when translating sentences from Indo-European languages to Finnish is that they work differently on_ a very fundamental level. _
The Finnish passive *requires *that there is someone to perform the action, whether it is mentioned or not. In fact, it's not so much of a passive, but more like *the unknown subject*. 
Someone's doing it, we just don't know who. 

That's also why the optional constructions "_Naista purtiin kissan toimesta_" and "_Naista purtiin kissan taholta_" sound so clumsy, because first the verb form implies that we don't know who did it, and then immediately afterwards the subject is being wedged in.

So, neither

_Mistä se on tehty? _
nor
_Mistä se tehdään?_ 

is a full passive, because they both require someone to do it. There is the classic example of "*Alkoholi hajotetaan maksassa" (_"__alcohol is broken down in the liver"_), which is not possible because it requires a person to do it.


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## Gavril

Hi Gwydda,



Gwydda said:


> The problem when translating sentences from Indo-European languages to Finnish is that they work differently on_ a very fundamental level. _



While I don't disagree with your main point, I wonder if it's a good idea to portray this as a "Finnish vs. Indo-European" contrast. It seems simpler to say that Finnish "tehdään/tehtiin/on tehty" are *impersonal* verb forms ("someone/some people are doing", etc.) whereas English "is done/was done"/etc. and similar constructions are passive forms. I don't think there's anything essentially "IE" about the passive, considering that some IE languages, such as Welsh, have impersonal verb forms that are used instead of (or in addition to) passives.

Another thing: even though the passive/impersonal distinction is real, this distinction may not always be maintained with perfect strictness. For example, according to some Finnish speakers I asked, one could say,

"Asiaa käsitellään Anttilan kirjassa"
=
"The topic is dealt with in Anttila's book"

This would sound acceptable (again, according to the speakers I asked) even if Anttila were the sole author of the book. If "käsitellään" were a completely impersonal form in this case, then mentioning Anttila as the author of the book would sound just as contradictory as saying, "Asiaa käsiteltiin Anttilan taholta" or similar, wouldn't it?


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## Gwydda

Hmm. I think you're right about the Finnish vs. IE part.

I don't agree, however, on your perspective on "Asiaa käsitellään Anttilan kirjassa". 

Why? Because there the sole "actor", or the writer of the book, Anttila in this case, is too abstract or distant from the final product and doesn't really count. 
I know it doesn't sound too 'grammatical' or 'scientific', but I think that's the case.

It wouldn't be natural to say "Asiaa käsiteltiin presidentin puheessa", because when it's a speech it is too clear that there is only one actor. Actually, your example is the _only_ example my friends and I here can think of that would allow only a single known "actor" with the passive. If you can come up with another example that does not refer to a written text, I'm keen to hear it.


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## Gavril

Gwydda said:


> It wouldn't be natural to say "Asiaa käsiteltiin presidentin puheessa", because when it's a speech it is too clear that there is only one actor. Actually, your example is the _only_ example my friends and I here can think of that would allow only a single known "actor" with the passive. If you can come up with another example that does not refer to a written text, I'm keen to hear it.



What about an example of a written text where it's clearer that there is only one author? E.g., does it sound acceptable to say,

"Asiaa käsiteltiin Tuomisen viime artikkelissa"
or
"Aihetta käsiteltiin *muun muuassa* Parviaisen viime kuukauden esseessä."


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## Gwydda

I've been talking about this with my friends, and we came to the conclusion that regardless of how clear it is that there is only one author, the fact that it is a book or an article makes the author too distant. 
So distant that they almost aren't present. In a way it's impersonal. That's also the reason you cannot say

"*Asiaa käsiteltiin Tuomisen _kirjeessä_." 
or
"*Asiaa käsiteltiin Tuomisen _päiväkirjassa_."

because when it's a letter or a diary the author indeed *is *present, and it doesn't sound good at all.

But
"Asiaa käsiteltiin Tuomisen _kirjassa_."
sounds a lot more acceptable, although I think I would even then say it in the active voice.


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## Gavril

Terve Gwydda,



Gwydda said:


> I've been talking about this with my friends, and we came to the conclusion that regardless of how clear it is that there is only one author, the fact that it is a book or an article makes the author too distant.
> So distant that they almost aren't present. In a way it's impersonal. That's also the reason you cannot say
> 
> "*Asiaa käsiteltiin Tuomisen _kirjeessä_."
> or
> "*Asiaa käsiteltiin Tuomisen _päiväkirjassa_."



These sound odd in English as well, but I think that's because "The issue is dealt with ..." is not something people commonly say about a personal letter or diary. On the other hand, it sounds fine to say, for example,

"Pystynen had a half-sister? That's odd: she *isn't mentioned* anywhere in *his letters/journals*."

Still, this kind of statement would usually only be made if Pystynen were no longer alive, which means that he's very distant indeed from the action of the sentence. 

Would it sound acceptable to say "häntä ei mainita" in the Finnish translation of the above sentence, or would you have to say "Hän [Pystynen] ei maininnut tätä" or similar?


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## J.F. de TROYES

Gwydda said:


> The problem when translating sentences from Indo-European languages to Finnish is that they work differently on_ a very fundamental level. _
> The Finnish passive *requires *that there is someone to perform the action, whether it is mentioned or not. In fact, it's not so much of a passive, but more like *the unknown subject*.
> Someone's doing it, we just don't know who.
> 
> That's also why the optional constructions "_Naista purtiin kissan toimesta_" and "_Naista purtiin kissan taholta_" sound so clumsy, because first the verb form implies that we don't know who did it, and then immediately afterwards the subject is being wedged in.




I must say I  don't know any Finnish, but as I am carrying out some crosslinguistic research into passive forms, I have come across this discussion of great interest to me and I was surprised by the way you define Finish passive . It seems to me very accurate . The word _passive_ is translated in Arabic _al-majhul , _what exactly means _the unknown . _What you say about Finnish could also be said about Arabic. Passive forms are used when the agent(s) is/are unknown or useless. Adding an agent was impossible in Classical Arabic , while M.S.A. ( Modern Standard Arabic) can do it by using a noun with a prepositional group ( estimated faulty by purists ), only because it has imitated European languages as English or French.  I think you underline one of the main _raisons d'être _of any passive.


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## Jagorr

Following @J.F. de TROYES' reaction I have to admit that I would still be eager to get a response to


Gavril said:


> Would it sound acceptable to say "häntä ei mainita" in the Finnish translation of the above sentence, or would you have to say "Hän [Pystynen] ei maininnut tätä" or similar?



My belief is that saying "Pystysen siskopuoli ei ole mainittu hänen kirjeissään" is perhaps an accentuating though natural way to say that "Pystynens half sister is not mentioned in his letters".


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