# tätä ei ole tapahtunut



## Gavril

Heipä hei,

I'm not sure I understand why the second sentence below uses the form _tätä_ rather than _tämä_:



> Myös Norjan kruunun arvo on laskenut ja se on välillä ollut Ruotsin kruunua halvempi. Tätä ei ole tapahtunut 14 vuoteen.



I searched the web for _Tämä ei ole tapahtunut _and _Tätä ei ole tapahtunut_, and both seem to be fairly common -- do they mean slightly different things?

Kiitos


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## fennofiili

The partitive is normal here, since the sentence is negative, with the simple meaning “this did not happen”. Thus, your sample sentence is OK. Surprisingly, though, "tämä ei ole tapahtunut" appears to rank much higher than "tätä ei ole tapahtunut" in Google (vertical quotes are essential here). The reason is that “Tämä ei tapahtunut...” is a completely different phrase. It is not a simple negation of “Tämä tapahtui”, i.e. meaning that it is not true that this happened. Instead, it implies that this actually happened, but comments on the causes. Typically the structure is “Tämä ei tapahtunut siksi että ... vaan siksi että ...”, i.e. “This did not happen because of ... but because of ...”.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, “Tämä ei ole tapahtunut” appears to be used even in simple negations, too—perhaps mostly in translated texts


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## 盲人瞎馬

fennofiili said:


> but comments on the causes.



Could you clarify on this?


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## fennofiili

Vitalore said:


> Could you clarify on this?



I’m not sure if I can explain better than I did in my reply, but my point was that in traditional language “Tämä ei tapahtunut...” expects a continuation like “because of A, but because of B”. This means that the occurrence of the event is implied; just its causes are being discussed.


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## Gavril

Hi Fennofiili,



fennofiili said:


> The partitive is normal here, since the sentence is negative, with the simple meaning “this did not happen”. Thus, your sample sentence is OK.



I don't quite understand what you mean by "since the sentence is negative". For example, the following sentence is negative, but I'm pretty sure that it is not correct to have the subject in the partitive (is it?):

_Kone(*tta*) ei ole toiminut viikkoihin_. "The machine has not worked for weeks."

What is the difference between the above sentence and _Tätä ei ole tapahtunut_ that makes the partitive subject wrong in the former, but correct in the latter?

Kiitos vielä kerran


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## fennofiili

Gavril said:


> What is the difference between the above sentence and _Tätä ei ole tapahtunut_ that makes the partitive subject wrong in the former, but correct in the latter?



The difference is in the meaning of the verb: the subject is normally in the partitive in a negative sentence, if the sentence expresses existence or coming to existence, in a broad sense. _Iso suomen kielioppi,_ § 918 describes this in detail, in a somewhat complicated manner. It mentions  _olla_, _löytyä_, _näkyä_, _kuulua_, _syntyä_, _tapahtua_, _sattua_, and _tulla_ as verbs that can be used in existential meaning.

The sentence _Tätä ei ole tapahtunut_ is existential (“this”, i.e. a possible event that has been described, has not really happened), whereas _Tämä ei ole tapahtunut_ normally postulates that “this” has actually happened and says something about that actual event, e.g. says what was not its cause.


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## Gavril

Thanks, I think I somewhat understand the principle here, but I may have to start a few more threads before my understanding is complete. 

For example, should the following sentences have nominative or partitive subjects?

_Vuonna 1980 hän(tä) ei ollut vielä syntynyt._

_Monien tuntien neuvottelun jälkeen sopimus_(_ta_) _ei ollut vielä syntynyt._



fennofiili said:


> The difference is in the meaning of the verb: the subject is normally in the partitive in a negative sentence, if the sentence expresses existence or coming to existence, in a broad sense. _Iso suomen kielioppi,_ § 918 describes this in detail, in a somewhat complicated manner. It mentions  _olla_, _löytyä_, _näkyä_, _kuulua_, _syntyä_, _tapahtua_, _sattua_, and _tulla_ as verbs that can be used in existential meaning.
> 
> The sentence _Tätä ei ole tapahtunut_ is existential (“this”, i.e. a possible event that has been described, has not really happened), whereas _Tämä ei ole tapahtunut_ normally postulates that “this” has actually happened and says something about that actual event, e.g. says what was not its cause.


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## fennofiili

Gavril said:


> For example, should the following sentences have nominative or partitive subjects?
> 
> _Vuonna 1980 hän(tä) ei ollut vielä syntynyt._
> 
> _Monien tuntien neuvottelun jälkeen sopimus_(_ta_) _ei ollut vielä syntynyt._



In the first one, I think we'd always use the nominative. This may sound odd, since birth is really existential. But the point is that in such sentences, “hän” refers to a known person, whose existence is postulated—so the sentence only deals with time of birth.

In the second sentence, the partitive is normal. A contract is something that may or may not be made, and the sentence deals with the question whether or not it was actually made. If the nominative were used, the sentence would imply that a contract was made later.


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## Gavril

fennofiili said:


> In the second sentence, the partitive is normal. A contract is something that may or may not be made, and the sentence deals with the question whether or not it was actually made. If the nominative were used, the sentence would imply that a contract was made later.



Is it normal to say "... Sopimus ei ollut vielä syntynyt" if it is known (from the context) that an agreement was later reached?


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## fennofiili

Gavril said:


> Is it normal to say "... Sopimus ei ollut vielä syntynyt" if it is known (from the context) that an agreement was later reached?



I'd say that it's normal only when discussing the contract, as something known to have been made. I mean that then the contract is the topic of the discussion.


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