# How do you emphasize a suffix in Finnish?



## Gavril

Today's HS has the headline

_Wikileaks: USA halusi Suomelta 75 miljoonaa Afganistanille_

In English, this would be

_Wikileaks: USA wanted 75 million from Finland for Afganistan_

Now, imagine that I don't quite understand the phrase "for Afghanistan" -- more precisely, I'm not sure what the word "for" means in this context (was the money for the US war effort, for helping the Afhgan government, or something else?).

To ask for clarification of the English sentence, I would say something like,

_What do you mean by "*for*"?_

Of course, there are other possible ways of making this request, but every way (that I can think of) requires you to stress the word "for", so that it's clear you are asking about the meaning of this word, and not a different word.

How would you ask this question in Finnish, where the meaning "for" is conveyed by a suffix rather than an independent word?

Kiitoksia etukäteen


----------



## sakvaka

_Siis miten Afganistani*llllllle*_?

This is how I would ask it.


----------



## tarinoidenkertoja

Gavril 
I suppose you could simply say: *"Minkä puolesta( or maybe also Mitä varten) USA haluu rahaa Suomelta?" * 
If you want to express the question in a shorter way that focuses just on "Afganistanille" you could say : *"Mitäs tarkoitat "Afganistanille"-sanalla?"*, but let's wait for the native speakers.


----------



## sakvaka

_Mitä varten *tarkalleen* USA haluaa rahaa Suomelta?_ could work. Emphasis on "tarkalleen". But that's not exactly what Gavril was asking.

_Mitäs tarkoitat_... The suffix -s conveys the idea: "Hah! I got you!" It doesn't really suit the context. But, _mitä sä tarkotat_ = _mitä sinä tarkoitat_.


----------



## tarinoidenkertoja

Ops , you're right , I slipped that -s in


----------



## akana

Gavril said:


> _What do you mean by "*for*"?_



Going off a previous post about the phrase "What do you mean you can't...", would...
_Miten niin Afganistanille?_
...convey the idea? 



			
				sakvaka said:
			
		

> Mitäs tarkoitat... The suffix -s conveys the idea: "Hah! I got you!"



Interesting! My understanding was that the "s" just makes things sound more friendly: _Mitäs kuuluu? Annas kun autan._ I know this gets complicated, but are there any other examples where the "s" would be viewed as confrontational?

(this might belong in a different thread, but I thought since we're talking about suffixes and emphasis...)


----------



## Gavril

sakvaka said:


> _Siis miten Afganistani*llllllle*_?
> 
> This is how I would ask it.



Thanks; when you write "Afganistani*llllllle*", are you stressing the final syllable as well as lengthening the "l"-sound? 

Also, what about suffixes that consist of a single consonant, e.g., _-t _plural and _-n _genitive?

For example,

A: _Pitää tunnustaa, että kerroin eilen hänelle salaisuudet_.

B: _Miten niin, salaisuude*t*? Ajattelin, että kyse oli vain yhdestä salaisuudesta!_

How would the plural suffix _-t _of _salaisuudet _be stressed?


----------



## DrWatson

Since stressing a single _t_ would prove quite difficult phonetically, I would emphasize the final syllable: "Miten niin salaisuu*det*?"


----------



## akana

DrWatson said:


> Since stressing a single _t_ would prove quite difficult phonetically, I would emphasize the final syllable: "Miten niin salaisuu*det*?"



Gavril, this is an interesting quandary, and the more I think about it, the more it seems like it's not unique to Finnish. Despite the wider use of tonal emphasis in English, the same problem would apply to the English version. How to emphasize a final consonant.

"What do you mean sec*rets*?"
...would be clearly understandable, but sound a bit odd. I would be inclined to just rephrase the question:
"So there's more than one?"

Maybe in spontaneous conversation, this might be the case in Finnish, too? To just deviate from the structure of the original question?

_...75 miljoonaa Afganistanille.
Siis mitä varten? 
or
Siis euroa vai?

Pitää tunnustaa, että kerroin eilen hänelle salaisuudet.
Eli kyse on monista?_


----------



## Gavril

akana said:


> Gavril, this is an interesting quandary, and the more I think about it, the more it seems like it's not unique to Finnish. Despite the wider use of tonal emphasis in English, the same problem would apply to the English version. How to emphasize a final consonant.
> 
> "What do you mean sec*rets*?"
> ...would be clearly understandable, but sound a bit odd. I would be inclined to just rephrase the question:
> "So there's more than one?"



I was thinking about this myself. It can be difficult to emphasize the English plural suffix _-s, _especially if it's unvoiced, as in the case of _secrets_. You can emphasize the final syllable (_se*crets*_), but people will not necessarily understand what you mean (perhaps because stress is more variable in English than in languages such as Finnish).



> Maybe in spontaneous conversation, this might be the case in Finnish, too? To just deviate from the structure of the original question?
> 
> _...75 miljoonaa Afganistanille.
> Siis mitä varten?
> or
> Siis euroa vai?_
> _
> Pitää tunnustaa, että kerroin eilen hänelle salaisuudet.
> Eli kyse on monista?_


That sounds good in the case of the plural _-t_ suffix, but I'm not sure about the case of the suffix _-lle_. The problem is that _varten _(at least as far as I know) doesn't mean exactly the same thing as _-lle_. In some contexts, the two are synonymous, but that's precisely the question that I would be trying to resolve by asking something like, "Siis miten Afganistani*llllle*?" with the _-lle _suffix emphasized.


----------

