# some uses of -na/-nä



## Gavril

What is the difference in meaning between the following examples? Puhdas aavistus: is the essive suffix functioning here like an indefinite article in English (_a problem _vs. _the problem, _etc.)? 

_Vaara tässä tapauksessa on se, että ...
Vaarana tässä tapauksessa on se, että ...

Ongelma on se, että ...
Ongelmana on se, että ...

Hän on puolueen puheenjohtaja.
Hän on puolueen puheenjohtajana.

_K


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## Grumpy Old Man

You may get more authoritative replies from experts on the Finnish language. I'm just a native amateur. I don't detect the difference you mention  -  some others may have a different opinion, though. I would refrain from using the essive in your last example completely. It would be used in a sentence like this:

_Hän on puolueen puheenjohtajana vastuussa siitä, mitä tapahtui.
= As chair of the meeting, s/he is responsible for what happened.
_In other words, *in that capacity*, he is responsible...


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## sakvaka

Iso suomen kielioppi:
http://kaino.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=976

a) *The predicative adverbial describes the subject.*

- profession, job or post is normally characterized in the essive case:

_Hän on opettajana koulullamme.
Johtajana toimii nykyään Pekka Virtanen._

- Usually the essive represents a property that may change. Those kinds of sentences contain a dimension of time - it's all mentioned to be happening at the moment.

Compare:

_Hän on sairaana. _(he's ill)_
Hän on sairas. _(he's permanently sick)_

Hän on opettajana koulullamme. _(she works as a teacher for our school)_
Hän on opettaja. _(she's a teacher)_

Presidenttimme on nimeltään Tarja Halonen._ ("our president is called Tarja Halonen")
_ Presidenttinämme on tällä hetkellä Tarja Halonen. _("our current president is Tarja Halonen, but the situation may change soon")  

_Hän on suomalaisena_ is absolutely wrong, because you can't be a Finn temporarily*. The structure _He's [always] being like a Finn_ is translated _Hän on olevinaan suomalainen._

b) *The predicative adverbial is abstract.*

- "the problem/idea/thought/surprise/result is that..."

- The opportunity of using the nominative case isn't mentioned. It may suggest that the best choice in standard Finnish would be the essive case. Nominative is also used a lot, especially in spoken Finnish.

----
* actually you can, but let's not argue about this


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## Gavril

sakvaka said:


> The structure _He's [always] being like a Finn_ is translated _Hän on olevinaan suomalainen._



In other words, _He's always acting like a Finn_ (_Hän käyttaytyy kuin suomalainen_)?


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## sakvaka

Gavril said:


> In other words, _He's always acting like a Finn_ (_Hän käyttaytyy kuin suomalainen_)?



Yes, or actually _he's always pretending to be a Finn_ (though he obviously isn't).


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