# Uralic languages: more similar to Indo-European or to Altaic? A look at syntax



## Nino83

Hello everybody.

I'd like to ask you if you think that Finno-Ugric languages are more similar, from a syntactic point of view to the Indo-European languages or to the Turkic languages, also in order to say which "family" is more likely, the Indo-Uralic or the Ural-Altaic.

The most striking difference between the Indo-European (from now IE) and the "Altaic" languages is the way to form adverbial clauses. Almost all IE languages (we exclude Nepali, sorrounded by Tibetan languages, Ossetian, sorrounded by Northeastern Caucasian languages, Lambadi, Marathi, sorrounded by Dravidian languages) also those having SOV word order and postpositions, like Hindi, form adverbial clauses with this structure: "adverb + clause + finite/conjugated verb", while "Altaic" languages (if we exclude some marginal constructions, like those formed with "ki" of Persian origin and few more ones) use the following structure: "clause + non-finite verb + postposition" or "clause + converb", i.e there is the so called "one finite verb per sentence" constraint. Also Dravidian languages have this constraint.


For example, in Turkish, subordinate clauses are formed in this way.

Relative and noun clauses:

Everybody knows that I was catching a fish.
Herkes [*ben-im* balık tut-tuk-*um*]-u bil-ir.
Everybody [*I-gen* fish-nom catch-inf.-*poss.1s*]-acc know-3s


I was catching a fish = ben balık tut-uyor-du-m = I-nom fish-nom (= indef. acc) catch-imperfective-past-1s

that I was catching a fish = *ben-im* balık tut-tuk-*um* = I-gen fish-nom know-infinitive-possessive.1s

The subordinate clause is nominalized using a possessive construction plus infinitive, corresponding to "my catching a fish".

Everybody knows my catching fishes. (literal)

This, in Turkish, happens also in adverbial subordinate clauses.

Because Fatma is angry with me, you're saying that.
[*Fatma’nın* bana kız-dığ-*ı* için] öyle söyl-üyor-sun.
[*Fatma-gen* I-dat be.angry-inf-*poss.3s* because], that say-imperfective-2s

Fatma was angry with me (to me) = Fatma bana kız-ıyor-du = Fatma-nom I-dat be.angry-imperfective-past.3s

Because Fatma was angry with me (to me) = Fatma’nın bana kız-dığ-ı için = Fatma-gen I-dat be.angry-infinitive-possessive.3s postposition

Because of Fatma's being angry with me, you're saying that.

Hungarian has a possessive construction* but it is used only in few simple clauses, for example:
Nek*em* tanul-n-*om* kell = I must study = I-*dat* study-infinitive-*my* must-3s = to me my studying must (literaly)

But in other cases, in Hungarian, subordinate clauses are formed with "hogy" (that), "aki" (who) and adverbs + clause + finite verb.
*Hungarian has no genitive case. The possessive construction is formed with the dative case followed by a possessive suffix.

In Finnish, possessive constructions are used in more environments.

Fourth infinitive nominative => *Minun* on mene-minen sinne = I-*gen* be-1s go-4th.inf.nom there = I must go there
First infinitive translative => sano-a-kse-*ni* = say-inf-transl.case-*poss1s* = in order that I say
Third infinitive instructive => Kalle-*n* osta-ma auto = Kalle-*gen* buy-inf.instructive.case car = the car that Kalle bought

But, the most interesting case is the second infinitive innessive, that can replace a time clause.

*Kun* Pekka herää, Liisa lähtee töihin
*When* Pekka wakes, Liisa goes to work.
Peka-*n* herät-e-ssä, Liisa lähtee töihin = Pekka-gen wake-2nd.inf-innessive case = in Pekka's waking, Liisa goes to work (literal)

The same happens with past participles.

Nukahdin, kun Pekka oli tullut
I fell asleep when Pekka came
Nukahdin Peka-n tul-tu-a = fall.asleep.past.1s Pekka-gen come-past.participle-partitive = I fell asleep of Pekka come (literal)

But in order to form adverbial clauses other than "when" clauses, Finnish uses only the structure "adverb + clause + finite verb".

It seems to me that the biggest difference between the structure of IE and Asian languages like Altaic (turkic, Mongolic) and Dravidian languages is the "one finite verb per sentence" constraint. In this book it is said that in certain Turkic languages, due to Iranian and Slavic contact influence, the use of non-finite clause types such as converb clauses has been reduced, being replaced by imitations of IE subordinative constructions with free prepositive junctors, conjunctions. This is the case also in Turkish, which borrowed, for example, the conjunction "ki" from Persian.

Finnish and Hungarian seem to have a structure similar to the IE one. Subordinate (noun, relative and adverbial) clauses are formed with prepositive conjunctions and finite verbs.

What would be interesting is to know if in older Hungarian and Finnish texts there are more constructions involving non-finite verbs in adverbial clauses and if the actual structure of these language is similar to the IE one due to the contact with IE languages or if there were not big changes. In the former case one could say that there is a stricter relation between Uralic and Altaic languages while in the latter case one could say that Uralic languages are more strictly related to IE languages.


----------



## ahvalj

Nino83 said:


> For example, in Turkish, subordinate clauses are formed in this way.
> 
> Relative and noun clauses:
> 
> Everybody knows that I was catching a fish.
> Herkes [*ben-im* balık tut-tuk-*um*]-u bil-ir.
> Everybody [*I-gen* fish-nom catch-inf.-*poss.1s*]-acc know-3s
> 
> 
> I was catching a fish = ben balık tut-uyor-du-m = I-nom fish-nom (= indef. acc) catch-imperfective-past-1s
> 
> that I was catching a fish = *ben-im* balık tut-tuk-*um* = I-gen fish-nom know-infinitive-possessive.1s
> 
> The subordinate clause is nominalized using a possessive construction plus infinitive, corresponding to "my catching a fish".
> 
> Everybody knows my catching fishes. (literal)



Is it that different from Accusativus cum Infinitivo?

_Dīcō/dīxī/dīcam frātrem epistulam scrībere._
[I-say/said/will-say brother letter to-write].

_Dīcō/dīxī/dīcam frātrem decem diēbus ante epistulam scrīpsisse._
[I-say/said/will-say brother ten days ago letter to-have-written].



Nino83 said:


> This, in Turkish, happens also in adverbial subordinate clauses.
> 
> Because Fatma is angry with me, you're saying that.
> [*Fatma’nın* bana kız-dığ-*ı* için] öyle söyl-üyor-sun.
> [*Fatma-gen* I-dat be.angry-inf-*poss.3s* because], that say-imperfective-2s
> 
> Fatma was angry with me (to me) = Fatma bana kız-ıyor-du = Fatma-nom I-dat be.angry-imperfective-past.3s
> 
> Because Fatma was angry with me (to me) = Fatma’nın bana kız-dığ-ı için = Fatma-gen I-dat be.angry-infinitive-possessive.3s postposition
> 
> Because of Fatma's being angry with me, you're saying that.



Compare Dativus Absolutus e. g. in Lithuanian:

_Motinai čia esant, man nebaisu._
[To-mother here being, to-me not-frightful].
"Because my mother is here, I am not afraid".



Nino83 said:


> Hungarian has a possessive construction* but it is used only in few simple clauses, for example:
> Nek*em* tanul-n-*om* kell = I must study = I-*dat* study-infinitive-*my* must-3s = to me my studying must (literaly)



Compare Russian and Lithuanian impersonal constructions:

_Мне нужно учиться.
Man reikia mokytis._
[to-me necessary to-study]
"I must study".




Nino83 said:


> In Finnish, possessive constructions are used in more environments.
> 
> Fourth infinitive nominative => *Minun* on mene-minen sinne = I-*gen* be-1s go-4th.inf.nom there = I must go there
> First infinitive translative => sano-a-kse-*ni* = say-inf-transl.case-*poss1s* = in order that I say
> Third infinitive instructive => Kalle-*n* osta-ma auto = Kalle-*gen* buy-inf.instructive.case car = the car that Kalle bought



Compare Russian (and English) impersonal constructions:

_Мне туда идти._
[to-me there to-go]
"I must go there".

_Чтобы мне сказать._
=_For me to say._

_Купленная Колей машина_
[bought by-Kolya car]
"the car bought by Kolya, the car that Kolya bought".




Nino83 said:


> But, the most interesting case is the second infinitive innessive, that can replace a time clause.
> 
> *Kun* Pekka herää, Liisa lähtee töihin
> *When* Pekka wakes, Liisa goes to work.
> Peka-*n* herät-e-ssä, Liisa lähtee töihin = Pekka-gen wake-2nd.inf-innessive case = in Pekka's waking, Liisa goes to work (literal)
> 
> The same happens with past participles.
> 
> Nukahdin, kun Pekka oli tullut
> I fell asleep when Pekka came
> Nukahdin Peka-n tul-tu-a = fall.asleep.past.1s Pekka-gen come-past.participle-partitive = I fell asleep of Pekka come (literal)
> 
> But in order to form adverbial clauses other than "when" clauses, Finnish uses only the structure "adverb + clause + finite verb".



Again, Lithuanian (and other ancient Indo-European) Dativus Absolutus:

_Broliui grįžtant atsiguliu._
[to-brother returning I-go-to-bed]
"When my brother returns, I go to bed".
_
Broliui grįžius atsiguliau._
[to-brother having-returned I-went-to-bed]
"When my brother returned, I went to bed".

The above Latin, Russian and Lithuanian examples involve the Infinitive and various kinds of Participles, while your Altaic and Uralic examples also use Gerunds (action nouns): these were more active in earlier Indo-European languages, but went out of use with time. The advantage of the agglutinative languages is the ability to add personal markers and merge these deverbal nouns with postpositions, which was impossible (for the former) or very limited (for the latter) in Indo-European. Overall, Indo-European seems to be the only recent language in Western Eurasia that didn't use any kind of personal markers, and in the later development these appeared in some form or another only in Iranic, Celtic and the Balkanic languages: that is a regrettable omission since this closed many morphological and syntactic opportunities.


----------



## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> In Finnish, possessive constructions are used in more environments.
> 
> Fourth infinitive nominative => *Minun* on mene-minen sinne = I-*gen* be-1s go-4th.inf.nom there = I must go there



A synonymous alternative construction (which I think is more common nowadays) is _Minun on mentävä sinne,_ where _mentävä_ is the present/future passive participle.

I don't know if the use of subordinate clauses in Finno-Ugric/Uralic is considered a contact feature, but I do have some possibly-relevant etymological info on the conjunctions that Finnish uses to introduce subordinate clauses.

Finn. _*että*_ "that" (also "in order that", in which meaning it has a synonym _*jotta*_), which introduces noun clauses, has synonymous cognates in many other Finnic languages (Estonian _et,_ Votic _että_, Karelian _et(ta) _"that"), but outside of Finnic, the cognates of _että_ seem to have other meanings: for example, Erzya _et'e_, Komi _ete, _and Hungarian_ ez_ "that" are demonstrative pronouns (according to the translations I've seen), not conjunctions.

Finn. _*kun*_ "when" seems to have cognates throughout the family. It has more-or-less the same meaning in almost all the Finnic languages (e.g. Estonian _kui_, Votic _ku_ "when"), in the Sami languages (North Sami _go_ "when"), and apparently in many of the more distant branches (Udmurt _ku_ "when", Selkup _kun_ "when").


----------



## Nino83

ahvalj said:


> Is it that different from Accusativus cum Infinitivo?


Structurally similar but there is a little difference, because one is formed by "accusative + infinitive" while the other by "genitive + infinitive-possessive-case.marker". In Latin (and other IE languages) it's the subject of the noun clause, i.e a noun, that is marked with case, while in the Turkish construction it's the verb that is marked for case. The Finnish sentence is more similar to the Turkish one, because Pekka is marked with the genitive case and also the past participle is marked for case (genitive).

I saw him hunt(ing) a fish. L'ho visto pescare un pesce.
[*ben-im* balık tut-tuk-*um*]-u = his hunting a fish
Näen Peka-*n* tule-va-*n* = I see Pekka's coming

But I agree that in noun clauses there are similar constructions in IE languages and that these were more widespread and common 2000 years ago.
The dativus absolutus in Lituhanian is similar to the ablativus absolutus of Latin.

The biggest difference is in adverbial subordinate clauses. There is a great difference between the Turkish construction and the IE construction.
These are the structures when there are two different subjects.
The Turkish construction is "clause + non-finite verb + postpositive junctor" and sometimes the verb and the junctor are fused in one suffix.
The IE construction is "prepositive junctor + clause + finite verb" or, in reduced participial/gerund clauses, "participle/gerund + clause", without junctors. In other words junctors and non-finite verbs are incompatible when there are different subjects. In this respect, Finnish adverbial clauses are similar to IE ones.
You can use "preposition + infinitive" only when the subject of the two clauses is the same.

Arrivata Giovanna a casa, (noi) abbiamo cominciato a mangiare. (literal: Arrived Giovanna at home, (we) started eating)
*Dopo* aver lavato i vestiti, *Giovanna* ha cominciato a mangiare. (same subject) (literal: after having washed her dresses, Giovanna started eating)
**Dopo* aver lavato *Giovanna* i vestiti, (*noi*) abbiamo cominciato a mangiare. (different subjects) (literal: after Giovanna having washed her dresses, (we) started eating)  

The difference between prepositive and postpositive junctors doesn't depend on word order and adposition because languages like Hindi, with SOV word order and postpositions, form adverbial clauses with prepositive junctors + clause + finite verbs.  
There is no "one finite verb per sentence" constraint.


----------



## Gavril

Nino83 said:


> Structurally similar but there is a little difference, because one is formed by "accusative + infinitive" while the other by "genitive + infinitive-possessive-case.marker". In Latin (and other IE languages) it's the subject of the noun clause, i.e a noun, that is marked with case, while in the Turkish construction it's the verb that is marked for case. The Finnish sentence is more similar to the Turkish one, because Pekka is marked with the genitive case and a possessive suffix is attached to the infinitive form of the verb.
> 
> I saw him hunt(ing) a fish. L'ho visto pescare un pesce.
> [*ben-im* balık tut-tuk-*um*]-u = his hunting a fish
> Näen Peka-*n* tule-va-*n* = I see Pekka's coming(-possessive)



-_n_ is not a possessive marker, it's the genitive case suffix on the participle _tuleva_ "coming". In this construction, the participle is always in the genitive case.

The possessive marker is mainly used (in this construction) when the subject of the non-finite verb form is the same as that of the finite verb:

_Hän sanoi olevansa syytön_ "He said he was innocent", literally "He said being-his innocent"


----------



## Nino83

Gavril said:


> -_n_ is not a possessive marker, it's the genitive case suffix


Ah, yes, true, I'll correct it. Thanks.


----------



## ger4

I read here ( Meadow Mari Grammar - Conjunctions ) that many conjunctions in Mari (a Finno-Ugric language) are borrowings from other languages such as Russian. Would that mean that traditionally, Mari preferred constructions without conjunctions?

Browsing through a textbook on Mari grammar (www.mari-language.com), I found some features that seem to resemble Turkic languages:

SOV word order. Did Finnic originally have SOV as well or is the word order in Mari influenced by neighbouring Turkic languages such as Chuvash and Tatar?
Use of temporal postpositions: _годым_ ‘when, during’: _Ялыште илыме годым__ сурт кӧргыштат паша пеш шуко уло._ (Literally: _village-inside [inessive] being-lived [passive participle] __when [temporal postposition]_...) = _When__ living in the countryside__, there is a lot of work to do in the barnyard_ (sentence-final _уло_ is the finite verb). - Similarly, _деч ончыч_ ‘before’ and _деч вара_ ‘after’ (lesson 17 in the textbook).
The passive participle, as used in the sentence above, can be used with possessive suffixes to indicate the person carrying out the action: _Ялыште илымем годым мый чодыраш коштынам_ (Lit.: _village-inside [inessive] my-being-lived [pass. part. + possessive suffix] when [temp. postpos.]_) = _When I lived in the countryside I often went to the forest._
*If *some of these features do in fact have parallels in Turkic languages and no parallels in Finnic languages, then the question would be if Mari/Volga-Finnic represents an older stage of the development or if the similarities with Turkic are a result of language contact.


----------



## abracadabra!

I think there is a subtlety that was not spoken out.


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> The above Latin, Russian and Lithuanian examples involve the Infinitive and various kinds of Participles, while your Altaic and Uralic examples also use Gerunds (action nouns): these were more active in earlier Indo-European languages, but went out of use with time.


Ahvalj is, apparently, interested in opportunities (what do languages have), but Nino83 is interested in limitations:


			
				Nino83 said:
			
		

> It seems to me that the biggest difference between the structure of IE and Asian languages like Altaic (turkic, Mongolic) and Dravidian languages is the "one finite verb per sentence" constraint.





			
				Nino83 said:
			
		

> What would be interesting is to know if in older Hungarian and Finnish texts there are more constructions involving non-finite verbs in adverbial clauses ...


I think Nino83 is right, because his ultimate goal is the question:


			
				Nino83 said:
			
		

> In the former case one could say that there is a stricter relation between Uralic and Altaic languages while in the latter case one could say that Uralic languages are more strictly related to IE languages.


Ahvalj points out that the only opportunity which the Turkic languages have and the Indo-European ones don't is the possessive personal markers. How you use opportunities that you have is a cultural thing, it depends a lot on which books you read. But the limitations that you follow as you construct a sentence are an inconscious thing, they might (or might not) develop alongside the phonetic structures. The word "related" is defined in terms of the inconscious changes such as the phonetic evolution of words and morphology (as far as I understand), so Nino83's attention to the limitations is natural.

As to the opportunities (in Russian): я положил тапки в сундук, чтобы нам больше не видеть их: I put those slippers into our chest for us not to see them anymore. It's even possible in a book, a standard sentence. The missing possessive personal marker is changed for the personal pronoun in the Dative case. No real difference. The actual difference is in the constraint, as Nino83 points out.


----------



## Nino83

Holger2014 said:


> *If *some of these features do in fact have parallels in Turkic and no parallels in Finnic languages, then the question would be if Mari/Volga-Finnic represents an older stage of the development or if the similarities with Turkic language are a result of language contact.


Good question!


abracadabra! said:


> The actual difference is the constraint


Yes.
I'm reading now a book about Dravidian languages and Tamil. In these languages this constraint is stronger than in Turkish.
I wonder if it is because Turkish (and other Turkic languages) borrowed some structures from Persian and Slavic languages.
The book I linked in #1 says that it is so for Turkic languages. Maybe also some Uralic languages, like Mari, were influenced by Russian or Turkish.

Some IE languages have pospositive junctions and probably they borrowed this word order by other languages:
Nepali, sorrounded by Tibetan languages
Ossetian, sorrounded by Northeastern Caucasian languages
Lambadi, Marathi, sorrounded by Dravidian languages


----------



## ger4

(On the sub-topic of word order similarities between Uralic and Altaic):


> In Proto-Uralic, the order of the main syntactic constituents, O(bject) and V(erb, predicate), is reconstructed as OV, and in Proto-Finno-Ugric, when taking S(ubject) into account, SOV (Raun 1988: 568-569).FENNIA 2002


That would be a similarity with Altaic languages. On the other hand...


> It is claimed that the surface word order of the Uralic languages is relatively free owing to their high degree of synthesis. Because of the variety in the word order patterns in the Uralic languages it is also claimed that (at least in the Uralic languages spoken in Europe) there is no word order model that can be said to be typical of them all (Vilkuna 1998). *Word-order typology as such is not exhaustive in describing the syntactic relationships of languages.* In the Uralic languages, grammatical relations are expressed with dependent morphological elements and, quite often, the word order is used to express thematic relations. Typology developed for investigating the organization of syntactic elements on the basis of discourse-pragmatic reasons can be better used in characterizing the free word order languages, such as Hungarian and Finnish (see Sasse 1995) http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/fennia/article/viewFile/3774/3565





Nino83 said:


> The biggest difference is in adverbial subordinate clauses. There is a great difference between the Turkish construction and the IE construction.
> These are the structures when there are two different subjects.
> The Turkish construction is "clause + non-finite verb + postpositive junctor" and sometimes the verb and the junctor are fused in one suffix.
> The IE construction is "prepositive junctor + clause + finite verb" or, in reduced participial/gerund clauses, "participle/gerund + clause", without junctors. In other words junctors and non-finite verbs are incompatible when there are different subjects. In this respect, Finnish adverbial clauses are similar to IE ones.
> You can use "preposition + infinitive" only when the subject of the two clauses is the same.


 Here , "subordination by means of non-finite forms" is described as "the most typical way to express a subordinated state of affairs in Uralic." So, if I understand it correctly, this specific type of subordination - resembling the Turkish pattern (correct me if I'm wrong) - is/was originally a common or predominant feature of the Uralic languages.

In the Uralic sub-branch of Finnic languages this feature seems to have partly been replaced by structures more similar to IE languages (as a result of language contact?)

According to the same paper , a parallel development on a smaller scale seems to be taking place in another Uralic language, Forest Enets (belonging to the sub-branch of Samoyedic languages spoken in western Siberia). "European-type" subclauses with finite verbs are used more often now (as in 3 and 4) but they haven't completely replaced the traditional structures (used in 1 and 2):


> The following examples illustrate both non-finite (1–2) and finite structures (3–4) of Enets used to express a semantically subordinate state of affairs.
> (1) b’i-D bar-xon d’ir’i-da-xu-da
> [water-GEN bank-LOC live-PART-DAT-3SG.OBL.SG] non-finite clause bu odu m’e. s/he boat make.S:3SG
> “While he lived on the river bank (= to his living on the river bank), he made a boat”.
> (Sorokina 1981: 143)
> (2) sojzan mosra-ba-d ek’i d’er’i noda-ba
> [well work-NMLZ-2SG.OBL.SG] non-finite clause this day hear-S:1PL
> “Today we have learnt that you worked well (= your working well)”.
> (Cheremisina et. al. 1986: 127-128)
> (3) mora-b’i-za kora
> [kill-NARR-SO:3SGs.SGo] finite clause male.reindeer kas-ta-go osa-xu-da. get.dry-CAUS-DUR.S:3SG meat-DAT.SG-3SG.OBL.SG
> “He dries the killed (= that he killed) male reindeer for the meat”
> (Sorokina & Bolina 2005: 51)
> (4) myt’ e-b’ s&’i e-n’i-s&’ I
> [mother-1SG I.ACC not.IRR-SUBJ-PST mydy-s takr’i-q. see-CONN] finite clause hide-R:1SG
> “I have hidden so my mother would not see me”.
> (field notes, elicitation)


----------



## Christo Tamarin

If you have in mind the two European (IE) languages with best known history, Greek and Italian (neo-Latin), you can see that this was the syntax which changed drastically. I am afraid, we have no basis for any conclusions about the mutual distances between IE, Uralic, and Altaic families.


----------



## Nino83

Holger2014 said:


> this specific type of subordination - resembling the Turkish pattern (correct me if I'm wrong) - is/was originally a common or predominant feature of the Uralic languages.


Seeing that I don't know these languages, I'm not able to answer this question. If in these languages it is possible to form adverbial subordinate clauses with two different subjects with this structure "non-finite verb + postpositive junctor", then they are similar to the turkish pattern, but it seems that in sentences 1) and 2) there is only a participle or a nominal form without a postpositive junctor, so these sentences seem (seem, because I don't know Forest Enets) more similar to the Finno-Ugric (and IE) pattern.


Christo Tamarin said:


> If you have in mind the two European (IE) languages with best known history, Greek and Italian (neo-Latin), you can see that this was the syntax which changed drastically.


Yes, but the structure "prepositive junctor + clause + finite verb" (or "participle/gerund + clause" without junctor) remained the same (speaking of Latin and Romance languages), and the most important thing is that neither in Latin nor in Romance languages there is/was some "one finite verb per sentence" constraint.


Christo Tamarin said:


> I am afraid, we have no basis for any conclusions about the mutual distances between IE, Uralic, and Altaic families.


This is because the oldest Finnish text is dated 1548. The oldest Hungarian text is dated 1055. Maybe some Hungarian could tell us if syntax was somewhat different at the time.


----------



## francisgranada

Ciao Nino, your question is very complex, so only a few reactions, hoping they'll help you:


Nino83 said:


> ...Nek*em* tanul-n-*om* kell = I must study = I-*dat* study-infinitive-*my* must-3s = to me my studying must (literaly)


 _Nek*em*_ is not necessary here as in _tanul-n-_*om *the person is already marked, so the dative/pseudo-genitive _nek*em *_serves only for emphasis. The practical usage of this construction is very similar to the Portuguese personal infinitive.  This kind of construction is commonly used in Hungarian, though _kell, *hogy* tanuljak _(conjunctive 1s) is also possible (with a slight difference in meaning).


> Kalle-*n* osta-ma auto = Kalle-*gen* buy-inf.instructive.case car = the car that Kalle bought


Hungarian version: _Kalle vásárolt*a* autó. _(= Kalle bought-*possessive* 3s of the past participle car). _Kalle _is in nominative, i.e. it serves rather as an attribute to the "bought car".


> Peka-*n* herät-e-ssä, Liisa lähtee töihin = Pekka-gen wake-2nd.inf-innessive case = in Pekka's waking, Liisa goes to work (literal)


Hungarian version:  _Pekka felkelt*é*vel possessive+instrumental Liisa munkába megy _(= by Pekka*'s* woken =waking Liisa goes to work).


> Nukahdin, kun Pekka oli tullut. I fell asleep when Pekka came.


Hungarian version: _Pekka érkezt*e*kor/érkezés*e*kor possessive+temporal elaludtam _(= at the time Pekka*'s* arived/arrival I fell asleep)

Other examples:
_Rept*é*ben possessive+inessive lőtte le a madarat_ (=he/she shot the bird in its flight).
_Ment*é*ben énekelt_ (=he was singing in his walking)
_Nyugt*á*val dicsérd a napot _(meaning: "Praise the day when the sun has gone down")
etc ....

All the above constructions are possible and commonly used, but not in a general way. I.e. they do not generally substitute the clauses introduced by _hogy, aki, ami, amikor, _... Even if grammatically possible, in many  cases they would sound non-idiomatic or archaic.



Gavril said:


> ...  Finn. _*kun*_ "when" seems to have cognates throughout the family ... e.g. Estonian _kui_, Votic _ku_ "when"), in the Sami languages (North Sami _go_ "when"), and apparently in many of the more distant branches (Udmurt _ku_ "when", Selkup _kun_ "when").


 Hungarian _ha_ "if, when" (k>h is typical in certain positions).


ahvalj said:


> ...  Compare Russian and Lithuanian impersonal constructions:
> _Мне нужно учиться.
> Man reikia mokytis._
> [to-me necessary to-study]
> "I must study".


It is similar to the Hungarian construction, but not the same. As I've written before, the substance in Hungarian is the "personalized" infinitive _tanul-n-*om*_, not the dative of the personal pronoun ("I" in this example).


----------



## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Hungarian version: _Pekka felkelt*é*vel_
> Hungarian version: _Pekka érkezt*e*kor/érkezés*e*kor_


Hi, Francis. In these examples _felkelt_ is the past participle and _érkezés_ is a noun, isn't it? What is _érkezt_?  


francisgranada said:


> All the above constructions are possible and commonly used, but not in a general way. I.e. they do not generally substitute the clauses introduced by _hogy, aki, ami, amikor, _... Even if grammatically possible, in many cases they would sound non-idiomatic or archaic.


Are they comparable with IE reduced (participial, gerundive, infinitive) clauses?


----------



## francisgranada

...


Nino83 said:


> ... In these examples _felkelt_ is the past participle and _érkezés_ is a noun, isn't it? What is _érkezt_?


_Érkezt _belongs to the same category like _felkelt. _The problem is that due to the gradual loss of the final vowels (circa 1000 years ago) we have often two verbal forms, often used in different situations or the full form being more archaic (e.g _mondta/mondotta, írt/írott_, _állt/állott _...). In case of *_érkezt_, the past participle is _érkezett_, but with the possessive endings and in the past tense nowadays the valid form is _érkezt-. _Yes, _érkezés _is a noun meaning _arrival_. 





> Are they comparable with IE reduced (participial, gerundive, infinitive) clauses?


Try to give some examples, so it will be easier to answer you question.


----------



## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> Try to give some examples, so it will be easier to answer you question.


_Comprato il libro (reduced clause), sono tornato a casa.
Dopo aver comprato il libro/dopo che ho comprato il libro (full clause), sono tornato a casa._ 

As you know, in Italian they are interchangeable. You said that in Hungarian they do not generally substitute the clauses introduced by _hogy, aki, ami, amikor, _...


----------



## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> _Comprato il libro (reduced clause), sono tornato a casa.
> Dopo aver comprato il libro/dopo che ho comprato il libro (full clause), sono tornato a casa._
> 
> As you know, in Italian they are interchangeable. You said that in Hungarian they do not generally substitute the clauses introduced by _hogy, aki, ami, amikor, _...


We we could say:

A _köny megvett*é*vel haza tértem. _(Not idiomatic in this case)
A _köny megvett_*e*_ (_today more usual_: megvétel_*e* noun_) után _postposition = after_ haza tértem._
A _köny megvett_*e*_kor__ (_today more usual_: megvétel_*e*_kor_ _noun__) haza tértem. _(The meaning is a bit different: _mentre stavo comprando/nel momento quando ho comprato il libro, sono tornato a casa_)

The usual translation of your examples is as follows:

Comprato il libro, sono tornato a casa.
_Megvevén a könyvet, haza tértem.
megvevén _is a participle, somewhat similar to the gerundium, but expresses an action that took place before the tense of the main verb (_tértem_). The prefective aspect (completeness of the action) is expressed by the prefix _meg-_.

Dopo che ho comprato il libro, sono tornato a casa.
_Miután megvettem a könyvet, haza tértem.
Mevettem _is now perceived as the past tense from _megvenni_, but (!) etymologically it is analyzable as a "personalized" past participle: _megvett+ *em* _possessive 1s_. _Originally this form indicates an action completed before an other action, not necessarily in the past. As the other past tenses fell in disuse (purtroppo), this is now the general past tense in Hungarian.


----------



## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> _Mevettem _is now perceived as the past tense from _megvenni_, but (!) etymologically it is analyzable as a "personalized" past participle: _megvett+ *em* _possessive 1s_. _Originally this form indicates an action completed before an other action, not necessarily in the past. As the other past tenses fell in disuse (purtroppo), this is now the general past tense in Hungarian.


This is interesting. So what now is the normal past tense once was a past participle plus possessive. 
This makes things more difficult, i.e what today is considered a finite tense was considered, some time ago, a non-finite tense. This "could" (?) lead to say that in "Proto-Hungarian" or in Old-Hungarian non-finite subordinate clauses were more common.


----------



## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> This is interesting. So what now is the normal past tense once was a past participle plus possessive.


 Yes, though instead of "possessive" we should use perhaps the term "personal marker", when used in more general sense. The same endings appear also in the verbal conjugation, i.e. _vesz*em*, vesz*ed*_ (prendo, prendi), etc.

The "modern" past tense can still be used in it's original function. See e.g. in future: _Majd ha megvettem a könyvet, haza fogok térni _(Quando già avrò comprato il libro, tornerò a casa). Obviously, this was not possible with the "classical" past tense _megvevé*m *_(_=_ comprai)_. _Or in other words, _megvettem _is now used also instead of _megvevém_*, *like _ho comprato_ is used also instead of _comprai _in Northern Italy.


----------



## Nino83

Thank you, Francis.
I'd like to ask you this. Do you know if there was some change regadring the use finite tenses in subordinate clauses in older texts?
And about adverbial subordinator. Also in older texts they were at the beginning of the subordinate clause (i.e prepositive junctors)?
It's a pity we don't have any written text before Hungarians arrived in the Pannonian Basin.


----------



## francisgranada

Please, Nino.

I can only give you a general answer: the tendency today (and gradually during the last centuries) is a more analytic syntax, while in the Old Hungarian the "compact" and more concise syntax was common or preferred (at least in written texts). That is:

- expressions like in my post #13 (and similars) were more common than today
- various participles were used in expressions where now the subordinate clause is preferred. For example "_mennybe men*ő*k_" (=lit. "to heaven go*ing*s") instead of "_azok, *akik *mennybe mennek_" (= those *who* go to heaven)
- the usage of the "personalized infinitive" was used also in sentences/expressions where now the subordinate clause is preferred. Fo example "_mondta élnie"_ instead of "_mondta neki, hogy éljen"_ (=he said him to live)
- the synthetic future (_jöve*nd* _= verrà, he will come) was used instead of the today's analytic/composed one (_jönni fog_)
- the synthetic passive was used instead of the today's active or analytic passive, e.g. _adatik _(= Lat. datur); today _adják _(=they give) or _adva van_ (=it is given/it is beeng given)
- etc ...

The present day usage of the conjunctions and relative pronouns that introduce the subordinate clauses (_hogy, ha, aki, ami, amikor, ..._) is the same as it was in the oldest documented texts. I can't see any notable change.

I have only very superficial informations about the Turkic languages, however I have the impression that the Old Hungarian was not much more "Turkic-like" than the modern Hungarian from the syntactic point of view.  





Nino83 said:


> It's a pity we don't have any written text before Hungarians arrived in the Pannonian Basin.


Yes, it is. We can only hope that something will be still discovered in the future, written in Old Hungarian script ... However, it is not very probable, as nations/populations in the stage/period of migration rarely construct buildings, graves, etc. of stone and incise perdurable texts on them  ...


----------



## Nino83

francisgranada said:


> The present day usage of the conjunctions and relative pronouns that introduce the subordinate clauses (_hogy, ha, aki, ami, amikor, ..._) is the same as it was in the oldest documented texts. I can't see any notable change.


Thank you. 
This is very interesting that the Hungarian syntax in adverbial clauses was the same at the time, i.e before having a long contact with Indo-European languages and it could mean that this was a common feature of Finno-Ugric languages, that is different from some languages of Asia, i.e Altaic and Dravidian ones.


----------



## francisgranada

Nino83 said:


> This is very interesting that the Hungarian syntax in adverbial clauses was the same at the time, i.e before having a long contact with Indo-European languages and it could mean that this was a common feature of Finno-Ugric languages, that is different from some languages of Asia, i.e Altaic and Dravidian ones.


I have a (quite short) linguistic material (entitled "Chrestomatia Vogulica"), i.e. an informative material about the main features of the  Mansi language (belonging to the Ugric group of Finno-Ugric languages). When I have time, I'll have a look at it, perhaps I'll find something interesting related to your question ...


----------

