The Finnish language is spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns elsewhere. Unlike the Indo-European languages spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, or Russian, which is a Slavic language, Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic languages group. Typologically, Finnish is agglutinative. As in some other Uralic languages, Finnish has vowel harmony, and like other Finnic languages, it has consonant gradation.

Pronouns

The pronouns are inflected in the Finnish language much in the same way that their referent nouns are.

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. The personal pronouns in Finnish in the nominative case are listed in the following table: ! Finnish !! English ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Singular ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Plural ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Polite Because Finnish verbs are inflected for person and number, in the Finnish standard language subject pronouns are not required, and the first and second-person pronouns are usually omitted except when used for emphasis. In the third person, however, the pronoun is required: hän menee '(s)he goes'. In spoken Finnish, all pronouns are generally used, even without emphatic meaning. In colloquial Finnish, the inanimate pronouns se and ne are very commonly used in place of the singular and plural animate third-person pronouns, respectively. Use of hän and he is mostly restricted to writing and formal or markedly polite speech as this clear distinction has never occurred naturally in the language. Do note the animals are marked as less animate and are therefore never referred to as hän or he. Minä and sinä are usually replaced with colloquial forms. The most common variants are mä and sä, though, in some dialects mää and sää, mnää and snää or mie and sie are used. On the other hand, me, te and he lack reduced colloquial forms, so variants such as myö, työ, and hyö of some eastern varieties are dialectal. Some common verbs, such as olla "to be" and tulla "to come", exhibit similarly reduced colloquial forms: ! Written/formal !! Spoken/colloquial ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Singular ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Plural ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Polite The second-person plural can be used as a polite form when addressing one person, as in some Indo-European languages. However, this usage is diminishing in Finnish society.

Demonstrative pronouns

The demonstratives are used of non-human animate entities and inanimate objects. However, se and ne is often used to refer to humans in colloquial Finnish. (This usage is quite correct in a demonstrative sense, i.e. when qualified by the relative pronoun joka, and in fact, it is hypercorrect to replace a demonstrative se or ne with hän or he just because the antecedent is human.) Furthermore, the demonstratives are used to refer to group nouns and the number of the pronoun must correlate with the number of its referent. ! Finnish !! English ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Singular ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Plural

Interrogative pronouns

! Finnish !! English Ken is now archaic, but its inflected forms are used instead of those of kuka: ketä instead of kuta ("whom"): Ketä rakastat? "Whom do you love?"

Relative pronouns

! Pronoun !! Example !! English (refers to preceding word) (refers to preceding clause/sentence or to a pronoun or a superlative that refers to a thing)

Reciprocal pronouns

! Pronoun !! Example !! English

Reflexive pronouns

! Pronoun !! Suffix !! Example !! English

Indefinite pronouns

A large group that entails all of the pronouns that do not fall into any of the categories above. Notice that there are no negative pronouns, such as "nobody"; rather, the positive pronoun is negated with the negative verb ei. No double negatives are possible. ! Finnish !! English Each pronoun declines. However, the endings -kaan/-kään and -kin are clitics, and case endings are placed before them, e.g. mikään "any", miltäkään "from any". There are irregular nominatives. As indicated, kukaan is an irregular nominative; the regular root is kene- with -kään, e.g. kukaan "(not) anyone", keneltäkään "from (not) anyone". English lacks a direct equivalent to the pronoun mones; it would be "that-th", or "which-th" for questions. For example, Palkkio riippuu siitä monentenako tulee maaliin "The reward depends on as-which-th one comes to the finish", or explicitly "The reward depends on in which position one comes to the finish". It would be difficult to translate the question Monesko?, but, although far from proper English, the question How manyeth may give an English-speaking person an idea of the meaning. Some indefinite adjectives are often perceived as indefinite pronouns. These include: ! Finnish !! English

Noun forms

The Finnish language does not distinguish grammatical gender in nouns or even in personal pronouns: hän is 'he', 'she' or 'they' (singular) depending on the referent. There are no articles, neither definite nor indefinite.

Possessive suffixes

Cases

Finnish has fifteen noun cases: four grammatical cases, six locative cases, two essive cases (three in some Eastern dialects), and three marginal cases. Some notes about the cases listed in the table above:

Relationship between locative cases

As in other Uralic languages, locative cases in Finnish can be classified according to three criteria: the spatial position (interior or surface), the motion status (stationary or moving), and within the latter, the direction of the movement (approaching or departing). The classification captures a morphophonological pattern that distinguishes interior and surface spatial position; long consonants ( in -ssa / -ssä and in -lla / -llä) express stationary motion, whereas a expresses "movement from". The table below shows these relationships schematically:

Plurals

Finnish nominal plurals are often marked by -i (though -t is a suppletive variant in the nominative and accusative, as is common in Uralic languages). Singular and plural numbers cross-cut the distinctions in grammatical cases, and several number/case combinations have somewhat idiosyncratic uses. Several of these deserve special mention.

Nominative/accusative plural

The nominative plural is used for definite count nouns that are subjects, while the plural object of a telic verb bears the accusative plural. The syncretic suffix that covers both uses is -t. This suffix can only appear in the word-final position; i.e. it is omitted when a possessive suffix is present. ! Finnish !! English

Numerals

When a noun is modified by a numeral not equal to one, and the numeral is in the nominative singular, the noun bears the partitive singular. Otherwise, the noun and the numeral agree with each other in number and case. ! Finnish !! English

Inflected plural

This uses the stem of the partitive plural inflected with the same set of endings as for singular nouns. The suffix is -i-, and it suppresses long vowels; it may only appear before another suffix. ! Finnish !! English As a combined example of plurals ! Finnish !! English

Inflection of pronouns

The personal pronouns are inflected in the same way as nouns, and can be found in most of the same cases as nouns. For example: ! Finnish !! Case !! Example !! English

Noun/adjective stem types

The stem of a word is the part to which inflectional endings are affixed. For most noun and adjective types, the nominative case is identical to the basic stem (the nominative is unmarked).

Vowel stems

A word with a vowel stem is one that ends in a vowel in the nominative, and retains a final vowel in all forms. The stem vowel can however change in certain inflected forms: !English !stem vowel !singular !sg. gen. !sg. part. !plural !pl. gen. !pl. part. !Notes The change of original (pre-Proto-Finnic) final *e to i means that the stem vowel of a word ending in i cannot be determined from the nominative alone; one of the inflected forms must be consulted. However, most old inherited words ending in i decline as e-stems (or consonants stems, see below), while modern loans, where i frequently is added for phonotactic reasons (as in the case of halli), always decline as i-stems.

Consonant stems

A word with a consonant stem is one where case suffixes can in some cases be affixed directly after the last consonant for at least some forms. Words with consonant stems come in three broad classes. The first class of consonant-stem words largely resemble e-stems, but allow elision of the stem vowel in the partitive singular, and for certain words, plural genitive. In the later case, this involves a special allomorph -ten, employing the plural marker t rather than i/j. The final consonant in words of this class must be one of h, l, m, n, r, s, t. Other remarks for e-stem words still apply. !English !stem !singular !sg. gen. !sg. part. !plural !pl. gen. !pl. part. !Notes Words of this type may have somewhat irregular declension due to additional historical changes: !English !stem !singular !sg. gen. !sg. part. !plural !pl. gen. !pl. part. !Notes For some words of this type, modern Finnish displays a tendency of development from consonant-stems to e-stems. For example, the partitive singular of the word tuomi "bird cherry" may be tuonta (consonant stem) or tuomea (vowel stem). Another class of consonant-stem words end in a consonant even in the nominative; if a stem vowel is required for phonotactic reasons, e again appears. Modern Finnish only allows dental and alveolar consonants (l, n, r, s, t) to occur as word-final, but originally, words ending in h, k, m were possible as well. !English !stem !singular !sg. gen. !sg. part. !plural !pl. gen. !pl. part. !Notes

Nouns ending in -s

Vocalization or lenition is found in addition to any possible consonant gradation, e.g. kuningas (nominative) ~ kuninkaan (genitive), or mies ~ miehen. The illatives are marked thus: kuninkaaseen, mieheen.

-nen nouns

This is a very large class of words which includes common nouns (for example nainen 'woman'), many proper names, and many common adjectives. Adding -inen to a noun is a very productive mechanism for creating adjectives (lika 'dirt, filth' → likainen 'dirty'; ilo 'joy' → iloinen 'merry, happy'; muovi 'plastic' → muovinen 'made of plastic'/'plastic-like' ). It can also function as a diminutive ending. The form behaves as if it ended in -s, with the exception of the nominative, where it is -nen. Thus, the stem for these words removes the -nen and adds -s(e) after which the inflectional ending is added: ! Finnish !! English Here are some of the diminutive forms that are in use: ! Finnish !! Stemming from !! English A special class of Finnish nouns in -nen are surnames. Some of these are very old and often their original meaning is not readily apparent to a modern speaker. Many were later coined on the -nen pattern and these often have the suffix added to a word meaning a natural feature. Some representative examples are: ! Finnish !! From word !! English The suffix -nen also occurs in place-names. Many place-names ending with -nen assume a plural form when inflected. For instance, the illative of Sörnäinen is Sörnäisiin instead of singular Sörnäiseen.

-e nouns

Older *-h and *-k-stems have changed rather drastically. The consonant does not survive in any form of the paradigm, and these nouns make the appearance of ending in an unchanging -e. However, the former existence of a consonant is still seen in that the dictionary form represents weak gradation, and each word has two stems, a weak grade stem in which the former final consonant has assimilated (used for the partitive singular), and strong grade vowel stem to which most case suffixes are applied. The vowel stem has an additional -e-: perhe 'family' → perhee-: perheessä, perheellä, etc.; which represents the historical loss of a medial consonant which is sometimes found in dialects as an -h- (e.g,. ruoste 'rust' → *ruostehena). By analogy, in standard Finnish all words ending in 'e' behave as former -h stems. In some dialects, the -h stems have however shifted to -s instead, e.g. standard vene, in Pohjanmaa venes ← veneh. The illative case also changes form with a consonant stem, where the ending -hen is assibilated to -seen, as -hen is the genitive. The weak grade stem, which is found in the 'dictionary' form results from another historic change in which a final consonant has been lost. This is important to word inflection, because the partitive ending is suffixed directly onto this stem, where the consonant has been assimilated to a -t- instead of being lost. Other case endings are suffixed to the strong grade/vowel stem. ! case !! huone 'room' !! laite 'device' ! partitive sg. 'two rooms' || kaksi laitetta 'two devices' ! nominative pl. 'rooms' || laitteet 'devices' ! inessive sg. 'in the room' || laitteessa 'in the device' ! illative sg. 'into the room' || laitteeseen 'into the device' More of this phenomenon is discussed in Finnish Phonology: Sandhi.

Adjectives

Adjectives in Finnish are inflected in exactly the same way as nouns, and an adjective must agree in number and case with the noun it is modifying. For example, here are some adjectives: ! Finnish !! English And here are some examples of adjectives inflected to agree with nouns: ! Finnish !! English Notice that the adjectives undergo the same sorts of stem changes when they are inflected as nouns do.

Comparative formation

The comparative of the adjective is formed by adding -mpi to the inflecting stem. For example: ! Finnish !! English !! Finnish !! English Since the comparative adjective is still an adjective, it must be inflected to agree with the noun it modifies. To make the inflecting stem of the comparative, the -mpi ending loses its final i. If the syllable context calls for a weak consonant, the -mp- becomes -mm-. Then -a- is added before the actual case ending (or -i- in plural). This should become clear with a few examples: ! Finnish !! English

Superlative formation

The superlative of the adjective is formed by adding -in to the inflecting stem. For example: ! Finnish !! English !! Finnish !! English Note that because the superlative marker vowel is i, the same kind of changes can occur with vowel stems as happen in verb imperfects, and noun inflecting plurals: ! Finnish !! English !! Finnish !! English Since the superlative adjective is still an adjective, it must be inflected to agree with the noun it modifies. The -in becomes either -imma- or -impa- (plural -immi- or -impi-) depending on whether the syllable context calls for a weak or strong consonant. Here are the examples: ! Finnish !! English

Irregular forms

The most important irregular form is: ! Finnish !! English The form paree "good" is not found in standard Finnish, but can be found in the Southern Ostrobothnian dialect. Notice also: ! colspan="3" style="background:#cfcfcf;" | More irregular forms ! Finnish !! Hypothetic regular !! English (although the standard forms are also used) There are a small number of other irregular comparative and superlative forms, such as: ! Finnish !! English Where the inflecting stem is uude- but the superlative is uusin = 'newest'.

Postpositions and prepositions

Postpositions are more common in Finnish than prepositions. Both postpositions and prepositions can be combined with either a noun or a possessive suffix to form a postpositional phrase.

Postpositions

Postpositions indicate place, time, cause, consequence or relation. In postpositional phrases the noun is usually in genitive: ! Finnish !! English The noun (or pronoun) can be omitted when there is a possessive suffix: ! Finnish !! English '(I) am by (your) side ' As with verbs, the pronoun cannot be omitted in the third person (singular or plural):

Prepositions

There are few important prepositions in Finnish. In prepositional phrases the noun is always in the partitive: ! Finnish !! English Some postpositions can also be used as prepositions: ! Postposition !! Preposition !! English Using postpositions as prepositions is not strictly incorrect and occurs in poetry, as in, for example, the song "Alla vaahterapuun" "under a maple tree", instead the usual vaahterapuun alla.

Verb forms

Finnish verbs are usually divided into seven groups depending on the stem type. All seven types have the same set of endings, but the stems undergo (slightly) different changes when inflected. There are very few irregular verbs in Finnish. In fact, only olla = 'to be' has two irregular forms on "is" and ovat "are (pl.)"; other forms follow from the stem ole–/ol–; e.g. olet ← ole+t "you are", olkoon ← ol+koon "let it be". A handful of verbs, including nähdä "to see", tehdä "to do/make", and juosta "to run" have rare consonant mutation patterns which are not derivable from the infinitive. In spoken Finnish, some frequently used verbs (mennä, tulla, olla, panna) have irregular stems (mee, tuu, oo, paa, instead of mene, tule, ole, pane ("go, come, be, put"), respectively). Finnish does not have a separate verb for possession (compare English "to have"). Possession is indicated in other ways, mainly by genitives and existential clauses. For animate possessors, the adessive case is used with olla, for example koiralla on häntä = 'the dog has a tail' – literally 'on the dog is a tail', or in English grammar, "There is a tail on the dog". This is similar to Irish and Welsh forms such as "There is a hunger on me".

Tense-aspect forms

Finnish verbs have present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect tense-aspect forms. As stated above, Finnish has no grammatical future tense. To indicate futurity, a Finnish speaker may use forms that are, by some, deprecated as ungrammatical. One is the use of the verb tulla, 'to come', as it were as an auxiliary: Tämä tulee olemaan ongelma 'This is going to be a problem', cf Swedish Det här kommer att vara ett problem. Another, less common and now archaic, is to use the verb olla, 'to be', with the present passive participle of the main verb: Hän on oleva suuri Jumalan mies 'For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord' (Luke 1:15).

Voices

Finnish has two possible verb voices: active and passive. The active voice corresponds with the active voice of English, but the Finnish passive voice has some important differences from the English passive voice.

Passive voice

The so-called Finnish passive is impersonal and unipersonal, that is, it only appears in one form regardless of who is implicitly understood to be the performer of the action. In that respect, it could be described as a "fourth person" since there is no way of connecting the action performed with a particular agent (except for some nonstandard forms; see below). It is called "passive" for historical reasons in imitation of Swedish and Latin grammars, but this term is in fact incorrect because the object of an active sentence remains an object in the equivalent Finnish "passive" sentence, in other words, the Finnish "passive" sentence is in fact active. In languages with true passives, an active sentence's object becomes the subject in the equivalent passive sentence. Active: me pidätämme hänet "we will arrest him" => passive: pidätetään hänet "he will be arrested". Consider the example: talo maalataan "the house will be painted". The time when the house is being painted could be added: talo maalataan marraskuussa "the house will be painted in November". The colour and method could be added: talo maalataan punaiseksi harjalla "the house will be painted red with a brush". But nothing can be said about the person who will do the painting; there is no simple way to say "the house will be painted by Jim". There is a calque, evidently from Swedish, toimesta "by the action of", that can be used to introduce the agent: Talo maalataan Jimin toimesta, approximately "The house will be painted by the action of Jim". This type of expression is considered prescriptively incorrect, but it may be found wherever direct translations from Swedish, English, etc. are made, especially in legal texts, and has traditionally been a typical feature of Finnish "officialese". An alternative form, passive + ablative, also a calque from Swedish, was once common but is now archaic. Notice also that the object is in the form of the accusative that has the same form as the nominative case (which is true of all words except for the personal pronouns). Verbs which govern the partitive case continue to do so in the passive, and where the object of the action is a personal pronoun in the accusative, that goes into its special accusative form: minut/sinut/hänet/meidät/teidät/heidät unohdettiin "I/you/(s)he/we/you/they was/were forgotten". Whether the object of a passive verb should be termed the subject of the clause has been debated, but traditionally Finnish grammars have considered a passive clause to have no subject. Use of the passive voice is not as common in Finnish as in Germanic languages; sentences in the active voice are preferred, if possible. Confusion may result, as the agent is lost and becomes ambiguous. For instance, a bad translation of the English "the PIN code is asked for by the device when..." into PIN-koodia kysytään, kun... raises the question "who asks?", whereas laite kysyy PIN-koodia, kun... ("the device asks for the PIN code when...") is unambiguous. Nevertheless, this usage of the passive is common in Finnish, particularly in literary and official contexts. Occasionally this leads to extreme cases such as kaupunginhallitus halutaan erottaa "it is wanted that the municipal board be dismissed", implying that a popular uprising could be near, when this suggestion could also be made by a political group in the town council consisting of only a few or theoretically (very unlikely because misleading) even a single person. It can also be said that in the Finnish passive the agent is always human and never mentioned. A sentence such as 'the tree was blown down' would translate poorly into Finnish if the passive were used, since it would suggest the image of a group of people trying to blow the tree down. Colloquially, the first-person plural indicative and imperative are replaced by the passive, e.g. menemme meille ("we'll go to our place") and menkäämme meille ("let us go to our place") are replaced by mennään meille (see spoken Finnish). Because of its vagueness about who is performing the action, the passive can also translate the English "one does (something)", "(something) is generally done", as in sanotaan että... "they say that..." Formation of the passive is dealt with in the article on Finnish verb conjugation.

As first-person plural

In modern colloquial Finnish, the passive form of the verb is used instead of the active first-person plural in the indicative and the imperative, to the almost complete exclusion of the standard verb forms. For example, in the indicative, the standard form is me menemme 'we are going', but the colloquial form is me mennään. Without the personal pronoun me, the passive alone replaces the first-person plural imperative, as in Mennään! 'Let's go!'. In colloquial speech, the pronoun me cannot be omitted without confusion, unlike when using the standard forms menemme (indicative) and menkäämme (imperative).

Zero person

The so-called "zero person" is a construct in which a verb appears in the third-person singular with no subject, and the identity of the subject must be understood from the context. Typically the implied subject is either the speaker or their interlocutor, or the statement is intended in a general sense. The zero person has some similarity to the English use of the formal subject one.

Moods

Indicative

The indicative is the form of the verb used for making statements or asking simple questions. In the verb morphology sections, the mood referred to will be the indicative unless otherwise stated.

Conditional

The conditional mood expresses the idea that the action or state expressed by the verb may or may not actually happen. As in English, the Finnish conditional is used in conditional sentences (for example "I would tell you if I knew") and in polite requests (for example "I would like some coffee"). In the former case, and unlike in English, the conditional must be used in both halves of the Finnish sentence: The characteristic morphology of the Finnish conditional is 'isi' inserted between the verb stem and the personal ending. This can result in a closed syllable becoming open and so trigger consonant gradation: Conditional forms exist for both active and passive voices, and for present tense and perfect. The conditional can be used for added politeness when offering, requesting, or pleading: Ottaisitko kahvia? 'Would you like some coffee?'; Saisinko tuon punaisen? 'May I have that red one?'; Kertoisit nyt 'I do wish you would tell me'.

Imperative

The imperative mood is used to express commands. In Finnish, there is only one tense form (the present-future). The possible variants of Finnish imperatives are:

Active, 2nd-person imperatives

These are the most common forms of the imperative: "Do this", "Don't do that". The singular imperative is simply the verb's present tense without any personal ending (that is, remove the -n from the first-person-singular form): ! Finnish !! English To make this negative, älä (which is the active imperative singular 2nd person of the negative verb) is placed before the positive form: ! Finnish !! English (from valehdella "to lie", type II) To form the plural, add -kaa or -kää to the verb's stem: ! Finnish !! English (from mitata "to measure", type IV) To make this negative, älkää (which is the active imperative present plural 2nd person of the negative verb) is placed before the positive form and the suffix -ko or -kö is added to the verb stem: ! Finnish !! English Note that 2nd-person-plural imperatives can also be used as polite imperatives when referring to one person. The Finnish language has no simple equivalent to the English "please". The Finnish equivalent is to use either ole hyvä or olkaa hyvä = 'be good', but it is generally omitted. Politeness is normally conveyed by tone of voice, facial expression, and use of conditional verbs and partitive nouns. For example, voisitteko means "could you", in the polite plural, and is used much like English "Could you..." sentences: voisitteko auttaa "could you help me, please?" Also, familiar (and not necessarily so polite) expressions can be added to imperatives, e.g. menes, menepä, menehän. These are hard to translate exactly, but extensively used by Finnish speakers themselves. Menes implies expectation, that is, it has been settled already and requires no discussion; menepä has the -pa which indicates insistence, and -hän means approximated "indeed".

Passive imperatives

! Finnish !! English

3rd-person imperatives

The 3rd-person imperatives behave as if they were jussive; besides being used for commands, they can also be used to express permission. In colloquial language, they are most often used to express disregard to what one might or might not do, and the singular and plural forms are often confused. ! Finnish !! English

1st-person-plural imperatives

! Finnish !! English The 1st-person imperative sounds archaic, and a form resembling the passive indicative is often used instead: mennään! = 'let's go!'

Optative

The optative mood is an archaic or poetic variant of the imperative mood that expresses hopes or wishes. It is not used in normal language. ! Finnish !! English

Potential

The potential mood is used to express that the action or state expressed by the verb is possible but not certain. It is relatively rare in modern Finnish, especially in speech. Most commonly it is used in news reports and in official written proposals in meetings. It has only the present tense and perfect. The potential has no specific counterpart in English, but can be translated by adding "possibly" (or occasionally "probably") to the verb. The characteristic morphology of the Finnish potential is -ne-, inserted between the verb stem and the personal ending. Before this affix, continuants assimilate progressively (pes+ne- → pesse-) and stops regressively (korjat+ne- → korjanne-). The verb olla 'to be' in the potential has the special suppletive form lie-, e.g. the potential of on haettu 'has been fetched' is lienee haettu 'may have been fetched'. Potential forms exists for both active and passive voices, and for present tense and perfect: ! Finnish !! English In some dialects tullee ('may come') is an indicative form verb (tulee 'comes'). This is not a potential form, but rather due to secondary gemination.

Eventive

No longer used in modern Finnish, the eventive mood is used in the Kalevala. It is a combination of the potential and the conditional. It is also used in some dialects of Estonian. ! Finnish !! English

Infinitives

Finnish verbs are described as having four, sometimes five infinitives:

First infinitive

The first infinitive short form of a verb is the citation form found in dictionaries. It is not unmarked; its overt marking is always the suffix -a or -ä, though sometimes there are modifications (which may be regarded as stem or ending modifications depending on personal preference). ! Verb stem !! Finnish infinitive !! English infinitive When the stem is itself a single syllable or is of two or more syllables ending in -oi or -öi, the suffix is -da or -dä, respectively. (This represents the historically older form of the suffix, from which the d has been lost in most environments.) ! Verb stem !! Finnish infinitive !! English infinitive If the stem ends in one the consonants l, r, n, then the final consonant is doubled before adding the infinitive -a or -ä. In the case of a stem ending in the consonant s, the infinitive ending gains the consonant t, becoming -ta or -tä. (These consonant stems take a linking vowel -e- when forming the present tense, or -i- when forming the imperfect, e.g. pestä 'to wash': pesen 'I wash' : pesin 'I washed'). Stems ending in -ts, followed by a link vowel in the present or imperfect, drop the s from the stem before adding the infinitive marker -a or -ä. ! Verb stem !! Finnish infinitive !! English infinitive Some verbs have so called "alternating stems" or multiple stems with weak-strong consonant gradation between them. It depends on the verb if the infinitive is in the strong or weak form. These have long vowel stems in the present/future tense, which already ends with -a or -ä. These verbs drop the a which is present in the present tense stem and replace it with -t in the first infinitive stem followed by the standard -a or -ä first infinitive marker. The a dropping to t weakens a preceding k, p or t so that a weak grade is seen in the first infinitive form. This often creates difficulties for the non-Finn when trying to determine the infinitive (in order to access the translation in a dictionary) when encountering an inflected form. Inflected forms are generally strong except when the stem ending contains a double consonant and there is only a single vowel separating this from the last stem k, p or t. ! Inflected Finnish !! English !! Finnish infinitive !! English infinitive !! Note Some verbs lose elements of their stems when forming the first infinitive. Some verbs stem have contracted endings in the first infinitive. Stems ending -ene/-eni in the present/imperfect drop the n and replace it with t, and where applicable, trigger the weak grade in the infinitive stem. The contracted infinitive ending -eta/-etä have -itse/-itsi verbs take the infinitive stem -ita/itä. These contracted verbs may also be subject to consonant weakening when forming the infinitive e.g. mainita 'to mention' has the longer conjugated stem mainits- as in mainitsen huomenna, että... 'I'll mention tomorrow that...' e.g. paeta 'to flee' has the longer conjugated stem paken- as in me pakenimme Afganistanista 'we fled from Afghanistan' The first infinitive long form is the translative plus a possessive suffix (rare in spoken language). ! Finnish !! English The first infinitive only has an active form.

Second infinitive

The second infinitive is used to express aspects of actions relating to the time when an action takes place or the manner in which an action happens. In equivalent English phrases these time aspects can often be expressed using "when", "while" or "whilst" and the manner aspects using the word "by" or else the gerund, which is formed by adding "-ing" to English verb to express manner. It is recognizable by the letter e in place of the usual a or ä as the infinitive marker. It is only ever used with one of two case makers; the inessive ssa/ssä indicating time or the instructive n indicating manner. Finnish phrases using the second infinitive can often be rendered in English using the gerund. The second infinitive is formed by replacing the final a/ä of the first infinitive with e then adding the appropriate inflectional ending. If the vowel before the a/ä is already an e, this becomes i (see example from lukea 'to read'). The cases in which the second infinitive can appear are: ! Finnish !! English ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2" | Active inessive (while someone is in the act of) ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2" | Active inessive + possessive suffix (while themselves in the act of) ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2" | Passive inessive (when or while in the act of something being done) ! style="background:#efefef;" colspan="2" | Active instructive (by means of/while in the act of) The inessive form is mostly seen in written forms of language because spoken forms usually express the same idea in longer form using two clauses linked by the word kun ("when"). The instructive is even rarer and mostly exists nowadays in set phrases (for example toisin sanoen = 'in other words'). If the person performing the action of the verb is the same as the person in the equivalent relative clause, then the verb uses the appropriate personal possessive suffix on the verb for the person. If the person in the main clause is different from that in the relative clause then this is indicated by with the person in the genitive and the verb is unmarked for person. ! Second infinitive inessive ! Equivalent kun phrase ! English translation

Third infinitive

This corresponds to the English gerund ("verb + -ing" form), and behaves as a noun in Finnish in that it can be inflected, but only in a limited number of cases. It is used to refer to a particular act or occasion of the verb's action. The third infinitive is formed by taking the verb stem with its consonant in the strong form, then adding ma followed by the case inflection. The cases in which the third infinitive can appear are: ! Case !! Finnish !! English A rare and archaic form of the third infinitive which occurs with the verb pitää: ! Case !! Finnish !! English The third infinitive instructive is usually replaced with the first infinitive short form in modern Finnish. Note that the -ma form without a case ending is called the 'agent participle' (see below). The agent participle can also be inflected in all cases, producing forms which look similar to the third infinitive.

Fourth infinitive

The fourth infinitive has the stem ending -minen and indicates obligation, but it is quite rare in Finnish today. This is because there are other words like pitää and täytyy that can convey this meaning. For example ! Finnish !! English Though not an infinitive, a much more common -minen verbal stem ending is the noun construct which gives the name of the activity described by the verb. This is rather similar to the English verbal noun '-ing' form, and therefore as a noun, this form can inflect just like any other noun. ! Finnish !! English

Fifth infinitive

This is a fairly rare form which has the meaning 'on the point of ...ing / just about to ...' ! Finnish !! English

Verb conjugation

For full details of how verbs are conjugated in Finnish, please refer to the Finnish verb conjugation article.

Participles

Finnish verbs have past and present participles, both with passive and active forms, and an 'agent' participle. Participles can be used in different ways than ordinary adjectives and they can have an object.

Past passive participle

This is formed in the same way as the passive perfect or passive past-perfect forms, by taking the passive past form, removing the -tiin ending and replacing it with -ttu/tty (depending on vowel harmony) ! Finnish !! English [pass. II participle sg. ess.

• poss. suffix]

Past active participle

Basically this is formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding -nut/nyt (depending on vowel harmony) and in some cases -lut/lyt, -sut/syt, -rut/ryt. For example: ! 1st infinitive!! active past participle However, depending on the verb's stem type, assimilation can occur with the consonant of the stem ending. In type II verbs, and n, l, r or s in the stem ending is assimilated to the consonant in the participle ending (as also happens in formation of the first infinitive, although -s stem endings take an extra t in the first infinitive) ! 1st Infinitive!! Stem !! Active past participle The assimilation causes the final consonant cluster to be strengthened which in turn can weaken a strong cluster if one exists in the stem. See harjoitella above. In verbs of types IV, V and VI, the t at the end of the stem is assimilated to the n: ! 1st infinitive!! Stem !! Active past participle

Present passive participle

The present passive participle can be constructed from the past passive form of the verb. The -iin ending of the past passive is replaced with -ava/ävä, which can be inflected in the same way as the present active participle. For example: ! Infinitive !! Past passive!! Passive participle !! English It is possible to translate this participle in several related ways e.g. sanottava 'which must be/is to be said', 'which can be said', 'which will be said' or 'which is said'. Here are some sentences and phrases further illustrating the formation and use of the present passive participle: ! Finnish !! English This participle can also be used in other ways. If used with the appropriate third-person singular form of the verb olla and with the subject in the genitive it can express necessity or obligation. Inflected in the inessive plural, it can be used in conjunction with the verb 'to be' to indicate that something can or cannot be done.

Present active participle

This participle is formed simply by finding the 3rd person plural form of the verb and removing -t, and acts as an adjective describing what the object or subject of the sentence is doing, for example: ! Finnish !! English [act. I participle pl. essive + poss. suffix]

Agent participle

The agent participle is formed in a similar way as the third infinitive (see above), adding -ma or -mä to the verb stem. It allows the property of being a target of an action to be formatted as an adjective-like attribute. Like adjectives, it can be inflected in all cases. For example, ihmisen tekemä muodostelma "a man-made formation". The party performing the action is indicated by the use of genitive, or by a possessive suffix. This is reflected in English, too: ihmisen tekemä – "of man** ' s** making", or kirjoittamani kirja "book of my writing". For example: ! Finnish !! English It is not required for the action to be in the past, although the examples above are. Rather, the construction simply specifies the subject, the object and the action, with no reference to time. For an example in the future, consider: huomenna käyttämänänne välineenä on... "tomorrow, as the instrument you will be using is...". Here, käyttämä "that which is used" describes, i.e. is an attribute to väline "instrument". (Notice the case agreement between käyttämä-nä and välinee-nä.) The suffix -nne "your" specifies the person "owning" the action, i.e. who does it, thus käyttämänne is "that which was used by you(pl.)", and käyttämänänne is "as that which was used by you". It is also possible to give the actor with a pronoun, e.g. sinun käyttämäsi "that which was used by you". In standard language, the pronoun sinun "your" is not necessary, but the possessive suffix is. In inexact spoken usage, this goes vice versa; the possessive suffix is optional, and used typically only for the second-person singular, e.g. sun käyttämäs.

Negation of verbs

Present indicative

Verbs are negated by using a negative verb in front of the stem from the present tense (in its 'weak' consonant form). This verb form used with the negative verb is called a connegative. ! Finnish !! English !! !! Finnish !! English ! colspan="5" style="background:#efefef;" | Singular ! colspan="5" style="background:#efefef;" | Plural Note that the inflection is on the negative verb, not on the main verb, and that the endings are regular apart from the 3rd-person forms.

Present passive

The negative is formed from the third-person singular "negative verb" ei and the present passive with the final -an removed: ! Finnish !! English

Imperfect indicative

The negative is formed from the appropriate part of the negative verb followed by the nominative form (either singular or plural depending on the number of the verb's subject) of the active past participle. So for puhua the pattern is: ! Finnish !! English ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Singular ! colspan="2" style="background:#efefef;" | Plural Note one exception: when the 'te' 2nd-person plural form is used in an honorific way to address one person, the singular form of the participle is used: te ette puhunut = 'you (sg. polite) did not speak'.

Imperfect passive

The negative is formed from the third-person singular negative verb – 'ei' – and the nominative singular form of the passive present participle (compare this with the negative of the imperfect indicative): ! Finnish !! English Note that in the spoken language, this form is used for the first-person plural. In this case, the personal pronoun is obligatory: ! Finnish !! English

Adverbs

A very common way of forming adverbs is by adding the ending -sti to the inflecting form of the corresponding adjective: ! Finnish !! English Adverbs modify verbs, not nouns, therefore they do not inflect. -sti adverbs are not used to modify adjectives (such as to express degree) like -ly adverbs might be in English; the genitive of adjectives is used for this purpose.

Comparative formation

The comparative form of the adverb has the ending -mmin. ! Finnish !! English

Superlative formation

The superlative form of the adverb has the ending -immin. ! Finnish !! English Because of the -i-, the stem vowel can change, similarly to superlative adjectives, or to avoid runs of three vowels: ! Finnish !! English

Irregular forms

There are a number of irregular adverbs, including: ! Finnish !! English

Numbers

The ordinary counting numbers (cardinals) from 0 to 10 are given in the table below. Cardinal numbers may be inflected and some of the inflected forms are irregular in form. (*) sometimes seitsentä (alternative form) In colloquial spoken Finnish, the numerals usually appear in contracted forms. To form teens, toista is added to the base number. Toista is the partitive form of toinen, meaning here "second group of ten". Hyphens are written here to separate morphemes. In Finnish text, hyphens are not written. In older Finnish, until about the early 20th Century, the same pattern was used up to one hundred: kolmeneljättä 'thirty-three'.

Sentence structure

Word order

Since Finnish is an inflected language, word order within sentences can be much freer than, for example, English. In English the strong subject–verb–object order typically indicates the function of a noun as either subject or object although some English structures allow this to be reversed. In Finnish sentences, however, the role of the noun is determined not by word order or sentence structure as in English but by case markings which indicate subject and object. The most usual neutral order, however, is subject–verb–object. But usually what the speaker or writer is talking about is at the head of the sentence. ! Finnish !! English!!Note Here koira ('dog') is in the nominative form but mies ('man') is marked as object by the case marked form miestä. This sentence is a bald statement of fact. Changing the word order changes the emphasis slightly but not the fundamental meaning of the sentence. ! Finnish !! English !! Note Minulla here is the word minä (I) in a case form ending -lla which when used with the verb olla (to be, expressed here in the form on) expresses ownership. This is because Finnish does not have a verb form equivalent of the English word 'have'. Minulla is not considered the subject. And finally, a classic example: ! Finnish !! Translation Besides the word-order implications of turning a sentence into a question, there are some other circumstances where word-order is important:

Existential sentences

These are sentences which introduce a new subject – they often begin with 'there is' or 'there are' in English. ! Finnish !! English The location of the thing whose existence is being stated comes first, followed by its stative verb, followed by the thing itself. Note how this is unlike the normal English equivalent, though English can also use the same order: ! Finnish !! English

Forming questions

There are two main ways of forming a question – either using a specific question word, or by adding a -ko/-kö suffix to one of the words in a sentence. A question word is placed first in the sentence, and a word with the interrogative suffix is also moved to this position: ! Finnish !! English (note the -kö goes on the negative verb)

Forming answers

The response to a question will of course depend on the situation, but grammatically the response to a question typically follows the grammatical structure in the question. Thus a question structured in the inessive case (e.g. missä kaupungissa asut? 'in which town do you live?') will have an answer that is also in the inessive (e.g. Espoossa 'in Espoo') unless special rules dictate otherwise. Questions which in English would be answered with 'yes' or 'no' replies are usually responded to by repeating the verb in either the affirmative or negative. ! Finnish !! English The words kyllä and ei are often shown in dictionaries as being equivalent to 'yes' and 'no', but the situation is a little more complicated than that. The typical response to a question which in English is answered 'yes' or 'no' is, as we see above, more usually answered by repeating the verb in either an affirmative or negative form in the appropriate person. The word 'kyllä' is rather a strong affirmation in response to a question and is similar to the word 'niin' which is an affirmation of a response to a statement of fact or belief. (However, in conversations, niin may even simply mean that the sentence was heard, not expressing any sort of concurrence. The same problem occurs with the colloquial joo "yeah".) ! Finnish !! English The word ei is the negative verb form and has to be inflected for person and the verb itself is usually present, though not always. or better