1st Edition

Finnish A Comprehensive Grammar

By Fred Karlsson Copyright 2018
    518 Pages
    by Routledge

    518 Pages
    by Routledge

    Finnish: A Comprehensive Grammar presents a fresh, accessible and thorough description of the language, concentrating on the real patterns of use in modern Finnish.

    The book moves from the sound system through morphology and word classes to a detailed analysis of sentence structures and semantic features.

    Key features include:

    • particular focus on examples from spoken Finnish reflecting current usage
    • grammatical phenomena classified as common or rare
    • appendices identifying stems and sequences of endings
    • English-Finnish contrasts highlighted throughout.

    Finnish: A Comprehensive Grammar is an essential reference for the intermediate and advanced learner and user of Finnish.

    Contents

    Preface

    Notational conventions and abbreviations

    Chapter 1 Introduction

    1.1 The relation of Finnish to other languages

    1.2 Finnish and Finland, past and present

    1.3 The basic characteristics of Finnish

    1.4 What are the special difficulties?

    Chapter 2 Pronunciation and sound structure

    2.1 Letters and sounds

    2.2 Vowels and consonants

    2.3 Short and long sounds

    2.4 Diphthongs

    2.5 Syllables

    2.6 Rhythm, word stress patterns and intonation patterns

    2.6.1 Rhythm

    2.6.2 Word stress patterns

    2.6.3 Intonation patterns and accentuation

    2.7 Vowel harmony

    2.8 Major dialectal differences in pronunciation

    Chapter 3 Word structure

    3.1 Nominals and their inflectional endings

    3.2 Finite verb forms and their endings

    3.3 Non-finite verb forms and their endings

    Chapter 4 Two important sound alternations

    4.1 Consonant gradation of p, t, k

    4.1.1 The types of consonant gradation

    4.1.2 The rules of consonant gradation

    4.1.3 Applying the basic rule to nominals

    4.1.4 Applying the rules to verbs

    4.1.5 Additional comments

    4.1.6 The most common words with consonant gradation

    4.2 Vowel changes before i endings

    Chapter 5 The declension of nominals

    5.1 Nominals inflected on the basic form

    5.1.1 Tunti nominals with short final -i

    5.1.2 Talo nominals with short final -u, -o, -y, -ö

    5.1.3 Kala nominals with short final -a

    5.1.4 Isä nominals with short final -ä

    5.1.5 Nominals with final diphthong or long vowel

    5.2 Nominals with short final -i or -e and separate inflectional stem

    5.2.1 Kivi nominals, inflectional stem in -e, partitive -A

    5.2.2 Kieli nominals, inflectional stem in -e, partitive -tA

    5.2.3 Vesi nominals, inflectional stem in -te, partitive -tA

    5.2.4 Perhe nominals with short final -e

    5.3 Nominals with a final consonant and separate inflectional stem

    5.3.1 Ihminen nominals

    5.3.2 Ajat>us nouns

    5.3.3 Taivas nominal

    5.3.4 Hyv>yys nominals

    5.3.5 Ava>in nominals

    5.3.6 Työ>tön nominals

    5.3.7 Askel nominals

    5.3.8 Lyhyt nominals

    5.3.9 Adaptation of new borrowed nouns

    5.4 Singular and plural

    Chapter 6 The conjugation of verbs

    6.1 Infinitive endings

    6.2 Inflectional stems

    6.2.1 Anta-a verbs

    6.2.2 Saa-da verbs

    6.2.3 Tul-la and nous-ta verbs

    6.2.4 Huomat-a verbs

    6.2.5 Tarvit-a verbs

    6.2.6 Lämm>et-ä verbs

    6.3 Personal endings and agreement of person

    Chapter 7 Interplay between Finnish morphology and syntax

    7.1 Parts of speech

    7.2 Phrases

    7.3 Syntactic functions of phrases in clauses

    7.4 Cases and adpositional phrases are markers of syntactic functions

    7.5 Syntactic functions, phrases and clauses elaborated

    Chapter 8

    8.1 Phrase types

    8.2 The noun phrase

    8.2.1 Structure

    8.2.2 Agreement within the noun phrase

    8.2.3 Functions of the noun phrase

    8.2.4 Complexity of the noun phrase

    8.3 The adjective phrase

    8.4 The numeral phrase

    8.5 Adpositional phrases

    8.6 The adverb phrase

    8.7 The infinitive phrase

    8.8 The participle phrase

    Chapter 9 Simple clauses

    9.1 Clause types

    9.2 Clauses with basic order subject + verb

    9.3 Clauses with basic order verb + subject

    9.4 Free adverbials, questions, negation, word order variations

    9.5 Clauses without subject

    9.6 Negative clauses

    9.7 Questions and answers

    9.7.1 Questions with -kO (‘yes-no’ questions)

    9.7.2 Question-word questions (‘wh-’ questions)

    9.8 Minimal examples of simple clause types

    Chapter 10 Complex sentences

    10.1 Types of complex sentences

    10.2 Complex sentences with subordinate clauses

    10.3 Complex sentences with infinitive and participle phrases

    10.4 Nominalization

    10.5 Repeated embedding of subordinate clauses, non-finite phrases and nominalizations

    10.6 Structure of the predicate

    Chapter 11 The nominative case

    11.1 Nominative singular and plural

    11.2 Use of the nominative

    11.2.1 The nominative marking subjects, objects and predicate complements

    11.2.2 Special uses of the nominative

    Chapter 12 The partitive case

    12.1 Formation of the partitive

    12.1.1 Partitive singular

    12.1.2 Partitive plural

    12.2 Use of the partitive

    12.2.1 Partitive subject

    12.2.2 Partitive object

    12.2.3 Partitive predicate complement

    12.2.4 The partitive in expressions of quantity

    12.2.5 The partitive with adpositions

    12.2.6 Special uses of the partitive

    Chapter 13 The genitive case and total objects

    13.1 Formation of the genitive

    13.1.1 Genitive singular

    13.1.2 Genitive plural

    13.2 Use of the genitive

    13.3 The total object

    13.3.1 Total object and partitive object

    13.3.2 Total object endings

    13.4 Quantity adverbials taking object cases

    Chapter 14 Possessive endings

    14.1 Possessive endings in nouns

    14.2 Possessive endings in other parts of speech

    14.3 Ways of expressing ownership (possession)

    Chapter 15 The six local cases

    15.1 Inessive

    15.2 Elative

    15.3 Illative

    15.4 Adessive

    15.5 Ablative

    15.6 Allative

    15.7 Directional verbs

    15.8 Place names

    Chapter 16 Other cases

    16.1 Essive

    16.2 Translative

    16.3 Abessive

    16.4 Comitative

    16.5 Instructive

    Chapter 17 Numbers and numerals

    17.1 Cardinal numbers

    17.1.1 Inflection of cardinal numbers

    17.1.2 Use of cardinal numbers

    17.2 Ordinal numbers

    17.3 Fractions

    Chapter 18 Pronouns

    18.1 Personal pronouns

    18.2 Demonstrative pronouns

    18.3 Interrogative pronouns

    18.4 Indefinite pronouns

    18.5 Relative pronouns

    Chapter 19 Tenses

    19.1 Present tense

    19.2 Past tense

    19.3 Perfect tense

    19.4 Pluperfect tense

    19.5 Negative forms

    19.6 Expressing future time

    Chapter 20 Moods and modality

    20.1 Indicative

    20.2 Conditional

    20.3 Imperative

    20.4 Potential

    20.5 Other means for expressing modality

    Chapter 21 Passive constructions

    21.1 General

    21.2 Passive present

    21.3 Passive past

    21.4 Passive perfect and pluperfect

    21.5 Passive moods

    Chapter 22 Infinitive-based constructions

    22.1 General

    22.2 A infinitive

    22.2.1 Basic form of the A infinitive

    22.2.2 A infinitive translative

    22.3 E infinitive

    22.3.1 E infinitive inessive

    22.3.2 E infinitive instructive

    22.4 MA infinitive

    22.4.1 Formation

    22.4.2 MA infinitive inessive

    22.4.3 MA infinitive elative

    22.4.4 MA infinitive illative

    22.4.5 MA infinitive adessive, abessive and instructive

    22.5 MINEN infinitive

    Chapter 23 Participle-based constructions

    23.1 General

    23.2 VA participle active

    23.3 VA participle passive

    23.4 The NUT/TTU participles

    23.5 The participial construction

    23.6 The temporal construction

    23.7 The agent construction

    23.8 Verb unions with participles or infinitives

    Chapter 24 Comparison of adjectives

    24.1 Comparative

    24.2 Superlative

    Chapter 25 Other word classes and clitics

    25.1 Adverbs

    25.2 Prepositions

    25.3 Postpositions

    25.4 Conjunctions

    25.5 Discourse particles

    25.6 Clitics

    Chapter 26 Word formation

    26.1 General

    26.2 Derivation

    26.2.1 Deriving nominals from nominals

    26.2.2 Deriving nominals from verbs

    26.2.3 Deriving verbs from verbs

    26.2.4 Deriving verbs from nominals

    26.2.5 Rare derivational endings

    26.2.6 Multiple derivation

    26.3 Compounding

    Chapter 27 The colloquial spoken language

    27.1 General

    27.2 Omission and assimilation of sounds

    27.3 Differences of form

    Appendix 1 Detecting word structure

    Appendix 2 Definitions of key concepts

    Appendix 3 Material for studying Finnish as a foreign language

     

    Biography

    Fred Karlsson is Adjunct Professor of Finnish at the Universiity of Helsinki, Finland.