Finnish grammar

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. In Finnish all personal pronouns are gender-neutral and the English she and he can't be translated directly. Personal pronouns in Standard Finnish in the nominative case are listed in the following table:

Personal pronouns

Finnish	English
Singular
	I
	you (thou)
	he/she/they
Plural
	we
	you (y'all)
	they
Polite
	you

Because Finnish verbs are inflected for person and number, in 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: '(s)he goes'/'they go (singular they)'. In spoken Finnish, all pronouns are generally used, even without emphatic meaning.

In colloquial Finnish, the inanimate pronouns and are very commonly used in place of the singular and plural animate third-person pronouns, respectively. Use of and is mostly restricted to writing and formal or markedly polite speech as this clear distinction has never occurred naturallyTemplate:Clarify in the language. Do note the animals are marked as less animate and are therefore never referred to as or . and are usually replaced with colloquial forms. The most common variants are and , though, in some dialects and , and or and are used. On the other hand, , and lack reduced colloquial forms, so variants such as , , and of some eastern varieties are dialectal. Some common verbs, such as "to be" and "to come", exhibit similarly reduced colloquial forms:

Personal pronouns

Written/formal	Spoken/colloquial
Singular
Plural
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, and 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 , and in fact, it is hypercorrect to replace a demonstrative or with or 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.

Demonstrative pronouns

Finnish	English
Singular
	this
	that
	it/that
Plural
	these
	those
	they/those

Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative pronouns

Finnish	English
	who, which (of many)
	who, which (of many) — old or dialectal word
	what, which (of many)
	which (of two)
	which (of two) — old or dialectal word

is now archaic, but its inflected forms are used instead of those of : instead of ("whom"): "Whom do you love?"

Relative pronouns

Relative pronouns

Pronoun	Example	English
(refers to preceding word)		"they are (singular), s/he is the only one whom (I) remember"
(refers to preceding clause/sentence or to a pronoun or a superlative that refers to a thing)		"it is the only thing that (I) remember"

Reciprocal pronouns

Reciprocal pronouns

Pronoun	Example	English
toinen		"they love each other" (plural)
		"they love one another" (dual)

Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive pronouns

Pronoun	Suffix	Example	English
	plus corresponding possessive suffix		"(I) made myself some tea"

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 . No double negatives are possible.

Indefinite pronouns

Finnish	English
(uninflected)	every, each
	every, everyone
	some, someone (person)
	either one
	some, something (animal, thing)
	each one
	both (old or dialectal)
	both
	each thing (dialectal)
	anyone (old or poetic)
(nom.), (oblique)	anyone
→	no one
	either one
→	neither one
	anything
→	nothing
(nom.), (oblique)	the ordinal pronoun (representing first, second, etc.)

Each pronoun declines. However, the endings and are clitics, and case endings are placed before them, e.g. "any", "from any". There are irregular nominatives. As indicated, is an irregular nominative; the regular root is with , e.g. "(not) anyone", "from (not) anyone".

English lacks a direct equivalent to the pronoun ; it would be "that-th", or "which-th" for questions. For example, "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 , 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:

Indefinite adjectives

Finnish	English
	the only one
	some, certain, one
	few
(non-reflexive)	self
	all, everyone, everything
	both
	many
	other
	some, a few
	same
(non-reciprocal, non-numeral use)	another

Nouns

Finnish does not have grammatical gender, not even in personal pronouns: is 'he'or'she' depending on the referent. There are no articles, neither definite nor indefinite.

Cases

Finnish has fifteen noun cases: four grammatical cases, six locative cases, two essive cases (three in some Eastern dialects), and three marginal cases.

Finnish cases

Case	Suffix	English prep.	Example	Translation
Grammatical
nominative ()	–	–	,	you, house
genitive ()		of, 's	,	your(s), house's
accusative ()	–, ,	–	, ,	you (thee), house (see discussion below)
partitive ()		–	,	you, house (as the object of an atelic verb)
Locative (internal)
inessive ()	/	in		in a house
elative ()	/	out of		out of a house
illative ()	, ,	into	,	into a house, into Porvoo
Locative (external)
adessive ()	/	at, on	,	at a house, on a roof
ablative ()	/	from		from a house
allative ()		onto, to	, ,	onto a roof, to (the proximity of) a house, to a boy
Essive
essive ()	/	as		as a house
translative ()		into (the role of)		into (being) a school
Marginal
instructive ()	,	with (the aid of)		with the houses
abessive ()	/	without		without a house
comitative ()		together (with)		with their house(s)

Some notes about the cases listed in the table above:

• The locative cases are also used for grammatical function, such as benefactive, dative (often in the allative), and other functions.
• There is historically some difference of opinion as to the character and indeed existence (for most words) of the accusative case in modern Finnish. The recent, authoritative grammar Iso suomen kielioppi takes the position that only the personal pronouns and the personal interrogative pronoun have a true accusative case which is distinguished by the suffix . For nouns, adjectives, numerals, and other pronouns, there is no accusative case; instead, these words take the nominative or genitive in object positions (where they do not take the partitive). This differs from the more traditional view, to which many learners' grammars still adhere, that there are accusative forms that appear identical to the nominative or genitive. This traditional view is based on known diachronic phonological changes in the language.
• Marginal cases are mostly used in writing, or in the case of the instructive, in fixed expressions such as Vedä pyyhe molemmin käsin ('Pull the paper towel using both hands')
  • A noun in the comitative case is always followed by a possessive suffix. However, as is typical in Finnish, an adjective does not take possessive suffixes: "A man with his luxurious house(s)", with comitative on both the adjective and noun, but the third person possessive suffix on the noun only.
• Regarding the illative suffix : "V" stands in for a preceding (short) vowel: yields , but yields .

Relationship between locative cases

As in many 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 / and in / ) express stationary motion, whereas a expresses "movement from". The table below shows these relationships schematically:

Schematic summary of locative cases

Spatial position	Motion status
	Stationary	Moving
		approaching	departing
Interior	inessive ('in')	illative ('into')	elative ('out of')
Surface	adessive ('on')	allative ('onto')	ablative ('off from')

Plurals

Finnish nominal plurals are often marked by (though 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 . This suffix can only appear in the word-final position; i.e. it is omitted when a possessive suffix is present.Template:Clarify

Nominative plural

Finnish	English
	"The dogs were in the room"
	"The rooms were large"
	"I too saw the dogs"

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.

Following numerals

Finnish	English
	"there were two dogs in the room"
	"the house had three rooms"
	"I bought a computer for a thousand euros"
	"I need two pairs of shoes"

Inflected plural

This uses the stem of the partitive plural inflected with the same set of endings as for singular nouns. The suffix is , and it suppresses long vowels; it may only appear before another suffix.

Inflected plural

Finnish	English
→	'(some) rooms'
→	'in rooms'

As a combined example of plurals

Inflected plural

Finnish	English
	'the bird is in the tree'
→	'the birds are in the trees'

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:

Inflection of pronouns

Finnish	Case	Example	English
	nominative		'I'
	genitive		('my, mine')
			'this house is mine'
			'this is my house'
	accusative		's/he knows me'
	partitive		's/he loves me'
	inessive		'this provokes (lit. awakens) anger in me'
	elative		's/he was talking about/of me'. Also used idiomatically to mean 'in my opinion'.
	illative		's/he believed in me'
	adessive		'I've got some money' (lit.'On me there's money')
	ablative		's/he took some money from/off me'.
	allative		'give me some money'
	essive		'If I were you, I wouldn't do it' (lit. 'as you')
	translative		's/he is often mistaken for me'

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
fish								+ becomes when after , or .
corner								+ becomes when after or .
summer								+ becomes .
name								becomes at the end of a word; + becomes .
hall								+ becomes .
light								A stem with a labial vowel is invariable; plural becomes between vowels.
teddy bear								Invariable e-stems can be found in very recent coinages.
land, earth								A long vowel is shortened before the oblique plural .
road								Historical long mid vowels have been diphthongized, but the original vowel survives in shortened forms.

The change of original (pre-Proto-Finnic) final *e to means that the stem vowel of a word ending in cannot be determined from the nominative alone; one of the inflected forms must be consulted. However, most old inherited words ending in decline as e-stems (or consonants stems, see below), while modern loans, where frequently is added for phonotactic reasons (as in the case of ), 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 , employing the plural marker rather than /.

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
goat
wind						,
broth						,		m → n before t.
sound						,
bow						,

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
child						,		The first consonant in a cluster of three is lost: Cs + t → st.
knife
hand						,		ti becomes si. (Variation of t/d, nt/nn is regular and due to consonant gradation.)
nail
two								In addition to the previous changes, kt and ktt become ht/hd.

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 "bird cherry" may be (consonant stem) or (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. In Modern Finnish, only dental and alveolar consonants /l n r s t/) occur word-finally but previously words ending in /ʃ~ʂ h k m/ were possible as well.

English	stem	singular	sg. gen.	sg. part.	plural	pl. gen.	pl. part.	Notes
joint						,
core						,		m → n when word-final or before t.
perch						,
sister						,
beer								t disappears in vowel-stem forms due to consonant gradation.

Nouns ending in -s

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

-nen nouns

This is a very large class of words which includes common nouns (for example 'woman'), many proper names, and many common adjectives. Adding to a noun is a very productive mechanism for creating adjectives ( 'dirt, filth' → 'dirty'; 'joy' → 'merry, happy'; 'plastic' → 'made of plastic'/'plastic-like' ). It can also function as a diminutive ending.

The form behaves as if it ended in , with the exception of the nominative, where it is . Thus, the stem for these words removes the and adds after which the inflectional ending is added:

Finnish	English
	'in the plastic bag'
	'two plastic toys'
	'into the plastic box'

Here are some of the diminutive forms that are in use:

Finnish	Stemming from	English
		'a small hand' (affectionate)
		'birdie', 'a small bird'
		'lad'
		'booklet'
		'a little flower'
		'a little child'

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
		blacksmith (of a blacksmith's family)
		'deaf' (of a deaf man's family)
		'sorrowful, melancholic'; alternatively male name as short for Leonard
, , , ...	, , ,	'the family from by the stream (), river (), lake (), peninsula ()'
		[A family name assimilated from the name of the farmhouse, after the householder's name 'Mikko']
		possible origin , a South Karelian surnameTemplate:Source?
		from , originating to Germanic male name LydeckeTemplate:Source?

The suffix also occurs in place-names. Many place-names ending with assume a plural form when inflected. For instance, the illative of is instead of singular .

-e nouns

Most present-day -e nouns derive from older *-eh (<*-eš) or *-ek stems in which the consonant has been lost, which also explains why words in this class behave differently from the -i/-e class, which underwent word-final vowel raising in the nominative singular, such as *saare > saari ('island') but saaren, saarella, etc. ('island's', 'on the island'). Class -e word-final consonant does not survive in any form of the paradigm, although the existence of a consonant is still seen in that the nominative singular form (citation form) shows weak gradation, and strong grade vowel stem to which most case suffixes are applied.

E-stem words have an additional e in the inflected stem: 'family' (< *pereh via metathesis), but , so , , etc.; which represents the historical loss of a medial consonant.

	perhe			liike
Singular	Phase 1 *pereš(e-)	Phase 2 *pereh(e-)	Now	Phase 1 *liik'ek : *liikkege-	Phase 2 *liikeh : *liikkehe-	Now
nominative	*pereš	*pereh	perhe	*liik'ek	*liikeh	liike
genitive	*pereše-n	*perehe-n	perheen	*liikkeg-en	*liikkehe-n	liikkeen
illative	*pereše-sen	*perehe-se(he)n	perheeseen	*liikkege-sen	*liikkehe-se(he)n	liikkeeseen

However, in some dialects, the much older *-š and *-k stems have shifted to and instead, for instance in Pohjanmaa dialect *weneš > venes for standard vene ('boat') and *kastëk > kastet for standard kaste ('dew').

The partitive stem behaves yet differently due to a loss of word-medial -e- in some contexts before the change from *-k- to *-h- took place, in which the consonant has been assimilated to a before it occurred in the context for being lost. Other case endings are suffixed to the strong grade/vowel stem.

-e nouns

case	'room'	'device'
partitive sg.	'two rooms'	'two devices'

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
	'big'
	'small'
	'red'

And here are some examples of adjectives inflected to agree with nouns:

Finnish	English
	'in front of the big house'
	'two small houses'
	'in the red house'

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 to the inflecting stem. For example:

Finnish	English	Finnish	English
	'big'		'bigger'
	'small'		'smaller'
	'red'		'redder'

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 ending loses its final i. If the syllable context calls for a weak consonant, the becomes . Then is added before the actual case ending (or in plural). This should become clear with a few examples:

Finnish	English
	'in front of the bigger house'
	'two smaller houses'
	'in the redder house'
	'in the redder houses'

Superlative formation

The superlative of the adjective is formed by adding to the inflecting stem. For example:

Superlative formation

Finnish	English	Finnish	English
	'big'		'biggest'
	'red'		'reddest'

Note that because the superlative marker vowel is , the same kind of changes can occur with vowel stems as happen in verb imperfects, and noun inflecting plurals:

Finnish	English	Finnish	English
	'small'	(not *)	'smallest'

Since the superlative adjective is still an adjective, it must be inflected to agree with the noun it modifies. The becomes either or (plural or ) depending on whether the syllable context calls for a weak or strong consonant. Here are the examples:

Finnish	English
	'in front of the biggest house'
	'the two smallest houses'
	'in the reddest house'
	'in the reddest houses'

Irregular forms

The most important irregular form is:

Main irregular form

Finnish	English
	'good, better, best'

The form "good" is not found in standard Finnish, but can be found in the Southern Ostrobothnian dialect.

Notice also:

More irregular forms
Finnish	Hypothetic regular	English
		'long, longer, longest'
		'short, shorter, shortest' (although the standard forms are also used)

There are a small number of other irregular comparative and superlative forms, such as:

Finnish	English
	'new, newer, newest'

Where the inflecting stem is but the superlative is = 'newest'.

Adpositions

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:

Postpositions

Finnish	English
	'under the table'
	'after Christmas'
	'for the sake of the children'
	'on behalf of somebody'

The noun (or pronoun) can be omitted when there is a possessive suffix:

Finnish	English
	'(I) am next to (you)' or '(I) am by (your) side'

As with verbs, the pronoun cannot be omitted in the third person (singular or plural):

"I was with you"

but "I was with him/her"

"I will come with you (plural or polite)"

but "I will come with them"

Prepositions

There are few important prepositions in Finnish. In prepositional phrases the noun is always in the partitive:

Prepositions

Finnish	English
	before Christmas
	without you

Some postpositions can also be used as prepositions:

Postpositions as prepositions

Postposition	Preposition	English
		in the middle of the village

Using postpositions as prepositions is not strictly incorrect and occurs in poetry, as in, for example, the song "" "under a maple tree", instead the usual .

Verbs

Template:Sister project 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 = 'to be' has two irregular forms "is" and "are (pl.)"; other forms follow from the stem ; e.g. ← "you are", ← "let it be". A handful of verbs, including "to see", "to do/make", and "to run" have rare consonant mutation patterns which are not derivable from the infinitive. In spoken Finnish, some frequently used verbs () have irregular stems (, instead of ("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 , for example = '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.

• Present (nonpast): corresponds to English present and future tense forms. For the latter, a time qualifier may need to be used to avoid ambiguity. The present is formed with using the personal suffixes only. For example, "I take" (from , "to take").
• Imperfect: actually a preterite, but called "imperfect" for historical reasons; corresponds to English past continuous and past simple, indicating a past action which is complete but might have been a point event, a temporally extended event, or a repeated event. The imperfect is formed with the suffix in addition to the personal suffixes, e.g. "I took".
• Perfect: corresponds to the English present perfect ("I have eaten") in most of its usages, but can carry more sense than in English of a past action with present effects. The form uses the verb "to be" in the present tense as an auxiliary verb. Personal suffixes are added to the auxiliary, while the main verb is in the participle form. For example, "I have taken", where is the auxiliary verb stem, is the personal suffix for "I", is the stem for the main verb, and is the participle marker.
• Pluperfect: corresponds to the English past perfect ("I had visited") in its usage. Similarly to perfect, the verb is used in the past tense as an auxiliary verb. For example, "I had taken".

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 , 'to come', as it were as an auxiliary: 'This is going to be a problem', cf Swedish . Another, less common and now archaic, is to use the verb , 'to be', with the present passive participle of the main verb: '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: "we will arrest him" => passive: "he will be arrested".

Consider the example: "the house will be painted". The time when the house is being painted could be added: "the house will be painted in November". The colour and method could be added: "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, "by the action of", that can be used to introduce the agent: , 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: "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 raises the question "who asks?", whereas ("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 "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. ("we'll go to our place") and ("let us go to our place") are replaced by (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 "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 'we are going', but the colloquial form is . Without the personal pronoun , the passive alone replaces the first-person plural imperative, as in 'Let's go!'. In colloquial speech, the pronoun cannot be omitted without confusion, unlike when using the standard forms (indicative) and (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 .

• "In the sauna, one sweats"
• "If you arrive in good time, you get a better seat"

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:

= *"I would understand if you would speak more slowly".

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:

= 'I know', = 'I would know'.

= 'I want', = 'I would like'.

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: 'Would you like some coffee?'; 'May I have that red one?'; '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:

• 1st, 2nd or 3rd person
• singular or plural
• active or passive
• positive or negative

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 from the first-person-singular form):

Active, 2nd-person imperatives

Finnish	English
	'come!'
	'eat!'
	'note!'

To make this negative, (which is the active imperative singular 2nd person of the negative verb) is placed before the positive form:

Finnish	English
	'don't say!'
	'don't go!'
	'don't lie!' (from "to lie", type II)

To form the plural, add or to the verb's stem:

Finnish	English
	'come!'
	'drink!'
	'measure!' (from "to measure", type IV)

To make this negative, (which is the active imperative present plural 2nd person of the negative verb) is placed before the positive form and the suffix or is added to the verb stem:

Finnish	English
	'don't say!'
	'don't go!'
	'don't offer!'

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 or = '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, means "could you", in the polite plural, and is used much like English "Could you..." sentences: "could you help me, please?"

Also, familiar (and not necessarily so polite) expressions can be added to imperatives, e.g. , , . These are hard to translate exactly, but extensively used by Finnish speakers themselves. implies expectation, that is, it has been settled already and requires no discussion; has the which indicates insistence, and means approximated "indeed".

Passive imperatives

Passive imperatives

Finnish	English
	let (something) be done
	let (something) not be done
	let (something) have been done
	let (something) not have been done

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.

3rd-person imperatives

Finnish	English
	'let it (him, her) be'
	'let them do'
	'let him not forget', 'he'd better not forget'
	'let them not forget'

1st-person-plural imperatives

1st-person-plural imperatives

Finnish	English
	'let's go'
	'let us not do', 'we better not do'

The 1st-person imperative sounds archaic, and a form resembling the passive indicative is often used instead: = '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. Although it in principle has all forms, it is encountered mainly in the 2nd person singular forms -:os/-:ös (replacement of /k/ with the gemination of the previous consonant).

Optative

Finnish	English
	if only/that/would you were
	may you be greeted
	may you run
	may you use

Optatives are rare even in original archaic poems, and the forms used to express the optative are different from standard Finnish. An example of a true optative is ruvetkommas tappelohon "let's go and start fighting". However, when compiling the Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot tripled the number of optatives, by changing these dialectal forms in the original poems to the standard optative.

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 , inserted between the verb stem and the personal ending. Before this affix, continuants assimilate progressively ( → ) and stops regressively ( → ). The verb 'to be' in the potential has the special suppletive form , e.g. the potential of 'has been fetched' is 'may have been fetched'.

Potential forms exists for both active and passive voices, and for present tense and perfect:

Potential

Finnish	English
	I may be/it's possible that I am
	she may wash/she is [likely] to wash
	she may fix/she is [likely] to fix
	it is possible that they are mourning/will mourn
	it will probably be washed (by someone)
	you may have seen
	possibly may not have been given (by someone)

In some dialects ('may come') is an indicative form verb ( '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.

Eventive

Finnish	English
	'I probably would walk'

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 or , though sometimes there are modifications (which may be regarded as stem or ending modifications depending on personal preference).

Verb stem	Finnish infinitive	English infinitive
		to say
		to know
		to read

When the stem is itself a single syllable or is of two or more syllables ending in or , the suffix is or , respectively. (This represents the historically older form of the suffix, from which the has been lost in most environments.)

Verb stem	Finnish infinitive	English infinitive
		to bring
		to stay
		to vacuum
		to hesitate

If the stem ends in one of the consonants , , , then the final consonant is doubled before adding the infinitive or . In the case of a stem ending in the consonant , the infinitive ending gains the consonant , becoming or . (These consonant stems take a linking vowel when forming the present tense, or when forming the imperfect, e.g. 'to wash': 'I wash' : 'I washed'). Stems ending in , followed by a link vowel in the present or imperfect, drop the from the stem before adding the infinitive marker or .

Verb stem	Finnish infinitive	English infinitive
		to go
		to be
		to bite
		to wash
		to mention

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 or . These verbs drop the which is present in the present tense stem and replace it with in the first infinitive stem followed by the standard or first infinitive marker. The dropping to weakens a preceding , or 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 , or .

Inflected Finnish	English	Finnish infinitive	English infinitive	Note
	I am falling		to fall down	strong grade
	I fell down		to fall down	strong grade
	I have fallen down		to fall down	weak grade ( forces weak grade)
	they'll assemble		to assemble	strong grade
	we'll assemble		to assemble	strong grade ( does not cause weakness because is not a diphthong)

Some verbs lose elements of their stems when forming the first infinitive. Some verbs stem have contracted endings in the first infinitive. Stems ending / in the present/imperfect drop the and replace it with , and where applicable, trigger the weak grade in the infinitive stem. The contracted infinitive ending / have / verbs take the infinitive stem /. These contracted verbs may also be subject to consonant weakening when forming the infinitive

e.g. 'to mention' has the longer conjugated stem as in 'I'll mention tomorrow that...'

e.g. 'to flee' has the longer conjugated stem as in 'we fled from Afghanistan'

The first infinitive long form is the translative plus a possessive suffix (rare in spoken language).

Finnish	English
	'...(s/he) phoned in order to say...'
	(idiomatic) 'as far as we know'
	'in order for me to be able to read'

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 in place of the usual or as the infinitive marker. It is only ever used with one of two case makers; the inessive indicating time or the instructive 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 of the first infinitive with then adding the appropriate inflectional ending. If the vowel before the is already an , this becomes (see example from 'to read').

The cases in which the second infinitive can appear are:

Second infinitive

Finnish	English
Active inessive (while someone is in the act of)
	'when doing'
	'when saying'
Active inessive + possessive suffix (while themselves in the act of)
	'while he is/was reading'
	'while you are/were saying'
Passive inessive (when or while in the act of something being done)
	'when saying'
	'when doing'
	'when reading'
Active instructive (by means of/while in the act of)
	'by doing'
	'by saying'
	'by reading'
	'she came into the room crying'

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 ("when"). The instructive is even rarer and mostly exists nowadays in set phrases (for example = '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 phrase	English translation
		when I was in England, I went into many pubs
		when they were in England, they went into many pubs
		when Jaakko was in England, Laura went to Spain

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 followed by the case inflection.

The cases in which the third infinitive can appear are:

Case	Finnish	English
inessive		'(in the act of) reading'
	Example:	's/he's reading in the library'
elative		'(from just having been) reading'
illative		'(about to be / with the intention of) reading'
adessive		'(by) reading'
abessive		'(without) reading'

A rare and archaic form of the third infinitive which occurs with the verb :

Case	Finnish	English
instructive		'you must not read'

The third infinitive instructive is usually replaced with the first infinitive short form in modern Finnish.

Note that the form without a case ending is called the 'agent participle' (see #Participles 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 and indicates obligation, but it is quite rare in Finnish today. This is because there are other words like and that can convey this meaning.

For example

Fourth Infinitive

Finnish	English
	'There is no going there' i.e. 'One must not go there'

Though not an infinitive, a much more common 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.

noun formation

Finnish	English
	'reading is fun'
	'I hate reading'
	'I enjoy reading'

Fifth infinitive

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

Fifth infinitive

Finnish	English
	'I was just about to read'

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 ending and replacing it with (depending on vowel harmony)

Finnish	English
	'after you went home' [pass. II participle sg. ess. + poss. suffix]

Past active participle

Basically this is formed by removing the infinitive ending and adding (depending on vowel harmony) and in some cases , , . 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 , , or in the stem ending is assimilated to the consonant in the participle ending (as also happens in formation of the first infinitive, although stem endings take an extra 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 above.

In verbs of types IV, V and VI, the at the end of the stem is assimilated to the :

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 ending of the past passive is replaced with , which can be inflected in the same way as the present active participle. For example:

Infinitive	Past passive	Passive participle	English
			which is to be given
			which is to be eaten
			which is to be told

It is possible to translate this participle in several related ways e.g. '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
	Drinkable water
	Do you have anything to say?
	Is there anything to eat on the table? Or even, Is there anything edible on the table?

This participle can also be used in other ways. If used with the appropriate third-person singular form of the verb and with the subject in the genitive it can express necessity or obligation.

'I must leave'

'They would have to go'

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.

'Is Pekka available?'/'Is Pekka able to be met with?'

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:

Present active participle

Finnish	English
	'sleeping dog'
	'blinding light'
	'I pretended to be reading' [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, "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: – "of man's making", or "book of my writing". For example:

Agent participle

Finnish	English
	the book read by the girl
	(partitive) the book read by the girl
	in the book read by the girl
etc.

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: "tomorrow, as the instrument you will be using is...". Here, "that which is used" describes, i.e. is an attribute to "instrument". (Notice the case agreement between and .) The suffix "your" specifies the person "owning" the action, i.e. who does it, thus is "that which was used by you(pl.)", and is "as that which was used by you".

It is also possible to give the actor with a pronoun, e.g. "that which was used by you". In standard language, the pronoun "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. .

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.

Present indicative

Finnish	English		Finnish	English
Singular
	'I know'	→		'I don't know'
	'you know'	→		'you don't know'
	'(s)he knows'	→		'(s)he doesn't know'
Plural
	'we know'	→		'we don't know'
	'you know'	→		'you don't know'
	'they know'	→		'they don't know'

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" and the present passive with the final removed:

Finnish	English
	'it is not spoken'
	'it is not known'

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 the pattern is:

Imperfect indicative

Finnish	English
Singular
	'I did not speak'
	'you did not speak'
	'(s/he) did not speak'
Plural
	'we did not speak'
	'you did not speak'
	'they did not speak'

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: = '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):

Imperfect passive

Finnish	English
	'it was not spoken'
	'it was not known'

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
	'we did not go'

Adverbs

A very common way of forming adverbs is by adding the ending to the inflecting form of the corresponding adjective:

Adverbs

Finnish	English
	'quick, quickly'
	'beautiful, beautifully'
	'slow, slowly'
	'easy, easily'

Adverbs modify verbs, not nouns, therefore they do not inflect. adverbs are not used to modify adjectives (such as to express degree) like 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 .

Comparative formation

Finnish	English
	'quick, quickly, more quickly/faster'
	'beautiful, beautifully, more beautifully'
	'slow, slowly, more slowly'
	'easy, easily, more easily'

Superlative formation

The superlative form of the adverb has the ending .

Superlative formation

Finnish	English
	'easy, easily, more easily, most easily'

Because of the , the stem vowel can change, similarly to superlative adjectives, or to avoid runs of three vowels:

Finnish	English
	'quick, quickly, more quickly/faster, fastest'
	'beautiful, beautifully, more beautifully, most beautifully'
	'slow, slowly, more slowly, most slowly'

Irregular forms

There are a number of irregular adverbs, including:

Irregular forms

Finnish	English
	'good, well, better, best'

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.

Cardinal numbers and key inflected forms

Number	Nominative	Genitive	Partitive	Illative
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7			(*)
8
9
10

(*) sometimes (alternative form)

In colloquial spoken Finnish, the numerals usually appear in contracted forms.

To form teens, is added to the base number. is the partitive form of , meaning here "second group of ten". Hyphens are written here to separate morphemes. In Finnish text, hyphens are not written.

• , , ...

"one of the second, two of the second, ... nine of the second"

11, 12, ... 19

In older Finnish, until about the early 20th Century, the same pattern was used up to one hundred: 'thirty-three'.

Sentence structure

Word order

Since Finnish is an agglutinative 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
	'the dog bit the man'	we are talking of the dog and what it did
	'the man was bitten by a/the dog'	we are talking about the man and what it was that bit him, e.g. not a snake
	'it was a dog that bit the man'	we are confirming that it was a/the dog that bit the man, not some other animal

Here ('dog') is in the nominative form but ('man') is marked as object by the case marked form . 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
	'I have money'	a bald statement of fact
	'money is something I do have'	although I may not have something else
	'The money is with me'	I am telling you where the money is
	'I've definitely got (the) money'	I am confirming that I do have (the) money
	'Yes, I do have (the) money'	if having money has been questioned

here is the word (I) in a case form ending which when used with the verb (to be, expressed here in the form ) expresses ownership. This is because Finnish does not have a verb form equivalent of the English word 'have'. is not considered the subject.

And finally, a classic example:

Finnish	Translation
	'I am the state' (matter-of-fact)
	'' (French – attributed to Louis XIV)

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
	'there is a bed in the room'

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
	'(in/out) there stood a man'

Forming questions

There are two main ways of forming a question – either using a specific question word, or by adding a 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:

Interrogatives (questions)

Finnish	English
	'what is this?'
	'this is a book'
	'is this a book?'
	'is this a book?'
	'is this a book?'
	'is this not a book?' (note the 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. 'in which town do you live?') will have an answer that is also in the inessive (e.g. '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.

Interrogatives (questions)

Finnish	English
	'which way are they headed?'
	'towards Helsinki'
	'have you got the key?'
/	'yes'/'no' (lit. 'is'/'is not' in possession)
	'are you guys going to the movies?'
/	'yes'/'no' (lit. 'we are going'/'we are not going')
	'Are you intending to go off without a hat?'
	'Yes' (lit. 'I intend')

The words and 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, may even simply mean that the sentence was heard, not expressing any sort of concurrence. The same problem occurs with the colloquial "yeah".)

Kyllä and Niin

Finnish	English
(question)	'Are you intending to go off without a hat?'
	'Yes, I sure am' (Strong affirmation. I really do intend to go bareheaded)
(statement)	'it is foolish to go out in wintertime without a hat'
	'Yes indeed' (I agree with your statement)

The word is the negative verb form and has to be inflected for person and the verb itself is usually present, though not always.

'can you (speak) German?'

('no'; lit. 'I don't')

or better

('I can't')

See also

• Finnish
• Finnish phonology
• Finnish numerals
• Iso suomen kielioppi