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The Finnish Case System

This overview of the Finnish case system emphasizes the location cases, including inessive, elative, illative, abessive, and others. It distinguishes between internal and external location cases, which, while semantically different, maintain the same syntactic functions. The Finnish language features fifteen cases, including nominative, genitive, and accusative, each fulfilling specific grammatical roles such as subject or object. Additionally, the handling of marginal cases, such as essive and comitative, reflects nuances in expressing states and relationships.

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The Finnish Case System

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  1. The Finnish Case System Steven Ellis

  2. Location cases • These cases function as prepositions • (inesseive, elative, illative, adessive, ablative, allative) • Divided into internal and external location cases • Distinction is purely semantic, both function the same syntactically • Nouns using these cases check case against the DP position of the PP in which they are embedded

  3. Location Case Example • Viisitoista sijamuotoa on suomen kielessä • Fifteen cases are Finnish language+in(inessive) • ”There are 15 cases in the Finnish language.” • Or, more literally – ”Fifteen cases are in the Finnish language.”

  4. CP C` TP C Ø T’ DP T tj VP D’ V` D Ø NP V On +nonpast PP N` AdjP N P` Sijamuotoa cases +NOM DP P Adj` ti Adj D` Viisitoista Fifteen Affix lowering in action! P->N D Ø NP N` AdjP N kiele+ssai Language+in +INESS Adj` Adj Suomen Finnish

  5. Grammatical Cases • Nominative, genitive, accusative • Function same as English equivalents • Denote subject, possessive, direct object

  6. Grammatical Cases (cont.) • Partitive • Indicates an ongoing process or incomplete action • Ex. “Luenkirjan(part.)” – I am reading a book • Vs. “Luenkirjaa(acc.)” – I (will) read a book • Also used in weather reports

  7. CP C` TP C Ø T’ DP Ø VP T Ti+Tj V Luen+nonpast DP D` NP D Ø N` N Kirja+n +PARTITIVE (Progressive tense)

  8. Marginal cases (En usko, että he eivät voita.) • Essive • Carries the meaning of a temporary state of being • “As a child, I was short.” • ”Lapsena olin lyhyt.” • Abessive • Means “without” • Translative • Indicates a change of state • Naapurinitulirikkaaksi

  9. Marginal Cases (cont.) • Comitative • Means “in company with” • Instructive • Assigns an instrumental thematic relation to the noun

  10. Case Checking • Certain prepositions require a particular case • Olen Suomessamarraskuuhunasti. • “I’ll be in Finland until November” • Until requires illative (normally used as the preposition to) • Certain verbs require the complement to be of a specific case • Ex. “YstäväniasuuHelsingissä.” • Friend resides Helsinki+inessive(in) • “My friend resides in Helsinki.”

  11. CP C` TP C Ø T’ DP T Ø VP D’ V` D Ø NP PP V asuu +INESSIVE N` N P` Ystäväni DP P ti D` NP D Ø N` AdjP N Helsingi+ssai +INESSIVE Adj` Adj

  12. Onko sinulla kysymyksiä?

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