Venla

|Consonant |Copula |Diphtong |Elative case |Focus |Future tense |Genitive |Gender |Head |Illative case |Inessive case |Inflection |Intonation |Morpheme |Negation |Nominative case |Noun |Numeral |Object |Partitive case |Perfect |Phoneme |Possesive suffix |Prefix |Preposition |Pronoun |Question |Root |Sentence |Singular |Stem |Subject |Suffix |Translative case |Verb |Vowel |Wh-question|

Glossary

Here's a small glossary of linguistic terms in alphabetical order. Terms are also linked to a certain article wich give further infrormation.

Abessive case

Abessive case is a case that expresses the lack or absence of the referent of the noun it marks. It has the meaning of the English preposition without.

The term abessive case is used especially in studies of Finno-Ugric grammar. Its synonym caritive case is used in the description of some other languages, notably Caucasian ones.

Abessive case is marked with -tta-ending.

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Ablative case

Ablative case is a case that expresses a variety of meanings including: location, source,(direction), and time.

Ablative case is marked with -lta-ending.

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Accusative case

Accusative case is the case in nominative-accusative languages that marks certain syntactic functions, usually direct objects.

Usually, Finnish grammar don't mention accusative, because it looks like genitive or nominative. Only personal pronouns has their own separated accusative forms.

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Adjective

An adjective is a word that belongs to a class whose members modify nouns. An adjective specifies the properties or attributes of a noun referent.

Affix

An affix is a bound morpheme that is joined before, after, or within a root or stem.

Agreement

Agreement refers to a formal relationship between elements whereby a form of one word requires a corresponding form of another.

Eg. Subjects and verbs must correspond to one another in number: Me syömme puuroa.

Allative case

Allative case is a case that expresses motion to or toward the referent of the noun it marks.

It ends with -lle

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Case

Case is a grammatical category determined by the syntactic or semantic function of a noun or pronoun.

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Conjuction

A conjunction is a word that

  1. syntactically links words or larger constituents
  2. expresses a semantic relationship between them.

A conjunction is positionally fixed relative to one or more of the elements related by it, thus distinguishing it from constituents such as English conjunctive adverbs.

Eg. mutta (but), tai (or) ja (and)

Consonant

A consonant is a sound made by a partial or complete closure of the vocal tract.

The consonants used in Finnish are: d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v. More...

Diphtong

A diphthong is a phonetic sequence, consisting of a vowel and a glide. In many Indo-European languages that is interpreted as a single vowel, in Finnish usually as a combination.

Diphtongs in Finnish are: ai, ei, oi, ui, yi, äi , öi, au, eu, iu, ou, äy, öy, ie, uo, yöMore...

Elative case

Elative case is a case expressing motion out of or away from the referent of the noun it marks.

It ends with -sta.

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Essive case

Essive case is a case that expresses the temporary state of the referent specified by a noun.

The case has the meaning of

  1. while
  2. in the capacity of
  3. beeing something
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Finite verb

A finite verb is a verb form that

  1. occurs in an independent clause, and
  2. is fully inflected according to the inflectional categories marked on verbs in the language.

Focus

Focus is a term that refers to information, in a sentence, that

  1. is new
  2. is of high communicative interest
  3. is marked by stress
  4. typically occurs late in the sentence,
  5. complements the presupposed information typically presented early in the sentence

Future tense

Future tense is an absolute tense that refers to a time after the moment of utterance.

In Finnish, there is no real future tense, but present tense is used in this function.

Genitive

Genitive case is a case in which the referent of the marked noun is the possessor of the referent of another noun. In Finnish , genitive has many functions, like marking the object.

Head of a phrase

The head of a phrase is the element that determines the syntactic function of the whole phrase.

Illative case

Illative case is a case that expresses motion into or direction toward the referent of the noun it marks.

Eg. Taloon (into the house)

Inessive case

Inessive case is a case that expresses a location within the referent of the noun it marks.

talossa (in the house)

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Inflection

Inflection is variation in the form of a word, typically by means of an affix, that expresses a grammatical contrast which is obligatory for the stem’s word class in some given grammatical context.

The main verb of an English sentence must be inflected for subject and tense:

In Finnish, there is lot of inflection. Verbs inflect in person, number, tense and mood ( these patterns are often called paradigms).

Imperative mood

Imperative mood is mood that signals directive modality, especially in commands. Its use may be extended to signal permission.

Intonation

Intonation is the system of levels (rising and falling) and variations in pitch sequences within speech.

Locative case

Locative case is a case that expresses location at the referent of the noun it marks. In Finnish there is six locative cases:

  1. inessive: talossa
  2. elative: talosta
  3. illative: taloon
  4. adessive: talolla
  5. ablative: talolta
  6. allative: talolle
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Modifier

A modifier is a constituent, in an endocentric construction, that imparts information relating to the head of the construction.

Eg. In the construction the very hot soup, the constituents the and very hot are modifiers of soup, the head of the construction.

Morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of a language.

There is lexical morphemes, like talo (a house), and grammatical morphemes, like enging -ssa; talossa (in the house).

Negation

Negation is

  1. A morphosyntactic operation in which a lexical item denies or inverts the meaning of another lexical item or construction. The negators are for example affixes like: epä-, anti-, -ton.
  2. A syntactic operation, in wich negator denies or inverts the meaning of affirmative sentence. In Finnish there is a negation verb, ei. It inflects in person and number.

Nominative case

Nominative case is the case that identifies clause subjects in nominative-accusative languages. The nouns you find in dictionary, are in nominative case.

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Noun

A noun is a member of a syntactic class

  1. that includes words which refer to people, places, things, ideas, or concepts
  2. whose members may act as any of the following: subjects of the verb, objects of the verb, indirect object of the verb, or object of a preposition (or postposition).
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Numeral

A numeral is a word, functioning most typically as an adjective or pronoun, that expresses a number, and relation to the number, such as sequence.

Object

Here are two senses for object:

  1. An object, traditionally defined, is either a direct object or an indirect object.
  2. An object, in some usages, is any grammatical relation other than subject.

Partitive case

Partitive case is a case that expresses the partial nature of the referent of the noun it marks, as opposed to expressing the whole unit or class of which the referent is a part.

This case may be found in items such as the following:

  1. Existential clauses
  2. Nouns that are accompanied by numerals or units of measure
  3. Predications of material from which something is made.

It is marked by -a/-ta ending. It often has a meaning similar to the English word some.

Perfect

A perfect is a grammaticalization of the current relevance, at the moment of utterance, of an event or state that occurred prior to the moment of utterance.

Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language.

The phonemes in Finnish are: a, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, v, y, ä, ö, ŋ and ?.More...

Possesive suffix

Prefix

A prefix is an affix that is joined before a root or stem.

Preposition

Pronoun

Question

Root

Sentence

Singular

Stem

Subject

A subject is a grammatical relation that exhibits certain independent syntactic properties, such as the following:

  1. The grammatical characteristics of the agent of typically transitive verbs
  2. The grammatical characteristics of the single argument of intransitive verbs
  3. A particular case marking or clause position
  4. The conditioning of an agreement affix on the verb

Suffix

Translative case

Verb

Vowel

Wh-question