A Finnish Grammar — Charles Eliot
A FINNISH GRAMMAR. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : A Finnish Grammar Author : Charles Eliot Release date : June 23, 2019 [eBook #59795] Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59795 Credits : Produced by Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net *** START OF C. A FINNISH GRAMMAR BY C. N. E. ELIOT, M.A. FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1890 [ All rights reserved ] Oxford PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE. My object in writing this book has been to give an account of Finnish sufficient to enable any one to understand the grammatical structure of the written language, and also to place before the student of philology an account of the chief phenomena it presents. In this latter respect I am conscious that my treatment is very inadequate on account of my inability to make myself acquainted with the many dialects spoken by the peasantry in various parts, the importance of which for the scientific history of the language cannot be overrated. I trust, however, that I may meet with indulgence, as the present work is, to the best of my belief, the only grammar of Finnish in English, and the only syntax (except brief sketches) in any language more generally accessible than Swedish. The Finnish language is still in so unsettled and fluid a condition, as regards both forms and style, that it is often hard to say what is correct and what not. A foreigner naturally cannot venture to decide what ought or ought not to be, and I have merely endeavoured to give an account of the forms and constructions found in existence. The examples are taken chiefly from the Kalevala and Bible (which are generally cited by references), from the Suomen Kansan Sananlaskuja of Ahlqwist, from various modern works, and some from the dictionaries of Lönnrot and Geitlin. The remainder have all been approved by natives, and will, hence, I trust, be found idiomatic. I must acknowledge my obligations to the grammars of Genetz and Hämäläinen, to the Finska Språkets Satslära of Jahnsson, and especially to the excellent Suomen Kielen Lauseoppi of Setälä. But more than to all of these I am indebted to the constant assistance and collaboration of my friend Mr. Putro of the Finnish School in St. Petersburg, to whose thorough knowledge of the language this work owes whatever accuracy it may possess. I have also to thank Mr. J. Marshall for several philological suggestions. C. N. E. ELIOT. March 20, 1890. HÄNEN KUNINKAALLISEN MAJESTETINSA LÄHETTILÄÄLLE PIETARISSA HÄNEN YLHÄISYYDELLENSÄ SIR R. MORIERILLE KUNNIOITUKSELLA OMISTAA TEKIJÄ INTRODUCTION. In this book I have endeavoured to give a simple and clear account of the Finnish language, chiefly of that form of it which is now recognised as the ordinary vehicle of literary composition, and have thought it better to set aside as far as possible scientific disquisitions. I now proceed to briefly discuss from a purely theoretical point of view some of the phenomena presented by this curious tongue, in doing which I must express my special obligations to the various works of Professors Donner and Setälä, and also to the account of Die Sprachen der Uralischen Völker in the second volume of Dr. Friedrich Müller’s Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft. The phonetic system of Finnish is characterized by a great paucity of consonants and a correspondingly great development of vowels. The alphabet has but thirteen of the former: d , g , h , j , k , l , m , n , p , r , s , t , v . Of these it must be observed that d is in modern times only a literary invention, though as it exists in Esthonian and other cognate languages there is no reason to object to its use. It always represents a t which has been weakened by phonetic laws, but in the mouths of the peasantry the sound is either entirely omitted, or else replaced by a cerebral letter (represented in writing by l or r ) or by v or j . G also is only found in the combination ng , which has exactly the same sound as in English. The letter h is apparently never original in the middle of words. It appears to me to have really two sounds—as an initial or between vowels, it is simply the English h , but before t and k , it is χ . The other consonants offer no remarkable peculiarities; v appears to be pronounced as in English (labio-dental), and not to be a labio-labial (modern Greek β). The simple consonants are pronounced much more lightly than in English. T and k in the middle of a word when pronounced naturally by a native, who is not trying to speak distinctly to a foreigner, often seem almost inaudible, and it is noticeable that in foreign words, with which the language is overrun, German and Swedish k , t , p (when not initial) are always represented by kk , tt , pp . It is highly probable that Finnish (like Esthonian) once had the sounds b , d , g . In Agricola are found such forms as näghe for näe , virdhat for virrat . On the other hand, everything points to the fact that the original tongue from which the Finno-Ugric languages were developed had only ten or eleven consonants: k , t , p , s , j , r , l , n , m , v , and perhaps h or χ . For the many curious sounds found in Lapp, Syrjenian, Ostiak, etc., all look as if they were degenerations from a simpler original. Finnish has eight simple vowels: a , ä , e , i , o , ö , u , y ( ü ). All of these can be either short, or long, and in the latter case the letter is written double. These doubled letters appear to be genuine long vowels, and to contain no diphthongal element. There are no triphthongs, but sixteen diphthongs, though on the whole Finnish has more simple vowels than other lan