NB: This is a draft. In the future, it will over the next few weeks be edited to a more proper form with good glosses and stuff. I threw this out here just for the sake of
An obvious topic to cover at some point in a blog like this is the Finnish case system. Finnish is a language with more than a dozen distinct cases, but the case system is often "sold short" in conlanging circles as only being something of a rich system of locative markers.
I will here go into some detail on each case - except the partitive, which I have covered previously in a post that I've since realized was partially incomplete.
First, a tricky observation: mostly, the Finnish cases are fairly regularly formed, and there's little syncretism between cases. However, for the nominative and accusative, and the accusative and the genitive, there exists a fairly complicated and regular syncretism.
In addition, Finnish has a rich set of marginal cases: case forms that only occur for some subset of the lexicon and case forms that don't fulfill all the syntactical requirements for cases (mainly congruence being amiss).
A final caveat before getting into it is that this is not a complete list - neither of case usage or of (potential, marginal) cases, nor of relevant pieces of syntactic evidence.
Nominative, Accusative and Genitive
The simplest bit first. In the plural, the nominative and the accusative are conflated. "-t" is the name of the game. Houses are "talot" regardless if they're tall or someone sells them.
Slightly more complicated are the personal pronouns and kuka (who). For these, the nominative is the root, and the accusative is formed much like the plural nominative. Thus, "minä" = I, "kuka" = who, "minut" = me, "kenet" = whom. There is, however, a complication to this as well once congruence hits.
Now, for the first tricky bit - singular nouns. In Finnish, the singular accusative for nouns does not have a unique form. It's either identical to the nominative or the genitive - the reason why it's considered a separate case has to do with a) its unique form in the pronouns, b) syntactical reasons, c) historical reasons. The "either" is not lexically determined either: every noun has both as realizations of the accusative.
Historically, the singular accusative had a dedicated suffix, -m, but m# > n# is a change that has conflated it with the singular genitive.
In regular transitive verb phrases - even when the subject is pro-dropped - the genitive is used. If the (possibly pro-dropped or absent) subject is non-nominative, if the verb is imperative, or the verb is passive - the nominative is the realization of the accusative. For infinitives that are not at the core of the main VP, there is some variation between speakers, regions and decades. As a semi-native speaker, that particular part of variation causes me some light awkwardness, as I always feel like I use the wrong case no matter which case I use.
The second tricky bit: adjective congruence for the -t-case on singular pronouns triggers genitive marking on the adjective, which feeds back onto the pronoun:
kene-t näitte = who did you see?
kene-n oudo-n näitte = who strange did you see
Finally, cardinal numerals conflate the nominative and accusative, and take the noun (and adjectives) in the singular partitive.
The nominative-accusative conflation in some positions seems to be both very old and very recent in Finnish, depending on the context: there's reasons to think the passive until fairly recently took a subject (rather than an object), and thus there was no nom-acc conflation in that position. The imperative seems to have had nominative objects since forever. The rule as stated in one of the articles I consulted for this was "the (singular) accusative is realized as the genitive if there is no properly licensed subject". Licensed subjects
Case usages: nominative, accusative
Beside the oddness of the nominative-genitive switching rule, the accusative does not have a great many complications: it is used to express telic, positive direct objects (80% of objects are marked by the partitive), it is used for time-spans as well, and there basically obeys the same rules for case selection as when a direct object - except it ignores the telicity and negativity checks.
The nominative is used for most subjects, for some objects - as stated above -,as the object of two adpositions ("sitten" and "mukaan lukien"), and for some kind of detached semi-subject like thing:
mies juoksi kädet ilmassa = the man ran (with his) hands in the air.
Beyond this, it also is used as a vocative, and in apposition with nouns in any case:
kapteeni Miettisellä = captain(nom) Miettinen(allative) - by/at captain Miettinen
It can also be the case of complements of the copula.
The Partitive
I have described the partitive here.
The genitive
Besides marking possessors or nouns associated with nouns, the genitive also marks:
- The object of a large number of adpositions.
- The subject of many infinitives.
- The subject of certain modal auxiliaries.
- In a few constructions, something not quite unlike a recipient or benefactive.
- The subordinate agent of certain causative constructions - there is, however, a differential case thing going on for some of those constructions.
- The possessor or a noun associated in some way with the head noun of the phrase.
- The number of years when expressing age: hän on kuuden (he is six's - he is six).
- Adverbs formed from adjectives when standing as attributes of adjectives or adverbs.
- Adverbials specifying quantities of subject or object (sort of like an object)
- Very commonly as the left parts of compounds.
The six locative cases
There are six cases that form a "rectangular" system, the product of {(in), (at or on)} and {to, at, from}. The system even has a (mostly) regular structure to it:
-s- : internal case
-l- : external case
-:e : direction
-:a : location
-ta : "hincal" direction (from the latin for 'away')
There is one exception to the regularity: -sse is not the realization of -s- and -:e, which instead is a bit more irregular, and close to something along the line of -(h|s)Vn, with some complications even there.
For reference, here's two nouns in all six forms, with the exceptional form highlighted:
kylä -> kylään, kylässä, kylästä, kylälle, kylällä, kylältä
meri -> mereen, meressä, merestä, merelle, merellä, mereltä
If all these did were express combinations of "outer location" or "inner location" and either directions or locations with regards to that, this would be kinda boring.
Regarding local case (and adpositions!) many conlangers are fairly simplistic about this, and would maybe say "-llä = on" or something like that. It turns out that even for locative uses, this does not always hold. In English, a painting hangs on the wall. In Finnish, it hangs in the wall. Many other small deviations exist between the two languages. And we can go further and find all the various non-locative uses of -lla and "on" to be quite different.
Most of these cases have secondary uses beyond the locative meaning.
1. -hVn - (in(to), (in)to)
I actually cannot think of any non-locative use of this one, so that's not a very promising start. End-points of stretches of time also are marked with this, but those are marginally locative.
2. -ssA - (in(side of))
Sometimes, being full of something or covered with something or having something can take this case.
Naama on vere-ssä: face is blood-in 'the face is covered with blood'
Kone on hyvi-ssä öljyi-ssä: engine is in good oils - the engine has good oils in it
With inanimate subjects, "X has Y" sometimes uses this case. "Talossa on uusi katto" - the house has a new roof. Whether to think of this as "there are X in the house" or "the house has X" is not always entirely clear, but in more abstract cases the literal locative meaning seems really weird.
Topics of discussion can also be in this case: "Talon ostamisessa on tärkeä ..." 'when buying a house/as for the act of buying a house, it is important to ...'
3. -stA - (out of)
-stA is often used to express who turns into something or is turned into something.
Tehtiin myyjä sinu-sta-kin = we made a salesman out of you too
(-kin is not a case, it's just a clitic)
It can also express the source material out of which something is made:
tämä hotelli on rakennettu lume-sta = this hotel is made out of snow
he was one of us
The object of "tykkää": "hän tykkää kori-sta": (s)he likes dogs
Complements of some nouns and verbs:
kysymys suomen historiasta
question finland-gen history-elative
a question about the history of Finland
4. -lle (to, onto)
This is also used as a recipient even when no physical object changes hands. It can also mark qualities of perception, basically everything I write about perception at -ltA further down can also be expressed with -lle. When lifting a glass to someone's or something's honour, this case would also be used:
Annoin luvan joukkuee-lle. I gave the team permission.
5. -llA (by, at, on)
-llA
also is the most common way of marking instrumentals. This is also
common on certain infinitives to express an action by means of which
something has been achieved.
Soittamalla kaksi tuntia päivässä hänestä tuli valtavan hyvä kitaristi.
By playing two hours a day he became a very good guitarist
Finally, the Finnish equivalent of "X has Y" uses "by X is Y", and this is the case that marks X. "Minulla on kirja" -> By me is book -> I have a book.
6. -ltA: (from, off, (out of))
-ltA also marks non-physical directions.
Kuulin sen Eeva-lta: I hear it from Eeva.
It can mark what something gives a perception of. "This smells of/like coffee", "This looks like shit", "This seems nice", "This appears to be antique silk" would all use this. Notice that the case thus can be used on adjectives with no noun - not even an implicit noun. This is a way of using case that I've seen some conlangers deny is even possible.
Tämä tuoksuu kahvi-lta
Tämä näyttää paska-lta
Tämä vaikuttaa kiva-lta
Tämä näyttää antiikilta silkiltä
The two (+ marginally one) role cases
Both (possibly all three) of these can refer to the role (or role transition) of the subject or the object or sometimes even an unstated argument.
The essive
-na marks a role, but also has locative and temporal uses.
Lapsena tykkäsin tosi paljon salmiakkijäätelöstä.
Child-essive liked-I very much salmiac icecream-of
as a child, I liked salmiac icecream very much
Lääkäri-nä on pakko olla tarkka
Doctor-essive is necessary be careful
As a doctor, it is necessary to be careful
Joulu-na aurinko laskee aikaisin
during Christmas, sun sets early
Erkki piti Ahvenanmaata suomen kauneimpa-na maakunta-na
Erkki held Åland-obj Finland's beautiful-est-essive landscape-essive
Errki held Åland to be Finland's most beautiful landscape
This can be a complement of verbs that mark continuing to be something, finding something (or oneself) to be something, considering something to be something.
Several adverbs conserve a locative use: alhaana (low), ulkona (outside), kaukana (far off), kotona (at home), takana (behind). It is also part of several locative postpositions.
The essive also sometimes has an alternative form that does express some
light "poetic" emotion: lasna instead of lapsena, rauhatonna instead of
rauhattomana, miessä~miesnä instead of miehenä. Lasna is the only one I have ever heard in "normal" use, "murheisna miesnä" in some songs, etc (instead of "murheisena miehenä").
The translative
-ksi marks the role into which a change is spoken of.
Much like -stA can mark what turns into something, this can mark what someone or something turns into, or sometimes what something is claimed to be:
Hän eli vanhaksi (he lived old-trnsl: he lived (till he became) old
Metsä muuttui pelloksi: the forest turned into a field
As mentioned, it can be the object undergoing the change:
Uskonto muutti hänet hirviöstä enkeliksi
Religion changed him monster-from angel-(to role of)
Religion changed him from a monster into an angel
And there's no need for a change in some constructions:
Hänet väitetään fiksu-ksi
Him claim-passive clever-into role of
He is claimed to be clever
Naisia aina kuvaillaan kaunei-ksi mediassa
Women always portrayed beautiful-[trnsl] in media
Women are always portrayed as beautiful in media
Intuitively, the more "active" a lexeme expressing statement about or evaluation of someone is, the more likely the -ksi case is used rather than -ltA for this type of information. It is lexically bound, however.
A time during which some intent is held can be marked by this case:
Jouluksi mennään mummola-an: for christmas, we're going to grandma's place
This can be past or future.
It is sometimes used in combination with the elative to signal someone's (un)suitability to be something:
häne-stä ei ol-isi lääkär-iksi
from him would not be doctor-(into role of)
he is not be suitable to be a doctor
The exessive
-nta apparently exists in some dialects and marks the role something is changing out of.
The abessive
Simply marks absence. Popular with infinitives:
nukkumatta - without sleeping
syyttä - without cause
Except for the use with infinitives, it's fairly unusual except for some fossilized expressions.
The instructive
The instructive is an instrumental case, now mostly used in a rather large set of fossilized expressions and productively with infinitives. Very few singular forms exist in the fossilized expressions. It is partially identical to the genitive, e.g. "jalan" (by foot, the foot's) but "jaloin" (by feet) / "jalkojen" (of the feet).
paljain jaloin - bare-footed(ly)
juosten - running(ly)
The -sti adverbial suffix is replaced by the instructive in the comparative and superlative. For a few adverbs, the instructive is used in the regular formation as well, and sometimes there is a lexicalized difference (e.g. "kovin" and "kovasti", altho' a slight difference in meaning exists). -sti is also replaced when the adverb modifies something other than a finite VP.
The comitative
The comitative expresses company. It conflates singular and plural into a form that has the plural marker. The noun always takes a possessive suffix.
Hän saapu-i kaune-i-ne vaimo-i-ne-en.
He arrive-d beautiful-s-with wife-s-with-his
He arrived with his beautiful wife (could also mean wives)
It is fairly unusual, but holds on to life.
Properly Marginal Cases
The Adverb marker / Multiplicative
-sti can be applied to almost any adjective to form an adverb, much like English -ly. However, in the comparative and superlative, the instructive is used instead.
As for prevalence, it is far from marginal - but as for caselikeness, it is marginal. Very few uses with it on nouns are attested (e.g. "leikisti" - from "game" or "play" to mean "not really") and they cannot take adjectives using the same case.)
It can also go on digits (but not on larger numbers) to express the number of times something has occurred.
Marginal locative cases in pronouns
In the demonstratives, interrogatives, some quantifiers, etc, there are several subcases that are related to the regular cases. These are sometimes called delative, sublative and superessive.
"Tämä" has the following forms, the marginal locatives in bold:
tältä tällä tältä
tänne täällä täältä
The lative
The lative has the suffix -s, and is common in a number of lexicalized adverbs: ulos, ylös, alas, tännemmäs, takas. It is unclear to me whether this form is used productively on nouns in any dialects and whether it has any secondary uses.
With the comparative suffix on nouns this is semi-productive, and then communicates "closer to x" - rannemmas - closer to the beach, tännemmäs - closer to here. In this construction, it is in free variation with -ksi.
The -nkaa comitative
Regionally, and much like in Estonian, "-n kanssa" (genitive + with) has been reduced to a suffix. At least in southwestern Finland, this can also signify instrumentals.
Tulin auto-nkaa - I came by car.
Oltiin Jessenkaa - we were with Jesse.
An adjective attribute takes genitive congruence, not -nkaa.
Finnish has a multitude of ways of expressing comitative sentiments: kera, kanssa, -nkaa, the comitative case, sometimes even just the nominative (as in the "kädet ilmassa" example at the nominative subsection).
Perlative (-tse)
Normally, "through" is expressed by the adpositions läpi and kautta. I will summarize the differences between these two towards the end of this subsection.
-tse can be used to express "through", but this is somewhat lexicalized, and seldom permits case congruence on the adjective. "Pitkitse kirjeitse" - through long letters - is apparently attested, though.
"Läpi" normally expresses passing through something that is not trivial to pass through: a solid surface, a test, a net, the border guards with three pounds of cocaine in your trunk, university. "Läpi" can also express a time span in a similar fashion to English "throughout".
"Kautta", rather, signifies something about the route taken. The route can also be abstract - "tämän menetelmän kautta" "through this process" - but the focus is not so much on the result of using a process as on the thought of a route through something. Due to influence from English and Swedish, however, a more instrumental usage may be gaining ground.
Causative
Has the ending -ten. Mostly appears with pronouns: miten (how), täten (in this manner), but also goes on some quantifiers: useimmiten (mostly), parhaiten (the best). I would almost see this as a special version of the instructive, but some pronouns have distinctions: useimmin (most often), useimmiten (mostly). Subtle difference, but it is there.
Temporal
Has the ending -lloin/-llöin, and only seems to go on pronouns: milloin, silloin, jolloin.
Distributive
Ending: -ttain. Expresses regularity in distribution:
Päivittäin : every day. Paikoittain: (with a distribution) from place to place. Osittain: partially. Vuosittain: yearly.
Temporal Distribute
-sin, with a similar meaning for a variety of times:
Sunnuntaisin : on sundays. Syksysin: in autumns. Lähtöisin: originally. (from lähtö : departure). Syntyisin: by birth. Peculiarly, some nouns also have instrumental meanings: jalaisin: by foot, sekasin: in disarray, in confusion.
Situative
Examples given are often "kasvokkain" - "face by face", "lähekkäin" - "nearby each other" , "vastakkain" - "against one another", "seläkkäin" - "back to back".
I would say it's semiproductive, but having the same noun in the nominative right in front of it helps:
"taulu taulukkain" would seem to me to mean 'full of paintings, paintings filling the wall one right next to another', but "taulukkain" seems weird.
However, a nominative does not always seem necessary:
"Ne saapuivat junakkain" would seem to me to mean "they arrived in subsequent trains"
Oppositive
Among the usual examples you find "kasvotusten", which signifies 'face to face', which expresses a more "antagonistic" stance than the one given in the situative.
Conclusion
The ten most common cases in Finnish have rather complex usages with multiple semantically quite distant spheres of meaning. The really obscure case-like morphemes either have rather restricted and predictable meanings (temporal) or sometimes, rather lexically specific meanings (as in some of the lexemes in the temporal distributive having meanings quite distinct from the rest). Some of the obscure cases may be semi-productive (situative). Were we to count all, the sum would be close to thirty. A sum near fifteen does seem to reflect the actual "proper" number of cases, but it is up to an ultimately arbitrary definition of case. However, the most commonly used arbitrary definition does have several nice rather "natural" qualities to it that makes it a convincing definition.
The abessive and the instructive are slowly turning into something more like infinitival verbal markers.
The marginal cases form an interesting part of Finnish grammar that deserves description in a context like this every now and then.
Sources
Many of these sources bring extra information about the Finnish case system. The above article is a synthesis and summary of many different approaches, combined with personal knowledge of the language.
http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suomi/sijat/sijatadverbien.html
https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/finn.pdf
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj2p6nBrY3vAhUIt4sKHcHlCu0QFjAAegQIAxAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjournal.fi%2Fstore%2Farticle%2Fview%2F52392%2F16242&usg=AOvVaw0pwD74ZQITFKm05q731dQV
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