Suomi-koulu class

25.2.2001

(1) Cases

· What are cases?

· In Finnish, the function (subject, object) of a word is marked visibly on that word with a case-marker.

(1) Peter read a book.

Peter = the subject of the sentence

A book = the object of the sentence

(2) Mies luki kirjan.

Man read book

Mies = subject [nominative case]

kirjan = object [accusative case]

(3) Kirja on punainen.

The book is red.

kirja = subject [nominative case]

· Note that ‘kirja’ is the basic/nominative form, and ‘kirjan’ is the accusative (object) form.

· Finnish has very few prepositions (in, on, under, below, into, out of etc.) and uses case-marking instead.

(4) on the chair = tuolilla (chair = tuoli)

(5) from the house = talosta (house = talo)

(2) The partitive case

Haluaisin maitoa. (maito ® maitoA)

would-like milk.

‘I would like some milk.’

Saisinko viiniä? (viini ® viiniÄ)

Could-I-have wine?

‘Could I have some wine?’

· Note that the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘you’ can be left out in Finnish.

· Note that the ending for the partitive case is sometimes ‘a,’ sometimes ‘ä’

· What is the partitive case? It can mean ‘some’ (some milk, some wine, some sand)

· The partitive case is not used with requests for things which can be ‘counted’. You can point to a single sandwich, a single steak, a single apple, so sandwiches are countable things. But you cannot point to one milk or one sand, so these kinds of things are not countable.

· For countable objects, the accusative case (-n) is used.

Haluaisin voileivän.

I would like a sandwich.

Saisinko hampurilaisen?

Could I have a hamburger?

Saisinko omenan?

Could I have an apple?

· In some cases, the basic form of the word itself changes when a case-ending is added. Don’t worry about this now – we will look at it more later.

omena ® omenan

voileipä ® voileivän

(3) Ordering food in restaurants

Saisinko ______?

Could I have ________?

Haluaisin _______.

I would like ________.

Otan ______.

I will have ________.

· Or you can just say the name of the dish you would like.

· Some examples:

(a) Saisinko maitoa?

(b) Otan voileivän.

(c) Haluaisin liisää viiniä. (lisää = more)

(d) Hampurilainen.

· Now write down three requests you could make in a restaurant. (Vocab from last time)

(1) ___________________________________________________________

(2) ____________________________________________________________

(3) ____________________________________________________________