5 ms·

Where is the line drawn between a declension and a phrase? Even though they're a single word, a lot of those Finnish variants appear to serve the purpose that

Where is the line drawn between a declension and a phrase? Even though they're a single word, a lot of those Finnish variants appear to serve the purpose that a multi-word phrase would in most languages.

pw6hv 8y ago
That's right, I would say that it is a bit misleading. Anyway 15 cases are already surprising, and if we count the plural form then we have 30 forms for a noun. I tried to learn Finnish when I was living there, I think it is a really enjoyable and logical language. Certainly one of the most special languages that we have in Europe.
- depressedpanda 8y ago
  Well, yes, it's quite special; it's a Finnish-Ugric language, one of the few languages in Europe that isn't Indo-European.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
chousuke 8y ago
Finn here. Most of the technically valid declensions of "dog" would never see any actual use, so it's not quite as bad as it seems, but I think you still need to count them as individual words because they can't form a valid sentence by themselves. These noun declensions are not where it ends, though. There are many ways to derive adjectives from nouns and nouns from verbs and verbs from adjectives, so you can generate technically valid new words for quite a long time given just one root.
- klipt 8y ago
  > These noun declensions are not where it ends, though. There are many ways to derive adjectives from nouns and nouns from verbs and verbs from adjectives, so you can generate technically valid new words for quite a long time given just one root. You have verbs like "dogged" and adverbs "doggedly" in English too.
  - est31 8y ago
    English also has diminuitives. piglet, doggy, etc.
    - ajuc 8y ago
      English diminutives are very rudimentary and irregular compared to inflected languages. In some language you can form several levels of diminutives from any noun. Even stuff that makes no sense, like "cute taxes", "cute death", "cute abstraction", "cute declension". And you can form the opposite - take a noun and create less cute/uglier/larger version of it. And these additional forms still obey the other rules, including declension. So there's a combinatorial explosion of versions of each word.
      - Udik 8y ago
        > Even stuff that makes no sense, like "cute taxes", "cute death", "cute abstraction" A cute abstraction would definitely be my thing. As we would say in Italian, an astrazioncella, or astrazionuccia, or astrazioncelluccia, or astrazioncinuccia, or astrazioncinelluccia. :)
        r-bryan 8y ago
        When learning some Italian I was both dismayed and fascinated to discover that it was necessary to avoid every diminutive ("cute") and augmentative I could think of, because they all carry sexual innuendo.
        Udik 8y ago
        > they all carry sexual innuendo They don't. Your teacher was a pervert. :)
        ajuc 8y ago
        Abstrakcja, abstrakcyjka, abstrakcyjeczka, abstrakcyjunia, abstrakcyjeczunia, ... :)
      - deleted 8y ago
est31 8y ago
The line is drawn around having single words for what other languages have phrases for. koirankaan is a single word just as houses is not a phrase (house es) but the plural of house. Languages use different concepts to express the same ideas. The study of languages isn't built around the ideas but around the structure of the language itself.
mcguire 8y ago
Wikipedia: "Finnish is a member of the Finnic language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence." "Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features." "An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) remain, in every aspect, unchanged after their unions." "A synthetic language uses inflection or agglutination to express syntactic relationships within a sentence. Inflection is the addition of morphemes to a root word that assigns grammatical property to that word, while agglutination is the combination of two or more morphemes into one word." In a hardcore synthetic language, the difference between a word and a phrase is just about meaningless. The "words" can get full on crazy-pants, too.
- tuukkah 8y ago
  How to know where one word ends and the next begins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word#Word_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word#Word_boundaries Examples of how the system works in Finnish and in other languages on the continuum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination
rando444 8y ago
I think the distinction you are looking for is the articles. In english you have dog and dogs, but can add articles and say 'these dogs' 'those dogs' 'the dogs' and so on. In languages like finnish, the articles are included in the word, thus more variations when you take case and word genders into consideration.
- eMSF 8y ago
  No word genders in Finnish, sorry! :-) Also, pronouns like "these" and "those" can't be included in the word in Finnish -- however, those that indicate ownership can (i.e. my dog/s, or the genetive case* ). There's no direct equivalent of "the dog" in Finnish either, the closest being "these/those dogs" where applicable. * For language nerds: considering the subject (that emphasizes the many declensions in Finnish), it is somewhat ironic that both "my dog" and "my dogs" is the same single word in formal Finnish. Unlike many other cases, plain genetive doesn't allow distinction between singular and plural.
  - NoNameHaveI 8y ago
    "No word genders in Finnish, sorry!" No direct word for "please" either, unless you want to count kiitos, which I understand as thank you.
- amaccuish 8y ago
  > but can add articles and say 'these dogs' FYI those aren't articles, but demonstrative adjectives, which are part of the language class of determiners, to which articles also belong.

pw6hv 8y ago

That's right, I would say that it is a bit misleading. Anyway 15 cases are already surprising, and if we count the plural form then we have 30 forms for a noun. I tried to learn Finnish when I was living there, I think it is a really enjoyable and logical language. Certainly one of the most special languages that we have in Europe.

depressedpanda 8y ago
Well, yes, it's quite special; it's a Finnish-Ugric language, one of the few languages in Europe that isn't Indo-European.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

chousuke 8y ago

Finn here. Most of the technically valid declensions of "dog" would never see any actual use, so it's not quite as bad as it seems, but I think you still need to count them as individual words because they can't form a valid sentence by themselves. These noun declensions are not where it ends, though. There are many ways to derive adjectives from nouns and nouns from verbs and verbs from adjectives, so you can generate technically valid new words for quite a long time given just one root.

klipt 8y ago
> These noun declensions are not where it ends, though. There are many ways to derive adjectives from nouns and nouns from verbs and verbs from adjectives, so you can generate technically valid new words for quite a long time given just one root. You have verbs like "dogged" and adverbs "doggedly" in English too.
- est31 8y ago
  English also has diminuitives. piglet, doggy, etc.
  - ajuc 8y ago
    English diminutives are very rudimentary and irregular compared to inflected languages. In some language you can form several levels of diminutives from any noun. Even stuff that makes no sense, like "cute taxes", "cute death", "cute abstraction", "cute declension". And you can form the opposite - take a noun and create less cute/uglier/larger version of it. And these additional forms still obey the other rules, including declension. So there's a combinatorial explosion of versions of each word.
    - Udik 8y ago
      > Even stuff that makes no sense, like "cute taxes", "cute death", "cute abstraction" A cute abstraction would definitely be my thing. As we would say in Italian, an astrazioncella, or astrazionuccia, or astrazioncelluccia, or astrazioncinuccia, or astrazioncinelluccia. :)
      - r-bryan 8y ago
        When learning some Italian I was both dismayed and fascinated to discover that it was necessary to avoid every diminutive ("cute") and augmentative I could think of, because they all carry sexual innuendo.
        Udik 8y ago
        > they all carry sexual innuendo They don't. Your teacher was a pervert. :)
      - ajuc 8y ago
        Abstrakcja, abstrakcyjka, abstrakcyjeczka, abstrakcyjunia, abstrakcyjeczunia, ... :)
    - deleted 8y ago

est31 8y ago

The line is drawn around having single words for what other languages have phrases for. koirankaan is a single word just as houses is not a phrase (house es) but the plural of house. Languages use different concepts to express the same ideas. The study of languages isn't built around the ideas but around the structure of the language itself.

mcguire 8y ago

Wikipedia: "Finnish is a member of the Finnic language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence." "Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features." "An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) remain, in every aspect, unchanged after their unions." "A synthetic language uses inflection or agglutination to express syntactic relationships within a sentence. Inflection is the addition of morphemes to a root word that assigns grammatical property to that word, while agglutination is the combination of two or more morphemes into one word." In a hardcore synthetic language, the difference between a word and a phrase is just about meaningless. The "words" can get full on crazy-pants, too.

tuukkah 8y ago
How to know where one word ends and the next begins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word#Word_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word#Word_boundaries Examples of how the system works in Finnish and in other languages on the continuum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination

rando444 8y ago

I think the distinction you are looking for is the articles. In english you have dog and dogs, but can add articles and say 'these dogs' 'those dogs' 'the dogs' and so on. In languages like finnish, the articles are included in the word, thus more variations when you take case and word genders into consideration.

eMSF 8y ago
No word genders in Finnish, sorry! :-) Also, pronouns like "these" and "those" can't be included in the word in Finnish -- however, those that indicate ownership can (i.e. my dog/s, or the genetive case* ). There's no direct equivalent of "the dog" in Finnish either, the closest being "these/those dogs" where applicable. * For language nerds: considering the subject (that emphasizes the many declensions in Finnish), it is somewhat ironic that both "my dog" and "my dogs" is the same single word in formal Finnish. Unlike many other cases, plain genetive doesn't allow distinction between singular and plural.
- NoNameHaveI 8y ago
  "No word genders in Finnish, sorry!" No direct word for "please" either, unless you want to count kiitos, which I understand as thank you.
amaccuish 8y ago
> but can add articles and say 'these dogs' FYI those aren't articles, but demonstrative adjectives, which are part of the language class of determiners, to which articles also belong.