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The difference between Finnish case markers and separate words is deeper than whether it's written with a space: case markers have to agree in vowel harmony wit

The difference between Finnish case markers and separate words is deeper than whether it's written with a space: case markers have to agree in vowel harmony with the stem whereas separate words don't. It's still incredibly easy compared to the fusional case systems in languages like Latin or Russian.

sedeki 4y ago
What does "fusional" mean here?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- skyyler 4y ago
  A simple web search can bring you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language >Another illustration of fusionality is the Latin word bonus ("good"). The ending -us denotes masculine gender, nominative case, and singular number. Changing any one of these features requires replacing the suffix -us with a different one. In the form bonum, the ending -um denotes masculine accusative singular, neuter accusative singular, or neuter nominative singular.
- canjobear 4y ago
  Fusional means that, in the morphological system of a language, a single wordform encodes multiple parts of the meaning in a way that is opaque and can't be predicted from the parts. That's very abstract but an example makes it clear. Consider some Latin words with their English translations: mensa -- table (singular, nominative) mensae -- tables (plural, nominative) mensae -- to the table (singular, dative) mensis -- to the tables (plural, dative) There are two parts of meaning (whether it's singular vs. plural, and whether it's nominative vs. dative) which are expressed in these forms, but the way this is done is opaque. You can't look at "mensis" and break it into a part that corresponds to plurality, and a part that corresponds to dative: the suffix -is conveys both of those features simultaneously. That's a fusional language. Compare with the Hungarian equivalents: (Finnish is similar, but I know Hungarian and not Finnish) asztal -- table (singular, nominative) asztalok -- tables (plural, nominative) asztalnak -- to the table (singular, dative) asztaloknak -- to the tables (plural, dative) Here you can identify that the suffux -ok corresponds to plural and the suffix -nak corresponds to dative. So the Hungarian paradigm here is agglutinative, not fusional. The upshot is that the Hungarian paradigm will be easier to learn and to extend to a very large number of cases compared to the Latin paradigm.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
skrebbel 4y ago
Ahyes forgot about that. Just to continue the explainer, vowel harmony means that “in the house” is “talossa” but “in the forest” is “metsässä”. Notice that it’s “-ssä” and not “-ssa”. This depends on which vowels are in the root. There’s two groups of vowels and Finnish words helpfully never mix the two in a single (non compound) word. In other words, “vowel harmony” sounds fancy, but it’s a single if root.match(/a|u|o/) then “ssa” else “ssä”
- Aeolun 4y ago
  That sounds like a pointless rule that can be dropped immediately to make the language easier.
  - skrebbel 4y ago
    That would make it easier to grammar, but harder to pronounce.
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Mixing vowels from both groups makes tonque movements very awkward and slows down speech.
    - thaumasiotes 4y ago
      > AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Quite the opposite; /u/ is a high vowel, /o/ is mid-high, and /a/ is low. AOU vowels, assuming the Finnish orthography is anything like the rest of Europe, are made with your tongue pulled back, while ÄÖY are made with your tongue thrust forward.
      - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
        That's what I mean, tonque movement. Tonque stays still inside the group. High/forward low/back.
  - 4y ago
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> The difference between Finnish case markers and separate words is deeper than whether it's written with a space: case markers have to agree in vowel harmony with the stem whereas separate words don't. That is not evidence that they are case affixes rather than separate words. The English articles adjust their pronunciation based on the word that follows them, but they are considered separate words rather than inflectional definiteness markers. There is a special term for lexical items which are independent words in a syntactic sense without simultaneously being independent words in a phonological sense; they are called clitics, not affixes.
- canjobear 4y ago
  The Finnish case markers are not clitics. Clitics are distinguished in that they modify phrases, not words. For example the English possessive “‘s” is a clitic because it can modify a whole phrase in something like “[the Queen of England]’s hat” although it cannot appear as a word on its own. In contrast, the Finnish case markers are bound phonologically and syntactically to a single word and so they are affixes, not clitics.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > The Finnish case markers are not clitics. Clitics are distinguished in that they modify phrases, not words. Except that this is a claim you just made up, which is not reflected in any usage of the term. SIL ( https://glossary.sil.org/term/clitic-grammar https://glossary.sil.org/term/clitic-grammar ): > A clitic is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but shows evidence of being phonologically bound to another word. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitic ): > a clitic [] is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends phonologically on another word or phrase. The English 'genitive' particle 's is a clitic[1] because it takes its pronunciation from the syllable it follows. Not because it has grammatical functions at a phrase level. Clitic 'm can only ever follow the pronoun I, but that does nothing to stop it from being clitic. [1] Actually, CGEL prefers to call 's a "phrasal case marker", but I find that absurd.

sedeki 4y ago

What does "fusional" mean here?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
skyyler 4y ago
A simple web search can bring you to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusional_language >Another illustration of fusionality is the Latin word bonus ("good"). The ending -us denotes masculine gender, nominative case, and singular number. Changing any one of these features requires replacing the suffix -us with a different one. In the form bonum, the ending -um denotes masculine accusative singular, neuter accusative singular, or neuter nominative singular.
canjobear 4y ago
Fusional means that, in the morphological system of a language, a single wordform encodes multiple parts of the meaning in a way that is opaque and can't be predicted from the parts. That's very abstract but an example makes it clear. Consider some Latin words with their English translations: mensa -- table (singular, nominative) mensae -- tables (plural, nominative) mensae -- to the table (singular, dative) mensis -- to the tables (plural, dative) There are two parts of meaning (whether it's singular vs. plural, and whether it's nominative vs. dative) which are expressed in these forms, but the way this is done is opaque. You can't look at "mensis" and break it into a part that corresponds to plurality, and a part that corresponds to dative: the suffix -is conveys both of those features simultaneously. That's a fusional language. Compare with the Hungarian equivalents: (Finnish is similar, but I know Hungarian and not Finnish) asztal -- table (singular, nominative) asztalok -- tables (plural, nominative) asztalnak -- to the table (singular, dative) asztaloknak -- to the tables (plural, dative) Here you can identify that the suffux -ok corresponds to plural and the suffix -nak corresponds to dative. So the Hungarian paradigm here is agglutinative, not fusional. The upshot is that the Hungarian paradigm will be easier to learn and to extend to a very large number of cases compared to the Latin paradigm.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

skrebbel 4y ago

Ahyes forgot about that. Just to continue the explainer, vowel harmony means that “in the house” is “talossa” but “in the forest” is “metsässä”. Notice that it’s “-ssä” and not “-ssa”. This depends on which vowels are in the root. There’s two groups of vowels and Finnish words helpfully never mix the two in a single (non compound) word. In other words, “vowel harmony” sounds fancy, but it’s a single if root.match(/a|u|o/) then “ssa” else “ssä”

Aeolun 4y ago
That sounds like a pointless rule that can be dropped immediately to make the language easier.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  That would make it easier to grammar, but harder to pronounce.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Mixing vowels from both groups makes tonque movements very awkward and slows down speech.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Quite the opposite; /u/ is a high vowel, /o/ is mid-high, and /a/ is low. AOU vowels, assuming the Finnish orthography is anything like the rest of Europe, are made with your tongue pulled back, while ÄÖY are made with your tongue thrust forward.
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      That's what I mean, tonque movement. Tonque stays still inside the group. High/forward low/back.
- 4y ago

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> The difference between Finnish case markers and separate words is deeper than whether it's written with a space: case markers have to agree in vowel harmony with the stem whereas separate words don't. That is not evidence that they are case affixes rather than separate words. The English articles adjust their pronunciation based on the word that follows them, but they are considered separate words rather than inflectional definiteness markers. There is a special term for lexical items which are independent words in a syntactic sense without simultaneously being independent words in a phonological sense; they are called clitics, not affixes.

canjobear 4y ago
The Finnish case markers are not clitics. Clitics are distinguished in that they modify phrases, not words. For example the English possessive “‘s” is a clitic because it can modify a whole phrase in something like “[the Queen of England]’s hat” although it cannot appear as a word on its own. In contrast, the Finnish case markers are bound phonologically and syntactically to a single word and so they are affixes, not clitics.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > The Finnish case markers are not clitics. Clitics are distinguished in that they modify phrases, not words. Except that this is a claim you just made up, which is not reflected in any usage of the term. SIL ( https://glossary.sil.org/term/clitic-grammar https://glossary.sil.org/term/clitic-grammar ): > A clitic is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but shows evidence of being phonologically bound to another word. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitic ): > a clitic [] is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends phonologically on another word or phrase. The English 'genitive' particle 's is a clitic[1] because it takes its pronunciation from the syllable it follows. Not because it has grammatical functions at a phrase level. Clitic 'm can only ever follow the pronoun I, but that does nothing to stop it from being clitic. [1] Actually, CGEL prefers to call 's a "phrasal case marker", but I find that absurd.