Re: To What Extent is Standard Finnish a Conlang?

Hello!

On 2/20/06, Markus Miekk-oja <m13kk0@...> wrote:
> >*Technically, this distinction doesn't exist even in the modern language,
> >but that's just because we call nouns "substantives" and all three of
> >nouns, adjectives and pronouns "nouns".
>
> You will find that there's some differences syntactically (altho' I can't
> list them).
I have no idea how far removed I am from mainstream Finnish
descriptive grammar, but I use the following (syntactic and
morphological) rules of thumb:

- If a nominal (that's the umbrella term I use) can be modified by
  another nominal in the same number and case form, I call the former
  "substantive" and the latter "adjective".

- If a nominal has comparative and superlative forms, I call it
  "adjective". (Note that some of the things I call "substantive" have
  comparative forms; e.g. _ilta_ "evening" -> _illemmalla_ "later in
  the evening". They don't have superlative forms AFAIK, though.) (And
  I'm sure that some of the things I call "adjective" don't form
  comparatives and/or superlatives, but I can't think of any off the
  top of my head, except for _pikku_ "little", which doesn't inflect
  for case or number either. As for other non-comparing
  (terminology??) adjectives, I guess that at least the usual semantic
  restrictions apply -- for example, words like "optimal" don't have a
  comparative or superlative because that would be silly. ;)

- If a nominal can't be modified by another nominal in the same case
  form (i.e. by an "adjective"), it's likely to be a "pronoun". (But
  since pronouns are a closed class, this rule isn't strictly
  necessary. -- Note, though, that at least _minä_ occurs both as a
  "pronoun" and as a "substantive": as a "pronoun", it means "I" and
  has the oblique stem _minu-_, and as a "substantive", it means "ego"
  and has the oblique stem _minä-_ as far as I can tell.)

- If a nominal is a name (personal, place, whatever), it's
  automatically a "substantive". :-)

- There may also be clues within the word's stem. For example, if the
  root of a word is a verb stem and it has the derivational suffix
  _-minen_ (e.g. _uida_ "to swim" -> action noun _uiminen_ "swimming",
  as in "swimming is my favorite sport"), or if the root of a word is
  a nominal stem and it has the derivational suffix _-UUs_ (e.g.
  _nuori_ "young" -> abstract noun _nuoruus_ "youth"; _isä_ "father"
  -> _isyys_ "fatherhood"), then I classify the word as "substantive".

(The list is probably incomplete, since I've never written the rules
down before... I just wrote this off the top of my head.)

On the other hand, sometimes when I wake up in the small hours of the
morning and can't go back to sleep, I wonder whether I really use the
above rules or whether I simply use the German native speaker's
Procrustean bed: "every word whose German equivalent starts with a
capital letter is obviously a substantive, and all the non-capitalized
nominals are either adjectives or pronouns, depending on their German
translations". ;-)

ObConlang: I love the way some Finnish words are clearly
"substantives" by all rules I can think of but have a comparative form
nonetheless. Some Day (tm) I'm going to do this kind of thing in a
conlang... "evening-er" := "later in the evening", "home-er" :=
"closer to home", "Saturday-er" := "later in the week, closer to
Saturday", ...

Regards,
Julia
(<re-lurk>)

--
   Julia Simon (Schnecki) -- Sprachen-Freak vom Dienst
_@"  schnecki AT iki DOT fi / helicula AT gmail DOT com  "@_
si hortum in bybliotheca habes, deerit nihil
                                        (M. Tullius Cicero)

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