Download Finnish and Estonian - filologiaugrofinnica

Estonian, Finnish, and other
European languages
Helle Metslang
Estonian: typology and databases
Szeged, 27–30 April 2009
1
SAE (Standard Average European) 1



B.L. Whorf 1939 (the concept of SAE developed by
comparing Native American languages with the wellknown European languages)
M. Haspelmath 1998, 2001: 12 typical structural
features were singled out (they occur in most
European languages but are usually missing
elsewhere)
SAE includes Romance, Germanic, Baltic, and
Slavic languages, Albanian, Greek, Hungarian
(2001)
2
SAE (Standard Average European) 2


Background to the shared features: great
migrations during the transition period from
antiquity to the Middle Ages, at the beginning
of the formation of European common
cultural space. The SAE linguistic area is also
known as the Charlemagne-Sprachbund.
Estonian and Finnish – SAE periphery (1998)
/ outside SAE, only two shared features
(2001).
3
Nucleus. core and periphery of SAE
(Haspelmath 1998)
4
SAE features 1
Haspelmath 2001:
1) Definite and indefinite article (-),
cf. article-like use of E see ‘this’, üks ‘one’; in
Finnish, too, se functions as an article
Ma ei jaksa täna seda ajalugu őppida
‘Today I have no energy to study the history’
Üks tüdruk tői sulle ühe raamatu
‘A girl brought you a book’
5
SAE features 2
2) Relative clauses come after the noun; the
clause opens with a declinable relative
pronoun (e.g.
(der/die/das/welcher/welche/welches; who,
whose, whom) (+)
E raamat, mida (P) ma lugesin
F kirja, jota (P) luin
‘the book that I read’
6
WALS map 123: relativization of
obliques
7
SAE features 3
3) have-perfect (-)
Estonian and Finnish have the olema-perfect
(‘be-perfect’). Nevertheless, possessive
syntactic structures with the impersonal /
passive perfect are spreading in Estonian
E Mul on õpitud
I-AD learn:IMPS:PFCT
F Olen lukenut
läksyni
read:PFCT:1SG
homework
‘I’m done with my homework’
8
SAE features 4
4) Nominative experiencer prevails (-).
Use of syntactic patterns with the nominative
experiencer is becoming more frequent in Estonian
Peeter (NOM) armastab teatrit
Peetrile (ALLAT) meeldib teater
‘Peeter loves the theatre’
Peeter (NOM) vajab puhkust
Peetril (ADESS) on vaja puhkust
‘Peeter needs some rest’
9
SAE features 5
5) Participial passive (-)
is spreading in Estonian.
E Te olete külla kutsutud
‘You have been invited to visit us’
F puukirkoista,jotka ovat sisältä leikkauksin
koristellut (ISK)
'from wooden churches that are decorated
inside with woodcuts'
10
SAE features 6
6) Prevalence of anti-causative (intransitive)
verb derivation over causative derivation (-)
It’s true that causative derivation is more
common in Estonian and also in Finnish
E loobuma ‘to give up’
sööma ‘to eat’
jätkama ‘to continue sth’
>
>
>
loovutama ‘to surrender sth’
söötma ‘to feed’
jätkuma ‘to continue’
F luopua
pestä ‘to wash’
>
>
luovuttaa
peseytyä ‘to wash oneself’
11
SAE features 7
7) Dative external possessors (Die Mutter wäscht dem Kind die
Haare ‘Mother is washing the hair of her child’) (-)
Three ways to express the possessor: 1) dative (Die Mutter
wäscht dem Kind die Haare), 2) locative, 3) NP-internal
(English).
Estonian: locative, NP
Ema peseb lapsel (AD) juukseid / lapse (G) juukseid
‘Mother is washing the hair of her child’)
Tüdrukul (AD) suri vanaisa
‘The girl’s grandpa died’
Finnish: NP, ablative
Äiti pesee lapsen (G) hiuksia
Tytöltä (ABL) kuoli isoäiti
12
SAE features 8
8) Negative indefinitepronouns and lack of
verbal negation (Niemand kommt, nobody
comes) (-)
Two form types: 1) V + NI (Niemand kommt),
2) NV + NI
Estonian, Finnish NV + NI
E (Mitte) keegi
ei
F Kukaan
ei
nobody
NEG
tule
tule
come
13
SAE features 9
9) Comparative constructions with a particle (+)
Types of the comparative construction: 1) locative (‘bigger from / to /
at X‘), 2) the exceed comparative (‘Y is bigger exceeding X‘), 3)
the conjoining comparative (‘Y is big, Y is little‘), 4) the particle
comparative (bigger than X).
Estonian: particle, locative
Ema on noorem kui isa
Ema on isast (EL) noorem
‘Mother is younger than father‘
Finnish: particle, partitive (<locative)
Äiti on nuorempi kuin isä.
Äiti on isää (P) nuorempi
14
SAE features 10
10) relative-based equative constructions (-): so
groβ wie ein Elefant
nii suur kui elevant
‘as big as an elephant’
niin iso kuin norsu
15
SAE features 11
11) Subject person affixes as strict agreement
markers (-). The verb has personal forms and
the subject is obligatory: du kommst, wir
kommen
It does not occur in Estonian and Finnish:
E tuled, ei tule
F tulet, et tule
‘you come, you don’t come’
16
SAE features 12
12) Intensifier-reflexive differentiation (-): different pronouns
used as intensifiers (G selbst, R sam) and reflexives (G sich,
R sebja)
E intensifier ise, enda
Minister ise (N) tuleb
‘The minister himself will come’
Oodatakse ministrit ennast (P)
‘The minister himself is expected to come’
reflexive enda, iseenda
Minister kiitis ennast / iseennast (P)
‘The minister praised himself’
17
SAE features 13
F intensifier itse, itse+PSx
Ministeri itse tulee
Odotetaan ministeria itseään
reflexive itse+PSx
Ministeri kehui itseään
18
SAE features, Estonian and Finnish


Both Estonian and Finnish have the following
features: 2 (relative pronoun), 9 (comparative
with a particle), and 10 (equative with a
relative construction)
Both languages lack the following features: 6
(anti-causative), 7 (dative possessor), 8
(negation with a pronoun), 11 (obligatory
predicate agreement with the pronoun);
Finnish has no 3 (have-perfect)
19
SAE features, Estonian and Finnish

Developments in the direction of SAE-like
features in Estonian: features 1 (article), 3
(possessive perfect), 4 (nominative
experiencer), 5 (passive), 12 (reflexive
pronouns); in Finnish 1, 4, 5, 12?
20
Some further likely SAE features 1
Because of insufficient data Haspelmath did not
include on his list, for example,

AND-coordination (vs WITH-coordination)
E isa ja ema, F isä ja äiti
‘father and mother’
also WITH-coordination: isa emaga, isä
äidin kanssa ‘father with mother’
21
Some further likely SAE features 2

Verb fronting in polar interrogatives
(inversion)
E Tuled sa koju? ‘Will you come home?’
interrogative particle: Kas sa tuled koju?
F particle: Tuletko kotiin?
Spoken language reveals also inversion: Tulet sä
kotiin?

Comparative marking of adjectives
(E suure-m, F suure-mpi ‘bigger’)
22
Some further likely SAE features 3

Comitative-instrumental syncretism
Comitative: jalutab lapsega (COM)’is walking
with the child’, kirjutab pliiatsiga (COM) ‘writes
in pencil’
Syncretism is absent in Finnish: kävelee lapsen
kanssa (POSTP), kirjoittaa kynällä (AD)

Suppletive second ordinal numeral: E kaks –
teine, F kaksi – toinen‚ zwei – zweite‘ (vgl. two –
second)
23
Some comparisons between Estonian,
Finnish, German, and Russian
Opposition of totality-partiality 1

The application of the opposition of totality –
partiality is more restricted in Estonian than in
Finnish
E Pahempoolsed on saamas võitu (P) Poola
valimistel
F Vasemmisto on saamassa voiton (G) Puolan
vaaleissa
‘The lefties are gaining a victory at the Polish
elections’
24
Totality-partiality opposition 2
The opposition of totality–partiality occurs in
several Circum-Baltic-languages (Finnic, Baltic,
Russian). In the case of negation Estonian and
Finnish always have the partial object and the
partial subject in existential sentences; in similar
cases Russian tends to have the genitive (not
the nominative or the accusative).
25
Totality-partiality opposition 3
Partial object
E Ma ei saanud seda raamatut (P)
F En saanut sitä kirjaa (P)
R Ja ne polučila ètoj knigi (G) / ètu knigu (ACC)
‘I did not receive this book’
Partial subject:
E Mul ei ole raamatut (P)
F Minulla ei ole kirjaa (P)
R U menja net knigi (G)
‘I don’t have the book’
26
Expression of aspectual meaning by means of
verb particles
ära jooma – aus/trinken – vy/pit‘ ‘drink up’, ära
viima – abf/ühren – u/nesti ‘take away’, läbi
lugema – durch/lesen – pro/čitat ‘read through‘.
E Ema
lõhku-s
tassi
ära
F Äiti
rikko-i
muki-n
D Die Mutter
zerbrach die Tasse
R Mama
raz-bi-la
čašku
‘Mother broke a cup’
27
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
saama 1
Quasi-auxiliaries saama ‘get, become’, tohtima ‘may, be
allowed’, laskma ‘let’, ähvardama ‘threaten’, tõotama
‘promise’

SAAMA: future
E
F
D
R
Elu saa-b ole-ma raske
Elämä tulee ole-maan vaikea
Das Leben wird schwer sein
Žizn‘ bude-t nelegka
‘Life will be hard’
28
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
saama 2

SAAMA: impersonal construction
E Sa-i
palju tantsi-tud
become-PST a lot dance-PASS:PART
F Tul-i
tanssi-ttu-a
paljon
come-PST dance-PASS:PART-PRTV a lot
D Es wurde
viel getanzt
‘We used to dance a lot’
29
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
saama 3
SAAMA: passive construction’
E Töö
sa-i
teh-tud
work
become-PST
make-PASS:PART
F Työtul-i
teh-dy-ksi
work
come-PST make-PASS:PART-TRN
D Die
Arbeit
wurde
gemacht
‘The work was done’

30
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
tohtima

TOHTIMA ‘may, be allowed’ – a special deontic
modal verb (similar to the German dürfen; in Finnish
the common modal verbs as saada ‘can’, pitää
‘must’, tarvita ‘need’, etc.; it’s the same in Russian)
E Lapsed tohivad meres ujuda
F Lapset saavat uida meressä
D Die Kinder dürfen im See baden
‘The children are allowed to swim in the sea’
31
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
laskma 1

LASKMA ‘to let’ (Finnish reveals derivation, e.g. rakentaa
> rakennuttaa or antaa ‘to give‘; Russian uses dat‘/davat‘
‘to give‘).
E
F
G
R
Lapsed lasid isal segamatult töötada
Lapset antoivat isän työskennellä rauhassa
Die Kinder lieβen den Vater ungestört arbeiten
Deti dali otcu spokojno rabotat’
‘The children let the father work undisturbed’
32
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
laskma 2
Particle las:
E las olla!
G laß sein!
‘let (it) be’
33
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
ähvardama, tõotama 1

ÄHVARDAMA ‘to threaten’, TÕOTAMA ‘to promise’ in the
function of modal verbs
G Das Hochwasser droht die Altstadt zu überschwemmen
E Suurvesi ähvardab vanalinna üle ujutada
‘The flood threatens to flood the old city’
F USA:n ja E-Korean vapaakauppasopimus uhkaa kariutua
(HS)
‘The treaty of free commerce between the USA and SouthKorea threatens to fall through’
34
Verb constructions with quasi-auxiliaries:
ähvardama, tõotama 2
GMein Mann droht krank zu werden
E Mu mees ähvardab haigeks jääda
‘My husband is likely to fall ill’
G Die Aktienkurse verspechen zu steigen
E Aktsiakursid tõotavad tõusta
‘Share prices promise to rise’
35
Evidentiality
Expression of the opposition of direct and indirect
information in verb morphology (Circum-Baltic:
Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian)
E Maril olevat (QUOT) palju aega
G Mari habe (CONJ:PRES) viel Zeit
F Marilla on (IND) kuulemma (PARTICLE) paljon aikaa
R U Mari, govorjat (PARTICLE), mnogo vremeni (IND)
‘Mari is reported to have a lot of time’
36
Infinitive as the predicate: command
E Mitte (NEG) akna peal seista (dINF)!
F Ei saa seistä ikkunalla!
G Nicht am Fenster stehen!
R Na okne ne (NEG) stojat’ (INF)!
‘No standing in the window’
37
Infinitive as the predicate: final clause
E Pylkkänen peitis suu käega, et (CONJ) mitte
(NEG) muiata (smile:dINF)
F Pylkkänen peitti suunsa kädellään, ettei
(CONJ.NEG) hymyilisi (COND)
G Konsta hielt sich die Hand vor dem Mund, um
sein Grinsen zu verbergen
R Pjulkkjanen prikryl rot rukoi, čtoby (CONJ) ne
(NEG) ulybnutsja (INF)
‘Pylkkänen covered his mouth with his hand in
order not to smile’
38
Subordinating conjunctives: person
agreement of the relative pronoun
E Sina, kes sa kõik oled teinud, pole ära teeninud
etteheiteid.
G Du, der du alles getan hast, verdienst keinen Vorwurf
‘You who have done everything have not deserved any
criticisms’
No agreement:
F Sinä, joka olet tehnyt kaiken,…
R Ty, kto vsë sdelal, …
39
Subordinating conjunctives: kusjuures etc.

Subordinating adverbs that join a subordinate clause
with the entire main clause (and not some part of the
sentence): kusjuures (G wobei, indem, R pričëm)
’whereas’, mispeale (G worauf) ‘whereupon’, misüle (G
worüber) ‘over what’.
E Ta läks läbi metsa, kusjuures ta aeg-ajalt peatus ja
kuulatas.
G Er ging durch den Wald, wobei/indem er ab und zu
stehen blieb und horchte.
‘He walked through the forest and stopped from time to
time and listened awhile’
40
Subordinating conjunctives: kusjuures etc.
R v pohode byli tri dnja, pričëm nočevali v
palatkah
‘they undertook a three-day hike whereas they
camped in tents’
E alused põrkasid kokku, kusjuures teine uppus
F alukset törmäsivät yhteen, jolloin toinen niistä
upposi (usual relative time adverb)
‘the vessels clashed whereas the other one sank’
41
Multifunctionality of quantifiers: väga

väga ‘very’
E väga ilus, väga kiiresti, väga palju, ma armastan sind
väga
F hyvin / erittäin kaunis / nopeasti / paljon; rakastan
sinua paljon
G sehr schön, sehr schnell, sehr viel: ich liebe dich sehr
R očen‘ krasivyj / bystro / mnogo, ja tebja očen‘ ljublju
‘very beautiful, very fast, very much, I love you very much’
42
Multifunctionality of quantifiers: palju

palju : paljud ‘much; many’
E palju vett, palju sõpru, paljud sõbrad
F paljon vettä, paljon ystäviä, useat / monet
ystävät
G viel Wasser, viele Freunde
R mnogo vody, mnogo druzej, mnogie druz’ja
‘much water, many friends, many of the friends’
43
Word order (V2, frame construction)
E Anna on oma raamatud ümber tõstnud
F Anna on siirtänyt kirjansa toiseen paikkaan
G Anna hat ihre Bücher umgestellt
‘Anna has rearranged her books’
E Täna tuleb Anna koju
F Tänään Anna tulee kotiin
G Heute kommt Anna nach Hause
R Segodnja Anna pridët domoj
‘Anna will come home today’
44
Syncretism of comitative and instructive
Metaphor INSTRUMENT IS A COMPANION
Anne kirjutab pliiatsiga
Anne kirjoittaa kynällä
Anne schreibt mit dem Bleistift
Anne pišet karandašom
‘Anne writes in pencil’
45
Summary of comparisons
(use the symbol + or -)
Feature
Finnish
Estonian
German Russian
Totality-partiality
Aspect with verb particles
saama, laskma, tohtima as
auxiliaries
Evidential verb form
Infinitive as the predicate
Conjunctive kes sa, kusjuures
INSTRUMENT IS A
COMPANION
väga, paljud
46
Summary of comparisons
Feature
Finnish
Estonian German Russian
Totality-partiality
++
+
-
±
Aspect with verb particles
±
+
+
+
saama, laskma, tohtima as
auxiliaries
-
+
+
-
Evidential verb form
-
+
+
-
Infinitive as the predicate
-
+
+
+
Conjunctive kes sa, kusjuures
-
+
+
+
INSTRUMENT IS A
COMPANION
-
+
+
±
väga, paljud
-
+
+
+
47
Concerning Finnish against the background
of the languages of Europe and the world
Dahl 2005: how exotic is Finnish?
(the conclusions are probably valid for
Estonian, too)
 Euro-centrism in linguistics; the Uralic
languages are regarded as exotic, e.g. typical
agglutinating languages, such as Finnish and
Turkish.
 The position of Finnish in typology according
to WALS.
48
Languages that are typologically close to
Finnish 1
Typological distance between two languages:
how many of the 142 WALS features are
represented in these languages?
Close languages include:
 Slavic and Baltic languages spoken in the
Circum-Baltic area
 Genetically related languages
 Probably some accidentally close languages
(e.g. Armenian)
49
Languages that are typologically close to
Finnish 2
Languages that are typologically closest to Finnish (according to
WALS; the figure showing typological distance)
(East-)Armenia (Indo-European)
22
Polish
(Indo-European)
25
Latvian
(Indo-European)
25
Nenets
(Uralic)
25
Bulgarian
(Indo-European)
26
Latvian
(Indo-European)
26
Russian
(Indo-European)
27
Kashmir
(Indo-European)
27
Evenki
(Altaic)
28
Brahui
(Dravidian)
28
Turkish
(Altaic)
29
Hungarian
(Uralic)
29
50
Concerning agglutination in Finnish
According to classical morphological typology,
languages are divided into isolating,
agglutinating, inflecting (fusional languages)
and polysynthetic languages.
In the case of Finnish one can ask – is Finnish
an agglutinating or inflecting language?
51
Agglutination in Finnish: a quantitative
comparison
Haspelmath (2009) compared 30 languages, incl.
Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish, on the basis of
three parameters that characterize fusional
languages
1.
Cumulation: how many morphological categories
can be found in a single morpheme
2.
Alternation: abundance of allomorphs in stems and
affixes
3.
Suppletion: variation of forms cannot be explained
by phonology or morphology (e.g. go : went)
52
Agglutination in Finnish: a quantitative
comparison
According to these parameters
More agglutinative e.g. Turkic, Swahili
More fusional e.g. German, Latin, Arabic
Finnish, Hungarian: close to the fusional end
53
Agglutination in Finnish: inflectional
synthesis of the verb 1
Inflectional synthesis of the verb: number of
categories in a verb form (WALS, 145
languages). Finnish has 2–3.
For example, Romance languages reveal a
richer verb morphology (tense, aspect, and
mood are combined in verb forms)

54
Agglutination in Finnish: inflectional
synthesis of the verb 2
Number of categories per word
form
0–1
2–3
Number of
languages
5
24 (incl. Finnish)
4–5
6–7
8–9
10-11
12-13
Total
52
31
24
7
2
147
55
Agglutination in Finnish: number of cases




WALS: among 261 languages there are only 24 that
have over 10 cases. Uralic languages, with the
largest number in Hungarian; also Finnish.
Also infinitives are declinable
Dahl: it is the case system that makes the Uralic
languages, so to say, typologically special and make
an impression of agglutination
Also, the possessive suffix adds to agglutination;
however, possessive suffixes can be found in threefourthd of the languages covered by WALS.
56
WALS map 49: number of cases
57
Summary of Finnish and other Finnic
languages by comparison with the
languages of Europe and the world
Dahl: Finnish cannot be regarded as an SAE
language, but it is rather close to this status.
During the co-existence that spans over
several millennia the Uralic and IndoEuropean languages around the Baltic Sea
have converged while there has been
divergence from their genetically related
eastern languages.
58
References 1
Dahl, Östen 2008, Kuinka eksoottinen suomen kieli on? Virittäjä 4: 545–559.
Erelt, Mati 1996, Relative words in Estonian relative
clauses - Erelt, Mati (ed.), Estonian: Typological Studies
I. (Publications of the Department of Estonian of the
University of Tartu 4.) Tartu: Tartu University Press, 9–23.
Erelt, Mati & Helle Metslang 2006, Estonian clause
patterns — from Finno-Ugric to SAE. – Linguistica
Uralica 2006, nr. 4, 254–266
Goddard, Cliff 2001, Lexico-semantic universals: A critical
overview, - Linguistic Typology 5.1, 1–65.
59
References 2
Haspelmath, Martin 1998, How young is standard average
European? - Linguistic Sciences, 20.3: 272287.
Haspelmath, Martin 2001, The European linguistic area:
Standard Average European. - Haspelmath, M. et al.
(eds.), Language typology and language universals: An
international handbook. Vol. 2. (Handbücher zur Sprachund Kommunikationswissenschaft, 20.2.) New York:
Walter de Gruyter, 1492–1510.
Haspelmath, Martin 2009, An empirical test of the
Agglutination Hypothesis. – Magni, Elisabett; Scalise,
Sergio; Bisetto, Antonietta (eds.), Universals of
Language Today. (Sudies in Natural Language and
Linguistic Theory 76.) Springer, 13-29.
60
References 3
Heine, Bernd & Kuteva, Tania 2006, The changing
languages of Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lindström, Liina & Tragel, Ilona 2007, Eesti keele
impersonaali ja seisundipassiivi vahekorrast
adessiivargumendi kasutuse põhjal. – Keel ja Kirjandus
7.
Metslang, Helle (forthcoming), Estonian grammar between
Finnic and SAE: some comparisons. – Sprachtypologie
und Universalienforschung 1-2, 2009
Nichols, Johanna; Peterson, David E. & Barnes,
Jonathan 2004, Transitivizing and detransitivizing
languages, in: Linguistic Typology 8.2, 149–212.
61
References 4
Pajusalu, Renate 1997, Is there an article in
(spoken) Estonian? – Estonian: typological
studies II. Ed. by Mati Erelt. (Tartu Ülikooli eesti
keele õppetooli toimetised 8.) Tartu: 146-177.
Vliegen, Maurice 2007, The relation between
lexical and epistemic readings: The equivalents
of promise and threaten in Dutch and German Bert Cornillie & Nicole Delbecque (eds.), Topics
in Subjectification and Modalization, Belgian
Journal of Linguistics 20 (2006). Benjamins,
73–96.
62
References 5
Ziegelmann, Katja & Winkler, Eberhard 2006, Zum
Einfluβ des Deutschen auf das Estnische. - Arold, Anne;
Cherubim, Dieter; Neuendorff, Dagmar & Nikula, Henrik
(Hrsg.), Deutsch am Rande Europas. (Humaniora:
Germanistica 1.) Tartu: Tartu University Press, 43–70.
WALS = Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew, Gil, David;
Comrie, Bernhard (eds.) 2005, The World atlas of
language structures. Oxford: Oxford University press.
[http//www.wals.info]
63