Re: Curiosities in Finnish
Posted: 17 Mar 2020 14:43
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Probably various syntax stuff that you can't easily find even in reference grammars. The gods of humanity know how many times I have opened grammars and paper search engines trying to find information about the following topics, even for major languages like Romanian and Hungarian, and have ended up in utter failure. (I'm still pretty bitter over not being able to find info about relative clauses on PPs in Romanian reference grammars.)
I can quick-answer some and later return to the questions.Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 01:11Probably various syntax stuff that you can't easily find even in reference grammars. The gods of humanity know how many times I have opened grammars and paper search engines trying to find information about the following topics, even for major languages like Romanian and Hungarian, and have ended up in utter failure. (I'm still pretty bitter over not being able to find info about relative clauses on PPs in Romanian reference grammars.)
Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 01:11 * In Mandarin, those three incrementative correlation examples use a similar syntax, making use of 越 yuè 'INCR', a particle to express correlated increments.
植物越來越大 plant INCR come INCR big = 'the plant is getting bigger and bigger'
我越澆植,植越長大 1S INCR water plant, plant INCR grow big = 'the more I water the plant, the bigger it gets'
我說越少越好 1S say/speak INCR few/less INCR good = 'the less I say, the better'
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infinitive converb participle action nominalization
decategorized + + + +
new lexical class - - adjective noun
syntactic role complement* adjunct* modifier of a noun all those of nouns
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Different subject same subject no subject = impersonal
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Simultaneous -van SG1 -va-ni -tta-van
GS2 -va-si
SG3 -va-nsa
PL1 -va-mme
PL2 -va-nne
PL3 -va-nsa
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Anterior -neen SG1 -nee-ni -tun
GS2 - nee -si
SG3 - nee -nsa
PL1 - nee -mme
PL2 - nee -nne
PL3 - nee -nsa
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Different subject same subject no subject = impersonal
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Simultaneous -essa SG1 -essa-ni -tta-essa
GS2 -essa-si
SG3 -essa-nsa
PL1 -essa-mme
PL2 -essa-nne
PL3 -essa-nsa
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Anterior -ttua SG1 -ttua-ni -tua ?
GS2 - ttua-si
SG3 - ttua-nsa
PL1 - ttua-mme
PL2 - ttua-nne
PL3 -ttua-nsa
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Subject oriented Object oriented Object oriented Object oriented
without subject with a subject with same subject
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Present va tta-va | ma ma-ni
| ma-si
| ma-nsa
| ma-mme
| ma-nne
| ma-nsa
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Past nut ttu |
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Negative maton
That's pretty interesting. Do they insist in doing the thing that Classical Latin does, using a participle instead? (Even if they don't justify it with Classical Latin.) Classical Latin didn't allow adverbs and PPs to modify nouns directly (except in a very few contexts), and instead tended to use a participle or relative clause:
Yes, Mandarin Chinese lacks the use of "inverse when".- Is there a use of "inverse when"? ("When I was helping them, you complained." -> "I was helping them when you complained.")
Yes, do some languages lack them?
Absolute clauses are a very particular type of construction with a non-finite verb. They stand as an adjunct for the main clause, typically a temporal one, are used with no subordinator, and can be transitive holding both a subject that's different from that of the main clause and objects.- Are there absolute clauses, even if just as a literary construction? ("His books having been burned, Don Quixote cried.")
I would call them nonfinite constructions. But yes, very many and complex.
Although I imagine the plural is not used in the situations of "the big one", "the bigger one", "the biggest one", "the very big one", "the not so big one", etc. Finnish has no articles; is there really no marker at all for adjectives that have been turned into a singular NP?- How adjectives are turned into NPs ("the big one", "the rich and the poor", "Italians", *Frenches, "the French")
The adjective in plural
In European languages, NPs consisting of ""headless"" relative clauses typically do not involve non-finite forms. Your post above on non-finite forms doesn't address any similar equivalent to my examples... I imagine that Finnish does the normal European thing of using a subordinator that inflects for case ("the one that's talking", "the one that's being talked to"), although I don't know what it might do since it doesn't allow relative clauses on PPs. Then again, it has a lot of cases, so probably not an issue that creates curious, strange constructions. And the "shout-er and shout-ee" example may possibly be rendered by a participle turned into an NP, in some way, maybe?- How VPs are turned into so-called ""headless"" NPs ("the one making mistakes", "whoever makes a mistake", "the shout-er and the shout-ee")
maker of
The complex system of nonfinite verbform needs its own message.
The interesting thing about past-tense real conditions in European languages is that they typically use the indicative. Similarly, non-past unreal conditions tend to have some nuance between the use of indicative and non-indicative moods.- Past-tense real conditions ("If you really did the homework, then there is no problem.")
- Nuances in non-past unreal conditions (future more vivid "If you do the homework, you'll be rewarded." ~ future less vivid "If you did the homework, you'd be rewarded")
There is Conditional Mood. But they are quite SAE constructions anyways.
The number of nonfinite verb forms seems to increase when we go eastwards in Eurasia. Hungarian is prototypical examply of a language that has one infinitive, one converb and one action nominalization. Many Finnish converbs and infinitives can be seen as case forms of some generic nonfinite suffixes. That doesn't differ very much from, say, English preposition + -ing.Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20 That was a pretty interesting post, on non-finite forms! It surprises me to see so many uses clearly distinguished with different suffixes. In Indo-European languages in Europe, you typically just get a few non-finite forms that do multiple things, and some of that work is taken care of by subjunctives.
That is one strategy. Genitive and compounds are common too.Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20That's pretty interesting. Do they insist in doing the thing that Classical Latin does, using a participle instead? (Even if they don't justify it with Classical Latin.) Classical Latin didn't allow adverbs and PPs to modify nouns directly (except in a very few contexts), and instead tended to use a participle or relative clause:
omnes quī hīc adsunt (lit. "all that are present here") all.PL.NOM REL.PL.NOM here be.present.3PL
mūs sub mēnsā latēns (lit. "(the) mouse hiding under the table") mouse.SG.NOM under table.SG.ABL hide.IMPF.PTCP.SG.NOM
quaestiō dē animālibus tractāns (lit. "investigation discussing about animals") investigation.SG.NOM about animal.PL.ABL talk.about.IMPF.PTCP.SG.NOM
I usually use term absolute constructions, only for participles modifying a noun in a function where some other languages would use subordinate clauses. The head of an absolute construction is a noun, while the head of a converb construction is the converb. They are a characteristic of classical languages.Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20Absolute clauses are a very particular type of construction with a non-finite verb. They stand as an adjunct for the main clause, typically a temporal one, are used with no subordinator, and can be transitive holding both a subject that's different from that of the main clause and objects.- Are there absolute clauses, even if just as a literary construction? ("His books having been burned, Don Quixote cried.")
I would call them nonfinite constructions. But yes, very many and complex.
One of your examples of an adjunct clause involving a temporal converb ("Piglet.GEN neglect.ANTE.DS honey, Pooh ate it all") has an instance of an absolute clause pretty much. Same goes for the attendant circumstantial with -en ("president yells, saliva.NOM mouth.ELL splatter.ATTENDANTCIRCUMSTANCE").
Of course an adjective-noun can be in singular. Yes, it has no marker of being a noun. I think even spoken language don't use demonstratives in that context though they are often used like articles.Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20Although I imagine the plural is not used in the situations of "the big one", "the bigger one", "the biggest one", "the very big one", "the not so big one", etc. Finnish has no articles; is there really no marker at all for adjectives that have been turned into a singular NP?- How adjectives are turned into NPs ("the big one", "the rich and the poor", "Italians", *Frenches, "the French")
The adjective in plural
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"Minä sanon teille: helpompi on kamelin mennä neulansilmästä kuin rikkaan päästä Jumalan valtakuntaan."
I say to.you : easier is camel.GEN go.INF heairpinturn.ELAT than rich.GEN get.INF God.GEN kingdom.ILL
In English you have an actor nominalization -er.Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20In European languages, NPs consisting of ""headless"" relative clauses typically do not involve non-finite forms. Your post above on non-finite forms doesn't address any similar equivalent to my examples... I imagine that Finnish does the normal European thing of using a subordinator that inflects for case ("the one that's talking", "the one that's being talked to"), although I don't know what it might do since it doesn't allow relative clauses on PPs. Then again, it has a lot of cases, so probably not an issue that creates curious, strange constructions. And the "shout-er and shout-ee" example may possibly be rendered by a participle turned into an NP, in some way, maybe?- How VPs are turned into so-called ""headless"" NPs ("the one making mistakes", "whoever makes a mistake", "the shout-er and the shout-ee")
maker of
The complex system of nonfinite verbform needs its own message.
I don't quite get what you mean. Do you mean the irrealis condition clauses that have Past Tense in English, or do you mean clauses that happen in the past?Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20The interesting thing about past-tense real conditions in European languages is that they typically use the indicative. Similarly, non-past unreal conditions tend to have some nuance between the use of indicative and non-indicative moods.- Past-tense real conditions ("If you really did the homework, then there is no problem.")
- Nuances in non-past unreal conditions (future more vivid "If you do the homework, you'll be rewarded." ~ future less vivid "If you did the homework, you'd be rewarded")
There is Conditional Mood. But they are quite SAE constructions anyways.
How does Mandarin do that?Ser wrote: ↑18 Mar 2020 16:20Yes, Mandarin Chinese lacks the use of "inverse when".- Is there a use of "inverse when"? ("When I was helping them, you complained." -> "I was helping them when you complained.")
Yes, do some languages lack them?
It wouldn't surprise me if "inverse when" turned out to be a feature of the Eurasian corridor (Europe, Middle East, India), but I don't know. Spanish, French and Standard Arabic do have "inverse when" at least.
Specific questions:
Do you have reason to think that 'being the object of comparison', semantically, is a cross-linguistically relevant factor here? What I mean is, intuitively I'd think that this resolves to just "does comparison require obliques?" and "can obliques be relativised?" (eg, if your comparison translates literally to "the guy surpasses me in height", I'm guessing the mere presence of comparative semantics won't matter...). And in languages like English where comparison uses a preposition, I'd think that relativisation would be as for other prepositional phrases?- Can relative clauses be made on objects of comparison? ("the guy I'm shorter than", "the one guy I scored less than")
That's an interesting question. Do you have any information on which languages or families can't (or can) do this?- Can nouns be modified by adverbs and PPs directly? ("all the people here", "the mouse under the table", "research on early dinosaurs")
Not sure what you mean here. Are you saying something about the order of adverbial clauses, or are you saying something about the semantic (perfective vs imperfective) of 'when'?- Is there a use of "inverse when"? ("When I was helping them, you complained." -> "I was helping them when you complained.")
Are you sure the pause is syntactically significant, rather than rhetorical? I'm always skeptical of the idea that English punctuation directly represents actual pauses in speech...- Can adjectives stand as a pseudo-clause followed by a pause, even if just as a literary construction? ("Fatigued, we kept walking until reaching the town.")
I'm not sure why you group these; they seem very different to me.Various topics:
- Incrementative correlations* ("the plant is getting bigger and bigger", "the more I water the plant, the bigger it gets", "the less I say, the better")
How and presumably also whether...- How adjectives are turned into NPs ("the big one", "the rich and the poor", "Italians", *Frenches, "the French")
I don't understand what you mean here.- How VPs are turned into so-called ""headless"" NPs ("the one making mistakes", "whoever makes a mistake", "the shout-er and the shout-ee")
I'm not sure I agree with you premise here. In English this seems like the usual real vs unreal distinction.- Nuances in non-past unreal conditions (future more vivid "If you do the homework, you'll be rewarded." ~ future less vivid "If you did the homework, you'd be rewarded")
I mean realis condition clauses that relate to an event in the past (and which have the simple past tense in English):
It uses the other construction I gave that is sort of equivalent to it, often adding the adverb "then". So if you want to say "I was helping them when you complained", you say an equivalent of "when I was helping them, you (then) complained". Two examples from the Naver Chinese dictionary (the latter with "then"):Omzinesý wrote:How does Mandarin do that?
Yes, to distinguish them from the next point.Salmoneus wrote: ↑20 Mar 2020 00:08I'm not sure about your wording there. I take it you're asking whether it is possible to relativise oblique arguments when they are marked by prepositions? And that this is therefore just a more specific form of the general question about relativising obliques?- Can relative clauses be made on PPs? ("the woman I told you about", "the table I like to write on")
I think what you say about this point resolving into those two questions is true, at least most of the time. Latin, Spanish and French basically use conjunctions in comparisons, so they can't relativize a standard of comparison. But English and Standard Arabic use prepositions, so they can. But note it is precisely because I'm interested whether this could be different in some particular languages that I look for it.Do you have reason to think that 'being the object of comparison', semantically, is a cross-linguistically relevant factor here? What I mean is, intuitively I'd think that this resolves to just "does comparison require obliques?" and "can obliques be relativised?" (eg, if your comparison translates literally to "the guy surpasses me in height", I'm guessing the mere presence of comparative semantics won't matter...). And in languages like English where comparison uses a preposition, I'd think that relativisation would be as for other prepositional phrases?- Can relative clauses be made on objects of comparison? ("the guy I'm shorter than", "the one guy I scored less than")
Classical and Late Latin can't. So in Latin you typically include the PP as a modifier of an adjective or a verbal participle that then modifies the noun, or inside a relative clause (Ctrl+F omnēs quī for a few examples I gave to Omnizesý). Yeah, although nouns can't, adjectives are able to take PP modifiers. In some situations you can modify an NP with an ablative NP, and besides, English phrases can also be reworded with genitive NPs that modify the head NP as you'd expect.That's an interesting question. Do you have any information on which languages or families can't (or can) do this?- Can nouns be modified by adverbs and PPs directly? ("all the people here", "the mouse under the table", "research on early dinosaurs")
Hah. I suppose that's fair if if we're talking about English, but is it so if it's Spanish? La gente aquí 'the people here'. I guess some linguists would argue that Spanish has a few invariable adjectives, particularly colours (zapatos café, brown shoes), but my dialect treats those regularly (zapatos cafés) while still accepting la gente aquí. Although maybe some linguists would argue aquí is some sort noun modifier from the use of brand names (chocolates Lindt 'Lindt chocolate', computadoras Lenovo 'Lenovo computers')... I do notice that other such basic adverbs like ayer 'yesterday' and así 'this way, thus' can't modify NPs directly (*los eventos ayer, *la construcción así). I don't know...Although I'm not sure why you call 'here' an adverb, as it clearly modified nouns directly, making it an adjective...
Both. I mean the perfective aspect use of cum, and also its unmarked use after the main clause. "When you showed up I was cooking dinner" feels a bit more marked to me than "I was cooking dinner when you showed up", but maybe you'll disagree...Not sure what you mean here. Are you saying something about the order of adverbial clauses, or are you saying something about the semantic (perfective vs imperfective) of 'when'?- Is there a use of "inverse when"? ("When I was helping them, you complained." -> "I was helping them when you complained.")
I, at least, really can't pronounce this kind of thing without making a pause or intonation break, in either English or Spanish (Cansados, seguimos caminando hasta llegar al pueblo).Are you sure the pause is syntactically significant, rather than rhetorical? I'm always skeptical of the idea that English punctuation directly represents actual pauses in speech...- Can adjectives stand as a pseudo-clause followed by a pause, even if just as a literary construction? ("Fatigued, we kept walking until reaching the town.")
I think you're right that the first construction is of a different nature than the one in the second and third examples, so I should've separated them.I'm not sure why you group these; they seem very different to me.Various topics:
- Incrementative correlations* ("the plant is getting bigger and bigger", "the more I water the plant, the bigger it gets", "the less I say, the better")
In your first example, I get why you call this 'incrementative' - one use of the comparative builds on the other, as it were. Not sure why you call it a correlation. But the second and third ones seems unrelated to that - correlations, but not really incrementative. I'd say it's just a comparative correlation - "when its loud, it's annoying" vs "when its louder, it's more annoying". You've also chosen specific constructions in English that are a bit odd, because they involve substantive comparitives and object-first word orders, both of which are rare in English... but I assume that's not what you're talking about?
I get that Mandarin may treat these the same way, but I don't think that means there's really something that unifies them objectively.
I'm asking how Finnish does the equivalent of "headless relative clauses", to use the common term. (A term I don't like much, because I believe the subordinators or parts of the supposed subordinators are the actual heads in these.)I don't understand what you mean here.- How VPs are turned into so-called ""headless"" NPs ("the one making mistakes", "whoever makes a mistake", "the shout-er and the shout-ee")
Hmm, yeah, I think you're right about that.I'm not sure I agree with you premise here. In English this seems like the usual real vs unreal distinction.- Nuances in non-past unreal conditions (future more vivid "If you do the homework, you'll be rewarded." ~ future less vivid "If you did the homework, you'd be rewarded")
Sorry if my reply came across as fisking! I agree that some of your questions are interesting, I'm not just not entirely sure what you mean by some of them...
Vastly more common - to the point where I'm not 100% happy even about your example.
English "if + simple past" forms either realis past conditions, or irrealis future less vivid conditions. Usually you rely on context to tell them apart (also, in real life, I think (irrealis) future less vivid conditions are a lot more common than realis past ones...)
Well, now you mention it, IS 'than' a preposition in English, or is it a conjunction? I hadn't considered the latter possibility before. But consider:I think what you say about this point resolving into those two questions is true, at least most of the time. Latin, Spanish and French basically use conjunctions in comparisons, so they can't relativize a standard of comparison. But English and Standard Arabic use prepositions, so they can. But note it is precisely because I'm interested whether this could be different in some particular languages that I look for it.
Yes, sorry, I saw your Latin examples, I was just wondering how widespread you thought this was in other languages, and in which.Classical and Late Latin can't. So in Latin you typically include the PP as a modifier of an adjective or a verbal participle that then modifies the noun, or inside a relative clauseThat's an interesting question. Do you have any information on which languages or families can't (or can) do this?- Can nouns be modified by adverbs and PPs directly? ("all the people here", "the mouse under the table", "research on early dinosaurs")
Two things come to mind...Hah. I suppose that's fair if if we're talking about English, but is it so if it's Spanish? La gente aquí 'the people here'. I guess some linguists would argue that Spanish has a few invariable adjectives, particularly colours (zapatos café, brown shoes), but my dialect treats those regularly (zapatos cafés) while still accepting la gente aquí. Although maybe some linguists would argue aquí is some sort noun modifier from the use of brand names (chocolates Lindt 'Lindt chocolate', computadoras Lenovo 'Lenovo computers')... I do notice that other such basic adverbs like ayer 'yesterday' and así 'this way, thus' can't modify NPs directly (*los eventos ayer, *la construcción así). I don't know...Although I'm not sure why you call 'here' an adverb, as it clearly modified nouns directly, making it an adjective...
My intuition is that English is just zero-deriving adjectives out of certain adverbs (or vice versa), and other languages don't allow this.
Once again, I'm asking about this because (Classical/Late) Latin doesn't allow this, as with PPs of place. Can't say *hominēs hīc.
I think I do. Or... well, maybe not. But I think it's a pragmatic markedness - they're just used in different situations, one of which is more common. I'd say... no, sorry, can't really describe it. Well, for example, you'd put the "when" clause first to retrospectively explain an event: "When you got here, I was finishing the boat in the garage" (that's why I didn't hear you come in); whereas you'd put it last to retrospectively explain an emotion? "I was finishing the boat in the garage when you got here" (that's why I'm grumpy, because you interrupted me).Both. I mean the perfective aspect use of cum, and also its unmarked use after the main clause. "When you showed up I was cooking dinner" feels a bit more marked to me than "I was cooking dinner when you showed up", but maybe you'll disagree...Not sure what you mean here. Are you saying something about the order of adverbial clauses, or are you saying something about the semantic (perfective vs imperfective) of 'when'?- Is there a use of "inverse when"? ("When I was helping them, you complained." -> "I was helping them when you complained.")
Depends on the sentence, to me, and the context. "Fragile, it may have been, but..." has no pause for me. "Blue, they painted it, in the end" often wouldn't in speech, though could do. "Fatigued, they walked" is fine without a pause if nothing follows, though it has an old-fashioned, storytelling feel.I, at least, really can't pronounce this kind of thing without making a pause or intonation break, in either English or Spanish (Cansados, seguimos caminando hasta llegar al pueblo).Are you sure the pause is syntactically significant, rather than rhetorical? I'm always skeptical of the idea that English punctuation directly represents actual pauses in speech...- Can adjectives stand as a pseudo-clause followed by a pause, even if just as a literary construction? ("Fatigued, we kept walking until reaching the town.")
Commas reflect a combination of syntax and imagined or typical speech, but they don't always reflect actual speech. A lot of allegro speech really is very allegro, without big pauses at all - sometimes even full stops aren't really respected in everyday speech.It seems obvious to me that German commas are more orthographical than anything else, but I think English and Spanish commas generally reflect speech, especially in Spanish. Many English speakers seem to believe a rule that commas should be placed after a sentence-initial adjunct though. Also, in real-world Spanish, you can often find commas after long, heavy subjects, right in between the subject and the verb, reflecting a natural spoken pause, even though the RAE of course disapproves of that use of the comma.
A further complication: English also lets you say (though it's a bit old-fashioned) "when I water it the more"The second type of construction is very specific and odd, yes, but it's common in European languages, and I've noticed both Standard Arabic and Mandarin also have special correlative constructions to express this (with 越...越 yuè...yuè "INCR" in Mandarin, and in Arabic, with كلما kullamaa 'the more' and قل qalla 'the less', as in قل...قل qalla...qalla 'the less X, the less Y'), hence my interest in it. Grammars of languages often don't mention how this kind of thing is naturally translated into those other languages though, hence why I ask.
I'm sure there are languages that need to use normal comparisons for this ("Whenever I water this kind of plant more, it always gets bigger", "If I say less, everything will be better"), but I'd like to know which are some of them.
Ah, OK.I'm asking how Finnish does the equivalent of "headless relative clauses", to use the common term. (A term I don't like much, because I believe the subordinators or parts of the supposed subordinators are the actual heads in these.)
And English can do likewise - "the seen", "the seeing" - it just prefers nominal derivation. In particular, English doesn't like treating headless relatives as nouns, and therefore things get awkward when one wants to, say, indicate number...I mentioned "shout-er/shout-ee" in the same question (although I shouldn't have...), because in Classical Chinese agent nouns and patient nouns are formed with the same morphemes as headless relative clauses. See 所見 suǒ jiàn ("REL.PAT see") 'the one seen, what is seen, lo visto' and 天之所見 tiān zhī suǒ jiàn ("heaven POSS REL.PASS see") 'what Heaven sees', or 殺者 shā zhě ("kill REL.AGT") 'killer' and 樂殺人者 lè shā rén zhě ("happy kill person REL.AGT") 'those who enjoy killing people [cannot benefit from the efforts of the world... Tao Te Ching 31]'.
That would be strange, though elegant - how would these be (or connect to) articles?I don't expect Finnish to have anything interesting (just derivational suffixes instead, as usual), but I'd apply the question broadly to the world's languages. Maybe there's an inflectional language out there that has agent and patient "articles" that go with an infinitive of sorts (imagine i pal-ash 'bless-er', en pal-ash 'bless-ee', where -ash is a non-finite inflectional suffix, and where i/en show article-like behaviour elsewhere), or something stranger still.
Does this reflect back on some ancient intermarriage between (presumably male) Uralic speakers and (presumably female) Indo-European speakers?
I haven't thought about that. Fun how French and Finnish do exactly the opposite.
My understanding is that there is some evidence that (most) Finns' X-chromosome line comes from the East and mitochondrion line comes from the West.
Huh. I've certainly heard lanko and käly in use - not especially frequently, perhaps, but not solely on television, either. The other two, though, are limited entirely to speculations on whether or not Proto-Uralic had rounded vowels in non-initial syllables.
As far as I'm aware, it was never the standard word for 'woman', though; pretty much all Finnic languages seem to use a descendant of Proto-Finnic *nainen. By contrast, Proto-Finnic *vaimo meant 'spirit' or 'soul', and this meaning is still retained by Estonian vaim; whereas Saami has borrowed the word for 'heart' (North Saami váibmu, Inari váimu etc.).earlier vaimo also meant just ‘woman’
I didn't mean its etymology, just how it seems to be used in 19th century novels, "vaimot rannalla pyykillä" 'women on the beach washing clothes'. Probably it means 'married women' in them.Xonen wrote: ↑29 Aug 2021 20:52As far as I'm aware, it was never the standard word for 'woman', though; pretty much all Finnic languages seem to use a descendant of Proto-Finnic *nainen. By contrast, Proto-Finnic *vaimo meant 'spirit' or 'soul', and this meaning is still retained by Estonian vaim; whereas Saami has borrowed the word for 'heart' (North Saami váibmu, Inari váimu etc.).earlier vaimo also meant just ‘woman’
Well, I guess any woman above the age of, like, fifteen would have been assumed to be married pretty much by default in those days, so 'woman' vs. 'wife' would've been a distinction almost without a difference... But my point is that it's worth noting that this distinction has nonetheless existed - in notable contrast to the word mies, which is the default for both 'man' and 'husband'. The etymological info just supports this point (in that nainen is indeed probably the original Finnic word for 'woman').Omzinesý wrote: ↑29 Aug 2021 21:34I didn't mean its etymology, just how it seems to be used in 19th century novels, "vaimot rannalla pyykillä" 'women on the beach washing clothes'. Probably it means 'married women' in them.Xonen wrote: ↑29 Aug 2021 20:52As far as I'm aware, it was never the standard word for 'woman', though; pretty much all Finnic languages seem to use a descendant of Proto-Finnic *nainen. By contrast, Proto-Finnic *vaimo meant 'spirit' or 'soul', and this meaning is still retained by Estonian vaim; whereas Saami has borrowed the word for 'heart' (North Saami váibmu, Inari váimu etc.).earlier vaimo also meant just ‘woman’