The passive past participle can be called the TU-partisiippi or the passiivin toinen partisiippi in Finnish.

1. What are Participles?

A participle is a specific form of the verb, used to either turn a verb into an adjective, noun or to replace a subordinate clause. That’s a pretty broad description. All these participles can be used in a multitude of different ways.

Often participles are used as verbal adjectives which can be formed from all verbs. Like ordinary adjectives, they are declined in all cases and agree with the noun which they modify. They can be in active (-VA or -NUT) and passive form (-TAVA or -TU) and there is also an ‘agent’ participle. On this page you find just the passive past participle.

2. The Use of the Passive Past Participle

We call the passive past participle also the TU-participle because its marker at the end of a verb will be -tu/-ty.

There are three parts to this word construction:

1. It’s passive: we don’t know who did the action, or it’s not important
2. It’s past: it happened before, it’s done
3. It’s a participle: it’s based on a verb and can be used as an adjective or noun

The TU-participle is the passive version of the NUT-participle. In linguistic sources it will also be called the passive second participle (passiivin toinen partisiippi).

2.1. As Part of the Negative Passive Imperfect

The past passive or passive imperfect (passiivin imperfekti) can be conjugated in the negative. When that happens, you will use the past passive participle of the verb in combination with the negative verb ei.

2.2. As part of the Passive Perfect Tense

The passive perfect tense is formed by taking the verb olla and conjugating the main verb of the sentence in the past passive participle. It expresses that something has been done, but doesn’t reveal who did – either because we don’t know or because it’s not important. It fulfills the same function as the active perfect tense.

2.3. As an Adjective

When a noun hasn’t done anything, but has had something done to it, you can use this participle as an adjective. In English, you are more likely to use a subordinate clause for these sentences. For example:

• In English: “the leader that was chosen yesterday”
• In Finnish: “the yesterday-chosen leader”.

However, in some cases, translating literally works just fine:

• In English: “we like fish that has been baked”
• In Finnish: “we like baked fish”

I have a whole separate article with more examples of adjectives ending in -TU.

2.4. As a Noun

Some of these participles can be used as nouns. Originally, these functioned as an adjective describing a noun, but now they can take the place of the subject of the sentence on their own.

2.5. In the Temporal Substitute Construction

The TU-participle is used in the temporaalinen lauseenvastike or temporaalirakenne. It’s used to replace a kun-sentence that expresses that something happened earlier. It condenses two sentences into one. For example: “Syötyäni lähdin ulos.” = “Kun olin syönyt, lähdin ulos.” = “When I had eaten, I went outside.”

You can learn more about the temporal substitute construction on its own page.

2.6. Tulla tehdyksi – Saada tehtyä

The TU-participle, combined with either the partitive or the translative, can express that something happened by accident or without any action done by the people involved. This is the case with certain verbs only: tulla and saada (sometimes also joutua).

2.6.1. Tulla

The verb tulla can be used to express the future: that something is going to happen a certain way (see #1 below). It can also be used to remove the person performing the action from the sentence. This makes the sentence less accusatory (#2), or it can otherwise just reduce the importance of the do-er (#3).

In English, this may seem strange. It would be weird for the head of a family to say: “It’s great that the ham was bought yesterday!”, when it was actually the head of the family who bought it.

2.6.2. Saada

Saada tehdyksi and saada tehtyä show who is doing the action, and stresses – in positive sentences – that something succeeded (#1) and – in negative sentence – that something failed (#2). You can also use it in passive sentences (#3).

2.7. Compound Verbs

Next, let’s take a look at a series of compound verbs that appear regularly in the TU-participle.

3. The Formation of the Passive Past Participle

I think the easiest way to learn how the passive past participle is formed is to compare it to the passive imperfect. Both have the same number of -t’s going on, which is important because the marker for the past passive participle can be -tu/-ty or -ttu/-tty, depending on the verbtype.

Below, you can compare the passive forms to one another.

4. The Inflection of the Passive Past Participle

You can inflect all TU-participle forms in all the Finnish cases, both in the singular and the plural. However, this comes with some consonant gradation surprises, so let’s look at that next!

4.1. Singular

The basic rules of consonant gradation for wordtype A words take place as it should. You can think of these words as nouns that end in -(t)tu); they’re grammatically not verbs anymore. This means that the basic form, the partitive, essive and illative will be strong, and all the other forms weak.

There is one exception to this rule: for verbtype 3 verbs that end in -sta, you will not use consonant gradation. Verbs like pestä (pesty) and nousta (noustu) will retain their -t- in all the inflections. This is due to the combination of -st- within these verbs, which is a consonant gradation exception.

4.2. Plural

Just like in the singular forms, the basic rules of consonant gradation for wordtype A words will apply. For the plural, that means that the partitive, illative, essive and genitive will be strong.

Verbtype 3 verbs once again for the exception. For VT3 verbs that end in -sta, you will not use consonant gradation. Verbs like pestä (pesty) and nousta (noustu) will retain their -t- in all the inflections.

Check out the other Finnish participles here!

Related posts:

The Passive Present Participle – TAVA-Participle Present Passive Participle Sentence Constructions Overview of the Passives The Passive – Present Passive