The Passive Present Participle – TAVA-Participle
The passive present participle (tehtävä, luettava, sanottava) can be called the -TAVA-partisiippi or the passiivin ensimmäinen partisiippi in Finnish. This is an advanced grammar topic. If you’re a beginner, you should search for something easier on this website! There is plenty to find!
- What are Participles?
- The Use of the Passive Present Participle
- The TAVA-participle used as an adjective
- In sentences expressing necessity
- In fixed phrases
- As a noun expressing what is happening to someone
- In more advanced sentence constructions
- The Formation of the Passive Present Participle
- The Inflection of the Passive Present Participle
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 the qualify. 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 present participle.
2. The Use of the Passive Present Participle
There are three parts to this word construction:
- It’s passive: it is either unclear or unimportant who is doing the action
- It’s present: it’s happening right now, or in the future (or at the same time)
- It’s a participle: it’s produced from a verb
2.1. The passive present participle as an adjective
The passive present participle can be used as a adjective. Compared to all the other participles, translating this one is the most tricky. There are in fact three possible ways in which you can interpret this participle:
- Something is currently being done to the object
- Something can be done to the object
- Something should be done to the object
| # | Finnish | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Käännettävä kirja] on pitkä. | [The book that is being translated] is long. |
| 1 | [Koulussa käytettävä kirja] on vanha. | [The book that’s being used] in school is old. |
| 1 | Olen asunut [remontoitavassa talossa] vuoden. | I’ve lived one year in [the house that’s being renovated]. |
| 2 | [Kannettava tietokone] on painava. | [The portable computer] is heavy. |
| 2 | Se on [ymmärrettävä selitys]. | That’s [an understandable explanation]. |
| 2 | Se ei ole [uskottava valhe]. | That’s not [a believable lie]. |
| 2 | Osaatko tunnistaa [syötävät sienet]? | Can you recognise [the eatable mushrooms]? |
| 3 | Tämä on [aamulla otettava lääke]. | This is [a med that has to be taken in the morning]. |
| 3 | [Arkistoitavat dokumentit] ovat pinossa. | [The documents that have to be archived] are in a pile. |
| 3 | Muista [nämä lukittavat ovet]! | Remember [these doors that have to be locked]! |
2.2. In sentences expressing necessity
There are several options in Finnish to express necessity (e.g. täytyy, pitää, on pakko). A more advanced way to express necessity involves the present passive participle: on mentävä kotiin, on oltava hiljaa. This construction always uses the verb olla. If the sentence has a subject, it will appear in the genitive case. It’s also possible to not use a subject. This is the case for the three last examples below. For these, you’re not saying who has to perform the action.
| Verb | Finnish | English |
|---|---|---|
| maksaa | [Minun on maksettava] laskut. | I have to pay the bills. |
| opiskella | [Annan on opiskeltava] kotona. | Anna has to study at home. |
| hoitaa | Asiat [on hoidettava]. | The things have to be taken care of. |
| olla | Bussissa [on oltava] hiljaa. | In the bus one has to be quiet. |
| pitää | Palo-ovi [pidettävä] suljettuna (pic). | The fire-door has to be kept shut. |
You can find many more example on this topic in the article about expressing necessity with a participle!
2.3. In fixed phrases
There are some fixed words and phrases that contain the present passive participle. First, there is a group of phrases that use the participle as a noun. In these phrases, the participle appears in the partitive case.
In addition, there are some fossilized participles that fulfill the function of an adjective.
| Finnish | English |
|---|---|
| Nouns + partitive | |
| Onko teillä kysyttävää? | Do you have anything to ask? |
| Haluan jotain syötävää. | I want something to eat. |
| Tuo jotain juotavaa! | Bring something to drink! |
| Minulla on paljon kerrottavaa. | I have a lot to tell (you). |
| Annalla on aina paljon sanottavaa. | Anna always has a lot to say. |
| Onko täällä mitään luettavaa? | Is there anything to read here? |
| Adjectives | |
| Kaija on erittäin luotettava ystävä. | Kaija’s a very trustworthy friend. |
| Hän ei palkkaa epäluotettavia työntekijöitä. | He doesn’t employ untrustworthy employees. |
| Tuo on naurettava ajatus. | That’s a ridiculous idea. |
| Se on valitettava tosiasia. | It’s an unfortunate fact. |
2.4. As a noun expressing what is happening to someone
The passive present participle can also be used as a noun rather than as an adjective modifying its main word. Usually these come as a pair, where both the person doing the action and the person the action is affecting side by side.
| Finnish | English |
|---|---|
| Auttajat ja autettavat tekevät yhteistyötä. | The helpers and [the people being helped] work together. |
| Se on hyvä sekä hoitajalle että hoidettavalle. | It’s good for both the caretaker and [the person being taken care of]. |
| Tutkija ja tutkittava tutustuvat toisiinsa. | The examiner and the examinee get to know each other. |
| Haastattelija ja haastateltava keskustelevat. | The interviewer and the interviewee are chatting. |
| Palvelija ja palveltava tulevat toimeen keskenään. | The servant and [the person being served] get along with each other. |
2.5. In more advanced sentence contructions
The passive present participle can also be used in a variety of participle sentence constructions. We have a separate article on those:
- Auto on korjattavissa.
- Auto on korjattavana.
- Auto viedään korjattavaksi.
3. The Formation of the Passive Present Participle
The passive present participle’s marker is -(t)tava/-(t)tävä. You add it to the weak stem for each verbtype. You can use the same rules as for the passive imperfect here. This is especially handy because the past passive will reveal whether you need one or two t’s.
| Verbtype 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Verb | Present Passive | Past Passive | Passive Present Participle |
| nukkua | nukutaan | nukuttiin | nukuttava |
| leipoa | leivotaan | leivottiin | leivottava |
| Verbtype 2 | |||
| Verb | Present Passive | Past Passive | Passive Present Participle |
| imuroida | imuroidaan | imuroitiin | imuroitava |
| tupakoida | tupakoidaan | tupakoitiin | tupakoitava |
| Verbtype 3 | |||
| Verb | Present Passive | Past Passive | Passive Present Participle |
| kävellä | kävellään | käveltiin | käveltävä |
| tulla | tullaan | tultiin | tultava |
| Verbtype 4 | |||
| Verb | Present Passive | Past Passive | Passive Present Participle |
| maata | maataan | maattiin | maattava |
| kadota | kadotaan | kadottiin | kadottava |
| Verbtype 5 | |||
| Verb | Present Passive | Past Passive | Passive Present Participle |
| häiritä | häiritään | häirittiin | häirittävä |
| tarvita | tarvitaan | tarvittiin | tarvittava |
| Verbtype 6 | |||
| Verb | Present Passive | Past Passive | Passive Present Participle |
| vanheta | vanhetaan | vanhettiin | vanhettava |
| lämmetä | lämmetään | lämmettiin | lämmettävä |
4. The Inflection of the Passive Present Participle
The participles can be inflected in all the Finnish cases.
| Case | Singular | Plural | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | juotava | juotavat | Tilasin meille juotavat. |
| Genitive (-n) | juotavan | juotavien | Otan juotavan lääkkeen. |
| Partitive (-a) | juotavaa | juotavia | Haluatko jotain juotavaa? |
| Illative (mihin) | juotavaan | juotaviin | Juotaviin lääkkeisiin lisätään makuaineita. |
| Inessive (missä) | juotavassa | juotavissa | Tämä litku ei ole juotavissa. |
| Elative (mistä) | juotavasta | juotavista | Nautin tästä juotavasta jogurtista. |
| Allative (mille) | juotavalle | juotaville | Jääkaapissa ei ole tilaa juotaville. |
| Adessive (millä) | juotavalla | juotavilla | Hoida flunssaa kuumalla juotavalla. |
| Ablative (miltä) | juotavalta | juotavilta | Vaikuttaako se neste juotavalta? |
| Translative (-ksi) | juotavaksi | juotaviksi | Se on tarkoitettu juotavaksi. |
| Essive (-na) | juotavana | juotavina | En pidä tätä jogurttia helposti juotavana. |
Hei
3. The Formation of the Passive Present Participle.
could this rule work ?
change -iin => ava / ävä
kiitos
You can think about it like that if you like 🙂 For future reference though (when you’re not looking at the rules) merely looking at either -ava or -iin might confuse you when trying to figure out what a form means (like, where do the t’s come from).
Your rule works and is useful for FORMING this participle yourself.
I came across this sentence: “…luulisin opiskelijan haluavan oppia opittavan kielen omia sanoja.” I immediately thought of the construction “oppia oppimistaan”.
Are these connected? Do they mean similar things or is there a slight (or gorgeous) difference between? (…or I’m seeing constructions where there isn’t any 😛 )
(I hope it isn’t about any mistake in the given phrase, nor some unusual or dialectal way…)
This is a totally different matter than “oppia oppimistaan“!
Let’s first replace “opittavan” with a different word to show you what we’re dealing with: “Luulen opiskelijan haluavan oppia [uuden kielen] omia sanoja.”
[Opittavan kielen] is an example of the -ttava participle used as an adjective. It appears in the genitive case because it describes the language. We could replace it with [suomen kielen], [vaikean kielen] or [uuden kielen].
The repetition of the verb oppia basically just creates a really ugly sentence, which most editors would probably change :p
Hei taas 🙂
I’ve read words like luettavammaksi and ymmärrettävämmäksi. That is, passive present participle ( comparative translative ).
Have you written any article about it ?
Is it often used ?
kiitos taas ja hyvää perjantaita.
Hei Oscar!
You’ve analyzed the words correct, yep! You will usually find words ending in -tavammaksi combined with the verbs “tehdä” (to MAKE something more legible/understandable) and “muuttua” (to BECOME more legible/understandable). The two example verbs you shared are by far the most common.
These participle forms have basically just turned into adjectives, much like you could say “Sää muuttuu kylmemmäksi” and “Tilanne muuttui vaikeammaksi“.
Hei.
Shouldn’t be the rektio of pitää, STA in the last example?
The verb pitää has other rections than -sta as well. You use the mistä-form when you want to say you LIKE something. In the example sentence, pitää means “to consider something to be a certain way: pitää + partitive + essive
En pidä tätä jogurttia (partitive) helposti juotavana (essive).
= I don’t consider this yoghurt to be easy to drink.
hei
The examples in 4. The Inflection of the Passive Present Participle are very interesting but I miss some explanation about why each case is used…..due to a rection, a given structure, etc
That explanation could help us to understand a litttle more about the use of cases with this kind of participle in order to use them with others sentences….(in my opinion, of course)
for example….Se on tarkoitettu juotavaksi.
why translative ?
kiitoksia
The translative case is super interesting, isn’t it! The verb tarkoittaa can be used in order to express what something is meant for by using the translative case. It’s specifically the “on tarkoitettu” form that will be used with the translative.
The verb tarkoittaa will be used with -lle when you tell who something is meant for (Rahat on tarkoitettu pakolaisille), so don’t confuse the two!
Maybe I’ll find some time to perhaps make a separate article with examples like these explained… However, most of the examples in that table are just rections.
> It’s also possible to not use a subject. This is the case for the two last examples below.
I think it might be true for the last three examples? The third example from the bottom is:
Asiat [on hoidettava]
Am I correct that Asiat there is not the subject, but the object?
Yeah, I added another example after writing that text hehe. Thank you!