Old Words versus New Words Ending in -i

May 20, 2019

September 1, 2024

There are many words that end in -i in Finnish. Unfortunately – due to the many different changes – their inflection in the different cases can cause some confusion and frustration among learners of Finnish. Let’s take a look!

The biggest portion of words ending in -i are new (e.g. lasi : lasin : lasia : laseja). However, there are several categories of old words, like vesi (veden, vettä, vesiä), joki (joen, jokea, jokia) or lohi (lohen, lohta, lohia). There are some other unexpected things going on with old words versus new words ending in -i. Learn more now!

I will be listing the following cases as examples for the inflection of these words:

1. New Words ending in -i

We will start our article on old words versus new words with the new ones. New words are often loanwords. Usually they’re recognisable because they resemble words in other languages, like pankki for ”bank”, or paperi for ”paper”. Loanwords are easier than Finnish words because they don’t undergo as many changes when you add endings: you basically just add the ending to the basic form of the word in most cases.

1.1. Short new words ending in -i

Partitive: basic form +a/ä
Genitive: basic form +n
Missä: basic form +ssa/ssä
Plural Partitive: remove –i and add –eja/ejä

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
bussi	bussia	bussin	bussissa	busseja
halli	hallia	hallin	hallissa	halleja
hissi	hissiä	hissin	hississä	hissejä
kahvi	kahvia	kahvin	kahvissa	kahveja
kani	kania	kanin	kanissa	kaneja
kassi	kassia	kassin	kassissa	kasseja
kasvi	kasvia	kasvin	kasvissa	kasveja
kortti	korttia	kortin	kortissa	kortteja
koti	kotia	kodin	kodissa	koteja
kuitti	kuittia	kuitin	kuitissa	kuitteja
kurssi	kurssia	kurssin	kurssissa	kursseja
laji	lajia	lajin	lajissa	lajeja
laki	lakia	lain	laissa	lakeja
lasi	lasia	lasin	lasissa	laseja
maali	maalia	maalin	maalissa	maaleja
mökki	mökkiä	mökin	mökissä	mökkejä
pankki	pankkia	pankin	pankissa	pankkeja
pappi	pappia	papin	papissa	pappeja
passi	passia	passin	passissa	passeja
peli	peliä	pelin	pelissä	pelejä
pussi	pussia	pussin	pussissa	pusseja
siili	siiliä	siilin	siilissä	siilejä
taksi	taksia	taksin	taksissa	takseja
teksti	tekstiä	tekstin	tekstissä	tekstejä
tiimi	tiimiä	tiimin	tiimissä	tiimejä
tunti	tuntia	tunnin	tunnissa	tunteja
tuoli	tuolia	tuolin	tuolissa	tuoleja
väri	väriä	värin	värissä	värejä

1.2. Long new words ending in -i: group one

As far as I can think, all the long words that end in -i are loanwords. Most of them end in -li or -ri.

While all long words mainly follow the same rules for each case, the plural partitive is an exception. I’m only listing one option for the plural partitive, but it’s good to know that there are often multiple options for this case.

For group one, all words have a short vowel in the one-but-last syllable (lää-kä-ri). This is why these words have the ending –eita/eitä for the plural partitive.

Partitive: basic form +a/ä
Genitive: basic form +n
Missä: basic form +ssa/ssä
Plural Partitive for long words: learn more in this article.

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
enkeli	enkeliä	enkelin	enkelissä	enkeleitä
kaakeli	kaakelia	kaakelin	kaakelissa	kaakeleita
lääkäri	lääkäriä	lääkärin	lääkärissä	lääkäreitä
moottori	moottoria	moottorin	moottorissa	moottoreita
mutteri	mutteria	mutterin	mutterissa	muttereita
naapuri	naapuria	naapurin	naapurissa	naapureita
paperi	paperia	paperin	paperissa	papereita
seteli	seteliä	setelin	setelissä	seteleitä
sipuli	sipulia	sipulin	sipulissa	sipuleita
symboli	symbolia	symbolin	symbolissa	symboleita

1.3. Long new words ending in -i: group two

For group two, all words have a long vowel in the one-but-last syllable (in-si-nöö-ri). These words have -eja/ejä in the plural partitive.

Partitive: basic form +a/ä
Genitive: basic form +n
Missä: basic form +ssa/ssä
Plural Partitive for long words: learn more in this article.

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
amatööri	amatööriä	amatöörin	amatöörissä	amatöörejä
appelsiini	appelsiinia	appelsiinin	appelsiinissa	appelsiineja
banaani	banaania	banaanin	banaanissa	banaaneja
insinööri	insinööriä	insinöörin	insinöörissä	insinöörejä
jonglööri	jonglööriä	jonglöörin	jonglöörissä	jonglöörejä
krokotiili	krokotiilia	krokotiilin	krokotiilissa	krokotiileja
likööri	likööriä	liköörin	liköörissä	liköörejä
miljonääri	miljonääriä	miljonäärin	miljonäärissä	miljonäärejä

1.4. Long new words ending in -i: group three

Group three is for long new words ending in something else besides -li or -ri (e.g. -tti or -si).

Partitive: basic form +a/ä
Genitive: basic form +n
Missä: basic form +ssa/ssä
Plural Partitive for long words: –eja/ejä

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
arkkitehti	arkkitehtia	arkkitehdin	arkkitehdissa	arkkitehteja
konteksti	kontekstia	kontekstin	kontekstissa	konteksteja
poliisi	poliisia	poliisin	poliisissa	poliiseja
presidentti	presidenttiä	presidentin	presidentissä	presidenttejä
salaatti	salaattia	salaatin	salaatissa	salaatteja
turisti	turistia	turistin	turistissa	turisteja

2. Old words ending in -i

We’ve come to part two of the old words versus new words battle! Old words are very often nature words. After all, nature has been around for so long that Finns have had names for them since the very beginning. Some words’ age can be confusing, for example äiti “mother” is actually a new Finnish word, even though mothers have been around since the beginning of time!

2.1. The base rule for old words ending in -i

Partitive: remove –i and add –ea/-eä
Genitive: remove –i and add –en
Missä: remove –i and add –essa/-essä
Plural partitive: basic form +a/ä (rule for all old i-words)

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
arki	arkea	arjen	arjessa	arkia
arpi	arpea	arven	arvessa	arpia
happi	happea	hapen	hapessa	happia
hauki	haukea	hauen	hauessa	haukia
helmi	helmeä	helmen	helmessä	helmiä
henki	henkeä	hengen	hengessä	henkiä
hirvi	hirveä	hirven	hirvessä	hirviä
joki	jokea	joen	joessa	jokia
järvi	järveä	järven	järvessä	järviä
kivi	kiveä	kiven	kivessä	kiviä
kylki	kylkeä	kyljen	kyljessä	kylkiä
lahti	lahtea	lahden	lahdessa	lahtia
lehti	lehteä	lehden	lehdessä	lehtiä
mäki	mäkeä	mäen	mäessä	mäkiä
nimi	nimeä	nimen	nimessä	nimiä
ovi	ovea	oven	ovessa	ovia
pilvi	pilveä	pilven	pilvessä	pilviä
polvi	polvea	polven	polvessa	polvia
putki	putkea	putken	putkessa	putkia
ripsi	ripseä	ripsen	ripsessä	ripsiä
rupi	rupea	ruven	ruvessa	rupia
sormi	sormea	sormen	sormessa	sormia
suomi	suomea	suomen	suomessa	suomia
talvi	talvea	talven	talvessa	talvia
tammi	tammea	tammen	tammessa	tammia
tuki	tukea	tuen	tuessa	tukia
tähti	tähteä	tähden	tähdessä	tähtiä
väki	väkeä	väen	väessä	väkiä

2.2. Old words ending in -si

More old words, but this time with –si at their end. It’s also important that this rule is only for old words, which means new words like kurssi (kurssia) and bussi (bussia) are excluded from this rule (see 1.1.).

Partitive: remove –si and add –tta/-ttä
Genitive: remove –si and add –den
Missä: remove –si and add –dessa/-dessä
Plural partitive: basic form +a/ä (rule for all old i-words)

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
kausi	kautta	kauden	kaudessa	kausia
kuukausi	kuukautta	kuukauden	kuukaudessa	kuukausia
kuusi (6)	kuutta	kuuden	kuudessa	kuusia
käsi	kättä	käden	kädessä	käsiä
liesi	liettä	lieden	liedessä	liesiä
mesi	mettä	meden	medessä	mesiä
susi	sutta	suden	sudessa	susia
tosi	totta	toden	todessa	tosia
täysi	täyttä	täyden	täydessä	täysiä
uusi	uutta	uuden	uudessa	uusia
viisi	viittä	viiden	viidessä	viisiä

2.3. Old words ending in -li, -ni or -ri

This rule for words of two syllables ending in –li, -ni or –ri is not 100 % foolproof. There are words that end in –hi, like ”lohi” for example, that become ”lohta” in the partitive.

Partitive: remove –i and add –ta/-tä
Genitive: remove –i and add –en
Missä: remove –i and add –essa/-essä
Plural partitive: basic form +a/ä (rule for all old i-words)

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
hiili	hiiltä	hiilen	hiilessä	hiiliä
hiiri	hiirtä	hiiren	hiiressä	hiiriä
huuli	huulta	huulen	huulessa	huulia
jousi	jousta	jousen	jousessa	jousia
juuri	juurta	juuren	juuressa	juuria
kieli	kieltä	kielen	kielessä	kieliä
kuori	kuorta	kuoren	kuoressa	kuoria
kusi	kusta	kusen	kusessa	kusia
kuusi (spruce)	kuusta	kuusen	kuusessa	kuusia
lohi	lohta	lohen	lohessa	lohia
pieni	pientä	pienen	pienessä	pieniä
saari	saarta	saaren	saaressa	saaria
sieni	sientä	sienen	sienessä	sieniä
suoni	suonta	suonen	suonessa	suonia
suuri	suurta	suuren	suuressa	suuria
tuli	tulta	tulen	tulessa	tulia
tuuli	tuulta	tuulen	tuulessa	tuulia
vuori	vuorta	vuoren	vuoressa	vuoria
ääni	ääntä	äänen	äänessä	ääniä

**2.4. Old words ending in -mi or -hi with two stems**

Some words (e.g. toimi) have two stems: a vowel stem (toime-a) and a consonant stem (toin-ta) for the singular partitive. Both of these forms are correct, but usually one of them is more common than the other.

The numbers mentioned are the number of results you get when googling these forms. This is not a 100% accurate representation of the reality, but gives you some idea nevertheless.

Partitive: either –ea/eä or –ta/tä (-nta/-ntä for -mi words)
Genitive: remove –i and add –en
Missä: remove –i and add –essa/-essä
Plural partitive: basic form +a/ä (rule for all old i-words)

Nominative	Partitive #1	Partitive #2	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
liemi	liemeä – 1 300	lientä – 138 000	liemen	liemessä	liemiä
luomi	luomea – 9 000	luonta – 17 000	luomen	luomessa	luomia
riihi	riiheä – 500	riihtä – 7 000	riihen	riihessä	riihiä
veitsi	veitseä – 10 500	veistä – 240 000	veitsen	veitsessä	veitsiä
vuohi	vuohea– 1 800	vuohta – 28 000	vuohen	vuohessa	vuohiä
loimi	loimea – 23 000	lointa – 27 000	loimen	loimessa	loimia
toimi	toimea – 38 000	tointa – 62 000	toimen	toimessa	toimia
taimi	taimea – 85 000	tainta – 120 000	taimen	taimessa	taimia
niemi	niemeä – 31 000	nientä – 4 000	niemen	niemessä	niemiä
tuomi	tuomea – 11 000	tuonta – 3 000	tuomen	tuomessa	tuomia

In addition to the words above, it’s also interesting to mention kaali and viini. In some forms of Finnish slang, these words have an exceptional partitive form. Insteal of the regular kaalia and viiniä, some people use the alternative forms kaalta and viintä. These are not considered correct, but they are interesting, because the exceptional form follows the regular rule for words ending in –li and –ni.

2.5. Exceptional words

The following words all have some kind of exceptional change going on. The exceptional thing has been marked in purple. For these words the battle is not between old versus new; they’re just exceptional forms, usually due to historical reasons.

Nominative	Partitive	Genitive	Missä	Plural Partitive
lapsi	lasta	lapsen	lapsessa	lapsia
yksi	yhtä	yhden	yhdessä	yksiä
kaksi	kahta	kahden	kahdessa	kaksia
varsi	vartta	varren	varressa	varsia
hirsi	hirttä	hirren	hirressä	hirsiä
kansi	kantta	kannen	kannessa	kansia
länsi	länttä	lännen	lännessä	länsiä
meri	merta	meren	meressä	meriä
veri	verta	veren	veressä	veriä

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Michael Hämäläinen

This is very interesting work, thanks for breaking the topic down into manageable chunks!
One inspiration for me to learn to separately analyse consonant clusters depending on where they appear in the word (initial/medial/final) was the Phonotactics section of the Finnish Phonology Wikipedia page. Some of the principles introduced there not only give some hints about the final consonant clusters (e.g., Finnish words only end in the consonants t,s,n,r, or l; all others will be given an –i– ending), but also the initial –s– dropping from some foreign loanwords: e.g., Swedish glas = Finnish lasi; Old Swedish stol = Finnish tuoli (namely, because only stop+liquid combinations are allowed for word-initial consonant clusters).
For those who are interested in theoretical frameworks, inflection stems are in fact the basis for the KOTUS nominal classification system, as explained in the Finnish: Nominal Inflection appendix page on Wiktionary. As that classification system shows, the wide variation in –i– ending nominative forms is contrastive with the consistency and simplicity of nominals ending in round vowels (u, o, y, ö).
Specific to the topic of nominative forms ending in –i-, these are the corresponding KOTUS types:
1.1. Short new words ending in –i
KOTUS type: all 5 risti
Note that 5 risti types can undergo consonant gradation (e.g., koti:kodin). This type includes both two-syllable nominals and words formed by adding the suffix -kki. The 5 risti declension patterns are also applied to foreign words ending in a consonant (e.g. kalsium calcium, Robert (name)).
1.2. Long new words ending in –i: group one
KOTUS types: all 6 paperi
In contrast to 5 risti types, these words do not undergo consonant gradation.
1.3. Long new words ending in –i: group two
KOTUS types: banaani and likööri are 6 paperi; all others are 5 risti
If I understand correctly, banaani and likööri (which do not have consonant gradation) are uniquely classified as 6 paperi because the can take the alternate plural partitive forms ending in –tA: banaaneita (in addition to banaaneja) and likööreitä (in addition to liköörejä)
1.4. Long new words ending in –i: group three
KOTUS types: poliisi is 6 paperi; all others are 5 risti
Note that in partitive plural, poliiseja is more common than poliiseita.
2.1. The base rule for old words ending in –i
KOTUS type: 7 ovi
Note that äiti (which has Proto-Germanic roots) is KOTUS type 5 risti.
2.2. Old words ending in –si
KOTUS types: all 27 käsi
2.3. Old words ending in –li, –ni or –ri
KOTUS types: lohi and tuli are 23 tiili; hiili, hiiri, huuli, kusi, kuusi (spruce) are 24 uni; all others are 26 pieni
There are not many Finnish words ending in –hi, but they show wide variation in declension types, including: 5 risti (kaihi, karhi, orhi, pihi, vihi); 7 ovi (hanhi, kärhi, närhi, tilhi); 23 tiili (jouhi, riihi, tuohi, uuhi); 24 uni (ruuhi)
KOTUS 26 pieni-type are two-syllable nominals ending with –li/-ri/-ni that don’t have consonant gradation. Their declension is essentially identical to 24 uni, except that –ten genitive plural ending is preferred (-en is also possible). 23 tiili (the single –ni ending word “moni” and two-syllable nominals ending in –li/-hi) also has the same declension patterns, but it only takes genitive plural –en suffix.
2.4. Old words ending in –mi or –hi with two stems
KOTUS types: riihi and vuohi are 23 tiili; veitsi is 30 veitsi; all others are 25 toimi.
30 veitsi is exceptional: it is comprised only of the words veitsi and peitsi. 25 toimi type are all two-syllable nominals ending with –mi.
2.5. Exceptional words
meri is 24 uni; veri is 26 pieni; varsi and hirsi are 28 kynsi; lapsi is 29 lapsi (sole member of this type); yksi and kaksi are 31 kaksi (total 4 members; also: haaksi and oksi).
28 kynsi type are nominals ending with –nsi/-rsi/-lsi in which the inflectional stem replaces –si with –te-.
We can see from the above examples that the presence of consonants n, l, r can often impact the declension patterns, also –h– (though less common). A more detailed breakdown is shown in the Finnish: Nominal Inflection appendix mentioned above.

Michael Hämäläinen

Reply to Michael Hämäläinen

My previous comment addressed the theoretical framework of the KOTUS classification, for which inflection stems are taken as the starting point. However, most language teachers or students will find it too unwieldy for use in the classroom.

However, there is a heterodox school of thought that also takes as starting point the inflection stem of the nominals instead of the (dictionary form) nominative form. The motivation for this approach is the realisation that, ironically, the nominative dictionary form is the most “lossy” (i.e., letters in the inflection stem are dropped) and irregular among the 14+ case forms, which means that often it is more complicated to move from nominative form to inflectional stem form, rather than in the reverse direction.

One such pedagogical approach was used in Daniel M Abondolo’s Colloquial Finnish: The Complete Course for Beginners, which involved creating an artificial ‘mark-up’ language — essentially, extra capital letters and symbols to represent the (strong form) stems of various words. Because the underlying structures are already “encoded”, only a few simple steps are needed to “back out” the nominative or other case forms – usually, applying rules of consonant gradation, or simply dropping or swapping the capital letters. He applies a similar approach to verbs, collapsing them down into only 4 classes instead of the standard 6 verbtypes, as I touched upon in a separate comment.

An interesting synthesis of the standard nominative-based categorisation scheme and Abondolo’s mark-up approach is provided in Heinrich Tsanov’s Complete guide to all Finnish noun declensions (almost). The article begins with a self-described “excessively detailed” decision tree starting from the nominative form and leading to the inflection stem type. The main text of the article explains phonological changes and the etymological reasons for splits in the decision tree, referencing many of the principles discussed here.

Again, I will emphasise that this is a heterodox approach — although Abondolo is a respected professor of linguistics and his book (published by Routledge) has sold well, his unique approach has not caught on broadly. In short, there are tradeoffs to this alternative “over-analytical” approach, but for those learners who want to make the sacrifices to learn a logically-rigorous system, I can vouch that the underlying principles are sound.

Inge (admin)

Admin

Reply to Michael Hämäläinen

Ooh, that decision tree is cool, I like it 🙂

The approach of using the stem of the word rather than the nominative is something that’s been discussed among S2-teachers. It’s a viable approach for those trying to learn the GRAMMAR of Finnish, but not so much for those who want to talk their simple Finnish from the start. Their basic sentences would be filled with forms that only make sense from a grammatical point of view. Theoretic forms like vede- and pöydä- don’t make much sence when you say “vede- ole- pöydä-” (The water is on the table). Which isn’t to say that “vesi olla pöytä” is much clearer either. Try explaining (in Finnish!) to an immigrant that “you’re learning these forms but they’re NOT words, you can use none of these as they are in sentences”. It requires quite a linguistic ability to look at language abstractly enough to grasp the concept of “stems”.

Immigrants from Russia generally know their stems, if they’ve studied Finnish before they moved. Their course books are (if I understand correctly) still from the period where it was common to learn the stems at the same time as the nominative. So they learn vesi : vede- : vete-.

That said, in groups for students with no school background at all and no literacy skills, at least verbs are often taught using the third person singular or the stem. Over time, we’ve come to the conclusion that – if we want to reduce the number of misunderstandings when talking to someone with no ability to grasp the idea of conjugation – it’s clearer to have them remember “opiskele” rather than “opiskelen” or “opiskella”. You will understand “minä opiskele, sinä opiskele, hän opiskele” with less ambiguity than the alternatives: “minä opiskelen, sinä opiskelen, hän opiskelen” or “minä opiskella, sinä opiskella, hän opiskella”. That’s a compromise that has to be made at the beginning of their studies. The reality is that learning to conjugate verbs can be really hard with no background of analyzing language at all. Likewise, they usually just learn “vettä” rather than “vesi” because that’s the form you will need in most cases.

Michael Hämäläinen

Reply to Inge (admin)

Thank you for the insight into the pedagogical side.

Abondolo’s book makes no reference to why he created his unique approach, and I remember asking an experienced Finnish teacher in London about strange words like “huoneQ” (“huone” with glottal stop / boundary gemination marker marked with capital Q” and “vieraX” (the X becomes ‘s‘ in nominative, “vieras“). She had no idea what I was talking about. So even though Abondolo’s book is probably within the top 10 most popular English-language texts, his approach hasn’t caught on at all. Perhaps as a pedagogical method, it is a non-starter, unless an entire infrastructure (including textbooks and reference materials) were built up around it.

The point about Russian textbooks is quite interesting. Perhaps for speakers of languages with many cases and complicated inflections, it is easier to “bite the bullet” and lay the inflection stem groundwork, no matter if the initial investment is onerous. If I were to make an analogy, mainland Chinese students start their study of English by first learning the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), whereas lots of Japanese schoolchildren take the shortcut of marking English pronunciation with katakana (Japanese phonetic writing system). I myself only learned the value of the IPA when I took some intro courses on Swedish (complicated vowel system!) and Russian (palatisation!)

So, as a self-study methodology, I see promise in these heterodox approaches. Wiktionary is a game-changer for me, as it provides etymologies, derivation forms, KOTUS type groupings, and complete inflection tables for nearly every word — by contrast, textbook explanations leave me cold because I know they have been pared down and simplified, but I don’t know what was left on the cutting room floor. The decision trees for classifying the words are complicated, but I just make a bunch of blank templates on the office copy machine and practice filling them out once a day, just like a crossword in the morning newspaper.

Citadel

Reply to Michael Hämäläinen

I’m quite new to this site and I am so happy to see this sort of additional info being provided by you. Your comments over these articles have been very helpful in bringing order and structure in the progress to fluency.

I have actually worked through the Abondolo book, and I must say I found his boundary gemination marker system (huoneQ, vieraX, etc) confusing rather than helpful.

Another writer (I don’t recall which one) used a simplified system of just marking boundary gemination with a superscript X, which was better, because the phenomenon is only relevant to the spoken language, and the extra or doubled sound always takes on the initial consonant of the next word.

BTW, I love your extracts from the Korpela material. I have his handbook (the giant version of 900+ pages) and have been wading my way through it, on and off, for a couple of months. It’s always good to get another take on his very extensive and useful material.

David K

Reply to Citadel

I have just discovered this discussion, while trying to make sense of nouns ending in -si!
I’m not a typical learner of Finnish, since I’m studying it largely to understand the structure of a non-indoeuropean language, and am not particularly interested in speaking it. I have a degree in Russian, so I’m used to inflected languages, and I’ve also dipped into a book on Russian Linguistics that uses a structural approach to represent fleeting vowels and the like.
I’ve got Abondolo’s book, and didn’t really get on with it. I wonder if the Routledge Colloquial language books are really used much, but are bought more in hope. For Finnish, they provide the only easily accessible textbook, so there’s really no choice! On the other hand, the classes I’m taking use the Suomen Mestari series, which are impossible to use to understand grammar since they are monolingual. The only things I’ve found helpful are this website Uusi Kielemme [thank you!] and the English version of Wiktionary, which has an extraordinarily complete explanation of Finnish words and etymology. I’ve got Fred Karlsson’s Comprehensive Grammar, but that’s hard to use because it lacks a comprehensive index.
Finally, should this discussion be continued elsewhere? Tagging it on the end of a particular section isn’t very user-friendly, but maybe it’s such a niche discussion, it doesn’t matter.
David

Pasi

Reply to David K

The history of -si nouns is quite interesting.

First we have to understand that there have been sound changes.

Many two-syllable words that end with /i/ today used to end with /e/. Similarly many two syllable words that end in /e/ today (in the written language) actually ended in -ek or -eh in the past. Word-final k and h sounds became glottal stops, but they’re not marked in writing.

So, vene and vesi have had different sounds at the end in the past: Veneh (h) and vete (e)

vene, lasi & vesi have all had different sounds at the end in the past:

veneh (h) glas (s) and vete (e)

Endings have been added to the base which used to be identical to the nominative form.

veneh+n is hard to pronounce. So, a vowel was added to separate the two consonants venehen.

Vete+n became veten until gradation changed veten into veden.

glas didn’t have a vowel at the end when it was loaned from Swedish. So one was added to make it easier to integrate the word into the Finnish inflectional system.

glas+i->lasi.

venehen, veten and lasin

Later h disappeared between two vowels veneen, gradation started (veten->veden).

In the case of viisi. The original form is viite.

Viite+n=viiten before gradation and viiden after gradation started.

Now, at some point. Word-final /e/ sounds in two-syllable words became /i/ sounds. vete->veti, viite->viiti.

This sound change was blocked in veden, viiden & veneh, because their /e/ sounds were not at the end.

Later ti->si. So, vete->veti->vesi.

Kakte->kakti->kaksi.

Later still, kt->ht. Ykten-> yhten->yhden.

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I recommend learning the modern nominative and the modern essive singular of every noun. Vieras vieraana, koira, koirana, vesi vetenä, kuningas kuninkaana.

The essive case always has the strong grade (gradation) and it’s pretty straightforward to form the other cases after removing -nA.

Rebecca

Hi!

A question… Why would Lohi, ending in -hi, be an example of the rule of -ni, -li, -ri, not being foolproof? -hi is neither of those three, that the rule includes…
Also it does not seem that lohta is irregular in some way in the -hi, -mi-rule.

In a grammar book I am using they show it like this:
Words ending in (ni, ri, li) and (si, hi) will always be ending with -ta/-tä in singular partitive. Would you say it’s correct?

Thanks.

Inge (admin)

Admin

Reply to Rebecca

Lohi is a word that DOES belong to this group (remove the -i and add -ta) but doesn’t end in -li/ni/ri. That makes it exceptional. Lohi does the same thing: remove the -i and add -ta. My grouping of these words is based on how they behave when you want to add the partitive ending.

Does your book really say “si, hi”? I can only think of a couple of -si word that get its -i replaced by -ta: jousi, kuusi and kusi. There might be more, I might have to look into these some more. Maybe your book combines words ending in -si that get -tta in the partitive into this section?

This is one of those articles I really need to go through again with the information Michael provided in the comments as a guideline.

Camara

👍👍👍❤️

Tim

Thank you for such significant topic!
Special thanks to Michael’s comment with attempt to clarify comprehensively differences between “risti” and “paperi” KOTUS-types.

However, problems still remain.

If we look in Wiktionary’s “Category:Finnish paperi-type nominals” page, we can see that there is a large variety of words, that have got long vowel in the one-but-last syllable. At least, I’ve already counted over 50 “exceptions”. (TBC) Not only “banaani”, “likööri” and “poliisi” words break that rule, but also “asyyli”, “kivääri”, “paneeli”, “kulttuuri” and so on, and so on…
When I compared “Category:Finnish risti-type nominals” and “Category:Finnish paperi-type nominals” pages (in Wiktionary) and searched some words with -li/-ri endings, I was shocked by uncertainty. For example, many “risti”-types words can also comply with the requirement of having a short vowel in the one-but-last syllable. Compare:

“risti” – adressi, affekti, aerosoli, koralli etc.
“paperi” – lääkäri, kummeli, laituri etc.

Could you recommend more effective methods to determine word type for any loanword with i-ending correctly? I am desperate now, to be honest, because as a Finnish language learner I have already got too many exceptions to memorize. (For example, irregularities in comparatives, superlatives, verbs of 3-6 types, exceptions for many declension types etc.)

The easiest moment is that all loanwords with -isti & -ismi endings belong to “risti”-type only. At least, we can let it be.
Please, correct me, if I mistook.

Pasi

Reply to Tim

Here are two handy rules of thumb:

#1 If the word has three or four syllables AND is not a compound word, then it’s a recent loanword and the /i/ has been added to the Swedish or French loanword when the word has been loaned.

Fasaani (fa-saa-ni) fasaanina
paraati (parad) paraatina
normaali (normal) normaalina
humaani (human) humaanina
tilpehööri (tilpehör) tilpehöörinä

I recommend learning the modern nominative along with the essive case. After removing the essive ending -nA, you can form all cases except for nominative and partitive singular very easily. You can even form those two if you start noticing patterns.

You can use the English Wiktionary to check the essive case of any particular word. Make sure that you look up the word under the Finnish section and not under the Estonian one.

Note:

#2 If the word has two syllables: it can either be an old (loan) word or a new one.

If the word ends CONSONANT, THE SAME CONSONANT I, then it’s almost certainly a recent loan: pankki, pantti, sentti, vintti, vinkki, pinkki, pinssi, muffinssi, tanssi, keissi, malli, talli, selli

The only exception I know of is kaikki (which has originally been kaikke and thus the essive singular is kaikkena)

With these two rules of thumb, you can greatly reduce the amount of guesswork needed: three or more syllables -> new loanword, CCI -> new loanword.

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Two-syllable words like tuli, keli & lasi will still be a bit tricky, but with the two rules, you can automatically know which type of word a particular i-ending word is in probably 2/3 of words you see.

Old Words versus New Words Ending in -i

1. New Words ending in -i

1.1. Short new words ending in -i

1.2. Long new words ending in -i: group one

1.3. Long new words ending in -i: group two

1.4. Long new words ending in -i: group three

2. Old words ending in -i

2.1. The base rule for old words ending in -i

2.2. Old words ending in -si

2.3. Old words ending in -li, -ni or -ri

2.4. Old words ending in -mi or -hi with two stems

2.5. Exceptional words

Related posts:

**2.4. Old words ending in -mi or -hi with two stems**