Special partitive cases: toimi toimea tointa – Kotus wordtype 25
In this article, you can find more information about a small number of words which belong to Kotus wordtype 25. These words have two possible partitive case endings as well as two possible plural genitive case endings.
Words that belong to Kotus wordtype 25 all have a basic form that ends in -mi. Not every existing word ending in -mi belongs to this type, however. It’s just a select few words (see below for the full list).
1. Inflection of the word toimi
As an example, here is the word toimi inflected in the different cases. As you can see, this wordtype has 2 options for the singular partitive and the plural genitive. In all the other cases, this wordtype resembles ovi-type words.
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | toimi | toimet |
| Partitive (mitä?) | toimea, tointa | toimia |
| Genitive (-n) | toimen | toimien, tointen |
| Inessive (-ssA) | toimessa | toimissa |
| Illative (mihin) | toimeen | toimiin |
| Elative (-stA) | toimesta | toimista |
| Adessive (-llA) | toimella | toimilla |
| Allative (-lle) | toimelle | toimille |
| Ablative (-ltA) | toimelta | toimilta |
| Translative (-ksi) | toimeksi | toimiksi |
| Essive (-nA) | toimena | toimina |
2. List of Kotus wordtype 25 words
In the table below, I’m only listing the singular partitive and plural genitive forms. As you can see in the table above, the other forms are formed the same way as they are for the word ovi.
When two options are given, both are possible. I have put the extremely rare forms between brackets. Note that, whenever it is possible, the form marked with #1 is generally more common.
| Word | English | Partitive #1 | Partitive #2 | PL Genitive #1 | PL Genitive #2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| liemi | broth | – | lientä | liemien | lienten |
| loimi | warp | loimea | (lointa) | loimien | lointen |
| lumi | snow | – | lunta | lumien | (lunten) |
| luomi | mole (skin) | luomea | (luonta) | luomien | luonten |
| niemi | peninsula | niemeä | nientä | niemien | nienten |
| taimi | sapling | taimea | tainta | taimien | tainten |
| toimi | post, position | toimea | tointa | toimien | tointen |
| tuomi | bird cherry | tuomea | (tuonta) | tuomien | tuonten |
3. Words ending in -mi that don’t belong to Kotus wordstype 25.
Next, you can find some words ending in -mi that do not belong to the group above. The old Finnish words of this group (marked #1) will inflect with -ea/eä in the singular partitive. The loanwords (marked #2) will inflect by adding an -a/ä at the end of the nominative form of the word. Both old and new words will have the same type of plural genitive, as you can see in the table below.
| # | Word | English | Partitive | PL Genitive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | nimi | name | nimeä | nimien |
| 1 | helmi | pearl | helmeä | helmien |
| 1 | sormi | finger | sormea | sormien |
| 1 | suomi | Finnish language | suomea | suomien |
| 2 | tiimi | team | tiimiä | tiimien |
| 2 | atomi | atom | atomia | atomien |
| 2 | filmi | film | filmiä | filmien |
| 2 | puomi | barrier | puomia | puomien |
4. Some additional information
This wordtype can be met with a lot of opinions among Finnish speakers. While this wordtype typically has two singular partitive forms and two plural genitive forms, not every person is willing to accept both as correct. For example, Kielikello mentions that tuomi has two standard language partitive forms tuomea and tuonta, but that many Finnish speakers will consider tuonta to be incorrect. There are likely also some differences in usage in different regions of Finland.
Kielikello has published an interesting article in Finnish with examples of non-mainstream inflections of words ending in -i. There are, for example, examples when lumi and liemi are inflected as lumea and liemeä rather than the partitive forms lunta and lientä. These forms are technically incorrect in standard Finnish, but language is a fluid thing.
Note that, whenever it is possible, the form marked with a hashtag # is generally more common.
Which hashtag do you mean?
I decided halfway that I wanted to list these differently :p It’s fixed now! Forms in the #1 column are more common.
Kiitos artikkelista, Inge! Sana “tuuli” kuuluu samaan Kotus 25 -ryhmään, eikö niin? Koska sanalla on myös kaksi monikkoa genetiivimuotoa, eli “tuulien” tai “tuulten, ja en luule, että “tuuli” on sanan “ovi” kaltaisessa ryhmässä.
“Tuuli” kuuluu Kotus 26 -ryhmään (kun taas “ovi” on 7). Kutsun tuuli-tyyppisiä sanoja yleensä “li-ni-ri sanoiksi”, koska se auttaa tunnistamaan yleisimmät niistä suomen opiskelun alku/keskivaiheessa. https://uusikielemme.fi/finnish-vocabulary/words-ending-in/li-ni-ri-words-inflection-of-words-like-pieni
No niin, kiitos taas, Inge! 🙂 Aion heti lukea tuon artikkelin “li-ni-ri”-sanoista 😉