ABSTRACT

This thoroughly revised third edition of Finnish: An Essential Grammar is grounded in fundamental insights of modern linguistics and incorporates some of the latest achievements in the description of written and spoken Finnish. It gives a systematic account of the structures of the written language and offers increased attention to the key characteristics of present-day colloquial Finnish. No prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader and grammatical rules are clearly explained without jargon.

Features of this new edition include:

• pronunciation guide, including the tendencies in present-day colloquial Finnish

• thorough descriptions of morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure)

• clear rules and an abundance of concrete examples, from both written and colloquial Finnish

• updated vocabulary in the examples

• an effective new scheme for detecting the morphological structure of any word form

• subject index.

This is the ideal reference source both for those studying Finnish independently and for students in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes of all types.

chapter 1|8 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|9 pages

Pronunciation and sound structure

chapter 3|10 pages

A survey of word structure

chapter 4|16 pages

Two important sound alternations

chapter 5|11 pages

The declension of nominals

chapter 6|6 pages

The conjugation of verbs

chapter 7|15 pages

Basic sentence structure

chapter 8|15 pages

The partitive

chapter 10|16 pages

The six local cases

chapter 11|6 pages

Other cases

chapter 12|7 pages

Numerals

chapter 13|16 pages

Pronouns

chapter 14|10 pages

Tenses

chapter 15|10 pages

Moods

chapter 16|10 pages

The passive

chapter 17|12 pages

Infinitives

chapter 18|17 pages

Participles

chapter 19|7 pages

Comparison of adjectives 211

chapter 20|13 pages

Other word classes

chapter 21|13 pages

Word formation

chapter 22|5 pages

The colloquial spoken language