Like infinitives, participles are non-finite verb forms: they are not inflected
for person. Finnish has two participles, the present and the past. Both have
active and passive forms; cf. §14, wher all the non-finite forms were
introduced. The four participle forms of the verb sano/a ‘say’ are:
Active Passive
Present sano/va saying sano/tta/va which is to be said
Past sano/nut said sano/ttu said
The participles function partly as verbs, e.g. (olen) sano/nut ‘(I have) said’
(§61) and (on) sano/ttu ‘(one has) said’ (§71), and partly as adjectives. In
this latter function participles inflect in the normal adjectival way for
number and case:
pitkä mies a tall man
syö/vä mies an eating man
syö/nyt mies a man who has eaten
lyö/tä/vä mies a man who is to be hit
lyö/ty mies a man who was hit/a beaten man
pitkä/t miehe/t the tall men
syö/vä/t miehe/t the eating men
syö/nee/t miehe/t the men who have eaten
lyö/tä/vä/t miehe/t the men who are to be hit
lyö/dy/t miehe/t the men who were hit
As premodifiers, participles are thus subject to the normal rules of concord
for attributes (§31).
Participles 195
Participles also have other uses. For instance, all the participles (inflected
in the genitive) can be used in what is called the participial construction,
which corresponds to an että ‘that’ clause (§82):
Näen, että Pekka tulee. ~ Näen Peka/n tule/va/n.
I see that Pekka is coming. I see Pekka coming.
Näen, että Pekka on tullut. ~ Näen Peka/n tul/lee/n.
I see that Pekka has come. I see that Pekka has come.
The past participle passive, inflected in the partitive, may be used to replac a
temporal subordinate clause indicating an action previous to that of the main
clause (§83; cf. also §75.1):
Nukahdin, kun Pekka oli tullut. Nukahdin Peka/n tul/tu/a.
I fell asleep when Pekka had come. I fell asleep ‘Pekka having come’/
when Pekka had come.
The third infinitive stem (-ma- ~ -mä-, see §76.1) is used in the agent
construction to replac a relative clause:
Peka/n osta/ma auto auto, jonka Pekka oli ostanut
the car bought by Pekka the car which Pekka had bought
