【芬兰语语法】§78 GENERAL

 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