1. Family: Uralic
  2. Subfamily: Finno-Ugric
  3. Genus: Finnic

Finnish

WALS coordinates: 62° N, 25° E

spoken in Finland

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Finnish
Routledge:
    Other:
      ISO 639-3:

      Features

      Feature Value References
      Phonology
      Consonant Inventories Moderately small
      Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
      Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately low
      Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
      Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
      Uvular Consonants None
      Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
      Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
      The Velar Nasal No initial velar nasal
      Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
      Front Rounded Vowels High and mid
      Syllable Structure Moderately complex
      Tone No tones
      Fixed Stress Locations Initial
      Weight-Sensitive Stress Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)
      Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems No weight
      Rhythm Types Trochaic
      Absence of Common Consonants All present
      Presence of Uncommon Consonants None
      Morphology
      Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
      Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Case + number
      Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 2-3 categories per word
      Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
      Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Double marking
      Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
      Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
      Reduplication No productive reduplication
      Case Syncretism Core and non-core
      Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Not syncretic
      Nominal Categories
      Number of Genders None
      Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
      Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
      Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural suffix
      Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
      Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
      The Associative Plural No associative plural
      Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
      Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
      Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
      Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
      Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
      Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns No gender distinctions
      Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Binary politeness distinction
      Indefinite Pronouns Special
      Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
      Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
      Number of Cases 10 or more cases
      Asymmetrical Case-Marking Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical
      Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
      Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
      Ordinal Numerals First, second, three-th
      Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
      Numeral Classifiers Absent
      Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
      Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
      Nominal Syntax
      Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
      Possessive Classification No possessive classification
      Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Highly differentiated
      Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
      Action Nominal Constructions Double-Possessive
      Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
      Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
      Verbal Categories
      Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
      The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
      The Future Tense No inflectional future
      The Perfect Other perfect
      Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
      The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
      The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
      Imperative-Hortative Systems Maximal system
      The Optative Inflectional optative absent
      Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
      Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
      Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
      Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality Indirect only
      Coding of Evidentiality Modal morpheme
      Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
      Verbal Number and Suppletion None
      Word Order
      Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
      Order of Subject and Verb SV
      Order of Object and Verb VO
      Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
      Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
      Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
      Order of Adjective and Noun Adjective-Noun
      Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
      Order of Numeral and Noun Numeral-Noun
      Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
      Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
      Position of Polar Question Particles Second position
      Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Initial interrogative phrase
      Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Postpositions
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
      Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and AdjN
      Simple Clauses
      Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
      Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
      Expression of Pronominal Subjects Mixed
      Verbal Person Marking Only the A argument
      Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
      Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
      Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Indirect-object construction
      Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
      Passive Constructions Present
      Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
      Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
      Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
      Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
      Negative Morphemes Negative auxiliary verb
      Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
      Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Fin
      Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
      Polar Questions Question particle
      Predicative Possession Locational
      Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
      Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
      Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Impossible
      Comparative Constructions Particle
      Complex Sentences
      Relativization on Subjects Relative pronoun
      Relativization on Obliques Relative pronoun
      'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
      Purpose Clauses Balanced/deranked
      'When' Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Reason Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Utterance Complement Clauses Balanced/deranked
      Lexicon
      Hand and Arm Different
      Finger and Hand Different
      Numeral Bases Decimal
      M-T Pronouns M-T pronouns, paradigmatic
      N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
      Tea Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te
      Other
      Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks Affective meanings