Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Linguaphile » 2017-08-08, 7:46

Naava wrote:Thanks! I didn't know Estonians sing 'tuu tuu' to their kids too!

Is that mina laulan lapselleni possessive suffix?

Are the regilaul and uni tule silma peale sung in some dialect?

Yes, I think uni tule silma peale is in a southern dialect (and I've also heard a version in which it is "uni tulõ silma pääle"). And both the one labeled "regilaul" and the one with "lapselleni" are from Kuusalu - northern coast, not so far from Helsinki really! Yes, I think lapselleni is possessive, like Finnish. Not in standard Estonian though. :D
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-04, 23:14

„Nad üritasid linnakorraldustesse kirja panna käske, mis hoidsid kõik saunad sündsad ja ei lubanud mingeid kõlvatusi.”

I think you could say sündsatena here instead of sündsad, so I'm not sure how frequent this construction using the 'accusative' is. The one similar example I found in the seletav sõnaraamat is: Lind hoiab oma pesa puhta, puhtana. I don't recall having seen such a construction before. Besides hoidma, do you know any other verbs that allow it?

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-05, 8:36

Prantsis wrote:I think you could say sündsatena here instead of sündsad, so I'm not sure how frequent this construction using the 'accusative' is.
I think it's not accusative by itself, it just agrees with the object, which happens to be accusative. Although you can't do the same with partitive, for example. Then, the essive case is the only option:
"..., mis hoidsid saunu sündsana ~ sündsaina ~ sündsatena..."

I would say, it's fairly common for the verb "hoidma".

Prantsis wrote:Besides hoidma, do you know any other verbs that allow it?
Sorry, I can't think of any examples.


This is probably not what you are looking for, but an example sentence that I found from Wikipedia, where one could use nominative instead of essive is:
"Sidrunid ja laimid tundusid meile ühtviisi hapuna ~ hapudena."

You could also say:
"Sidrunid ja laimid tundusid meile ühtviisi hapud."
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-05, 16:44

ainurakne wrote:This is probably not what you are looking for, but an example sentence that I found from Wikipedia, where one could use nominative instead of essive is:
"Sidrunid ja laimid tundusid meile ühtviisi hapuna ~ hapudena."

You could also say:
"Sidrunid ja laimid tundusid meile ühtviisi hapud."

In fact, it was my very first thought, that it was related. And since it works for näima, I first naïvely checked verbs like näitama. But I only found essive, like here: Rõiva pikilõiked näitavad keha saledamana.

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-05, 20:13

Prantsis wrote:And since it works for näima, I first naïvely checked verbs like näitama. But I only found essive, like here: Rõiva pikilõiked näitavad keha saledamana.
:hmm: Hmm... this is because the object is partitive, hence you can only use essive for the adjective. But if, by any chance, you could think up of a sentence where the verb "näitama" has an accusative object (and the sentence still makes sense), then I bet you could make the adjective accusative too.

For example, lets take the noun "tuba" where the difference between accusative and partitive is clearly visible: Kõrged seinad näitavad tuba kitsamana.

If you could use "toa" instead of "tuba", you could also use "kitsama" instead of "kitsamana". But the verb "näitama" doesn't allow accusative objects so easily, since "näitamine" is often an unbounded process (or an action without a definitive end result).
But maybe you can think up something... :whistle:
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-07, 18:26

ainurakne wrote:But maybe you can think up something... :whistle:

I'm afraid I can't either.

So I've been looking for a more accusative-friendly candidate, so far without great success, but on my way I've found this sentence:
Rukis kasvas vägev,
where vägev is in nominative case. I wonder, is it just an expression with vägev, or would it work with some other adjectives too? (For example: siinne muru kasvab kollane.)
And would "rukis kasvatati vägev" or "kasvatasin rukki vägeva(na)" make sense? It seems doubtful...

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-07, 22:21

Prantsis wrote:..., but on my way I've found this sentence:
Rukis kasvas vägev,
where vägev is in nominative case.
I think nominative case is the best to convey the meaning that is most probably meant here.

You could, of course, also go for a more specific meaning and focus only on the end result (using translative case):
Rukis kasvas vägevaks.

Using essive case (Rukis kasvas vägevana.) would sound a bit weird here, in my opinion. In that case you are talking about the state that rye was in while it was growing.
I would wonder, whether it was actually "Rukis kasvas vägevalt." or "Rukis kasvas vägevasti." that you wanted to say.

Prantsis wrote:I wonder, is it just an expression with vägev, or would it work with some other adjectives too? (For example: siinne muru kasvab kollane.)
Sounds a bit weird at first glance, but doesn't seem wrong to me.

Contrary to the previous sentence, essive case would fit well here:
Siinne muru kasvab kollasena.

Prantsis wrote:"rukis kasvatati vägev"
Sounds okay to me.

Prantsis wrote:"kasvatasin rukki vägeva(na)"
"Kasvatasin rukki vägeva." is okay, but quite poetic, though. It's exactly the same as what would be normally written as "Kasvatasin vägeva rukki." (you can just put the adjective describing a noun, behind the noun sometimes).

"Kasvatasin rukki vägevana." or maybe even better "Kasvatasin rukist vägevana." (depending on what exactly do you mean) - same story as with the first sentence: this exact combination of words doesn't make much sense with essive case to me.
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-08, 19:07

Thanks, lots of interesting things to think about!

(I don't really understand why "rukis kasvatati vägev" doesn't also sound as a poetic inversion, but for now I'll just take your word for it.)

Yes, I sometimes find the difference between nominative and translative a bit tricky when they come after verbs like saama. There's no such thing in French, and I tend to think of nominative as "what should come after olema" and of translative as "what should come after saama", hence the trouble.

What I understand here is:

kasvab vägevalt --> Rukki kasv on vägev.

kasvab vägevaks --> Täiesti kasvanud rukis on vägev. Võib arvata, et kasvu ajal muutub rukis aina vägevamaks. (The vägevus is the result of the growth)

kasvab vägev --> [Siin kasvav] rukis tuleb välja vägev. (The vägevus is not the result of the growth itself, yet it may be the result of the "siinsamas kasvamine" or something like that)

The essive sounds wrong even to me, and I guess that's why I brought "kollane". So, to get back to my point, if I understand well:
The sentence "need kasvatasin ma kollas(t)ena" could sound fine in an appropriate context, but it would be weird to say "need kasvatasin ma kollased" instead of it, like in "käsud hoidsid saunad sündsad". Am I right?

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-09, 9:23

I think, things will only get more complicated every time I make a new post about this. :lol:
We are entering the realm where the exact meanings and nuances are very subjective and context dependant.

Prantsis wrote:(I don't really understand why "rukis kasvatati vägev" doesn't also sound as a poetic inversion, but for now I'll just take your word for it.)
:hmm: I think maybe one could think about it like this that "Rukis kasvatati vägev." is kind of like "Rukis on vägev.". But "Kasvatati rukis vägev." is kind of like "(See) on vägev rukis.", but in order to sound fancy, the adjective is shifted behind the noun: "(See) on rukis vägev."

Prantsis wrote:kasvab vägevalt --> Rukki kasv on vägev.
Yes, it's most likely growing fast, very intensly or there are some other great aspects about its growing process.

Prantsis wrote:kasvab vägevaks --> Täiesti kasvanud rukis on vägev. Võib arvata, et kasvu ajal muutub rukis aina vägevamaks. (The vägevus is the result of the growth)
Well, yes... the growing process kind of like represents its life cycle from the time it was planted till the time it will be "ready". And the translative case puts the focus on the outcome of the growing process - any other period of its life cycle is not important (mention-worthy) in this context.

Prantsis wrote:kasvab vägev --> [Siin kasvav] rukis tuleb välja vägev. (The vägevus is not the result of the growth itself, yet it may be the result of the "siinsamas kasvamine" or something like that)
Kind of... maybe. Now it confuses me too. :lol:
I think it's like a bit more general way of saying exactly the same thing as the previous sentence, without putting much emphasis on the growing process itself.

Prantsis wrote:The essive sounds wrong even to me, and I guess that's why I brought "kollane". So, to get back to my point, if I understand well:
The sentence "need kasvatasin ma kollas(t)ena" could sound fine in an appropriate context, but it would be weird to say "need kasvatasin ma kollased" instead of it, like in "käsud hoidsid saunad sündsad". Am I right?
Well, now that you change the sentence, the meanings of different cases change as well. :lol:

In your previous sentence "Siinne muru kasvab kollasena.", "muru kasvamine" is kind of like an eternal never-ending process, referring to the whole time when the grass is alive. So the meaning is more or less 'The grass here tends to be yellow all the time.'.

On the other hand, in your sentence "Need kasvatasin ma kollastena.", you are referring to a finished resultative action: most likely you planted something, grew them up and now they are "ready" (ripe, fully grown, ready for harvest).
And in my opinion, the essive case here refers to a feature these things had while they were growing: either they were yellow by themselves (while they were growing) or you yourself turned them yellow for their growing period (maybe because they grow better while being yellow).

Also, use plural essive here, because:
- in my opinion, being yellow is not a general state here, but the features of those individual "objects";
- using singular is ambiguous, because it could also mean that you yourself were yellow while growing them;


"Need kasvatasin ma kollased." - either you purposely chose yellow kind of breed to grow or they just turned out to be yellow.
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Naava » 2017-10-09, 13:59

ainurakne wrote:"Need kasvatasin ma kollased." - either you purposely chose yellow kind of breed to grow or they just turned out to be yellow.

Is this a normal word order in Estonian? Why is kollased in nominative? Also, could you translate this into English? :|

Is kasvatati 'was grown' in English?

I'm also confused by vägev, especially in that rukis kasvatati vägev. Why doesn't it have any case if it's not an inversion?

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-09, 19:34

Naava wrote:Is kasvatati 'was grown' in English?
Yes!

"kasvama" = kasvaa; "kasvatama" = kasvattaa -> "kasvatati" = kasvatettiin

Naava wrote:I'm also confused by vägev, especially in that rukis kasvatati vägev. Why doesn't it have any case if it's not an inversion?
I guess I wasn't very precise what I meant.

For example, let's take the sentence "Ostan punase auto.". What I meant was that "Ostan auto punase." is a poetic inversion, but "Auto ostan punase." is not poetic, while it could very well be an inversion. Actually I have no idea what the heck this really is.

So, "Rukis kasvatati vägev." could very well be an inversion of "Kasvatati vägev rukis." (or "Vägev rukis kasvatati."), but it just makes "rukis" the topic :?: of the sentence and emphasizes "vägev" (I think it works this way).

Naava wrote:
ainurakne wrote:"Need kasvatasin ma kollased." - either you purposely chose yellow kind of breed to grow or they just turned out to be yellow.

Is this a normal word order in Estonian? Why is kollased in nominative? Also, could you translate this into English? :|
I'd say it's a fairly normal word order. At least I can't think of anything better to convey the exact same meaning as this sentence. :hmm:

But if you are talking about the subject coming after the verb, then I think Estonian tries to somewhat be a V2 language, so you can sometimes see, that the subject tends to move behind the verb when a sentence starts with something else (especially adverbs of time).
You can, of course, also say "Need ma kasvatasin kollased." and "Need kasvatasin kollased.".

I don't know exactly why is it in nominative. But I could think something up. :mrgreen:
For example, let's take the base sentence "Ma kasvatasin kollased." (I grew the yellow ones.) - let's say we are talking about some plants with yellow flowers. Now imagine someone is showing another person around his/her garden, pointing to the aforementioned plants and saying "Need ma kasvatasin kollased." (These ones, I grew yellow or Over here, I grew the yellow ones).
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-10, 20:19

ainurakne wrote:
Prantsis wrote:(I don't really understand why "rukis kasvatati vägev" doesn't also sound as a poetic inversion, but for now I'll just take your word for it.)
:hmm: I think maybe one could think about it like this that "Rukis kasvatati vägev." is kind of like "Rukis on vägev.". But "Kasvatati rukis vägev." is kind of like "(See) on vägev rukis.", but in order to sound fancy, the adjective is shifted behind the noun: "(See) on rukis vägev."

Thanks! My issue was why the two sentences with "kasvatati" and "kasvatasin" were not either both wrong or both right. Now I realize that what I meant and should have submitted was "rukki kasvatasin vägeva".
I wrongly thought that "auto ostan punase" and "ostan auto punase" were roughly the same thing. I think I was misled by the fact that "lind hoiab pesa puhta" doesn't sound like a poetic inversion.
Problem solved.

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-11, 13:54

Prantsis wrote:I wrongly thought that "auto ostan punase" and "ostan auto punase" were roughly the same thing.
I would say the general meaning is pretty much the same.

Nevertheless, they sound (or feel) quite different, at least to me. While "Ostan auto punase." just sounds like a fancy way of saying "Ostan punase auto." and could be translated as 'I (will) buy a/the red car.', on the other hand "Auto ostan punase." sounds more like something along the lines of 'As for a car, I (will) buy a/the red one.'.
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Linguaphile » 2017-10-11, 18:01

ainurakne wrote:
Prantsis wrote:I wrongly thought that "auto ostan punase" and "ostan auto punase" were roughly the same thing.
I would say the general meaning is pretty much the same.

Nevertheless, they sound (or feel) quite different, at least to me. While "Ostan auto punase." just sounds like a fancy way of saying "Ostan punase auto." and could be translated as 'I (will) buy a/the red car.', on the other hand "Auto ostan punase." sounds more like something along the lines of 'As for a car, I (will) buy a/the red one.'.

Could it also imply that the color might be changed after the purchase, as in Auto ostan punase, aga homme ma värvin seda siniseks? That was how it sounded to me.... what is the perspective of a native speaker? "I'll buy the car red, but tomorrow I'll paint it blue...."
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-12, 1:58

What about the word order when something else comes between the noun and the adjective?

Lõpuks auto ostsin siiski punase.
Lõpuks ostsin auto siiski punase.

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-12, 9:36

Linguaphile wrote:Could it also imply that the color might be changed after the purchase, as in Auto ostan punase, aga homme ma värvin selle siniseks?
(use accusative, unless you won't plan to finish painting it tomorrow)

If you extend the sentence like that, then, yes. Otherwise, no. At least in my opinion.

Also, I think I would rather say "Auto ostan punasena, kuid homme värvin ta siniseks." (or "Ostan auto punasena, ...").

But I think there's nothing wrong with "Ostan punase auto ja seejärel värvin ta siniseks." either.

Prantsis wrote:Lõpuks auto ostsin siiski punase.
Lõpuks ostsin auto siiski punase.
Neither of them sound wrong to me.

Although, I think in the first one, I would either try to get the verb into the second position "Auto ostsin lõpuks siiski punase." or make a pause after "lõpuks", "Lõpuks, auto ostsin siiski punase.".
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Linguaphile » 2017-10-26, 3:53

Tere unilangilased! :mrgreen: Mul on mitu küsimust:

Mitu suitsu selles külas on? / Külas on alles 14 suitsu. / Külas on tühje suitsusid, sest tööealised eelistavad linnas elada. How many inhabited dwellings are there in this village? / In the village there are only 14 inhabited dwellings (houses/farms). / In the village there are some empty dwellings, because those of working age prefer to live in the city.
1. Is the translation correct?
2. I know that suits in this context means the same as elamu or maybe talu or pere. I know it refers to the number of houses/families who have a fire going in their house in winter, a chimney producing smoke, so, it means inhabited dwellings or year-round dwellings (mitte näiteks suvilad). But, how common is the word suits in this context? Is it widely used and understood throughout Estonia or is it a more regional/rural/older term? I get that it's used mainly to refer to rural villages and that makes it a bit regional - I think you're not going to say how many suits there are in Tallinn, for example - but linguistically, is it a common term in standard language or does it sound dated or dialectal?

See teeb mõistagi muret. This understandably causes concern.
1. Is the translation correct?

See teeb head meelt. This makes people happy.
1. Is the translation correct? I know it's literally more like "this makes good feelings", but I can't figure out a way to say it in English that doesn't use an object (this makes people glad, this makes us happy, and so on). Am I distorting the meaning?
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Prantsis » 2017-10-27, 19:43

Linguaphile wrote:Tere unilangilased! :mrgreen:

Tere! Miks mitte lihtsalt unilanglased?

See teeb head meelt. This makes people happy.
1. Is the translation correct? I know it's literally more like "this makes good feelings", but I can't figure out a way to say it in English that doesn't use an object (this makes people glad, this makes us happy, and so on). Am I distorting the meaning?

You don't give much context, but if you want no object at all, then couldn't you just say "this is pleasing" or even "this is nice" or something like that?

I've found this translation:
Mulle teeb head meelt (see), et [...] --> I am pleased that [...]

and similar others using "to please", "to be a pleasure", "to be pleased"...


I'm sorry I can't help for "suits", and now I'm curious about it too. (In French, there's "foyer", which can mean both fireplace and household, in the city and the countryside alike.)

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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby Linguaphile » 2017-10-28, 2:56

Prantsis wrote:Tere! Miks mitte lihtsalt unilanglased?

Yes, it should be unilanglased; not sure how that extra i got in there. Aitäh!

Prantsis wrote:
See teeb head meelt. This makes people happy.
1. Is the translation correct? I know it's literally more like "this makes good feelings", but I can't figure out a way to say it in English that doesn't use an object (this makes people glad, this makes us happy, and so on). Am I distorting the meaning?

You don't give much context, but if you want no object at all, then couldn't you just say "this is pleasing" or even "this is nice" or something like that?

I've found this translation:
Mulle teeb head meelt (see), et [...] --> I am pleased that [...]

and similar others using "to please", "to be a pleasure", "to be pleased"...

I like your suggestions, "this is pleasing" or "it's a pleasure" - we do have equivalent expressions in English without objects after all! I hadn't thought of those.

Prantsis wrote:I'm sorry I can't help for "suits", and now I'm curious about it too. (In French, there's "foyer", which can mean both fireplace and household, in the city and the countryside alike.)

Interesting that it's similar in French, though. It does make sense, I just I hadn't run across it before. A google search turned up quite a few sites where it's used in Estonian, so it seems to be fairly widespread - although some of those sites also seem to feel the need to explain its meaning (in Estonian, to Estonian speakers) so maybe it's not that widespread after all.... hence the question and my hunch that it might be common among some speakers and unusual among others (such as a regional dialect or at least a city/rural thing). Maybe Ainurakne or some other native speaker will show up and tell us if he's heard/used this expression much.
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Re: Küsimus eesti keele kohta / Questions about Estonian

Postby ainurakne » 2017-10-28, 5:17

I agree with everything Prantsis has said.

Additionally:
Linguaphile wrote:See teeb mõistagi muret. This understandably causes concern.
1. Is the translation correct?
Seems okay to me.

About the usage of suits, I think I had never heard it. At least the first time I read your sentences, I thought "What the hell?", and only understood what it means after I had read your explanation.

This meaning is present in EKSS, though, so it must be a thing. Although the authors of the example sentences over there, were born in the beginning of the previous and at the end of the "over-previous" (üle-eelmine?) century.
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