Scarecrow > 16-09-2020, 09:13 AM
(15-09-2020, 08:44 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(14-09-2020, 01:30 PM)Scarecrow Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(05-08-2020, 08:04 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.f89r2 has daiin thrice in a row.
I just red few articles from a great Finnish philosopher, and found two sentences that come close to this. Maybe it can give food for thoughts.
"Ajattelun ajattelun ajattelu" and "ajatuksen ajatuksen ajatus"
Those two are prefect and regular, albeit funny, Finnish language sentences.
Meaning freely translated something like "thinking thinking of thinking" and "thought of thought of a thought".
It is possible same pattern to generate many other three or possibly even four word constructs.
Just for the interest.
Quote:Could you explain the grammar, morphology, and syntax of these sentences in more detail, please? I have studied some Finnish as well as Uralic linguistics, so I think (the thought of thinking) that I will be able to follow your explanations.Well, I can try to give you some details but please bear with me, me and the Finnish grammar are very very far friends,and I sincerely do not remember that much of it. But let's give it a try. Always happy to help anyone who studies Finnish and Uralic languages".
Quote:Finnish is well known for its alliteration, most famously in the Kalevala (e.g., "aivoni ajattelevi"), but even in the predilection of Finnish parents for naming their children alliteratively: One family tree in a Finnish textbook includes such sets of siblings as Aada, Atte, Aaro; Ella, Eetu, Elina; Liisa, Lassi; and Jaakko, Jorma. (It even extends this pattern to a couple married couples, Hannu & Helena and Jorma & Janita, but I hope this is not an actual factor in Finnish mate selection!)
geoffreycaveney > 16-09-2020, 01:25 PM
(16-09-2020, 09:13 AM)Scarecrow Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, I can try to give you some details but please bear with me, me and the Finnish grammar are very very far friends,and I sincerely do not remember that much of it. But let's give it a try. Always happy to help anyone who studies Finnish and Uralic languages".
My common man explanation is this:
Root noun is "Ajatus" -> "a thought"
Accusative of "Ajatus" is "Ajatuksen", and also "ajatus"
Genetive of "Ajatus" is also "Ajatuksen"
"Ajatuksen"(Acc) "Ajatuksen" (Gen) "Ajatus" (Acc)
Noun is "Ajattelu"
Genetive is "Ajattelun"
Accusative is "Ajattelun" and "Ajattelu"
"Ajattelun (acc) ajattelun (gen) ajattelu (acc)"
So it is practically kind of a game of genetive + accusative I guess.
A more common way to say that would be "Ajattelen miten ajattelua ajatellaan", but I would not have the same "feeling"
Scarecrow > 16-09-2020, 07:08 PM
(16-09-2020, 01:25 PM)geoffreycaveney Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(16-09-2020, 09:13 AM)Scarecrow Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Well, I can try to give you some details but please bear with me, me and the Finnish grammar are very very far friends,and I sincerely do not remember that much of it. But let's give it a try. Always happy to help anyone who studies Finnish and Uralic languages".
My common man explanation is this:
Root noun is "Ajatus" -> "a thought"
Accusative of "Ajatus" is "Ajatuksen", and also "ajatus"
Genetive of "Ajatus" is also "Ajatuksen"
"Ajatuksen"(Acc) "Ajatuksen" (Gen) "Ajatus" (Acc)
Noun is "Ajattelu"
Genetive is "Ajattelun"
Accusative is "Ajattelun" and "Ajattelu"
"Ajattelun (acc) ajattelun (gen) ajattelu (acc)"
So it is practically kind of a game of genetive + accusative I guess.
A more common way to say that would be "Ajattelen miten ajattelua ajatellaan", but I would not have the same "feeling"
Kiitos paljon! The last sentence I understand as something along the lines of "I am thinking of how the thought is being thought."
The other constructions are more complicated because the "accusative case" in Finnish is a beast. In reality we are talking about the direct object of a verb, and it may take several different endings depending on what seem like rather complex rules to the learner. I found this interesting web page with a "flow chart" of all the rules to check to choose the correct ending for a direct object in Finnish:
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So with that in mind, the first accusative word in each of your examples is the case at the very end of the flow chart, with none of the exceptional rules applying, so it is identical to the genitive case. The final accusative word in each of your examples falls under one of the "object is in nominative" rules in the flow chart.
I would be curious to know, can you give the entire sentences from which these phrases are taken? In particular, what was the verb that the first "ajatuksen" and "ajattelun" are direct objects of? Or are these intended to be completely independent sentences on their own? If so, I might rather interpret both of the first two words of each example as genitive case forms, since I know that Finnish and Uralic languages love to string together sequences of consecutive genitive forms in noun phrases.
I might try to translate your phrases as "the thought of a thought's being thought", which is actually quite an interesting English phrase in its own right.
-JKP- > 16-09-2020, 11:58 PM
geoffreycaveney > 17-09-2020, 12:32 AM
-JKP- > 17-09-2020, 03:36 AM