Boy had you found an old style page from my university. Though to be honest, it doesn't surprise me to find relics like this. The pages are a mess in general and have become harder and harder to navigate throughout the years.
To come back to the subject, I'll try to give some basic description of the Finnish non-finites as I implied in the reflexivity thread. It's not really a that highly inflected language but the infinitive system is still pretty interesting and fairly rich compared to what you'll find in many related languages. I won't even attempt to go for a comprehensive description of everything there is as that would take ages. Instead I'll give some sort of a review of the more commonly used non-finites and give some remarks of their use.
The Finnish non-finites are traditionally divided into infinitives and participles. The infinitives are basically everything that isn't a participle and the three morphologically distinct forms are traditionally just marked by numbers as the first, second and third infinitive. In Estonian descriptions I've seen the corresponding forms being called infinitive, gerund and supine. The only difference here is what convention you choose to use for the naming. The infinitives can also be called the TA, TE and MA infinitives based on their underlying morphological forms. This seems to be what most researchers prefer and it really feels more appropriate than hijacking more Latin terms or just numbering everything.
1st or TA infinitive
This category has two forms with very different meanings. The short form is what you'd expect an infinitive to be and is often just called plain "infinitive" with no further attributes. It acts as the regular simple complement for other verbs
Halua-n sano-a.
want-SG1 say-INF1
"I want to say."
This form is marked by one of the allomorphs of the TA marker suffixed with the unwritten final glottal stop. The final glottal stop hasn't got any formal function in the modern language but its origin as the reflex of the ancient lative case suffix
*-k is worth noting. We'll see that the process of deriving semantically bleached infinitives from ones with local semantics is still ongoing.
The long form of the 1st infinitive consists of the TA marker marked for the translative case
-kse and suffixed with an obligatory possessive suffix. It's typically used to form final subordinate clauses
Soit-i-n sinu-lle sano-a-kse-ni kiitos.
call-PST-SG1 you-ALL say-INF1-TRANS-POSS.S.SG1 thank.you
"I called you to say thanks." ~ "I called you to thank"
This construction can only be used for final clauses that have the same subject as the main clause and the possessive suffix marking must agree with the finite verb of the main clause in person and number. Other types of clauses with final meanings must be formed with finite verbs (typically in the conditional mood) with the conjunction
jotta ("so that")
Soit-i-n sinu-lle, jotta vo-isi-mme jutel-la.
call-PST-SG1 you-ALL so.that can-COND-PL1 chat-INF1
"I called you so that we could chat."
The long form of the 1st infinitive also occurs in some other construction, some of which are pretty lexicalised
Sa-i-t-ko syö-dä-kse-si?
get-PST-SG2-Q eat-INF1-TRANS-POSS.S.SG2
"Did you get enough to eat?"
Näh-dä-kse-ni kaikki on valmis-ta.
see-INF1-TRANS-POSS.S.SG1 all be.SG3 ready-PART
"As far as I can see everything is ready."
2nd or TE infinitive
This infinitive can be inflected for two cases, the otherwise practically lexicalised instructive and the inessive. Both are used as adverbials so calling them gerunds wouldn't be out of place at all. The 2nd infinitive instructive is used as an adverb of manner
Hän tul-i juos-te-n.
(s)he come-PST run-INF2-INSTR
"He came running."
while the inessive form describes simultaneous background action
Hän tul-i auringo-n laski-e-ssa.
(s)he come-PST sun-GEN set-INF2-INE
"He came as the sun was setting."
As you can see, this non-finite clause can be used with a subject different from the main clause. In this case the subject of the non-finite clause gets genitive marking. If the non-finite clause has the same subject as the main clause, the non-finite verb must agree in person with the verb of the finite clause similarly to the long form of the 1st infinitive
Hän laulo-i juos-te-ssa-an.
(s)he sing-PST run-INF2-INE-POSS.S.SG/PL3
"He sang as he was running."
3rd or MA infinitive
This is the largest class of infinitive inflections in Finnish and is the place of the most active development. Basically it's the most semantically loaded class of infinitive forms in modern Finnish but at the same time it's spreading towards the more purely syntactic functions of the 1st and 2nd infinitives. This infinitive is marked by the
-ma morpheme, as you could have guessed from the name, and is commonly inflected for the cases inessive (
sano-ma-ssa), elative (
sano-ma-sta), illative (
sano-ma-an), adessive (
sano-ma-lla) and abessive (
sano-ma-tta).
The inessive form describes ongoing activity and gives a figurative location for other activities
Istu-n syö-mä-ssä.
sit-SG1 eat-INF3-INE
"I'm sitting and eating."
The location metaphor is very prominent as this form can answer to the question
missä ("where"). With the copular verb
olla the 3rd infinitive inessive marks the progressive aspect
Ole-n syö-mä-ssä.
be-SG1 eat-INF3-INE
"I'm eating."
Interestingly some verbs (
mennä, "go";
tulla, "come";
lähteä, "leave") replace the 3rd infinitive inessive of the progressive construction with the inessive of an action nominal formed by the
-O- affix (
men-o-ssa,
tul-o-ssa,
lähd-ö-ssä)
Ole-n tul-o-ssa koti-in.
be-SG1 come-O-INE home-ILL
"I'm coming home."
The elative and illative forms expand the locational metaphor system of the inessive form by giving ways to say "from doing" and "into doing". Thus you can say
Tule-n syö-mä-stä.
come-SG1 eat-INF3-ELA
"I'm coming from eating." ~ "I'm coming from where I ate."
and
Mene-n syö-mä-än.
go-SG1 eat-INF3-ILL
"I'm going eating"
Similar to the inessive form, these forms can answer to the questions
mistä ("where from") and
mihin ("where to"). However, many verbs require these forms as their complements and in this use the forms loose much of their locational meaning. Thus you get for example
Lakkaa huuta-ma-sta!
stop.IMP shout-INF3-ELA
"Stop shouting!"
and
Hän rupes-i huuta-ma-an.
(s)he begin-PST shout-INF3-ILL
"He began to shout."
Especially the 3rd infinitive illative is a common verb complement and is replacing the 1st infinitive short form for some verbs. The classic example of this is the verb
alkaa (also "begin"). In standard grammar you are supposed to use the 1st infinitive as in
Ala-n huuta-a.
begin-SG1 shout-INF1
"I begin to shout."
but colloquially many people use exclusively
Ala-n huuta-ma-an.
begin-SG1 shout-INF3-ILL
"I begin to shout."
This use is bleeding into the written language and is a common target of jokes* and grammar nazis. However, grammarians have been telling us for a while now that in something like a decade this use will be acknowledged also in the formative grammar. The development we are seeing here, where a non-finite verb form marked for a local case begins to loose its locational meaning, is exactly parallel to the development of the 1st infinitive short form where it has lost its original lative meaning.
An additional use of the 3rd infinitive illative is to mark future actions together with the verb
tulla ("come")
Tule-n vielä huuta-ma-an usein.
come-SG1 still shout-INF3-ILL often
"I'll still be shouting often."
The two remaining common case forms, adessive and abessive, are manner adverbials and describe respectively the means of doing ("by doing") and the lack of doing ("without doing")
Valvo-n myöhään juo-ma-lla kahvi-a.
stay.awake-SG1 late drink-INF3-ADE coffee-PART
"I'm staying up late by drinking coffee."
Valvo-n myöhään väsy-mä-ttä.
stay.awake-SG1 late get.tired-INF3-ABE
"I'm staying up late without getting tired."
This use of the cases is parallel to their use with nouns where adessive is used to mark instruments and abessive the lack of an instrument. The 3rd infinitive adessive is very close in its meaning with the 2nd infinitive instructive and they can often be used interchangeably. There is still, however, difference in their semantics as the 3rd infinitive adessive marks more concretely the means of doing while the 2nd infinitive instructive marks plain manner.
Further stuff with MA
The
-ma morpheme of the 3rd infinitive (or an allomorph
-m-) also appears in many other inflections. Firstly two of the participles are based on it, I'll come to these later. Secondly it can be seen in the productive action nominal
-minen. This forms general nouns referring to any action such as
huutaminen ("act of shouting") and unlike the other less productive action nominals it's resistant against lexical drift. It's also used as the complement of verbs that take nominal objects and can't take an non-finite verb
Lopeta huuta-minen!
stop.IMP shout-ACT.NOM
"Stop shouting!"
The action nominal also occurs in archaic constructions denoting obligation or prohibition in which use it's traditionally labelled as the 4th infinitive. You don't see this in the modern language and I'll just note that the Wikipedia article on Finnish grammar has an example of this.
A third place where you find the
-ma morpheme is in the so called 5th infinitive
-mAisillA + POSS.S which has the meaning "just about to do"
Ole-n nukahta-maisilla-ni.
be-SG1 fall.asleep-just.about-POSS.S.SG1
"I'm just about to fall asleep."
This construction isn't too common because of it's restricted area of usage but it's definitely hanging around and not disappearing.
Finally the
-ma morpheme appears as a plain deverbal noun derivation as in
kuolema ("death") from
kuolla ("to die"). This might be closest to the original use of the morpheme as there's also the word
kalma ("death", archaic) which is the reflex of the same
-ma ending attaching itself to the same verb root during the Proto Uralic stage.
*
rektio.png, a badge telling that "you can talk about rection disorder"
