Re: Got to thinkin' about word order

Hän ajoi autoa means either: He was driving a car, or he was driving
the car, or he was driving a part of the car.

Hän ajoi auton means: He drove the care or he drove a car, or he
drove the complete car.

Actually partitive expresses: imperfective action, action acting upon
parts of the object, or indefinite number or amount.

Partitive never makes a noun indefinite, exept when it expresses
indefinite number or amount. Indefinitnes may be expressed by the
word eräs - someone, but this word is not much used, ex. erääna
päivänä - (in/on) some day/ (in/on) a day. (here is used the
case "essive" which is an old locative that still sometimes is used
in a locative function, but mostly has got new functions.)

"ojaan" is not inessive, but illative, inessive is "ojassa". Inessive
originates from a combination of a derivative ending and the locative
ending -se-na> -sna >-ssa

Finnish/uralic has some words that are strikingly simular to indo-
european ones. Some of these may originate from contact between FU
and Indo-iranian at an early stage. aja- is perhaps one of them.

Others cannot be explained in this way, and originate probably from a
common proto-language.

nime- - name
vete- - water
asu- be at a place

Those words usually contain the phonemes n, m, l, y, w/v or t(Ur)/s
(IE)

For words containing phonemes having undergone more complex phonetic
changes, it is not that easy to find simularities, but a deeper
analysis that I am not able to do, probably will give a lot of
material.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Peter P" <no1@...> wrote:
>
> Interestingly the English indefinite article 'a/an' is often used
> when translating the Finnish partitive case, though.
>
> Hän ajo autoa = He drove a car.
>
> Hän = He - nomnitive
> ajo = drove
> autoa = a car - partitive (any of the millions of cars)
>
> Hän ajo auton ojaan = He drove the car into the ditch.
>
> auton = the car - accusative (the complete car)
> ojaan = into the ditch - inessive case.
>
> If a Finn said:
>
> Hän ajo autoa ojaan = He was driving a car into the ditch.
>
> The partitive case not only makes the noun indefinite but also
makes
> the action incomplete.
>
> I suppose an IE list should concern itself less with Uralic, so let
> me try to tie Uralic to PIE and ask about Sanskrit 'ajati' he
drives,
> Latin 'ago/agere' to urge, drive, plead. FU *aj to drive, lead,
> chase, Finn. 'ajaa' he drives. It looks as if the FU and PIE roots
> are cognates. Are there any opinions whether this word goes
further
> back than PIE or was it borrowed into FU?
>
> Peter
>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande"
<aquila_grande@...>
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > The use of partitive in objects may imply an indefinite number of
> > things or indefinite amount of something, but more often it
implies
> > that the action upon the object is regarded as imperfective. It
> never
> > implies the same thing as for example the english indefinite
> article.
> >
> > The object of a negative sentence is always constructed with
> > partitive.
> >
> > There is also a certain degree of ergativity in this
construction.
> > The subject of an intransitive verb can be constructed with the
> > partitive in the same circumstances. The subject of a transitive
> verb
> > is allways in nominative (that here acts as an ergative).
> >
> >
> >
> > An interesting question is weather both the Uralic
> ablative/partitive
> > and the Indo-european genitive ending and the use of the genitive
> > derives from a nostratic (or steppe?) old ablative (or
postposition
> > with that function).
> >