>Finding the stem in Finnish is not always obvious.
>There is something called the "change of degree".
>As an example the word for water;
>
>0 degree nominative sing vesi (unmarked)
>1st. degree genitive sing vede-n (stem vede)
>2nd. degree essive sing - vete-nä (stem vete)
>3rd. degree partitive sing - vet-tä (stem vet)
Oh, boy: this looks more complicated than
in the language of their Hungarian cousins.
I know only of "víz" [vi:z] (as such in situations
that we'd describe as "nominative") and "vízet"
(in accusative-like constructions: "Iszom a vízet"
= verbatim "I drink *the* water." "Vizet iszom"
is also possible: "I drink/am drinking water".)
>Most other common cases can be formed knowing
>these stems.
In Hungarian, there also exists many words with
different stems for different cases, but IMHO
it's easier to use them. (What's difficult is
the so-called "Vokalharmonie" between the stem
vowels and the vowels in the desinences.)
>0 koira = dog
>1 koira-n = dog's
>2 koira-na = as a dog
>3 koira-a = one of a collection, or a part of a dog.
But how is e.g. the possessive pronoun attached
to such a substantive? In Hungarian, it is put
(as a suffix) between the root and, say, the
accusative suffix:
vizemet (my water), vizedet, vizét, vizünket, vizeteket,
vizeiket / (my dog:) kutyámat, kutyádat, kutyája,
kutyánkat etc. (BTW: are koira & kutya related
etymologically? AFAIK, Bulgarian [kutS] is related
to Hung. kutya)
>Peter P
George