Infinitive - Finnish

Finnish

To form the first infinitive, the strong form of the root (without consonant gradation or epenthetic 'e') is used, and these changes occur:

1. the root is suffixed with -ta/-tä according to vowel harmony
2. consonant elision takes place if applicable, e.g. juoks+ta → juosta
3. assimilation of clusters violating sonority hierarchy if applicable, e.g. nuol+ta → nuolla, sur+ta → surra
4. 't' weakens to 'd' after diphthongs, e.g. juo+ta → juoda
5. 't' elides if intervocalic, e.g. kirjoitta+ta → kirjoittaa

As such, it is inconvenient for dictionary use, because the imperative would be closer to the root word. Nevertheless, dictionaries use the first infinitive.

There are also four other infinitives, plus a "long" form of the first:

• The long first infinitive is -kse- and must have a personal suffix appended to it. It has the general meaning of "in order to, e.g. kirjoittakseni "in order for me to write ".
• The second infinitive is formed by replacing the final -a/-ä of the first infinitive with e. It can take the inessive and instructive cases to create forms like kirjoittaessa "while writing".
• The third infinitive is formed by adding -ma to the first infinitive, which alone creates an "agent" form: kirjoita- becomes kirjoittama. The third infinitive is technically a noun (denoting the act of performing some verb), so case suffixes identical to those attached to ordinary Finnish nouns allow for other expressions using the third infinitive, e.g. kirjoittamalla "by writing".
  • A personal suffix can then be added to this form to indicate the "agent participle", such that kirjoittamani kirja = "the book which I wrote".
• The fourth infinitive adds -minen to the first, forming a noun which has the connotation of "the process of ", e.g. kirjoittaminen " writing". It, too, can be inflected like other Finnish nouns which end in -nen.
• The fifth infinitive adds -maisilla- to the first, and like the long first infinitive, must take a possessive suffix. It has to do with being "about to " and may also imply that the act was cut off or interrupted, e.g. kirjoittamaisillasi "you were about to write ". This form is more commonly replaced by the third infinitive in adessive case, usually also with a possessive suffix (thus kirjoittamallasi).

Note that all of these must change to reflect vowel harmony, so the fifth infinitive (with a third-person suffix) of hypätä "jump" is hyppäämäisillään "he was about to jump", not *hyppäämaisillaan.