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Doctor John <joh### [at] home com> wrote:
> Warp, what's the case in Finnish?
Hmm, verb inflections being "irregular" is not such a prominent
characteristic in Finnish that it is in other languages, but I suppose
the verb for "to be" (which happens to be the same as for "to have")
has its irregularities.
For example, the inflections for the present tense of "olla" (to be,
to have) and a similar verb "kuolla" (to die) are:
kuolen olen
kuolet olet
kuolee on
kuolemme olemme
kuolette olette
kuolevat ovat
The irregularity appears only in the third person of the present tense.
There's no irregularity eg. in the past tense:
kuolin olin
kuolit olit
kuoli oli
kuolimme olimme
kuolitte olitte
kuolivat olivat
The only other tense which I can think of with irregularities is the
potential tense (a slightly more rarely used tense, but not unusual,
especially with the verb "olla"; a bit rarer with other verbs):
kuollen lienen
kuollet lienet
kuollee lienee
kuollemme lienemme
kuollette lienette
kuollevat lienev?t
(The potential tense can be translated into English eg. as "he might die",
and "he might be", but as said, this tense is slightly archaic and its usage
is less common than a more explicit expression using "ehk?" ("maybe") and
the present tense (which also acts as future tense). The potential tense of
the verb "olla" is still relatively commonly used, though.)
--
- Warp
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