Talk:-lainen
Latest comment: 9 years ago by -sche in topic Etymology
Declension tables[edit]
I put here declension tables for both variants, thanks to new templates! I'm not sure if this is useful but they won't hurt, I guess. | hyark 21:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Etymology[edit]
Is it likely that this ending evolved from the word laji which meand type or kind plus adjectival -nen? Does anyone know for sure? — This unsigned comment was added by Hauskalainen (talk • contribs).
- That's what [some] references say, e.g.:
- Joel Ashmore Nevis, Finnish particle clitics and general clitic theory (1985), page 140: "The bound word -lainen 'type, sort, kind' is etymologically an agglutination of the word =lajinen, itself a derivation of laji 'type' (plus derivational suffix -nen). My bound word account of -lainen recapitulates the history of the word. Bound word -lainen is not to be confused with derivational suffix -lainen, which differs from the bound word homophone in most of the relevant properties. Bound word -lainen does not attach to a bare stem as do regular derivational affixes, but to a fully inflected stem, in this case the genitive (3). Thus it requires that an inflectional affix (genitive -n) be sandwiched between it and a preceding stem. It also allows a possessive suffix to be stranded in the same position (d).
- John B. Olli, Fundamentals of Finnish Grammar (1958), page 121: Note also the suffix -lainen from laji-nen (of the kind of)
- NB relevant discussion here: Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2014/March#Finnish_-lainen_and_cognates. - -sche (discuss) 01:36, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Misc info[edit]
miscellaneous info about this word
- Lloyd B. Anderson, Using Asymmetrical and Gradient Data, published in Issues in Vowel Harmony (1980, →ISBN, page 296:
- Kiparsky (1973 ms. fn. 1) compares -mmoinen with the independent word moinen 'such'. Whatever the history, we cannot explain these forms [simmoinen, mimmoinen, tämmöinen] as compounds and for that reason immune from harmony. For tämmöinen shows harmony. The shift from compound-structure to derivational structure can be seen in two dialectal forms where the first member originally was in the genitive case, ad the second part developed recently from the Swedish word slag 'type, kind' by way of Finnish *lajinen to -lainen (Table 17). Not only are compounds the most resistant to harmonization of their second members (Table 2 row a); further, the direction of change may even be reversed so that the first member is harmonized to the second.
Compound-structure | Derivational structure (front-harmonized) |
---|---|
hyvän-lainen 'fairly good' | |
yhden-lainen 'similar' | yhtä-läinen |
eri-lainen 'different' | |
*tän-lainen 'of this kind' | |
→ tällainen | ([tälläinen] dialectally) |
sellainen 'such' (can also be | derivational, see Table 16a) |