Talk:lapsi
Partitive singular[edit]
Could someone enlighten me why the 'p' disappears in the partitive singular form "lasta". I have never heard of this type of consonant gradation.
201.95.113.232 22:14, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Probable explanation as well as suggestion for anyone knowledgeable enough about Finnish philology[edit]
Finnish has been even less tolerant of difficult consonant clusters in earlier stages of its history, and at those points, *lapsta would not have been well tolerated, and elision of the p would be the strategy Finnish picks in similar situations. (See e.g.
Lapsi is a word with some peculiarities, though: I've been wondering whether there's any good formal explanation as to the difference in use between the two essives it has, lapsena and lasna - I would say lasna is more poetic and has more cutesy connotations, but I am not a 100% sure of this, given that I am not a native speaker.