Finnish consonant gradation


Consonant gradation is the term used for a set of alternations which are widespread in Finnish grammar. They also occur in other Finnic and Uralic languages, see consonant gradation for a more general overview.

Grades

Consonant gradation involves an alternation in consonants, between a strong grade in some forms of a word and a weak grade in others. The strong grade usually appears in the nominative singular of nominals, and the infinitive of verbs, though there are some special types of words where these forms have the weak grade.
Whether the strong or the weak grade appears is determined by grammatical rules. Each suffix or inflectional ending triggers either the strong grade or weak grade, and this is inherent in that particular suffix or ending. The weak grade originally appeared when a consonant stood at the start of a closed syllable, but the loss of consonants in certain cases has created enough exceptions to this that the process is no longer predictable.
The consonants subject to this change are the plosives when preceded by a vowel, sonorant or h. Plosives that are preceded by any other obstruent, or followed by any consonant, do not display gradation.
Gradation is the simplest for geminated plosives. These are simply reduced to their short versions in the weak grade. This type of gradation is called quantitative gradation.
StrongWeakExample
ppppappi : papit, lamppu : lamput
tttkatto : katot, kortti : kortit
kkkpukki : pukit, pankki : pankit

Gradation patterns for single plosives are more varied and unpredictable. As a general rule, voiceless plosives become voiced sounds, but there are several special types. This kind of gradation is called qualitative gradation.
StrongWeakExampleNotes
pvpi : lävet
tdkatu : kadut
kpako : paot
kvpuku : puvut, kyky : kyvytIn the combinations -uku- and -yky-.
kjjälki : jäljet, kurki : kurjetWhen followed by e and preceded by h, l or r.

In a subtype of qualitative gradation, the weak grade of a single plosive after a nasal or liquid becomes a copy of the preceding consonant. This is assimilative gradation.
StrongWeakExample
mpmmkampi : kammet
ntnnlento : lennot
ltllkielto : kiellot
rtrrparta : parrat
nk ng kenkä : kengät

Some words have exceptional gradation patterns that don't precisely fit into the general scheme explained above. For example, the plural of poika 'boy, son' is pojat, not poiat. The k:j gradation pattern is particularly unpredictable, as it does not always apply. In some words where k might be expected to become j, it disappears altogether, such as in pyyhkeet : pyyhe 'towel'; or remains unchanged, such as in pihka : pihkat 'resin'.
The gradation of loanwords may include new quantitative gradation patterns that are not native to Finnish:
StrongWeakExample
bbblobbaan : lobata
gggbloggaan : blogata

Scope of gradation

Gradation applies to words that were inherited from Proto-Finnic or the period shortly after it. It is no longer fully productive, and words whose phonological shape would suggest that they could gradate often don't. Gradation therefore has to be specified as a lexical feature of particular words. Only quantitative gradation is still productive and applied to new words, while qualitative gradation is mostly restricted to somewhat older words. Slang words, coinages and personal names are by default unaffected by qualitative gradation. Speakers will also attempt to inflect native words without gradation or other associated morphophonological alternations, if they are previously unfamiliar with the gradational inflection: e.g. paasi 'monolith' will be often have the unalternating genitive singular paasin rather than alternating paaden. On the contrary, personal names may still be affected by qualitative gradation, if they are derived from a known common noun.
Personal first names and recent loanwords do not usually have qualitative gradation, but they do sometimes have quantitative gradation, for example Hilta : Hiltan, but Pekka : Pekan. Surnames generally have both gradation types. Acronyms do not gradate if they include the vowel, but do gradate if they end in a consonant. Many loanwords ending in plosives act similarly, having gradation when inflected.
The discussion below focuses on gradation as it appears in native vocabulary.

Gradation types in words

Generally speaking, there are two distinct patterns of strong and weak grades that occur in words:
TypeStem ends inInfinitive
Nom. sg.
1st sg. present
Gen. sg.
Vowel stemsVowelStrong gradeWeak grade
Consonant stemsConsonant Weak gradeStrong grade

Consonant stems are sometimes said to have "inverse gradation", because the "dictionary forms" of the words exhibit a weak grade and gradate "in reverse" to a strong grade in other forms.

Conditions for gradation

As mentioned above, gradation is tied to syllable structure: the strong grade appears when the consonant stands at the beginning of an open syllable, while the weak grade appears when the syllable is closed. By and large, this is still applicable to modern Finnish, this explains the distinction between consonant stems and vowel stems: in consonant stem nominals, the final consonant itself closes the preceding syllable, while in verbs, the combination of stem-final consonant plus the infinitive ending closes the preceding syllable. In the present/genitive, an extra e is inserted after the stem, which opens the syllable, hence creating a strong grade.
Due to the fact that the strong grade of short consonants coincides with the weak grade of long consonants, it may not always be straightforward to identify the grade of a particular consonant. The weak grade of long consonants still triggers the weak grade on a preceding syllable, however, even though the consonant itself is no longer long. It can usually be recognised that there is a short plosive in a closed syllable, implying that it must be the weak grade of an originally long consonant. Examples include:
Sound changes have obscured the general picture further in some cases, so that there are now also open syllables preceded by weak grades, and closed syllable preceded by strong grades. Consonant stems may turn out to be vowel stems, or the reverse.
Former word-final *-k and *-h were lost, but since they formerly closed the final syllable of a word, they triggered the weak grade. In modern Finnish, these cases appear as a weak grade consonant followed by a word-final vowel, but the word will have a special assimilative final consonant that causes gemination to the initial consonant of the next syllable. This assimilative final consonant is a remnant of the former final *-k and *-h. Forms where this applies include:
The loss of certain consonants in the middle of a word caused the two adjacent syllables to fall together into one. The former of these syllables was open, and so the syllable began with consonants in the strong grade. After they fell together, this continued to be the case, even when this new syllable was closed. Most occurrences in non-initial syllables of long vowels or diphthongs ending in u or y are the result of this loss of consonants, and therefore trigger the strong grade on the consonants at the start of the syllable, regardless of whether the syllable is closed. Some examples of this include:
An exception occurs in the present tense passive ending -taan. This ending shows a weak grade, where the other passive endings have a strong grade, such as the past and conditional passive. The conditional ending is clearly segmented into three parts -tta-isi-in, where -isi- is the conditional mood suffix. It could therefore be argued that the present tense simply lacks any infix at all. By this reasoning, the suffix is underlyingly *-tta-an, which consists of a long vowel with no lost consonant, so that the syllable is closed and the initial consonant is weakened.