ISSN: 2306-5737E-ISSN: 2658-4069
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana
Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies
ISSN: 2306-5737E-ISSN: 2658-4069
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana
Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies 

The Finnish verbs of falling

DOI:10.30842/alp2306573716112
PDF, 225.15 kb
Viymaranta Y., Protasova Ye. Yu. Glagoly padeniya v finskom yazyke. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. 2020. XVI(1): 389–434.

In Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language, many different verbs are used to describe the process of falling. They differ in meaning according to the trajectory, the characteristics of the falling object, and the process of landing. The list of verbs of falling was compiled with the help of dictionaries, corpus material, and native and multilingual speakers of Finnish. After completing the list of verbs, the authors collected examples of the use of the chosen ca. 40 verbs (in some cases, different Aktionsarten were also included). The main corpus of examples was retrieved from the Language Bank of Finland, available online at www.korp.csc.fi. The examples illustrated the direct, special, and metaphoric meanings of the verbs. After comparing the contexts where different verbs were used, it was found that the most frequent verbs are pudota, tippua (falling from above to the ground), kaatua (falling from a vertical position into a horizontal one) and romahtaa (collapse). The first two verbs may replace each other in almost all contexts. Although the primary meanings of the other verbs are often different, they may have very similar metaphoric meanings, especially when people speak of their mental state. The other verbs described in this study are: alentua ‘become lower, go down, fall, sink’, aleta ‘become lower’, kellahtaa ‘fall, tumble down, topple over’, kellistyä ‘fall, tumble (down), fall down’, kierähtää ‘fall, tumble over, stumble, flip over, turn over’, kolahtaa ‘bang, slam, hit, bump, clunk, go down well’, kompastua ‘trip, stumble, trip up’, kopsahtaa ‘thump, clap, click, fall with a thump’, kupsahtaa ‘topple, topple over, tumble over, pop off’, kuukahtaa ‘topple, topple over, tumble over, pop off’, langeta ‘fall, throw’, laskea ‘lower, reduce, fall, drop, go down’, lätsähtää ‘splash, belly-flop’, leijailla ‘float, soar, hover’, lentää ‘fly’, loiskahtaa ‘splash, spill’, luhistua ‘collapse, cave in, fall in, break down, fall apart’, lysähtää ‘collapse, sink, drop, slump, flop’, lyyhistyä ‘collapse, fall down, sink, drop, slump’, molskahtaa ‘splash, plop’, painua ‘sink, fall’, plätsähtää ‘splash’, roiskahtaa ‘splash, splatter, spurt out’, romahtaa ‘collapse, tumble down, fall down, crash down, cave in, topple over’, sortua ‘collapse, fall down, cave in, crash down’, tömähtää ‘thump, thud’, tuupertua ‘collapse, drop, sink, fall down’, vajota ‘sink, fall’, valua ‘flow, run, drip’, varista ‘fall off, drop off’, and vierähtää ‘roll, elapse’.

Keywords
verbs of falling, Finnish, language corpus, lexical semantics
References
Jeshoi 2019
A. Jeshoi. Taivas putoaa niskaan, rahaa ei tipu ja suosio tipahtaa — verbien pudota, tippua ja tipahtaa polysemiaa. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 2019.
Koppaleva 2001
Yu. E. Koppaleva. Novyy finsko-russkiy slovar [The new Finnish-Russian dictionary] = Uusi suomalais-venäläinen sanakirja. St. Petersburg: M.G.V., 2001.
KTS 2018
Kielitoimiston sanakirja. Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten keskus, 2018. Available at: www.kielitoimistonsanakirja.fi (accessed on 2.10.2019).
Kuusinen et al. 1997
M. Kuusinen, V. Ollikainen, J. Syrjäläinen. Venäjä-suomi-suursanakirja. Porvoo: WSOY, 1997.
Mustajoki, Protassova 2007
A. Mustajoki, E. Protassova. Finskie glagoly so znacheniem plavaniya [The Finnish verbs with the meaning of swimming]. T. A. Maysak, Ye. V. Rakhilina (eds.). Glagoly peredvizheniya v vode: leksicheskaya tipologiya [The verbs of movement in the water: lexical typology]. Moscow: Indrik, 2007. P. 380–405.
Niemensivu, Nikkilä 2003
H. Niemensivu, E. Nikkilä. Suomi-venäjä —sanakirja. Helsinki: WSOY, 2003.
Nikunlassi 2013
A. Nikunlassi. Bolevye predikaty v finskom yazyke [Predicates of pain in the Finnish language]. A. E. Kibrik (ed.) Lingvisticheskiy bespredel — 2: Sbornik nauchnykh trudov k yubileyu A. I. Kuznetsovoy [Linguistic mayhem — 2: A collection of research papers for the anniversary of A. I. Kuznetsova]. Moscow: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2013. P. 255–273
Nikunlassi, Juvonen 2015
A. Nikunlassi, P. Juvonen. Temperature adjectives in Finnish. M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm (ed.). The Linguistics of Temperature. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2015. P. 491–536.
Nikunlassi, Protassova 2015
A. Nikunlassi, E. Protassova. Finskie glagoly, opisyvayushchie izdavaemye zhivotnymi zvuki [Finnish verbs describing sounds emitted by the animals]. E. V. Rakhilina (comp.). Glagoly zvukov zhivotnykh: tipologiya metafor [Verbs of animals’ sounds: a typology of metaphors]. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoy kultury, 2015. P. 178–195.
Pajunen 1999
A. Pajunen. Suomen verbirektiosta: verbin argumenttirakenteen jäsenten valinnasta. Turku: Turun yliopisto, 1999.
Palander 2006
M. Palander. “Tippuuko” taso? Kielikello. 2006. No. 1. S. 34.
Vakhros, Shcherbakov 1975
I. Vakhros, A. Shcherbakov. Finsko-russkiy slovar. M.: Russkiy yazyk, 1975.
Keywords
verbs of falling, Finnish, language corpus, lexical semantics
ScopusSCImago Journal & Country RankE-Library.ruCrossRefCyberLeninkaVAKERIH Plus