Finnish

Finnish is an SVO language, like 488 of the 1,376 languages WALS codes for basic word order.

On Coding of Evidentiality, WALS codes Finnish as “Modal morpheme”, a value held by 7 of the 418 languages coded, French and German among them.

On Expression of Pronominal Subjects, all 12 other Uralic languages coded have the value “Pronominal subjects are expressed by affixes on verbs”; Finnish has “More than one of the above types with none dominant”.

Only 3 languages have more of the profile features coded than Finnish.

The order Finnish uses in 9 pairings of a head word and its dependent. Bars: how all languages coded for each pairing split, before or after.

Contrast Finnish with Estonian or with any other language

Uncommon values

Values that fewer than one in ten of the coded languages share with Finnish, rarest first.

Negative MorphemesNegative auxiliary verb47 of 1,157
Front Rounded VowelsHigh and mid23 of 562
Action Nominal ConstructionsDouble-Possessive: All major arguments treated as possessors7 of 168
Exponence of Selected Inflectional FormativesCase + number8 of 162
Position of Polar Question ParticlesQuestion particle in second position in sentence52 of 884
Indefinite PronounsSpecial indefinites22 of 326
Relativization on SubjectsRelative pronoun12 of 166
Number of Cases10 or more case categories24 of 261

Inside the Uralic family

Finnish matches the most frequent Uralic value on 56 of the 88 features where at least three other members of the family are coded (64%). Among the 7 Uralic languages profiled here, that rate ranks fifth from the top.

Closest profiles

Languages that share the most coded values with Finnish; the count is out of the features both languages are coded for.

Estonian Uralic35 of 45
Tuvan Altaic40 of 55
Hungarian Uralic91 of 137
Russian Indo-European90 of 137
Kirghiz Altaic29 of 40

The rest of the profile

WALS codes Finnish for 140 of the 144 profile features used on this site. The remaining 129 are listed here, grouped by topic; within each group the value Finnish shares with the fewest languages comes first.

Sounds 18

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Consonant-Vowel Ratio	Moderately low	101 of 564
Fixed Stress Locations	Initial: stress is on the first syllable	92 of 502
The Velar Nasal	Velar nasal, but not initially	87 of 469
Consonant Inventories	Moderately small	122 of 563
Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives	Voicing contrast in both plosives and fricatives	158 of 567
Vowel Quality Inventories	Large vowel inventory (7-14)	184 of 564
Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems	/p t k b d g/	255 of 567
Rhythm Types	Trochaic: left-hand syllable in the foot is strong	153 of 323
Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems	No weight, or weight factor unknown	261 of 500
Weight-Sensitive Stress	Fixed stress (no weight-sensitivity)	281 of 500
Syllable Structure	Moderately complex syllable structure	274 of 486
Tone	No tones	307 of 527
Lateral Consonants	/l/, no obstruent laterals	388 of 567
Glottalized Consonants	No glottalized consonants	409 of 567
Vowel Nasalization	Contrastive nasal vowels absent	180 of 244
Presence of Uncommon Consonants	None	449 of 567
Uvular Consonants	No uvulars	470 of 567
Absence of Common Consonants	All present	503 of 567

Word structure 11

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases	Possessor is double-marked	22 of 236
Case Syncretism	Core and non-core	22 of 198
Reduplication	No productive reduplication	55 of 368
Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb	2-3 categories per word	24 of 145
Locus of Marking in the Clause	P is dependent-marked	63 of 236
Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking	Subject person/number marking is never syncretic	81 of 198
Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology	Predominantly suffixing	406 of 969
Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology	Inconsistent marking or other type	121 of 236
Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives	Exclusively concatenative	125 of 165
Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection	monoexponential TAM	127 of 160
Zero Marking of A and P Arguments	Non-zero marking	219 of 235

Nouns and pronouns 26

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
The Associative Plural	Associative plural absent	37 of 236
Ordinal Numerals	First, second, three-th	61 of 321
Asymmetrical Case-Marking	Additive-quantitatively asymmetrical case-marking	53 of 261
Person Marking on Adpositions	Person marking for pronouns only	83 of 378
Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns	Second person pronouns encode a binary politeness distinction	49 of 207
Distributive Numerals	No distributive numerals	62 of 251
Definite Articles	Neither definite nor indefinite article	198 of 620
Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers	Formally similar, involving interrogative expression	43 of 116
Indefinite Articles	Neither indefinite nor definite	198 of 534
Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes	Possessive suffixes	355 of 902
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	79 of 200
Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns	Person-number stem	114 of 261
Position of Case Affixes	Case suffixes	452 of 1,031
Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives	Unrelated	100 of 225
Occurrence of Nominal Plurality	Plural in all nouns, always obligatory	133 of 291
Coding of Nominal Plurality	Plural suffix	513 of 1,066
Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives	Two-way contrast	126 of 234
Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns	Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical	94 of 168
Number of Genders	None	145 of 257
Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems	No gender system	145 of 257
Systems of Gender Assignment	No gender system	145 of 257
Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns	No inclusive/exclusive opposition	120 of 200
Numeral Classifiers	Numeral classifiers are absent	260 of 400
Comitatives and Instrumentals	Differentiation	213 of 322
Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns	No gender distinctions	254 of 378
Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives	Same forms	143 of 201

Noun phrases 7

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Possessive Classification	No possessive classification	125 of 243
Nominal and Verbal Conjunction	Nominal and verbal conjunction are largely identical	161 of 301
Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses	Highly differentiated	77 of 138
Noun Phrase Conjunction	AND-languages: 'and' and 'with' are not identical	131 of 234
Adjectives without Nouns	Adjective may occur without noun, and without marking	73 of 124
Obligatory Possessive Inflection	No obligatorily possessed nouns	201 of 244
Number of Possessive Nouns	None reported	233 of 243

Verbs: tense, mood, evidence 16

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives	Imperative	29 of 193
Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking	Overlap for both possibility and necessity	36 of 207
Epistemic Possibility	Verbal constructions	65 of 240
Imperative-Hortative Systems	The language has a maximal system, but not a minimal one	133 of 375
The Perfect	Other perfect	80 of 222
The Prohibitive	Normal imperative + special negative	182 of 496
Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality	Only indirect evidentials	166 of 418
The Past Tense	Past/non-past distinction marked; no remoteness distinction	94 of 222
The Future Tense	No inflectional marking of future/non-future distinction	112 of 222
The Morphological Imperative	Second singular and second plural	292 of 548
Perfective/Imperfective Aspect	No grammatical marking of perfective/imperfective distinction	121 of 222
Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes	Tense-aspect suffixes	667 of 1,131
Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect	No suppletion in tense or aspect	123 of 193
Situational Possibility	Verbal constructions	158 of 234
Verbal Number and Suppletion	No singular-(dual)-plural pairs/triples	159 of 193
The Optative	Inflectional optative absent	271 of 319

Word order 12

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Order of Adjective and Noun	Modifying adjective precedes noun (AdjN)	373 of 1,367
Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions	Interrogative phrases obligatorily initial	264 of 902
Order of Numeral and Noun	Numeral precedes noun (NumN)	479 of 1,154
Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb	Verb-object-oblique (VOX)	210 of 500
Order of Demonstrative and Noun	Demonstrative word precedes noun (DemN)	542 of 1,225
Order of Object and Verb	Object follows verb (VO)	705 of 1,518
Order of Degree Word and Adjective	Degree word precedes adjective (DegAdj)	227 of 481
Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase	Postpositions	577 of 1,184
Order of Genitive and Noun	Genitive-noun (GenN)	685 of 1,249
Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause	Initial subordinator word	398 of 659
Order of Relative Clause and Noun	Relative clause follows noun (NRel)	579 of 824
Order of Subject and Verb	Subject precedes verb (SV)	1,192 of 1,496

Simple clauses 24

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking	Zero realization of all third person singular S forms	45 of 380
Comparative Constructions	Particle Comparative	22 of 167
Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation	In finiteness: Subtype A/Fin	40 of 297
Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation	Asymmetric standard negation only: Type Asy	53 of 297
Verbal Person Marking	Person marking of only the A argument	73 of 378
Predicative Possession	Locational Possessive	48 of 240
Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases	Nominative - accusative (standard)	46 of 190
Nominal and Locational Predication	Identical	117 of 386
Predicative Adjectives	Predicative adjectives have nonverbal encoding	132 of 386
Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns	Nominative - accusative (standard)	61 of 172
Passive Constructions	There is a passive construction	162 of 373
Order of Person Markers on the Verb	A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb	187 of 379
Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give'	Indirect-object construction	189 of 378
Applicative Constructions	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Other Roles of Applied Objects	No applicative construction	100 of 183
Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals	Zero copula is impossible	211 of 386
Alignment of Verbal Person Marking	Accusative alignment	212 of 380
Reciprocal Constructions	Distinct from reflexive	99 of 175
Periphrastic Causative Constructions	Purposive type but no sequential type	68 of 118
Polar Questions	Question particle	585 of 955
Antipassive Constructions	No antipassive	146 of 194
Productivity of the Antipassive Construction	no antipassive	146 of 186
Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions	Morphological type but no compound type	254 of 310
Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation	Negative indefinites co-occur with predicate negation	170 of 206

Complex sentences 6

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Relativization on Obliques	Relative Pronoun Strategy	13 of 112
Utterance Complement Clauses	Balanced/deranked	18 of 143
Purpose Clauses	Balanced/deranked	30 of 170
Reason Clauses	Balanced/deranked	37 of 169
'When' Clauses	Balanced/deranked	39 of 174
'Want' Complement Subjects	The complement subject is left implicit	144 of 283

Vocabulary 8

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
M-T Pronouns	M-T pronouns, paradigmatic	27 of 230
M in First Person Singular	m in first person singular	53 of 230
Tea	Words derived from Min Nan Chinese te	84 of 230
Hand and Arm	Different	389 of 617
Numeral Bases	Decimal	125 of 196
M in Second Person Singular	No m in second person singular	152 of 230
N-M Pronouns	No N-M pronouns	194 of 230
Finger and Hand	Different	521 of 593

Other 1

Feature	Value	Languages sharing it
Para-Linguistic Usages of Clicks	Clicks may express affective but not logical meanings	71 of 143