Peruslausetta

Peruslausetta is a term used in Finnish grammar to refer to the basic, simple clause, the core unit of predication in a sentence. It is the minimal clause that can stand as a declarative, and it can be expanded with modifiers or combined with other clauses to form more complex sentences. The concept helps describe how Finnish sentences are built from a fundamental unit that carries an action or state.

The word peruslausetta is the partitive singular form of peruslause, the base clause. In grammar descriptions, peruslausetta often appears when discussing the clause as a grammatical object or when illustrating how simple clauses function within larger structures. In everyday usage, speakers typically refer to peruslause or modify the term by context, rather than using the technical form peruslausetta in ordinary speech.

Syntactic characteristics of a peruslausetta include a finite predicate and a subject, and it may also include objects, complements, and adverbials. It does not inherently contain subordinate clauses or coordinated clauses, though it can be extended or combined to form more complex constructions. When a sentence contains multiple predications linked by conjunctions, each separate predication can be analyzed as its own peruslausetta within the broader, compound structure.

Examples:

- Minä luen. This Finnish sentence is a peruslausetta: a simple clause with a subject and a finite predicate.

- Minä luen kirjaa ja kirjoitan muistiinpanoja. Here, the first clause “Minä luen kirjaa” is a peruslausetta, and the second is another peruslausetta in a compound sentence.

Peruslausetta is primarily a grammatical label used in linguistic descriptions and language teaching to illustrate the simplest sentential unit in Finnish.