Verbimuotojen

Verbimuotojen is the Finnish term for the inflected forms of verbs. In Finnish grammar, verbs change their form to signal who performs an action, when it happens, and under what conditions. The system is highly agglutinative: endings attach to a verb stem to indicate tense, mood, voice, aspect, negation, as well as non-finite forms used in subordinate clauses and as nouns or adjectives.

Finite verb forms carry information about person and number and are used in main clauses. In present tense, for example: minä syön, sinä syöt, hän syö. The imperfect (past) is formed with a different stem and endings, e.g., minä söin, sinä söit, hän syöi. Finnish also has perfect and pluperfect tenses formed with the auxiliary olla and a past participle: olen syönyt, olet syönyt, hän on syönyt; olin syönyt, olit syönyt, he olivat syöneet. There is no separate future tense; time reference is typically provided by context or by modal/auxiliary means. The passive voice exists in finite forms as well, for example syödään, which translates roughly to “it is eaten” or “they eat (in general).”

Non-finite forms include infinitives and participles. The infinitives function in non-finite clauses and as noun-like elements; for example, the present active infinitive is to eat (syödä). Participles convey adjectival or adverbial meaning and are used in forming compound tenses (e.g., past participle with olla to express perfect actions) and in various modifying roles.

Finnish verbs are traditionally grouped into several conjugation types, based on the infinitive ending and stem changes. This classification guides how the main finite and non-finite forms are formed.

Understanding verbimuotojen is essential for Finnish grammar, syntax, and fluent usage.