Seller, goods, buyer, price · Finnish marking · working claim, revisable
The seller is the nominative subject. Finnish Wiktionary prints Pertti myi tänään automme naapurille, Ammattimyyjä myy usein elääkseen, and Välittäjä on myynyt taloamme. Pertti, Ammattimyyjä, and Välittäjä wear no case suffix. Kielitoimiston sanakirja prints Myi maansa naapurille and Myi kirjan with no spelled seller noun. myi is the third person singular past. Iso suomen kielioppi (VISK) §910 calls the agreeing subject nominative. These subjects take no case ending. There is no ergative on these clauses.
myydä. English Wiktionary: IPA /ˈmyːdæˣ/, hyphenation myy‧dä, Kotus type 63/saada, transitive, “to sell.” The antonym listed there is ostaa. The usage line names the buyer as allative, or a place as illative, and the price as elative or adessive. Kielitoimiston sanakirja, sense of the sale: luovuttaa jtak määrähinnasta toisen omaksi. jtak is the partitive of jokin. The citation list is Myydä elintarvikkeita, metsää, kiinteistö, arvopapereita, julkaisuoikeus. One object slot is that jtak. No line prints a second object.
The goods are that object, and the object has two case series. VISK §925: the object cases are partitive, genitive, nominative, and accusative. The partitive object is the partitive. The other three are the total object. VISK calls the n-form genitive. §1226: the grammatical tradition called every non-partitive object case accusative, and spoke of a genitive accusative (söin omenan) and a nominative accusative (syö omena, syön omenat). In this grammar the accusative is only the t-form of a personal pronoun (minut, hänet). No sale line opened here prints a t-accusative. §934: a singular total object is genitive when the verb agrees with a basic subject, and nominative in the impersonal passive. §935: a plural total object is nominative. The partitive plural and the partitive singular stay partitive. The split is the object’s case. It does not add a participant.
The genitive total object is printed. Myi kirjan kymmenellä eurolla, kymmenestä eurosta. kirjan is kirja plus -n. English Wiktionary prints Myin vanhan autoni tuhannesta eurosta. vanhan is the genitive of vanha. The noun autoni wears the possessive -ni. VISK §934: a possessive suffix hides the nominative/genitive ending, and a modifier shows the case, as in viimeisen kysymyksensä. vanhan is that modifier. Myi maansa naapurille hides the ending the same way: maansa is maa plus -nsa. Finnish Wiktionary’s figurative line prints the n-form on the noun itself: Juudas myi Jeesuksen 30 hopearahasta roomalaisille sotilaille. That sense is pettää. The object ending is the same -n. myin auton is that n-form on auto. It is constructed on Myi kirjan.
The nominative total object is printed in the citation and in the passive. kiinteistö and julkaisuoikeus sit in the same citation list as the partitives elintarvikkeita and metsää. They wear no -n. The passive prints the plural nominative: Pääsyliput myytiin loppuun tunnissa, Osakkeet myytiin vähemmästä kuin nimellisarvostaan. English Wiktionary’s vanhat kirjani is that plural nominative, with vanhat the nominative plural of the adjective. §934’s passive example of the nominative total object is Meille tilattiin taksi. Pääsyliput is the plural of that nominative.
The partitive object is printed beside those total objects. Partitive plural: elintarvikkeita, arvopapereita, Myi kirjoja sadalla eurolla, Käytettyjä autoja myytävänä. Finnish Wiktionary: Myymme kotimaisia omenoita, Ladattavia sähköautoja on myyty. Partitive singular: metsää, kaupunkia in Myydä kaupunkia matkailukohteena, and taloamme in Välittäjä on myynyt taloamme. kultaa in Mana myi kultaa is the same singular partitive, on the “sells” sense of that entry. myin autoja reuses autoja from Käytettyjä autoja and the finite past of Myi kirjoja. myyn autoa reuses the partitive singular of metsää on the present myyn. Both are constructed. English sell the car and sell cars have one object form. They have no total-object / partitive-object alternation.
The buyer, when the line names a person, is allative -lle. Myi maansa naapurille. naapurille is naapuri plus -lle. Finnish Wiktionary repeats that allative: automme naapurille. The figurative line prints the plural roomalaisille sotilaille. VISK §478 puts myydä in the giving pattern (antamismuotti). The pattern’s clause is Annan sen sinulle. sinulle is allative. §1257: the allative marks the recipient (vastaanottaja), the one who benefits, with verbs of the antaa type. §1235: the allative is a lative local case, the exterior goal, Maijalle. English Wiktionary’s usage line names that allative “to (the person or entity something is sold to).” jollekulle is the allative of joku. VISK §478 prints it on tilata, tilata joltakulta ~ jollekulle, and the joku entry prints Jollekulle tuli mieleen. Neither line is myydä. myydä jollekulle is constructed on naapurille and on that pronoun. A bare buyer beside the goods is unprinted.
A place can be illative. English Wiktionary: Myin vanhat kirjani antikvariaattiin, “I sold my old books to the antiquarian bookshop.” antikvariaattiin is illative. The usage line sets that illative beside the allative, as the place against the person. Kielitoimiston sanakirja prints no illative place of the buyer. tiliin in Myydä tiliin is illative, and it sits in the payment-terms list with käteisellä and velaksi. It is not the bookshop.
The price is printed in three cases. Kielitoimiston sanakirja: Myydä jhk hintaan, jstak hinnasta, jllak hinnalla. jhk is illative johonkin, jstak is elative jostakin, and jllak is adessive jollakin. The finite line fills two of them: Myi kirjan kymmenellä eurolla, kymmenestä eurosta. kymmenellä eurolla is adessive -lla. kymmenestä eurosta is elative -sta. Myi kirjoja sadalla eurolla is the same adessive, and the dictionary’s gloss is sadan euron arvosta. Myydä halvalla, pilkkahintaan pairs the adessive halvalla with the illative pilkkahintaan. Osakkeet myytiin vähemmästä kuin nimellisarvostaan is elative vähemmästä and nimellisarvostaan. English Wiktionary’s usage note: the price is the elative or the adessive, and hinta, or a compound in hinta, is commonly illative, with the elative and the adessive also possible. The printed sum there is elative: tuhannesta eurosta. tuhannella eurolla is the adessive of that thousand. It is unprinted. It is constructed on kymmenellä eurolla. VISK §990: the most usual instrument adverbial is an adessive phrase (junalla). §1252: the adessive also marks manner and quantity. The same myydä entry prints the means in that case: Myydä käteisellä, osamaksulla. käteisellä is the cash. It is not the sum kymmenellä eurolla. voitolla and tappiolla are adessive too, profit and loss. The price is not a second object.
The passive is myydään, past myytiin. English Wiktionary’s conjugation table gives present passive myydään and past passive myytiin, and the usage line prints myydään!, glossed “for sale!” Kielitoimiston sanakirja: Pääsyliput myytiin loppuun tunnissa. Pääsyliput is nominative plural, the total object of the impersonal passive. The verb is myytiin, not the agreeing plural myivät. §934: the passive has no basic subject, and the singular total object is nominative there. The partitive stays partitive: Käytettyjä autoja myytävänä, and Finnish Wiktionary Ladattavia sähköautoja on myyty. No passive line opened here makes the buyer the nominative. The English page’s Wasn’t Chris sold a lawnmower has no pair in these entries. A different clause makes the goods the agreeing subject. The dictionary labels it Erik.: Viime vuoden malli ei myy enää, Hyvin myyvä tuote. Finnish Wiktionary: Tämä uusi kenkämallisto myy todella hyvin, glossed käydä kaupaksi. myy agrees with malli and with kenkämallisto. That is not myytiin.
Where this frame diverges from English sell X to Y for Z. The English page prints Pat sold a lawnmower to Chris, Pat sold Chris a lawnmower for twenty dollars, and Wasn’t Chris sold a lawnmower for twenty dollars. The goods are an object, in one form. The buyer is to plus a noun, or a bare first object. The price is for plus the sum. The passive can make the buyer the subject. myydä puts the goods in one object slot, and that object alternates: genitive total object kirjan, nominative total object kiinteistö and Pääsyliput, partitive kirjoja and metsää. English has no object-case alternation on the goods. A bare buyer is unprinted. English sold Chris a lawnmower has no pair in these entries. The person who buys is allative naapurille, the lative local case §1235 calls the exterior goal, and the giving pattern of §478. English to is not -lle. A place is illative antikvariaattiin, a different case from the person. The price is adessive kymmenellä eurolla and jllak hinnalla, elative kymmenestä eurosta and tuhannesta eurosta, and illative hintaan and pilkkahintaan. English for is not one of those cases. The adessive is the case §990 uses for an instrument, and the same entry prints the cash as käteisellä. myytiin puts a total-object goods noun in the nominative and leaves the verb impersonal. It does not make the buyer that nominative.