Appendix:Finnish poetic forms

Here is a non-exhaustive list of features that can be found in poetic Finnish. Note that many (although not all) of these are archaisms, and most of them can also be found in dialects.

• -h- retained in the illative forms where they have been lost in the standard language; applies to at least declension classes 1, 5, 7, 9–11, 23–31, 38 and 49 (short illative).

  rekehen (rekeen)

• -h- retained as the "weak grade" of -s-, such as in genitive singular and nominative plural forms, for nominals in declension class 41.

  taivahan (taivaan)

• -h- retained in inflected forms for nominals (that originally ended in a -h) in declension class 48. Sometimes nominals originally ending in -k also gets this treatment as well.

  rantehen (ranteen)

• -h- retained in many passive verb forms, particularly indicative and imperative.

  oltihin (oltiin)

• -d- absent in bisyllabic stems ending in -e-, particularly the genitive singular and nominative plural forms of nouns like vesi; a feature characteristic of many eastern dialects.

  veen (veden), käet (kädet)

• -lj-, -rj- as the weak stem of -lk-, -rk- before front vowels (-ä-, -ö-, -y-) in place of standard -l-, -r-:

  hyljätä (hylätä)

• Use of the western dialectal genitive plural form (-ain) for nominals in declension classes 8–11, 13–16, 35–37.

  korkeain (korkeiden, korkeitten)

• Use of consonant-stem essive singular forms for nominals in at least declension classes 34 and 38 (sometimes also 41):

  onnetonna (onnettomana), onnellisna (onnellisena)

• Use of -in instead of -ni as the first-person singular possessive suffix (when possible).
• Omission of final vowels (apocope), shown in writing by using an apostrophe, primarily before a following word beginning in a vowel or at the end of a line.

  ol’ (oli), toist’ on (toista on)

  • Note: if the new final letter is a singular s, an apostrophe is generally not written, and apocope may occur more generally than described above.
• Use of dialectal personal pronouns

  ma, mä (minä)

• Use of forms of kuka or ken beyond the now common paradigm
• Use of poetic terms
• Particularly in older poetry: use of -vi or -pi for verbs with the third-person singular present indicative instead of the final stem vowel being lengthened; applies to verb conjugation classes 52–61, 66–67, 68 (long form only), 69–72 and 74–76.

  tekevi (tekee)