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Appendix:Finnish polarity pairs. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
Appendix:Finnish polarity pairs, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
Appendix:Finnish polarity pairs in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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Appendix:Finnish polarity pairs, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
In Finnish, the clitics -kin and -kaan / -kään, and some words (mainly adverbs or conjunctions) in which they have become lexicalized, form polarity pairs, where the former is used as a positive polarity item and the latter as a negative polarity item.
This means that in affirmative and negative sentences, the positive (-kin) and negative (-kaan) polarity forms are generally used, respectively:
Kesä ehkä sittenkin meni jo. (positive)- Perhaps summer is already gone, after all.
Ei tämä sittenkään toimi. (negative)- This won't work after all.
However, in interrogative sentences (questions), either can be used, but the nuance is different:
Oliko tämä sittenkin hyvä idea? (positive)- Was this a good idea after all?
Oliko tämä sittenkään hyvä idea? (negative)- Was this a good idea after all?
Note that the polarity also applies to certain grammatical features, such as the marking of telic objects in sentences:
Onko hän kuitenkin syönyt kakun? (positive)- Did he eat the cake anyway?
Onko hän kuitenkaan syönyt kakkua? (negative)- Did he eat the cake anyway?
The polarity of these words does not have to correlate with the presence or absence of ei in the sentence:
Eikö tämä sittenkin ollut hyvä idea? (positive)- Wasn't this a good idea after all?
Eikö tämä sittenkään ollut hyvä idea? (negative)- Wasn't this a good idea after all?
Like in English, there are environments where negative polarity items can appear in affirmative sentences and vice versa (some examples):
Hänellä tuskin on harmaintakaan aavistusta.- He barely has any idea.
Vain harva enää uskoo, että ongelmaa voidaan ratkaista millään keinolla.- Only few now think there is any solution to the problem.
Ei minua haittaisi saada jotakin vaativampaa työtehtävää.- I wouldn't mind some more challenging task.
Nyt, jos koskaan, on aika tarttua toimeen.- Now, if ever, is the time to take action.
Elokuva oli parempi kuin odotinkaan.- The movie was better than I expected.