HAS set-up: TEAMS

The following section briefly discusses Finnish equivalents of the verb live and their characteristics following Huddleston's criteria. The amount of information is kept to a minimum, as the Finnish verbs are not a point of focus for this study; they are included here to make comparisons between the

meanings in dictionaries [See Table 2 below].

5.2.1 Inflection, function and dependents

(a) According to Suomen kielioppi (Leino 1991, 43), in the Finnish language words are divided into word classes based on their inflection. In Finnish, any word that can be inflected by person is a verb (71). Firstly, all verb-forms belong to the main classes of active or passive forms (71). Verb-forms can either be finite or infinite; infinite forms are divided into infinitives and participles; there are seven conjugational forms according to person; the possible tenses are the present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect; negative expressions have their own forms; and verbs can appear in the indicative, potential, conditional, and imperative forms (72-73). Infinitives and participles may usually take a possessive suffix (83). Furthermore, participles resemble adjectives, for example in that they are gradable (83, 87).

In addition, in the Finnish language the agent participle behaves like an adjective, but it should not be confused with the third infinitive nor nouns derived from verbs, both of which can have the same form with it; the interpretation of these words depends on the context (Leino 88-89).

(b) Verbs may act as predicates, subjects, attributes, objects, and adverbials in Finnish (Leino 134-5).

Any predicate must be an inflected verb-form, and any inflected verb-form must be a predicate (102).

Infinitival forms have the same functions in a clause as nouns; participles, like adjectives, can be used attributively (83). The short form of the first infinitive and the fourth infinitive may also act as subject of a clause (108).

(c) In Finnish, only verbs may take an object (Leino 82). Any object in a phrase always has a verb as its head. Verbs that may take an object are transitive, and verbs that may not are intransitive. The object can be a noun, or an adjective, numeral or pronoun used like a noun; the short form of the first infinitive; or a finite or non-finite clause (122).

5.2.2 Meanings 5.2.2.1 Elää

The monolingual Finnish language dictionaries consulted give the verb 'elää' the following intransitive meanings [my translation into English]:

(a) 'to be alive, living, to exist as a living being; of living, existing as a biological phenomenon a. of people b. of animals, plants': The closest English equivalent to this meaning is live1 'exist, be alive, have life'; this meaning also encompasses that of live11 'be found somewhere (animals, plants)'.

Interestingly, Nykysuomen sanakirja gives plenty of examples of the use of the adjective elävä under the head word elää.

(b) 'to dwell, to lodge, to be staying; of living as determined by place, space, manner etc': The closest English equivalent to this meaning is live2 'dwell, reside, have a home'.

(c) 'to be in existence, to influence, to have vitality; to have an effect like a living thing': The closest English equivalent is live6 'continue to exist in memory'.

(d) 'to make sounds; to function; to move, to change; to show the characteristics of life': The closest English equivalent is most likely Collins's definition of live1 “to show the characteristics of life”.

(e) 'to get one's living, sustenance, maintenance, subsist': The closest English equivalent is live5

'maintain oneself'.

(f) 'to be (constantly) in a certain emotional state, mood etc': The closest English equivalent can be found in section 4.1.2.13 (b) 'exhibit vigour, gusto, or enthusiam'.

(g) 'to surrender, to devote oneself to': The closest English equivalent is live8 'conform to religion etc'.

(h) 'to spend a particular kind of life; behave in a certain manner; to be constantly in a certain state':

The closest English equivalent is live7 'spend your life in a particular way'.

(i) 'to see, experience; to get to, have to experience, go through': The closest equivalent to this meaning may be live12 'experience, go through, imagine' or that mentioned in Section 4.1.2.13 (a).

(j) 'to live a rich life, a life worth pursuing': The closest English equivalent is live4 'enjoy life to the full(est)'.

(k) 'of righteous, eternal life': The closest equivalent in English is found in Section 4.1.2.13 (c) 'attain eternal life'.

(l) 'to constantly exist, continue, stay (of both animate and inanimate subjects): The closest English equivalent is live3 'stay alive'.

Nykysuomen sanakirja also mentions three transitive meanings of elää:

(m) 'with a time adjunct as object': This description is extremely vague, but the closest English-language equivalent is probably live10 'live in a particular time'.

(n) 'with a place adjunct as object: dwell, cultivate, take care of'

(o) 'with some other word as object: (personally) experience, live through something within': The closest English-language equivalent is live12 'experience, go through, imagine'.

Naturally, these equivalencies are only approximate, and some aspects and nuances are lost in translation²³. Yet, these meanings found in the Finnish-language dictionaries show a good approximate equivalence to the ones found in monolingual English dictionaries; only the English meaning live9 'be kept somewhere' and the Finnish meaning (n) 'dwell, cultivate, take care of' could not be matched with an equivalent. This attests the validity of my categorisations, and can help a Finnish learner of English

23 One aspect that was not taken into account of was the transitivity of these verbs. This is due to the fact that such matters tend to vary from one language to the other, and are not necessarily good grounds for translation.

language decipher the correct meaning. After this analysis, we can continue to inspect bilingual dictionaries and see if the equivalences carry on to their descriptions.

The Finnish-English bilingual dictionaries consulted give the following translations for elää:

(a) live, be alive, have life, exist. This equals to live1 'exist, be alive, have life'.

(b) live on, live off, subsist, exist on; feed, feed on; live, earn one's living by, support oneself by, earn, make one's living by, maintain oneself, support life. This equals to live5 'maintain oneself'.

(c) live for, devote one's life, oneself to. This equals to live8 'conform to religion etc'.

(d) experience, live through. This equals to live12 'experience, go through, imagine'.

(e) move, stir. The closest equivalent is Collins's description of live1: “to show the characteristics of life”.

The English-Finnish bilingual dictionaries consulted give the following meanings to live [my translation into Finnish]:

(a) live; be alive or living (also figuratively). This equals to live1 'exist, be alive, have life'.

(b) dwell; stay. This equals to live2 'dwell, reside, have a home'.

(c) (of a ship) survive, not be destroyed

(d) live, stay in memory. This equals to live6 'continue to exist in memory'.

(e) live, spend (time). This equals to live7 'spend your life in a particular way'.

(f) live by something, indicate something with one's life. This equals to live8 'conform to religion etc'.

Most of the meanings given by bilingual dictionaries, too, could easily be matched with my meaning categories for the verb live [see Table 2 below]; only one meaning found in English-Finnish

dictionaries, namely meaning (c) '(of a ship) survive, not be destroyed', was not matched.

5.2.2.2 Asua

The monolingual Finnish dictionaries consulted in this study give the following meanings to asua [my translation into English]:

(a) 'to permanently or temporarily reside, lodge, have as one's home or whereabouts, have a residence, live': The closest English equivalent is live2 'dwell, reside, have a home'.

(b) 'to constantly be somewhere, to stay, to constantly be in a certain manner or in a certain state, to constantly be present, to constantly or permanently be somewhere' (of animate and inanimate subjects;

especially in elevated style)

(c) 'tr as a resident to farm or take care of, to be a resident somewhere' (as in 'to inhabit a house, land') (d) 'to take one's time, stay, go slow' (colloquial)

The Finnish-English dictionaries consulted give the following translations to asua:

(a) 'live, dwell, abide, reside, stay, stop (at), be staying, stopping (at), lodge, room (with), be living, be residing (at)'. The closest English equivalent is live2 'dwell, reside, have a home'.

(b) 'inhabit, occupy, be in occupation of'

(c) 'dwell, stay': fear dwelt in her eyes (elevated style) (d) 'cultivate, farm'

(e) 'populate, people'

The meanings in English-Finnish dictionaries for live were already discussed above; meaning (b) was equivalent to live2 and asua. As we can see from the above, the Finnish verb asua has several meanings not covered by the dictionary descriptions of the verb live in English-language dictionaries;

but some of the meanings mentioned in Finnish-language dictionaries are included in bilingual dictionaries. However, as the English verb is the focus of this study, we will not examine the issue further.