Contraction verbs

There is an important class of verbs with special variation in the stem. Their stem ends with AA in some forms, At or As or An or A in others. In the general framework of stems, the AA form acts as the vowel stem, whereas the other forms are interpreted as variants of the consonant stem—even though the last of them actually ends with a vowel. In lack of a better term, we can call them contraction verbs (the term “contracted verbs” is also used; Finnish: supistumaverbit), referring to the contraction of the long AA to the short A.

The following table shows the thematic forms of korjata (to repair, to fix) and tavata (to meet). The first verb has no consonant gradation, whereas the second one has the gradation p : v.

The infinitive forms could alternatively be analyzed as korja|ta and tava|ta. However, it is normal to interpret that the t belongs to the stem, since for other verbs, the infinitive is based on the consonant stem.

The variation of the consonant stem depends on the form as follows:

• The following forms have the At variant: I infinitive (tavata), II infinitive (tavaten, tavatessa), 4th person paste tense (tavattiin), imperative forms except the 2nd person singular (tavatkoon, tavatkaamme, tavatkaa, tavatkoot).
• The An variant appears in the past participle, e.g. tavannut : tavanneet. This simply means that the consonant in the At part is assimilated to n.
• The weak grade (in the example, v) is used in all the forms above, even when general rules would require the strong grade. We can say that the t triggers weak grade as if the syllable ended with it, even if the actual syllable boundary is before it.
• The A variant appears before the suffix of the conditional, isi, e.g. tapa|isi. This is a regular phenomenon when a long vowel is followed by a suffix that starts with i.
• The A variant also appears before the 4th person present tense suffix tAAn, e.g. tava|taan.
• The As variant appears before the past tense suffix i, e.g. tapas|i|n.

Contraction verbs form a large and expanding set. In particular, new loanword verbs are mostly adapted to this class, e.g. liisata : liisaa- (to lease).