Personal forms of verbs

The personal form suffixes

Finite forms of verbs have personal suffixes that indicate the agent of action as the first person (in singular “I”, in plural “we”), second person (“you”, with a distinction between singular and plural in Finnish), third person (“he”, “she”, or “it”), or fourth person. The fourth person is typical of Finnish and means that the agent is not identified by the personal form, except that the agent is human.

The following table shows the forms for the present tense. The past tense and the conditional mood lack a personal suffix in 3rd person singular, and they (as well as the potential mood) have special combined suffixes for the 4th person. The imperative has personal suffixes very different from these.

In standard Finnish, the suffixes are the following in present tense:

• -n in 1st person singular
• -t in 2nd person singular
• -* (prolonged vowel) or – (no suffix) in 3rd person singular
• -mme in 1st person plural
• -tte in 2nd person plural
• -vAt in 3rd person plural
• - AAn, dAAn, lAAn, nAAn, rAAn, or tAAn in 4th person; the variation largely depends on the effect of the final consonant of a consonant stemcj

Personal forms with a multi-part subject

If the subject consists of two or more parts separated by a conjunction like ja (and), the personal form of the verb is determined as follows:

• the verb is in plural form
• if a 1st person pronoun is part of the subject, the verb is in the 1st person form, e.g. minä ja Ville pidämme tästä (I and Ville like this)
• otherwise, if a 2nd person pronoun is part of the subject, the verb is in the 2nd person form, e.g. te ja Ville pidätte tästä (you and Ville like this)
• otherwise the verb is in the 3rd person form, e.g. he ja Ville pitävät tästä (they and Ville like this)

Thus, 1st person “beats” other persons and 2nd person “beats” 3rd person.

If the parts of a subject are connected with a conjunction like tai (or), the situation is more difficult, and practices vary. For example, sinä tai Ville tietää tämän (you or Ville knows this) sounds strange, and replacing tietää by tiedät would be even stranger. The problem should be avoided by using the verb twice, in different forms, e.g. sinä tiedät tämän tai Ville tietää (you know this, and Ville knows [it]).

The stems in personal forms

When a verb has both a vowel stem and a consonant stem, the 4th person form is based on the consonant stem, Other forms are based on the vowel stem. Example: tulen, tulet, tulee, tulemme, tulette, tulevat, tullaan. As this example shows, in the present tense, the t in the 4th person suffix is assimilated by the final consonant of the consonant stem e.g. tul- and -taan yield tullaan.

The 3rd person singular suffix

The 3rd person singular form normally has the last vowel of the stem prolonged, e.g. sano|a : sano|o, etsi|ä : etsi|i. However, there is no suffix if the stem ends with a long vowel or a diphthong, e.g. myy|dä : myy and syö|dä : syö. Except for the first syllable of a word, diphthongs can end only with i, u, or y. Thus, we have e.g. halu|ta : halua|n : halua|a, since the ua is not a diphthong (the syllable structure of haluaa is ha.lu.aa).

There is also an old 3rd person singular suffix pi or vi, e.g. syöpi, sanovi. This includes the form ompi instead of the standard on. Such suffixes are used in some forms of poetry and in attempts at imitating such poetry, possibly failing to use old forms, e.g. using vaikeneepi (with two person suffixes, modern and old) instead of the more correct vaikenevi (form of vaieta).

The information above applies to the indicative, present tense. In past tense and conditional forms, the 3rd person singular always lacks a personal suffix. Thus the form ends with a tense suffix or a mood suffix, e.g. sano|i|n : sano|i|t : sano|i in the paste tense (suffix i) and sano|isi|n : sano|isi|t : sano|isi, in the conditional (suffix isi). In the potential, the 3rd person singular suffix is always prolonged vowel, specifically e, e.g. sano|ne|n : sano|ne|t : sano|ne|e.

4th person suffix

The 4th person present tense is formed as follows:

• If the infinitive ends with two vowels, the suffix tAAn is appended to the inflection stem in weak grade, using the consonant stem when it exists. E.g. nukku|a : nuku|n : nuku|taan. In these verbs, if the stem ends with a or ä, it is changed to e, e.g. kestä|ä : kestä|n : keste|tään, nukutta|a : nukuta|n : nukute|taan.
• For other verbs, *n is appended to the infinitive form, e.g. saada : saadaan, valita : valitaan, mennä : mennään. This means that the suffix as a whole, as appearing after the (consonant) stem, is AAn, dAAn, lAAn, nAAn, rAAn, or tAAn.

The variation in the formation of other 4th person forms is discussed in the descriptions of the past tense and each of the moods.

Clashes with infinitive forms

For verbs that end with AA^x in the infinitive, the 3rd person singular present tense form is written the same way as the infinitive but pronounced without boundary gemination. For example, työntää^x (to push) : työntää (pushes).

A similar clash is caused in common spoken language for verbs like sanoa and etsiä, since these standard forms appear as simplified to sanoo and etsii.

The irregular forms of olla

The most common verb olla (to be), with the stem ole-, has irregular 3rd person forms. The personal forms are olen, olet, on, olemme, olette, ovat, ollaan.

In poetry, the form on has the alternative variant ompi.

The verb olla is otherwise regular, except for forms in the potential mood (lienen etc.).

Use of personal pronouns with personal forms

In standard Finnish, though usually not in colloquial language, the 1st and 2nd person forms are normally used without a preceding personal pronoun. The form of the verb, such as sanon, expresses the person. This is described in more detail in section Omission of personal pronouns.

Personal forms vs. personal suffixes

Some infinitives and participles have personal suffixes, e.g. tullakse|ni and tekemä|si. They, too, refer to the agent of action, but by their form, they are the same as possessive suffixes of nouns and adjectives.