A presence clause in the narrow sense says that there is something or someone present somewhere, e.g. Puutarhassa on kettuja (There are foxes in the garden). It normally corresponds to a “There is…” or “There are…” clause in English. The following features are characteristic of presence clauses in Finnish:
Compare the example with the clause Ketut ovat puutarhassa (The foxes are in the garden). It refers to some foxes that have been mentioned previously, and it says something about their current location. In contrast, the presence clause postulates just the existence of a garden and says that there is something there, namely some foxes.
When the subject is in singular, only the word order distinguishes a presence clause from a normal descriptive clause. For example, Puutarhassa on kettu (There is a fox in the garden) is very different from Kettu on puutarhassa (The fox is in the garden), which is a statement about a specific fox that has been mentioned.
Presence clauses are usually called “existential” in Finnish grammars. This is somewhat misleading, since such clauses are not about existence as such—e.g. not about the existence of foxes but about some foxes being in the garden. Therefore we will use the term “presence clause” in this book. It refers to a clause that says that some (unspecified) individuals from some set are present in some situation.
The simplest presence clauses have the predicate on (is), but clauses that also describe what the subject is doing may be classified as presence clauses. For example, Puistossa leikkii lapsia. means “There are children playing in the park”. It means the same as Puistossa on lapsia leikkimässä, though the tone can be slightly different.
In such clauses, the predicate is usually simple, like leikkiä (to play) or istuskella (to sit around). If the action is expressed in a more complicated manner, such as pelata jalkapalloa (to play football), the III infinitive (mA infinitive) is normally used: Puistossa on lapsia pelaamassa jalkapalloa (There are children playing football in the park).
A simple negation of presence is similar to a simple presence clause, just with the predicate negated the usual way, e.g. Puutarhassa ei ole kettuja. When the subject is in singular, there is an additional difference: it is in the nominative in a positive clause, in the partitive in a negative clause, e.g. Puutarhassa on kettu but Puutarhassa ei ole kettua.
Clauses indicating that something becomes present somewhere have the same properties as presence clauses. Examples: Keittiöön tuli hiiri (A mouse came into the kitchen), Keittiöstä löytyi hiiri (A mouse was found in the kitchen), and Tästä aiheutui ongelmia (This caused problems; more literally: of this, problems were caused).
Clauses that behave grammatically like presence clauses can be used to express lack of absence or removal. For example, Keittiöstä puuttuu tiskikone (The kitchen lacks a dishwasher) expresses absence stronger than the simple negation of a presence clause, Keittiössä ei ole tiskikonetta (There is no dishwasher in the kitchen). An absence clause may also describe the action of removal, e.g. Keittiöstä juoksi ulos hiiri (A mouse ran out of the kitchen).
Although the subject of a presence clause is essentially indefinite, it can specify the number of beings that are present, e.g. Puutarhassa on kaksi kettua (There are two foxes in the garden). Here the subject proper is the numeral kaksi, in the nominative, and the associated noun is in the partitive according to general rules for numeral expressions.
A clause like Kettuja on kaksi (The number of foxes is two) can be classified as a presence clause, too. Here the numeral kaksi is grammatically the subject, so the clause has VS order (verb before subject); the word kettuja is a predicative.