Consonant Gradation

Consonant gradation impacts both nouns and verbs in Finnish. They have both a “strong” and a “weak” grade, hence the name gradation.

• Only impacts the consonants K, P, and T

• Each verb type (and nouns!) have a difference system

Verbtype One Consonant Gradation

When to use it?

• Infinitives are always strong

• First and second person pronouns are always weak in the present tense

• The past participle, conditional, and plural imperative are strong

• The passive and singular imperative will be weak

s, h, or t can usually get rid of the gradation if they are around them

Verb type 2 only has two verbs that use consonant gradation- tehdä and nähdä, which also follow this system.

Verbtype 3 Consonant Gradation:

• all conjugated forms are strong in past or present tense

• infinitive is always weak

• past participle, passive, and plural imperative are always weak

• conditional and singular imperative are strong

• this must occur in the syllable before “-ella”

• generally doesn’t change if there is an -s or -t next to the consonants

Verbtype 4 Consonant Gradation:

• gradation happens in all present tense forms

• infinitive is weak, conjugated present is strong

• past participle, passive, and plural imperative are weak

• conditional and singular imperative are strong

• Some slang loan words also feature this, such as going from g→gg and b→bb

• only happens between the penultimate and last syllables

• st, sp, tk, and hk don’t have consonant gradation as a rule

Verbtype 6 Consonant Gradation:

• all conjugated forms of present tense verbs undergo consonant gradation

• the infinitive is always weak, the conjugation is always strong

• past participle, passive, and plural imperative are weak

• conditional and singular imperative will be strong