It is to be noticed—
(1) That in negative phrases, where the verb is ei ole, ei näy, ei kuulu, ei tunnu, etc. (which are generally rendered in English by such phrases as ‘there is no,’ or ‘there is not’), the subject is always in the partitive, e.g. siellä ei ole ketään, there is nobody there; tässä joessa ei ole kaloja, there are no fish in this river.
(2) The partitive can only be the subject to an intransitive verb, because the mere fact of any word being the subject to a transitive verb implies that the whole or a definite part of the subject is regarded as acting. Thus, one can say, varkaita tuli talooni, some thieves came into my house; but some thieves stole my things must be rendered by varkaat (or jotkut varkaat) varastivat tavarani.
The subject can be altogether omitted if it is a pronoun of the first or second person, and also in certain impersonal expressions, like tuulee, it is windy. In such sentences as on mahdotonta tehdä sitä, it is impossible to do this, the verbal noun is to be regarded as the subject.
Such sentences as one says, or people say, where the subject is indefinite, are expressed in Finnish either by the passive verb (v. p. [181]), or by the third person plural, no noun or pronoun being employed to represent the subject. Sanovat pääskysten jo tulleen, they say the swallows have already come; Venäjällä hakkaavat paljo metsää, they cut a great deal of wood in Russia.
The third person sing. is also used in this sense: kesällä elää vaikka ilmalla, in summer one can live easily (literally, on air); tekee minkän jaksaa, one does as much work as one can.
The second person sing. is also used in this impersonal sense, much as in Russian. Kävelet kadulla, et näe mitään, mutta yht’äkkiä putoat kuopaan, one walks along the street, sees nothing, and suddenly tumbles into a hole.
The Predicate.
The verb of a sentence usually agrees in number with the subject, if the latter is in the nominative. But