2.1 Main types of agent nouns in Finnish

In Finnish, by far the most common and productive category of agent nouns is that ending with the -jA suffix. This is also the oldest type; the -jA suffix has been used to form new vocabulary throughout the history of the language (see Nummila Reference Nummila2014). The -jA suffix can be attached to almost any verb. This has probably had the effect of discouraging the use of other deverbal agent noun suffixes, thus making them less common. Other deverbal agent noun types found in Modern Finnish are -lAs and -Uri derivatives (e.g. oppilas ‘student’, sotilas ‘soldier’; ajuri ‘driver’, pyrkyri ‘social climber’). While one central semantic feature of agent nouns is presumably the active performance of an action, they are also formed from nominal stems. Representatives of this type in Modern Finnish include the -lAinen and -Uri suffixes (e.g. koululainen ‘pupil, schoolchild’, suomalainen ‘Finn’; lampuri ‘shepherd’, vakkuri ‘basket maker’). As indicated by these examples, there are also suffixes that can be combined with both verbal and nominal stems. The -Uri derivatives are an example of this, as it is not always possible to say which type of stem the suffix is attached to: leipuri ‘baker’ (< leipä ‘bread’/leipoa ‘to bake’), sahuri ‘sawyer’ (< saha ‘saw’/sahata ‘to saw’).

The developmental history of the Finnish -Uri suffix, used specifically as a derivational element in agent nouns, is not known for certain. It has probably been influenced by the model of agent nouns of foreign origin (Uotila Reference Uotila1942; Häkkinen Reference Häkkinen1990:263‒264; Hakulinen Reference Hakulinen2000:177–178, 220). According to the latest and most comprehensive grammar of Finnish, Iso suomen kielioppi (ISK:§195, §254), the -Uri suffix is hardly used any longer to form new vocabulary in the language, and might thus be called a weakly productive word-formation type. However, there are well established -Uri nominals in everyday use, and from the language-user's point of view these derived nouns represent one of the most typical agent nouns in terms of their schema (see Section 2.2 below). -Uri nominals are also an interesting derivational type in relation to the -Ari type agent nouns under discussion here.

ISK describes the language from a synchronic perspective, as is clearly evident in the section discussing word formation. In connection with denominal derived words, the grammar notes that for example such nominals as kaappari ‘hijacker’, maalari ‘painter’, mittari ‘measurer, measurement device’, rahtari ‘hauler, shipper’), and tuhlari ‘spendthrift’ can be seen as native complex words (ISK:§254). From a diachronic perspective, this claim can easily be questioned; it can be suggested that all the above-mentioned derived nouns, like dozens of similar names describing actors and instruments, have been borrowed into Finnish from Swedish or German at different stages of the development of the language. Other examples of such loanwords borrowed into Finnish from Old Swedish, i.e. during the 13th–16th centuries, are mylläri ‘miller’, ryöväri ‘robber’ and tuomari ‘judge’ (in contemporary Swedish rövare, mjölnare, domare, respectively; see e.g. SSA s.v. mylläri, ryöväri, tuomari). These are so-called ‘younger loan words’ in Finnish (e.g. Häkkinen Reference Häkkinen1990:263‒264; for young loanwords in general, see Streng Reference Streng1915; Hakulinen Reference Hakulinen1961:244‒248, Reference Hakulinen2000:369‒380; Häkkinen Reference Häkkinen1990:257‒265).Footnote ⁶

From the perspective of linguistic development and structure, there is in principle a clear distinction between loanwords with the -r element and native Finnish derived words formed with -r: in native Finnish words the vowel before the derivational -r element changes to U (e.g. aja- ‘to drive’ + Uri > ajuri ‘driver’; see also Footnote note 7). As borrowed agent nouns have not been adapted to the vowel system of the native vocabulary (e.g. mål are > *maal uri), a clear morphological difference has persisted between expressions that have arisen as a result of native Finnish word formation and those that are loan words (e.g. maalari). No adaptation has taken place, even though the language has a potential root word available (e.g. maal ata > *maal uri). Nothing would prevent using the -ri suffix to derive a new agent noun by connecting it directly to an A-stem vowel. Ultimately, the question is: has this happened in practice in the history of Finnish? To be able to establish such a derivational process in native Finnish word-formation we have to be able to prove that there are cases where the -ri suffix is connected to a stem of Finnish origin, not to a loanword from which the agent noun could have been borrowed as a ready-made agent noun derivative.

2.2 The importance of analogy in word formation and the patterns for the -Ari agent nouns

Word formation can be described as a directional process in which an affix is attached to a word root, resulting in the formation of a new word. An alternative way of perceiving a complex expression is to think of the derived word as being based on a certain previously known structural pattern or schema. In this case it is not really essential to point to a clear root word. In a structural schema or pattern, form and meaning combine to create an established entity (see e.g. Langacker Reference Langacker1987:74, Reference Langacker and Rudzka-Ostyn1988:134, 147; Evans & Green Reference Evans and Green2006:592). This kind of structural pattern has a dual function: on the one hand it expresses the characteristics of an established, complex vocabulary, on the other it provides a model for the formation of new vocabulary (Booij Reference Booij2012:63).

In my own research I understand the schema as this kind of semantic-functional structural model of derived lexical categories. Together and individually, native Finnish -Ari-derived agent nouns represent a certain semantic-morphological model, i.e. a certain derivational pattern. Here I use the terms ‘word-formation model’, ‘derivation pattern’ and ‘(structural) schema’. While the concept of the schema is applicable and useful in the study of agent nouns, I do not reject the traditional concepts of ‘derivational element’ and ‘derived word’; I use the former in referring to the unchanging morphological substance of a word-formation model, the latter in referring to the end product, without implying any more detailed views as to the formation process itself.

Regardless of the point of view adopted, analogy is extremely important in all word formation; in principle, new expressions are formed in a language on the basis of old models. These models can be seen as concrete derived words or as an abstract schema. In the case of agent nouns, the basic schema is typically quite simple: ajaa ‘to drive’ > ajuri ‘one who drives, driver’; kantaa ‘to carry’ > kantaja ‘one who carries, carrier’. In denominal cases the schema is in fact sometimes semantically more complex: e.g. vakka ‘basket’ > vakka + Uri > vakkuri Footnote ⁷ > ‘one who makes baskets, basket-maker’; lintu ‘bird’ > lintu + Uri > linturi > ‘one who catches birds, bird-catcher’ (see Ryder Reference Ryder1999:278). It is clear that the basic schema for forming agent nouns (especially deverbal -jA but also -Uri) has been very familiar to users of Finnish for centuries. Among these familiar agent noun schemata we can also include the model of agent nouns formed with the -Ari suffix, since numerous words of this derived category have been borrowed into the language.

The Finnish language also has its own old agent noun model with an -A element, although the model applied only to a very marginal group of words: -(U)ri nominals formed from monosyllabic verbs. In these the derivational element has exceptionally been attached to the -mA affix formed from the root verb (e.g. juo + ma + ri > juomari ‘drinker’ or ui + ma + ri > uimari ‘swimmer’).Footnote ⁸ The stem vowel does not change in these derived words before the -ri suffix, as is usually the case. In practice the initial derivational stage has been obligatory: the suffix could not be connected directly to these root verbs, as this could have led to confusion and potential misunderstandings (e.g. juo + (U)ri > *juuri/*juori; ui + (U)ri > *uuri/*uiri). In these words, the agent noun schema, for various reasons, is not transparent or apparent to speakers. Other agent nouns in this group are syömäri ‘glutton’, uimari ‘swimmer’ and käymäri ‘slow-walking horse’; nouns other than animate nouns are lyömäri ‘big knife’, viemäri ‘main ditch’ (NS s.v. lyömäri, viemäri; SMS s.v. käymäri). Syömäri, juomari and käymäri already appear in the oldest written language, while uimari and viemäri are found for the first time in eighteenth-century dictionaries (Jussila Reference Jussila1998 s.v. uimari, viemäri). The derivational category is rare, as Finnish does not have many monosyllabic verb stems. Despite its unproductiveness, the derivational pattern has offered a familiar word form, which may have been helpful in the assimilation of the new word-formation model. The -(mA)ri nominals are not included in the material of the present study.

4.1 -Ari agent nouns in literary Finnish of the 16th–19th centuries

The very extensive material on Old Literary Finnish, covering a period of almost 400 years, contains only three native Finnish -Ari-derived nouns referring to persons: huijari ‘cheat’ (< huijata ‘to cheat’), kuohari ‘animal gelder, castrater’ (< kuohia ‘to geld’) and pilkkari ‘jeerer, scoffer’ (< pilkata ‘to scoff’). Of these, the second one refers to an agent in the performance of his work, while the subsequent ones are descriptive and can be considered stylistically pejorative designations. Of the three, pilkkari dates back to Mikael Agricola (who also uses the more typical -Uri derivative pilkk uri ‘jeerer, scoffer’ < pilkata ‘to scoff’), i.e. to the earliest written Finnish, from the 1540s.Footnote ¹¹ It thus represents the first -Ari agent noun found in written Finnish, as well as the oldest known such nominal in Finnish.Footnote ¹²Pilkkari makes only one appearance in Agricola, and is not found elsewhere in literary Finnish; in principle, this may thus be a case of a slip or lapsus. The other nouns, huijari and kuohari, are almost 250 years younger than pilkkari, first occurring in the material from the eighteenth century.

In addition to actual person-denoting derivatives of the agent noun type, three instrument-denoting nouns that can be considered word formations of inherently Finnish origin are found in the Old Literature Finnish data: hyppäri ‘distaff’ (< hypätä ‘to jump’), koukkari ‘type of tool with a hooked end’ (< koukata ‘to catch’) and puikkari ‘type of wooden peg for nets’ (< puikata ‘to slip in, dive; to thread [a needle]’). As a lexical category, instrument names are semantically close to agent nouns. All the occurrences date back to eighteenth-century literature. At least two of the latter expressions (koukkari and puikkari) have become established in general use. It is certainly not impossible to assume that underlying these individual expressions is a schema that has become familiar from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of loanwords based on the same pattern. On the basis of such a small number of occurrences, however, we can hardly yet speak, referring to the eighteenth century, of a native word-formation model.

4.2 -Ari agent nouns in the material from the 19th and early 20th centuries

The nineteenth-century research material is based on an extensive corpus of texts from different fields (VNSK), and on a database consisting of fiction from that century (SKK). This wide-ranging database contains a total of five agent-denoting -Ari nominals, the above-mentioned kuohari ‘animal gelder’, and previously unmentioned konttari ‘crawler, one who walks with difficulty’ (< kontata ‘to crawl, to lumber’), mässäri ‘gourmand, also lecher, gambler’ (< mässätä ‘to feast on something’), vuokrari ‘land lord’ (< vuokrata ‘to rent’) and probably a poetic nonce-word: uhmari ‘one who defies, a defiant person’ (< uhmata ‘to defy’) (SKK: Eino Leino 1898).

In the light of the data, the formation of native -Ari-derived agent nouns seems to be very rare in other than person-denoting vocabulary. The nineteenth-century material shows only one such form, referring to an instrument: suuntari ‘compass’ (< suunnata ‘to head’). The expression is found in Elias Lönnrot's Swedish-Finnish vocabulary (1847), and it is probably a neologism made up by Lönnrot himself. In any case, none of the above new cases found in literary texts seems to have remained in use; they are not included, for instance, in NS. We can thus conclude that native Finnish -Ari-derived agent nouns were almost non-existent, at least in the written language, from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. The person-denoting words from the period comprise only derived nouns, two of which describe an actor in an occupational capacity (kuohari ‘castrater’, vuokrari ‘landlord’), while the other four are expressions that can be characterized as descriptive and pejorative (konttari ‘crawler’, mässäri ‘gourmand’, pilkkari ‘scoffer’, uhmari ‘defiant person’).

4.3 -Ari agent nouns in material from 1900 to the 1950s

The data for the period between 1900 and the 1950s include instances included in NS. The material was supplemented with vocabulary from works of fiction (SKK), although this corpus did not yield any instances. In NS, containing more than 200,000 lexemes, there were eight person-denoting Finnish native -Ari-derived agent nouns: along with the already known kuohari, there are seven new instances. One of these is a professional name, rasvari ‘greaser, e.g. on a steamship’ (< rasvata ‘to grease’). We also find suhari ‘chauffeur; scoundrel, rogue’ (< suhata ‘to swoosh’), which is colloquial and pejorative. Other expressions are names that describe their referent: hiippari ‘sneak’ (< hiipata ‘to sneak’), loikkari ‘defector’Footnote ¹³puijari ‘swindler’, sieppari ‘catcher’ and veijari ‘rogue, rascal’. Puijari and veijari are presumably based in one way or another on contamination (puijari < puijata < peijata + huijata ‘to cheat’; veijari < veitikka + peijari ‘swindler’) (see SSA s.v. peijata; puijata; veijari).Footnote ¹⁴

The NS data also include three names for instruments or technical equipment. Of these, koukkari and puikkari have already been mentioned, but kahmari ‘grappling device’ is new.

4.4 -Ari agent nouns in newspaper language from the 1990s and in a dictionary from the 2000s

The sample of 1990s newspaper material includes -Ari-derived agent nouns occurring in the daily newspaper Aamulehti for all of 1995. The vocabulary from the approximately 360 issues of the newspaper contains five different Finnish native -Ari nominals denoting persons. Of these, three have appeared earlier (loikkari, sieppari, veijari) and two are new: pihtari ‘stingy miser’ (< pihdata ‘to skimp’) and purnari ‘grumbler’ (< purnata ‘to grumble’). All the cases in the 1990s data are descriptive: the majority is also pejorative or otherwise colloquial expressions. Only one noun was found that did not refer to a human agent: hauenpuikkari ‘a small pike (Esox lucius)’. The noun puikkari has been mentioned previously; in the eighteenth century, it was used to refer to a type of wooden peg for nets. In the 1990s data, it is used metaphorically. Despite the two new cases, -Ari agent nouns are still very few in number.

KS is the most recent dictionary of the Finnish language, the online version of which was updated in 2014. Of the several hundred nominals ending in the element -Ari found in the dictionary, a total of ten were native Finnish agent derivatives; of these ten, seven are person-denoting nouns and as many as five of these already appear in the above-mentioned materials (hiippari, kuohari, loikkari, sieppari, veijari). There are two new words in the most recent material that did not appear elsewhere: kaahari ‘reckless driver’ (< kaahata ‘drive recklessly’) and sähläri ‘clumsy person, scatterbrain’ (< sählätä ‘mess up’). All the new derivatives found in the dictionary are clearly negative in connotation and stylistically colloquial. In addition to person-denoting expressions, the dictionary describing the language of the first decade of the new century contains three native -Ari-derived nominals denoting inanimate referents. In addition to the previously mentioned instances, there is one new case, saumari (in general language saumuri) ‘overlock sewing machine’. The other two items are kahmari and puikkari (see above).

The numbers of words discussed in Sections 4.1‒4.4 are summed up in Table 1. (On the restrictions of a comparability of the research data see Section 3 above.). The table shows that while over the centuries the number of native Finnish -Ari agent nouns has multiplied several-fold, the word-formation type is nevertheless still very marginal in Modern Finnish. It is typical of agent nouns that the schema undergoes semantic expansion over time, typically expanding from personal and animal referents to non-human ones such as instruments. (For more on agent noun polysemy, see e.g. Kastovsky Reference Kastovsky1971; Dressler Reference Dressler1986; Ryder Reference Ryder1991, Reference Ryder1999; Scherer Reference Scherer, Mírovský, Kotěšovcová and Hajičová2003.) As Table 1 shows, down to the present, the number of instrument nouns has remained low.

Table 1. Native Finnish -Ari agent nouns from the 16th to the 21st century appearing in the data.

For comparison, in Table 2, I show all -Uri derivatives found in the same material. This table shows the quantitative and semantic differences between -Ari and -Uri derivatives in written Finnish at various times. Semantically, -Ari and -Uri nominals seem quite similar, but from the point of view of productivity the two types differ. The number of -Ari derivatives has apparently increased continuously, while the -Uri type has remained quite unchanged (see ISK:§195, §254).

Table 2. -Uri agent nouns in written Finnish data from the 16th to the 21st century appearing in the data.

4.5 -Ari agent nouns in dialect material and colloquial words with the -Ari element

Even though the dialect material differs in many ways from the literary data, I have collected a data sample for the sake of comparison. The material in the archive of Finnish dialect words was collected during the 1880s and 1950s. The sample containing words beginning with k in the SMS dictionary contains more than 200 nominals with the -Ari ending; of these, by far the majority originate from loanwords. The material includes thirteen native Finnish -Ari derivatives. Of these, eight denote persons (or more generally an animate referent). There are four words denoting an actor in a professional or similar capacity: kalari ‘fisherman’ (< kala ‘fish’), kuohari (see above), kuokkari ‘worker using a hoe’ (< kuokka ‘hoe’), korjari ‘repairer’ (< korjata ‘to repair’). There are three pejorative nouns describing a person: koinari ‘lecher’ (< koinata ‘to have sex with, screw’), kursari ‘a poor seamstress’ (< kursia ‘to tack, stitch’), kuokkari ‘gatecrasher’ (< kuokka ‘hoe’).Footnote ¹⁵ There is also one word not belonging to either of these groups: kuoppari (also a synonym based on same root kuopus) ‘youngest, last-born child in a family’ (< kuoppa ‘pit, hole’).Footnote ¹⁶

The dialect data sample contains four derived words referring to entites other than animate referents: keihari ‘sharp horns’ (< keihäs ‘spear’), kalkkari ‘sleigh bell’, kolkkari ‘something that knocks’Footnote ¹⁷ and kilkkari ‘penis’. The last three are based on an onomatopoeic root (< kalkattaa, kolkattaa/kolkuttaa, kilkattaa ‘to tinkle, clang, knock, etc.’; for more, see Kulonen Reference Kulonen2010:105‒109),Footnote ¹⁸ although the word kilkkari referring to the penis should be understood mainly as metaphorical (note that kellit, kilkut, killuttimet, kulkuset, etc. are nouns of onomatopoeic origin used to refer to the male member in the vernacular; for more variants see Jarva Reference Jarva2003:127‒128). An interesting difference between the dialect and the literary data presented above is that the former contain three clearly denominal -Ari nouns, kalari, keihari and kuoppari (for more detail on the structure of the words see Section 5). It should be noted that the dialect data consist only of words beginning with k. Although the number of words is quite high, we can still probably conclude from the material that the formation of -Ari nouns may have been more versatile in spoken than in written language and that this category has spread from the vernacular into general usage.

The increasing number of nouns with the -Ari element in everyday language is clearly evident in the vocabulary of the text corpora and dictionaries used in the study. The vocabulary referring to a person, animal or instrument includes expressions from many and varied backgrounds, from loanwords to colloquial equivalents of non-compound words (e.g. inkkari < intiaani ‘(American) Indian’) and derived colloquial words created by abbreviating compound words (e.g. talkkari < talonmies ‘caretaker, janitor’, sivari < siviilipalvelusmies ‘civilian serviceman’) (for colloquial and slang word formation see Nahkola Reference Nahkola1999; ISK:§214‒216, §195; Dahlgren & Kittilä Reference Dahlgren and Kittilä2014). For comparison, I show the numbers of these words in Table 3 and 4 (based on the same material as the main data).

Table 3. -Ari slang words in written Finnish from the 16th to the 21st century appearing in the data.

Table 4. Loanwords with the -Ari element in written Finnish from the 16th to the 21st century appearing in the data.

In the light of the research material of this study, it is only during the past few decades that expressions based on so-called slang derivation have been formed to any great extent. As Table 3 shows, the number of -Ari slang words referring to a person (or an animal) is still relatively low in Modern Finnish. However, the number of all kind of -Ari slang derivatives (without semantic restrictions) in the youngest researched material (KS and newspaper data) is quite large, 92 words. No previous research has been carried out on the development of slang vocabulary with the -Ari ending, and it would be interesting to study these words in more detail in the future. For the sake of comparison, numbers of non-native -Ari derivatives are shown in Table 4. As the table shows, non-native -Ari nominals have influenced Finnish word formation for a long time (for more see e.g. Streng Reference Streng1915; see also Häkkinen Reference Häkkinen1990:263‒264, Reference Häkkinen1994:490‒491).