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Consonant gradation
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===Estonian=== {{main|Estonian grammar#Consonant gradation}} Though otherwise closely related to Votic, [[Estonian grammar#Gradation|consonant gradation in Estonian]] is quite different from the other Finnic languages. One extremely important difference is the existence of '''three''' grades of consonants (alternations like strong grade ''pada'' 'pot (nom.)', weak grade ''paja'' 'pot (gen.)', overlong grade ''patta'' 'pot (ill.)'). This can be said to generally correlate with the existence of three degrees of consonant length (e.g. ''d'', ''t'', and ''tt''), but since the alternation ''d'' ~ ''t'' occurs only after heavy syllables, and the alternations ''d'' ~ ''tt'' and ''t'' ~ ''tt'' occur only after light syllables, there is no single paradigm that has this simple alternation. However, weak grades like ''v'', ''j'', or ''∅'' that alternate with stops like ''b'', ''d'', or ''g'' originate from the weak grade of these stops, and these may still synchronically alternate with the over-long grades (''pp'', ''tt'', ''kk'') within the same paradigm, giving paradigms with three underlying grades. Another extremely important feature of Estonian gradation is that, due to the greater loss of word-final segments (both consonants and vowels), the Estonian gradation is an almost entirely opaque process, where the consonant grade (short, long, or overlong) must be listed for each class of wordform. So, for example, {{lang|fi|embus}} 'embrace' has the same form for all cases (e.g. genitive {{lang|fi|embuse}}), while ''hammas'' 'tooth' has weak grade ''mm'' in the nominative ''hammas'' and partitive ''hammast'', but strong form ''mb'' in the genitive ''hamba'' and all other cases of the singular. There is a large number of cases in which inflectional endings are identical except for how they affect the consonant grade, e.g. ''leht'' 'leaf' belongs to a declension class in which both the genitive and the partitive singular are formed by adding ''-e'', but the genitive takes the weak form (''leh-e''), while the partitive takes the strong form (''leht-e''). In the end, the types of generalizations that can be made are that some inflectional categories always take the strong form (e.g. partitive plural, ''-ma'' infinitive), some always take the weak form (e.g. ''-tud'' participle), some forms may take the overlong form (some partitive singulars, short illative singular), while other inflectional categories are underdetermined for whether they occur with weak or strong grade. In this last case, within a paradigm some forms are constrained to have the same grade and others are constrained to have the opposite grade; thus all present tense forms for the same verb have the same grade, though some verbs have strong (''hakkan'' 'I begin', ''hakkad'' 'you begin', etc.) and others have weak ({{lang|fi|loen}} 'I read', {{lang|fi|loed}}, 'you read', etc.), and the ''-da'' infinitive has the opposite grade from the present (''hakata'' 'to begin', ''lugeda'' 'to read'). The system of gradation has also expanded to include gradation of '''all''' consonant clusters and geminate consonants (generally quantitative), when occurring after short vowels, and '''vowel''' gradation between long and overlong vowels, although these are not written except for the distinction between voiceless stops and geminate voiceless stops (e.g. overlong strong grade ''tt'' with weak grade ''t''). E.g. ''linn'' {{IPA|[linːː]}}, 'city (nom.)' vs. ''linna'' {{IPA|[linːɑ]}} 'city (gen.)'. In consonant clusters, in the strong grade the first consonant is lengthened, e.g. ''must'' {{IPA|[musːt]}}, 'black (nom.)' vs. ''musta'' {{IPA|[mustɑ]}} 'black (gen.)'. Before single consonants, long vowels and diphthongs also become overlong in strong forms and remain merely long in weak forms, e.g. ''kool'' {{IPA|[koːːl]}}, 'school (nom.)' vs. ''kooli'' {{IPA|[koːli]}} 'school (gen.)'.
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