Finnish to Turkmen: asking whether something happened or when it happened
A confirmation question and a time question request different answers
White’s Finnish textbook distinguishes questions asking when an event occurs from yes-or-no questions about an event or participant. Milloin tulet asks when the addressee will come. It does not ask merely whether an arrival is planned. A Turkmen translation should retain the kind of information the Finnish speaker requests.
The Peace Corps Turkmen guide illustrates Kakaň geldimi? for asking whether someone’s father came. It separately uses Sen haçan geldiň? for asking when the addressee came. The latter contains a question word instead of the confirmation-question suffix used in the former. These target examples differ in their participants as well as their question type; they are separate illustrations, not a translated Finnish dialogue.
This distinction matters in a short appointment exchange. A reply giving a date answers a different question from a reply confirming an arrival. Translating a Finnish when-question as a confirmation question can leave the requested schedule unknown even when the recipient answers correctly.
The question ending does not supply the event’s time
The Turkmen guide presents -my and -mi in elementary confirmation questions, attaching them to the relevant final word in its examples. Removing that question material changes the examples into statements. It does not independently decide whether the event is present, past or future.
Finnish UD separately describes verb tense, while the textbook’s questions demonstrate what information a speaker requests. A question about a completed action should not become a plan simply because both are questions. First recover the event and its temporal setting, then select the target question construction.
Turku’s Finnish tense article is particularly useful here because Finnish can refer to future actions through present-tense forms accompanied by future time expressions. When a Finnish question asks about coming tomorrow, retain tomorrow with the event. A target question marker cannot recover a time expression that has been dropped.
An alternative question is not necessarily two independent checks
The Turkmen guide also distinguishes questions offering alternatives, illustrating a choice between hot and cold tea. Its elementary examples can place question suffixes on one or both alternatives. This is a constructional choice, rather than evidence that each alternative must be handled as an unrelated sentence.
For a Finnish message asking the recipient to select between two possibilities, preserve that selection task. Two separate yes-or-no questions can invite two affirmations or two denials instead of identifying the intended option. Conversely, a Finnish message checking two independent facts should not be compressed into a forced choice between them.
Keep the answer space tied to the source wording. Does the speaker need confirmation, a time, or selection among alternatives? The Turkmen grammar examples show different ways of organizing those requests. They do not justify adding a question suffix to every sentence containing a question word, nor replacing the requested information with a more convenient confirmation. A useful translation leaves the recipient able to answer the question the Finnish writer actually asked.
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