Finnish colour adjectives are inflected for number. They have different forms before singular and plural nouns. However, not all of them are inflected the same. A few follow a distinct pattern. Let us illustrate with examples.
In the following sentences the difference between singular and plural is regular:
The black car is new. Musta auto on uusi.
The black cars are new. Mustat autot ovat uusia.
The green car is new. Vihreä auto on uusi.
The green cars are new. Vihreät autot ovat uusia.
The suffix -t is the plural marker for both the adjective and the noun. In the second sentence, uusia has a different form because it is not in nominative case but in partitive. The partitive case is a very productive case in Finnish.
Compare the previous sentences with the following.
The blue car is new. Sininen auto on uusi.
The blue cars are new. Siniset autot ovat uusia.
The white car is new. Valkoinen auto on uusi.
The white cars are new. Valkoiset autot ovat uusia.
The red car is new. Punainen auto on uusi.
The red cars are new. Punaiset autot ovat uusia.
The yellow car is new. Keltainen auto on uusi.
The yellow cars are new. Keltaiset auto ovat uusia.
With this set of colour adjectives, we also see the suffix -t to mark the plural. However, another change occurs. The penultimate nasal changes to an alveolar plosive. This sound change can be illustrated with the rule /n/ → /s/.
It may be that the change is an example of partial assimilation. The /n/ is a nasal but the /s/ and the /t/ are plosives. According to this analysis, the sound change is a partial assimilation in the manner of articulation.
Finnish adjectives are inflected for number. This can be illustrated with the colour adjectives. However, they inflect in two ways. One group of colour adjectives follows the regular pattern of plural inflection, but the other group does not.
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