Questions & Answers about Miksi tuo iso auto on pihalla?
The translation says "in the yard", so why do we use the adessive ending -lla instead of the inessive -ssa?
In Finnish, open outdoor spaces like a yard (piha), a street (katu), or a market square (tori) usually take the adessive -lla/-llä ending (which generally translates to "on" or "at"). Even though English says "in the yard", Finnish conceptually treats it as being "on" the open area.
What is the dictionary form of pihalla?
The base word is piha (yard). Because it ends in the vowel "a", we can just attach the -lla ending directly to it without making any changes to the stem of the word itself.
Could I use se instead of tuo for "that car"?
Tuo is specifically used for pointing something out physically in your surroundings ("that car over there"). Se is more often used as "it" or to refer to an abstract "that" which you were already talking about. Since the speaker is asking about a visible car in the yard, tuo is the correct choice.
Why doesn't the word iso (big) have any special endings here?
In Finnish, adjectives always have to match the case of the noun they describe. Here, auto is the subject of the sentence and is in its basic dictionary form (nominative). Because auto has no extra endings, iso stays in its basic form too.
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