Breakdown of Minä ostan vähän kahvia ja sokeria.
minä
I
ja
and
kahvi
coffee
sokeri
sugar
vähän
a little
ostaa
to buy
Questions & Answers about Minä ostan vähän kahvia ja sokeria.
Why are kahvi and sokeri in the partitive case here?
They are in the partitive case because they come after the word vähän (a little). Words expressing an indefinite amount require the following noun to be in the partitive. Also, coffee and sugar are uncountable mass nouns, which naturally take the partitive when you are talking about an unspecified amount of them.
How do we know to add -a instead of -ta to these words?
The partitive ending -ta or -tä is mostly used for words that end in a consonant or two consecutive vowels. Because the basic dictionary forms kahvi and sokeri end in a single short vowel (-i), they just take the simpler -a ending.
Why do they take -a and not -ä?
This is a great reminder of vowel harmony. Both kahvi and sokeri contain back vowels (a and o). If a word has back vowels in its stem, it must take the matching back-vowel ending, which is -a.
If vähän is only in front of kahvia, why is sokeria also in the partitive?
The word ja (and) links the two nouns together into one single group. The quantity word vähän applies to both of them. Because you are buying a little bit of coffee and a little bit of sugar, both words must match and be in the partitive case.
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