Word
Häiritseekö kissa koiraa?
Meaning
Does the cat disturb the dog?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
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Questions & Answers about Häiritseekö kissa koiraa?
How do we get the form häiritseekö from the dictionary word häiritä?
häiritä is a Type 5 verb. To make the stem, you drop the -tä and add -tse-, giving us häiritse-. For a third-person subject (kissa), you double the last vowel, making it häiritsee. Finally, attach the question particle -kö to get häiritseekö.
Why does the question particle use -kö instead of -ko?
Vowel harmony! The verb häiritä contains the front vowel ä (along with the neutral vowels i and e). Because of the ä, any endings attached to this word must also use front vowels, so we use -kö.
Why is the verb the very first word in this sentence?
To ask a yes/no question in Finnish, you add the question particle -ko or -kö to the word you are questioning and move it to the front of the sentence. Since we are asking about the action of disturbing, häiritseekö comes first.
Why is the dog in the partitive case (koiraa) rather than the basic form (koira)?