Questions & Answers about Mitä tämä sana merkitsee?
How do we get merkitsee from the dictionary form merkitä?
merkitä is a Type 5 verb (verbs ending in -ita or -itä). To find the stem, you drop the final -tä and add -tse-, giving you merkitse-. Then, for the "he/she/it" (3rd person singular) form, you double the last vowel, which makes it merkitsee.
How would I make this sentence negative ("This word doesn't mean...")?
You use the negative verb ei along with the verb stem. For Type 5 verbs, the stem is simply the present tense form without the personal ending. Here, the stem is merkitse-, so you would say Tämä sana ei merkitse...
Why does the sentence start with Mitä instead of the basic form Mikä?
The verb merkitä requires the thing being meant (the object of the sentence) to be in the partitive case. Mitä is the partitive form of the question word mikä (what).
I already learned the verb tarkoittaa for "to mean". Can I use it here instead?
Yes! Mitä tämä sana tarkoittaa? and Mitä tämä sana merkitsee? mean exactly the same thing. tarkoittaa is a Type 1 verb that is very common in everyday speech, while merkitä is a Type 5 verb that can also mean "to mark".
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