Questions & Answers about Tytön nimi on kaunis.
How do we show possession (the girl's) in this sentence?
We add the genitive ending -n to the possessor. Just like adding 's' in English, we put the ending on the owner to show who the name belongs to.
The basic word is tyttö (girl). Why does it lose a 't' to become tytön?
This happens because of a very common Finnish spelling rule called consonant gradation. When we add the -n ending, the syllable becomes 'closed'. This causes strong double consonants like tt to weaken into a single t.
Why doesn't the adjective kaunis change to match tytön?
Adjectives only change to match the exact word they describe. Here, kaunis (beautiful) describes the nimi (name), not the girl. Because nimi is in its basic form, kaunis stays in its basic form too.
There are no words for 'the' or 'a' here. How do we know it means 'the girl's name'?
Finnish does not have articles like 'a' or 'the'. You have to rely on context! You could technically translate this as 'A girl's name is beautiful,' but 'The girl's name' makes the most sense in everyday conversation.