Questions & Answers about Opettaja kysyy miehen ammattia.
Why is "man's" written as miehen instead of just adding -n to mies?
The base word is mies (man). Many Finnish words ending in -s change their core shape (the stem) before adding endings. The stem for mies is miehe-. When we add the genitive ending -n for possession, it becomes miehen (the man's).
Does the possessor word miehen have to come right before the thing he owns?
Yes! Just like in English where we say "the man's profession", in Finnish the genitive word (miehen) usually comes immediately before the noun it owns (ammattia).
Why is the word for profession in the partitive case (ammattia instead of ammatti)?
This is because of the verb kysyä (to ask). In Finnish, when you ask about something, the thing you are asking about is often required to be in the partitive case. So, the base word ammatti gets the partitive ending -a.
Why does kysyy have a double y at the end?
The dictionary form of the verb is kysyä (to ask). When we conjugate it for "he/she/it" (the 3rd person singular), we take the verb stem kysy- and double the last vowel. Since the stem ends in y, it becomes kysyy (the teacher asks).
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