Word
Kissa nukkuu pöydän alla.
Meaning
The cat sleeps under the table.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Kissa nukkuu pöydän alla.
Why is the word for table pöydän instead of pöytä here?
Because of the word alla (under). In Finnish, most position words are postpositions, which require the noun they attach to to take the genitive (possessive) ending -n. You are essentially saying 'the table's under'.
Why does pöydän have a 'd' when the basic word is pöytä?
Adding the -n ending triggers a spelling rule called consonant gradation. The strong t in pöytä weakens to a d when the ending is added.
Why does alla come after pöydän? In English, 'under' comes first.
Alla is a postposition. While English uses prepositions that go before a noun, Finnish mostly uses postpositions that go after the noun.
How is the verb nukkuu formed?
The dictionary form is nukkua (to sleep). To make it match kissa (the cat, which acts as a third-person 'it'), we drop the final -a to get the stem nukku- and then double the last vowel, making it nukkuu.