Questions & Answers about Koira istuu oven edessä.
Why is the word for door (ovi) in the genitive form oven?
In Finnish, most postpositions (words that tell you where something is, like under, behind, or in front of) require the noun right before them to be in the genitive case. Since edessä is a postposition, the word ovi (door) must take the genitive ending -n.
Why does ovi change to ove- before adding the -n ending?
Many older Finnish words that end in -i change that -i to an -e- before you add an ending. So the base of ovi becomes ove-, and then we add the genitive -n to make oven.
I noticed edessä ends in -ssä (in). Does it literally mean 'in the front'?
Exactly! The postposition edessä is built from a root word meaning front plus the inessive ending -ssä (in or inside). So oven edessä literally translates to 'in the front of the door'.
English uses 'is sitting', but the Finnish is just istuu. Is there a continuous form?
Finnish does not have a separate continuous tense like English does. The single verb form istuu translates to both 'sits' and 'is sitting', depending on the context of the sentence.