Questions & Answers about Hänen tädillään on iso auto.
Why is the ending -än instead of -nsä on tädillään?
For the third-person possessive suffix, you can use either -nsA (-nsa/-nsä) or a lengthened vowel plus -n (-Vn). Because the case ending -llä ends in a short vowel, it takes the lengthened vowel ending to become tädillään. You could technically say tädillänsä, but tädillään is much more natural and common in modern Finnish.
Could we drop hänen and just say Tädillään on iso auto?
No, you generally cannot drop the pronoun for the third person (hänen or heidän) in standard Finnish. While you can drop minun or sinun for the first and second persons, the third person requires both the genitive pronoun hänen and the possessive suffix on the noun.
Why is the word for aunt in the adessive case (-llä)?
This is a reminder of the Finnish ownership construction. Finnish doesn't have a direct verb for having something. Instead, it uses the adessive case (-lla/-llä) on the owner, followed by the verb on. So hänen tädillään on literally translates to 'on his aunt is'.
In tädillään, which part is the case ending and which is the possessive?
The case ending comes first, followed by the possessive suffix. The word is built from täti (aunt) + -llä (adessive case ending) + -än (third-person possessive suffix). In standard Finnish, the possessive suffix is almost always attached to the very end of the word, after the case ending.
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