Questions & Answers about Minä soitan heidän sedälleen.
Why does the word sedälleen end with -en instead of the usual third-person possessive -nsä?
Both -nsä and -Vn (lengthening the last vowel and adding -n) are third-person possessive suffixes. When a word already has a case ending that finishes with a short vowel, like the allative -lle in sedälle, Finnish usually prefers the -Vn version. So, sedälle plus the extra -e- and -n becomes sedälleen.
If the ending -en already means "their", why do we also need the word heidän?
In standard Finnish, third-person possessors (meaning "his", "her", or "their") strictly require both parts: the genitive pronoun (hänen or heidän) before the noun AND the possessive suffix attached to the noun itself. While you can drop words like minun or sinun, you cannot drop heidän here.
Why is the uncle in the allative case (-lle) instead of being a normal direct object?
The verb soittaa (when it means "to call on the phone") always requires the person you are calling to take the allative case (-lle). In Finnish logic, you are literally making a call "to" someone.
Why does the basic word setä (uncle) change to sedä- before the endings are added?
Adding case endings often triggers a rule called consonant gradation. Because we are adding the allative ending -lle, the strong consonant t in setä softens to a weak d, giving us the stem sedä-.
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