Breakdown of Tuo mies on hänen sukulaisensa.
olla
to be
tuo
that
mies
man
hänen
his, her, hers
sukulainen
relative
Questions & Answers about Tuo mies on hänen sukulaisensa.
Why do we need both hänen and the -nsa suffix here?
For the third person (his/her/their), Finnish requires both the pronoun (hänen or heidän) and the possessive suffix (-nsa). Unlike "my" or "your", you cannot drop the pronoun in the third person unless the person owning the thing is also the subject of the sentence. Since "that man" is the subject here, hänen is mandatory to show the relative belongs to someone else.
How do we get the form sukulaisensa from the basic word sukulainen?
When attaching a possessive suffix to a basic noun, you must use its vowel stem. For words ending in -nen, the stem ends in -se-. So the stem for sukulainen is sukulaise-. We then attach the -nsa suffix directly to it, making it sukulaisensa.
Could we use the alternative third-person suffix -Vn here to make it sukulaisense?
No, you cannot. The -Vn suffix (which doubles the last vowel and adds n) is typically used with words that are in certain other cases, like the inessive (in) or adessive (on). For a basic nominative word like this one, you must use -nsa or -nsä.
Why use tuo instead of se for "that man"?
Tuo is used to physically point out someone or something that you can see, usually further away from both speakers (like pointing across a room). Se also means "that" or "it", but it is typically more abstract or refers to someone that was just mentioned in the conversation.
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