Word
Minä rakastan hänen lapsenlastaan.
Meaning
I love her grandchild.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Minä rakastan hänen lapsenlastaan.
minä
I
rakastaa
to love
hänen
his, her, hers
lapsenlapsi
grandchild
Questions & Answers about Minä rakastan hänen lapsenlastaan.
Why does lapsenlastaan end in -an instead of the regular third-person suffix -nsa or -nsä?
The suffix -Vn (where V means doubling the previous vowel) is an alternative to -nsa/-nsä. You can use it when the word ends in a short vowel, like the partitive form lapsenlasta. So, lapsenlasta plus -an becomes lapsenlastaan. You could technically say lapsenlastansa, but lapsenlastaan is much more common in modern Finnish.
Could I drop the word hänen and just say Minä rakastan lapsenlastaan?
No, you must keep hänen here. In Finnish, you can only drop the third-person genitive pronoun (like hänen or heidän) if the possessor is also the subject of the sentence. Here, the subject is minä (I), so you have to include hänen to clarify whose grandchild it is.
Why is the word for grandchild in the partitive case before the possessive suffix is added?
The verb rakastaa (to love) is a partitive verb, meaning it always requires the object you love to be in the partitive case. Instead of the basic form lapsenlapsi, you must use the partitive form lapsenlasta before you attach the possessive suffix -an.
How is the base word lapsenlapsi (grandchild) formed, and why doesn't the first part change?