Breakdown of Isä antoi minulle kauniin korun.
minä
I
kaunis
beautiful
antaa
to give
isä
father
koru
the piece of jewelry
Questions & Answers about Isä antoi minulle kauniin korun.
How do we get antoi from the dictionary form antaa?
antaa is a Type 1 verb. To form the past tense, we take the stem anta- and add the past tense marker -i. Because the stem ends in -a and the first vowel of the word is also -a, that final stem vowel changes to an -o- before the -i. Therefore, anta- becomes antoi.
Why is the word for 'me' in the form minulle here?
The verb antaa (to give) requires the recipient to be in the allative case, which uses the -lle ending. This case indicates movement to or onto someone. So, minulle literally translates to 'to me'.
Why do both kauniin and korun end in -n?
They make up the direct object of the sentence, which is the thing being given. In Finnish, when a whole object is affected by a completed action in an affirmative sentence, it takes the -n ending (the accusative case). The adjective kauniin must take the same ending to match the noun korun.
The dictionary word for 'beautiful' is kaunis. Why does it look like kauniin here?
Words ending in -is, like kaunis, have a special rule when you add endings to them. You drop the -s and double the preceding vowel to find the stem, turning kaunis into kaunii-. Then you add the -n object ending to get kauniin.
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