Breakdown of Hän toi liikaa mustaa makkaraa.
hän
he / she
tuoda
to bring
musta
black
liikaa
too much
makkara
sausage
Questions & Answers about Hän toi liikaa mustaa makkaraa.
How do we get toi from the verb tuoda?
Tuoda (to bring) is a Type 2 verb, meaning its stem ends in a diphthong (two vowels together), which here is -uo-. To form the past tense, we drop the first vowel of that diphthong (the u) and add the past tense marker -i-. So, tuo- becomes to-, and adding -i gives us toi (he/she brought).
If toi is 'he brought', how do I say 'I brought' or 'we brought'?
Once you have the past tense stem toi-, you just add the regular personal endings. 'I brought' is toin and 'we brought' is toimme. Notice that for 'he/she brought' in this sentence, we just use the stem toi with no extra letter added, which is the standard rule for third-person singular in the past tense.
Why are mustaa and makkaraa in the partitive case here?
The word liikaa means 'too much' and acts as a quantity word. In Finnish, words expressing an undefined amount (like paljon for 'a lot' or vähän for 'a little') require the noun that follows them to be in the partitive case. Because he brought too much of it, musta makkara becomes mustaa makkaraa.
Is liikaa a base word, or is it already in a specific case?
Liikaa is actually the partitive form of the word liika (excess). However, it has become fixed in the language as an adverb meaning 'too much'. You will almost always see it in this partitive form when talking about an excessive amount of something.
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