Word
Kuka on tehnyt tämän reiän lautaan?
Meaning
Who has made this hole in the board?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Kuka on tehnyt tämän reiän lautaan?
How do we get tehnyt from the verb tehdä?
Tehdä (to do or to make) is a Type 2 verb. To form the active past participle for Type 2 verbs, you drop the -dä from the infinitive to get the stem teh-, and then add -nyt. We use -nyt instead of -nut because the front vowel e in the stem dictates the vowel harmony.
Why does the word for 'hole' look like reiän here?
The basic word is reikä. Because it is the direct object of the sentence, it gets the -n ending. Adding this ending closes the syllable, which triggers consonant gradation. The weak grade of k is nothing, so the k disappears entirely, turning reikä into reiän.
Why do both tämä and reikä end in -n in this sentence?
They form the complete object of the sentence. The action of making the hole is a finished, total action, so Finnish uses the total object case, which often looks exactly like the genitive case ending in -n. The pronoun tämä must always match the case of the noun it modifies, so it becomes tämän.
Why is 'in the board' translated as lautaan rather than laudassa?