Breakdown of Kuka on tehnyt tämän reiän lautaan?
tämä
this
olla
to be
kuka
who
reikä
hole
tehdä
to do
lauta
board
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?
Finnish often focuses on the direction of an action rather than just the final static location. Because the action involves pushing or driving a tool into the wood to create the hole, the illative case (into) is used. You take the basic word lauta, double the final vowel, and add -n to get lautaan.
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