Questions & Answers about Hotellissa on pehmeitä lakanoita.
How do we form the partitive plural lakanoita from the basic word lakana?
The basic word is lakana. To make the partitive plural, we add the plural -i- and the partitive ending -ta. When a word has three or more syllables and ends in -a, that final -a changes to an -o- before the plural -i-. So, lakana + i + ta becomes lakanoita.
Why does the adjective pehmeä (soft) lose its final letter in pehmeitä?
When forming the partitive plural, words ending in -ä (like pehmeä) drop that final -ä before adding the plural marker -i-. Then we add the partitive ending -tä (using -tä instead of -ta because of vowel harmony with the front vowels in the word). This gives us pehmeitä.
Since the sheets are plural, why is the verb on in the singular instead of ovat (are)?
This is an existential sentence structure, which expresses that something exists somewhere. In Finnish, when you use this somewhere-is-something or someone-has-something structure, the verb is always the singular on, even if the things existing (the sheets) are plural!
Why does the Finnish sentence use Hotellissa (in the hotel) rather than a word for 'has'?
Finnish doesn't have a direct verb for 'to have'. To say someone or something has something, you use the location case (here, the inessive ending -ssa meaning 'in') plus the verb on. So Hotellissa on... literally means 'In the hotel is...', which is how Finns express 'The hotel has...'.
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