Questions & Answers about He ovat virkailijoita.
Why is virkailijoita in the partitive plural here instead of the regular plural virkailijat?
In Finnish, when you describe a plural subject (like 'They are clerks'), the describing noun must usually be in the partitive plural. If you used the regular nominative plural virkailijat, it would mean 'They are THE specific clerks'. Using the partitive plural virkailijoita is the standard way to state a group's profession or category.
The basic word is virkailija. How does it become virkailijoita with the -ita ending?
To form the partitive plural, we add the plural marker -i- followed by the partitive ending. For words with three or more syllables ending in -ija (like virkailija), the final -a changes to an -o- before the plural -i-. So, the stem becomes virkailijoi-, and then we add the partitive ending -ta to get virkailijoita.
Why does the ending use -ta instead of -tä?
This is due to vowel harmony. The base word virkailija contains the back vowel a. Even though the final a changes to o in the plural stem, o is also a back vowel. Therefore, the word requires the back vowel ending -ta instead of the front vowel ending -tä.
I learned that 'they' can be ne. Could I use ne instead of he here?
In formal standard Finnish, he is strictly used for people, while ne is used for animals or objects. Since clerks are people, he is the correct written choice. However, in casual spoken Finnish, people very often use ne for humans too, so you might hear 'ne on virkailijoita' in everyday conversations.
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