Questions & Answers about Meillä on tänään paljon sikoja.
Why does sikoja keep the k from sika? Doesn't the plural usually make it disappear?
You are thinking of the nominative plural siat (pigs), which drops the k (weak grade) because the -t ending closes the syllable. However, the partitive plural ending -ja does not close the syllable. Because the syllable remains open, sikoja uses the strong grade and keeps the k.
Where did the o in sikoja come from? The word for pig is sika.
This happens because of a rule for forming plural stems. In two-syllable words ending in a, if the first vowel is i, e, or a, the final a changes to o before adding plural endings. Here, the stem sika- becomes siko-, to which we add the plural marker i and the partitive ending a (which blend together to form -ja).
Why is sikoja in the partitive plural?
The word paljon (a lot) always requires the word following it to be in the partitive case. Because pigs are countable objects and there are many of them, we must use the partitive plural form sikoja rather than the singular.
Why does the sentence use on (is) if there are multiple pigs? Shouldn't it be plural?
In the Finnish 'to have' structure (meillä on), the verb is always in the third-person singular (on), regardless of how many things you have. The sentence literally translates to 'at us is a lot of pigs', so the verb does not change to match the number of pigs.
Learn Meillä on tänään paljon sikoja and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free