Word
Pienet linnut asuvat vanhoissa pylväissä.
Meaning
Small birds live in the old columns.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Pienet linnut asuvat vanhoissa pylväissä.
How do we get vanhoissa from the dictionary word vanha (old)?
To make the plural inessive, we need the plural stem. For adjectives and nouns ending in -a (like vanha), the a changes to o before the plural marker -i-. Then we add the inessive ending -ssa. So: vanha -> vanho- + i + ssa = vanhoissa.
What happens to the word pylväs (column) to make it pylväissä?
Words ending in -s like pylväs have a basic stem ending in a double vowel (here, pylvää-). When we add the plural -i-, one of those vowels drops out, giving the plural stem pylväi-. Finally, we add the ending -ssä (using ä instead of a because of vowel harmony), resulting in pylväissä.
Why does vanhoissa have an inessive plural ending just like pylväissä?
In Finnish, adjectives must match the noun they describe in both number (singular or plural) and case. Since the noun pylväissä is in the inessive plural ('in the columns'), the adjective vanha must also take the inessive plural form vanhoissa ('in the old').
Why is the word for birds written as linnut instead of lintut?