Breakdown of Etsimme uusia ideoita noista vanhoista kirjoista.
tuo
that
kirja
book
vanha
old
uusi
new
idea
idea
etsiä
to look for
Questions & Answers about Etsimme uusia ideoita noista vanhoista kirjoista.
Why do we use the elative case (-ista) for "from those old books" instead of the inessive (-issa, "in those old books")?
In Finnish, the verb etsiä (to look for / to search) requires the location you are searching to be in the elative case ("out of"). Even though in English we say we look "in" a book, in Finnish you search "out of" it.
Why does the ending -ista appear three times in a row in noista vanhoista kirjoista?
This is because of case agreement! In Finnish, adjectives (vanha) and demonstrative pronouns (nuo) must match the case and number of the noun they describe (kirja). So, "from those old books" becomes noista vanhoista kirjoista.
How do we get noista from the word for "those"?
The base word for "that" is tuo, and its plural ("those") is nuo. When you add the plural marker -i- and the elative ending -sta, the stem changes slightly to no-, giving us noista.
Why do the words vanha and kirja change their ending -a to an -o- before the plural ending?
When forming plural cases, the plural marker -i- is added to the word's stem. For most base words ending in -a, that -a changes to -o- before the -i- to make it easier to pronounce. So, vanha + i + sta becomes vanhoista, and kirja + i + sta becomes kirjoista.
If etsiä uses the elative for the location, why is uusia ideoita in the partitive case?
The verb etsiä acts on two different things here. The location you are searching is in the elative (-ista/-istä), but the thing you are looking for (the object) must be in the partitive. Since we are looking for multiple "new ideas," we use the partitive plural uusia ideoita.
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