Questions & Answers about Koirat juoksivat ulos isoista metsistä.
The elative plural ending means "out of". Why does it look slightly different in isoista compared to metsistä?
This is because of vowel harmony. The elative plural ending is either -ista or -istä. The word iso (big) contains the back vowel o, so it takes the back-vowel ending -ista. The word metsä (forest) contains the front vowel ä, so it takes the front-vowel ending -istä.
Why is the word for "big" also in the elative plural form (isoista)?
In Finnish, adjectives must always match the noun they describe in both case and number. Because the dogs ran out of the forests (elative plural metsistä), the adjective describing the forests must also be in the elative plural form (isoista).
If the ending -ista/-istä already means "out of", why do we also need the word ulos?
While the case ending tells us where they originated from (out of the forests), the adverb ulos (out/outside) emphasizes the physical direction of the action. It is very common in Finnish to pair directional verbs and adverbs like ulos with the elative case.
The dictionary form for "to run" is juosta. Where does the k in juoksivat come from?
Juosta is a Type 3 verb, and its stem changes to juokse- when conjugated. To make it past tense, the e changes to an i, giving us the past stem juoksi-. Finally, we add the "they" ending -vat to get juoksivat (they ran).
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