Breakdown of He ostivat kultaa ja hopeaa noista pienistä kaupoista.
tuo
that
ja
and
he
they
pieni
small
kauppa
shop
ostaa
to buy
kulta
gold
hopea
silver
Questions & Answers about He ostivat kultaa ja hopeaa noista pienistä kaupoista.
What is the base word for noista ("from those")?
The base word is tuo (that). In the basic plural, "those" is nuo. When forming the plural elative case to say "from those", the stem changes from nuo- to no-, giving us noista.
Why does pienistä end in -istä while kaupoista ends in -ista?
Both use the elative plural ending (meaning "from" or "out of"), but they follow vowel harmony rules. Pieni (small) uses front vowels, so it takes -istä. Kauppa (shop) has back vowels, so it takes -ista. Adjectives must always match the case and plural/singular state of the noun they describe!
Why is there only one p in kaupoista, and where did the o come from? The dictionary word is kauppa.
Two things happen here. First, adding the plural -i- changes the final -a of kauppa into an -o-. Second, adding the ending -sta closes the syllable, which triggers consonant gradation. The strong double pp weakens to a single p, resulting in kaupoista.
Why are kultaa (gold) and hopeaa (silver) in the partitive case?
They are uncountable "mass nouns". Because the sentence talks about buying an unspecified, indefinite amount of gold and silver—not specific bars of gold or all the silver in the shops—they must take the partitive case.
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