Word
He ostivat kultaa ja hopeaa noista pienistä kaupoista.
Meaning
They bought gold and silver from those small shops.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
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?