Breakdown of Mies luki noista uusista materiaaleista.
tuo
that
uusi
new
mies
man
lukea
to read
materiaali
material
Questions & Answers about Mies luki noista uusista materiaaleista.
Why do we use the elative case (-ista) here to mean 'about'?
The verb lukea (to read) requires the elative case (the 'out of' case) when you are reading about a topic. Because the man is reading about multiple things, the plural elative ending -ista is used.
Where does the word noista come from?
It is the elative plural form of the pronoun tuo (that). The basic plural is nuo (those). When adding the plural marker -i- and the elative ending -sta, the stem changes from nuo- to no-, resulting in noista.
How does uusi (new) become uusista?
Words ending in -si are a bit special. While their singular stem often changes to -te- (like uute-), the plural stem stays uusi-. When you add the plural -i- and the elative -sta, the two i vowels blend into one, making uusista.
Why does materiaali change to materiaale- before the ending?
For many modern words and loanwords ending in -i, the final -i changes to an -e- before adding the plural -i- marker. So materiaali becomes materiaale-, then we add -i- (plural) and -sta (elative), making materiaaleista.
Why do all three words at the end of the sentence end in -sta?
This is called case agreement. In Finnish, any pronouns (like noista) and adjectives (like uusista) must exactly match the case and number of the noun they describe (materiaaleista).
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