Breakdown of Poika unohti karkit näihin taskuihin.
tämä
this
poika
boy
tasku
pocket
karkki
candy
unohtaa
to forget
Questions & Answers about Poika unohti karkit näihin taskuihin.
Why does the sentence use the illative forms näihin taskuihin when the English translation says "in these pockets"?
In Finnish, the verb unohtaa (to forget) is thought of as a direction verb. You do not forget something where it is (in the pocket); instead, you mentally leave it to or into a place. Because of this, the location must be in the illative ("into") case.
How is the illative plural taskuihin formed from the basic word tasku?
First, we take the word tasku and add the plural marker -i-, making taskui-. For words where the stem ends in a short vowel plus the plural -i- (creating a diphthong like -ui-), the illative plural ending is -hin. Adding this gives us taskuihin.
What is the base form of näihin, and why does it look like that here?
The base word is tämä (this). Pronouns must match the case and number of the noun they describe. Since taskuihin is illative plural, "these" must also be illative plural. The plural stem of tämä is näi-, and adding the illative plural ending -hin gives us näihin.
Why is karkit (candies) in the basic plural form ending in -t instead of the partitive case?
When an action is completed and affects the whole object, Finnish uses a total object. For plural words, the total object form looks exactly like the basic plural (the nominative plural ending in -t). Using karkit means he forgot all of the specific candies he had, rather than just an undefined amount.
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