Breakdown of Äiti siivosi keittiön puhtailla käsineillä.
siivota
to clean
keittiö
kitchen
puhdas
clean
äiti
mother
käsine
glove
Questions & Answers about Äiti siivosi keittiön puhtailla käsineillä.
Why does puhdas (clean) change so much to become puhtailla?
The basic word is puhdas. For words ending in -as, the stem changes to end in -aa-, making puhtaa-. To make the plural adessive form, we add the plural marker -i- and the case ending -lla. The double -aa- drops one -a- when the plural -i- is added, resulting in puhtailla.
How is the adessive plural ending added to käsine (glove)?
For words ending in -e like käsine, the stem doubles the last vowel to become käsinee-. When we add the plural -i- and the adessive ending -llä, the double -ee- drops one -e-, giving us käsineillä. Notice that both the adjective and the noun must match cases, which is why both words have the plural adessive ending!
Why is the adessive case (-illa/-illä) used here to mean "with"?
The adessive case, which you normally use to mean "on" or "at", is also the standard way to express a tool or instrument used to do an action in Finnish. So puhtailla käsineillä literally means "by means of clean gloves" or "using clean gloves".
Why is the kitchen written as keittiön instead of the basic form keittiö or the partitive keittiötä?
Keittiön is the object of the sentence. Because it ends in -n (the genitive-accusative case), it shows that the action was completely finished: she cleaned the whole kitchen. If it were in the partitive case (keittiötä), it would mean she was in the process of cleaning it or only cleaned a part of it.
I know the verb to clean is siivota. How does it become siivosi?
Siivota is a Type 4 verb. In the past tense, the -ta at the end of the word usually changes to -si for the "he/she/it" (third-person singular) form. So, siivota simply becomes siivosi (she cleaned).
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