Breakdown of Me pesemme pöydän valkoisilla liinoilla.
me
we
pöytä
table
pestä
to wash
valkoinen
white
liina
cloth
Questions & Answers about Me pesemme pöydän valkoisilla liinoilla.
Why is there no word for "with" in the Finnish sentence?
In Finnish, you express doing an action "with" a tool or instrument by using the adessive case (the -lla/-llä ending). Here, both the adjective valkoinen (white) and the noun liina (cloth) take the plural adessive endings, becoming valkoisilla liinoilla (with white cloths).
How does liina (cloth) become liinoilla?
To form the plural adessive, you add the plural marker -i- and then the adessive ending -lla. When you add the plural -i- to a two-syllable word ending in -a, the -a changes to an -o-. So, liina becomes the plural stem liinoi-, resulting in liinoilla.
Why does valkoinen (white) change to valkoisilla?
Adjectives must match their noun in both number (plural) and case (adessive). Words ending in -nen, like valkoinen, change their ending to -s- when you add suffixes. The plural stem is valkoisi-, and adding the adessive -lla makes it valkoisilla.
Why is "table" written as pöydän instead of the basic form pöytä?
The verb pesemme (we wash) takes a total object here. Because we are washing the whole table and the action is meant to be completed, the object takes the genitive -n ending. If we were only washing part of it, or if the action was just ongoing in a general sense, we would use the partitive case (pöytää). Notice also the consonant gradation: the -t- in pöytä weakens to -d- when the ending is added!
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