Questions & Answers about Taivaan tähdet ovat kaukana.
Since the current lesson is about the genitive plural, what would the genitive plural of taivas look like here?
Taivaan is the genitive singular because it refers to the stars of one sky. If you wanted to say "of the skies" to match this lesson, you would use the genitive plural forms: taivaiden or taivaitten.
How do we get the form taivaan from the dictionary word taivas?
Words ending in -as belong to a specific word type. To find their stem, you drop the -s and double the vowel, giving us the stem taivaa-. Then, you just add the genitive singular ending -n.
Why is there a d in tähdet (stars) when the singular is tähti?
This happens because of consonant gradation. Adding the plural marker -t closes the final syllable, which weakens the single t in the stem to a d.
What ending is on the word kaukana (far away)?
It has the essive case ending -na, which often translates to "as a" (describing a role or state). However, kaukana is a fixed word that functions as a standard location adverb to simply mean "far away".