Word
Poliisi, joka kantoi koiran, on rohkea.
Meaning
The police officer who carried the dog is brave.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Poliisi, joka kantoi koiran, on rohkea.
olla
to be
koira
dog
poliisi
the police / police officer
kantaa
to carry
Questions & Answers about Poliisi, joka kantoi koiran, on rohkea.
Why is joka in the basic nominative form here?
The relative pronoun joka refers to the word right before it (poliisi). Inside its own mini-sentence (the relative clause), it acts as the subject—the one doing the carrying. Because it is the subject, it takes the basic nominative form.
Why are there commas before joka and after koiran?
In Finnish, you must always use commas to separate a relative clause (a mini-sentence starting with a word like joka) from the rest of the main sentence. This is a strict punctuation rule that differs from English.
Why is the dog koiran (with an -n) instead of koira or koiraa?
The dog is the object of the verb kantoi. Because the officer carried the dog and the action was completed, it takes the -n ending to show it is a total object. If the sentence meant an interrupted or ongoing action like 'was carrying', you would use the partitive form koiraa.
What is the basic form of kantoi, and why doesn't the -nt- change to -nn- here?