Breakdown of He ihastuivat kauniisiin vanhoihin kaupunkeihin.
he
they
vanha
old
kaunis
beautiful
kaupunki
city
ihastua
to become fond of
Questions & Answers about He ihastuivat kauniisiin vanhoihin kaupunkeihin.
Why is the illative case used here instead of a word for 'of'?
The verb ihastua (to become fond of, to fall in love with) always requires the illative case. Even though in English you are fond 'of' something, in Finnish you grammatically 'fall into' it. This is a strict rule for this verb.
Why do the words at the end of the sentence have different endings if they are in the same case?
They are all in the plural illative case, but the endings vary based on the word type. Vanhoihin and kaupunkeihin use the -ihin ending, while kauniisiin uses the -siin ending. Adjectives must always match the noun in case and number.
Why does kaupunki change to kaupunkeihin instead of just adding the ending?
When a basic word ends in -i, that i often changes to e before the plural i marker is added. So kaupunki becomes kaupunke-, then we add the plural i and the illative ending -hin, resulting in kaupunkeihin.
How do you build the plural illative for kaunis?
Words ending in -is have a stem ending in a double vowel, so the stem for kaunis is kaunii-. For the plural illative of these words, you simply add -siin to that stem, giving you kauniisiin.
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