Breakdown of Sinä haastat itsesi ja yllätät kaikki.
sinä
you
ja
and
kaikki
all, everything, everyone
itse
self, oneself
Questions & Answers about Sinä haastat itsesi ja yllätät kaikki.
How exactly is itsesi (yourself) built in this sentence?
It is made of the reflexive pronoun itse (self) plus the possessive suffix -si (your). Because the subject is sinä (you), the reflexive pronoun must match it. Whenever you do an action to yourself, you use itse + the possessive suffix for the person doing the action.
Why isn't itsesi in the partitive case (itseäsi)?
The verb haastaa (to challenge) takes a total object (accusative case) here because the action is seen as complete. Normally, the genitive/accusative of itse is itsen. However, there is a special rule in Finnish: when you add a possessive suffix like -si to a word ending in the genitive -n, the -n drops off. So, itsen + -si becomes itsesi.
Why does the verb yllätät only have one t in the middle?
The dictionary form of the verb is yllättää (to surprise). When you add the personal ending -t for "you", the final syllable becomes closed (it ends in a consonant). This triggers consonant gradation, weakening the strong double tt down to a single t.
Is kaikki (everyone) in its basic form here?