Breakdown of Me annoimme salaperäisen laatikon jollekulle tuntemattomalle.
me
we
laatikko
box
antaa
to give
joku
somebody, someone
tuntematon
unknown
salaperäinen
mysterious
Questions & Answers about Me annoimme salaperäisen laatikon jollekulle tuntemattomalle.
How do we get the word jollekulle from joku?
joku (someone) is a special pronoun because both halves of the word take the case ending. Here, we need the allative case (the -lle ending). The first half jo- becomes jolle-, and the second half -ku becomes -kulle. Put them together, and you get jollekulle!
Why are jollekulle and tuntemattomalle in the allative (the -lle) case?
The verb antaa (to give) requires the recipient of the action to be in the allative case, which translates to "to [someone]". Because tuntematon (unknown) describes joku (someone), they must both match and take the -lle ending.
What happens to the word tuntematon when we add the -lle ending?
tuntematon (unknown) ends in the suffix -ton (meaning "without"). When you add a case ending to a word ending in -ton, its stem changes to -ttoma-. Then you just add the -lle ending, giving us tuntemattomalle.
Why do salaperäinen and laatikko both end in -n here?
They form the object of the sentence (the thing being given). Because the action is complete (we gave the whole box), the object takes the accusative case, which looks exactly like the genitive -n ending. The adjective salaperäinen (mysterious) has to agree with laatikon (box), so they both get the -n.
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