Questions & Answers about Mitä näissä koreissa on?
Why use näissä instead of tässä?
näissä is the plural inessive form of tämä (this), meaning "in these". Because the noun it describes is plural (koreissa), the demonstrative pronoun must also be in the plural form. tässä would mean "in this" singular basket.
Why is the verb on (is) singular when there are multiple baskets?
In Finnish, this is a location sentence (also called an existential sentence). It follows the pattern "Location + on + Subject". Because the baskets are just the location where things are, not the subject doing an action, the verb stays in the singular on regardless of how many baskets there are.
Why do we use the partitive Mitä (what) here instead of Mikä?
When asking about unknown contents in a location ("What is in..."), Finnish uses the partitive Mitä. If you used the basic form Mikä, it would sound like you are asking to identify one specific, whole object rather than general, unknown contents.
What is the base form of koreissa and why does it have an "e"?
The base word is kori (basket). To say "in the baskets", you need the plural marker -i- and the "in" ending -ssa. To avoid having two i's right next to each other, the final -i in kori changes to an -e-, making it koreissa.
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