Questions & Answers about Opettaja lukee näitä asiakirjoja.
Why is the object näitä asiakirjoja in the partitive plural?
When reading is an ongoing or incomplete action, the verb lukea (to read) takes a partitive object. Because "documents" is plural, we use the partitive plural for both the demonstrative pronoun (näitä) and the noun it modifies (asiakirjoja).
How does the word näitä fit in with the plural demonstrative pronouns we are learning?
The base word is tämä (this). In the plural, its root changes to näi- before most case endings (which is why you see local cases like näissä and näihin). For the partitive plural, we simply add the partitive ending -tä to that same näi- root to get näitä.
How do you build the partitive plural form asiakirjoja?
The base word is asiakirja (document), which is a compound of asia (matter/thing) and kirja (book). To form the partitive plural for a word ending in -a, that final vowel changes to -o-. Then we add the plural marker -j- and the partitive ending -a, resulting in asiakirjoja.
If the teacher finishes reading all of these documents, does the sentence change?
Yes! If you want to stress that the action is completely finished and she read the entire specific set of documents, the object would change to the nominative plural: Opettaja lukee nämä asiakirjat. By using the partitive näitä asiakirjoja, it implies she is currently in the middle of reading them, or only reading some of them.
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