Questions & Answers about Minä olen sääntöä vastaan.
The lesson is about postpositions taking the genitive case, but sääntöä ends in -ä. Isn't that the partitive case?
Yes, good catch! While most Finnish postpositions require the word before them to be in the genitive case (ending in -n), there is a small group of postpositions that require the partitive case instead. vastaan (against) is one of these exceptions, which is why we use the partitive sääntöä (rule) here.
What is the base form of sääntöä, and how is the partitive formed here?
The base form is sääntö (rule). To make it partitive, we just add the partitive ending. Because sääntö ends in the vowel ö, the ending is -ä (following vowel harmony), giving us sääntöä.
Why does vastaan come after sääntöä? In English, we say 'against the rule'.
Finnish uses postpositions much more often than prepositions. This means the position word (vastaan) comes after the word it relates to (sääntöä). So literally, the word order is 'rule against'.
Does vastaan also mean 'I answer'?
Yes, it does! vastaan can either be the postposition 'against' (as it is in this sentence) or the 'I' form of the verb vastata (to answer). You have to use the context to tell them apart. Here, paired with the noun sääntöä, it clearly acts as a postposition.
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