Questions & Answers about Kerran minä unohdin avaimen.
Why is 'once' kerran? Does it come from the word for 'time'?
Yes! Kerta means 'a time' (as in 'one time' or 'three times', not clock time). When you want to say 'once' or 'one time', you use its genitive form, kerran.
What is the dictionary form of unohdin and why does it have a 'd'?
The basic verb is unohtaa (to forget). When you add the past tense marker -i- and the 'I' ending -n, the word undergoes consonant gradation. The strong -ht- changes to the weak -hd-, making it unohdin. The final -a of the verb stem also drops out before the past tense -i-.
Why does avain (key) change to avaime- before adding the ending?
Finnish words ending in -in (like avain or puhelin) belong to a special noun group. To add any ending to them, you must first replace the -in with -ime-. So, the base of avain becomes avaime-, and then we add the -n ending to get avaimen.
Why is the key avaimen and not just the dictionary form avain?