Breakdown of Sopimus oli vanhentunut, ja pomo oli suuttunut.
olla
to be
ja
and
pomo
boss
sopimus
contract
suuttua
to get angry
vanhentua
to expire
Questions & Answers about Sopimus oli vanhentunut, ja pomo oli suuttunut.
How is the pluperfect tense formed in both halves of this sentence?
The pluperfect describes an action that happened before another past event (translated as "had done" in English). You form it by using the past tense of olla (here, oli for a third-person singular subject) and adding the past active participle (the -nut / -nyt form) of the main verb. This gives us oli vanhentunut (had expired) and oli suuttunut (had gotten angry).
I've learned the word suuttunut as an adjective meaning "angry". Is it an adjective or a verb here?
It functions as a verb here! Although suuttunut is commonly used as an adjective, it is originally the past active participle of the verb suuttua (to get angry). When paired with the helping verb oli, it completes the pluperfect tense verb phrase meaning "had gotten angry".
Why does the English translation say the boss "had gotten angry" instead of "had been angry"?
This highlights the meaning of the verb suuttua, which implies a change of state ("to get angry" or "to lose one's temper"). If you wanted to say the boss had been angry (a continuous state), you would use the pluperfect of olla with an adjective instead: pomo oli ollut vihainen (the boss had been angry).
What verb does vanhentunut come from, and is it related to the word vanha (old)?
Yes! It comes from the verb vanhentua, which means "to age", "to expire", or "to become obsolete". In Finnish, the -ntua suffix is often added to word roots to create verbs that mean "to become [adjective]". So, vanha (old) becomes vanhentua (to become old/expire).
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