Breakdown of Temppeleissä ja haudoissa oli paljon vanhoja luita.
olla
to be
ja
and
vanha
old
paljon
a lot
temppeli
the temple
hauta
the grave
luu
the bone
Questions & Answers about Temppeleissä ja haudoissa oli paljon vanhoja luita.
Why does the sentence use the singular verb oli instead of the plural olivat for 'many bones'?
This is an existential sentence (expressing that something exists somewhere). In Finnish, existential sentences usually start with the location, and the verb is always locked to the third-person singular (oli), even if the things existing are plural.
Why are the words vanhoja luita in the partitive plural?
The word paljon (a lot / many) dictates the case of the words that follow it, requiring them to be in the partitive. Because bones are countable objects, we use the partitive plural.
How do we get from the basic word for 'grave' to haudoissa?
The basic form is hauta. When we add the plural inessive ending (-issa) to mean 'in the graves', two things happen. First, the closed syllable triggers consonant gradation, softening the t to a d. Second, because the first vowel of the word is an a, the final a changes to an o before the plural i, resulting in haudoissa.
How is the plural luita formed from the basic word luu?
The word luu (bone) ends in a long vowel (two identical vowels). To add the plural partitive marker, the rule is to drop the second vowel before attaching the ending -ita, which gives us luita.
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