Breakdown of Kaivaukset jatkuivat, vaikka kaupunki oli tuhottu.
olla
to be
kaupunki
city
jatkua
to continue
vaikka
although / even though
Questions & Answers about Kaivaukset jatkuivat, vaikka kaupunki oli tuhottu.
Why does the pluperfect passive use oli instead of a passive form like oltiin in oli tuhottu?
In the pluperfect passive, the auxiliary verb olla is always in the active third-person singular past tense (oli). The passive meaning comes entirely from the second part, the passive past participle (tuhottu). We only use oltiin in the simple past tense (imperfect) passive, not the pluperfect.
How do we form the passive past participle tuhottu from the dictionary verb?
The dictionary form is tuhota (to destroy), which is a verb type 4. To form the passive past participle for verb types 4, 5, and 6, you take the infinitive, drop the final -a or -ä, and add -ttu or -tty. So, tuhota becomes tuhottu.
Jatkuivat means they continued. Why isn't this in the passive voice like the second half of the sentence?
Because the Finnish verb jatkua is intransitive, meaning it describes something continuing on its own without a specific person doing it to an object. If you wanted to say the excavations 'were continued' by someone, you would use the passive form of the transitive verb jatkaa, which is jatkettiin.
Why is kaupunki in the nominative case instead of the partitive, since it is the thing being destroyed?