Hänet oli haudattu yksin, vaikka hauta oli iso.
He had been buried alone, although the grave was big.
Breakdown of Hänet oli haudattu yksin, vaikka hauta oli iso.
olla
to be
iso
big
hänet
him / her
yksin
alone
vaikka
although / even though
haudata
to bury
hauta
the grave
Questions & Answers about Hänet oli haudattu yksin, vaikka hauta oli iso.
Why is it hänet with a -t ending? Don't objects of a passive verb usually look like the nominative?
You are right that passive objects usually take the nominative form. However, personal pronouns (like hän) are a major exception. When a personal pronoun is the object of a passive verb, it always takes its special accusative form ending in -t, making it hänet here.
How exactly is the pluperfect passive formed in oli haudattu?
It is formed using the active 3rd person singular past tense verb oli (was/had) plus the passive past participle of the main verb, which here is haudattu (buried). Notice that the auxiliary verb is the active oli, not the passive oltiin.
I sometimes hear people say oltiin haudattu. Is that the same thing?
In standard Finnish, oltiin haudattu is not used for the passive. However, in spoken Finnish, the passive form is commonly used to mean 'we'. So in everyday speech, me oltiin haudattu means 'we had buried', while the standard Finnish oli haudattu used in this sentence translates to 'had been buried'.
Is the verb haudattu related to the noun hauta used later in the sentence?
Yes! The verb haudata (to bury) comes directly from the noun hauta (grave). The strong consonant t in hauta changes to a weak d in the dictionary form of the verb haudata, and this weak grade carries over to the passive participle haudattu.
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