Breakdown of Luulin, että kaari olisi tehty teräksestä.
olla
to be
tehdä
to do
että
that (conjunction)
luulla
to think, to suppose
teräs
the steel
kaari
the arch
Questions & Answers about Luulin, että kaari olisi tehty teräksestä.
How is the conditional perfect passive formed in the phrase olisi tehty?
It uses the conditional form of the verb to be (olisi) as an auxiliary verb, followed by the passive past participle of the main verb (tehty from tehdä, to make). In the passive voice, the auxiliary verb is always in the third-person singular (olisi), regardless of what the subject is.
Why is the conditional perfect used here instead of the regular conditional?
Since the main verb luulin (I thought) is in the past tense, you need a past-tense conditional to express what you thought had happened or would have been done by that time. The regular conditional (tehtäisiin, would be made) would refer to a present or future action.
Why is the passive voice used in this sentence?
We use the passive because the sentence focuses on the action happening to the arch without specifying who made it. In Finnish, when the agent (the person doing the action) is unknown or unimportant, the passive is the natural choice.
Why does the word for steel (teräs) take the -stä ending here?
Teräksestä is in the elative case. In Finnish, when you state what material an object is made out of, you attach the elative ending (-sta or -stä) to the word's stem, which translates literally to out of.
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