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Minun ompelemani mekko on punainen.

Minun ompelemani mekko on punainen.
The dress sewn by me is red.
From Lesson 178:The agent participle (-ma/-mä)·Finnish

Breakdown of Minun ompelemani mekko on punainen.

olla
to be
minä
I
punainen
red
ommella
to sew
mekko
dress

Questions & Answers about Minun ompelemani mekko on punainen.

How is the word ompelemani formed?
It uses the agent participle, which is the focus of this lesson. It is built from the strong stem of the verb ommella (to sew), which is ompele-. To this stem, you add the participle suffix -ma and finally the possessive suffix -ni to match the agent.
Why do we have both minun and the suffix -ni on the participle?
When you use the agent participle to say an action was done by someone, that person is the agent. If the agent is a pronoun, it takes the genitive form (like minun) and you must attach the matching possessive suffix (like -ni) to the participle.
Could I drop the word minun from this sentence?
Yes, you can. Just like when expressing possession with nouns, the first and second-person genitive pronouns can be left out. The sentence Ompelemani mekko on punainen is perfectly correct because the -ni suffix already tells us who did the sewing.
Does the participle ompelemani behave like an adjective here?
Exactly! It modifies the noun mekko (dress), telling us what kind of dress it is. Because it acts like an adjective, it sits right in front of the noun and would change case to match it if the sentence required it.

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