Breakdown of Tanssija on tämän uuden näytelmän tekijä.
tämä
this
olla
to be
uusi
new
näytelmä
the play
tanssija
dancer
tekijä
creator
Questions & Answers about Tanssija on tämän uuden näytelmän tekijä.
How is the word tanssija formed?
It is an actor noun created by adding the suffix -ja to the verb tanssia (to dance). For verb type 1 verbs like this, you simply take the infinitive, drop the final -a or -ä, and add -ja or -jä.
Tekijä (creator) comes from the verb tehdä (to make/do). Why does the stem change to teki- instead of staying as teke-?
Tehdä is a type 2 verb, and its inflectional stem is teke-. When you add the actor suffix -jä to a stem ending in e, that e almost always changes to an i because the combination "ej" is awkward in Finnish. So, teke- + -jä becomes tekijä.
Why is the phrase tämän uuden näytelmän in the genitive case?
In English, we say "the creator of this new play." Finnish expresses this relationship using the genitive case (the -n ending). Every word in that descriptive chain—tämä (this), uusi (new), and näytelmä (play)—must agree and take the genitive ending.
As a refresher, why does uusi change to uuden in the genitive?
The word uusi belongs to a specific group of old Finnish words ending in -si. When adding an ending like the genitive -n, the -si changes to -te-, which then undergoes consonant gradation to its weak grade -de-. This gives us the stem uude-, resulting in uuden.
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