Questions & Answers about Tämä komedia naurattaa minua.
How does the verb naurattaa relate to the basic verb for laughing?
naurattaa is a causative verb created by adding the suffix -ttaa to the stem of nauraa (to laugh). While nauraa means that you are doing the laughing, naurattaa means "to cause to laugh" or "to make [someone] laugh".
Why is minua in the partitive case here?
With causative verbs that describe producing an emotion, physical reaction, or feeling (like naurattaa, itkettää to make cry, or väsyttää to make tired), the person experiencing the feeling is the object of the sentence. Because feelings and reactions are viewed as ongoing or incomplete processes in Finnish, they require the partitive case (minua).
Can I express this same idea using the basic verb nauraa instead?
Yes. If you want to be the subject of the sentence, you would use the verb nauraa and the allative case for the target: Minä nauran tälle komedialle (I laugh at this comedy). The causative verb naurattaa simply flips the perspective so that the thing causing the reaction (tämä komedia) becomes the active subject, and the person reacting becomes the object (minua).