Breakdown of Näyttelijän virhe nolottaa ohjaajaa.
virhe
error
ohjaaja
instructor / director
näyttelijä
the actor
nolottaa
to embarrass
Questions & Answers about Näyttelijän virhe nolottaa ohjaajaa.
How does the causative suffix -ttaa work in the verb nolottaa?
Nolottaa is formed from the adjective nolo (embarrassing) plus the causative suffix -ttaa. This suffix turns a word into a verb meaning "to cause someone to feel [word]". Therefore, nolottaa means "to embarrass" or "to make someone feel embarrassed".
Why is the object ohjaajaa in the partitive case instead of the genitive or accusative?
Causative verbs that express causing an emotion or a physical feeling (like nolottaa, naurattaa, or väsyttää) always take a partitive object. The person experiencing the feeling—in this case, the director (ohjaaja)—must be in the partitive case (ohjaajaa).
I've seen sentences like Ohjaajaa nolottaa (The director feels embarrassed) which have no subject. Why does this sentence have one?
Causative emotion verbs can be used in two different structures. When you just want to express that someone is experiencing a feeling, you use it without a nominative subject. But in this sentence, we specifically name the thing causing the feeling: the actor's mistake (näyttelijän virhe). So, virhe acts as a normal nominative subject performing the action on the director.
Are the words näyttelijä (actor) and ohjaaja (director) built using the same grammar rule?
Yes, they both use the Finnish agent suffix -ja/-jä, which acts just like the English "-er" or "-or". It attaches to a verb stem to mean "a person who does X". Näyttelijä comes from näytellä (to act), and ohjaaja comes from ohjata (to direct or guide).
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