Breakdown of Nuo työntekijät, jotka olivat asfaltoineet tien, olivat väsyneitä.
olla
to be
tuo
that
väsynyt
tired
tie
road
Questions & Answers about Nuo työntekijät, jotka olivat asfaltoineet tien, olivat väsyneitä.
Since we are learning the passive temporal construction (like asfaltoitaessa), could we use it to say 'when the road had been paved' here?
The passive temporal construction with the 2nd infinitive inessive only expresses an action happening at the exact same time as the main clause (meaning 'while the road was being paved'). Because the paving here happened before the workers were tired, and we want to identify the specific workers who did it, we use a relative clause in the pluperfect tense (jotka olivat asfaltoineet) instead.
Why is it olivat asfaltoineet with a T at the end, but olivat väsyneitä takes the partitive plural?
olivat asfaltoineet is a compound verb in the pluperfect tense ('had paved'). The main verb uses the plural NUT-participle form ending in -t to match the plural subject. väsyneitä, on the other hand, functions as an adjective describing the workers. When an adjective describes a plural subject after the verb olla, it must take the partitive plural ending.
Why does the relative pronoun take the form jotka?
The relative pronoun joka (who/which/that) must agree in number with the word it refers back to. Since it refers to the plural noun phrase Nuo työntekijät (those workers), it has to be in the nominative plural form, which is jotka.
Why is the object tien in the genitive form rather than the partitive?