Breakdown of Uutta viemäriä rakennettaessa putki meni rikki, mikä aiheutti vaaran.
uusi
new
mennä
to go
vaara
the danger
rakentaa
to build
rikki
broken
mikä
which (relative pronoun)
viemäri
sewer
aiheuttaa
to cause
putki
pipe
Questions & Answers about Uutta viemäriä rakennettaessa putki meni rikki, mikä aiheutti vaaran.
How exactly is the passive temporal form rakennettaessa built here?
It is the passive temporal construction, which translates to "when something was being built." You form it by taking the passive past participle, which is rakennettu for the verb rakentaa. You drop the final vowel and add the passive inessive ending -aessa or -äessä. It describes an action happening at the same time as the main clause, performed by an unspecified group or person.
Why is Uutta viemäriä in the partitive case instead of the nominative?
With the passive temporal construction, the object keeps the same case it would have in a regular passive sentence. Because the building of the sewer was an ongoing, incomplete process at the moment the pipe broke, it requires the partitive case.
Why does the sentence use mikä for "which" instead of joka?
In Finnish, joka refers back to the specific noun right before it. However, mikä is used when "which" refers to the entire preceding clause or situation. Here, it was the whole event of the pipe breaking that caused the danger, not just the word rikki, so mikä is the correct choice.
What does meni rikki mean, and why not use a single verb for "broke"?
Mennä rikki literally means "to go broken" and is a very common everyday expression for objects breaking or stopping working. While you could use a single verb like rikkoutui, using the verb mennä with an adjective like rikki is often the most natural way to express this in spoken and written Finnish.
Why does vaaran end in -n rather than being in the partitive case?
The verb aiheuttaa means "to cause" and can take either a partitive or a total object. Because the sentence talks about causing a single, complete instance of danger as a direct result of the pipe breaking, the object is considered a total object and takes the -n ending.
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