Questions & Answers about Aasi on hevosta itsepäisempi.
How does hevosta mean "than the horse" without a word for "than"?
This sentence uses the partitive comparative structure. Instead of using kuin (than) followed by the nominative case, you drop kuin and put the standard of comparison into the partitive case. Here, the basic word hevonen (horse) becomes hevosta.
Why does hevosta come before the adjective itsepäisempi?
In the partitive comparative structure, the word in the partitive case almost always sits directly in front of the comparative adjective. If you used the kuin structure instead, the order would match English: itsepäisempi kuin hevonen.
How do we get the comparative form itsepäisempi from the base word itsepäinen?
For adjectives ending in -nen, the stem changes to -se- before adding endings. So, itsepäinen (stubborn) has the stem itsepäise-. When you add the comparative ending -mpi, you get itsepäisempi.