Breakdown of Ne ostais ton hopeisen sormuksen, vaikka se on kallis.
tuo
that
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
he
they
kallis
expensive
ostaa
to buy
sormus
ring
vaikka
although / even though
hopeinen
silver (adjective)
Questions & Answers about Ne ostais ton hopeisen sormuksen, vaikka se on kallis.
Why is the verb ostais instead of ostaisivat?
This sentence is written in spoken Finnish. In spoken language, the third-person plural conditional ostaisivat (they would buy) is commonly shortened to just ostais. The third-person singular ostaisi also shortens to ostais, making the verb form rely entirely on the pronoun to tell you who is doing the action.
Why use ne for people buying a ring instead of he?
In standard written Finnish, he means "they" for people, and ne is used for things. However, in everyday spoken Finnish, people almost always use ne for both people and things.
What word is ton short for, and why does it have an -n ending?
Ton is the spoken version of tuon, the genitive-accusative form of tuo (that). It takes the -n ending to match the object it points to, hopeisen sormuksen (silver ring). This ending shows it is the total object of the action, meaning they would buy the whole ring.
Why is hopeisen in the genitive-accusative case, but kallis is in the basic nominative case?
Hopeisen is part of the object phrase receiving the action of buying, so it takes the -n ending to match sormuksen. Kallis (expensive) is a predicative adjective that simply describes the subject se (the ring) using the verb on (is), so it stays in the basic nominative case.
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