Breakdown of Neljäsosa kansasta on suuri vähemmistö.
olla
to be
suuri
large, great
kansa
nation
vähemmistö
minority
neljäsosa
a quarter
Questions & Answers about Neljäsosa kansasta on suuri vähemmistö.
How is the fraction neljäsosa formed?
It combines neljäs (the ordinal number for fourth) and osa (the word for part). This is the standard way to build fractions in Finnish: you take the ordinal form of a number and attach osa to the end of it.
Why does the word for nation, kansa, take the elative ending -sta in this sentence?
When expressing a fraction or a portion of a larger whole, Finnish uses the elative case (-sta or -stä). Therefore, neljäsosa kansasta literally means a quarter out of the nation.
Since a quarter of a nation consists of many people, why is the verb on in the singular form?
The grammatical subject of the sentence is the fraction neljäsosa itself, which is a singular word. Finnish verb agreement heavily relies on the grammatical head word, so the verb stays singular regardless of how many people the fraction represents.
I recognize the start of vähemmistö. How is this noun built?
It is built from the comparative word vähemmän (less). The suffix -istö or -isto is used to create collective nouns. So vähemmistö represents a collective group of the smaller part, which means a minority. For extra vocabulary, its exact opposite is enemmistö (majority).
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