Questions & Answers about Puuvillainen mekko on mukava kesällä.
How is the adjective puuvillainen formed from the noun for cotton?
The noun for cotton is puuvilla. To say something is made of a material, you add the suffix -inen to the noun. This turns it into the adjective puuvillainen (cotton or made of cotton).
Is puuvilla a compound word?
Yes! It is made of puu (tree or wood) and villa (wool). So the Finnish word for cotton literally translates to "tree wool".
Why is mukava (comfortable) in its basic nominative form instead of the partitive mukavaa?
Because the subject, mekko (dress), is a concrete, countable object. When describing countable nouns, the predicate adjective stays in the nominative case. You would use the partitive if the subject was an uncountable mass noun, like water or weather.
Why is the adessive ending -llä used on kesä to say "in summer"?
Finnish typically uses the adessive case (-lla or -llä) for times of the day and seasons. While English uses "in" for seasons (in summer), Finnish logic essentially says "on summer" (kesällä).