Breakdown of Nämä puuvillaiset lakanat ovat pehmeät.
tämä
this
olla
to be
pehmeä
soft
lakana
sheet
puuvillainen
made of cotton
Questions & Answers about Nämä puuvillaiset lakanat ovat pehmeät.
How does the noun puuvilla turn into the adjective puuvillaiset here?
The base word is puuvilla (cotton). By adding the suffix -inen, we create the adjective puuvillainen (made of cotton). This is a highly productive way to turn material nouns into adjectives in Finnish. Because the noun it describes (lakanat) is plural, the adjective must also take a plural form.
Why does the ending of puuvillainen change to -iset in the plural?
Words ending in -inen undergo a stem change before adding endings. The -nen changes to -se-. Therefore, the basic form puuvillainen becomes the stem puuvillaise-, and then we add the standard plural marker -t to get puuvillaiset.
Why do almost all the words in this sentence end in -t?
In Finnish, modifiers must match the noun they describe in number and case. Because lakanat (sheets) is in the plural nominative (ending in -t), the demonstrative pronoun nämä (these) and the adjective puuvillaiset must also be plural. Furthermore, the predicative adjective pehmeät (soft) at the end of the sentence must agree with the plural subject.
Could I just write puuvilla lakanat without the -inen suffix?
Not as two separate words. If you prefer not to use the adjective puuvillaiset lakanat, you must write the words together as a single compound noun: puuvillalakanat (cotton sheets). Both versions are perfectly natural, but writing them as two separate words without the adjective suffix is incorrect.
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