Questions & Answers about Hermostutko sinä tästä melusta?
Why are tästä and melusta in the elative case (ending in -sta / -stä)?
The verb hermostua (to get agitated / to get nervous) is an emotion verb. In Finnish, verbs that express a reaction or a change in emotional state require the thing causing the emotion to be in the elative case. You can think of it as getting agitated "from" this noise.
How is the verb hermostua formed, and what does it literally mean?
It comes from the noun hermo (nerve). The suffix -stua or -styä is often added to nouns or adjectives to create verbs that mean "to become" something or "to enter a state". So, hermostua literally translates to "to become nervous" or "to lose one's nerve".
The verb hermostutko already shows that the subject is "you". Do we need to include sinä?
Strictly speaking, no. Because the verb has the second-person singular ending -t, standard Finnish allows you to drop the pronoun entirely. Including sinä here just adds a bit of emphasis, like asking "Do you get agitated...?"
Why does the pronoun tästä use the -stä ending, while melusta uses -sta?
This is because of vowel harmony. Even though tästä (from this) and melusta (from noise) belong together as a single phrase and are in the same case, their endings must match their own root vowels. Tämä contains front vowels (ä), so it takes -stä, while melu contains the back vowel u, so it takes -sta.
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