Questions & Answers about Me yllätyimme päätöksestä.
Why does päätöksestä have the elative ending -stä here?
The verb yllättyä (to be surprised) is an emotion verb. In Finnish, verbs expressing an emotional reaction usually require the cause of the emotion to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). Even though English uses 'by', Finnish thinks of the surprise coming 'out of' the decision.
Why does yllätyimme only have one 't' when the base verb is yllättyä?
This is due to consonant gradation. When we add the past tense marker -i- and the personal ending -mme, the syllable becomes closed (it ends in a consonant). This forces the strong double tt to weaken into a single t.
Could I use the verb yllättää instead of yllättyä?
No, because they describe different sides of the action. Yllättää means to surprise someone else. Yllättyä is the automatic version, meaning to get surprised or be surprised. Since 'we' are experiencing the surprise here rather than surprising someone else, we must use yllättyä.
How do we get the stem päätökse- from the dictionary word päätös (decision)?
Nouns ending in -os or -ös follow a specific pattern. When you add grammatical endings to these words, the final -s changes to -kse-. This gives us the stem päätökse-, to which we safely attach the elative ending -stä.
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