Breakdown of Yllättyivätkö nuo opiskelijat tuloksesta?
nuo
those (over there)
opiskelija
student
tulos
result
yllättyä
to be surprised
Questions & Answers about Yllättyivätkö nuo opiskelijat tuloksesta?
Why is the elative case used in tuloksesta instead of a different case?
The verb yllättyä (to be surprised) is an emotion verb. In Finnish, verbs expressing an emotional reaction to something usually require that thing to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). You can conceptually think of the surprise coming 'out of' the result.
I recognize the word yllättää (to surprise). How is yllättyä different?
Yllättää is a transitive verb, meaning a subject surprises someone else. Yllättyä is the intransitive equivalent, meaning someone 'gets surprised' or 'is surprised'. Finnish often changes the verb stem (like swapping -ää for -yä) to show something happening to the subject rather than using a passive structure.
How do you build the verb form yllättyivätkö?
It stacks three different grammar pieces on the base verb yllättyä. First, the final ä drops to make room for the past tense marker -i-. Then, the third-person plural ending -vät is added to agree with the plural subject nuo opiskelijat (those students). Finally, the question particle -kö is attached at the very end.
Why does the word tulos change to tulokse- before the ending in tuloksesta?
This is a common word type rule. Nouns ending in -os or -ös have a stem that changes to -kse- before adding grammatical endings. Therefore, the base word tulos (result) changes to the stem tulokse- before attaching the elative ending -sta.
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