Questions & Answers about Metsässä pimeni nopeasti.
What is the dictionary form of pimeni, and what type of verb is it?
It is the past tense of pimetä (to get dark), which is a Type 6 verb. Type 6 verbs end in -eta or -etä, and they very often describe a change of state, like getting darker, older, or colder.
How do we form the past tense pimeni using the -ne- stem?
First, you find the present stem of pimetä by dropping the -tä and adding -ne-, which gives us pimene-. To make it past tense, the final -e of the stem changes to the past tense marker -i, resulting in the past stem pimeni-. Because this sentence uses the third-person singular ("it"), we don't add any extra personal endings.
Why is there no word for "it" before pimeni?
Finnish does not use a "dummy" pronoun for weather, time, or natural phenomena like English does. Instead of saying se pimeni, you just use the third-person singular verb on its own to express "it got dark".
How is the verb pimetä related to the adjective for "dark"?
Many Type 6 verbs are created directly from adjectives to mean "to become [adjective]". In this case, the adjective pimeä (dark) becomes the verb pimetä (to become dark). You'll see this pattern a lot, like with kylmä (cold) and kylmetä (to become cold).
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