Breakdown of Etsin suurta kiinteistöä tästä kaupungista.
tämä
this
kaupunki
city
etsiä
to look for
suuri
large, great
kiinteistö
property
Questions & Answers about Etsin suurta kiinteistöä tästä kaupungista.
Why does the sentence use tästä kaupungista (out of this city) instead of the inessive case for "in this city"?
This is the core of this lesson's anomaly! In Finnish, the verb etsiä (to search) requires a mistä (from where) case, such as the elative (-sta/-stä). While an English speaker searches in a location, Finnish logically frames searching as trying to locate and extract something out of a place.
Why is the object "large property" in the partitive case (suurta kiinteistöä)?
The verb etsiä is a classic partitive verb. Because searching is an ongoing, incomplete process (you haven't actually found the property yet), the object you are looking for must be in the partitive case. Notice that both the adjective (suurta) and the noun (kiinteistöä) take the partitive ending.
Why is the word for "this" written as tästä here?
In Finnish, demonstrative pronouns like tämä (this) must agree with the case of the noun they modify. Since kaupunki is in the elative case (kaupungista), tämä must also take its elative form, which is tästä.
Why does kaupunki change to kaupungi- before adding the -sta ending?
This is due to consonant gradation. The base word is kaupunki. Adding a closed-syllable ending like -sta weakens the consonant cluster right before it. As a result, the strong nk softens into the weak ng, giving us kaupungista.
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