Breakdown of Jos talo on halpa, urakoitsija ei rakenna sitä hirrestä eikä tiilestä.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
talo
house
halpa
cheap
Questions & Answers about Jos talo on halpa, urakoitsija ei rakenna sitä hirrestä eikä tiilestä.
How does the 'neither... nor' structure work here with ei and eikä?
To say 'neither... nor' in Finnish, you use the negative verb twice. The first is a normal negative verb (ei), and the second adds the clitic -kä to become eikä (nor). Because the subject urakoitsija is third-person singular, both negative verbs match it: ei... eikä. If the subject were 'I', it would be en... enkä.
Why is the word for 'it' in the partitive case (sitä)?
In Finnish, when an action is negative, the object of that action must be in the partitive case. Because the contractor does not build (ei rakenna), the pronoun se (it) must take the partitive form sitä.
Why are the building materials in the elative case (hirrestä and tiilestä)?
When you talk about making or building something out of a material in Finnish, you use the elative case (-sta or -stä). Here, the elative indicates that the house is built 'out of log' (hirrestä) and 'out of brick' (tiilestä).
What is the dictionary form of hirrestä, and why does its stem change so much?