Word
Yritän estää hyökkääjää kaatamasta minua.
Meaning
I try to prevent the attacker from knocking me down.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Yritän estää hyökkääjää kaatamasta minua.
minä
I
yrittää
to try
estää
to prevent
hyökkääjä
the attacker
Questions & Answers about Yritän estää hyökkääjää kaatamasta minua.
Why is the verb to knock down in the form kaatamasta instead of a basic infinitive?
The verb estää (to prevent) requires the action being prevented to be in the third infinitive elative form, which ends in -masta or -mästä. It translates roughly to "from knocking down." This makes it similar to phase verbs of stopping like lakata, which also use this ending, contrasting with the -maan ending used for verbs of starting.
Why is hyökkääjää (the attacker) in the partitive case?
When you prevent someone from doing something using estää, the person or thing you are stopping acts as the object of that prevention and requires the partitive case. Therefore, hyökkääjä becomes hyökkääjää.
Since the lesson is about phase verbs, why doesn't estää have a special ending after yritän?
While many phase verbs require a third infinitive ending, the verb yrittää (to try) is not one of them. It always takes the basic first infinitive. That is why we say yritän estää without any extra suffixes on estää.
Why is minua in the partitive case here instead of the accusative minut?
Because the action of knocking down is being prevented, it never actually happens or reaches a completed result. In Finnish, objects of incomplete, negated, or prevented actions take the partitive case, which is why we use minua.