Breakdown of Epäluonnollinen salama on epätodellinen.
olla
to be
salama
flash / lightning
epäluonnollinen
unnatural
epätodellinen
unreal
Questions & Answers about Epäluonnollinen salama on epätodellinen.
How is the word epäluonnollinen built?
It uses the negative prefix epä- (meaning un-, non-, or in-) attached to the adjective luonnollinen (natural). That adjective originally comes from the noun luonto (nature).
What is the base word for epätodellinen?
The base adjective is todellinen (real or actual), which relates to the word tosi (true). Adding epä- directly reverses its meaning to unreal.
Does the prefix epä- change the vowel harmony of the word it attaches to?
No, it behaves like a compound word boundary. Even though epä- has the front vowel 'ä', the base word keeps its own vowel harmony. You can see this in epäluonnollinen, where the back vowels 'u' and 'o' remain unchanged.
Why is epätodellinen in the basic nominative case here instead of the partitive?
Because salama (a lightning bolt or flash) is considered a singular countable noun. When describing a singular countable subject with the verb olla (to be), the describing adjective stays in the nominative case. If the subject were an uncountable concept, the adjective would take the partitive.
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