Breakdown of Koulun säännöt kieltävät lapsia kiusaamasta toisiaan.
koulu
school
lapsi
child
sääntö
rule
kieltää
to forbid
toisiaan
each other (also toisiamme, toisianne)
kiusata
to bully
Questions & Answers about Koulun säännöt kieltävät lapsia kiusaamasta toisiaan.
Why is the verb for bullying written as kiusaamasta instead of the basic form kiusata?
This is the main point of this lesson! Verbs of prevention, like kieltää (to forbid), require the following action to be in the 3rd infinitive elative form. This is the -ma/-mä form with the -sta/-stä ending attached. You can think of it as forbidding the children "out of" bullying.
How do we build kiusaamasta from the basic verb kiusata?
Kiusata is a verb type 4. To make the 3rd infinitive (-ma/-mä) form, you use the strong stem. An easy trick is to look at the third-person plural "he" (they) form: he kiusaavat. Drop the -vat ending, and add -masta to get kiusaamasta.
Why is lapsia (children) in the partitive case here?
When using kieltää to forbid someone from doing an action, the person being forbidden acts as a partial object and is put into the partitive case. Here, the rules forbid lapsia (the children).
How does the word toisiaan translate to "each other"?
In Finnish, "each other" is expressed using the word toinen (other). Here it is in the plural partitive form (toisia), followed by a third-person possessive suffix (-an), creating toisiaan. The suffix matches the third-person subject doing the action (the children).
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