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Questions & Answers about Liput tarkistetaan yksittäin.
How does the word yksi become yksittäin?
It uses the distributive suffix -ittäin. When adding it to yksi (one), the final -i drops out, giving us the stem yks-. Adding the suffix creates yksittäin, meaning "one by one" or "individually".
Does the -ittäin suffix work with other numbers in the same way?
Yes! You can attach it to the stem of other numbers to mean "in groups of [number]". For example, from kaksi (two) you get kaksittain (in twos, or in pairs), and from kolme (three) you get kolmittain (in threes).
Since the tickets are the object of the action, why is liput in the basic nominative plural rather than the partitive?
In Finnish passive sentences, a complete or "total" object is put in the nominative case instead of the genitive. Because it is plural and all the tickets are being checked completely, liput takes the standard -t plural ending as a total object.