Breakdown of Tehtävän tekevät opiskelijat pareittain.
opiskelija
student
tehdä
to do
tehtävä
task
pareittain
in pairs
Questions & Answers about Tehtävän tekevät opiskelijat pareittain.
How does the suffix -ittain work in the word pareittain?
The distributive suffix -ittain (or -ittäin) is used to express doing something "by" or "in groups of". Here, the base word is pari (pair), so adding the suffix creates the adverb pareittain, meaning "in pairs" or "by pairs".
How do we get from the base word pari to the stem parei- before adding the suffix?
The -ittain suffix is always attached to the plural stem of a noun. For words ending in -i like pari, the final -i changes to an -e- before the plural marker -i- is added. This gives us the plural stem parei-, to which we add -ttain.
Why does the sentence start with the object Tehtävän rather than the subject opiskelijat?
Finnish word order is highly flexible and is used to shift emphasis. Starting with Tehtävän (The task) makes it the topic, likely because the task was just mentioned in a previous sentence. Moving the subject opiskelijat to the end of the clause puts focus on exactly who is doing the task.
Why is Tehtävän in the genitive-accusative (ending in -n) rather than the partitive?
Using the genitive-accusative ending makes it a total object, which implies that the students will complete the entire task. If it were in the partitive form (Tehtävää), it would imply that the action is ongoing and unfinished, or that they are only doing a part of the task.
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