Breakdown of Tehdas tuottaa autoja sadoittain.
auto
car
tehdas
factory
tuottaa
to produce
sadoittain
by the hundreds
Questions & Answers about Tehdas tuottaa autoja sadoittain.
How is the word sadoittain formed from the number for a hundred?
The base word is sata. To add the distributive suffix -ittain, you use the plural stem of the word. The plural stem of sata is sadoi- because the consonant t weakens to d, and the plural marker i changes the final a to o. Adding -ttain gives us sadoittain, meaning 'by the hundreds'.
Could I just say 'satoja' instead of 'sadoittain' here?
You could say Tehdas tuottaa satoja autoja ('The factory produces hundreds of cars'), which is grammatically correct and very similar in meaning. However, sadoittain acts as an adverb describing exactly how the cars are produced ('by the hundreds' or 'in hundreds'). This places a much stronger emphasis on the continuous, massive rate of production.
Why does this word use the suffix -ittain instead of -ittäin?
This is a classic case of vowel harmony. The stem sadoi- contains the back vowel o (and the root word sata has a). Because of these back vowels, you must use the back-vowel version of the suffix, -ittain. If the root only contained front vowels (like ä or ö) or neutral vowels (i, e), you would use -ittäin, as in päivittäin (daily).
Why is 'autoja' in the partitive case here?
Autoja is the object of the sentence. It takes the partitive plural because the factory is producing an indefinite, open-ended amount of cars. If the sentence was talking about finishing a specific, pre-defined batch of cars, the object would be in the nominative plural instead.
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