Breakdown of Taivaalla lentää lintuja sadoittain.
lentää
to fly
lintu
bird
taivas
sky
sadoittain
by the hundreds
Questions & Answers about Taivaalla lentää lintuja sadoittain.
How does the word sadoittain get its meaning of "by the hundreds"?
It uses the distributive suffix -ittain, which is the focus of this lesson. We start with the root word sata (hundred). First, we form the plural stem sadoi- (which undergoes consonant gradation from 't' to 'd' and adds the plural 'i'). Then, we attach the suffix -ttain. Together, this creates an adverb meaning "in hundreds" or "by the hundreds".
Why is the verb lentää in the singular form when the subject "birds" is plural?
This is an existential sentence, which states that something exists in a specific place. In Finnish, these usually follow a Location + Verb + Subject word order. A key rule is that when the subject is an undefined amount in the partitive plural (like lintuja), the verb is always in the third-person singular (lentää) instead of the plural form.
Why do we use the adessive case taivaalla for "in the sky"?
Could we use the nominative plural linnut instead of the partitive plural lintuja here?