Breakdown of Ikkuna ei ollut suorakulmio, vaan neliö.
olla
to be
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
ikkuna
window
vaan
but rather (after a negative)
Questions & Answers about Ikkuna ei ollut suorakulmio, vaan neliö.
Shouldn't a negative sentence use the partitive case? Why is it suorakulmio and not suorakulmiota?
It is true that negative verbs usually force the object of an action into the partitive case. However, here we are dealing with a subject complement (a word describing what the subject is), not an object. For singular, countable nouns like suorakulmio (rectangle) and neliö (square), the word stays in the nominative (basic) case even in negative sentences.
Why does this sentence use vaan for "but" instead of mutta?
You use vaan when you are directly contradicting or correcting a negative statement. Since the first part of the sentence says what the window was not (ei ollut), we use vaan to introduce what it actually was instead. If the first part of the sentence were a positive statement, you would use mutta.
How is the word suorakulmio built?
It is a compound word built from suora (straight, or right as in a right angle) and kulma (angle or corner). The -io ending is a common suffix used to create nouns, especially in mathematics and science. Put together, it literally means "right-angle-shape".
Is neliö related to the number four (neljä)?