Breakdown of Millä kasvinsyöjällä on pisin kaula?
olla
to be
mikä
what
pitkä
long, tall
kasvinsyöjä
herbivore
Questions & Answers about Millä kasvinsyöjällä on pisin kaula?
Why is the word for "longest" pisin? What is the base adjective?
The base adjective is pitkä (long). This is an irregular adjective where the stem changes quite a bit in the comparative and superlative forms. For the superlative, the -tkä is dropped and replaced, making it pisin.
Why do the first two words have the -llä ending in Millä kasvinsyöjällä?
This is a refresher on the Finnish "to have" structure. Finnish doesn't use a verb for "have". Instead, the owner takes the adessive case ending (-lla or -llä) and is followed by on (is). It literally translates to "On which herbivore is...".
How is the compound word kasvinsyöjä built?
It combines kasvin (the genitive or "possessive" form of kasvi, meaning plant) and syöjä (eater, from the verb syödä). So it literally translates to "plant's eater".
Why is kaula (neck) in the basic nominative form instead of the partitive case?
In a "have" construction, the thing that is owned acts as the grammatical subject. Because a neck is a single, countable whole, it stays in the basic nominative form kaula. If it were an uncountable mass noun, like water or food, it would need the partitive case.