Questions & Answers about Kymmenen muurahaista kantaa ruokaa.
Why is the verb kantaa in the singular (he/she carries) if there are ten ants doing the carrying?
This is the main rule for quantified subjects in Finnish! When the subject of a sentence is a number greater than one followed by a noun, the verb must be in the third-person singular. You essentially say "Ten of ant carries", not "carry".
Since there are ten ants, why is muurahaista in the partitive singular instead of a plural form?
In Finnish, basic numbers greater than one act like a quantity measurement. Whenever a number is in the basic nominative form (like kymmenen), the noun that follows it must be in the partitive singular. Think of it literally as "ten parts of an ant".
How do we get from the basic dictionary word for ant to muurahaista?
The basic form of ant is muurahainen. For Finnish words ending in -nen, the stem changes to -s- before adding most endings. So, muurahainen becomes the stem muurahais-, and then we add the partitive ending -ta to get muurahaista.
Why is the object ruokaa (food) in the partitive case here?
Ruoka is an uncountable mass noun. When the object of an action is an indefinite amount of an uncountable noun, it takes the partitive case. The ants are carrying some food, not one specific whole, countable item.