Questions & Answers about Odotin tunnin, kunnes liha oli kypsää.
Why is there a comma before kunnes?
In Finnish, kunnes (until) is a subordinate conjunction. It connects the subordinate clause (liha oli kypsää) to the main clause (Odotin tunnin). Finnish punctuation rules require a comma between a main clause and a subordinate clause.
Does kunnes change the word order in the clause that follows it?
No, it doesn't. Just like in English, the word order after kunnes stays standard. We have the subject (liha), the verb (oli), and then the describing adjective (kypsää).
Why is the word for "hour" written as tunnin here instead of the basic form tunti?
Tunnin is used to show the duration of an action, meaning "for an hour". When you do something for a specific, complete amount of time, the time word takes the genitive ending -n.
Why is kypsää in the partitive case rather than the nominative kypsä?
Liha (meat) is a mass noun, meaning it is an uncountable substance. When describing a mass noun with the verb olla (to be), the adjective describing it must be in the partitive case.