Breakdown of Ajoimme uusiin kaupunkeihin, kunnes kadut hiljentyivät.
uusi
new
kaupunki
city
katu
street
ajaa
to drive
kunnes
until
hiljentyä
to quiet down
Questions & Answers about Ajoimme uusiin kaupunkeihin, kunnes kadut hiljentyivät.
How does kunnes affect the structure of the clause following it?
Kunnes is a subordinating conjunction, meaning it introduces a subordinate (dependent) clause. Unlike in some other languages, Finnish doesn't drastically change the word order here. The clause still follows the normal Subject-Verb pattern: kadut (subject) comes right before hiljentyivät (verb). Just remember that Finnish grammar requires a comma right before kunnes.
Why are the illative endings different in uusiin and kaupunkeihin?
Both words are in the illative plural ("into" or "to" multiple things), but they take different endings based on their word stems. The plural stem for kaupunki is kaupunkei-; since it ends in two different vowels, it takes the -hin suffix. The plural stem for uusi is uusi-, which takes the simpler -in suffix.
Why doesn't uusiin have a 't' in it, like uuteen does?
The word uusi (new) is tricky because its stem changes depending on whether it is singular or plural. The singular illative is uuteen (to a new...), but the plural illative stem uses an 's', making it uusiin (to new...). Since they drove to multiple cities, the plural is required here to match kaupunkeihin.
What kind of verb is hiljentyivät?
It comes from the verb hiljentyä, meaning "to quiet down" or "to become quiet." It is derived from the adjective hiljainen (quiet). Finnish frequently uses the ending -ntua or -ntyä to create verbs that mean "to turn into" or "to become" a certain state. Here, it is in the past tense (-i-) and plural (-vät) to match the plural subject kadut.
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