Breakdown of Hermostuttaako sinua seisoa puhujakorokkeella?
sinä
you
seisoa
to stand
hermostuttaa
to make nervous (to agitate)
puhujakoroke
podium
Questions & Answers about Hermostuttaako sinua seisoa puhujakorokkeella?
Why is the verb hermostuttaako in the third-person singular instead of matching "you"?
This sentence uses a "subjectless emotion" structure. In Finnish, verbs that describe a feeling often take the third-person singular form because the person experiencing the emotion is not the grammatical subject. Literally, the sentence is asking "Does it make you nervous..."
Why is "you" in the partitive case (sinua) here?
With these types of emotion verbs, the person feeling the emotion is actually the object of the sentence. In Finnish, when an emotion or feeling is inflicted on someone, that person (the "experiencer") is always put in the partitive case.
Wait, doesn't hermostua also mean "to get nervous"? Why use hermostuttaa?
Yes! Hermostua means "to get nervous" as an internal process (where the person is the subject: sinä hermostut). However, hermostuttaa is a causative verb meaning "to make someone nervous." Because standing on the podium is actively causing the feeling, we use the causative verb hermostuttaa.
What is the grammatical role of the infinitive seisoa (to stand) in this sentence?
It acts as the cause or trigger of the emotion. While we often call this a "subjectless" emotion sentence, you can think of the action of standing (seisoa) as the conceptual subject doing the action of making you nervous.
What are the parts of the compound word puhujakorokkeella?
It is made of puhuja (speaker) and koroke (podium, raised platform), plus the adessive case ending -lla (on/at). Notice how koroke, a word ending in -e, adds an extra -e to form the stem korokkee- before taking the case ending.
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