Breakdown of Kirjoitan sanat muistilapulle, jotta minua ei hermostuta.
minä
I
sana
word
ei
no / not (negative verb)
kirjoittaa
to write
jotta
so that / in order to
hermostuttaa
to make nervous (to agitate)
muistilappu
flashcard
Questions & Answers about Kirjoitan sanat muistilapulle, jotta minua ei hermostuta.
Why is it minua (partitive) instead of minä (nominative) in the second clause?
This is the core of the subjectless emotion structure. With verbs describing feelings, like hermostuttaa (to make nervous), the person experiencing the feeling acts as the object of the emotion and is put in the partitive case (minua). The sentence literally translates closer to 'so that it does not make me nervous.'
Why is the negative verb ei instead of en, since 'I' am the one not feeling nervous?
Because minua is in the partitive case, it isn't the grammatical subject. In this emotion syntax, the verb is always treated as 3rd person singular (the 'se' form). To make it negative, you use the 3rd person negative ei plus the connegative form of the verb (hermostuta).
Why is the object sanat in the nominative plural (ending in -t) rather than the partitive?
Because you are writing a specific, complete set of words (a total object) and the action is intended to be completed. When a total object is plural, Finnish uses the nominative plural form. If you were just writing an undefined amount of words ('some words'), you would use the partitive sanoja.
Why does muistilapulle use the allative -lle (onto) ending instead of the adessive -lla (on)?
In Finnish, the action of writing implies movement or direction onto a surface. Therefore, you write onto a flashcard or piece of paper (muistilapulle), even though in English we simply say we write on it.
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