Breakdown of Sijainen ilmoitti minulle, että hän tekee työt tänään.
minä
I
hän
he / she
tänään
today
tehdä
to do
työ
work
että
that (conjunction)
ilmoittaa
to inform
sijainen
substitute
Questions & Answers about Sijainen ilmoitti minulle, että hän tekee työt tänään.
Why is tekee in the present tense when the English translation says 'was doing'?
This is because Finnish doesn't use the 'sequence of tenses' rule found in English. In English, a past tense reporting verb like 'informed' forces the following verb into the past ('was doing'). In Finnish, reported speech keeps the exact tense the speaker originally used. Since the substitute originally thought or said, 'I am doing the work today' (Teen työt tänään), the reported sentence keeps the present tense (tekee).
Why is työt ending in -t instead of being in the partitive case (töitä)?
Työt is a total object in the nominative plural. Using it here means she intends to finish the specific, known set of tasks assigned for today. If the sentence used the partitive töitä, it would mean she is just doing some work, or that the process of working is ongoing without a specific endpoint.
Why does 'informed me' translate to ilmoitti minulle rather than using a direct object like minua?
The verb ilmoittaa (to inform / to announce) requires the allative case (-lle) for the person receiving the information. In Finnish logic, you aren't doing the action to the person directly; rather, you are directing information 'to' or 'onto' them.
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