Breakdown of Räätäli osti kankaan tammikuussa.
ostaa
to buy
tammikuu
January
kangas
fabric
räätäli
the tailor
Questions & Answers about Räätäli osti kankaan tammikuussa.
Why is the object kankaan instead of the partitive kangasta?
Kankaan is in the genitive-accusative case, which shows that the action was completed and a whole, specific piece of fabric was bought. If the tailor bought an unspecified amount of fabric, you would use the partitive kangasta.
How does the basic word kangas change into kankaan?
Two things happen. First, words ending in -as form their stem by changing to -aa-. Second, consonant gradation applies in reverse for this word type: the dictionary form has the weak grade (ng), while the stem takes the strong grade (nk). So, kangas becomes the stem kankaa-, to which we add the -n ending.
Why is the ending -ssa used for tammikuussa?
The inessive case (-ssa or -ssä, meaning 'in') is the standard way to express 'in a specific month' in Finnish. The word tammikuu (January) simply takes the -ssa ending to mean 'in January'.
Does the fact that kankaan is a total object tell us anything about the English translation?
Yes! Because it is a total object rather than partitive, it implies a specific, whole unit like 'the fabric' rather than 'some fabric'. Finnish does not have a word for 'the', so using the total object case is a common way to show definiteness.
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