Learn Finnish: Emme istu rinnakkain emmekä vastakkain. - We sit neither side by side nor opposite each other.

The suffix -kkain (or -kkäin) creates adverbs that describe a mutual arrangement or position between two or more things. Rinnakkain comes from rinta (chest), so it historically implies being aligned chest-to-chest, but in modern Finnish it means "side by side". Vastakkain comes from the root vasta- (against or opposite), resulting in the meaning "opposite each other" or "face to face".

Why does the root word rinta change to rinna- in rinnakkain?

Adding the -kkain suffix triggers consonant gradation, just like adding many case endings does. The strong nt in rinta weakens to nn because the suffix closes the syllable, giving us the stem rinna-. Then the suffix is added to make rinnakkain.

How do we get the "neither... nor" meaning from emme... emmekä?

Finnish doesn't have distinct standalone words for "neither" and "nor". Instead, it repeats the negative verb and attaches the clitic -kä (which translates to "and") to the second one. Here, emme means "we don't", and emmekä means "and we don't" or "nor do we". The paired structure ei... eikä... (conjugated here as emme... emmekä) translates smoothly to "neither... nor" in English.

Why isn't the verb istu repeated after emmekä?