Questions & Answers about Kenenköhän romua tämä on?
How does the ending -köhän change the meaning of kenen in this sentence?
Kenen simply means "whose". Adding the fused clitic -köhän adds a sense of pondering or talking to oneself. Together, kenenköhän translates to "I wonder whose". It uses -köhän instead of -kohan to match the front vowels (e) in kenen.
Why does the clitic attach to kenen instead of the verb on?
Question clitics like -ko/-kö and -kohan/-köhän attach to the word that is the main focus of the question. Because the speaker is specifically wondering about the owner ("whose"), the clitic attaches directly to kenen.
Why is romua (junk) in the partitive case here?
Romu is being used as an uncountable mass noun describing what "this" is. In Finnish sentences of the type "A is B", if B is an uncountable material or mass (like junk, coffee, or water), it must be in the partitive case. Therefore, we use romua instead of the nominative romu.
Isn't kuka the word for "who"? Where does kenen come from?
Yes, kuka is the base form meaning "who". Kenen is its genitive form, meaning "whose". The word kuka is highly irregular, so its stem changes to kene- before adding the genitive -n ending.
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