Breakdown of Me tutkimme aikaa, jolloin esivanhemmat asettuivat maahan.
me
we
aika
time (concept, duration)
maa
country
tutkia
to explore / to investigate / examine
jolloin
when / at which time (relative)
esivanhempi
ancestor
asettua
to settle
Questions & Answers about Me tutkimme aikaa, jolloin esivanhemmat asettuivat maahan.
Why do we use jolloin here instead of kun for 'when'?
While kun is a conjunction used to connect events (like 'when I was sleeping'), jolloin is a relative word that refers back to a specific time noun in the previous clause. Here, it refers directly back to aikaa (the time), essentially meaning 'at which time'.
Why is the object aikaa in the partitive case?
The verb tutkia (to research, study, or investigate) typically requires its object to be in the partitive case because researching is viewed as an ongoing or open-ended process. Therefore, the noun aika (time) takes the partitive ending -a to become aikaa.
If they settled 'in' the country, why is it maahan (into the country) instead of maassa (in the country)?
In Finnish, verbs expressing arriving, stopping, or settling (like asettua) take a directional case ('into' or 'onto') rather than a static location case. The logic is that the ancestors moved into the country in order to settle there, so we use the illative case maahan.
What is the singular form of esivanhemmat?
The singular is esivanhempi (ancestor), which is a compound of the prefix esi- (fore-, pre-) and vanhempi (parent). For words ending in -mpi, the stem changes before adding most endings. Here, the stem becomes esivanhemma- and we add the standard plural -t to get esivanhemmat.
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