Oudon näköisellä epäillyllä oli väärennetty passi.
The strange-looking suspect had a forged passport.
Breakdown of Oudon näköisellä epäillyllä oli väärennetty passi.
olla
to be
passi
passport
outo
strange
epäilty
suspect
näköinen
-looking / looking like
väärennetty
forged / fake
Questions & Answers about Oudon näköisellä epäillyllä oli väärennetty passi.
Why does the adjective take the adessive case ending in näköisellä instead of just being näköinen?
It has to match the case of the noun it describes, which is epäillyllä (the suspect). Because the sentence uses the Finnish 'to have' construction (adessive + oli), the suspect is in the adessive case. Notice that the first part of the compound, oudon, stays locked in the genitive case and does not get the -llä ending!
Why are oudon and näköisellä written as two separate words here? I thought these were compound adjectives.
When using words like -näköinen, -kokoinen, or -ikäinen, the rule of thumb is that if the first word is a descriptive adjective (like oudon) or a noun, they are written separately. They are written together as one word mostly when the first part is a short pronoun, like in samanikäinen (of the same age) or minkäkokoinen (of what size).
The word epäillyllä means 'suspect', but what is its base form and why does it have a double L?
The base form is epäilty, which comes from the verb epäillä (to suspect) and acts as a noun here. When you add the adessive ending -llä, consonant gradation kicks in. The consonant pair 'lt' changes to the weaker grade 'll', giving us epäillyllä.
Is väärennetty a verb or an adjective in this sentence?
It acts as an adjective here, but it is actually the passive past participle of the verb väärentää (to forge). Just like in English, Finnish frequently uses these participles (ending in -ttu or -tty) as regular adjectives to describe a noun, in this case the passport (passi).
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