Breakdown of Tämä on yksi ravintolan parhaista alkuruoista.
tämä
this
olla
to be
ravintola
restaurant
yksi
one
Questions & Answers about Tämä on yksi ravintolan parhaista alkuruoista.
Why are both parhaista and alkuruoista in the elative plural case (ending in -ista)?
When expressing "one of [a group]" in Finnish, you use the elative case (-sta/-stä), which literally translates to "out of". Because this sentence includes a superlative ("best"), both the adjective and the noun must match in the elative plural. So, yksi ... parhaista alkuruoista literally means "one out of the best starters".
What is the base word for parhaista, and why does it look so different?
The base word is hyvä (good), which has the highly irregular superlative form paras (best). When adding the plural marker -i- and the elative ending -sta, the stem of paras changes to parha-. This makes parhaista (out of the best).
Where did the "k" go when alkuruoka became alkuruoista?
The word ruoka (food) undergoes consonant gradation. When the plural and case endings are added, the syllable becomes closed, triggering the weak grade where the strong k disappears. The plural -i- and elative -sta are attached to the remaining vowels, resulting in ruoista.
Could I put ravintolan at the end of the sentence instead?