Breakdown of Paljastiko hän oikeasti skandaalin?
hän
he / she
skandaali
the scandal
paljastaa
to reveal
oikeasti
really, for real (not pretend)
Questions & Answers about Paljastiko hän oikeasti skandaalin?
Since the current lesson is about the emphatic clitic -pa/-pä, can we add it to "paljastiko"?
Yes! You can stack clitics in Finnish. If you add -pa to the end of the verb, it becomes Paljastikopa hän oikeasti skandaalin? This adds a tone of surprise or strong disbelief, translating roughly to "Did he actually reveal the scandal?!" Note that the question clitic -ko must come before -pa.
The dictionary form of the verb is "paljastaa". Why does it change to "paljasti" before adding the -ko clitic?
The verb is in the simple past tense. When adding the past tense marker -i to verbs ending in -aa or -ää (like paljastaa), the final vowel is dropped. So paljastaa becomes paljasti, and then the question clitic -ko is attached to form paljastiko.
Why does "skandaalin" end in an -n here?
This is the genitive-accusative case, which is used for a total object. Because the action of revealing the scandal was completed, the object takes this -n ending. If the sentence were negative, meaning the action wasn't completed, it would require the partitive case: Hän ei paljastanut skandaalia.
How is the word "oikeasti" formed, and is it related to "oikein"?
They both come from the adjective oikea (right, real, correct). By adding the regular adverb suffix -sti, you get oikeasti, which specifically means "really" or "for real". Meanwhile, oikein is an irregular adverb form that usually translates to "correctly" or "right" (like answering a question right).