Questions & Answers about Räätäli pidensi hametta.
How is the verb pidensi related to adjectives of dimension?
It comes from the verb pidentää (to lengthen), which is derived from the adjective pitkä (long). In Finnish, you can often create verbs meaning 'to make something more [adjective]' by taking the stem of a dimension adjective and adding the suffix -ntaa or -ntää.
Why does the verb pidentää turn into pidensi in the past tense?
For verbs ending in -ntaa or -ntää (which are often verbs derived from adjectives), the past tense marker -i- causes the -nt- combination to change into -ns-. So the third-person singular past tense of pidentää becomes pidensi.
Why is the skirt in the partitive case (hametta) instead of an accusative object?
Verbs that describe modifying or adjusting the dimensions of something, like pidentää (to lengthen) or lyhentää (to shorten), commonly take a partitive object. The action is thought of as affecting a partial extent of the item, rather than fully consuming it.
As a quick refresher, why is the partitive of hame formed as hametta?
hame belongs to the group of older Finnish words ending in -e. To form the partitive for these words, you add -tta or -ttä directly to the basic nominative form.
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