Breakdown of Me ajattelimme, että työvoima pystytti monumentin.
me
we
ajatella
to think
että
that (conjunction)
monumentti
the monument (large structure)
Questions & Answers about Me ajattelimme, että työvoima pystytti monumentin.
This lesson is about the potential mood passive perfect. How would we change the subordinate clause to mean the monument was probably erected?
You would say monumentti lienee pystytetty. The object monumentin becomes the nominative subject monumentti, and we use lienee alongside the passive past participle pystytetty. In Finnish passives, the agent is usually left out, so we drop the word työvoima.
What is the infinitive of pystytti, and does it relate to pystyä (to be able to)?
The infinitive is pystyttää (to erect, to set up). Both verbs trace back to the root word pysty (upright). While pystyä figuratively means being up to a task, pystyttää is a causative verb meaning to physically make something stand upright.
Why is the object monumentin in the genitive-like accusative case rather than the partitive?
The verb pystyttää here describes a completed action resulting in a finished product. For a completed, whole result, we use the total object form ending in -n. If the workforce were still in the middle of erecting it, you would use the partitive monumenttia.
How would we rewrite this sentence using the participial construction (referenssirakenne) instead of an että clause?