Breakdown of Älkää juosko suin päin vaaraan!
juosta
to run
suu
mouth
vaara
the danger
älkää
do not (plural/formal)
Questions & Answers about Älkää juosko suin päin vaaraan!
How does the instructive case work in the phrase suin päin?
The phrase means "headlong" or "blindly". Suin is the instructive plural form of the noun suu (mouth). The instructive case (ending in -in) is mostly used in fixed expressions to describe how something is done. Together with päin (towards), the literal image is rushing into a situation "mouths first"!
I thought this lesson was about adjectives in the instructive case. Why is the noun suu used here?
You are right! While the lesson focuses on adjectives in fixed phrases (like paljain in paljain jaloin), nouns for body parts frequently use the instructive plural to create adverbial modifiers. In suin päin, the noun takes the -in ending to describe the manner of the action, behaving structurally just like those adjectival modifiers.
Why is the verb written as juosko instead of juokse?
This is the plural negative imperative. To tell multiple people not to do something, you use älkää plus the verb's imperative connegative form, which ends in -ko or -kö. For the type 3 verb juosta, the stem is juos-, giving us älkää juosko. If you were talking to just one person, it would be älä juokse.
Why do we use the illative case (vaaraan) for the abstract word "danger"?