Breakdown of Mä meen suin päin sisään ja sä tuut mun perässä.
minä
I
sinä
you
ja
and
mennä
to go
tulla
to come
sisään
in
suu
mouth
perässä
behind (following)
päin
towards (a direction)
Questions & Answers about Mä meen suin päin sisään ja sä tuut mun perässä.
How does suin päin mean "headlong" and what case is it in?
It is a fixed idiom using the instructive case, which expresses "by means of" and usually ends in -in. suin is the instructive plural of suu (mouth), and päin is the instructive plural of pää (head). Literally meaning "with mouths, with heads", it's used as an adverb phrase to describe doing something recklessly or headfirst.
I've seen päin used as "towards" in phrases like tänne päin. Is it the same word here?
Yes! Historically, päin is simply the instructive plural form of pää. Over time, it evolved into an adverb and postposition meaning "towards" (literally facing a certain direction). In the ancient idiom suin päin, it stands side-by-side with another body part in the same case to vividly describe a rushed action.
Why does perässä require the genitive form mun?
perässä is a postposition meaning "after" or "behind" (literally "in the rear" from the noun perä). In Finnish, most postpositions require the word they modify to be in the genitive case, so the colloquial pronoun mä (I) becomes mun.
Since it is mun perässä, shouldn't there be a possessive suffix like mun perässäni?
In standard written Finnish, yes: the formally correct phrase is minun perässäni. However, this sentence is heavily colloquial (mä meen, sä tuut). In spoken Finnish, the possessive suffix is almost always dropped, leaving just the genitive pronoun and the base postposition (mun perässä).
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