Breakdown of On vaikeaa erottaa aito taulu väärennöksestä.
olla
to be
vaikea
difficult / hard
taulu
painting
erottaa
to distinguish / tell apart
aito
genuine
väärennös
forgery
Questions & Answers about On vaikeaa erottaa aito taulu väärennöksestä.
Why is 'from a forgery' expressed with the elative case väärennöksestä?
The verb erottaa (to distinguish, to separate) requires the elative case (-sta/-stä) for the thing you are separating something from. This is a fixed verb rection, so even though English uses 'from', Finnish requires the 'out of' case here.
Why is the object aito taulu in the nominative case instead of the genitive aidon taulun?
This is a classic exception for object cases. When an infinitive (like erottaa) acts as the subject of the sentence in an 'It is [adjective] to [verb]' structure, its total object takes the nominative case. If the sentence had a personal subject, like 'I distinguish the painting', the object would take the genitive: Erotan aidon taulun.
Why is the adjective vaikea in the partitive case (vaikeaa)?
When a sentence describes an infinitive verb phrase (like erottaa aito taulu väärennöksestä), the describing adjective following on must be in the partitive. You are describing an abstract action, which requires a partitive predicative adjective.
What is the base form of väärennöksestä and how is the word formed?
The base noun is väärennös (a forgery). It is derived from the verb väärentää (to forge) using the suffix -ös. For nouns ending in -ös, the final -s changes to -kse- before adding case endings, resulting in the stem väärennökse- plus the elative ending -stä.
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