Breakdown of Tämä taitaa olla alkuperäinen, mutta se riippuu asiantuntijasta.
tämä
this
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
mutta
but
Questions & Answers about Tämä taitaa olla alkuperäinen, mutta se riippuu asiantuntijasta.
Why is asiantuntijasta in the elative case (-sta) instead of matching the English "on the expert"?
This is because of verb rection. The verb riippua (to depend) strictly requires the noun attached to it to be in the elative case (-sta or -stä), which literally translates more like "to hang out of". You cannot translate the English preposition "on" directly into a case like the adessive (-lla) here.
What is the verb taitaa doing here? Couldn't we just say Tämä on luultavasti alkuperäinen?
You absolutely could, but taitaa is a very common and natural modal verb used to express "to probably be" or "to seem to". It conveys an assumption or a strong probability. Remember that taitaa requires the following verb to be in its basic dictionary form (the first infinitive), which is why we use the combination taitaa olla (is probably / seems to be).
How exactly is the word asiantuntija formed?
It is a highly literal compound word. It combines asia (matter, thing, issue) in its genitive form asian with tuntija (knower, familiar person). The word tuntija comes from the verb tuntea (to know/feel). Therefore, an expert is quite literally a "knower of the matter".
Why does the sentence switch from Tämä (this) in the first half to se (that/it) in the second half?