Breakdown of Hän nauttii tiskikoneen täyttämisestä ja äänikirjojen kuuntelemisesta.
hän
he / she
ja
and
kuunnella
to listen to
täyttää
to fill in
nauttia
to enjoy
äänikirja
audiobook
tiskikone
dishwasher
Questions & Answers about Hän nauttii tiskikoneen täyttämisestä ja äänikirjojen kuuntelemisesta.
Why do the action verbs end in -misestä in this sentence?
The verb nauttia (to enjoy) requires the thing being enjoyed to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). To express enjoying doing an action, you must first turn the action verb into a noun using the fourth infinitive (-minen). Then, you put that verbal noun into the elative case. So, täyttää becomes täyttäminen, which then becomes täyttämisestä.
Why are the objects tiskikoneen and äänikirjojen in the genitive case instead of the partitive or accusative?
When a noun is the direct object of a fourth infinitive (-minen word), it takes the genitive case, acting grammatically like a possessor. You can think of it literally as him enjoying 'the dishwasher's filling' and 'audiobooks' listening.'
But doesn't the verb kuunnella normally require a partitive object?
Yes, as a standard conjugated verb, kuunnella takes the partitive (for example, hän kuuntelee äänikirjoja). However, when the verb is transformed into a -minen noun, this rule is overridden. The object switches to the genitive case regardless of what case the original verb usually governs. That is why the partitive plural äänikirjoja becomes the genitive plural äänikirjojen here.
Could I change the word order to put the objects after the action verbs?
No, because the objects are in the genitive case and function grammatically as possessors of the -minen nouns. Just as a possessor must come before the thing it possesses in Finnish, tiskikoneen must come immediately before täyttämisestä, and äänikirjojen must come immediately before kuuntelemisesta.
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