Breakdown of Rasia, jossa on hometta, ei ole ilmatiivis.
olla
to be
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
ilmatiivis
airtight
rasia
the container
home
the mold
Questions & Answers about Rasia, jossa on hometta, ei ole ilmatiivis.
Why is hometta in the partitive case instead of the nominative home?
It acts as the subject in an existential clause (jossa on hometta - "in which there is mold"). Since mold is an uncountable mass noun, the subject of an existential clause takes the partitive case to show there is an unspecified amount of it.
Can I translate jossa as "where" instead of "in which"?
Yes, in conversational English "the container where there is mold" is perfectly fine. Grammatically, jossa is the inessive (in/inside) form of the relative pronoun joka (which), directly linking back to the noun rasia.
Could the word order in the relative clause be swapped to jossa hometta on?
Not naturally. jossa on hometta follows the classic Finnish existential sentence pattern: Location (jossa) + Verb (on) + Subject (hometta). Reversing it sounds like you are placing heavy contrastive emphasis on the mold.
What are the root words that make up ilmatiivis?
It is a compound of ilma (air) and tiivis (dense, tight, compact). You will see tiivis used in other useful everyday compounds, such as vesitiivis (watertight or waterproof).
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