Breakdown of Esineen kauneutta korostaa tämä katselukulma.
tämä
this
esine
object
kauneus
the beauty
katselukulma
the viewing angle
Questions & Answers about Esineen kauneutta korostaa tämä katselukulma.
Why is the object of the sentence (Esineen kauneutta) placed at the very beginning?
In Finnish, the beginning of the sentence is the theme (what we are already talking about), and the end is the rheme (the new or most important information). We are already discussing the object's beauty, and the new information being introduced is that tämä katselukulma (this viewing angle) is what emphasizes it.
The English translation uses the passive voice (is emphasized by), but the Finnish sentence uses the active verb korostaa. Why is that?
English relies heavily on the passive voice to move an object to the beginning of a sentence to change the focus. Because Finnish has flexible word order, it simply moves the object to the front and keeps the active voice. The Object-Verb-Subject order here does the exact same job as the English passive.
Why is the word for beauty, kauneutta, in the partitive case?
The verb korostaa (to emphasize) is a partitive verb. This means that the thing being emphasized must always be in the partitive case in Finnish, regardless of whether it is an abstract concept like beauty or a concrete physical object.
How is the compound word katselukulma formed?
It is made of two parts: katselu (viewing or watching, which is a noun derived from the verb katsella) and kulma (angle or corner). Put together, it perfectly translates to viewing angle.