Breakdown of Näimme langenneet ja tuomitut metsässä.
ja
and
metsä
forest
nähdä
to see
tuomita
to condemn
langeta
to fall (abstract, to succumb, into a trap)
Questions & Answers about Näimme langenneet ja tuomitut metsässä.
How are langenneet and tuomitut acting as nouns here?
They are "substantivized" participles, which means they are being used directly as nouns rather than as adjectives describing something else. Instead of saying langenneet ihmiset (the fallen people), we can drop the noun and just say langenneet (the fallen ones / those who have fallen). The same applies to tuomitut (the condemned ones).
What is the grammatical difference between langenneet and tuomitut?
Langenneet is a past active participle (the NUT-participle), meaning these people did the action themselves—they fell. Tuomitut is a past passive participle (the TU-participle), meaning the action was done to them by someone else—they were condemned.
Why does the participle for langeta (to fall) look like langenneet?
Langeta is a Type 6 verb (like paeta or vaieta). To form the past active participle for this verb type, you remove the -ta ending and add -nnut or -nnyt, resulting in langennut for the singular. Because this sentence is about a plural group, the plural ending makes it langenneet.
If they are the object of näimme, why aren't they in the partitive or the accusative -n case?
They are in the accusative case! In Finnish, the plural accusative case looks exactly like the plural nominative (ending in a basic -t). We don't use the partitive here because seeing them was a complete, finished action—we saw the entire specific group. If it had been just one fallen person, it would have taken the singular accusative -n ending: Näimme langenneen.
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