Breakdown of Eikö hän pidättäydy ylellisyydestä?
hän
he / she
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
pidättäytyä
to abstain
ylellisyys
luxury
Questions & Answers about Eikö hän pidättäydy ylellisyydestä?
Why is the word for luxury in the elative case (ylellisyydestä) here?
It is due to the verb rection. Verbs of abstaining, refusing, or declining, like pidättäytyä (to abstain) and kieltäytyä (to refuse), require the thing you are abstaining from to take the elative case (-sta/-stä). You can think of it as mentally or physically withdrawing out of something.
What is the base verb of pidättäytyä, and how does the ending change its meaning?
It comes from the verb pidättää (to hold, keep, or arrest). The suffix -ytyä makes it a reflexive verb. So instead of holding something else back, you are holding yourself back, which translates to abstaining or refraining.
How does the stem of ylellisyys change before adding the elative ending?
The word ylellisyys (luxury) ends in -yys. Nouns with this ending change to -yyde- in their inflectional stem. That gives us the stem ylellisyyde-, to which we just attach the elative ending -stä to get ylellisyydestä.
Why does the verb pidättäydy have a 'd' instead of a 't' like in its infinitive form?
This is because of consonant gradation (t to d) in the present connegative form. The negative verb ei (inside eikö) forces the main verb into this form. We find it by taking the first-person form pidättäydyn and dropping the -n, leaving the weak stem pidättäydy.
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