Breakdown of Suvaitsevainen opettaja ymmärtäisi tottelevaista lasta.
opettaja
teacher
ymmärtää
to understand
lapsi
child
suvaitsevainen
tolerant
tottelevainen
obedient
Questions & Answers about Suvaitsevainen opettaja ymmärtäisi tottelevaista lasta.
How exactly do we build the adjectives suvaitsevainen and tottelevainen from their verbs?
They are formed by taking the present tense stem of the verb and adding the tendency suffix -vainen. For suvaita (to tolerate), the stem is suvaitse-, making suvaitsevainen (tolerant). For totella (to obey), the stem is tottele-, making tottelevainen (obedient).
Why does tottelevainen change to tottelevaista in this sentence?
It must match the partitive case of the noun it modifies, lasta. When a word ends in -nen, the partitive singular is formed by replacing -nen with -sta or -stä. Therefore, the suffix -vainen always becomes -vaista or -väistä in the partitive singular.
Why are tottelevaista and lasta in the partitive case to begin with?
What gives ymmärtäisi the meaning of 'would understand'?
The -isi- marker indicates the conditional mood (would do something). It is added to the verb's strong vowel stem ymmärtä-. Because the subject is the third-person singular (opettaja), there is no extra personal ending added after the conditional marker.
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