Breakdown of Mä tiiän, et ne ostaa kymmenenneksen tästä tehtaasta.
tämä
this
minä
I
he
they
tietää
to know
ostaa
to buy
tehdas
factory
että
that (conjunction)
kymmenennes
tenth (fraction)
Questions & Answers about Mä tiiän, et ne ostaa kymmenenneksen tästä tehtaasta.
How exactly is the fraction kymmenennes formed from the number ten?
First, take the ordinal number for ten, which is kymmenes (tenth). To turn an ordinal into a noun meaning a fraction, we add the suffix -nes. The stem of kymmenes is kymmenente-, and when the -nes suffix is applied, it yields the fraction kymmenennes.
Why is the fraction in the form kymmenenneksen rather than its basic form kymmenennes?
It acts as the direct object of the verb ostaa. Because they are buying the entire tenth (a complete, bounded action), the object takes the genitive-accusative case, ending in -n. The word kymmenennes ends in -s, and words ending in -es or -nes change that -s to -kse- before adding an ending, giving us kymmenenneksen.
Why do we use the elative case (tästä tehtaasta) to say "of this factory"?
In English we say a fraction "of" something, but in Finnish, when you are expressing a piece, fraction, or percentage out of a whole, you use the elative case (-sta or -stä). You can think of it literally as buying a tenth "out of" the factory.
The subject is ne (they), so why is the verb ostaa in the singular form instead of ostavat?
This sentence is written in spoken Finnish, as shown by Mä tiiän for Minä tiedän and et for että. In spoken Finnish, the pronoun ne replaces he, and verbs following ne always take the third-person singular form (ostaa) rather than the standard plural form (he ostavat).
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