Questions & Answers about Teetämme uuden pöydän.
How do we get the verb teettää from the basic verb tehdä?
The verb tehdä is slightly irregular. Instead of using the full -uttaa / -yttää suffix on the infinitive stem, it takes its strong vowel stem tee- (as seen in teen, I make) and adds the shorter curative suffix -ttää. This creates teettää, meaning to have something made. Then we conjugate it for 'we' by adding -mme to get teetämme.
Could I just say Teemme uuden pöydän if I am paying a carpenter to build it?
No, in Finnish you must use the curative verb teettää if someone else is doing the actual labor. Teemme strictly means you are physically building the table yourselves, while Teetämme implies you are commissioning or hiring someone else to do it.
Why is the object uuden pöydän rather than the partitive uutta pöytää?
Because the action is a complete, bounded process. You are having one entire, finished table made. When an action is meant to be completed and affects the whole object, Finnish uses the accusative case (which ends in -n and looks identical to the genitive for singular nouns) instead of the partitive.
How would I add who is actually making the table to this sentence?
You express the person doing the actual work (the agent) using the adessive case (-lla / -llä). For example, to say 'We are having a new table made by the carpenter,' you would say Teetämme uuden pöydän puusepällä.
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