Breakdown of Yöllisenä eläimenä se nukkuu päivällä.
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
nukkua
to sleep
päivä
day
eläin
animal
yöllinen
nocturnal
Questions & Answers about Yöllisenä eläimenä se nukkuu päivällä.
Why do both yöllinen and eläin end in -nä here?
They form the phrase "as a nocturnal animal". The essive case ending -nä is used to express a role or state (often translating to "as a"). Because Finnish requires adjectives to agree with the noun they modify, both the adjective yöllinen and the noun eläin must take the essive ending.
Since this lesson covers the ablative of respect, how could we use it to say the animal is nocturnal "by its habits"?
You could use a word like tavoiltaan (by its habits) or luonteeltaan (by its nature). For example, you could expand the phrase to tavoiltaan yöllisenä eläimenä (as an animal nocturnal by its habits). The ablative ending -lta plus the possessive suffix -an tells us exactly in what respect the animal has this quality.
Why is päivällä in the adessive case instead of the inessive case (päivässä)?
Finnish commonly uses the adessive case for parts of the day to mean "during the [time]". So päivällä means "during the day" or "in the daytime", just as yöllä means "at night". If you used the inessive päivässä, it would instead mean "in one day" (for example, completing a task in the span of a day).
What is the function of the suffix in the base word yöllinen?
The base noun is yö (night). Adding the suffix -llinen turns the noun into an adjective that means "pertaining to" or "occurring during" that thing. Here it creates yöllinen, meaning "nocturnal". You will see this suffix often to build adjectives, which is then further inflected here with the essive case ending -nä.
Learn Yöllisenä eläimenä se nukkuu päivällä and more in Finnish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free