Breakdown of Sitä mukaa kun pohjavesi nousee, halkeamat laajenevat.
nousta
to get up / to rise, to go up
sitä mukaa kun
as / in proportion as (at the same rate)
halkeama
crack / fissure
laajeta
to expand
pohjavesi
groundwater
Questions & Answers about Sitä mukaa kun pohjavesi nousee, halkeamat laajenevat.
Could I just use kun instead of sitä mukaa kun in this sentence?
You could, but it would lose the nuance of proportional progression. While kun simply means "when" or "as", the phrase sitä mukaa kun emphasizes that the two actions happen at the exact same rate—the cracks expand in proportion to how much the groundwater rises.
The word mukaa looks related to the postposition mukaan (according to / along with). Are they connected?
Yes! They both come from an old noun root muka-. While mukaan is the illative case (into), mukaa is the partitive case. The fixed phrase sitä mukaa kun translates literally to something like "along that measure when."
laajenevat looks like it's related to the adjective laaja (wide). How is this verb formed?
It is formed from laaja. It comes from the Type 6 verb laajeta (to widen or expand). Verbs ending in -eta/-etä are often "change of state" verbs built from adjectives (like kylmä -> kylmetä, to get cold). The stem becomes laajene- before the plural ending -vat.
What is the root of the noun halkeamat (the cracks)?
It's the nominative plural of halkeama (a crack, fissure, or split). This is formed by taking the verb haljeta (to split or crack open) and adding the -ma/-mä suffix, which creates a noun representing the physical result of the verb's action.
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