Breakdown of Apurahan kriteerit ovat yhä tiukemmat.
olla
to be
tiukka
strict / tight
yhä
still, yet (continuing)
apuraha
the grant / the scholarship
kriteeri
the criterion
Questions & Answers about Apurahan kriteerit ovat yhä tiukemmat.
The English translation says "criteria for the grant". Why does Finnish use the genitive apurahan here instead of a postposition?
Finnish often uses the genitive case to link nouns where English would use prepositions like "for" or "of". Apurahan kriteerit literally translates to "the grant's criteria", which is the most natural and concise way to express this relationship in Finnish.
Why does yhä translate to "increasingly" here instead of its usual meaning of "still"?
When the adverb yhä is placed immediately before a comparative adjective (like tiukemmat), the combination means "increasingly [adjective]" or "more and more [adjective]". Therefore, yhä tiukemmat means "increasingly strict" or "stricter and stricter".
How is the plural comparative tiukemmat formed from the base adjective tiukka (strict)?
First, tiukka undergoes consonant gradation to its weak grade (the double kk becomes a single k) to form the comparative stem tiuke-. The basic comparative suffix is -mpi (making the singular tiukempi), but because it must agree with the plural noun kriteerit, it takes the nominative plural comparative ending -mmat.
Is kriteerit the exact equivalent of the English word "criteria"?
Yes, but with simpler grammar! While English borrows the tricky Greek singular/plural distinction (criterion/criteria), Finnish treats the word as a completely regular noun. The singular is kriteeri, and you simply add the standard plural -t marker to get kriteerit.
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