Breakdown of Näiden kriteerien nojalla lautakunta teki päätöksen.
tämä
this
tehdä
to do
päätös
decision
kriteeri
the criterion
Questions & Answers about Näiden kriteerien nojalla lautakunta teki päätöksen.
How does the postposition nojalla function in this sentence?
Nojalla means "on the basis of" or "by virtue of". Like most postpositions, it requires its modifier to be in the genitive case. This is why the preceding phrase, näiden kriteerien (these criteria), is in the genitive plural.
Is nojalla related to the verb nojata (to lean)?
Yes! It is technically the adessive case of the noun noja (support, rest). Figuratively, the board is making the decision by "leaning on" these criteria. Using physical metaphors for abstract postpositions is very common in Finnish.
I sometimes see the genitive plural for this word written as kriteereiden. Is kriteerien also correct?
Yes, both are perfectly correct. For many loanwords ending in -i (like kriteeri), there are multiple valid genitive plural endings. Kriteerien is simply shorter and highly common, but kriteereiden or kriteereitten would work equally well here.
Why is the object päätöksen in the genitive-looking accusative form rather than the partitive?
Päätöksen is a total object. Because the board successfully completed the action of making a specific, whole decision, and the sentence has a clear grammatical subject (lautakunta), the object takes the -n accusative ending instead of the partitive case.