Breakdown of Epäilen, että sovellus urkkii tiedostojani.
että
that (conjunction)
tiedosto
file
epäillä
to doubt
sovellus
app
urkkia
to snoop
Questions & Answers about Epäilen, että sovellus urkkii tiedostojani.
Doesn't epäillä mean "to doubt"? How do we know it means "to suspect" here?
Epäillä can mean both "to suspect" and "to doubt" in Finnish. When followed by an affirmative että clause, it typically means "to suspect [that something is happening]". If you wanted to express doubt, you would usually make the subordinate clause negative: Epäilen, ettei sovellus urki... (I doubt that the app snoops...).
Could I replace the että clause with a participle structure here?
Yes, this is a perfect place for the referative structure (referatiivirakenne), which is very common in written Finnish and at the B2 level. You can say Epäilen sovelluksen urkkivan tiedostojani. The subject of the subclause changes to the genitive case (sovelluksen) and the verb takes the active present participle ending (-van).
Why is the word for "my files" in the partitive case (tiedostojani)?
The verb urkkia (to snoop, to spy on, to pry into) requires its object to be in the partitive case. It expresses an ongoing, continuous action directed at the files, rather than a completed action with a definitive end.
How is the word tiedostojani constructed?
The base word is tiedosto (file). To make it partitive plural, we add the plural -i- and the partitive -a. When the plural -i- sits between two vowels (the 'o' and the 'a'), it turns into a -j-, giving us tiedostoja. Finally, we attach the first-person possessive suffix -ni (my) to the very end.
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