Breakdown of Kartoitamme kaiken lukuun ottamatta tuota tonttia, joka on sadan metrin päässä.
olla
to be
tuo
that
sata
one hundred
kaikki
all, everything, everyone
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
metri
the meter
lukuun ottamatta
except
päässä
at a distance of
tontti
the plot
kartoittaa
to survey
Questions & Answers about Kartoitamme kaiken lukuun ottamatta tuota tonttia, joka on sadan metrin päässä.
How does the distance phrase sadan metrin päässä work grammatically here?
To express "at a distance of", Finnish uses a measurement in the genitive case followed by the postposition päässä (literally "in the head/end of"). Here, sata metriä (one hundred meters) becomes the genitive sadan metrin, and because the distance is static in this sentence, we use the inessive form päässä.
What exactly is the phrase lukuun ottamatta and what case does it trigger?
It is a fixed phrase meaning "except for" or "excluding". Literally, it combines lukuun (into the count) and ottamatta (without taking, the abessive form of the third infinitive). It acts like a preposition or postposition that requires the word it applies to to be in the partitive case. That is why "that plot" is in the partitive form tuota tonttia.
Why is the object kaiken in the genitive-like accusative?
Kaiken is the total object of the active verb kartoitamme. Because it is a complete action mapping "everything", the object takes the accusative case, which looks identical to the genitive for most singular words.
Why is the relative pronoun joka in the nominative case if it refers to tuota tonttia?
A relative pronoun always takes its case from its role in its own clause, not from the word it refers back to. Even though it points back to the partitive tonttia, inside the clause joka on... it acts as the subject ("which is..."), so it must be in the nominative case.
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