Breakdown of Viisi lajia, kuten meduusa ja mustekala, elää matalikossa.
ja
and
viisi
five
elää
to live, to be alive
kuten
like, as
laji
species
meduusa
jellyfish
mustekala
octopus
matalikko
shallows / shoal
Questions & Answers about Viisi lajia, kuten meduusa ja mustekala, elää matalikossa.
Why are meduusa and mustekala in the nominative case instead of the partitive like lajia?
When kuten is used to list examples, the words following it generally match the case of the main headword they refer back to. The true grammatical head of the subject is the numeral viisi, which is in the nominative case, while lajia is only partitive because it directly follows that number. Therefore, the examples meduusa and mustekala take the nominative to match the core subject viisi.
Since there are five species and multiple examples, why is the verb elää in the singular?
This is a classic Finnish rule you might remember: when the subject of a sentence is a numeral greater than one followed by a partitive singular noun, like Viisi lajia, the verb always takes the third-person singular form. The parenthetical phrase introduced by kuten acts as an aside and does not change the grammatical number of the main subject.
What is the root of the word matalikossa and how does the suffix change its meaning?
The root is the adjective matala, meaning shallow. The suffix -ikko is commonly used to form nouns that describe a specific environment or a collection of things characterized by the root word. Thus, matalikko means a shallow area or shoal, and the inessive case ending -ssa gives us in the shallows.
If I wanted to say an animal lives exactly 'like a jellyfish', would I still use kuten?
Yes! kuten is highly versatile. While in this sentence it translates to such as to list examples, it is also the standard connector used to equate manner, meaning like or as. You rely on context to tell whether kuten is introducing an example of a category or comparing the way two things act.
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