Breakdown of Oli hölmöä sortua tuohon houkutukseen.
olla
to be
tuo
that
sortua
to collapse
houkutus
temptation
hölmö
silly
Questions & Answers about Oli hölmöä sortua tuohon houkutukseen.
Why is hölmöä in the partitive case here instead of the nominative hölmö?
In Finnish, when you use a construction where the real subject of the sentence is an action (in this case, the infinitive phrase sortua tuohon houkutukseen), the describing adjective must be in the partitive case.
How would I rewrite this to say 'I accidentally succumbed to that temptation' using this lesson's inadvertent action structure?
You would say Tuli sorruttua tuohon houkutukseen. You use the 3rd person singular tuli alongside the partitive passive past participle of sortua. Since sortua is a type 1 verb, its passive past participle is sorruttu, which becomes sorruttua in the partitive.
Why does the phrase tuohon houkutukseen use the illative ('into') case?
The verb sortua (to succumb, to collapse) requires the illative case for the thing you fall for or give in to. You can think of it visually as collapsing 'into' the temptation. Both the demonstrative pronoun tuo and the noun houkutus must take their respective illative endings, becoming tuohon and houkutukseen.
What is the base form of houkutukseen, and how does its stem change?
The base nominative noun is houkutus (temptation), which comes from the verb houkutella (to tempt). Nouns ending in -us typically change their stem to -ukse- before oblique case endings are added. Adding the illative ending -en to this stem gives us houkutukseen.
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