Breakdown of Hän repii rikkaruohoja puutarhastaan.
hän
he / she
puutarha
garden
repiä
to tear
rikkaruoho
weed
Questions & Answers about Hän repii rikkaruohoja puutarhastaan.
Why isn't the word hänen (her) used before puutarhastaan?
In Finnish, when the owner is the same as the subject of the sentence (she is pulling weeds from her own garden), you must omit the genitive pronoun hänen and only use the possessive suffix at the end of the noun. If you said Hän repii rikkaruohoja hänen puutarhastaan, it would strongly imply she is pulling weeds from someone else's garden.
Why is the possessive suffix -an here instead of -nsa?
Both -an (which mimics the preceding vowel + n) and -nsa are valid 3rd-person possessive suffixes. However, when a word has a case ending that finishes in a short vowel, like the elative -sta in puutarhasta, Finnish speakers heavily prefer the vowel + n suffix. Because of this, puutarhastaan is much more natural to say than puutarhastansa.
Why is rikkaruohoja in the partitive plural instead of the nominative plural (rikkaruohot)?
Pulling weeds is an ongoing action here, and she is handling an unspecified quantity of them. This requires the partitive plural. If you used the nominative plural rikkaruohot (acting as a total object), it would mean she successfully pulled up every single weed in the garden and the task is completely finished.
What are the roots of the word rikkaruoho?
It is a compound word made of rikka (which means a piece of dirt, a speck, or chaff) and ruoho (grass). Literally, it translates to dirt-grass or trash-grass!