Asiantuntijat uskovat, että kuolleisuus tulee vähentymään.

Questions & Answers about Asiantuntijat uskovat, että kuolleisuus tulee vähentymään.

Why does the sentence use tulee vähentymään instead of just the present tense vähentyy to talk about the future?
Finnish usually relies on the present tense for future events. However, this sentence uses the analytical future: the verb tulla conjugated in the present tense plus the 3rd infinitive illative form (-maan/-mään) of the main verb (vähentyä). This tulla tekemään structure is used to make strong, objective predictions or state inevitable future outcomes. It is very common in formal language, news, and expert forecasts like this one.
Why is the verb form vähentymään and not vähentämään?
This comes down to the difference between intransitive and transitive verbs. Vähentyä is intransitive, meaning something decreases by itself (mortality will decrease). If you used vähentää, it would mean someone is actively reducing something (for example, experts will reduce mortality). Since mortality is doing the decreasing on its own here, we need the intransitive form vähentymään.
How is the word kuolleisuus (mortality) built?
It stems from the verb kuolla (to die). The past participle form is kuollut (dead). By adding the suffix -uus/-yys, which creates a noun expressing a state or quality (similar to '-ness' or '-ity' in English), we get kuolleisuus, which literally means 'deadness' or 'mortality rate'.
What are the building blocks of the compound word asiantuntijat (experts)?
It is made of two parts: asian (the genitive form of asia, meaning 'matter' or 'thing') and tuntija (a 'knower', derived from the verb tuntea, to know or be familiar with). Therefore, an expert is literally a 'knower of the matter'. The -t at the end simply makes it plural.

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