Questions & Answers about On myöhäistä jossitella.
The verb jossitella is really unusual. How is it formed?
It is built directly from the conjunction jos (if). By adding the frequentative verb suffix -itella (which indicates a repeated or continuous action), it literally becomes "to repeatedly say 'if'". In English, you might call this "playing the 'what if' game", "second-guessing", or "speculating".
Why is myöhäistä in the partitive case instead of the nominative myöhäinen?
This sentence uses an impersonal structure: "It is [adjective] to [verb]". Because the real subject of the sentence isn't a concrete, countable noun—the abstract action of speculating is acting as the subject—the predicative adjective (the adjective following the verb "to be") must take the partitive case.
How does this sentence relate to the kunpa (if only) structures we are learning?
Expressing regrets by saying things like Kunpa olisin tiennyt! (If only I had known!) is the exact definition of jossittelu (the noun form of this verb). You use the phrase On myöhäistä jossitella to gently shut down those hypothetical regrets, reminding someone that there is no point saying "if only" anymore because the past cannot be changed.
Is jossitella used with an object, like "to speculate about a topic"?
It is almost always used intransitively, meaning it doesn't take a direct object. You usually just talk about the act itself, as in this sentence. If you absolutely must specify the topic, you would use the elative case, such as jossitella asiasta (to speculate about the matter), but it is much more natural to use the verb on its own.
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