Breakdown of Pyörremyrsky on tuhoisampi kuin mikään aiempi myrsky.
olla
to be
mikään
anything, nothing (with negation)
myrsky
storm
kuin
than / before (in 'ennen kuin') / like / as
Questions & Answers about Pyörremyrsky on tuhoisampi kuin mikään aiempi myrsky.
Why use mikään in this positive sentence to mean "any"?
Normally, mikään is a negative pronoun meaning "nothing" or "not any". However, in affirmative sentences that contain a comparison using kuin (than), mikään is the correct word to use for "any" or "anything". Saying kuin mikä tahansa aiempi myrsky is grammatically possible but kuin mikään is much more common and natural for comparisons.
How is the comparative word tuhoisampi formed?
It comes from the adjective tuhoisa (destructive). To make an adjective comparative (meaning "more [adjective]"), you add the suffix -mpi to the word's stem. Since the stem of tuhoisa ends in a vowel, it simply becomes tuhoisampi.
Does the word aiempi (previous) also contain a comparative suffix?
Yes! Structurally, it literally means "earlier" and is formed with the exact same -mpi comparative ending as tuhoisampi. In modern Finnish, aiempi is simply used as the standard adjective for "previous".
Do the words in the phrase mikään aiempi myrsky all have to match in case?
Yes, Finnish requires strict case agreement within a noun phrase. Here, all three words are in the basic nominative case. If the sentence structure required a different case, all three would change together (for example, into the illative case: mihinkään aiempaan myrskyyn).