Breakdown of Hän yritti teeskennellä, mutta alkoi kikattaa huomaamattaan.
hän
he / she
mutta
but
alkaa
to start
yrittää
to try
huomata
to notice
kikattaa
to giggle
teeskennellä
to pretend
Questions & Answers about Hän yritti teeskennellä, mutta alkoi kikattaa huomaamattaan.
How is huomaamattaan formed to mean "without noticing"?
It starts with the verb huomata (to notice). To say "without doing", you use the 3rd infinitive abessive form, which ends in -matta or -mättä. So, huomaamatta means "without noticing". Then, we add a 3rd-person possessive suffix because the person doing the "not noticing" is the subject, Hän.
Why does the possessive suffix on huomaamattaan look like -an instead of the usual -nsa?
The third-person possessive suffix can be either -nsa/-nsä or a vowel doubling plus -n if the base word ends in a short vowel. Since huomaamatta ends in a short -a, we lengthen it and add -n to get huomaamattaan. You could technically say huomaamattansa, but the -an form is much more natural and common for this structure.
Why is it alkoi kikattaa and not alkoi kikattamaan?
The verb alkaa (to start) strictly requires the following verb to be in the 1st infinitive (the dictionary form), which is kikattaa here. Learners often confuse this with ruveta (to start), which requires the 3rd infinitive illative (-maan/-mään). Note that in casual spoken Finnish, you might hear people say alkoi kikattamaan, but standard Finnish requires alkoi kikattaa.
Is huomaamattaan just a literal grammar construction, or does it function as a set phrase?
While it literally means "without his/her noticing", in practice it functions as an everyday adverb. You will very often see it used where English speakers would simply say "inadvertently", "unwittingly", or "accidentally".
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