Word
Tarina muuttui yhä traagisemmaksi ennen elokuvan huippukohtaa.
Meaning
The story became more and more tragic before the movie's climax.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Tarina muuttui yhä traagisemmaksi ennen elokuvan huippukohtaa.
elokuva
movie
ennen
before
muuttua
to change
yhä
still, yet (continuing)
Questions & Answers about Tarina muuttui yhä traagisemmaksi ennen elokuvan huippukohtaa.
Why is the translative case (-ksi) used for the word traagisemmaksi?
The verb muuttua (to change, to become) requires the translative case to show the state that the subject turns into. Because the story is becoming tragic, the adjective takes the -ksi ending.
How does the word yhä change the meaning of the comparative here?
By itself, yhä usually means "still", but when it is placed directly in front of a comparative adjective like traagisemmaksi, it means "more and more" or "increasingly".
What are the steps to form traagisemmaksi from its base word?
The base adjective is traaginen (tragic). Words ending in -nen have a stem ending in -se-, giving us traagise-. We add the comparative marker -mpi to get traagisempi. When adding a case ending like the translative -ksi, the -mpi marker changes to -mma-, resulting in traagisemmaksi.
Why is huippukohtaa in the partitive case?
It is triggered by the preposition ennen (before). In Finnish, ennen always requires the noun it governs to be in the partitive case. The genitive word elokuvan (movie's) just modifies the climax, but huippukohtaa itself takes the partitive ending.