Breakdown of On moraalista, että kaikkia ihmisiä kohdellaan oikeudenmukaisesti.
olla
to be
ihminen
human
että
that (conjunction)
kaikki
all, everything, everyone
oikeudenmukaisesti
fairly
kohdella
to treat
moraalinen
moral
Questions & Answers about On moraalista, että kaikkia ihmisiä kohdellaan oikeudenmukaisesti.
Why is moraalista in the partitive case instead of the nominative moraalinen?
This is because moraalinen is an evaluative adjective, meaning it expresses an opinion or a judgment. When an että clause acts as the subject of a sentence, evaluative adjectives must be put in the partitive case (On moraalista, että...). If the adjective simply stated a fact or a truth value, like selvä (clear) or varma (certain), you would use the nominative case instead.
Why is kaikkia ihmisiä in the partitive case? Isn't the object of a passive verb usually in the nominative?
It is true that whole objects in passive sentences usually take the nominative case. However, the verb kohdella (to treat) is a strict partitive verb. This means its object must always be in the partitive case, overriding the usual passive object rules.
How do you break down the long adverb oikeudenmukaisesti?
It is built from three parts. It starts with oikeuden, the genitive form of oikeus (justice/right). Next is mukainen, an adjective meaning "according to". Together, oikeudenmukainen means "fair" or "just" (literally "according to justice"). Finally, adding the adverb suffix -sti to the adjective's stem (oikeudenmukaise-) creates the adverb "fairly".
Why do we use the passive kohdellaan here instead of an active verb like kohtelevat?
The Finnish passive is used when an action is performed by a human, but the specific "doer" is left general, unknown, or unspecified. "People in general" are doing the treating here. If you used the active kohtelevat, you would explicitly need a subject like he (they) to specify exactly who is being fair.
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