Breakdown of Oletko varma siitä huolimatta, että argumentti on kyseenalainen?
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
varma
sure / certain
että
that (conjunction)
huolimatta
despite
argumentti
argument (reasoning)
kyseenalainen
questionable
Questions & Answers about Oletko varma siitä huolimatta, että argumentti on kyseenalainen?
Why is kyseenalainen in the nominative case instead of the partitive case (kyseenalaista), given the lesson's focus on evaluative adjectives?
The rule about evaluative adjectives taking the partitive (like on tärkeää, että...) applies when the adjective describes an entire että clause acting as the subject. In this sentence, kyseenalainen isn't describing the että clause; it simply describes the noun argumentti inside the clause. Since argumentti is a singular nominative subject, its adjective must agree with it in the nominative case.
Why do we say siitä huolimatta, että instead of just huolimatta, että?
The word huolimatta (despite) requires the word attached to it to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). Because you cannot attach a case ending to an entire että clause, Finnish uses the pronoun se in the elative case (siitä) as a placeholder. The että clause then spells out exactly what that siitä refers to.
The adjective varma also usually takes the elative case (like olen varma asiasta). Is the siitä in this sentence attached to varma or to huolimatta?
It is attached to huolimatta. The phrase siitä huolimatta, että... is a fixed chunk meaning "despite the fact that...". The sentence is asking "Are you sure [in general], despite the fact that...", rather than "Are you sure about the fact that...". If you explicitly wanted to say "Are you sure about it, despite the fact that...", you would theoretically need two siitä words, though Finns usually avoid that repetition!
How is the adjective kyseenalainen (questionable) constructed?
It is built from kyseen (the genitive form of kyse, meaning "question" or "issue") and the word alainen (meaning "subject to" or "subordinate"). Literally, it translates to "subject to question", which makes it easy to remember as "questionable".
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