Breakdown of Ihmiset tutustuivat toisiinsa kaksilla jatkoilla ja kolmissa polttareissa.
ja
and
ihminen
human
kaksi
two
kolme
three
toinen
other, another; second
tutustua
to get to know
polttarit
the bachelor party
jatkot
the afterparty
Questions & Answers about Ihmiset tutustuivat toisiinsa kaksilla jatkoilla ja kolmissa polttareissa.
Why are the numbers in the plural forms kaksilla and kolmissa instead of the singular kahdella and kolmessa?
Why do we use the adessive case for jatkoilla but the inessive case for polttareissa?
Different types of events conventionally take different local cases in Finnish. Jatkot takes the external locative (adessive) -lla, just like festivaaleilla or syntymäpäivillä. However, polttarit takes the internal locative (inessive) -ssa, similar to häissä (at a wedding) or juhlissa (at a party).
Why is the word toisiinsa in the illative (into) case?
The verb tutustua (to get to know / to familiarize oneself with) requires its target to be in the illative case. Here, the target is the reciprocal pronoun toinen, which means 'each other' when used in the plural. The plural illative of toinen is toisiin, and adding the third-person possessive suffix -nsa gives us toisiinsa.
How do we form the plural stems for kaksi and kolme to get kaksilla and kolmissa?
To make plural numerals, you add the plural marker -i- to the inflectional stem. For kaksi, the singular stem is kahte-. When the plural -i- is added, the t changes to s, giving the plural stem kaksi- (plus -lla equals kaksilla). For kolme, the stem kolme- simply drops its final vowel before the -i-, creating the plural stem kolmi- (plus -ssa equals kolmissa).
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