Breakdown of Ottelijat sparraavat toinen toistaan.
toinen
other, another; second
ottelija
the fighter
sparrata
to spar
Questions & Answers about Ottelijat sparraavat toinen toistaan.
Why use toinen toistaan instead of just toisiaan?
Both mean "each other." Toisiaan is the standard, everyday reciprocal pronoun. The two-word structure toinen toistaan is a more formal, distributive way to say it. It emphasizes the individual action between the participants, literally translating closer to "one [spars] the other."
Why is the second word in the partitive case (toistaan)?
In this two-word reciprocal structure, the first toinen is always in the nominative case, while the second takes the case required by the verb. Because sparrata (to spar) is a partitive verb, the object must be partitive. Thus, the second word becomes toista (before adding the suffix).
Why is the -an suffix attached to the end of toista?
In the toinen toista- structure, the second word must take a possessive suffix that matches the person of the subject. Since the subject ottelijat is in the third-person plural ("they"), we add the third-person possessive suffix -an (or alternatively -nsa).
Since the first toinen is in the nominative case, does it act as the subject?
No, the grammatical subject is still ottelijat (the fighters), which is why the verb sparraavat is in the plural. The phrase toinen toistaan functions together as the object. The first toinen stays nominative because the structure is a relic of an older way of speaking, where the sentence would literally mean "one [of them] spars the other."
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