Breakdown of Mehiläiset parveilivat mehiläistarhoissansakin maanantaina.
maanantai
Monday
mehiläinen
bee
mehiläistarha
the apiary
parveilla
to swarm
Questions & Answers about Mehiläiset parveilivat mehiläistarhoissansakin maanantaina.
Break down the monster word mehiläistarhoissansakin — what is the exact order of all those suffixes?
This word perfectly follows the strict Finnish suffix order: Stem + Plural + Case + Possessive + Enclitic particle. The breakdown is: mehiläistarho- (plural stem of mehiläistarha, 'apiary') + -i- (plural marker) + -ssa- (inessive case, 'in') + -nsa- (3rd person possessive, 'their') + -kin (enclitic particle, 'even' or 'also'). Altogether it translates to 'even in their apiaries'.
Why does the stem change from mehiläistarha to mehiläistarho- before the plural marker?
When you add the plural -i- to a word ending in -a (like tarha), the -a changes to an -o- if the word's preceding vowel is a, e, or i. This creates the plural stem tarho-. Compound words like mehiläistarha always follow the inflection rules of their final word, giving us the stem mehiläistarhoi- once the plural marker is attached.
The possessive suffix -nsa can mean 'his', 'her', or 'their'. How do we know it means 'their' here?
The suffix -nsa marks a 3rd-person owner but doesn't specify if the owner is singular or plural. You have to deduce this from the context. Because the subject of the sentence is mehiläiset (the bees, plural), the possessive suffix logically translates to 'their'.