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Syötinkö vahingossa väärän setelin myyntiautomaattiin?

Syötinkö vahingossa väärän setelin myyntiautomaattiin?
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From Lesson 445:The Adessive of price (-lla, -llä)·Finnish

Questions & Answers about Syötinkö vahingossa väärän setelin myyntiautomaattiin?

Why use syöttää (to feed) for a machine?
In Finnish, syöttää is the standard verb for inserting something physically into a machine's slot, like a banknote, a ticket, or even inputting data into a system. You are literally 'feeding' the machine.
Why is the object väärän setelin instead of the partitive väärää seteliä?
The action of inserting the bill is viewed as a single, completed action affecting one entire, countable object. Because the action is completed and the object is whole, it takes the genitive-accusative case (-n) rather than the partitive.
We are currently learning to use the adessive case for prices and transactions. Why isn't the banknote in the adessive case here?
Because the banknote isn't being used as the instrument of a transaction in this specific clause; it is the physical object being moved. If you said 'I paid with the wrong banknote', you would use the adessive: maksoin väärällä setelillä. Here, it's the direct object of the verb syöttää.
Why is vahingossa in the inessive (-ssa) case?
The base noun vahinko means 'an accident' or 'damage'. By putting it in the inessive case (vahingossa, literally 'in an accident'), it acts as a fixed adverb meaning 'accidentally' or 'by accident'. Notice the consonant gradation from nk to ng when the suffix is added.

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