Breakdown of Paleltuman pahennuttua lääkäri tutki retkikunnan johtajan.
lääkäri
doctor
johtaja
the director
tutkia
to explore / to investigate / examine
pahentua
to worsen
retkikunta
expedition
paleltuma
frostbite
Questions & Answers about Paleltuman pahennuttua lääkäri tutki retkikunnan johtajan.
Why does pahennuttua look like a passive form if the frostbite itself is doing the worsening?
You are right to spot the passive marker! To say "after [something] happened" when the subject of the action is different from the main clause, Finnish uses the genitive subject (paleltuman) plus the partitive form of the past passive participle (pahennuttua). Even though it is built from a passive participle, the meaning here is completely active: "after the frostbite worsened."
Why is paleltuman in the genitive case rather than the nominative paleltuma?
In this past temporal construction, the subject of the dependent action must always be in the genitive case to link it to the participle. Because the frostbite is the subject of the worsening, the nominative paleltuma becomes the genitive paleltuman.
The base verb used here is pahentua. How is this different from pahentaa?
Pahentua is an intransitive verb meaning "to get worse" or "to worsen" on its own. Pahentaa is transitive, meaning "to make something worse." Since the frostbite worsened independently and isn't acting on an object, the intransitive pahentua is the correct choice.
Why is the object johtajan in the genitive-looking accusative case instead of the partitive?
The verb tutkia (to examine) describes a completed action here. Because the doctor examined the leader as a finished event, the object is total. For singular nouns, the total object (the accusative case) looks exactly like the genitive, hence johtajan.
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