Breakdown of Hän manipuloi potilasta ja saa hänet kertomaan totuuden.
hän
he / she
ja
and
kertoa
to tell
saada
to get
totuus
truth
potilas
the patient
manipuloida
to manipulate
Questions & Answers about Hän manipuloi potilasta ja saa hänet kertomaan totuuden.
Why is the verb kertoa in the kertomaan form here?
This is the causation structure you are currently learning. When you use saada to mean causing someone to do something, the person is the object (hänet) and the action they perform must be in the 3rd infinitive illative form, which ends in -maan or -mään. So, saa hänet kertomaan translates to gets him to tell.
Why is the first object in the partitive (potilasta) but the second object is accusative (hänet)?
This perfectly highlights how Finnish uses cases to show the result of an action. The verb manipuloida takes a partitive object (potilasta) because manipulating is seen as an ongoing, open-ended process. However, the causing action with saada was entirely successful and complete—she actually got him to tell the truth—so its object takes the accusative form. Remember that personal pronouns like hän have a distinct accusative ending in -t.
How do I know saada means to get someone to do something here, rather than to receive or to be allowed to?
Why is totuuden in the genitive-accusative case ending in -n?
Totuuden is the direct object of the verb kertomaan (to tell). Even though kertomaan is an infinitive governed by saada, it still takes its own object. Because the action of telling the truth is viewed as a complete, finished action, the object takes the standard genitive-accusative ending -n.
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