Breakdown of Valtiovierailu vaatii enemmän turvamiehiä kuin loma.
loma
vacation
vaatia
to claim (demand)
kuin
than / before (in 'ennen kuin') / like / as
enemmän
more (comparative of paljon)
valtiovierailu
state visit
turvamies
bodyguard (security officer)
Questions & Answers about Valtiovierailu vaatii enemmän turvamiehiä kuin loma.
Since this lesson is about the intensifying pronoun itse, how would I add it to mean "The state visit itself"?
You would put the uninflected word itse directly before the noun it emphasizes: Itse valtiovierailu vaatii enemmän turvamiehiä... This structure draws a contrast between the actual visit and other related things, such as the preliminary planning or the travel arrangements.
Why is turvamiehiä in the partitive plural? Doesn't the verb vaatia determine the object's case?
The case of turvamiehiä is actually controlled by the quantifier enemmän (more), not directly by the verb. Just like paljon (a lot) forces the following noun into the partitive case, its comparative form enemmän does exactly the same. Because bodyguards are countable individuals, the partitive plural is used.
Could I use the partitive comparative structure here instead of saying kuin loma?
Yes! Instead of using kuin (than) + nominative, you can drop kuin, put the compared word into the partitive case (lomaa), and place it before the comparative word. The sentence would become: Valtiovierailu vaatii lomaa enemmän turvamiehiä.
Why is loma in the nominative case here rather than matching the case of the object?
In comparisons using kuin, the word after kuin takes the case of the specific thing it is being compared to. Here, a holiday (loma) is being compared to a state visit (valtiovierailu). Since valtiovierailu is the subject of the sentence and is in the nominative case, loma must also be in the nominative.
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