Breakdown of Kun me partioimme yövuorossa, meillä kaikilla on taskulamppu.
olla
to be
me
we
kaikki
all, everything, everyone
kun
when (conjunction)
taskulamppu
flashlight
partioida
to patrol
yövuoro
the night shift
Questions & Answers about Kun me partioimme yövuorossa, meillä kaikilla on taskulamppu.
Why is it meillä kaikilla and not just meillä kaikki?
In Finnish, when a pronoun is paired with a quantifier like kaikki (all), both words must inflect into the same case. Because the "have" structure requires the adessive case (meillä), the word for "all" must also take the adessive case, becoming kaikilla.
How would I change this sentence to say "both of us have a flashlight"?
You would use the exact same case agreement rule with the word molemmat (both). Since "we" takes the adessive case (meillä), "both" also takes the adessive, resulting in the phrase meillä molemmilla.
If the sentence is about "we all", why is the verb on in the singular rather than the plural ovat?
In a Finnish possession structure, the verb doesn't agree with the possessor (meillä kaikilla). It always defaults to the third-person singular (on) unless the thing being possessed is a plural word. Since they share a single singular concept here (taskulamppu), the verb remains on.
Why do we use the inessive case (-ssa) in yövuorossa instead of the adessive (-lla) like in the English "on the night shift"?
While English uses "on" for work shifts, Finnish treats a shift as a bounded period of time or a state you are "inside" of. Therefore, yövuoro (night shift) takes the inessive case (-ssa) to mean you are working in that shift.
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