Breakdown of Heidän molempien päivystyksensä alkaa kohta.
he
they
kohta
soon
alkaa
to start
molemmat
both (of them)
päivystys
the duty
Questions & Answers about Heidän molempien päivystyksensä alkaa kohta.
Why are both heidän and molempien in the genitive case here?
This is a compound pronoun phrase. In Finnish, when a pronoun is modified by a quantifier like molemmat (both) or kaikki (all), both words must agree in case. Since they are indicating possession of the shift, both he (they) and molemmat (both) take the genitive plural form, giving us heidän molempien (literally: 'of them of both').
We already established possession with heidän molempien. Do we still need the -nsä suffix on päivystyksensä?
Yes. In standard Finnish, whenever a noun is possessed by a genitive personal pronoun (like heidän), the noun must also have a matching possessive suffix. Even though the quantifier molempien sits in the middle, the rule still applies, giving us the combination of heidän ... -nsä.
The English translation says 'shifts' (plural), but the verb alkaa is singular. Why?
When multiple people each have one of the same thing (like an on-call shift), Finnish often prefers using the singular form, treating it conceptually as 'their respective shift'. Because the subject is treated as grammatically singular here, the verb takes the third-person singular form alkaa.
Could päivystyksensä actually be a plural word hidden by the possessive suffix?
Technically, yes! When you add a possessive suffix to a nominative plural word, the plural marker -t disappears. So päivystykset + nsä becomes päivystyksensä, looking exactly like the singular form. However, we know it is acting as a singular subject in this specific sentence because the verb is the singular alkaa. If the speaker had intended a grammatically plural subject, the verb would be alkavat.
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