Breakdown of Vähävaraiset tarvitsevat enemmän tukea ja parempaa sosiaaliturvaa.
ja
and
tarvita
to need
parempi
better
enemmän
more (comparative of paljon)
tuki
support
vähävarainen
low-income
sosiaaliturva
social security
Questions & Answers about Vähävaraiset tarvitsevat enemmän tukea ja parempaa sosiaaliturvaa.
How does the word vähävaraiset function here without a following noun like "ihmiset" (people)?
In Finnish, you can often use an adjective in the plural to represent a whole demographic group, acting entirely as a noun phrase head. Vähävarainen means "underprivileged" or "low-income", so the plural vähävaraiset translates directly to "the underprivileged" or "low-income people". This is the exact same structure used in words like nuoret (the youth) or työttömät (the unemployed).
What are the root words that make up the adjective vähävarainen?
It is a compound formed from vähä (little, few) and vara (resource, wealth, funds), followed by the common adjective-forming suffix -inen. Literally, it describes someone with few resources.
Why are tukea and sosiaaliturvaa in the partitive case? Doesn't the verb tarvita usually take a total object?
While tarvita (to need) takes a total object (genitive-looking accusative) for complete, countable things, abstract or uncountable nouns like support (tuki) and social security (sosiaaliturva) require the partitive. Additionally, the word enemmän (more) acts as a quantifier here, which also inherently forces the following noun into the partitive case.
Why is the word for "better" written as parempaa instead of parempi?
Adjectives must always agree in case and number with the noun they modify. Because sosiaaliturvaa is in the partitive case, the comparative adjective parempi (better) must also be inflected into its partitive form, which is parempaa.
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