Breakdown of Menin alasimen luokse takomaan terää.
mennä
to go
luokse
to someone's place
takoa
to forge
alasin
anvil
terä
blade
Questions & Answers about Menin alasimen luokse takomaan terää.
Why is it takomaan and not the basic infinitive takoa?
Because the main verb menin (I went) is a verb of movement. Just like the verbs of leaving or remaining (like jäädä) from this lesson, verbs of movement require the third infinitive in the illative case (-maan or -mään) to express the action you are going to perform.
Could I say alasimeen instead of using the postposition structure alasimen luokse?
It would sound very strange. The illative case alasimeen implies going physically inside the anvil. Using the genitive plus luokse (to the vicinity of) is the natural way to say you approached the anvil to stand next to it.
Why is the object terää in the partitive case here?
Because forging a blade is an ongoing process. The verb takoa (to forge) takes a partitive object when the action is incomplete. Since you are just going to the anvil to work on it, the activity itself is emphasized and the blade is not finished yet.
How does the word for anvil (alasin) become alasimen?
Words ending in -in, which are often tools or instruments, change that suffix to -im- to form their base stem. The postposition luokse requires the genitive case, so adding the -n to the stem alasim- gives us alasimen.
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