Breakdown of Hän sekoittaa hiivan tähän tynnyriin mäskiä.
tämä
this
hän
he / she
hiiva
yeast
sekoittaa
to shuffle / to mix / stir (something into something)
Questions & Answers about Hän sekoittaa hiivan tähän tynnyriin mäskiä.
Why is mäskiä in the partitive case while tynnyriin is in the illative ("into") case?
This is the core of the measure and container structure. The word for the substance inside the container (mäskiä) stays locked in the partitive case to say "of mash", no matter what case the container (tynnyriin) is in. The container inflects to fit the sentence, but the substance doesn't.
Why does the word for "this" (tähän) match the case of tynnyriin but not mäskiä?
The demonstrative pronoun tämä ("this") always agrees with the head noun of the phrase. Here, the main noun is the barrel (tynnyri), so tämä takes the illative case (tähän) to match tynnyriin. The substance (mäskiä) is just an attached modifier.
The verb sekoittaa often takes a partitive object. Why is hiivan in the genitive-accusative case here?
Using the total object (hiivan) means the action is viewed as a completed whole and a specific, entire amount of yeast is mixed in. If it were in the partitive (hiivaa), it would mean mixing some yeast, or that the mixing process is currently ongoing and unfinished.
Is it also possible to express "barrel of mash" as a compound word?