Breakdown of He menivät naimisiin kesällä.
he
they
mennä
to go
kesä
summer
naimisiin
into marriage (as in "to get married")
Questions & Answers about He menivät naimisiin kesällä.
How does mennä naimisiin fit this lesson's pattern of using mennä for state changes?
Just like mennä rikki (to break) or mennä pilalle (to get ruined), mennä naimisiin uses the verb mennä (to go) to express a change of state. In Finnish, you don't 'become' married; you transition into that state using mennä followed by an illative-case word.
What exactly is the word naimisiin and why is it in the illative case?
It is the illative plural form of an old noun naima (marriage or wedlock). The -siin ending is the plural illative marker, literally translating to 'into marriages'. Today, you will almost exclusively see it in this fixed expression, where it acts as an adverb of state.
If a single person is talking about getting married, does the word stay in the plural naimisiin?
Yes. Because naimisiin has fossilized into a fixed idiomatic phrase, it never changes its form. 'I got married' is simply Minä menin naimisiin.
Why is the adessive case used for kesällä (in the summer) instead of the inessive?
This is a quick refresher from earlier levels: seasons in Finnish almost always take the adessive case (-lla/-llä) to express when something happens. 'In the summer' is kesällä, and 'in the winter' is talvella. Using the inessive kesässä would sound bizarre, as if you were physically trapped inside a tangible object called summer.