Learn Finnish: Ylilääkäri tutkii sairaan potilaan. - The chief physician examines the sick patient.

In this lesson, we see how yli- can mean 'over' or 'excess' (like ylipaino for 'overweight'). However, when attached to a professional title like lääkäri (doctor), yli- acts as a prefixoid meaning 'chief' or 'head'. Therefore, an ylilääkäri is a chief physician.

Why is the object sairaan potilaan in the accusative case (ending in -n) instead of the partitive case?

The verb tutkia (to examine) can take either a partitive or a total object, and the choice changes the aspect of the sentence. If it were partitive (tutkii sairasta potilasta), it would mean the examination is currently ongoing. By using the total object ending in -n (tutkii sairaan potilaan), it emphasizes that the doctor completes the examination, treating the action as a finished event.

Both sairaan and potilaan end in -aan. Do they follow the same spelling rule?

Yes! Both sairas (sick) and potilas (patient) belong to the same word group: words ending in -as. To find the stem for these words, you drop the -s and lengthen the vowel before adding case endings. That is why sairas becomes sairaa-n and potilas becomes potilaa-n.

I have heard sairaan used in spoken Finnish to mean 'insanely' or 'really'. Is that what it means here?