Breakdown of Olen kotoisin pienestä kaupungista.
pieni
small
kaupunki
city
olla kotoisin
to be from, to come from
Questions & Answers about Olen kotoisin pienestä kaupungista.
What is the word kotoisin doing in this sentence?
Why do both pienestä and kaupungista have from endings?
In Finnish, adjectives must match the noun they describe. Because the noun is in the from form (the elative case), the adjective pieni (small) must also take the matching ending to become pienestä.
Why does pienestä end in -stä but kaupungista ends in -sta?
This happens because of vowel harmony. Words with back vowels like a, o, and u take the -sta ending, which is why we get kaupungista. Words with only front or neutral vowels like e and i take the -stä ending, giving us pienestä.
Why did the i at the end of pieni change to an e in pienestä?
Many Finnish words ending in -i change that i to an e when you add grammatical endings. The basic word pieni changes to its stem form piene- before you attach the -stä ending.
Why does kaupunki (city/town) change to kaupungi- before adding the ending?
This is due to consonant gradation, a very common spelling change in Finnish. When a closed ending like -sta is added to a word with nk in its stem, the nk softens to ng. That is why kaupunki becomes kaupungista.
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