Kapea polku johtaa järveltä mökille.

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Breakdown of Kapea polku johtaa järveltä mökille.

• -lta: from
• järvi: the lake
• mökki: the cottage

Questions & Answers about Kapea polku johtaa järveltä mökille.

Why is kapea before polku? Do adjectives always go before nouns in Finnish?

Yes, in Finnish an attributive adjective normally comes before the noun it describes, just like in English:

• kapea polku – a narrow path
• iso järvi – a big lake
• vanha mökki – an old cottage

When the adjective is directly modifying the noun (not separated by a verb), this is the normal word order.

The adjective also usually agrees with the noun in number and case, e.g.:

• kapea polku (nominative singular)
• kapeat polut (nominative plural)
• kapealla polulla (adessive singular: “on the narrow path”)

In your sentence it’s nominative singular because kapea polku is the subject of the sentence.

Why is polku in the basic form (nominative) and not something like polun or polkua?

The basic form (nominative singular) is used for the subject of the sentence in a simple statement:

• Kapea polku (subject) johtaa (verb) …

Other forms of polku are used for different functions:

• polun – genitive (“of the path”)
• polkua – partitive (e.g. “(some) path”, or in certain verb constructions)
• polulla – adessive (“on the path”)

Here we just need “the path” as the subject, so the nominative polku is correct.