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Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.

Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.
The poet is grateful to the readers who buy her book.

Breakdown of Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.

olla
to be
kirja
the book
ostaa
to buy
hänen
his/her
kiitollinen
grateful
runoilija
the poet
lukija
the reader
jotka
who
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Questions & Answers about Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.

Why is lukijoille used here instead of lukijat? What does that ending -lle mean?

Lukijoille is the plural allative form of lukija (reader).

  • lukija = (a) reader
  • lukijat = (the) readers (nominative plural)
  • lukijoille = to (the) readers (allative plural)

The adjective kiitollinen (grateful) normally takes the allative case for the person you are grateful to:

  • Olen kiitollinen sinulle. = I am grateful to you.
  • Olemme kiitollisia opettajille. = We are grateful to the teachers.

So in this sentence:

  • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille
    = The poet is grateful to the readers.

Using lukijat here (Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijat) would be ungrammatical, because the adjective kiitollinen requires the allative -lle form for its complement.

Why is there a comma before jotka?

In Finnish, all relative clauses are separated by a comma, regardless of whether English would use a comma or not.

The part jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa is a relative clause describing lukijoille (to the readers). Finnish punctuation rules say that such clauses are always introduced with a comma:

  • Mies, joka asuu tuolla, on opettaja.
  • Kirja, jonka ostin eilen, on mielenkiintoinen.

So:

  • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.

The comma is mandatory in standard Finnish; you don’t drop it the way you sometimes can in English with “the readers who buy his books”.

Why is it jotka and not joka?

Joka is a relative pronoun that agrees in number (and case) with the word it refers to.

  • joka = singular nominative (“who/which/that”)
  • jotka = plural nominative (“who/which/that”)

Here, jotka refers to lukijoille (to the readers), which is plural. So the relative pronoun must also be plural:

  • lukija, joka ostaa = the reader who buys
  • lukijat / lukijoille, jotka ostavat = the readers who buy

So:

  • lukijoille, jotka ostavat…
    = to the readers who buy…
Why is the verb ostavat and not ostaa?

Ostavat is the 3rd person plural form of ostaa (to buy).

The subject of the relative clause jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa is jotka, which refers back to lukijoille (to the readers) — a plural noun.

So the verb must match that plural subject:

  • lukija ostaa = the reader buys
  • lukijat ostavat = the readers buy
  • lukijoille, jotka ostavat = to the readers who buy

If you used ostaa (jotka ostaa), it would be ungrammatical in standard Finnish, because the verb would not agree with the plural subject.

What exactly does hänen kirjansa mean? Is it “his book”, “her book”, “their book”, or “books”?

Hänen is the 3rd-person singular genitive pronoun (“his/her”). Finnish does not mark gender:

  • hänen = his / her (no gender distinction)

Kirjansa is:

  • kirja (book)
    • -nsa / -nsä (3rd-person possessive suffix)
      → kirjansa

So hänen kirjansa literally means “his/her book(s)”.

Important points:

  1. Owner is singular, not plural:
    • hänen → one person’s possession (his or her), not “their” (plural people).
  2. Number of the book(s) is ambiguous:
    • kirjansa can be one book or several books.
    • Context has to tell you whether it’s “his/her book” or “his/her books”.

So in English you could translate it as:

  • the readers who buy his book
  • the readers who buy his books
    depending on what you know about the situation.
Why do we have both hänen and the possessive suffix in kirjansa? Could we just say kirjansa or just hänen kirja?

Standard Finnish uses two markers for 3rd-person possession in this kind of sentence:

  1. The pronoun in the genitive: hänen
  2. The possessive suffix on the noun: kirja + nsa → kirjansa

So the canonical form is hänen kirjansa.

What happens if you change it?

  1. Just kirjansa, no hänen:

    • In standard Finnish, if no pronoun is given, the possessive suffix normally refers to the subject of the clause.
    • Lukijat ostivat kirjansa.
      = The readers bought *their own books.* (the readers are both buyers and owners)
    • In your sentence,
      …lukijoille, jotka ostavat kirjansa
      would naturally mean “to the readers who buy their own books,” not the poet’s books.

  2. Just hänen kirja (no suffix):

    • This is considered colloquial / non-standard; in written standard Finnish, you should use the possessive suffix.
    • So in good written style, you’d avoid hänen kirja and prefer hänen kirjansa.

  3. Just hänen kirjat (plural, no suffix):

    • Also colloquial; standard Finnish again prefers hänen kirjansa.

So:

  • Standard written: hänen kirjansa
  • Without hänen shifts the owner to the subject of that clause (the readers).
  • Forms like hänen kirja are common in speech but not recommended in formal writing.
Could we say Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoista instead of lukijoille? What would be the difference?

Yes, you can say kiitollinen lukijoista, but it means something slightly different.

Two common patterns:

  1. kiitollinen jollekin (allative -lle)

    • grateful to someone
    • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille.
      = The poet is grateful to the readers (directing gratitude toward them).

  2. kiitollinen jostakin (elative -sta/-stä)

    • grateful for/about something
    • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoista.
      = The poet is grateful for the readers / about the fact that he has readers.

In your original sentence, the idea is specifically to be grateful to the readers who buy his/her book(s), so lukijoille with -lle is the natural choice.

Why is it lukijoille and not lukijoiden? Don’t both mean something like “of/to the readers”?

They are different cases with different core meanings:

  • lukijoille = allative plural (“to the readers”)
    • used after kiitollinen to mark the person you are grateful to.
  • lukijoiden = genitive plural (“of the readers”)
    • shows ownership or other “of”-relationships:
      • lukijoiden kirjat = the readers’ books
      • lukijoiden mielipiteet = the readers’ opinions

So:

  • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille = The poet is grateful to the readers.
  • Runoilija arvostaa lukijoiden palautetta = The poet values the readers’ feedback.

In the original sentence, you need lukijoille, because it’s governed by kiitollinen.

Is the word order fixed? Could I say Runoilija on lukijoille kiitollinen, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa instead?

Finnish word order is fairly flexible, but not all permutations are equally natural.

Your sentence:

  • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.

A more marked but still possible variant:

  • Runoilija on lukijoille kiitollinen, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.

This second version is grammatically understandable, but it sounds a bit awkward, because:

  • Adjective + complement usually stay together: kiitollinen lukijoille.
  • The relative clause jotka… naturally follows the noun phrase it describes (lukijoille).

Much more natural alternatives (still correct):

  • Runoilija on lukijoille kiitollinen, jos he ostavat hänen kirjansa.
    (slightly different structure and meaning: “if they buy his/her books”)
  • Runoilija on lukijoilleen kiitollinen.
    (“The poet is grateful to his/her readers.” – no relative clause here.)

For your exact meaning, the original word order is the most idiomatic:

  • Runoilija on kiitollinen lukijoille, jotka ostavat hänen kirjansa.
Is kirjansa singular or plural? Why isn’t it kirjansa vs kirjansa with different endings, or something like kirjoja?

The form kirjansa is ambiguous in number:

  • It can mean his/her book (one)
  • Or his/her books (several)

The reason is that the 3rd-person possessive suffix -nsa / -nsä is used in both singular and plural:

  • hänen kirjansa
    • = his/her book
    • or his/her books (context decides)
  • hänen autonsa
    • = his/her car / cars

If you really want to stress plurality, you can change the structure:

  • hänen kirjojaan = some of his/her books
  • kaikki hänen kirjansa = all his/her books
  • hänen monet kirjansa = his/her many books

But in most real contexts, hänen kirjansa is understood from context (e.g., if the poet has just one famous book, learners will interpret it as singular; if several, as plural).

What case is kirjansa in here, as the object of ostavat?

Kirjansa is functioning as the object of the verb ostavat (“they buy”).

Morphologically:

  • Base: kirja (book)
  • Add possessive suffix: kirjansa (his/her book(s))

With a 3rd-person possessive suffix, the nominative and genitive/accusative forms look the same in the singular: kirjansa.

As the object of a complete buying event (“they buy his/her book(s)”), you’d normally expect the total object (genitive/accusative) in Finnish, but:

  • For 3rd-person possessive, the form kirjansa is used for both nominative and genitive/accusative object, so you don’t see a separate -n.

So you can think of it simply as:

  • ostavat hänen kirjansa
    = (they) buy his/her book(s)

without worrying too much about the underlying object-case distinction at this stage.