| Grammar Notes: Sentence Breakdown: Peili, peili, seinällä, kuka on kaunein kaikista? 1. Peili - The word "peili" means "mirror." It is a noun in the nominative singular form. The infinitive form or basic form of a noun does not apply as "peili" is already the base form of the word. 2. seinällä - This is a locative case (adessive) form of "seinä," which means "wall." The adessive case in Finnish is used to denote location, roughly translating to "on" in English, as in "on the wall." The infinitive form of "seinä" is just "seinä," since it is a noun. 3. kuka - This word means "who." It is a pronoun used for asking about a person's identity. There is no infinitive form for pronouns. 4. on - This is the third person singular present tense form of the verb "olla," which means "to be." It is used here to form the verb phrase "is" in English. 5. kaunein - This word means "the most beautiful" and is the superlative form of the adjective "kaunis," which means "beautiful." "Kaunein" directly translates to "most beautiful" or "fairest." 6. kaikista - This is the elative plural form of "kaikki," which means "all" or "everyone." In this context, "kaikista" translates to "of all," referring to everyone considered in the comparison. General Grammar Tip: In Finnish, questions can be formed simply by using a question word like "kuka" and changing the intonation of the sentence, rather than rearranging the words as often done in English. Also, the adjective goes before the noun and changes form according to the case and number of the noun it describes. Related Words: - kuningatar (queen) - Related to fairy tales and stories where questions about beauty are common. - satu (fairytale) - The context of the original sentence is often found in fairytales. - ihailla (to admire) - Verb related to looking at something or someone with admiration, often beauty. |
