# Tämän Kylän Poikii



## Maabdreo

This song lyric doesn't make sense to me grammatically:

_
Ne kysyy, "oot*sie* tämän kylän *poikii*?"

_​Isn't _sie_ singular and _poikii_ plural?


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## fennofiili

Yes, _sie _(= standard Finnish sinä) is singular and _poikii _(= std. poikia) is plural. But it is grammatically correct. A subject in singular may have a predicative in partitive plural, e.g. _sinä olet tämän kylän poikia_. Structurally it means “you are (one) of the boys/guys of this village”, but the meaning is rather “you are a boy/guys of this village”, “you are from this village”. (_Poika _does not really refer to just young people here; hence my expression “boys/guys”.) 

It would be possible to say _ootsie tämän kylän poika_, but the tone is different; _poikii _refers to being part of a group.


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## DrWatson

You're right, the subject is singular and the predicative is plural. This is a common construction in Finnish and it's called the _predicative of inclusion_ in VISK (§ 955). It's used to indicate that the subject belongs or is part of the group defined in the predicative, in this case boys from this village. Some other examples I made up on the fly:

_Alue on Suomen kauneimpia._ 'The area is one of the most beautiful in Finland.'
_Hän on Rauman Virtasia._ 'S/he is one of the Virtanens of Rauma (= He belongs to the Virtanen family from Rauma)'
_Hän on kielen viimeisiä puhujia_. 'S/he is one of the last speakers of the language.'


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## Maabdreo

Oh, that makes sense. Kiitos Fennofiili!


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## Maabdreo

Thanks, DrWatson. So does that construction differ from _X on yksi Y:stä _​in any way?

Edit: If I understood the end of the VISK article, it sounds like they're equivalent in meaning though using the elative makes it possible to specify the quantity of Y. Is that right?


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## fennofiili

Maabdreo said:


> So does that construction differ from _X on yksi Y:stä _​in any way?



It might have a different tone.



> If I understood the end of the VISK article, it sounds like they're equivalent in meaning though using the elative makes it possible to specify the quantity of Y. Is that right?



Well, almost. It says that they are alternative, except when the quantity of the set is specified. It does not really describe the difference, and it is somewhat difficult to explain. Both _Alue on Suomen kauneimpia_ and _Alue on yksi Suomen kauneimmista_ have the same denotation, and they can both be translated using a “one of ...” construct, but the latter somewhat emphasizes that it is one of a set. Maybe it also sounds less idiomatic, since it has a rather direct counterpart in other languages, whereas the expression with partitive is specific to Finnish. But I guess some people might say that there’s no difference in meaning.


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## Maabdreo

Thanks for the thoughtful response!


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