# Että mahtaako Tosca sittenkin, ollakseen niin kiltti kissa, käydä Casimirin kimppuun oikein tosissaa



## yingguoning

I came across this sentence on the internet:

Että mahtaako Tosca sittenkin, ollakseen niin kiltti kissa, käydä Casimirin kimppuun oikein tosissaan.

I already asked about it on another forum, and I got the answer that it means something like, "I wonder if Tosca, being such a nice cat, is going to attack Casimir savagely".

However, I still don't understand the grammar of this sentence at all. A few questions:

1) What role does "Että" play at the beginning of a sentence?

2) I know mahtaa means "must" normally. Does it mean something else here? And what is the effect of adding "-ko"? I know it turns it into a question, but it seems odd to question "must".

3) It was explained that -ko asks a question, and the "Että" at the beginning is providing an answer to this question. I really don't get this. Is this some fixed idiomatic structure with "Että (verb)ko..."?

On the other forum, another example was given:

"-Lähdetäänkö kävelylle?
-Että minäkö lähtisin ulos!"
The answer means that I'm definitely not going out - it is not a question.

Again, I don't understand the structure or grammar of the answer. So, again, as question (3) above.

Any more detailed explanation would be appreciated, especially if anyone can tell me what the basic structure is and provide any further examples.

Thank you very much!

By the way, presumbly this is informal finnish used in casual speech only...?


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## Maabdreo

I don't know that much Finnish but maybe I can answer your question anyway! Looking at the preceding sentence:

"Tosca vaikutti tosi vihaiselta ensimmäistä kertaa, joten vähänkös tässä hirvittää, että miten yhteiselo alkaa sujumaan.  Että mahtaako Tosca sittenkin, ollakseen niin kiltti kissa, käydä Casimirin kimppuun oikein tosissaan." 

It sounds like the "että" you are asking about is referring to the previous sentence: "hirvittää, että..." 

I believe "mahtaako" here means "might...?" as in, "might Tosca attack Casimir?"

But someone more fluent might have a better answer.


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## Grumpy Old Man

In in formal Finnish many words are used with meanings that can't be found in dictionaries. Sometimes they have no significant meaning at all. _Että _seems to be just a word that ties the two sentences logically together in the speaker's mind. _Ollakseen niin kiltti kissa _is correct grammar, but it isn't used in a correct context. This is also common in informal spoken Finnish. In my opinion it means _'even though it is such a nice cat_. Maabdreo is right about _mahtaako. _I haven't checked a dictionary, but I don't think I have ever heard _mahtaa _used to mean 'must'. 

*"-Lähdetäänkö kävelylle?
-Että minäkö lähtisin ulos!"
The answer means that I'm definitely not going out - it is not a question.*
Right. I don't know how to explain it, but it's good informal Finnish.

GOM


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## yingguoning

Thanks for the responses.



Grumpy Old Man said:


> _Ollakseen niin kiltti kissa _is correct grammar, but it isn't used in a correct context.



Why is it wrong?



Grumpy Old Man said:


> I haven't checked a dictionary, but I don't think I have ever heard _mahtaa _used to mean 'must'.



This is what wiktionary says about it:

*mahtaa*

(intransitive, auxiliary + infinitive) must do, to probably (do)
_*Mahdat* olla nälkäinen.
You *must* be hungry.
*I bet* you're hungry._
Anyway, back to the original question. I'm still confused about the sentence pattern...


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## Grumpy Old Man

_Ollakseen niin kiltti kissa _doesn't really have the meaning it is used in in the sentence. On second thought, I think I agree with the person who said it is causal in meaning: _since it is such a nice cat / being such a nice cat._

As to _mahtaako_, it begins a question, and I don't think it's possible to use _mahtaako _in questions with the meaning 'must'. I may be wrong, of course. Not all the uses of a word come to my mind automatically. I wrote my previous reply hurriedly because I was watching a German Cup football match on TV, and that may explain some of my mistakes. (Dortmund beat Augsburg 2-0.)

_Mahtaako _is normally used like this: _Mahtaako hän tietää sen? = I wonder if he knows it? _/ _He may not know it._

Informal Finnish is very different from good written grammatical Finnish. I don't think it's possible to learn it from books. No doubt you'll encounter numerous sentences with odd structures and very strange meanings. One of the things I like best is the fact that we say _kyllä _(yes) emphatically when we do not want to do something: _Minä en *kyllä* lähde sinne! _

GOM


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## yingguoning

Grumpy Old Man said:


> I don't think it's possible to use _mahtaako _in questions with the meaning 'must'.



That's precisely what I was asking about. So I will just remember that "mahtaako" means "I wonder if...".

Kiitos paljon.


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## fennofiili

Grumpy Old Man said:


> In in formal Finnish many words are used with meanings that can't be found in dictionaries.



That is true, but Kielitoimiston sanakirja describes many features of informal Finnish, too. For example, its entry for _että _describes colloquial usage, too. In the given context, however, _että _appears to be in its “standard” role as starting a subclause – associated with a preceding sentence, as described in this discussion.
_



			Ollakseen niin kiltti kissa
		
Click to expand...

_


> is correct grammar, but it isn't used in a correct context.



The usage does not match the basic meaning of forms like _ollakseen_, namely the expression of intent or purpose, like “in order to be” in English. But the usage here (where _ollakseen kiltti kissa_ corresponds to “for a nice cat”) is standard, too. Those who are familiar with Finnish grammaticalese can check this in _Iso suomen kielioppi_, specifically at VISK - § 513 Tarkoitusta ilmaiseva tehdäkseen ja sen tulkintoja


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## yingguoning

Thanks for the useful info. Those links are still above my level currently, but maybe one day...

I'd still appreciate it if anyone could explain the sentence structure in "Että minäkö lähtisin ulos!" though.


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## yingguoning

And what does "vähänkös" mean? Is this just vähänkö plus a meaningless s?

OK, so vähän means "a little". So we are questioning whether it is "a little"?

Tosca vaikutti tosi vihaiselta ensimmäistä kertaa, joten vähänkös tässä hirvittää, että miten yhteiselo alkaa sujumaan.

Tosca seemed very angry the first time, so is it a little terrifying, that how they could begin to get along?


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## fennofiili

yingguoning said:


> And what does "vähänkös" mean? Is this just vähänkö plus a meaningless s?



By its form, it is a combination of _vähän_, -_kö_, and -_s_. I would not call -_s _meaningless, even though it is often difficult to say what it is supposed to mean. The suffix -_kö _technically turns the sentence into a question, but in practice _vähänkö _tends to mean “quite a lot”. I’m not quite sure about this, and maybe this is one of the reasons for using the word: you are not saying “a lot”, but you more or less suggest that, using _vähän with -_kö in an ironic sense.


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## fennofiili

yingguoning said:


> I'd still appreciate it if anyone could explain the sentence structure in "Että minäkö lähtisin ulos!" though.



OK, I’ll try.

Here _että _is used as an adverb in a rather unspecific meaning. This is common in spoken Finnish. It typically connects the sentence with something that preceded it, here apparently with some suggestion about going out.

The rest, _minäkö lähtisin ulos,_ is formally a question, “Would I go out?”. The use of _että _as well as the exclamation mark effectively turn it to a rhetoric question, impllying a negative answer. Normally the interrogative particle -_ko _~-_kö _is attached to the predicate, e.g. _Lähtisinkö _(_minä_) _ulos_? Attaching it to a pronoun makes that pronoun the focus word of the question, i.e. _Minäkö lähtisin ulos?_ asks whether it is I who would go out. But when forming a rhetoric question, the particle more or less needs to be attached to the subject; _Että lähtisinkö _(_minä_) _ulos_! would not be affective the desired way.


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## yingguoning

I just saw your last reply. Thanks a lot. I'll make a note of it.


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