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-nen form is the singular nominative case and when you inflect the word in Finnish you need to use the stem of the word which is different from -nen. For example: suomalainen nom. sing. Finn, Finnish suomalaise- stem suomalaiset t -plural Finns All Finnish cases are attached to the stem of the word expect the partitive case which is formed differently. The sing. partitive of 'suomalainen' is 'suomalaista'. Many Finnish words need different stems for attaching cases because words like 'suomalainen' (-nen words) couldn't be inflected as 'suomalainent' since cases can be attached to the vowel stem only. But the question why the stem isn't 'suomalaine-' instead of 'suomalaise-', I don't have an answer. This could be due to some phonetic changes in Finnish that occured in the past. (this next part from Angloswede) Finnish is a language which has changed based on sound. Alot of the rules in Finnish Grammar are the way they are because they have been created and favoured over the alternative, which is as mentioned above with "suomalainen". "suomalaiset/suomalaisesta" etc are much better sounding than "suomalainent/suomalainensta" and "suomalainet/suomalainesta".

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Q: Why do some Finnish nouns alternate between -nen in the nominative singular and -s- in all other cases and in the plural?
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