The Present Passive Negative
To express that something "is not done" or that people generally don't do something, Finnish uses the present passive negative.
To form it, use the negative word ei followed by the passive connegative form. You can easily find this form by taking the affirmative passive (like mitataan, "is measured") and dropping the final -an or -än.
- mitataan becomes ei mitata
- hyväksytään becomes ei hyväksytä
| Here, the quality is not measured carefully. | Täällä laatua ei mitata tarkasti. |
The Object in Negative Passives
In affirmative passive sentences, the whole object usually takes the nominative (dictionary) case. However, any time a sentence is negative, the object must be in the partitive case. This negative partitive rule overrules the usual passive object rules.
Notice how any adjectives describing the object also take the partitive case to match.
| A defective part is not accepted. | Viallista osaa ei hyväksytä. |
| A good package is not rejected. | Hyvää pakkausta ei hylätä. |
Applying to Other Verbs
The rule for dropping the -an or -än to find the negative form works identically for all verb types.
For example, the type 4 verb koota (to assemble) becomes kootaan in the affirmative passive. Drop the ending, and you get ei koota.
| This machine is not assembled on the conveyor belt. | Tätä konetta ei koota liukuhihnalla. |
| A small mistake is not noticed. | Pientä virhettä ei huomata. |
Questions are formed by placing the question word at the beginning, but the passive negative structure remains exactly the same.
| Why is the quality not checked carefully? | Miksi laatua ei tarkisteta tarkasti? |
