Breakdown of Iso koira ei ole kaupassa.
olla
to be
koira
dog
iso
big
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
kauppa
shop
Questions & Answers about Iso koira ei ole kaupassa.
Why does kaupassa have only one 'p' when the dictionary word is kauppa?
This is an example of consonant gradation. When we add the "in" ending -ssa, the final syllable is "closed" by the double consonants. This forces the original double consonants to weaken to single ones. Therefore, the strong pp in kauppa simplifies to a single p in kaupassa.
I know that "is" is on. Why does the sentence use ei ole instead of ei on?
In Finnish, the negative word (ei for "it") acts like a verb. The main verb that follows must be stripped down to its base "stem" form, without any of its usual personal endings. The stem of the verb olla (to be) is ole, so "is not" is always ei ole.
How do we know whether to use -ssa or -ssä for "in the shop"?
You choose the ending based on vowel harmony. The word kauppa contains the back vowels a and u. Because of this, it can only take endings with back vowels, so we must use -ssa.
Since the sentence is negative, does the subject iso koira need to change its case?
No, the main subject of this sentence stays in the basic dictionary form (the nominative case), which is iso koira, even though the sentence is negative.
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