Word
Lapsi ei juo maitoa.
Meaning
The child does not drink milk.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Lapsi ei juo maitoa.
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
lapsi
child
juoda
to drink
maito
milk
Questions & Answers about Lapsi ei juo maitoa.
How do we get the verb form juo from the dictionary word?
The dictionary form is juoda (to drink), which is a Type 2 verb. To find the base stem for negative sentences, you simply drop the -da or -dä ending. This leaves you with the stem juo.
Why is the affirmative form 'The child drinks' also just Lapsi juo without an extra ending?
Normally, for 'he/she/it' forms, you double the last vowel of the verb stem. However, because Type 2 verb stems like juo already end in two vowels, Finnish does not add a third one. So the affirmative is Lapsi juo and the negative is Lapsi ei juo.
Why doesn't juo have a personal ending in the negative sentence?
In Finnish negative sentences, the negative word itself changes to match the person (here it is ei for 'he/she/it'). Because the negative word is doing that job, the main verb just stays in its plain stem form (juo) without any personal endings.
Why is the word for milk maitoa instead of the basic form maito?
The word maitoa is in the partitive case. This happens for two reasons here: milk is an uncountable substance, and the sentence is negative. In Finnish, if the action is negative (does not drink), the object receiving the action is almost always put into the partitive case.