Breakdown of Hän lukitsi tiedoston, koska se ei ole valmis.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
hän
he / she
koska
because
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
valmis
ready
lukita
to lock
tiedosto
file
Questions & Answers about Hän lukitsi tiedoston, koska se ei ole valmis.
How do we get the past tense lukitsi from the dictionary form lukita?
lukita (to lock) is a Type 5 verb. First, we find the present tense stem by changing -ita to -itse-, giving us lukitse-. For the past tense, that final -e- changes to the past marker -i-, making the stem lukitsi-. Since the third-person singular (hän) doesn't take a personal ending in the past tense, the word is simply lukitsi.
Why does tiedosto (file) have an -n ending here?
tiedosto is the object of the action. Because he locked the entire file and the action was completed, it takes the total object form. This means we add the genitive -n ending to make it tiedoston.
The first half of the sentence is in the past tense, so why is ei ole in the present tense?
The sentence logically mixes tenses. He performed the action of locking the file in the past (lukitsi), but the reason for doing it is an ongoing state: the file is still not ready right now (ei ole valmis).
Why isn't valmis in the partitive case (valmista) since ei ole is a negative verb?
It's true that negative objects usually take the partitive case, but valmis (ready) is an adjective describing the subject se (it/the file). In a basic "A is B" descriptive sentence, adjectives describing a whole, singular thing stay in the basic nominative form (valmis), even if the sentence is negative.
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