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Eivätkö he tulleet hammaslääkärin tarkastukseen?

Eivätkö he tulleet hammaslääkärin tarkastukseen?
Did they not come to the dentist's check-up?
From Lesson 86:Past tense negative (en mennyt, emme olleet)·Finnish

Questions & Answers about Eivätkö he tulleet hammaslääkärin tarkastukseen?

How is the negative past tense formed in this sentence?
To make a negative past tense sentence, you use the conjugated negative verb (here, eivät for "they") plus the past participle of the main verb. Because the subject is plural (he), the main verb tulla (to come) takes its plural past participle form: tulleet.
Why is the question ending -kö attached to the negative verb?
In Finnish, yes/no questions are formed by adding the clitic -ko or -kö to the word being questioned, which then moves to the front of the sentence. To ask a negative question like "Did they not...?", the clitic attaches directly to the negative verb, creating eivätkö.
Why does the word for check-up end in -een (tarkastukseen)?
The verb tulla (to come) requires its destination to be in a "to" or "into" case. You are coming into the event, so the word tarkastus (check-up) takes the illative ("into") case. For words ending in -us, the stem changes to -ukse- before adding the illative ending -en, making it tarkastukseen.
What is the -n doing at the end of hammaslääkärin?
It is the genitive (possessive) ending, equivalent to the English "'s". It shows that the check-up belongs to the dentist (hammaslääkäri). Also, notice that hammaslääkäri is a very literal compound word made of hammas (tooth) and lääkäri (doctor).

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