Breakdown of Me emme ole allekirjoittaneet sopimusta.
olla
to be
me
we
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
allekirjoittaa
to sign
Questions & Answers about Me emme ole allekirjoittaneet sopimusta.
What is the difference between emme ole allekirjoittaneet and emme allekirjoittaneet?
emme allekirjoittaneet is the simple past tense, meaning "we did not sign". To form the negative perfect tense ("we have not signed"), you must add the auxiliary word ole between the negative verb (emme) and the main verb's participle.
Why does allekirjoittaneet end in -neet instead of -nut?
In the perfect tense, the main verb takes the past participle form. For singular subjects, this ends in -nut or -nyt (for example, hän ei ole allekirjoittanut). Because the subject in this sentence is plural (me), the participle must also be plural, which changes the ending to -neet.
Why is the object sopimusta in the partitive case?
In Finnish, if a sentence is negative, the object of that sentence almost always has to be in the partitive case. Because the action of signing didn't happen, the basic word sopimus (contract) becomes the partitive sopimusta.
allekirjoittaa is a long verb. Is it made up of smaller words?
Yes! It is a compound word made of alle (under / to the bottom of) and kirjoittaa (to write). It literally translates to "write under", which makes perfect sense for signing a document.