Breakdown of Miksi he eivät ole palauttaneet liitettä?
olla
to be
he
they
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
miksi
why
palauttaa
to return (an object, give back)
liite
attachment
Questions & Answers about Miksi he eivät ole palauttaneet liitettä?
How do we form the perfect tense negative for 'they' in this sentence?
It is made of three parts: the negative verb eivät, the helper verb ole, and the main verb in its plural past participle form, palauttaneet. Notice that the helper verb ole stays in its base form.
Why does the main verb end in -neet instead of -nut?
Because the subject he (they) is plural. In the perfect tense, the main verb must agree with the subject's number. For a singular subject it would be palauttanut, but for a plural subject it becomes palauttaneet.
Why is the word for attachment, liite, in the partitive case (liitettä)?
This is a very important rule in Finnish: the object of a negative sentence is always in the partitive case. Since the sentence is negative (eivät ole palauttaneet), the object liite must become liitettä.
What is the basic form of palauttaneet?
The infinitive is palauttaa (to return something). It is a verb type 1, so to make the plural participle for the perfect tense, you take the infinitive, drop the final -a, and add -neet.
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