Questions & Answers about Älä osta noita kampoja.
Why do we use noita here instead of nuo for "those"?
The sentence is a negative command. In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence must always be in the partitive case. noita is the partitive plural form of the demonstrative pronoun tuo (that), so it translates to "those" in the partitive.
How does the word kampa (comb) turn into kampoja?
To form the partitive plural, we take the word root and add the plural marker -i- followed by the partitive ending -a. When a two-syllable word ends in -a like kampa, adding the plural -i- causes that final a to change into an o, resulting in kampoja.
Why does the verb osta lack a personal ending like -t?
This is an imperative, which means it is a command. To tell a single person not to do something, you use the negative command word älä (don't) followed by the basic stem of the main verb. For ostaa (to buy), the stem is simply osta.
If I wanted to say "Buy those combs!" as a positive command, would the object still be noita kampoja?
No. While negative sentences always force their object into the partitive case, positive commands put plural objects in the nominative case. So a positive command would be Osta nuo kammat!
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