Breakdown of Vanhaa tapausta ei selvitetty.
vanha
old
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
tapaus
case
selvittää
to solve
Questions & Answers about Vanhaa tapausta ei selvitetty.
How do we form the negative past passive in ei selvitetty?
To make a passive sentence negative in the past tense, we use the word ei followed by the past passive participle. For the verb selvittää (to solve), this form is selvitetty. The negative word ei never changes its ending here because the passive voice doesn't belong to a specific person (like I, you, or they).
Why are vanhaa and tapausta in the partitive case?
They make up the object of the sentence (the thing being solved). In Finnish, the object must always be in the partitive case if the sentence is negative. Therefore, the basic form vanha tapaus becomes vanhaa tapausta.
What is the base verb for selvitetty?
The dictionary form is selvittää, which means to solve, clear up, or find out. To get the past passive form, the verb takes the passive marker -tty.
How would this sentence look in the present tense (The old case is not being solved)?
In the present tense, it would be Vanhaa tapausta ei selvitetä. The present negative passive uses ei plus a form ending in -ta or -tä. Because our sentence is in the past tense, we use the past passive participle ending in -ttu or -tty instead.