Breakdown of Katoamisesta ei ilmoitettu poliisille.
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
poliisi
the police / police officer
ilmoittaa
to inform
katoaminen
disappearance
Questions & Answers about Katoamisesta ei ilmoitettu poliisille.
How do we form the negative past passive in ei ilmoitettu?
We use the negative word ei followed by the passive past participle, which here is ilmoitettu. A handy trick to find this participle is to take the affirmative past passive form (ilmoitettiin) and replace the -iin ending with -u or -y (depending on vowel harmony).
Why is the word for disappearance in the elative case (katoamisesta)?
The verb ilmoittaa (to report, to inform) requires the thing being reported to be in the elative case (-sta/-stä). You can think of it as saying the police were not informed about the disappearance.
What is the dictionary form of katoamisesta and why does its spelling change so much?
The dictionary form is katoaminen (disappearance). In Finnish, nouns ending in -nen change that ending to -se- before you add case suffixes. So, katoaminen becomes the stem katoamise-, and then we add the elative ending -sta.
Why use the -lle ending on poliisille?
The allative case (-lle) is used to indicate the recipient or target of an action, much like saying "to" someone in English. Since the police are the ones who were supposed to receive the report, they take this case.