Breakdown of Hän ei ikinä menisi tuohon pimeään luolaan.
tuo
that
hän
he / she
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
mennä
to go
pimeä
dark
ikinä
ever, never
luola
cave
Questions & Answers about Hän ei ikinä menisi tuohon pimeään luolaan.
How do we form the negative conditional here, and why does menisi look just like the positive form?
To make the negative conditional, you use the negative verb (en, et, ei, etc.) plus the conditional marker -isi attached to the verb stem, without any personal endings. For example, "I would not go" is en menisi. Because the positive "he would go" is hän menisi (which takes no extra personal ending after the -isi), the main verb looks exactly the same in both the positive and negative forms for the hän pronoun.
What is the difference between ikinä and koskaan in this sentence?
Both mean "ever" or "never" when used with a negative verb like ei. You could absolutely say Hän ei koskaan menisi... here. However, ikinä is often slightly stronger or more emotional, which perfectly fits the dramatic idea of refusing to go into a dark cave!
Why are tuohon, pimeään, and luolaan all in the illative ("into") case?
The verb mennä (to go) requires the destination to be in the illative case because the movement is directed into something. In Finnish, pronouns (tuo) and adjectives (pimeä) must match the case of the noun they describe (luola), so all three words take the illative endings.
Why do the endings for tuohon, pimeään, and luolaan look different if they are all in the illative case?
The regular rule for the illative case is to double the last vowel and add -n. That is why luola becomes luolaan and pimeä becomes pimeään. However, the pronoun tuo (that) is irregular; instead of just doubling the vowel, its illative form is tuohon.
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