Questions & Answers about Älkää kävelkö nurmikolla.
Why do we use älkää instead of älä for "don't" here?
Älkää is the plural (or formal) imperative form of the negative verb. Public signs and general instructions are addressed to multiple people (the plural "you" / te), so we use älkää. If you were telling just one friend not to do something, you would use älä.
How do we get kävelkö from the basic verb kävellä (to walk)?
Kävellä is a type 3 verb. To make the plural negative imperative, you find the verb's stem by dropping the -lä ending, which gives you kävel-. Then, you add the ending -ko or -kö. Together, this makes kävelkö.
Why does the verb ending use -kö instead of -ko?
This is due to the rule of vowel harmony. The verb stem kävel- contains the front vowels ä and e. Because of this, the ending must use the front vowel ö (-kö) rather than the back vowel o (-ko).
The dictionary word for lawn is nurmikko. Why does nurmikolla only have one k?
Adding the -lla ("on") ending closes the final syllable (nur-mi-kol-la). In Finnish, this triggers consonant gradation, meaning the "strong" double kk from the basic word weakens to a single k.
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