Breakdown of Mekään emme käytä tulisia mausteita.
me
we
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
käyttää
to use
-kaan
neither / not either (also -kään)
tulinen
spicy
mauste
spice
Questions & Answers about Mekään emme käytä tulisia mausteita.
Why is it mekään and not mekaan?
The clitic meaning "either" or "neither" has two forms to match vowel harmony: -kaan and -kään. Words that only contain the neutral vowels 'e' or 'i', like the pronoun me, take front-vowel endings. Therefore, it becomes mekään.
Why is the ending -kään attached to me instead of the verb?
This clitic attaches directly to the specific word being emphasized or compared. Because the sentence means "We don't use them either" (comparing ourselves to someone else who doesn't use hot spices), the clitic goes directly on me.
Why is the verb written as käytä instead of the dictionary form käyttää?
In negative sentences, you use the negative verb (here, emme) followed by the connegative form of the main verb. For käyttää (to use), you find this by taking the "I" form (käytän) and dropping the -n. Notice how the double 'tt' weakens to a single 't' here due to consonant gradation.
Why are the words tulisia mausteita in the partitive case?
The most important rule in this sentence is that the object of a negative verb must always be in the partitive case. Since "hot spices" is plural, both the adjective and the noun take the partitive plural form.
How does the word tulinen (hot/spicy) turn into tulisia?
Words ending in -nen change that ending to -se- before adding case suffixes. To make the partitive plural, we add the plural marker -i- and the partitive ending -a to the stem, changing tulise- into tulisia.
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