Breakdown of En ole pirteä, mutta minulla ei ole janokaan.
olla
to be
minä
I
mutta
but
ei
no / not (negative verb)
-kaan
neither / not either (also -kään)
pirteä
energetic
jano
thirst
Questions & Answers about En ole pirteä, mutta minulla ei ole janokaan.
Why is the suffix -kaan attached to jano?
The suffix -kaan (or -kään) means "either" in negative sentences. It attaches directly to the new piece of information being added. Since the speaker is saying they don't have thirst either, the suffix attaches to jano to make janokaan.
The English translation says "I am not thirsty", but the Finnish uses minulla ei ole. Why?
In Finnish, feelings like hunger and thirst are expressed using the "have" structure. You literally say "I have thirst" (minulla on jano) instead of "I am thirsty". To say "I am not thirsty", you use the negative have structure: minulla ei ole jano.
Usually, the thing you don't have is put into the partitive case (like minulla ei ole autoa). Why isn't jano in the partitive here?
Words for physical sensations like jano (thirst), nälkä (hunger), and kylmä (cold) are exceptions to the partitive rule! They stay in their basic dictionary form even in negative sentences. That is why we add the suffix directly to the basic word to get janokaan.
Why do we use the -kaan ending here instead of -kään?
This is because of vowel harmony. The word jano contains the back vowels 'a' and 'o', so the suffix must also use back vowels, making it -kaan. If the word only had front vowels (like in nälkä), it would be nälkäkään.
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