Breakdown of Minä en pysty maksamaan velkaa.
minä
I
ei
no / not (negative verb)
maksaa
to pay
velka
debt
pystyä
to be able to, to manage
Questions & Answers about Minä en pysty maksamaan velkaa.
Why does this sentence use maksamaan instead of the basic dictionary form maksaa?
The verb pystyä (to be able to) requires the following verb to be in the third infinitive illative form, which ends in -maan or -mään. This is a great contrast to the obligation verbs you are currently learning (like pitää and kannattaa), which take the basic first infinitive (maksaa).
Why is the word for debt, velkaa, in the partitive case?
The main reason is that this is a negative sentence (en pysty). In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence must always be in the partitive case. The nominative word velka gets an extra -a to become velkaa.
Why is the verb written as pysty instead of pystyn (I am able)?
This is how negative verbs work. You conjugate the negative word (en, et, ei) to match the subject, and the main verb drops its personal ending. The "minä" form pystyn drops the -n to become the negative stem pysty.
Could I leave out the word minä in this sentence?
Yes, you can! Because the negative verb en already clearly means "I don't", the pronoun minä is optional. Saying En pysty maksamaan velkaa is perfectly correct and very common. Including minä just adds a little extra emphasis to "I".
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