Breakdown of Metsää, joka on kaupungin lähellä, ei ole suojeltu.
olla
to be
kaupunki
city
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
metsä
forest
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
lähellä
near
suojella
to protect (e.g., a person, nature)
Questions & Answers about Metsää, joka on kaupungin lähellä, ei ole suojeltu.
How is the negative perfect passive formed in the phrase ei ole suojeltu?
It combines the negative auxiliary ei ole (has not been) with suojeltu, which is the passive past participle of the verb suojella (to protect). In the negative perfect passive, the helping verb is always exactly ei ole, no matter what is being discussed.
Why is the word for forest in the partitive case (metsää) rather than the nominative (metsä)?
In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence is always in the partitive case. Even though this is a passive sentence, metsää is the target of the action (being protected). Because the action is negative (ei ole suojeltu), the object must be partitive.
If metsää is partitive, why is the relative pronoun joka in the basic nominative case?
A relative pronoun takes its case from its grammatical role inside its own clause, not from the word it refers back to. In the clause joka on kaupungin lähellä (that is near the city), joka is the subject of the verb on, so it needs to be in the basic nominative case.
Why is kaupunki (city) written here as kaupungin?
It is in the genitive case because it is used with the postposition lähellä (near). Most postpositions require the word before them to be in the genitive case. Adding the -n ending also triggers consonant gradation, changing the nk in kaupunki to ng.
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