Breakdown of Silloin poliisi olisi estänyt vallankumouksen.
olla
to be
poliisi
the police / police officer
silloin
then, back at that time
estää
to prevent
Questions & Answers about Silloin poliisi olisi estänyt vallankumouksen.
How do we form the "would have prevented" part in this sentence?
It is formed using the conditional of the verb olla (to be), which is olisi for the third-person singular, followed by the past active participle of estää (to prevent), which is estänyt. Together, olisi estänyt forms the conditional perfect, meaning "would have prevented".
In English, "police" takes a plural verb. Why is the Finnish verb olisi singular?
In Finnish, poliisi is a singular noun that can refer to either the entire police force as an institution or a single police officer. Because it is grammatically singular, it takes the third-person singular verb olisi. If you wanted to talk about plural "police officers", it would be poliisit olisivat estäneet.
Why does the object vallankumouksen end in -n instead of being in the partitive case?
The verb estää (to prevent) describes a completed action here—the police hypothetically prevented the entire revolution, not just a part of it. Therefore, the object takes the genitive-like accusative case. The base word is vallankumous. Nouns ending in -ous or -us usually change to a -kse- stem before adding endings, making it vallankumouksen.
What are the root words that make up vallankumouksen?