Breakdown of Poika ei olisi nääntynyt, jos hänellä olisi ollut paljon kalaa.
olla
to be
hän
he / she
poika
boy
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
paljon
a lot
kala
fish
jos
if
nääntyä
to starve
Questions & Answers about Poika ei olisi nääntynyt, jos hänellä olisi ollut paljon kalaa.
How exactly do we form the negative conditional perfect in ei olisi nääntynyt?
You form it by taking the negative verb (here, ei for the third person singular), adding olisi (the conditional of the verb to be), and finally the past participle of the main verb (nääntynyt).
Why does "if he had had" translate to jos hänellä olisi ollut?
Finnish uses the "at someone is" construction for possession, rather than a verb for "to have". To say "he would have had", you put the pronoun in the adessive case (hänellä, meaning "at him") and use the affirmative conditional perfect of the verb to be: olisi ollut (literally "would have been").
What is the infinitive form of nääntynyt, and how is this participle formed?
The infinitive is nääntyä (to starve or perish), which is a Type 1 verb. To form the past participle needed for perfect tenses, you take the stem and add -nyt or -nut. Because of vowel harmony with the front vowels (ä, y) in the stem, the ending becomes -nyt.
Why is kalaa in the partitive case?
The word paljon (a lot or much) is a quantifier. In Finnish, words expressing an amount always require the noun that follows them to be in the partitive case, which is why kala becomes kalaa.
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