Word
He eivät löytäneet onnellisuutta.
Meaning
They did not find happiness.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of He eivät löytäneet onnellisuutta.
he
they
ei
no / not (negative verb)
löytää
to find
onnellisuus
the happiness
Questions & Answers about He eivät löytäneet onnellisuutta.
How do we get the noun onnellisuus (happiness) from the adjective onnellinen (happy)?
To make abstract nouns from adjectives ending in -nen, you drop the -nen and add -suus (or -syys, depending on vowel harmony). So, taking the stem onnelli- and adding -suus creates onnellisuus.
Why does the suffix become -suus when the lesson focuses on the -uus or -yys suffix?
The base suffix is indeed -uus or -yys (for example, vanha meaning old becomes vanhuus meaning old age). However, adjectives ending in -nen follow a special pattern where the suffix takes the form -suus or -syys. Since there are many -nen adjectives in Finnish, you will use this specific pattern a lot!
Why is the object onnellisuutta in the partitive case here? Is it just because happiness is an abstract concept?
While abstract nouns often do take the partitive case, there is a much stricter rule overriding everything here: the sentence is negative (eivät löytäneet). In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence must always be in the partitive case, no matter what kind of word it is.
Why does the main verb löytäneet end in -t when the negative verb eivät already shows the subject is plural?