Breakdown of Hän ei rikkonut ikkunaa ehdoin tahdoin.
hän
he / she
ei
no / not (negative verb)
ikkuna
window
rikkoa
to break
ehto
the condition / the term
tahto
will
Questions & Answers about Hän ei rikkonut ikkunaa ehdoin tahdoin.
What exactly is the instructive plural doing in ehdoin tahdoin?
Ehdoin tahdoin is a fixed idiom meaning deliberately or on purpose. It is made up of the instructive plurals of ehto (condition) and tahto (will). The instructive case ending -in usually describes the method or manner of doing something, so literally this idiom translates to something like with conditions, with wills.
Why do the consonants change from t in ehto and tahto to d in ehdoin tahdoin?
Adding the instructive plural ending -in closes the final syllable. In Finnish, adding an ending that closes a syllable triggers consonant gradation, changing strong consonants to weak ones. Here, the strong t weakens to d.
Why is the object ikkunaa in the partitive case instead of the total object form ikkunan?
Because the sentence is negative (ei rikkonut). A strict rule in Finnish is that the object of a negative action must always be in the partitive case. If the sentence were positive (He broke the window), the object would be ikkunan.
How does ei rikkonut express the past tense?
To form the negative past tense, you use the negative verb (in this case ei for he/she) followed by the active past participle of the main verb. For rikkoa (to break), that participle is rikkonut. You don't conjugate the main verb for the person in the negative past tense; the negative verb ei handles that, while rikkonut shows that it happened in the past.
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