Breakdown of Minä en osta seinäksi tiiltä enkä harkkoa.
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
seinä
wall
ostaa
to buy
tiili
brick
harkko
concrete block
Questions & Answers about Minä en osta seinäksi tiiltä enkä harkkoa.
Why is it enkä here instead of the standard eikä?
The Finnish word for "nor" actually conjugates to match the subject! Since the subject is minä (I) and the first negative verb is en, you form "nor" by taking that same verb en and adding the suffix -kä to get enkä (nor do I). If the subject were "he" (hän ei osta), it would be eikä.
Why does seinä (wall) have the -ksi ending to mean "for the wall"?
This is the translative case (ending in -ksi). While it is most famous for expressing a change of state (becoming something), it is also used to express a purpose or a role. Here, seinäksi literally means "to act as a wall" or "for the purpose of a wall".
Both tiiltä and harkkoa are in the partitive case. Is that because they are uncountable materials?
While they can act as mass materials, the strict grammatical reason here is that this is a negative sentence. In Finnish, the object of a negative action (the thing you are not doing something to) must always take the partitive case.
How does the word tiili (brick) become tiiltä in the partitive instead of "tiiliä"?
Tiili is an older Finnish word ending in -i (similar to kieli or tuuli). For these older words, the partitive singular is formed by dropping the final -i and adding -ta or -tä directly to the consonant. So, tiil- + -tä gives us tiiltä.
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