Breakdown of Minun avainnippuni lienee kateissa.
olla
to be
minä
I
avainnippu
bunch of keys
kateissa
missing
Questions & Answers about Minun avainnippuni lienee kateissa.
What verb does lienee come from, and why doesn't it look like its dictionary form?
lienee is the potential mood of the verb olla (to be), translating to "is probably" or "may be". The potential mood for olla is completely irregular: instead of adding the potential marker -ne- to the regular stem, it uses a special root, lie-.
What form is the word kateissa, and how does it mean "missing"?
kateissa is an adverbial form that literally translates to "in covers" or "in hidings" (the inessive plural of the old noun kate). In Finnish, being lost or missing is often expressed as a location or state using plural locative cases, much like the word hukassa.
If I wanted to say "My keys are probably missing" instead of "My bunch of keys", how would the verb change?
The sentence would become Minun avaimeni lienevät kateissa. The verb lienee conjugates for person and number like a normal verb, so for a plural subject, you use the 3rd person plural form lienevät.
Do I have to use both the pronoun minun and the possessive suffix -ni in Minun avainnippuni?
In standard written Finnish, you must use the suffix -ni, but the pronoun minun is optional (you could just write Avainnippuni lienee kateissa). In everyday spoken Finnish, it is the exact opposite: people usually keep the pronoun (as mun) and drop the suffix entirely, saying mun avainnippu.
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