Breakdown of Hän ei liene tappanut uhria.
olla
to be
hän
he / she
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
uhri
victim
tappaa
to kill
Questions & Answers about Hän ei liene tappanut uhria.
How is the negative perfect potential formed in this sentence?
It uses the negative verb ei followed by liene (the connegative potential of the auxiliary verb olla) and the past active participle of the main verb, tappanut. Together, ei liene tappanut means 'probably did not kill' or 'probably hasn't killed'.
Why do we use liene here instead of lienee?
Because this is a negative sentence. Just like standard present tense verbs drop their personal endings after the negative verb ei (for example, hän on becomes hän ei ole), the third-person positive potential hän lienee drops its ending to become hän ei liene.
Why is the object uhria in the partitive case?
The sentence is negative. In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence is always in the partitive case. If the sentence were positive, the object would take the genitive-accusative case: Hän lienee tappanut uhrin (He probably killed the victim).
How do we know this refers to a past event rather than a present one?
The use of the past active participle tappanut alongside the auxiliary liene creates the perfect potential, which refers to past actions. If we wanted to express a present probability like 'He probably is not killing', we would use the present potential: Hän ei tappane.
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