Breakdown of Tätä litteää esinettä ei liene keksitty silloin.
tämä
this
olla
to be
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
esine
object
silloin
then, back at that time
keksiä
to invent
litteä
flat
Questions & Answers about Tätä litteää esinettä ei liene keksitty silloin.
Why use ei liene keksitty instead of the normal perfect passive ei ole keksitty?
The word liene is the potential mood form of the auxiliary verb olla (to be) used after the negative verb ei. While ei ole keksitty simply states a fact ("has not been invented"), swapping ole for liene adds uncertainty, changing the meaning to "has probably not been invented" or "was probably not invented".
Why is Tätä litteää esinettä in the partitive case?
Because the sentence is negative. In Finnish, the object of a negative sentence must always take the partitive case. If this sentence were positive, the object would flip to the nominative case because it is the object of a passive verb: Tämä litteä esine lienee keksitty... (This flat object was probably invented...).
Does ei liene keksitty refer to an ongoing state or a completed past event?
It refers to a past event. The perfect potential passive is formed with liene + the passive past participle (keksitty), which generally describes something already completed. Here, the adverb silloin (then / at that time) firmly anchors the context to a specific moment in the past.
Are keksitty (invented) and keksi (cookie) related?
No, they just happen to look similar! Keksitty is the passive past participle of the verb keksiä (to invent, figure out, come up with). The noun keksi (cookie or biscuit) is an unrelated loanword from the Swedish word kex.
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