Breakdown of En tiedä reklamaatiosta mitään, koska hän lähetti sen kirjeitse.
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
hän
he / she
koska
because
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
tietää
to know
kirje
letter
lähettää
to send
mikään
anything, nothing (with negation)
reklamaatio
the complaint (commercial, about a product)
Questions & Answers about En tiedä reklamaatiosta mitään, koska hän lähetti sen kirjeitse.
How does the word kirjeitse get its ending, and does it imply multiple letters?
The ending -tse is the prolative case, used for routes or means of communication. A strict rule for the prolative is that it attaches to the plural stem of a word, even if the meaning is singular in context. The plural stem of kirje is kirjei-, so we get kirjeitse. Here, it just means "by letter," not necessarily that multiple letters were sent.
Could I just use the adessive case and say hän lähetti sen kirjeellä?
Why is the word for complaint in the elative case (reklamaatiosta)?
This is a verb rection. When you are talking about knowing about something, the verb tietää (to know) requires the elative case (-sta/-stä). Therefore, "I know about the complaint" translates to tiedän reklamaatiosta.
Why use the form sen for "it" instead of the partitive sitä?
Because the action of sending the letter was completed, the object takes the total object form. For the pronoun se, the total object form looks identical to the genitive (sen). If the action were ongoing or incomplete (for example, if he were still in the process of sending it), you would use the partitive sitä.
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