Breakdown of Kumpikaan abstrakti asettelu ei miellyttänyt kriitikkoa.
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
kumpikaan
neither one
miellyttää
to please
kriitikko
the critic
abstrakti
abstract
asettelu
layout
Questions & Answers about Kumpikaan abstrakti asettelu ei miellyttänyt kriitikkoa.
Why do we have both kumpikaan and ei in this sentence? Doesn't kumpikaan already mean "neither"?
In Finnish, pronoun forms ending with the -kaan/-kään suffix like kumpikaan (neither) or kukaan (no one) require a negative verb to complete their meaning. So you are literally saying "Neither layout did not please," which is a grammatically necessary double negative in Finnish.
Since kumpikaan refers to two things, why is the verb singular (ei miellyttänyt) instead of plural?
Even though kumpikaan implies a negative choice out of two items, it is grammatically singular. Therefore, any adjectives and nouns attached to it (abstrakti asettelu) and the verb itself (ei miellyttänyt) must also take the singular form.
Why is the object kriitikko in the partitive case (kriitikkoa)?
The verb miellyttää (to please) is a verb of emotion. In Finnish, verbs that express evoking a feeling in someone require their object to be in the partitive case, because experiencing an emotion is viewed as an ongoing, unbounded process rather than a completed physical action.
Could I use mikään instead of kumpikaan in this sentence?
Only if there were three or more layouts. Kumpikaan is strictly used when referring to exactly two options ("neither of the two"). If the critic was evaluating three or more abstract layouts, you would use mikään ("none of them").
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