Breakdown of Minulla ei ole lainkaan unilääkkeitä.
olla
to be
minä
I
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
lainkaan
at all
unilääke
sleeping pill
Questions & Answers about Minulla ei ole lainkaan unilääkkeitä.
Is there any difference between using lainkaan and ollenkaan in this sentence?
Not in meaning. Both translate to "at all" and are negative polarity adverbs, meaning they are only used in negative sentences. Lainkaan sounds slightly more formal or literary than ollenkaan, but they are completely interchangeable here. You could just as easily say Minulla ei ole ollenkaan unilääkkeitä.
Could lainkaan be placed at the very end of the sentence instead?
Yes! Saying Minulla ei ole unilääkkeitä lainkaan is perfectly correct. Placing it right after the negative verb phrase (ei ole) just puts slightly more emphasis on the "not at all" aspect earlier in the thought, which is very common in spoken Finnish.
Just as a refresher, why is unilääkkeitä in the partitive plural rather than the nominative plural?
Because this is a negative possession sentence. The rule is that in negative "I do not have" constructions (minulla ei ole), the thing you don't have must be in the partitive case. Since we are talking about pills in the plural, it takes the partitive plural ending.
What is the base form of unilääkkeitä, and why does it have a double -kk- here?
The base compound word is unilääke (uni meaning "sleep" + lääke meaning "medicine"). Words ending in -e use the strong consonant grade in the partitive plural, which is why the double -kk- from the base form remains, taking the ending -eitä to become lääkkeitä.
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