Breakdown of Varallisuuden takia niukkuudessa ei enää eletä.
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
enää
anymore
takia
because of
elää
to live, to be alive
varallisuus
wealth
niukkuus
scarcity
Questions & Answers about Varallisuuden takia niukkuudessa ei enää eletä.
How can elää (to live) be used in the passive here if it doesn't take a direct object?
In Finnish, the passive is not just for actions done to an object. You can passivize intransitive verbs to express a generic state or an action done by an unspecified group of people. Here, the passive implies that people in general, or society, do not live in scarcity.
Why is the verb form eletä instead of the standard passive eletään?
Because this is a negative sentence. The affirmative passive form is eletään. When you make a passive sentence negative, you use the negative verb ei and drop the personal ending from the passive verb, leaving the connegative form eletä.
Why is the state niukkuudessa (in scarcity) placed before the verb?
Why is varallisuus (wealth) in the genitive case (varallisuuden)?
It is required by the postposition takia (because of). In Finnish, words that come immediately before a postposition almost always need to be in the genitive case.
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