Lisenssi loppuu, ellei hän hoida velvoitetta.
The license will end, unless he handles the obligation.
Breakdown of Lisenssi loppuu, ellei hän hoida velvoitetta.
hän
he / she
loppua
to end
hoitaa
to take care of, to treat
ellei
if not / unless (inflects: ellen, ellet, ellei...)
lisenssi
the license
velvoite
the obligation
Questions & Answers about Lisenssi loppuu, ellei hän hoida velvoitetta.
How does ellei compare to kunhan, which we are learning in this lesson?
While kunhan sets a positive condition meaning 'provided that' or 'as long as', ellei sets a negative condition meaning 'unless' or 'if not'. It is an inseparable combination of the conditional word 'jos' and the negative verb, conjugated here for the third person singular (ei).
Why is the verb hoida in this specific form instead of the standard present tense hoitaa?
Because ellei acts as the negative verb in this clause, the main verb that follows must appear in the connegative form. For the verb hoitaa (to handle or take care of), the connegative stem is hoida, which undergoes consonant gradation from a strong 't' to a weak 'd'.
Why is the object velvoitetta in the partitive case instead of the genitive-accusative velvoitteen?
The clause introduced by ellei is grammatically negative. In Finnish, the direct object of a negative sentence must always be in the partitive case. If the sentence were positive (for example, if it used kunhan instead of ellei), the object would take the genitive-accusative form velvoitteen.
The translation says 'The license will end', but loppuu is in the present tense. Is there a missing future marker?
No, Finnish does not have a dedicated future tense. The present tense regularly expresses future actions. The conditional context of the ellei clause makes it completely clear to a Finnish speaker that the ending of the license is a future consequence rather than something happening right now.
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