Breakdown of Emmekö voi tehdä mitään tuloksettomalle tilanteelle?
ei
no / not (negative verb)
tehdä
to do
mikään
anything, nothing (with negation)
voida
can, to be able to
tilanne
situation
tulokseton
fruitless
Questions & Answers about Emmekö voi tehdä mitään tuloksettomalle tilanteelle?
How do we get the form tuloksettomalle from the dictionary word tulokseton?
The word tulokseton (fruitless/resultless) ends in the caritive suffix -ton (meaning "without"). When you add a case ending to adjectives ending in -ton or -tön, the stem changes to -ttoma- or -ttömä-. To add the allative ending -lle, the stem becomes tuloksettoma-, giving us tuloksettomalle.
Why are tuloksettomalle and tilanteelle in the allative case (-lle) when the English translation says "about the situation"?
In Finnish, the verb tehdä (to do) generally requires the allative case (-lle) when you are talking about doing something to or about a specific thing or person. You can think of it literally as asking "Can't we do anything to the fruitless situation?".
Why is the question clitic -kö attached to the negative verb (emmekö) rather than voida?
In Finnish negative questions (like "Can't we..." or "Don't you..."), the question clitic -ko/-kö must attach to the negative verb (en, et, ei, emme, etc.) because it is the conjugated auxiliary verb. This combined word is then placed at the very beginning of the sentence.
Why is mitään used in the partitive case here?
Mitään is the partitive form of the indefinite pronoun mikään (anything). Because this is a negative sentence (emmekö voi...), the object of the verb tehdä must be in the partitive case.
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