Breakdown of Älä sammuta lamppua, jos minun pitää vielä lukea.
minun
my
lukea
to read
jos
if
älä
don't
sammuttaa
to turn off
vielä
still
pitää
to have to
lamppu
the lamp
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Questions & Answers about Älä sammuta lamppua, jos minun pitää vielä lukea.
What does älä indicate in this sentence?
Älä is the negative imperative marker in Finnish. It tells someone not to do something, equivalent to English “don’t.”
Why isn’t there an explicit “you” pronoun in älä sammuta?
Finnish imperative forms already encode the second-person subject, so adding sinä (“you”) is unnecessary and normally omitted.
Why is sammuta the correct form of the verb here?
Sammuta is the second-person singular imperative of sammuttaa (“to switch off”). Together with älä, it literally means “don’t switch off.”
Why is lamppua in the partitive case rather than the nominative?
In negative clauses, Finnish usually puts the direct object in the partitive. So instead of lamppu (nominative), we get lamppua (partitive) after the negative imperative.
What role does jos play, and why is there a comma before it?
Jos means “if” and introduces a conditional subordinate clause. Finnish style places a comma before subordinate clauses to separate them from the main clause and improve readability.
What does vielä mean in this context?
Vielä means “still” or “yet.” Here it indicates that the reading isn’t finished: “if I still have to read.”
Why is minun pitää used rather than minä pitää or minulla pitää?
Modal constructions with pitää require a genitive subject (the person who must do something), so you use minun pitää (“I have to”). Minä pitää ignores Finnish verb agreement, and minulla pitää mixes up the locative minulla on (“I have”), which doesn’t apply to modals.
Can the pronoun minun be omitted, and if so, what changes?
Yes. Finnish is pro-drop, so you could say jos pitää vielä lukea. The verb form pitää implies first-person singular; omitting minun just makes it more colloquial or concise.
Why is lukea in the infinitive form?
After the modal verb pitää, Finnish uses the first infinitive (basic form of the verb) to express necessity. So pitää lukea means “have to read.”