Ilman leimaa paperi ei ole voimassa.

to be

Breakdown of Ilman leimaa paperi ei ole voimassa.

• ei: not
• ilman: without
• voimassa: valid

Questions & Answers about Ilman leimaa paperi ei ole voimassa.

What is ilman, and what case does it require?

Ilman means without and it behaves like a preposition/postposition in Finnish. It requires the partitive case:

• ilman leimaa = without (a) stamp You’ll see the same pattern in:
• ilman sokeria (without sugar)
• ilman rahaa (without money)

Why is it leimaa and not leima or leiman?

• leima is the dictionary form (nominative).
• leimaa is the partitive singular, required by ilman.
• leiman (genitive) is generally not used after ilman in modern standard Finnish (you may occasionally see genitive in older/poetic language, but the normal rule is partitive).

So ilman leimaa is simply the standard grammatical form.

How does the negation work in paperi ei ole voimassa?

Finnish negation uses a separate negative verb that conjugates for person/number:

• ei = 3rd person singular (he/she/it does not)

After the negative verb, the main verb appears in the connegative form:

• olla (to be) → ole

So:

• (paperi) ei ole = is not

Compare:

• paperi on voimassa (the paper is valid/in force)
• paperi ei ole voimassa (the paper is not valid/in force)