Breakdown of Non si sono ordinate nuove importazioni finché non si sono rimosse le giacenze.
essere
to be
nuovo
new
non
not
ordinare
to order
si
one (impersonal)
rimuovere
to remove
finché non
until
l'importazione
the import (f)
la giacenza
the unsold stock
Questions & Answers about Non si sono ordinate nuove importazioni finché non si sono rimosse le giacenze.
Why do the past participles ordinate and rimosse end in -e?
This sentence uses the si passivante (passive si) in a compound tense. In this structure, the things being acted upon become the grammatical subjects of the sentence. Since nuove importazioni (new imports) and le giacenze (the stocks) are both feminine plural subjects, the past participles must agree with them, becoming ordinate and rimosse.
Why is the auxiliary verb sono used here instead of hanno? Don't you "have ordered" something?
Whenever you form the si passivante in a compound tense like the passato prossimo, the auxiliary verb must always be essere (to be) — even if the active version of the verb usually takes avere. Because the subjects (nuove importazioni and le giacenze) are plural, we use the third-person plural form sono.
Why is there a second non after finché? Doesn't that mean "until they were not removed"?
No, it still translates to "until they were removed." In Italian, finché non is used as a phrase meaning "until" when you are waiting for a specific event to happen to end a situation. The non here is pleonastic, meaning it doesn't actually negate the verb that follows it; it just reinforces the idea of waiting for a change in state.
Where does the word giacenze come from?
Giacenze (singular: giacenza) comes from the verb giacere, which means "to lie" or "to sit." In a business, warehouse, or post office context, it refers to goods or letters that are just "sitting there" — meaning unsold stock, remaining inventory, or uncollected mail.
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