-kään

See also: kaan, Kaan, kāān̄, -kaan, and ka'an

Finnish

Particle

-kään (in words that include front vowels ä, ö, y or the vowels i or e alone — compare -kaan)

  1. (enclitic, appended to any word except for a verb form) neither, not ... either, nor
    Minäkään en syönyt eilen jäätelöä.
    Nor did I eat ice cream yesterday. (I was one of those who didn't eat...)
    (Minä) en syönyt eilenkään jäätelöä.
    I didn't eat ice-cream yesterday either. (Yesterday was one of the days I didn't eat...)
    (Minä) en syönyt eilen jäätelöäkään.
    Yesterday I didn't eat ice-cream either. (Ice-cream was one of the things I didn't eat...)
    En tiedä. -- En minäkään.
    I don't know. -- Nor do I.
  2. (enclitic, appended to a verb form) indicates confirmation of not doing something, e.g. if someone doubts it, or, when someone is more or less surprised at an occurrence, indicates the reason why some thing was not successful – which is by not doing that something
    En syönytkään jäätelöä jälkiruoaksi, vaan piirakkaa.
    After all, I didn't eat ice-cream for dessert, but pie.

Usage notes

This particle can be appended to any word that hasn't got any previous enclitic particle, and sometimes also to such words that already have an enclitic particle.

Antonyms

  • (neither, not ... either) -kin

See also

Anagrams

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