Breakdown of Voittajalla oli sellainen kyynel silmässä.
olla
to be
silmä
eye
sellainen
such, that kind of
voittaja
winner
Questions & Answers about Voittajalla oli sellainen kyynel silmässä.
Why is sellainen in the nominative case here?
Because it describes kyynel (tear), which is in the nominative case. In Finnish 'to have' structures (like voittajalla oli), the thing being possessed acts as the grammatical subject. Since the tear is a single, countable object, it takes the nominative, and the demonstrative adjective sellainen must agree with it.
Does sellainen literally mean 'that kind of' in this sentence?
While sellainen is often translated literally as 'that kind of', in everyday Finnish it is frequently used for emotional emphasis, exactly like 'such a' in English. Here, sellainen kyynel conveys emotional weight rather than pointing to a specific category of tears.
What is the stem of kyynel if I need to use it in other cases?
Nouns ending in -el, like kyynel, are a slightly older word type that uses a stem ending in -ele- before most case endings. For instance, the genitive is kyyneleen, the partitive is kyyneltä (which drops the extra vowel), and the nominative plural is kyyneleet.
Why do we use voittajalla instead of the nominative voittaja?
This is a quick reminder of the standard Finnish 'to have' construction. Because Finnish lacks a direct verb for 'to have', it uses the adessive case (-lla/-llä) plus the verb olla (to be). Voittajalla oli literally translates to 'On the winner was'.