Breakdown of Se, mitä omistat, ei ole tärkeää.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
tärkeä
important
mikä
which (relative pronoun)
omistaa
to own
Questions & Answers about Se, mitä omistat, ei ole tärkeää.
Why does the sentence start with Se, mitä instead of just Mitä for "What"?
In Finnish, relative clauses usually need a "head" word to attach to. To say "what" in a statement, you use the demonstrative pronoun se in the main clause, followed by the relative pronoun mikä (inflected here as mitä) in the subclause. Literally, it translates to "That, which you own, is not important."
Why is the relative pronoun in the partitive case (mitä) rather than the nominative (mikä)?
The relative pronoun gets its case based on its grammatical role inside the relative clause itself. Here, it acts as the object of the verb omistaa (to own). Because "what you own" is treated as an abstract, undefined mass rather than a single specific object, the object takes the partitive case.
Why is tärkeää in the partitive case here instead of the nominative tärkeä?
When the subject of a sentence is an entire clause or an abstract concept (represented here by the pronoun se), the predicative adjective describing it must be in the partitive case. Since "what you own" is an abstract idea rather than a specific, countable noun, tärkeä becomes tärkeää.
Why are there commas around mitä omistat?
Finnish punctuation rules are much stricter than English ones: subordinate clauses, including relative clauses like mitä omistat, must always be separated from the main clause by commas. The commas here isolate the relative clause from the main frame of the sentence (Se... ei ole tärkeää).
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