Word
Se, mitä pakenen, on kauhea kaaos.
Meaning
What I am escaping is terrible chaos.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Se, mitä pakenen, on kauhea kaaos.
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
paeta
to flee
kauhea
terrible
Questions & Answers about Se, mitä pakenen, on kauhea kaaos.
Why does the sentence start with Se, mitä instead of just Mitä for "What"?
This is a pseudo-cleft sentence structure. In English, you can start with "What I am escaping..." where "what" acts as the subject of the entire sentence. In Finnish, the main clause needs its own anchor pronoun. Here, Se acts as the subject of the main verb on, and the relative clause mitä pakenen acts as a modifier to define exactly what that Se is.
Why is the relative pronoun in the partitive case (mitä) rather than the nominative (mikä)?
The case of a relative pronoun is determined by its grammatical role inside the relative clause. The verb paeta (to escape) is a partitive verb, meaning the thing you are escaping must be in the partitive case. Since mitä represents the object being escaped, it takes the partitive form.
If paeta requires a partitive object, why are Se and kauhea kaaos in the nominative case?
Grammatical rules like case requirements don't bleed across clause boundaries. The verb paeta only governs the relative clause (mitä pakenen). The main clause is simply Se on kauhea kaaos (It is terrible chaos). In this main clause, Se is the nominative subject, and kauhea kaaos is its nominative complement (predicative).
Are both commas around mitä pakenen actually required?