Breakdown of Haluan painottaa, että se on tämä ristiriita, jota yritämme ratkaista.
tämä
this
olla
to be
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
haluta
to want
että
that (conjunction)
yrittää
to try
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
ratkaista
to solve (a problem, puzzle)
painottaa
to emphasize
ristiriita
contradiction
Questions & Answers about Haluan painottaa, että se on tämä ristiriita, jota yritämme ratkaista.
Why use the longer structure se on tämä ristiriita, jota... instead of just saying yritämme ratkaista tätä ristiriitaa?
This is a cleft sentence used to put heavy focus on a specific part of the sentence. Just like in English ('it is this contradiction that...'), Finnish uses the dummy pronoun se and the relative pronoun joka to spotlight tämä ristiriita as the exact thing being solved.
Since we are trying to solve the contradiction, shouldn't tämä ristiriita be in the partitive case as the object?
In a cleft structure, the focused phrase (tämä ristiriita) grammatically belongs to the first clause (se on...). Because it is simply stating what 'it is' using the verb on, it stays in the basic nominative case. The grammatical role of the object for the solving action is instead taken over by the relative pronoun jota in the second clause.
Why is the relative pronoun jota in the partitive case here?
The relative pronoun joka always takes the case required by its role inside its own relative clause. Here, it acts as the object of yritämme ratkaista (we are trying to solve). Because trying to solve something is an ongoing, incomplete process, the object must be in the partitive case (jota).
I know the verb korostaa also means 'to emphasize'. Could I use it here instead of painottaa?
Yes, they are highly interchangeable in this context. Painottaa comes from paino (weight) and gives the feeling of placing weight or stress on a point, especially in speech or a logical argument. Korostaa comes from the root for 'high' and suggests making something stand out visually or conceptually. Both work perfectly here.
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