Word
Se, jolla on ratkaiseva tieto, on tuo osapuoli.
Meaning
The one who has the decisive information is that party.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Se, jolla on ratkaiseva tieto, on tuo osapuoli.
olla
to be
tuo
that
se
it / he / she (of a person) / that
joka
who / which (relative pronoun)
Questions & Answers about Se, jolla on ratkaiseva tieto, on tuo osapuoli.
Why do we say Se, jolla to mean 'The one who has' instead of just using a word like kuka?
This sentence uses a pseudo-cleft focus structure. In Finnish, to say 'the one who', you pair the demonstrative pronoun se with the relative pronoun joka. Finnish rarely uses kuka (who) to link clauses like this. Joka becomes jolla (on whom) because the relative clause uses the Finnish possession structure (jolla on = who has).
Why is se in the nominative case while jolla is in the adessive case? Don't they need to match?
They don't need to match because they belong to different clauses and take their cases from their specific grammatical roles in those clauses. Se is the subject of the main clause (Se... on tuo osapuoli), so it is nominative. Jolla is the 'owner' in the relative clause's possession structure, which strictly requires the adessive case.
What kind of word is ratkaiseva here?
It is the present active participle (the -va/-vä form) of the verb ratkaista (to decide, to solve). While it literally means 'deciding' or 'solving', it acts here as an adjective meaning 'decisive' or 'crucial'.
Could we say se osapuoli instead of tuo osapuoli at the end of the sentence?