Breakdown of Hän lisäsi pisaran alkoholia tähän litraan vettä.
tämä
this
hän
he / she
vesi
water
lisätä
to add
Questions & Answers about Hän lisäsi pisaran alkoholia tähän litraan vettä.
Why does vettä stay in the partitive even though litraan is in the illative case?
This is the core of how measure phrases work in Finnish! The container or measure word (litra) takes the case required by the sentence (here, the illative litraan because of the verb lisätä). However, the substance being measured (vettä) is a partitive modifier. It gets locked into the partitive case and does not copy the head noun's case.
Why is the object pisaran in the genitive-looking accusative case instead of the partitive?
Even though he is adding an uncountable substance (alkoholia), the direct grammatical object of the verb is the word pisara (a drop). Since a drop is a countable noun and he is adding one whole drop, it takes the total object case (pisaran). The uncountable substance (alkoholia) simply acts as a modifier attached to it.
Why do we say tähän litraan (illative) instead of using a case like the allative (tälle litralle)?
The verb lisätä (to add) requires the illative case (the "into" case) when you are adding an ingredient to a mixture or container. You are conceptually putting the drop into the water, so both the pronoun and the noun take the illative ending (tähän litraan).
Can I combine pisaran alkoholia into a single compound word like alkoholipisaran?