Refereed article in compilation book (A3)
On the subject of subject in Finnish
List of Authors: Tuomas Huumo, Marja-Liisa Helasvuo
Editors: Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Tuomas Huumo
Place: Amsterdam
Publication year: 2015
Book title *: Subjects in constructions: canonical and non-canonical
Title of series: Constructional Appoaches to Language
Number in series: 16
Start page: 13
End page: 41
Number of pages: 29
ISBN: 978-90-272-0438-7
eISBN: 978-90-727-6918-8
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/cal.16.02huu
This article examines the category of subject in Finnish. Among the grammati- cal features examined are case marking, agreement and syntax, semantic role, its relation to other sentence elements and its semantic function as regards the sentence as a whole. One important discourse feature is whether the subject introduces a referent and whether that referent is mentioned again later in the discourse.We discuss different construction types and examine whether the alleged subjects fulfil the role of the subject as defined in cognitive grammar, i.e. elements which function as a clause-level trajector and as a starting point for the construal of the relationship and its participants. More generally, it is argued that the trajector does not necessarily constitute the first argument of the verb. The function of an e-NP (existential NP) is proposed for such elements instead.