Finnish existential clauses are known for the case marking of their S arguments, which
alternates between the nominative and the partitive. Existential S arguments introduce a
discourse-new referent, and, if headed by a mass noun or a plural form, are marked with the
partitive case that indicates non-exhaustive quantification (as in ‘There is some coffee in the
cup’). In the literature it has often been observed that the partitive is occasionally used even
in transitive clauses to mark the A argument. In this work I analyze a hand-picked set of
examples to explore this partitive A. I argue that the partitive A phrase often has an animate
referent; that it is most felicitous in low-transitivity expressions where the O argument
is likewise in the partitive (to indicate non-culminating aspect); that a partitive A phrase
typically follows the verb, is in the plural and is typically modified by a quantifier (‘many’, ‘a
lot of’). I then argue that the pervasiveness of quantifying expressions in partitive A phrases
reflects a structural analogy with (pseudo)partitive constructions where a nominative head
is followed by a partitive modifier (e.g. ‘a group of students’). Such analogies may be relevant
in permitting the A function to be fulfilled by many kinds of quantifier + partitive NPs.