The Finnish se että initiated expressions: NPs or not?




Karita Suomalainen, Anna Vatanen, Ritva Laury

Tsuyoshi Ono, Sandra A. Thompson

Amsterdam

2020

The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages. An emergent unit in interaction

Typological Studies in Language

128

12

41

978-9-02-720499-8

978-9-02-726151-9

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.02suo(external)

https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.02suo(external)



This paper concerns the grammatical category of Finnish expressions initiated with se että
(lit. ‘it that’). In earlier studies based on written data, they have
been considered clausal NPs functioning as subjects, objects and
complements. In our spoken data, both present-day and older, se että initiated expressions have a wider range of functions. We show that some se että
expressions have characteristics of NPs, but others are unlike NPs in
certain ways, concluding that the category of NP is not binary, but
rather a continuum with fuzzy boundaries. We also show that se että
has been grammaticized into a projector phrase which does not initiate
complement clauses but rather functions as a sedimented formula in the
service of interactional practices.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 13:40