The chapter shows that the Finnish expression se että ‘it
(is) that’, consisting of a demonstrative followed by a complementizer, is a
fixed projective element in talk-in-interaction both on its own and with
collocating elements. It shares features with projector phrases identified
for other languages: it is used both to prepare the addressee for the nature
of the upcoming and to underline the upcoming as central to the ongoing
interaction. The analysis of se että having grammaticized
into a projector phrase is supported by prosodic evidence: the two elements
are most often produced as one prosodic word. The findings support the idea
that se että emerges in interaction with a fixed form
rather than being generated by a syntactic rule.