On the subject of subject in Finnish
This article examines the category of subject in Finnish. Among the grammatical
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. 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 subject of the clause-level
construction. The function of an e-NP (existential NP) is proposed for such
elements instead.
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Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Carlier, Anne & Karen Lahousse
Huumo, Tuomas
2020.
Layers of (un)boundedness: The aspectual–quantificational interplay of quantifiers and partitive case in Finnish object arguments.
Linguistics 58:3
► pp. 905 ff.
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