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The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages: An emergent unit in interaction
Edited by Tsuyoshi Ono and Sandra A. Thompson
[Typological Studies in Language 128] 2020
► pp. 11–42

Chapter 2
The Finnish se että initiated expressions

NPs or not?

| University of Turku
| University of Oulu
| University of Helsinki
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.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Data and methods
  • The status of se että initiated expressions as NPs
    • NP-like features of se että initiated expressions
    • Non-NP-like features of se että initiated expressions
    • Summary: Se että initiated expressions as NPs
  • A diachronic perspective on se että initiated expressions
  • Towards the grammaticization of se että
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Data sources
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 15 July 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.02suo
References (40)
Data sources
Arkisyn: A morphosyntactically coded database of conversational Finnish. Database compiled at the University of Turku, with material from the Conversation Analysis Archive at the University of Helsinki and the Syntax Archives at the University of Turku. Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric Languages, University of Turku.
Corpus of Finnish Dialects. Syntax Archives, Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric Studies. University of Turku.
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