grammar from the human perspective: case, space and person in finnish

Grammar from the human PersPective

AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE

General editore.f.K. Koerner

(Zentrum für allgemeine sprachwissenschaft, typologie und universalienforschung, Berlin)

series iv – current issues in LinGuistic theorY

Advisory Editorial Board

Lyle campbell (salt Lake city); sheila embleton (toronto) Brian D. Joseph (columbus, ohio); John e. Joseph (edinburgh)

manfred Krifka (Berlin); e. Wyn roberts (vancouver, B.c.)Joseph c. salmons (madison, Wis.); hans-Jürgen sasse (Köln)

volume 277

marja-Liisa helasvuo and Lyle campbell (eds.)

Grammar from the Human Perspective.Case, space and person in Finnish.

John BenJamins PuBLishinG comPanYamsterDam/PhiLaDeLPhia

Grammar from the human

PersPectivecase, sPace anD Person in finnish

edited by

marJa-Liisa heLasvuoUniversity of Turku

LYLe camPBeLLUniversity of Utah

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of american national standard for information sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library materials, ansi Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grammar from the human perspective : case, space and person in finnish / edited by marja-Liisa helasvuo, Lyle campbell. p. cm. -- (amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. series iv, current issues in linguistic theory, issn 0304-0763 ; v. 277) includes bibliographical references and index.1. finnish language--Grammar. 2. finnish language--case. 3. finnish language--Person. 4. space and time in language.Ph133.G73 2006494/.541--dc22 2006043055isBn 90 272 4792 7 (hb; alk. paper)

© 2006 – John Benjamins B.v.no part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, with-out written permission from the publisher.

John Benjamins Publishing co. • P.o.Box 36224 • 1020 me amsterdam • The netherlandsJohn Benjamins north america • P.o.Box 27519 • Philadelphia Pa 19118-0519 • usa

CONTENTS

Abbreviations & transcription symbolsAcknowledgements

Introduction: Grammar from the human perspectiveMarjaLiisa Helasvuo and Lyle Campbell

An introduction to Finnish spatial relations:Local cases and adpositions

Tuomas Huumo and Krista Ojutkangas

Part I: Space and location

Spatial axes in language and conceptualization:The case of bidirectional constructions

Krista Ojutkangas

“I woke up from the sofa”: Subjective directionality in Finnishexpressions of a spatiocognitive transfer

Tuomas Huumo

Metonymy in locatives of stateTiina OnikkiRantajääskö

Part II: The human perspective

Body part names and grammaticalizationToni Suutari

On distinguishing between recipient and beneficiary in FinnishSeppo Kittilä

Oblique mentions of human referents in Finnish conversation:The effects of prominence in discourse and grammar

Ritva Laury

viiix

1

11

21

41

67

101

129

153

CONTENTSvi

Part III: Person

Person in Finnish: Paradigmatic and syntagmaticrelations in interaction

MarjaLiisa Helasvuo and Lea Laitinen

Zero person in Finnish: A grammatical resourcefor construing human reference

Lea Laitinen

Passive — personal or impersonal? A Finnish perspectiveMarjaLiisa Helasvuo

Master List of References

Index of Subjects and Terms

173

209

233

257

277

AbbreviationsABL Ablative case (‘from’)ABS Absolutive caseACC Accusative caseACT Active voiceADE Adessive case (‘on, at’)ADJ Adjectival derivational suffixALL Allative case (‘onto, towards’)CLT CliticCOND Conditional moodELA Elative case (‘from’)ERG Ergative caseGEN Genitive caseESS Essive case (‘as, at, in’)ILL Illative (‘to, into’)IMP Imperative moodINE Inessive case (‘in’)INF InfinitiveLOG Logophoric pronounNOM Nominative caseNEG Negation element (verb/particle)NMLZ Nominalizing suffixPASS Passive voicePST Past tensePCTP ParticiplePERS Personal suffix (the socalled “4th person”) of the simple passivePL PluralPRS Present tensePTV Partitive casePX Possessive suffixQ Question cliticSG SingularSUP Superlative suffixTRA Translative case (‘into’)1SG First person singular (likewise second and third)1PL First person plural (likewise second and third)PRO1SG First person singular pronoun (likewise second and third)PRO1PL First person plural pronoun (likewise second and third)

Transcription symbols. falling intonation at the end of an intonation unit, level intonation at the end of an intonation unit? raising intonation at the end of an intonation unit↑ following word starts at a higher pitch[ beginning of overlapped speech] end of overlapped speech(.) micropause(0.4) pause (length indicated in tenths of a second)>< (inwards pointing arrows) rapid speech<> (outwards pointing arrows) slow speechAHA (capital letters) loud volume.hhh inbreathhe he laughter£ £ word or longer utterance produced with a smiley voicesi truncated word

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In 2001, Professors Tuomas Huumo (University of Turku) and LeaLaitinen (University of Helsinki) joined their efforts and started to collaborateon a project called “Grammar and the Human Conceptualizer,” which aimed tostudy how grammar reflects the viewpoints of the language users — that is, thehuman conceptualizers. We wish to express our gratitude to the Academy ofFinland for supporting this project, which made possible the several workshopswhere the authors of papers in this volume were able to meet and discuss thecontents of their papers. The Academy’s support made possible the visits andparticipation of Ronald Langacker, Ritva Laury, and Lyle Campbell. Inaddition, Lyle Campbell's visit to the University of Turku was supported byfunding from the University of Turku. We thank Ronald Langacker for his participation and support throughoutthe project and the publication of this volume. We also thank the anonymousreviewers of this volume, and Konrad Koerner for editorial advice. We aregrateful to Anke de Looper of John Benjamins Publishing Company for herhelp in editing the papers.

INTRODUCTIONGRAMMAR FROM THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE

MARJALIISA HELASVUO AND LYLE CAMPBELLUniversity of Turku and University of Utah

1. Grammar from the human perspective — theoretical backgroundThe papers of this book investigate how grammar codes the subjective

viewpoint of human language users, that is, how grammar reflects human conceptualization. One of the basic tenets of Cognitive Grammar is that between alinguistic expression and its extralinguistic referent there must be human conceptualization — we interpret the extralinguistic entity or situation in a particular way when we choose a linguistic expression with which to refer to it. AsLangacker (1999a:206) puts it, “Our concern is with conceptualizations evokedas the meanings of linguistic expressions, in which case the primary conceptualizers are the speaker and the addressee. Their conception and portrayal of asituation can never be wholly neutral, for they must always construe it in somespecific fashion.” Some of the articles in this book deal with spatial relationsand locations; they discuss how basic attributes of human conceptualization(for example, the notions of Figure and Ground, see Talmy 2000a:312, or thedivision into different axes, see Clark 1973:31–35; Fillmore 1982:36–37) areencoded in the grammatical expression of spatial relations. Other articles hereconcern ‘body’ — embodiment in language, showing how conceptualization ismediated by one’s embodied experience of the world and ourselves, via one’sbody and perception (Freeman 2003:266). Finally, some of the articles discusscoding of person; they place emphasis more on the subjectivity of conceptualization and how it is reflected in grammar. They show that conceptualization issubjective in that it reflects the speaker’s construal of the situation or stateofaffairs (Langacker 1999a:206), and furthermore, that it is intersubjectivebecause it reflects the speaker’s understanding of the relations between theparticipants in the speech act (including the recipient of the talk; see Scheibmann 2001, Kärkkäinen et al., forthcoming).

MARJALIISA HELASVUO & LYLE CAMPBELL2

2. Grammar from the perspective of Finnish — theoretical contributionsThe papers of this volume deal with and are informed by aspects of Fin

nish grammar. It is often commented that Finnish is an exceptionally valuablelanguage for linguistics because it provides excellent examples of so manythings of theoretical interest to linguists. Indeed, in the general linguisticsliterature we find numerous instances of Finnish examples playing significantroles in theoretical discussions of vowel harmony, gemination, meter, codeswitching, child language acquisition, language contact, loanwords, languagechange, word order, theoretical morphology, computational linguistics, morphological processing, case (see Comrie 1975, Kiparsky 2001), possession,anaphora, metaphor (see Johnson and Lakoff 2002), null subjects, and typological issues of many sorts. In spite of the role Finnish has played, much insightful work in Finnish linguistics remains essentially unknown to the broaderlinguistic audience, since it is published in Finnish or in lesserknown journals.Much of this work is truly excellent, and outsiders familiar with the Finnishlinguistic tradition frequently lament that its excellent findings and analyseshave not reached a broader audience. The papers of the volume, in a smallmeasure, do reflect the wealth that can be mined from the resources of Finnishgrammar, and also, we hope, reveal something of the value of Finnish linguistic scholarship on Finnish and what that perspective can contribute to linguistics more generally.

From a general linguistic perspective, the papers of this volume frequently contribute new insight to longstanding issues in Finnish traditionallinguistic studies. More importantly, they utilize the rich resources of Finnishgrammar to contribute generally to a range of issues in contemporary functional linguistics and in particular to Cognitive Grammar (as developed by, forexample, Langacker 1987, 1991b, Talmy 2000a). With its rich morphology,Finnish offers interesting insights into many current theoretical topics, amongothers the discussion of fictive motion (Talmy 2000a: Chapter 2). Canonicalexamples of fictive motion include expressions in which the static position of anelongated entity is expressed by using motion verbs and directional locative elements, but fictive motion applies to more abstract domains as well (e.g. cognitionor perception). Here, the Finnish local case system provides a rich resource. Incognitive linguistics, expressions of fictive motion are usually analyzed as reflecting the directionality of a mental scanning performed by the conceptualizer.Thus, the situation is approached and represented from a subjective perspective.(For further discussion, see Huumo, this volume).

While several of the articles are directly concerned with cognitivelinguistics, they are not deeply embedded in a single theoretical framework andtheir orientation does not prevent linguists from outside of cognitive linguisticsfrom understanding and appreciating the arguments, analyses, and explanations. In addition to current issues in cognitive linguistics, the articles addressbasic assumptions in the literature on grammaticalization, for example by

GRAMMAR FROM THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE 3

questioning the assumed unidirectionality of grammaticalization processes(from lexical to grammatical, see Meillet 1912, or from less grammatical tomore grammatical, Kury owicz 1965; for a critique of this view, see Campbell2001:129–130; for further discussion, see Suutari, this volume), and by discussing the role of metonymy and metaphor in grammaticalization (see OnikkiRantajääskö, this volume).

Most of the papers are based on authentic (naturally occurring) datafrom written and spoken genres. In several of the papers, data are not just usedto illustrate the theoretical points, but rather, the data are studied in order toidentify discourse patterns which are then studied in context to search for functional explanations for the observed patternings concerning, for example, information status and reference tracking (see Chafe 1994, and the papers byOjutkangas and Laury, this volume), or discourse prominence and inherentlexical semantics of the referential forms (see Silverstein 1981, and the papersby Laury, Laitinen, and Helasvuo, this volume). These papers take a discourseperspective on subjectivity in conceptualization, for example looking at theconstrual of person reference as an interactive process; in this context Scheibmann (2001) talks about intersubjectivity.

How the human perspective is coded in grammar provides the cohesionwhich unifies the papers of this volume. The articles follow a logical progression, where earlier articles in several cases provide foundations helpful forunderstanding later papers. The sections of the book are also sequenced in thisway. Thus, papers in Section II Space and Location deal with the expression oflocation and the conceptualization of spaces, while the papers in Section IIIThe Human perspective discuss the role of the human body in grammaticalconceptualization. Finally, the papers in Section IV Person focus on the codingof person in grammar.

3. Space and locationKrista Ojutkangas’ paper, “Spatial axes in language and conceptualiza

tion: the case of bidirectional constructions,” is a usagebased study of thebasic axes in the conceptual partition of space. The focus is on bidirectionalconstructions in Finnish: on descriptions of spatial relations where both opposing poles of a spatial axis are explicitly mentioned in a single sentence,instances such as ‘the bride and the groom were sitting behind the table and theguests were sitting in front of the table’. The presence of both opposing spatialterms in the sentence is not random; rather, their joint appearance has a meaning in the discourse, and this is what makes the bidirectional constructions“constructions”. Ojutkangas argues that the use of bidirectional constructions ismotivated by the support that solid and stable spatial axis can contribute toefficiency and ease of information processing. The analysis — based on thewindowing of attention, the ability of humans to target their focus to selectedparts of different event frames (Talmy 2000a) — shows that bidirectional con


structions elaborate the spatial description, as they are used for nesting locativeexpressions and thus for characterizing spatial configurations more finely.They also function as a tool for tracking Figure and Ground referents throughdiscourse, when the constructions are used as a device for building narrativealong the axis the speaker has chosen. Ojutkangas’ study shows that the inherent bipolarity of the basic spatial axes can be utilized as a relatively systematicstrategy in spatial conceptualization. It also shows that a conceptualizationstrategy primarily used in spatial language can have further functions in discourse, in building the narrative, and in reference tracking. The analysis ofbidirectional and similar constructions contributes to our knowledge of spatialconceptualization and language generally.

Tuomas Huumo (in “I woke up from the sofa”: subjective directionality inFinnish expressions of a spatiocognitive transfer”) investigates fictive motion asmanifested by the uses of the Finnish directional cases (‘to’ vs. ‘from’) in expressions that involve a cognitive change. Cognitive change takes place in the relationship between an experiencer and a stimulus in such a way that the stimuluseither enters or exits the cognitive domain of the experiencer (that is, the experiencer’s consciousness, awareness, or field of perception). Verbs that show suchrelations include verbs of perception (for example, ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘smell’) andverbs of more abstract cognitive contact (such as ‘find’, ‘lose’, ‘forget’). The general observation is that even though such situations do not involve actual motionin space, Finnish uses the directional cases to indicate the static spatial position ofthe stimulus that changes its relationship with the cognitive domain. In general,the spatial position of a stimulus that enters a cognitive domain is referred to byuse of a ‘from’ case, as if the stimulus were leaving its spatial position when itenters the cognitive domain — hence, the ‘I woke up from the sofa’ of the title.For instance, in Finnish one may ‘see’ or ‘find’ things ‘from’ the places theyoccupy. Correspondingly, the spatial position of a stimulus that exits a cognitivedomain is often referred to with a ‘to’ case, as if it were moving into its spatialposition when it leaves the cognitive domain. Thus in Finnish one may ‘forget’ or‘leave’ things ‘into’ their places. Huumo argues that this use of the directionalcases shows that the conceptualization of such cognitive changes reflected by thestructure of Finnish involves fictive motion between different domains and a deepand direct interaction between cognitive domain and space.

In “Metonymy in locatives of state,” Tiina OnikkiRantajääskö analyzesabstract uses of locative case expressions in Finnish. She concentrates on theconstruction type called ‘locatives of state’, which denotes psychophysical andother states — she especially focuses on expressions for postures and facialexpressions (Hän on jaloillaan [s/he be+3SG footPLADE3SGPX] ‘S/he ison her/his feet’; nenä pystyssä [nose upINE] ‘chin up’, both reflecting aschema [X YLOCAL CASE] meaning ‘X is in state Y’). Special attention isgiven to the bridging role of metonymy between the concrete and abstract usesof locative case expressions. OnikkiRantajääskö shows that metonymicmeta


phorical tendencies are based on cultural models which form the basis for thepolysemy of locative expressions. She also discusses another organizing principle lying behind expressions of postures, that of geometric imageschematicdimensions. The paper shows how metonymicmetaphorical extensions makeuse of these dimensions. Together they form the motivation for and organizingprinciple behind the abstraction tendencies observed in locatives. Furthermore,based on her data from expressions of postures and facial expressions in Finnish, OnikkiRantajääskö explores the experiential and bodily basis of metaphor and metonymy suggested by Barcelona (2003b).

4. The human perspectiveToni Suutari investigates “Body part names and grammaticalization,” the

development and grammaticalization of words that refer to body parts. Anexamination of FinnoUgric words meaning ‘head’ reveals counterexamples toclaims both about human egocentrism in semantic development and about theasserted unidirectionality of grammaticalization. Certain abstract relationalexpressions receive a concrete meaning as names for parts of the body and thensubsequently become abstract once again (for example, ‘beginning/end’ >‘head/top’ > ‘over/above’). In other words, Suutari shows that meanings ofanatomical ‘head’ are often secondary, and this has serious implications forgrammaticalization. Suutari reviews the primary bodypart names and theproblems of the grammatical categorization of locative forms. The Finnish andEstonian locative expressions that include bodypart names belong to twotypes, locatives and adpositions. Locatives are typically formed from twonouns and are based on the ‘body part’ > ‘object part’ metaphor (Finnish uunin kupeessa [ovenGEN flankINE] ‘next to the oven’; contrast linnan ikkunassa [castleGEN windowINE] ‘at the window of the castle’). Adpositionsbecome grammaticalized directly from the meaning of the body part, with thehelp of the ‘part’ > ‘space around part’ metonymy (Finnish uuden liikemerkinrinnalla [newGEN logoGEN chest/breastADE] ‘alongside the new logo’).Suutari shows that the metaphorical change from the meanings related to bodyparts to abstract meanings occurred after the grammaticalization had takenplace. It is therefore argued that the concrete ‘body part’ > ‘object part’ metaphor has no effect in these cases. The observations have broad implications forgrammaticalization and categorization. They demonstrate that grammaticalization does not always involve changes from concrete to abstract or from lexicalto grammatical, but grammaticalization may include stages where an abstractrelational expression adopts a concrete meaning (e.g. it comes to refer to abody part) which in turn becomes grammaticalized.

Seppo Kittilä (“On distinguishing between ‘recipient’ and ‘beneficiary’in Finnish”) examines the ‘recipient’ vs. ‘beneficiary’ distinction in Finnish.His goal is to show that the allative case [‘on, by, next to’] encoding of theRecipient is possible only if the given event involves the role of recipient, and


thus shares common features with the event ‘give’. Otherwise, the case marking has to be changed into Beneficiary. Beneficiary marking is possible only ifthe role of recipient is completely absent; if it is not absent, the marking isdetermined by reception. Put concretely, this means that Beneficiary markingoccurs in cases such as ‘he watched the news for me’, while events like ‘heearned me a thousand Euro by jumping’ are encoded using a Recipient argument. This distinction is examined in light of both typical and less typicalinstances, and Kittilä thus provides a rather detailed analysis. The paper takes atypological perspective on semantic distinctions conveyed by the case systemin Finnish.

Many linguists have made the observation, robustly supported byempirical evidence, that mentions of human referents manifest features ofprominence on the level of both discourse and grammar. This is so becausethey tend to be topical and agentive and are consequently likely to appear incore grammatical roles, especially in the subject role. Nevertheless, humanreferents are occasionally also mentioned in oblique cases (for example, aspossessors and as recipients of various types). Ritva Laury in “Oblique mentions of human referents in Finnish conversation: The effects of prominence indiscourse and grammar” investigates these oblique mentions of human referents in Finnish and asks, are human mentions equally distributed among all theoblique cases? What are their pragmatic and semantic characteristics? Do theytake on the typical discourse profile of obliques, meaning that they would belikely to be new, unidentifiable, and unlikely to be rementioned, or do theystill get treated like other human referents so that they would be identifiable,given and further tracked? What are the semantic features of NPs used foroblique mentions of humans in discourse? The results of her study stronglyconfirm the centrality of human referents in grammar and discourse. Obliquementions in the data show features of syntactic prominence, since they are notequally distributed among all the oblique cases, but instead cluster in only afew cases, namely those which occur in constructions with grammatical ratherthan local meaning. Further, human referents mentioned in oblique case rolesare still pragmatically and semantically strongly human in terms of being participants in speech events, in being identifiable, given, and further tracked, thatis, continuous topics in discourse, and in being lexically specified as humans.

5. PersonMarjaLiisa Helasvuo and Lea Laitinen take up “Person in Finnish: para

digmatic and syntagmatic relations in interaction.” This paper both introducesand provides an overview to person marking in Finnish, which is central inseveral of the other papers of this volume. Helasvuo and Laitinen provide bothnecessary background for understanding the role of person in the other papersof the book, and also contribute to resolving some of the longstandingconfusions surrounding how person has been dealt with in Finnish grammar.


As they explain, the category of person is expressed in three coding systems inFinnish, in personal pronouns, person marking on verbs, and possessive suffixes. Helasvuo and Laitinen explore the first two. In Finnish, the predicateverb agrees with the subject in person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular :plural). The verb thus shows the same person as the nominal subject, and therefore, the nominal and the verbal person marking systems have usually not beendiscussed separately in Finnish linguistics (see for example Sulkala and Karjalainen 1992, Hakulinen and Karlsson 1979). Helasvuo and Laitinen show,however, that in colloquial varieties of Finnish the coding of person is morecomplicated. The verbal and nominal person marking systems intersect, butnot in the straightforward manner assumed in mainstream Finnish linguistics.The connections between the two form an intricate network. Helasvuo andLaitinen demonstrate that the verbal person marking is not copied from thesubject pronoun in a mechanical way, nor is the personal pronoun redundant.They therefore find it useful to present the nominal and verbal person markingsystems as two different paradigmatic systems. They also discuss how the twosystems interrelate on the syntactic level. They show that there are two formsin the Finnish person paradigm that systematically create open reference,namely the socalled zero person (a 3rd person singular verb form without anovert subject) and the passive. These forms involve personal reference but thereference is open and has to be construed in the context. They further show thatnot only these forms but also others (1st and 2nd person) can be used to createopen reference (cf. English you as a speechact person vs. the socalled“generic you”).

Lea Laitinen’s “Zero Person in Finnish: a grammatical resource for construing human reference” deals with person much more specifically, with Finnish constructions containing the socalled ‘zero person’ subject, for example:

(1) Suomessa joutuu saunaan.FinlandINE get3SG saunaILL“In Finland you wind up in a sauna.”

In the zeroperson construction, there is no overt subject, and the verb is in the3rd person singular form. These constructions express typical changes of state,emotions, perceptions, reception, or other processes that affect human beings inparticular situations. Laitinen argues that the zeroperson constructions in Finnish are specific crystallizations of human experience. She analyzes the grammar and meaning of these constructions which have implied personal referents,especially in subject positions. The meanings of the construction are investigated from conversational data, and its globally marked nonspecific referenceis compared to the nonspecific use of personal pronouns, e.g. 2nd person pronouns that are used as generic forms for humans in many languages. Bygrammatical means, the zero person construction creates an iconic schema of


an open place for anyone to enter. Laitinen shows how this potentiality is usedin interaction by the speech act participants, and how the zero person constructions, leaving the conceptualizer of the situation implicit, provide a more subjective perspective on the experience than explicit personal pronouns. Theresults of this paper have implications for the understanding of impersonal useof pronouns, nonspecific pronominal reference, and zero persons in languagesgenerally.

MarjaLiisa Helasvuo, in “Passive — personal or impersonal: A Finnishperspective,” deals with “passive” constructions in Finnish, that is, with constructions containing a verb form bearing passive morphology. Significantly,her analysis is based on a large database of spoken Finnish. She argues thatcontrary to the received view in Finnish linguistics, there are actually two typesof passive in Finnish, namely the socalled simple passive (for example, tehdään [doPASSPERSON] ‘[it] is done’) and a periphrastic passive; the latteris the socalled bepassive, formed with the verb ‘to be’ in its 3rd person singular form (on) and a passive participle of the main verb (for example, on tehty[be+3SG doPST+PASS+PTCP] ‘[it] has been done’). In the bepassive, thefinite verb is in the 3rd person form, but in the simple passive, there is a specialpassive “personal” marker on the verb. The passive personal marker createspersonal reference, but the reference is not explicit, but rather has to be construed from the context.

Helasvuo investigates the role of these two types of passives in the Finnish person system and the discourse functions that they serve. She demonstrates that the simple passive is overwhelmingly used for describing actionsand activities in contexts implying a human agent, whereas the bepassive isnot restricted in the same way. The bepassive can be used for characterizingentities, but also for describing actions; here, however, it differs from descriptions made with the simple passive in that it focuses on the result of the actionas opposed to the activity itself which is in focus in clauses with the simplepassive. In analyzing Finnish passives, Helasvuo explains the functions of verbal person marking. In Finnish, there is no subject argument in passive clausesand if there is an object argument, it does not trigger verb agreement as subjects do. This has led some to describe the Finnish passive as impersonal (seeComrie 1977). In contrast, in a personal passive, the object of the active clausetakes the role of subject in a corresponding passive clause. Helasvuo shows,however, that this use of the term “personal” vs. “impersonal” is misleading: itequates the function of person marking with the coding of the subject role.Instead, she suggests that the function of person marking on verbs is to providea grammatical means for expressing person, either by explicit reference to person (e.g. 1st person marking) or open reference that has to construed in thecontext (e.g. the passive; see also Helasvuo and Laitinen, this volume). Fromthis perspective, the Finnish passive is by no means impersonal, but instead, isan integral part of the person system for verbs.


The findings also have implications for the treatment of agreement systems in general: in many languages, the category of person contributes to thecoding of grammatical relations; however, it is mistaken to assume that thecoding of grammatical relations is the sole function of person marking.

6. Grammar and human conceptualization — broader implications andcontributionsThe papers of this book set out to explore grammar and the ways in

which it encodes the viewpoints of the language user. They take as their starting point the assumption that the choice of linguistic expressions reflects ourconstrual of the situation described or the entity being referred to. Among thespecific linguistic phenomena discussed are case marking, expressions of spatial relations, body part terms, the marking of recipient/beneficiary, the codingof subject, and person marking and personal reference. Each in its way reflectshuman conceptualization.

By analyzing linguistic phenomena, the papers contribute to currenttheoretical debates in cognitive linguistics and in the wider field of functionalapproaches. Fictive motion, for example, has been debated in recent years (seee.g. Talmy 2000a: Chapter 2, Matsumoto 1996, Matlock 2001), but the discussion has mainly focused on some special usages of motion verbs. In his paper,Huumo extends the discussion on fictive motion to case marking and showsthat the phenomenon is much more extensive than has previously been shown.

Spatial semantics and conceptualization have been widely discussed incognitive linguistics. Ojutkangas provides a usagebased approach to the conceptualization of the basic axes, showing that the axes figure significantly inlanguage usage and that there are constructions (the socalled bidirectionalconstructions) which utilize bipolar spatial axes in descriptions of concretespatial relations. Suutari extends the discussion of spatial semantics to the useof body part terms in spatial expressions. He questions the assumption commonin the literature on grammaticalization that the human body – including thenames for bodyparts – provides the most important model for the expressionof spatial orientation (cf. Heine 1997:40) and presents counterevidence to thisclaim. OnikkiRantajääskö also investigates the theme of embodiment, discussing the human body and experience as the basis of the grammaticalizationof locative expressions denoting states. Kittilä’s examination of the ‘recipient’and ‘beneficiary’ roles in Finnish contributes to the typology of case systemsand to understanding of the semantic distinctions they can convey. All thesepapers contribute to understanding of how perspectives of the human languageuser are encoded in grammatical expressions of spatial relations and how theyreflect our conceptualization of these relations.

Laury takes up grammatical and discourse prominence of mentions ofhuman referents showing that grammatical prominence is not restricted to thecore grammatical roles (subjects and objects), but instead, oblique mentions of


human referents show features of syntactic prominence, since they occur inconstructions with grammatical rather than local meaning. Furthermore, Ojutkangas explores the relationship between bipolar expressions and discourseprominence.

The concept of person has received much attention in diverse fields ofinquiry; as a grammatical category, it has often been discussed in relation to thecoding of grammatical relations, or more widely, in relation to the coding ofrelations between speechact participants (such as speaker and addressee; seeSilverstein 1981). In their papers, Helasvuo and Laitinen treat specific and nonspecific reference but instead of nonspecific reference or impersonalization(see Siewierska 2004:210–213), they speak about open reference, by whichthey mean reference that is not anchored to any specific referent but has to beconstrued in the discourse context.

These are some of the general contributions made in these papers. Theyillustrate the rich contributions detailed studies of Finnish have to offer ourfield.

AN INTRODUCTION TO FINNISH SPATIAL RELATIONSLOCAL CASES AND ADPOSITIONS

TUOMAS HUUMO AND KRISTA OJUTKANGASUniversity of Turku

1. IntroductionThe Finnish system for expressing spatial relations consists of six local

cases and many adpositions, the precise number of which cannot be determinedsince the borderline between adpositions and relator nouns is obscure. The localcases are divided into two series: the socalled internal cases and external cases.The internal cases express relations such as ‘inside’, ‘into’, ‘out of’: e.g. talossa[houseINE] ‘in the house’ ~ talosta [houseELA] ‘from the house’ ~ taloon[houseILL] ‘into the house’. The external cases express relations such as ‘at’,’tothe outside of’ and ‘from the outside of’ or ‘on’, ‘onto’ and ‘off’: e.g. pöydällä[tableADE] ‘on the table’ ~ pöydältä [tableABL] ‘off the table’ ~ pöydälle[tableALL] ‘onto the table’. As can be seen, a pervasive feature in the casesystem is the expression of directionality: in both case series there is one staticcase (‘in’/ ‘at’/ ‘on’), one ‘to’ case and one ‘from’ case.

Similar directional oppositions are expressed by many adpositions, sincethe adpositional stems generally bear locative case suffixes. This is possiblebecause many Finnish adpositions typically originate from nouns; this is reflectedin the fact that they still carry local case endings and take their complement in thegenitive form, e.g. pöydän päällä [tableGEN topADE] ‘on [top of] the table’ ~pöydän päältä [tableGEN topABL] ‘off [the top of] the table’ ~ pöydän päälle [tableGEN topALL] ‘onto [the top of] the table’, where the postpositionalstem pää is inflected in the external cases (for details, see Suutari this volume).In their structure such adpositional phrases resemble noun phrases where thelocative casemarked head is a relator noun preceded by a genitive modifier.

In this paper we first introduce the system of Finnish local cases ingeneral (Section 2) and then discuss the main features of the system ofadpositions (Section 3), to provide the reader with the necessary background forunderstanding the relevant articles in this book.

TUOMAS HUUMO & KRISTA OJUTKANGAS12

2. The system of local cases

2.1. Modern FinnishA locative case usually designates a relationship between two entities,

which in cognitive linguistic terminology are called the trajector and thelandmark. Informally, the trajector of a locative relationship is the entity whoselocation is designated by the locative expression; the landmark is the entity withrespect to which the trajector is located. In morphosyntactic terms, the landmarkis designated by the noun that carries the locative case ending. The trajector maybe another nominal element of the sentence, or for instance the whole nucleusconsisting of a finite verb with its arguments. For instance, in the expression kirjapöydällä [book tableADE] ‘the book on the table’ the trajector is ‘the book’ andthe landmark is ‘the table’.

The Finnish system of local cases consists of six productive local cases,which in linguistic descriptions are usually arranged according to two dimensions.First of all, a distinction is drawn between the two series of socalled internal(‘inside’) and external (‘at’ / ‘on’) cases; secondly, within each series a distinctionis made between static and dynamic cases, where the dynamic cases are furtherdivided into ‘to’ and ‘from’ cases (for a more detailed basic description inEnglish, see e.g. Sulkala and Karjalainen 1992, Helasvuo 2001:36−64; a detaileddiscussion of the local cases in Finnish, based on a framework of conceptualsemantics, is given in Leino et al. 1990). In addition, there are two “general” localcases. These, however, do not express locative relationships productively butrather designate circumstantial relationships such as conditions, roles, occupationsand internal states. They are called the essive (‘as’) and the translative (‘into’, inthe sense of ‘changing into something’). Table 1 shows the noun talo ‘house’inflected in all local cases.

TOCASE IN/ATCASE FROMCASEINTERNAL Illative

taloon ‘into a/thehouse’

Inessivetalossa ‘in a/the house’

Elativetalosta ‘from insidea/the house’

EXTERNAL Allativetalolle ‘to a/the house’

Adessivetalolla ‘at/by/on/near a/thehouse’

Ablativetalolta ‘from a/thehouse’

GENERAL Translativetaloksi ‘[changing]into a/the house’

Essivetalona ‘as a/the house’

Table 1: The Finnish local cases

In modern Finnish the main spatial function of the internal cases is todesignate containment, where one entity is situated within (or moves into or out

FINNISH SPATIAL RELATIONS 13

of) a (usually threedimensional) space contained within another entity (examples1–3).

(1) Lapsi istui laatikossa.child sitPST+3SG boxINE“The child was sitting in the box.”

(2) Lapsi ryömi laatikkoon.child crawlPST+3SG boxILL“The child crawled into the box.”

(3) Lapsi ryömi laatikosta.child crawlPST+3SG boxELA“The child crawled out of the box.”

In addition to containment, the internal cases are also used to designaterelationships of contact, where one entity is attached to the surface of anotherentity:

(4) Tarra on puskurissa.sticker be+PRS+3SG bumperINE“The sticker is on the bumper.”

The external cases designate relationships of ‘association’, ‘vicinity’ and‘support’, where the interpretation depends on whether the landmark (= thereferent of the casemarked noun) has a relevant surface as its salient feature, inwhich case the ‘support’ interpretation is possible (5–7).

(5) Pallo on laatikolla.ball be+PRS+3SG boxADE“The ball is next to the box”; “The ball is on the box”.

(6) Pallo kieri laatikolle.ball rollPST+3SG boxALL“The ball rolled to the box”; “The ball rolled up to the outside of the box”.

(7) Pallo kieri laatikolta.ball rollPST+3SG boxABL“The ball rolled off of the box”; “The ball rolled away from the outside ofthe box”.

To sum up, in (1) the inessive case expresses a static relationship ofcontainment, while in (2−3) the illative and the elative express relations of motion


‘into’ and ‘out of’, respectively. In (5), the adessive may express a staticrelationship of vicinity (‘the ball is next to the box’); since the landmark of thisrelationship has a salient surface, however, it also has the ‘on’ interpretation (‘theball is on the box’). The same ambiguity arises in (6) and (7), where the allativeand the ablative designate external ‘to’ (‘up to’, ‘on to the outside of’) and ‘from’(‘away from the outside of’) relations, respectively.

In addition to their spatial uses, Finnish local cases also have nonspatialfunctions. First of all, they are used in the temporal domain to express points oftime and sometimes the duration of events. In this domain the opposition betweenthe internal and the external cases no longer holds; different temporal expressionsmake conventionalized use of different cases and are not productively inflected inthe others. The names of the months, for instance, are normally inflected in theinternal cases (e.g. tammikuussa [januaryINE] ‘in January’); the names of theseasons are inflected in the external cases (e.g., kesällä [summerADE] ‘insummer’), and the names of the weekdays take the essive case (maanantaina[mondayESS] ‘on Monday’).

There are, however, also some uses where the two case series are inopposition in the temporal domain, one of these being where an external caseexpresses a point of time but an internal case expresses duration: päivällä [dayADE] ‘at some point of time during the day’ vs. päivässä [dayINE] ‘in a day’stime’. The opposition of directionality (static vs. dynamic cases) is productive inthe temporal domain as well: in general the static cases are used to express pointsof time, as in our previous examples, whereas the dynamic cases are used toexpress the temporal boundaries of the event, as in (8).

(8) Työskentelin kesäkuusta elokuuhun.workPST1SG JuneELA AugustILL“I worked from June to August.”

Another nonspatial use of the local cases is the class of expressions wherethe landmark is animate. In this domain the external cases are particularlyproductive, since in Finnish they are the conventionalized means for theexpression of basic humanrelated relationships such as possession and cognition.The directional opposition of the cases also operates in this domain. Thus forinstance in expressions of a static possessive relationship (‘X has Y’), thepossessor is referred to by the static adessive (‘at’/’on’), while in expressionswhere the possessed is gained or lost the directional allative (‘to’) and ablative(‘from’) are used, respectively. The external cases are used to indicate all kinds ofpossession, including concrete physical possession (9–11), where the possessed isspatially located close to the possessor, and abstract possession, where spatialvicinity is irrelevant (12–14).


(9) Koiralla on pallo.dogADE be+PRS+3SG ball.“The dog has a/the ball” [lit. “On the dog is a ball”].

(10) Koiralta katosi pallo.dogABL disappearPST+3SG ball“The dog lost a/the ball” [lit. “From the dog disappeared a ball”].

(11) Koiralle tuli pallo.dogALL comePST+3SG ball“The dog got a/the ball” [lit. “To the dog came a ball”].

(12) Elmerillä on kesämökki.ElmerADE be+PRS+3SG summer.cabin“Elmer has a/the summer cabin” [lit. “On Elmer is a summer cabin”]

(13) Elmeriltä meni kesämökki.ElmerABL goPST+3SG summer.cabin“Elmer lost a/the summer cabin” (e.g. in a gamble) [lit. “From Elmer wentthe summer cabin”]

(14) Elmerille tuli kesämökki.ElmerALL comePST+3SG summer.cabin“Elmer got a/the summer cabin” (e.g. by inheritance) [lit. “To Elmer camethe summer cabin”].

Finally, the local cases can express circumstantial relationships, such asinternal states, occupations, activities and internal conditions (see OnikkiRantajääskö, this volume). In this domain we find a continuum: at one extremeare the productive usages of these cases with nouns that express a circumstance,at the other opaque expressions that can best be characterized as adverbs. In (15)we have a productively inflected noun flunssa ‘flu’ in the inessive casedesignating the condition of the person, while in (16) we have an expressionwhere a case ending (preceded by a plural marker) can be identified but thenominal stem carrying these affixes is not used elsewhere (i.e. there is noindependent noun juovus meaning something like ‘intoxication’).

(15) Hän on flunssassa.s/he be+PRS+3SG fluINE“S/he has the flu” [lit. “She is in flu”].


(16) Hän on juovuksissa.s/he be+PRS+3SG ?drunkPLINE“S/he is drunk.”

As was the case in the temporal domain, the system of oppositionsbetween the external and the internal cases is not functional in circumstantialexpressions. Many such expressions are inflected in the cases of one series butnot in those of the other series (there is for instance no adessive counterpart of theinessive form juovuksissa in example 16). The directional system is notcompletely productive in the circumstantial domain either: often there areexpressions for being in a state and reaching a state, while expressions of exitingor leaving a state are less productive. The more lexicalized (adverblike) theseexpressions are, the less inflectional productivity they display.

Some of the local cases also have uses outside the general function ofdesignating domains such as the ones described above (i.e. space, time,possession and state). The most prominent one is probably the instrumentalfunction of the adessive (17):

(17) Korjasin tuolin vasaralla.repairPST1SG chairACC hammerADE“I repaired the chair with a hammer.”

The instrumental function of the adessive is in many ways different from its othercentral functions, where it designates different domains. An instrument is not adomain where (some or all) participants of the event or action may be situated butis rather a participant in the action chain itself: canonically, it transmits a forcefrom the agent to the patient. In its instrumental function the adessive thus liesoutside the system of oppositions that connects the local cases with each other —its opposition with the dynamic cases, on the one hand, and the oppositionbetween the internal and the external cases, on the other hand.

2.2. Historical backgroundHistorically, the tripartite system of local cases is assumed to go back to

the Uralic protolanguage, although the original local cases have grammaticalizedinto more abstract functions and new case series have arisen to replace them. Thefollowing discussion on the history of these endings is based on the overview byHäkkinen (2002) and the literature mentioned there.

The essive of modern Finnish, which now expresses abstract nonspatialrelations such as internal states, circumstances and conditions, was originally aproductive locative ‘at’ case. As a relic of this use, Finnish still has somelexicalized adverbs where the essive ending has the locative function: e.g., kotona [homeESS] ‘at home’. The historical ‘from’ case, which had the ending *tA,grammaticalized into the partitive of the Baltic Finnic languages, where its main


functions are to mark (under certain circumstances) the object, the existentialsubject and the predicate nominal. The translative case is younger and its origin iscontroversial: according to one explanation its ending arose as the combination oftwo originally lative (‘to’) case endings, *k and *s, while another explanationplaces the origin of the translative ending in a derivative affix *kse. As relics ofthe orginal uses, Finnish still has some lexicalized adverbs as well as spatialadpositions where the essive, partitive and translative have a locative function: cf.e.g. kotona [homeESS] “at home” ~ kotoa [homePTV] “from home”;adpositions in “general” local cases in Table 2.

The endings of the productive local cases of modern Finnish have theirorigin in the combination of the old local case endings with other material. Theinternal cases are also called the scases, because they all had the old lative ending*s as a component of their ending. Thus the ending of the modern elative is aquite transparent combination of the *s and the old ‘from’ case ending *tA (*s+*tA => stA). The ending of the inessive combines the *s with the old locativeending *nA (i.e., the predecessor of the modern essive), where the *s hasassimilated the *n (*s+*nA => *snA => ssA). The ending of the illativecombined the *s with another lative ending, *n, with a connecting vowelbetween them; later the *s gradually weakened into *h and then disappeared inmost instances (*s+*n => *sen => *zen => hVn => Vn); however, in onesyllable words the ending is still hVn in modern Finnish, e.g., työhön [workILL] ‘to work’.

Correspondingly, the external cases are also called the lcases becausetheir endings contain the element l, going back to a locative derivative affix l(A);cf. Finnish sikala [piglA] ‘pig house’, kanala [chickenlA] ‘chicken house’.This l combined with the ending of the old ‘from’ case *tA to produce theending of the elative (*l+*tA => ltA). The ending of the adessive is the result ofthe combination of the l with the old locative ending *nA, where the n wasassimilated (*l+*nA => *lnA => llA). The ending of the allative was originallythe combination of *l with the lative ending *n, with a connecting vowelbetween them (*l+*n => *len => *llen => lle); the double l arose by analogyof the adessive ending. Thus the historical background of the internal and externallocal cases is in fact very similar; among these the external cases are younger,occurring in the Baltic Finnic languages only, while the internal cases are alsoattested in more distantly related languages (e.g. the Volgaic languages Mordvinand Mari), and are thus older.

3. The system of adpositionsIn addition to the local cases introduced above, Finnish has many

adpositions. Here they are compared to the system of local cases; thus at the sametime we describe the division of labor between the two spatial systems in Finnish.This comparison will also help to further illustrate the nature of the local cases.


The conceptualization of the threedimensional space is based on threebasic axes.1 The vertical (up–down) axis is derived from the observer’scanonical upright position, and it also coincides with the axis of gravitation.The frontal (front–back) axis derives from the shape of the human body, thecanonical direction of movement, and the direction and scope of the observer’sfield of vision. The lateral (right–left) axis derives from the lateral symmetry ofour bodies. (See e.g. Clark 1973:31–35; Fillmore 1982:36–37.) This is asimplification, but it is sufficient so long as we are concerned with Finnish,English or other European languages. It is well known that many languagesderive their basic spatial axes from cardinal or geographical orientations, usingnotions such as north–south, uphill–downhill, upstream–downstream, orinland–seaward for their spatial descriptions. (See e.g. Levinson 1996a, 2003,Bickel 1997.)

The Finnish system of local cases basically expresses a spatial relation‘to’, ‘in/on/at’, and ‘from’ with respect to a landmark, as described above inSection 2.1. These same directional oppositions are also expressed by manyadpositions, since the adpositional stems are generally inflected in the local cases.However, there are three reservations which need to be made here. First, the distinction between the internal and external local cases does not play as extensive arole in the system of adpositions as it does in nominal infection. Secondly, thereare adposition stems that are inflected in cases which are historically locative— these cases are no longer productive in their spatial functions and havedeveloped into other, more abstract functions, but they do carry a spatialmeaning in certain conventionalized expressions. Thirdly, some adpositionstems are used in forms that are historically caseinflected but that aremorphologically opaque for presentday language users, while certain otherforms are inflected in unproductive, marginal cases such as the prolative,meaning ‘via, by’.2 These three refinements are all natural consequences of thegrammaticalization of the adpositions.

Crosslinguistically, spatial relations are expressed by morphologicalcases, adpositions, relator nouns, and locative verbs, and these categories areused to express slightly different aspects of spatial information. According toLevinson (2003:98–110), a basic difference seems to be that local cases areused for coding topological information (such as directionality oppositions),and information about spatial relations on the axes (“frameofreference information”) is encoded in independent grammatical markers. Levinson’s results

1 “In effect, the essential characteristics of human spatial conception are supposed to followfrom our being egocentric, forwardlooking and oriented bipedal primates wandering on aplanet with significant gravity.” (Levinson 1996a:180.) Levinson, in fact, is critical of thisview.2 Such adpositions as, alas ‘down’ and ylös ‘up’, for instance, are historically lative (‘to’) caseforms, and alitse ‘(via, through) under’ and ylitse ‘(via, through) over’ are historically“prolative” (‘via’) case forms.


are tentative (2003:98, 104), but the Finnish system supports them: the localcases are responsible for expressing directionality oppositions, and the spatialrelations on the vertical, frontal and lateral axes are expressed first and foremost by postpositions and local adverbs.3 This is the main division of laborbetween the local cases and the adpositions, illustrated by Table 2. An exception to this is that the external local cases may designate the relationship of‘support’ on the vertical axis; this exception is also reported by Levinson2003:110). It is not, however, the most salient function of these cases in Finnish. To sum up, it is not sufficient to characterize the spatial system of Finnishmerely by describing the case system; on the contrary, the systems of localcases and adpositions are closely interconnected by inflection of the adpositionstems.

Relationship anddirectionality

Internallocal cases

Externallocal cases

Generallocal cases

FROM‘to’‘at’‘from’

eteenedessäedestä

edelleedelläedeltä

BEHIND‘to’‘at’‘from’‘to’‘at’‘from’

peräänperässäperästäjälkeenjäljessäjäljestä

taaksetakanatakaa

UNDER‘to’‘in’‘from’

alhaalle, allealhaalla, allaalhaalta, alta

ABOVE‘to’‘at’‘from’‘to’‘at’‘from’

ylhäälle, ylleylhäällä, ylläylhäältä, yltäpäällepäälläpäältä

Table 2: Interconnections between Finnish local cases and adpositions: inflected forms of some adpositions designating relationships of ‘front’,

‘behind’, ‘under’, and ‘above’.

3 With postpositions the landmark is expressed with a noun or pronoun in genitive case locatedbefore the adposition, while with local adverbs the landmark is expressed with a noun or apronoun in an oblique case or is implicit, without an overt expression altogether. The termadposition is used here to cover both of these categories.


The examples given in the table are only a small sample of Finnishadpositions. It could be added, for instance, that there is a remarkable set ofgrams designating the relationship of ‘beside, nearby’. Many of these aregrammaticalized bodypart terms that have developed into a grammaticalfunction rather late, for instance rinnalla [breast+ADE] ‘beside; compared to’,kupeeseen [loins+ILL] ‘beside, to the side of’. (For a fairly extensive listing ofFinnish adpositions, see Penttilä 1957:337–343.)

Despite their importance in spatial relations in other languages,independent grams have been peripheral in Finnish linguistics. The focus hasbeen on the study of their grammaticalization (e.g. Jaakola 1997; Ojutkangas1998, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c, 2001; Suutari, this volume and forthcoming; otherviewpoints have been applied by Alhoniemi 1988; Sulkala & Karjalainen1992:240–256; Häkkinen 1995). The study of local cases has dominated thefield, both in traditional linguistic studies (e.g. Alhoniemi 1975, 1979) and incognitive applications (e.g. Leino 1989; Huumo 1996a, 1996b, 1999; OnikkiRantajääskö 2001, this volume). Ojutkangas (this volume) is a part of a wider,usagebased study of Finnish spatial grams in the framework of cognitivelinguistics.

4. SummaryThe diversity of spatial expressions in Finnish makes it an attractive

topic for the study of spatial semantics, as illustrated by several articles in thisvolume. To sum up: the most salient function of the Finnish local cases is toexpress direction, and to designate relationships of ‘containment’ and ‘vicinity’(or ‘support’), by the internal and external local cases respectively. Adpositions,on the other hand, are responsible for expressing spatial relations on the basic(vertical, frontal, and lateral) axes. The local cases and the adpositions are thuson hierarchically separate levels, and since the adpositions have — at leasttheoretically — three different inflected forms for expressing direction withrespect to these axes, the adpositions are dependent on the local case system. Ifa language has several categories for designating spatial relationships, thesecategories probably have a division of labor of some kind, and a description ofit also illustrates the nature of the categories themselves.

SPATIAL AXES IN LANGUAGE AND CONCEPTUALIZATIONTHE CASE OF BIDIRECTIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS

KRISTA OJUTKANGASUniversity of Turku

1. IntroductionIn cognitive linguistics, one of the basic assumptions about spatial con

ceptualization is that we divide the space we experience and observe intoregions, sides, and axes. We select a Figure and a Ground1 for the spatialconfiguration, and adopt a viewpoint from which we perceive the relationshipbetween them. All these aspects of spatial conceptualization (among manyothers) are relevant to spatial language. They have been extensively studied incognitive linguistics, as spatial semantics has been an important object of studyin this framework. Space is one of the basic cognitive domains (basic in thesense that it is not reducible to more fundamental concepts; Langacker1987:147–150), spatial relations are productively expressed in language bygrammatical elements (e.g. Talmy 2000a:24–31), and spatial language servesas a rich source for metaphoric and metonymic expressions of nonspatial concepts (e.g. Lakoff & Johnson 1980, Heine & al. 1991).

Having access both to linguistic representations of spatial relations andto direct observations of physical space itself offers the possibility of drawingconclusions about the nature of human conceptualization. This is what cognitive linguistics is ultimately interested in; in Langacker’s (1987:114) words”[i]t is our conception of reality (not the real world per se) that is relevant tolinguistic semantics.” Spatial semantics is thus an integral part of Langacker’sCognitive Grammar (1987, 1991a, 1999a) as well as Talmy’s CognitiveSemantics (2000a, b). Research into spatial semantics has been done from varied perspectives, including synchronic (Bowerman 1996, Levinson 1996a, b)and diachronic (e.g. Habicht 2000), languagespecific (e.g. Brown 1994,Levinson 1994, Emmorey 1996, Huumo 1996a, b, 1999, Bickel 1997), and

1 As defined by Talmy (2000a, b), the Figure is the topical entity, the location of which is ofinterest to the speaker and which is designated by a locative expression, and the Ground is thebackgrounded entity used as a reference point for the Figure. See Section 2.2 below fordiscussion and further definitions of these terms.

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS22

typologically oriented (Svorou 1993), as well as experimental (Levelt 1996,Tversky 1996, Pederson et al. 1998).

The goal of this paper is to explore how Finnish speakers utilise bipolarspatial axes, the vertical and the frontal, in descriptions of concrete spatialrelations, and what kind of conceptualization the axes are built upon. The focusis on bidirectional constructions, that is, descriptions of spatial relations whereboth poles of a spatial axis are explicitly mentioned by independent gramswithin one sentence. An example of such a construction is, ”The bride and thegroom were sitting behind the table, and the guests were sitting in front ofthe table.”

A central concept in this analysis is the windowing of attention —human ability to direct one’s focus to selected parts of different event frames(Talmy 2000a). The analysis demonstrates how this distribution of attentionfunctions in the use of spatial grams meaning ’above’ (or ’on top of’, ’up’),’below’ (or ’under’, ’down’), ’in front of’ (or ‘ahead of’, ‘before’), and ’behind’ (or ’in back of’), and explores how this process interrelates with otherfunctional motivations such as the expression of contrast by means of accentuation. This paper is thus an attempt to use the concept of windowing systematically in search for the motivation for a given grammatical construction.

This study grew out of work with data from an electronic corpus of syntactically coded spoken Finnish narratives, a corpus of approximately 800,000words. My initial goal was to analyse constructions containing postpositions.However, analysis revealed interesting patterns of cooccurrences of certaingrammatical elements, which called for closer study. The pattern of bidirectionality can be characterised as follows: In a spoken narrative, if a descriptionof a spatial relation contains an expression of one pole of an axis (e.g. ’up’ or’front’), then there is a certain tendency for it to contain an expression of theopposite pole (e.g. ’down’ or ’behind’) as well.2 A simplified example of thistendency would be 1:

(1) jänis pakeni eelä ja kettu juoksi perässähare fleePST frontADE and fox runPST behindINE“The hare was fleeing in front, and the fox was running behind it.”

The organisation of this paper is as follows. In Section 2, I describe thespatial axes and introduce some basic concepts. The aim of Section 3 is to describe the bidirectional construction and to classify its different types. The sec

2 The data consist of 1719 occurrences of grams denoting the vertical and frontal axes(roughly, ’above, up’, ’below, down’, ’in front of’, and ’behind’), of which 293 are inbidirectional constructions. As a percentage this would be 17%. However, these data do notinclude all possible Finnish postpositional constructions, and thus it is not possible to providereliable statistical or even proportional information. For describing a construction type and forconsidering its role in spatial conceptualization these data are sufficient.

SPATIAL AXES IN LANGUAGE AND CONCEPTUALIZATION 23

tion begins with a general definition of the construction; bidirectional constructions are shown to imply a change in the conceptualization of the spatialrelation, and this is what the proposed classificatory system is based on. InSection 4, I explore the ways in which bidirectional constructions are utilisedin building a narrative with changing perspective points; I conclude this sectionby addressing the question of why the mention of one direction is felt to beinsufficient. The accentuation patterns of bidirectional constructions and theirfunctions in a narrative are discussed in Section 5. In Section 6, I apply theconcept of windowing of attention to the analysis of bidirectional constructions,in order to investigate how the axes are conceptualised. Conclusions are drawnin Section 7.3

2. Basic concepts

2.1. Spatial axesThe basic spatial axes have already been introduced in this volume by

Huumo and Ojutkangas; in this paper, we are concerned only with the verticaland frontal axes. According to Tversky (1996:472–473), the accessibility ofdirections and objects related to them depends on the relative salience of theaxes. The vertical and the frontal axes are the most salient ones for humans,mainly because of asymmetries. For the vertical axis, this is supported by theforce of gravity, while for the frontal axis it is crucial that its asymmetries“separate the world that can be easily sensed and easily manipulated from theworld that is difficult to sense or manipulate” (Tversky 1996:473).

The conceptualization of the spatial axes has two general properties thatare important in the present context. First, the axes are not inherent in nature,but they are conceptually assigned to objects and relations between objects.The space in our language is an idealisation and abstraction of real space. Conventionalised assignments of axes are language and culture specific (in thesense that the general system of the axes do not predetermine how individualobjects and situations will be treated in conceptualization and in linguistic description), and must be learned on a casebycase basis, while others can becreatively constructed in discourse, on the basis of, for instance, the path of amoving Figure with respect to a Ground. Assigning axes is part of the generalconceptual partitioning of space, and it is accompanied by the treatment of objects in this space as points, lines, and planes (Talmy 2000a:25, 31).

The second important aspect is the bipolarity of the axes; they are“bidirectionally conceptualisable” (Talmy 2000a:116). The axes are inherentlybipolar, and the mention of one pole implies the other. This is directly relevant

3 I am very grateful to professor Lyle Campbell and all the other writers for many helpfulcomments and suggestions I received on various stages of writing this article. I also wish tothank the Department of Linguistics in the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, for theopportunity to work there on this project in a friendly and encouraging atmosphere in 2002.

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS24

to the present study. Given the inherent bipolarity of the axes, it should not besurprising that bidirectional constructions should be found, but to myknowledge, they have not been discussed as a type of grammatical constructionin the linguistic literature before.4

2.2. Figure, Ground, and GramIn conceptualising space, we select a Figure and a Ground, thus creating

a spatial relation. The relation between the Figure and Ground is expressed bya grammatical element. Figure and Ground are characterised by Talmy(2000a:312) as follows:

The general conceptualization of Figure and Ground in languageThe Figure is a moving or conceptually movable entity whose path, site, ororientation is conceived as a variable, the particular value of which is therelevant issue.The Ground is a reference entity, one that has a stationary setting relative to areference frame, with respect to which the Figure’s path, site, or orientation isbeing characterized.

In this study, I use the terms Figure and Ground as defined above: TheFigure is the topical entity in the ongoing discourse, the location of which is ofinterest to the speaker. The Ground is the entity that is used as a reference pointfor the Figure, to connect it with the backgrounded, familiar environment.

To denote the grammatical element that expresses the relation betweenthe Figure and Ground I use the term gram (Svorou 1993:31). This coversdifferent types of grammatical elements, such as adpositions, adverbs, and caseendings. The present study is restricted to those grams which are independentmorphemes. However, in Finnish the local cases and independent gramsinterrelate in that the grams have rudimentary inflection: there are separateforms for expressing the meanings ‘to’, ‘in/on/at’, and ‘from’ on each half ofthe axes (e.g. auton eteen, ~ edessä, ~ edestä [carGEN frontILL, ~ frontINE, ~ frontELA] ‘to the front of ~ in front of ~ from the front of the car’; seeHuumo & Ojutkangas in this volume). Table 2 in the introduction by Huumoand Ojutkangas (this volume) gives an overview of the grams that are relevantfor the present study.

3. What is a bidirectional construction?

3.1. DefinitionTo be analysed as a bidirectional construction, a description of a spatial

relation in a narrative must contain both ‘up’ and ‘down’ or both ‘front’ and

4 Bidirectional constructions resemble couplets and parallelism, characteristic of Finnish folkpoetry, which are common poetic devices and which have been widely investigated in study offolklore and oral literature (see e.g. Fox 1988 and the literature cited there).


‘back’ grams. The grams also have to occur within one sentence, and they mustboth refer to precisely the same conceptual relation.5

Definition of a bidirectional constructionA bidirectional construction is a description of concrete entities in a spatialrelation where both opposite poles of a spatial axis (‘up down’ or‘front back’) are explicitly mentioned by independent grams within a singlesentence.

Example (2) illustrates this. It is an instance of a bidirectional construction in which the Figure and the Ground remain the same, but twoalternative relations between them are considered by the speaker; these areexpressed by two separate grams. The Ground is not expressed explicitly, butthe topic of this narrative is the burning of wood in a special kind of fireplacein order to produce tar, and the fireplace functions as the implicit Ground.Because the Ground is implicit, the grams are realized as adverbs: päältä ‘fromthe top of’ and alta ‘from underneath’. The Figure is sauhu ‘smoke’, and it isrepeated by the narrator at the end, after a pause.

(2) (LA Nurmijärvi 3511 440) 6

Ja se täyty pitää 'nii "varalt etteiand it must+PST+3SG keepINF so careABL COMPNEG“And you always had to take care that

'mistää 'päässys "sauhu tulemaan/ "päältä/nowhere+ELA getPST+PTCP smoke comeINFILL topABLthe smoke would not get out from the top [of the fire place usedfor producing tar];

5 The choice of the sentence as the unit within which bidirectional constructions must occur hastwo motivations. Firstly, there is the practical fact that the sentence, grammatically (and partlyprosodically) defined, is the search unit of the corpus used. I am aware that from the viewpointof interactional linguistics, the sentence is a problematic concept, and that retranscribingrelevant parts of the data into intonation units (e.g. Chafe 1994:53–70; Du Bois 2002:54–55)could be fruitful. An analysis of bidirectional constructions with respect to the functions ofintonation units would certainly provide a richer picture of the functions of the constructions.However, and this is the second motivation for staying with the sentence as the defining unit,my analysis of the data has so far revealed only two cases where opposite grams (e.g. front–back) occur in separate, sequential sentences.6 These data are from recordings made in the 1960’s, by speakers who were born in the late19th century. The main topic of the narratives is agrarian life as experienced in the early 20thcentury, which explains the unusual contents of some of the examples. The first line of eachexample contains the name of the municipality in which the data were recorded, the numberthat municipality has been assigned in the corpus, and the sentence number. Accents arerepresented with " (primary stress) and ' (secondary stress), and pauses with / (a short pause)and // (relatively longer).

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS26

se täyty tulla 'aina 'siältä "altait must+PST+3SG comeINF always thereABL underABLit always had to come from underneath [it],

'sitte// "sauhut.then smokePLthe smoke.”

In a bidirectional construction, either a spatial setting is observed fromtwo different angles or viewpoints7, or attention is directed to two differententities within the setting, and, as required by the definition, there are twoindependent grams expressing opposite poles of a spatial axis. There is thus achange in the conceptualization of the relationship between the Figure and theGround, although no real change in the physical world is necessarily required.This change (of the focus from one pole of the axis to the other) is minimallyrealised by the use of two grams. Example (2) shows that the conceptualchange can be coded linguistically by syntactically positive and negativeconstructions that both describe the same overall spatial relation. Both poles ofthe spatial axis are explicitly mentioned when the location at one pole isdeclared and the location at the other is negated (in 2, by päältä ‘from the top’and alta ‘from underneath’); negating a relation X (‘up’) evokes thecorresponding antonymous relation Y (‘down’).

This is, however, accompanied by a change or changes in how theFigure and the Ground are conceptualised, i.e. which participants are selectedfor these roles. On the basis of their properties it can be hypothesised that,within a bidirectional construction, the conceptualization of the Ground isgenerally not prone to change. The Ground entity is chosen for this roleprecisely by virtue of being stationary and stable. What is expected, then, isthat when a spatial setting is observed from a new viewpoint, it is theconceptualization of the Figure (along with the gram) that will change.

Bidirectional constructions may be classified into four different typeson the basis of changes in the conceptualization of the Figure, the Ground, orthe relationship between the two. The next section describes these types.

3.2. Changing conceptualizations: types of bidirectional constructionsAs noted above, the conceptualization of the Figure is the most likely to

change. It may be the positioning of the Figure (with relation to the Ground)that changes, as in example (2). However, more common is the introduction ofa new Figure with a second gram — note that with regard to its activation cost,

7 I use the term viewpoint in the sense of ‘vantage point’, as an external position from which ascene — a spatial relation — is viewed (Langacker 1987:123). In other words, a viewpoint“may be defined as the ‘mental route’ that the speaker takes in presenting a scene” (Taylor1995:5).


the Figure is generally given or at least accessible (see e.g. Chafe 1994:71–75;Laury 1997:22–24); what is new is its role as Figure. What happens to theoriginal Figure varies in the following ways: i) the original Figure canwithdraw to the background (such a construction describes a spatial settingwhere two Figures are located in relation to one Ground, and the focus movesfrom the first Figure to the second; example 3), ii) it can become the Groundfor a new Figure (example 4), or iii) the Figure and the Ground can swap roles,so that the original Figure becomes the Ground when the original Groundbecomes the new Figure (example 5). These four possibilities, that the originalFigure may change position, may withdraw, may become the Ground for a newFigure, or may swap roles with the original Ground, are the basis for theclassification of bidirectional constructions.

The examples in Table 1 represent the four different types ofbidirectional constructions. For the sake of clarity, each type is illustrated by anEnglish summary of the Finnish examples.

Change(s) in the conceptualization Linguistic consequences

Example

1. Relation between the Figure and theGround changes

Opposite grams

“the smoke must come from top, not fromunderneath”; example 2

2. Conceptualization of the Figure changes: Introducing new Figure, original Figure

withdraws

“the socalled shelfcupboard hascupboards below and a shelf for dishesabove”; example 3

3. Conceptualization of the Figure and theGround changes:

Introducing new Figure, original Figurebecomes Ground for new Figure

“cream appears on top of the milk, andthere’s buttermilk under the cream”;example 4

4. Conceptualization of the Figure and theGround changes:

Original Figure and original Groundswap roles

“a barrel of water was placed under thecoffin and the coffin was put on top of thewater barrel”; example 5

Table 1: Summary of types of bidirectional constructions

A bidirectional description of a spatial relation includes two or moreviewpoints; by using a bidirectional construction the speaker can open up anew dimension, and show the event from another angle. In the next section Idiscuss three different strategies for expressing a change of a viewpoint with abidirectional construction; these correspond to types 2 to 4 in Table 1.Selecting a new entity for the Figure role provides a new viewpoint on thespatial relation.

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS28

4. Discourse functions of bidirectional constructions: building narrationwith changing viewpoints

4.1. Introducing new Figure; original Figure withdrawsThe most straightforward manner, conceptually, in which the narrators

may shift their viewpoint with respect to the Ground is to shift their attentionfrom one Figure to another, if viewing a scene where the Ground has anassigned spatial axis on which two Figures are located. This typically takesplace when conceptualising an event in which two people, the Figures, areworking on one object, the Ground, and they access and manipulate thisGround from opposite sides. Example (3), however, describes a piece offurniture.

(3) (LA Kihniö 2031 214) Ja 'se oli "joka paikas 'yleensäs 'sittes and it bePST+3SG every placeINE usually then “And then in every place [i.e. in every house] there usually was

sanottii "hyllykaappi/ 'semmonen ett olisayPASS+PST shelf.cupboard that.kind that bePST+3SGwhat was called a shelfcupboard, the kind with

'kaapit 'alla ja 'sitte 'semmone/ "astiahylly/cupboardPL belowADE and then that.kind dish.shelfcupboards below and a sort of shelf for dishes

'päällä/ se 'oli "joka paikas 'sitte.aboveADE it bePST+3SG every placeINE thenabove, it was everywhere back then.”

In (3), the Ground is first introduced as a whole, and in the more detaileddescription that follows, it is backgrounded and implicit. The spatial axis isinitially created by the shape of the Ground, and the focus of attention is thendirected over the two poles of the axis, each in its turn. The poles are referredto by the Figures, kaapit, ‘cupboards’ and astiahylly ‘shelf for dishes’, andtheir locations are expressed by the antonymous grams alla ‘below’ and päällä‘above’.

This manner of viewpoint shift therefore introduces the Ground as amore general spatial frame, which is then filled in with more detailedinformation provided by the Figures, for example by describing the motion orlocation of parts with respect to the whole, when the Ground object is used ormanipulated. This is an instance of nesting, which means that “one grammatically specified concept can occur embedded within another, and that


within a third” (Talmy 2000a:84–88, 238–239). Nesting exemplifies our abilityto choose the scale with which we look at things, to zoom in on a picture, oralternatively zoom out from it, and to give increasingly finergraineddescriptions of the spatial and other relations between entities. Langacker’s(1991a:9) oftenquoted example of this is “The quilt is upstairs in the bedroomin the closet on the top shelf behind the boxes”, where the “nested locatives”zoom all the way from ‘downstairs’ to the back of the closet. Bidirectionalconstructions zoom in only one step, dividing the more global configuration ofthe whole Ground into the more local configuration of Figural parts that arelocated at opposite poles of a spatial axis, in order to describe the whole picturein finer detail.

4.2. Introducing new Figure; original Figure becomes Ground for newFigureA second strategy for bidirectionally changing viewpoints is illustrated

by example (4): in a narrative, a description of successive phases of an action isbuilt around a spatial axis chosen by the narrator. The action is conceptualisedas being located on the axis, and after sequential portions of the action areforegrounded (as Figures), they can later function as reference points(Grounds) to others.

(4) (LA Karkku 2252 316)

'Mairop pantiin "semmosiin sitte 'happaneejmilkPL putPASS+PST that.kindPLILL then get.sourINF+ILL“The milk was put into that kind [of vessel] and it soured,

ja ku se siinä "pari voorokautta 'oli ninand when it there+INE couple dayPTV bePST+3SG soand when it was in there for a couple of days,

'siähen selkis "kerma 'päällej ja "siittä seitILL clearPST+3SG cream topALL and itELA itthe cream appeared there on top [of the milk] and it

'otettiin sitte/ 'kirnuttavaks/ ja 'siittätakePASS+PST then churnPASSPTCPTRA and itELAwas then taken from there, to be churned, and what

jäi 'alta 'hyvvää "piimää 'sitte.remainPST+3SG underABL goodPTV buttermilkPTV thenremained under it [the cream] was good buttermilk.”

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS30

In (4), the initial Figure is kerma ’cream’, which is described as appearing ontop of the milk; the milk or the vessel it is kept in is the implicit Ground of thisscene. As the description of the spatial relation proceeds, the cream becomesthe Ground, the reference point for the new Figure piimä ‘buttermilk’, which iswhat the milk under the cream has turned into, and which is what becomesrelevant after the cream has been taken out of the vessel. The vertical axis iscreated by layers in a container, and attention is focussed on each layer in turn,each expressed by grams referring to opposite poles of the axis.

Note that the very first Ground, ‘milk’, functions as a Figure in thesection immediately preceding the bidirectional construction, and that the relation described there (“milk in container”) is actually what makes the creation ofthe vertical axis possible. This overall axis is first mentioned by ademonstrative adjective semmonen ‘of that kind’, and it is repeatedly referredto by local case and locative adverb forms of the demonstrative se ‘it’; theseare underlined in the example. (Demonstratives are further discussed in Section4.3.)

Following the general patterns of information structure, it is more likelyfor a referent to first be introduced as a Figure, when a given referent canfunction as its Ground. Later in the course of the narrative, this Figure can inits turn serve as a Ground for other referents, and be tracked this way. Indeed,the data contain no instances of an entity first used as the Ground being giventhe role of Figure in the latter part of the bidirectional construction, except forthose discussed below, in which the Ground and Figure swap roles. Moreover,entities that are tracked in the discourse are generally introduced as subjects orobjects (Helasvuo 1996:344; 2001:54–57, 90–92). This is also true of theFigures that become Grounds in bidirectional constructions: all except one ofthe initial Figures are in subject or object roles.

4.3. Original Figure and original Ground swap rolesThe viewpoint can also be shifted by taking an entity that was first

prominent, foregrounded relative to another, and turning it into the referencepoint for the other entity, the Ground for that which had previously beenGround. This swapping of roles requires that both participants of the spatialrelation be semantically compatible with the roles of both Figure and Ground.Such compatibility is seen in human beings and other animate participants;they are (or can be conceived of as being) on the same level of agentivity andmobility, and each is able to act upon the other.

The participants need not necessarily be human or animate, but if onechooses to describe the relation between two objects by swapping their roleswith a bidirectional construction, that relation is unlikely to be purely spatial.Consider example (5).


(5) (LA Luopioinen 2851 116)Se oli 'riihessä 'nin kauvaj ja 'sitte josit bePST+3SG barnINE so long and then if“It was in the barn for that long and then if it

oli "kesänen 'aika ni 'sitte 'sinnev viätiinbePST+3SG summerADJ time so then there.to takePASS+PSTwas summer time, then a barrel of cold water was taken

sinner 'riiheen 'kylmä "vesisaavi sen 'arkun 'ale/there barnILL cold water.barrel itGEN coffinGEN underALLthere to the barn and placed there under the coffin,

ja se 'arkku laskettiin sen 'kylmävand it coffin put.downPASS+PST itGEN coldGENand the coffin was put down

"vesi"saavim "päälle/ että siältä 'kylmää lönkähwater.barrelGEN topALL that thereABL coldPTV blowPST+3SGon top of the cold barrel, so that cold [air] would rise from there

'nin kauvan kun "kirkollev viätiin se/so long than churchALL takePASS+PST ituntil it [the coffin] was taken to the church.”

In (5), the axis is created by describing the relationship between the two objectsfrom the viewpoint of each of them in turn. Formally, this example is verystraightforward: even the attribute in the original Figure NP, kylmä ‘cold’, isrepeated when the Figure and Ground swap roles in the description of how thecold water barrel is placed under the coffin and the coffin is put on top of thecold water barrel. Such a repetition of full NP’s, however, raises the questionwhether the description is solely spatial in nature. It seems that here the firstpart, about the placing of the barrel under the coffin, does in fact function aspart of an expression of purpose, as a start towards explaining why the barrelwas placed there. The second part, the description of what was done with thecoffin, is more purely spatial. In the narration, the explanation of the purposefor the action continues after the second part of the bidirectional construction.

Note that the original Ground NP (‘the coffin’), the new Figure NP(again ‘the coffin’), and the new Ground NP (‘the cold water barrel’), allcontain the demonstrative se, which is grammaticalizing into a definite articlein spoken Finnish (Laury 1997; otherwise Finnish has no articles). In thiscontext, se contributes to the spatial interpretation of the second part of thebidirectional construction by making both the Figure and the Ground definite

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS32

and (more) referential: ”There was this particular barrel and this particularcoffin, and the latter was put on top of the former”. The first mention of thewater barrel, however, is clearly indefinite and nonspecific: it could be anywater barrel. The narrator explains what people used to do with them, and why.

There are other demonstratives in this excerpt as well, and theunderlined siältä on line 5 deserves comment. Finnish demonstrative pronouns(glossed in this and other examples with ‘it’) have full case inflection,including the six local cases; additionally, there are locative adverbs which areformed from the singular demonstratives and which have only the six localcase forms (glossed with ‘there’; see Laury 1996:66–68, 74–81)8. The internallocal cases of the pronouns and the locative adverbs are both used to refer tolocations: Laury (1996:81–84) has shown that the difference between thesecategories is that the internal local case forms of the demonstrative pronounsare used for referents which are conceptualised as Figures, while the locativeadverb forms refer to entities conceptualised as Grounds. Siältä in example (5)is a locative adverb formed from the demonstrative se, and it refers to the waterbarrel as the source of cold air; its form thus further supports the analysis thatthe water barrel is conceptualised as a Ground at this point in the narration.

4.4. Why is one direction not enough?It could be hypothesised that speakers utilise bidirectional

conceptualization because it might be easier, faster or more natural to process adescription of a spatial relation along one spatial axis rather than letting theviewpoint jump randomly from one axis to another during the description. Thisis not to say that the axes are isolated or absolute in their existence, but thatthere are stronger conceptual links between the poles of one axis than betweenpoles of different axes: since the axes are inherently bipolar, to mention onepole is to activate the whole axis, making it accessible. The use of bidirectionalconstructions could thus be seen as at least partially motivated by a desire forthe support that a solid and stable spatial axis can give to the quality ofinformation processing.

A speaker’s ability to refer repeatedly and from different perspectives tothe same referent is an important feature of language organisation (sometimescalled elaboration of descriptions, see Talmy 2000a:238–239). Bidirectionalconstructions are used for this purpose, as they aim for finer characterisation ofspatial scenes — multiple grammatical or lexical constructions expressing thesame referent or relation provide multiple perspectives on and alternativeconceptualizations of that referent or relation (Langacker 1987:107, 110).

Treating an axis as a bipolar whole both in conceptualization and inlinguistic description is thus at least partially motivated by the efficiency ofproduction and comprehension. Furthermore, different bidirectionalities in

8 Here, the distinctions between the three demonstrative stems tämä ‘this’, tuo ‘that’, and se‘it’, are ignored, as only sestems occur in the data.


conceptualising and describing space support one another; consider thebidirectionality of sensory paths. Sight is a good example of fictive orsubjective motion: in reality, nothing moves, but the sensory experience isconceptualised as a path between the viewer or hearer and the stimulus.Sensory paths offer a parallel for spatial bidirectionality: it is possible toconceptualise the fictive motion between the experiencer (the viewer/listener)and the stimulus bidirectionally, as a path emanating from either of the two, asin example (6) (Talmy 2000a:115–116; see also Langacker 1991a:157–160).

(6) (Talmy 2000a:115)(a) I can hear/smell him all the way from where I’m standing.(b) I can hear/smell him all the way from where he’s standing.

In cognitive grammar, semantic structure is regarded as being based onconventional imagery, and imagery is defined as “our ability to construe aconceived situation in alternate ways” (Langacker 1987:110–111, 116–141).Different aspects of conventional imagery are summarised by Casad (1995:32),and all are characteristic of bidirectional constructions: (a) alternate construalsof scenes (a defining property of the bidirectional construction); (b) alternatepaths of composition (the components of a bidirectional structure are composedof different morphemes, opposite spatial grams); (c) alternate salience of parts(in a bidirectional construction, typically two entities in an event arehighlighted in turn); (d) different levels of specificity (bidirectionalconstructions may be used for nesting); and (e) alternate speaker vantage points(bidirectional constructions show a scene from two perspectives).

5. Accentuation: expressing contrastThe data studied here consist of spoken nonstandard language, so

prosodic features can be taken into account when considering the functions ofbidirectional constructions. In this section accentuation is shown to support thechanging of viewpoints in narration.

In his discussion of activation cost, Chafe (1994) observes that aprimary accent (which in his study is defined as a pitch deviation on an element which is at the same time either loud or lengthened or both, representedwith an accent mark ´) that gives exaggerated prominence to a word has thefunction of expressing contrast. One of his examples is given in (7):

(7) (Chafe 1994:77)a (A) ... Have the .. ánimals,b (A) .. ever attacked anyone ín a car?c (B) ... Well Id (B) well í hèard of an élephant,e (B) –that sát dówn on a v w one time.

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS34

For our purposes, the interesting primary accent is that on the preposition in(7b): according to Chafe (1994:77), “the preposition in – – received a primaryaccent because of a contrast with a tragic event discussed earlier in thisconversation, an event in which someone had been trampled by an elephantoutside a car.”

Obviously this is one of the functions of bidirectional constructions aswell: to contrast the viewpoints and the poles of the spatial axis. This can beseen in the accentuation patterns, since the grams in bidirectional constructionshave a primary accent (represented with " in the examples) much more oftenthan the same grams in other contexts have, and there are far fewer weaklyaccented grams in bidirectional constructions than there are in general (seeTable 29).

All grams(N = 1719)

Grams inbidirectional constructions

(N = 293)Primary accent 496 (29.25%) 118 (42.91%)Secondary accent 626 (36.91%) 100 (36.36%)Weakly accented 574 (33.84%) 57 (20.73%)

Table 2: Accent patterns of all grams designating spatial relationships onvertical and frontal axes and of these grams in bidirectional constructions

The data suggest that the accent also correlates with the position of thegram: the grams in second position have primary accent more often than theones in first position. These figures are in Table 3.

Grams infirst position

(N = 137*)

Grams insecond position

(N = 139*)Primary accent 54 (39.42%) 65 (46.76%)Secondary accent 52 (37.96%) 48 (34.53%)Weakly accented 31 (22.63%) 26 (18.71%)

*The numbers of grams in first and second position are different becausein some cases one pole is expressed by more than one gram.

Table 3: Accent patterns of the grams in first and secondposition of bidirectional constructions

However, a closer look reveals that it is in fact typical for both grams to have aprimary accent, not just the second (see example 2). To highlight the contrast

9 Typically elements such as pronouns and grams are weakly accented (Chafe 1994:77). In thepresent data, the total number of accented grams in both categories is surprisingly high, 66.2%(all) and 78.5% (bidirectional) altogether. One possible explanation for this is that because oftheir case inflection, the Finnish grams have two or three syllables. Shorter elements are morelikely to be weakly accented.


between two spatial poles, the speaker can place a primary accent on bothgrams, not only to direct attention to the spatial relation the grams themselvesexpress, but also, even primarily, in order to emphasise the coherence of theconstruction as a whole.10

There is a remarkable difference between the proportion of all gramsthat get a primary accent and the proportion of secondposition grams that get aprimary accent, but the placement of a primary accent is not meaningful on itsown. It may rather be a signal to the hearer to look for the purpose of the accentsomewhere else, in this case, earlier in the discourse. Expressing contrastwould be impossible without an earliermentioned entity with which to createthe contrast. Obviously not all bidirectional constructions express contrast,some just an alternative viewpoint, but the common feature is that theaccentuation pattern itself contributes to the establishment of a clear axisbetween two spatial relations; it is a sign of a connection between them.

6. How are the axes drawn conceptually?

6.1. Windowing of pathsTo explore how the axes are drawn conceptually I will use Talmy’s

concept of distribution of attention. It is based on the flexibility of the humanperceptual system11, our ability to focus on selected parts of different eventframes, to select a Figure and a Ground, and to foreground and backgroundselected elements. Human sensory perception is selective in this way: we areable to focus our sight on certain features of a referent or an event, or toselectively listen to certain elements from a mass of sound around us, anddisregard the rest of the sensory input.

The process of foregrounding is called windowing of attention:linguistic forms place windows over a referent scene. The foregroundedportion of an event frame is windowed, and the backgrounded portion (thatwithout an overt linguistic expression) is gapped. For spatial descriptions suchas those studied in the present paper, windowing means highlighting differentcomponents of a spatial relation in turn (Talmy 2000a: Ch. 4, p. 257–259, 304–305). For example, an open path where a concrete object moves physicallyfrom one place to another can be described (a) with maximal windowing overthe whole path, (b) with gapping over one portion of the path, or (c) with

10 This prosodic pattern of expressing contrastive focus with using a twopeaked intonation hasbeen described in Finnish linguistics by Hakulinen & Karlsson (1979:309–310), Karlsson(1982:173), and Vilkuna (1989:107–110), among others. The topic of Vilkuna’s study isFinnish word order, and a closer look at the word order of bidirectional constructions wouldprobably be illuminating.11 Talmy’s (2000a:304–305) view is that the distribution of attention is based on a particularcognitive system, the “attentional system”, which is able to establish active connections withvarious aspects of other cognitive systems, such as vision. In the present study, it is sufficientto think of this on the concrete level of human perception.

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS36

windowing over one single portion of the path, resulting in expressions such asthose in (8):

(8) (Talmy 2000a:266.)The crate that was in the aircraft’s cargo bay fell –

(a) out of the plane [initial] through the air [medial] into the ocean [finalportion].

(b) out of the plane [initial] into the ocean [final portion].(c) into the ocean [final portion].

An important feature of the distribution of attention is that even when only onephase of the event is windowed, it is possible to infer the remainder of it, giventhe appropriate linguistic and nonlinguistic context. It is thus possible for ahearer to reconstruct a conceptually full path from a partially gapped one(Talmy 2000a:258, 266, 422). Gapping of the medial portion of a path (as in8b) may lead to its minimisation in the speakers’ conceptualization of the path,and this extreme backgrounding makes the initial and final portions seem torun together contiguously. Talmy’s term for this cognitive phenomenon isconceptual splicing (2000a:270, 306; cf. chunking, Langacker 1991a:220).

Windowing is not a new idea in linguistics; the same principles arepresent in cognitive grammar’s concepts of profile and base, specificity, andscope of predication (Langacker 1991a:5–12; for an illuminating example ofthe selection of the entities that participate in a linguistic description see pp.213–216). Such insights draw direct parallels between linguistic descriptionsand the nonlinguistic human perceptual system, giving a phenomenon such aswindowing an explanation which is based on human cognitive skills.

6.2. Spatial axes as pathsA spatial axis can be conceived of as a path, and its windowing patterns

are parallel to those of a path event frame (example 8). In a bidirectionaldescription the extreme ends of the axis are windowed and the medial portionis gapped, resulting in conceptual splicing (Talmy 2000a:270, 281) where themedial portion becomes conceptually reduced: mention of the poles creates animage of the whole axis.

I see this as being the way in which the axes are drawn: they areconceptually created between windows of attention. Recall that the axes are not“inherent” or “absolute” in their existence; they are creations of the speaker’sconceptualization of the spatial scene that is being observed and described. Thepoles that determine the orientation of the axis are identified by the focussingof attention, by placing windows of attention over certain portions of thespatial relation, and gapping others.


There are two windowing patterns that are responsible of the creation ofaxes in bidirectional constructions, and the patterns are determined by the typeof the verb used in the construction. The axis can be drawn either dynamicallyor statically; dynamic or static description is based on the way the speakerconceives of the situation she is about to describe. Neither needs to be real, or“factive” (Talmy 2000a:100).

If the spatial relation is conceptualised as dynamic, its linguisticdescription follows the path of the moving Figure or the path of the action theFigure participates in: the axis is created dynamically, by path windowing(Talmy 2000a:265–270). The verbs in dynamic bidirectional constructions aremotion verbs or other dynamic verbs. Bidirectionality implies that there are(minimally) two paths or two construals of one path in conceptualization of theevent, and the windows of attention are placed over those portions of the pathsthat are required for creating the axis. The windowed portions are expressed bythe antonymic grams.

In example (5), for instance, the axis is created by describing causedmotion performed by human agents12 on the objects that function as Figuresand Grounds. Since the action of placing one object on top of the other isdescribed from the viewpoints of both objects, it is expressed by two differentcaused motion verbs (viedä ‘place’ and laskea ‘put down’), and attention isfocussed on the phase of action in which the objects meet. Windows ofattention are thus placed on the final portion of each caused motion path, andthe vertical axis is created between them.

The windowing pattern is similar when the motion is fictive; thedifference is that here the motion happens in the speaker’s mind, when shementally traces some dimension of the object described. In example (2), forinstance, one direction of the Figure’s motion is negated, and the context iscounterfactual. The initial portions of the two paths — one fictive, the otherfactive — are nevertheless windowed, and the vertical axis is drawn betweenthem.

If the spatial relation is conceptualised as static, it is expressed by astatic verb, and the Figures are observed in relation to the Ground’senvironment. The axis is created by what could be called “field windowing”,where windows of attention are placed over opposite sides of the Ground, bylocating parts within a whole. The direction of the axis is thus based on theconceptualization of the shape and orientation of the Ground. This is illustratedby example (3), which first introduces the Ground referent as a general frameand then uses it as a background for the highlighted or windowed parts, thelocations of which are expressed by spatial antonyms.

In example (4), the vertical axis is created by describing layers in acontainer, with the container functioning as an implicit overall Ground for the

12 The verbs in 6 are in passive, which in Finnish generally implies a human agent (seeHelasvuo, this volume).

KRISTA OJUTKANGAS38

whole setting. Windows of attention are placed on each layer in turn, and theirrelations to each other are expressed by grams referring to opposite poles of theaxis. Although the verbs in (4) are dynamic, they express a change of state theFigures experience, not active manipulation performed by the narrator or anyother agent.

In both examples (2) and (5), the axis is created by the action of aFigure, the “moving or conceptually movable entity”, as Talmy defines it(2000a:312), and it is thus natural that these windowing patterns are dynamic.In (3) and (4), on the other hand, the placing of the windows and thus thedirection of the axis are based on the shape and orientation of the (overall)Ground, and since stability is one of Ground’s general characteristics, it isunsurprising that these windowing patterns are static.

Both dynamic and static spatial descriptions involve changes in theviewpoint from which a relation is conceived of and described: motion oraction related to the spatial relation is described from two actual or fictivedirections, the description of the spatial relation is refined by nestedbidirectional locatives, and within narration, a new viewpoint can be openedevery time a new Figure is introduced, leaving the Ground role for the previousFigure. Together with the windowing of attention, the changes in viewpoint areresponsible for creating the spatial axis that is used in the description of theMotion event.

7. ConclusionsIn this paper I have discussed one aspect of spatial conceptualization,

the utilisation of axes in the conceptual partition of space. This study is usagebased: the bidirectional constructions explored emerged unexpectedly in ananalysis of spatial grams meaning ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘front’ and ‘back’ in spokennarratives. The aim of this paper has been to describe these constructions, toclassify them, to analyse their functions in narrative discourse, and toinvestigate the means by which the axes are conceptually created. Bydefinition, the bidirectional construction implies a change in theconceptualization of the spatial relation; the classification of the constructionsis based on this property.

Addressing the question of why one direction is not enough, I argue thatthe use of bidirectional constructions is motivated by the support that a solidand stable spatial axis can give to the quality or efficiency of informationprocessing. The axes are inherently bipolar; they can be activated and madeaccessible as wholes by the mention of just one of their poles. Bidirectionalconstructions allow elaboration of a spatial description, as they are used fornesting locative expressions, and the creation of finer characterisations ofspatial configurations. Bidirectional constructions are used as a device forbuilding narration along the axis chosen by the speaker, by introducing newFigures that may turn earlier Figures into Grounds, with all these entities piling


up on one axis. This property functions as a means of tracking referentsthrough discourse.

The combination of opposite spatial grams is not random; their jointappearance has a meaning in the discourse, and this is what makes thebidirectional constructions constructions. The accentuation patterns of theconstructions further supports their unity, since when both grammaticalelements are given a primary accent it ties them together, contributing to theperception of a spatial axis. Such accentuation also underlines the bidirectionalconstructions’ function of expressing contrast.

The means of conceptualization of the spatial axes was explained usingthe concept of windowing of attention. The windowing patterns of bidirectionalconstructions can be either dynamic or static. In dynamic path windowing, thepoles of the axes are created by placing windows of attention over appropriateportions of (caused) motion paths; the paths connect at the spatial relationdescribed by the bidirectional construction. In static field windowing, thewindows of attention are placed over appropriate portions of the Ground entity.

Bidirectional constructions are excellent instances of the linguisticrealisation of certain aspects of conventional imagery. Taking multipleviewpoints of the event a spatial relation participates in enriches the picture;relating the viewpoints on one spatial axis makes the description conceptuallysolid.

This study of bidirectional constructions has revealed that the inherentbipolarity of the basic spatial axes can be utilised as a relatively systematicstrategy in spatial conceptualization. It has also shown that a conceptualizationstrategy primarily used in spatial language can also have further functions indiscourse, in building the narrative, and in reference tracking. Bidirectional andsimilar constructions call for further research — crosslinguistic, usagebasedstudies in cognitive as well as other frameworks — in order to expand ourknowledge of spatial conceptualization and language.

“I WOKE UP FROM THE SOFA”SUBJECTIVE DIRECTIONALITY IN FINNISH EXPRESSIONS

OF A SPATIOCOGNITIVE TRANSFER

TUOMAS HUUMOUniversity of Turku

1. IntroductionA common linguistic way of representing relationships between human beingsand their environment is to conceptualize them as reference points surroundedby a dominion, a “conceptual region to which a particular reference point affordsdirect access” (see Langacker 1993). It is with regard to this dominion that weestablish and evaluate other entities that interact with the human participants. Forexample, possessive relationships are represented in many languages as thepresence of the possessed within the dominion of the possessor. Inmorphosyntactic terms, the possessor is then referred to by a locative expression,which sets up the possessive dominion where the possessee is situated (fordifferent linguistic ways of representing possession see Heine 1997b).

In this paper I examine the interaction between cognitive dominions andspace as conceptualized in the Finnish language. The term ‘cognitive dominion’refers to the dominion with a sentient referencepoint involved in a cognitiverelationship, i.e. a relationship consisting of a cognitive interaction between thereference point and its surroundings. This interaction may be based on mentalevents such as perception, awareness or consciousness. The cognitive dominionconsists of what the sentient reference point perceives, thinks or knows at aparticular point of time. Verbs that refer to such cognitive interaction include forinstance verbs of perception (see, hear, feel), awareness (know, think, remember,forget) and consciousness (be awake, fall asleep, wake up). The sentient referencepoint will be referred to in the following as the experiencer (i.e., an animateparticipant engaged in a mental activity who is neither an active initiator of theevent [an agent] nor an object that undergoes a change as a result of the event [apatient]), and the other participants of the cognitive interaction as stimuli.

If the cognitive relationship is dynamic and consists of a change, then itmay involve fictive motion by the stimulus into or out of the cognitive dominionof the experiencer. Expressions of cognitive interaction also tend to include whatcould be called the fictive stationariness of the experiencer itself (for the

TUOMAS HUUMO42

concepts of fictive motion and stationariness see Talmy 2000a). Canonicalexamples of fictive motion include expressions such as The highway goes fromTurku to Helsinki, where the static position of an elongated entity is expressed byusing motion verbs and directional locative elements. In cognitive linguistics suchexpressions are usually analyzed as reflecting the directionality of a mentalscanning performed by the conceptualizer, where the situation is approached andrepresented from a subjectively selected perspective. In the case of expressionsinvolving a cognitive dominion, fictive motion means that even when in theextralinguistic referent situation the stimulus remains stationary and passive, itmay be represented linguistically as if moving with regard to the experiencer’scognitive dominion. Fictive stationariness, on the other hand, means that theexperiencer, which itself may be actively involved in manipulating the extensionsof its cognitive dominion (e.g. by directing its perceptive organs), is usuallyrepresented as static.

Interestingly, in the Finnish system of conceptualizing cognitiverelationships, fictive motion of the stimulus with regard to the experiencer’scognitive dominion (into or out of it) often involves its fictive motion in space aswell. In my paper I pay special attention to the representation of spatial relationsin sentences that indicate a change in a cognitive relationship, and show thatfictive spatial motion is often involved in a relationship that actually only consistsof a change in the relationship between the stimulus and the cognitive dominionof the experiencer.

Finnish is an interesting object for this study, since it is explicit inrepresenting the directionality of locative relationships: it has a rich system oflocative cases and locative adpositions, in which a fundamental feature is thedirectionality opposition between directional (‘to’, ‘from’) and static (‘in/at’)locative elements (i.e. case endings or adpositions; see Huumo and Ojutkangas,this volume). In a cognitive relationship, Finnish uses its directional locativeexpressions to refer to the spatial position of a stimulus that enters or exits thecognitive dominion of the experiencer, even if the stimulus does not movespatially at all. In general, a situation where the stimulus enters the experiencer’scognitive dominion involves a fictive motion by the stimulus away from itsspatial location, which is referred to with a ‘from’ case. Correspondingly, asituation where the stimulus leaves the experiencer’s cognitive dominion involvesfictive motion by the stimulus into its spatial location, referred to with a ‘to’ case.Thus in Finnish one can for instance find or buy things “from” places and leave orforget them “into” places (1−2).

(1) Elmeri löysi kirjan kirjastosta.Elmer findPST+3SG bookACC libraryELA“Elmer found the book in [lit. “from”] the library.”

SUBJECTIVE DIRECTIONALITY 43

(2) Elmeri unohti kirjan autoon.Elmer forgetPST+3SG bookACC carILL“Elmer forgot [= left] the book in [lit. “into”] the car”.

In this paper I also study semantically related expressions where a sentiententity itself undergoes a change of state with regard to its consciousness orexistence. Such expressions resemble expressions of a cognitive dominion in thatthey use dynamic local cases to designate static spatial relationships. This time,however, the entity whose spatial position is at issue is the experiencer itself. Forexample, when the experiencer ceases to exist or loses its consciousness, a ‘to’case is often used to mark its spatial position; if it gains consciousness, a ‘from’case is used. Thus one can for instance fall asleep or die “into” a place and wakeup “from” a place (3−4).

(3) Elmeri nukahti sohvalle.Elmer fall.asleepPST+3SG sofaALL“Elmer fell asleep on [lit. “onto”] the sofa.”

(4) Elmeri heräsi sohvalta.Elmer wake.upPST+3SG sofaABL“Elmer woke up on [lit. “from”] the sofa.”

In this paper, I argue that such uses of the directional locative expressionssuggest that in the conceptualization reflected by the use of grammaticalstructures in Finnish, possession, consciousness, awareness and other cognitivedominions are conceived of as directly interacting with space. The metaphormotivating such a conceptualization interprets cognitive dominions as places, andreflects the common principle of spatial motion that an entity cannot occupy twoseparate locations at a time: motion into a new location necessarily involvesmotion away from an earlier one.

The discussion falls into seven parts. I first introduce the uses of theFinnish local cases in representing the relationships of perception, cognition, andpossession (Section 2). In Section 3 I discuss earlier accounts of the relevant usesof the cases. In Section 4 I take a closer look at the spatial uses of the local casesin expressions of sensory perception where they mark the position of stimulus.Section 5 examines more abstract cognitive relationships which are not directlydependent on actual sensory input, e.g. locative expressions used with verbs likeforget, find, and remember. Section 6 deals with expressions where a sentiententity undergoes a fundamental change of state (often involving an existentialsense) and this motivates the use of directional cases in locatives designating itsposition. In Section 7, I study the aspectual meanings of the directional cases inexpressions of cognition, and demonstrate that they include a telic meaning which

TUOMAS HUUMO44

is missing in the corresponding examples with static cases. Section 8 sums up theresults of the discussion.

2. Finnish local cases in expressions of space and cognitionAs shown in Huumo and Ojutkangas (this volume), the Finnish local

cases are used in many different functions, some of which involve a human oranimate participant that is conceptualized as a referencepoint surrounded by adominion where another entity is situated. The best example of this in Finnish isprobably the possessive construction. However, possession is not the only humanrelated relationship that is expressed by the local cases. As in many otherlanguages, the Finnish locative expressions (cases and adpositions) also expressmore abstract cognitive relationships where a mental content is transferredbetween sentient participants (5–6).

(5) Elmerille tuli käsky Liisalta.ElmerALL comePST+3SG order LisaABL“Elmer received an order from Lisa.”

(6) Elmeri kuuli jutun Liisalta.Elmer hearPST+3SG storyACC LisaABL“Elmer heard the story from Lisa.”

In (5), both animate participants receive a locative coding, Lisa as the source(‘from’) and Elmer as the goal (‘to’) of the verbal content transferred betweenthem. Finnish thus codes the transference of a mental content from one person toanother in the same way it codes spatial motion from one place to another. Inexample (6), Lisa is again coded as the source, but this time the recipient of theinformation, Elmer, is coded as the subject of the verb meaning ‘hear’.

Such examples display a strong analogy between the spatial and cognitiveuses of the local cases. Mental contents (i.e. knowledge and information) canmove “into” or “out of” the cognitive dominions of sentient participants in verymuch the same way as concrete objects move into or out of places. However, asAlhoniemi (1975) has pointed out, there are also important differences betweenthe two domains. One important difference is that a mental content usuallycontinues its existence in the source dominion even after it has been transferred tothe recipient dominion, whereas a concrete entity in actual spatial motion mustleave its original location when moving into another. For instance, in (6) Lisadoes not herself lose the mental content when she tells it to Elmer in the sameway she loses a pen if she gives it to Elmer. Among expressions involving acognitive dominion, it is possessive expressions that in this respect most resemblespatial ones: a possessed normally has one possessor at a time, and when a newpossessive relationship is established the earlier one must be terminated.Expressions of a mental transfer such as (6), on the other hand, rather resemble


spatial expressions of a spread, where the extension of the trajector itself changeswhen it proceeds into a new location: e.g. The fire spread to the attic (Alhoniemi1975). This example does not say that the fire vanished from its original locationafter spreading into the new one.

Cognitive transfers do not always require interaction between two sentientparticipants in the sense demonstrated by (2). An experiencer may acquire mentalcontents from different kinds of sources, such as inanimate objects (7–8).

(7) Elmeri luki vitsin lehdestä.Elmer readPST+3SG jokeACC paperELA“Elmer read a/the joke in [“from”] the paper.”

(8) Elmeri tarkisti hevosen iän hampaista.Elmer checkPST+3SG horseGEN ageACC toothPLELA“Elmer checked the horse’s age from its teeth.”

In (7) and (8) the experiencer receives information by (visually) observing aconcrete object, i.e. the newspaper or the horse’s teeth. The linguistic expressionthat refers to this concrete object of observation is again coded with a ‘from’ case.In the conceptualization of the situation, an abstract mental content proceeds fromthe source to the experiencer, only this time the source is inanimate. Because ofthis, the present examples can be argued to exemplify a blend of spatial andcognitive motion: what “moves” is a cognitive content, but the source of themotion is a concrete object which does not intentionally participate in the transferof the cognitive content, nor does it have the ability to “cognize” the contentitself. This fact distinguishes the present examples from those discussed above(e.g. 5), where both the source and the goal of the cognitive transfer are animateentities and actively contribute to the transference. Examples like (7) and (8) forma bridge between the two domains, spatial and cognitive, and underlie theextensive usage of the Finnish local cases in designating relationships betweensentient beings and their environment.

3. Earlier accounts of the cognitive uses of the directional casesUses of the Finnish directional local cases in expressions that involve no

actual motion have received substantial attention in studies of Finnish syntax. Inthese works, uses of the cases with verbs of cognition have been studied inconnection with certain other uses that lack an obvious semantic motivation. Therelevant uses of the cases in fact include three main types: (i) cognitiveexpressions, such as the ones discussed in the previous sections; (ii) existentialexpressions which represent coming into existence as motion into a location(example 9) and cessation of existence as motion away from the location(example 10); and (iii) expressions that indicate inchoative static situations

TUOMAS HUUMO46

loosely characterizable as ‘remaining’ (example 11, where the verb jäädä‘remain’ takes a directional locative argument).

(9) Pihalle kasvoi puu.yardADE growPST+3SG tree“A tree grew [= appeared] in [lit. “into”] the yard.”

(10) Kylästä paloi kirkko.villageELA burnPST+3SG church“The village lost its church in the fire” [lit.: “From village burnedchurch”].

(11) Pyörä jäi pihalle.bike remainPST+3SG yardALL“The bike remained in [lit. “into”] the yard.”

We thus see that the topic of our present discussion, expressions involving acognitive dominion (group i above), is in fact part of a more extensive usage ofthe directional cases in contexts where their semantic motivation is not selfevident. However, it is not a priori clear that these different uses of the directionalcases have anything in common, except that they are “exotic” for someone usedto the locative system of many familiar IndoEuropean languages. The semanticmotivations underlying these uses may well differ from each other. For instance,the directionality of existence finds direct motivation in the other spatial uses ofthe local cases: when something comes into existence it appears in the location,and when it ceases to exist it disappears from the location, if the perspective ofthe event is limited to the location alone (cf. Huumo 2003).

In Finnish linguistics, it has been argued that these uses of the directionalcases have a historical motivation. Tunkelo (1931) points out that some of therelevant verbs were originally verbs of motion, but underwent a semantic changewhereby they started to indicate more abstract relationships; they neverthelessmaintained the original directional case marking of their locative arguments (theverb jäädä ‘remain’, for instance, originally meant ‘come’). According to thisview, the earlier meaning of these verbs motivates their use together withdirectional cases. However, as Tunkelo himself admits, only few such verbs canactually be demonstrated to have undergone this kind of a semantic change. Onthe other hand, similar uses of directional locative expressions have beenobserved in many Uralic languages (Tunkelo 1931, Hakulinen 1979:522−532),which suggests that the phenomenon itself is old. With respect to the presentpaper, it should be emphasized that my purpose is not to provide an explanationfor all these uses of the directional cases (many of which are quite idiomatic andpetrified, depending on particular isolated verbs), but only their uses inconnection with cognitive verbs and expressions of a change of state.


A popular explanation for such special uses of the directional cases,supported by many grammarians (e.g. Tunkelo 1931, Penttilä 1957, Hakulinen1979), is that the directional ‘to’ cases reflect the tendency to “understand the endresult of an event as associated with the event itself”, as Tunkelo puts it(1931:221; see also Hakulinen 1979). More specifically, the idea is that a changeofstate expression with a directional locative in fact combines a telic event (e.g.the change of state) with an inceptive existential relationship, where the latterconsists of the appearance of an entity in a location. For instance, a cognitivechangeofstate expression like (12) thus involves the existential meaning of asleeping person “appearing upon” the sofa.

(12) Hän nukahti sohvalle.s/he fall.asleepPST+3SG sofaALL“S/he fell asleep on the sofa.”

In presentday cognitive linguistic terms we can rephrase this explanation bysaying that such expressions represent an idiosyncratic profiling of the event, or awindowing of attention over the event in the sense of Talmy (2000a), where notonly the achievement of an end result but also the state that follows thisachievement is included within the scope of predication (for similar phenomenarelated to the aspectual object marking in Finnish, see Huumo 2005). In his paperinspired by the ideas of generative semantics, Rahkonen (1977) took this line ofargumentation further and suggested that a temporal meaning in fact underliessuch uses of the directional local cases. According to Rahkonen’s view, a ‘to’case used in such examples in fact has the temporal meaning where the presenceof an entity in the location extends over the completion of the actual event. If astatic locative expression is used, the sentence lacks such implications. Example(13), for instance, has a static locative expression in the adessive case and givesno implications about the location of the tower after the event of building it hasbeen completed. In cognitive linguistic terms, the scope of the predication islimited to the event of ‘building’ itself. In contrast, example (14), which has thedirectional allative (‘to’) case, specifically means that the tower remains on thetable after being completed, thus extending the scope of the predication beyondthe actual event of ‘building’.

(13) Lapsi rakensi tornin pöydällä.child buildPST+3SG towerACC tableADE“The child built a tower on the table.”

(14) Lapsi rakensi tornin pöydälle.child buildPST+3SG towerACC tableALL“The child built a tower on [lit.: “to, onto”] the table.”

TUOMAS HUUMO48

Correspondingly, in Rahkonen’s argument, the ‘from’ cases can be usedto designate the location of a participant before the actual event takes place. Forinstance the ‘from’ case elative in (15) means that the money was in the pocketbefore it was found.

(15) Hän löysi rahaa taskustaan.s/he findPST+3SG moneyPTV pocketELA3SGPX“S/he found some money in [lit. “from”] her/his pocket.”

Similar arguments based on the idea that the Finnish directional cases aremotivated by a temporal meaning have been proposed in the internationallinguistic literature by Dahl (1987; see also Croft 2001:116−117) and Fong(1998). Dahl (1987:152−154) argues that Finnish verbs with such meanings as‘remain’, ‘leave’ and ‘forget’, which take locative arguments in a ‘to’ or ‘onto’case (see examples 16, 17 and 18 below), resemble actual motion verbs “ininvolving at least two points in time”. On the other hand, ‘from’ cases that areused with verbs like ‘search’ and ‘find’ (examples 19 and 20), mark “the point atwhich the object is situated at the beginning of what is said to take place in thesentence”. Thus, according to Dahl’s explanation, Finnish emphasizes temporalas well as spatial criteria in its conceptualization of a goal (and a source).

(16) Poika jäi kouluun.boy remainPST+3SG schoolILL“The boy remained at school.”

(17) Poika jätti laukun kouluun.boy leavePST+3SG bagACC schoolILL“The boy left the bag at school.”

(18) Poika unohti laukun kouluun.boy forgetPST+3SG bagACC schoolILL“The boy forgot the bag at school.”

(19) Poika etsi laukkua koulusta.boy searchPST+3SG bagPTV schoolELA“The boy searched for the bag at school.”

(20) Poika löysi laukun koulusta.boy findPST+3SG bagACC schoolELA“The boy found the bag at school.”

What makes such explanations problematic is that it is easy to come upwith counterexamples. First of all, jäädä ‘remain’ is by no means the only Finnish


verb designating an event that takes place in one location but involves “two pointsof time”. There are semantically similar verbs, such as pysyä ‘stay’ (21) andjatkua ‘continue’ (22), which nevertheless take locative arguments in static casesonly.

(21) Poika pysyi koulussa.boy stayPST+3SG schoolINE“The boy stayed at school.”

(22) Tappelu jatkui pihalla.fighting continuePST+3SG yardADE“The fighting continued in the yard.”

Semantically, the verbs in (21) and (22) would seem to fulfil Dahl’s criteria; theyclearly involve one location but (at least) two points of time. A more appropriateway of characterizing their meaning would be to say that they designate thetemporally continuous presence of an entity in a location, extending over anunbounded continuum of “points of time”. In other words, the event is aspectuallyunbounded.

Another way of interpreting the temporal explanation is to admit thatamong the two points in time to be considered, one has to precede or follow theactual event in order to motivate the use of a directional case (as in fact arguedby Rahkonen 1977). Thus examples like (21) and (22) would not count ascounterexamples, since the situation they designate is atelic and thus does notbring about a state as its end result. However, even this version of theexplanation turns out to be problematic as soon as we try to apply it moregenerally. The following examples show that the mere presence of a participantin the location before or after the event is not sufficient to launch the use of adirectional locative. With the intended reading these examples only allow staticlocatives (23 and 25); if used, a directional locative necessarily indicates actualspatial motion into or away from the location (24 and 26).

(23) Lapsi aloitti leikin lattialla.child startPST+3SG gameACC floorADE“The child started a/the game on the floor.”

(24) Lapsi aloitti leikin lattialta.child startPST+3SG gameACC floorABL“The child started a/the game on the floor” [and moved elsewhere].

(25) Lapsi lopetti leikin lattialla.child stopPST+3SG gameACC floorADE“The child stopped the game on the floor.”

TUOMAS HUUMO50

(26) Lapsi lopetti leikin lattialle.child stopPST+3SG gameACC floorALL“The child stopped the game on the floor” [it had moved there fromanother location].

In the inchoative sentence (23) we thus cannot use the ablative ‘from’ case toconvey the meaning that the child was on the floor before it started to play; thestatic adessive must be used instead. If the ablative ‘from’ case is used(example 24), then the sentence must mean that the child actually moved awayfrom the floor after it had started the game. Correspondingly, in (25) only thestatic adessive ‘on’ is possible if we want to say that the child remained on thefloor after finishing the game. The allative ‘to’ case in (26) means that the childmoved onto the floor from some other location before it stopped the game. Inall, these examples show that the mere presence of an entity in its locationbefore or after the event is not sufficient motivation for the use of thedirectional cases; other factors have to be involved.

4. Expressions of sensory perceptionIn this section I take a closer look at the use of directional cases in

expressions of sensory perception (cf. Huumo 2004). Sensory perception is oftenconceptualized as involving fictive motion between the experiencer and thestimulus, the directionality being either from the experiencer towards the stimulusor vice versa (for general discussions see Lakoff 1993 and Talmy 2000a:115–116). I pay closest attention to visual perception, but also consider exampleswhere other senses are involved.

In general, the Finnish basic nonagentive vision verb nähdä ‘see’ acceptsdirectional locatives that mark the position of the experiencer, whereas theposition of the stimulus is most naturally referred to by a static expression:

(27) Näin paraatin parvekkeelta.seePST1SG paradeACC balconyABL“I saw the parade from the balcony.”

(28) Näin paraatin parvekkeelle.seePST1SG paradeACC balconyALL“I saw the parade from [lit. “to”] the balcony.”

(29) Näin paraatin kadulla.seePST1SG paradeACC streetADE“I saw the parade on the street.”

Examples (27) and (28) show that the position of the experiencer can bedesignated by either the ablative ‘from’ case or the allative ‘to’ case. The ‘from’


case is the unmarked alternative, whereas the ‘to’ case in (28) foregrounds theexperiencer’s ability to see and contrasts the experiencer’s current location withother alternatives, i.e. ‘up to’. More precisely, this means that in (28) there may bean implication that the experiencer does not need to move into another location toobserve the parade, whereas (27) does not convey such implications. (For details,cf. Huumo 2004). In (29) the locative element designates the position of thestimulus (the parade) and here the only natural alternative is the static adessive‘at/on’ case. Another interpretation of (29) is the one where ‘the street’ is an allembracing setting where both the experiencer and the stimulus are situated.

An exception that allows the ‘from’ case marking of locatives referring tothe location of the stimulus are examples where the perceptive event involves thetransition of a mental content from the stimulus to the experiencer (as in theexamples discussed in Section 2). In such cases the experiencer, while visuallyobserving the stimulus, receives information at the same time; this motivates theconceptualization of the position of the stimulus as a source. It is important tonote that in such sentences the syntactic object refers to the information thatproceeds from the stimulus towards the experiencer and not to the concrete targetof the observation itself. The concrete target of the observation, i.e. the entity thatwould constitute the stimulus in canonical expressions of visual perception, isnow conceptualized as the source of the mental content, and referred to by alocative element. In a way, then, such sentences demote the concrete target ofvisual observation to a more peripheral role as a source and select the mentalcontent as the object. In (30), for instance, the ‘news’ is the mental content thatproceeds from the television to the experiencer, and in (31) the information aboutthe addressee’s phone number is information that the experiencer receives fromthe phone book.

(30) Näin televisiosta uutiset.seePST1SG televisionELA newsPL“I saw the news on [lit. “from”] TV.”

(31) Näin puhelinluettelosta numerosi.seePST1SG phonebookELA numberACC+2SGPX“I got [saw] your number from the phone book.”

If a static locative case were used in (31), then the implication of the transfer ofa mental content would vanish. This is illustrated in (32), which resembles (31)but has the ‘in’ case instead of the ‘from’ case, and means that the speakermerely noticed the fact that the phone number was in the phone book.

(32) Näin puhelinluettelossa numerosi.seePST1SG phonebookINE numberACC+2SGPX“I saw your number in the phone book.”

TUOMAS HUUMO52

The importance of a cognitive transfer as a motivator of the directional casemarking also shows up in examples where the stimulus is not specified andonly the target area of the observation is referred to by the locative element.Here an interesting opposition shows up between ‘to’ and ‘from’ cases: a ‘to’case indicates pure visual observation (33), whereas a ‘from’ case implies thatthe experiencer intends to find something in the location when observing it(34).

(33) Katso komeroon!look+IMP+2SG closetILL“Look in the closet.”

(34) Katso komerosta!Look+IMP+2SG closetELA“Check the closet [to find something].”

Such uses of the ‘from’ cases in marking a cognitive transfer open thepath to metaphoric extensions, where the actual visual observation isbackgrounded and the acquisition of knowledge is foregrounded (35−36). Inmany instances the object of such expressions does not refer to the actualmental content transferred but rather to a conclusion drawn by the experienceron the basis of what is seen, as in example (35):

(35) Kellosta näkee ajan.clockELA seePRS+3SG timeACC“You can tell the time from the clock.”

(36) Näen kasvoistasi ongelman vakavuuden.seePRS+1SG facePLELA2SGPX problemGEN seriousnessACC“I can see the seriousness of the problem from your face.”

In concrete terms, what the experiencer actually ‘sees’ in these situations are ofcourse the hands (or digits) of the clock in (35), and the expression on theaddressee’s face in (36). The knowledge about the time or the thoughts of theaddressee are conclusions that the experiencer draws on the basis of what s/heactually sees (see Sweetser 1990:33−34 for a discussion on how vision verbsgenerally develop abstract senses of verbal activity). It is interesting that if wereplace the object NP of these examples with one that refers to the actualphysical stimulus (and not to such a conclusion), then the case marking has tobe changed to the static type. For this reason, the following examples wouldnot accept the ‘from’ cases. Note, too, that in (38) it is the external staticadessive case (and not the internal inessive) that replaces the internal ‘from’elative of example (36). This probably reflects the conceptualization of the face


as a twodimensional surface in (38), whereas in (36) a threedimensionalconceptualization is involved.

(37) Näin kellossa kärpäsen.seePST1SG clockINE flyACC“I saw a fly on the clock.”

(38) Näin kasvoillasi irvistyksen.seePST1SG facePLADE2SGPX grinACC“I saw a grin on your face.”

Other sensory domains display similar contrasts, though the distributionbetween static and dynamic expressions may be different from what it is in thevisual domain. The basic verb of audition, kuulla, accepts a static locativeindicating the position of the stimulus if the stimulus is conceptualized as theentity emitting a sound, as in (39) (note that another interpretation of 39 is that thecasemarked element designates a setting where both the perceiver and thestimulus are situated).

(39) Kuulin pihalla lumiauran.hearPST1SG yardADE snowplowACC“I heard the snowplow in the yard.”

A ‘from’ case would also be possible in (39) (pihalta [yardABL] ‘from theyard’), but in that case there would be ambiguity as to whether the locativeelement refers to the position of the stimulus or the experiencer. This is becausewith verbs of perception in general, directional locatives tend to be interpreted asdesignating the position of the experiencer (cf. examples 27 and 28 above, withverbs of vision). In any case, the possibility of using the ‘from’ case to designatethe position of the stimulus in this example shows that compared with vision,audition is more strongly associated with motion (of a sound) from the stimulustowards the experiencer. As we saw above, vision verbs only allow the ‘from’case marking of the location of the stimulus if the stimulus is a mental contentthat is transferred to the experiencer. This is not required in the auditory domain.

As can be expected, the auditory domain also allows the use of the ‘from’cases in sentences where the object refers to the sound itself and not to the entitythat emits it, as in (40). In such cases the location of the emitter of the sound isconceptualized as a source and referred to by a ‘from’ case. Note that if the staticadessive were used in (40), it would necessarily receive the interpretation of anallembracing setting where the experiencer is also situated.

TUOMAS HUUMO54

(40) Kuulin pihalta lumiauran mylvintää.hearPST1SG yardABL snowplowGEN roaringPTV“I heard the roaring of the snowplow from the yard.”

In the same way as with expressions of vision, the source of an auditorystimulus that is conceptualized as an abstract mental content (not a mere sound)can only be marked with a ‘from’ case (41−42).

(41) Kuulin radiosta uutiset.hearPST1SG radioELA newsACC“I heard the news on [“from”] the radio.”

(42) Sinusta kuulee että olet väsynyt.youELA hearPRS+3SG that bePRS+2SG tired“One can hear from you [e.g. your voice] that you are tired.”

Roughly similar principles of locative marking seem to be at work in thesensory domains of smell and taste. Example (43), with a locative element in astatic case, refers to a situation where the experiencer observes the presence ofthe stimulus in a location, and there is no implication of a transfer of a mentalcontent. On the other hand, in example (44), which has the ‘from’ case, theobject refers to a conclusion that the experiencer draws on the basis of thesensory input.

(43) Haistoin keitossa oudon mausteen.smellPST1SG soupINE strangeACC spiceACC“I smelled a strange spice in the soup.”

(44) Haistan vaatteistasi ettäsmellPRS+1SG clothPLELA2SGPX that

olet ollut metsässä.bePRS+2SG beACT+PTCP forestINE

“I smell it on your clothes that you have been in the woods.”

In the following two examples the verbs indicate the perception of ataste. The static locative is used in (45) where the sensory perception amountsto a mere observation about the presence of the stimulus in its location. In (46),a conclusion is drawn on the basis of the sensory input, and this againmotivates the conceptualization of the perceptive relationship as the transfer ofa mental content. Thus the locative carries the ‘from’ case marking in (46).


(45) Maistoin keitossa valkosipulin.tastePST1SG soupINE garlicACC“I tasted garlic in the soup.”

(46) Kahvista maistaa sen alkuperän.coffeeELA tastePRS+3SG itGEN originACC“One can taste the origin of the coffee in [lit. “from”] it.”

To sum up our observations concerning the use of directional locativeswith perception verbs: the general principle seems to be that a static locativeelement is used to mark the position of the stimulus if the sensory interactionconsists of the mere observation of the presence of the stimulus in its location.In instances where the situation is conceptualized as involving the transfer of amental content from the stimulus to the experiencer, the ‘from’ cases are used.It is interesting that quite often the entity that functions as the stimulus inexpressions of basic sensory observation, and is coded as the syntactic object,receives a locative coding in expressions of a mental transfer, where the objectNP refers to the mental content. To put it figuratively, perceptive mentaltransfers represent a conceptualization involving an act of “mentally picking upsomething”: one uses one’s senses to acquire mental contents rather thanmerely observing one’s surroundings. The ‘from’ case marking of the source ofthe information is motivated by the fictive motion of the mental content awayfrom its original location, even though the question is in most cases one of“spreading” (in the sense discussed in Section 2) rather than the cessation ofthe existence of the mental content in its original location after the perceptiveevent.

5. Knowledge and cognitionIn Section 2 we briefly discussed examples where a cognitive interaction

between a sentient being and its environment motivates the use of a ‘from’ case inthe locative expression that indicates a source of information. In Section 4 we sawthat in the domain of sensory perception, in particular in visual perception, thereis a clear opposition between expressions that involve pure perception (where theposition of the stimulus tends to be marked by a static case) and expressions thatinvolve the transition of a mental content, where the experiencer drawsconclusions on the basis of the sensory input received.

In the current section we take a closer look at more abstract expressionsof cognitive transfer, where the verb indicates a change in the content of thecognitive dominion of the experiencer, i.e., a change in his or her awarenessconcerning the stimulus. This change consists of the motion of a stimulus(more precisely, a mental representation of the stimulus) into or out of thecognitive dominion of the experiencer. Such expressions contain verbs withmeanings like ‘find’, ‘remember’, ‘forget’ and ‘leave’. They do not designate

TUOMAS HUUMO56

sensory perception directly, but sensory perception is usually involved in thecognitive change of state they designate. What distinguishes these verbs fromverbs of sensory perception is that these verbs focus on the relationshipbetween the experiencer’s cognitive dominion and the stimulus, not on therelationship between the stimulus and the external world. They merely profileone end of the fictive path traveled by the mental content when it moves into orout of the cognitive dominion. In this sense, the opposition between aperception verb like ‘see’ and a cognitive transfer verb like ‘remember’ (withits inchoative reading) resembles the opposition between motion verbs like‘move’ and ‘enter’: in both pairs the first verb profiles the whole path traversedby the mover, while the latter verb focuses on the end point of this path.

As is the case in expressions of actual sensory perception, the position ofthe stimulus is marked with a directional case with verbs designating a cognitivetransfer where the relationship between the stimulus and the cognitive dominionof the experiencer changes. A ‘from’ case is used to mark the spatial location ofthe stimulus that enters the cognitive dominion of the experiencer (example 47).Correspondingly, when the stimulus exits the cognitive dominion of theexperiencer a ‘to’ case is used to mark its spatial location (48).

(47) Löysin kirjan pöydältä.findPST1SG bookACC tableABL“I found a/the book on [lit. “from”] the table.”

(48) Kadotin tytön väkijoukkoon.losePST1SG girlACC crowdILL“I lost the girl in [lit. “into”] the crowd.”

The ‘to’ cases are also used with many other malefactive verbs thatdesignate a situation where the experiencer loses cognitive contact with thestimulus. The following examples show that it does not matter whether this isintentional (49) or not (50–51). Note that (51) is an interesting example; here thewhole location (‘the bag’) may be under the control of the experiencer, who mayfor instance be holding the bag when the event takes place. Nevertheless, thecessation of the cognitive relationship between the experiencer and the stimulus(the key) motivates the ‘to’ case marking of the locative, just as in the otherexamples where the location is autonomous and independent of the experiencer.

(49) Jätin koiran koppiinsa.leavePST1SG dogACC dog.houseILL3SGPX“I left the dog in [lit. “into”] its doghouse.”

(50) Unohdin koiran koppiinsa.forgetPST1SG dogACC dog.houseILL3SGPX“I forgot the dog in [lit. “into”] its doghouse.”


(51) Hukkasin avaimen kassiin.losePST1SG keyACC bagILL“I lost the key in [lit. “into”] the bag.”

The opposite direction shows up with verbs indicating the acquisition ofinformation (52) and possessions (in a broad sense; 53–55), which takedirectional ‘from’ locatives:

(52) Luin artikkelisi lehdestä.readPST1SG articleACC+2SGPX paperELA“I read your article in [lit. “from”] the paper.”

(53) Ostin kokoelman kirjakaupasta.buyPST1SG collectionACC bookstoreELA“I bought the collection at [lit. “from”] the bookstore.”

(54) Ostin talon Espanjasta.buyPST1SG houseACC SpainELA“I bought a house in [lit. “from”] Spain.”

(55) Poliisi pidätti varkaan puistosta.police arrestPST+3SG thiefACC parkELA“The police arrested the thief in [lit. “from”] the park.”

In (52), what moves is again only a mental content, whereas in (53) it would bepossible to assume that the ‘from’ case marking reflects the (implicit) meaningthat the speaker took the book away from the bookstore after buying it (as arguedby Hakulinen 1979). However, as example (54) shows, spatial motion is not aprerequisite for the use of the ‘from’ cases in expressions of possession, and amere change in the possessive relationship is sufficient: this example can be usedin a context where the speaker actually never goes to Spain. Example (55) showsthat this usage extends to expressions of general control.

What the current examples show, then, is a widespread and productivesystem of conceptualization where cognitive dominions are in interaction withour spatial surroundings. An entity that enters a cognitive dominion is conceivedas fictively moving away from its spatial location. An entity that exits a cognitivedominion is conceived as fictively moving into its spatial location. This usagecovers not only expressions of actual sensory perception but also expressions ofmore abstract mental relationships, where the verb has no straightforward senseindicating interaction with the environment but focuses on the cognitive dominionitself.

TUOMAS HUUMO58

6. Subjective directionality and changesofstateIn Section 3 we saw that the directional locatives are also used in

expressions where no cognitive content is transferred but where the question israther of an entity’s ‘remaining’ in a location after it has undergone a change ofstate. In this section I first discuss examples in which a sentient experiencerundergoes a fundamental change of state: it becomes unconscious, unavailable, orunable to continue its original activity. I then compare these examples withexistential expressions and expressions where the undergoer is inanimate.

The data to be discussed include, first of all, expressions of a changeofstate where the undergoer is a sentient entity who either gains or losesconsciousness. The general tendency in referring to the spatial position of such anentity is to use ‘from’ cases in expressions where the entity gains consciousness(56−57) and ‘to’ cases in expressions where it loses consciousness (58−59).

(56) Elmeri heräsi sohvalta.Elmer wake.upPST+3SG sofaELA“Elmer woke up on [lit. “from”] a/the sofa.”

(57) Havahduin pihalta.wake.upPST1SG yardABL“I woke up in [lit. “from”] the yard.”

(58) Nukahdin sohvalle.fall.asleepPST1SG sofaALL“I fell asleep on [lit. ”onto”] the sofa.”

(59) Elmeri sammui lattialle.Elmer pass.outPST+3SG floorALL“Elmer passed out on [lit. “onto”] the floor.”

These examples would also accept static case marking of their locatives (in theinessive or the adessive) as an alternative to the directional marking. There are,however, semantic differences between the two alternatives. The directionalexpressions convey the meaning that being in the location is unexpectedinformation to the experiencer who gains or loses consciousness; in this sensethey can be argued to select the perspective of the experiencer undergoing thechange of state and to construe the situation subjectively. For instance, (56) mayimply that the fact that Elmer was on the sofa came as a surprise to him when hewoke up. The static alternative, the adessive sohvalla, would lack such animplication and would select an external perspective on the situation, in which thelocative relationship is objectively construed and represented from an external,objective perspective.


In general, what distinguishes these examples from those discussed in theprevious sections is that they involve no external experiencer observing itssurroundings and receiving or emitting mental contents. In these examples theexperiencer him/herself is the one undergoing a change, and the locative elementsrefer to his/her own position. These examples show that gaining consciousnessinvolves a fictive motion away from the spatial position of the experiencer, whilelosing consciousness involves fictive motion into the spatial position of theexperiencer. The current examples resemble the ones discussed in Section 5 inthat they do not imply actual motion by the experiencer away or into its locationafter the cognitive change of state has taken place. They also obey the samemetaphor, in which fictive motion with regard to the state of consciousness of asentient being is represented as a directionally opposite fictive motion with regardto a spatial location.

An extreme instance of this usage are examples like (60) and (61), wherean animate entity dies and thus ceases to exist. Such expressions seem to combinea cognitive change of state and an existential change.

(60) Mummo kuoli sairaalaan.grandma diePST+3SG hospitalILL“Grandma died in [lit. “into“] the hospital.”

(61) Kettu ammuttiin pesäänsä.fox shootPASSPSTPERS denILL3SGPX“The fox was shot in [lit. “into”] its den.”

It is interesting that in such sentences, indicating “matters of life anddeath”, the opposite directionality does not work in the same way it worked inexpressions that merely involved a cognitive change of state. For instance, sincethe verb kuolla ‘die’ takes a ‘to’ casemarked locative, its opposite, syntyä ‘beborn’, might be expected to take a locative marked with a ‘from’ case. However,this is not the case, and syntyä too accepts only a ‘to’ case. This is shown in (62)and (63).

(62) Vauva syntyi taksiin.baby be.bornPST+3SG taxiILL“The baby was born in [“into”] a taxi.”

(63) On lottovoitto syntyä Suomeen.be+PRS+3SG Lotto.win be.bornINF FinlandILL“It is like winning the Lotto to be born in [lit. “into”] Finland.” [a saying]

Static case expressions are also possible with the verb syntyä; considerexamples (64) and (65).

TUOMAS HUUMO60

(64) Elmeri syntyi Suomessa.Elmer be.bornPST+3SG FinlandINE“Elmer was born in Finland.”

(65) Elmeri syntyi Suomeen.Elmer be.bornPST+3SG FinlandILL“Elmer was born in [lit. “into”] Finland.”

These examples seem to involve an opposition between subjective and objectiveconstrual of the change of state similar to that observed above in example (56).Example (64) is a neutral, “objective” predication about Elmer’s place of birth,while (65) conveys a more intimate relationship between Elmer and Finland. Tobe born in Finland in (65) means becoming part of Finnish society, people andculture, and the directional case thus foregrounds Elmer’s own subjectiveexperience or the speaker’s attitude regarding this.

To consider the interplay between existentiality and change of state inthese expressions, we now need to ask why a person may wake up from a taxi (asin example 56) but can only be born into a taxi (62). Recall from Section 3(examples 9 and 10) that in Finnish the inception of existence is usuallyconceptualized as motion into a location. Thus if ‘being born’ is conceptualizedas the inception of existence, we can explain the use of the ‘to’ case in (62). Onthe other hand, gaining consciousness is usually represented as fictive motionaway from a location, and ‘being born’ could as easily be conceptualized as anevent involving such a change of state. In that case we would expect a ‘from’ caseto be used. We can now assume that an expression meaning ‘be born’ involvesfeatures of both conceptualizations and that they are in competition with regard tothe directionality of the case marking. The selection of the ‘to’ case suggests thatthe existential interpretation “wins” this competition. When a person merely gainsconsciousness, there is no existential meaning involved and the change of statealone determines the directionality, following the general principle that a changeinto a higher state of consciousness involves fictive motion away from a spatiallocation.

Examples (60) and (61), indicating the death of an animate entity by a ‘to’case, can be argued to involve a similar conflict between the existential meaning(the cessation of existence) and the changeofstate meaning (losingconsciousness). It is easy to see that in this case it is the latter conceptualizationthat “wins” the competition over case marking: a ‘to’ case is used even though thecessation of existence normally motivates the ‘from’ case marking. With the verbkuolla ‘die’, a ‘from’ case seems to be possible only if a possessive relationshipconnects the location and the undergoer of the change of state (66):


(66) Talosta kuoli koira.houseELA diePST+3SG dog“The dog of the house died.”

What the locative case marking of the above examples seems to suggest,then, is that in Finnish ‘dying’ can be conceptualized as a change of state ratherthan as a total cessation of existence (possibly motivated by the fact that afterdeath the corpse still remains), while ‘being born’ is conceptualized as theinception of existence, not as a change of state, even though such aconceptualization would certainly also be possible (i.e., ‘birth’ being a change ofstate from whatever the state of the child may be during the pregnancy).

We also need to consider the fact that directional cases are used the sameway in expressions where the undergoer of the change is inanimate, as shown by(67–69):

(67) Auto ruostui pellolle.car rustPST+3SG fieldALL“The car rusted [and become useless] on [lit. “to”] the field.”

(68) Leipä kuivui pöydälle.bread dryPST+3SG tableALL“The bread dried on [lit. “to”] the table.”

(69) Vene paloi luolaan.boat burnPST+3SG caveILL“The boat burned in [lit. “into”] the cave.”

In these examples, the undergoer is inanimate and thus clearly unable to enter a“new state of consciousness” as a result of the change designated by the verb.Rather, a fundamental change of state takes place whereby the undergoerbecomes useless or unavailable, or even ceases to exist. In fact, this changeofstate reading can be a direct result of the directional case marking of the locativeelements: if a static locative case were used, then examples (67) and (68) wouldmerely designate an ongoing process (‘rusting’ or ‘drying’), with no specificendpoint (we will return to such aspectual phenomena in Section 7).

As was the case in our previous examples with animate undergoers, the‘to’ cases of the current examples conflict with the general principles ofexistential locative case marking, which would suggest the opposite directionality(e.g. when a boat burns it ceases to exist, and thus a ‘from’ case would beexpected). What distinguishes the current examples from the correspondingcanonical existentials is precisely that canonical existentials conceptualize thecessation of existence as the disappearance of the entity from its location. In thecurrent examples, on the other hand, the undergoer is conceptualized as

TUOMAS HUUMO62

remaining in its location in some form after it has undergone the change of state:the remains of the rusting car, the drying bread and the burning boat remain at thelocation, which is thus not conceived of as becoming empty by the change. Wecan see this by comparing (69) to (70), which differs from (69) only in casemarking (‘to’ vs. ‘from’):

(70) Vene paloi luolasta.boat burnPST+3SG caveELA“The boat burned [and vanished] from the cave.”

One way of characterizing (69) would be to say that the boat, by burning to ashes,is conceptualized as “disappearing into” the cave: its change of state takes placeinside the cave, and when it is completed the boat cannot be removed from thecave in its original form. In a sense it remains in the cave but is inaccessible to theconceptualizer. Example (70) represents another possible conceptualization of thesituation: when the boat burns to ashes, it ceases to exist and “disappears from”the cave, leaving the cave devoid of its former presence. This distinction may notbe immediately obvious, but it is more transparent in expressions with verbsmeaning ‘disappear’ or ‘vanish’. Thus when we say that something disappearsfrom a location we mean that it leaves the location, and as the result of this thelocation becomes empty (cf. The bear disappeared from the forest). But when wesay that something disappears into a location we mean that it is still within thatlocation but not within our reach, i.e. not within our cognitive dominion (cf. Thebear disappeared into the forest). In (69) and (70), then, the same oppositionmotivates the case marking: the boat either “disappears from the cave” (70) or it“disappears into” the cave (69; cf. also example 51 above). In the example withthe rusting car (67), on the other hand, only the ‘to’ case feels natural, since thecar does not disappear from the field by rusting: it merely enters a new condition.

It is also possible to construct similar minimal pairs with animateexperiencers:

(71) Koira kuoli pihalta.dog diePST+3SG yardABL“The dog died in [lit. ”from“] the yard.”

(72) Koira kuoli pihalle.dog diePST+3SG yardALL“The dog died in [lit. ”onto”] the yard.”

In (71), the existential relationship is foregrounded; the example says that the dogdied and disappeared from the yard, after which there was no dog. In (72), thefocus is on the change of state of the dog: the dog dies, and in this conceptualiza


tion disappears “into” the yard in the same way an animate entity losingconsciousness may fictively move into its spatial location.

7. Aspect and the selection of directional vs. static casesAs Hakulinen (1979:526) has pointed out, there are also aspectual factors

in the extensive use of directional cases in changeofstate expressions. Thisbecomes clear if we compare our examples of directional cases with variantswhere a static (‘in’/’at’) case is used instead. As we have seen in the abovediscussion, static cases would also be possible in many of our examples; but astatic case, compared with the directional ones, would be understood as indicatinga loose and semantically independent setting of the event, with a much lessintimate relationship with the event itself.

In general, ‘to’ cases have the function of establishing both a spatial and asecondary temporal boundary for the event, whereas static cases do not limit thesituation temporally. Thus in (73) the static adessive form pihalla ‘in the yard’does not set spatiotemporal boundaries for the event of ‘running’, which in itselfis atelic, whereas the allative pihalle ‘into the yard’ in (74) does precisely this: theevent reaches its endpoint when the girl has entered the yard:

(73) Tyttö juoksi pihalla.girl runPST+3SG yardADE“The girl ran ~ was running in the yard.”

(74) Tyttö juoksi pihalle.girl runPST+3SG yardALL“The girl ran to the yard.”

As noted above, many changeofstate expressions that take directionallocatives also allow static locatives as an alternative. If the changeofstate verb isindisputably telic, such as ‘die’, then the nature of the locative element does notdetermine its aspectual interpretation even though there may be other differencesbetween static and directional cases (cf. examples 64 vs. 65 in Section 6).However, if the changeofstate verb is not telic but indicates a gradual changewith no specific endpoint, then the selection of the locative case (directional vs.static) determines the aspectual interpretation of the sentence.

(75) Maratoonari väsyi tiellä.Marathon.runner tirePST+3SG roadADE“The marathonrunner was tiring on the road.”

(76) Maratoonari väsyi tielle.Marathon.runner tirePST+3SG roadALL“The marathonrunner tired [and stopped] in the road.”

TUOMAS HUUMO64

The verb väsyä ’tire’ can be interpreted as indicating either an abrupt change ofstate (‘get tired’) or a gradual process with no particular endpoint (‘get more andmore tired’). With the static adessive case the latter interpretation is favored, butthe directional allative ‘to’ case specifically means that the runner abruptlybecame tired and remained on the road. Similar interpretations arise in sentencesthat indicate a mere change of state where no motion is involved. Compare ourearlier example (67) to (77), which has the static adessive case:

(77) Auto ruostui pellolla.car rustPST+3SG fieldADE“The car rusted ~ was rusting on the field.”

While (67) meant that the car rusted completely and became unavailable, (77)merely says that rusting occurred; there is no end result achieved and the event ofrusting may be going on for an indefinitely long time.

We can see that the directional (as opposed to static) case marking oflocative expressions affects the aspectual interpretation of the sentence. Adirectional case results in an interpretation with an abrupt and fundamentalchange of state, after which the participants are no longer available in their earliercondition. This of course is a consequence of the meaning of the directional cases,which basically designate motion into a location; this time, however, the motionis merely fictive, consisting of a change whereby an entity leaves its earlier stateof activity or availability but remains in the location.

8. ConclusionsIn this paper we have discussed uses of the Finnish directional local cases

in spatial expressions where no actual spatial change takes place; the situationsreferred to are static and thus one would expect the static locative cases to beused, but actually such expressions take locative elements in the directional cases.The uses of the local cases considered in this paper were divided into two maintypes. In the first type an entity changes its relationship with regard to thecognitive dominion of an external, sentient reference point, called theexperiencer. The entity does this by either entering or exiting the cognitivedominion of the experiencer. This change is reflected in the case marking of thelocative element that designates the spatial position of that entity, in such a waythat when the entity enters the cognitive dominion it is conceived of as fictivelyleaving its spatial location, and when it exits the cognitive dominion, it isconceived of as fictively entering its spatial location. The second type ofexpression discussed in this paper consisted of sentences where it is theexperiencer itself that undergoes a change of state with regard to an internal state.Again, this kind of a change involves fictive spatial motion where an entity thatexits an internal state fictively enters its spatial location, and an entity that entersan internal state fictively exits its spatial location.


These uses of the directional cases demonstrate how the Finnish system ofconceptualizing such abstract relationships is based on a central and productiveidea that abstract and concrete locations are in direct interaction with each other,i.e. that abstract domains resemble spatial locations. In this conceptualization, anentity that enters a new abstract location must (fictively) leave its spatial positionin the same way that an entity that enters a new spatial location (factively) leavesits original location. Thus in Finnish it is not only the case that local cases areused to designate abstract, nonspatial relationships (which is a quite commonlinguistic phenomenon), but also that their use in expressions where the positionof an entity is defined with regard to both space and a more abstract dominionreflects a conceptualization where these different dominions interact verystraightforwardly with each other.

METONYMY IN LOCATIVES OF STATE

TIINA ONIKKIRANTAJÄÄSKÖUniversity of Helsinki

1. IntroductionThis article analyzes certain abstract uses of the locative case expres

sions in Finnish. I will focus on a specific construction type in Finnish which Iwill refer to as the locatives of state. When the locative element in this construction is in a stative case (‘in’ case), it designates being in a state (as in 1a).When it is in a terminal case (‘to’ case), it refers to going/coming into a state(1b), that is, the beginning of a state, and in the separative case (‘from’ case), itdenotes the ending of a state, as if coming out of a state (1c) (for a discussionof the Finnish case system, see Huumo and Ojutkangas, this volume).

(1a) Hän on unessa.13SG be+3SG dream/sleepINE“She/he is asleep. S/he is sleeping.”

(1b) Hän vaipui uneen.3SG fallPST+3SG sleepILL“S/he fell asleep.”

(1c) Hän heräsi unesta.3SG wakePST+3SG sleepELA“S/he woke up from her/his sleep.”

Locatives of state reflect the metaphors STATES ARE LOCATIONS and CHANGE ISMOTION which are often cited types of event structure metaphors in the theoryof metaphor and metonymy proposed by cognitive linguists (e. g. Lakoff andJohnson 1980, 1999:180 184; Croft 2003; Barcelona 2003d). This article concentrates on one group of this expression type, namely expressions for posturesand facial expressions. Special attention is given to the bridging role of meton

1 The examples mentioned in this article that have no reference to the source are eitherfabricated or taken from a dictionary (see the Appendix).

TIINA ONIKKIRANTAJÄÄSKÖ68

ymy between the concrete and abstract uses of locative case expressions. Forexample, the expression jaloillaan ‘on her/his feet’ (2) denotes a standing posture and metaphorically, the mental and social ability to manage.

(2) Hän on jaloillaan.3SG be+3SG footPLADE3SGPX“S/he is on her/his feet.”

Tendencies of abstraction concern the grammaticalization of the wholeconstruction type, which is largely intertwined with the lexicalization of frozenlexemes. Furthermore, the mechanisms which play a role in the contextual andpolysemous tendencies of the expressions are the same as those in the subgroupof postures and facial expressions. I show that these metonymicmetaphoricaltendencies are based on cultural models which form the basis for the polysemyof locative expressions.

Postures and facial expressions have received some attention in thecognitive linguistic theory of metaphor and metonymy as representatives ofexperiential correlational conglomerates in which a certain posture or facialexpression may stand for a certain kind of emotion via metonymy, because theposture or facial expression and the emotion in question are experienced asoccurring together in the idealized cognitive models (for example: She walkedwith drooping shoulders/downcast eyes). Expressions of postures and facialexpressions have also been treated as instances of metaphors such as SADNESSIS DOWN, especially when the expression may refer to an emotion or psychophysical state without describing an actual posture. (Barcelona 1986;2003d:234 235; Lakoff & Johnson 1980.) This paper shows that the metonymic and metaphoric organization of locatives of postures and facial expressions is systematic in Finnish.

The structure of this paper is as follows: Section 2 is a short survey ofthe notion of metonymy as it is used in cognitive linguistics and in this paper.In Section 3, the locatives of state are compared with a progressive infinitivalform in order to pinpoint their special functions. Section 4 surveys the grammaticalization of this construction type. Here, metonymy, contextual implications, and metaphor play a crucial role in the tendencies toward abstractionwhich lead to a specialized construction type. Section 5 will turn to anotherlevel of these contextual mechanisms, to the polysemy and semantic tailoringor adjustment of locative case expressions for postures. This section providesexamples of how tendencies of abstraction are based on cultural models in thisexpression type. Section 6 presents the basic geometric dimensions that serveas the background for the organization of the expressions of postures, both intheir concrete and abstract uses, such as the verticality in the background ofexpressions like jaloillaan (‘on her/his feet’) in example (2). The relationshipbetween the cultural models and geometric dimensions in the locatives of state

METONYMY IN LOCATIVES OF STATE 69

will then be raised as an issue in Section 7. This study is based on a corpus,which is explained in the Appendix.2

2. MetonymyThe interaction between metonymy and metaphor has been one of the

main topics in the discussion about the cognitive linguistic theory of metaphorand metonymy (e.g. Barcelona 2003b:1). I will, however, not go into thedetails of the discussion. This paper offers one more case study in addition tothe numerous others which give support to the argument that metaphor andmetonymy are closely intertwined, where metonymy often forms the basis forthe metaphor (e.g. Barcelona 2003b, c, d; Fauconnier & Turner 2003; Lakoff &Kövecses 1987; Niemeier 2003; Ruiz de Mendoza & Díez 2003; cf. Geeraerts2003). In the locatives of state, metaphors are based on metonymies, as will beseen in the following sections. In this section, I clarify the sense in which I usethe term metonymy.

For the term metaphor, I rely on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) view:Metaphor partially maps, i.e. projects, one experiential domain (source domain) onto a different one (target domain), thus the target is partially understood in terms of the source domain. (Barcelona 2003b:3.) The result is actually a blend consisting of multiple domains, but I do not analyze multiplespaces in this paper. (See e.g. Turner and Fauconnier 2003, Nerlich & Clarke2003 about relations of this view with the older tradition.)

In comparison to metaphor, metonymy operates in one and the sameexperiential domain: it is based on one entity that activates another entity inthat domain (cf. Barcelona 2003b:4; Langacker 1987:385 386). Examples (3)and (4) are from Barcelona (1986, 2003b:4 5). They are metonymies whichrepresent the same kind of projections as found in my data below: posture (3)or facial expression (4) represent an emotional state of the bearer.

(3) He walked with drooping shoulders. He had lost his wife.(DROOPING BODY POSTURE FOR SADNESS) (EFFECT FOR CAUSE)

(4) John has a long face. (DROOPING FACIAL MUSCLES FOR SADNESS)(EFFECT FOR CAUSE)

Barcelona explains that in these examples, the common domain is the emotionsadness, which includes the cause for emotion and its behavioural and psychological effects (Barcelona 2003b:5; as for the typology of metonymy, seeKövecses & Radden 1998). Maybe it is safer to talk about experiential correlations inside the domain in which metonymy is working; in this case, certain

2 I am grateful to Ronald Langacker and the editors and authors in this volume for theirinsightful comments on the earlier draft of this paper. I thank Tatiana Stepanova for her helpwith Figure 1.


postures or facial expressions correlate with certain emotional or psychophysical states.

The weakness of this definition is, of course, the difficult question ofhow to tell one domain from another (Barcelona 2003b:8; Feyaerts2003:62 63). One could also maintain that postures or facial expressions andemotions and other kinds of psychophysical states are different experientialdomains. In this vein, Sweetser (1990:28) refers to this type of metaphor as theMINDASBODY: It is common that an observer reads a person’s posture or otherperceivable behaviour as an index or sign of that person’s inner state that is notperceivable to outsiders (Feyaerts 2003:70). Croft (2003:162) offers a solutionbased on the conceptual unity of domains: metonymy concerns domain highlighting. The highlighted target domain belongs to the same domain matrix asthe source domain; they share a common functional denominator which makesthem part of the same cognitive model. (See also Barcelona 2003d:246.)

What is crucial to metonymy is that one term (or entity) represents (orstands for) and, in this way, substitutes for and provides a mental access — areference point — to another entity (cf. Barcelona 2003c:33; Croft 2003:177;Feyaerts 2003:62 64; Lakoff & Johnson 1980:35 36; Langacker 1993:30;Ruiz de Mendoza 2003:113; Panther & Thornburg 2003:230; Ullmann1957:232). In metaphor, the question is more about projecting the commonstructure from source to target and the metaphorical loading that this structureacquires in the blended space of the metaphor (Barcelona 2003b:17; Dirven2003:4; Feyaerts 2003:63; Haser 2003:173; cf. Geeraerts 2003).

Metaphor and metonymy are types of cognitive models (cf. Croft2003:171, fn. 3). They are experientially motivated and used for various pragmatic purposes. (Barcelona 2003b:6; Lakoff 1987:68 90; Lakoff & Johnson1980:61 68.) When listing different functions of cultural cognitive models,Bradd Shore (1996:63 64) designates a subgroup of orientational models thathe calls diagnostic models, which are conventional indexical readings of signsas indices of underlying states, causes, or conditions. As a special subgroup,displays of intention are cultural models by which members of a communityread each others’ intentions. When the locatives of state of postures and facialexpressions are used according to the metaphor of MINDASBODY, it is possibleto interpret them as instances of the diagnostic models. These locatives couldalso be counted as representatives of displays of intention, because, as explained further on, they are often used in contexts which describe the intentional behaviour of the bearer of the posture or facial expression.

It has also been suggested that cultural cognitive models are oftenorganized according to image schemata (Barcelona 2003b:6; Johnson 1987; B.Shore 1996:53 70). This likewise seems to occur with the locatives of state ofpostures and facial expressions. I will introduce the basic image schematic organization of the semantic field/cognitive domain of postures and facial expressions in Section 6. The image schematic organization also functions as the


basis for the metonymicmetaphorical extensions of the expressions. The conventional metaphoric organization rests on the basic image schematic orientations, such as verticality, for example in the metaphor SADNESS IS DOWN, foundin examples (3) and (4) above, and in many other examples that follow (cf.Barcelona 2003b:9, 2003c:43 44).

Thus, we can explain how metonymy motivates metaphor (i.e. the domain must be put in metonymic perspective for the metaphor to be possible;Barcelona 2003c:31). Metonymy is based on experiential correlations. One canmetonymically stand for another between entities that are stereotypically conceived as occurring together in an experiential domain. Together they are partsof the same cultural cognitive model. This model is organized according toimage schematic structures. Based on metonymic correlations, these imageschematic structures tend to acquire metaphorical loadings which are wider intheir scope than the special experiential correlations in the models. In this way,since sadness is metonymically represented by a drooping posture on the basisof experiential correlation in the cultural cognitive model of sad emotion, italso is metaphorically projected by the downward end of the axis of verticalityin the culturalcognitive models of emotions. The distinction between metonymy and metaphor is thus graded rather than rigorous (Barcelona 2003b:10). Inshort, there is a chain or a cline that leads from metonymies to metaphors(Heine et al. 1991:71 72).

Radden (2003) distinguishes four domain types in metonymybasedmetaphors: those based on common experience, those related by implicature,those involving category structure, and those interrelated by a cultural model.Correlational metaphors such as HAPPY IS UP/SAD IS DOWN are examples of thecommon experience (Radden 2003:96). Radden (2003:97) explains the metaphor THE MIND IS THE BODY on the basis of another type of common experiential basis, that is, the complementarity of the experience of BODY PLUS MIND. Inaddition, implicature or contextinduced reinterpretation plays a role in thelocatives of state. Radden (2003:98, 101) mentions the place of activity amongmetonymic relationships which are prone to evoking conversational implicatures and which lead to emerging metaphors (see Section 4 below). Furthermore, category structure is involved, for example, in the general level of eventstructure in the use of the stative (STATES ARE LOCATIONS), terminative, andseparative cases (CHANGE IS MOTION; Barcelona 2003d:264; Radden 2003:102).Finally, locatives of state rely on cultural models such as when the physicalindices of a psychophysical state stand for the internal psychological state (cf.Radden 2003:104). In this way the locatives of state represent all of the foursubtypes of the metonymybased metaphors.

3. Locatives of state in the system of stative predicationsThere is a wellattested tendency in many languages for locative con

structions to serve as expressions of the progressive aspect (e.g. Bybee et al.


1994:129–133; Comrie 1976:129; Stassen 1997:242).3 Finnish has two different constructions with locative case endings which are periphrastic imperfective predicates. One consists of the verb ‘to be’olla and the infinitive with theinessive case ending (5a).

(5a) Hän on makaamassa.3SG be+3SG lieINFINE“He/She is lying down.”

(5b) Hän on makuulla.3SG be+3SG lieNMLZADE“S/he is lying down.”

These two expression types are interchangeable in some contexts. The infinitive construction, however, has developed so that one of its uses marks theprogressive aspect in Finnish (Heinämäki 1981, 1994, 1995; Tommola 2000).The other construction reflected in (5b) is older and lacks the morphememarking the infinitive, that is, the locative case ending is attached to the nounstem or nominalization. The latter construction does not function as a specialized progressive, but as a continuous stative predication in general.

This study concentrates on the latter construction type, which I call thelocatives of state. The younger infinitive marker of the progressive is productive and it has taken over some functions from the older, noninfinitival locative case construction. The older type, however, also remains productive tosome extent. In addition, this expression type involves hundreds of frozen lexemes. The expressions of postures and facial expressions form one subgroupamong several others, such as feelings (e.g. Hän on innoissaan, ‘S/he is excited/eager.’ lit. 'S/he is in her/his eagernesses’, Hän on suutuksissaan ‘S/he isangry’lit. ‘S/he is in her/his angers’), psychophysical states (e.g. Hän on janoissaan ‘S/he is thirsty’ lit. ‘S/he is in her/his thirsts’, Hän on tajuissaan ‘S/heis conscious’, lit. ‘S/he is in her/his consciousnesses’) and social status (e.g.Hän on naimisissa ‘S/he is married’, lit. ‘S/he is in marryings’, Hän on suosiossa ‘S/he is in favour’). This construction is not restricted to the states ofanimate themes (as for the semantic subgroups or cognitive domains, seeOnikkiRantajääskö 2001:70–119).

The locative case construction is a common way of expressing stativityin Finnish. There are other means as well, the first and foremost being the stative verbs (compare 5a, b, and Hän makaa [s/he lie+3SG] ‘S/he is lying

3 Leon Stassen (pc 18.8.2000) has admitted that he stopped counting after he had found thelocative construction type in 80 languages representing different language families andtypological types.


down’), but the number of these is not very large (Pajunen 2001:104 120).4Croft (1991a:139) claims that verbhood abhors stativity. He noted the use oflocative constructions as one option among stative constructions. According toCroft, it is more common that languages use possessive constructions and adjectival participles instead, or other forms derived from dynamic verbs.5

In addition to the specialized progressive function, another kind of division of labour occurs between the infinitive and the locatives of state. This indicates the difference between transitive/accusative and absolutive/absoluteconstrual (Langacker 1991a:244 245, 1999a:35 38). The theme of the infinitive construction is always the same as the subject of the finite verb (cf. 6a andb), whereas the theme of the locatives of state (talo ‘house’ in 6c) compareswith the object of transitive verbs (taloa [housePTV] in 6a and 6b),6 althoughit functions as the subject of the intransitive finite verb (the diagrammatic descriptions of the examples 6a and 6c are in Figure 1 below). (T. Itkonen 1974,1975, 1979.)

(6a) Hän on rakentamassa taloa.3SG be+3SG buildINFINE housePTV“S/he is building a/the house.”

(6b) Hän rakentaa taloa.3SG build3SG housePTV“S/he builds/is building a/the house.”

4 In principle there are no restrictions in Finnish on the use of the simple present tense insteadof the progressive form. The socalled ‘nominal coding’ (e. g. Hän on sairas [s/he be+3SG ill]‘S/he is ill’) will not be analyzed here, because it is not usually used as a variant for expressingthe same kind of state as this type of locative coding (see Pajunen 2001:104 112 also for theproblems in Stassen’s (1997) terminology; OnikkiRantajääskö 2001:241–248).5 Some locative case expressions are formed from a participle or a nominalization derived froma dynamic or changeofstate verb. Finnish also has a participial construction which is identicalwith the periphrastic perfect and pluperfect when used in the nominative with the present andpast tense of the verb ‘to be’olla: Hän on maannut jo pitkään [s/he be+3SG liePTCP alreadylong] ‘S/he has lain for a long time already’. The essive case form is comparable to otherlocative expressions denoting state in some instances (see example 7a kualleena [diePTCPESS] ‘dead, as dead’). It is also possible to use possessive constructions to denote apsychophysical state (compare: Minun ~ Minulla on kylmä [IGEN ~ IADE be+3SG cold]vs. Olen kylmissäni [be+1SG coldPLINE1SGPX] ‘I am freezing’). Although thisconstruction type is productive in principle, the actual use of it is more restricted than the useof the locatives of state.6 There are exceptions to this tendency. These have been interpreted as a relict from an olderstage before the rise in of the aforementioned difference in the construals (T. Itkonen 1974,1975).


(6c) Talo on rakenteilla.house be+3SG buildNMLZPLADE“The house is being built.”

These examples show that the locative case construction has specialized so thatit expresses a state or a statively construed phase of an activity of the core participant (theme) of the clause. According to Langacker (1999a:37), absoluteconstrual represents conceptual autonomy, because it has the potential to beconstrued independently of the causation or the energy that drives it. In thisfunction, the locatives of state have a place of their own in the presentday Finnish system of stative predications. In other words, they are not just a relictremaining after the later competitor, the third infinitive, grammaticalized inimperfective constructions. The schemata consisting of nominalized forms oftransitive verbs (such as in 6c) are to a certain extent productive, although notfully so.

There is also another difference in the agentivity between these twoconstructions: the locative case construction is more suitable for nonactivereadings, for example, for describing a posture of a dead or otherwise nonactive theme. It is possible to find examples of the locative case construction suchas (7a). Example (7b), which has the infinitive construction, sounds odd,mainly because the infinitive construction does not easily lend itself to nonagentive readings. I have not encountered examples like (7b) in my corpus.7

(7a) (MA Teisko)8

se oli siinä seisovillaanit bePST+3SG there standNMLZPLADE3SGPX

kualleena uuniv viäressä,diePTCPESS stoveGEN besideINE

se oli ilmampaineesta mennyit bePST+3SG airpressureELA goPST+PTCP

“S/he was standing there, dead beside the stove, s/he had gone with theair pressure”, i.e. the pressure [from the explosion] caused her/hisdeath, leaving her/him in a standing posture.

(7b) ?Kuollut oli seisomassa.dead bePST+3SG standINFINE“The dead person was standing.”

7 For a more detailed discussion, see OnikkiRantajääskö 2001:249–263.8 The initial letters refer to the dialectal archive, the name of the parish from which dialect theexample is taken.


Langacker describes the English progressive as taking a homogenouspart of the process in the profile, leaving the beginning and the end of the process outside. In this construction, the verb be gives its temporal profile to therelation. (Langacker 1991a:92.) Compared to the progressive, the nominalization in the locative case form profiles the state as a reified entity, the locativecase form turning it into a bounded region. The Finnish progressive with thelocative case form of the infinitive lies somewhere in between these descriptions. The locative case form of the progressive and the suffix of the infinitive(ma) are comparable to the reified nature of the nominalization of the locativecase construction (Langacker, pc). Nevertheless, in opposition to the locativesof state, the relational nature of the process of the verb stem in the infinitiveconstruction is more prominent than in the locatives of state. As for the latter,the stem noun is not necessarily a nominalized process, but can be another kindof noun instead.

Figure 1 (below) illustrates the difference between the Finnish progressive infinitive (on the left hand side) and the locatives of state (on the righthand side) as a difference in relational process. It can be seen that the relationship between the two constructions is analogous to that between the Englishprogressive and the reified nominalization described by Langacker. Withinthese constructions, there are three layers of trajector and landmark, one in theprocessual relation, which is denoted by the stem verb (I), and the other in theprofiled processual relation, which is construed by the verb ‘to be’ (IIa–b). Inaddition, as a relational predicate, the locative case construes the relation between the trajector (hän/talo) and the landmark infinitive or nominalization(rakentama/rakentei (IIIa–b)). The atemporal relation designated by the locative case and the temporal one construed by the verb ‘be’ conflate to form oneand the same relation which gets its processual and temporal profile from theverb. The upper diagrams in Figure 1 depict the latter layer.

(I) hän rakentaa taloa[3SG build+3SG housePTV][trajector] [relation] [landmark]

(IIa) hän on rakentamassa[3SG be+3SG buildINFINE][trajector] [relation] [landmark]

(IIb) talo on rakenteilla[house be+3SG buildNMLZPLADE][trajector] [relation] [landmark]


(IIIa) hän rakentamassa[3SG buildINFINE][trajector] [landmark] [relation]

(IIIb) talo rakenteilla[house buildNMLZPLADE][trajector] [landmark] [relation]

a. The progressive form, b. The locative of state,construed by the infinitive construed by nominalization

Hän on rakentamassa taloa. Talo on rakenteilla.s/he be+3SG buildINFINE housePTV house be+3SG buildNMLZ PLADE“S/he is building a/the house.” “The house is being built.”

Figure 1: The progressive form (construed by the infinitive) vs. the locative ofstate (construed by nominalization)

States are secondorder entities which exist in time (Lyons 1977:443). Being ina state is thus a temporal relation. The division of locative cases into stative,terminal, and separative cases concern the temporal inclusion, beginning andseparation/ending in respect to the state in question (Huumo & Ojutkangas, this


volume). In locatives of state, it is possible to interpret these relations as metaphors of the spatial relation expressed by the spatial uses of the locative cases(cf. STATES ARE LOCATIONS, Lakoff & Johnson 1980:15). Location also involves the temporal aspect in the spatial uses of locative cases (going to aplace, being in a place, and leaving a place all happen in time as well as inspace). The abstraction from spatial relations therefore concerns more of afading away of the spatial relation. It is metaphorical in the sense that there is amapping from one source domain (space) to the other (states). I will discussthese abstraction tendencies in the next section.

The locatives of state are in many ways morphologically exceptionalowing to their nature as frozen lexemes. These expressions are mostly inflectedin the internal or external local cases, the use of the separative cases being themost restricted. The semantic difference between the internal and externalcases has been neutralized, that is, the internal or external cases have been conventionalized in the expressions without a clear difference emerging in theirmeaning — the temporal relation in respect to the state is the same in both. Inexample (8), the separative case expression makuulta (‘from lying’) is in theablative, which is an external case form, and the terminal case expressionpystyyn (‘up’) in the illative, which is an internal case form. The forms are frozen lexemes and are used in parallel without any indication of the difference inmeaning between the case series (see Huumo & Ojutkangas, this volume).9

(8) Hän nousi makuulta pystyyn.3SG standPST+3SG lieNMLZABL upILL“S/he stood up from lying.”

In this section, it has been shown that the locatives of state have a function of their own in the system of Finnish stative predications. The locatives ofstate designate the autonomous state of the core participant (theme) in theclause, and are thus more prone to nonactive readings than is the progressiveconstruction with the infinitive. The most prominent difference between thetwo constructions is the highly lexicalized nature of the locatives of state. Theyconsist mostly of frozen lexemes, although there is some productivity in thisexpression type, too. The next section will give a short review of the specialization of this construction type.

9 Other frozen morphemes also occur in some expressions: the marker of the plural and/orpossessive suffix (2), the different kinds of rare derivational suffixes (6c) and even clitics (Hänei ole millänsäkään [s/he NEG+3SG be whatADEPXCLT] ‘S/he doesn’t mind, does notturn a hair’). I will not, however, go into detail here (for a more detailed discussion, seeOnikkiRantajääskö 2001:43–69).


4. The spiral of lexicalization and grammaticalizationThe locatives of state have extended out of spatial expressions through

a lexicalization process in which some instantiations have acquired an abstractstatedenoting sense by metonymic inference in suitable contexts. These haveserved as paradigm exemplars for the new paradigms having more abstractmeanings and more abstract stems. The etymology of the statedenoting typeamong the locative case expressions has been explained as an abstraction process from more concrete expressions (G. Karlsson 1957; OnikkiRantajääskö2001). Even in modern Finnish, some expressions have both a spatial and amore abstract meaning. Examples (9–10) construe both a spatial relation and asense of a state (or a phase of an activity):

(9a) [NOUN STEM + INE] ‘in’:Hän on saunassa.3SG be+3SG saunaINE“S/he is in a/the sauna.” or “S/he is taking a saunabath.”

(9b) ‘in the domain of, among’:Hän on marjassa.3SG be+3SG berryINE“S/he is in the/a berry; among berries.” or “S/he is picking berries.”

(9c) ‘contact with a sign/indication of a state’:Otsa rypyssäforehead wrinkleINE“with a furrowed brow” (Lit. “forehead in wrinkle”)

(9d) Hän on siteissä.3SG be+3SG bandagePLINE“S/he is bandaged.” (Lit. “S/he is in bandages.”)

(10) [NOUN STEM + PL + ADE + PX] ‘on’:Hän on jaloillaan.3SG be+3SG footPLADE3SGPX“S/he is on her/his feet.”

The earliest uses of this expression type seem to have described the places oractual signs of the psychophysical state or activity (G. Karlsson 1957:90). Themore abstract senses have arisen as implications in those contexts suitable formetonymic interpretation, in which the place or the signs stand for the wholesituation, usually a psychophysical state. The location in a place or the location


of the actual sign and the state have been inseparable in some situations whichare construed by expressions such as presented in examples (9) and (10). Theconventionalization of the locatives of state could therefore be seen as a conventionalization of implications (cf. Radden 2003:98, 101). The schemata ofthis expression type have been specialized from such literal senses. They haveserved as paradigm examplars for the analogical extension of the constructiontype into more abstract stems and senses. Today most of these expressions aremorphosemantically differentiated from the spatial uses of the locative cases.Examples (9) and (10) present some of the basic schemata of the locatives ofstate.10

Example (11) represents one way in which the abstraction of stemsmight have happened. This is an instance of the same schema as found inexample (10), in which the stem is a concrete noun ‘foot, leg’. Such was alsothe case originally in (11), but the noun kontti ‘leg’ is no longer used. Instead,the stem is associated with the verb kontata, ‘to creep on one’s hands andknees’. Thus, it is possible to discern degrees of analyzability among the stems.Today the schema allows unanalyzable stems and stems derived from verbs asits instantiations (11–12; compare 12a and siristää silmiään [descriptivestem+3SG eyePLPTV3SGPX] ‘screw up one’s eyes, squint’; 12a and 12bare synonymous).

(11) Hän on kontillaan ~ kontallaan.3SG be+3SG [stem](PL)ADE3SGPX“S/he is on her/his hands and knees.”

(12a) silmät sirrillääneyePL [descriptive stem]ADE3SGPX“eyes halfclosed”

(12b) silmät tirrillääneyePL [descriptive stem]ADE3SGPX“eyes halfclosed”

This extension has features of grammaticalization, because as a result,new morphosyntacticosemantic schemata have arisen:

10 I use the terms schema and construction in a synonymous way. Here schema is seen as ageneralization of any level (Langacker 1987:74) and construction refers to linguistic units ofany size with their morphosyntactic description accompanied by semantic and pragmaticcriteria in the same way as the term is used in a broad sense in Construction Grammar (e.g.Goldberg 1995).


(13) [X (on) Y:llAAn]11

X be+3SG YADE3SGPX“X is in a/the state Y”

where X is the theme, the entity in a state, Y is a noun stem denoting the statein the adessive case with a possessive suffix.

According to this schema, new instantiations have been added not onlyby virtue of semantic similarity of stems and derivational suffixes, but also byphonaesthemic associations (compare 12a to 12b). This construction is holistic,because the stem Y alone does not necessarily denote a state, but does so onlyas a part of the whole construction of the locative of state (as in examples

12). The lexicalization and grammaticalization have followed each other in aspiral manner, because it is possible to make generalizations, i.e. schemata, ondifferent levels. The schema [X on Y:llAAn] also belongs to a more abstractschema [X (on) Y+local case]. The schemata are not fully productive, and thusit is always necessary to display the role of conventionalization, that is lexicalization and analogical models. It seems that certain frozen lexemes, lexicalizations, have served as models for analogical extension. Morphosemantic subgroups of locatives of state have evolved around some paradigm exemplars. Inthis way lexicalizations have also functioned as instantiations of new subschemas which may have been generated on the basis of the lexicalizations.

Kuteva and Sinha (1994:224–231) draw attention to the extension ofnominalizations into infinitives occurring in Dutch (compare 14 a and b) that isparallel with the extension of the Finnish locatives of state to the infinitivalprogressive. Kuteva and Sinha have pinpointed the expressions of the workplace as the loci for change: it is easy to reanalyze the locative expression ofthe workplace as an expression of working.

(14a) Hij is aan het werk.“He is at work.”

(14b) Hij is aan het werken.“He is (at) working.”

Among the Finnish locatives of state, many conventional expressionshave originally denoted a workplace as in example (15a) (originally construedas going around in an unbounded region in the forest to hunt; cf. the sense of

11 The prototype verb is on ‘is’. ‘Become’ and other changeofstate verbs require ‘to’ (or‘from’) case. Other verbs are also possible, but then there is a glide to another relatedconstruction type, in which the locative case expression is no longer part of the predicate but isan adverbial adjunct instead. Another subconstruction type is the socalled nominativusabsolutus construction, which lacks the verb, as in (12a–b). As for the use of this constructiontype, see examples (23) and (25).


vicinity of the external adessive case, Huumo & Ojutkangas, this volume). Theverb metsästää ‘to hunt’, as in (15b), originates from the same stem.

(15a) Hän on metsällä.3SG be+3SG forestADE“S/he is hunting.”

(15b) Hän on metsästämässä.3SG be+3SG huntINFINE“S/he is hunting.”

The stems of the work expressions offer a continuum from nouns denoting aplace (as metsä ’forest’ in 15a) to an instrument (16a), then to a patient of theactivity (16b), and finally to nominalizations of verbs or abstract nouns denoting working (16c).

(16a) Hän on ratissa.3SG be+3SG wheelINE“S/he is at the wheel” (i.e. driving)

(16b) Hän on kalassa ~ kalalla.3SG be+3SG fishINE ~ ADE“S/he is fishing.”

(16c) Hän on työssä.3SG be+3SG workINE“S/he is at work, working.”

The expressions of working are also those in which the infinitival progressivehas partly overtaken the function of the older locative case construction (compare 15a and b; Nuutinen 1976:56–57). The expressions of working, however,are not the only locus of abstraction in the Finnish locative case construction,as seen above.

The role of lexicalization and grammaticalization in the locatives ofstate can thus be summarized in the following way:

1. Lexicalization: These expressions are lexicalized in the locative caseform. The result, however, is not fullfledged lexicalization, becausethese lexemes are frozen adverbs which are inflected in some locativecases only.

2. Grammaticalization: Morphosyntacticosemantic schemata or constructions arise as generalizations from lexicalized expressions. The


schemas and exemplars form a basis for the analogical spreading in newstems and expressions. Lexicalization and grammaticalization followeach other in a spiral: lexicalization grammaticalization lexicalization grammaticalization, and so on. Synchronically, this meansdifferent levels of generalizations in the schemas.

A growing view among grammaticalization theorists is that lexicalization and grammaticalization overlap rather than contrast (cf. Ramat 1998).Especially for minor categories, it is disputable whether the issue is aboutgrammaticalization or lexicalization. (Campbell 2003.) Instead, it is more fruitful to analyze the locatives of state as representing both lexicalization andgrammaticalization than to dwell on arguing about the demarcation line between the two (for a discussion on the continuum between lexical semanticsand the semantics of grammar, see Langacker 1987:30).

Metaphors seem to be created from literal uses via metonymies. Thesearise as paradigm exemplars which may offer a basis for analogical extension.

1. In grammaticalization, when morphosyntacticosemantic schemas arecreated, locative case constructions designate the whole psychophysicalor other kind of state, not merely the place or the signs of thestate/activity. This is a case of metonymic conventionalization of implications.

2. In lexical polysemy: locative case expressions have more abstractsenses, e.g. posture psychophysical state.

The principle of abstraction, established on the basis of contextualimplications, is the same in both cases. The latter type of contextual polysemywill be handled in the next section. The rise in metaphors through metonymiesand the generalizations of new (sub)constructions on the basis of lexicalizationand analogical extension may also be seen as following each other in a spiralmanner.

5. Contextual implications and cultural embodimentThis section will examine the contextual tendencies of the locatives of

state, using the expressions of postures and facial expressions as an example ofthe whole construction type. Section 5.1 will show how the imagery of the expressions explains the varying tendencies of nearsynonymies. Section 5.2 provides examples of the way in which meaning extensions and abstraction tendencies are based on the organization of conceptual metaphor systems. Metaphors rely on metonymies, which index culturally embodied cognitive models.The models connect postures as parts of the wider stateofaffairs and useknowledge of the canonical postures and states as relevant background needed


for interpreting the expressions. Section 5.3 further analyzes the different waysof linking the collocations, or the polysemic use of the expressions, as well asthe cultural models of nonverbal communication.

Embodiment emphasizes the fact that conceptualization is mediated byour embodied experience of the world and ourselves, via our perception andbody (Freeman 2003:266; Johnson 1987). This grounding concerns the humanbody in its environment, that is, interacting with gravity and other circumstances, but also mediated by culture. Concepts are embodied in various ways.For example, bodily projections are based on the human body. Image schemas,for instance the container or location schema as the metaphoric source of thelocatives of state, are comprehended through the body. Lakoff and Johnson(1999:36) refer to these forms of embodiment as phenomenological embodiment. These are the forms that arise from the way we, as people, schematizeour own bodies and things we interact with. Lakoff and Johnson (1999:38)emphasize that the same mechanisms which are responsible for perception,movement, and object manipulation could be responsible for conceptualizationand reasoning. The ubiquity of metaphor reflects embodiment in the conceptualization and in language.

5.1. Contextual tendencies of nearsynonymiesAs was mentioned above, metonymy already plays a role when a loca

tive case construction is interpreted as denoting a state, although the stem alonedoes not construe a state. Thus the locative case expressions pystyssä [upINE]and jaloillaan [footPLADE3SGPX] denote a vertical posture, even thoughthe adjectival stem pysty ‘up’ or the stem denoting a body part jalka ‘leg, foot’alone does not designate a state. Instead, the stem names a prominent part oraspect of the state of affairs. The stem can therefore be interpreted as the naming of a salient part of the active zone of the state, although it is possible tointerpret the term in different ways and on various levels (cf. Barcelona2003b:12 13). The active zone is by definition the portions of trajector andlandmark, which form the part which is most immediately involved or participating directly in the relation (Langacker 1991a:189–202). Verticality, asnamed by pysty, is the most prominent dimension in the vertical posture.Moreover, feet (jaloi in jaloillaan ‘on his/her feet’) serve as the active zoneagainst the ground and bear the weight of an animate theme which has legs.The energy and the control needed in maintaining a vertical posture can thusmetonymically be condensed in the expression by naming the active zone ‘feet’by its stem.

The interpretation depends on context, above all on the theme of theconstruction. The contextual interpretation in turn relies on the knowledge ofdifferent states, in this case the different postures of different kinds of themes.When the context does not specify the interpretation any further, the interpretation is based on knowledge about the canonical and functional postures of


different objects. For example, a clause Hevonen nousi pystyyn ([horse risePST+3SG upILL] ‘A/The horse rose up’) has two interpretations, either aboutits canonical vertical posture or about its hindlegs.

When the theme is a human being, the expressions pystyssä and jaloillaan take on the meaning of a standing posture. That is, the canonical postureof a human being underlies their meaning structure. The expressions can thusbe used to express a similar stateofaffairs as the expression seisaallaan[standNMLZADE3SGPX], which construes the standing posture through itsstem. In contrast, pystyssä ‘up’ and jaloillaan ‘on one’s feet’ do not specify thestanding posture in the same way as seisaallaan ‘standing’. Thus, dependingon their stem, different expressions construe different kinds of imagery(Langacker 1991a:10–11). This imagery motivates semantic extensions. Thedifferences in the imagery of expressions explain why the contextual andpolysemic tendencies of the expressions differ from each other. The followingdiscussion will clarify this point.

The stem which explicitly construes the standing posture, seisaallaan,is only used in literary Finnish when the theme is a human being or an animal.The expression does not have conventional metonymicmetaphorical extensions.12 Note also that when the theme of this expression is a horse (Hevonennousi seisaalleen [horse risePST+3SG standNMLZADE3SGPX] ‘A/Thehorse rose up standing’), the expression refers to a canonical standing postureon four legs.

The expression in which the stem refers to a body part, jaloillaan,emphasizes the ability to stand on one’s feet. However, this expression doesnot necessarily construe a full vertical posture. The minimum condition is aposture with the bodyweight on the feet, the feet being the active zone againstthe ground. This construal is highly correlated with the image of the control ofan at least partly vertical posture. This perspective offers two extension types:physical ability, that is, the minimal condition of health and state of being alive(17a), and the mental ability to manage by oneself (17b). The metaphoric variant of this type tolpillaan (tolppa ‘pole’) is used in both kinds of contexts:

(17a) (MA Askola)Ens kesäm mennää kattoo,next summerESS goPASS lookILL

12 There are two idiomatic exceptions to this: Hän oli nukkua seisaaltaan [s/he bePST+3SG sleepINF standNMLZABL3SGPX] ‘S/he was to sleep standing’, ‘S/he was aboutto sleep standing’, i.e. ‘s/he was so tired that s/he could sleep standing’ and kuolla seisaaltaan [die standNMLZABL3SGPX] ‘to die standing’, ‘to die with one’s boots on’, i.e. ‘to diesuddenly’ or ’to die without a preceding illness that would have required one to lay down’, ‘todie without being confined to one’s bed’. At least the latter one is also possible with the othertwo expressions of vertical posture. As for the construction of changeofstate verb andseparative case, see Huumo’s article in this volume.


jos ollaa tolpillamme.if bePASS polePLADE1PLPX

“Next summer we will go and see [him/her], if we are alive.”

(17b) (HS)Tämä on paikka missä mä voin elääthis be+3SG place where I can1SG live

kunnollista elämää.decentPTV lifePTV

En mä kotona pysyisi kauaaNEG1SG 1SG homeESS stayCOND long

tolpillani.polePLADE1SGPX

Kaatuisin heti, kun ei olisifall.downCOND1SG at.once when NEG+3SG beCOND

ketään pitämässä pystyssä.nobody+PTV keepINFINE upINE

“This is the place where I can live a decent life. At home I wouldn’tstay standing for long. I would fall down at once, when nobody wasthere to keep me up.”

The most schematic expression, pystyssä, has an adjectival stem. Thisexpression only construes the vertical orientation of the functionally prominentdimension of the theme; this is also the only condition for suitable themes.Schematic expressions are usually the most polysemic ones, as is the expression pystyssä. This has many conventional metonymicmetaphorical readingswhich are based on different cultural models intertwined with vertical postures(Onikki 1992, 1994:49–77).

5.2. Metaphor systems of verticality and canonical vs. noncanonical postureExample (17b) above explicitly codes the opposition between falling

down and staying up. The latter represents the mental and social ability tomanage. This representation is based on the metonymicmetaphorical link inwhich the vertical posture stands for the canonical posture and the canonicalposture further represents the canonical mental and social state of existence. Inthe background of this metaphor is the abovementioned special link: the verti


cal posture represents the control and activity of remaining standing as compared to assuming a horizontal posture, which does not necessarily require activity or control. The control of one’s posture stands metaphorically for socialand mental selfcontrol. The expression with the bodypart noun ’leg, foot’ orits metaphoric variant by itself stands for the control aspect of the metaphoricalcorrelation. The schematic expression pystyssä, on the other hand, in example(17b) is combined with a causative verb pitää ’keep, maintain’, which introduces the aspect of control to the metaphor: the control of the state is in thehands of another agent, not the theme her/himself. (OnikkiRantajääskö2001:227–235.)

The metaphor CANONICAL VERTICAL POSTURE IS CANONICAL EXISTENCEis not restricted to concrete themes, but also applies to certain kinds of abstractthemes. This metaphor is used to express the temporary existence of an institution (18a–b), or, using the terminal case (the illative), the bringing about of anevent (18c).

(18a) Hallitus pysyi pystyssä vaingovernment stayPST+3SG upINE only

pari kuukautta.a.couple.of monthPTV

“The government lasted only a few months.”

(18b) (HS)Viinanen lupaa pitää pankit pystyssä.V. promise3SG keepINF bankPL upINE“Viinanen [Minister of Economics] promises to keep the banks going.”

(18c) (HS)Siellä pantiin jatkot pystyyn.there putPASS+PST continuationPL upILL“There they threw a post party”. [An idiomatic expression for a partywhich is continued after leaving the main party.]

Within these senses, it is also possible to find metonymic links that connect theabstract senses to the more literal ones. For example, institutions very oftenhave the same name for both the institution and its building such as the wordpankit ‘banks’ found in example (18b). When the expression pystyssä is usedto refer to a building, the literal meaning describes the physical position of itscanonical existence. The expression of a canonical posture shifts via metonymyto express the abstract state of canonical existence. (Cf. Barcelona 2003b:51.)


Conventional metaphors and cultural models rely on the oppositionbetween vertical and horizontal postures. The metaphor system codes the noncanonical end of the opposition between the vertical and horizontal postureeven more than the vertical end. Many expressions used to convey deviationfrom the canonical posture also construe a noncanonical state in the metaphorical sense. The loss of control of one’s posture stands for failure, such associal failure (17b) or bankruptcy (19).

(19) Firma meni kumoon.firm goPST+3SG downILL“The firm went bankrupt.”

The metaphor system of oppositions between the canonical and noncanonicalpostures and figures also applies to dimensions other than the vertical one. Thedeviation from canonical straightness represents a negatively valued noncanonical functional state with the most schematic themes (20). Moreover, theloss of a canonical figure stands for the vanishing from existence (21).

(20) Mikä on vinossa?what be+3SG skewINE“What is wrong?”

(21) Suunnitelmat menivät myttyyn.planPL goPST3PL bundleILL“The plans came to nothing.”

Although the metaphoric organization is based on oppositions, theopposites are not always equally coded in language. Among locative case expressions, the noncanonical poles of oppositions have more expressions thanthe canonical poles. According to my data, noncanonical postures are described more often. This is to be expected, because canonical states have a default value, for it is not necessary to describe in detail a posture that is normaland expected.

Yet even one and the same expression may have different metaphoricalsenses, even conveying meanings which may be opposite. Lindner (1983:227)has demonstrated that the verb particle up may be seen in relation to variouskinds of functional assemblies, as she refers to the cognitive models. In thecase of pystyssä, it seems that there are two divergent construal types amongthe metaphoric extensions. These construal types are both based on verticalposture, but one emphasizes the standstill state as opposed to movement.Examples (17b) and (18) above show that the expression may metaphoricallydenote the canonical existence and ability to act, but the expression may like


wise describe a noncanonical state of incapacity at least in some idioms, as inexample (22):

(22) (HS)Hän on haukkunut pystyyn [~ lyttyyn ~ maanrakoon]3SG be+3SG barkPTCP upILL flatILL ground.cleavageILL

koko amerikkalaisen humanistisen tutkimuksen.whole AmericanACC humanisticACC researchACC

“S/he has doomed the whole of American humanistic research.”

In the earlier examples, pystyssä refers to the canonical pole of verticality ordimension of canonical figure, when it, as usual, represents the standing posture. In example (22), however, the vertical posture compares to the noncanonical pole, if we compare the use of the expression pystyssä to those mentioned in brackets. The basic ground for the metaphors of the canonical state isnot the vertical posture as a canonical posture as such, but the way it relates tothe cognitive models of the canonical ability to act. In force dynamics, thevertical posture represents standing, which is usually connected to the canonical state and ability to act. As an opposite to movement, the vertical posturealso may represent a state of standstill, as in example (22). Furthermore, in theidiom found in example (22), it is possible to construe the vertical orientationas a result of the dooming force of communication.

Example (22) is not the only case where the locative case expressionpystyssä is used as a rhetorical means to emphasize the intensity of the described state. The intensifying function may be seen as one abstraction tendency in the polysemy of the locative case expressions denoting postures andfacial expressions (see also the examples in footnote 12). The effect of emphasizing the intensity of the state is attained through the hyperbolic use of themetonymicmetaphorical extensions. Since the nature of this intensifying function is rhetorical and textual, it applies at a different schematic level of constructions than other forms of their polysemy.13

There seems to be something inherent in the expressions of posturesand facial expressions that makes them suitable for abstraction into rhetoricalfunctions. Maybe it is the vividness that is attained by the description of theconcrete aspects of situations, such as postures and facial expressions, that pro

13 It is unlikely, however, that such a polymorphemic lexeme as pystyssä would grammaticalizeas an emphasizing particle, since Finnish does not have verb particle constructions such asEnglish with up — the few exceptions that occur are mainly formed on the basis of translationmodels from other languages.


vides the basis for the rhetorical effect.14 This effect relies on the power andsignificance of the nonverbal communication underlying these expressions.This will be discussed in more detail in the next section.

5.3. Indexical relations between collocations and cultural modelsThe polysemy of the locatives of state for postures and facial expres

sions is based on cognitive models embodied in culture (cf. Lakoff 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The metonymic and metaphoric uses of these expressions elaborate the metaphor ”MindasBody” (Sweetser 1990:28), in whichthe body is interpreted as an index of the bearer’s mental or social state. Thecontextual uses of these expressions reveal similar cognitive models to thosethat have been attested in nonverbal communication (e.g. EiblEibesfeldt1989, Ekman 1973, Morris 1977, 1986, Onikki 1994). These kinds of indexicalinterpretations become conventionalized in the language. The metonymic andmetaphorical sense is not coded in the locative case expression alone, but boththe collocations of the theme and the locative case expression have acquiredconventional senses. Thus the abstraction tendencies extend the senses of theconstructions beyond the description of actual postures and facial expressionsto the more abstract senses and schematic functions.

Although there is a correlation in their interpretation, there is no perfectmatch between nonverbal communication by postures and facial expressions,and their linguistic expressions. This is, of course, to be expected. The actualpostures and facial expressions are more variable and are extended to morethan one part of the face or of the body. Yet the themes of the locative caseexpressions are more conventionalized. This discrepancy shows in at leastthree ways.

First, the theme in conventional collocations names only one part of thebody, the part which is conventionally interpreted as functionally salient in theposture or facial expression. However, a facial expression, for example, mayextend over a wider area of the face. Thus, different themes may share a similarfunction in an expression. These themes may also denote parts of the samefacial expression. As mentioned previously, among locative case expressions,groups of expressions share a similar schematic construal, for instance, ashrunken shape and at a more schematic level, the deviation from a canonicalfigure. This adds up to nearsynonymic collocations having different themesthat may be used to invoke the same kind of cultural model as the backgroundof their contextual indexical interpretation. For example, the collocations otsarypyssä ‘with a furrowed brow’ (earlier example 9c) and kulmat kurtussa‘[eye]brows in wrinkle, knitted brows’ may be used in a similar way to describe either a negative attitude, a thoughtful, pensive or meditative state of

14 Ponterotte (2003; cited by Barcelona 2003b:24) has emphasized the role of metaphor inconversation as a consequence of the brevity, conciseness and vividness of metaphor, and ofthe multiplicity, openendedness and flexibility of metaphor networks.


mind, or a kind of seriousness and a tense attitude toward life in general (23aand b).

(23a) (HS)Kukaan ei kysy perään, kun kurssiohjelmanobody NEG+3SG ask after when course.program

on laadittu otsa rypyssäbe+3SG makePASS+PST+PTCP forehead wrinkleINE

ja ilman mielikuvitusta.and without imaginationPTV

“Nobody asks questions although the course program has been madewith a furrowed brow and without imagination.” [A furrowed browrepresents a joyless and tense attitude.]

(23b) (WS)Hän näki elämän vakavana asiana,3SG seePST+3SG lifeACC seriousESS thingESS

johon piti suhtautua kulmat kurtussa,whichILL mustPST+3SG reactINF browPL knitINE

vakavasti pohdiskellen ja järkeisopillista ratkaisuaseriously ponderINF and scholasticPTV solutionPTV

etsiskellen.searchINF

“S/he saw life as a serious thing, on which one should react with knitbrows, seriously pondering and looking for an intelligent solution.”

One expression can often be correlated to more than one kind of attitude orpsychophysical state. Moreover, descriptions of nonverbal communication areoften used to carry nuances which may be clearer or vague depending on theinterpreter’s communicative competence. Often there is no conventional verbalization of these interpretations. The extension to rhetorical functions glidesfrom describing an actual posture and a specific stateofaffairs to genericsituations where the connection to an actual posture or facial expression vanishes, as in examples (23a) and (23b).

At any rate, specialization is also a common tendency among linguisticexpressions. Between the two expressions, kulmat kurtussa is more prone to a


negative attitude than otsa rypyssä, which is more commonly used to designatea pensive state of mind. It is possible that a negative attitude is more focusedon eyebrows than on the forehead in the indexical correlations of culturalmodels (cf. Dirven 2003:33; Ruiz de Mendoza & Díez 2003:521).

Second, even when the posture is very similar and is denoted by thesame expression, collocations with different themes may have been conventionalized to different metonymicmetaphorical interpretations (cf. Croft2003:181). The expression pystyssä ‘up, upright, erect’ has different extensionswith different themes denoting the posture of the head, as is indicated in (24a–d):

(24a) pää pystyssähead upINE“the head up”

(24b) Pää pystyyn!head upILL“Put your head up; Cheer up!”

(24c) leuka pystyssäjaw upINE“the jaw up”

(24d) nenä pystyssänose upINE“the nose up”

The expression ‘head up’ (24a) is often used to suggest pride or courage. Herethe illative case expression (24b) is an idiom which is used as an encouragement to mean ‘cheer up!’, the opposite of the typical downwards orientation ofthe head when one is depressed (cf. Barcelona 1986). The expression with thejaw as the theme (24c) is more inclined to describe defiance. The illative caseidiom leuka pystyyn [jaw upILL] ‘chin up’ is a kind of blend between (24b)and (24c). The nose (24d) implies haughtiness (cf. also 25a below).

The third is that various body parts have also acquired different culturalsymbolvalues. These values have been partly conventionalized in language, sothat the themes denoting body parts serve as indices pointing to a repertoire ofcognitive models which specify a certain range of cultural activity. The role ofthe theme may even be so prominent that certain kinds of themes tend to havesimilar kinds of metonymicmetaphorical senses with varying locative case


expressions. For instance, many of the locative case collocations with the noseas their theme conventionally describe a negative attitude (25).15

(25a) (HS)Tytöt kävelivät kylmäkiskoisesti jagirlPL walkPST3PL coldly and

nenä pystyssä poikien ohi.nose upINE boyPL+GEN past

“The girls walked coldly past the boys with their noses in the air.”

(25b) Hän katseli nuorten ilonpitoa3SG lookPST+3SG youngPL+GEN joykeepingPTV

nenä solmussa ~ vinossa.nose knotINE skewINE

“Her/His nose was out of joint at seeing the merriment of the youngpeople”. (I.e., one could see from her/his face that s/he disapproved ofthe merriment of the young.)

(25c) Hän söi keittoa nenä nirpassa.3SG eatPST+3SG soupPTV nose wrinkleINE“S/he ate the soup with her/his nose wrinkled up”. (I.e., one could seefrom her/his face that s/he was not satisfied.)

The embodied basis for these metonymicmetaphorical shifts has something to do with smelling foul smells. The motivating metaphor behind thesecontextual uses is that a NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARDS SOMETHING ISEXPERIENCING IT AS SMELLING BAD. The link of smelling metonymically explains the connection between the different postures and facial expressions andthe attitudes described. These metonymicmetaphorical connections may not beanalyzable, the collocations being conventional metaphors which no longernecessarily connect to the description of the posture of the head or facial expression when smelling. Thus, metonymies and metaphors can be analyzed tovarying degrees.

5.4. Interim summaryThis section has shown how embodiment works in the metonymic and

metaphorical uses of the locatives of state denoting postures and facial expres

15 This is by no means the only metaphorical task of ‘nose’ in Finnish.


sions. The stem of the expression plays a crucial role in the imagery, whichexplains why nearsynonymies differ from each other in their metonymicmetaphorical tendencies. The collocations of the theme and the locative expression are central to the metonymic links of the constructions and cognitivemodels. As a result, the descriptions of postures or facial expressions are interpreted as indices of a wider psychophysical state. The connection is conventionalized in the language and shows as a conventionalized repertoire of interpretations, which vary according to the different themes.

As we have seen above, the cultural indexical interpretation providesthe motivating basis for metaphorical senses. The metaphor system is based onthe schematic dimensions of oppositions. These dimensions are basically thesame as in the organization of the expressions of actual postures. I will nextturn to the basic schematic dimensions of the locative case expressions denoting postures. The issue of anthropocentricity will then be raised in relation tothese dimensions.

6. Schematic dimensionsTo illustrate the systematicity of metonymicmetaphorical organization

in the locatives of postures, I will introduce the basic dimensions which organize these expressions. As a semantic field, the locatives of postures andfacial expressions can be divided into six schematic dimensions (see the examples in Table 1):

1. vertical dimension2. canonical straightness vs. bowing3. contact vs. separation4. enlargement vs. shrinking5. openness vs. shutting down6. tension

The dimensions represent the oppositions of different postures of certain kindsof themes. In addition to that, they offer a basis for an orientational metaphoricorganization as we have seen in the examples above. The UPend of the verticaldimension represents a canonical state (17a, b) and existence (18a–c). In contrast, the horizontal end has acquired a negative metonymicmetaphoricalloading (19). On a more schematic level, an opposition arises between canonical and noncanonical postures. This opposition has similar metaphoric functions in different dimensions: THE NONCANONICAL POSTURE IS A NONCANONICAL STATE and LOSING THE CANONICAL POSTURE OR FIGURE IS LOSINGTHE CANONICAL STATE or even existence (19). In this way the opposite ofstraightness represents a negative noncanonical state (20) and shrunkennessrepresents the failure of plans, etc. (21). The metaphoric loading is not alwaysthe same. Sometimes the middle point stands for the optimal canonical state.


For example, when ‘nerves are (too) tight’hermot ovat (liian) kireällä [nervePL be+3PL (too) tightADE], the optimal state is not the other end of the dimension of tension but the middle point, which does not have an expression ofits own among locatives of state. Furthermore, the metaphorical loadings aremotivated on the basis of metonymies in which a certain part of the dimensionin question correlates with a certain kind of emotion, psychophysical or otherkind of an abstract state in cultural cognitive models in the way discussed inthe last section above.

1. Vertical dimensionUp Middle Downseisaallaan ‘standing’ istuallaan ‘sitting’ makuullaan ‘lying’2. Straightnesssuorassa ‘straight’ vinossa ‘askew’3. Contact Separationyhdessä ‘together’ ristissä ‘crossed’ erillään ‘apart’4. Enlargement Canonical figure Shrunkennesspullollaan ‘bulging out’ koossa ‘coherent’ mytyssä ‘in a bundle’5. Open Halfopen Shutammollaan ‘wide open’ raollaan ‘ajar’ ummessa ‘shut’6. Tensiontiukalla ‘tight’ löysällä ‘loose’

Table 1: The dimensions of the locatives of state denoting postures and facialexpressions

I have delineated the dimensions on the basis of a corpus study (as forthe corpus, see the Appendix; Onikki 1994). However, on a more schematiclevel, at least openness versus shutting down may be seen as a special case ofcontact versus separation. The other dimensions may combine in differentways with the dimension of enlargement versus shrinking, which is also connected to the other dimensions through the polysemy of various expressions.16

On a schematic level, these dimensions represent geometric construalswhich are common to different kinds of themes: human beings, animals, bodyparts, objects and their parts. However, the meaning structures, the predicationsof different expressions, are holistic gestalts based on the knowledge aboutpostures of different kinds of themes. These expressions differ from each otherin terms of how compatible they are with a wide range of different themes:

16 For example, vatsa pystyssä [belly upINE] ‘pregnant’ includes the vertical stem to describethe outwards expanded figure of the belly in pregnancy. This might be interpreted as a rotationof the imageschematic orientation (cf. Lakoff 1988:144–147).


1. Some schematic expressions are compatible with a wide range ofthemes. The stems of the locatives of state are adjectives or derivedfrom verbs denoting a change in posture/figure (pystyssä ‘uprightINE’, suorassa ‘straightINE’, vinossa ‘obliqueINE, askew’, taipua‘to bow’ – taivuksissa ‘bowed’, vääntyä ‘turn’ – väännyksissä‘twisted’). Some stems also name figures (ristissä [crossINE]‘crossed’, raollaan [cleftADE3SGPX] ‘ajar’).

2. Some expressions, in addition to requiring a certain kind of functionaldimension and a certain kind of geometric figure, as in group one, alsohave an additional restriction on their themes. In other words, they require compatibility with some property of the theme. Usually this encoding concerns the material of the theme. For example, mytyssä ‘bundleINE’ prototypically requires a textile as a theme, but a body part, orthe whole human being, is also possible.

3. Some expressions prefer either an animate theme, a body part, or aninanimate object as their theme. Such expressions as jaloillaan ‘onone’s feet’, seisaallaan ‘standing’, makuulla ‘lying’, istuallaan ‘sitting’and kontallaan ‘on one’s four legs’ are only used for animate themes.The imagery of their stems specifies the posture in a way that is typicalonly for certain kinds of animate themes. Nevertheless, few expressionsare used solely for inanimate themes (e.g. tiukalla ‘tight’ on the dimension of tension). Usually it is also possible to use an expression with abody part theme even when it is not used with a whole human being oran animal as its theme (metaphorically also hermot tiukalla ‘nervestight, tensed’).

7. Geometric dimensions and embodimentThis section summarizes the way in which the geometric dimensions

discussed in Section 6 relate to metonymic motivation in the locatives of state.I will show that the dimensions combine to offer the embodied basis for theabstract senses in metaphoric usages. I will also discuss whether the grammarof the locatives of state reflects the human language users’ or conceptualizers’perspectives. I approach this question from two levels of organization: from theparadigmatic or schematic perspective on the one hand and from the perspective of syntagmatic or contextual usages of the expressions on the other. I willclose the section by comparing the locatives of postures to the analyses of theTzeltal bodypart terminology by Levinson (1994).

I used the term “embodiment” above when I discussed the motivatinglinks between the concrete and abstract uses of the expressions of postures. Themetaphoric usages based on metonymy are motivated by cultural cognitivemodels which treat the posture as an index of a wider psychophysical state or


an attitude in a social situation. The abstract metaphoric senses are based onmetaphor systems which ultimately rely on the same dimensions as the concrete senses of the expressions. The expressions of postures are embodied because they denote postures which are concrete spatiotemporal locations of thebody parts in relation to each other, to the whole body or of the body to outsidecorrelates, such as to the axis of verticality. When we talk about postures ofinanimate objects, these are also concrete, and embodiment is evoked throughthe senses and functional needs of the conceptualizer. The conceptualizer’sperception and vantage point implicitly create the conceptualization and construal in the meaning structure. The geometric dimensions are thus embodied inthis way.

On the schematic level, the geometric construal of figures offers a basisfor the expression of postures. Most expressions occur both with animate andinanimate themes. Yet one should also pose the question as to when we actually do speak about postures. All concrete things are in one posture or anotherall the time, but we do not spend our time communicating about this. Animatescan change their postures, however, and this deserves attention more than theusually quite predictable postures of inanimate objects. Postures are the focusof attention in relation to the functional needs of the conceptualizer. For example, a natural context for speaking about the postures of inanimate objects is thedifferent ways of handling them in various tasks.

Nevertheless, we talk predominantly about human postures. At the levelof schematic dimensions, this is reflected in the fact that each dimension isused to express the postures of a human being or her/his body parts. Amongexpressions of postures, most expressions are used to refer to human beings ortheir body parts. Some expressions also seem to be anthropocentric on the basisof their imagery. For these, the stem is a body part that is typical of a humanbeing (seisoa käsillään [stand handPLADE3SGPX] ‘to stand on one’shands’) or construes a posture typical of a human being (kontallaan [creepwithhandsandfeetADE3SGPX] ‘on hands and knees’, istuallaan [sitnominalizing suffixADE3SGPX] ‘sitting’) although most expressions aresuitable for referring to at least some animals as well.

In addition to expressions of postures, the embodiment of other locatives of state is not entirely clear. When the starting point of the constructiontype is a concrete location of the signs of the (psychophysical) state, it alsorepresents a case of embodiment (e.g. Selkä on ajoksissa [back be+3SG abscessPLINE] ‘The back is covered with boils’). Location as a metonymicstarting point might also be seen as being embodied. If they offer, as it seems,the starting point for the whole construction type, it is possible to count thelocatives of state as being embodied by their origins. Some central semanticsubgroups such as psychophysical states are also embodied by their meanings.Hence embodiment plays a central role in the motivating links of the locativesof states. If, however, we consider the construction type as a whole, this em


bodiment is implicit in the background of the meaning structures. The metaphoric construal of the locatives of state as an instance of the LOCATION imageschema, STATES ARE LOCATIONS, represents embodiment on yet another level ofconceptualization.

Thus, we can see that the locatives of state can indeed be said to reflectthe human conceptualizer’s viewpoints — that is, anthropocentric conceptualization — in terms of their contextual usages, metonymicmetaphoric extensions and indexical interpretation. The description of human postures and facialexpressions as indices of wider psychophysical and social states is very common and offers a basis for different kinds of extensions. The mechanisms ofmetonymy and metaphor are of course not restricted to the human being as thetheme of the expressions, but the human being is the centre of attraction fortheir use. As I have shown above, however, the anthropocentric conceptualization is less clear if we consider the expression type at the schematic level ofdimensions.

In comparison to my data, I would like to draw attention to Levinson’s(1994) survey on bodypart terminology in Tzeltal, a Mayan language. He argues that the wide use of bodypart terminology in Tzeltal is not necessarilybased on anthropocentric metaphors. Instead Levinson observes that the Tzeltalterminology is based on detailed visual analyses of the different geometricalfigures of the different kinds of object parts. Bodypart terms are thus appliedto objects in terms of their internal geometry, the partitioning possibly correlating to the earlier stages of visual analyses. The partitioning of objects doesnot, however, rely on external coordinates such as the orientation of objectsaccording to vertical dimension in space.

As I have argued above, I have also come to the conclusion thatgeometrical figures play a central role in the schematic organization of the expressions of postures in Finnish. But there are important differences as well.First, in opposition to Tzeltal bodypart terminology, the geometricality in Finnish posture expressions relies at least partly on outside correlates, most clearlyon verticality. Verticality underlies some expressions in other dimensions aswell, such as kallellaan ‘tilted’, in the dimension of straightness (2 in Table 1).At any rate, it is noteworthy that most dimensions are predominantly concernedwith the internal relations of the theme (or with the whole object which thetheme is a part of). Secondly, in contrast to Tzeltal, the Finnish expressions ofpostures rely on canonical figures in the background of their meaning structure.This is most obvious in the dimension of enlargement vs. shrunkenness (4 inTable 1), but it is implicitly in the background of some other expressions, too.The geometricality of the figures involves the shapes of the themes only partly(such as pullollaan ‘bulging out’). It is schematically more about the differentdistances and orientations of the parts which are internal to the themes as possible end points in the changeofstates, that is, changes in the postures andfigures. And thirdly, the Finnish system of expressions of postures differs from


the Tzeltal system described by Levinson in that it exhibits an overall tendencytoward metonymicmetaphorical extensions. Cultural models then connect thesigns as indices of psychophysical and other kinds of states. This is a metaphorsystem that is highly anthropocentric, although the main principle of indexicalmetonymic connections is not restricted to anthropocentricity.

Of course, Finnish and Tzeltal represent typologically very differentkinds of languages. Furthermore, it is important to note that bodypart terminology and the expressions of postures are different semantic systems, becausepostures involve orientations — canonical as well as exceptional — of objectparts in relation to each other, to the object as a whole and also to the externalspatial coordinates such as verticality. Postures are typically temporary, whichis reflected in the use of locatives of state in Finnish. Perhaps it is the changeable nature of postures that makes them prone to be interpreted as indices of awider stateofaffairs, such as psychophysical states. Leaving these differencesaside, Levinson’s findings are important, because they draw attention to thecentrality of geometric figures in the meaning structure of certain linguisticexpressions.

As could be seen in this section, the notion of embodiment has differentaspects of interpretation. One aspect is its concreteness: we experience posturesand facial expressions through our senses. This concreteness is reflected in thegeometric dimensions of the cognitive domain of postures. Another aspect isthe functional needs of the conceptualizer as reflected in the expressions; it ismuch more controversial in what sense they can be considered as embodied. Itis part of the general anthropocentricity of language that we speak about things(as well as postures and states of affairs) which are relevant for a human being.In addition to this general tendency, however, expressions of postures and facial expressions exhibit a special case of metonymic and metaphoric linking asthey are treated as indices of the “inner states” of their bearer. First of all, thisextends the geometric dimensions to metonymicmetaphoric values, thus retaining the link to concreteness. Secondly, it relies on an embodied linking ofcognitive models that enables us to read perceivable postures and facial expressions as an external sign of an internal state. We have noted that the humanbeing is the attraction centre of the metonymic and metaphoric extensions. Thisleads to a special kind of anthropocentricity which can most clearly be witnessed on the level of contextual usages, indexical cultural models andpolysemic tendencies. This anthropocentricity, however, is less clear on thestructural level of paradigmatic organization of these expressions. Finally, Ihave drawn attention to Levinson’s study on the Tzeltal bodypart terminologywhich is used to emphasize the role of geometric figures or dimensions in someexpressions. Finnish expressions of postures and facial expressions differ fromthe Tzeltal bodypart terminology in their reliance on canonical figures, outsidecorrelates and metonymically based metaphor systems. It is also possible toextend the question of embodiment to the whole system of locatives of state,


but the answer is much more controversial. As discussed above, the containerschema “States are locations” represents a kind of abstract embodiment on theone hand, as well as a metonymic extension on the other.

8. ConclusionHumancentered conceptualization appears most clearly in the form of

cultural embodiment in the Finnish locatives of state. In this paper, I have provided several examples and shown how, on different paradigmatic and contextual levels, the abstraction tendencies in the locatives of state are based onthe indexical metonymic connections of the linguistic expressions to the cultural cognitive models which interpret the state described by the expression asa salient part or index of a wider stateofaffairs. Furthermore, this link hasbeen conventionalized as part of the meaning structure of these expressions.

One area that deserves further attention is the indexical mechanismsthat connect the spatial and concrete aspects of the statesofaffairs with thewider and more abstract interpretation of the situation. These mechanisms offera starting point for the extension of the locative case constructions to more abstract meanings in different subgroups. I have included all these extensionsunder the heading of “metonymy” as far as they represent the concrete correlations of focused parts to the wider interpretation of the stateofaffairs in a single domain, that being a cultural model connecting a place or a sign to thewhole psychophysical state. This is the case for the locatives of state I havebeen discussing in this article. Metaphor, on the other hand, represents themapping from one source domain to some other target domain (as defined byLakoff and Johnson 1980), such as from location to states or from postures topsychophysical states, or from actual states to the rhetorical means in intensifying function. I have shown how metaphor is based on the metonymic indexical correlations in the locatives of state. On this basis, it is possible to explainsimultaneously the scattered nature of the groups of frozen lexemes as well asthe productive nature of grammatical constructions for denoting different kindsof states through the use of locative case expressions.

Appendix: DataThis study is based on a corpus which consists on the one hand of lists

of lexemes that have locative case forms and on the other, of contextual examples (Onikki 1994; OnikkiRantajääskö 2001). The basic sample consists of ca.4,000 examples, which include ca. 250 different statedenoting locative caseexpressions. The corpus is based on the dictionaries of presentday Finnish(Nykysuomen sanakirja, Perussanakirja), the dictionary of Finnish dialects(Suomen murteiden sanakirja), etymological dictionaries (Etymologinensanakirja, Suomen sanojen alkuperä), a reverse dictionary (Käänteissanakirja),a databased corpus (UHLCS = University of Helsinki language corpus server,consisting, among others, 12 novels of the publisher WSOY (WS) and the


magazine Suomen Kuvalehti 1987). Individual examples are from newspapers(HS = Helsingin Sanomat) and from the literature. I have also included examples from dialectal archives (The Morphology Archives (MA), Department ofFinnish, University of Helsinki; The Lexical Archives of the Finnish Dialects,the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland).

BODYPART NAMES AND GRAMMATICALIZATION

TONI SUUTARIResearch Institute for the Languages of Finland / University of Helsinki

1. IntroductionThe FinnoUgrian languages contain a number of counterexamples to

the unidirectional assumptions of the theory of grammaticalization. In this article, I claim that certain abstract relational expressions have been given a concrete meaning as names for parts of the body and some of them have later become abstract once again. In some instances the different stages of development are still apparent in the language. Certain changes can be explained asinternal language development, but language contact and even planned language development have also had a significant effect on the use and development of grammaticalized forms.1

While I concentrate especially on the development and grammaticalization of words that refer to body parts in Finnish and Estonian2 in this article, Ialso consider the names of body parts and grammaticalization in a wider context. Furthermore, I review the problems of the grammatical categorization offorms.

In many languages the conceptualization of basic axes is strongly centred on animation (Levinson 1996a:180; Huumo & Ojutkangas, this volume),and bodypart metonymy and metaphor are extensively used in describing objects and other entities. Typical examples from European languages include theEnglish ear of a jug and the Swedish bergets fot ‘foot of a mountain’ (lit. ‘themountain’s foot’). Thus, it seems quite natural that metaphors involving bodypart names (1a, 1b) and the more grammatical units that evolve from these (2a,2b) might come to be used to express many spatial relations. This does not

1 I would like to thank all of the contributors to this book for their comments on this article and,especially, the editors.2 Finnish and Estonian are closely related languages and belong to the Finnic branch of theFinnoUgrian languages, together with Karelian, Livonian, Vote, Veps and Lude. SocalledEarly ProtoFinnic, from which the Finnic and Samic languages have diverged, is believed tohave been spoken in the Baltic area ca. 1000 BC.

TONI SUUTARI102

mean, however, that one should attempt to explain everything anthropocentrically, that is, taking the human language user as the starting point.

(1a) Mixtec (Brugman & Macaulay 1986:319) ndukoo ha?a žúnu

sit foot tree“He is sitting below the tree.”

(1b) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2943)Voi hyvänen, kun ne tuohitorvellaoh goodness when 3PL birch.bark.hornADE

töräyttelis nevan poskessa!tootCOND+3SG marshGEN cheekINE

“Oh my goodness, if they would only toot on the birchbark horn whenthey reach the side of the marsh!”

(2a) Egyptian (Gardiner 1957:130)tp t3head earth“upon earth”, i.e. ‘living’

(2b) Estonian (SCLOMB/Ilu 869)Mitte akna peal seista!NEG window+GEN headADE standINF“Standing at the window is not allowed!”

Although the grammaticalization of bodypart names is well documented(cf. e.g. Svorou 1994; Ojutkangas 2001; Heine & Kuteva 2002), there areperceptible gaps in the research on bodypart names and their grammaticalization. The most significant problem in the research has been a stronganthropocentric premise, which is clearly expressed in Heine’s (1997a:40)observation:

Conceptualization is anthropocentric: Whenever possible, we use human categories to describe and understand nonhuman ones. Accordingly, the humanbody provides the most important model for expressing concepts of spatialorientation.

In the literature on grammaticalization constructions involving bodypartnames, the body part is often regarded as a secure starting point, even thoughetymological research has clearly shown that, for instance, current meaningsfor anatomical ‘head’ are often secondary in origin (cf. e.g. Buck 1965:212–

BODYPART NAMES AND GRAMMATICALIZATION 103

213; Heine 1997a:132; Campbell 1998:182–183). It could of course be that inmany such cases grammaticalization has begun to occur solely from themeaning of the body part, and earlier meanings and semantic changes have hadno effect whatsoever on the grammaticalization process. This should not, however, be assumed — whenever possible — ; rather, in every individual case thehistorical development of the expression in question ought to be examinedseparately.

Narrowly interpreted grammaticalization theory can also have a restrictive influence on the choice of study material and on the interpretations made.Grammaticalization is very often regarded as a unidirectional process in which(a) advancement takes place from lexical forms to grammatical categories andin which (b) grammatical forms become even more grammatical than before(cf. e.g. Meillet 1912; Heine et al. 1991:4–5, 212; Heine & Kuteva 2002:2–4).The development is depicted as a graded continuum, and the sorts of examplesthat are often mentioned are adpositions and suffixes that have developed fromnoun and verb forms (cf. e.g. Lehmann 1985:304; Hopper & Traugott1993:106–108; Heine & Kuteva 2002:317–336).

Many arguments have been raised against the absolute unidirectionalityof grammaticalization (see Campbell 2001:129–130), but have been repudiated(e.g. Heine et al. 1991:4–5, 52) or there has been a desire to relegate counterexamples to an area outside the realm of grammaticalization (Traugott & Heine1991:7). It has not perhaps always been a question of linguistic phenomena anddescriptions of their suitability, but of the nature of grammaticalization theoryitself. This is apparent in Campbell’s (2001:124) reference to the prevailingattitude to unidirectionality:

In brief, because grammaticalization is defined as changes of lexical > grammatical, or grammatical > more grammatical, any change not going in thisdirection can be considered as outside of grammaticalization, and therefore,unidirectionality becomes not an empirical hypothesis that can be tested, butan artefact of the definition itself.

An examination of FinnoUgrian words denoting the body part ‘head’ revealscounterexamples to both the anthropocentricity (or zoocentricity) of semanticdevelopments and the unconditional unidirectionality of grammaticalization.

I begin my discussion of the grammaticalization of bodypart nameswith an examination of basic cases and grammatical categorization. After this Ifocus on the development of secondary bodypart names and present counterexamples of the unidirectionality of grammatical developments. Later in thearticle I raise the question of internal language development, the effect of language contact and certain other matters pertaining to the use of and changes ingrammaticalized forms. Finally, I consider the significance of the results reported in this article in relation to the prevailing theory of grammaticalization.

TONI SUUTARI104

2. Nominals, locatives or adpositions?With the aid of four stages (see figure 3 below), Heine (1997a:44–45)

describes the development of bodypart names as a spatial concept whereinprogress takes place through the name of a part of a metaphorical phenomenonto metonymical meanings of contact and separation.

(3) (Heine 1997a:44) 1. Stage 1–a region of the human body 2. Stage 2–a region of an (inanimate) object 3. Stage 3–a region in contact with an object 4. Stage 4–a region detached from the object

When the starting point is a term for an environmental landmark, such as ‘sky’,development progresses, according to Heine, through the same stages, but inreverse (1997a:44–45).

In what follows I test Heine’s model in practice. Comparisons betweentypologically different languages reveal problems: The interpretation of themodel is affected by the typological type of the language, and the stage ofgrammaticalization is open to various theoretical speculations. Natural, welldefined borders between the categories in question, i.e. nominals, locatives andadpositions, cannot be found, but certain divisions can be identified with theaid of the concepts of metaphor and metonymy, as we shall see in Section 2.4.

2.1. An unambiguous system: Mixtec locativesThe development described by Heine in the above figure (3) can be

observed in Langacker’s (1999b) analysis of Mixtec locatives cited by Brugman and Macaulay (1986; also Brugman 1983). Mixtec expressions that include bodypart names are clauses formed from two nominal words in theirbasic form, which are used nominatively (4) and locatively (5a, 5b). Accordingto Brugman and Macaulay (1986:317; Brugman 1983), bodypart name expressions used locatively are neither semantically nor syntactically prepositions.Langacker (1999b:219) refers to them as compound words.

(4) Mixtec (Brugman & Macaulay 1986:316)nda?a žúnu tá?nuarm tree break“The branch of the tree is breaking.”

(5a) Mixtec (Brugman & Macaulay 1986:316)hížaare šini žukube located3SG+M head mountain“He is on top of the mountain.”


(5b) Mixtec (Brugman & Macaulay 1986:317)ninde é ii saà šini žúnucpfly one bird head tree“A bird flew over the tree.”

If it is assumed that the bodypart meaning of the word šini is original, then allfour stages of Heine’s (1997a:44) model are represented in Mixtec. With thehelp of metaphor, the meaning of a part of the phenomenon (4) is conveyed bymeans of a body part. The first two — purely nominal — stages involve locative expressions based on metonymy: example (5a) represents stage 3 andexample (5b) stage 4.

Langacker has illustrated the clause ndukoo ha?a žúnu ‘He is sitting atthe foot of the tree’ (1a) with drawings, also (6a, 6b). The connection betweenthe body part and the locative expression is clear.

(6a) Langacker (1999b:241)

(6b) Langacker (1999b:242)

In the light of the observations presented here and the material in the articlesreferred to above (Brugman 1983; Brugman & Macaulay 1986; Langacker

TONI SUUTARI106

1999b), it can be stated that Mixtec locative expressions form an unambiguoussystem linked to the meaning of bodypart names, and that they closely fit themodel proposed by Heine (1997a:44). Nevertheless, this does not mean thatbodypart names used locatively form the same easily interpretable system inall languages. Comparison with the typologically different languages examinedbelow will provide some evidence of this.

Langacker’s (1999b) view that Mixtec locative expressions are compound nouns appears problematic because these expressions have separatedthemselves in meaning from purely nominal use (illustrated in 6a). On theother hand, a prepositional interpretation does not seem appropriate. Thisproblem affects many different languages; for spatial expressions in Thai, forexample, the terms region noun, locative noun, relator noun, relational nounand preposition (Zlatev 2003:305–306) are used.3 The problem is not simply apractical one, because different terms reflect differing interpretations of thedegree of grammaticalization and of the whole nature of a category.

To provide a sufficiently diverse comparison with Mixtec I will look atexamples from Finnish and Estonian, as these are languages with a multiplecase system and many types of locative expression (including terms based onbodypart names and on other objects). As will be seen below, Finnish nominallocatives and grammaticalized adpositions have to be interpreted in a differentway than Mixtec locatives. In Finnish the relation between the local cases andthe stages of grammaticalization is complicated, which has strong implicationsfor how models and categories can be constructed.

2.2. Finnish nominal locativesThe existence of a local case system affects the interpretation of

Heine’s (1997a:44) model. For example, in Finnish and Estonian, as in manyother FinnoUgrian languages, contact and separation are indicated with thehelp of different local cases. The internal (inner, interior) local cases, i.e. theinessive, elative and illative, indicate being inside something or in close contactwith it as in (7a), and the external (outer, exterior) local cases, i.e. the adessive,ablative and allative, indicate location in the vicinity (7b). The local cases frequently also have more abstract uses, too. For example, the adessive also expresses possession. (For a discussion of the Finnish local cases, see Huumo &Ojutkangas in this volume.)

3 Numerous other examples are easily found. In a collection of works on the Omotic languages(Hayward 1990a), Breeze (1990:38, 115) classifies Benchnon locative expressions aspostpositions, as does Éva (1990:363) in his description of Gamon; for Zayse and Aari,however, Hayward (1990b:261; 1990c:489) concludes that they are nominal locatives, as doesFleming (1990:519) in his description of Dime, even though these expressions are of the sametypes in the languages considered.


(7a) Finnishinternal local cases:talossa houseINE ‘in a/the house’talosta houseELA ‘from a/the house’taloon houseILL ‘into a/the house’

(7b) Finnishexternal local cases:talolla houseADE ‘at/on a/the house’talolta houseABL ‘from (outside of) a/the house’talolle houseALL ‘to (the outside of) a/the house’

A metonymic intermediate phase (as in 6a) is not absolutely necessary for alocative expression incorporating a term for part of an entity (see 8a) that isused in describing contact and separation (8b) consistent with stages 3 and 4 ofHeine’s (1997a:44) model. As can be seen from examples (8c) and (8d), Finnish locative expressions describing separation with the aid of the internal andexternal local cases are also formed from nouns other than grammaticalizedbodypart names. This shows that the expression of locative separation is predominantly a property of the form of the local case and cannot be interpreteddirectly as a sign of grammaticalization. Only in those instances in which thelocal case form can be given two distinct locative interpretations is it possibleto differentiate the effect of the local case from a grammaticalization processinvolving it, as in example (18) in Section 2.3.

(8a) Finnish (PS, s.v. kuve)uunin kuvestoveGEN flank“side of a/the stove”

(8b) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 1856)Hän askarteli leivinuunin kupeessa3SG workPST+3SG baking.ovenGEN flankINE

höyläpenkin äärellä …planing.benchGEN closeADE

“(S)he was busy working at the planing bench next to the baking oven.”

TONI SUUTARI108

(8c) Finnish (CSC/Karjalainen 1993)

… kuningatar Silvia perheineen näyttäytyiqueen Silvia family.with appearPST+3SG

linnan ikkunassa.palaceGEN windowINE

“… Queen Silvia and her family made an appearance at the palace window”

(8d) Finnish (CSC/Keskisuomalainen 1999)

Ennen tarkastajaa melkein odotettiinbefore inspectorPTV almost waitPASS+PST

rivissä ovella.rowINE doorADE

“In those days one almost waited for the inspector in a queue at thedoor.”

In locative phrases the internal local case forms often express contact (9a) andthe external local case forms separation (9b), but are to some extent synonymous (10), with the context ultimately determining the exact interpretation.The meaning is also fundamentally affected by different conventionalizations,and also by the distribution of the functions of the case expressions and locative clauses. Notwithstanding the role of the local cases in Finnish, the basicrelationship between bodypart based locative phrases and spatial proximity isof course founded on bodypart metaphor and metonymy (illustrated in 6a).

(9a) Finnish (fabricated)Poika nojaa uunin kupeeseen. (contact)boy lean3SG stoveGEN flankILL“The boy is leaning against the stove.”

(9b) Finnish (fabricated)Poika kävelee uunin kupeelle. (separation)boy walk3SG stoveGEN flankALL“The boy is walking to the side of the stove.”


(10) Finnish (PS, s.v. kuve)ankkuroida saaren kupeeseen ~ kupeelleanchorINF islandGEN flankILL flankALL“To cast the anchor close to an island.”

The locatives examined above (in 1b, 8b, 9a–b and 10) are composed oftwo nouns, and the expressions they form do not differ grammatically or semantically from noun phrases to the extent that they could be clearly considered adpositional phrases, for instance. The most important of the grammaticalcriteria is inflection: in addition to the nominative and local cases the othercases are also possible (11). Furthermore, such phrases can also take modifiers(12a, 12b). The most important semantic criterion is a clear metaphorical connection with the meaning of the body part: expressions can be described in thesame way as the Mixtec ha?a žúnu ‘at the foot of the tree’ (6a, 6b).

If a locative expression that has developed from a bodypart name cannot be distinguished syntactically or semantically from other similar constructions composed of locative expressions that are formed from two nouns (13,14), the most obvious solution is to interpret these bodypart names as nouns inthis type of construction.

(11) Finnish (PS, s.v. kuve)nousta mäen kuvettaascendINF hillGEN flankPTV“to climb along the flank of the hill”

(12a) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 852)… alkoi hakata reikää kelon kupeeseen. startPST+3SG cutINF holePTV dead.treeGEN flankILL

“… ((s)he) started to cut a hole in the side of the dead tree.”

(12b) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 852, modified)… alkoi hakata reikää startPST+3SG cutINF holePTV

kelon harmaaseen kupeeseen.dead.treeGEN greyILL flankILL

“… ((s)he) started to cut a hole in the grey side of the dead tree.”

TONI SUUTARI110

(13) Finnish (fabricated)Pellon reunassa = Pellon poskessa on kiviä.fieldGEN edgeINE fieldGEN cheekINE be+3SG stonePL+PTV“There are stones at the edge of the field.”

(14) Finnish (fabricated)Puun oksalla on lintu.treeGEN branchADE be+3SG bird

“There is a bird sitting on the branch of the tree.”

(Cf. Puun kyljessä on oksa.)treeGEN flankINE be+3SG branch“There is a branch at the side of the tree.”)

In the examples so far, I have considered the Finnish words poski‘cheek’and kuve ‘flank’. Other Finnish bodypart names serving a similarlocative function are nenä ‘nose’(15a), suu ‘mouth’ (15b), niska ‘back of theneck’ (15c), kaula ‘neck’ (15d) and selkä ‘back’(15e) and to some extent alsokylki ‘flank, side’and korva ‘ear’ (see 2.3). All these primary bodypart namesare used in locative expressions. Anthropocentric (or in some cases zoocentric)conceptualization behind these locatives is metaphorically based on the shapeof the body part and on its spatial relation.

(15a) Finnish (Bible 1992: Proverbs 23:34)Olet kuin aalloilla keskellä merta,

be2SG like wavePLADE middleADE seaPTV

kuin maston nenässä mainingeilla. like mastGEN noseINE rollerPLADE

“You are as if on the waves in the middle of the sea, at the top of a mastin the swell.”

(15b) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 748)… iso kivi vyörytetään luolan suulle …

big stone rollPASS caveGEN mouthALL“… a big stone will be rolled to the entrance of the cave … ”

(15c) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 951)Kaksi nuorta herrasmiestä hinasi siellätwo youngPTV gentlemanPTV towPST+3SG there


venettä kosken niskaan.boatPTV torrentGEN neckILL

“There two young gentleman towed a boat to the head of the rapids.”

(15d) Finnish (fabricated)Pullon kaulassa on pieni etiketti.bottleGEN neckINE be+3SG small label“There is a small label on the neck of the bottle.”

(15e) Finnish (MA/Uukuniemi)otettii àejjan selältätakePASS+PST fenceGEN backABL

ja sitte vanhol'ta kattolòelta karpèita and then oldPL+ABL roofPLABL lichenPLPTV

“Pieces of lichen were picked off the top of a fence and some oldroofs.”

As we have seen, many Finnish locative phrases that include bodypartnames are simple nominal phrases formed from two nouns, one a modifier andthe other its head. There are, however, also certain types of locative expressionin Finnish which must be analysed as grammaticalized adpositions.

2.3. Finnish grammaticalized adpositionsOjutkangas (2001) has studied such Finnish bodypart names as kuve

‘flank’, kylki ‘flank, side’ and korva ‘ear’. She regards locative expressions thathave developed from bodypart names as grammaticalized adpositions, as hasbeen the tradition up to now in research on Finnish (e.g. Ojutkangas 2001:233–234). In fact, kylki and korva differ from the bodypart names examined in 2.2above in that, not only can concrete locative expressions (16a, 16b) be formedwith them, but also more abstract ones (17a, 17b). Abstraction is a sign ofgrammaticalization, and so interpreting these expressions as adpositions appears justified.

(16a) Finnish (CSC/Turun Sanomat 1999)Hiljainen käpytikka ahertaa puun kylkeenquiet woodpecker toil3SG treeGEN flankILL

vyötetyn läskin kimpussa. girdPST+PTCPGEN fatGEN withINE

“A quiet woodpecker is toiling away at some fat strapped to the tree.”

TONI SUUTARI112

(16b) Finnish (CSC/Karjalainen 1998)

Nyt Tuuloksen sillan korvassa istuvat maalarimiehetnow TuulosGEN bridgeGEN earINE sit3PL painterPL

rauhallisesti tupakalla … peacefully tobaccoADE

“The painters are now sitting peacefully smoking at the end of Tuulosbridge… ”

(17a) Finnish (CSC/Turun Sanomat 1998)

… Israelin kylkeen on syntymässä uusi arabivaltio. IsraelGEN flankILL be+3SG bornINFINE new Arab.state“A new Arab state is being born alongside Israel.”

(17b) Finnish (CSC/Karjalainen 1993)

Mainos saa ensiiltansa syksyn korvalla,advertisement get+3SG premiere3SGPX autumnGEN earADE

elokuussa.AugustINE

“The advertisement will get its premiere at the beginning of the autumn,in August.”

In examples (17a) and (17b) the expressions incorporating a bodypart nameform a fixed entity which cannot be given a modifier and which can only appear in internal or external local cases, and therefore *Israelin kylki [IsraelGEN flank+NOM] and *syksyn korva [autumnGEN ear+NOM], for example,are impossible. Under these circumstances the bodypart names occurring inthese expressions have lost their connection with the noun and function as independent grammatical units. It is another question as to whether these formsshould be interpreted in their contexts, in which case the bodypart expressionin examples (16a) and (16b) would be interpreted as noun phrases and thebodypart examples (17a) and (17b) as adpositional phrases.

According to Ojutkangas (2001:67, 201–202), the difference betweennominal or lexical (16) and adpositional (17) use may be based on the metonymic change ‘part’ > ‘space around a part’. Ojutkangas (2001:67) makes thefollowing assertion:


When there can be no question of contact between the aforementioned referents, the meaning of the word being grammaticalized as a spatial postpositionor adverb has clearly shifted away from the area of concrete, lexical meaning.This is why metonymy is important. The loosening of contact is, nevertheless,only a tendency, a contextdependent condition for the grammatical status ofsome words. Contact is not in itself an obstacle to grammaticalization.

As is evident from the previous paragraphs, my own conception is slightly different. I consider the expression of contact and its absence as, above all, aproperty of the noun and the local cases. Furthermore, I believe that the contexthas a significant effect on this. Quite often it is not a metonymic change ofmeaning that is behind a lack of the expression of contact, but either a meaningcreated by the local case (9b) or an interpretation invited by the context (8b,13). On the other hand, evaluating contact in abstract clauses seems awkwardand too dependent on the descriptive model (17b). For this reason I have endeavoured to evaluate the grammaticalization of locative expressions in aslightly different way.

Nevertheless, it is true that in some cases the pattern ‘part’ > ‘spacearound a part’ distinguishes nominal from adpositional use. A good example isthe Finnish word rinta ‘chest, breast’, discussed by Ojutkangas (2001). Theexternal case forms of the noun denote contact with or very close proximity to,i.e. they describe a ‘part’ in a fixed sense. Adpositional forms of the externalcase, on the other hand, are used with the meaning of ‘beside’, i.e. to conveythe meaning ‘space around a part’. Some expressions can be interpreted bothnominally and adpositionally (18).

(18) Finnish (fabricated)Lapsi nukkuu äidin rinnalla.child sleep3SG motherGEN chest/breastADE“The child is sleeping in its mother’s breast ~ lap ~ arms.” (nominal)

“The child is sleeping beside its mother.” (adpositional)

The origin of the locative sense of the word rinta may be either zoomorphic oranthropomorphic. According to Ojutkangas, the setting may be the harnessingof animals side by side or people being abreast and moving. A child being inthe lap of its mother could also have affected the inception of the meaning‘side, border’. (Ojutkangas 2001:221–222.)

The word rinta differs from the previously mentioned bodypart namesin that it has no metaphorical use attached to it at all. In Finnish only humansand animals have chests and breasts, with the exception of a very few lexicalfossilizations (PS, s.v. rinta). It is possible to discern the meaning of the bodypart in those expressions in which the focus of the description of a location hasbeen a living being. Against such a setting, these expressions often reflect amodel in which there is existence or movement side by side (19a). The fact that

TONI SUUTARI114

the entities of such expressions in the study material are usually inanimate canbe considered evidence of clear grammaticalization of the external local caseforms of the word rinta (19b).

(19a) Finnish (CSC/Keskisuomalainen 1999)Kaikki halusivat kuvauttaa itsensäall wantPST3PL photographINF self3PX

joulupukin rinnalla …Santa.ClausGEN chest/breastADE

“Everybody wanted to have their photograph taken beside SantaClaus… ”

(19b) Finnish (CSC/Turun Sanomat 1998)Uuden nimen ja liikemerkin rinnallanewGEN nameGEN and logoGEN chest/breastADE

säilyvät silti vanhat nimet. stay3PL still oldPL namePL

“The old names will nevertheless be retained alongside the new nameand logo.”

Inanimate entities cannot be delineated with the help of a prototypical metaphor. For example, *nimen rinta [nameGEN chest/breast+NOM] and*liikemerkin rinta [logoGEN chest/breast+NOM] (19b) are not possible. Forthis reason the metonymic change ‘part’ > ‘space around a part’ has beenadapted to describe only expressions connected with animate beings (19a), andit is from these types of expression that the grammaticalization of the wordrinta has occurred. Later development and use must be described differently.Forms of the word rinta used adpositionally are grammatical units which havelost their connection with the meaning of the body part. They function as completely grammaticalized adpositions with the meaning ‘beside’: rinnalla ‘beside’, rinnalta ‘from beside’ and rinnalle ‘beside’ (lit. to(wards) beside).

2.4. Distribution into locatives and adpositionsFollowing from 2.2. and 2.3. above, the Finnish locative expressions

that include bodypart names can be categorized as belonging to one of twotypes, locatives (nominal forms indicating place) and adpositions (postpositions). Locative phrases are formed from two nouns, one a modifier and theother its head, and the expressions are based on a “prototypical” metaphor,‘body part’ > ‘part of an inanimate phenomenon’. They are used in the same


way as other similar types of noun phrase, e.g. leivinuunin kupeessa [baking.ovenGEN flankINE] ‘next to the baking oven’ ~ linnan ikkunassa [palaceGEN windowINE] ‘at the palace window’ (8a–d). Locative meaningsresult from the influence of the local cases and the context. Temporal constructions, for example, can develop from locative expressions, e.g. syksyn korvalla [autumnGEN earADE] ‘at the beginning of the autumn’ (17b), and abstract “manifold” metaphors emerge. At this point the connection with themeaning of a concrete body part disappears and the expression becomes moreadpositional.

Adpositions have become grammaticalized directly from the meaningof the body part with the aid of metonymy, but without being influenced by the“prototypical” metaphor ‘body part’ > ‘part of an inanimate phenomenon’.Having been related to the body part, the meaning of place is extended metonymically from contact to separation, and the expression based on the bodypart name has expanded directly to become a grammatical unit in other contexts, too, e.g. uuden nimen ... rinnalla [newGEN nameGEN chest/breastINE] ‘alongside the new name’ (19b).

Adpositions that can be traced to bodypart names may emerge in twoways (directly from the meaning of the body part without the metaphoricaldevelopment ‘body part’ > ‘part of an inanimate phenomenon’ (19b), or fromlocative expressions through the development of a “manifold” metaphor (17b)),but because adpositions are synchronically the same despite their origin, theirdivision into different categories does not appear to be necessary.

Even though the ways in which locatives and adpositions have emergedcan be determined using the concept of the “prototypical” metaphor, the effectof the “abstract” metaphor (e.g. location > time) is common to all grammaticalized forms.

3. Secondary bodypart namesGrammatical units with the meaning ‘above’ are often mentioned as

being based on nouns referring to the head, a peak, the back, the face or the sky(e.g. Svorou 1994:252–253; Heine 1997a:40–42). Among such bodypartnames, Svorou also mentions the Finnish word pää with the meaning ‘head,top’. The third widely used meaning of pää, ‘beginning/end’, was not mentioned, nor was further consideration given to the meanings of ‘head’ or ‘top’.These meanings are examined more closely below.

3.1. Finnish pää ‘head’Besides the multiple meanings of the nominal pää, the great variety of

uses of its grammaticalized forms deserve closer attention. The grammaticalized external local case forms päällä (lit. ‘on the head’; adessive, stationary),päältä (lit. ‘off the head’; ablative, movement away), päälle (lit. ‘to/onto thehead’; allative, movement towards) refer to actual location above (20), al

TONI SUUTARI116

though also on the (top) surface (21) of something. This use is not limited tospecial relations vertically perceived, but has been widely extended to variousabstract expressions (22).

(20) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 975)Kuin valkeat aaveet liitelivät lokitlike whitePL ghostPL soarPST3PL gullPL

järven päällä …lakeGEN headADE

“Like white ghosts the gulls were gliding above the lake … ”

(21) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2521)… pani sitten kalat perunoiden päälle … putPST+3SG then fishPL potatoPLGEN headALL“… then (s)he put the fish on top of the potatoes … ”

(22) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2888, shortened)Ihminen mielellään kävelisi … järven rannallahuman willingly walkCOND+3SG lakeGEN shoreADE

työpäivän päälle … working.dayGEN headALL

“Anyone would gladly take a walk … along the shore of a lake at theend of a working day … ”

The internal local case forms päässä (inessive), päästä (elative),päähän (illative) are used locatively (23) and abstractly (24a, 24b), describinghorizontal rather than vertical perception. With the exception of expressions oftime (24a), journey and place (24b), the internal case forms are nominal locatives, not grammaticalized adpositions.

The meaning of pää as ‘beginning/end’ is pivotal: for example, indialectal texts the use of the noun pää in the sense of a body part is much lessfrequent than with the meaning ‘beginning/end’. Those objects that have aknoblike part may be referred to using bodypart metaphors. Generally,though, the ‘beginning’ or ‘end’ of any long object can be referred to as pää.For instance, a table or house with a rectangular form has two “heads” (pöydänpää ‘the end of the table’, talon pää ‘the end of the house’) as has, say, anelongated lake (järven pää), field (pellon pää) or marsh (suon pää). Similarly,there is a “beginning” and an “end” to, for instance, a road (tien pää), a stick(kepin pää) or a sausage (makkaran pää). In some cases pää can mean an ‘ex


tremity’. When an internal local case expression is formed from these types ofnominal phrase, it does, nevertheless, take on a locative meaning but is nomore grammatical than any other nominal phrase of the same form (25).

(23) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2498, shortened)… näkivät he Pylkkäsen … paistavan kaloja

sawPST3PL 3PL PylkkänenGEN grillPTCP fishPLPTV

kepin päässä.stickGEN headINE

“… they saw Pylkkänen … grilling fish on the end of a stick.”

(24a) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 526)Neljännestunnin päästä Selmi tuli taasquarter.hourGEN headELA Selmi comePST+3SG again

mummoa katsomaan …old.womanPTV seeINF

“After a quarter of an hour Selmi came again to see the old woman … ”

(24b) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2510)… Konsta lähti soutamaan kauppaan

Konsta goPST+3SG rowINF shopILL

parin kilometrin päähän …coupleGEN kilometreGEN headILL

“… Konsta rowed off to the shop a couple of kilometres away … ”

(25) Finnish (fabricated)Järven päässä on vene.lakeGEN headINE be+3SG boat“There is a boat at the end of the lake.”

(Cf. Järven rannassa on vene.)lakeGEN shoreINE be+3SG boat“There is a boat on the shore of the lake.”

Locative expressions that include the word pää (23) look the same as the locatives considered earlier that developed metaphorically from bodypart names.Just as inanimate items can have a “side”, “flank”, “cheek” or “nose”, they can

TONI SUUTARI118

also have a “head”. Interestingly, in these locative expressions, pää is used todescribe an entity that is perceived horizontally (such as the lake in example25). One possible explanation for this could be a zoomorphic conception, because in fact the body of a domesticated animal (cow, horse, pig, etc.) may bethought of as horizontal, in that the head comes first and then the rest of thebody. However, an etymological analysis shows that in some cases the development has taken place in the opposite direction, so that the body part meaningis secondary.

3.2. Secondary ‘heads’In the Finnic languages (i.e. Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Vote, Veps,

Livonian and Lude), the word meaning ‘head’ as a body part dates back toProtoFinnoUgrian (ca. 4000 BC). Its protoform has been reconstructed as*pä e and its meaning as ‘head’. Two other words that originally meant ‘head’as a body part have also been reconstructed in ProtoFinnoUgrian, namely*ojwa and *uk3 ~ *ok3. (Janhunen 1981; Sammallahti 1988; UEW.)

The abundance of words meaning ‘head’ in ProtoFinnoUgrian isexceptional, and no explanation has been offered for this. It does, however,lead to doubt about the original meanings of these bodypart names. Althoughthe idea that bodypart names are typically old and stable in meaning (Häkkinen 1983:31, 2001:173–174; Kulonen 1996:12–14; UEW) has long dominatedthinking in FinnoUgrian studies and in linguistics generally, it is indisputablethat in etymological studies on a number of other language families, manybodypart names have been shown to be secondary in origin. Consider e.g.Buck (1965:212):

Words for ‘head’ are from the notion of ‘top, summit’ (as conversely often‘head’ for ‘top’), or through ‘skull’ from ‘bowl, cup’, ‘potsherd’, or ‘bald’. Noaccount is taken of the countless slang words for ‘head’ (NE bean, nut, etc.),[– –]

For example, the Italian and Spanish testa and French tête go back to the Latinword meaning ‘pot’ (Buck 1965:212–213), and the German Kopf, for its part,to the word meaning ‘drinkingcup, skull’ (EWdS s.v. Kopf; see also Campbell1998:182–183).

There are also a number of secondary anatomical names for ‘head’ inthe FinnoUgrian languages. In Mordvin, a close relative of the Finnic languages, the name for ‘head’ is a, ä. This word is native to Mordvin and canbe traced to a ProtoFinnoUgrian form *perä. Cognates in other related languages mean ‘back’, ‘rear’. Therefore, it is very likely that Mordvin a, ämeaning anatomical ‘head’ is a secondary development. This is a widely accepted etymological conclusion (see e.g. UEW). The Udmurt jir and Komi jur,which similarly mean ‘head’ as a body part, are also secondary, having developed from the FinnoVolgaic word *jure which means ‘root, end of a root’.


Cognates in related languages, e.g. in Finnic languages, have retained thisoriginal meaning. (See also Suutari 2004:253–258.)

The words *perä and *jure both refer to an entity or location (i.e. anend of some sort), leading directly to locative expressions. For example, themodern Finnish words perä ‘back, rear’ and juuri ‘root’ are used in the sameway as the body parts dealt with in the previous chapter. Thus, the local caseforms have retained their nominal character (26). Because these notions arebased on metaphor in general, it is only possible to form locative expressionsfrom those nouns which have an “end” (perä) or “root” (juuri), although thereare a few exceptions (27). The development is at the same stage as that for theword kylki ‘flank, side’: the expression of locativeness in some instances hasbecome divorced from the metaphorical base to become purely grammatical.

(26) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2129)Konsta irrotti soutuveneenK. removePST+3SG rowing.boatACC

moottoriveneen perästä …motor.boatGEN rearELA

“Konsta untied the rowing boat from the stern of the motor boat … ”

(27) Finnish (PS, s.v. juuri)puun juuri : puun juurellatreeGEN root treeGEN rootADE“root of a tree” : “at the root of a tree”

> *tunturin juuri : tunturin juurella *fjeldGEN root fjeldGEN rootADE> “foot of an Arctic fell” : “at the foot of an Arctic fell”

It is my opinion that the use of the words *perä and *juuri in different FinnoUgrian languages, and especially the development in Mordvin, Udmurt andKomi, suggests that these words have never been, even at the start, wholly concrete or strictly limited in their meaning (28a); rather, they are more abstractand metaphorically extended expressions used in relation to a place (28b). Forthis reason the development ‘part’ > ‘space around a part’ does not necessarilydescribe the historical development accurately. Because the Finnish perä alsohas the bodypart meaning of ‘buttocks’, Heine’s (1997a:44) model (3) couldbe applied here inversely (‘space around a part’ > ‘part’ > ‘body part’), eventhough the starting point is not a concrete noun referring to a type of location,which is assumed by Heine to be the case for this kind of development.

TONI SUUTARI120

(28a) Finnish (fabricated)Mies istuu veneen perässä.man sit3SG boatGEN bottomINE“A man is sitting at the stern of the boat.”

(28b) Finnish (fabricated)Mies ui veneen perässä.man swim+3SG boatGEN rearINE“A man is swimming behind the boat.”

Actually, like the words *perä and *jure, the word *pä e, which is also original rather than borrowed and can be reconstructed in ProtoFinnoUgrian, appears to have originally been a relational noun and not a bodypart name. Allthree words are so close semantically that the same type of semantic development appears to underlie them, and Heine’s (1997a:44) model of the change ofmeaning can be applied quite well.

It is only in Karelian and Hungarian that cognates of the Finnish päähave the meaning of both a body part and ‘beginning/end’. In Mordvin (pe,pä), Udmurt (pu , pum) and Komi (pon, pom) the meaning of the cognateforms is simply ‘beginning/end’ or ‘point’, whereas Mansi (pä , pä k, pu k)only has the bodypart meaning. Overall, the meaning ‘beginning/end’ is morecommonly represented across the FinnoUgrian languages than ‘head’ as abody part, and so there is reason to believe that ‘beginning/end’ was its originalmeaning.

The Samic languages are fairly close relatives of Finnic. In these languages the anatomical word for ‘head’ is oai/ve, oai/vi, etc., which comes from*oiva. This word is an excellent candidate for the original FinnoUgrian wordmeaning ‘head’ as body part, because there is no suggestion that the body partmight be secondary in its etymology.4 Using the traditional theory, with whichseveral distinct words for ‘head’ (body part) were reconstructed, it would benecessary to explain how *pä e and *oiwa could have been retained as synonyms from the time of the ProtoUgrian language up to Early ProtoFinnic, atwhich time the Finnic and Samic languages began to diverge.

Mordvin raises another problem: if it were assumed that the meaning ofthe word *pä e ‘beginning/end’ is secondary, then two similar types of development in Mordvin ought to be considered as having occurred side by side, one

4 The fundamental meaning of the word is ‘head’ (body part) in almost all languages in whichcognates are found. There are no indications of a secondary meaning. There is an irregulardistribution, but it is found widely across the whole range of languages in the family fromSamic to Samoyedic. A number of relics of *ojwa have survived even in the Finnic languages.These are metonymically connected to the meaning of the body part (Finnish oiva(llinen)‘excellent’and oivaltaa ‘grasp, perceive’). Because the phonological and semantic relations fitperfectly, the irregularity of distribution need not be considered a factor causing uncertainty.(See also Suutari 2004:253–258.)


in which the name for the body part developed into a locative expression, andthe other in which the bodypart name developed from a locative expression(*perä: ‘back/end’ > ‘head’). If, on the other hand, we assume that the meaning‘beginning/end’ is primary, there is no need to reconstruct these two types ofdevelopment, and the whole explanation is more plausible.

3.3. From the abstract to the concreteThe figure below (29) illustrates the assumed development of the word

*pä e from a locative expression to a body part. What is essential is the concretization of abstraction and the extension of the configuration from horizontalto vertical. The reason why the head, of all body parts, gets a new expression isthat its position and form make it the most conspicuous part of the body and itis important as the centre of the senses and intelligence. Moreover, its nameshould have significance and semantic “weight”. This motivation for differentiating the head from the rest of the body is evident in colloquial Finnish,which has plenty of parallels for ‘head’ that are based on either shape (kaali‘cabbage’, nuppi ‘knob’) or position (latva ‘tree top’, vintti ‘loft’).

The development of the Mordvin word a, ä from *perä could bedescribed in a similar way. In stage 1 ‘back/end’ reflects one or the other of thetwo ‘heads’ (extremities) of an entity. Together with concretization, the perception is moved from horizontal to vertical. Finally the horizontal perceptionvanishes, because in Mordvin *pä e remains unaltered with the meaning of‘beginning/end’. The development of the word *jure in Udmurt and Komi,however, continues to be perceived as vertical, but shifts from lower head toupper head.

(29) ‘beginning/end’ > ‘head’

The background to the change in perception illustrated above could bethat for many entities — for instance a stick — there is no canonical position,even though they have clearly distinguishable beginnings and ends. If theabove figure (29) is compared with Heine’s (1997a:44) reversed model fordistinguishing the meanings of change (3), the similarity is clear. Abstract expressions of spatial relations can evidently be developed along the same linesas concrete names for types of place or environmental landmarks (e.g. sky).

Although following the above, it is possible to explain the Finnish internal local case forms of päässä (inessive; ‘at the beginning/end’), päästä (ela

TONI SUUTARI122

tive; ‘from the beginning/end’), päähän (illative; ‘in(to) the beginning/end’)and at the same time prove that the meaning of the bodypart name pää is secondary, the development of the external local case forms of the root pää stillremains to be considered. These forms (päällä, päältä, päälle) can be explained by applying a vertical meaning. The human body is one possiblesource, but other vertically conceived “heads” could just as well be behindsuch conceptions. It is more likely, however, that grammaticalization started tooccur from those expressions in which the location of or contact with the surface of the head of an object was illustrated (30a). This was followed by a development in which the meaning of location on the ‘upper surface’ shifted tothe meaning of ‘above’ (30b). This type of development is generally associatedwith grammaticalization, although it can also result from the use of the localcases and from the context. It is thus possible to express contact with an uppersurface using the internal local cases, and looser contact or even separationusing the external local cases (30a).

(30a) Finnish (fabricated)kannon päästumpGEN head“head of a stump”

> Eväät ovat kannon päässä ~ päällä. provisionsPL be3PL stumpGEN headINE headADE> “Lunch is on top of the tree stump.”

(30b) Finnish (fabricated)Perhonen lentelee kannon päällä.butterfly fly.around3SG stumpGEN headADE“The butterfly is fluttering around the stump.”

The grammatical nature of the external local case forms päällä, päältä, päälleis shown by the fact that they can be used freely in vertically based meaningswith the noun pää (31a) or with objects having a horizontal “head” (31b). Forthis reason these expressions cannot be thought of as metaphors; rather, theyare independent grammatical units that have become detached from their original stem.

(31a) Finnish (SCLOMB/Buris 3614)Pääni päällä olevat männynoksathead1SGPX headADE bePTCPPL pine.branchPL

eivät enää suojanneet sateelta.NEG3PL more protect rainABL


“The pine branches above my head no longer protected me from therain.”

(31b) Finnish (fabricated)Älä seiso köyden päälläNEG+IMP+2SG stand ropeGEN headADE“Don’t stand on the rope!”

(Cf. köyden pää : köyden päässä)ropeGEN head ropeGEN headINE

(Cf. “end of a rope” : “at the end of the rope”)

3.4. Estonian pea ‘head’The external local case forms of the Estonian word pea ‘head’, i.e. peal,

pealt and peale, have also been grammaticalized. It is interesting to observethat the meaning ‘above’ has partly shifted back to the expression of contact(32a, 32b). In some expressions a dimensional perception has been neutralizedto become a common expression for nearby location (2b). This developmenthas resulted from a general analytical tendency in Estonian and has led to adpositional expressions extending their domain into the area of case expressions.As the meaning of grammatical forms with the stem pea have changed, newadpositions have been adopted to convey the meaning of being ‘above’. Thus,the whole case and adpositional system is developing (as shown in 33) in avery different way from that of Finnish, which is developing more slowly intypological terms.

(32a) Finnishpöydän päällä [tableGEN headADE] ‘above the table’

(or ‘on the table’)pöydän päältä [tableGEN headABL] ‘from above the table’

(or ‘off the table’)pöydän päälle [tableGEN headALL] ‘above the table’

(or ‘on(to) the table’)(32b) Estonian

laua peal [table+GEN headADE] ‘on the table’laua pealt [table+GEN headABL] ‘off the table’laua peale [table+GEN headALL] ‘on(to) the table’

TONI SUUTARI124

(33)

The influence of foreign languages, particularly German, is behind the changes(33) in modern Estonian. Foreign languages also influenced the Finnish writtenlanguage in its early stages in the 1500s and 1600s, although not many suchfeatures had a major influence, because most of the writers were either Finnishspeakers or very competent in Finnish. The biggest influence came fromSwedish, because Finland was a part of Sweden until the beginning of the 19thcentury. In Estonia, on the other hand, the influence of the German upper classwas very powerful until the end of the 1800s. At the beginning of the 1900sEstonian linguistic reform sought to rid the language of foreign influence. InFinland the corresponding phase took place a little earlier, towards the end ofthe 1800s. If the usage of external local cases of the päästem is examined inStandard Finnish and Standard Estonian texts, the development describedabove is revealed in a concrete manner (34).

Ge. auf,Sw. på,En. on

etc.

Ge. über,Sw. över,En. over

etc.

Finnic localcases Fi. pääl,

Es. peal


etc.


etc.

Es. localcases

Es. peal

1. Before the significantinfluence of foreign languages 2. Modern Estonian


etc.


etc.

Es. kohal,ül and otheradpositions

3. Estonian in the future (hypothesis)

Es. peal

Es. kohal, üland otheradpositions

Es. local cases


(34) ‘Head’ forms (adessive, ablative, allative) in Finnish and Estonian

012345678

1500 1600 1700 1800 1900

centuries

freq

uenc

ies

(per

thou

sand

)

Finnish Estonian

There seems to be little difference between Finnish and Estonian in the presentday situation indicated in the above figure. In reality, however the use of theseexternal case ‘head’ forms in Estonian is about four times more common thanin Finnish, and the use of these forms in the two languages has, in the course oftime, diverged quite considerably. The native and the foreign became entwinedin the course of this development. In both Finnish and Estonian, the foreigninfluence appears to be due to a borrowed model that has started to have itsown life. For example, in Estonian many new analytical structures have beengenerated as part of that language’s internal development.

3.5. Estonian ots ‘forehead’Internal local case forms with the word pea ‘head’ are not used in Esto

nian with locative meanings, and nor does the noun pea have a ‘beginning/end’meaning. However, the word ots, which means ‘forehead’, is also used for themeaning ‘beginning/end’. As explained below, this word presents yet anotherinteresting case of the grammaticalization of bodypart names.

There is a cognate meaning ‘forehead’ in all of the Finnic languageswhich is perhaps a German loan (Koivulehto 1999 [1986]:253; 1999:272).Etymological problems have been increased by differentiation: in Estonian andVote the cognates clearly mean ‘beginning/end’ as well as being the names forbody parts, but in the other Finnic languages including Finnish, the meaning isrestricted to this body part and particularly the front of the head.5 According to

5 As I mentioned above, the best candidate for the original FinnoUgrian word meaning theanatomic ‘head’ is *ojwa. Cognates in the Samic languages, closely related to the Finniclanguages, are still used with the meaning of a body part. There are also clear signs of theword’s origin in Finnish, which is not the case in the other Finnic languages. Perhaps, then, it is

TONI SUUTARI126

Koivulehto, both meanings, i.e. ‘forehead’ and ‘beginning/end’, may be borrowed (see also IEW:48–50; EWdS, s.v. Ende).

The Estonian word ots has become highly grammaticalized. Theadpositions otsas, otsast, otsa in inner local cases (35b) and otsani in the terminative case are used for the most part in the same way as the Finnish formspäässä, päästä, päähän (35a).

(35a) Finnish (SCLOMB/Havu 2459)… järven toisessa päässä … lakeGEN anotherINE headINE“… at the other end of the lake … ”

(35b) Estonian (SCLOMB/Havu 2459)… järve teisest otsast … lake+GEN anotherELA foreheadELA“… at the other end of the lake … ”

Nowadays the meaning of Estonian ots is close to the position of theFinnish word pää, because it has also moved from a horizontal delineation to avertical one (36). The development was exactly the same as that for *pä e (29).However, ots has been given a secondary meaning of ‘head’ in some expressions (37a, 37b), it could be that ots displaced the earlier secondary name foranatomical ‘head’, pea.

(36) Estonian (SCLOMB/Havu 2166)Kuuse otsas kepsles vaskpunane orav.spruce+GEN foreheadINE strugglePST+3SG copper.red squirrel“A copperbrown squirrel was moving around in the top of a fir tree.”

(37a) Estonian (EKI, Haljala)Pea otsas kui kadaka poesas.head foreheadINE like juniper bushLit. “Head on top (of body) like a juniper bush.” (i.e. “hair awry”)

(37b) Estonian (ÕS 1999:538)Pühib otsa eest higi.wipe3SG forehead+GEN frontELA sweat+PTV“(S)he wiped the sweat off her/his forehead.”

in the northern areas of the Baltic Sea region that the semantic separation continued for alonger period, where *ojwa meant ‘head’ as a body part and *pä e ‘beginning/end’. Where*pä e began to replace the word *ojwa for the meaning of the body part, a need may havearisen to reduce polysemy and give a new word ots the meaning of ‘beginning/end’.


It is not necessary to describe the grammaticalization process of theword ots by means of the bodypart meaning ‘forehead’. Instead, its grammaticalization is based on the spatial meaning ‘beginning/end’ and is much thesame as for the words *perä (‘back, rear’ > Mordvin ‘head’), *jure (‘(end of ) aroot’ > Udmurt and Komi ‘head’) and *pä e (‘beginning/end’ > Finnic ‘head’).

4. ConclusionI have examined grammaticalization through individual cases and have

endeavoured to give a detailed presentation of developments in which progresshas occurred from an abstract meaning to a more concrete (bodypart) meaning. A bodypart name cannot always be separated from the meaning of a partof an object; rather, their meanings may run in parallel. This is typical wherethere exist secondary bodypart names, in which parts of the human body maybe described by means of other concepts. In the same way that a stick or stumphas a ‘head’, so a person has a ‘head’.

Grammaticalized forms have emerged at different stages and in different ways. Even in modern language, expressions have appeared at differenttimes whose origin can only be explained through historical linguistic researchand etymological analysis of the original word. Nevertheless, studies oftenfocus on an “unproblematic and primary” bodypart name and are restricted tosynchronic research. This approach is inadequate, however, because (a) oneshould not attempt to explain everything anthropocentrically, and (b) historicaldevelopment ought to be proven separately in every case.

It is impossible to establish a clear boundary between the nongrammatical and the grammaticalized. A syntacticsemantic model must,nevertheless, be created with which it is at least possible to divide Finnishbodypart stem locative expressions into nominal locatives and grammaticalized adpositions. However, the use of semantic criteria leads to a situation inwhich even the same form may have to be categorized in different ways in different contexts. On the other hand, the model illustrates how the form cameinto existence, i.e. on what kind of notions the forms are based.

My primary objective has been to describe the observations emergingfrom the study material and to discuss these in a wider linguistic context. Itwould appear that in many points of detail my views differ from prevailingconcepts, but the broader basis is, I believe the same. Ultimately, what is important is not whether the features I illustrate fit into the realm of grammaticalization theory, but that their nature and complexity is understood. Indeed,the study reveals interesting details about both the speakers and their conceptualization.

TONI SUUTARI128

DataBible 1992 = Translation of the Bible into Finnish, 1992.Buris = Bels, Albert. Buris. Novel. Estonian and Finnish translation of the Lat

vian original. In SCLOMB.CSC = CSC – Finnish IT Center for Science. The Language Bank of Finland.

(Internet: www.csc.fi/kielipankki/). Helsinki.EKI = Institute of the Estonian Language. Dialectological section.EWdS = Kluge, F. 2002. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache.

Bearbeitet von Elmar Seebold. 24., durchgesehene und erweiterteAuflage. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Havu = Huovinen, Veikko. Havukkaahon ajattelija. Novel. Finnish originaland Estonian translation. In SCLOMB.

IEW = Pokorny, J. 1959, 1969. Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch.Vol. I–II. Bern, München.

Ilu = Luik, Viivi. Ajaloo ilu. Novel. Estonian original and Finnish translation.In SCLOMB.

MA = Morphology Archives. University of Helsinki, Department of Finnish.PS = Suomen kielen perussanakirja 1–3. [Basic dictionary of Finnish 1–3.]

Helsinki: Edita and Research Institute for the Languages of Finland.SCLOMB = Studia comparative linguarum orbis Maris Baltici. Computerized

corpus. Turku: Department of Finnish and General Linguistics.UEW = Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch I–III. Editorinchief Károly

Rédei. Wiesbaden, 1986–1991.ÕS 1999 = Eesti keele sõnaraamat. [Dictionary of Estonian.] Tallinn: Institute

of the Estonian Language and Eesti Keele Sihtasutus, 1999.

ON DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN RECIPIENT AND BENEFICIARYIN FINNISH

SEPPO KITTILÄUniversity of Turku

1. IntroductionThe paper at hand deals with the casemarking aspect of the present

volume. The specific topic is the concept of motion or transfer in relation to theallative case, as used in Finnish to encode the recipient. The role in questionwill be contrasted with the beneficiary, which is in many respects close to therecipient, although differences — as will be shown — are also evident. Features of grammaticalization will also be touched upon, since one of the centralpoints of the paper is to show that the original semantics of antaa ‘give’ arereflected in the allative marking of recipient role. Cases in which the semanticsof ‘give’ are reflected differently will be discussed. Allative is also used extensively in the expression of motion (see Huumo & Ojutkangas, this volume),which makes its use in the Recipient encoding understandable. These otheruses are not relevant to the present paper, and they will thus not be discussed.The goal of the paper is to show that the encoding of Recipient and Beneficiaryis rather directly determined by the corresponding semantic roles of recipientand beneficiary. In practice, this means that the use of the allative marking isconfined to cases that involve reception, while in the absence of it, the markingshifts to Beneficiary.

As has been noted repeatedly by numerous linguists, recipients1 andbeneficiaries have a number of properties in common (see e.g. Shibatani 1996,Song 1998a and Newman 1998:17 and 1999:132ff, Lehmann et al. 2000a:68ff,

1 A note on terminology is in order here. As is typical of studies dealing with thesyntax/semantics interface in terms of argument marking, grammatical roles will be referred toemploying initial capitals. This means that the labels Recipient, Beneficiary, Theme andPatient refer to the linguistic encoding of the corresponding roles. The absence of capitals, onthe other hand, indicates the underlying semantic roles. The labels as such are employed as istypical of functionaltypological literature in general. This means that the agent is theparticipant most directly responsible for the event, ‘theme’ refers to the thing transferred (as in‘the journalist gave the book to the bartender’), recipient is the participant that receives thething transferred, and the beneficiary derives benefit from the event.

SEPPO KITTILÄ130

Leino 2001:73).2 Recipients are usually defined as the participant that receivesan entity transferred to its sphere of control as a result of events like ‘the poetgave the glass to the bartender’, while beneficiaries (or benefactives) are construed as the indirectly affected participant of events like ‘the teacher did thatfor the boy’, in which nothing per se is transferred from agent to the beneficiary. The most salient of these shared properties is that recipients and beneficiaries usually benefit from the actions in which they participate, which is alsothe case in the two events here. Consequently, it does not come as any surprisethat there are languages in which these two semantic roles are expressed bysimilar (though in many cases not identical) constructions. The semantic closeness of the two roles is the most manifest in languages such as Niuean andHokkien Chinese:

Niuean (Seiter 1980:32, 36)(1a) age e fua loku ki a ia

give ABS fruit papaya to PM him“Give him the papaya”

(1b) tunu e au e ika ma sionecook ERG I ABS fish for John“I’m cooking the fish for Sione”

(1c) ne taute e au e pasikala afi ma (ha)anaPST fix ERG I ABS bicycle fire for (of)him“I fixed the motorbike for him”

(1d) ne age e sefa e fua moli ma e tamaPST give ERG Sefa ABS fruit orange for ABS child“Sefa gave the orange to the child”

Hokkien Chinese (Newman 1999:132)(2a) chiat pînkó h goá

cut apple give me“Cut an apple for me”

(2b) papa thàn lúi h goádad earns money give me“Dad earns money for me”

2 The possessivebenefactive connection typical of Oceanic languages, and discussed forexample in Song 1998b and Lichtenberk 2002, will not be considered in the present paper.

ON DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN RECIPIENT AND BENEFICIARY 131

(2c) chhìu koa h goásing song give me“Sing a song for me”

(2d) g§m pînko h goáhold apple give me“Hold the apple for me”

(2e) john khì wellington h goáJohn go Wellington give me“John went to Wellington for me”

Examples in (1a), (1b), (1d) and (2a–b) involve an obvious recipient, while theother examples above rather have a beneficiary (see below for a more detaileddefinition). In Niuean, the verb agi ‘give’ can appear in two frames, illustratedin (1a) and (1d). In (1a) the Recipient is preceded by an adposition that Seiteraccords the meaning ‘to’. In (1d), on the other hand, the Recipient bears thesame marking as a Beneficiary (see (1b) and (1c)). In Hokkien Chinese, theverb h ‘give’ (as part of a serial verb construction) can accommodate all kindsof recipients or beneficiaries, as shown by the data in (2).

Niuean and Hokkien Chinese represent extreme cases as regards thenondistinction between the roles of Recipient and Beneficiary. Either themarking remains the same despite obvious differences between the roles (Hokkien), or the differences are neutralized (Niuean). In addition, there are languages in which the differences between the two roles are manifested linguistically. Finnish, which is the language discussed in what follows, illustrates this;cf.

(3a) opettaja antoi laatikon oppilaalleteacher givePST+3SG boxACC pupilALL“The teacher gave the box to the pupil”

(3b) agronomi ansaitsee rahaa perheelleenagronomist earn PRES+3SG moneyPTV familyALL3PX“The agronomist earns money for his/her family”

(3c) *agronomi katsoi uutiset lääkärilleagronomist watchPST+3SG news doctorALL(Lit. “The agronomist watched the news to the doctor”)

(3d) agronomi katsoi uutiset lääkärin vuoksiagronomist watch PST+3SG news+ACC doctorGEN for“The agronomist watched the news for the sake of the doctor”

SEPPO KITTILÄ132

In Finnish, the allative marking of the Recipient is possible only in (3a) and(3b), i.e. in cases that clearly involve a participant that can be labelled as arecipient. Recipient here refers to a participant that, as the label implies, concretely receives the referent of the Theme (or the event as a whole; see (10)) asa result of a given event. In case there is no reception, as in (3c–d), only theadpositional Beneficiary marking illustrated in (3d) is possible. Example (3c) iscompletely ungrammatical due to lack of reception, while (3d) implies that thedoctor benefits from the event denoted (e.g. s/he does not have to watch thenews him/herself). Examples in (3) represent evident examples of Recipientand Beneficiary.

As the brief discussion above shows, the three languages illustrated in(1) (3) distinguish between the roles of recipient and beneficiary differently. InHokkien Chinese, the distinction is not linguistically relevant at all, whichmeans that both roles bear the same linguistic coding. In Niuean, the differenceis neutralized in some contexts, since the Recipient can be encoded in two different ways, as illustrated in (1a) and (1d). In contrast to Hokkien Chinese,Niuean does, however, have distinct ways of encoding the two roles, as shownin (1a) (1c). In Finnish, the distinction is grammatically highly relevant, andthe notion of reception indeed seems to determine the use of the allative in thefunction of Recipient marking. This means that the allative marking of theRecipient is possible only if the referent of the given argument actually receives something as a result of the event denoted. This is clearly the case in(3a b), but not in (3c d). These languages thus illustrate the obvious similarities (Niuean and Hokkien) as well as the manifest differences (Finnish)between the relevant roles. Both of these aspects merit studies of their own; inthe present context, however, the focus will be on the differences.

The differences illustrated in (1) (3) are also reflected in the way theroles are defined in the literature. The usual procedure, also followed by Seiterand Newman, is to label the linguistic reference to the recipient of the event‘give’ as the Recipient. This is justified, and noone would seriously questionthe fact that the event ‘give’, understood in the typical way as an act whereby aperson passes (with the hands) control over an object to another person (seeNewman 1996:1), involves a recipient (other uses of the verb antaa ‘give’ lieoutside the scope of the present paper). Thus ‘give’ constitutes the best startingpoint here. The grammatical role of Beneficiary/ Benefactive is usually definedas the linguistic representation of the third participant in such cases as ‘thecartoon writer baked a cake for me’ (see e.g. de Stadler 1996:283ff for Afrikaans). Perhaps the most important reason for this is that the linguistic reference to this kind of role is in many languages different from the encoding ofthe Recipient of ‘give’. This is also the case in English, as the differencesbetween the professor gave the book to the dean vs. the professor bought a


book for the dean clearly show.3 This distinction is based primarily on linguistic evidence, and does not do justice to the semantics of the profiled events; inother words, the distinction is not always semantically justified.

In the present paper, the roles of recipient and beneficiary are defineddifferently. As in any other study concerned with the linguistic expression ofreception and/or benefaction, the event ‘give’ is regarded as the canonicalthreeparticipant event.4 An event does not qualify as an act of giving if it lacksa recipient, nor is it possible to define the event without any reference to therecipient. It is, however, true that the presence of a recipient may be very conceptual in nature, as in ‘the postal worker gave away all his/her money’, butwithout a construed recipient the event is not an instance of the event ‘give’.What is also of the utmost importance for transfer in general and especiallywith regard to ‘give’ is that relations of possession or control are being modified. The original state of affairs is that control over the thing being transferredis exercised by the agent; after the act of giving has been completed, controlpasses to the recipient. This also means that the number of things possessed/controlled by the agent decreases by the number of things transferred tothe recipient’s sphere of control (term adopted from Newman 1996:47 andTuggy 1998), who naturally gains the same number of things. This also impliesthat the agent and recipient cannot be coreferential. Further features of ‘give’that can be deemed relevant in the present context are illustrated by the directtargeting of actions at the recipient, and the typically close spatiotemporalrelation between agent and recipient (the latter feature distinguishes between‘give’ and ‘send’). Typical examples of a beneficiary are illustrated by the nonagent or nonpatient participant of events such as ‘X parked the car for Y’ (seealso (2c–e) and (3d)). In this case, ‘Y’ benefits from the profiled event in nothaving to park the car. As opposed to the typical recipient of ‘give’, the beneficiary does not receive anything concrete as a result of the profiled event (forexample the theme is not transferred to the beneficiary), even though the notionof benefaction is evident.

In the present paper, all arguments whose morphosyntactic encodingcoincides with that of the recipient of antaa ‘give’ are regarded as Recipients,whereas any argument (or adjunct) that corresponds to the linguistic expressionof a beneficiary, in such events as ‘one of my parents parked the car for mysibling’, will be labelled Beneficiary. For Finnish, which is the focus of analysis here, this means that all arguments that bear allative marking will be labelled as Recipients. On the other hand, we are dealing with genuine Beneficiaries in Finnish only in cases in which the notion of reception is completelylacking, as in ‘the bus driver drove to AlaVista for the benefit of the child’.

3 Obvious differences arise in English too, if we take account of dative shift.4 Whether the linguistic encoding of ‘give’ can also be regarded as canonical is far less clearand is disputed in the literature (see e.g. Borg and Comrie 1984 and Comrie 2003 vs.Haspelmath 2003, 2005).

SEPPO KITTILÄ134

The Beneficiary bears adpositional marking, as in (3d), for example. It also hasto be stressed that reception often implies benefaction. What is, however,important here is that with ‘give’ and other events involving a recipient, therole of recipient is far more prominent: it determines the marking in Finnish incases where both roles are present (as in ‘the baker baked a cake for his/herchild’). The more backgrounded the role of the recipient, the less grammaticalthe use of the allative becomes. Overt (adpositional) Beneficiary marking isusually possible only if the role of recipient is absent. The distinction betweenthe roles is not arbitrary, since the morphosyntax of the construction corresponds rather directly to the semantic distinction in Finnish between recipientand beneficiary. It is far easier to argue for a semantic difference if it is formally signalled.

The events noted above involve the prototypes of recipient andbeneficiary. Thus any language in which the distinction between these roles isgrammatically relevant will encode these roles differently. Between these twoextremes there are many less clear cases, and languages vary more with regardto the linguistic encoding of these participants. In the present paper, a varietyof less prototypical cases are studied in light of Finnish data. The goal is toshow that Finnish is relatively faithful to the distinction between the roles inquestion (defined in light of prototypes) as regards their linguistic encoding.Thus allative marking is possible only if the profiled event involves a genuinerecipient (either concretely or more conceptually). If this is not the case, theRecipient marking becomes ungrammatical and the marking has to be changedto Beneficiary. As such, motivation of the Recipient marking is irrelevant,which means that in practice any event that involves a transfer of a thing (eitherconcrete or in some cases conceptual) will to some extent be taken into accounthere. The notion of reception enables us to explain the great majority of uses ofthe allative case in the function of encoding Recipient, but some cases necessitate a different analysis. These will also be discussed.

The relevant distinction will be discussed primarily from the perspective of the role of recipient. This means that I will usually illustrate the role ofbeneficiary ‘negatively’, i.e. in the light of cases in which the role of recipientis clearly lacking. If there is no reception involved, we are in the domain ofpure benefaction. The approach in question is highly applicable to the problemat hand. First of all, where both roles are present it is reception that determinesthe marking. Furthermore, if we wish to study the use of an element such asRecipient marking in Finnish (or any other language), we also have to studycontexts in which the use of the given construction is not possible, and whythis is so (see also RudzkaOstyn 1996:343). This enables us to define thelimits of use much more accurately than does a mere illustration of cases inwhich it is grammatical. It has to be stressed as well that the close relationbetween the ‘give’ schema and the role of recipient in more general terms isnot entailed, and different languages grammaticalize the features of ‘give’ dif


ferently (cf. Hokkien Chinese in (2)). Thus the following discussion is as suchapplicable only to Finnish.

2. On the linguistic encoding of reception and benefaction in FinnishIn the present section, I explore the distinction between recipient and

beneficiary in Finnish in terms of their linguistic encoding. The present sectionthus examines an extension of the ‘give’ schema. The topic has previouslybeen discussed for example by Leino et al. (see 2001), but in the present studythe problem is tackled from another perspective. I start with very obvious casesand proceed gradually to cases in which the notion of transfer or reception ismore obscure than with ‘give’, while the role of the beneficiary becomes moreprominent. The goal of the discussion is to show that the semantics of ‘give’ isstill manifest in the allative marking of the Recipient. Some features havefaded into the background, but the association with transfer or reception is stillvery strong (concrete motion is no longer necessary). This means that only ifthere is a participant that can be regarded as a recipient is the allative markingpossible. In addition to obvious differences, cases in which two readings arepossible and vary according to the context will also be discussed.

Before proceeding to illustrating the relation between allative casemarking and Recipient encoding, I very briefly illustrate the uses of the adessive and ablative cases, the other two ‘external cases’ of Finnish (see alsoHuumo & Ojutkangas, this volume). This contrast is highly relevant to the useof the allative in the function of encoding Recipient. First of all, the three casesdenote concrete location/motion. The adessive is the static case denoting location, as in ‘the tourist was standing by the well/at the city hall’. The ablative,on the other hand, designates movement away from a place (source), as in ‘the400 meter finalist comes from the Cayman Islands’. The allative denotes goals,as in ‘the dentist went to the house’. As regards the encoding of relations ofpossession, the cases work very much in the same way. The adessive denotespossession, the ablative sources (as in ‘the dentist took the book from the student’), while the allative encodes recipients (or intended recipients) of events.The contrast with the adessive and the ablative also contributes to the use of theallative in the function of Recipient encoding, and it is perhaps this contrastthat makes the notion of transfer/reception such a manifest feature of allativemarking with Recipients.

2.1. Pure receptionAs discussed above, the prototype of recipient is illustrated by the

recipient of ‘give’. An act of giving is instigated by an agent, and the endpointis a recipient. The event is not completed until the recipient has received thething transferred. The transfer of the thing by the agent is volitional, and therecipient directly receives the transferred entity. Further examples of canonicaltransfer involving typical recipients are given in (4):

SEPPO KITTILÄ136

(4a) kielitieteilijä lähetti kirjeen dekaanillelinguist sendPST+3SG letterACC deanALL“The linguist sent a letter to the dean”

(4b) valmentaja heitti pallon maalivahdillecoach throwPST+3SG ballACC goal.keeperALL“The coach threw the ball to the goalkeeper”

The events denoted in (4) are similar to ‘give’. They are dynamic events, as aresult of which a thing is transferred to the recipient’s domain of possession orsphere of control. It is very difficult to distinguish between ‘give’ and theevents in (4) on the basis of the nature of the event, let alone the nature of therecipient. There are, however, some differences in the basic semantics of theevent that results in the transfer. The interval between the initiation and thecompletion of the event in (4a) can be very long. An event can be conceived ofas an instance of sending if the agent has dispatched something to an intendedrecipient. Whether the recipient actually eventually gets hold of the thing isless relevant than with ‘give’. The event described in (4b), on the other hand, isa basically transitive event, without the mandatory presence of a recipient. Thismeans that, unlike ‘give’, the recipient is not an integral part of the eventsdenoted. One can kick or throw a ball without there being a recipient present.The nature of the transfer is also different. ‘Give’ usually indicates that thething is transferred directly from hand to hand (at least in the case of concretetransfer, see Newman 1996:1), while in (4b) either the span of transfer islonger (‘throw’) or its manner is atypical (‘kick’). What also distinguishesbetween events in (4) (especially 4b) and ‘give’ is that with ‘give’ the changein the possession relations is far more prominent. The interpretation in (4) israther that control over the thing changes, but no changes in possession areimplied. Despite these differences, the events in (4) are very typical events oftransfer and they all thus involve a highly typical recipient. Thus it is not surprising that the allative is used to encode the Recipient in (4).

As noted, the events in (4) involve a very typical recipient. The mostobvious difference compared to ‘give’ is that no change in possession is implied. There is, however, no reason to classify the recipients in (4) semanticallyas anything but typical recipients. In addition, there are cases in which thenotion of concrete transfer is far less obvious. A couple of examples are illustrated below:

(5a) hän rakensi muurarille talons/he buildPST+3SG bricklayerALL houseACC“S/he built the bricklayer a house”


(5b) Ben Johnson juoksi hänelle tonninB. J. runPST+3SG 3SGALL thousandACCLit. “Ben Johnson ran a thousand Euro to him/her” (“Ben Johnsongained him/her 1000 euro by running a race”).

(5c) nyt sataa maanviljelijälle satasianow rainPRES+3SG farmerALL hundredPLPTV“Now it is raining hundred Euro bills for the farmer”

The examples above also refer to a situation in which the recipient receives athing as a result of the event described. Similarly to (4b), the events profiled in(5) do not entail the existence of an external recipient that ‘receives’ the event,but the basically transitive or intransitive event is viewed as involving a typicalrecipient. However, in contrast to (4), the transfer cannot be regarded as director in any way targeted. The event in (5a) cannot involve transfer in the canonical sense, since the thing that the recipient receives is a result of the event described (Lehmann et al. (2000b:93) label a similar state of affairs as ‘intendedpossessive relationship’). In (5b), in turn, the agent may be completely unawareof the fact s/he has earned the recipient a thousand dollars by running (e.g. bywinning a race). In (5c), the nature of the event precludes targeting and intentionality.5 The use of the verb antaa (as in *sade antaa maanviljelijälle satasia,‘the rain gives the farmer hundred Euro bills’) is simply impossible here, sinceantaa usually implies intentionality. Another difference between (4) and (5) isthe fact that in the latter, even though the number of entities in the recipient’spossession increases, the number possessed or controlled by the agent remainsthe same. Genuine transfer proceeds from agent to recipient, which does notoccur here. The source is rather a third participant that does not have to bestated. The action by the agent initiates an event that eventually results in therecipient receiving the given thing. This also has the consequence that there isno concrete motion in (5). The reception, however, is concrete, making the useof the allative grammatical. The examples in (5) illustrate the very high degreeof productivity associated with the Recipient marking. Any event that increasesthe number of entities in the recipient’s domain of possession or sphere ofcontrol can be linguistically encoded by a construction with a Recipient. Theexamples above only illustrate a couple of cases.

The examples in (4)–(5) denote very typical events involving reception,which in the present context means that the states of affair before and the afterthe events denoted can be distinguished on the basis of the entities in therecipient’s sphere of control or domain of possession. The entity that enters therecipient’s sphere of control or domain of possession must be something that

5 A suitable context for this particular clause is for example a bet that it will rain, which hashappened, if (5c) is uttered.

SEPPO KITTILÄ138

was not a part of that domain before. Only if this is the case is genuine reception possible. The importance of transfer is manifest in (6):

(6a) *vanhempi kampasi vauvalle tukanparent combPST+3SG babyALL hairACC(*For: The parent combed the baby (some) hair)

Example (6a) is ungrammatical. This results from the fact that combing someone’s hair is not an act that results in something entering the beneficiary’ssphere of control. This is typical of all grooming verbs in Finnish; this is unsurprising, since fictive motion or reception that increases the number of entities in the recipient’s domain of possession is impossible in these cases. Bodyparts are inalienably possessed by humans, and thus cannot enter their domainof possession as a result of grooming events. However, the use of an allativelymarked Recipient becomes fully grammatical if an act of grooming producessomething that was not a part of the recipient’s domain of possession beforethe event occurred in the form indicated by the clause. The number of entitiespossessed by the recipient remains constant but their nature is sufficiently different, rendering the use of the allative possible:

(6b) vanhempi kampasi vauvalle jakauksenparent combPST+3SG babyALL partingACC“The parent parted the baby’s hair”

Example (6b) differs from (6a) in that something that was not a part of therecipient’s sphere of control in this particular form enters it as a result of theevent described. In (6b), the recipient did not have a parting before the eventoccurred. Even though the hair as such is exactly the same, at some conceptuallevel the difference between past and present is conceived of as significantenough to be considered a new property of the recipient. This is also in linewith the typical meaning of the allative encoding of Recipients. The examplesin (6) also stress the fact that the mere benefaction does not suffice to make theallative marking possible; some form of reception is also required.

In (6a) the use of the allative is excluded, since body parts are intrinsicparts of a human being; thus they cannot enter our domain of possession (orsphere of control), which is a prerequisite for the use of the allative. A somewhat different example that underlines the significance of this is illustrated in(7):

(7) vanhempi ompeli lapselle myssynparent sewPST+3SG childALL hatACC“The parent sewed a hat for the child”


The reading in which the theme is not a part of the recipient’s sphere of controlprior to the event denoted is the only possible one in (7). The differencebetween (6a) and (7) is that in (6a) the transfer of possession is excluded on thebasis of the inalienable possession of body parts, while in (7) the semantics ofthe construction along with the nature of the event denoted is responsible forthis (the allative usually implies reception or change in possessive relations). Inother words, the use of the allative in (7) implies that prior to the event thechild did not have the hat in question in his/her immediate possession. Hence,similarly to (4)–(5), there is an increase in the number of entities controlled orpossessed by the recipient. The reading ‘the parent sewed the child’s hat’ is farless felicitous, and to express this meaning we have to use a construction with agenitive phrase.

What is common to the examples in (4)–(7) is that a new entity entersthe recipient’s sphere of control or domain of possession. Relations of possession or control are also manipulated in the process. In principle, the transfer ofpossession or control implies (yet does not entail) that the recipient will eventually do something with the thing that enters its sphere of control or domain ofpossession. This means, for example, that someone who has won a thousandEuro is going to use the money for some purpose. This feature as such was notof any great significance in (4)–(7) as regards the use of allative in the Recipient marking, even though it is pragmatically plausible that the recipient willsooner or later do something with the thing transferred. An example in whichthis feature is manifest is illustrated in (8):

(8) opiskelija pesi foneetikolle autonstudent washPST+3SG phoneticianALL carACC“The student washed a car for the phonetician”

At first sight, example (8) seems very similar to the examples in (4)–(5). Thismeans that the ‘car’ enters the recipient’s sphere of control as a result of theevent denoted. However, the semantics of the underlying transitive event in (8)precludes a reading that is plausible in (4a). On the basis of our general knowledge of states of affairs in the world, we know that cars do not come into existence as a result of washing. What is also important for how example (8) isinterpreted is that the event profiled in (8) is not a prerequisite for driving a car.The more probable reading of the event would thus be that the indirectly affected participant is a beneficiary. This discrepancy between the semantics ofthe event denoted in (8) and the semantics associated with the allative markingof the Recipient makes (8) seem ungrammatical at first. However, exampleslike (8) are fully grammatical if the feature of direct use is stressed; in otherwords, (8) entails that the agent’s action has a definite goal to benefit the phonetician (see also Leino 2001:77). Example (8) refers to a scenario in which astudent has washed a car for a phonetician so that the latter can drive it. The

SEPPO KITTILÄ140

clause is felicitous, for example, in case that there are many cars, all of whichare so dirty that noone wants to be seen driving one of them. If one of them isproperly washed, it can be driven (and the result of the event can be exploited).Mere benefaction, as in ‘X washed the car as a favour to Y, so that s/he doesnot have to be ashamed’ does not render examples like (8) felicitous. Transferof possession is not entailed in (8) and such a reading is actually highly improbable, which is a deviation from the original semantics of ‘give’. In (7) possession is modified, making the use of the transferred thing optional (as regardsthe use of the allative). The recipient can wear the hat, but this is not entailedby the grammaticality of the given clause; (8), on the other hand, is not felicitous without this feature.

2.2. Conceptual reception/motionIn (8), the notion of genuine transfer is more obscure than in (4)–(5), for

example, since the more probable reading is that possessive relations are notmanipulated. However, transfer is still somehow conceivable, since the recipient’s sphere of control is entered by a concrete thing. Despite this, the use of anallatively marked Recipient is possible only if the transfer has a definite goal.This is even more prominent in cases like (9), in which no genuine transfer canoccur due to the nature of the event denoted:

(9) portieeri avasi juopuneelle ovendoorman openPST+3SG drunkALL doorACC“The doorman opened the door for the drunk”

Despite the allative marking of the Recipient, the number of entities in therecipient’s sphere of control or domain of possession in (9) remains constant.Furthermore, due to the lack of genuine transfer, the only plausible reading of(9) is that the Recipient refers to a beneficiary; this clearly violates the generalization proposed here. The mere beneficiary interpretation is cancelled on thebasis of the allative marking of Recipient. Rather, what is ‘transferred’ is theevent as a whole, not the theme alone. Due to the lack of genuine transfer, it isessential in (9) that the beneficiary be able to make use of the favour, whichmeans here that a door has been opened in order that the drunk in question canenter or exit a room. The intended reading of (9) cannot be that the door hasbeen opened without any direct benefit for the allatively coded argument (see,however, the discussion in 2.4.). This feature makes the allatively encodedparticipant more similar to a typical recipient than to a beneficiary. Recipientsmore often use the things that enter their sphere of control than do beneficiaries(see also Newman 1996:53 and Leino 2001:74). One obvious reason for this isthat typical beneficiaries merely benefit from events, without receiving anything they can make concrete use of. Since the transfer as such is less obviousin (9), the notion of direct use is stressed, and primarily renders the use of alla


tive possible (in the absence of this feature, example (9) is less felicitous). Therole of the beneficiary is more prominent than in the previous examples, whichmakes the association with direct use necessary. The mere degree of benefaction is not decisive here, as the discussion of (11) and (12) below will show.

In (9), the role of the beneficiary is conceptually prominent. As a result,only if the focus is on the notion of direct benefit, which is also typical of therecipient, are clauses like (10) grammatical. The next step towards the purelybeneficiary end of the continuum is illustrated in (10):

(10a) vanhempi luki lapselle (kirjan)parent readPST+3SG childALL (bookACC)“The parent read (a book) to the child”

(10b) pappi laulaa toimittajalle (serenadia)priest singPRES+3SG journalistALL (serenadePTV)“The priest is singing (a serenade) for the journalist”

As the semantics of the events in (10) implies, no transfer of concrete thingsoccurs here. This is also reflected in the fact that the theme is both conceptuallyand formally an optional part of the event/clause in (10). The book does notenter the allatively coded recipient’s domain of possession or sphere of controlin (10a), nor does this happen in the case of the serenade in (10b). This is excluded by the nature of the entity in question and also of the event in moregeneral terms (cf. Alhoniemi 1983:219). Furthermore, direct benefit in thesense of (9) is excluded in (10).

At first sight, examples like (10) seem to be counterexamples to theclaim that reception or direct benefit for the recipient is a prerequisite for theuse of allatively marked Recipients in Finnish. We therefore have to justify thegrammaticality of (10) in terms of other facets of the ‘give’ schema. The eventsin (10) can be viewed as special instances of transfer (Alhoniemi (1983:219ff)regards such cases as a transfer of cognitive contents). They involve an agent,an optional theme, and a third participant towards which the effect of the eventis targeted. Similarly to ‘give’, the energy flow is direct and flows from agentto recipient. The semantics of the event makes a genuine recipient readingimpossible, but the analogy between the events is sufficient to allow use of the‘give’ schema. Further features of ‘give’ that perhaps also contribute to theallative marking in (10) are that the agent deliberately targets its action at thereferent of the Recipient and that the spatiotemporal relation between agentand recipient is usually very close. This implies that the recipient has to be ableto receive the action performed. The examples in (10) do not denote reading orsinging rehearsals, which someone happens to overhear. However, in contrastto the rather active involvement of a recipient in an event of giving, the recipient in (10) does not have to pay attention to the occurring event, even though

SEPPO KITTILÄ142

without direct targeting by the agent the examples in (10) are not possible.Moreover, the Recipient does not refer to an obvious beneficiary in (10), rendering the use of Beneficiary marking implausible.

2.3. Encoding benefactionExamples in (4)–(10) and the related discussion have hopefully shown

that the most important criteria for using the allative in the function of encoding Recipient are the reception along with transfer of control or possession andthe direct benefit for the recipient (see (9)). Only the examples in (10) cannotbe justified on the basis of these criteria, but the similarities with the typical‘give’event can explain the use of allative here. Thus, the use of the allative inall the cases above can be shown to follow from the semantics of ‘give’. Ifnone of the traits associated with ‘give’ is present, and the role of beneficiary isfar more salient than that of recipient, the use of allative is not possible. This isillustrated in (11):

(11) *puoliso söi lihan lehtorillespouse eatPST+3SG meatACC lecturerALL(“The spouse ate the meat for the lecturer”)

The example in (11) is ungrammatical, due mainly to the lack of transfer/reception and the absence of a definite goal. The semantics of (11) excludesboth of these properties. The degree of benefaction is irrelevant; thus the eventin (11) may be of greater benefit to the beneficiary than events in (4)–(8), butsince mere benefaction does not render the allative possible, (11) is illformed.What distinguishes (11) from the events described in (4)–(9) is that there is notransfer, nor can the beneficiary receive the effect of the event directly. In contrast to (10), on the other hand, the events in (11) deviate considerably from thecanonical ‘give’ schema. The beneficiary in (11) is not the participant at whichthe effect of the event is targeted. The semantics of (11) precludes this, and therelation between the resultant state of affairs and benefaction is far less evidentthan in the case of ‘the guard opened the door for the guest of honour’.

As noted above, the notion of direct benefit and the transfer of the eventor thing are lacking in (11), which excludes the use of allatively markedRecipients. However, as noted above, these events do involve a beneficiary.This means that the Beneficiary marking is fully grammatical. The Beneficiarymarking of (11) is illustrated in (12)6:

6 Finnish has multiple ways of encoding the role of beneficiary (with semantic differences), butfor the sake of simplicity, only vuoksi is considered here.


(12) puoliso söi lihan lehtorin vuoksispouse eatPST+3SG meatACC lecturerGEN for“The spouse ate the meat for the sake of/because of the lecturer”

In contrast to (11), example (12) is grammatical. The event is carried out tosomeone’s benefit, which naturally makes the use of Beneficiary marking possible, or rather obligatory, as shown by the grammaticality of (12) and the ungrammaticality of (11). In (12), a transitive event is viewed as beneficial for afurther participant that is not an integral part of the denoted event. Thus theevent in (12) clearly comprises two subparts conceived of as one. The benefit ismore indirect than in (9). Example (12) can for example refer to a situation inwhich the beneficiary is organizing an important dinner, and a spouse agrees toeat something that s/he would not normally eat. This can result in the beneficiary being hired for a job s/he has applied for. The primary target of the event isthe patient, while the beneficiary benefits from this without being actively involved in the event. The benefit may be significant and the result very muchthe same as that arising out of events in (4) (9). However, the act of eatingdoes not directly result in getting the job in the same way as throwing a ballresults in a transfer of the given entity. The causeeffect relations are morecomplex and less direct in (12).

In (11) and (12), the ungrammaticality of the former and the Beneficiary marking of the latter are largely lexically conditioned. The differencesbetween these readings become more obvious if we take the following examples into account:

(13a) muurari rakensi talon lapselleenbricklayer buildPST+3SG houseACC childALL3SGPX“The bricklayer built a house for his/her child”

(13b) muurari rakensi talon lapsensa vuoksibricklayer buildPST+3SG houseACC childGEN+3SGPX for“The bricklayer built a house for/because of/for the sake of her/hischild”

The Recipient vs. Beneficiary marking in (13) is not lexically determined, butthe underlying transitive clauses allow the introduction of both a Recipient anda Beneficiary. This implies that the two roles are not the same. Taking accountof cases like (13) provides us with new insights into the meaning of the roles atissue. Example (13a) profiles an event that results in something being transferred to the sphere of control or domain of possession of the recipient. In(13a), this means that after the event has been completed the child has a house.This is not the case in (13b), where the agent itself is the recipient. In contrastto the mere transitive event of building, the event in (13b) is carried out to

SEPPO KITTILÄ144

someone else’s benefit. (13b) thus implies that the brick layer has built a housefor him/herself in order to be able to accommodate her/his child when the lattervisits the former. In this case, the beneficiary can be seen as having temporarycontrol over the theme, which does not belong to its domain of possession.This distinguishes between beneficiary and recipient in cases like (13a) and(13b). The use of the allative implies reception, while Beneficiary markingmerely implies that the indirectly affected participant benefits from the actionwithout receiving the theme. The Beneficiary cannot carry allative marking,since this would entail that the agent itself is not the recipient of the event.There is no variation in the meaning, but Recipient invariably refers to a recipient, while Beneficiary signals a beneficiary.

2.4. On the effects of pragmaticsThe examples examined thus far have illustrated the most basic in

stances of Recipients and Beneficiaries. The allative typically encodes participants that receive the thing transferred, as in (4) (8), or the event as a whole, asin (9), while the Beneficiary encodes participants that only benefit from theevents. ‘Basic’ here means that the Recipient or Beneficiary marking largelyfollows from the basic semantics of the events. In addition, there are cases inwhich both readings are possible, as in (13). In the following I examine furtherexamples that underline the differences between the grammatical roles ofRecipient and Beneficiary. This is achieved by focussing on contexts in whichthe expected reading is essentially beneficiary; a recipient reading, however, ispossible, if a context can be envisioned in which the indirectly affected participant can be seen as a recipient. The following examples involve a typicalrecipient, but the semantics of the events denoted are more or less incompatiblewith this reading. In contrast to (7) (9), the recipient reading is thus less probable. The purpose of the following discussion is to further illustrate the centralrole of reception and/or direct benefit for the use of the Recipient.

As noted above, the acceptability of clauses with allatively markedRecipient depends largely on whether the indirectly affected participant can beconceived of as bearing the role of the recipient. Whether the recipient is themost probable reading or whether we have to produce a special context is notrelevant in this regard, as shown in (14):

(14a) vanhempi tappoi perheelleen hirvenparent killPST+3SG familyALL3SGPX mooseACC“The parent killed a moose for his/her family”

(14b) !vanhempi tappoi perheelleen ihmisenparent killPST+3SG familyALL3SGPX humanACC“The parent killed a human being for his/her family”


(14c) !bussikuski parkkeerasi puolisolleen autonbus.driver parkPST+3SG spouseALL3SGPX carACC“The bus driver parked a car for his/her spouse”

In (14a) the default role of the indirectly affected participant is recipient, rendering this example grammatical without a specific context. (14a) profiles anevent in which a parent kills a moose for his/her family so that they can eat it(or do other things with it). The notion of direct benefit and/or reception is evident. Examples (14b) and (14c) are also acceptable, but only in specific contexts. The semantics of the denoted event and the marking of the indirectlyaffected participant seem to disagree here. Pragmatically the most plausiblereading is that the indirectly affected participant bears the role of beneficiary,which renders the allative marking odd. The likely reading of (14b), for instance, is that a parent killed someone who had been threatening his/her family,in which case the family bears the role of beneficiary. Thus the correct role forthe participant in question would be beneficiary. What is crucial for the grammaticality of (14b) is that the family has to be construed as a recipient. Such acontext is provided by a scenario in which the family in question has cannibalistic eating habits or practices necrophilia. Both of these scenarios are relatively rare in modern society, and thus examples like (14b) are typically considered odd. They cannot, however, be regarded as actually ungrammatical,since in specific contexts they are acceptable and constitute the most appropriate way of denoting these specific states of affairs. Example (14c) represents asimilar case. Here too the beneficiary is the more probable role of the indirectlyaffected participant; as noted in the introduction, this kind of event can even bethought of as the prototypical beneficiary. However, similarly to (14b), arecipient reading can also be forced; (14c) is felicitous if the agent works as aparking valet, and can thus by working hard earn his/her spouse a car.

Examples (14b) and (14c) differ from (11)–(12), since there are contexts in which the recipient reading can be construed, while in (11)–(12) this isnot possible. The examples above provide us with further evidence for therecipient coding function of the allative, since if such a reading can be construed, seemingly ungrammatical cases become felicitous. On the other hand, ifsuch a context is not conceivable, the Recipient marking is ungrammatical.

2.5. Unorthodox casesThe discussion in the previous sections justifies labelling the encoding

of Recipient as the most important function of the allative marking (the use ofallative in the function of encoding motion is not considered here). The examples examined diverge in whether the recipient reading is primarily lexically orcontextually determined, but this does not affect the primary function in anyway. Only in (10), illustrating the use of the allative in the function of markingthe target of such acts as reading or singing, is the notion of reception to any

SEPPO KITTILÄ146

great extent less evident. However, the analogy with the ‘give’ schema alongwith the direct targeting of the action at the allatively encoded participantmakes a contribution here. In addition, there are cases in which the featuresdiscussed thus far cannot explain the allative encoding of Recipients. In whatfollows, two different instances of this (one comprising two slightly differentsubtypes) will be discussed.

Example (14) illustrated the difference between killing a moose and ahuman being in relation to the recipient/beneficiary distinction. The main pointof the discussion was that mere benefaction does not suffice to make theRecipient encoding possible. However, the first unorthodox use of the Recipient is represented by cases in which the mere notion of benefaction suffices forusing the allative. Typical examples involve scenarios in which the participantencoded as the Recipient is incapable of carrying out a given actionhim/herself, probably due to physical inability. For example, as regards caseslike avustaja avasi ikkunan ulkoasiainministerille ‘the assistant opened thewindow for the Minister of Foreign Affairs’, this can denote a scenario inwhich the allatively encoded participant is lying in bed and cannot open thewindow him/herself. The allative thus encodes a typical beneficiary that merelybenefits from an action without making any direct use of the given favour.Since physical inability hinders the allatively encoded participant from carrying out the denoted event itself, we may claim that the degree of benefaction ishigher in such cases; this may also explain the use of Recipient in this unorthodox sense. It has to be stressed that the mere degree of benefaction as such isnot sufficient; if this were the case, the examples in (11) should be felicitous aswell in favourable contexts.

The Beneficiary marking usually expresses the meaning that a favour isperformed instead of someone else who would have been able to initiate theevent him/herself. Despite this, another agent performs the action instead of thebeneficiary. In case someone cannot carry out a give event him/herself, thiscontrast is not available, and the Beneficiary marking would thus produce awrong kind of reading. On the other hand, the Recipient usually refers to a participant which is not primarily responsible for a threeparticipant event, and isnot able to initiate the event by him/herself (in the role of recipient). In the caseof ‘give’, this means that the agent is primarily responsible for whether or notthe recipient receives the thing transferred (see also J. Leino 2001:73). Therecipient does not exercise any control over the initiation of a threeparticipantevent. This feature of ‘give’ is extended to encoding beneficiaries in cases likethe one at issue here. The analogy is rather obvious, since without the action byagent the referent of the Recipient would not have gained benefit from theevent. The inability (which can also be a deliberate choice) of the allativelycoded participant to initiate the event is prominent here.

Another thing worth noting in this context is courtesy. Examples likeavasin juhlavieraalle ikkunan ‘I opened the window for the guest of honour’


are also felicitous in contexts in which the agent is being polite. This use can betraced back to what was previously discussed. In this case, the beneficiary isnot actually incapable of carrying out the action for instance of opening a window, but in his/her position s/he is not expected to do so. Here it is thus ‘contextual incapacity’ (as opposed to real physical incapacity) that determines theuse of the Recipient.

The other atypical use of Recipient is illustrated by cases in which theevent as a whole is dedicated to the referent of the Recipient:

(15a) koomikko joi maljan Jumalallecomedian drinkPST+3SG toastACC GodALL“The comedian drank a toast to God”

(15b) !maalivahti torjui mestaruuden lapselleengoalkeeper savePST+3SG championshipACC childALL3SGPX“The goalkeeper saved the championship for his/her child”

In neither of the cases in (15) does the allatively encoded participant receivethe referent of the Theme.7 A context in which the examples in (15) are felicitous is provided by a scenario in which the effect of the event is thought of asconceptually entering the Recipient’s sphere of control. More concretely, thismeans that the event in question is dedicated to the referent of the Recipient(the verb omistaa ‘dedicate’ governs a Recipient as well). (15a) denotes arather typical example of such a scenario. In most religions, things are dedicated to God. In a religion in which toasts are drunk to God, an example like(15a) would be completely normal. In (15b), on the other hand, the goalkeeperdedicates the championship, which s/he has just won by making a sufficientnumber of saves, to his/her child. The dedication sense is less obvious than in(15a), but is possible in a suitable context.

The analogy between ‘give’ schema and the examples in (15) is ratherobvious. In both cases there is an agent, a theme and a third participant. Incontrast to ‘give’, genuine transfer of the theme is excluded on the basis of thesemantics of the events in (15); thus the use of the allative in (15) does notresult in misinterpretation. Moreover, the use in the dedication sense is notpossible in the case of inherently ditransitive events, since in these cases theRecipient always refers to a genuine recipient. What is of further relevancehere is that the use in cases like (15) of Recipient as opposed to Beneficiarystresses the dedication. The person to whom an event is dedicated is seen assuperior, indicating that the agent is seen as alone responsible for the event.The use of Beneficiary in (15), which is also possible but produces a differentreading, would too strongly stress the more active contribution of the referent

7 (15b) is naturally fully grammatical if the child and the goalkeeper are playing in the sameteam. In this case the child represents a rather typical recipient.

SEPPO KITTILÄ148

of the Beneficiary to the occurrence of the event, and would add a nuance ofindirect causation. This reading can be avoided in cases like (15) by using theallative. The dedication sense is thus also very closely related to the courtesyuse of the allative, discussed briefly above. Moreover, the sense of genuinebenefaction is lacking in (15), making a reading of beneficiary implausible.

2.6. Allative encoding of a maleficiaryReception in general can be seen as beneficial. This has been the case in

most of the examples discussed thus far. The role of the recipient is moreprominent in these cases, which determines the allative marking of Recipients.The prominence of reception, however, can also be viewed from another perspective. In this section, I examine some cases in which the recipient can ratherbe regarded as a maleficiary, i.e. as a participant that is adversely affected byan event or to whose detriment an event is. The aim is to further stress the differences between recipients and beneficiaries, and to show that the allativeencodes reception, not benefaction.

The roles of recipient and source8 are usually clearly definable; aparticipant either receives something or it loses control over or possession of anentity. The boundaries are clearcut, and there are no intermediate formsbetween the roles. The roles of beneficiary and maleficiary (the latter is hereregarded as the opposite of the former), on the other hand, are far more conceptual; we all conceptualize benefaction and malefaction differently, and thereare no absolute criteria for judging between them (see also Tuggy 1996:430f).This has the result that in the case of reception too maleficiary is a possible roleof the recipient, while source is not. Furthermore, the (beneficiary vs. maleficiary) nature of reception depends on the nature of the thing transferred. A couple of examples that illustrate these differences are given below:

(16a) matkaopas yski turistille sarsinguide coughPST+3SG touristALL sarsACCLit. “The guide coughed the tourist [a case of] SARS”

(16b) oppilas osti opettajalle tämän romunstudent buyPST+3SG teacherALL thisACC piece.of.junkACC“The student bought the teacher this piece of junk”

The Recipient unarguably bears the role of recipient in all these cases, and theexamples in (16) are in this respect very similar to (4) and (5). Differencesarise, however, if we consider the consequences of reception. The far moreprobable reading of the examples in (16) is that the recipient is viewed as amaleficiary instead of beneficiary. Example (16a) illustrates a basically intran

8 The label here comprises cases such as ‘she/he took the ball from the child’. A detaileddiscussion of source falls outside the scope of the present paper.


sitive event, which in this case is seen as extending to a further participant. Theevent ‘buy’ is usually regarded as beneficial for the recipient, since the thingsbought are usually entities that the recipient needs; at least we do not usuallybuy things that are to our detriment. This state of privation is cancelled as aresult of ‘buy’. However, whether the recipient bears the role of beneficiary ormaleficiary depends on the nature of the thing transferred. In (16b), the role ofthe recipient is probably more of a maleficiary, since the reception of the thememost likely has an adversative effect on the recipient. Example (16b) best illustrates the conceptual and variable nature of the recipient. It depends on thejudgement of the recipient whether an act of transfer is viewed as beneficial ordetrimental. In (16b), the event might be thought of as beneficial from theviewpoint of the agent, but the actual state of affairs proves to be different.

The examples in (16) underline the distinction between recipient andbeneficiary. Different individuals conceptualize states of affairs differently,yielding the kind of variation represented in (16). Thus only the role of recipient is inherent for Recipient, while the degrees of benefaction or malefactionvary. It is of course true that there are many events that typically imply a strongrelation between recipient and beneficiary, but the actual reading varies. Thusthe usually implied relation between recipient and beneficiary is justified.

In (16) the role of the recipient is constant, but there is variation inwhether the recipient is seen as a beneficiary or as a maleficiary. A further andrather interesting example, which in its own way further stresses the close relation of recipient and beneficiary, is the following:

(17) lasinpuhaltaja teki tämän minulleglassblower doPST+3SG thisACC 1SGALL“The glassblower did this to/for me”

The event denoted in (17) also has two different readings. In contrast to (16),the differences between the two readings are more evident. In the first reading,the agent produces something concrete and transfers this to the recipient. Thisrepresents a very typical event of transfer or reception, and the variation discussed in light of (16) is also possible here; thus the recipient can be regardedas either a beneficiary or a maleficiary, depending on the nature of the thingtransferred. However, differently from (16), a purely maleficiary reading isalso possible in (17). The maleficiary reading comprises events in which someone has done something that adversely affects the speaker. Unlike the previouscase, in which there is a recipient involved, no concrete reception occurs in thecase of the maleficiary reading. What is of further interest is that a purelybeneficiary reading is excluded in (17); this is in line with the claims made inprevious sections as to the primary function of the Recipient marking.

SEPPO KITTILÄ150

3. ConclusionsThe present paper has been concerned with the distinction in Finnish

between recipient and beneficiary. I hope to have shown that the distinctionbetween the two roles is possible and in fact necessary. The paper will hopefully be of interest to general typologists dealing with similar distinctionsacross languages. A detailed study of the distinction in Finnish has been lacking to date, at least in a framework (and language) accessible to scholarsworking in typologicalfunctional linguistics. The purpose of the paper was toshow that the semantics of the verb ‘give’ is manifest in the use of the Recipient in Finnish. Some of the features related to the event ‘give’ in general havefaded into the background, but the notion of transfer/reception is still veryprominent in the uses illustrated in the paper. Here I review and summarize themost important findings of the paper.

As noted in the introduction, ‘give’ can justly be considered the canonical threeparticipant event. It mandatorily involves an agent, a theme (thingtransferred) and a recipient. It is not possible to define the event ‘give’ withoutexplicit reference to all of these roles at some level of description. Thus it is notsurprising that there are many languages in which ‘give’ constitutes the basisfor Recipient marking in general. There are two ways in which this markingcan arise out of ‘give’. First, there are languages in which the verb ‘give’ isused in a serial verb construction in the function of accommodating a Recipient. This was illustrated in Section 1 with examples from Hokkien Chinese.The other frequent pathway from ‘give’ to Recipient is illustrated by languagessuch as Finnish, in which the Recipient marking of ‘give’ (i.e. the allative casein Finnish) extends to Recipients in general. The contrast between the allative,ablative and adessive cases also makes a contribution here (see Section 1 for abrief discussion).

Even though the starting point in the cases examined is the same, theresult can be very different (see Newman 1996:220 for Hokkien and Cantonese). In Finnish, the single most important feature of ‘give’ seen in the generalRecipient marking is the notion of reception. This means that the use of theallative in this function is possible and also required whenever the event denoted involves reception. Whether this is an inherent feature of the verb (aswith ‘give’, ‘send’ or ‘buy’) is irrelevant, as is the fact whether recipient is themore probable reading associated with Recipient. This has the consequencethat the use of the allative in this function is highly productive, especially sincethis is the only mechanism available for this function in Finnish. ‘Give’ (alongwith many other events that inherently involve three participants, such as‘send’ and ‘buy’) represents an event in which an agent transfers a thing to therecipient. This entails a change in the possessive or control relations of thething given: the quantity of entities in the agent’s sphere of control or the domain of possession decreases, while the quantity of entities possessed or controlled by the recipient increases by the same number. The former of these


features is relevant to the use of Recipient, while the latter is not. The formerimplies that the use of the allative is possible only if possession of or controlover the referent of the Theme is somehow modified. This restricts the use ofallative in a pure benefactive sense, as in ‘the parent sewed the child’s hat’ or‘the student washed the professor’s car’. The latter in turn means in the presentcontext that the use of the allative in the function of encoding Recipient is possible regardless of whether or not the number of entities possessed or controlled by the agent actually decreases. The reception of a thing by the recipientis more important in this respect. In the latter case there are also obvious similarities shared by the recipients of ‘give’ and other recipients, so the use of theallative is predictable.

In addition to cases in which the features of ‘give’ are relatively manifest, the use of the allative has extended to other kinds of cases as well. Heretoo there are some features related to ‘give’. One of the features that makes acontribution here is represented by what has been labelled in the present paperas direct benefit (‘definite goal’ in J. Leino 2001:77). Events like ‘the rangeropened the door for the inspector’ at first seem beneficial, but the use of theallative is possible in case the denoted event involves direct benefit. In thisparticular case, this means that the inspector has to exit or enter the roomwhose door has been opened. This feature also makes these kinds of beneficiary more similar to a typical recipient, in that typical recipients usually makeuse of the transferred thing, even though this is not entailed.

The obvious differences between the roles explored in the present paperare also reflected in the fact that reception as such is neutral with regard towhether the recipient is viewed as beneficiary or maleficiary. As shown in (16),the role of recipient determines the marking of Recipient regardless of whetherthe event is viewed as beneficial or detrimental to the recipient. This meansthat the notion of reception is clearly more important here; if this is not present,the use of Recipient usually yields ungrammatical constructions.

As has been shown above, mere benefaction, no matter how significantit may be, does not suffice for use of the allative. This was illustrated in (11)and (12). Only if the beneficiary somehow directly benefits from the action, asillustrated and discussed in (8) and (9), is the use of the allative possible. However, in addition to typical uses, discussed at length in the previous section,there are two special contexts in which direct benefit or reception is not necessary. The first of these is closely related to beneficiaries. The use of the allativein a more or less purely beneficiary function is possible if the referent of theRecipient is incapable of carrying out the given action him/herself. The otherunorthodox use of Recipient is illustrated by the dedication of an event to theallatively encoded participant. In both cases, the semantics of ‘give’ is alsoexploited, but facets different from those in typical cases are stressed. Thesecases are perhaps the most interesting with regard to possible future investigation of similar phenomena in other languages, since it is interesting to see what

SEPPO KITTILÄ152

kinds of unorthodox uses similar encoding can have crosslinguistically. Suchuses may provide us with new insights into the semantics of ‘give’ and Recipient marking more generally.

OBLIQUE MENTIONS OF HUMAN REFERENTSIN FINNISH CONVERSATION

THE EFFECTS OF PROMINENCE IN DISCOURSE AND GRAMMAR

RITVA LAURYCalifornia State University, Fresno

University of Helsinki

1. IntroductionA wide range of scholars have made the observation, robustly supported

by empirical evidence, that human referents tend to manifest features of prominence on the level of both discourse and grammar. Namely, human referentsare likely to be topical and agentive (Kuno 1976, Dixon 1979, Comrie 1978,Silverstein 1976b, 1981) and they are consequently likely to appear in coregrammatical roles, especially as subjects (Du Bois 1987, Ashby and Bentivoglio 1993, Thompson 1997, Nakayama and IchihashiNakayama 1994,Kärkkäinen 1996, Helasvuo 1997, 2001). However, human referents are notconfined to core grammatical roles; mentions of humans can be and in fact arealso made in oblique cases. This study sets out to investigate oblique casementions of human referents in Finnish, a language well known for its rich casesystem.

Given that humans are normally mentioned in core cases, oblique mentions of a human referent can be taken as an unexpected choice, something tobe explained. What might be some of the reasons for oblique mentions ofhuman referents? For example, one might presume that human referents thatare mentioned in the oblique cases might lack the inherent topicality and salience which has been considered the reason why they tend strongly to be mentioned in the core cases in the first place. What, then, are the discourse characteristics of human referents mentioned in the oblique cases? Do they take onthe typical discourse profile of obliques in that they would be likely to be new,unidentifiable and unlikely to be rementioned, or do they still get treated likeother human referents so that they would be identifiable, given and furthertracked? Are human mentions equally distributed among all the oblique cases?What are their pragmatic and semantic characteristics? What kinds of NPs areused for oblique mentions of humans in discourse?

RITVA LAURY154

The results of this study strongly confirm the centrality of human referents in grammar and discourse, even when they are mentioned in the obliquecases. They still have discourse characteristics that have been found to be typical of humans. They tend to be identifiable, given, and further tracked, that is,continuous topics in discourse. They also tend strongly to be participants inspeech events, and are lexically specified as humans. In addition, even theoblique human mentions in my data show features of syntactic prominence inthat they are not equally distributed among all the oblique cases but insteadcluster in only a few cases, namely those which occur in constructions withgrammatical rather than local meaning. In fact, it may well be that frequentmentions of humans in particular local cases have precipitated their process ofacquiring more abstract, and grammatical functions instead of purely localmeanings.

2. DataThe data for this paper consist of spontaneous conversations in Finnish

among coworkers, family members and friends. Two of the conversationswere taped and transcribed by myself, while four of them come from corporadeveloped at the University of Turku and the University of Helsinki. They contained in all 208 oblique case mentions of humans, all of which were enteredinto Microsoft Access and coded for various grammatical and discourse features.

3. The category ‘oblique’As discussed by Nichols (1983), the term oblique was originally used to

refer to those cases which were morphologically marked, in contrast to directcases which bore no such marking, combined with the distinction between casemarking due to verbal government (rection) vs. other marking not due togovernment. Nichols notes that out of these distinctions evolved the mainstream structuralist position that cases can be divided into two sets: core cases,which express more abstract (grammatical) relations, and oblique cases, whichexpress more concrete (semantic, or local) relations.

However, this binary division turns out to be problematic when oneconsiders that there may not be any fixed set of criteria for distinguishingbetween core and oblique NPs crosslinguistically (Thompson 1997). In addition, in languages of the world, oblique cases, like other locative elements, tendto develop more abstract, grammatical meanings (Heine et al. 1991), suggesting significant interaction on the diachronic dimension between the core andoblique categories. Finnish is a case in point: several oblique, originally localcases have developed grammatical meanings, often retaining alongside theirnew functions their original local meanings (for a summary, see Helasvuo1997, 2001).

OBLIQUE MENTIONS OF HUMAN REFERENTS 155

Thompson (1997) offers a functionalist alternative to the structuralistposition and suggests that, like many other key distinctions in language, thecoreoblique distinction, seen as a distinction between types of grammaticalroles rather than types of case marking, is nondiscrete. She also explores themotivations behind the distinction and suggests that it is based on informationflow characteristics of referents in discourse. Acknowledging the semantic andcognitive motivations identified by others in the functional literature, she proposes that

“the distinction between core and oblique NP arguments can be explained bythe fact that the cognitive parameters outlined by Croft (1991b) andDeLancey (1984, 1985) are integrally related to the parameters independently required by an adequately rich theory of information flow. In particular, the ‘initiators’ and ‘endpoints’ of events are those that humans talk aboutthe most and which they want their listeners to keep track of, or which arecentrally involved in events, and are accordingly those to which the grammars of natural languages assign core grammatical roles. … As, Ss, and Oscan be predicted to show tendencies towards being Given, Identifiable, andTracking, while OBLs can be predicted to be rarely Given, Identifiable, andTracking.”

In this paper, for purposes of coding, I have used both morphologicaland syntactic criteria to define the concept ‘oblique.’ I have counted asobliques mentions made in the genitive case, the internal local cases (the inessive, elative and illative), the external local cases (adessive, ablative and allative) as well as the general local cases (essive and translative)1; that is, in casesother than the nominative, the accusative, and the partitive (although I didinclude those partitives which were complements of adpositions; only one ofthese occurred in the data). Thus left outside the category, and considered to becore arguments, are As, Ss and Os, as well as predicate nominals and complements of existentials.

Thus defined, the oblique human mentions in my data form a set ofcounterexamples to Thompson’s (1997) predictions discussed above, sincethey have the information flow characteristics of core arguments rather thanthose of typical obliques; however, on another level they also confirm Thompson’s findings, since they tend strongly to cluster in just those cases whichoccur in constructions with grammatical, rather than purely locative or seman

1 The genitive is included here in the oblique category because complements of many adpositions are genitive, as are adnominal possessors. Also in the genitive case are arguments ofverbs of necessity and obligation; these have been called subjects by many analysts (Laitinen1992). However, if we restrict the category of subject to prototypical ones, NPs which triggeragreement in the verb (as done in Helasvuo 1997, 2001), then genitives cannot be subjects.There were no abessive, instructive or comitative case mentions of humans in my data. Thegeneral local case mentions are rare as well: there was only one essive mention and two translatives.

RITVA LAURY156

tic, functions and meanings.2 In this sense, these findings also lend support tothe position that the distinction between core and oblique cases is not binary,but rather nondiscrete, given the types of grammaticized constructions inwhich oblique human mentions occur.

4. Characteristics of oblique mentions of human referentsIn this section I discuss the properties of human mentions found in my

data. I first present an example to illustrate those properties in a general fashion. Then I discuss the syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic properties of thehuman obliques.

Consider the following example, taken from a multiparty discussion.The participants, a group of women, work at the same pharmacy. The topic inthis part of the conversation is a recent allfemale party at the summer home ofone of the participants.

(1)JS: Mää istusi yhre lastentarhanopettajan ka,

1SG sitPST+1SG one+GEN kindergarten.teacherGEN with“I was sitting with a kindergarten teacher,

viärekkäin kuule ja,next.to listen+IMP+2SG andnext to her you know and,

sit mää,then 1SGthen I,

koiti hänelleki sanoo ettryPST+1SG 3SGALLCLT sayINF thattried to say to her also that

jua sää vaan katodrink+IMP+2SG 2SG just look+IMP+2SGyou just go ahead and drink

kyl sää sen kestätyes 2SG 3SGACC tolerate2SGI’m sure you can stand

2 By purely locative and semantic functions and meanings I mean those uses of oblique caseswhich express location, or movement, with regard to some reference point. By grammaticalfunctions and meanings I mean those in which location is not expressed.


minkä määki kestänREL+ACC 1SGCLT tolerate1SGwhat I can stand.”

The two boldfaced oblique human mentions in this example illustrate well thecommon properties of such mentions in my data. They are made in the genitiveand the allative, two of the three most frequently occurring cases in the data.Both are tracking mentions, in that they are followed by further mentions of thereferent. The referent of hänelleki ‘3SGALL also’ is both given and identifiable, and a participant in a reported speech act. The other oblique human mention in the example, yhre lastentarhanopettajan ‘a kindergarten teacherGEN,’although new, is lexically specified as a human mention.

4.1. Clustering of human mentions in only a few casesAs noted above, human mentions in my data are not equally distributed

among all oblique cases. Instead, they cluster in the adessive, allative andgenitive cases. NPs in these three cases make up 84% (175/208) of all humanobliques in the data, while they made up only 42% of all oblique mentions inHelasvuo 1997, where all oblique mentions, human and nonhuman, werecounted. Table 1 below compares the distribution of human mentions amongoblique cases in these data to the distribution of all obliques (nonhumans andhumans) among different cases as reported in Helasvuo 1997.

Case Number of human NPs % in these data in Helasvuo 1997Adessive 80 39% 23%Allative 40 19% 9%Genitive 55 26% 10%Elative 15 7% 13%Inessive 5 2% 22%Ablative 4 2% 2%Other 9 4% 20%Total 208 100% 100%

Table 1: Distribution of human mentions across the oblique cases in my datacompared to the distribution of all types of referents (humans and nonhumans)

in the oblique cases in Helasvuo 1997

Table 1 shows that the distribution of human mentions in the obliquecases is skewed, and does not follow the general pattern of obliques. We see amuch more even distribution of oblique mentions among the cases when allmentions, human and nonhuman alike, are counted, as done by Helasvuo(1997), compared to the clustering of the human mentions in certain cases. Theclustering of human mentions in only certain cases reflects the more grammati

RITVA LAURY158

cal (or grammaticized) uses of those oblique cases in certain types of constructions. The largest number of mentions, 80/208, or 39%, were made in the adessive case. The adessive case has been grammaticized as the case of the possessor in possessive constructions in Finnish (Huumo 1996a, Helasvuo 1997,2001). Helasvuo notes the important role that human referents have played inthis process, in which a locative NP in an existential construction was reanalyzed as a possessive; it is not difficult to see how the fact that the referent ofthe locative NP was human would lead to such an interpretation of the expression. Example (2) is an example of a possessive construction with an adessive.

(2)AL: Sil oli harmaa tukka,

3SGADE bePST+3SG gray hair“He had gray hair.”

The ‘literal’ or locative meaning of (2) might be ‘On him was gray hair,’ butthe fact that the referent is human, apart from the formulaic nature of the expression, makes the interpretation of possession, that is, that the hair in question is the hair of the person mentioned in the adessive case, rather than somehair deposited on top of the person, the only one possible3. The large majorityof the adessives in the data, 66 of the total of 80, or 83%, appeared in possessive constructions.

Allatives, which were half as frequent as adessives, and the third mostfrequently used case in the data, code the important thematic role of recipients,or benefactives, the endpoints of events in terms of Croft (1991b) (for a discussion of the use of the allative in the coding of these semantic roles, see Kittilä,this volume). The range of verbs which appear in the data with allative humanmentions is larger than with the adessives, but the verb sanoa ‘say’ is the mostfrequent one; it appears seven times in the data (for an example, see (1) above).There are seven other speech act verbs, and two other verbs which imply thetransfer of information, opettaa ‘teach’ and osoittaa ‘show, demonstrate.’ Thushumans as recipients of speech or information represent the largest category ofallative mentions in the data at 40% (16/40) (for a general discussion of the useof the local cases in the expression of cognitive events, see Huumo, thisvolume).

The external local case mentions of humans in my data outnumber theinternal local case mentions of humans by more than five to one: there were124 external local case (adessive ‘on’, ablative ‘from’, and allative ‘onto’)mentions, and only 22 internal local case (inessive ‘in’, elative ‘from’, andillative ‘into’) mentions. As can be seen from Table 1, obliques in general areevenly distributed among the two types of local cases; in Helasvuo’s (1997)

3 Adessives can also express instruments, but in this kind of construction the instrumental interpretation is impossible.


data, which included NPs with both human and nonhuman referents, 34% ofthe obliques were in external local cases and 35% were in internal local cases4.Uneven distribution in these cases seems to be particular to human obliquesonly. Kotilainen (1999) had a similar finding in his study of human mentionsmade in the local cases in written Finnish. Kotilainen explores semantic features of the cases and suggests that humans mentioned in the external localcases are more agentive and in general have a more active and controlling rolein events than humans mentioned in the internal local cases. Kotilainen exemplifies this with two verbs, syöttää ‘feed,’ which takes an allative humanrecipient argument, and pistää ‘poke (with a sharp object, such as a needle),’which takes an illative one. He points out that although both verbs may involvean event where something is inserted by someone else into another person’sbody, one has considerably more control over one’s mouth than one’s epidermis (1999:105), and suggests that this difference in control is reflected in thecase distinction that the argument of each verb is expressed in. This contrastcan also be demonstrated with speech act verbs. Consider the following twoexamples from my data.

(3)R: Kysy isältä.

ask+IMP+2SG fatherABL“Ask Dad.”

(4)MI: Myö juur puhuttii siusta,

1PL just speakPASSPST 2SGELA“We were just talking about you,”

Although both bolded human mentions in (3) and (4) are in separative (‘from’)cases, the addressee (here a ‘source’ argument; see Huumo, this volume) ofkysyä ‘ask’ as in (3), is expressed in the ablative, an external local case, whilethe theme argument of puhua ‘talk,’ as in (4), is in the elative, an internal localcase5. An addressee is clearly more centrally involved and at least potentially

4 One might expect that the illative would be a more frequent case in these data because severalcognitive verbs such as luottaa ‘trust’ and uskoa ‘believe’ take illative arguments, but this classof verbs does not occur in my data. Of the three human illatives in my data, only one was theargument of a verb, a use of mennä ‘go (into)’, in an abstract sense of moving into a topic.5 An elative (internal case, ‘from’) form isästä would be possible in (3); the meaning wouldchange, so that the sentence would mean ‘ask about Dad’; thus the elative would mark theoblique argument as a theme; conversely, an allative (external case ‘onto’) form, sinulle wouldbe possible in (4), again changing the meaning of the sentence, this time into ‘We were justtalking to you’, marking the oblique argument as an addressee, this time a ‘goal’. Note that thedifference in involvement in the event given these potential uses is consistent with what can beobserved in (3) and (4).

RITVA LAURY160

more agentive than the person under discussion. While agentivity and controldo not explain all contrasts involved in the use of internal and external localcases for human referents in Finnish, as Kotilainen notes (1999:106), nevertheless the clustering of human mentions in the external cases looks very interesting from this perspective, because it might indicate that even in the localcases, the frequency of distribution of human mentions would be motivated byagentivity and control.

The genitive is the second most frequently used case in the data afterthe adessive. There were 55 genitives, which can be divided into three groups:adnominal possessives, complements of adpositions, and arguments of verbs ofobligation. In an interesting way, genitive NPs are neither core arguments norvery good obliques. The adnominal genitive has a semantic motivation of possession or other type of association or adjacency6, so genitives resembleobliques in that they are semantically motivated, but at the same time, the casecan be argued to be syntactically motivated by the syntactic relationshipbetween two nominals, which would govern the use of the genitive. Genitiveswithout a head noun are problematic for this argument, however, unless oneassumes the head has been elided. There were 19 adnominal genitives in mydata.

The largest number of genitives, however, were complements ofadpositions; the data contained 22 of these. Most of them, 16/22, or 73%, werecomplements of kanssa ‘with.’ These genitives had referents which were fairlycentrally involved in events, since they functioned to introduce or remention acoparticipant. The first bolded NP in (1) is an example. While complements ofadpositions are clearly obliques, their case can be argued to be grammaticallymotivated as well, as it can be said to be governed by the adposition; see, however, Laury (1999), which argues for a semantic and pragmatic motivation forcase assignment on complements of adpositions.

The third type of genitive in the data is different from the other two inthat its case assignment has to do with its association with a type of verb.Genitive arguments of verbs of obligation and necessity (also called necessiveverbs) have been considered subjects, and hence core arguments, by manyFinnish grammarians (see Laitinen 1992). Laitinen identifies these genitives asan ergative pattern. In her spoken data from a number of Finnish dialects, thehigher an NP is on the animacy hierarchy (Comrie 1981, Silverstein 1976b,1981), the more likely it is to appear in the genitive, while NPs low on the animacy hierarchy may appear in the nominative even with this class of verbs.Such divisions along the animacy hierarchy are typical of ergative split languages (Silverstein 1976b). Perhaps the most intriguing part of Laitinen’sresearch are her findings concerning the role of personhood and speech event

6 Susanna Cumming (personal communication) pointed out that the semantic relation betweenthe genitive and its head noun is rather complex, and should not be characterized as being prototypically related to possession. She is, of course, quite right.


participancy in case assignment with necessive verbs. She suggests that thegenitive case in these constructions is an index of participancy in an earlierspeech event which has relevancy for the present situation; what is at issue inthe expression of modality is the fulfillment or lack of fulfillment of expectations expressed or at least created in the minds of speech participants at someearlier point (1999:263 269). This is especially evident for the verb pitää ‘besupposed to, should,’ which was by far the most frequent necessive verb in mydata; 11/14 of the verbs of necessity and obligation in my data were forms ofpitää, and they occurred in either the past tense, conditional or past conditional,not in the present tense, which would indicate present obligation or necessity.See the next example, which illustrates the way the verb was used in my data.JS is describing travel plans made by a group of her friends which werechanged due to inclement weather.

(5)

JS: Ja heiän piti moottoril tullaand 3PL+GEN be.supposed.toPST+3SG motorADE comeINF

sit sinne [meiä] uurel laituril [kokoo],then there 1PL+GEN newALL pierALL together

“And they were supposed to come together by motorboat to our newpier,”

EK: [Joo]. [Joo]. “Yeah. Yeah.”

JS: se oli iso kalastaja oike semmosen,3SG bePST+3SG big fisherman really suchGEN“It was a big fishing [boat] really like,

k on ulkomerel me käyty,REL be+PRS+3SG out.seaADE 1PL visitPST+PTCPthat we’ve taken to the open sea,

ni semmosen kans piti tulla.so suchGEN with be.supposed.toPST+3SG come+INFThat’s what [they] were supposed to come with.”

EK: Nii,”That’s right.”

RITVA LAURY162

JS: Mut sit ku rupes satamaa ni he,but then when beginPST+3SG rainINFILL so 3PL“But then when it began to rain they

tuli sit autojen kanssa vaa.comePST then carPLGEN with onlyjust came by car.”

The bolded mention of JS’s friends in the first line of the example, heiän ‘theyGEN’ is a subjectlike argument (see above fn. 1) of the verbal complex pititulla ‘were supposed to come.’ The modal piti expresses that the plans to comeby boat had been made previously and had been communicated to JS, although,as explained by JS, they were unrealized. Here, the genitive case on the pronoun heiän functions as an index of the role that the friends had in the earlierspeech act in which the plans were communicated. Laitinen (1992) shows thathuman arguments in these constructions are very rarely nominative, and whenthey are, they do not express involvement in the earlier speech event in whichthe intentions were communicated or formed.

So far, we have seen that oblique mentions of human referents cluster incertain cases, namely those which occur in grammaticized constructions suchas the possessive and necessive constructions, where they do not express localor semantic meanings otherwise associated with the oblique cases. They alsocluster in the external local cases which express greater agentivity and controlthan the internal local cases. In addition, we have seen that personhood andparticipancy in speech events has been a motivating factor in the grammaticalization of the constructions where human mentions frequently occur. Thesefacts show that there is no clear dividing line between the grammatical or‘core’ cases and semantic or ‘oblique’ cases; rather, different cases are grammaticized to different degrees, and grammaticalization occurs in particular constructions with a constant semantic and pragmatic import, which cannot bederived from the individual meanings of the lexical and grammatical morphemes involved.

For instance, if we look at the originally locative partitive case, whichnow marks direct objects in Finnish under certain, grammatically definable(although still semantically and pragmatically motivated) conditions, and hasonly certain very limited, idiomatic local uses, we can see that an originallylocal case can, over time, be grammaticized into clearly grammatical uses. Atthe other end of the continuum, we have uses of the local cases which areentirely, concretely semantically motivated, local in their meaning, and thusnot grammatically motivated. Standing between these usages are those uses ofthe local cases which are desemanticized to a certain degree, so that their localmeaning is at most metaphorical in nature, and not concretely local, and theiruse is motivated by the larger, specific construction they occur in, such as the


possessive construction, rather than the abstract syntactic argument position ofthe noun phrase itself. The fact that the import of the case assignment is notderivable from the individual lexical and grammatical detail is shown, forexample, in the possessive construction, which is identical to the existentialconstruction in all respects except that the referent is human. The possessiverelation is thus derivable from the construction as a whole, together with thesemantics of the noun phrases.

The next section concerns speech act participancy of the oblique humanmentions in my data.

4.2. Human mentions in oblique roles as speech act participantsMore than half of the oblique human mentions in my data, 57%

(119/208), referred to speech act participants either in the current speech situation or in a reported speech act. Most of these, 81 in all, were mentions ofparticipants in the current situation. Of these, 56 were mentions of speakers, 18were mentions of the addressee(s), and seven were mentions of participants inthe current situation who were neither speakers nor addressees for the particular utterance.

As one might expect, most of the mentions of participants in the currentspeech situation were done with speech act pronouns. A typical example is theone below, where a group of men are discussing whether they wear, or evenown, a wedding ring. Oblique mentions of speech act participants are bolded.

(6)

VM: Ai sull ei ole.oh 2SGADE NEG be“Oh you don’t have [one].

Ilmanks.withoutQCLTNo wonder.

Kuule hei.listen+IMP+2SG heyHey, listen.

Ei oo ollu mul NEG be bePST+PTCP 1SGADEI haven’t had [one] –”

RITVA LAURY164

MI: Miull ei oo koskaa sit,1SGADE NEG be ever 3SGPTV“I never have it,

s raaski[na pitää.]be.willingPST+PTCP wearINF

wanted to wear [it ](because it’s too precious)”7

Although mentions of speech act participants in the first and secondperson are probably the unmarked choice, and certainly the most frequentpractice, such mentions can also be done with thirdperson forms. Two suchmentions in the data referred to addressees. Consider the next example, whichinvolves an interchange between a restaurant customer and a waitress. Thisexcerpt comes from the same conversation as example (6) among a group ofmen having dinner in a restaurant banquet room.

(7)

VM: Mä huomaan että rouvalla on1SG notice1SG that madamADE be3SG

hyvin valitut sanat täällä.well choosePASS+PTCPPL wordPL here

“I notice m’lady chooses her words carefully here.”

TA: Kuinka niin?how so“What do you mean?”

VM uses a third person form, rouvalla ‘madamADE,’ to address the waitress;the waitress’s response confirms that she is indeed the addressee of the turn.

7 The syntactic complexities of MI’s turn do not show up fully in the gloss. The first line byitself could be understood and glossed as a possessive construction: ‘I never have it on,’ but thesecond part of the turn shows that it is actually a syntactic blend. The main verb in the last lineis raaskia, one of a set of verbs which express different degrees and types of ability, possibilityand willingness. This verb implies (un)willingness to do something despite (or due to) the factthat someone or something might be hurt or damaged or otherwise negatively affected. However, it takes a nominative subject, and the firstperson pronoun in the first line of the turn is inthe allative. The past participle form of raaskia, however, relies on the negated form ei oo‘haven’t,’ which is ambiguous between two interpretations as a copula in a possessive construction or an auxiliary to the past participle form raaskinu. Further, the pronoun sit at the endof the first line of the turn can be interpreted as either the possessed object in the possessiveinterpretation, or as the object of pitää ‘wear,’ but in the free gloss, the English word orderdoes not allow it to be placed preverbally in the ‘wear’ interpretation.


This same word is used with names in a manner equivalent to the English termMrs., but it can also be used independently to refer politely to a mature woman.Although the ages of the men are given on the transcript, the woman’s exactage is not; she is only characterized as ‘young.’ Given this, the excessivelypolite term customarily used for older women has a teasing undertone. Thethird person form is thus used here to achieve a particular type of contextualeffect (see Laury 2002).

Third person forms can also be used for participants in the speech situation who are not addressees8 for the current turn. There were seven such mentions in the data. In the following excerpt from the restaurant conversation, oneof the men is discussing future plans pertaining to himself and another participant.

(8)

UM: Me mennään Melan kans syömään.1PL goPASS M.GEN with eatINFILL“Mela and I are going to get something to eat (lit. “We’re going to eatwith Mela”)

Me tullaa sit siin varttii yli.1PL comePASS then there quarterPTV over

We’re coming (back) then about a quarter after.”

The person referred to as Mela in the first line of the example is a participant inthe conversation and has been taking regular turns. However, UM’s announcement about his and Mela’s plans has as its audience the other men, notMela, who presumably already knows about the plans. Thus Mela is a ‘nonaddressed recipient’ (Goodwin 1984) for UM’s turn. The construction in whichthe oblique mention occurs is one which is frequently used in referring toknowing coparticipants in interaction; the initial first person plural includeswithin its reference the speaker and the person mentioned as the complement ofkanssa ‘with’ (Seppänen 1996), exclusive of any other participants or nonparticipants. In these constructions as well, then, like on arguments of necessive verbs discussed in the previous section, genitive marking, this time in anadpositional complement, is associated with speech act participancy.

In addition to the mentions of participants in the current speech situation, there were also 38 additional mentions of participants in reported (past

8 The concept of ‘addressee’ is a more complex and problematic one than is often acknowledged; see, for example, Goodwin (1984), Lerner (1996), and Seppänen (1998) for discussion.I am treating it here as the person or persons to whom an utterance is addressed in the sensethat they could respond to it, or in fact do. At the same time, I fully realize the limits of such adefinition.

RITVA LAURY166

and future) speech acts. A fourth of these (10/38) involved a double role inboth the current and reported speech act, as in the following example.

(9)EK: Hän sanos mulle et kuule,

3SG sayPST+3SG 1SGALL that listenIMP+2SG“She said to me listen,

pyysi oike et et,askPST+3SG really that thatReally asked me,

kui mää noin rumasti sul sanoinkaan.how 1SG so uglyADV 2SGALL sayPST2SGCLTWhy did I speak to you in such an ugly way”

In this excerpt, EK is both the current speaker and the reported addressee of apast speech act. The first person form mulle ‘to me’ in the first line reflects herrole in the current speech situation, but in the quote in the last line, the secondperson form sul ‘to you,’ which also refers to EK, reflects her role as the addressee of the reported speech act.

When speech act participancy and case are compared, an interestingpattern emerges. The oblique cases where human mentions cluster are also thecases where the largest proportion of human NPs refer to speech act participants. Consider Table 2 below.

Case Total # of mentions SAPs %age of SAPsAdessive 80 58 72.5%Allative 40 29 72.5%Genitive 55 24 44%Elative 15 5 33%Inessive 5 0 0%Ablative 4 4 100%Other 9 0 0%Total 208 119 57%

Table 2: Percentage of speech act participants (SAPs) in different cases

Almost three fourths of the adessives and allatives with human referentsin my data refer to speech act participants, as do almost half of the genitives,while only a third of the elatives, none of the inessives, and none of the NPs inthe other local cases (illative, essive, translative and partitive NPs) refer tospeech act participants. Thus 73% of the human NPs in the external local cases


(91/124) refer to speech act participants, while only 31% (9/29) of the NPs inthe internal and general local cases do. In other words, the NPs in local caseswith grammaticized functions and with meanings that reflect a great degree ofagentivity and control are more likely to refer to speech act participants thanNPs in cases without such functions and meanings.

If the genitive category is taken apart, a similar picture emerges. 57%(8/14) of the genitive subjects of necessive verbs referred to speech act participants in either the current speech situation or in a reported speech situation9,while only 41% (9/22) of prepositional complements and 32% (6/19) ofadnominal genitives did. Again, we see that oblique NPs in constructions withgrammaticized functions are more likely to refer to speech act participants thanother obliques.

4.3. Information flow features of human obliquesThe information flow features of human mentions in the oblique cases

resemble those of core arguments rather than other obliques in that they arevery likely to be identifiable, given and tracking.

Identifiable NPs are ones whose referent the speaker assumes the addressee can identify, while unidentifiable NPs are ones whose referent thespeaker assumes the addressee cannot identify. The linguistic correlate ofidentifiability is definiteness: definite NPs are used for identifiable referents,and indefinite NPs for unidentifiable referents. Givenness, on the other hand,has to do with the addressee’s assumed state of consciousness rather than hisstate of knowledge: given referents are those which the speaker assumes theaddressee is already conscious of, while new referents are ones the speakerassumes the addressee is not conscious of before they are mentioned. Givenreferents are generally, though not always, expressed with pronouns and otherminimal forms, while speakers mostly use full, lexical noun phrases to mentionnew referents. Tracking NPs are ones whose function it is to introduce andtrack referents in discourse; nontracking NPs have other functions such aspredication and classification. For more detailed discussions of categories ofinformation flow, see Chafe (1976, 1987, 1994), Du Bois (1980), and Thompson (1997). In this paper, I have considered those NPs given whose referentswere mentioned previously in the discourse, and I have considered those NPstracking which were mentioned subsequently in the discourse. Thus my codingfor these two information flow features was slightly different from Thompson’s(1997) study, but it was similar to the one used by Helasvuo (1997). Thus myresults are also more comparable to Helasvuo’s results than they are to Thompson’s results.

9 My count is conservative. As mentioned above, the genitive marking on subjectlike arguments of necessive verbs is itself a marker of speech act participancy. However, it is a covertcategory. My count was based on overtly expressed or actual speech act participancy in thecurrent or reported situation.

RITVA LAURY168

Nearly all of the oblique human NPs in the data had identifiable referents. Out of the 208, only eleven were unidentifiable to the addressee, and foranother seven of the NPs, identifiability was not relevant because the NPs werenonreferential. This means that 91% of the oblique human mentions in mydata were identifiable. No clear pattern of distribution among the differentcases emerged, except that 100% of the adessives had identifiable referents.Otherwise the unidentifiable mentions were evenly scattered among the cases.In this respect, the obliques in my data resemble the core arguments in Thompson’s (1997) study, in which 95% of the As, 90% of the Ss and 87% of the Oswere identifiable, while only 58% of the obliques were.

The oblique human referents in my data are more likely to be given andtracking than referents of oblique NPs in general. While only 57% of allobliques in Helasvuo’s (1997) data were given, 78% (162/208) of the obliquesin my data were. Out of the obliques in Thompson’s (1997) study, only 35%were given, while 89% of the NPs in the A role, and 65% of the NPs in the Oand S roles were given. Thus the NPs in my data resemble the core argumentsin Thompson’s data more than they resemble the obliques in either Thompson’s or Helasvuo’s study with respect to givenness. As can be seen in Table 3below, the adessive, allative and ablative mentions were most likely to begiven, followed by the elatives. Genitives and all the other oblique case mentions were slightly less likely to be given.

Case Given NPs Total NPs % of given NPsAdessive 74 80 93%Allative 33 40 83%Genitive 34 55 64%Elative 12 15 80%Ablative 3 4 75%Other 6 14 43%Total 162 208 78%

Table 3: Givenness

Regardless of case, the human obliques in my data were highly likely tobe tracking mentions. 176 of the 208, or 85%, were tracking, while only 25%of all obliques in Helasvuo (1997) and 26% of the obliques in Thompson(1997) were. In Thompson’s data, 98% of the As, 90% of the Ss and 83% ofthe Os served to track referents in discourse. These percentages are very similar to the percentages in my data. Table 4 below shows a breakdown of tracking NPs according to case. Genitives have the lowest proportion of trackingmentions, but even that figure, 73%, is far above the figure for tracking mentions for all obliques found in the other studies.


Case Tracking NPs All NPs % of tracking NPsAdessive 72 80 90%Allative 37 40 93%Genitive 39 55 71%Elative 12 15 80%Ablative 4 4 100%Other 12 14 92%Total 176 208 85%

Table 4: Tracking mentions

In this section we have seen that human mentions in the oblique caseshave discourse profiles very unlike those attributed to typical obliques inearlier studies. They tend strongly to be identifiable, given and further trackedin discourse, and thus resemble core arguments more than typical obliques.

4.4. Lexical form of oblique mentions of humansReferences to humans made in oblique cases are coded in ways that

mark them as specifically human; hence the forms used for mentions of humanreferents in these data cluster at the top of the animacy hierarchy (Silverstein1976b; Dixon 1979).

Most of the mentions of humans in my data are done with pronouns.There were 140 pronominal mentions, accounting for 67% of the total numberof mentions. Of these, 134 were personal pronouns; in addition, there were 6uses of other pronouns (such as demonstratives and indefinite pronouns). Thiscan be connected to two other features observed in the data: most of the mentions of humans in my data were given, and more than half referred to speechact participants, as already discussed.

In fact, speech act pronouns dominate in the data. There were 69 firstperson pronouns and 20 secondperson pronouns10. In addition, out of the 48thirdperson pronouns in the data, 23, almost half, were uses of hän/he, whichhave traditionally been considered specifically human. However, more recentstudies have shown that these are logophoric pronouns, used to refer to thespeaker within (indirect) reported speech, as shown in the following example.

10 The number of first and secondperson pronouns does not correspond in a direct way to thefigures accounting for speech act participancy presented in the previous section. This is because first and secondperson pronouns do not necessarily refer to speakers in the current, oreven reported speech situation. For example, the firstperson plural pronoun me ‘we’ is sometimes used for large groups of people, and in the oblique cases, for places where they live. Inthe data, meillä ‘weADE’ was used in ways almost equivalent to ‘in Finland’. Further, lexicalnouns, as shown here, can also be used to refer to speech act participants.

RITVA LAURY170

(10)

EL: Sitä Steffan koko aja selittiki et,3SGPTV S. whole time+ACC explainPST+3SGCLT that“That’s what Steffan was saying the whole time,

<Q Hän on vilpittömästi3SG bePRS+3SG sincerely

He is sincerely

kiitolinen tästä syvästä luottamuksestagrateful thisELA deepELA confidenceELAgrateful for this deep confidence

jota hänelle on osoitettu. Q>whichPTV 3SGALL bePRS+3SG showPASS+PST+PTCPwhich has been shown toward him.”

The bolded hänelle ‘to him’ in the last line of the example, as well as thenominative form of the same pronoun in the second line, refer to Steffan, thepurported speaker of the quote. Most Finnish dialects use this pronoun in justthis way, to index speech act participancy (although some dialects, such as thedialect spoken in Turku where some of the data come from, use it morewidely). If the 23 uses of hän are included in speech act pronouns, then 112 ofthe oblique mentions of humans in my data, just over half (54%), were donewith speech act pronouns.

Most lexical mentions of humans in oblique cases also specify them ashumans. Of the 68 lexical mentions in these data, 30 were proper names andeleven were kinterms. Of the 27 remaining common nouns, eight were occupational titles and almost all of the rest were also ones which could only be usedto refer to humans such as lapsi ‘child’, mies ‘man’, muija ‘woman, oldwoman, wife’. Out of the common nouns, only five were nouns that could beused to refer to nonhuman referents, three of them uses of the noun ryhmä‘group’, one use of ruotsalaiset ‘Swedes’ and suomalaiset ‘Finns’.

Altogether 175 of the 208 oblique human mentions, then, were donewith forms that could only be used to refer to humans. Placed on Silverstein’s(1976b) animacy hierarchy, the forms used cluster at the left, more animate endof the scale, as can be seen below.

1st/2nd p.pro < 3rd p.pro < pn < kinterm < human cn < animate cn < inan.cn89 48 30 11 24 5

Table 5: Animacy hierarchy (Silverstein 1976b) and forms used


5. ConclusionThis study of oblique human mentions in spoken discourse has revealed

that their referents share the characteristic saliency and prominence that hasbeen noted to be typical of human referents mentioned in the core cases. Interms of their information flow features, human obliques resemble core arguments more than typical obliques in that they are predominantly identifiable,given, and tracking. However, they are not equally distributed among all theoblique cases. Instead, they cluster in only a few of the oblique cases, namelythose that have grammaticized uses and those that are semantically associatedwith agency and control.

The results of the study confirm Thompson’s (1997) hypothesis that thecoreoblique distinction is a continuum, not a binary division. Although theNPs studied here are not core arguments, they nevertheless appear mostly inconstructions which have grammatical (coretype), and not semantic or local(obliquetype) meanings and functions, that is, they resemble core arguments interms of their grammatical function. In fact, as seen above, the use of humanmentions in the oblique cases has been noted to have contributed to the grammaticalization of obliques into purely grammatical functions.

As noted, the oblique human mentions in these data also very clearlyhave the information flow features of core arguments. In view of the fact thatthey also appear in constructions with grammaticalized, that is, corelike functions, we can see that Thompson’s (1997) suggestion that information flowfeatures are the motivating force behind the coreoblique division is alsostrongly supported by the results of this study.

We have also seen that speech act participancy is a central feature ofhuman referents that are mentioned in the oblique roles. This is manifested onboth the syntactic and the lexical level. Two constructions which involveoblique mentions of humans express participancy in speech events, namely theallative (allative human mentions tend strongly to be recipients of talk, that is,addressees in speech events) and the genitive arguments of necessive verbs (thegenitive marking is an index of participancy in an earlier speech act). In addition, the cases in which human oblique mentions were most likely to occurwere also the most likely ones to code speech act participants. Finally, themajority of the oblique mentions of humans were made with speech act pronouns. Being a participant in communication with other humans is a centralfeature of humans in grammar and discourse.

PERSON IN FINNISHPARADIGMATIC AND SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS IN INTERACTION

MARJALIISA HELASVUO AND LEA LAITINENUniversity of Turku and University of Helsinki

1. IntroductionThe category of person is expressed in three coding systems in Finnish,

namely personal pronouns, verbal person marking, and possessive suffixes. Inthis article, we explore the two first mentioned systems.1

In a discussion of the verbal person marking system in their descriptivegrammar of Finnish, Sulkala and Karjalainen (1992:332) state, “Person, andwith it number, are coded in the verb from the subject: three persons in thesingular and plural and the passive form.” They illustrate the system as inTable 1 below.

Active: singular ‘go’ ‘take’ ‘eat’1. (minä) menen otan syön2. (sinä) menet otat syöt3. (hän) menee ottaa syöplural1. (me) menemme otamme syömme2. (te) menette otatte syötte3. (he) menevät ottavat syövät

Passive: mennään otetaan syödään

Table 1: Verbal person marking according toSulkala and Karjalainen (1992:332)

In Table 1 personal pronouns are given in parentheses (minä ‘I’, sinä‘you’, hän ‘he/she’ in the singular; me ‘we’, te ‘you (pl.)’, and he ‘they’ in the

1 We are grateful to Lyle Campbell, Ritva Laury and Maria Vilkuna for insightful commentsand criticisms on this paper.

MARJALIISA HELASVUO & LEA LAITINEN174

plural) to show that they are optional,2 and person can be expressed through theperson marking on the verb alone (the personal suffixes are given in bold face).In Standard Finnish, the preferred alternative is to suppress the pronoun withonly the person marking on the verb to express person and number. In contrast,in colloquial varieties it is more common for both the pronoun and the personmarking on the verb to occur. In certain contexts, however, it is quite commonto omit the pronoun, inter alia in answers to yesno questions (oot sä käynysiellä [be2SG you visitPTCP there] ‘have you visited there’ — oon [be1SG]‘(I) have’).

As Table 1 shows, Sulkala and Karjalainen (1992) include the passivein the verbal person marking system, but they do not specify its role in the system. In the passive, there is no subject in Finnish, and hence, no subject agreement in the verb, but there is a special person marking on the verb in themorphotactic slot for personal markers (An, see Table 1 and below for morediscussion). In Finnish, no other argument assumes the role of subject in thepassive. In the literature, it has been customary to call such passives impersonal, as opposed to personal passives where the object of an active predicationassumes the subject role in the passive (see e.g. Comrie 1977, Vilkuna1996:144). Vilkuna (1996:144) notes that the term impersonal is paradoxical inreference to the Finnish passive because the passive implies a personal agent(left unspecified) behind the action expressed by the verb (in Vilkuna’s terms,it implies a person reference for the first argument of the verb). (For more discussion, see Helasvuo, this volume).

In active clauses, the predicate verb agrees with the subject in personand in number. Because the verb shows the person agreement with the subject,the nominal and the verbal person marking systems have usually not been discussed separately in Finnish linguistics (see e.g. Sulkala & Karjalainen 1992,Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979). We will show, however, that in colloquial varieties the coding of person is more complicated: the verbal and nominal personmarking systems intersect, but not in the straightforward manner suggested intraditional Finnish linguistics. The connections between the two form an intricate network: we demonstrate here that the verbal person marking is not copiedfrom the subject pronoun in a mechanical way, nor is the personal pronounredundant. For the purposes of this paper we therefore find it useful to presentthe nominal and verbal person marking systems as two paradigmatic systems.This is especially useful since we wish to provide an account of the personmarking system not only in the standard but also in the nonstandard varieties.On the syntagmatic level, it is possible to leave out the personal pronoun; insuch instances, the marking of the verb conveys the personal reference. Thisphenomenon has been discussed in the literature under the heading “prodrop”.We show that certain structures require both the pronoun and the verbal person

2Actually, 1st and 2nd person pronouns are more optional than are 3rd person pronouns; cf. Section 2.2.

PERSON IN FINNISH 175

marking, whereas in others it is not possible to have the personal pronoun. Thisis discussed in Section 2. We then go on to explore how the two systems intersect on the syntagmatic level.

In Section 3 we discuss person marking in the light of the hierarchy of“inherent lexical content” developed by Silverstein (1976b, 1981). We willshow that personal pronouns show a clear nominative–accusative system incase marking whereas lexical nouns are closer to a neutral alignment system.Thus, the case marking patterns are in accordance with the Silversteinian hierarchy of person. This is especially clear in the marking of the core argumentsin modal constructions expressing “necessity” (that is, obligation; the socalledNEC constructions). We also discuss the marking of logophoric pronouns andthe ways in which it manifests the hierarchy of person.

In his discussion on the function of agreement, Lehmann (1988) emphasizes that agreement is indeed referential in nature. According to Lehmann(1988:55), agreement helps identify or reidentify referents. In typology textbooks, it has been customary to speak of crossreferencing morphology (seee.g. Croft 1991b). We show, however, that this is somewhat problematic inreference to the coding of person in Finnish and furthermore, to person agreement in general. This is discussed more closely in Section 4. We show that inthe person system of Finnish there are two forms, namely the socalled zeroperson and the passive, which regularly create open reference (see below, andLaitinen, this volume, and Helasvuo, this volume). We further show (in Section4) that there are systematic ways of using personal forms to create open reference (cf., inter alia, the use of the second person form for generic reference inEnglish). We demonstrate that this is a feature that applies to all persons atleast in Finnish, but we allude to parallels in other languages, as well (for anoverview of the grammatical category of person in a crosslinguistic perspective, see Siewierska 2004). In these cases, the interpretation of the personalform as open or as indexing for example a speech act participant (e.g. the addressee) is constrained by the context, and has to be construed from the context. Analyzing examples from natural discourse, we show how reference isconstructed in an interactive process by the participants both with the help ofpersonal pronouns and with agreement morphology. Thus, rather than identifying or reidentifying referents, agreement functions as a resource, useful to theparticipants for construing reference.

2. The verbal and nominal person marking systems in FinnishIn this section we discuss the verbal and nominal person marking sys

tems in Finnish. In standard Finnish, the syntactic function of verbal personmarking is to express the person (1st, 2nd and 3rd) and number (singular vs. plural) of the subject. We could thus say that the verbal person marking indexesthe subject. The passive is different in this respect, since there is no subject.


The person marking in the passive3 could be said to index a human agent (seeHelasvuo, this volume, for more discussion). We show that the verbal personmarking system is different in colloquial varieties from that of the standardlanguage. We also discuss the nominal system for coding person and try toexplicate the special role that the socalled zero person has in the system.

2.1. Two paradigmsTables 2 and 3 illustrate the verbal person marking systems in standard

Finnish vs. in the colloquial language. The verb istua ‘sit’ is given as anexample.

Person Singular Plural1. n (istun) mme (istumme)2. t (istut) tte (istutte)3. V (istuu) vat (istuvat)“4.” (passive) Vn (istutaan)

Table 2: Verbal person marking (Standard Finnish)

Person Singular Plural1. n (istun) Vn (istutaan)2. t (istut) tte (istutte)3. V (istuu)“4.” (passive) Vn (istutaan)

Table 3: Verbal person marking (colloquial Finnish)

Comparing Tables 2 and 3, we see that Standard Finnish differs fromthe colloquial language in certain respects. Most notably, it is quite rare in thecolloquial language to express a number distinction in the 3rd person; instead,the verb is in the 3rd person singular both with singular and plural subjects.

In earlier literature in Finnish linguistics it has been maintained that thepassive is an impersonal verb form.4 However, modern textbooks instead discuss it as a member of the person system (see e.g. Hakulinen and Karlsson1979:255). In relation to the other persons, the passive has been described asthe “4th person” (Tuomikoski 1971) to indicate that it is not a 1st, 2nd or 3rd person form. It is not possible to express the morphological distinction betweensingular and plural in the passive; syntagmatically, however, the passive often

3 Here we refer to what Helasvuo (this volume) calls the simple passive.4 Setälä (1883:101–102) uses the term persoonaton muoto, literally ‘personless form’.


combines with plural forms for example in predicate adjective clauses (e.g.Ollaan valmiita [bePASS readyPLPTV] ‘we are ready’, ‘let’s be ready’).

Table 3 shows that the passive form is used in the colloquial languagewith 1st person plural reference (in combination with the 1st person plural pronoun). In presentday Finnish, the passive form has largely replaced the 1st

person plural verb forms in 1st person plural contexts in the colloquial language(see example 1).

(1) (Pertilä 2000:121)mee jouruttiin kaikki pois.PRO1PL have.toPASSPSTPERS all away“We all had to leave.”

In Finnish dialects, the use of the passive form in connection with differentsubjects is even more varied (see Nirvi 1947); in certain dialects, the passive isused in connection with 3rd person plural pronominal subjects (example 2):

(2) (Pertilä 2000:133)ne jouvuthin toiselle puolej järviä.PRO3PL have.toPASSPSTPERS otherADE side lakePTV“They had to go to the other side of the lake.”

Or even with plural lexical subjects (example 3, line 3):

(3) (Pertilä 2000:132)met menthin talhon,PRO1PL goPASSPSTPERS house+ILL“We went to the house,

isäntä ja emäntä syöthin,host and hostess eatPASSPSTPERSthe host and hostess ate,

tyttäret ja pijat tiskathindaughterPL and maidPL do.dishesPASSPSTPERSthe daughters and maids washed the dishes.”

Example (1) and line 1 of example (3) illustrate the use of the passive form inconnection with 1st person plural subject, example (2) shows it with a 3rd

person plural pronominal subject, and in lines 2 and 3 of example (3) thepassive is used with plural lexical subjects.5 Examples (1–3) show how the

5 Note that in examples (1–3), the reference of the subject is specific. Therefore, these examples do not represent the “impersonal”, nonspecific interpretation of personal pronouns.


nominal and verbal systems of coding person intersect in interesting ways. It isnoteworthy, however, that if the nominal and verbal person markings do notexpress the same person, it is the nominal marking that wins: the interpretationof the personal reference is based on the person expressed by the nominalelement, not the person marking on the verb.

Table 4 shows the nominal person marking system. Examples are givenof nominative pronominal forms of the various persons. The verb forms withwhich the pronouns combine are given in parentheses.

Person Singular Plural1. minä (+ VSG1) me (+ VPL1/PASS)2. sinä (+ VSG2) te (+ VPL2)3. hän (+ V3) he (+ V3)”Zero” Ø (+ V3)

Table 4: Nominal person marking system: the nominative.

As was mentioned in the introduction, personal pronouns in Finnishexhibit a nominative–accusative coding system. In this system, the nominativeform of the personal pronoun signals that the pronoun functions as a subject.Personal pronouns functioning as objects are always marked with either theaccusative or the partitive case. For other pronouns and lexical nouns, thenominative does not necessarily function as a subject marking case, since evenobjects can be marked with the nominative if there is no subject in the clause(for example, Osta auto [buy+IMP+2SG car+NOM] ‘Buy a car!’). In this way,the nominative functions somewhat like an absolutive in the marking of lexicalnouns and pronouns other than the personal ones (for more discussion, seeHelasvuo 2001).

Table 4 places the socalled zero person in the paradigm of personalpronouns. It has no overt nominal expression, and thus no real paradigmaticform, but instead it is realized in syntagms with the 3rd person singular verbform alone. Example (4) illustrates this.

(4) (Laitinen 1995a)Jos lennon ostaa hyvissä ajoin etukäteen,if flightACC buy3SG well in.time in.advance“If you buy your flight well in advance,

voi saada paremman alennuksen.may+3SG getINF betterACC bargainACCyou can get a better bargain.”


In example (4) there is an ifthen compound construction with two 3rd personsingular verb forms ostaa ‘buy’ and voi ‘may’. They have been translated intoEnglish with 2nd person singular forms (or by impersonal ‘one’), but it is important to note that there is no overt subject in the Finnish counterparts. Insteadthere is a zero subject. Evidence for the reality of the zero is given by the factthat in the clauses in example (4) the object is marked with the accusative andnot with the nominative as would be the case in a subjectless clause. Themeaning of the zero subject has been described as generic in Finnish grammars(very similar to the interpretation of the 2nd person forms in the English translation). Laitinen (1995a and this volume) argues that it would be better to describe it as open for construal in the ongoing speech event.

2.2. Pronominal vs. zero subjects — syntagmatic perspectivesIn Finnish, it is possible to leave out the pronominal subject, with only

the verbal person marking to convey the personal reference. This phenomenonhas been discussed under the heading “prodrop” (regarding prodrop in Finnish, see Heinonen 1995). Since the 19th century leaving out the 1st and 2nd

person pronouns has been preferred in the standard language because, especially in the case of the first person, the use of pronouns in addition to the verbal person marking was considered as redundant and even as overemphasis(Strellman 2005). In the spoken language, however, the subject pronoun ismost often present and its absence is clearly meaningful.

Examples (5–7) illustrate utterances with 1st and 2nd person zero subjects. First, in answers to yesno questions, the subject is usually left out as inexample (5) in line 3:

(5) (from the Corpus of Conversation)1 Elena: sä olit mennyp puhuu.

PRO2SG bePST2SG gone talkINF+ILL “You had gone to tell,

2 =olek sä mennyp puhuu reh, reksille. be+2SGQ PRO2SG gone talkINF+ILL headmasterALL did you go to tell to the headmaster?”

3 Aino: joo joo. menin.yeah yeah goPST1SG

“Sure, I did.”

In example (5), Aino admits to Elena that she has told the headmaster something that had to be kept secret. Using the first person pronoun (mä, i.e. mämenin ‘I went’) would have been a marked choice in such an answer (line 3).


In example (6) line 5, there is a 2nd person singular verb form (in thepresent tense, indicative mood) with no separate subject pronoun. The omissionof the 2nd person singular subject pronoun enforces the interpretation of theutterance as a directive (even though it is not in the imperative mood), not forexample as a statement:

(6) (from the Corpus of Conversation)1 Aino: sä olit, myähäs myähäs mh [hh

PRO2SG bePST2SG lateINE lateINE “You were late, late, er”

2 Elena: [oleh be+IMP+2SG

hiljaa nyt. quietPTV now “Shut up now!

3 kuuntele.listen+IMP+2SGListen,

4 m se oli kauheev vihane että, PRO3SG bePST+3SG terribleGEN angry that er, she (mother) was terribly angry like:

5 @ nyt meet kyllä kouluu@ tais sillee että, now go2SG sure schoolILL or so that Now you really must go to school, or like:

6 @taasko sä oot@, tai = againQ PRO2SG be2SG or Have you again , or ”

As illustrated by this example, the singular second person subject pronoun sä isused in descriptive comments (line 1) or questions (line 6), whereas in directives (including imperatives; lines 2 and 3) it is omitted. The omission of thesubject pronoun in imperatives is of course very common across languages,including strictly nonprodrop languages like English.

Indeed, the omission of subjects is common in specific interactionalcontexts. However, it has special functions in monologues as well, as in thefollowing:


(7) (Liksom 1995:7)6

1 Mie olen ollu sotaväen jälkheen työttömänä,PRO1SG be1SG been armyGEN after unemployedESS“I have been unemployed after the army,

2 eihän täällä ole mithään hommia. [ ]NEGCL here be anyPTV jobPLPTVthere aren’t any jobs here

3 Käyn kahesti kuussa leimauttamassago1SG twice monthINE stampINFINE

postiautola kirkola,postcarADE churchADE

(I) go to sign twice a month in the mail car to the village,

4 juon baarin puolela muutaman kaljandrink1SG barGEN sideADE someACC beerACC(I) drink a few beers at the bar,

5 ja annan emännälle loput.and give1SG landladyALL restPLand (I) give the rest (of the money) to the landlady.”

In example (7), 1st person subject (mie) is used in line 1 (mie olen ollu ‘I havebeen’). After that, an illustration of the situation of being unemployed is performed in lines 3 5 in the form of a threepart list: käyn , juon ja annan (‘I go , I drink , and I give ’), but here the independent coreferentialsubject pronoun is missing.

We now turn to third person subjects. As was mentioned in Section2.1., the verb is often in the 3rd person singular form both with singular andplural subjects. Furthermore, G. Karlsson (1966) has shown that in the regionaldialects the plural verb form serves as an anaphoric reference form in narrative.Our next example (8) illustrates such contexts of use: the lexical subject andthe verbal plural suffix (vat or vät) have complementary distribution.

6 This example is an extract from a short story written in Northern Finnish dialect by RosaLiksom, a Finnish author who makes use of different language varieties — including variousregional dialects — in her writing. Cf. ex. (11), also by Liksom, where she uses a more standard written variety with no regional elements.


(8) (Latvala 1895:8–9)1 Kyllä ne ostokses on,

sure PRO3PL shoppingINE be+3SG“Surely they are shopping

2 koska kuuluvat jo mettumaarin aikaanbecause be.heard3PL already MidsummerGEN timeILLbecause they are reported already by Midsummer time

3 olleen ostokses.bePTCPACC shoppingINEto have been shopping.”

In line 1, the subject is a 3rd person plural pronoun (ne), and the verb is in the3rd person singular form (on). In line 2 instead, the same persons are beingreferred to with the 3rd person plural form of the verb only; there is no separatesubject pronoun. The use of the plural verb form makes the coreferentialitywith the pronominal antecedent explicit.

Generally, the third person subject can be left out in similar contexts asthe speechact person pronouns in examples (5 7) above, which is illustratedin examples (9 11).

(9) (Heinonen 1995:53 55; glossing and translation slightly modified)Sano emännälle, että hakee ruusut kellaristasay+IMP+2SG ladyALL that fetch3SG rosesNOM cellarELA“Tell the lady of the house to get the roses from the cellar.”

(10) (Heinonen 1995:53 55)A: Onks ne jo tullut?

be+3SGQ PRO3PL already come“Have they come already?”

B: On.be+3SG“Yes, they have.”

In example (9), a singular 3rd person subject (se or hän ‘s/he’) is lacking in areported directive;7 here, it is precisely the omission of the subject pronoun thatenforces the interpretation of the utterance as a directive (cf. above ex. 6). In(10) the plural 3rd person subject (ne ‘they’) is left out in an answer to a yesnoquestion. As Heinonen notes, the third person subject can also be omitted, for

7 In contrast to Heinonen, we do not see this usage as oldfashioned.


instance, in diaries and letters, that is, in informal writing. However, the contexts of this usage are actually more general than Heinonen suggests. The homeenvironment for this phenomenon is narrative, both in the spoken language andin fictional prose, for instance in short stories and novels as in (11):

(11) (Liksom 1995:109)

1 Sisko maalasi ikkunankarmit mustiksisister paintPST+3SG window.framePL blackPLTRA

öljyisellä isolla pensselillä.oilyADE bigADE brushADE

“Sister painted the window frames black with a big oily brush.

2 Tuhrasi kokonaisen viikon suti kädessäsmearPST+3SG wholeACC weekACC brush handINE(She) smeared a whole week with a brush in her hand

3 ja maalia pirskoili ovenpieliin .and paintPTV splashPST+3SG doorpostPL+ILLand paint splashed on the doorposts.”

In line 1, the subject is expressed with a full NP sisko ‘sister’, whereas in theclause in line 2, there is no lexical subject. It illustrates the activity mentionedin line 1 in more detail. In addition to this, it conveys a slight implication ofcomplaint, irony or wonder: in this way — so badly — did the sister do thepainting. The anaphoric 3rd person zero subject can also be found in old folktales.

In sum, anaphoric zero subjects referring to the main character can beused in narrative after having been introduced with a lexical NP. They describein more detail the activity of the main character that the speaker has alreadystarted to tell about. This convention does not belong to nonfiction prosewritten in Standard Finnish. We have shown that the presence or absence of thesubject pronoun is not mechanical, but entails a meaningful choice that is constrained by context.

3. The hierarchy of person in FinnishIn this subsection, the category of person is considered against the

crosslinguistic study of Silverstein (1976b) on the intersection of dimensionsof referential space and the grammatical properties of noun phrase categories.On the basis of grammatical coding of the NP types as core arguments by casemarking or agreement patterns, the referential space is organized in the form of


a hierarchical cline that also has an indexical interpretation (see Silverstein1981, 1987b).

In Finnish, the referential NP types can be arranged according to theirgrammatical patterning as a cline. This cline is roughly illustrated in Figure 1below. We will show that especially in nonstandard Finnish, the concept ofperson is intertwined with the indexical dimension of the NP categories, i.e.their status as potential speech act participants.

personal pronouns (1–3) > other animate NPs and pronouns > inanimate NPsmost indexical referential NPs almost pure referential NPs

Figure 1: Hierarchy of person in Finnish.

At the left end of Figure 1, all personal pronouns including the third personshän ‘s/he’ and he ‘they’ behave grammatically alike. As shown below, theyalso are the most indexical NP types, all referring to speechact participants. Inthe middle area of the cline outlined in Figure 1 are the other pronouns and fullNPs that refer to personal, individual and intentional entities, both humanbeings and higher animals. The right end of the cline belongs to the full NPsreferring to lower animals, vegetables, inanimate or abstract entities. These arethe least indexical NP types on the scale.

We will outline shortly how the cline is manifested in case marking,especially in the coding of NPs in the core roles. Then we discuss case markingpatterns in one particular construction type, namely in constructions expressingnecessity (NEC constructions). We show that in this construction type casemarking is used to indicate the indexical status of speech act participants. Wealso discuss the coding of logophoricity.

3.1. Case marking and the hierarchy of personFinnish exhibits a complex case marking system with 12–15 cases.8

Here we will focus on the socalled grammatical cases, i.e. cases that are usedto mark NPs in the core grammatical roles (subject, object, predicate nominal/adjective; for a discussion of the local cases, see Huumo and Ojutkangas,this volume). The case alternation in the marking of the core roles is quitecomplex in Finnish, and it has been discussed extensively in the literature (seee.g. Itkonen 1979, Heinämäki 1983, 1994, Laitinen & Vilkuna 1993). The casemarking shows an interesting split pattern that is in accordance with the hierarchy of person presented by Silverstein (1976b, 1981; for a more detailed discussion of the split pattern in Finnish, see Helasvuo 2001:36–57, and Helasvuo2003).

8 The exact number depends on whether some marginal and less productive cases are taken intoaccount (for discussion, see Helasvuo 2001:37, fn. 4).


Silverstein’s hierarchy was designed to account for split patterns inergative languages. In the hierarchy, personal pronouns referring to speech actparticipants rank highest. They are followed by third person pronouns, nounsthat refer to humans, animates, and inanimates. (Silverstein 1976b:122.) Ifthere is a split in an ergative coding system, the hierarchy is supposed to predict the nature of the split. Those elements that rank highest in the hierarchyare most likely to receive nominativeaccusative coding, whereas referents atthe lower end of the hierarchy are more likely to receive ergative coding.

Although Finnish is not an ergative language, Silverstein’s hierarchycan be used to explain case marking patterns of NPs in the core roles in Finnish. Helasvuo (2001:94–96) shows that Finnish exhibits a split between explicit and variable coding that is in accordance with Silverstein’s person hierarchy. In terms of case marking, agreement and word order, personal pronounsexhibit a clear nominativeaccusative system, whereas the coding of full NPs inFinnish is close to a neutral coding system. Here we discuss only case markingpatterns.

For personal pronouns in Finnish, the marking of the core roles followsa canonical nominativeaccusative coding system where the subject is alwaysin the nominative (unmarked) and the object is marked either with the accusative or the partitive (example 12).

(12) (Helasvuo 2001:43)

jos sää voisit sen tehdä,if PRO2SG canCOND2SG itACC doINF“if you could do that,

niin mä oisin tosi ilone.then PRO1SG beCOND1SG real gladthen I would be real glad.”

In example (12), the 2nd person pronoun sää ‘you’ is in the nominative andfunctions as subject. The 3rd person pronoun se ‘it’ stands in the accusative andfunctions as the object. In the latter clause the 1st person pronoun mä ‘I’, in thenominative, functions as the subject.

Table 5 illustrates case marking in the core roles for personal pronouns.9

9 Personal pronouns have a special accusative ending t which was adopted into standard Finnish from the eastern dialects during the 19th century. In the western dialects, personal pronouns have the same accusative ending as other pronouns and full NPs, namely n (minun‘me’, hänen ‘him/her’ etc.).


Subject Objectnominative accusative or partitive

Table 5: Case marking in the core roles.Personal pronouns. (Helasvuo 2001:43.)

The case marking patterns of singular full NPs and of other singularpronouns are different from those of personal pronouns (see Table 6).

SingularSubject Objectnominative accusative or partitive(no subject) nominative or partitive

Table 6: Case marking in the core roles.Singular full NPs and other singular pronouns. (Helasvuo 2001:44.)

As Table 6 shows, the nominative is no longer exclusively a subject markingcase, because not only subjects, but also some objects can stand in the nominative. If there is no nominative subject in the clause, and therefore, no need todistinguish the object from the subject, the object can stand in the nominative.

Example (13) illustrates object marking in a clause without a nominative subject.

(13) (Helasvuo 2001:43)

pudotettiin niin helvetin upee kuvasto.dropPASSPSTPERS so damnGEN magnificent catalog“They dropped a damn beautiful catalog.” (Lit. “was dropped a damnbeautiful catalog”)

Example (13) is a passive clause. In Finnish, there is no subject in the passive(for discussion, see Helasvuo, this volume). In (13), the object NP helvetinupee kuvasto ‘a damn beautiful catalog’ stands in the nominative.10

Thus, the marking of other pronouns and singular full NPs does notfollow a canonical nominativeaccusative pattern in which the nominativefunctions to mark the subject. Instead, the nominative is more like anabsolutive.

10 The NP helvetin upee kuvasto ’a damn beautiful catalog’ does not trigger person or numberagreement in the verb as subject NPs do. Therefore, it functions as an object rather than as apromoted subject. (For more discussion, see Sands & Campbell 2001:283).


Finally, the case marking of full plural NPs and plural pronouns (exceptfor personal pronouns) follows a neutral alignment pattern where case markingdoes not distinguish between the subject and object roles (consider Table 7).

PluralSubject Objectnominative nominative or partitive

Table 7: Case marking of the core roles. Plural full NPs and plural pronouns(except for personal pronouns). (Helasvuo 2001:44.)

Table 7 shows that in clauses where the subject and the object are both pluralfull NPs or plural pronouns (excluding personal pronouns) both the subject andthe object are in the nominative. Example (14) illustrates this.

(14) (Palander 1991:242)Ei tarvihtteis tuola työmuala enneeNEG+3SG needCOND+3SG there worksiteADE anymore

puihen kansap punnertoo.treePLGEN with wrestleINF“One wouldn’t need to wrestle with logs anymore on the site.

Raskaat työt tekis konneet.hardPL workPL doCOND+3G machinePLThe hard work would be done by machines.” (Lit. “Machines would dothe hard jobs.”)

In the latter clause in example (14) there are two plural full NPs, raskaat työt‘hard jobs’ and konneet ‘machines’, which are both in the nominative.Although raskaat työt is preverbal and thus, in the neutral position for subjectsin Finnish, we know on the basis of our world knowledge that it is konneet‘machines’ that do the work and not vice versa. Finnish word order allows forconsiderable variation for discoursepragmatic reasons. Therefore, the objectNP raskaat työt ‘hard jobs’ can be preposed for topicalization even though itfunctions as the object and not as the subject (for discussion of word order inFinnish, see Vilkuna 1989 and Helasvuo 2001:76–83.)

To summarize, the case marking of NPs in the core roles shows variation that is in accordance with the hierarchy of person presented by Silverstein(1976b, 1987b). The case marking of NP types that are highest in the hierarchyrealizes a straightforward nominativeaccusative system where the nominativeis a true subject marking case, whereas in the coding of other singular pronounsand singular full NPs the nominative can be used to code both subjects and


objects. The coding of plural full NPs and plural pronouns (not personal pronouns) is in accordance with a neutral alignment system where case markingdoes not distinguish between the core roles.

3.2. Constructions of necessityAs we have seen above, the nominativeaccusative coding distinguishes

personal pronouns from other pronouns and NPs in Finnish. The difference isreflected elsewhere as well, most clearly in the socalled NEC (necessity) constructions. In these constructions, there is a modal verb that expresses necessity(i.e. obligation). The verb always appears in the 3rd person singular form (seeLaitinen 1997), and the personal pronouns are coded with the accusative casein the object role. In the subject role (in both transitive and intransitive clauses)instead, the personal pronouns are always in the genitive in NEC constructions.This is illustrated in example (15a) below.

(15a) (fabricated)Minun täytyy tavata sinut ja hänet huomenna.IGEN must3SG meetINF youACC and s/heACC tomorrow“I have to see you and her/him tomorrow.”

Other NPs and pronouns are coded differently from personal pronounsin NEC constructions. In the object role they are always in the nominative (orthe partitive), like in the modified example (15b).11

(15b) (modified; cf. 15a)Minun täytyy tavata poika / se12 huomennaIGEN must3SG meetINF boy/heNOM tomorrow“I have to see the boy/him/it tomorrow.”

In the subject role, there is a split pattern to be observed in the casemarking of NPs which are in the middle area of Silverstein’s cline. In standardFinnish, they are coded with the genitive (16) in all other contexts except forthe socalled existential constructions13, where the postverbal intransitive subject is in the nominative (as in 17b). This norm was formulated by languagestandardizers during the 19th century (see Laitinen 1997, 2004). It is illustrated

11 They are coded in the same way as objects in passive and imperative clauses in Finnish. Thecase marking of NPs in the core roles in (15b) is like an inverted pattern of transitive clauses(Itkonen 1979).12 The pronoun se (‘it’) refers to nonhuman entities in Standard Finnish. In the spoken language, se is used to refer humans as well. Cf. Section 3.3.13 For the term existential sentence, see Jespersen 1992 [1924]:154–156; for its use in FinnishVilkuna 1989:155–160, Helasvuo 2001:7, 61–63, 97–103).


in (17a) and (17b) by a classical example of an intransitive minimal pair, presented in many grammars.

(16) (modified; cf. 15b)Äidin täytyy tavata poika / se huomenna.motherGEN must3SG meetINF boy+NOM / it+NOM tomorrow“The mother has to see the boy / him tomorrow.”

(17a) (e.g. Setälä 1884:62)Isännän pitää olla talossa.landlordGEN must3SG beINF houseINE“The landlord must be in the house.”

(17b) (e.g. Setälä 1884:62)Talossa pitää olla isäntä.houseINE must3SG beINF landlord“There must be a landlord in the house.”

In other words, the case marking of NPs in NEC constructions has nothing to do with indexicality of reference in standard Finnish. In dialects andother informal registers of Finnish, however, the coding system of all subjectsapart from personal pronouns is more complicated. Those transitive subjectsthat are in the middle of the scale (Figure 1) are coded with the genitive almostwithout exception. In contrast, the intransitive subjects are in the genitive caseonly if their human or animate referents are treated as intentional beings whosebehavior can be understood as meaningful by the speakers. This happens inmodal contexts of deontic duties or obligations (18a), or of dynamic, physicalnecessities (18b). In such contexts, even postverbal subjects (18b) referring toexperiencers of necessity can be coded by genitive.

(18a) (transcribed from dialectal data)Sillon täydyi miästen ol kaikkeinthen mustPST+3SG manPL+GEN be+INF allPL+GEN

ain koton.always at.home

“At that time, all the men had to be at home.”

(18b) (transcribed from dialectal data)nyt täötyy jo tulla kalan,now must3SG already comeINF fishGEN


kun se on tuossa tilassa.because it is thatINE conditionINE

“The fish has to come now, because it is in that condition.”

However, the very same NPs or pronouns with animate referents in theintransitive subject role can take the nominative case as well, if they are construed as nonpersonal entities whose experiences, intentions or feelings are notrelevant in the situation described. In such cases, the modal verb of necessityfunctions to express either epistemic (19a) or practical (19b) inferences of thespeaker(s). Thus, the referents of nominative subjects are not treated as evenpotential speech act persons taking part in the process described.

(19a) (transcribed from dialectal data)Ja se täytyy ollas suur lahnaand it+NOM must3SG beINF big+NOM bream+NOM“And it must be a big bream

joka painoa viis kiloja.that weigh+3SG five kiloPTVthat weighs five kilos”

(19b) (transcribed from dialectal data)Niin siin täyty lapsetSo there must+PST+3SG childNOM+PL“So the children had to

ollan niin kynttilän, tikun näyttäjänä.beINF so candleGEN splintGEN holderESShold up the candle, the splint.” (Lit. “so there had to be children asshowers of the candle, of the stick.”)

Consequently, the right end of the hierarchy (Figure 1) is a place for NPsdenoting nonpersonal referents, for instance inanimate or vegetative entities.These NP types are seldom used in the role of transitive subjects. Usually, theyare either intransitive subjects (20a) or objects (20b), both coded with thenominative. Thus, the genitive argument occurs in clauses which are higher intransitivity and the nominative argument occurs where there is lower transitivity (see Sands & Campbell 2001:269–274).

(20a) (transcribed from dialectal data)kylä se täyty ollam meetriä syvä kumminkin,indeed it+NOM must+PST beINF metrePTV deep anyway


se hautathat+NOM pit+NOM

“Certainly, it had to be metredeep, anyway, that tarburning pit.”

(20b) (modified)kylä se täyty kaivaa meetriä syvä kumminkin,indeed it+NOM must+PST digINF metrePTV deep anyway

se hautathat+NOM pit+NOM

“Certainly, it had to be dug metredeep, anyway, that tarburning pit.”

Hence, in NEC constructions, there is a split in the middle area of thehierarchy of NPs: A referentially animate NP has two possible codings and thechoice between the codings depends on whether the referent is construed indexically, that is, as a person involved in the ongoing, or an earlier or at leastpotential speech act. The coding with the genitive is an index of such a person,whereas the nominative coding entails that the referent is construed as nothaving any speech act status.

The personal pronouns seem to constitute a coherent category that differs from other NP types in Finnish: they show a special accusative casemarking for NPs in the object role (see above Section 3.1.) and are obligatorilymarked with the genitive when functioning as agents in the NEC constructions.In these constructions, the agents can be represented as zero person (see Laitinen, this volume). For instance, example (20b) above could be modified to(20c) with a transitive subject in the genitive:

(20c) (modified)kylä meidän se täyty kaivaaindeed PRO1PLGEN it+NOM must+PST digINF

meetriä syvä kumminkin, se hautametrePTV deep anyway that+NOM pit+NOM

“Certainly, we had to dig it metredeep, anyway, that tarburning pit.”

In the NEC constructions, it is most common not to have an NP subject atall. Example (21) shows how in these cases the zero person (in lines 2 and 6)corresponds referentially to the agents implied by the passive (in lines 1 and 4)(cf. Helasvuo, this volume).


(21) (from the Archive of Spoken Finnish)1 Essi: mä ilmotan et kokousta nauhotetaan (.)

PRO1SG report1SG that meetingPTV tapePASSPERS

parhaillaan just.now

“I report that the meeting is being taped at this moment.”

2 Teijo: >pitää tehäkki< [suljettu lippuäänestys]siitä must3SG doINFCLT closePASS+PTCP ballot itELA “A secret ballot must indeed be taken on”

3 Essi: [tutkimuskäyttöön ] research.useILL “for research use”

4 Teijo: hyväksytäänkö se. acceptPASSPERSQ itNOM “whether it is approved”

5 (.)

6 Essi: ei tarvi. NEG need “That is not necessary”

7 Joanna:anneta[anko me] givePASSPERSQ PRO1PL “Do we give (the permission for taping)?”

8 Essi: [se on aivan] hyväksyttävää. it is perfectly acceptPASSPTCPPTV “That is perfectly acceptable.”

In example (21), the open references to persons in the passive (lines 1 and 4)and zero person constructions (lines 2 and 6) could be filled in by speech actparticipants. Therefore it is not surprising that Joanna uses the 1st person pluralpronoun me ‘we’ as the subject of a passive form annetaan ‘give’ (in line 7).

In this subsection, we have seen how the case marking patterns in theNEC constructions are used to indicate the indexical status of speech act participants. In Finnish, personal pronouns constitute a homogenous group bothgrammatically and in terms of their meaning. In many other languages, the


coding of referential forms of 3rd person pronouns differs clearly from 1st and2nd person pronouns (Lyons 1977:638; Benveniste 1971:217–230). In Finnishhowever, the personal pronouns in the 3rd person align more closely with 1st

and 2nd person pronouns. This can be illustrated with the system of logophoricpronominal reference in nonstandard Finnish, where the personal pronoun inthe 3rd person denotes a kind of second order speech act participant.

3.3. Logophoric pronouns in FinnishThe 3rd person pronouns hän ‘s/he’ and he ‘they’ are coded in the same

way as speech act pronouns (i.e. 1st and 2nd person pronouns). This is explainedon the basis of their logophoricity. The logophoric pronouns, noted for instancein many WestAfrican languages, indicate coreference with an individualwhose speech or point of view is being reported, mostly in indirect discourse(see e.g. Hagège 1974, Hyman & Comrie 1981, Brinton 1995). In all Finnishdialects, the 3rd person pronouns hän ‘she/he(/it)’ and he ‘they’) are used logophorically, whereas in standard Finnish, the pronouns hän and he must alwaysbe used in reference to human referents, and the pronouns se ‘it’ and ne ‘they’are exclusively used for nonhumans. (For a more detailed discussion, see Laitinen 2002 and Laitinen 2005).

Example (22) was recorded from a dialect by Setälä (1883:85).

(22) (Setälä 1883:85)Se sano, että kyllä hän tiätääPRO3SG said that surely LOG know3SG

mitä se tekee.whatPTV PRO3SG do3SG

“S/hei said that surely s/hei knows what s/hej is doing.”

Example (22) shows that the nonlogophoric reference of the 3rd person ismediated by the pronoun se (‘s/he’ in the plural ne ‘they’), whereas hän (‘s/he’,in the plural he ‘they’) is used for logophoric reference. In the example, thefirst two pronouns (se and hän) are coreferential: they refer to the speakerwhose words are reported indirectly, whereas the third pronoun (se) is notcoreferential with the others.

However, the modes of oratio obliqua (indirect speech) and oratiorecta (direct speech) are not always kept distinct in spoken Finnish. For instance in (23), there is a shift between the two modes coded in the choice of thepersonal forms, the 1st person pronoun minun and 2nd person imperative formruppeehan (oratio recta, line 2), and the 3rd person logophoric pronoun hänthat combines with the 3rd person singular form (oratio obliqua, line 3).


(23) (Latvala 1899)1 Sano hukkalintu,

say+PST+3SG falcon.bird“The falconi said:

2 no ruppeehan minun selekään,well set.about+IMP+2SGCL PRO1SGGEN backILLwell, get up on myi back

3 hän viep hyrräöttää.LOG take+3SG humCAUS3SGs/hei takes (you) there.”

In addition to its usage in reported speech, the logophoric hän can beused in Finnish dialects to refer to the addressees, i.e., recipients of the speech.In (24a), a verb of hearing is used with the logophoric pronoun, and in (24b),the recipient of the quoted directive is referred to with hän. Example (24c) is apolite question that illustrates how the speech act role of an addressee is codedby the logophoric pronoun.

(24a) (from an 1883 folktale in Rausmaa 1972)Niin äiti sai kuulla,so mother mayPST+3SG hearINF“And so the motheri heard

missä hänen poikansa ovatwhere LOGGEN son3PX be3PLwhere heri sons are

ja poika, missä veljensä.and son where brother3PXand the son (heard) where his brothers (are).”

(24b) (from the Morphology Archives)se kysyi isält sit osaak hän ruattii.3SG askPST+3SG fatherABL then can3SGQ LOG SwedishPTV“hei [the trader] asked the fatherj then if hej [the father] knew Swedish.”

(24c) (from the Morphology Archives)Oliks hän äitiempäiväl koto?bePST+3SGQ LOG motherGEN+PLdayADE at.home“[To the interviewer:] Was s/he (=you) at home on the Mothers’ Day?”


In (24c), the logophoric pronoun hän refers to an addressed participant in theongoing speech event. It is also possible to use hän to refer to a participant inthe speech event who is not able to speak (such as animals or small children)but whose behaviour is interpreted as meaningful and communicative. Thus,the reference of the personal pronoun in the 3rd person is created and determined in the speech act, either in the present speech event or in an earlier one.

3.4. Interim summaryIn this section, we have shown that the coding of the core arguments in

Finnish can be described with reference to the hierarchy of NP categorieswhich is based on their morphosyntactic behavior (most notably, case markingand agreement patterns) and, at the same time, on their capacity to denote entities of language use, i.e. the relation of these NP types to the speech event.Thus, in addition to the morphosyntactic coding of the NPs, we have dealt withtheir indexicality. Next, in Section 4, we focus on the way in which personalreference is construed in the discourse context.

4. Construing personal reference

4.1. First personFirst person reference forms are usually considered unproblematic: the

speaker makes reference to him/herself, and in the plural, the reference includes some others in addition to the speaker. Who the plural 1st person reference forms refer to has to be inferred from the context. As will be seen below,however, participants most often rely on reference that is sufficient for themand not necessarily specific. Furthermore, it will be shown that even singular1st person forms can be used to create open reference.

Example (25) comes from a meeting of a student association. The chairreports to the meeting on a discussion she has had with a representative ofanother student association.

(25) (from the Archive of Spoken Finnish)1 Joanna: me sovittii et kymmene (0.2)

PRO1PL agreePASSPERS COMP ten “We agreed that (it would be) ten (euros), in other words,

2 elikkä (0.6) se makso sen.in.other.words PRO3SG pay+PST+3SG 3SGACC

he paid for it.

3 ja sit se oli haukkunuand then PRO3SG bePST+3SG complainPTCP

and then he had complained about


4 meijän hienoja hyllyjä weGEN finePLPTV shelfPLPTV our beautiful shelves.

5 mun mielest kun ne pysyy IGEN mindELA as they stay3SG I think they should stay

6 tollee (.) paikallasa siinä [ni], that.way in.place there so there in their place [so]”

7 Teijo: [nii] so “So

8 siis onko Heisi hommannu tänne hyllyjä.so hasQ H. getPTCP here shelfPLPTVhas Heisi [name of the student organization] gotten some shelveshere?”

9 Joanna: e:::i“No!”

There are two plural first person references in the example (lines 1 and 4). Inthe first case, Joanna uses me ‘we’ to refer to herself and somebody else. Fromthe context we can infer that this somebody else is the representative of theother student organization. In line 4 she again uses the 1st person plural pronoun, but now it refers to their own organization and its members. The changein the scope of the reference is not explicitly stated but has to be inferred. Inthe first instance the reference is sufficient for the coparticipants as it does notelicit any response that would indicate problems but in the second instance(line 4), it turns out that it is not clear at least for Teijo how the reference ofmeijän ‘our’ should be understood, since he asks (lines 7–8) whether the student organization has gotten the shelves, i.e. whether the shelves are “ours” inthe sense that the organization was active in getting them.

First person plural reference forms can also be used in cases where thereference is not limited to a specific group but rather is open. The same is truefor first person singular forms (see example 26, and Laitinen, this volume).Example (26) comes from a gardening program where a consultant givesadvice to the owner of the garden.


(26) (Kauppinen 1998:221)1 Consultant: kun tässä on nyt tämmönen kitukasvunen nurmikko,

as there be+3SG now this.kind.of scarce grass“As the grass here is kind of patchy,

2 niin mä hävittäisin senso PRO1SG root.upCOND1SG itACCthen I would get rid of it

3 kyllä kokonaan.sure totallycompletely.”

In line 2 the consultant uses the 1st person singular pronoun but the reference isoffered as open to the coparticipant if the coparticipant is willing to identifyhimself/herself with the speaker. The conditional marking on the verb entailsthat what is being said is offered as an intensional alternative (i.e. it entails themeaning ‘if I were you’; see Lyons 1977:814). The speaker steps into the placeof the addressee and offers him/her the opportunity to identify himself/herselfwith the proposal.

Example (27) also involves first person reference forms. It comes froman article about night life in St. Petersburg, Russia. The excerpt is from aninterview with a Russian journalist Vladimir Kovalev. Only those lines that arethe focus of our analysis are given itembyitem glosses.

(27) (Suomen Kuvalehti 20/2003:32)

1 St. Petersburg Timesin toimittaja Vladimir Kovalev sanoo,“Vladimir Kovalev, a journalist of the St. Petersburg Times, says

2 että naisten ja miesten välisen kanssakäymisenthat the ancient Russian forms of interaction between men and women

3 ikivanhat venäläiset lainalaisuudet eivät ole hävinneet minnekään.have not disappeared anywhere.

4 ”Mies ajattelee, että josman think3SG that if“A man thinks that if

5 hän ostaa naiselle baarissa drinkin,PRO3SG buy3SG womanALL barADE drinkACChe buys a woman a drink in a bar,


6 hän voi myös ostaa naisen.PRO3SG can also buyINF womanACChe can also buy the woman.

7 Ja naiset odottavat sellaista käytöstä.and womanPL expect3PL that.kind.ofPTV behaviorPTVAnd women expect that kind of behavior.

8 Jos haluan istua tuntemattoman naisen pöytään,if want1SG sitINF unknownGEN womanGEN tableILLIf I want to sit at an unknown woman’s table,

9 minun pitää tarjota hänelle juoma.”PRO1SGGEN must offerINF PRO3SGALL drinkI have to offer her a drink.”

The interviewee first uses singular full NPs mies (‘man’, line 4) and naiselle(‘for a woman’, line 5) that are generic. In lines 5 and 6 there is the 3rd personpronoun hän (‘she/he’) that is coreferential with mies. In line 7 there is a pluralfull NP naiset (‘women’), also generic. In line 8 there is a switch to first personreference. It seems that although the reference can be understood as referring tothe speaker himself, it is at the same time open for the coparticipant (or eventhe reader): this is how I or anyone else in a situation like this would think oract. (For more discussion, Laitinen, this volume; Section 3.3.)

Naturally, first person reference forms are usually used in reference tothe speaker or, in the case of plural reference, to the speaker and some other(s).Who the others are must be inferred from the context. As we have shown,however, there is also the possibility for open reference.

4.2. Second personSecond person forms are typically used in reference to the addressee,

either the coparticipant in a conversation or the reader. In addition, they can beused for open reference (cf. Lerner 1996:282–283). This usage has becomeincreasingly popular, and it has even aroused public debate as some peoplehave criticized it for representing foreign influence. It has been shown, however, that the open or generic usage of the 2nd person forms is rooted in the oldFinnish dialects (see below and YliVakkuri 1986:102–105 and Laitinen, thisvolume; Section 3.2).

Example (28) illustrates the usage of second person plural forms. In theexample there are several instances of plural 2nd person reference, though thereference is construed differently. However, as the extract shows, this does notcause the coparticipants trouble for identifying the referents. The examplecomes from a meeting of a student association (the same meeting as in example


25). The students are discussing the date for a meeting of the male division(miesjaosto) of the association. One of the participants, Essi, notes (line 4) thatthe meeting cannot decide on this issue at this point of the meeting because it isnot on the agenda, but that the decision has to be postponed until they get to“Other business” in the agenda.

(28) (from the Archive of Spoken Finnish)1 Kirsikka: eli ehdotettu keskiviikkoiltaa kello kahdeksantoista,(.)

“in other words Wednesday night at six has been suggested,

2 >käsi ylös kenelle ei [sovi]?<hands up, those for whom this doesn’t work”

3 Essi: [hei,]“hey

4 te ette voi PÄÄTTÄÄ tässä vaiheessa.PRO2PL NEG2PL can decideINF thisINE stageINEyou can’t decide (on it) at this point (of the meeting)

5 (.) () te voitte päättääPRO2PL can2PL decideINF

you can decide (on it)

6 [vasta muissa esille tulevissa [asioissa].only otherPLINE up.coming issuePLINEonly (when we get) to “Other business” (in the agenda).”

9 Teijo: [ei liity noihin ilmoitusasioi[hin ]NEG relate thatPLILL noticePLILL“(This) doesn’t relate to announcements.”

9 Joanna: [jees ]“Yes.

10 Joanna: mut se voijaan varmaa ()but it canPASSPERS surelyBut it can surely be ()

11 Joanna: mut te voija te voitte varmaabut PRO2PL canPASS PRO2PL can2PL surelyBut you can you can surely


12 [setviä sen sitte, muu muina aikoina.]discussINF itACC then other otherPLESS timePLESSdiscuss it then at some other other time.”

13 Okko: [joo me voidaan keskenämme sopia.]yeah PRO1PL canPASSPERS between.us agreeINF“Yeah, we can settle it among ourselves.”

In lines 4–5 Essi uses second person plural forms (2nd person plural pronoun +2nd person plural verb form) to address the other representatives in the meeting.In lines 10–11 Joanna, the chair of the meeting, responds to Essi’s suggestion,and starts to make her own proposal in line 10 using the passive. In line 11 sheuses the 2nd person pronoun but combines it first with a passive form which isnot a grammatical combination. She makes a repair and recycles the pronounand changes the verb into the correct form (2nd person plural). Okko, one of themembers of the male division, responds to this using the 1st person plural formme ‘we’ (line 13). The changes in the forms of personal reference are interesting: Essi uses the 2nd person plural forms to address those present in the meeting. When Joanna responds to this (line 10), she first uses the passive whichcould be interpreted to refer to the representatives in the meeting, i.e. to becoreferential with Essi’s 2nd person plural reference, but as we have noted, theuse of the passive leaves the reference open for construal in the context. Theconstruction Joanna uses is never finished. She then changes into the 2nd personplural form (line 11). Although the form is the same as the one Essi has used(lines 4–5), it is not coreferential with the earlier mention, but rather, it refersto the members of the male division. It elicits response from one of the addressed participants, Okko, who displays that he has understood the referenceform to refer to himself (line 13).

Example (29) illustrates the use of the 2nd person singular forms in openreference (see also Laitinen, this volume). The example comes from an interview with a speaker of an Eastern dialect of Finnish. This is the dialectal areawhere this usage has been most widespread; now, it is becoming more andmore popular everywhere in Finland (YliVakkuri 1986:102–105). Again, onlythose lines that are in focus are given itembyitem glosses.

(29) (Forsberg, in preparation)1 no kun on neät niij juluman syvä tää järvi jotta

“well you see this lake is so horribly deep that

2 kun kerran lähet rannalta niinwhen once leave2SG shoreABL soif you leave the shore


3 sillon ei ennee pohjaa, jalat yllä. on tää järvi semmone jotta,then (one’s) feet do not reach the bottom. This lake is the sort that

4 kun kerrar rannalta lähtöö ni ala uijaif once shoreABL leave3SG so start+IMP+2SG swimINFas soon as (one) leaves the shore, then start swimming.”

In line 2 the speaker uses a 2nd person singular verb form not in reference to thecoparticipant but rather, as indexically open. Note that there is no separatepersonal pronoun, only the person marking on the verb. In line 4 there is an if–then clausal compound. Interestingly enough, in the first part of the compoundthe speaker uses the zero person construction, i.e. a 3rd person verb form without any overt subject, but in the latter part of the compound he switches to a 2nd

person imperative form. Both are referentially open.Seppänen (2000) discusses the differences between the old usage pat

terns of the generic 2nd person forms and the more modern usage. Most notably, the modern examples usually contain both the pronoun and the verbal person marking (see example 30 below), whereas in the data from traditional dialects, there is usually no pronoun in the examples of the generic usage of the2nd person singular. Thus, person is expressed only through verbal personmarking (see example 29). Although the use of the 2nd person in open orgeneric reference is not alien to Finnish — it was mentioned in old grammars(see Setälä 1891, § 93) — its recent spread has probably been encouraged byforeign models (Swedish, English). It is noteworthy that in these languagesthere is little or no verbal person inflection; hence the personal pronoun isnecessary in the expression of person. This is of course not the case in Finnish,but nevertheless, in the presentday language, it is more common to have boththe pronoun and the verbal person marking in the examples of the genericusage of the 2nd person forms (cf. above, Section 2.2.).

Example (30) illustrates the presentday usage patterns for the generic2nd person. It comes from a conversation between three teenage boys who arediscussing a computer game. The discussion contains specialized vocabularyand in the excerpt one of the speakers starts to explain the terminology. Therecording is quite recent, and the participants are speakers of a Western dialectof Finnish.

(30) (from the Archive of Spoken Finnish)1 Santeri: level on semmonen

“The level is such

2 minkä sä saat ainawhich+ACC PRO2SG get2SG alwaysthat you always get it


3 kun sä saat (.) eksperi [ensee tarpeeksiwhen PRO2SG get2SG experiencePTV enoughwhen you get enough experience”

4 Mikko: [JOO ÄLÄ (.)yeah NEG+IMP+2SG

“yeah don’t,

5 ÄLÄ rupia niitä selostamaanNEG+IMP+2SG start theyPTV explainINFILLdon’t start explaining those.”

In lines 2 and 3 Santeri uses second person forms with indexically open reference when trying to explain the term “level”. Mikko responds to this by tellingSanteri not to start explaining the terms. He uses a second person imperativeform; here the second person form refers to the addressee, Santeri.

We have illustrated that 2nd person reference forms can be used in reference to the addressee but also in indexically open reference. The interpretationof the referential form as open or anchored to the addressee is based on thecontext.

4.3. Third personWe saw in Section 2.2. how leaving out a subject often serves anaphoric

functions. Because the reference of the anaphoric zero subject is the same asthe reference of its antecedent, this use contrasts in the 3rd person with the socalled zero person construction or the passive that carry open reference. Asshown by Laitinen (this volume, example 9), there are even contrastive pairs ofutterances with slightly differing word order that manifest the differencebetween the anaphoric zero subject and the open zero construction. Otherwise,the ambiguous cases are solved by context (cf. example 32 below).

Third person plural forms can also be used to refer to human agentsnonspecifically (or “impersonally”), that is, as forms with open reference. Inthis usage, the pronouns are usually left out, and the person and number arecoded only in the verb (example 31).

(31) (from the Morphology Archives)kehuuvat olovan tuala mustikoitatell3PL bePTCP there blueberryPLPTV“they say that there are blueberries over there”

In (31) there is no subject pronoun, and the reference of the person marker onthe verb is interpreted as open.


In Section 2.1., we discussed the use of the 3rd person plural pronounsin connection with passive verb forms in some Finnish dialects (example 2above). We noted that in these cases the reference of the pronominal elementwins, that is, the interpretation of the personal reference is based on the personexpressed by the nominal element, not the person marking on the verb. In caseswith zero subject and third person plural marking on the verb (such as 31above), the zero subject can be interpreted as anaphoric or as carrying openreference, depending on context.

Open reference in 3rd person is not limited to the plural. Examples (32)and (33) illustrate singular forms.

(32) (Seppälä 1993)1 Ei se ollut kuollut.

NEG+3SG PRO3SG bePCP dead “It was not dead.

2 Melan iskut olivat nuljahdelleetpaddleGEN hitPL bePSTPL3 slipPTCPPL

The hit of the paddle had slipped off

3 liukkaan kalan pinnasta slimyGEN fishGEN surfaceELA of the surface of the slimy fish

4 veneen pohjalautoihin.boatGEN bottom.boardPLILL

against the boat’s bottom boards.

5 Eläköön jos niin sitkeähenkinen on. liveIMP+3SG if so tough.lived be+3SG Let it live, if it is so tough.

6 Pannussa kuolee. panINE die3SG (It) will die anyway in the pan.”

In the context of the story, the 3rd person reference in the construction in line 6(Pannussa kuolee) is anaphoric, i.e. coreferential with a specific fish mentioned in line 3. However, if presented by itself without any context, line 6would be interpreted as a zero person construction (‘One dies in the pan’).14

14 Also the conditional clause in line 5 includes in principle a perfect instance of zero personconstructions. However, because it is not possible to construct imperative forms of openzeroes, an interpretation of eläköön (line 5) such as ‘let one live’ does not work.


Example (33) is a continuation of example (30) presented above (repeated here without glosses to lines 1–2):

(33) (from the Archive of Spoken Finnish)1 Santeri: level on semmonen minkä sä saat aina

“The level is such that you always get it

kun sä saat (.) eksperiensee tarpeeksiwhen you get enough experience.”

2 Mikko: JOO ÄLÄ (.) ÄLÄ rupia niitä selostamaan“Yeah don’t, don’t start to explain those things!”

3 Santeri: [((whistles))

4 Mikko: [ olis menny tämä tunti siihen. beCOND+3SG goPTCP this hour thatILL

“It would have taken the whole hour.”

5 Ben: ei ku leveli on sellaanenNEG but level is such“No but the level is such that

6 kun saat ekspua tarpeheks.that get2SG experiencePTV enoughwhen you get enough experience”15

7 Santeri: [he he he]

8 Ben: [he he he]

9 Mikko: sehän se on.itCLT it is“That’s it!”

10 Ben: oikeen tällä ihme slangilla vääntää.right thisADE amazing slangADE twist3SG“(He) really talks in this amazing slang,”

11 Mikko: #mm#

15 Expu is a slang word for experience.


12 Ben: ekspua tarpeheks.expuPTV enough“like, enough ”expu”(experience)!”

As noted above (example 23), both open reference and anaphoric 2nd personforms are used in this dialogue; also line 6 contains open reference. The subjectless clause in line 10 could perhaps be understood as an open zero construction as well, such as: ‘one really tries to speak this odd slang’. However,its function here is to comment sarcastically the Englishimitating slang (leveli‘level’ and expu ‘experience’) of Ben in lines 5–6. Thus, it resembles moreexample (30) above, conveying an ironic stance of the speaker.

Nevertheless, there are examples where the choice between an anaphoric and an open zero interpretation is much more difficult to make:

(34) (from the Archive of Spoken Finnish)

1 Santeri: mua ei yhtään nappaa alakaa PRO1SGPTV NEG anyPTV attract startINF “I’m not at all interested in starting to date

2 sen Heidin kanssa, semmonen saatanan kaukanen, thatGEN H.GEN with such SatanGEN distant that Heidi, so damn reserved,

3 (.) ja tommonen urpo muutenki, pistää (.) and such stupid otherwiseCLT set3SG and so stupid as well, (she) sends

4 aatelkaa ku me ei olla eres yhressä, thinkIMP+2PL as we NEG bePASS even together, — just think about it — we aren’t even dating

5 se pistää viis viestiä päivässä.PRO3SG set3SG five messagePTV dayINE

she sends five messages a day (to me).”

6 Mikko: totta viis viestiä päivässä pitää pistää.sure five messagePTV dayINE must3SG setINF

“Surely (she/one) has to send five messages a day.”

In example (34), Santeri is talking about a girl called Heidi who is sending himtoo many text messages with her mobile phone. In line 3, there is an anaphoriczero subject referring to Heidi, followed by an anaphoric 3rd person pronoun se


in line 5. In line 6, Mikko responds to the complaining, using the verb pitää‘has to’ without a subject. Pitää is a verb of obligation that always occurs inthe 3rd person singular form regardless of the person and number of the subject.If there is a subject, it is inflected in the genitive, but as we have seen in Section 3.2., NEC constructions often appear without a subject (cf. also Laitinen,this volume).

In theory then, this zero form can be interpreted in two ways: either asreferring anaphorically to Heidi, just like the zero in line 3 (‘she has to send’),or as an open construction (‘one has to send’). There are subtle differences inthe perspectives of these two options. In the first case, the anaphoric zero subject would be used for reinforcing the description of Heidi’s obsessive behaviorin the function (cf. example 11 in Section 2.2.). It is observed from an outsideperspective. In the second case, the commenting is to be understood as an(ironic) identification with the position of Heidi: ‘Indeed, one needs to sendfive messages per day (to you)!’

5. ConclusionsIn this article, we have explored the coding of person in Finnish as it is

manifested in the person marking of the finite verb and in personal pronouns.In Finnish, the predicate verb agrees with the subject in person (1st, 2nd and 3rd)and number (singular : plural). The verb thus shows the same person as thesubject, and therefore, the nominal and the verbal person marking systems haveusually not been discussed separately in Finnish linguistics (see e.g. Sulkala &Karjalainen 1992, Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979). We have shown, however, thatin colloquial varieties the coding of person is more complicated than this, andthat the verbal and nominal person marking systems intersect, but not in thestraightforward manner suggested in traditional Finnish linguistics. The connections between the two form an intricate network: we have demonstrated thatthe verbal person marking is not copied from the subject pronoun in a mechanical way, nor is the personal pronoun redundant. We have therefore illustrated the nominal and verbal person marking systems as two paradigmaticsystems. It is important to note, however, that these paradigms receive a deepermeaning only on the syntagmatic level.

It has been customary in the more recent treatments of the person system in Finnish to present the passive as a member of the person system (seeHakulinen & Karlsson 1979, Sulkala & Karjalainen 1992). Hakulinen andKarlsson (1979, following Tuomikoski 1971) have chosen to describe it as the“4th person”, but the meaning of this description is hard to pin down withoutreference to the constructions and the different contexts in which the passiveappears. As we have shown, the passive is the most flexible member of theverbal person paradigm as it has the widest variety in the set of nominal persons it can cooccur with: most notably, it cooccurs with plural 1st personsubjects, but also, with plural 3rd person subjects. In these cases, the construc


tion represents the person expressed by the nominal element. If the passiveform appears by itself, without any nominal subject, the reference is open andhas to be construed in the context. (For more discussion, see Helasvuo, thisvolume.)

In addition to the passive there is another form in the person system thatsystematically creates open reference, namely, the zero person. With the termzero person we refer to a construction with a 3rd person singular verb form withno overt subject. For the purpose of illustration of paradigmatic relations wehave placed the zero person in the nominal person paradigm. It is important tonote, however, that it has no nominal realization but rather is only realized inconstructions with the 3rd person verb form. Laitinen (this volume) argues thatthe zero person is best understood as a construction, in other words, as conventionalized in particular syntagmatic patterns.

We have further shown that not only the passive and the zero person,but also other forms (1st and 2nd person) can be used to create open reference(cf. English you as a speechact person vs. the socalled “generic”you). Inthese cases, it is constrained by the context whether the personal form shouldbe interpreted as open or as indexing a speech act participant (e.g. the addressee). With the help of examples from natural discourse we hope to haveshown how reference is constructed in an interactive process by the participants.

Data sourcesArchive of Spoken Finnish. Department of Finnish, University of Turku.Corpus of Conversation. Department of Finnish, University of Helsinki.Latvala, Salu 1895: Lauseopillisia havaintoja LuoteisSatakunnan kansankie

lestä. Suomi III:12, 1 79. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Latvala, Salu 1899. “Lauseopillisia muistiinpanoja PohjoisSavon murteesta.”

Suomi III:12. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Liksom, Rosa 1995. Unohtunut vartti. Helsinki: WSOY.Morphology Archives. Department of Finnish, University of Helsinki.Seppälä, Juha 1993. Lähtösavut. Helsinki: WSOY.Rausmaa, PirkkoLiisa (ed.) 1972. Suomalaiset kansansadut 1. Ihmesadut.

Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Suomalaisia kansansatuja. I Osa. Eläinsatuja. 1886. Helsinki: Finnish Litera

ture Society.Suomen Kuvalehti 20/2003. A weekly magazine published by Yhtyneet Kuva

lehdet.

ZERO PERSON IN FINNISHA GRAMMATICAL RESOURCE FOR CONSTRUING HUMAN REFERENCE

LEA LAITINENUniversity of Helsinki

1. IntroductionThe present paper deals with Finnish constructions containing the so

called ‘zero person’, which are also referred to as ‘missing persons’ (Hakulinenand Karttunen 1973) or ‘null subjects’ (Heinonen 1995), such as in examples(1) and (2).1 These constructions express typical changes of state, emotions,perceptions, receivings or the experiences of human beings in particular situations: in the grammar of Finnish, they are highly anthropocentric crystallizations of experience. The paper is intended to analyze the grammar and meanings of the zeroperson constructions, especially of zeroes in subject positions.The grammar of zero persons is first presented in outline according to recentdescriptions, and then its meaning is analysed on the basis of conversationaldata. In the analysis, the manner in which it codes nonspecific reference iscompared to the relative use of personal pronouns in Finnish.

(1) Suomessa joutuu saunaan.FinlandINE get3SG saunaILL“In Finland you wind up in a sauna.”

(2) Tänään ei tarkene ilman takkia.today NEG+3SG be.warm.enough without coatPTV“Today you will be cold without a coat.”

As seen above in (1) and (2), the zeroperson constructions have no overt subject, and the predicate verb appears in the 3rd person singular form. The impliedsubject is translated in English as you or one; in German and Swedish theequivalent form with nonspecific human referents would be the pronoun man.

1 I am grateful to the editors and writers of this volume for helpful comments on the earlierdraft of this paper.

LEA LAITINEN210

Thus, the use of the zeroperson constructions is a conventional way in Finnishbuilding up generic statements concerning human beings. Besides the passive,the zero person has been counted as a nonspecific member in the personalsystem of Finnish (Hakulinen 1987; Helasvuo and Laitinen, this volume).Referentially, it is almost invariably human, or at least an animate entity treatedas a person.2

Although the syntax and semantics of these constructions does notdiffer in the standard and colloquial varieties of Finnish, only empirical datafrom ordinary conversations is used in analysis to show how the personal reference of zeroes is constructed in speech situations, i.e. indexically. Especiallytwo theoretical approaches to situational meanings have inspired this study.The concept of referential indexicality and the relating of morphosyntacticcategories to the semiotic principles are based on the tradition of semioticfunctional pragmatics, reformulated as the metapragmatic theory by Silverstein(e.g. 1976a and b, 1987, 1993). As for the linguistic nature of subjectivity, theimplied perspective of speakers in reference and predication, the analysis byLangacker (e.g. 1991a, 1999a) has been most illuminating.

In the preliminary drafts of my study (Laitinen 1995 and 1996), themain object was to illustrate how the open personal reference is construed byzeropersons and how thereby an open place of experience is offered for theparticipants of interaction to be recognized and identified with. The paper athand aims to posit further questions about implicit (zero) and explicit (pronounor suffix) personal categories in coding indexical but nonspecific human reference.

The disposition of the paper is the following. In Section 2, the grammarand semantics of zero constructions is outlined according to their descriptionsin Finnish linguistics. In this section, the examples are fabricated or modifiedfrom various data. Section 3 shows how the open reference of zeroes is construed in everyday conversations, comparing it to the use of the 1st and 2nd pronouns in the same contexts. The data used in this section have been transcribedfrom tape recordings of conversations (see the Appendix). In conclusion, I discuss the referentiality of the zero person and its relation to the indexical groundof the personal system in Finnish.

2. Grammar and semantics of the zeroperson constructionsThe personal system in standard Finnish is presented as a syntactic

paradigm in (3); for a tentative treatment of its nominal and verbal dimensionsseparately, see Helasvuo and Laitinen in this volume. In Finnish, the predicateverb agrees with the nominative subject both in person and number. As shownwith the round brackets below, the presence of the 1st and 2nd person pronoun is

2 It is possible, if only rare, even to use the zero person constructions for domestic or gameanimals, when the speaker comments on its situation identifying him/herself with it.

ZERO PERSON IN FINNISH 211

largely optional. However, in the case of open reference, the zero person (Ø) isobligatory.3

(3)1. (minä) otan ‘I take’ (me) otamme ‘we take’2. (sinä) otat ‘you take’ (te) otatte ‘you take’3. hän ottaa ‘(s)he takes’ he ottavat ‘they take’Ø. ottaa ‘[one] takes’ 4. [pass] otetaan ‘is taken’

Thus, the paradigm reveals that the zero subject has no form as an NP and thatits predicate verb is always in the 3rd person singular form. Contrary to theother persons above, the zero appears and can be recognized only in syntacticrepresentations referred to here as zeroperson constructions.

The grammar and semantics of zero subjects, thoroughly described inHakulinen and Karttunen (1973), can be outlined briefly in the following way.4

First, the number of the subject implied is singular, as the predicative complement (pitkä) in example (4a) indicates. As shown in examples (4b and c), thepredicative complement reflects the number of the subject in Finnish.

(4a) Joskus on eduksi, että on pitkä.sometimes be+3SG advantageTRA that be+3SG tall+SG“Sometimes it is advantageous to be tall”

(4b) Tyttö on pitkä.girl be+3SG tall+SG“The girl is tall.”

(4c) Tytöt ovat pitkiä.girlPL be3PL tallPLPTV“The girls are tall.”

Secondly, the subject is in the 3rd person, as illustrated in examples (5)below, where the reflexive pronoun (5a) and the possessive suffix (5b) boundby the zero subject are 3rd person forms. In Finnish, these reflexive elementsagree with their antecedents in all persons. The number is not indicated separately in the 3rd person.

3 The positional symmetry of zeroes in the left column and passives in the right column isarguable on syntactic grounds; cf. ex. (4).4 See also Leinonen 1983 and 1985, Vilkuna 1992, Laitinen 1995a and 1996, as well as Hakulinen et al. 2004.

LEA LAITINEN212

(5a) Ei saa pettää itseään.NEG+3SG be.allowed deceiveINF oneselfPTV3PX“You must not deceive yourself.”

(5b) Jos pettää ystävänsä, voi menettää hänet.if deceive3SG friend3PX may+3SG loseINF 3SGACC“If you deceive your friend, you may lose her/him.”

Also, the case marking of the object (hänet) in (5b) in the accusative showsthat the zero subject behaves syntactically like subjects in the nominative case.Particularly in the case of personal pronouns, Finnish is a language with nominativeaccusative case marking. Used as objects in affirmative clauses, thesepronouns must have a separate, accusative form which implies the presence ofa nominative subject.

As mentioned previously, the person implied in a zeroperson construction is usually human and nonspecific: the zero represents ‘you’, ‘one’, ‘anyone’ or ‘they’ in the situation described. It is emphasized in Finnish linguisticsthat depending on contextual factors, the zero person also can be interpreted asbeing specific. Nevertheless, in examples (4) and (5) above, the referent of thezero is the most generic one. These exemplify, actually, the three grammaticalcontexts where zero subjects can be used with action or activity verbs (such aspettää ‘to deceive’), and stative verbs (like olla ‘to be; to exist’): first, in the‘if–then’ frame (jos–niin in 5b), second, with modal verbs of necessity andpossibility (saa ‘be allowed to’ in 5a, voi ‘may’ in 5b; täytyy ‘must, have to’ in10a below), and third, in generic complex sentences, such as in (4a).

A more specific interpretation of the zero person is usual especially inpast tense contexts. In example (6), the zero can be understood to refer to theactual speaker. However such an interpretation is also possible in the presenttense: for instance in (7), the zero could be directed to both the speaker andaddressee(s) and in (8), to the latter only.

(6) Aamulla sai kalaa.morningADE getPST+3SG fishPTV“In the morning, I/we got fish.”

(7) Huomenna saa kahvia.tomorrow get+3SG coffeePTV“You can get coffee tomorrow.”

(8) Tuolla tavalla ei parane.thatADE wayADE NEG+3SG recover“You won’t recover that way.”


Nevertheless, even if they could be interpreted as referentially specific, theexamples above are still genuine zeroperson constructions and could not beunderstood for instance as anaphoric null subjects. The zeroperson constructions frequently start with a preverbal theme as is found in examples (6)–(8)above. In the minimal pair of (9) (Hakulinen & al. 2004), the word order differentiates the zero person (a) from an anaphoric zero (b); in the latter case, thepreverbal position is empty:5

(9a) Mikko huomasi, ettei ovesta pääseMikko findPST+3SG COMPNEG doorELA get

“Mikko found that one can’t get out of the door.”

(9b) Mikko huomasi, ettei pääse ovesta. Mikko findPST+3SG COMPNEG get doorELA “Mikko found that he couldn’t get out of the door.”

Usually the verbs in zeroperson constructions express processes suchas changes of state (such as paleltua ‘to freeze’, ikävystyä ‘to get bored’),emotions (iloita ‘to be happy’), perceptions (kuulla ‘to hear’, nähdä ‘to see’,tuntea ‘to feel’), experiences (viihtyä ‘to enjoy’, kauhistua ‘to be shocked’),losses (menettää ‘to lose’, as in example 5b), receptions (saada ‘to get’, as inexample 6), or accessions like päästä (‘get’ in example 9). Thus, the personimplied is in the role of, for instance, the beneficiary (example 7), experiencer,or patient (as in example 8: parantua ‘to recover’). In other words, the zeroperson has the protopatient role implication of affectedness (cf. Dowty 1991).

Besides nominative subjects, arguments in oblique cases are also postulated in Finnish linguistics as potential zero persons (e.g. Vilkuna 1989:48–49,194–195, Hakulinen & al. 2004). Often their status is somewhat questionable,and they should instead be analyzed as anaphors that have an open zero antecedent in the textual context. In the present paper, I concentrate on zero subjects. However, there are also other zero arguments that are morphosyntactically manifested in conventional constructions. These types of constructions,which have a zero person standing for an NP argument in an oblique case, areillustrated in examples (10a), (11a), (12a) and (13a).

(10a) Hampaat täytyy harjata.teethPL must+3SG brushINF“The teeth have to be brushed.”

5 For additional information on the difference between anaphoric and generic zeroes, see Heinonen 1995.

LEA LAITINEN214

(10b) Minun täytyy harjata hampaat.PRO1SGGEN must+3SG brushINF teethPL“I have to brush my teeth.”

(11a) Synkässä metsässä pelottaa.darkINE forestINE make.afraid3SG“One feels frightened in a dark forest.”

(11b) Minua pelottaa.PRO1SGPTV make.afraid3SG“I feel frightened.”

(12a) Tuntuu hyvältä.feel3SG goodABL“One/one of us feels good.”

(12b) Minusta tuntuu hyvältä.PRO1SGELA feel3SG goodABL“I feel good.”

(13a) Tulee kylmä.come3SG cold“One/one of us feels cold.”

(13b) Minulle tulee kylmä.PRO1SGALL come3SG cold“I am feeling cold.”

The predicate verb in these expressions is invariably in the 3rd person singularform and the subject is missing. However, an argument in an oblique case isimplied: in (10a) a genitive subject with a verb of necessity (cf. 10b), in (11a),a partitive experiencer object with a causative emotive verb (cf. 11b), and in(12a) and (13a), a locative experiencer with a verb or verb construction offeeling (cf. 12b and 13 b).6 All of these examples imply human and nonspecific arguments that can be perceived as experiencers — all having the roleimplication of affectedness.

The feature of affectedness is crucial for understanding the syntax andsemantics of the zeroperson constructions, even if we consider them on thebasis of decontextual examples as we have thus far. A closer look at the examples above reveals that most start with a preverbal theme, a ‘space builder’ (cf.

6 About Necessity Constructions with genitive subjects, see Laitinen 1995b and 1997, and forExperiencer Constructions with partitive objects, see Siiroinen 1996, 2003; cf. Sands andCampbell 2001.


Fauconnier 1985): expression of time (2, 4, 6, 7), place (1, 11a), instrument ormanner (8), or a goal (10a). As formulated by Vilkuna (1992), it is in fact theeffect of this element on people that is generalized in zeroperson constructions. Thus, the referent of the preverbal theme (in 11a: ‘a dark forest’) or itsproperties affect the person implied in a generic way: ‘a dark forest is such thatit usually makes you afraid’. To put it in logical terms, this theme (a darkforest) forms the necessary or sufficient conditions for the process described(feeling frightened). The theme creates an intensional context where the humanbeing is and reacting: ‘if you are in a dark forest, then you feel frightened’.

By contrast, many examples do not contain any preverbal elements,such as examples (12a) and (13a) above, or example (14) with a genitive and(15–16) with a nominative subject.

(14) Täytyy harjata hampaat.must+3SG brushINF teethPL“One/I/you must brush one’s/my/your teeth.”

(15) Lähtisiköhän elokuviin?goCOND+3SGQCLT moviesILL“Shoud I go to cinema?”

(16) Ei saa tulla sisään kengät jalassa.NEG+3SG may comeINF in shoePL footINE“You may not come in with shoes on; Don’t come in with your shoeson!”

In such verbinitial clauses, the zero is usually interpreted to be one of the specific speech act participants. Thus, examples (12a) and (13a) are often perceived as having the same meanings ‘I feel good’ and ‘I am cold’ as (12b) and(13b). Example (14) can also be interpreted as referring to the actual speaker(s)in the same way as example 11b above (cf. 11a in which the referent is nonspecific). In (15), the zero seems to refer almost unambiguously to the speaker,in (16), in most cases to the addressee(s).

In these cases, the actual speech situation constitutes the contextualconditions under which the zero argument finds its potential referents. Thus,the interpretations vary according to the actual contexts of use. In the next section, this ambiguity is studied in light of conversational data.

3. The indexical reference of zero personsIn the 1980s, when speech act pragmatics began to flourish, the use of

zeroperson constructions in Finnish were described as a way of avoiding personal reference, and it became popular to interpret this as a strategy of negativepoliteness. In other words, the use of these constructions was viewed as a Fin

LEA LAITINEN216

nish way of avoiding subjectivity or personal involvement of the speech actparticipants, or referring to them in an indirect way (cf. Leinonen 1983, Hakulinen 1987). According to this, the actual speaker of an utterance containingzeroperson constructions is trying to protect, especially in affective situations,her/his own face or that of her/his addressee. The picture seemed to fit only toowell the stereotype of Finnish people as retiring, silent and unpretentious.

Today, a linguistic form or lack of it is no longer supposed simply toproject its motivation of use, not even in case of a transparent iconic form andmeaning pair. The research on the pragmatic functions of grammar has rapidlygained ground in Finnish interactional linguistics in past ten years. Amongother phenomena, the personal system has been analyzed by conversation analysts and others doing research on empirical data of spoken Finnish (see Hakulinen 2005 for references). For the zeroperson construction, dialogical datawere studied in 1995 by Laitinen (see 1996), who maintained its function to beprecisely that of mediating subjectivity and personal involvement, which waslater supported by the evidence of responses in an analysis by Sorjonen (seeSorjonen 2001:105, 112, 134–140).

The fabricated examples in Section 2 revealed a type of coreferentialrelations between the zero person and speech act persons. Although it has nopronominal or nominal form, the zero person can be analyzed in the same wayas personal pronouns and other shifters (Jakobson 1971), being simultaneouslypart of the ‘code’ (the grammar of persons in Finnish) and of the ‘message’(the participation framework in the speech act). In other words, the grammar ofthe zero person is a referential index, a sign of a human referent in the ongoingspeech situation. (Cf. Silverstein 1976a, 1976b, 1987b.) At the same time, theindexical reference of the zero person is always open, i.e. nonspecific, semantically a slot for multiple and distributional reference. My aim is to examinethese seeming paradoxes.

3.1. One place — multiple approachesAs shown preliminarily in Section 2, the reference of a zero can be

interpreted both as specific and as nonspecific, depending on the contexts ofuse. Example (17) shows in practice how this happens — and how it actuallycan simultaneously be both specific and nonspecific (i.e. intensional, open andmultiple).

In this conversation, three older persons (Otto, Henri and Kaisa) arespeaking about the lapse of time: when a person is young, s/he waits for weekends, but after retirement, time goes by so quickly that Friday is always athand. The speakers in question have used zeroperson constructions and givenminimal responses to convey this common experience. In the first lines (1–2)of example (17a), Otto summarizes the discussion by using a zero subject (notealso the deictic täs ‘here’): one cannot say that life is tedious now. The predicate verbs of the zero subjects are indicated in bold:


(17a)

1 Otto: mut että ei oikeastaav voi sanoo ettäbut that NEG+3SG in.fact can sayINF that

“But you can’t really say that

2 täs pitkäks on toi aika, mitenkään käynny. here longTRA is that time anyway becomePTCP

it seems to have been that long anyway.”

3 Henri: nii:i. “Yeah”

4 Otto: nii. “Yeah”

In the next turns, Kaisa and Otto give their interpretations of this common experience, again using zeroperson constructions:

(17b)

5 Kaisa: e:i, silloin kun alkaa pitkästyttään niin käyp maateno then when begin3SG make.tiredINF then lie3SG down

“No, when you begin to become bored, then you go lie down,

6 [(hehehehe) vetää muutaman tunnin unet ja taas] ((laughing)) take3SG someGEN hourGEN napPL and again

take a nap for a couple of hours, and again (you are not bored anymore).”

7 Otto: [jotain aina voip tehäkkin tälläses, something always can3SG doINFCLT suchINE

tälläses oma, näin mökis,] suchINE own so cottageINE

“You can always do something in this kind of cottage of your own

8 kerrostalois se on erikseen, siäl et voi naputtaablocksPLINE it is different there NEG2SG can tapINFIt’s different in an apartment building, in fact, you can’t even tap

LEA LAITINEN218

9 mitään oikiastaan mut täällä, tääl voip jotain,anything in.fact but here here can3SG something+PTVBut here, here you can do anything,

10 täs olis aina vaikka kuinka pirusti hommaa mu,here beCOND+3SG always just how darned workPTV butthere’s always so much work to do here but

11 eihän sit nyt kerrallah mitäh t(h)ehä (hehehe).NEGCLT itPTV now onceADE anything+PTV doPASSyou can’t do everything all at once, can you?”

In lines 6 and 7 both speakers, Otto and Kaisa, enter the place of zero almostsimultaneously: as indicated by square brackets, their turns are partly overlapping. Practically, the approaches of Kaisa (lines 5–6) and Otto (lines 7–11) are,however, very different. If time seems to drag on for too long, Kaisa takes anap, whereas Otto starts to do things in his cottage.

Otto and Kaisa recognize themselves in the same generic situationexplicated with an if–then frame that contains a sentient zero object of thecausative verb pitkästyttää ‘make tired’ (line 5): ‘when the zero person getsbored, s/he ’. To put it in semiotic terms of Peirce (1931), the zero subject isan iconic index: an empty place of the common experience, constructed foranyone to enter.7 As a matter of fact, the actual, concrete scene is also commonfor both speakers because they live in the same cottage. In this dialogue, theyboth construe the stage subjectively through the same glasses, to use the metaphor of Langacker (1991b:316): as conceptualizers of the situation, they leavethemselves implicit, and this happens by means of zero person constructions.

Still, they identify themselves with the zero person individually, yet indifferent ways. Unlike the Finnish passive, for which the implied agent is usually collective (line 11 in this example: ei tehä ‘is not done’; cf. Helasvuo, thisvolume), the zero person takes its referents distributively8 — if the speech actparticipants want to find themselves in it.

3.2. A generic you — and the specific one in itOn line 8 in example (17b), Otto used the 2nd pronoun singular form et

voi ‘you cannot’ instead of the zero person, coreferentially with zero forms onlines 7 and 9: voip ‘you can’. In this section, I will take a closer look at therelation of the open zero person to the generic 2nd person with an ‘attributive’reference (cf. Donnellan 1966; Silverstein 1987a:32, Helasvuo and Laitinen,this volume). In colloquial Finnish, the use of the 2nd person singular (sinä,

7 More precicely, it is a diagrammatic index, manifested in grammar of the whole construction.8 Compare this difference between Finnish passive and zero constructions to the description ofeach and every by Langacker (1991:114–115).


colloquially also sä, sie) instead of the generic zero is common, and people arewell aware of its spread. This use can be seen as a result of influence fromEnglish. However, about one hundred years ago, the same phenomenon wascommonplace in southeastern Finnish dialects close to Russia as well, andrecent data of generic 2nd persons from other dialects are found as well (see forinstance extract 18).9

Unlike the use of the zero person, the generic 2nd person has no semanticogrammatical restrictions, described in Section 2. The generic 2nd personcan be more freely used with agentive and stative verbs, as well as to indicateobjects and possessive forms. Perhaps due to this extensive usability, theoccurrence of the generic 2nd person is even increasing in colloquial Finnish.

Example (18) starts with an open zeroperson construction. On line 4, acoreferential 2nd person singular pronoun is used as an object, and on line 6,another 2nd person singular pronoun, emphasized by stress, is used in a stativepredication. It may be mentioned that neither of these speakers is a teacher.10

(18) (from western dialects)

1 Eva: joo. Joo [ja siinä pitää ollas] sanavalamis,yeah yeah and there must3SG beINF quick.witted”Yes, and youØ have to be quickwitted there”

2 Anna: [semmosta jämekkyyttä]suchPTV assertivenessPTV“and assertive”

3 Eva: [pistäät] takasi sitte kuitenki että, sitte kuitenki että,putINF back then anyway that then anyway that“anyway, give as good as one gets”

4 Anna: [joo ] et ne kunnioittaa sinua [et ne] huomaa yeah that they respect3SG youPTV that they notice3SG“yes, so that they will respect you2 and notice”

5 Eva: [mm] ‘um’

9 There is an interesting difference between the old and new generic ‘you’ in Finnish. In easterndialects, the generic 2nd person constructions lack a subject pronoun (Seppänen 2001; HanneleForsberg, personal communication). By contrast, in the new generic use of 2nd person, thepronoun is always present. This is called the säpassive in ordinary language, and its use hasbeen frequently commented on in public. The pronoun sinä in example (18) is recorded from awestern dialect where it has the same form as in standard Finnish.10 The subindex Ø indicates generic zeroes and the subindex 2 refers to the generic 2nd personforms found in all translations of this section.

LEA LAITINEN220

6 Anna: et sinä oot tässä talossa pää. that you be2SG thisINE houseINE head “that you2 are the head in this house.”

However, the use of the 2nd person with open reference often results inmisunderstandings. By analyzing such data we may take advantage of anothermeans of uncovering the character of zero as an indexical symbol, a place forboth a nonspecific and a specific addressee.

In example (19), three students, Nina, Mary and Rick, are discussingethical questions: is it sufficient that one takes responsibility for what one hasdone, or is it important that others approve of it, too? Both the specific and thegeneric 2nd person singular have been repeatedly used alternatively with thezeroperson constructions in the conversation before this extract:

(19)1 Nina:sis tottakai täytyy niinku ottaam

well of.course must+3SG like takeINF“Well, of course youØ have to like take

2 muittem miälipiteet huamioom mut [kröhöm, höm]othersGEN opinionPL accountILL but ((coughing))the others’ opinions into account but”

3 Rick: [e:i mutta siis mä tarkotan] yleensäki sillee että,no but well I mean1SG generallyCL so COMP“No but, well, I mean so also in general:

4 voikko11 hyväksyä kaikki tekosi,can2SGQ acceptINF all act2SGPXcan you2 accept – all your2 deeds’

5 Nina: [niim mut se on tärkeintä ]yes but it is importantSUPPTV“Yes but the most important thing is –“

6 Rick: [ihan sis katsom, katsomat], hei toki toki toki, ei,quite so look lookINFABE hey surely surely surely no

quite, you see, regard regardless of, suuurely, no, you see

11 The reduced 2nd person form voikko comes from voitko [can2SGQ] through assimilation.


7 sis, mä en sitä kiistä,well I NEG+1SG thatPTV denyI’m not denying

8 etteikö se ois tärkeetä, sis,COMPNEGQ it beCOND+3SG importantPTV wellthat it’s important, you see,

9 enkä mä nyt osota henkilökohtasest sulle mutNEG1SGCLT I now direct personally youALL butand I am not directing this personally at you2 but this is just like

10 tää ov vaan niinku yleinen kysymys.this is only like generic questiona general question ”

11 Nina:mmm“yeah”

12 Rick: et voiko, hyväksyäk kaikki tekonsa,COMP can+3SGQ acceptINF all acts3PX“that can youØ approve of all that youØ have done,

13 sis kattomatta ihan, ihan tekoon katsomatta.so lookINFABE quite quite actILL lookINFABEyou see, regardless of, just, just regardless of whatever it may be.”

14 Mary:ei, [eikä] eikä siisNEG+3SG NEG+3SGCLT NEG+3SGCLT well”Well, no and ”

14 Nina: [ei tiätenkää,]NEG+3SG of.course“Of course not”

15 Mary: piäkkääh hyväksyämustCLT acceptINF

“ youØ don’t have to accept it at all.”

In example (19), Nina uses the zero person on line 1 (‘you have to take theothers’ opinions account’), and right after that, on lines 3–4, Rick uses the 2nd

person coreferentially with it (‘can you accept?’), and hints that he is speakingin general. However, Nina’s turn on line 5 (‘yes but… ’) and Rick’s turn on

LEA LAITINEN222

lines 6–9 (‘hey, surely… ’) show that the reference of the 2nd person constructions on line 3 has to be negotiated. Thus, on lines 6–10, Rick handlesNina’s turn as a misunderstanding: ‘I’m not directing this at you personally butthis is, like, a generic question’. Consequently, in his next turn (line 12), hechanges the 2nd person singular form (voikko ‘can you?’) to the 3rd personsingular form with a zero subject (voiko ‘can one?’).

By this operation, Rick makes sure that Nina can recognize the genericsituation that is discussed, and that she can identify her own experience with it— that is, to enter into the intensional position of the zero as one of its potential referents. A personal pronoun with a specific reference cannot serve thisfunction in place of multiple identifications, which is illustrated next.

3.3. The subjective zero and the person objectifiedIn the next extract (20), both 1st person singular pronouns (minä, in

colloquial language also mä, mie, miä; mu) and 2nd person pronouns (sinä,colloquially also sä, sie; su) are used in the context of zeroperson constructions. As pointed out by Silverstein (1976a), the 2nd person pronouns are indexically more creative, whereas the 1st person pronouns are more presupposing in their relation to aspects of the speechact context. This may be understood simply as illustrating how the use of ‘you’ construes a participant role forthe potential addressee(s), whereas ‘I’ and ‘we’ already imply the personalidentity of the actual speaker. How is this difference reflected in contexts ofopen reference?

In (20a), the same students Mary, Nina and Rick are discussing the relationship between the ‘real self’, or ‘the self of one’s own’ — the ‘me’ that Irecognize — and the picture of myself that the others see. Can one in a crowdof people honestly be who one is, or is one always representing somethingelse? In this excerpt, Mary does most of the talking whereas the others giveonly minimal responses.

(20a)

1 Mary: niin, eiku sitä miä olij just sanomassayes nobut itPTV I bePST1SG just sayINFINE

“Yes but what I was just saying was –“

2 Rick: [niin]”yes”

3 Mary: [että, et] eihän sitä voi sanoo, COMP COMP NEG+3SGCLT itPTV can sayINF “that of course youØ can’t say”


4 Nina: [kröh höm] ((coughing))

5 Mary: [loppujel ] lopuksi jokanenhan on sitä endPLGEN endTRA everybodyCLT be+3SG thatPTV“ after all people are

6 mitä on, sanotaa että,whatPTV be+3SG sayPASSPERS thatwhat they are, let’s say that

7 minä, esimerkiks suuressa p, ihmisjoukossa,I exampleTRA bigINE crowd.of.peopleINEfor example I, in a big crowd of people

8 ni mul herää aina semmoset niinku, niinkuso 1SGADE wake3SG always suchPL like likeI always sense such, like,

9 hirveet varmistelureaktiot ja semmoset reaktiotterriblePL defence.reactionPL and suchPL reactionPLawful feelings of insecurity and

10 oikeastaan mitkä, niinku, etin.fact which like thatin fact such reactions like that

11 mie niinkun, h:irvittävästi, oikeastip pelkään,I like awfully really fear1SGI am awfully, I am truly afraid

12 em mie nyt ninkur rehellisestis sitä, välttämätNEG1SG I now like honestly thatPTV necessarily

itelleni aina myönnä,selfADE1SGPX always admit

I don’t always admit it, like, honestly to myself, necessarily

13 mut loppujel lopuks, se om pelkoa siitä,but endPLGEN endTRA it is fearPTV it+ELAbut after all, it is the fear

LEA LAITINEN224

14 et itej joutuu, naurunalaseksi,COMP self+NOM get3SG laughableTRAthat youØ yourself will be laughed at.”

As expected, the zero person is used by Mary in generic contexts (lines 3, 14),whereas the 1st person forms are used as specific, referring to the speaker herself (lines 1 and 7–12). Nevertheless, on line 7, she posits herself as an example (minä esimerkiks ‘I, for instance’), a potential referent for the zero person.Consequently, the zero subject follows in line 14: joutuu naurunalaiseksi ‘onebecomes laughable, will be laughed at’.

Despite its position as an example, the presupposed identity of the 1st

person pronoun remains specific. However, the choice of the bisyllabic standard form minä ‘I’ (line 7) may be indicative here. When the speaker illustratesthe behavior of this exemplified person in practice, she uses a colloquial variant mie (lines 11 and 12; miä on line 1). Interestingly enough, the speaker isnot only admitting that the subject is afraid but also construing this syntactically as intentional behavior, not as an involuntary reaction. The emotionalprocess of fearing can be expressed in Finnish either as something observedfrom the outside, such as fearful behavior, or something felt on the inside bythe experiencer. The outside perspective is construed by verbs with experiencersubjects, and these are also considered to be more agentive than the experiencer objects of emotive verbs (cf. example 10 above).12 By selecting the verbpelätä ‘fear’ with the experiencer subject mie ‘I’, Mary chooses the formerpossibility.

On line 14 by contrast, the experience of an affected person in this generic situation is mediated with the zeroperson construction that opens a sitefor identification or shared consciousness to the other participants. Nina responds to this by using a particle nii:i that carries two peaks (20b, line 15).This is a minimal response that, according to Sorjonen (2001:134–140), is usedto indicate that the recipient recognizes the type of experience or feeling thathas been conveyed by the zeroperson construction, and affiliates with thespeaker.

After this, Mary shifts to 2nd person forms coreferential with the openzero (on lines 16–17). She thereby creates a dramatic situation in which a directquotation is addressed to this generic person:

12 About stimulus and experiencer orientations, see Leinonen 1985, Croft 1990:219. The Finnish verb pelätä ‘to fear, to be afraid’ is a transitive verb, and the referent of its subject is theone who fears. The causative emotive verb pelottaa ‘to frighten’ with the experiencer object isused in Experiencer Constructions (Siiroinen 2003), a common context for zeroes. However,like agentive verbs, the verb pelätä also can have a zero subject under the conditions mentioned in Section 2.


(20b)

15 Nina: nii:i “yeah”

16 Mary:ja et se porukka osottaa sinua niinku sormellaand that the crowd point3SG youPTV like fingerADE

“ and that the crowd is, like, pointing their finger at you2,

17 et ha et @ sä [oot tyhmä, @]COMP ha COMP you be2SG stupidthat hah that you2 are stupid.”

18 Nina: [et tuo on] nii,COMP that.one be+3SG so“That (is), that one is so… ”

Grammatically, the 2nd person pronoun used on line 17 (sä oot tyhmä) isobligatory. A zeroperson construction (on tyhmä ‘one is stupid’) would beimpossible here; as mentioned in Section 2, stative predications of zero subjects are restricted in particular contexts. The subject omission of nonthirdpronouns (e.g. oot tyhmä ‘you are stupid’) happens rarely in speech; it is common only in replies and requests, which is not the case here (Heinonen 1995;Helasvuo 2001:64–74¸ fn 9 above). Dropping out the explicit object ‘you’ fromline 16 (porukka osottaa ‘the crowd is pointing (at you)’) would be more plausible, although the goal of the pointing would remain rather unclear. Furthermore, the 2nd person pronoun on line 17 serves in an anaphoric function, referring to the zero person on line 14.

Another point worth noticing here is that semantically, the referent ofthe zero person cannot be looked or pointed at by outsiders. The perspective ofzeroperson constructions is “from within”, from the experience of an affectedperson. Moreover, the zero is referentially a multiple person: an intensional entity to be identified with, not a certain individual to be pointed at. Introducingthe 2nd person pronoun in the manner of lines 14–15 puts this nonspecific person explicitly on stage — it objectifies the person to be observed (cf.Langacker 1991b).

Nina’s turn (line 16) overlaps the quotation by Mary on line 15, as itsparaphrase.13 However, Nina replaces the pronoun sä ‘you’ with a 3rd personform, which is the demonstrative pronoun tuo ‘that one’. This choice designs

13 The turnintial particle et(tä) can be interpreted as prefacing paraphrases of something saidearlier. Cf. Laury and Seppänen (2003).

LEA LAITINEN226

the referent all the more suitable to be pointed at.14 After that, Mary turns backto the zero context:

(20c)

19 Mary:nii tai jotaim mitä muuta tahansa, yes or somethingPTV anythingPTV elsePTV ever “Yes, or something else, whatever

20 ja mikä saa niinku sit jollaillailla silleeand that make+3SG like then somehow so

and this makes somehow, like,

21 et kaikki tuntoaistit sillee kamalan niinku valppaaks, that all sense.of.feelingPL so terribly like watchfulTRA all your senses so terribly, like, sensitive,

22 ja, ja se on oikeastaan and and it be+3SG in.fact and this in fact is

23 sitä mitä minä minä olen, siinä porukassa, thatPTV whatPTV I I be1SG thatESS crowdINE what I am in that crowd.”

24 Mary:joo “yeah”

25 Nina: nii:: “yes”

On line 21 above, a generic experiencer is pragmatically implicated, which isshown by your senses in the translation.15 Thereafter, on line 23, Mary refers toher observable behavior with a construction containing the 1st person pronounminä ‘I’, which interestingly again occurs in the standard form: ‘This, in fact, is

14 According to a study conducted by Seppänen, on the functions of 3rd person pronouns referring to coparticipants in Finnish conversations, the pronoun tuo (colloquial toi) refers to aperson who is present in the speech event but outside the indexical ground of participation(Seppänen 1998:81). “The use of tuo places the referent outside the speaker’s current sphere,and thus serves to define the speaker’s sphere.” (Laury 1997:59).15 The status of a missing argument is here not as definite as for instance in ExperiencerConstructions with emotive verbs. Still, an implied object person could maybe be postulated onlines 20–21: ‘this makes you somehow, like, having all feelings so terribly sensitive’. Forsimilar vague zero object cases, cf. Sorjonen 2001:135–136.


what I am in that crowd’ — that is: ‘this is how I seem in that crowd’. Bychanging the pronoun, the speaker changes her footing again. The subject ofthe utterance is now the object of the others’ observation: a fearful youngwoman, objectified on stage explicitly by the personal pronoun. Thereby, theperson has found a figure and boundaries — one, simple identity.

3.4. I, Zero and Self in the same bodyThe speech act pronouns contrast with the zero person in a very subtle

way, outlined above by means of examples (17)–(20). Although the personalpronouns are, in the standard use, transparent metapragmatic categories16, theyhave other indexical functions that overlap with the use of zero persons. Oneremaining point calls for a careful analysis but can only be mentioned here: therelationship of the word itse ‘self’ to zero and speechact persons.

As seen in example (5a), the zero subject is able to bind 3rd person reflexives (cf. Vilkuna 1989:48). In (20a), repeated here as (21), Mary uses thereflexive pronoun bound by the 1st person subject, in a colloquial form ite: ‘Idon’t admit it to myself’. On the next line, she uses an instance of ite in a zeroperson construction: ‘it is the fear that you yourself will be laughed at’:

(21)12 em mie nyt ninkur rehellisestis sitä, välttämät

NEG1SG I now like honestly thatPTV necessarily

itelleni aina myönnä,selfADE1SGPX always admit

“I don’t always admit it, like, honestly to myself, necessarily

13 mut loppujel lopuks, se om pelkoa siitä,but endPLGEN endTRA it is fearPTV it+ELAbut after all, it is the fear

14 et itej joutuu, naurunalaseksi,COMP self+NOM get3SG laughableTRAthat youØ yourself will be laughed at.”

The latter, uninflected word itse ‘self’ (in the form ite in (21)) is not a real reflexive pronoun.17 Instead, according to Hakulinen (1982), itse is grammaticalizing to a particle expressing the speaker’s personal involvement in the situa

16 The personal pronouns index unavoidably their denotata, speech act participants, and at thesame time, their very form is a signal that refers to what is indexed (Silverstein 1987b:161182).17 In this use, itse has been called an indefinite pronoun by Finnish linguists.

LEA LAITINEN228

tion described (cf. König and Siemund 1987). Since it occurs preverbally in theplace of the zero subject in this example, itse is almost like a nominative subject of the verb joutua (‘end up’) — a substantiated zero, the “real self” of thespeaker.18 In the next example (22), the relation between the zero subject orpersonal pronoun minä ‘I’ (colloquial mä, in genitive mun) and the substantiveitse ‘self’ (colloquial itte) is even delineated. This extract is from the same datacontext as example (19), where the students are talking about taking responsibility for one’s own acts:

(22)

1 Rick: tarvitseeko hyväksyy, tarvitseeko hyväksyyneed3SGQ acceptINF need3SGQ acceptINF

“Need one take the responsibility, need one take the responsibility?”

2 Nina: kyl mun ainaki täytyyyes IGEN at.least must+3SG

“Well, at least I have to”

3 Mary: mut ei [ka] but NEG+3SG “But not “

4 Nina: [koska] mä en pysty elään itteni kansbecause I NEG1SG can live+INF self1SGPX with“Because I cannot live with myself

5 mä kuitenki oon itteni kanssa niinku1SG still be1SG self1SGPX with likeAnyway, I live with myself, like,

6 samassa ruumiissasameINE bodyINEin the same body,

7 sillee me liikutaa aina niinku kimpassa.so we movePASSPERS always like groupINEso that we are always moving, like, together”

As shown already in several examples above, the open place of the zero personcan be filled with personal pronouns by speech act participants if they recog

18 The reflexive pronoun itse comes etymologically from a Uralic word denoting ’shadow;soul’. See e.g. Koivisto 1995.


nize the experience of affectedness in generic situations and are willing toshare it.19 This is exactly what happens here. In example (22), Rick asks anethical question containing a zeroperson construction of necessity (line 1);Nina enters the empty place referring to herself with the 1st person pronoun.

Lines 4–6 describe the substantivized Self interacting with the speakeras a different person in her body (cf. Foley 1997:262–264). This reified entitytakes the form of a Noun Phrase — as a moral subject, the conscience, a desiring subject, or as one’s personal passions. This is perhaps the intensionalarea where the zero person is located and can be recognized.

4. DiscussionThe socalled zero persons in Finnish have been characterized as being

capable both of referring generically to human beings and specifically tospeech act participants. In Section 3 of this paper, examples from empiricaldata have illustrated how this doublebind meaning is negotiated and understood in interaction.

The reference of the zero person as a human being sharing a commonhuman experience is both presupposed and created in the speech act. At least tothat extent it can be interpreted as being parallel with personal pronouns thatget their reference indexically. To use Benveniste’s (1971:224) classical formulation of semiotic subjectivity, “ego” is the one that says “ego” — in otherwords, one constitutes oneself as an individual person, ‘a subject’, by identifying with the pronoun in the symbolic order of language. The identity of aspeech act participant is posited in and through language, that is, in a speechevent using the linguistic code.

Similarly, expressing itself in grammatical constructions, the zero person belongs to the decontextual linguistic code; on the other hand, it has potential referent(s) in the ongoing speech event. Because of this twofold nature, itcould be posited in the hierarchy of Noun Phrase categories, arranged bySilverstein (1976) on the basis of a multilingual corpus. In this referential‘space’ of NP types, the order of elements is organized according to casemarking patterns of core arguments of the clause.20 It is the most indexical endof the cline that coincides crosslinguistically with the nominativeaccusativepattern — the one that is also working in zeroperson constructions (as shownin Section 2, example 5b). In this respect as well, the zero person would take

19 Of course, simply filling the zero with speechact pronouns is not what happens; the pronouns trigger the verbal agreement, or the category of person is coded merely in verb by 1 st or2nd person suffixes.20 See also Helasvuo and Laitinen, this volume. For an exegesis of the hierarchy with a twodimensional figure of the referential space of NP types, see Silverstein 1981, 1987a and 1987b.In linguistic literature, it is widely but somewhat inaccurately known as the “hierarchy ofagentivity” of Noun Phrases.

LEA LAITINEN230

its place in the hierarchy among the true speech act indexicals together withpersonal pronouns.21

From the formal point of view, such parallelism seems incomplete, because the zero person is not coded by local, segmentable linguistic forms likepronouns and personal suffixes but more globally by morphosyntactic means.Actually, the local and global principles correspond and interact, for instance,when relative case relations are coded in complex and compound sentences, orsameness or distinctness of reference is coded in discourselevel structures. Insuch global configurations, the nonoccurrence of NPs (e.g. anaphors) is frequent (Silverstein 1981:230–231, 1987b:132–133). Nevertheless, the zero person in Finnish is neither an anaphoric nor a ‘deleted’ linguistic entity (seeHelasvuo and Laitinen, this volume). Within its own constructional schemata,it functions like an existing core argument at the clause level.

As seen in Section 3, the zero person finds a referent in the immediatespeech context if someone of the participants identifies with it. This openness,nonspecificity and potentiality of indexical reference makes it basically dissimilar to personal pronouns. However, in our examples (18–20), the relationof specific and nonspecific reference proved to be a scale rather than a dichotomy. Alongside their ordinary specific personal reference, both 1st and 2nd person pronouns were construed in more ways than one, and they were also ableto express open human reference. Thus, the zero persons and speech act pronouns do have some overlapping usages in creating nonspecific reference, atleast in spoken Finnish.

A proper generic use of the 1st person singular forms is rare, probablydue to its presupposing indexicality. Even so, there seemed to be a continuumfrom a more specific to a more open reference of the 1st person singular pronoun, which also seemed to be reflected in the choice of its variants (in example 20). By contrast, a generic use of the 2nd person singular form is increasingin Finnish, perhaps because it has no such syntactic restrictions as the zero person. But then (as seen in example 19), in performing explicitly the addresseerole in the speech situation, the 2nd person tends to produce such misunderstandings in reference that do not arise as easily in zeroperson constructions.

Perhaps the most crucial difference between the zero and speech actpersons lies, after all, in the manner they construe the situation in terms ofchoosing their perspective on the scene invoked. As shown by example (20b),the referents of the 2nd and 1st person pronouns are able to be observed andeven pointed at, even if they are interpreted as referentially open or generic.This phenomenon has been analyzed by Langacker through the subjectivisttheory of meaning that was touched upon in subsections 3.1. and 3.3. When thenonspecific persons are put onstage as bounded entities in an explicit pronounform, they are conceptualized more objectively than zero persons (cf.

21 Interestingly enough, at the top of indexicals in the crosslinguistic corpus of Silverstein arethe dual (and/or plural) 1st and 2nd persons, referring to both interactional participants.


Langacker 1991b:497–498). Leaving the experiencer of the situation implicit,the zeroperson construction creates a subjective conceptualization of experience, seen through the eyes of an invisible speaker.

Paradoxically, the abovementioned concept of subjectivity by Benveniste corresponds to the concept of objectivity in Langacker’s analysis. Bothof them yet describe the same process. The ‘speaking subject’, identifying witha personal pronoun in use, posits — or objectifies — his or her personal identity and its boundaries. The indexical identification evoked by the zero personis a different linguistic process of subjectification. The zeroperson construction in Finnish grammar mediates human experiences to be individually recognized by all of speech act participants. Performing a grammatically iconicschema, it creates an open place of person, for anyone to enter.

PASSIVE — PERSONAL OR IMPERSONAL?A FINNISH PERSPECTIVE

MARJALIISA HELASVUOUniversity of Turku

1. IntroductionThis paper deals with passive constructions in Finnish, i.e. construc

tions containing a verb form bearing passive morphology.1 Examples (1) and(2) illustrate these constructions, with vietiin ‘was taken’ and on viety / oli viety‘has been taken / had been taken’ as the passive forms. In the examples, thepassive forms are given in bold face.

(1) (Apporra, slightly modified)2

Hilkka vietiin sairaalaan.H.+NOM takePASSPSTPERS hospitalILL“Hilkka was taken to the hospital.”

(2a) Hilkka on viety sairaalaan.H.+NOM be+3SG takePASS+PST+PTCP hospitalILL“Hilkka has been taken to the hospital.”

(2b) Hilkka oli viety sairaalaan.H.+NOM bePST+3SG takePASS+PST+PTCP hospitalILL“Hilkka had been taken to the hospital.”

It has been customary in Finnish linguistics to analyze examples like (1) asrepresenting the passive construction type in Finnish, and examples like (2a)and (2b) as representing this same construction type as inflected in the peri

1 I am grateful to Lyle Campbell, Marja Etelämäki, Lea Laitinen and Susanna Shore forinsightful comments and criticisms. I would like to thank Lea Laitinen for inspiring discussionson indexicality and subjectivity. I dedicate this article to her on the occasion of her birthday.2 This example is from the Apporra conversation (introduced in Section 2, below) but has beenslightly modified for clarity. (2a) and (2b) are fabricated examples providing easy comparisonwith (1).

MARJALIISA HELASVUO234

phrastic tenses, the present perfect (2a) and the past perfect (2b). In (1), whichillustrates the simple passive, the predicate verb consists of the verb stem vie‘take’, the passive morpheme t, the past tense marker i and a special passivepersonal ending Vn (discussed in detail below). The argument expressing thegoal of the action, Hilkka, is in the preverbal theme position typical of subjects(cf. Vilkuna 1989) and it stands in the nominative case. Although it is in thenominative case (unmarked), it does not trigger person or number agreementwith the verb as subjects do in Finnish, but instead the verb contains a specialpersonmarking suffix that is only used in conjunction with the passive suffix.Therefore, Finnish linguists consider the goal argument to be an object, and nota subject. In examples (2a) and (2b), which illustrate the bepassive, the predicate verbs consist of two parts, the 3rd person singular form of the verb olla ‘tobe’ (on ‘is’ or oli ‘was’), used as an auxiliary, and the main verb viedä ‘take’ inits passive participial form, viety. Again the argument expressing the goal is inthe nominative case.

Examples (1–2) clearly illustrate the traditional conception of the passive inflectional paradigm within Finnish linguistics. This paper shows, however, that the construction types illustrated in (1) (the simple passive) and with(2a and b) (the bepassive) differ in several respects, both in terms of theirrelation to the expression of person and in their patterns of usage.

In typology textbooks, if the Finnish passive is mentioned at all, reference is made only to passives of the simple passive type (cf. e.g. Foley and VanValin 1984:149–169). Comrie (1977) discusses the Finnish passive — i.e., thesimple passive — as one example of an impersonal passive (cf. also Sands &Campbell 2001). Here, the term impersonal is used to convey that the agent ifnonspecific, i.e. it has no overt expression or a specific referent. Blevins(2003) goes even further, rejecting the treatment of the Finnish passive as apassive; instead, he suggests that it should be analyzed as an impersonal asopposed to a passive construction. He bases his argument on the fact that theFinnish passive is subjectless, as no other argument takes the place of thesuppressed subject. According to him, impersonal verb forms are insensitive tothe argument structure of the verb. However, as shown above, the object of apassive clause does exhibit features typical of subjects of active clauses (casemarking, word order). Therefore I find it rather an unfortunate terminologicalchoice to call the Finnish passive impersonal. Instead, I argue that the passiveis part of the personal system in Finnish; in other words, it belongs to a systemthat serves to express the discourse roles of the participants (such as speaker,recipient, and the party talked about; see Siewierska 2004:1).

Foley and Van Valin (1984:160) describe the Finnish passive as backgrounding: in a passive sentence in Finnish, the first argument of the verb (thepivot in Foley and Van Valin’s terminology) is backgrounded and no otherargument assumes subject marking. In contrast with an active construction, theFinnish passive has no subject, and cannot express the agent with an independ

PASSIVE — PERSONAL OR IMPERSONAL? 235

ent constituent (such as the English byphrase). It is important to note, however, that the passive is not the only subjectless construction in Finnish butrather, one of many. In the other subjectless clause types, the finite verb isconjugated for 3rd person (usually in the singular).

I demonstrate below that although there is no overtly expressed agentargument in the simple passive, this construction is overwhelmingly used incontexts where a human agent is implied in the action or activity described. Ishow that the simple passive is part of the grammatical person system in Finnish, i.e. it belongs to the set of morphological means for marking personalreference in Finnish. I further show that the relationship of the bepassive tothis person system is different than that of the simple passive (for an overviewof the person system in Finnish, see Helasvuo & Laitinen, this volume). I alsodiscuss the implications for the treatment of constructions with open referenceforms — the socalled “impersonal” constructions — in languages in general.

The focus of this paper is on the ways in which these two passive constructions are used in conversation. First, I introduce my data. Then I discussthe two types of passive, outlining their characteristic features. I then describehow the passive is exploited to create and maintain personal reference in Finnish. I show that the two passives function quite differently in this respect. Ifurther show that contrary to the received view in Finnish linguistics, theybelong to different tense paradigms.

2. DataThe data for this study come from three conversations between native

speakers of Finnish, together amounting to approx. 1,5 hours, containing some250 passive forms.

In the APPORRA conversation a father and his adult daughter arehaving tea and discussing fishing, mushroom picking and other recreationalactivities.

In the DIABLO conversation three male senior high school students aresitting in the students’ common room at school and discussing a computergame called Diablo.3 They are also gossiping about their classmates and girlfriends.

The VAPPU conversation takes place during a meeting of a studentassociation. The meeting has an agenda and is chaired, but the chair does notallocate turns and the conversation is quite free. There are 12 participants andat certain points there are several conversations going on at the same time.Topics include the forthcoming May Day (Vappu) celebrations and the writingof a newsletter.

The conversations were transcribed by Emmi Hynönen, and the tapesbelong to the archive of spoken Finnish at the University of Turku.

3 I gratefully acknowledge the generous help of Tom Grönholm, Otso Helasvuo, and PaulMcIlvenny in explaining the intricacies of the game of Diablo.


3. The Finnish passive — one or many?In what follows, I argue that instead of just one, there are two passives

in Finnish, the simple passive and the bepassive, and that they belong to twodifferent passive types that have been distinguished in the typological literature(see e.g. Givón 1990, 1994). I further show that these two types differ in theirrelation to the Finnish system of marking grammatical person.

3.1. The simple passiveOf the two Finnish passives, the simple passive (as (1)) belongs to a

type of passive that in numerous languages developed from reflexive constructions, whereas the bepassive is of the copula + adjective type (see Givón1990). In this section I discuss the origins of the Finnish passive marker andthe morphological composition of the simple passive. I also define the role ofthe simple passive in the person system of Finnish. This section closes with adiscussion of the simple passive in relation to the tense system in Finnish.

The morphology of the simple passive form is illustrated in (3); the passive past tense form of the verb katsoa ‘look’ is used as an example.

(3) katso tt i inverb stem passive marker tense marker personal suffix

In addition to the passive marker and the tense marker, there is a suffix Vn(lengthening of the final vowel + n) in the morphotactic slot for personal endings.4 This person marking has the same origin as the 3rd person singular pronoun hän ‘he/she’ and the 3rd person marker of reflexive inflection in certaindialects of Finnish (Hakulinen 1979:240; for discussions of the history and origin of the Finnish passive marker, see Posti 1945 and Lehtinen 1984).

In Finnish linguistics, the passive person marker has been called the “4th

person” (Tuomikoski 1971). This is an odd term but it reflects the special position of the simple passive in the person system in Finnish (see Table 1); again,the verb katsoa ‘look’ is used as an example. It is important to note that onlythe simple passive can be described as “the 4th person”, whereas the bepassivetakes a regular 3rd person verb form.

4 The form of the passive marker varies depending on the morphophonological context. In thepresent tense, it is TA where the T is realized either as d, t, or –tt, and the A as a or ä,depending on vowel harmony. In the past tense, the A disappears in front of the tense markeri. As the careful reader may note, the passive forms differ slightly from the standard in theexamples from the Diablo conversation. The participants are speakers of a dialect of Finnish inwhich there is an h between the passive marker and the personal suffix, cf. e.g. pelatahan(in the South Ostrobothnian dialect) vs. pelataan [playPASSPERS] in the standard.


Singular[stem+person marker]

Plural[stem (+passive marker)+ person marker]

Person standard Finnish colloquial Finnishactive 1st person katson katsomme katsotaanactive 2nd person katsot katsotte katsotteactive 3rd person katsoo katsovat katsoopassive (“4th person”) katsotaan

Table 1: Verbal person marking in Finnish(adapted from Helasvuo 2001:67).

We see from Table (1) that unlike the active forms, the simple passive does notdistinguish morphologically between singular and plural number. In the colloquial language the number distinction is often neutralized in the 3rd person aswell; thus, most often we find that a 3rd person plural subject combines with a3rd person singular verb form. Hakulinen and Karlsson (1979:252) describe the3rd person singular as the unmarked member of the (verbal) personal paradigm;it is also the verb form that is used in clauses with sentential or infinitival subjects. As mentioned above, there are several subjectless clause types in Finnish.In these clauses, the finite verb is either in the 3rd person singular (e.g. in predications describing the weather, such as sataa [rain3SG] ‘it is raining’) or inthe passive.

Table (1) also shows that in the colloquial language, the passive form isused with 1st person plural subjects, in place of the standard 1st person pluralverb. In spoken discourse it is quite common to have this 1st person plural subject + passive construction alternating with a plain passive (without the pronominal subject; see (12) and (13) below). It is interesting to note that thecombination of the 1st person plural subject with the passive verb form is notthe only instance in the Finnish person system where there is a mismatchbetween the nominal and verbal person marking (see Nirvi 1947 for examplesfrom nonstandard Finnish, and Helasvuo and Laitinen (this volume)).

Perhaps in contrast to the passive structures of a number of languages,the Finnish passive is almost exclusively used in contexts where a human agentis implied (for a usagebased account of the Finnish passive in both written andspoken genres, see Shore 1986, 1988). Examples (4a) and (4b) illustrate thatthe implied agent can either include (in 4a) or exclude (as in 4b) the speaker. Ithas to be inferred from context what the referent of the implied person is. Notethat in the translations (3rd line) of all examples cited below, those pronominalreference forms which are not present in the Finnish original are marked bydouble parentheses to highlight the fact that there is no corresponding form inthe Finnish.


(4a) VappuMirjami: mihin aikaan täältä lähdetään sitte,

whatILL timeILL from.here goPASSPERS then “So when do ((we)) leave from here?”

(4b) DiabloSanteri: tänne pistetään kaikki rauhattomat oppilaat

to.here putPASSPERS all restlessPL studentPL “((They)) put all the restless students here.”

The context for (4a) is that university students are planning the official MayDay celebrations, in which representatives of all the student associations meetin a park in the center of the city. One of the participants in the meeting askswhen they should leave for the park and uses the passive form to refer to herself and the coparticipants. In (4b) three high school students are sitting in acommon room at their school discussing what the original purpose of the roomwas. It is quite clear that the participants are excluded from the personal reference of the verb pistetään ‘putPASS’ — it was not they themselves who decided to put all restless students in that room. The reference, however, is notmorphologically explicated but has to be construed from context. Both examples (4a) and (4b) contain the same form, the simple passive, but the referenceis construed differently in each example — including the present speaker in(4a) and excluding the speaker in (4b). Furthermore, in a different context thesame sentences could be interpreted vice versa: e.g. if the sentence in (4a) wassaid in a context where the participants were looking at a map trying to coordinate a big event, somebody could ask, pointing to a place on the map, mihinaikaan täältä lähdetään? ‘when do ((they)) leave from here?’ and the referencecould be interpreted as excluding the speaker. Likewise, if (4b) was uttered in acontext where the principal of a school was giving a tour around the school to aprospective teacher, the reference could be interpreted as including the speaker.Thus, the reference of the passive form is construed differently in differentcontexts.

As Shore (1986:69) notes, the Finnish passive cannot be used to describe processes or states without an agent (cf. the English example 5a).

(5a) (From Shore 1986:69)He was caught in a traffic jam.

(5b) (Fabricated example)Hän juuttui liikenneruuhkaan.3SG be.stuckREFLPST+3SG traffic.jamILL“He was caught in a traffic jam.”


In the expression of processes like (5a) Finnish makes use of various medialconstructions, such as (5b), which contains the verb juuttua ‘be stuck’, havinga medial meaning and a reflexive derivational suffix u.

The simple passive can be inflected in the present and the past perfectas shown in (6).

(6) Diablo1 Ben: mä aattelin et

I thinkPST1SG COMP“I thought that

2 jos verkos oltais pelattu,if networkINE bePASSCOND+PERS playPASS+PTCPif ((we)) had played in the LAN (LAN = local area network),

3 niin vihollisetki loppuu keskenso enemyPLCLT end3SG in.the.middle there wouldn’t be enough enemies (lit. the enemies would come to anend in the middle of the game, i.e. before it is finished).”

In (6) line 2 oltais pelattu is a past perfect passive conditional form of the verbpelata ‘play’ (pelattaisiin would be the corresponding present tense passiveform). Formally the present perfect and the past perfect forms of the simplepassive consist of the auxiliary be in the passive form (ollaan in the present andoltiin in the past perfect) and the main verb in the passive participial form (e.g.pelattu). Thus, there is passive marking on both the auxiliary and the participle,and in addition to the passive marker the auxiliary carries the special passiveperson marker (the 4th person marker). Because of this double marking, thisconstruction is frequently called the “double passive”. It has been strictly proscribed by normative grammars (see Lyytikäinen 1996 for discussion). Hakulinen et al. (2004:1235) suggest that the double marking should be consideredas an agreement phenomenon. Note that this would then be agreement according to voice; in this perspective, the bepassive is an incongruous form wherethe auxiliary is in the active 3rd person form and the main verb is in the passive.

In Finnish linguistics, the simple passive and the bepassive have beenconsidered to represent the same passive construction in different tenses: thesimple passive represents the present tense and the simple past, whereas the bepassive represents the periphrastic tenses, i.e. the present and past perfects. As Ihave shown, however, the simple passive has its own tense paradigm in whichthe present and the past perfect are formed with passive marking both on theauxiliary (ollaan ~oltiin) and the participle ((t)tU; cf. ex. 6 above). Furthermore, the two passives differ in their relation to the person system: as has beenshown here, the simple passive has a special position in the verbal person


marking system and has been characterized as the 4th person. As will be seen inthe next section, the bepassive is a 3rd person form. Thus, in their relation tothe category of person, the two passive types belong to different paradigms.

The simple passive thus occupies a special position in the personal system in Finnish. It differs from the bepassive, in which the finite verb is in aregular 3rd person form, as discussed below. I have shown here that, contrary tothe received view in Finnish linguistics, the two passives do not representmerely different tenses of the same construction, but instead, the simple passive forms a distinct paradigm from the bepassive.

3.2. The bepassiveIn this section, I consider the morphosyntactic structure of the bepas

sive, comparing it to the structure of predicate adjective clauses. I also discusscertain parallels in the usage of the bepassive and predicate adjective clauses.

The Finnish bepassive (e.g. on ~ oli viety ‘has been ~ had been taken’)could be classified as the copula + adjective type in Givón’s (1990) typology ofpassives. The Finnish construction consists of the verb ‘to be’ in its 3rd personform on (‘is’, present tense) or oli (‘was’, past tense) and the past passive participle form of the main verb, e.g. viety ‘taken’. In this construction, the verb‘be’ could be analyzed either as an auxiliary or a copula; the two cannot bedistinguished grammatically in Finnish.

Example (7) illustrates the morphosyntactic parallels between the bepassive and predicate adjective clauses. It also reveals parallels in patterns ofusage between the two constructions. In this example, Jukka, the father, is discussing with his daughter Mirja what kind of a dog he would choose if he wereto buy one.

(7) Apporra1 Jukka: ehkä mä olen sanonu ton (0.2) irlanninsetterin

perhaps I be1SG sayPST+PTCP thatACC Irish SetterACC“perhaps I’ve mentioned this (0.2) Irish Setter

2 (.) se on nätti ja se on kiva (0.2) it be+3SG pretty and it be+3SG nice(.) it is pretty and it is nice (0.2)

3 se on mun mielestä vähä ylijalostettu.it be+3SG IGEN mindELA little overbreedPASS+PST+PTCPit is in my view a little overbred.”


4 Mirja: hermostunu vai, become.nervousACT+PST+PTCP or “nervous you mean,”

In the example Jukka considers the pros and cons of the specific breed that hehas been considering, the Irish Setter. He describes it with predicate adjectiveclauses in line 2 se on nätti ‘it is pretty’ and se on kiva ‘it is nice’, and in line 3,with the bepassive se on ylijalostettu ‘it is overbred’. It is noteworthy thatthe bepassive alternates with predicate adjective clauses when characterizingthis breed of dogs. Note also that the coparticipant Mirja offers a candidateunderstanding of Jukka’s turn in line 4 with a participial form hermostunu,which means ‘nervous’, and is the past active participle of the verb hermostua‘become nervous’. It is used as an adjective (like adjectives, it has comparativeand superlative forms: hermostunut : hermostuneempi : hermostunein ‘nervous : more nervous : most nervous’). Participles are a common source for adjectives in Finnish, and there seems to be a continuum from pure adjectives,having comparatives and taking adjectival modifiers, to pure participles, withno comparatives and taking verbal modifiers (see Koivisto 1987 for an extensive study of adjectives having a participial source in Finnish).

When comparing the morphological glosses of lines 2 and 3 in (7) wesee that the two constructions are very much alike. First there is the nominativeNP, then the beverb (copula/auxiliary) showing the same number and personas the NP (3rd person singular), and then the predicate adjective or the participle. However, if we look at other persons in the paradigm, we see some differences. These are presented in Tables 2 and 3.

Comparing Tables 2 and 3 (p. 242) we can see that in the bepassive,the preverbal NP does not trigger person agreement in the verb but instead theverb is always in the 3rd person singular. The preverbal NP follows the casemarking patterns of objects in clauses without a nominative subject: if the NPis a personal pronoun it takes a special accusative marker (t); otherwise the NPis in the nominative (or the partitive) case. (For a discussion of object casemarking in Finnish, see Helasvuo 2001.) Interestingly, this difference betweenthe two constructions seems to be a rather late development. According toHäkkinen (1994:252), in old Finnish literary texts beverbs with the passiveparticiple showed agreement in person and often also in number with thepreverbal NP. In other words, the bepassive constructions and predicateadjective clauses then had an identical structure.

Setälä (1915:135) proposed that the past passive participle did not originally belong to the passive paradigm at all, but instead was used to express theresult of the activity described by the verb. It is not surprising then that the passive participles are used not only in the bepassive, but in a wide variety ofconstructions, inter alia, as modifiers in NPs (8a) or in various participial constructions (8b).


Syntactic function Subject Copulaolla ‘be’

Predicate adj. Translations

Morphologicalmarking

nominative person + numberagreement

nominative/partitive

Personalpronouns

sä2SG+NOM

oletbe2SG

kivanice+NOM

‘you are nice’Examples

Other NPs se3SG+NOM

onbe+3SG

kivanice+NOM

‘it is nice’

Table 2: Predicate adjective clauses

Syntactic function Object (Aux)olla ‘be’

Participle Translations

Morphological markingPers. pron. accusative 3rd sg nominativeOther NPs nominative 3rd sg nominativePers. pron. minut

1SGACConbe+3SG

vietytakePASS+PST+PTCP

‘I have beentaken’

Examples

Other NPs se3SG+NOM

onbe+3SG

vietytakePASS+PST+PTCP

‘it has beentaken’

Table 3: Bepassive

(8a) ApporraMirja: tommoset pitkään jalostetut rodut

thatADJPL longILL cultivatePASS+PST+PTCPPL breedPL“those long refined breeds”

(8b) DiabloSanteri: sitte sain ne tapettua

then getPST1SG 3PL killPASS+PST+PTCPPTV “then I managed to kill them [in the computer game]”

(8a) consists of an NP where the passive participle jalostetut ‘bred’ functionsas a modifier that modifies rodut ‘breeds, races’. In Finnish most modifiersagree with their heads in case and in number, and this is why the participle isinflected in the nominative plural, like the head of the NP rodut ‘breeds’. In(8b) the participle forms a special construction with the verb saada‘get/receive’; the construction has the meaning of managing to or being able tocarry out the activity expressed by the verb in the past passive participle. In thisconstruction the participle carries an active meaning in spite of its formal pas


sive marking (it has the same agent as the activity expressed by the main verbsain).

It is interesting to compare the bepassive to the French constructionwith the third person pronoun on and a third person verb form. Similar to thepassive constructions in Finnish, the French construction can be used for open,nonspecific reference: it has to be inferred from the context what the construction refers to. The form is a 3rd person form as is the bepassive in Finnish.(For further discussion, see Helasvuo and Johansson forthcoming.)

4. Patterns of useI begin this section with the discourse functions of the simple passive,

which is shown to have a distinct discourse profile in the data described. Incontrast, the bepassive will be seen to lack such a clear profile. I then demonstrate the ways in which the availability of these two passives can be exploitedin creating and maintaining personal reference in Finnish. The two types willbe seen to function quite differently in this respect.

4.1. The simple passive in describing actions and activitiesThe simple passive construction is primarily used for describing actions

or activities. In the data for this study, 153 out of 155 simple passive constructions contain action or activity verbs. Example (9) illustrates this overwhelming tendency. The speakers are discussing what they should do in the summer(the recording having been made during the last weeks of school in the spring).

(9) Diablo

1 Ben: meirän pitää käyrä se kaiverrus siellä tekemähän weGEN must goINF it inscription there makeINFILL

loppuhun sitte. endILL then

“we have to go and finish the inscription there then.”

2 Mikko: joo: kyl [lä] yeah sure “yeah sure”

3 Santeri: [se] tullaan sitte vasta loppumatkalla. it comePASSPERS then only endtripADE “((we)) will come back for that on our way back.”


4 Mikko: ei ku käy käyrähän nyt, (.) vaikka heti no but g goPASSPERS now for.instance at.once “no no let’s g go now, (.) for instance

5 k kesäloman aluuks käyrään si, s summervacationGEN startTRA goPASSPERS

right at the beginning of s summer vacation let’s go ther,

6 mennähän par viikok viikonlopuks sinne (.) Alajärvelle, goPASSPERS coup week weekendTRA there A.ALL let’s go for a coup weeks for a weekend there (.) to Alajärvi,

7 (.) ryypätähän siel aivan henki pois .hh drinkPASSPERS there quite life away .hh (.) let’s drink ourselves to death there. .hh”

8 Santeri: niinpä. soCLT “Right.”

9 Mikko: sit tullaan kotia, then comePASSPERS home “then ((we)) come home,

10 ja ollahan täällä kotona viikko and bePASSPERS here homeESS week and ((we)) are here at home for a week

11 ja sit lähretään sinne (.) Affenanmaalle. and then goPASSPERS there A.ALL and then ((we)) go to Ahvenanmaa.”

Example (9) contains several clauses with simple passives (lines 3 7, 9, 11).They are all describing actions or activities. Note also that in the present tense,especially when clauseinitial, the simple passive may have a hortativeinterpretation (e.g. line 6 mennään ‘let’s go’; cf. the discussion in Section 3.2on the use of the passive with 1st person plural pronoun for 1st person pluralreference). There is one exceptional case: the simple passive construction inline 10 describes a state (it is one of the only two examples of the simplepassive in these data which express stative descriptions). Even here, the state isreferred to within a lengthy discussion over the question of what they shoulddo during their summer vacation, and so this state could be understood as abounded activity in between other activities.


Thus, the simple passive shows a distinct discourse profile with a clearpreference for a particular verb class, namely activity verbs. It should be notedthat this is not a paradigmatic restriction, since it is possible to form simplepassives of stative verbs, but that is simply not done much in ordinary conversation. However, it is impossible to form passives from verbs of necessity (e.g.the verb pitää ‘must’ in (9), line 1, cannot be inflected in the passive).

4.2. Discourse functions of the bepassiveIn Section 3.2., I identified morphosyntactic parallels between the be

passive and predicate adjective clauses. I will now show that they also sharecertain patterns of usage, in that they are both used to characterize entities. Thecharacterization of entities is not the only function of the bepassive; it can alsobe used in certain evidential contexts for the description of activities. Below, Idiscuss the division of labor between the bepassive and the simple passive insuch contexts.

The bepassive is often used when some entity is being characterized.In these contexts, the bepassive may alternate with predicate adjective clauses.(10) illustrates this (cf. also 7 above).

(10) Apporra1 Jukka: mä ole joskus muinoin lukenu semmosen

I be+1SG once long.ago readPST+PTCP suchACC “A long time ago I read

2 kirjan ku Sven Hedin on kirjottanut sieltäbookACC REL S. H. be+3SG writePST+PTCP from.therea book from there [Tibet] that Sven Hedin had written

3 sen elämäni tutkimusmatkailijana. .hhitACClife1SGPX explorerESScalled “My life as an explorer” .hh

4 se on kyllä oikein kivast kirjotettuit+NOM be+3SG surely really nicely writePASS+PST+PCPit’s really very nicely written

5 niist .hh tiibetiläisistäthoseELA tibetanPLELAabout those Tibetans.”

In (10) the participants have been discussing Tibet. In lines 1–3 Jukka introduces a book that he has read a long time ago. In line 4 he then goes on to describe the book using the bepassive.


In (10) the bepassive is used to characterize a book, and in (7) above itwas used to describe a breed of dogs. Even though the verbs kirjoittaa ‘write’in (10) and jalostaa ‘breed, cultivate’ in (7) are verbs describing activities, thefocus in these examples is not on the activity per se but its result. Thus forexample in (10) it is the result of the process of writing, i.e. the book, that isbeing assessed.

The bepassive can be also used in contexts which cannot be describedas characterizing but are instead descriptions of activities. These descriptionsare set up in evidential contexts. Consider (11).

(11) Vappu1 Joanna: puhuttais vähän siit Kielekeinffosta. (.)

talkPASSCOND+PERS a.little it+ELA K.infoELA “Let's talk a little about the Kielekeinfo [name of a newsletter]. (.)

2 se on kuulemma (.) tehty ylleensä it be+3SG I.hear makePASS+PST+PTCP usually I hear [Reportedly] it has (.) been done usually

3 kesällä ilmeisesti. summerADE evidently in the summer I guess.”

In (11) the speaker uses the bepassive in line 2. The construction on tehty ‘hasbeen done’ describes an action, but in a hearsay context (marked by kuulemma‘I hear; reportedly’, line 2, and ilmeisesti ‘evidently’, line 3). It can be inferredfrom (11) that the speaker has not participated in producing the newsletter, butthis inference is based not so much on the use of the bepassive but on the evidential adverbs kuulemma and ilmeisesti — if the speaker had had first handexperience she would not be able to mark her utterance with particles of inference and hearsay (unless she had been drunk or unconscious at the time). Manyresearchers have linked the Finnish present perfect with evidential usage (seee.g. Penttilä 1957:615, Seppänen 1997:14). Thus, evidentiality in examples like(11) should be seen as a feature of the present perfect rather than the passive; in(11) this evidential reading is further emphasized by the use of evidential particles.

It is worth comparing the use of the bepassive (be + passive participle)with the present perfect of the simple passive (bePASS + passive participle,cf. (7) above). At first glance, the two forms seem to be interchangeable insome contexts but not in others. A closer study reveals the division of labor forthe two. In characterizing contexts (such as those in (7) and (10)), only the bepassive is possible; the simple passive ollaan + passive participle is ungram


matical. One cannot simply replace the active on from (10) with the passiveollaan as in (10’).

(10’) (Modified example)* se ollaan kyllä oikein kivast kirjotettu.

it bePASSPERS surely really nicely writePASS+PTCP

As pointed out above, in contexts of characterization the bepassive puts focuson the result rather than the activity itself: it is the result of the activity that isbeing characterized. It would seem that ollaan + participle is not possible inthese contexts because it shifts the focus from the result onto the human agentbehind the activity.

Whereas it is not possible to use ollaan + passive participle incharacterizing contexts, but only on + passive participle, both on + passiveparticiple and ollaan + passive participle are possible in descriptions of activities in evidential contexts. There is no strict division of labor, but some tendencies can be observed. It would be possible to use the present perfect of the simple passive (ollaan tehty) instead of the bepassive (on tehty) in a structure like(11), as shown in (11’).

(11’) (Modified example)se ollaan tehty ylleensä kesällä.it bePASSPERS makePASS+PST+PTCP usually summerADE“It has been written usually in the summer.”

However, the particles of inference (ilmeisesti) and hearsay (kuulemma) usedin the original (11) would seem out of place with ollaan + passive participle.Since ollaan + passive participle shifts the focus to the human agent behind theactivity, it highlights the possibility that the speaker could be included in thereference of the passive. The inference drawn in (11) should be based on theactivity of a human participant, but with the present perfect of the simple passive allowing the reference to include the speaker herself, as in (11’), inferenceseems unnecessary. It is odd to make inferences about one’s own activitiesunless one has not been fully conscious for some reason (one has been intoxicated, asleep etc.). In contrast, with the bepassive (on + passive participle),inferencing is based on the result of the activity.5

5 As noted above (Section 3.2.), Setälä (1915) proposed that the past passive participle did notoriginally belong to the passive paradigm at all, but instead, expressed the result of the activitydescribed by the verb. It seems that this meaning of the passive participle is now in conflictwith the simple passive’s focus on activity, and in cases where the passive participle combineswith the passive auxiliary ollaan, forming the present perfect of the simple passive, the activityfocus overrides the focus on result.


To sum up, the bepassive can be used to characterize entities. Its focusis on the result of the described action rather than the action itself. In characterizing contexts, it is not possible to use the simple passive ollaan + passiveparticiple. It was suggested that this is due to differences of focus: ollaan +passive participle focuses on the agent of the activity, and this does not fit intothe characterizing context. It was further shown that the bepassive, in additionto characterizing contexts, is also used to describe actions in certain evidentialcontexts. In these evidential contexts, it might seem to be interchangeable withthe simple passive ollaan + passive participle; however, a closer look revealsthat the bepassive is used when an inference is based on the result of an activity whereas the simple passive ollaan + passive participle focuses on the agentof the activity and accordingly, is used when the inference is based on the activity of the agent.

4.3. Creating and maintaining personal reference with the simple passiveI now turn to consider the simple passive in relation to the “zero per

son” and other members of the grammatical person system of Finnish (for amore thorough discussion of the person system see Helasvuo 2001:64–75 andHelasvuo and Laitinen, this volume). An example will help to illustrate howpersonal reference is created and maintained.

As explained above, it has been customary in Finnish linguistics sinceTuomikoski (1971) to refer to the simple passive as the “4th person” in the person system. To put it simply, this means that the simple passive is not a 1st, 2nd

or 3rd person form, but that it stands in relation to all of them, i.e., it is part ofthe same paradigmatic system. It indexes person, but the reference is open andhas to be construed from context. In many ways, it comes close to what Laitinen (1995 and this volume) has described as the “zero person”: a zero subjectthat appears with a 3rd person singular verb. The zero person creates an openreference just like the passive. Thus, both forms are used to create open reference, and the reference has to be contextually construed. However, the referentof the zero is “an experiencer, a recipient or a patient undergoing a change ofstate” (Laitinen 1995:358), whereas the passive has an agentive interpretationas noted earlier (for more on the parallelism between the passive and the zeroperson, see Helasvuo 2001).

Despite the similarities between the two forms, they have important differences that can be exploited when constructing reference to person. The simple passive often alternates with the zero person construction. Consider (12),which illustrates the expression of delicate distinctions in personal referencethrough slight changes in the grammatical forms. In this example, the participants are discussing a computer game called Doom.


(12) Diablo1 Mikko: mä oon menos normaalilla läpitte.

I be1SG goingINE normalADE through “I’m going through (it) on the normal setting.”

2 (0.4) ((SOMEBODY IS CLAPPING HIS HANDS))

3 Santeri: ↑aha. (.) onneks olkoon. PRT luckTRA beIMP3SG “I see. (.) congratulations.”

4 Ben: oikeesti jos sä [PELAAT] really if you play2SG “really if you [play]”

5 Mikko: [millä ] lailla whatADE wayADE “In what way”

6 Ben: <pelaat tuollaasia peliä> niin sun pitää, play2SG thatADJPLPTV gamePLPTV so youGEN must “(if) <you play that kind of game> you have to,

7 pelatahan niinku kaikista vaikeimmalla. playPASSPERS like allELA difficultSUPADE ((it))’s played on the most difficult setting.

8 duumia pelatahan vain (0.6) naitmeörillä? (0.4) doomPTV playPASSPERS only (0.6) nightmareADE Doom is played only on ‘nightmare’?”

9 Mikko: >jaa, ei kyllä pysy kauan hengissä well NEG+3SG sure stay long aliveINE “>well, ((one)) surely doesn’t stay alive for very long

10 jos duumia pelaa naitmeörillä< (.) if doomPTV play3SG nightmareADE if ((one)) plays doom on (the) nightmare (setting) <”

11 Santeri: he he niin laneilla pelattiin niin. so lanPLADE playPASSPSTPERS so “ha ha ((we/they)) played like that in the LAN.”


12 Mikko: niin ook sä oo ook sä ook sä pelannu niin. so beQ you beQ you beQ you playACT+PCP so “so have you ha have you have you played in that way?”

13 Ben: no <ollaanhan me [pel]attu ↑sillon>. well bePASSPERSCLT we playPASS+PST+PTCP then “well < we sure did [pl]ay ↑then>.”

14 Mikko: [joo] “yeah”

15 Ben: ihan hulluina väännettihin, quite crazyPLESS playPASSPSTPERS “((we)) were playing like crazy,”

In (12) lines 1–6, Mikko and Ben are discussing Mikko’s game and referring tothemselves with 1st and 2nd person pronouns. The 2nd person form, however,can be interpreted as referring not just to the addressee but as carrying a moregeneric meaning potential ‘you or anybody else relevant’ (cf. the generic orimpersonal usage of you in English). On line 4 Ben starts an if–thenconstruction which develops into a piece of advice. In line 7 he makes a selfrepair thatshifts from the 2nd person reference into a passive. As has been noted, the reference of the passive is open for construal from context. In this context, the useof the passive highlights the possibility that the speaker is included in the reference and thus stands in contrast with the 2nd person form which the speaker hasused earlier. The shift in the choice of referential form can be seen as a way tohandle a delicate issue: in the process of giving advice the speaker shifts from aform that addresses the coparticipant directly to a form that can be interpretedto also include the speaker himself.

In lines 9–10 Mikko gives his argument for playing with the normal setting rather than the nightmare setting. When doing this he uses the zero construction (i.e. construction with a 3rd person verb form without an overt subject)rather than making direct reference to anyone. Again, this leaves the referenceopen for construal, but in contrast to the open reference created by the use ofthe passive, which carries an agentive interpretation, the zero person indexes anexperiencer. Moreover, the zero construction refers to an experience that thecoparticipant(s) can identify with (see Laitinen (this volume) for discussion).Santeri replies to Mikko in line 11 with a passive construction, leaving open tointerpretation who it was who played in the LAN. Line 12 shows that this strategy fails. Mikko is unsure which interpretation to choose, and asks specificallyif Santeri himself did it. With his question (line 12), Mikko brings up personalreference as a topic. Ben responds to this with a construction that starts out as asimple passive but then adds the 1st person plural pronoun me ‘we’, thus clari


fying that somebody else, presumably Santeri, was playing there with him.Mikko responds to this with a ‘yes’. Interestingly, this response comes directlyafter the pronoun, that is, directly after Ben picks up the topic introduced byMikko in line 12. In line 15, once it is clear to all conversational participantsthat Ben and Santeri are included in the set of referents, Ben shifts back to thesimple passive.

Thus, (12) illustrates how speakers may use the passive and the zeroperson construction to leave personal reference open to interpretation. Usuallythe use of forms with open reference, such as the passive and the zero personconstruction, is sufficient for the coparticipants (see Du Bois 1980) and doesnot cause any problems. However, at each turn transition speakers have theoption of responding in a way that shows open reference to be insufficient.Such a response may for example make relevant a clarification of the reference. This is what Mikko does in line 12: with his clarification question heindicates that he is unable to make the inferences required by the open reference forms that his coparticipant Santeri has used.

In this section, I have shown how speakers alternate between differentforms for indicating personal reference in accordance with the needs of theconversational (micro)context. With (12) I have illustrated that the complexityof the person system in Finnish serves as a resource for speakers, and in particular that with zero construction and passive forms, personal reference can beleft open for construal based on context. Each turn is fitted into the larger context of the conversation and displays an understanding of the talk so far. Thisincludes an understanding of the referential forms used in prior talk. Each turntransition is a potential place for coparticipants to show that they are facingproblems with the talk so far or, alternatively, to indicate by smooth transitionthat there are no problems. It is in this way that we can say that speakers negotiate reference and, in essence, coconstrue it.

4.4. me ‘we’ + passive verb formIn this section, I discuss the use of the simple passive verb form with

the first person plural pronoun me ‘we’ to mark plural 1st person reference,something introduced in Section 3.1, as being a common feature of colloquialFinnish. I will try to motivate what it is that makes the simple passive suited tothis kind of reference.

Helasvuo and Laitinen (this volume) discuss the nominal and verbalperson systems in Finnish. Normally these two systems correspond regularly:for example, a second person singular pronoun appears together with a secondperson singular verb form. Helasvuo and Laitinen suggest that a characteristicof Finnish is that these two systems also intersect in more unexpected ways; forexample when a passive form appears with a 3rd person singular or plural pronoun or a 1st person plural pronoun. In these cases, the personal reference is


understood to be that of the pronoun, and not the verb form. (See Nirvi 1947,and Pertilä 2000, for more on these possibilities.)

(13) illustrates how the pronoun me ‘we’ and simple passive are usedtogether, and how the me + passive construction alternates with the simple passive (without a personal pronoun). The example is again from the Diablo conversation, and the participants have returned to the same topic that was discussed in the excerpt shown in (9), namely the question of what they should dowhen their summer vacation starts.

(13) Diablo

1 Mikko: mitä jos niin puhutahan kuule ens kesän reissusta what if so talkPASSPERS listen next summerGEN tripELA “listen, what if ((we)) talk about the trip next summer.”

2 Santeri: hommaa ny vittu se ajokortti että getIMP+2SG now cunt it driver’s.license COMP “get yourself a fucking driver's license now so that

3 päästähän sinne. getPASSPERS there´ ((we)) can get there.”

4 Ben: vielä ku mä kattoon autua tuos että, (.) still when I lookPST1SG carPTV there COMP “still when I went to look for a car there that,”

5 Santeri: no kyllä me auto saarahan, PRT sure we car getPASSPERS “well surely we’ll get a car,

6 kuhan vaan ↑kortti saarahan. ifCLT only license getPASSPERS if ((we/you)) get a license.”

7 Ben: HÄ? (.)>MISTÄ ME AUTO SAARAHAN<. hh whatELA we car getPASSPERS “HUH? (.) >where do we get a car<. hh”

8 Santeri: no vittu, (.) vaikka meiltä, aiva sama.PRT cunt for.instance weABL quite same

“well fuck, from us for instance, who cares.”


In (13) the participants are pondering about what they should do in the summer. Somebody has suggested they should make a longer trip by car, andMikko’s question on line 1 relates to the proposed trip. In his question (line 1)Mikko uses the simple passive and the reference is open: it can be inferred thatit refers at least to the conversational participants, and perhaps others as well.The same form, the simple passive, is also used on lines 3 and 6. In lines 2 3Santeri makes request that is addressed to Ben by means of a 2nd person imperative form. Ben does not respond to this request directly but instead, in line4, says what he has done towards getting a car. He uses first person forms(pronoun and verb marking) in reference to himself. In lines 5 and 7 there areme ‘we’ + passive constructions in reference to the conversational participants.

Lines 5 and 6 in (13) show an interesting structural symmetry, sincethey are both transitive constructions and both have the object in a (marked)preverbal position (for a comprehensive description of word order in Finnish,see Vilkuna 1989, and for an account of the word order of core arguments inFinnish spoken discourse, see Helasvuo 2001:75–81). However, there is oneinteresting difference between them: in line 6 the speaker uses the simple passive, without the personal pronoun, whereas in line 5 he uses the ‘we’ + passive construction. We may note that the simple passive in line 6 is used forreference that excludes the speaker (cf. 4b above): it is not Santeri but Ben whois supposed to be getting a driver’s license. This is in contrast with line 5 wherethe speaker uses the pronoun ‘we’ which makes it explicit that the speaker isincluded in the reference.

In line 7 Ben formulates a question using the ‘we’ + passive construction. Ben’s turn repeats the structure and wording of Santeri’s line 5, merelychanging the adverb kyllä ‘surely’ into mistä ‘from where’. In line 8, Santerianswers this, also making use of the pronoun me ‘we’. However, the me in line8 refers to a different set of referents from those that were referred to with thesame form earlier in the extract (lines 5 and 7): it refers to Santeri’s familyrather than Santeri and his coparticipants. Thus the reference forms in lines 7and 8 are the same (1st person plural pronoun), but the reference is construeddifferently in each case.

According to Shore (1986:33), when used with the passive form, thepronoun me ‘we’ pins down reference: the reference becomes anchored ratherthan open (or definite rather than indefinite, to use Shore’s terminology). Whenthe reference has been anchored with me ‘we’ speakers may use passive formswithout the pronoun and the meaning can be interpreted as anaphoric (Shore1988:163–164). However, anaphora in this case requires inference: there is nostructural marker of the anaphora but instead, the anaphoric relationship is inferred by the participants based on the context. Thus, the interpretation of thepassive form, whether as anchored by anaphora or allowing open reference,requires contextual inference. Moreover, the use of the pronoun me ‘we’ doesnot make the reference specific, but requires construal from context. What the


pronoun me ‘we’ does make explicit, however, is the inclusion of the speakerin the reference.

Example (13) shows that not only is the reference of the personalmarker of the passive to be construed from context, but also, the reference of‘we’ is collaboratively created through interaction. The main differencebetween the ‘we’ + passive construction and the simple passive seems to bethat only the simple passive can be used so that the reference excludes the present speaker (cf. 4b). Constructions with me ‘we’ can hardly be used so that thereference would exclude the speaker.

5. ConclusionIn the typological literature, if the Finnish passive is mentioned at all,

the reference is to passives of the simple passive type. The Finnish (simple)passive is considered to be an impersonal passive (see e.g. Comrie 1977). Thisanalysis is based on the fact that there is no subject argument in the passive inFinnish. A personal passive is understood to be one in which the object of theactive clause takes the grammatical role of subject in the corresponding passiveclause. From my perspective, however, the simple passive is by no means“impersonal” (using the term in a slightly different sense), since it is an integralpart of the grammatical person system in Finnish. Together with the othermembers of the person system it serves to express the discourse roles of theparticipants such as speaker, addressee, and the party talked about (cf. Siewierska 2004:1). The findings have implications for the treatment of agreementsystems in general as well: in many languages, the category of person contributes to the coding of grammatical relations; however, it is mistaken to assumethat the coding of grammatical relations is the sole function of person marking.

In this paper I have shown that there are two different passive constructions in Finnish, the simple passive and the bepassive. My analysis of conversational data has shown that these two constructions have distinct profiles ofusage. In these data the simple passive is almost always used for describingactions or activities, whereas the bepassive is used mainly for characterizingentities.

The data analysis showed that in the simple passive the restriction forverb class — activity verbs — reflects preferred usage, and not a paradigmaticrestriction. It is possible to form simple passives from stative verbs, but this israrely done in ordinary conversation, at least according to the data analyzedhere. Analysis of the bepassive showed that, even though activity verbs maybe used in passives which characterize activities, the focus in such constructions is not on the activities themselves, but on their end results. In addition tocharacterization, the bepassive can be used for describing activities in evidential contexts as well.

In the Finnish grammatical tradition, the two passives have beenconsidered to belong to the same passive paradigm, the bepassive representing


the present perfect and past perfect forms of the simple passive. As I haveshown, however, the simple passive has its own tense paradigm, with a perfectform composed of the auxiliary verb ‘be’ in its passive form ollaan, and thepassive participle. In certain evidential contexts this alternates with the bepassive. I have shown that in these contexts the bepassive is used when the inference is based on the result of activity, whereas the perfect of the simple passive(ollaan + passive participle) focuses on the agent of an activity and accordingly, any inference is based on the activity of the agent.

A further finding was that the two passives differ in their relationship tothe grammatical person system in Finnish: while the bepassive is a regular 3rd

person form, the simple passive represents a special “4th person” form thatleaves its reference open for collaborative construal in the conversational context. The use of the simple passive was contrasted with other personal forms, inparticular, with what Laitinen (this volume) calls the zero construction, whichalso creates open reference. It was shown that speakers alternate between different forms of personal reference in accordance with the needs of the conversational (micro)context. Careful analysis of conversational sequences was usedto demonstrate that open and nonspecific reference is tolerated well, but that ifthere are any problems, speakers have the means and opportunity to displaythat they are facing problems with any aspect of the talk so far, including thechoice of referential forms, as they might with any other conversational difficulty. Otherwise, smooth transition from one speaker to another is an indication that the open reference was sufficient. In this way speakers negotiatereference and, in essence, coconstrue it.

MASTER LIST OF REFERENCES

Alhoniemi, Alho 1975. ”Eräistä suomen kielen paikallissijojen keskeisistäkäyttötavoista”. [The basic functions of Finnish locative cases.] Sananjalka 17.5–24.

Alhoniemi, Alho 1979. ”Suomen kielen l ja ssijojen oppositiosta”. [On theopposition of Finnish l and scases.] Sanomia 89–105. Publications of theDepartment of Finnish and General Linguistics of the University of Turku9. Turku: University of Turku.

Alhoniemi, Alho 1983. ”Suomen kielen paikallissijojen käytöstä.” [On the useof the Finnish local cases.] Nykysuomen rakenne ja kehitys [The structureand development of Modern Finnish] ed. by Auli Hakulinen & PenttiLeino, 209–228. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Alhoniemi, Alho 1988. “Postpositiorakenteiden synkroniaa ja diakroniaa”. [Onthe synchrony and diachrony of postpositional constructions.] Sananjalka30.27–44.

Ashby, William & Paola Bentivoglio 1993. “Preferred Argument Structure inSpoken French and Spanish.”Language variation and change 5.61–76.

Barcelona, Antonio 1986. “On the concept of depression in American English:A cognitive approach”. Revista Canaria de estudios Ingleses 12.7 35.

Barcelona, Antonio 2003a [2000] (ed.). Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cognitive perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Barcelona, Antonio 2003b. “Introduction: The cognitive theory of metaphorand metonymy”. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cognitiveperspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 1 28. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Barcelona, Antonio 2003c. “On the plausibility of claiming a metonymic motivation for conceptual metaphor”. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 31 58. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

Barcelona, Antonio 2003d. “Clarifying and applying the notions of metaphorand metonymy within cognitive linguistics: An update”. Metaphor andmetonymy in comparison and contrast ed. by René Dirven & Ralf Pörings,207 278 Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Benveniste, Emile 1971. Problems in General Linguistics. Coral Gables,Florida: University of Miami Press.

Bickel, Balthasar 1997. “Spatial orientation in deixis, cognition, and culture:Where to orient oneself in Belhare”. Language and conceptualization ed.

REFERENCES258

by Jan Nuyts & Eric Pederson, 46–83. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Blevins, James P. 2003. “Passives and impersonals”. Journal of Linguistics39.473–520.

Borg, A. J. & Comrie, Bernard 1984. “Object diffuses in Maltese”. Objects:Towards a theory of grammatical relations ed. by Frans Plank, 109–126.London: Academic Press.

Bolinger, Dwight 1973. “Ambient it is Meaningful Too”. Journal of Linguistics 9:261–270.

Bowerman, Melissa 1996. “The origins of children’s spatial semanticcategories: Cognitive versus linguistic determinants”. Rethinking linguisticrelativity ed. by John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson, 145–176.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Breeze, Mary J. 1990. “A Sketch of the Phonology and Grammar of Gimira(Benchnon)”. Omotic Language Studies ed. by Richard J. Hayward, 1–67.London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Brinton, Laurel J. 1995. “Nonanaphoric reflexives in free indirect style:expressing the subjectivity of the nonspeaker.”Subjectivity and subjectivisation ed. by Dieter Stein & Jenny Cheshire. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Brown, Penelope 1994. “The INs and ONs of Tzeltal locative expressions: Thesemantics of static descriptions of location”. Linguistics 32.743–790.

Brugman, Claudia 1983. “The Use of BodyPart Terms as Locatives in Chalcatongo Mixtec”. Studies in Mesoamerican Linguistics ed. by AliceSchlichter, Wallace Chafe & Leanne Hinton, 235–290. Survey of California and Other Indian Languages, Report 4,. Department of Linguistics,University of California, Berkeley.

Brugman, Claudia & Monica Macaulay 1986. “Interacting Semantic Systems:Mixtec Expressions of Location”. Proceedings of the Twelfth AnnualMeeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society February 15–17, 1986 ed. byVassili Nikiforidou, Mary VanClay, Mary Niepkuj & Deborah Feder,315–327. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Buck, Carl Darling 1965. A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the PrincipalIndoEuropean Languages. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Bybee, Joan & Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca 1994. The evolution ofgrammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Campbell, Lyle 1998. Historical Linguistics. An Introduction. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.

Campbell, Lyle 2001. “What’s wrong with grammaticalization?” LanguageSciences 23.113–161.

Casad, Eugene H. 1995. “Seeing it in more than one way”. Language and thecognitive construal of the world ed. by John R. Taylor & Robert E.MacLaury, 23–49. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

REFERENCES 259

Chafe, Wallace 1976. “Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects,Topics, and Point of View.”Subject and Topic ed. by Charles N. Li, 25–55. New York: Academic Press.

Chafe, Wallace 1987. “Cognitive Constraints on Information Flow.” Coherence and Grounding in Discourse ed. by Russell Tomlin, 21–51. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Chafe, Wallace 1994. Discourse, consciousness, and time: The flow anddisplacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago:The University of Chicago Press.

Clark, Herbert H. 1973. “Space, time, semantics, and the child”. Cognitivedevelopment and the acquisition of language ed. by Timothy E. Moore.27–63. New York: Academic Press.

Comrie, Bernard. 1975. “The antiergative: Finland’s answer to Basque”.Chicago Linguistic Society 11.112–121.

Comrie, Bernard 1976. Aspect: An introduction to the study of verbal aspectand related problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Comrie, Bernard 1977. “In defense of spontaneous demotion: The impersonalpassive”. Syntax and semantics ed. by P. Cole & J. Sadock, Vol. 8, 47–58.New York: Academic Press.

Comrie, Bernard 1978. “Ergativity.“ Syntactic Typology ed. by Winfred P.Lehmann, 329–394. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Comrie, Bernard 1981. Language Universals and Syntactic Typology. London:Blackwell.

Comrie, Bernard 2003. “Recipient person suppletion in the verb ‘give’. A preliminary typological study”. Language and life: Essays in memory ofKenneth L. Pike ed. by Mary Ruth Wise, Thomas N. Headland & Ruth M.Brend, 265–281. Dallas, Tex: SIL International and the University ofTexas at Arlington.

Croft, William 1990. “Case marking and the semantics of mental verbs.”Semantics and the Lexicon ed. by James Pustejovskyh, 55–72. Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic.

Croft, William 1991a. Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations: Thecognitive organization of information. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Croft, William 1991b. Typology and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Croft, William 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory inTypological Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

Croft, William 2003. “The role of domains in the interpretation of metaphorsand metonymies”. Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrasted. by René Dirven & Ralf Pörings, 161 206. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Dahl, Östen 1987. “Case grammar and prototypes”. Concepts of Case ed. byRené Dirven & Günter Radden, 147–161. Tübingen: Günter Narr Verlag.

REFERENCES260

Dirven, René 2003. “Introduction”. Metaphor and metonymy in comparisonand contrast ed. by René Dirven & Ralf Pörings, 1 38. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

Dixon, R. M. W. 1979. “Ergativity.”Language 55.59–138.Donnellan, K. 1966. “Reference and definite descriptions.” Philosophical

Review 77.281–304.Dowty, David 1991. “Thematic protoroles and argument selection.”Language

67.547–619.Du Bois, John W. 1980. “Beyond Definiteness: The Trace of Identity in Dis

course.”The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural and Linguistic Aspects ofNarrative Production ed. by Wallace L. Chafe, 203–274. Norwood, N.J.:Ablex.

Du Bois, John W. 1987. “The discourse basis of ergativity.” Language 63.805–855.

Du Bois, John W. 2002. Discourse and grammar. The new psychology oflanguage: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure vol.2, ed. by Michael Tomasello, 47–87. London: Erlbaum.

EiblEibesfeldt, Irenäus 1989. Human ethology: Foundations of humanbehaviour. New York: Aldine de Gryuter.

Ekman, P. 1973. “Crosscultural studies of facial expression”. Darwin andfacial Expression ed. by P. Ekman. New York: Academic Press.

Emmorey, Karen 1996. “The confluence of space in language and in signedlanguages”. Language and space ed. by Bloom, Paul, Mary A. Peterson,Lynn Nadel & Merrill F. Garrett, 171–209. Cambridge, Mass.: MITPress.

Éva, Hompó 1990. “Grammatical Relations in Gamo: a Pilot Sketch”. OmoticLanguage Studies ed. by Richard J. Hayward, 356–405. London: Schoolof Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Fauconnier, Gilles 1985. Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction inNatural Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner 2003. “Metaphor, metonymy, and binding”.Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cognitive perspective ed. byAntonio Barcelona, 133 145. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Feyaerts, Kurt 2003. “Refining the Inheritance hypothesis: Interaction betweenmetaphoric and metonymic hierarchies”. Metaphor and metonymy at thecrossroads: a cognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 59 78.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Fillmore, Charles J. 1982. “Towards a descriptive framework for spatialdeixis”. Speech, place, and action: Studies in deixis and related topics ed.by Robert J. Jarvella & Wolfgang Klein, 31–59. Chichester: John Wiley &Sons Ltd.

Fleming, Harold 1990. “A Grammatical Sketch of Dime (DimAf) of theLower Omo”. Omotic Language Studies ed. by Richard J. Hayward, 494–

REFERENCES 261

583. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University ofLondon.

Foley, William A. 1997. Anthropological linguistics. An Introduction. Oxfordand Maiden: Blackwell.

Foley, William & Robert D. Van Valin Jr. 1984. Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fong, Vivienne 1998. “Space and time in the semantics of the Finnish casesystem”. Discourse and Cognition: Bridging the Gap ed. by JeanPierreKoenig, 17–28. Stanford: CSLI.

Fox, James J. 1988. “Introduction”. To speak in pairs. Essays on the rituallanguages of Eastern Indonesia ed. by James J. Fox, 1–28. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Freeman, Margeret H. 2003. “Poetry and the scope of metaphor: Toward acognitive theory of literature”. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads:a cognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 253 282. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

Gardiner, Alan 1957. Egyptian Grammar being an Introduction to the Study ofHieroglyphs. 3rd edition. Oxford: Griffith Institute.

Geeraerts, Dirk 2003. “The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in composite expressions”. Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrasted. by René Dirven & Ralf Pörings, 435 465. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Givón, Talmy 1990. Syntax. Vol. II. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Givón, Talmy 1994. “The pragmatics of detransitive voice: Functional andtypological aspects of inversion.” Voice and inversion ed. by TalmyGivón. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Goldberg, Adele 1995. Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach toargument structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Goodwin, Charles 1984. “Notes on story structure and the organization ofparticipation.”Structures of Social Action ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson &John Heritage, 225–246. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Habicht, Külli 2000. “Grammaticalization of adpositions in old literaryEstonian”. Estonian: Typological studies IV ed. by Mati Erelt, 19–58.Tartu Ülikooli eesti keele õppetooli toimetised. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool.

Hagège, C. 1974. “Les pronoms logophoriques.” Bulletin de la Société deLinguistique de Paris LXIV.287–310.

Häkkinen, Kaisa 1983. Suomen kielen vanhimmasta sanastosta ja sen tutkimisesta. Suomalaisugrilaisten kielten etymologisen tutkimuksen perusteita ja metodiikkaa. [Research on the Earliest Finnish Vocabulary. ThePrinciples and Methods of Etymological Research on the FinnoUgrianLanguages.] Publications of the Department of Finnish and Generallinguistics of the University of Turku 17. Turku: University of Turku.

REFERENCES262

Häkkinen, Kaisa 1994. Agricolasta nykykieleen. Suomen kirjakielen historia.[From Agricola to Modern Finnish. A history of written Finnish.] Helsinki: WSOY.

Häkkinen, Kaisa 1995. “Tilamorfeemit, kielijärjestelmän kodittomat kulmakivet”. [Spatial morphemes in Finnish.] Sananjalka 37.7–23.

Häkkinen, Kaisa 2001. “Prehistoric FinnoUgric Culture in the Light of Historical Lexicology”. Early Contacts between Uralic and IndoEuropean:Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations ed. by Christian Carpelan,Asko Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio, 169–186. Mémoires de la SociétéFinnoOugrienne 242. Helsinki: FinnoUgrian Society.

Häkkinen, Kaisa 2002. Suomen kielen historia 1. Suomen kielen äänne jamuotorakenteen historiallista taustaa. [The history of Finnish 1: On thehistorical background of Finnish phonology and morphology.] Publications of the Department of Finnish and General Linguistics of the University of Turku 69. Turku: University of Turku.

Hakulinen, Auli 1982. ”Itsesanan merkityksestä ja käytöstä” [The meaningand use of the word 'self']. Virittäjä 86.43–57.

Hakulinen, Auli 1987. “Avoiding personal reference in Finnish.” The pragmatic perspective ed. by Jef Verschueren & Marcella BertucelliPapi,140–153. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Hakulinen, Auli 2005. “New answers to old questions — some Finnish experiences.” Syntax and Lexis in Conversation ed. by Auli Hakulinen &Margret Selting. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Hakulinen, Auli & Fred Karlsson 1979. Nykysuomen lauseoppia. [ModernFinnish syntax.] Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Hakulinen, Auli & Lauri Karttunen 1973. “Missing persons: on generic sentences in Finnish.”Chicago Linguistic Society 9.157–171.

Hakulinen, Auli, Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja RiittaHeinonen & Irja Alho 2004. Iso suomen kielioppi. [A descriptive grammarof Finnish.] Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Hakulinen, Lauri 1979. Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys. [The structure anddevelopment of Finnish.] 4th, revised edition. Helsinki: Otava.

Haser, Verena 2003. “Metaphor in semantic change”. Metaphor and metonymyat the crossroads: a cognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona,171 194. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Haspelmath, Martin 2003. “Ditransitive constructions in the world’s languages:alignment types, alignment splits, and inverse patterns”. Paper presented atthe University of Stanford, March 2003.

Haspelmath, Martin 2005. “Argument marking in ditransitive alignmenttypes”. Linguistic Discovery 3:1.1 21.

Hayward, Richard J. 1990a (ed.). Omotic Language Studies. London: School ofOriental and African Studies, University of London.

REFERENCES 263

Hayward, Richard J. 1990b. “Notes on the Zayse Language”. Omotic Language Studies ed. by Richard J. Hayward, 210–355. London: School ofOriental and African Studies, University of London.

Hayward, Richard J. 1990c. “Notes on the Aari Language”. Omotic LanguageStudies ed. by Richard J. Hayward, 425–493. London: School of Orientaland African Studies, University of London.

Heinämäki, Orvokki 1981. “On the meaning of olla + 3rd inf. iness. in Finnish”. Congressus Quintus Internationalis FennoUgristarum ed. byOsmo Ikola, Turku 20.–27. VIII 1980. Pars VI. Turku.

Heinämäki, Orvokki 1983. “Aspect in Finnish.”Aspect Bound. A voyage to therealm of Germanic, Slavonic, and FinnoUgrian Aspectology ed. byCaspar de Groot & Hannu Tommola, 153–177. Dordrecht: Foris.

Heinämäki, Orvokki 1994. “Aspect as boundedness in Finnish”. Tense, Aspectand Action ed. by Carl Bache, Hans Basbøll & CarlErik Ludberg, 207–233. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Heinämäki, Orvokki 1995. “The progressive in Finnish: Pragmatic constraints”. Temporal reference, aspect, and actionality ed. by Pier MarcoBertinetto, Valentina Bianchi, Östen Dahl & Mario Squartini, vol. 2:Typological perspectives, 143–154. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.

Heine, Bernd 1997a. Cognitive Foundations of Grammar. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Heine, Bernd 1997b. Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, andGrammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi & Friederike Hünnemeyer 1991. Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago: The University of ChicagoPress.

Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Heinonen, Tarja Riitta 1995. “Null Subjects in Finnish: from EitherOr toMoreOrLess.” SKY 1995 Yearbook of the Linguistic Association ofFinland ed. by Tapio Hokkanen, Marja Leinonen & Susanna Shore, 47–78. Helsinki.

Helasvuo, MarjaLiisa 1996. ”Ollako vai eikö olla – eksistentiaalilauseensubjektin kohtalonkysymys”. [English summary: To be or not to be – thequestion of existential subject in Finnish.] Virittäjä 100.340–356.

Helasvuo, MarjaLiisa 1997. “When discourse becomes syntax: Noun phrasesand clauses as emergent syntactic units in Finnish conversational discourse.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. Department of Linguistics, Universityof California, Santa Barbara.

Helasvuo, MarjaLiisa 2001. Syntax in the making: The emergence of syntacticunits in Finnish conversation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Helasvuo, MarjaLiisa 2003. “Argument splits in Finnish grammar and discourse.” Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as architecture for

REFERENCES264

function ed. by John W. Du Bois, Lorraine E. Kumpf & William J. Ashby,247–272. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Helasvuo, MarjaLiisa & Marjut Johansson forthcoming. “Construing personalreference in Internet discussion groups: Nonspecific reference forms inFinnish and French”. Ms. University of Turku.

Hopper, Paul & Elisabeth Closs Traugott 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Huumo, Tuomas 1996a. “Domain shifts and the grammaticalization of case: Acase study of the Finnish adessive”. Folia Linguistica Historica XVII:1–2.73–95.

Huumo, Tuomas 1996b. “A scoping hierarchy of locatives”. Cognitive Linguistics 7.265–299.

Huumo, Tuomas 1999. “Space as time: temporalization and other special functions of locationalsetting adverbials”. Linguistics 37.389–430.

Huumo, Tuomas 2003. “Incremental existence: The world according to theFinnish existential sentence”. Linguistics 41:3.461−493.

Huumo, Tuomas 2004. “’I can see the church to my house’: Directionality inexpressions of visual perception in Finnish”. Language, Culture, and Minded. by Michel Achard & Suzanne Kemmer, 271–280. Stanford: CSLI.

Huumo, Tuomas 2005. “How fictive dynamicity motivates aspect marking: Theriddle of the Finnish quasiresultative construction”. Cognitive Linguistics16:1.113–144.

Hyman, Larry M. & Bernard Comrie 1981. “Logophoric Reference in Gokana.”Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 3.19–37.

Itkonen, Terho 1974, 1975. “Ergatiivisuutta suomessa”. [Ergativity in Finnish.]Virittäjä 88.379–398.

Itkonen, Terho 1979. “Subject and object marking in Finnish: An invertedergative system and an ‘ideal’ ergative subsystem”. Ergativity: Towards atheory of grammatical relations ed. by Frans Plank, 79–102. London:Academic Press.

Jaakola, Minna 1997. ”Genetiivin kanssa esiintyvien adpositioiden kieliopillistumisesta”. [On the grammaticalization of the adpositions with genitiveadjuncts.] Kieliopillistuminen. Tapaustutkimuksia suomesta ed. by TapaniLehtinen & Lea Laitinen, 121–156. Kieli 12. Department of Finnish. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.

Jakobson, Roman 1971 [1956]. “Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russianverb.”Selected Writings II: 130–147.

Janhunen, Juha 1981. “Uralilaisen kantakielen sanastosta”. [The lexicon inProtoUralic.] Journal de la Société FinnoOugrienne 77.219–274. Helsinki: FinnoUgrian Society.

Jespersen, Otto 1992 [1924]. The Philosophy of Grammar. With a new Introduction and Index by James D. McCawley. Chicago: The University ofChicago Press.

REFERENCES 265

Johnson, Mark 1987. The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning,imagination, and reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Johnson, Mark & George Lakoff. 2002. “Why cognitive linguistics requiresembodied realism”. Cognitive Linguistics 13.245–263.

Kärkkäinen, Elise 1996. “Preferred argument structure and subject role inAmerican English conversational discourse.”Journal of Pragmatics 25.675–701.

Karlsson, Fred 1982. Suomen kielen äänne ja muotorakenne. [Finnishphonology and morphology.] Helsinki: WSOY.

Karlsson, Göran 1957. Suomen kielen nukuksissa ja hereillä tyyppiset paikallissijaadverbit. Vartaloltaan ksi (~ kse) ja ei ~ ee loppuisia paikallissijaadverbeja koskeva tutkimuskoe. [Finnish locative adverbs of thetype nukuksissa and hereillä]. Turku: Finnish Literature Society.

Karlsson, Göran 1966. “Eräitä tilastollisia tietoja subjektin ja predikaatinnumeruskongruenssista.” [Some statistics on the number agreement ofsubjects and predicates in Finnish.] Sananjalka 8.17–23.

Kiparsky, Paul 2001. “Structural case in Finnish”. Lingua 11.315376..Koivisto, Helinä 1987. Partisiippien adjektiivistuminen suomen kielessä. [On

the adjectivization of participles in Finnish.] Helsinki: Finnish LiteratureSociety.

Koivisto, Vesa 1995. Itämerensuomen refleksiivit. [BaltoFinnic reflexives.]Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Koivulehto, Jorma 1999 [1986]. “Die Sieverssche Regel im Lichte der germanischfinnischen Lehnbeziehungen”. Verba mutuata by Jorma Koivulehto, 245–274. Helsinki: FinnoUgrian Society.

König, Ekkehard & Peter Siemund 1987. ”Intensifiers as targets and sources ofsemantic change.” Historical semantics and cognition ed. by AndreasBlank & Peter Koch, 1237 1257. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Kotilainen, Lari 1999. “Ihminen paikkana. Henkilöviitteisten paikallissijailmausten semantiikkaa.” [The person as a place: Semantics of local caseexpressions with human referents.] Unpublished MA thesis. Departmentof Finnish, University of Helsinki.

Kövecses, Zoltán & Günter Radden 1998. “Metonymy: Developing a cognitivelinguistic view”. Cognitive Linguistics 9:1.37 77.

Kulonen, UllaMaija 1996. Sanojen alkuperä ja sen selittäminen. Etymologistaleksikografiaa. [Explaining the Origin of Words. Etymological Lexicography.] Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Kuno, Susumu 1976. “Subject, theme and the speaker’s empathy.”Subject andtopic ed. by Charles N. Li, 417–444. New York: Academic Press.

Kury owicz, Jerzy 1965. “The evolution of grammatical categories”. EsquissesLinguistiques II by J. Kury owicz, 38–54. Munich: Fink.

Kuteva, Tania & Chris Sinha 1994. “Spatial and nonspatial uses of prepositions: Conceptual integrity across semantic domains”. Kognitive Semantik/

REFERENCES266

Cognitive semantics: Ergebnisse, Probleme, Perspectiven ed. by M.Schwarz, 215 237. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

Laitinen, Lea 1992. Välttämättömyys ja persoona. Suomen murteiden nesessiivisten rakenteiden semantiikkaa ja kielioppia [Necessity and person:Semantics and grammar of the necessitative constructions in Finnishdialects]. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Laitinen, Lea 1995a. “Nollapersoona.” [English summary: The Zero Person.]Virittäjä 99.337–358.

Laitinen, Lea 1995b: “Metonymy and the grammaticalization of necessity inFinnish.”SKY 1995 Yearbook of the Linguistic Association of Finland ed.by Tapio Hokkanen, Marja Leinonen & Susanna Shore, 79–102. Helsinki:Linguistic Association of Finland.

Laitinen, Lea 1996. “Indexical site to be identified with: The Case of the ‘Zeroperson’ in Finnish conversations.” Poster presented at the 5th InternationalPragmatics Conference in Mexico City.

Laitinen, Lea 1997. “Norms made easy: case marking with modal verbs inFinnish.”Taming the vernacular: from dialect to written standard language ed. by Jenny Cheshire & Dieter Stein, 110–124. London: Longman.

Laitinen, Lea 2002. “From logophoric pronoun to discourse particle: A casestudy of Finnish and Saami.”New Reflections on grammaticalization ed.by Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald, 327–344. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Laitinen, Lea 2004. “Grammaticalization and standardization”. Up and Downthe Cline — the Nature of Grammaticalization ed. by Olga Fischer, MurielNorde & Harry Perridon, 247–262. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: JohnBenjamins.

Laitinen, Lea 2005. “Hän, the third speech act pronoun in Finnish.”Minimalreference ed. by Ritva Laury, 75–106. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Laitinen, Lea & Vilkuna, Maria 1993. “Casemarking in necessive constructions and split intransitivity.”Case and other Functional Categories inFinnish Syntax ed. by Anders Holmberg & Urpo Nikanne, 23–48. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

Lakoff, George 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, George 1988. “Cognitive semantics”. Meaning and mental representations ed. by Umberto Eco, Marco Santabrogio & Patrizia Violi, 119–154.Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.

Lakoff, George 1993. “The metaphor system and its role in grammar”. ChicagoLinguistic Society 29:2.217–241.

Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: The embodiedmind and its challenge to western thought. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books.

REFERENCES 267

Lakoff, George & Zoltán Kövecses 1987. “The cognitive model of anger inherentin American English”. Cultural models in language and thought ed. byDorothy Holland & Naomi Quinn, 195 221. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 1, Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1991a. Concept, image, and symbol. The cognitive basisof grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1991b. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. II:Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald 1993. “Referencepoint constructions”. Cognitive Linguistics4:1.1–38.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1999a. Grammar and Conceptualization. CognitiveLinguistics Research 14. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1999b. “A Study in Unified Diversity: English andMixtec Locatives”. RASK 9/10 (March 1999).215–256.

Laury, Ritva 1996. “Pronouns and adverbs, figure and ground: The local caseforms and locative forms of the Finnish demonstratives in spokendiscourse”. SKY 1996 Yearbook of the Linguistic Association of Finlanded. by Timo Haukioja, MarjaLiisa Helasvuo & Elise Kärkkäinen, 65–92.Helsinki: The Linguistic Association of Finland.

Laury, Ritva 1997. Demonstratives in interaction: The emergence of a definitearticle in Finnish. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Laury, Ritva 1999. “The Case of the Noun Phrase in the Finnish AdpositionalPhrase: A Discoursepragmatic Account.”Proceedings of the 24th annualmeeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society ed. by Benjamin K. Bergen,Madelaine C. Plauche & Ashlee C. Bailey, 150–160. Berkeley: BerkeleyLinguistics Society.

Laury, Ritva 2002. “Interaction, grounding and thirdperson referential forms.”Grounding: The epistemic footing of deixis and reference ed. by FrankBrisard, 83–111. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Laury, Ritva & Seppänen, EevaLeena 2003. “Complement clauses as turncontinuations: The Finnish et(tä)clause.” Paper given at the 8th International Pragmatics Conference, Toronto, 13–18 July 2003.

Lehmann, Christian 1985. “Grammaticalization: Synchronic Variation andDiachronic Change”. Lingua e Stile 20.303–318.

Lehmann, Christian 1988. “On the function of agreement.”Agreement in natural language: Approaches, theories, descriptions ed. by M. Barlow &Charles A. Ferguson, 55–65. Stanford: CSLI.

Lehmann, Christian, YongMin Shin & Elisabeth Verhoeven 2000a. Direkteund indirekte Partizipation. Zur Typologie der sprachlichen Repräsentation konzeptueller Relationen. München: Lincom Europa.

Lehmann, Christian, YongMin Shin & Elisabeth Verhoeven 2000b. Personprominence and relation prominence. München: Lincom Europa.

REFERENCES268

Lehtinen, Tapani 1984. Itämerensuomen passiivin alkuperästä. [About the origins of the BaltoFinnic passive.] Suomi 129. Helsinki: Finnish LiteratureSociety.

Leino, Jaakko 2001a. ”Antamiskehys kognitiivisena konstruktiona” [The ’give’schema as a cognitive construction]. Roolit ja rakenteet. Henkilöviitteinenallatiivi Biblian verbikonstruktioissa [Roles and constructions. On the useof the allative with an animate referent in the verbal constructions of theOld Bible] by Pentti Leino, Ilona Herlin, Suvi Honkanen, Lari Kotilainen,Jaakko Leino & Maija Vilkkumaa, 67–103. Helsinki: Finnish LiteratureSociety.

Leino, Jaakko 2001b. ”Antamiskehyksen laajentumat” [The extensions of the’give’ schema]. Roolit ja rakenteet. Henkilöviitteinen allatiivi Biblianverbikonstruktioissa [Roles and constructions. On the use of the allativewith an animate referent in the verbal constructions of the Old Bible] byPentti Leino, Ilona Herlin, Suvi Honkanen, Lari Kotilainen, Jaakko Leino& Maija Vilkkumaa, 220–257. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Leino, Pentti 1989. “Paikallissijat ja suhdesääntö: kognitiivisen kieliopinnäkökulma”. [English summary: Local cases and the relation rule: anapproach from cognitive grammar.] Virittäjä 93.161–219.

Leino, Pentti, MarjaLiisa Helasvuo, Petri Lauerma, Urpo Nikanne & TiinaOnikki 1990. Suomen kielen paikallissijat konseptuaalisessa semantiikassa. [The Finnish local cases in conceptual semantics.] Kieli 5. Department of Finnish. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.

Leinonen, Marja 1983. “Generic zero subjects in Finnish and Russian.”ScandoSlavica 29.143–161. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.

Leinonen, Marja 1985. Impersonal sentences in Finnish and Russian. Syntacticand semantic properties. Slavica Helsingiensia 3. Helsinki: University ofHelsinki.

Lerner, Gene H. 1996. “On the place of linguistic resources in the organizationof talkininteraction: ‘Second person’ reference in multiparty conversation.”Pragmatics 6:3.281–294.

Levelt, Willem J. M. 1996. “Perspective taking and ellipsis in spatialdescriptions”. Language and space ed. by Paul Bloom, Mary A. Peterson,Lynn Nadel & Merrill F. Garrett, 77–107. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Levinson, Stephen C. 1994. “Vision, shape, and linguistic description: Tzeltalbodypart terminology and object description”. Linguistics 32.791–856.

Levinson, Stephen C. 1996a. “Relativity in spatial conception and description”.Rethinking linguistic relativity ed. by John J. Gumperz & Stephen C.Levinson, 177–202. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Levinson, Stephen C. 1996b. “Frames of reference and Molyneux’s Question:Crosslinguistic Evidence”. Language and space ed. by Paul Bloom, MaryA. Peterson, Lynn Nadel & Merrill F. Garrett, 109–169. Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press.

REFERENCES 269

Levinson, Stephen C. 2003. Space in language and cognition. Explorations incognitive diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lichtenberk, Frantisek 2002. “The possessivebenefactive connection”.Oceanic Linguistics 41:2.439–474.

Lindner, Susan J. 1983. “A lexicosemantic analysis of English verb particleconstructions”. L.A.U.T. A 101.

Lyons, John 1977. Semantics. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Lyytikäinen, Erkki 1996. “Kirjakielen kaksoispassiivi.” [The “double passive”

in Finnish.] Virittäjä 100.580–587.Matlock, Teenie 2001. How real is fictive motion? Ph. D. thesis. Department of

Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz. http://wwwpsych.stanford.edu/~tmatlock/ dissertation.pdf

Matsumoto, Yo 1996. “Subjective motion and English and Japanese verbs”.Cognitive Linguistics 7.183–226.

Meillet, Antoine 1912. “L’évolution des formes grammaticales”. Scientia12:26.384–400.

Morris, Desmond 1977. Eleet kertovat, ilmeet puhuvat. [Manwatching: A fieldguide to human behaviour.] Transl. by Raija Mattila. Helsinki: Otava.

Morris, Desmond 1986. Eleitä, ilmeitä, asentoja. [Bodywatching: A fieldguide to the human species.] Transl. by Paula Karlsson. Helsinki: Otava.

Nakayama, Toshihide & Kumiko IchihashiNakayama 1994. Discourse perspective for coreoblique distinction in Japanese. Santa Barbara Papersin Linguistics 5.158–177.

Nerlich, Brigitte & David D. Clarke 2003. “Blending the past and the present:Conceptual and linguistic integration, 1800 2000”. Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast ed. by René Dirven & Ralf Pörings,555–593. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Newman, John. 1996. Give: A cognitive linguistic study. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

Newman, John 1998. “Recipients and ‘give’ constructions”. The dative.Volume 2: Theoretical and contrastive studies ed. by Willy van Langendonck & William van Belle, 1–28. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Newman, John 1999. “Figurative giving”. Issues in cognitive linguistics. 1993Proceedings of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference ed. byLeon de Stadler & Christoph Eyrich, 113–140. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Nichols, Johanna 1983. “Direct and oblique cases.” Proceedings of the 9th

Annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society ed. by Amy Dahlstrom,Claudia Brugman, Monica Macaulay, Inese Cirkulis, Michele Emanatian,Donna Sakima & Raquel Teixeura, 170–192. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Niemeier, Susanne 2003. “Straight from the heart — metonymic and metaphorical explorations”. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cog

REFERENCES270

nitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 195 214. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

Nirvi, R. E. 1947. “Passiivimuotojen aktiivistumisesta.” [On the activation ofpassive forms.] Suomi 20. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Nuutinen, Olavi 1976. Suomen teonnimirakenteista. [On the structure of nounsdescribing actions in Finnish.] Stockholm studies in Finnish language andliterature 1. Stockholm: University of Stockholm.

Ojutkangas, Krista 1998. Itämerensuomalainen näkökulma kieliopillistumiseen. [English summary: A Finnic viewpoint on grammaticalization.]Sananjalka 40.67–86.

Ojutkangas, Krista 2000a. ”Ruumiinosannimien kieliopillistumisesta suomessaja virossa: tarkust ei wõi käega külge panna”. [English summary: Grammaticalization of bodypart nouns in Finnish and Estonian.] Virittäjä104.2–22.

Ojutkangas, Krista 2000b. “On grammaticalization of bodypart nouns: käsi‘hand’ in Finnish and Estonian”. Papers from the 17th ScandinavianConference of Linguistics ed. by CarlErik Lindberg & Steffen NordahlLund, vol. I, 237–248. Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication 19. Odense: University of Southern Denmark.

Ojutkangas, Krista 2000c. “Grammaticalizing possessive constructions inFinnic: käsi ‘hand’ in Estonian and Finnish”. Facing Finnic: Somechallenges to historical and contact linguistics ed. by Johanna Laakso,137–155. Castrenianumin toimitteita 59. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.

Ojutkangas, Krista 2001. Ruumiinosannimien kieliopillistuminen suomessa javirossa. [English abstract: Grammaticalization of bodypart nouns inFinnish and Estonian.] Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Onikki, Tiina 1992. “Paljon pystyssä”. [Polysemy of the local case expressionpystyssä.] Metafora: Ikkuna kieleen, mieleen ja kulttuuriin ed. by LauriHarvilahti, Jyrki Kalliokoski, Urpo Nikanne & Tiina Onikki, 33–59. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Onikki, Tiina 1994. Rähmältä pystyyn ja naama peruslukemille Nykysuomenpaikallissijaisten asennonilmausten merkitysrakenteen kartoitusta. [Aboutthe semantic structure of Finnish local case expressions denoting posturesand facial expressions.] Unpublished Licentiate’s thesis. Department ofFinnish, University of Helsinki.

OnikkiRantajääskö, Tiina 2001. Sarjoja: Nykysuomen paikallissijaiset olotilanilmaukset kielen analogisuuden ilmentäjinä. [Patterns and analogy —a case study of statedenoting local case constructions in modern Finnish.]Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Pajunen, Anneli 2001. Argumenttirakenne: Asiaintilojen luokitus ja verbienkäyttäytyminen suomen kielessä. [Argument structure: A taxonomy ofstates of affairs and the syntactic behaviour of verbs in Finnish.] Suomi187. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

REFERENCES 271

Palander, Marjatta 1991. “Puhe ja kirjakielen sanajärjestyseroja.” [Englishsummary: Word order differences in spoken and written language.] Virittäjä 95.235–254.

Panther, KlausUwe & Linda Thornburg 2003. ”The effect for cause metonymy in English grammar”. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: acognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 215 232. Berlin: Moutonde Gruyter.

Pederson, Eric, Eve Danziger, David Wilkins, Stephen Levinson, Sotaro Kita& Gunter Senft 1998. “Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization”.Language 74.557–589.

Peirce, Charles 1931. Collected Papers Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress.

Penttilä, Aarni 1957. Suomen kielioppi. [Finnish Grammar.] Helsinki: WSOY.Pertilä, Laura 2000. “Passiivimuotojen aktiivistuminen suomen kielessä.”

[English summary: The activation of passive forms in Finnish.] Sananjalka 42.115–139.

Posti, Lauri 1945. ”Itämerensuomalaisten kielten passiivin tunnustensuhteesta” [Zusammenfassung: Über das gegenseitige Verhältnis derPassivformantien in den ostseefinnischen Sprachen)]. Virittäjä 49.255–368.

Pressman, Jon F. 1994. “Pragmatics in the late twentieth century: counteringrecent historiographic neglect.”Pragmatics 4:4.461–489.

Radden, Günter 2003. “How metonymic are metaphors?”. Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: a cognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 93 108. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Rahkonen, Matti 1977. “Suomen paikanilmauksista”. [On locative expressions inFinnish.] Virittäjä 81.21–52.

Ramat, Anna Giacalone 1998. “Testing the boundaries of grammaticalization”.The limits of grammaticalization ed. by Anna Ramat Giacalone & PaulHopper, 107–127. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

RudzkaOstyn, Brygida 1996. “The Polish dative”. The dative. Volume 1: Descriptive studies ed. by Willy van Langendonck & William van Belle,341–394. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José 2003. “The role of mappings anddomains in understanding metonymy”. Metaphor and metonymy at thecrossroads: a cognitive perspective ed. by Antonio Barcelona, 109 132.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco & Olga Isabel Diez Velasco 2003. “Patterns of conceptual interaction”. Metaphor and metonymy in comparisonand contrast ed. by René Dirven & Ralf Pörings, 489 532. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

Sammallahti, Pekka 1988. “Historical Phonology of the Uralic Languages”.The Uralic Languages ed. by Denis Sinor, 478–554. Handbuch derOrientalistik. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

REFERENCES272

Sands, Kristina & Lyle Campbell 2001. “Noncanonical subjects and objects inFinnish.”Noncanonical marking of subjects and objects ed. by AlexandraY. Aikhenwald, R. M. W. Dixon & Masayuki Onishi, 251–305. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Scheibman, Joanne 2001. Point of view and grammar: Structural patterns ofsubjectivity in American English conversation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Seiter, William J. 1980. Studies in Niuean syntax. New York: Garland.Seppänen, EevaLeena 1996. “Ways of referring to a knowing coparticipant in

Finnish conversation.”SKY 1996 Yearbook of the Linguistic Associationof Finland ed. by Timo Haukioja, MarjaLiisa Helasvuo & Elise Kärkkäinen, 135–176. Helsinki: The Linguistic Association of Finland.

Seppänen, EevaLeena 1997. “Suomen perfektin merkityksestä keskusteluaineiston valossa” [English summary: The meaning of the perfect tense inFinnish]. Virittäjä 101.2–26.

Seppänen, EevaLeena 1998. Läsnäolon pronominit: Tämä, tuo, se ja hän viittaamassa keskustelun osallistujaan. [The pronouns of presence: Tämä,tuo, se and hän in reference to participants in conversation] Helsinki:Finnish Literature Society.

Seppänen, EevaLeena 2000. “Sinä ja suomalaiset: yksikön toisen persoonanyleistävästä käytöstä.” [You and other Finns: about the generic use ofsecond person singular forms.] Kielikello 3.16–18.

Setälä, E. N. 1883. “Lauseopillinen tutkimus KoillisSatakunnan kansankielestä.” [A syntactic study of the dialect of Northeastern Satakunta, Finland.] Suomi II:8. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Setälä, E. N. 1891. Suomen kielen lauseoppi. [Finnish syntax.] 3rd, revisededition. Helsinki.

Setälä, E. N. 1915. ”Suomen passiivista.” [About the Finnish passive.] Virittäjä19.107–112.

Shibatani, Masayoshi 1996. “Applicatives and benefactives: A cognitiveaccount”. Grammatical constructions: Their form and meaning ed. byMasayoshi Shibatani & Sandra A. Thompson, 157–194. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Shore, Bradd 1996. Culture in mind: Cognition, Culture, and the problem ofmeaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shore, Susanna 1986. Onko suomessa passiivia? [English summary: On the socalled Finnish passive.] Suomi 133. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

Shore, Susanna 1988. “On the socalled Finnish passive.”Word 39.151–176.Siewierska, Anna 2004. Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Siiroinen, Mari 1996. “The semantics and derivational relations of Finnish

emotive verbs.”Papers from the 16th Scandinavian conference of linguistics, 392–402. Turku: University of Turku.

Siiroinen, Mari 2003. “Subjectivity and the use of Finnish emotive verbs.”Cognitive Linguistics and NonIndoEuropean Languages ed. by Eugene

REFERENCES 273

Casad & Gary Palmer, 405–417. Cognitive Linguistics Research 18. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Silverstein, Michael 1976a. “Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and CulturalDescription.”Meaning in Anthropology ed. by Keith H. Basso & Henry A.Selby, 11–55. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

Silverstein, Michael 1976b. “Hierarchy of features and ergativity.”Grammatical categories in Australian languages ed. by R. M. W. Dixon, 112–171.Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.

Silverstein, Michael 1981. “Case marking and the nature of language”. Australian Journal of Linguistics 1.227–247.

Silverstein, Michael 1987a. “The three faces of “function”: Preliminaries to apsychology of language.”Social and Functional Approaches to Languageand Thought ed. by M. Hickmann, 17–38. Orlando: Academic Press.

Silverstein, Michael 1987b. “Cognitive implications of referential hierarchy.”Social and Functional Approaches to Language and Thought ed. by M.Hickmann, 125–164. Orlando: Academic Press.

Silverstein, Michael 1993. “Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function.”Reflexive language: reported speech and metapragmatics ed. byJohn Lucy, 33–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Siro, Paavo 1964. “Infinitiivin asema suomen kieliopissa”. [On the status ofinfinitives in the grammar of Finnish.] Sananjalka 6.20–26.

Song, Jae Jung 1998a. “On the development of MANNER from GIVE”. Thelinguistics of giving ed. by John Newman, 327–348. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Song, Jae Jung 1998b. “Benefactive marking in Oceanic languages: from possessive classifiers to benefactive markers”. Case, typology and grammar.In Honor of Barry J. Blake ed. by Anna Siewierska & Jae Jung Song,247–276. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Sorjonen. MarjaLeena 2001. Responding in Conversation. A study of responseparticles in Finnish. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

de Stadler, Leon 1996. “The indirect object in Afrikaans”. The dative. Volume1: Descriptive studies ed. by Willy van Langendonck & William vanBelle, 251–288. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Stassen, Leon 1997. Intransitive predication. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Strellman, Urpu 2005. “Persoonapronominien liikakäyttö. Erään normin synty

ja muotoutuminen.” [The ’overuse’ of personal pronouns.] UnpublishedM.A. thesis. Department of Finnish, University of Helsinki.

Sulkala, Helena & Karjalainen, Merja 1992. Finnish. Descriptive Grammars.New York: Routledge.

Suutari, Toni 2004. “‘Kopf’ in finnischen, estnischen und saamischen Ortsnamen“. FinnishUgrische Forschungen 58:1–3.235–295. Helsinki:FinnoUgrian Society.

Suutari, Toni (forthcoming). Suomi ja viro muutoksessa: pääkantaiset muodotkielen kehityksen kuvaajina. [Finnish and Estonian in change: What does

REFERENCES274

the grammaticalization of pää ‘head’ reveal about the development of language?] Ph.D. thesis. Department of Finnish, University of Helsinki.

Svorou, Soteria 1994. The Grammar of Space. Amsterdam & Philadelphia:John Benjamins.

Sweetser, Eve 1990. From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Talmy, Leonard 2000a. Toward a cognitive semantics. Volume 1: Conceptstructuring systems. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Talmy, Leonard 2000b. Toward a cognitive semantics. Volume 2: Typologyand process in concept structuring. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Taylor, John R. 1995. “Introduction: On construing the world”. Language andthe cognitive construal of the world ed. by John R. Taylor & Robert E.MacLaury, 1–21. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Thompson, Sandra A. 1997. “Discourse motivations for the coreoblique distinction as a language universal.”Directions in Functional Linguistics ed.by Akio Kamio, 59–82. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Tommola, Hannu 2000. “Progressive aspect in Baltic Finnic”. Tense andaspect in the languages of Europe ed. by Östen Dahl, 655–692. Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.

Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Bernd Heine 1991. “Introduction”. Approaches toGrammaticalization ed. by Elizabeth C. Traugott & Bernd Heine, vol. 1,1–14. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Tuggy, David 1996. “Dativelike constructions in Orizaba Nahuatl”. Thedative. Volume 1: Descriptive studies ed. by Willy van Langendonck &William van Belle, 407–452. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Tuggy, David 1998. “Giving in Nawatl”. The linguistics of giving ed. by JohnNewman, 35–65. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Tunkelo, E. A. 1931. ”Eräistä tulo ja erosijain merkitystehtävistä”. [About thesemantic functions of certain locative cases.] Virittäjä 35. 205–230.

Tuomikoski, Risto 1971. “Persoona, tekijä ja henkilö.” [‘Person’ in Finnishgrammars.] Virittäjä 75.146–152.

Turner, Mark & Gilles Fauconnier 2003. “Metaphor, metonymy, and binding”.Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast ed. by René Dirven& Ralf Pörings, 469 488. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Tversky, Barbara 1996. “Spatial perspective in descriptions”. Language andspace ed. by Bloom, Paul, Mary A. Peterson, Lynn Nadel & Merrill F.Garrett, 463–491. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Ullmann, Stephen 1957. The principles of semantics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Vilkuna, Maria 1989. Free word order in Finnish. Its syntax and discourse

functions. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Vilkuna, Maria 1992. Referenssi ja määräisyys suomenkielisten tekstien tulkin

nassa. [Reference and definiteness in the interpretation of Finnish texts.]Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.

REFERENCES 275

Vilkuna, Maria 1996. Suomen lauseopin perusteet. Helsinki: Edita.Zlatev, Jordan 2003. “Holistic Spatial Semantics of Thai”. Cognitive Linguis

tics and NonIndoEuropean Languages ed. by Eugene H. Casad & GaryB. Palmer, 305–336. Cognitive linguistics research 18. Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

YliVakkuri, Valma 1986. Suomen kieliopillisten muotojen toissijainen käyttö.[The secondary functions of grammatical forms in Finnish.] Publicationsof the Department of Finnish and General Linguistics 28. Turku: University of Turku.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND TERMS

Aaccentuation 22–23, 33–35, 39action chain 16active clause 8, 174, 234, 254adessive 12, 14, 16–17, 47, 50–53,

58, 63, 64, 80–81, 106, 115,125, 135, 150, 155, 157–158,160, 166, 168–169

adposition 5, 11, 17–20, 24, 42, 44,103–104, 106, 109, 111–116,123, 126–127, 131–132, 134,155, 160, 165

affected(ness) 130, 139, 144–145,148, 213–215, 224–225, 229

agreement 8, 155, 174–175, 183,185–186, 234, 239, 241–242,254

allative 5, 12, 14, 17, 47, 63–64,106, 116, 125, 129, 132–142,144–148, 150–151, 155, 157–159, 166, 168–169, 171

analogy 17, 44, 80, 82, 141, 146,147

analogical extension 79–80, 82anaphora/anaphoric 2, 181, 183,

202–203, 205–206, 213, 225,230, 253

animacy hierarchy (see also hierarchy of person) 160, 169–171,175, 183–184, 187

anthropocentricity 93, 96–98, 102–103, 110, 127, 209

auxiliary 164, 234, 239–241, 248,255

Bbackground(ing) 21, 24, 27–28, 35–

37, 52, 68, 82, 134–135, 150,234

benefactive 130, 132, 151, 158beneficiary 5, 9, 129–135, 138–

151, 213bodypart (name/term) 5, 9, 20, 86,

95, 97–98, 101–116, 118–122,125, 127

Ccanonical posture 82, 84–88, 93case marking 5, 9, 46, 51–58, 60–

62, 64, 135, 154–155, 175,183–189, 191–192, 195, 212,229, 234, 242

circumstantial 12, 15–16cognitive dominion 41–44, 46, 55–

57, 62, 64constructions of necessity/ neces

sive constructions 160, 162,165, 167, 171, 175, 184, 188,190, 212, 214, 229, 245

containment 12–13, 20conventional imagery 33, 39copula 164, 236, 240–241core cases (see also grammatical

cases) 153–154, 171, 184core grammatical roles 6, 9, 153,

155, 184cultural model 4, 68, 70–71, 83,

85, 87, 89, 91, 98–99

INDEX278

Ddemonstrative 30–32, 169, 225domain 2, 4, 14–16, 21, 44–45, 53–

55, 65, 69–72, 77, 79, 98–99,123, 134, 136–141, 143–144,150

dominion 41–44, 46, 55–57, 62,64–65

dynamic cases 12, 14, 16

Eembodiment 1, 9, 82–83, 92, 95–99external (local) cases 11–14, 16–20,

52, 77, 81, 106–108, 112–115,122–125, 135, 155, 158–160,162, 166

Ffictive motion 2, 4, 9, 33, 41–42,

50, 55, 59, 60, 63–65, 138fictive stationariness 41–42first person 8, 165–166, 177, 179,

181, 185, 192–193, 195–198,200, 206, 222, 224, 226, 251,253

Ggeneral local cases 155, 167generic 7, 90, 175, 179, 198, 201,

207, 210, 212–213, 215, 218–222, 224, 226, 229–230, 250

genitive 11, 19, 139, 155, 157,160–162, 165–169, 171, 188–191, 206, 214–215, 228

geometric dimensions 68, 95–96,98

‘give’ 5, 129, 131–136, 140–142,146–147, 150–152, 192

‘give’ schema 134–135, 141–142,146–147

grammaticalization 2, 3, 5, 9, 18,20, 68, 78–82, 101–104, 106–107, 111, 113–114, 122, 125,127, 129, 162, 171

Hhierarchy of person 175, 183–184,

187human reference 6–7, 9, 153–154,

156, 158–160, 162, 166, 168–171, 193, 209–210, 216, 230

Iiconic index 218image schema 70–71, 83, 97indexicality of reference 184, 189information flow 155, 167, 171instrumental 16, 158internal (local) cases 11–14, 16–20,

32, 52, 77, 106–108, 112, 116–117, 122, 125, 155, 158–160,162, 167

Llandmark 12–14, 18–19, 75–76, 83,

104, 122lexicalization 68, 78, 80–82local case 2, 4, 11–12, 14–20, 24,

30, 32, 43–47, 64–65, 77, 80,106–109, 112–117, 119, 122–126, 154–155, 158–160, 162,166–167, 184

locative case expression 4, 67–68,73, 78, 80, 82–83, 87–89, 93,99

locative of state 4, 67–83, 89, 92,94–99

logophoric pronoun 169, 175, 193–195

Mmaleficiary 148–149, 151metaphor 2–5, 21, 43, 52, 59, 67–

71, 77, 82–89, 91–99, 101,104–105, 108–110, 113–116,118–119, 122, 162, 218

metonymy 3–5, 21, 67–71, 78, 82–86, 88–89, 91–99, 101, 104–105, 107–108, 113–115, 120

INDEX 279

Nnecessive constructions, see con

structions of necessitynesting 3, 28–29, 33, 38nominal 7, 12, 15, 17–18, 73, 104–

106, 111–117, 119, 127, 155,160, 174–178, 203, 206–207,210, 216, 237, 251

nonspecific (reference) 7, 8, 10,32, 177, 202, 209–210, 212,214–216, 220, 225, 230, 234,243

nonverbal (communication) 83,89–90

Oobjectivity 58, 60, 231oblique (cases) 6, 9, 19, 153–160,

162–163, 165–171, 213–214open reference 7–8, 10, 175, 192,

195, 198, 200, 202–203, 205,207, 210–211, 220, 222, 230,235, 248, 250–251, 253, 255

Pparadigm 6–7, 78–80, 82, 95, 98–

99, 173–174, 176, 178, 206–207, 210–211,234–235, 237,239–242, 245, 247–248, 254–255

participle 8, 73, 164, 239–243,246–248, 250–255

passive 7–8, 37, 173–177, 186, 188,191–192, 200, 202–203, 206–207, 210–211, 218–219, 233–248, 250–255

person 1, 3, 6–10, 15, 161–162,164–166, 169, 173–185, 191–193, 195–198, 200–203, 205–207, 209–222, 224–231, 234–237, 239–244, 248, 250–251,253–255

personal pronoun 6–7, 169, 173–175, 177–178, 184–189, 191–

193, 195, 201, 206, 209, 212,216, 222, 227–231, 242, 252–253

polysemy 4, 68, 82–85, 88–89, 94,98, 126

possession/possessive 2, 14, 16, 41,43–44, 57, 60, 73, 106, 130,133, 135–144, 148, 150–151,158, 160, 162–164, 173, 219

prodrop 174, 179–180progressive (aspect) 68, 72–73, 75–

77, 80–81pronominal subject 177, 179, 237

Rrecipient 1, 5–6, 9, 44, 129–152,

158–159, 165, 171, 194, 224,234, 248

recipient dominion 44reference point 21, 24, 29–30, 41,

64, 70, 156reflexive 211, 227, 236, 239, 228relator noun 11, 18, 106reported speech 157, 163, 166–167,

169, 194

Sschema 4, 7, 70, 74, 79–83, 97, 99,

134–135, 141–142, 146–147,230–231

scanning 2, 42second person 7, 164, 166, 169,

174–175, 179–180, 185, 193,198, 200–202, 205, 207, 210,218–222, 224–225, 229–230,237, 250–251, 253

source dominion 44spatial axes 3–4, 9, 18, 21–23, 25–

26, 28–29, 32, 34, 36, 38–39spatial relation 1, 3, 9–10, 16, 18–

27, 30, 32, 34–39, 42–43, 77–78, 101, 110, 122

specific reference 7, 10, 222, 230,234

INDEX280

speech act verb 158, 159speech act participant 7, 16, 163–

164, 166–167, 169, 171, 175,184–185, 192–193, 207, 215–216, 218, 227–229, 231

split (pattern) 160, 184–185, 188,191

subjective/subjectivity 1–4, 7, 33,41–42, 58, 60, 210, 216, 218,222, 229, 231, 233

stative predication 72, 74, 77, 219,225

syntagm(atic) 6, 95, 173–176, 178–179, 206–207

Ttemporal 14, 16, 47–49, 63, 75–77,

96, 115theme 72–74, 77, 80, 83–87, 89,

91–97, 129, 132–133, 138,140–141, 144, 147, 149–151,159,213–215, 234

third person 7, 8, 164–165, 174,176–179, 181–185, 188, 193,195, 198, 201–203, 205–207,209, 211, 214, 222, 225–227,

234–237, 239–243, 248, 250–251, 255

threeparticipant event 133, 146,150

topical(ity) 6, 21, 24, 153trajector 12, 45, 75–76, 83

Uunidirectionality 2, 5, 101, 103

Vverbal person marking 7–8, 173–

176, 178–179, 201, 206, 237vicinity 13–15, 20, 81, 106viewpoint 1, 9, 20–21, 25–35, 37–

39, 97, 149

Wwindowing (of attention) 3, 22–23,

35–39, 47

Zzero person (construction) 7–8,

175–176, 178, 191–192, 201–203, 207, 209–222, 224–225,227–231, 248, 250–251

CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY

E. F. K. Koerner, EditorZentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie

und Universalienforschung, [email protected]

Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (CILT) is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards the advancement of our understanding of lan-guage, its structure, functioning and development. CILT has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. It offers an outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, and furnishes the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com

279 Nedergaard ThomseN, ole (ed.):CompetingModelsofLinguisticChange.Evolutionandbeyond.x,348pp.Expected October 2006

278 doeTjes, jenny and Paz goNzález (eds.):RomanceLanguagesandLinguisticTheory2004.Selectedpapersfrom‘GoingRomance’,Leiden,9–11December2004.ix,320pp.Expected October 2006

277 helasvuo, marja-liisa and lyle CamPbell (eds.):GrammarfromtheHumanPerspective.Case,spaceandpersoninFinnish.2006.ix,280pp.

276 moNTreuil, jean-Pierre Y. (ed.):NewPerspectivesonRomanceLinguistics.Vol.II:Phonetics,PhonologyandDialectology.Selectedpapersfromthe35thLinguisticSymposiumonRomanceLanguages(LSRL),Austin,Texas,February2005.2006.x,213pp.

275 Nishida, Chiyo and jean-Pierre Y. moNTreuil (eds.):NewPerspectivesonRomanceLinguistics.Vol.I:Morphology,Syntax,Semantics,andPragmatics.Selectedpapersfromthe35thLinguisticSymposiumonRomanceLanguages(LSRL),Austin,Texas,February2005.2006.xiv,288pp.

274 gess, randall s. and deborah arTeaga (eds.):HistoricalRomanceLinguistics.Retrospectiveandperspectives.2006.viii,393pp.

273 FilPPula, markku, juhani Klemola, marjatta PalaNder and esa PeNTTilä (eds.):DialectsAcrossBorders.Selectedpapersfromthe11thInternationalConferenceonMethodsinDialectology(MethodsXI),Joensuu,August2002.2005.xii,291pp.

272 gess, randall s. and edward j. rubiN (eds.):TheoreticalandExperimentalApproachestoRomanceLinguistics.Selectedpapersfromthe34thLinguisticSymposiumonRomanceLanguages(LSRL),SaltLakeCity,March2004.2005.viii,367pp.

271 braNNer, david Prager (ed.):TheChineseRimeTables.Linguisticphilosophyandhistorical-comparativephonology.2006.viii,358pp.

270 geerTs, Twan, ivo van giNNeKeN and haike jaCobs (eds.):RomanceLanguagesandLinguisticTheory2003.Selectedpapersfrom‘GoingRomance’2003,Nijmegen,20–22November.2005.viii,369pp.

269 hargus, sharon and Keren riCe (eds.):AthabaskanProsody.2005.xii,432pp.268 CraveNs, Thomas d. (ed.):VariationandReconstruction.2006.viii,223pp.267 alhawarY, mohammad T. and elabbas beNmamouN (eds.):PerspectivesonArabicLinguistics

XVII–XVIII.PapersfromtheseventeenthandeighteenthannualsymposiaonArabiclinguistics.VolumeXVII–XVIII:Alexandria,2003andNorman,Oklahoma2004.2005.xvi,315pp.

266 boudelaa, sami (ed.):PerspectivesonArabicLinguisticsXVI.PapersfromthesixteenthannualsymposiumonArabiclinguistics,Cambridge,March2002.2006.xii,181pp.

265 CorNiPs, leonie and Karen P. CorrigaN (eds.):SyntaxandVariation.ReconcilingtheBiologicalandtheSocial.2005.vi,312pp.

264 dressler, wolfgang u., dieter KasTovsKY, oskar e. PFeiFFer and Franz raiNer (eds.):Morphologyanditsdemarcations.Selectedpapersfromthe11thMorphologymeeting,Vienna,February2004.WiththeassistanceofFrancescoGardaniandMarkusA.Pöchtrager.2005.xiv,320pp.

263 braNCo, antónio, Tony mceNerY and ruslan miTKov (eds.):AnaphoraProcessing.Linguistic,cognitiveandcomputationalmodelling.2005.x,449pp.

262 vajda, edward j. (ed.):LanguagesandPrehistoryofCentralSiberia.2004.x,275pp.261 KaY, Christian j. and jeremy j. smiTh (eds.):CategorizationintheHistoryofEnglish.2004.viii,268pp.260 NiColov, Nicolas, Kalina boNTCheva, galia aNgelova and ruslan miTKov (eds.):Recent

AdvancesinNaturalLanguageProcessingIII.SelectedpapersfromRANLP2003.2004.xii,402pp.259 Carr, Philip, jacques duraNd and Colin j. eweN (eds.):Headhood,Elements,Specificationand

Contrastivity.PhonologicalpapersinhonourofJohnAnderson.2005.xxviii,405pp.

258 auger, julie, j. Clancy ClemeNTs and barbara vaNCe (eds.):ContemporaryApproachestoRomanceLinguistics.SelectedPapersfromthe33rdLinguisticSymposiumonRomanceLanguages(LSRL),Bloomington,Indiana,April2003.WiththeassistanceofRachelT.Anderson.2004.viii,404pp.

257 ForTesCue, michael, eva skafte jeNseN, jens erik mogeNseN and lene sChøsler (eds.):HistoricalLinguistics2003.Selectedpapersfromthe16thInternationalConferenceonHistoricalLinguistics,Copenhagen,11–15August2003.2005.x,312pp.

256 boK-beNNema, reineke, bart hollebraNdse, brigitte KamPers-maNhe and Petra sleemaN (eds.):RomanceLanguagesandLinguisticTheory2002.Selectedpapersfrom‘GoingRomance’,Groningen,28–30November2002.2004.viii,273pp.

255 meuleN, alice ter and werner abraham (eds.):TheCompositionofMeaning.Fromlexemetodiscourse.2004.vi,232pp.

254 baldi, Philip and Pietro u. diNi (eds.):StudiesinBalticandIndo-EuropeanLinguistics.InhonorofWilliamR.Schmalstieg.2004.xlvi,302pp.

253 CaFFarel, alice, j.r. marTiN and Christian m.i.m. maTThiesseN (eds.):LanguageTypology.Afunctionalperspective.2004.xiv,702pp.

252 KaY, Christian j., Carole hough and irené woThersPooN (eds.):NewPerspectivesonEnglishHistoricalLinguistics.Selectedpapersfrom12ICEHL,Glasgow,21–26August2002.VolumeII:LexisandTransmission.2004.xii,273pp.

251 KaY, Christian j., simon horobiN and jeremy j. smiTh (eds.):NewPerspectivesonEnglishHistoricalLinguistics.Selectedpapersfrom12ICEHL,Glasgow,21–26August2002.VolumeI:SyntaxandMorphology.2004.x,264pp.

250 jeNseN, john T.:PrinciplesofGenerativePhonology.Anintroduction.2004.xii,324pp.249 bowerN, Claire and harold KoCh (eds.):AustralianLanguages.Classificationandthecomparative

method.2004.xii,377pp.(incl.CD-Rom).248 weigaNd, edda (ed.):EmotioninDialogicInteraction.Advancesinthecomplex.2004.xii,284pp.247 ParKiNsoN, dilworth b. and samira FarwaNeh (eds.):PerspectivesonArabicLinguisticsXV.Papers

fromtheFifteenthAnnualSymposiumonArabicLinguistics,SaltLakeCity2001.2003.x,214pp.246 holisKY, dee ann and Kevin TuiTe (eds.):CurrentTrendsinCaucasian,EastEuropeanandInner

AsianLinguistics.PapersinhonorofHowardI.Aronson.2003.xxviii,426pp.245 Quer, josep, jan sChroTeN, mauro sCorreTTi, Petra sleemaN and els verheugd (eds.):

RomanceLanguagesandLinguisticTheory2001.Selectedpapersfrom'GoingRomance',Amsterdam,6–8December2001.2003.viii,355pp.

244 Pérez-leroux, ana Teresa and Yves roberge (eds.):RomanceLinguistics.TheoryandAcquisition.Selectedpapersfromthe32ndLinguisticSymposiumonRomanceLanguages(LSRL),Toronto,April2002.2003.viii,388pp.

243 CuYCKeNs, hubert, Thomas berg, rené dirveN and Klaus-uwe PaNTher (eds.):MotivationinLanguage.StudiesinhonorofGünterRadden.2003.xxvi,403pp.

242 seureN, Pieter a.m. and gerard KemPeN (eds.):VerbConstructionsinGermanandDutch.2003.vi,316pp.

241 leCarme, jacqueline (ed.):ResearchinAfroasiaticGrammarII.SelectedpapersfromtheFifthConferenceonAfroasiaticLanguages,Paris,2000.2003.viii,550pp.

240 jaNse, mark and sijmen Tol (eds.):LanguageDeathandLanguageMaintenance.Theoretical,practicalanddescriptiveapproaches.WiththeassistanceofVincentHendriks.2003.xviii,244pp.

239 aNderseN, henning (ed.):LanguageContactsinPrehistory.StudiesinStratigraphy.PapersfromtheWorkshoponLinguisticStratigraphyandPrehistoryattheFifteenthInternationalConferenceonHistoricalLinguistics,Melbourne,17August2001.2003.viii,292pp.

238 Núñez-Cedeño, rafael, luis lóPez and richard CameroN (eds.):ARomancePerspectiveonLanguageKnowledgeandUse.Selectedpapersfromthe31stLinguisticSymposiumonRomanceLanguages(LSRL),Chicago,19–22April2001.2003.xvi,386pp.

237 blaKe, barry j. and Kate burridge (eds.):HistoricalLinguistics2001.Selectedpapersfromthe15thInternationalConferenceonHistoricalLinguistics,Melbourne,13–17August2001.EditorialAssistant:JoTaylor.2003.x,444pp.

236 simoN-vaNdeNbergeN, anne-marie, miriam TaverNiers and louise j. ravelli (eds.):GrammaticalMetaphor.Viewsfromsystemicfunctionallinguistics.2003.vi,453pp.

235 liNN, andrew r. and Nicola mclellaNd (eds.):Standardization.StudiesfromtheGermaniclanguages.2002.xii,258pp.

234 weijer, jeroen van de, vincent j. van heuveN and harry van der hulsT (eds.):ThePhonologicalSpectrum.VolumeII:Suprasegmentalstructure.2003.x,264pp.

grammar from the human perspective: case, space and person in finnish

Documents