Chapter 8
The finite sentence
In this chapter, we will discuss syntax and morphology and come up with a multi-tiered model that is compatible with the theoretical goals and assumptions of conceptual semantics as discussed in previous chapters. Word order is treated separately as a tier of its own. Finite sentence morphology is analyzed in a new way, in a separate tier. The chapter discusses the linking between the word order and the finite sentence morphology as well as information structure. The system is tested using a corpus of Finnish proverbs.
Article outline
- 8.1Introduction
- 8.2Background: The finite sentence as a constituent structure with functional heads
- 8.2.1Holmberg’s and Nikanne’s theory of the Finnish finite sentence
- 8.2.2Problems with the analysis
- 8.3A micro-modular analysis of finite sentence
- 8.3.1A new look at the finite sentence of Finnish
- 8.3.2Finite sentence morphology
- 8.3.3Word order and information structure in tiers
- 8.3.4Consequences of the suggested analysis
- Consequence 1: Constiuents – “back to basics”
- Consequence 2: Finite sentence morphology without movements
- Consequence 3: Word order tier as the glue between information structure and fs-morphology
- 8.4Sentence initial positions in Finnish proverbs
- 8.4.1Proverbs as data
- 8.4.2Syntactic variation in proverbs
- 8.4.3The functions of the word se ‘it-nom’ in proverbs
- 8.4.3.1Pronoun
- 8.4.3.2Definiteness marker
- 8.4.3.3Pseudoarticle
- 8.4.3.4Expletive
- 8.4.4A closer look at the expletive se
- 8.4.5Expletive se and focus carrying pronoun se
- 8.4.6Problematic topics
- 8.4.7The position of the expletive se in the light of the whole proverb data
- 8.5Summary