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Existential Constructions across Languages: Forms, meanings and functions
Edited by Laure Sarda and Ludovica Lena
[Human Cognitive Processing 76] 2023
► pp. 220–244

Chapter 7
The Finnish existential clause

Aspect, case marking and quantification of the S argument

ORCID logo | University of Turku
I analyze the case marking (nominative vs. partitive) and quantification of the Finnish existential S argument (Se). I focus on Se arguments quantified by mass quantifiers (e.g. paljon ‘much’) and number quantifiers (e.g. usea ‘many’). I discuss grammatical, semantic and discourse functions of the Se argument, with an emphasis on the aspectual and quantificational meanings expressed by the construction. I argue that a quantified Se designates a bounded quantity even when marked with the partitive case, which otherwise expresses unbounded quantity. This has important repercussions to the clause-level aspectual meaning of the existential construction, especially in uses where the aspectual profile of the clause is based on nominal aspect and thus on the quantity expressed by the Se.
Keywords: case, nominal aspect, nominative, partitive, quantifier
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Finnish existential construction and the Se argument
  • 3.Quantifiers in Se arguments
  • 4.Aspectual features of Finnish existential clauses
    • 4.1Aspect and the nominative vs. partitive alternation
    • 4.2Quantified examples
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Glosses
  • References
Published online: 5 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.76.07huu
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