Chapter published in:
Fixed Expressions: Building language structure and social actionEdited by Ritva Laury and Tsuyoshi Ono
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 315] 2020
► pp. 133–166
Chapter 6
When an expression becomes fixed
mä ajattelin että ‘I thought that’ in spoken Finnish
Ritva Laury | University of Helsinki
Marja-Liisa Helasvuo | University of Turku
Janica Rauma | University of Turku
This chapter concerns the first person past tense
form of the verb ajatella ‘to think’ as a semi-fixed
expression in spoken Finnish. We examine this expression in present-day
conversation and in older dialect interviews, focusing on its interactional
functions, the types of complements it takes, and its patterns of
morphosyntactic fixedness and morphophonetic erosion in our two datasets. We
show that the verb ajatella is most frequently used in its
first person past tense form, mä ajattelin että
[1sg + think-pst-1sg + comp] ‘I
thought that’, and as has been shown for ‘think’ verbs in many other
languages, it is commonly used to frame stance expressions, but another
frequent use in our Finnish data is in prefacing the speaker’s expression of
her own plans as well as proposals of joint action. Most commonly,
mä ajattelin että is followed by clausal complements in
our older data, while the complements are more diverse in the newer data,
and the expression can also occur without any complements. We also show that
while mä ajattelin että ‘I thought that’ occurs in our data
in drastically reduced form and shows signs of morphosyntactic fixedness
especially in the newer data, it cannot yet be said to have become an
epistemic particle.
Keywords: ‘think’ verbs, semi-fixed expression, spoken Finnish, stance expression, planning, proposal for joint action, complementation, phonetic reduction, past tense, first person
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data and methodology
- 3.Background
- 4.Interactional functions of mä ajattelin että
- 4.1 Planning and proposing function
- 4.2Expression of stance
- 4.3Expression of speaker’s own thoughts
- 4.4Interim summary
- 5.Complementation
- 6.Fixedness
- 6.1Erosion
- 6.2 Comparison of fixedness with a consensus analysis
- 7.Conclusions
-
Notes -
Acknowledgements -
Data sources -
References
Published online: 10 December 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.315.06lau
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.315.06lau
References
Data sources
Arkisyn
2018 A
morphosyntactically coded database of conversational
Finnish. Database compiled at the
University of Turku, with material from the Conversation Analysis
Archive at the University of Helsinki and the Syntax Archives at the
University of Turku. Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric Languages, University of Turku.
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Auer, Peter
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink
2018 Praat:
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