Chapter published in:
Uralic Essive and the Expression of Impermanent State
Edited by Casper de Groot
[Typological Studies in Language 119] 2017
► pp. 29–56

Chapter 2
The essive in Finnish

This chapter presents an empirical study of the distribution of a marker referred to as the ‘essive’ in Finnish. The description of the properties of this marker follows the linguistic questionnaire that captures the contexts in which essive and/or translative markers may occur in the Uralic languages. The study specifically investigates the opposition between permanent and impermanent state in non-verbal predications. The linguistic domains involved are non-verbal main predication, secondary predication, complementation, and manner, temporal, and circumstantial adverbial phrases. The use of the marker in the essive sense (associated with state) is contrasted with its use in expressing the translative sense (associated with change). Finally, the syntactic position of elements marked by this form is discussed in relation to the position of focus constituents.
Keywords: Finnish, depictive, essive case, impermanent state, non-verbal predication, individual-level predicate, stage-level predicate, focus
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Standard case inflection for nouns
    • 1.2The semantic border zones of the essive and other cases
  • 2.Non-verbal predicates and copula constructions
    • 2.1Predicate types in Finnish
    • 2.2Basic copula constructions
    • 2.3Semi-copular constructions
    • 2.4The quasi-construction
  • 3.Secondary predicates – secondary predications
    • 3.1Depictives
    • 3.2Circumstantial secondary predicates
    • 3.3Temporal secondary predicates
  • 4.Predicative complements
  • 5.Adverbials
    • 5.1Manner adverbials
    • 5.2Clausal adverbials
  • 6.Temporality and location
    • 6.1Temporality
    • 6.2Location
  • 7.Comparative and simile
  • 8.Essive versus translative
  • 9.Word order and focus
  • 10.Other uses
    • 10.1Verbal participles
    • 10.2Augmentative
  • 11.Summary
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 30 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.119.02hyn
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