Chapter published in:
The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages: An emergent unit in interactionEdited by Tsuyoshi Ono and Sandra A. Thompson
[Typological Studies in Language 128] 2020
► pp. 72–92
The noun phrase as an emergent unit in Finnish
Marja-Liisa Helasvuo | University of Turku
The article focuses on the use of noun phrases in Finnish conversation as arguments, contrasting these uses with the use of free NPs. I show that several grammatical processes characteristic of Finnish contribute to making the internal structure of NPs relatively stable. Agreement in case and number, together with the relatively fixed ordering of elements within the NP, help the co-participants to project the future course of the turn. In the construction of NPs as referring expressions, recipient design is an important preference. A close examination of the use of argument NPs and free NPs in interaction reveals different clusterings of features characteristic of NPs as units. Based on these findings, the NP emerges as a robust unit in Finnish.
Published online: 15 July 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.04hel
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.128.04hel
References
Data source
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 Archive at the University of Turku. Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric Languages, University of Turku.
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