A typological approach to intersubjective uses of the Finnish clitic markers =hAn and =se from the perspectives of engagement and their interrelations with subject person

Abstract

Abstract The present study adopts a typological approach to investigate intersubjective uses of the Finnish clitic markers =hAn and =se, which are derived from third-person pronouns, within the emerging framework of engagement. The methods encompass two data gathering approaches: 1) a qualitative survey involving actual Finnish language users through a questionnaire to identify functions, and 2) a quantitative survey examining co-occurrences between the clitic markers and subject persons using the Suomi24 Sentences Corpus 2001–2020 for usage-based frequencies. The data analysis focuses on the interrelations with a subject person, drawing parallels with other languages which exhibit similar phenomena of pragmatic extension from referential uses towards engagement marking. The results reveal that the two Finnish clitics semantically inherit their referential meanings from their lexical forms and further extend them towards marking interlocutors’ intersubjectivity, enriching the engagement system of Finnish. A distinct difference related to the subject person becomes evident. On the one hand, =hAn as a recognitional marker more frequently co-occurs with first person, signalling the speaker’s involvement in epistemic management as a speech act participant responsible for managing inclusive attention and shared information with the hearer. On the other hand, =se as a contrastive marker co-occurs more frequently with third person in general and with second-person statements which involve the speaker’s observed information and its exclusivity.