Infiniittiset verbirakenteet raumalaisessa Westhin koodeksissa ja Mikael Agricolan Käsikirjassa

Abstract

Finnish written language was created through translation. Liturgical texts began to emerge, as the Protestant Reformation reached Finland in 1530s. Codex Westh is one of the oldest manuscripts written in Finnish. The core part of the codex contains an Agenda (schemata of ecclesiastical ceremonies) dating from 1546. Mikael Agricola, the celebrated founder of the Finnish literary language, submitted corresponding material to the printing press some years later (1549). As a common and homogenous Finnish language did not yet exist at that time, the texts translated from Swedish sources by Westh and Agricola were partly different. This study examines the use of non-finite verb forms and verbal constructions in the Agendas of Westh and Agricola. The results of analysis illustrate that, consistent with previous knowledge of the nature of contact-induced changes and different translation strategies, significant changes have taken place in those parts of the Finnish modal verb system that have provided various alternative solutions or system gaps to be filled with new types of syntactic constructions following the model given by source languages. Structural borrowing from Swedish and Latin can be seen in both translations, and Westh especially seems to have ended up with simple and partly unidiomatic routines when choosing Finnish counterparts to Swedish modal constructions.