Marked Subjects in Old Finnish

Abstract

In the following article, I argue that syntactic borrowing is not an independent mechanism of change, but based on bilingual reanalysis and extension. As a case sample, I examine a frequent modal construction in Old Finnish, namely that involving the auxiliary pitää ‘must’. Where in Modern Finnish this auxiliary takes a genitive or nominative argument depending on such factors as agentivity and clause transitivity, the argument is object-like in a number of Old Finnish texts. I purport to show that this phenomenon rests on the influence of the Latin model pattern of oportet ‘must’ and its accusative and infinitive construction. At the same time, model patterns internal to Old Finnish, specifically those of participial complements to verbs of perception and communication, where the agent of the participle is syntactically the object of the matrix clause, may also have contributed to this development. I argue that in terms of mechanism, the influence of foreign model patterns (oportet) and internal model patterns (the participial constructions) cannot be distinguished: both proceed by reanalysis and (analogical) extension.