(Non)finiteness, constructions and participles in Lithuanian

Abstract

AbstractThis article offers an analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of Lithuanian participles in terms of the criteria of “canonical” finiteness proposed by (Nikolaeva, Irina. 2013. Unpacking finiteness. In Dunstan Brown, Marina Chumakina & Greville G. Corbett (eds.),Canonical morphology and syntax, 99–122. Oxford: Oxford University Press.). It is shown that in their different uses, i. e., as heads of two types of evidential clauses, as predicates in complement, adverbial and attributive clauses and as lexical verbs in periphrastic constructions, Lithuanian participles show considerably different combinations of finite and nonfinite characteristics and hence cannot be unequivocally treated as nonfinite. It is argued that it is the individual constructions where the participles occur that determine their morphosyntactic features and that the very notion of (non)finiteness is composite and largely derivative.