On the Quantifying Sentence in the Finnish Language

Abstract

In the Finnish language a sentence whose initial noun is marked in the partitive case and quantified by a post-verbal numerical expression is called a quantifying sentence. Although a considerable number of studies have been made on this type of sentence, there is little agreement as to its grammatical interpretation. In this paper I argue that a quantifying sentence can be regarded as a type of predicative sentence and its initial noun serves as the subject. The subject of a predicative sentence is usually marked in the nominative case indeed, but it can be indicated in the partitive case on condition that it refers to an entity that is indefinite in quantity. Also I show that the same observation applies to sentences whose initial noun is marked in the partitive case and qualified by a post-verbal adjective. Moreover, though a quantifying sentence whose initial noun serves as the object is not a predicative sentence, a predicative relation still holds between the initial noun and a post-verbal numerical expression.