Word order patterns in generic ‘zero person’ constructions in Finnish: Insights from speech-act participants

Elsi Kaiser

doi:10.3765/plsa.v4i1.4558

Abstract

I suggest that seemingly puzzling word-order properties of the Finnish generic zero person construction can be explained if we acknowledge the relevance of speech-act participants (speaker/addressee) for the Finnish version of the EPP. Building on work by Moltmann (2006, 2010) on generic one as well as Malamud’s work (2012) on the features of one and you, I identify two different kinds of zero person constructions in Finnish, suggest evidence that the two kinds of zeros differ in their featural properties, and propose a refinement to the topicality-based EPP in Finnish that can be used to explain unexpected word order patterns of the zero person construction. This work draws new connections between reference to speech-act participants (in particular speaker-related meaning) and word order constraints.

Highlights

Standard Finnish has no overt generic pronoun like English one or you, and uses third-person singular verbs with phonologically null subjects to convey generic human reference in the ‘zero person’ construction. (e.g. Hakulinen & Karttunen 1973, Holmberg 2010, Vilkuna 1992), (1a,b)
The zero person is unacceptable in non-generic, episodic contexts like (1c). (The underscore __ denotes the zero.) (1a,b) are generic and cannot receive a referential interpretation, as Finnish does not have third-person pro-drop in main clauses.1 (1) a
I suggest that the word order properties of the Finnish generic zero person construction can be explained once we acknowledge the relevance of speech-act participants for the Finnish EPP

Summary

Introduction

Standard Finnish has no overt generic pronoun like English one or you, and uses third-person singular verbs with phonologically null subjects to convey generic human reference in the ‘zero person’ construction. (e.g. Hakulinen & Karttunen 1973, Holmberg 2010, Vilkuna 1992), (1a,b). In this paper I present evidence that the Finnish zero person, in addition to being generic, is linked to the speech-act participants (speaker, addressee) and exhibits unexpected word order properties which are not fully captured by prior accounts. This section discusses the syntactic properties of the zero person: It patterns like overt arguments for purposes for case assignment, binds reflexives, and is singular and third person for purposes of morphosyntactic agreement. The zero patterns just like overt arguments for purposes of case assignment This can be observed by comparing zero person sentences and overt subjects to clearly (syntactically) subjectless sentences such as impersonal passives and imperatives (e.g. Vilkuna 1996). The zero person syntactically realized and patterns like overt arguments for purposes of case assignment (see Anttila & Kim 2017, Poole 2015, i.a. on case in Finnish).

Finnish ‘zero person’ generic construction

Additional evidence

EXPLETIVE PARTICLE SITÄ

Conclusions