Infiniittiset verbirakenteet raumalaisessa Westhin koodeksissa ja Mikael Agricolan Käsikirjassa
Non-finite verbal constructions in the Agendas of Mathias Westh Raumannus (1546) and Michael Agricola (1549)
Keywords:
Literary Finnish, language contacts, translation, non-finite verbal constructionsAbstract
Literary Finnish 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 comprises an Agenda (schemata of ecclesiastical ceremonies) dating from 1546. Mikael Agricola, the cherished founder of the Finnish literary language, brought corresponding material to print only a few years later. As there was no common and homogenous Finnish language in existence at that time, the texts translated from Swedish sources by Westh and Agricola were partly different from each other.
This study examines the ways of use of non-finite verb forms and verbal constructions in the Agendas of Westh and Agricola. Structural borrowing from Swedish and Latin can be seen in both translations, and Westh especially seems to have resorted to simple routines when choosing Finnish counterparts of Swedish modal constructions.
