Objektipredikatiivi

• Osmo Ikola

Avainsanat: objektipredikatiivi, syntaksi

Abstrakti

Object-related complement in Finnish (englanti)

4/1997 (101)

Osmo Ikola (Verkatehtaankatu 4 as. 713, FIN-20100 Turku)

OBJECT-RELATED COMPLEMENT IN FINNISH

The sentence constituent known in Finnish grammars as the predikatiivi is a complement that refers either to the subject or (more rarely) the object of the sentence. The article examines the latter of these, the object-related complement. Examples of this complement given in Finnish grammars include the following: Hn veisti kirvesvarren aivan uutta mallia ('He carved the axe handle a brand new design'); Renki teki rattaat liian pienet ('The farm-hand made the wheels too small'); Juustot emnt tekee hyvi ('The farmer's wife makes great cheeses'). The following slightly different case is also possible: Paitoja valmistetaan sek valkoisia ett kirjavia ('They make shirts both white and coloured'). Different views have been presented about how the object-related complement should be defined. The writer deals only with such complements which are in the grammatical cases possible for an object, namely the accusative or the partitive case.

The object-related complement has become rare in standard Finnish. Plenty of examples can, however, be found in dialect material, with the exception of the southwest dialects, which feature the object-related complement more rarely than the other dialects. The writer analyses the different types of object-related complement and presents an abundance of examples from dialect material. The object-related complement is most often an adjective, but it can also be a noun.

Some Finnish grammars explain that, for example, the sentence Hn veisti puikon liian lyhyen ('He cut the stick too short+ACCUSATIVE') means that the stick was too short when he cut it, and that by contrast, Hn veisti puikon liian lyhyeksi ('He cut the stick too short+TRANSLATIVE') conveys the meaning that the stick had previously been longer but that he then made it too short. In modern standard Finnish, however, this distinction has become blurred. The sentence Hn veisti puikon liian lyhyeksi can also be understood as meaning that the stick was already too short when he cut it. Furthermore, in modern Finnish a sentence of the type Hn teki puikosta liian lyhyen ('He made the stick+ELATIVE too short') could also mean that the stick was already too short when he cut it.

Sentences containing an object-related complement closely resemble the type of so-called quantifier sentences in which the quantifier (a numeral or other word expressing quantity or amount) refers to the object of the sentence, for example Haukia saatiin viisi ~ monta ~ paljon ('Five~Many~A lot of pike were caught'). These types of sentence are very common both in Finnish dialects and in standard Finnish.