Partikkeli fennistiikassa: näkökulma tradition muotoutumiseen

• Ilona Herlin
• Eeva-Leena Seppänen

Avainsanat: kielioppi, partikkelit

Abstrakti

The particle in Fennistic research: an example of tradition building (englanti)

2/2003 (107)

The particle in Fennistic research: an example of tradition building

The article looks at how the category of particle was established as a concept in descriptions of Finnish (grammars and dictionaries) during the nineteenth century. Using the example of the particle, the emergence and perpetuation of linguistic traditions are examined in more general terms too. Although defined in different ways, the definitions of the particle show that it is a residual category: it constitutes that which is not a nominal or a verb (widely used), or even that which is not a nominal, verb, adverb or postposition (narrower usage). Particles can therefore be seen as being on the margins of word classes, and so an analysis of their treatment in grammars and dictionaries can offer a useful viewpoint on the development of the tradition.

The writers first examine the treatment of particles in Finnish grammars. Renvalls Finsk Sprklra of 1840 is of particular significance, being the first grammar to widely feature the particle. The Finnish grammars produced by Eurn (1849, 1851) represent the next turning point, as the first to define particles as words with no meaning of their own. Later, E. N. Setl declared that the broad category of particle had an established subdivision into adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions and interjections. The descriptions presented in nineteenth-century grammars in fact appear as a series of stages in which there is growing unanimity that the particle is a broad category comprising uninflected words without separate meanings. At the same time, debate on the matter gradually ceased to exist.

Besides his grammar, Renvall also compiled a dictionary. This, too, featured the particle as a broad name for all uninflected words. A comparison of Renvalls dictionary with that of his contemporary, Elias Lnnrot, reveals that Renvall sought to achieve a uniform definition, and one in which both grammar and dictionary had a role.

The article highlights three points emerging from its analysis of the fate of the particle in nineteenth-century descriptions of Finnish. Firstly, it concludes that the tradition of language research is made up of a gradual series of small insights built up one on top of the other. Secondly, it notes that language research was closely bound up with, and influenced by, developments elsewhere in society (and was therefore not autonomous). Thirdly, it concludes that the history of a discipline is not composed merely of forward progress, as it can feature other developments too, one example being the cessation of the debate on the particle that occurred during the course of the nineteenth century.

Ilona Herlin, Eeva-Leena Seppnen



Kielenainekset

-ka (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 190)
-kaan (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 190)
-kin (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 190)
-kä (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 190)
-kään (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 190)
ala (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 192-)
eli (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 199)
ens (kieli: suomi,