Syntaksia suomenruotsalaisittain

• Jan Lindström

Avainsanat: kielikontaktit, puhekieli, suomenruotsi, syntaksi, vähemmistökielet

Abstrakti

Syntactic features of Finno-Swedish (englanti)

4/2003 (107)

Syntactic features of Finno-Swedish

The article presents some of the latest research on the syntactic features of Finno-Swedish (also known as Finland-Swedish), especially the spoken language. It begins with a summary of the use and status of the Swedish language in Finland. As a general theoretical framework, the writer uses his own interpretation and adaptation of Hugo Bergroths model to describe the forces that distinguish one language from another.

To illustrate the special features of Finno-Swedish in relation to both Standard Swedish and Finnish, the writer discusses various syntactic phenomena, including conjunctions in the spoken language, clause-initial negation, use of determiners and other aspects of information structure. The discussion uses authentic examples mainly from conversations in Finno-Swedish and Standard Swedish, as well as some dialectal material.

The syntactic phenomena examined and their relation to the syntax of modern Standard Swedish lead to two conclusions about the characteristic structure of Finno-Swedish. On the one hand, it seems that in Finno-Swedish a particular syntactic construction becomes generalised at the expense of one or more semantically closely-related structures, and on the other hand, there seems to be a freer or less systematic interchange between such closely-related structures than in Standard Swedish, where there is often a clearer functional division. In a way, these two tendencies observed within the general features of Finno-Swedish syntax can be seen as different sides of the same coin.

There is little doubt that Finnish has an important influence on many of the syntactic structures of Finno-Swedish. It must be noted, however, that the influence is usually apparent in structures that are possible in Standard Swedish under certain conditions - or at least have been possible historically. Language contact may therefore have made particular structures more common or less common in Finno-Swedish than in Standard Swedish.

Jan Lindstrm

Kielenainekset

ettei (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 558-)
että (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 552)
jollei (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 558)
jos (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 556)
kuule (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 551)
mut et (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 553)
mut(ta) et(tä) (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 553)
se (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 560-)
suomi se (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 560)
tuo (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 560)
tämä (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 560)
vaikka (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 553)
vaikka (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 554)
vaikkei (kieli: suomi, sivulla: 558)