Corpus and Arcbive-based research on Diachronic Change of Case Usage in the Finnish Language

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In modem standard Finnish the same set of grammatical cases are available to indicate both the subject and the object. This current case marking pattern has resulted from the diachronic development of the Finnish language. It should be noted that not only the usage but also the syntactic functions of the grammatical cases have diachronically changed. Therefore, considering the diachronic change of the usage and the syntactic functions of these cases would reasonably contribute to the synchronic study of these cases. In this study I have closely investigated the diachronic development of the permissive construction, which means 'to let someone do something'. The purpose of this study is to clear up the historical transition of the usage and the syntactic functions of the grammatical cases in the light of the developmental process of the permissive construction. Material of this study was mainly collected from the archive (Muoto-opin arkisto) of the department of the Finnish language and … More literature of Helsinki University and the language corpus(Kielipankki) of the Finnish -IT-centre for Science. The permissive construction contains an infinitival clause as a complement of the matrix predicate, whose subject is different from the subject of the infinitive. In the Finnish language the semantic subject of an infinitive is either omitted or coded as the grammatical object of the matrix predicate. In the permissive construction, however, the semantic subject of an infinitive serves overtly as the grammatical subject of its own. This difference is very suggestive to the current study. Apparently the case marking pattern of the permissive construction is peculiar. There is, however, a reasonable explanation and it would reveal insight into the synchronic properties of the grammatical cases of the Finnish language. During this study I have written four papers. I have also read two papers at the 22nd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics and at the 40th annual meeting of Societas Linguistica Europaea. 10. Less