Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T13:08:55.792Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nominal aspect, quantity, and time: The case of the Finnish object1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2009

TUOMAS HUUMO
TUOMAS HUUMO*
Affiliation:
University of Tartu
*
Author's address: University of Tartu, Department of Finno-Ugric Languages, Ülikooli 18, 50090 Tartu, Estoniathuumo@utu.fi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is well known that the quantity indicated by an NP affects clausal aspect if the referent of the NP participates in the event incrementally, i.e. in a part-by-part manner (e.g. She was mowing the lawn). In general, an incremental NP that indicates a closed quantity makes the overall aspect of the sentence telic and thus bounded, whereas one indicating an open quantity results in unbounded aspect (e.g. Water was dripping from the ceiling). In this paper the interplay between quantity and aspect will be called nominal aspect. It is argued that quantity may relate with time in two different ways: first, as overall quantity (which, if incremental, cumulates over time), and second, as transient quantity. The latter term refers to the quantity involved in the situation at a given point in time. It is argued that the interpretation of certain NPs evokes both kinds of quantity; e.g. in This machine pumps the waste water of the factory into the drain the object indicates a quantity that is open in the overall sense (there is no end to the waste water entering the event of pumping) but closed in the transient sense (at any point, all [relevant] waste water gets pumped into the drain). A corresponding distinction is drawn in the domain of verbal aspect, which can also be bounded or unbounded in two different ways. Overall aspect unfolds over time and, if telic, ultimately reaches its endpoint, as in She took the letter to the post office. Transient aspect is the aspectual nature of an event at any given point in time. It is understood as orthogonal to the time axis and gives a cross-section of the ongoing event. In This brush cleans the conveyor belt before it enters the machinery the overall aspect (of the ‘cleaning’) is unbounded, but the transient aspect is bounded, assuming that the brush continuously keeps the conveyor belt in a state of total cleanliness. In this paper, such oppositions are used in explaining the case marking of the Finnish object (partitive vs. ‘total object’ case marking), which reflects both quantificational and aspectual factors. It is argued that the total object can indicate a closed quantity and a bounded aspect not only in the overall sense but also in the transient sense. This distinction is then used to account for many hitherto unexplained uses of the cases.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 83 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[1]

I am grateful to two anonymous JL referees for their invaluable feedback that helped me improve the quality of this paper significantly. All remaining shortcomings and errors are of course my responsibility alone. This research was funded by the Estonian Science Foundation (Grant 7552).

References

REFERENCES

Anttila, Raimo. 1989. Historical and comparative linguistics, 2nd edn.Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, Emmon. 1986. The algebra of events. Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, Gregory N. & Pelletier, Francis J. (eds.). 1995. The generic book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew. 1991. On definiteness: A study with special reference to English and Finnish. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. Forthcoming. Verbs: Aspect and argument structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Available at http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/WACpubs.html]Google Scholar
Denison, Norman. 1957. The partitive in Finnish. Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.Google Scholar
Dickey, Stephen M. 2007. A prototype account of the development of delimitative po- in Russian. In Divjak, Dagmar & Kochanska, Agata (eds.), Cognitive paths into the Slavic domain (Cognitive Linguistics Research 38), 326–371. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dowty, David. 1991. Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67, 547–619.Google Scholar
Heinämäki, Orvokki. 1984. Aspect in Finnish. In Groot, Casper de & Tommola, Hannu (eds.), Aspect bound: A voyage into the realm of Germanic, Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian aspectology, 153–177. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinämäki, Orvokki. 1994. Aspect as boundedness in Finnish. In Bache, Carl, Basböll, Hans & Lindberg, Carl-Erik (eds.), Tense, aspect, and action: Empirical and theoretical contributions to language typology (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 12). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa. 2001. Syntax in the making: The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish conversation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2003. Incremental existence: The world according to the Finnish existential sentence. Linguistics 41.3, 461–493.Google Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2005. How fictive dynamicity motivates aspect marking: The riddle of the Finnish quasi-resultative construction. Cognitive Linguistics 16.1, 113–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2006. ‘I woke up from the sofa’: Subjective directionality in Finnish expressions of a spatio-cognitive transfer. In Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa & Campbell, Lyle (eds.), Grammar from the human perspective: Case, space and person in Finnish, 41–66. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2009. Fictive dynamicity, nominal aspect, and the Finnish copulative construction. Cognitive Linguistics 20.1, 43–70.Google Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2010. Is perception a directional relationship? On directionality and its motivation in Finnish expressions of sensory perception. Linguistics 48.1.Google Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. Forthcoming. On the many faces of incompleteness: Hide-and-seek with the Finnish partitive object.Google Scholar
ISK=Auli, Hakulinen, Vilkuna, Maria, Korhonen, Riitta, Koivisto, Vesa, Heinonen, Tarja Riitta & Alho, Irja. 2004. Iso suomen kielioppi [A descriptive grammar of Finnish]. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Itkonen, Terho. 1976. Erään sijamuodon ongelmia [Problems of a case form]. Opuscula Instituti Linguae Fennicae, Universitas Helsingiensis 53, 173–217. Helsinki: University of Helsinki.Google Scholar
Janda, Laura A. 2004. A metaphor in search of a source domain: The categories of Slavic aspect. Cognitive Linguistics 15, 471–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janda, Laura A. 2007. Aspectual clusters of Russian verbs. Studies in Language 31.3, 607–648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 1989. Nominal reference, temporal constitution, and quantification in event semantics. In Bartsch, Renate, van Benthem, Johan & van Emde Boas, Peter (eds.), Semantics and contextual expressions, 75–115. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 1992. Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In Sag, Ivan A. & Szabolcsi, Anna (eds.), Lexical matters, 29–54. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred, Pelletier, Francis J., Carlson, Gregory N., Meulen, Alice ter, Chierchia, Gennaro & Link, Godehard. 1995. Genericity: An introduction. In Carlson, & Pelletier, (eds.), 1–124.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Concept, image, and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1999. Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Larjavaara, Matti. 1991. Aspektuaalisen objektin synty [On the origins of the aspectual object]. Virittäjä 95, 372–408.Google Scholar
Leino, Pentti. 1991. Lauseet ja tilanteet: Suomen objektin ongelmia [Clauses and situations: Problems of object case marking in Finnish]. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. 2004. Type shifting in construction grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics 15.1, 1–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pustejovsky, James & Bouillon, Pierrette. 1995. Aspectual coercion and logical polysemy. Journal of Semantics 12, 133–162.Google Scholar
Sasse, Hans-Jürgen. 2002. Recent activity in the theory of aspect: Accomplishments, achievements, or just non-progressive state? Linguistic Typology 6, 199–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Carlota. 1997. The parameter of aspect, 2nd edn.Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swart, Henriëtte de. 1998. Aspect shift and coercion. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 16, 347–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics, vol. 1: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Verkuyl, Henk. 1972. On the compositional nature of the aspects. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verkuyl, Henk. 1993. A theory of aspectuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vilkuna, Maria. 2000. Suomen lauseopin perusteet [An introduction to Finnish syntax], 2nd edn.Helsinki: Edita.Google Scholar