Aspects of a Systemic-Functional Grammar of Finnish

This study is a functional analysis of Finnish based on systemic-functional theory as developed by Michael Halliday and other linguists. The focus is on the description of clause types in Finnish in terms of a number of simultaneous grammatical structures, which are fused together in the process of realization. While the description of Finnish is not based on any particular text or set of texts, the majority of examples are attested examples from written Finnish or Finnish as it is spoken in the Helsinki area. There are three introductory chapters to the study. The first chapter serves as an introduction proper to the thesis and discusses some general issues concerned with theory and data and the status of intuition in linguistic description. The second chapter is an introduction to systemic-functional theory and it also discusses a number of issues (e.g. knowledge of language) from a wider metatheoretical perspective. The third presents an ethnographic account and a general outline of Finnish. Chapters 4 to 7 constitute the main body of this thesis. Chapter 4 defines grammatical units in terms of ranked constituency and gives a preliminary outline of clause complexing in Finnish. Chapter 5 is concerned with structures in the Finnish clause that reflect its internal organization as an exchange. A slightly modified version of Halliday’s model is proposed: the parameters involved are whether the orientation of the exchange is primarily linguistic (i.e. the exchange of words) or non-linguistic (i.e. directed at action). The sixth chapter is concerned with the analysis of clauses into process types and their concomitant participant and circumstantial roles. As in English, it is argued that in Finnish there is also a basic division into relational processes, material processes and processes of human consciousness (mental and verbal). The establishment of these process types is based on Prototype Theory. Chapter 7 deals with textual structures. It presents a preliminary discussion of Given and New and analyses the Theme-Rheme structure of the Finnish clause. It is argued that the topical Theme in Finnish is realized by the experiential element in the position preceding the finite verb, and that another subsidiary experiential Theme needs to be recognized for Finnish. The Theme-Rheme structure is illustrated with the analysis of a complete text reproduced in Appendix 1. The study concludes by bringing together a number of recurring themes and by presenting an analysis of a small fragment of text. The purpose of the text analysis is to show how the various structures described in the main body of the study are intertwined and conflated in a text and how the analysis presented in this study fits into a wider and more comprehensive framework. Chapter