We analyze the development of central relational predicates (verbs, cases, and adpositions) from early literary Finnish (16th century) to the present. While earlier studies have focused on relational predicates at a certain subperiod of Old Finnish, no studies have tracked their actual development over time. Our approach is based on frameworks of usage-based linguistics, most notably cognitive grammar, cognitive semantics, and functional–typological syntax. The project incorporates morphological, syntactic, and semantic approaches to relational predicates. As our data, we will use existing corpora in which the historical layers of literary Finnish are well documented. The project is divided into four work packages: 1) the realization of transitivity, 2) the grammaticalization of modal verbs and non-finite constructions, 3) the evolution of adverbials, and 4) constructions of reported discourse, verbs of communication, cognition and emotion.

2022

2026