Functional Projections in Finnish Non-Finite Constructions

It is an open question whether the functional projections above the VP projection are the same, either across languages or within a single language. Based on the morphosyntactic evidence in Finnish, and following Baker’s (1985) Mirror Principle, the functional projections of the non-finite clause differ from those of the finite clause, although both types of clauses contain a VP projection. This suggests that UG allows for more than one possible combination of functional projections as an extended projection of VP. The structure of the non-finite clause in Finnish indicates, however, that projections are not combined in an arbitrary manner. Rather, all of the five productively used non-finite constructions can be analyzed as instances of the following pattern: V + infinitival suffix (+ case suffix (+ possessive suffix)). This general pattern seems to have escaped the notice of traditional grammarians, such as L.Hakulinen in his comprehensive reference grammar (1979:254-256, 565-586). The pattern is obscured by the traditional division of non-finite verb forms into four or more infinitives and six participial forms. This categorization turns out to be misleading in Finnish, as is most strikingly seen in the case of the Temporal Adjunct (pointed out by A.Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979:341). This construction has two aspectual forms, one of which bears the traditional 2nd infinitive affixes, while the other is the traditional passive participle form – although in this construction the form is active in meaning and behaves as an active verb in terms of case marking. (The two forms are exemplified below in (6a-b).) The general suffixation pattern of the non-finite verb forms has not been captured in generative works either, such as A.Hakulinen & Karlsson (1979:340-391) – who treat all non-finite constructions as being transformationally derived from finite clauses – or Vainikka (1989:243-320), where I analyze the non-finite forms as being VPs embedded under an NP projection. Apart from the unified suffixation pattern, the non-finite forms share a number of syntactic properties. None of them allow nominative subjects, subject-verb agreement, or the negative verb. In the non-finite constructions that allow the subject argument to be expressed, the subject occurs in genitive case or as a possessive suffix (which agrees with the subject in person and number). A full finite clause is typically used when negation needs to be expressed; some of the constructions allow a special negative suffix -tta which will not be discussed in this paper. I will propose here an analysis of the non-finite constructions using functional projections which both captures the syntactic properties just mentioned and accounts for the suffixation pattern.