Partitive plural

Abstract: The use of the partitive case, a typical case characterizing Finnic languages, remains a constant struggle for learners of Finnish as a foreign language. This paper reports on a study on the (under)use of partitive plural predicatives in the writings of Estonian, German and Dutch learners of Finnish as a foreign language. The overall aim of the study reported on in this paper was to identify and address similarities and differences between the use of partitive plural predicatives by learners of Finnish as a foreign language from related and non-related L1 backgrounds (Estonian vs. German/Dutch). Research materials (Estonian learner corpus 82,749 words; German learner corpus 60,490 words; Dutch learner corpus 47,753 words) were selected from the International Corpus of Learner Finnish and aligned to the CEFR proficiency scales. As will be discussed, all learner corpora were particularly at the lower proficiency levels characterized by frequent replacement of partitive plural predicatives by nominative predicatives. However, partitive plural predicatives were in the Estonian learner corpus generally substituted by nominative plural predicatives and in the remaining learner corpora mainly by nominative singular (i.e. uninflected) predicatives, suggesting reliance on L1 morphosyntax versus simplification. It will nevertheless be argued that these seemingly different phenomena also have much in common.

Abstract: The partitive has often been acknowledged as problematic for L2 learners of Finnish. The purpose of this study was to identify possible instances of L1 influence in Estonian learners’ use of partitive predicatives and to explore the relation between L1 influence and L2 proficiency. Research materials (85,749 words) were selected from the Estonian subcorpus of the International Corpus of Learner Finnish and evaluated according to the CEFR proficiency scales (i.e. A1–C2). A frequency-error analysis revealed instances of both positive L1 influence (e.g. a virtual lack of partitive overuse errors) and negative L1 influence (e.g. frequent use of nominative plural instead of partitive plural predicatives). The latter error type was found to ultimately decrease with increasing L2 proficiency, suggesting an inverse relation between negative L1 influence and L2 proficiency. Nonetheless, interactions between L1 influence and several other variables also reflected the extremely complex nature of the phenomenon of L1 influence. http://dx.doi.org/10.5128/LV21.11

Abstract: This paper provides a comparison of two varieties of the Votic language. Based on field materials collected between 2001 and 2012 from the last speakers of Votic, we compiled a list of the most important phonetic and grammatical features that distinguish between Jogopera and Luuditsa varieties. The ten features are: the degree of apocope, the initial h , merging of allative and adessive cases, secondary geminates, illative singular forms, genitive and partitive plural markers, imperfect forms, the active participle marker, conditional markers, and negative pronominal forms. The analysis has shown that many differences can be explained by the influence of the neighbouring Ingrian language. There are more contact induced changes in the Luuditsa variety, which is probably the result of more intensive contacts with the Ingrian population in this village. The contemporary Luuditsa variety is a vivid example demonstrating that language change in the Lower Luga area was driven by convergent developments in no lesser degree than by divergent processes.

Abstract: This paper proposes a compositional semantic analysis for the use of the partitive case in counting and measuring constructions in Finnish. Count nouns in counting construc- tions are partitive singular but partitive plural in measure constructions. Mass nouns are infelicitous in counting constructions but are partitive singular in measure constructions. We propose an analysis for this pattern by making the semantics of the partitive morpheme both (i) derived from the notion of mereological parthood and (ii) sensitive to quantization. Finally, we show how this analysis extends to account for why mass nouns and plural count nouns in partitive case are felicitous as partitive subjects, when singular count nouns in partitive case are not.