Preface Human interest in the differences between genetically closely related languages and academic obligation explain why this book was written. Discovering the silent secrets of language took place far from the hectic of urban life. During the years 1999 to 2003, as I was planning, writing and editing my thesis, I felt it a privilege to learn more about the linguistic and cultural heritage of northern Europe. This was the constant joy of my work also after I had completed the most creative research stage. First of all, I would like to cordially thank Professor Johanna Laakso, my encouraging tutor during the writing of the current work and attentive friend since the beginning of my studies. The fi rst ideas grew to elaborated assumptions and linguistic research under constant collaboration with her. This book is a fruit of the joint project in which Johanna and Professor Anneli Sarhimaa participated. She was the other member of the personal research group and consulting team that opened for me new perspectives in language and linguistics, for which I am very grateful. I am greatly obliged to Professors Helle Metslang and Alho Alhoniemi for their valuable guidance and detailed comments on the manuscript of my thesis. Their advice was indispensable for completing the project successfully. The Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Helsinki, with its productive yet relaxed atmosphere, was immensely important for me, as I was allowed to proceed at my own pace in writing the thesis. I am grateful to earlier and current directors of the Department, Professors Raija Bartens, Seppo Suhonen, Ulla-Maija Kulonen, and Tapani Salminen, for a motivating environment that both nurtured traditions and fostered innovations. Several colleagues commented on earlier versions and parts of the thesis, and showed me the way forward. Professor Frans Plank helped me with theoretical issues and introduced me to up-to-date literature. Professor Karl Pajusalu, Dr Rami Saari, Dr Riitta Korhonen, and Dr Lembit Vaba discussed various details in the text and provided help in detecting errors and inconsistencies. Topics in language change and Finno-Ugrian linguistics have generated highly constructive conversations with Professor Jorma Koivulehto, Mr Petri Kallio, Cand. Phil., Mr Janne Saarikivi, Lic. Phil., Professor Maria Vilkuna, Professor Pentti Leino, Professor Reet Kasik, Mr Daniel Lowit, M.A., and Mr Jarmo Elomaa, Lic. Phil. I also wish to express my warmest thanks to those numerous friends and colleagues who have supported my work 6 by sharing their experience and expressing their interest. Needless to say, I am alone responsible for all the remaining mistakes and inadequacies. I appreciate very much the contribution made by Mr Dennis Estill, Lic. Phil. He revised the English language of the thesis, and performed his diffi cult task showing good spirit and sportsmanship. This thesis fi nally took the shape of a book when in the hands of Ms Leena Huima, Cand. Phil., who excells in creative applications of typography. The University of Helsinki and the Academy of Finland gave me the opportunity to concentrate on this study undisturbed by other academic obligations. The Finno-Ugrian Society has been my window to the past and present in Finno-Ugrian studies in Finland, during the entire research project. I am both proud of and grateful to the Society for publishing my work in its proceedings. The acoustic ambience of my work was created by children’s voices from their merriment and creative play. The positive energy of my home team conveyed me safely through unknown paths and cloudy days. Lauri, Alva and Ilmar learned to speak, read and write simultaneously with my linguistic studies. Now, at the end of the project, Lauri and Alva have become practised school children and Ilmar will start school in two years. The faithful pillar of our family is my wife Satu, who has unselfi shly provided me with an opportunity to pursue new ideas and, in the fi nal stages of my work, edit, reconcile and rewrite unfi nished chapters over and over again. This has often happened at the cost of her own time and, yet, she has always one-upped me in academic qualifi cations. Learning together, whether individually or side by side, has been an important feature of our home life. I dedicate this book to the memory of my father, a friend of languages, who showed me the fascinating world of languages, peoples and history. Helsinki, November 2003 Riho Grünthal 7 Contents Preface Contents List of fi gures, maps and tables 1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 13 1.1 Languages, data and methodology ....................................................... 14 1.2 The transcription and encoding of data................................................. 16 1.3 The organisation of the present work ................................................... 16 2. Contrasting the Finnic languages .................................................................... 19 2.1 Genetic relationship between the Finnic languages ............................. 20 2.2 Language ecology 22 ................................................................................ 2.3 Typological divergence between the Finnic languages ........................ 24 2.4 Basic differences in noun infl ection ..................................................... 25 2.5 Key hypotheses concerning diachronic change in the Finnic case and adposition system ............................................. 29 3. Erosive and preservative forces in morphosyntactic change .......................... 32 3.1 Infl ectional elements in change ............................................................ 34 3.2 Preservative processes in diachronic change ....................................... 39 3.2.1 Preservative morphosyntactic change .............................................. 40 3.2.2 Analogy ............................................................................................ 41 3.3 Conclusions .......................................................................................... 43 4. The Finnic adpositional phrase ....................................................................... 45 4.1 The syntactic ambiguity of the adpositions .......................................... 46 4.2 Historical preamble .............................................................................. 47 4.2.1 The age of old adpositional stems .................................................... 47 4.2.2 Suffi xed postpositions and their morphological adaptation ............. 50 4.3 Adpositions in a contact-linguistic perspective .................................... 53 4.4 Defi ning the number of adpositions in Finnic ...................................... 56 4.5 The morphosyntax and case government of adpositions ..................... 62 4.5.1 The morphosyntax of postpositional phrases .................................. 68 8 4.5.1.1 The infl ection of the noun complement .................................... 68 4.5.1.2 The infl ection of postpositions .................................................. 74 4.5.2 The morphosyntax of prepositional phrases and bipositional adpositions ............................................................ 76 4.6 Morphosyntactic change in the Livonian postpositional phrase .......... 84 4.6.1 Remarks on the Livonian genitive-accusative ................................. 85 4.6.1.1 The paradigmatic and syntagmatic genitive-accusative ............ 85 4.6.1.2 Genitive attribute and word order .............................................. 89 4.6.2 The morphosyntactic structure of the Livonian postpositional phrase ........................................................................ 92 4.6.2.1 The form of the complement: nominative vs. genitive .............. 95 4.6.2.2 The form of the complement: dative 9 ......................................... 9 4.6.2.3 Dative and adverb .................................................................... 101 4.6.3 Grammatical heads and syntactic morphochange .......................... 105 4.7 The morphosyntax of adpositional phrases in comparison to case infl ection ......................................................... 109 4.8 Conclusions ........................................................................................ 114 5. The evolution of the Veps local case system ........................................................116 5.1 Introduction 116 5.2 A review of the historical roots of the Veps local cases 122 5.3 The functional domains of local cases 128 5.3.1 Local cases and spatial relations .................................................... 132 5.3.2 Local cases and temporal adverbials .............................................. 135 5.3.3 Local cases and possessive relations .............................................. 136 5.3.4 Local cases and instrumental relations ........................................... 139 5.3.5 Exterior local cases and morphosyntactic reanalysis ..................... 141 5.3.6 Other semantic roles of the Veps local cases .................................. 147 5.4 The merger of case affi xes and compensation .................................... 151 5.4.1 Syncretism between local cases ..................................................... 154 5.4.2 Functional constraints in recovering the local case system ............ 156 6. Language contact and morphosyntactic change ..................................................161 6.1 Historical