Näkökulmia suomen kielen aistihavantoverbeihin
Remarks on the Finnish verbs of perception

Summary/Abstract: This study deals with the Finnish verbs of perception from the viewpoints of cognitive linguistics and language typology. As cognitive linguistics emphasizes the role of a human conceptualizer in the meaning structure of language, verbs of perception are a promising area of study for it, since these verbs designate the very cognitive interaction between a human being and the surrounding world. A crucial factor in the meaning of perception verbs is subjectivity and the construal of the situation from a particular viewpoint, with which the conceptualizer identifies. An especially interesting question is whether the perspective of the conceptualizer is identical to the perspective of the perceiver (i.e., the referent of the subject of most perception verbs) or whether the conceptualizer selects an objective, external perspective to the perceptive relationship. This difference has crucial consequences for the understood implicativity of perception verbs, i.e. whether the presence or perceptibility of the stimulus is part of the conceptualizer’s reality as well, or whether it is just part of the experience of the perceiver. For example, in a sentence like He saw a green elephant, the presence of the elephant in the speaker’s reality depends on whether the speaker construes the situation objectively (from an external viewpoint) or subjectively (from the viewpoint of the perceiver). In the latter case, the conceptualizer identifies with the perceiver and indicates his or her perceptual experience only, without being committed to the existence of the elephant in reality. From the perspective of language typology, the division of labour between the Finnish perception verbs is very clear-cut. Each sense modality is expressed by separate verbs, and within each sense modality a distinction is drawn between intransitive (‘be visible’, ‘be audible’), transitive non-agentive (‘see’, ‘hear’) and transitive agentive (‘look/watch’, ‘listen’) perception. It is typologically rather common that the nominal arguments of perception verbs are marked exceptionally. In many languages the argument carrying exceptional case marking is the subject (often a dative subject), reflecting its role as an experiencer. In Finnish, however, it is the object of non-agentive perception verbs that is marked exceptionally. These verbs take the so-called total object (morphologically marked with the genitive, the nominative or the accusative) instead of the partitive object, which is canonically associated with low transitivity and unbounded, irresultative aspect. In contrast, Finnish agentive perception verbs take the partitive object as expected, because, although they are agentive, they designate aspectually unbounded situations. What is exceptional, then, is the use of the total object with the non-agentive perception verbs, since these are low in transitivity and often indicate aspectually unbounded situations.

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