Nominal aspect, quantity, and time The case of the Finnish object

Nominal aspect, quantity, and time :

The case of the Finnish object

T U O M A S H U U M O

University of Tartu

(Received 16 May 2008 ; revised 30 January 2009)

It is well known that the quantity indicated by an NP aﬀects clausal aspect if the
referent of the NP participates in the event incrementally, i.e. in a part-by-part
manner (e.g. She was mowing

THE LAWN

). In general, an incremental NP that indicates

a closed quantity makes the overall aspect of the sentence telic and thus bounded,
whereas one indicating an open quantity results in unbounded aspect (e.g. W

ATER

was

dripping from the ceiling). In this paper the interplay between quantity and aspect will
be called nominal aspect. It is argued that quantity may relate with time in two
diﬀerent ways : first, as overall quantity (which, if incremental, cumulates over time),
and second, as transient quantity. The latter term refers to the quantity involved in
the situation at a given point in time. It is argued that the interpretation of certain
NPs evokes both kinds of quantity ; e.g. in This machine pumps

THE WASTE WATER OF

THE FACTORY

into the drain the object indicates a quantity that is open in the overall

sense (there is no end to the waste water entering the event of pumping) but closed in
the transient sense (at any point, all [relevant] waste water gets pumped into the
drain). A corresponding distinction is drawn in the domain of verbal aspect, which
can also be bounded or unbounded in two diﬀerent ways. Overall aspect unfolds over
time and, if telic, ultimately reaches its endpoint, as in She took the letter to the post
oﬃce. Transient aspect is the aspectual nature of an event at any given point in time.
It is understood as orthogonal to the time axis and gives a cross-section of the on-
going event. In This brush cleans the conveyor belt before it enters the machinery the
overall aspect (of the ‘ cleaning ’) is unbounded, but the transient aspect is bounded,
assuming that the brush continuously keeps the conveyor belt in a state of total
cleanliness. In this paper, such oppositions are used in explaining the case marking of
the Finnish object (partitive vs. ‘ total object ’ case marking), which reflects both
quantificational and aspectual factors. It is argued that the total object can indicate
a closed quantity and a bounded aspect not only in the overall sense but also in
the transient sense. This distinction is then used to account for many hitherto un-
explained uses of the cases.

1. I

N T R O D U C T I O N

N O M I N A L A S P E C T

For decades, verbal aspect, nominal quantity and the interplay between the
two have been popular research topics in linguistics (a thorough survey of

[1] I am grateful to two anonymous JL referees for their invaluable feedback that helped me

improve the quality of this paper significantly. All remaining shortcomings and errors are
of course my responsibility alone. This research was funded by the Estonian Science
Foundation (Grant 7552).

J. Linguistics 46 (2010), 83–125.

f Cambridge University Press 2009

doi:10.1017/S0022226709990223

First published online 17 November 2009

the literature is given in Sasse 2002). In particular, formal semantics (for in-
depth studies see e.g. Verkuyl 1972, 1993 ; Krifka 1989) has studied the
interdependence of aspectual and quantificational factors, demonstrating
that aspect must be considered a

COMPOSITIONAL

phenomenon. Many anal-

ogies between the aspectual (verbal) and quantificational (nominal) domains
have been pointed out, and it has been demonstrated in detail how clause-
level aspect depends on the contribution of many clausal elements, not just
the verb. Especially Verkuyl (1972, 1993) has emphasized the significance of
the arguments of the verb for aspect. The situation is perhaps clearest in
transitive clauses in which the object is an incremental theme (see Dowty
1991) and thus participates in the event gradually. For instance, in She was
painting the fence the activity proceeds along the fence gradually and reaches
its endpoint when the whole fence has been painted. The extent of the fence
(its quantity) thus sets boundaries to the duration of the painting, since the
painting can only last as long as there remains fence to be painted. Such
dependence of clausal aspect on nominal quantity will be referred to in the
present paper as

NOMINAL ASPECT

Among phenomena related to nominal aspect, the concept of boundedness

is of central importance. As is also well known, the opposition between
bounded and unbounded is common to both verbal aspect and nominal
quantity (see Talmy 2000 : 42–88 for a detailed comparison). In the aspectual
domain, boundedness depends first and foremost on the verb and its inherent
aspectual nature, also known as Aktionsart. At the clausal level, however,
other factors such as aspectual constructions (e.g. the progressive), durative
modifiers (for two hours), and locatives indicating a source or a goal con-
tribute to the aspectual interpretation. In recent literature on aspect, it has
become customary to distinguish two diﬀerent levels of aspect. Sasse (2002 :
203–204) calls these

ASPECT

(viewpoint aspect, including the perfective/im-

perfective dichotomy and its associates, often expressed by grammatical
means) and

ASPECT

(the Aktionsart type of aspect, more directly dependent

on the lexical meaning of the verb). Smith (1997 : 3) draws a similar distinction
between

SITUATION TYPES

(Sasse’s

ASPECT

) and

VIEWPOINT TYPES

(Sasse’s

ASPECT

). She distinguishes five main types of situations :

STATES

(static, durat-

ive, e.g. know),

ACTIVITIES

(dynamic, durative, atelic, e.g. dance),

AC-

COMPLISHMENTS

(dynamic, durative, telic, consisting of a process and its

outcome, e.g. build),

SEMELFACTIVES

(dynamic, atelic, instantaneous, e.g.

sneeze) and

ACHIEVEMENTS

(dynamic, telic, instantaneous, e.g. find). States

and activities are atelic and thus inherently unbounded, i.e. have no natural
end point. Accomplishments, semelfactives and achievements are bounded
situation types : they have an endpoint which they reach either after a gradual
development (accomplishments) or instantaneously (achievements and
semelfactives). A crucial diﬀerence between them is telicity : the

COMPLETIVE

types accomplishments and achievements bring about an end result, whereas
semelfactives are atelic. This means that in the completive event types the

T U O M A S H U U M O

state that follows the event diﬀers from the state that precedes it, whereas in
semelfactives the two states are (conceptualized as) similar. Smith also dis-
tinguishes three viewpoint aspect types that the speaker may select when
viewing a situation : these are the

PERFECTIVE

viewpoint (viewing a situation

in its entirety, including both initial and final endpoints if such exist), the

IMPERFECTIVE

viewpoint (viewing only part of a situation, including neither

the initial nor the final endpoint) and the

NEUTRAL

viewpoint (flexible,

including the initial endpoint of a situation and at least one internal stage).

A rapidly growing literature has addressed the phenomenon called

ASPECTUAL COERCION

, (informally) the alteration of the aspectual meaning of

a linguistic element (typically a verb) to semantically match its context.
Coercion takes place, for instance, when a telic verb is used in a progressive
construction (for details, see e.g. Pustejovsky & Bouillon 1995, de Swart 1998
and Michaelis 2004). De Swart (1998 : 349) defines aspectual coercion as ‘ an
implicit, contextually governed process of reinterpretation which comes into
play whenever there is a conflict between the aspectual nature of the
eventuality description and the input condition of some aspectual operator ’.
Topics studied under the rubric of coercion within the formal semantics tra-
dition cover phenomena ranging from verbal Aktionsart to nominal quantity.

In the nominal domain, boundedness depends on whether the NP refers to

a closed (bounded) or an open (unbounded) quantity. For clarity, I will
follow Larjavaara (1991) in using the terms

OPEN

vs.

CLOSED

to refer to this

nominal quantificational opposition, and reserve the terms

BOUNDED

and

UNBOUNDED

for verbal aspectual use. In incremental situations, open quantity

gives rise to unbounded aspect and closed quantity to bounded aspect.
Another pair of terms used for this purpose were introduced by Krifka
(1989), who distinguishes

QUANTIZED

(closed/bounded) and

CUMULATIVE

(open/unbounded) expressions in both the aspectual and the quantificational
domains. In the nominal domain, only mass nouns and plural forms are
typically able to indicate both open and closed quantities (of substances and
multiplicities), whereas singular count nouns refer to indivisible entities,
which inherently constitute closed quantities. However, indivisible entities
may also participate in events incrementally, as in The potter was making a
flower pot.

With mass nouns and plurals, the opposition between open and closed

quantities also correlates with definiteness : definite mass nouns and plural
forms generally indicate closed quantities, while indefinite ones indicate open
quantities. For instance, in The flour is in the cup the definite subject NP
refers to a closed quantity of flour, whereas in There is flour in the cup the
quantity of the flour is open (‘ some flour ’). Count nouns, on the other hand,
always indicate a closed quantity, since their referent is conceived as an
indivisible whole. This closedness does not correlate with definiteness, cf. The
strawberry [closed quantity, definite] is in the cup vs. There is a strawberry
[closed quantity, indefinite] in the cup (for such relationships between

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

definiteness and quantification, with special reference to English and Finnish,
see Chesterman 1991). However, as is well known, the boundary between
mass and count nouns is fuzzy, and the speaker has the ultimate option of
representing even prototypical count nouns as mass-like, as in the following
example from Langacker (1991 : 73) : After I ran over the cat with our car,
there was cat all over the driveway. According to de Swart (1998 : 352 ; see also
Bach 1986), such examples also involve a coercion, and the literature uses the
notions of a

UNIVERSAL GRINDER

and a

UNIVERSAL PACKAGER

to reflect (re-

spectively) the nature of the operations at work when we use mass nouns in a
count-noun-like fashion, and when we use count nouns as mass-like.

In her cognitive linguistic study of Russian aspect, Janda (2004) makes a

detailed comparison between nominal referents (in her terms, the idealized
cognitive model (ICM) of matter) and verbal aspect. Her general objective is
to explain aspectual phenomena as a metaphor of the ICM of matter. She
draws a basic distinction between discrete solid objects and fluid substances
(basically the count vs. mass distinction), and argues that a similar distinction
can be made in aspect, with perfective aspect corresponding to a solid object
and imperfective aspect to a fluid substance. Crucial features of a discrete
solid object include the fact that it has inherent shape and edges, cannot be
easily penetrated, cannot occupy the same place as another discrete object,
is stable, and can be grasped (Janda 2004 : 475–476). Another feature that
distinguishes solid objects from fluid substances is what Janda calls
‘ streamability ’ : fluid substances can ‘ stream ’ and participate in events
gradually (incrementally), whereas solid objects cannot. What makes Janda’s
work especially fruitful for studies dealing with the interplay of nominal
quantity and aspect is that she not only discusses these domains separately
but also introduces many conceptual operations that are available to the
speaker for manipulating these notions. Such operations may result, for
instance, in the conceptualization of a solid object as fluid-substance-like
(‘ pulverization ’, cf. Langacker’s example above), or the conceptualization of
a fluid substance as filling a container with firm boundaries, or the placement
of a solid object within a fluid substance, and so on.

In spite of these similarities between verbal aspect and nominal quantity,

there are also important diﬀerences regarding the nature of boundedness
(closedness) in the two domains. Perhaps the most important diﬀerence is
that verbal boundedness is always boundedness in time and correlates with
the temporal features of the event : whether the event is ongoing or termin-
ated (imperfective vs. perfective), and whether it has an inherent endpoint or
not (atelic. vs telic). Nominal quantity, on the other hand, is not necessarily
distributed over time, though it may be, if the referent participates in-
crementally. In the verbal domain,

BOUNDEDNESS

is both a lexical semantic

feature of particular verbs and a feature of concrete usages of verbs (or of
whole clauses). Though these levels correlate, they need not always coincide,
as shown by the extensive studies on aspectual coercion (e.g. Michaelis 2004

T U O M A S H U U M O

and the references mentioned there). For instance, the verb run indicates a
basically unbounded activity, but sentences like He ran a mile or He ran from
school to the station refer to a bounded situation that ceases after the in-
dicated distance has been traversed. In the nominal domain, only count
nouns indicate a closed quantity as part of their lexical meaning. In contrast,
mass nouns are neutral with respect to quantity, since mass nouns receive
their quantificational interpretation only in concrete usage events. For in-
stance, the noun flour designates a substance, but without the context of an
actual usage event it is impossible to tell whether the quantity of the sub-
stance is to be conceived as closed (as in The flour is in the cup) or open (as in
There is flour in the cup).

Typically, the referent of a count noun participates in the situation

throughout and does not set a boundary to its duration. For instance, in
The girl patted the dog, the quantity of the participants ‘ girl ’ and ‘ dog ’ does
not set boundaries to the duration of the ‘ patting. ’ Both the girl and the
dog participate in the event throughout as wholes (not incrementally),
both already exist before the event and continue their existence after
the event. Neither of the participants is ‘ consumed ’ during the event. This
conceptualization is especially common and natural if the referent of the
NP is a solid object, whereas fluid substances more typically participate
gradually.

Indeed, the situation is diﬀerent when a nominal referent (typically a

substance) participates in the event incrementally. In this case the extent
of the referent also determines the duration of the event. An incremental
participant is ‘ consumed ’ (either concretely or figuratively) during the pro-
cess, as in The boy was eating a sandwich or The professor was reading the
thesis, where the process reaches its endpoint when the whole referent of the
object has participated in it. Here the participation of the nominal referent is
incremental in an objective sense, i.e. the eating and reading are actually
aﬀecting (or directed at) diﬀerent parts of the sandwich or the thesis at sub-
sequent points of time. Since a sandwich and a thesis are bounded entities,
the activities that involve them as incremental participants are understood
as (aspectually) telic : they reach their endpoint when the whole entity has
participated. However, an incremental participant can also be quantitatively
open, resulting in aspectual unboundedness of the situation ; here the situ-
ation is continuously ‘ fed ’ by the incremental participant with new sub-
stance, as in Water was pouring out of the drain. Indeed, as pointed out by
Verkuyl (1993) and Krifka (1992 : 50), it may not be the activity of ‘ eating ’ or
‘ reading ’ as such that constitutes the boundedness in examples like He ate
the sandwich or She read the book ; rather, it is the nature of the object that
creates the boundedness (i.e. we typically eat entities or portions of some
kind, and read books, papers and other things, whose extension is bounded).
It is also possible that the incremental participation of a nominal referent in
a situation is based on subjective factors, such as an incremental scanning of

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

a nominal referent which is not aﬀected itself or does not undergo a change
in the course of the event (see Talmy 2000 : 71 for details).

In the following sections, I will study nominal and verbal aspect and their

eﬀects on the case marking of the object in Finnish, which reflects both
aspectual and quantificational factors. I begin by introducing the classical
view of Finnish object marking in section 2, where it is shown how the case
marking is determined by a complex interplay of aspect and quantity, and
often results in massive ambiguity. In section 3, I discuss certain problematic
usages that seem to contradict the general principles of object marking.
These usages often (though not always) involve incremental objects. In sec-
tion 4 I discuss examples where it is the subject (not the object) whose re-
ferent participates incrementally, and show how this aﬀects the object
marking. In section 5 I return to one of the problematic object types dis-
cussed in section 3, the so-called quasi-resultative type, and show how this
static type can be associated with dynamic types where either the subject or
the object indicates an incremental participant. Section 6 sums up the results
of the study.

2. T

H E

I N N I S H O B J E C T M A R K I N G S Y S T E M

A N O V E R V I E W

One of the most problematic issues in Finnish grammar is without doubt the
case marking of the object (for literature in English, see e.g. Denison 1957 ;
Heina¨ma¨ki 1984, 1994 ; Helasvuo 2001 ; Huumo 2005). The case marking
of the object is part of a more extensive system of oppositions among the
grammatical cases of the language. The

PARTITIVE

case marks the object un-

der three conditions : a) in negated sentences, b) in aspectually unbounded
sentences (more precisely : atelic, progressive, cessative, and irresultative
(semelfactive) sentences), and c) in sentences where the object NP refers to an
open, indefinite quantity. Its counterpart is a morphologically heterogeneous
category which will be referred to here (following the recent descriptive
grammar ISK 2004) as the

TOTAL OBJECT

, designating what might be called

completeness of quantity or aspect or both. The case opposition between the
partitive and other grammatical cases works not only in the marking of the
syntactic object (Heina¨ma¨ki 1984, 1994 ; Chesterman 1991 ; Huumo 2005), but
also of the existential subject (see Helasvuo 2001, Huumo 2003) and the
predicate nominal (Huumo 2009), though under diﬀerent conditions. Fur-
thermore, the ‘ total ’ cases that participate in the system vary from one
subtype to another. In existential subjects and predicate nominals, the total-
case counterpart of the partitive is always the nominative. In object marking,
the situation is more complicated : the total object can be marked with either
the nominative, the genitive, or the irregular accusative form of personal
pronouns (ending -t). Historically the object-marking genitive was an ac-
cusative case with the ending *-m, but it coalesced with the genitive -n as the
result of a sound change whereby word-final -m became -n. This sound

T U O M A S H U U M O

change caused a reanalysis of many infinitival constructions in the language,
such that many accusative-marked objects of finite verbs were reinterpreted
as genitive-marked subjects of infinitives (see e.g. Anttila 1989 : 103–104).

The choice of the case is based on an interplay of multiple factors,

including quantity, definiteness, the count vs. mass distinction, negation,
subject-verb agreement, and aspect. Among these factors, quantity and the
count vs. mass distinction are involved in all three main syntactic contexts of
the case opposition (existential subject, predicate nominal and object).
Negation requires the partitive marking of objects and existential subjects
but not of predicate nominals. Pure aspect (i.e. without quantity) aﬀects the
case marking of the object only. In the following discussion, I will not deal
with predicate nominals (for these, see Huumo 2009) but will focus on object
marking ; subjects will be treated in section 4.

As mentioned above, there are three main factors that aﬀect the case

marking of the object : quantity, aspect, and negation. The received view of
Finnish grammar (e.g. Chesterman 1991 : 93 ; Vilkuna 2000 : 119 ; ISK 2004 :
887) maintains that negation is the strongest of these conditions, followed by
aspect and quantity. That negation is the strongest condition is shown by the
fact that (practically) all objects of negated clauses take the partitive case,
whereas the case marking in aﬃrmative clauses is determined by a complex
interplay between quantity and aspect. The eﬀects of quantity can be seen
most clearly in expressions of a punctual achievement, since these indicate
a situation that is indisputably bounded and brings about an end result ; thus
aspect will not be a reason for using the partitive (certain exceptions are
discussed in Huumo, forthcoming). Consider (1)–(3), whose punctuality is
also reflected in the fact that they reject direct durative modifiers (which in
Finnish are marked like the total object and correspond semantically to the
English for an hour type)

(1)

Lo¨ys-i-n

kirja-n

(*minuuti-n).

find-

PST

-1

book-

TOT

minute-

TOT

‘ I found a/the book (*for a minute). ’

(2)

Lo¨ys-i-n

voi-ta

(*minuuti-n).

find-

PST

-1

butter-

PAR

minute-

TOT

‘ I found some butter (*for a minute). ’

(3)

Lo¨ys-i-n

voi-n

(*minuuti-n).

find-

PST

-1

butter-

TOT

minute-

TOT

‘ I found the butter (*for a minute). ’

[2] The following abbreviations are used in the glosses :

ABE

=abessive,

ABL

=ablative,

ADE

=adessive,

ART

=article,

CONNEG

=connegative verb form (=the form of the main verb

when used with a negator),

ELA

=elative,

GEN

=genitive,

ILL

=illative,

IPFV

=imperfective,

INE

=inessive,

INF

=infinitive,

NEG

=negation verb,

NOM

=nominative,

PAR

=partitive,

=plural,

PRS

=present tense,

PTCP

=participle,

PST

=past tense,

=(Xth person) pos-

sessive suﬃx,

=singular,

TOT

=total object.

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

In (1) the object is a count noun and refers to a bounded entity (thus to
a closed quantity) ; therefore the total object must be used. The punctual
nature of (1) also excludes an aspectual partitive. In (2) and (3) the object is
a mass noun, which can be diﬀerentially quantified by means of the case
opposition. The partitive in (2) indicates that the quantity of the butter
is open (‘ some butter ’), whereas the total object in (3) indicates a closed
quantity of a definite referent (‘ the butter ’).

At the other end of the aspectual scale we have atelic verbs that indicate

an unbounded situation, i.e. an activity or a state. In such examples the
unbounded aspect requires the partitive even if the object is a count noun or
a mass noun indicating a closed quantity. Such examples do allow direct
durative modifiers (consider examples (4) and (5) ; however, see also section
3.2 for exceptions).

(4)

Pitel-i-n

ka¨de-ssa¨-ni

kirja-a

y voi-ta

(tunni-n).

hold-

PST

-1

hand-

INE

-1

SGPX

book-

PAR

butter-

PAR

hour-

TOT

‘ I was holding

y held [a/the] book

y [the/some] butter in my hand (for an hour).’

(5)

Rakasta-n

sinu-a

y olut-ta.

love-

PRS

you-

PAR

beer-

PAR

‘ I love you. ’

y ‘I love beer.’

Example (4) indicates an activity and example (5) a state. As shown by the
English translation of (4), the object marking does not reveal whether the
quantity of the butter is open or closed. This is because the unbounded
aspect demands the partitive in any case. The aspectual function of the par-
titive thus ‘ conceals ’ the quantity of the referent. In (5) the situation is ab-
stract and therefore the question of quantity does not arise : the object does
not refer to an actual instance of beer that could be quantified but is under-
stood as generic. Note, too, that the unboundedness of the situation in (4)
can be understood in two diﬀerent ways : as progressivity (‘ was holding ’) or
as cessativity ‘ held ’, where the event has ceased without reaching an end
point (Sasse 2002 : 206 uses the term

DELIMITATIVE

for this type of aspect). In

some languages there are aspectual grams that specifically indicate delimi-
tative meanings ; for instance Russian has verb prefixes whose meaning is
roughly ‘ to do X for a while ’ (see Dickey 2007 and Janda 2007, who calls
such events

COMPLEX ACTS

). As example (4) shows, there is no specific way of

indicating cessativity in the Finnish system ; this is just one possible in-
terpretation of the polysemous partitive object. However, the fact that it is
the partitive and not the total object that is used to indicate cessativity clearly
shows how the total object requires more than just a perfective viewpoint (i.e.
the fulfilment of an accomplishment) to be available.

Examples like (4) also demonstrate that a partitive object is able to indicate

pure quantity only if it does not indicate unboundedness, that is, only in
aspectually bounded examples like (2). Similar observations have been made

T U O M A S H U U M O

in the literature on aspectual coercion. For instance, de Swart (1998 : 349)
argues that a progressive predication such as Anna was running a mile does
not licence the inference that Anna actually ran a mile ; when focusing on the
ongoing activity, the progressive conceals the projected end result of the
event. Thus, according to de Swart, the semantics of the progressive involves
‘ stripping an event of its culmination point ’ (p. 355). Similarly, the Finnish
partitive in unbounded sentences often conceals the projected overall quantity
of the object NP. Unlike the object in examples (2) and (3), the object in
example (4) is unable to indicate the quantity of its referent by case alteration,
because the unboundedness of the aspect excludes the total object altogether.
Among the conditions motivating object case marking, accordingly, aspect
appears to be stronger than quantity. This is why many grammars of Finnish
(e.g. Chesterman 1991, Vilkuna 2000) represent the three conditions for the
partitive object in the form of the hierarchy

NEGATION

>ASPECT>QUANTITY

where negation is the strongest condition (requiring the partitive irrespective
of quantity and aspect) and aspect is the second-strongest (requiring the
partitive irrespective of quantity). However, as the following discussion will
show, this hierarchy is a simplification, and matters are in fact more com-
plicated.

Leaving aside punctual and atelic examples for the moment, I will now

discuss the case marking in examples that indicate accomplishments, i.e. non-
punctual telic events that develop gradually towards their endpoint. In such
examples the total object indicates the combination of bounded aspect and
closed quantity, whereas the partitive usually has many possible interpret-
ations. In this type, the partitive but not the total object allows a direct
durative modifier in the same clause. Consider examples (6) and (7), where
the star in parentheses indicates the ungrammaticality of the total object
version in the presence of the durative modifier.

(6)

Lu-i-n

kirja-a

y (*)kirja-n

(tunni-n).

read-

PST

-1

book-

PAR

book-

TOT

hour-

TOT

‘ I was reading the book

y read the book (for an hour).’ [

PAR

]

‘ I read the [whole] book. ’ [

TOT

]

(7)

So¨-i-n

puuro-a

y (*)puuro-n

(tunni-n).

eat-

PST

-1

porridge-

PAR

porridge-

TOT

hour-

TOT

‘ I was eating (the) porridge ’
y ‘I ate (some of the) porridge (for an hour).’ [

PAR

]

‘ I ate up the porridge. ’ [

TOT

]

As the English translations indicate, the partitive indeed has a considerable
variety of possible interpretations. First, it can have the aspectual function of
indicating either a progressive or a cessative reading where the event has been
interrupted (terminated before reaching its possible endpoint). These readings
are both possible in the partitive versions of (6) and (7), as the English trans-
lations show (‘ I was reading the book ’ vs. ‘ I read the book (without finishing

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

it) ’ in (6) ; ‘ I was eating the porridge ’ vs. ‘ I ate (some of the) porridge ’ in (7)).
Another reading of the partitive is the quantificational one, which applies if
the event itself has been completed but the quantity of the object NP is open.
When considering examples (6) and (7), it should be kept in mind that the
hierarchy

NEGATION

ASPECT

QUANTITY

represents the situation from the

viewpoint of the partitive object, not of the total object, which can only be
used if the sentence does not meet

ANY

criterion of the partitive (however, in

section 3.2, this principle too turns out to be problematic). Thus aspectual
factors (boundedness) alone cannot trigger the total object unless the quan-
tity indicated by the object NP is closed.

If we consider example (7) in more detail, we see that the alternative in-

terpretations of the partitive set up another kind of a hierarchy. With the
progressive reading, the partitive object conceals the (projected) quantity of
the object referent : the example does not tell whether the projected endpoint
of the event would involve a closed or an open quantity of porridge (the
opposition between ‘ I was eating porridge ’ and ‘ I was eating

THE

porridge ’).

The same ambiguity arises in the cessative interpretation where the activity
has been interrupted : again, we do not know whether the event had been
proceeding towards an endpoint involving a closed quantity (‘ I ate some of
the porridge ’) or not, in which case the partitive object indicates open quan-
tity of the porridge eaten so far (‘ I ate some porridge ’). In sum, examples (6)
and (7) show that the total object is used only if the situation has both
reached its endpoint and has aﬀected a closed quantity (‘ I ate up the por-
ridge ’). They also show that the multifunctional nature of the partitive often
gives rise to ambiguity, and when indicating a more dominant function (e.g.
progressivity) the partitive conceals less dominant features that it can indi-
cate in other contexts (quantity).

Finally, it needs to be pointed out that, in addition to progressivity and

cessativity, there is yet another aspectual function for the partitive, which in
the Finnish tradition is referred to as

IRRESULTATIVITY

(discussed in Huumo

forthcoming). An irresultative situation is (typically) punctual (at least
bounded) but fails to bring about a substantial end result that would mo-
tivate the use of the total object and is thus atelic. Its opposite is a resultative
situation which is conceptualized as involving a fundamental, often irre-
versible change of state in the object referent. On the basis of the resultativity
vs. irresultativity opposition, Finnish punctual verbs can be divided into two
groups : resultative (accomplishment/achievement) verbs like tappaa ‘ kill ’,
ostaa ‘ buy ’, huomata ‘ notice ’ and lo¨yta¨a¨ ‘ find ’ that take the aspectual total
object, and irresultative (semelfactive) verbs like to¨na¨ista¨ ‘ nudge ’, mulkaista
‘ glance ’ and lyo¨da¨ ‘ hit ’ that take the aspectual partitive object. The re-
sultative total object thus indicates a transition : the event brings about a
change, after which it does not return to its original state but enters another
one. The partitive, on the other hand, indicates that no such transition takes
place and that immediately after achieving its target state the situation

T U O M A S H U U M O

returns to the original state (or to a state that is conceptualized as similar to
the original state). Croft (forthcoming) calls these diﬀerent situation types

DIRECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

and

CYCLIC ACHIEVEMENTS

, respectively, and points

out that directed achievements can be further divided into two classes : re-
versible ones, such as open, and irreversible ones, such as break or die. A
diﬀerent terminology is used by Smith (1997), who draws a distinction be-
tween two punctual situation types,

ACHIEVEMENTS

(which result in a change)

and

SEMELFACTIVES

(which do not bring about a change). At a crude level,

such distinctions also reflect the resultativity opposition between the Finnish
object markers. However, there are certain uses of the partitive that do not
properly fit such a classification. For instance, Leino (1991) points out that
the verb vaihtaa ‘ change ’ often takes the partitive object in cases where one
realization of the object replaces another and where the two realizations both
belong to the same category – even though such a change would count se-
mantically as an accomplishment (8).

(8)

Vaihdo-i-n

paita-a.

change-

PST

-1

shirt-

PAR

‘ I changed my shirt ’.

In example (8) the person takes oﬀ one shirt and puts on another, which
would be expected to count as an accomplishment, but nevertheless the
partitive object is used. What is also noteworthy in (8) is the number of the
object : it is in the singular though actually there are two referents.

Other exceptional instances include punctual verbs that allow both a re-

sultative and an irresultative interpretation of the situation they indicate
(and thus an alteration between the partitive and the total object). The best-
known example is the verb ampua ‘ shoot ’ in (9), discussed by Heina¨ma¨ki
(1984).

(9)

Ammu-i-n

lintu-a

y linnu-n.

shoot-

PST

-1

bird-

PAR

bird-

TOT

‘ I was shooting [aiming at] the bird. ’
y ‘I shot [at] the bird [but failed to kill it].’ [

PAR

]

‘ I shot the bird [dead]. ’ [

TOT

]

With the total object, the verb ‘ shoot ’ indicates resultativity, i.e. the death
of the bird as a result of the shooting. With the partitive object it indicates
the irresultativity of the shooting. In addition, the partitive also has a

PROSPECTIVE

reading where it indicates a phase that precedes the actual

[3] Smith (1997) and Croft (forthcoming) also discuss examples such as She almost crossed the

river, where accomplishments are ambiguous between the reading where the event did not
occur at all (the crossing of the river was not even started) and the reading where it occurred
but was not completed (she did not reach the other side of the river). It is interesting that
Finnish object marking sometimes reflects this kind of opposition : in the Finnish
counterpart of the above example (Ha¨n melkein ylitti jokea

y joen [s/he almost crossed

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

event. Thus (9) also shows that achievement verbs must be divided into two
classes :

PROPER ACHIEVEMENTS

that do not allow the partitive object to indi-

cate a prospective viewpoint aspect (e.g. lo¨yta¨a¨ ‘ find ’ in examples (1)–(3))
and

EXTENDED ACHIEVEMENTS

that allow the prospective viewpoint aspect.

The resultative vs. irresultative opposition is also relevant with certain

verbs that indicate the causation of a gradual change-of-state in the patient,
e.g. lyhenta¨a¨ ‘ shorten ’ and la¨mmitta¨a¨ ‘ warm ’. Smith (1997 : 24) calls such
events

DEGREE PREDICATES

and Croft (forthcoming)

DIRECTED ACTIVITIES

; and

both argue that such verbs indicate a directed change that has no natural end-
point. However, an endpoint can be conceptualized into the event, and this
opposition is reflected in the Finnish object marking : with the total object
these verbs indicate an abrupt, absolute change (‘ make short/warm ’), but
with the partitive object they indicate a gradual, scalar change with no par-
ticular endpoint (‘ make [somewhat] shorter/warmer ’). The situation is further
complicated by the fact that these verbs are not punctual but durative, and
therefore the partitive can also receive the progressive reading. Consider (10).

(10)

Lyhens-i-n

hame-tta

y hamee-n.

shorten-

PST

-1

skirt-

PAR

skirt-

TOT

‘ I was shortening the skirt. ’

y ‘I shortened the skirt [somewhat].’ [

PAR

]

‘ I shortened the skirt. ’ [

=made it short] [

TOT

]

It should be pointed out that the aspectual opposition here called re-

sultativity vs. irresultativity is quite diﬀerent from the opposition observed
in accomplishments : here it is related to the nature of the end result of the
event, and the relevant factor is

NOT

whether the event has been brought to

its possible endpoint or not (as in ‘ reading a book ’) but the nature of the
endpoint itself. In many grammatical descriptions of Finnish, however, the
term irresultative has also been used to refer to durative events that have not
been brought to their endpoint, and it needs to be emphasized that my usage
of the term is somewhat narrower. It is also worth noting that although (10)
would most naturally be classified as an accomplishment, its object marking
seems to correspond to that of accomplishments only partially (i.e. when the
partitive indicates progressivity). The fact that the irresultative reading is
also possible for the partitive shows that such situations can also be con-
ceptualized as semelfactives.

Next consider negation. Keeping in mind that negation requires all objects

to be marked with the partitive, we can expect that negated examples will
have even more possible readings than aﬃrmative examples like (10). Indeed,
as pointed out by Itkonen (1976), examples like (11) may have as many as
six possible readings, taking into account both aspect and quantity, if we

river-

PAR

y river-

TOT

]) the total object would mean that the crossing was not completed,

whereas the partitive would mean that the crossing was not even initiated (cf. also the
English progressive She was almost crossing the river).

T U O M A S H U U M O

consider all alternatives from the viewpoint of the corresponding aﬃrmative
sentence that has been negated.

(11)

voidel-lut

suks-i-a.

NEG

wax-

PST

CONNEG

ski-

PAR

‘ I was not waxing

y did not wax [the] skis.’

Note first that the aﬃrmative counterpart of (11) could have either the total
object (‘ I waxed the skis ’) or the partitive object (‘ I was waxing [the] skis ’ ;
‘ I waxed some [of the] skis ’). The total object would indicate bounded aspect
together with a closed quantity, which in turn could be understood in two
ways : it could consist either of one pair of skis or of a larger but closed
quantity of (pairs of) skis. The aﬃrmative partitive in turn could have two
aspectual readings (the same as in example (10)). First, it could have the
progressive reading, which would again conceal whether the event is con-
ceptualized as an accomplishment or an activity, i.e. whether it is progressing
towards a closed quantity of skis or not (‘ I was waxing the skis ’ vs. ‘ I was
waxing skis ’). Second, the partitive could have the cessative reading, main-
taining the same ambiguity of the overall quantity (‘ I waxed some [of the]
skis ’). The negative partitive conceals all these possibilities and focuses only
on the fact that the event did not take place at all.

To sum up, it is easy to see that the general function of the partitive is

to indicate the

INCOMPLETENESS

of the situation in one way or another

(a generalization suggested by Leino 1991) : either the situation does not take
place at all (negation), or it does not reach an endpoint (atelic/cessative/
progressive), or it reaches its endpoint but does not aﬀect a closed quantity of
entities. It is also noteworthy that the partitive often implies either an actual
or a potential continuation of the event. In the progressive reading, the event
is actually ongoing, and in the cessative reading it could potentially be
carried on further. In the reading involving an open quantity, the event could
(in many cases) be continued so as to aﬀect a larger quantity of entities. It is
only the irresultative partitive that lacks such an implication – this is because
the event type indicated by the verb is itself one lacking a relevant end result.
The total object, on the other hand, indicates that the event has been brought
to its endpoint and that the activity has aﬀected a closed quantity in full.
Thus a potential continuation of the event is excluded, though it may be
possible to repeat the event (e.g. to read a book again).

The above discussion also shows that the lexical aspectual situation type of

the examples is in many ways crucial to the selection of the object marker. In
contrast, viewpoint aspect can be explicitly expressed by the object case only
in certain situation types. The unbounded situation types, i.e. states and
activities, require the partitive object irrespective of quantity and viewpoint
aspect (examples (4) and (5) ; exceptions will be discussed in section 3). In
unbounded situation types the partitive thus cannot unequivocally indicate
viewpoint aspect, though it can often be interpreted with this kind of

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

a meaning. Among the bounded situation types, accomplishments trigger the
total object if the situation has been brought to its endpoint and if the
quantity of the object NP is closed and its entire referent has participated in
the event. In accomplishments, the partitive can indicate a cessative or pro-
gressive viewpoint aspect, or (if not interpreted as indicating one of these
viewpoint aspects) an open quantity of the object referent. The two punctual
situation types, achievements and semelfactives, do not allow the progressive
or cessative readings for the partitive, since the situations they indicate are
not durative. Proper achievements (‘ notice ’, ‘ find ’) take the aspectual total
object (or the quantificational partitive), but extended achievements (in
Finnish, verbs meaning e.g. ‘ shoot ’, ‘ buy ’, ‘ kill ’) allow the aspectual par-
titive to indicate a prospective viewpoint aspect – that the event is about to
take place or that the referent of the subject is attempting the achievement.
Semelfactives always take the partitive object, since in spite of their temporal
boundedness they are atelic and lack an end result. However, as example (8)
shows, the division of punctual verbs into achievements and semelfactives is
far from clear-cut, and as example (9) shows, some punctual verbs (‘ shoot ’)
can take both kinds of object marking depending on the conceived nature of
the end result. An even more complicated case in point involves so-called
degree predicates like ‘ warm ’, ‘ lengthen ’ or ‘ shorten ’ (example (10)). These
resemble accomplishments in that they are durative and thus allow the pro-
gressive partitive (10). However, the object marker also participates in the
resultative vs. irresultative opposition with degree predicates : it can reflect
the conceived nature of the end result (gradual vs. absolute). The overall
situation is summarized in table 1, which indicates the readings available for
the partitive object in each situation type.

Viewpoint aspect

Prog.

Cess.

Prosp.

Irres.

Quantity

Situation type
Activity

(

–

(

State

–

(

–

(

Accomplishment

–

Proper achievement

–

Extended achievement

–

Semelfactive

–

(

Achievement/

Semelfactive

–

Degree predicate

–

Key : Prog.

=Progressive; Cess.=Cessative; Prosp.=Prospective; Irres.=Irregulative

Table 1

The functions of the partitive object

T U O M A S H U U M O

In each row of the table, the possible readings of the partitive are marked

with a plus (

+) mark. As can be seen, there is a plus mark immediately

following the name of certain situation types. These are the atelic situation
types that exclude the total object altogether : activities, states and se-
melfactives. The other situation types, which do not have a plus mark after
their name, allow viewpoint aspect and quantity to determine the case of the
object. As can also be seen, some of the plus marks in the table are in par-
entheses. A bare plus mark indicates a function that can be the

SOLE FACTOR

motivating the partitive object. Parentheses around the plus mark indicate
that the partitive

ALLOWS

the interpretation with the function in question, in

addition to another function. This happens in situation types that require the
partitive in any case but can have diﬀerent aspectual readings for it. For
instance, the partitive object in an activity expression can have either a pro-
gressive or a cessative reading, but since the atelic nature of the situation type
requires the partitive anyway, these functions remain only possible alterna-
tive interpretations. In contrast, the partitive object of an accomplishment
verb can

SPECIFICALLY

indicate progressive or cessative aspect, or open

quantity. The same principles work in quantification : in atelic situation types
that require the aspectual partitive anyway, the partitive cannot unequi-
vocally indicate open quantity (it remains indiﬀerent to quantity). In con-
trast, the telic situation types allow the partitive to have a quantificational
reading – but only if its viewpoint aspectual readings do not apply. If inter-
preted as indicating viewpoint aspect, the partitive again becomes indiﬀerent
to quantity.

Above I have discussed object case marking from the point of view of the

partitive object, trying to pin down the factors motivating it within each
aspectual type. Alternatively, the system can be approached from the point
of view of the total object, the usage conditions of which turn out to be
simpler : the total object is used in (aﬃrmative) accomplishment and
achievement expressions with a perfective viewpoint (thus excluding pro-
spective, progressive and cessative viewpoints), on condition that the object
indicates a closed quantity that has participated in the event in its entirety.

At a crude level, the opposition between the partitive and the total object

thus seems to follow the principle suggested by Leino (1991) : the partitive
indicates incompleteness of the situation in one way or another. This expla-
nation strives towards a central objective of all scientific investigation : gen-
eralization. However, an adequate explanation must also be able to deal with
problematic instances, and one should not strive towards generalization at
the expense of the facts. Though a widespread consensus prevails among
scholars of Finnish grammar that the three factors of negation, aspect and
quantity explain the case marking of the object, and that more general terms
such as boundedness or incompleteness represent useful and valid general-
izations, there remain a few problematic instances that are not easily ex-
plained by such general principles. These include particular uses of both the

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

partitive and the total object. First, the partitive is used in certain examples
that are aspectually bounded and cannot proceed further in time ; thus the
total object would be expected (Huumo forthcoming). Second, the total
object is used in certain examples indicating situations that are aspectually
unbounded ; thus the partitive would be expected. Some of these uses have
been discussed in some detail in the literature, while others have escaped the
attention of scholars.

In the following discussion it will be argued that the generalizations con-

cerning Finnish object marking have given too much weight to what has
been taken to be the prototype situation for these oppositions, that is, an
aspectual opposition which involves as one pole a telic, non-punctual and
thus an accomplishment-type situation that gradually proceeds towards
its endpoint, finally reaches it and thereby attains completion. In English,
such examples include I took

y was taking the letter to the post oﬃce (non-

incremental object) or I read

y was reading the book (incremental object);

to understand the Finnish object marking properly we need to pay attention
to incremental and non-incremental instances in each opposition type.

The problematic instances to be discussed in the following sections involve

expressions that indicate unbounded situations but nevertheless select the
aspectual total object. In section 3 I will argue that the motivation for using
the total object in such instances is indeed boundedness of aspect or quantity
(or both), but a type of boundedness that diﬀers fundamentally from the
canonical kind that gets realized only after cumulating gradually over time.
The type of boundedness that will be relevant here, to be called

CONTINUOUS

BOUNDEDNESS

, is one that obtains throughout the entire situation, at any given

point of time during its duration. In section 3.1, I will discuss two types
of usage of the total object that have received attention in earlier work,
i.e. habitual expressions and so-called quasi-resultative sentences (Huumo
2005). Habitual expressions are aspectually dual in the sense that they indi-
cate the iteration of an event that may itself be bounded. Since the quantity
of the iterations is unbounded, the overall situation is also unbounded, even
though its component situations may be bounded. It will be shown that in
habitual examples, Finnish aspectual object marking reflects the nature of the
component situations, not the overall habitual situation, although the dur-
ation of the latter can however be indicated by durative adverbs. The quasi-
resultative type consists of stative situations which, according to the analysis
of Huumo (2005), are conceptualized as ‘ frozen ’ fictive accomplishments
that extend over time. In section 3.2 the focus is on two usage types that have
not been discussed previously : continuous completives (accomplishments/
achievements) and continuously bounded quantities. It is in these latter two
types that we need to draw a distinction between

OVERALL ASPECT

(classical

aspect, proceeding and cumulating in time) and another type of aspect,
henceforth called the

TRANSIENT ASPECT

, which is orthogonal to the time axis

and thus gives a characterization of the ‘ cross-section ’ of the situation at any

T U O M A S H U U M O

given point of time, i.e. whether the indicated relationship is conceptualized
as bounded or unbounded at any given point of time during the event. It is
argued that transient aspect plays a central role in Finnish object marking
and needs to be taken into account in order to give a coherent picture of the
grammatical systems involved in aspectual object marking.

3. T

H E T O T A L O B J E C T A S I N D I C A T O R O F C O N T I N U O U S

B O U N D E D N E S S

The fact that the total object can be used in unbounded examples shows that
the general rules of Finnish object marking fail to explain certain usages that
are of crucial importance to the theory of aspect. In this section it is argued
that even in such problematic instances the function of the total object is to
indicate boundedness (of aspect or quantity), but of a type that diﬀers from
the canonical type where boundedness equates to the reaching of an endpoint
where the event itself culminates. In the instances to be discussed below,
boundedness prevails

CONTINUOUSLY

: the situation does not develop towards

an endpoint but consists of a continuous force-dynamic interaction (in the
sense of Talmy 2000 : 409–470) that serves to keep the situation complete at
each point of time, as in the English example This brush cleans the conveyor
belt before it enters the machinery (‘ continuously keeps the conveyor belt in
the state of total cleanliness ’).

In the same way as canonical boundedness, continuous boundedness can

be based either on aspect alone or on a combination of aspect and quantity.
When the continuous boundedness of a situation is purely aspectual, the
situation is conceptualized as a continuous completive (a higher-order term
for accomplishments and achievements) where a force-dynamic interaction
between an actor and an undergoer keeps the undergoer in a state conceived
as completed, or

RESULTATIVE

, as the classical Finnish terminology puts it (see

also Huumo forthcoming). This means that the situation cannot develop
towards an even greater perfection ; on the other hand, without the con-
tinuous force-dynamic interaction the situation would cease to obtain and
the undergoer would leave its resultative state. Correspondingly, when the
continuous boundedness of the situation is motivated by a combination of
bounded aspect and closed quantity, the object is incremental and changes its
reference through time but at the same time indicates closedness of quantity
at each individual point of time. More concretely, such a sentence means that

CONTINUOUSLY ALL

substance (or multiplicity of individuals) that enters the

situation is brought into a new, resultative state by the force-dynamic inter-
action indicated by the verb.

In sections 3.2 and 3.3 I will discuss such examples in detail ; I will refer to

the two types as

CONTINUOUSLY CLOSED QUANTITIES

and

CONTINUOUS COM-

PLETIVES

. First, however, I will discuss in section 3.1 two other types where

the total object is used in unbounded sentences. These types have been dealt

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

with in the literature to some extent, and they are closely related to the new
types introduced here. The first type consists of habitual or generic examples,
and the second type of so-called quasi-resultative examples (for these, see
Huumo 2003). After this, I will proceed to continuous boundedness.

3.1 The habitual and the quasi-resultative types

In the literature, two kinds of uses of the total object in unbounded sentences
have been distinguished : the habitual-generic type and the so-called quasi-
resultative type. In the linguistic literature on aspectual coercion, a lot has
been written about habitual and generic expressions, with a consensus pre-
vailing that habitual and generic expressions coerce dynamic expressions
into static ones (see e.g. Carlson & Pelletier 1995, de Swart 1998 : 383).
However, Michaelis (2004 : 5, 20–21) points out that as far as their internal
composition is concerned, habitual situations are isomorphic to iterated
events, i.e. activities. Langacker (1999 : 251) argues that although a habitual
or generic expression indicates a situation that occurs repeatedly, this rep-
etition can be generalized into a continuously prevailing state in the

STRUCTURAL

plane, which ‘ comprises event instances with no status in actu-

ality ’ and is thus diﬀerent from the

ACTUAL

plane, which ‘ comprises event

instances that are conceived as actually occurring ’. According to Langacker,
habitual and generic expressions diﬀer from repetitive (iterative) ones in the
sense that the latter remain in the actual plane : ‘ A repetitive expression
profiles a higher-order event residing in the actual plane, whereas habituals
and plural generics – grouped as general validity predications – profile
higher-order events in the structural plane ’. Croft (forthcoming) emphasizes
that habitual expressions involve a repeated sequence of events which are
characteristic of a particular individual, and that, in this sense, such expres-
sions construe the regular recurrence of the event as an inherent state of the
individual.

For our present analysis the relevant factor is the necessity of distin-

guishing between two levels in habitual expressions : the level of the indi-
vidual component situations and the (virtual) level of the more abstract
habitual state itself. Such a division between the two levels explains the facts
of Finnish object marking quite neatly : the case of the object is determined
by the nature of the component situations, even though there may be other
aspectual elements present (such as durative modifiers) that relate to the
event at the more abstract level of the habitual state. The stative meaning of
habitual expressions can thus be seen as another kind of viewpoint aspect,
which is not internal but external to the actual events : it expands the view-
point of the conceptualization from singular component events to a con-
tinuous habitual state. The selection of the Finnish object case depends in all
respects on the type of the component situations. If the component situations
fulfil the general criteria for the total object, then the total object is used even

T U O M A S H U U M O

100

though the habitual reading makes the overall situation unbounded at the
structural level. The aspectual unboundedness of the overall habitual situ-
ation is shown by the fact that a direct durative modifier can be used in spite
of the presence of the total object, which normally rejects such modifiers
because of the boundedness it indicates (cf. example 3 above). This excep-
tional compatibility of such otherwise incompatible elements is explained by
the fact that they indicate boundedness at two diﬀerent levels. Consider (12)
and (13).

(12)

Ole-n luke-nut lehde-n

kirjasto-ssa jo

vuode-n aja-n.

be-1

read-

PTCP

paper-

TOT

library-

INE

already

year-

GEN

time-

TOT

‘ For a year already, I have been reading the newspaper in the library. ’

(13)

Leikkas-i-n

nurmiko-n yksin koko kesa¨-n.

mow-

PST

-1

lawn-

TOT

alone whole summer-

TOT

‘ For the whole summer I mowed the lawn alone. ’

The total object in (12) and (13) gets its motivation from the bounded nature
of the component situations : the examples indicate that, each time, the whole
paper is read (12) and the entire lawn is mown (13). The component situations
underlying the habitual state are thus accomplishments. At the habitual level,
the situation is static and thus unbounded : the person has the habit of
reading the paper in the library or mowing the lawn. It is this habitual state
whose duration is indicated by the durative modifier : in (12) the durative
modifier indicates that the habit of reading the paper in the library has lasted
for a year. The exceptional compatibility of the total object and the durative
modifier is thus explained by the fact that they indicate boundedness at two
diﬀerent levels : the total object indicates the boundedness of each component
situation (i.e. the reading of the whole paper on each occasion), whereas the
durative modifier sets temporal boundaries to the overall habitual state. It is
worth noting that in this respect Finnish diﬀers from many other languages,
such as French or Russian (discussed by Smith 1997) which use imperfective
verb forms in habitual expressions – a point I return to below.

A more problematic usage of the total object is the one called the quasi-

resultative type (QR, see Huumo 2003). QR sentences are aspectually static
and unbounded but nevertheless take the total object, which makes them
appear an anomaly. The term

QUASI

RESULTATIVE

was originally suggested by

Itkonen (1976) to characterize the exceptional object marking of such ex-
amples : QR sentences resemble bounded sentences (

RESULTATIVES

in the

traditional terminology) in form but are semantically unbounded. Itkonen
associated the phenomenon with particular verbs, and distinguished three
classes of QR verbs : 1) non-agentive perception verbs such as ‘ see ’, ‘ hear ’, 2)
non-agentive mental verbs such as ‘ know ’, ‘ remember ’, and 2) transitive
verbs indicating locative relationships (in a broad sense). It is noteworthy
that like the habitual sentences discussed above, QR sentences also accept a
direct durative modifier. Consider (14)–(17).

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

101

(14)

Na¨e-n

ha¨ne-t

koko aja-n.

see-

PRS

s/he-

TOT

all

time-

TOT

‘ I [can] see him/her all the time. ’

(15)

Ole-n

tien-nyt

se-n

viiko-n.

be-

PRS

know-

PTCP

it-

TOT

already week-

TOT

‘ I have known it for a week already. ’

(16)

Kuusi kuukaut-ta lumi peitta¨-a¨

maa-n.

six

month-

PAR

snow cover-

PRS

land-

TOT

‘ For six months, snow covers the land. ’

(17)

Vesi

ta¨ytta¨-a¨

ammee-n.

water fill-

PRS

tub-

TOT

‘ Water fills the tub. ’ [

=the tub is full of water]

In the above examples, (14) has a non-agentive perception verb, (15) has a
non-agentive mental verb, while (16) and (17) indicate a locative relationship
in a transitive construction. As pointed out by Leino (1991), the meaning of
examples like (16) and (17) involves a sense of continuous completeness : the
land is totally covered with snow and the tub is completely full of water.
Note, however, that the overall aspect of such examples is unbounded, and
therefore, according to the hierarchy of the Finnish object marking rules, the
partitive would be the expected case. Such examples also illustrate the fact
that many (non-agentive) perception and mental verbs and transitive verbs
of location can be used in the quasi-resultative pattern. In fact, it is some-
what misleading to talk about specific ‘ QR verbs ’, especially as far as group 3
is concerned, since many diﬀerent verbs may appear in this pattern. It is,
rather, the compatibility of the meaning of the verbs and the QR pattern that
is relevant here.

Diﬀerent explanations for the QR pattern have been proposed (see Huumo

2005 for a summary and discussion), ranging from historical explanations
to the semantic explanation suggested by Denison (1957) and elaborated by
Huumo (2005), according to which a conceptualization based on

FICTIVE

DYNAMICITY

(in the sense of Talmy 2000 : 99–175) motivates the total object

in such constructions. According to this latter explanation, the QR pattern
represents the conceptualization of a static situation as involving fictive
dynamicity – a fictive change that is brought to its end phase. Fictive dyn-
amicity is a concept introduced by Talmy (2000) in his extensive study on
cognitive semantics. He demonstrates how fictive dynamicity is a widespread
conceptualization strategy in language and how it can be argued to motivate
numerous usages of semantically dynamic lexical items (such as motion
verbs) and grammatical markers to express situations that are actually static
in the extralinguistic reality. The most celebrated examples of fictive motion
are expressions that indicate the static position of an elongated entity (such
as a road, a river, or a mountain range) by representing it with a motion verb
and locative elements indicating directionality, e.g. The highway goes from

T U O M A S H U U M O

102

Tartu to Tallinn (

yfrom Tallinn to Tartu); This mountain range extends all

the way from Mexico to Canada (

yfrom Canada to Mexico). It is clear that

the directionality indicated in such examples is purely subjective, since the
extralinguistic situation is static and involves no motion. This is also shown
by the fact that the extralinguistic situation remains the same even if the
directionality changes into its opposite, as shown by the two versions of the
above examples. If a similar change were to be made in an expression of
actual motion (The bus goes from Tartu to Tallinn

y from Tallinn to Tartu),

the referent situations would also have to be diﬀerent.

Talmy demonstrates that in addition to such canonical expressions

of fictive motion there are many other types of linguistic expressions that
make use of dynamic elements to indicate static situations via fictive dyn-
amicity (see Talmy 2000 for a more detailed analysis). To give a few examples,
dynamic verbs of appearance can be used to indicate the permanent presence
of an entity in a location (The palm trees cluster around the oasis ; This rock
formation appears near volcanoes), and many expressions indicating a cog-
nitive (perceptive) relationship between a human being and the surrounding
world represent such a relationship as involving directionality, even though
the actual situation involves no motion (e.g. I can see you from where I’m
standing ; From my bedroom window I can see all the way to the mountains ;
for directionality in Finnish expressions of perception see Huumo 2010,
and in Finnish expressions of other kinds of mental relationships, Huumo
2006).

What connects the Finnish QR pattern with the phenomenon of fictive

dynamicity is that though QR expressions are apparently static, they have
many features that seem to point to an underlying dynamic conceptualization.
For instance, many verbs available in the QR construction are aspectually
ambiguous : they may indicate either a state or an accomplishment/achieve-
ment. Both meanings can plausibly be regarded as basic lexical meanings of
the verbs, although an alternative is to treat one of these meanings as basic
and the other as a result of aspectual coercion (see Michaelis 2004 : 53–54
who examines English verbs such as remember and fill). However, since it is
less than clear which of the meanings should be considered the primary one
(and on what basis), I prefer to consider the static and dynamic meanings of
such verbs as being on a par, which makes the verbs aspectually polysemous ;
for example, the mental verbs ‘ see ’ or ‘ hear ’ can indicate either a continuous
or an inchoative perceptive relationship between the experiencer and the
stimulus (‘ to become aware of something by sensing it ’ vs. ‘ to continuously
perceive something by a sense ’). On the other hand, for transitive-locative
verbs such as ‘ cover ’ (16) or ‘ fill ’ (17) the primary reading is clearly the
dynamic change-of-state one. The static reading seen in (16) and (17) is thus
secondary and arises only in particular contexts, especially in sentences
where the subject refers to an inanimate, static entity. The explanation based
on fictive dynamicity thus assumes that these static uses are motivated by a

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

103

conceptualization involving a fictive change ; accordingly, the total object of
such examples reflects the aspectual nature of the

FICTIVE

accomplishment.

This analysis is supported by the fact that, in Finnish, canonical fictive

motion can also be expressed by transitive verbs such as ylitta¨a¨ ‘ cross ’, and
in this case the total object is also used, as shown in (18).

(18)

Tie

ylitta¨-a¨

autiomaa-n.

road cross-

PRS

desert-

TOT

‘ The road crosses the desert. ’

Example (18) is semantically transparent and supports the fictive dynamicity
analysis for the whole QR pattern. In (18), the fictive motion of crossing the
desert is construed as completed (i.e. the road covers the whole distance from
one side of the desert to the other), and this is what motivates the total
object – note that the overall unboundedness of the actual (static) referent
situation would be expected to trigger the partitive marking. If we compare
(18) with a similar example indicating true objective motion (19), we see that
in (19) the case opposition in the object marking works normally with the
same verb ylitta¨a¨ ‘ cross ’ : the partitive indicates progressive aspect and the
total object the completion of the event.

(19)

Bussi ylitt-i

autiomaa-ta

y autiomaa-n.

bus

cross-

PST

desert-

PAR

desert-

TOT

‘ The bus was crossing the desert. ’ [

PAR

]

y ‘The bus crossed the desert.’ [

TOT

]

A comparison with (19) suggests that the total object is used in (18) because
the fictive crossing of the desert by the road is conceptualized as similar to
the completed crossing of the desert by the bus in (19). The partitive object
would not be natural in (18), but if used, it would have to indicate a pro-
gressive meaning of actual, ongoing motion along the road (as in The road
was just crossing the desert when it started to rain). In the same way as in the
habitual type, the partitive is thus unable to indicate the unbounded nature
of the overall static situation.

As already noted, Finnish object markers clearly diﬀer in this respect from

aspect markers of certain other languages, where attention is focused on the
overall (unbounded) nature of situations like that in (18). For instance,
Spanish transitive verbs that indicate fictive motion in a manner similar to
(18) take the imperfective past tense form, which reflects the conceptualiza-
tion of the situation as unbounded ; consider (20).

(20)

Esta vı´a

cruza-ba

ciudad de

este a oeste.

this road cross-

IPFV

SG ART

city

from east to west

‘ This road crossed the city from East to West. ’

(Internet)

The imperfective form cruzaba ‘ crossed ’ in (20) reflects the unboundedness
of the situation and diﬀers dramatically from the Finnish object markers that

T U O M A S H U U M O

104

focus on the

INTERNAL

aspectual nature of the fictive motion – i.e. whether

the fictive motion along the desert is completed or not.

The following example demonstrates that the meaning opposition observed

in (19) is also present in locative QR examples. In (17) the verb ta¨ytta¨a¨ ‘ fill ’
was used to designate the static situation where the bath is full of water,
whereas in (21) it indicates actual change, where the bath is being filled with
water by someone. Again, the opposition between the object markers works
normally in (21) : the partitive indicates progressivity and the total object
conveys completeness of the event. The opposition between fictive dynamic-
ity and an actual change is thus displayed here in the same way as in (18)
vs. (19).

(21)

¨ iti

ta¨ytta¨-a¨

ammee-n

y ammet-ta.

mother fill-

PRS

tub-

TOT

tub-

PAR

‘ Mother fills (will fill) the tub. ’ [

TOT

]

y ‘Mother is filling the tub.’ [

PAR

]

If the explanation that the object marking in QR sentences is based on

fictive dynamicity is correct, then the motivation for the total object in QR
examples resembles that proposed above for habitual examples, except for
the fact that the accomplishment motivating the total object is iterated in
habitual examples but only fictive in the QR type. In the same way as in
habituals, this fictive accomplishment is then ‘ stretched ’ over time, only this
time the temporal dimension is not based on iteration. I will return to the QR
type in section 5, after treating certain other problematic uses of the object
markers in unbounded sentences. In sections 3.2 and 3.3 I will discuss
the hitherto unexplained uses where the total object is motivated by a con-
tinuously closed quantity or a continuously bounded aspect (continuous
completives).

3.2 Transient vs. overall quantification

The literature on Finnish object marking has mentioned certain apparently
habitual examples (including a total object) that under closer scrutiny turn
out to be problematic for the explanation provided above for habituals.
Consider (22), originally from Itkonen (1976) :

(22)

Ole-n

kauan

osta-nut maido-n ta¨-sta¨

kaupa-sta.

be-

PRS

already long.time buy-

PTCP

milk-

TOT

this-

ELA

store-

ELA

‘ For a long time already, I have been buying [my] milk at this store. ’

Itkonen argues that (22) indicates a replicate event and is thus similar to
habitual examples like (12) (reading the newspaper in the library) : the person
repeatedly buys milk at the store, and the example conceptualizes this
recurring activity as a habitual state. According to such an analysis, the
motivation for the total object would be similar in (22) and (12). However,

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

105

there is one important diﬀerence between these examples that has gone
unnoticed. As I have argued above, in the habitual type proper (12) the total
object is motivated by the inherent bounded nature of each component
situation. For instance, in (12) the whole newspaper is read each time, and it
is this boundedness of each component situation that motivates the total
object. In (22), too, each component situation involves one accomplishment
of ‘ buying milk ’. However, the important diﬀerence between (12) and (22) is
that ‘ milk ’ is a mass noun, and therefore the total object in (22) should in
principle indicate not only that the ‘ buying ’ has been performed each
time but also that the quantity of the milk involved in any act of buying is
closed – but this is not part of the meaning of the example. To see this,
consider examples (23) and (24), which refer to a single act of buying milk.
The most natural way of referring to such an event is to use the partitive
object, which indicates an open quantity (‘ I bought [some] milk ’ (23)). The
total object is also possible (24), but is understood as referring to a closed
quantity of milk, such as a bottle or a glass (in a cafe´), or another kind of a
closed quantity needed for a particular purpose (e.g. in baking).

(23)

Ost-i-n

maito-a.

buy-

PST

-1

milk-

PAR

‘ I bought [some] milk. ’

(24)

Ost-i-n

maido-n.

buy-

PST

-1

milk-

TOT

‘ I bought [a/the] milk. ’

The problem is that the habitual example (22) does not need to indicate
(though it can be interpreted as indicating) the replicate act of buying a
closed quantity of milk. What the total object means is that the person buys
milk only at this particular store (and refrains from buying it elsewhere). The
closedness of the quantity thus prevails throughout the continuous, un-
bounded situation : all the milk the person consumes is bought at the store,
but the quantity of milk bought on any given occasion does not need to be
closed. If the partitive object were used in (22), this meaning of a continuous
totality would disappear, and the example would merely indicate that the
person has been buying milk at the store for a long time, allowing the
possibility that s/he has been getting milk from other sources too. The op-
position between the case markers can thus be paraphrased as ‘ continuously
all ’ (total object) vs. ‘ continuously some ’ (partitive object).

In (22) ‘ buying milk ’ is a replicate accomplishment – the iteration of the

process of going to the grocery store and getting milk. Thus the existence of
individual component acts is strongly present in the meaning of the example.
However, the verb ostaa ‘ buy ’ also allows uses where it indicates a con-
tinuous, homogeneous situation lacking any such component acts. Interest-
ingly, the total object is used even in such instances, if the speaker wishes to
indicate the meaning of a continuously closed quantity. Consider (25).

T U O M A S H U U M O

106

(25)

Ole-n

kauan

osta-nut sa¨hko¨-n

ta¨-lta¨

be-

PRS

already long.time buy-

PTCP

electricity-

TOT

this-

ELA

yhtio¨-lta¨.
company-

ELA

‘ For a long time already, I have been buying [my] electricity from this
company. ’

In (25), ‘ buying electricity ’ is understood as an unbounded, homogeneous
situation where electricity is being purchased and consumed. No individual
accomplishments can be distinguished, and therefore the internal aspect
of such component situations cannot be the factor motivating the total ob-
ject – there simply are no component situations. The example conveys a
meaning similar to that of (22) : the person continuously buys all the elec-
tricity s/he consumes from this particular company, and no electricity from
other sources. Again, if the partitive object were used, the meaning of a
continuous totality would disappear, and the example would mean that the
person has been purchasing electricity from the company, but without any
implication as to whether s/he has been purchasing it from other sources
as well.

As additional examples of this type, consider (26) and (27).

(26)

Ta¨ma¨ putki johta-a

tehtaa-n

ja¨tevede-n

joke-en.

this

pipe

lead-

PRS

factory-

GEN

waste.water-

TOT

river-

ILL

‘ This pipe leads the waste water of the factory into the river. ’

(27)

Tuuletin puhalta-a

savu-n

ulos.

fan

blow-

PRS

smoke-

TOT

out

‘ The fan blows the smoke out. ’

Examples (26) and (27) are closely similar to (25) : the situation is unbounded
and the object is incremental. The object refers to a homogeneous substance
that passes through the situation and enters a new state as the result of
undergoing the process designated by the verb. Since the object is in-
cremental and the situation unbounded, the quantity indicated by the object
must also be open : new waste water (26) and new smoke (27) is entering the
situation continuously, and there is no end to the incremental quantity. The
use of the total object in such examples thus contradicts

BOTH

the aspectual

and the quantificational rules of Finnish object marking – the situation is
unbounded in time, and the (incremental) quantity of the object referent is
open. What motivates the total object is again the continuously closed nature
of the quantity : the quantity of the substance involved in the event at any
point in time is closed, and there is thus no water or smoke that would escape
the process.

These examples show that the quantity indicated by an object NP needs to

be considered from two diﬀerent points of view : as

TRANSIENT QUANTITY

(the

quantity of the referent participating in the event at any given point in time)

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

107

and

OVERALL QUANTITY

(the overall quantity of the referent, distributed

over time). The total object in examples like (25)–(27) indicates a closed
transient quantity and ignores the nature of the overall quantity. More
precisely, the use of the total object excludes the possibility that, at any
given point of time, there would be a quantity of the referent escaping the
event. Thus (25) excludes the possibility of buying electricity from other
sources, (24) excludes the possibility of there being some quantity of waste
water (produced by the factory) that would not go through the pipe, and (27)
excludes the possibility that some quantity of the smoke would not be
blown out by the fan. Such a motivation in fact resembles that proposed
above for habitual and quasi-resultative examples : again, it is not the as-
pectual–quantificational nature of the overall situation but the nature of any
conceivable component situation (in this case, a ‘ slice ’ or ‘ cross-section ’ of
the homogeneous situation at any given point in time) that motivates the
object marking. The case marking of the object in the continuity type can be
characterized as reflecting aspect as

ORTHOGONAL TO THE TIME AXIS

(at any

given point of time during the event) and not as parallel to it (reaching
completion only at the endpoint of the event), as is the case in classical
aspect.

I will call this type of opposition between the case markers the

CONTINUITY TYPE

, a term reflecting its overall unbounded aspectual nature.

A comparison with the canonical use of the object markers discussed in
section 2 reveals a number of significant diﬀerences. As far as quantity is
concerned, it is easy to see that the continuity type diﬀers from the can-
onical type, where quantity is conceptualized in the overall sense only : if the
overall quantity is incremental but closed, it gradually cumulates during the
event and finally reaches completeness when the whole referent has partici-
pated.

Since the function of the total object is so diﬀerent in the canonical and the

continuity types, it is usually possible to keep them apart in the interpret-
ation of particular examples. On the other hand, the functions of the par-
titive object overlap : the situations it indicates are unbounded in both types,
and therefore the examples are often ambiguous. Since the partitive also
has its aspectual readings (progressive, cessative, irresultative), it is often
impossible to tell whether the (projected) overall quantity of the object NP
would be open or closed. This in turn may give rise to multiple ambiguities in
examples with the partitive. Consider (28), which is an extreme case, since
here the verb puhdistaa ‘ clean ’ is a degree predicate and thus with the par-
titive object it can also get the irresultative reading ‘ to make X (somewhat)
cleaner ’, as opposed to its resultative sense ‘ to make X (completely) clean ’.
This irresultative situation may then be extended in time, if continuously fed
by new substance, which results in a reading where all the exhaust gas (of a
car) is being continuously cleaned by the catalytic converter in the irre-
sultative sense (i.e. not completely).

T U O M A S H U U M O

108

(28)

Katalysaattori

puhdist-i

pakokaasu-a.

catalytic.converter clean-

PST

exhaust.gas-

PAR

(a) ‘ The catalytic converter was cleaning exhaust gas. ’

[Activity, progressive]

(b) ‘ The catalytic converter was cleaning the exhaust gas. ’

[Accomplishment, progressive]

[Accomplishment, perfective, open quantity]

(d) ‘ The catalytic converter cleaned the exhaust gas [somewhat]. ’

[Degree predicate, perfective if overall quantity closed]

(e) ‘ The catalytic converter cleaned the exhaust gas [somewhat]. ’

[Degree predicate, imperfective if overall quantity open]

As the translations show, example (28) can have a number of readings

depending on the conceived quantity of the exhaust gas and the aspectual
nature of the situation. Consider first the progressive readings of (28)
(readings (a) and (b)). Here the partitive indicates an ongoing event where
the catalytic converter is cleaning exhaust gas, but the (projected) overall
quantity of the gas can be either open (a) or closed (b). As usual, the pro-
gressive partitive conceals the overall quantity of the referent by focusing on
a point-like cross-section of the event only. As translation (c) shows, the
partitive can also indicate an open quantity of the object referent in an event
that has been completed, i.e. that the quantity of the gas that underwent
the cleaning was open. But there are even more possible readings of (28).
Reading (d) exemplifies yet another aspectual function of the partitive,
i.e. that of indicating

IRRESULTATIVITY

of the event. Here, even though the

event has been brought to its endpoint, and even though the quantity of
the exhaust gas may be closed, it does not bring about an end result sub-
stantial enough to motivate the total object. With reading (d), (28) indicates
that the (closed quantity of) gas is not cleaned completely (i.e. ‘ made clean ’
in an absolute sense) but only incompletely (‘ made [somewhat] cleaner ’ in a
scalar sense). Huumo (forthcoming) demonstrates how in examples like
(28) the partitive can only indicate irresultativity if its progressive and
quantificational readings are already excluded. This means that the function
of indicating irresultativity, though aspectual by nature, is hierarchi-
cally lower than the quantificational function – which is of course a
contradiction and a challenge to the hierarchy of functions (

NEGATION

ASPECT

QUANTITY

) of the partitive. Finally, the partitive object in (28) can be

understood as representing the continuity opposition (reading (e)). In this
case it focuses on the continuous incompleteness of the situation (as opposed
to the continuous completeness indicated by the total object in examples like
(25)–(27)). In this reading the transient quantity is closed but the cleaning
itself is irresultative (though in a continuous sense) : at any point in time, the
catalytic converter makes the exhaust gas (being processed right then) only

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

109

somewhat cleaner in the irresultative sense, but not completely clean in the
resultative sense. This last opposition type will be discussed in more detail
below.

3.3 Continuous completives

In the previous sections we have seen that both pure aspect and pure quantity,
but also the combination of the two, play a role in the case marking of the
Finnish object. Now we may ask whether the two separate quantification
types (transient

yoverall quantity) discussed in section 3.2 have an aspectual

counterpart – i.e. whether there are situations that continue unbounded in
time but are nevertheless conceived as bounded (resultative) in a continuous
sense. One instance already discussed is the habitual type in section 3.1,
where it was argued that the conceived boundedness of the component
situations was the reason for using the total object. We now need to consider
whether there are homogeneous situations that are conceived as continu-
ously bounded, in the same sense as example (25) with the electricity, but
without an incremental participant whose transient quantity would motivate
the total object. A situation like this is conceptualized as a

CONTINUOUS

COMPLETIVE

, where a force-dynamic interaction keeps the resultative situ-

ation stable. It is also a necessary precondition for the use of the total object
that without such a force-dynamic interaction the situation would cease.
Consider examples (29) and (30).

(29)

Harja puhdista-a

liukuhihna-n

ennen kuin

brush clean-

PRS

conveyor.belt-

TOT

before than

se kulkeutu-u sisa¨a¨n koneisto-on.
it go-

PRS

into

machine-

ILL

‘ The brush cleans the conveyor belt before it enters the machine. ’

(30)

Ilma-n paine

tyo¨nta¨-a¨

lentokonee-n ove-n

air-

GEN

pressure push-

PRS

airplane-

GEN

door-

TOT

tiuka-sti kiinni.
tight-ly

shut

‘ The air pressure pushes the door of the airplane tightly shut. ’

In (29) the brush continuously keeps the conveyor belt (completely) clean
while the belt is (presumably) moving in an endless cycle. The total object
thus does not indicate the reaching of an end result of an event that gradually
proceeds towards its endpoint ; rather, example (29) says that the brush
continuously keeps the belt in the state of total cleanliness. Similarly in (30)
the air pressure continuously keeps the door shut, overriding any possible
eﬀects of counterforces in this force-dynamic interaction. The nature of the
transient aspect in these examples can best be seen if we consider the situ-
ation type indicated by these verbs : they are accomplishments (‘ clean X ’,

T U O M A S H U U M O

110

‘ push X shut ’), sometimes alternatively interpretable as degree predicates
(e.g. ‘ make X cleaner ’ in a scalar sense). However, in the continuous
situation indicated by (30), it is the endpoints of these accomplishments that
get ‘ stretched ’ in time : the examples indicate a force-dynamic interaction
where the actor continuously keeps the undergoer in a state that would
normally be a resultative state following an accomplishment. This is the most
crucial diﬀerence between the present examples and habituals : a habitual
reading of an accomplishment means that the whole accomplishment is re-
peated at regular intervals, whereas the current examples indicate that the
accomplishment is being continued over time to keep up the resultant state,
which the undergoer would otherwise leave (i.e. the conveyor belt would not
stay clean or the door would not stay shut, were it not for the forces that
continuously keep up this state).

In addition to accomplishments, certain achievements can also be under-

stood in this continuous completive sense. For instance, the verbs huomata
‘ notice ’ and lo¨yta¨a¨ ‘ find ’ allow such readings under appropriate circum-
stances :

(31)

Ole-n

kauan

huoman-nut kaljuuntumise-si.

be-

PRS

already long.time notice-

PTCP

going.bald-

TOT

SGPX

‘ For a long time already, I have been noticing your baldness. ’

(32)

Pitka¨a¨n

Liisa lo¨ys-i

ela¨ma¨-n-sa¨

sisa¨llo¨-n

uskonno-sta.

long.time Liisa find-

PST

life-

GEN

-2

SGPX

content-

TOT

religion-

ELA

‘ For a long time Liisa found the content of her life in religion. ’

Even though ‘ notice ’ and ‘ find ’ are normally punctual achievements, these
examples stretch them over time by evoking an interpretation where a person
keeps continuously noticing or finding something. This is in part caused by
the nature of the object NP in these examples : it does not refer to a concrete
object but to a process (going bald) or an abstract matter (content) that is
being continuously discovered. The continuity reading is forced upon these
examples by the durative elements kauan and pitka¨a¨n (both meaning ‘ for a
long time ’).

However, not all continuous completives require such an underlying

accomplishment or achievement. Recall that in examples indicating a tran-
sient quantity (discussed in 3.2) the partitive object could sometimes be
understood in the meaning ‘ continuously some ’, as opposed to the meaning
‘ continuously all ’ indicated by the total object. It was argued that this op-
position focused on the transient quantity, not the overall quantity (which
was open in both cases). Corresponding aspectual oppositions can be found
in our current examples. In its opposition to the total object indicating a
continuous accomplishment, the partitive can mean that the (unbounded)
situation is incomplete in a continuous sense, i.e. that the exerted force-
dynamic interaction fails to keep up a continuous resultative state. The
opposition is neatly illustrated by (33) vs. (34).

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

111

(33)

Hammastahna esta¨-a¨

reikiintymise-n.

toothpaste

prevent-

PRS

cavity.formation-

TOT

‘ The toothpaste [completely] prevents cavity formation. ’

(34)

Hammastahna esta¨-a¨

reikiintymis-ta¨.

toothpaste

prevent-

PRS

cavity.formation-

PAR

‘ The toothpaste prevents [

=works against] cavity formation.’

Aspectually, both examples indicate a situation that extends unbounded
in time. The opposition between the object markers thus does not reflect
aspectual boundedness vs. unboundedness (or resultativity vs. irresultativity,
which is a diﬀerent factor) in the classical sense. Rather, it indicates the
diﬀerence

between

CONTINUOUS

RESULTATIVITY

(33)

and

CONTINUOUS

IRRESULTATIVITY

(34) of the situation. In (33) (as in (29) and (30)) the total

object indicates a continuous accomplishment : the toothpaste completely
and successfully prevents cavity formation at any point in time. The partitive
in (34) means that the toothpaste works against cavity formation, but it does
not guarantee the end result : cavities may occur.

As is usual with the Finnish object markers, even in the continuous op-

position types there are ambiguous instances where the quantificational and
aspectual functions of the case opposition overlap. In such instances the
partitive can be understood as indicating either an open transient quantity or
a continuously prevailing incompleteness of the situation. As our earlier ex-
ample (28) showed, the case marking of the object can reflect either the re-
sultativity opposition (the partitive indicating the conceptualization of the
end phase as irresultative, i.e. ‘ The catalytic converter made the exhaust gas
somewhat cleaner ’) or the completeness opposition (the partitive indicating
progressivity, i.e. ‘ The catalytic converter was cleaning [the] exhaust gas ’).
From this point of view, consider (35), which has a plural object and thus
brings up quantificational factors as well.

(35)

Lyhens-i-n

y hame-i-ta.

shorten-

PST

-1

skirt-

PAR

‘ I shortened [the] skirts. ’

y‘I was shortening [the] skirts.’

The first possible reading for the partitive in (35) is the progressive one, in
which case the projected overall quantity of the skirts as well as the nature
of the end result of the shortening (resultative or irresultative) are concealed :
‘ I was shortening [the] skirts. ’ If the progressive reading is excluded and the
situation is thus understood as terminated, quantity takes over and the par-
titive indicates open quantity : ‘ I shortened [some] skirts. ’ However, as in
(28) above, the quantificational function of the partitive will then conceal the
nature of the event with respect to resultativity : the example does not tell
whether the skirts were shortened in a resultative or in an irresultative sense.
It is only if we interpret the situation as terminated and the quantity of the
object NP as closed that the partitive is available to indicate its hierarchically

T U O M A S H U U M O

112

lowest function, irresultativity : ‘ I shortened the skirts (

=made them some-

what shorter). ’ Finally, there is the possibility of interpreting (35) as an
instance of the continuity type, in which case it acquires the reading where
each skirt in an endless continuum (e.g. on a production line in a clothing
factory) is shortened in the irresultative sense.

Now consider the interpretation of the total object in the otherwise similar

example (36).

(36)

Lyhens-i-n

hamee-t.

shorten-

PST

-1

skirt-

TOT

‘ I shortened [the] skirts. ’

Example (36) can indicate the resultativity of the shortening of a closed
quantity of skirts, i.e. that all skirts of a closed quantity were made ‘ short ’ in
the absolute sense. On the other hand, (36) can also have the continuity
reading where each skirt in an endless continuum (e.g. in a factory pro-
duction line) is made ‘ short ’ in the resultative sense. As (37) below shows, it
is only with this last-mentioned reading that the example allows a direct
durative modifier in spite of its total object.

(37)

Kuukaude-n aja-n

iltavuoro

lyhens-i

liian

month-

GEN

time-

TOT

night.shift shorten-

PST

too

pitka¨-t

hamee-t.

long-

TOT

skirt-

TOT

‘ For a month’s time the night shift shortened the skirts that were too
long. ’ [e.g. in a situation where the morning shift was making too long
skirts]

Example (37) indicates that, continuously, all skirts produced by the morn-
ing shift were shortened by the night shift, and that the shortening was re-
sultative, which is the reason for using the total object.

3.4 Interim summary

As assumed in earlier studies of Finnish object marking, the partitive object
is indeed the most common way of referring to unbounded situations. It is
only if the speaker’s or hearer’s attention is on some transient quantifica-
tional or aspectual feature of the event that the opposition between the
partitive and the total object starts to play a role in unbounded sentences.
When this is the case, the overall unbounded nature of the event is back-
grounded and the focus of the case opposition is put on the transient nature
of the situation at any individual point in time. In such cases the total object
can have the function of indicating closedness of the transient quantity (the
meaning ‘ continuously all ’), or continuous boundedness of transient aspect
(continuous accomplishments), or a combination of the two. From the
viewpoint of transient aspect, the partitive may indicate either an open

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

113

transient quantity (‘ For a long time, I have been buying electricity from
this company ’ in (25)) or the continuously prevailing irresultativity of the
situation (‘ The toothpaste prevents [

=works against] cavity formation’ in

(34)). Obviously, the partitive in unbounded examples can also be simply
understood as reflecting straightforwardly the overall unboundedness of the
situation, in which case the transient aspectual or quantificational viewpoints
are not taken into consideration. It is only in its opposition with the total
object in unbounded examples that the transient aspectual features of the
partitive are brought into the foreground.

What is common to the habitual, the quasi-resultative and the continuity

type is that they can all be argued to indicate an

EXTENDED

viewpoint aspect,

i.e. an aspect where the intrinsically completive situation type indicated by
the verb (an achievement or an accomplishment) is conceptualized as being
extended over time. This is clearest in the habitual examples, where we can
actually distinguish between the individual component situations and the
overall state : the examples considered in section 3.1 show how the verb and
the case marking of the object reflect the nature of the component situations,
while the habitual meaning is indicated by other clausal elements. Similarly,
the fictive change underlying the QR type, if we look at the basic situation
type of the verb, is most often an achievement or an accomplishment, most
clearly so in locative QR expressions where accomplishment verbs such as
‘ cross ’, ‘ cover ’ or ‘ fill ’ can be used (mental expressions are a less straight-
forward case, since their verbs are ambiguous between an achievement and a
state : ‘ see ’, ‘ know ’, etc.). Also the verbs in the continuity type are com-
pletive verbs ; the examples discussed in this section involve verbs indicating
meanings ‘ buy ’, ‘ lead (X to Y) ’, ‘ blow (X out) ’, ‘ clean ’, ‘ push ’, ‘ prevent ’
and ‘ shorten ’. The continuity type thus ‘ stretches ’ such a completive situ-
ation in time. The crucial factor distinguishing the continuity type from ha-
bitual expressions is that in the continuity type the situation continues
seamlessly over time and thus no individual completive component sub-
situations can be distinguished. Considering the situation type of the verb,
however, it seems natural to consider such examples as also involving an
extended viewpoint : any cross-section of the continuous situation would
count as a bounded event.

Finally, it should be pointed out that although I have distinguished con-

tinuous completives from generic and habitual expressions in the above dis-
cussion, this does not mean that these expression types carry no generic
meaning at all. In fact, they resemble generic expressions in many crucial
ways, as is also reflected by the use of the simple present form in many of the
English translations above. In their analysis of generic expressions, Krifka
et al. (1995 : 9) discuss examples like Mary handled the mail from Antarctica ;
this example resembles Finnish continuous completives with the interpret-
ation ‘ continuously all mail (if any) coming from Antarctica was handled by
Mary ’. Krifka et al. argue that such examples are generic, and point out that

T U O M A S H U U M O

114

they can be used to describe the responsibilities of Mary even if there never
was any real mail from Antarctica at all. Krifka et al. also argue that many
generic examples involve a

CHARACTERIZING

meaning, which consists of an

ESSENTIAL PROPERTY

of some entity mentioned in the sentence (normally the

subject) ; such generic examples are thus static. The authors point out that
linguistic forms which exclude static predicates (such as the English pro-
gressive) are often incompatible with characterizing predicates (their ex-
ample is *John is weighing 175 pounds).

Against this background it is noteworthy that Leino (1991) analyzes the

total object of the Finnish quasi-resultative type as an indicator of a static
meaning and contrasts it with the partitive, which he considers dynamic. The
‘ totality ’ indicated by the total object is indeed quite well compatible with
stativity, and many of the examples discussed above (in section 3.1) can be
argued to indicate an essential property of the referent of their subject.
However, it must be pointed out that the static vs. dynamic opposition is not
suﬃcient to explain all the relevant case oppositions, since the partitive can
also be used in many static expressions. For instance, if the fictive change
indicated by a quasi-resultative example were conceived as incomplete in
some sense or another (as in (34)), then the partitive object might be used –
and the sentence would probably escape the attention of scholars since
the overall unboundedness of the situation makes the partitive the expected
choice anyway.

As argued, many continuous completives can certainly be analyzed as

semantically generic. The crucial point here, however, is that genericity or
habituality as such does not in itself trigger the total object in Finnish. For
instance, the Finnish counterpart of the habitual example Mary smokes
cigarettes (Krifka et al. 1995 : 39) would take the partitive object. The use of
the total object here would make the overall aspect of the situation bounded
(‘ Mary smokes [

=is going to smoke]

THE

cigarettes ’), or potentially a con-

tinuous completive (‘ Mary smokes continuously all cigarettes [that I buy] ’).
As argued above, in generic or habitual examples it is the nature of each
conceivable component situation that determines the case marking. In
expressions of continuous completives the total object can only be explained
if transient aspect and quantity (i.e. aspect and quantity as orthogonal
to the time axis) are taken into account. One must thus look beyond the

[4] An example is Puu-n oksa-t koskett-i-vat talo-a-mme [tree-

GEN

branch-

NOM

touch-

PST

-3

house-1

PLPX

PAR

] ‘ The tree’s branches were touching our house ’. Here the verb ‘ touch ’

itself is semelfactive, but the situation can be interpreted as stative and extending over time
in the same way as QR expressions, assuming that the contact between the branches and the
house is continuous and not punctual (e.g. not caused temporarily by the wind). It could be
argued that the partitive object in this example reflects the semelfactive (irresultative) nat-
ure of the verb’s situation type, rather than the overall unbounded aspect of the situation ;
but because both of these factors would make the partitive the expected choice, examples
like this were not considered problematic for the general object marking rules.

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

115

overall generic meaning of such examples to explain the object marking in
Finnish.

4. E

F F

E C T S O F A N I N C R E M E N T A L S U B J E C T

In the previous sections I have discussed in detail the Finnish object marking
from the viewpoints of aspectual boundedness of the situation and the
quantity of the object referent. However, other NPs of the sentence may
also contribute to such interpretations. In this section I will take a closer
look at the eﬀect of the subject on object marking. Like the object, the sub-
ject can be incremental (e.g. Water was dripping from the tank), and this
may result in unbounded aspect (see also Verkuyl 1972). In Finnish tran-
sitive sentences, the subject must take the nominative case, and therefore
features such as open quantity or unbounded aspect cannot be marked
on subjects (e.g. by using the partitive). The situation is diﬀerent, how-
ever, with intransitive/existential subjects, which do allow the use of the
partitive to indicate open quantity and incremental nominal aspect (though
not pure aspect ; for details, see Huumo 2003 and the references mentioned
there).

Since the focus of this paper is on object marking, I will only discuss

intransitive or existential subjects briefly. It suﬃces to say that these subjects
have similar quantificational options as object NPs : they can indicate open
or closed quantities, and both kinds can participate in the event in-
crementally or non-incrementally. Consider the intransitive example (38)
with an achievement verb and a nominative subject that indicates a closed
quantity. This causes a bounded reading for the sentence, irrespective of
whether the guests arrive all at once (collective reading) or one by one (dis-
tributive reading). Because the overall quantity of the guests is closed, the
situation reaches its endpoint when all the guests have arrived. In contrast,
example (39) has an existential partitive subject, which indicates an open
quantity (and does not trigger number agreement in the verb which is in the
singular), and therefore the distributive reading results in unboundedness of
the overall situation (‘ guests kept arriving ’).

(38)

Vieraa-t

saapu-i-vat.

guest-

NOM

arrive-

PST

-3

‘ The guests arrived. ’

(39)

Viera-i-ta

saapu-i.

guest-

PAR

arrive-

PST

‘ [Some] guests arrived./Guests kept arriving. ’

In the same way as the total object in some of our earlier examples (e.g. (25)),
the nominative subject can also indicate a closed transient quantity (‘ con-
tinuously all ’), as in (40).

T U O M A S H U U M O

116

(40)

Iltapa¨iva¨-n

aja-n

museovieraa-t

tul-i-vat

afternoon-

GEN

time-

TOT

museum.visitor-

NOM

come-

PST

-3

sisa¨-a¨n sivuove-sta.
in-

ILL

side.door-

ELA

‘ During the afternoon, the museum visitors came in through the side
door. ’

The example refers to a situation where continuously all visitors had to use
the side door to enter the museum. In this respect it is similar to transitive
examples like (25) above, where the total object indicates a closed transient
quantity (though in (40) the closed transient quantity is not foregrounded by
the case marking since the transitive subject is in the nominative anyway).
Also its opposition with the partitive subject is similar to that in object
marking. In the same way as the partitive object (if used in (25)), the use of a
partitive subject in (40) would indicate an open transient quantity (‘ for the
whole afternoon there arrived guests through the side door ’). In that case the
focus would be local and restricted to the side door only (see Huumo 2003),
and the sentence would not exclude the possibility that other guests arrived
through other doors.

Now consider transitive examples that indicate a situation where the re-

ferent of the subject participates incrementally. In the following examples
the subject refers to an elongated entity (‘ freight train ’) that gradually passes
the referent of the object (‘ semaphore ’). In (41) the total object indicates that
the situation is completed, whereas in (42) the partitive indicates pro-
gressivity.

(41)

Tavarajuna sivuutt-i

opastime-n.

freight.train pass-

PST

semaphore-

TOT

‘ The freight train passed the semaphore. ’

(42)

Tavarajuna sivuutt-i

opastin-ta.

freight.train pass-

PST

semaphore-

PAR

‘ The freight train was passing the semaphore. ’

The referent of the subject in (41) and (42) is a bounded entity and thus its
quantity is closed. Its incremental participation determines the duration of
the event, and the progressive (42) indicates that the whole train has not yet
passed the semaphore. As usual, the progressivity of the situation is marked
on the object by using the partitive case. This may seem somewhat para-
doxical, given the fact that in (42) it is the referent of the

SUBJECT

whose

incremental participation gives rise to the incompletedness of the situation.
However, the grammatical system of Finnish does not allow the marking of
progressivity on the subject NP.

Now consider what happens if the subject is incremental and refers to an

OPEN

quantity, each of whose (conceivable) components completes the as-

pectually bounded event designated by the verb. With a distributive reading,

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

117

such incremental plural subjects give rise to an iterative interpretation, and in
spite of the overall unboundedness, the total object can be used to indicate
the boundedness of the individual component situations (43).

(43)

Juna-t

ohitta-vat

nykya¨a¨n

asema-n

pysa¨hty-ma¨-tta¨.

train-

NOM

pass-

PRS

nowadays station-

TOT

stop-

INF

ABE

‘ Nowadays trains pass the station without stopping. ’

In (43) the total object indicates that each train accomplishes the event of
passing the station. Example (43) resembles the generic and habitual ex-
amples discussed in section 3.1. In fact, (43) is understood as generic ; the only
diﬀerence from those earlier examples is that now it is the referent of the
subject that changes in each component situation, whereas in our earlier
examples it was the referent of the object. Example (43) shows, once again,
how Finnish object marking pays attention to the internal aspectual nature
of the individual component events, not to the overall unbounded nature of
the holistic situation (which is unbounded). If we again compare Finnish
with Spanish, we see that Spanish uses an imperfective verb form in similar
examples, e.g. los trenes pasaban la estacio´n sin parada ‘ the trains
passed[

IMPERFECTIVE

] the station without stopping. ’ Thus, in contrast with

Finnish, the Spanish system of aspectuality conceptualizes such situations at
the holistic level, where they are unbounded. Finally, the unboundedness of
example (43) is also shown by the fact that in spite of the total object it is
possible to add a direct durative modifier that indicates the duration of the
overall situation (44).

(44)

vuode-n aja-n

juna-t

o-vat

already year-

GEN

time-

TOT

train-

NOM

be-

PRS

ohitta-neet asema-n

pysa¨hty-ma¨-tta¨.

pass-

PTCP

station-

TOT

stop-

INF

ABE

‘ For a year already, the trains have passed the station without
stopping. ’

More problematic are cases where the incremental subject NP is headed by

a singular mass noun and refers to a homogeneous substance where no in-
dividual referents can be distinguished. From this it follows that the situation
cannot include iterative components : there are no distinguishable com-
ponent referents to perform such component events. Recall again our earlier
examples (25)–(27) (the ‘ buying electricity ’ type), where the object NP re-
ferred to a substance whose transient quantity was closed but whose overall
quantity was open. We saw that in such instances Finnish uses the total
object to indicate the closedness of the transient quantity, in spite of the fact
that no individual accomplishments can be distinguished. Remarkably, we
find the total object also in examples where the

SUBJECT

refers to such an open

overall quantity which ‘ streams ’ through the situation and keeps the event
completed in a continuous and seamless sense. Consider (45) and (46).

T U O M A S H U U M O

118

(45)

Vena¨ja¨-lta¨ tule-va

sa¨hko¨

ylitta¨-a¨

Russia-

ABL

come-

PTCP

electricity cross-

PRS

raja-n

Imatra-lla.

border-

TOT

Imatra-

ADE

‘ The electricity coming from Russia crosses the border at Imatra. ’

(46)

Nykya¨a¨n vesi

alitta-a

keskusta-n

nowadays water pass.under-

PRS

city.centre-

TOT

tunneli-n

kautta.

tunnel-

GEN

through

‘ Nowadays the water passes under the city centre through a tunnel. ’

In (45) and (46) we have a subject that refers to a substance (electricity,
water) that participates in the event incrementally : the event is being ‘ fed ’ by
new substance all the time. The overall quantity of the substance is thus
open, and this results in unbounded aspect – there is no end point to the
event. In (45), for instance, new electricity keeps coming across the border all
the time. Unlike (44), however, (45) and (46) do not designate iterative events
that consist of distinguishable component situations. The events they desig-
nate continue seamlessly and homogeneously in time, but the total object is
used nevertheless. If the partitive object were to be used, it would indicate a
progressive meaning, which would make these examples awkward, since it
would require the subject NP to indicate a closed overall quantity. In (45)
this would result in a reading like ‘ The [particular] electricity coming from
Russia is crossing the border at Imatra ’ ; cf. example (42) with the freight
train. Remarkably, thus, the partitive object would require the overall situ-
ation to be bounded and then select a progressive viewpoint on it, whereas
the total object allows the unbounded conceptualization of the overall situ-
ation.

In the following examples (47)–(48), on the other hand, the subject (‘ traf-

ﬁ

c ’) allows the iterative conceptualization of the situation from the view-

point of individual participants in the traﬃc, i.e. cars driving past the
accident site. Therefore, in spite of being formally a mass noun (‘ traﬃc ’), the
subject in these examples can be coerced into an interpretation where it refers
to a replicate mass (a series of countable objects). The consequences of such a
shift in conceptualization are demonstrated by the object case marking in
(47) and (48) ; the diﬀerence in interpretation of the durative modifier is
particularly relevant.

(47)

Liikenne kiers-i

onnettomuus-paika-n

traﬃc

bypass-

PST

accident-site-

TOT

kiertotie-ta¨ pitkin yli

puoli tunti-a.

detour-

PAR

along over half

hour-

PAR

‘ The traﬃc bypassed the accident site via a detour for more than half
an hour. ’ [the traﬃc arrangement existed for half an hour]

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

119

(48)

Liikenne kiers-i

onnettomuus-paikka-a

traﬃc

bypass-

PST

accident-site-

PAR

kiertotie-ta¨ pitkin yli

puoli tunti-a.

detour-

PAR

along over half

hour-

PAR

‘ The traﬃc bypassed the accident site via a detour for more than half
an hour. ’ [it took the cars half an hour to bypass the site]

In (47), which has the total object, ‘ half an hour ’ indicates the overall dur-
ation of the situation during which the detour was in eﬀect. In contrast, in
(48) ‘ half an hour ’ is the time it takes any individual car driving in the traﬃc
to pass the accident site by the detour. This shows clearly that the partitive in
(48) does not indicate the unbounded aspect of the overall situation but
instead takes on a specific progressive reading that is internal to the con-
ceivable component situations. This is also why the durative modifiers in the
two examples set a temporal boundary to the event at diﬀerent levels.
Because the component situations are conceptualized as progressive in (48),
they allow the durative modifier to indicate their temporal extension. In
contrast, the total object in (47) makes the component situations themselves
bounded, and therefore the durative element must relate to the overall situ-
ation by indicating its duration.

Given that the durative modifier has such diﬀerent functions in the two

examples, it is even possible to create an (admittedly marginal) example
containing two diﬀerent durative modifiers, one indicating the duration of
the overall situation and the other the duration of any individual component
situation. Consider (49), which means that there was a traﬃc arrangement in
eﬀect for the whole morning such that it took each car half an hour to pass
the accident site.

(49)

Koko aamu-n

liikenne kiers-i

onnettomuus-paikka-a

whole morning-

TOT

traﬃc

bypass-

PST

accident-site-

PAR

kiertotie-ta¨ pitkin yli

puoli tunti-a.

detour-

PAR

along over half

hour-

PAR

‘ For the whole morning, the traﬃc bypassed the accident site via a
detour [that took] half an hour [to drive]. ’

To sum up our observations concerning transitive examples that combine

telic verbs and incremental subjects, we have seen that the partitive object
can only be used to indicate progressivity of a telic event but not to indicate
the general unboundedness of the overall situation that results from an open
overall quantity of the subject NP. For the event to be telic, the incremental
subject must be understood as indicating a closed quantity that participates
in the event incrementally : the event reaches its endpoint when the whole
referent of the subject has participated (as in example (41) with the freight
train). Another possible interpretation is the one where the progressivity

T U O M A S H U U M O

120

concerns the actions of individual components of the subject referent, such as
the cars moving in the traﬃc in (48), where the focus is on the individual cars
that make up the stream of traﬃc.

What the examples discussed in this section show, then, is that Finnish

aspectual object marking not only reflects aspectual and quantificational
features of the expression from the viewpoint of the object NP itself,
but sometimes it reflects the aspectual eﬀects of the subject NP as well.
Against this background, it may be easier to see why the total object is
used in examples like (47). At first sight the total object appears paradoxical
here, since the event is clearly unbounded at the holistic level. However,
considering the opposition between (47) and (48) we see that the opposition
between the partitive and the total object reflects the

INTERNAL

aspectual

nature (progressive vs. completed) of the component events that con-
stitute the unbounded holistic situation. The focus of attention in
example (48) is on the (conceivable) individual components of the subject
referent, each of which accomplishes one instantiation of the situation (in
its turn). This can be so even in cases where no discrete components can
be distinguished, i.e. where the referent of the subject is a homogeneous
substance such as electricity or water (examples (45) and (46)). Such ex-
amples in fact resemble the continuity type discussed in 3.2, only now the
homogeneous substance participating in the event is referred to by the sub-
ject NP and not by the object NP. The object marking of examples like (45)
and (46) can be explained by assuming that it reflects the aspectual nature of
a cross-section of the homogeneous event – e.g. in (46) the overall aspectual
situation is unbounded since the situation is continuously ‘ fed ’ with
new water, but at the same time it is bounded from the point of view of
any conceivable subquantity of the water that passes under the city via the
tunnel.

5. A

D I F F E R E N T P E R S P E C T I V E O N Q U A S I

R E S U L T A T I V E E X A M P L E S

We can now return to the riddle of the total object in quasi-resultative (QR)
examples, discussed in section 3.1. Recall that the paradox was that the
total object, which canonically indicates aspectual boundedness, is used
in sentences that refer to completely static situations. The explanation
I oﬀered in 3.1 was that such cases involve a meaning component of fictive
dynamicity (a fictive accomplishment) that motivates the object marking.
But considered objectively, QR examples would appear to fulfil all the main
criteria for the partitive object : they indicate a static situation that does not
develop towards a culmination, is unbounded, and represents a minimal
degree of transitivity.

The discussion in sections 3 and 4, however, suggests that QR sentences

can in fact be seen as an extreme instance of the continuous accomplishment
type discussed in 3.3, where the referent of the subject continuously exerts a

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

121

force-dynamic eﬀect on the referent of the object and keeps it in a state that it
would otherwise leave. As we have also seen, both the subject and the object
can be incremental in such examples, i.e. they can change their reference over
time so that new entities (or new substance) enter the situation continuously,
so as to complete and re-complete the event over and over. For instance, in
the examples with an incremental subject, each (conceivable) component of
the subject referent accomplishes the event in turn, making the object re-
ferent enter a condition or a state or just maintaining it there. Depending
on the nature of the subject referent, such a situation can be iterative, as
in The visitors push the door open when they enter the museum, or continuous,
as in The water pushes the hatch open when it streams out of the container,
or something between the two, as in Dark clouds conceal the moon from
sight. The Finnish equivalents of these examples all take the total object
(assuming that the event is resultative, i.e. the door and the hatch are kept
fully open, and the moon is kept completely hidden behind the clouds) ;
consider (50).

(50)

Pilve-t

peitt-i-va¨t

kuu-n.

cloud-

NOM

conceal-

PST

-3

moon-

TOT

‘ Clouds concealed the moon. ’

Example (50) allows three interpretations that constitute a continuum from
iterative to quasi-resultative. We can conceptualize the clouds, first of all, as
a group of individuals, in which case the sentence indicates an iterative ac-
complishment : each cloud conceals the moon in turn. Second, the clouds
could be seen as a seamless, substance-like mass where it is impossible to
distinguish boundaries, or even as a homogeneous substance that conceals
the moon in a continuous sense. Third, the example allows a static in-
terpretation, assuming that the clouds concealing the moon are not moving ;
and this static interpretation brings us to a classical quasi-resultative ex-
ample of the locative type (cf. examples (16) and (17)). The quasi-resultative
type, accordingly, turns out to be one extreme (static) on a continuum ex-
tending from iterative via homogeneous to static.

A similar continuum can be distinguished in examples where it is the ob-

ject that is incremental (and where the subject is a discrete individual main-
taining its identity throughout the event). As with subjects discussed above,
the continuum of objects likewise extends from discrete individuals that
participate sequentially (This machine cleans the recycled bottles), via a con-
tinuous substance that ‘ streams ’ through the situation (e.g. The catalytic
converter cleans the exhaust gas of the car), and finally to examples where the
referent of the object remains the same (The brush cleans the conveyor belt).
Against this background, the total object of the QR type certainly appears
less paradoxical than it does if we consider it as an isolated, exceptional
phenomenon.

T U O M A S H U U M O

122

6. C

O N C L U S I O N

In this paper I have shown how the general concept of aspectual un-
boundedness is too broad and vague to explain all the intricacies of Finnish
object marking. The category of unbounded situations covers a multiplicity
of aspectual and quantificational relations that may obtain in the situation
and between its participants. One of the most relevant among these relations
is the opposition between

TRANSIENT

and

OVERALL

, which prevails both in

aspect and in quantity. It is this opposition with respect to transient aspect
and/or quantity that plays a role in the case marking of the object in
sentences with an unbounded overall aspect. Furthermore, it must be em-
phasized that the aspectual function of the partitive is not as monolithic as
has been (implicitly) assumed in the earlier literature ; at least, a fundamental
distinction needs to be drawn between the functions of indicating un-
boundedness and irresultativity.

The main contribution of this work to the general theory of aspect is the

discovery of the continuity opposition types. The discussion above has
shown that boundedness (of aspect or quantity) need not always be con-
sidered as being parallel to the time axis, but that it can also be orthogonal to
it, i.e. it can prevail at any given point of time during the event. In order to
understand Finnish aspectual object marking, we thus need to pay attention
to transient aspectual and quantificational phenomena, i.e. the con-
ceptualization of an event as bounded or a quantity as closed in a continuous
sense. Our brief comparison with other languages also shows that languages
can conceptualize such situations diﬀerently : languages of one type pay at-
tention to the overall aspectual nature of the holistic event, languages of
another type ‘ look into ’ the conceivable (sometimes only fictive) component
situations and focus on their internal aspect. This diﬀerence explains
why aspectual theories that have been developed on the basis of the first-
mentioned type may encounter diﬃculties when applied to languages of the
second type, such as Finnish.

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Author’s address : University of Tartu, Department of Finno-Ugric Languages,

¨ likooli 18, 50090 Tartu, Estonia

thuumo@utu.fi

T H E F I N N I S H O B J E C T

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