Marja-Liisa Helasvuo
List of John Benjamins publications in which Marja-Liisa Helasvuo is involved.
Book series
ISSN 1879-3983
Subjects in Constructions – Canonical and Non-Canonical
Edited by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo and Tuomas Huumo
This volume analyzes constructions with non-canonical subjects in individual languages and cross-linguistically, drawing on insights from cognitive and discourse-functional linguistics. Prototypical subjects have often been characterized in terms of their semantic, syntactic and discourse features,… read more[Constructional Approaches to Language, 16] 2015. viii, 324 pp.
Discourses in Interaction
Edited by Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Marjut Johansson and Mia Raitaniemi
The fourteen contributions in this collection come from different approaches in pragmatics, interactional linguistics, conversation analysis, discourse analysis and dialogue analysis; the name given to what is studied ranges from spoken language and conversation to interaction, dialogue, discourse… read more[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 203] 2010. vii, 315 pp.
Grammar from the Human Perspective: Case, space and person in Finnish
Edited by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo and Lyle Campbell
The papers of this volume investigate how grammar codes the subjective viewpoint of human language users, that is, how grammar reflects human conceptualization. Some of the articles deal with spatial relations and locations. They discuss how basic attributes of human conceptualization are encoded… read more[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 277] 2006. x, 280 pp.
Syntax in the Making: The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish conversation
Marja-Liisa Helasvuo
Research on the interplay between language structure and language use has shown that grammar is shaped, maintained, and modified by language use. In this view, then, grammar is not seen as existing apart from language use, but rather as a set of recurrent, grammaticized patterns of discourse. This… read more[Studies in Discourse and Grammar, 9] 2001. xiv, 175 pp.
2024 Chapter 3. First and second person forms as resources for open reference and participation in Finnish everyday conversations (Non)referentiality in Conversation, Ewing, Michael C. and Ritva Laury (eds.), pp. 35–55 | Chapter
Based on data from Finnish conversational interaction, this article explores the use of 1st and 2nd person forms in creating deictically non-specific, open reference. We focus on the linguistic and embodied features of turns that contain these open personal forms and examine their sequential… read more
2022 Emergent grammar Handbook of Pragmatics: Manual, Verschueren, Jef and Jan-Ola Östman (eds.), pp. 502–509 | Chapter
2021 Free NPs as units in Finnish Usage-based and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units, Ono, Tsuyoshi, Ritva Laury and Ryoko Suzuki (eds.), pp. 59–86 | Chapter
This article focuses on free NPs, i.e. noun phrases that are grammatically not part of any clause but form units of their own. Using the methodology of discourse-functional and interactional linguistics, I analyze the morphosyntactic, prosodic and interactional features of free NPs in… read more
2020 Chapter 4. The noun phrase as an emergent unit in Finnish The ‘Noun Phrase’ across Languages: An emergent unit in interaction, Ono, Tsuyoshi and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), pp. 71–92 | Chapter
The article focuses on the use of noun phrases in Finnish conversation as arguments, contrasting these uses with the use of free NPs. I show that several grammatical processes characteristic of Finnish contribute to making the internal structure of NPs relatively stable. Agreement in case and… read more
2020 Chapter 3. The emergence and routinization of complex syntactic patterns formed with ajatella ‘think’ and tietää ‘know’ in Finnish talk-in-interaction Emergent Syntax for Conversation: Clausal patterns and the organization of action, Maschler, Yael, Simona Pekarek Doehler, Jan Lindström and Leelo Keevallik (eds.), pp. 55–86 | Chapter
Our paper concerns two Finnish cognitive verbs, ajatella ‘think’, and tietää ‘know’. We show that both verbs are most likely to occur in the first person singular form but behave differently with respect to polarity: tietää occurs most commonly in the negated form (56%), while ajatella is only… read more
2020 Chapter 6. When an expression becomes fixed: mä ajattelin että ‘I thought that’ in spoken Finnish Fixed Expressions: Building language structure and social action, Laury, Ritva and Tsuyoshi Ono (eds.), pp. 133–166 | Chapter
This chapter concerns the first person past tense form of the verb ajatella ‘to think’ as a semi-fixed expression in spoken Finnish. We examine this expression in present-day conversation and in older dialect interviews, focusing on its interactional functions, the types of complements it takes,… read more
2019 Free NPs as units in Finnish Usage-based and Typological Approaches to Linguistic Units, Ono, Tsuyoshi, Ritva Laury and Ryoko Suzuki (eds.), pp. 301–328 | Article
This article focuses on free NPs, i.e. noun phrases that are grammatically not part of any clause but form units of their own. Using the methodology of discourse-functional and interactional linguistics, I analyze the morphosyntactic, prosodic and interactional features of free NPs in… read more
2015 Canonical and non-canonical subjects in constructions: Perspectives from cognition and discourse Subjects in Constructions – Canonical and Non-Canonical, Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Tuomas Huumo (eds.), pp. 1–9 | Article
2015 On the subject of subject in Finnish Subjects in Constructions – Canonical and Non-Canonical, Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Tuomas Huumo (eds.), pp. 13–41 | Article
This article examines the category of subject in Finnish. Among the grammatical
features examined are case marking, agreement and syntax, semantic role,
its relation to other sentence elements and its semantic function as regards the
sentence as a whole. One important discourse feature is whether… read more
2014 Searching for motivations for grammatical patternings Approaches to grammar for interactional linguistics, Laury, Ritva, Marja Etelämäki and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (eds.), pp. 453–476 | Article
In this article I analyze subject expression in conversational Finnish, identifying the home environments for zero and pronominal subjects in the 1st and 2nd person singular. Based on a syntactically coded database, I show that there is a clear preference, in both 1st and 2nd person, for… read more
2010 Discourse and the interactional turn Discourses in Interaction, Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa, Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Marjut Johansson and Mia Raitaniemi (eds.), pp. 1–10 | Article
2009 Emergent grammar Grammar, Meaning and Pragmatics, Brisard, Frank, Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren (eds.), pp. 66–73 | Article
2008 Construing reference in context: Non-specific reference forms in Finnish and French discussion groups Current Trends in Contrastive Linguistics: Functional and cognitive perspectives, Gómez González, María de los Ángeles, J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Elsa M. González Álvarez (eds.), pp. 27–50 | Article
Both Finnish and French have several personal forms which can be used for non-specific reference. This chapter focuses on the passive in both languages and on certain constructions containing 3rd person forms, namely, the French pronoun on + 3rd person verb form and the so-called zero person… read more
2006 Passive — personal or impersonal? A Finnish perspective Grammar from the Human Perspective: Case, space and person in Finnish, Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Lyle Campbell (eds.), pp. 233–255 | Article
Marja-Liisa Helasvuo’s paper discusses passive constructions in Finnish. Based on a large database of spoken Finnish, she argues that contrary to the received view in Finnish linguistics, there are actually two types of passive in Finnish, namely the so-called simple passive (formed by the verb… read more
2006 Person in Finnish: Paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in interaction Grammar from the Human Perspective: Case, space and person in Finnish, Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Lyle Campbell (eds.), pp. 173–207 | Article
The paper by Marja-Liisa Helasvuo and Lea Laitinen provides an overview to person marking in Finnish. It aims to contribute to resolving some of the long-standing confusions surrounding how person has been dealt with in Finnish grammar. In Finnish, the predicate verb agrees with the subject in… read more
2006 Introduction: Grammar from the human perspective Grammar from the Human Perspective: Case, space and person in Finnish, Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa and Lyle Campbell (eds.), pp. 1–10 | Miscellaneous
2003 Emergent grammar Handbook of Pragmatics: 2001 Installment, Verschueren, Jef, Jan-Ola Östman, Jan Blommaert † and Chris Bulcaen (eds.), pp. 1–10 | Article
2003 Argument splits in Finnish grammar and discourse Preferred Argument Structure: Grammar as architecture for function, Du Bois, John W., Lorraine E. Kumpf and William J. Ashby (eds.), pp. 247–272 | Article
2001 Emerging syntax for interaction: Noun phrases and clauses as a syntactic resource for interaction Studies in Interactional Linguistics, Selting, Margret and Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (eds.), pp. 25–50 | Article
1997 Functions of case-marking vs. non-marking in Finnish discourse Reconnecting Language: Morphology and Syntax in Functional Perspectives, Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie, Kristin Davidse and Dirk Noël (eds.), pp. 213–226 | Article