In:Benefactives and Malefactives: Typological perspectives and case studies
Edited by Fernando Zúñiga and Seppo Kittilä
[Typological Studies in Language 92] 2010
► pp. 245–270
Beneficiary coding in Finnish
Published online: 14 April 2010
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.92.10kit
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.92.10kit
This paper examines the beneficiary coding in (Standard) Finnish. Finnish has an elaborate system of coding benefaction. Finnish uses two cases (allative and ablative) for this, in addition to which benefaction can be coded by an array of postpositions. As will be shown in the paper, the markers are not in free variation, but formal variation has a semantic basis. For example, the three types of beneficiaries (plain beneficiary, deputative beneficiary and recipient-benefactive) distinguished by Van Valin & LaPolla (1997) are relevant to beneficiary coding in Finnish. In addition, I will discuss beneficiary coding in light of other features, such as animacy, volition and transitivity of the denoted event.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Guardamagna, Caterina
Kittilä, Seppo
2014. The (non-)prototypicality of Direction. In Perspectives on Semantic Roles [Typological Studies in Language, 106], ► pp. 151 ff.
Zúñiga, Fernando
Zúñiga, Fernando
2016. Benefaction proper and surrogation. In Advances in Research on Semantic Roles [Benjamins Current Topics, 88], ► pp. 109 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
