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E
LIISA
P
ITKÄSALO
236
VISK § 1666). More specifically, I will focus on the jussive construction that
is formed with an expletive acting as the subject and a predicate in the finite,
third-person singular, form of the imperative mood. An example of this type
of construction is the phrase
hitto soikoon
. For the sake of clarity, I will
henceforth refer to the emphatic phrases using the jussive construction sim-
ply as emphatic phrases.
This article addresses the following questions: how are emphatic phrases
used in Finnish works of fiction; where in the sentence structure can an em-
phatic phrase be positioned and how does its positioning affect the meaning of
the sentence; and how have the emphatic phrases been translated into Hunga-
rian and how do the selected translations affect the meaning of the phrases?
My research material consists of the electronic corpus
Suomalaisen kir-
jallisuuden klassikoita
(Classics of Finnish literature) of the Institute for the
Languages of Finland (Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus) as well as a ran-
dom sampling of other Finnish literature that has been translated into Hun-
garian: Risto Isomäki’s
Sarasvatin hiekkaa
(Sands of Sarasvati), Aleksis
Kivi’s
Seitsemän veljestä
(Seven Brothers) and Väinö Linna’s
Tuntematon
sotilas
(The Unknown Soldier). The translations (in chapter 3) under the ex-
amples are verbatim re-translations from Hungarian into Finnish and its ver-
batim translation into English. These translations will illustrate the use of
emphatic phrase in each example. The examples have not been completely
glossed. I have glossed in detail only the emphatic phrases that are the target
of my study.
2. Emphatic phrases and their parentheticality
Central concepts in this article include parenthesis and emphatic phrases
using the jussive construction. In this chapter, I will define these concepts as
well as examine the positioning of emphatic phrases and the effect it has on
the surrounding text.
2.1. Parenthetical Addition
The electronic version of
Iso suomen kielioppi
(VISK: §1071) defines pa-
renthesis as an addition that is located in the middle of a syntactic structure
and which can assume various forms. In other words, parenthesis is a gram-
matically unnecessary addition that interrupts the structural framework in
which it has been embedded. There appears to be no unambiguous defini-
tions for parenthesis to be easily found, but it seems that researchers are