The structure of nominal predicate sentences in Western Votic dialects

Tuuli Savela (LMU Munich)

28.10.2024, 14:15–15:45
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 (Hauptgebäude), M 105

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Most of Finnic languages without centuries of established literary languages have lacked ambitious study and description of their syntax before the 21st century. This is also true with Votic, a small Finnic language historically spoken in Ingria, in northwestern Russia.

No native speaker of the Votic language has analysed Votic syntax from the point of view of a L1 speaker. Instead, scholars representing other nationalities have made their analyses of the Votic syntax. In order to get as close as possible finding the most suitable ways to analyse Votic syntax, the author of the thesis has conducted comparative syntax studies between Western Votic dialects, Finnish and North Estonian, searching for suitable analysing tools from syntax traditions of more studied sister languages to be applied to Western Votic language material.

In this master’s thesis, special attention is paid to copular nominal predicate clause types in Western Votic. That is on the grounds that copular nominal predicate clause types cover many of the co called special clause types that are extremely numerous in Finnish language and quite prominent in the North Estonian language as well. These copular clause types have great variation in their terms for which constituents the clause types demand and in which number and case the different constituents can occur. The aim of my master’s thesis is to find out what kind of nominal predicate clause types there are in the (Western) Votic language, what kind of constituents the Votic nominal predicate clause types consist of and what kind of variation in occurrence of the number and case of the different constituents in different nominal predicate clause types is possible. Because the theorisation is comparative in nature, another aim is to test whether Votic nominal clause types resemble more Finnish copular clause types or North Estonian copular clause types, or might there be nominal clause types in Votic language that are totally peculiar to Votic language only. In addition to before mentioned research questions, special attention is paid to whether the language contact with the Russian language would affect Votic nominal predicate clauses.