Noun phrase constructions in Finland Swedish varieties

The project is a postdoctoral researcher’s project financed by the Academcy of Finland and conducted by Associate Professor Camilla Wide in 2007–2009.

The focus is on three types of grammatical constructions: a) nouns in the definite form, with or without preposed determiners, e.g. de e våår-en uute ’it is spring-the outside’, b) constructions with demonstrative pronouns, e.g. tesin/hisin ’this’, han där ’he there’ and c) constructions with possessive determiners, e.g. Falkens foåren ’Falk’s sheep-the’. The aim of the project is to provide an overview of different forms available in Finland Swedish dialects and the use of them. A limited selection of constructions will be analyzed in detail from an interactional perspective.

The data used are dialect recordings collected at the Society for Swedish Literature in Finland, e.g. the recordings collected within the project Spara det finlandssvenska talet ’Saving the Finland Swedish speech’ in 2005–2007. The theoretical framework of the project is Construction Grammar and Interactional Linguistics. See the research plan for more information.