Inchoative Emotion Verbs in Finnish

The volume investigates the syntagmatic relations of certain Finnish emotion verbs that are formed by the derivational suffix -ua/-yä (e.g. suuttua get angry, pelästyä get frightened). Prototypically, the suffix expresses reflexivity, but in the case of the inchoative emotion verbs, it indicates a change of state on behalf of the experiencer, from a non-emotional state to an emotional state. The starting point of the investigation is a discussion of different psychological theories of emotion. The discussion shows that constructivist theories particularly emphasize the role of language and offer several links to the cognitive, usage-based model of language that constitutes the theoretical framework guiding the thesis. With regard to the usage-based model, special focus will be put on argument structures and stimulus nouns. The empirical part makes use of different forms of co-occurrence analysis in order to shed light the syntagmatic relations of the inchoative emotion verbs.

Inchoative Emotion Verbs in Finnish won the 2019 Doctoral Dissertation Award of the Society for the Study of Finnish (Kotikielen Seura).