Word Order and Focus in Finnish Finite Clauses. An Overview of Syntactic Theories from a Formal Perspective

Abstract

This article presents the different discourse-functional and syntactic properties that trigger core constituent order permutations in a finite clause in Finnish. The aim is to provide an overview of the major information-structural properties and of the formal syntactic theories accounting for the complex and thorny word order phenomenon at clause-level. In this respect, relevant Focus strategies employed through word order alternation in Finnish will be considered.