Although a bread-and-butter concept in linguistics since antiquity, finiteness continues to be rather poorly understood. Traditionally, there are essentially two ways to define this concept, viz. via inflectional or distributional criteria. Confronted with cross-linguistic variation in what categories actually express finiteness under either perspective, more abstract notions of finiteness now view it as a clausal category or a semantic property of clauses (expressing an independent concept, propositionality or assertion). In the ‘Introduction’ (chapter 1), the editor, Irina Nikolaeva, outlines the aims of the collection. The main question uniting the eleven contributions to the volume is whether finiteness can and should be regarded as a primitive and cross-linguistically valid and uniform concept.
The formalist chapters in part I, ‘Finiteness in formal theories’, answer this question by separating an abstract notion of finiteness as a property of clauses from its morphosyntactic instantiations. The abstract clausal feature is regarded as universal, and the relation to its morphosyntactic realisation is arbitrary. In chapter 2, ‘Three domains of finiteness: A Minimalist perspective’, David Adger adopts Rizzi's (Reference Rizzi and Haegeman1997) Fin, a functional head low in the CP (Complementiser Phrase) domain of the clause, which is associated with an interpretable feature [±finite]. Features traditionally associated with finiteness, [T] (Tense) and [Agr] (Agreement), can also be reflected on Fin, but are to be distinguished from [±finite]. Adger discusses evidence from Scottish Gaelic, showing that some types of infinitival clauses must be analysed as truncated below CP, some at the TP level, some as low as the V(erb)P (or rather, Pred(icate)P) level. They nevertheless license certain types of overt subjects, demonstrating that this is not a function of the finiteness feature, but of [T] and [Agr].
Like Adger, but couching his analysis in Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Peter Sells (chapter 3, ‘Finiteness in non-transformational frameworks’) distinguishes finiteness as a property of clauses (in terms of the abstract feature FINITE) and its overt morphosyntactic expressions on lexical elements in the clause (by the Finite value of the Form feature of, for example, verbs). On the basis of data from Japanese and Swedish, Sells shows that the relationship between these two features does not always have to be direct. In Japanese, some morphologically finite clauses are semantically non-finite, while in Swedish the absence of a finite verb form does not imply the absence of assertion.
The functionalist contributions in part II, ‘Finiteness in functional theories and typology’, all agree in correlating finiteness properties and clausal independence, though in different ways. In chapter 4, ‘Deconstructing categories: Finiteness in a functional-typological perspective’, Sonia Cristofaro emphasises that finiteness and non-finiteness are language-specific and construction-specific categories, because they are instantiated by means of different grammatical categories across constructions and across languages. She therefore advances the proposal that finiteness and non-finiteness should not be regarded as one general phenomenon, despite certain cross-linguistic tendencies correlating, for example, certain ‘less finite’ grammatical categories with dependent clauses.
In chapter 5, ‘Categories that make finiteness: Discreteness from a functional perspective and some of its repercussions’, Walter Bisang holds a view opposed to Cristofaro's conclusion, combining functionalist and formalist perspectives. In his approach, finiteness is neither a specific category nor a functional tendency, but an abstract property of clauses with the function of creating a morphosyntactic asymmetry between independent and dependent clauses. Its association with specific grammatical categories is obviously language-specific, depending on which markers have reached a degree of semantic generality (e.g. by grammaticalisation) that makes them virtually coextensive with clausal independence. Tense or assertion are possible, but not universal, options.
In chapter 6, ‘Constructional economy and non-finite independent clauses’, Irina Nikolaeva accounts for independently used ‘non-finite’ patterns (infinitives, participles, etc.) in a wide range of languages by the principle of Constructional Economy: (morphological) finiteness can be reduced in independent clauses if the illocutionary force is already coded by the construction as a whole, and therefore predictable without need of morphological expression.
Part III, ‘Finiteness in individual languages’, moves the focus from the cross-linguistic to the language-individual perspective. Chapter 7, ‘Clause structure and verbal forms in Nakh-Daghestanian languages’, by Elena Kalinina & Nina Sumbatova, deals with the Nakh-Daghestanian languages, in which the morphosyntactic marking of finiteness appears to cut across the distinction between independent and dependent clauses. In these languages, the expression of certain grammatical categories depends rather on the illocutionary force and information structure of a clause. In particular, classes of verbal forms in Nakh-Daghestanian seem to be subdivided according to whether the clauses in which they occur have assertive potential. However, the authors do not refer to any of the literature connecting (abstract/semantic) finiteness and assertion (e.g. Klein Reference Klein, Dittmar and Penner1998) and end by rejecting the functionalist association of clausal independence and finiteness marking for the languages discussed. The length of the chapter exceeds that of any other chapter; the very detailed discussion of the individual languages could well have been cut in favour of a comparative description streamlined towards the guiding questions of the volume set out in Nikolaeva's introduction.
The following two chapters, by David M. Perlmutter on Russian and Jaklin Kornfilt on Turkish, place emphasis on subject licensing and agreement as central manifestations of finiteness. In chapter 8, ‘In what ways can finite and non-finite clauses differ? Evidence from Russian’, Perlmutter demonstrates that the interpretation of null subjects correlates with the finiteness of the verb in certain Russian constructions. In the finite impersonal and unspecified they constructions (in which the verb is marked for third-person singular and third-person plural, respectively), the null subject must be in the nominative case, whereas it must be in the dative in the infinitival unspecified human subject construction in (1a) (cf. (1b), which has an overt specified subject in the dative).
- (1)
(a) Kak žit' odnomu/odnoj/odnim? how live.inf alone.m.sg/f.sg/pl ‘How is one to live alone?’
(b) Kak Svetlane rabotat' odnoj? how Svetlana.dat work.inf alone.f.sg ‘How is Svetlana to work alone?’
Perlmutter concludes that the distribution of Russian null subjects is not determined by the finiteness of the clauses, but by the different case that finite and non-finite clauses require from their (null) subjects. The chapter therefore does not directly address the properties of finiteness as a (perhaps derived) grammatical category itself, but secondary properties of (non-)finite clauses.
In chapter 9, ‘Verbal and nominalized finite clauses in Turkish’, Jaklin Kornfilt shows that in Turkish not only nominative but also genitive subjects can realise finiteness, contrary to common assumptions about the relationship between finiteness and nominative case. She argues further that finiteness in Turkish is primarily determined by agreement, not tense, and places agreement features directly in Rizzi's (Reference Rizzi and Haegeman1997) Fin head. This points to another language-individual mismatch between morphological, syntactic and semantic finiteness.
Part IV, the final part of the volume, unites three chapters that consider ‘Finiteness in diachrony and language acquisition’. In chapter 10, ‘Diachrony and finiteness: Subordination in the dialects of southern Italy’, Adam Ledgeway discusses three cases where (i) the morphological expression of finiteness has been lost diachronically, or (ii) its syntactic representation has changed, or (iii) both, as in the reanalysis of an infinitive as an imperative.
In chapter 11, ‘Insubordination and its uses’, Nicholas Evans surveys instances of what he calls ‘insubordination’ in a wide range of languages, i.e. the use in independent clauses of formal expressions typically associated with dependent clauses, like infinitives, subjunctives or subordinating complementisers. Insubordination phenomena therefore cut across the traditional (morphological) finite/non-finite distinction. As for Kalinina & Sumbatova, Evans' starting point is the common association of finiteness with clausal independence, and of reduced finiteness with dependent clauses, which insubordination naturally contradicts. Evans shows how certain formal manifestations originally associated with dependent clauses can, by grammaticalisation, come to be associated with new (more ‘finite’) functions such as evidentiality, politeness or command.
Studying the acquisition of finiteness in German as a first language and second-language German, English and Dutch, Petra Gretsch & Clive Perdue show in chapter 12, ‘Finiteness in first and second language acquisition’, that the formal and the functional sides of finiteness (Lasser's Reference Lasser1997 M- and S-finiteness) are acquired separately. In a first stage, semantic finiteness, i.e. the anchoring of the utterance in discourse and the linking of the state of affairs to the utterance topic, is expressed without the target morphological manifestations (for example, by means of adverbs). Finite verbs, which are the target morphological form encoding semantic finiteness, are only acquired at a second stage.
The book under review manages to bridge the common divide between very different approaches to linguistics by providing a multi-faceted treatment of the topic of finiteness. What is particularly enriching for a reader not familiar with all the approaches is that most chapters give brief introductions to their various theoretical frameworks, and that all chapters are based on empirical case studies. The wide empirical scope of the volume, incorporating a large number of typologically diverse languages, is certainly an important plus point. Moreover, the incorporation of the diachronic and acquisitional dimensions adds depth to the empirical domain. The editor has achieved a good balance of contributions to address her introductory questions, namely whether the finite/non-finite distinction is universal and whether there is a cross-linguistically consistent realisation of finiteness. Nevertheless, individual contributors such as Kalinina & Sumbatova, Perlmutter and Evans could have made a greater effort to relate their findings and arguments to the general aims of the volume.
Unfortunately, the understanding of the term finiteness does not seem to be the same in every contribution. Some chapters focus only on the morphological, the syntactic or the semantic side of it. The editor could have either required from each author a clearer definition and orientation towards the overarching questions of the book or indicated in the introduction, after providing a synopsis of the book, how each contribution addresses her list of questions and what, if any, general conclusions can be drawn. Furthermore, depending on the empirical cases studied, there is disagreement as to what to call finiteness – a pool of possible formal expressions or, as in Bisang's chapter and the formalist approaches, an abstract property of clauses, which can have a cross-linguistically varying number of formal instantiations. Evans's and Bisang's chapters show that reducing (abstract) finiteness to marking clausal independence, as seems to be particularly common in functionalist approaches, is too narrow – what formal means are used in independent clauses is ultimately a pragmatic convention and therefore subject to grammaticalisation. This is also confirmed by Kalinina & Sumbatova's discussion of the Nakh-Daghestanian languages, where clausal (in)dependence and formal finiteness marking are not aligned. It would have been useful not to restrict the definition of finiteness to marking clausal independence and to allow alternative options.
The format of the book reflects its aim of shedding light on the nature of finiteness from different theoretical and empirical angles, while maintaining a common goal. Unlike what is often found in, for example, conference proceedings, the individual contributions can be read as a unified whole and, accordingly, they are treated as chapters of a single book, with all references appearing in a joint bibliography at the end. However, this may inconvenience readers only interested in single chapters, or without access to the whole book.
A striking feature of the volume from a more formal point of view is the disparity in chapter length. While the majority of the chapters are less than thirty pages on average, two chapters are more than fifty pages long and two encompass even over sixty-five pages. Given the general aims of the volume as set out by the editor in the introduction, this does not immediately seem justified. However, as the longer chapters (chapters 7, 8, 11 and 12) are heavier on the empirical side, which is designated as fundamental to the character of the book in its title, this cannot be a criticism.
The book's value lies in the fact that it broadens our perspective on finiteness by providing ample discussion of ‘exceptional’ configurations, such as non-finite forms used in independent clauses or inflected infinitives. The very fact that such cases are seen as exceptions shows that there is still a common presupposition that the old distinctions are valid, although this presupposition is perhaps coupled with the insight that these distinctions need to be overcome. The epiphenomenal character of ‘semantic’ finiteness is stressed by Adger and Kornfilt. The – albeit only implicit – conclusion emerging is therefore that there is no universal one–to–one relationship between clausal (in)dependence or pragmatic notions, such as anchoring in discourse, and the (morphological or semantic) finite/non-finiteness distinction.
