Structures of Silence Explaining Accusative Case-form Variation in Heritage Finnish as Licensed by Re-analysis of pro as PRO

Abstract

This thesis investigates the variation between the Accusative Object Case-forms ACC(n) and ACC(0) in temporal adverbial clauses in heritage Finnish in Sweden. A theoretical analysis of data on the phenomenon is developed based on similar Case-form variations of ACC(n) and ACC(0) in standard Finnish rationale clauses. According to the theoretical analysis proposed here, the occurrence of ACC(0)/ACC(n) variation in the heritage population is due to an incomplete feature intervention of the probe from matrix T, resulting in variation just as it does in the rationale clauses in standard Finnish. The incomplete intervention is hypothesised to be due to the heritage variety allowing covert possessive-suffix agreement morphology on the adverbial even when the subject of the adverbial is a null subject. This theoretical analysis is then later tested in production and competence experiment in a heritage population in Stockholm, a population of Finns in Helsinki, and a population Finnish-Swedes to further determine if this change in the heritage language is due to language contact or a contact-independent factor. Results of the experiment suggest the change is due to a holistic relationship between contactindependent and contact-induced factors; whereby the contact independent factors select elements vulnerable to language change and the contact induced factors direct the change so that it is more similar with the contact language.