Kielen syntaktinen variaatio ja muutos Kotiliesi-lehden henkilöhaastatteluissa 1963–2022

Terhi Savonen, Olli Kuparinen, Jenni Santaharju, Jaakko Peltonen, Sini Knuutila, Liisa Mustanoja, Unni Leino

Abstract:

This article examines the syntactic variation and change of written Finnish in interviews. The data comes
from the women’s magazine Kotiliesi between 1963 and 2022, as its first interviews were published in the
early 1960s.
This study is both quantitative and qualitative. Quantitatively, the frequency distribution of word
classes in the texts was estimated by using the TurkuNLP parser tool, and the statistical significance of
these frequency changes in word classes was investigated by using chi-square tests. The change of nouns
and verbs was then further analyzed, based on their average use by the writers with a linear mixed-effects
model. Qualitatively, there was a deeper examination of change by taking the disturbances of language
features into account that may have affected the style of the text. Syntactic changes were also examined
in terms of storytelling, asking what linguistic features have concurrently changed with society and the
emergence of narrative journalism.
This study shows that the most significant change in written Finnish in Kotiliesi has occurred in
relative shares of nouns and verbs. Significant changes in nouns have occurred between 1960 and 1970 as
well as 2010 and 2020, while significant changes in verbs have occurred between 1980 and 1990 as well
as 2010 and 2020. When the differences in the personal styles of the editors were taken into account, the
time of writing significantly explained the relative share of verbs but not nouns in all words. When the
grammatical categories of nouns and verbs were examined in more detail, statistically significant changes
also emerged in, for example, the finite and infinitive as well as conditional forms of verbs, and also the
case forms of nouns in the genitive, partitive and inessive.
Although grammatical cases account for about 70% of nouns in all decades, the relative proportions
of the genitive and partitive changed: the number of genitive forms decreased and the partitives increased.
At the same time, both functioned as objects of sentences more often. This indicated a dynamization of
the text. Of verbal infinitive forms, the A-infinitive displaced other infinitive verbs – in particular, the
number of E-infinitives decreased. The compound form of the A-infinitive voida (‘can’), the conditional
mood and the VA-participle functioned as text features that explicitly guided the reader in the 1960s.
In later decades, participles often had descriptive functions in noun clauses, which made the text more
abstract but, especially since the 2010s, also more narrative.
Model stories, the conditional mood and referential structures were used in particular to describe
the temporal dimension and the emotional states of the interviewee. The A-infinitive compound verbs
voida, (‘can’) uskaltaa (‘dare’) and yrittää (‘try’), which have become common in the 2020s, not only
tell the reader about the values that emphasized the achievements of the individual in society, but also
implicitly guided the reader.
The findings of this study based on the Kotiliesi data suggest that syntactic change in language
goes hand in hand with socio-cultural changes. The stylistic features of the text in the magazine change
according to what society and people consider important at any given time. Today, in the 2020s, the
media is at a new turning point, as negative aspects of narrative journalism have also emerged.

External IDs:doi:10.30673/sja.144560