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This article examines the nominative-partitive subject alternation occurring with constructions containing the Finnish verb löytyä. The material used is taken from corpora and consists of a random sample of 779 observations, analyzed both quantitatively by means of statistical methods, and from a qualitative point of view. The research aims at investigating which variables influence the case alternation of subjects of constructions containing the verb löytyä. The chosen variables are subject number, subject divisibility, subject part of speech, word order, tense, agreement and subject lemma, the only random variable. With the help of regression analysis, the subject case is predicted on the basis of said variables and of interactions between them. The qualitative analysis will also discuss the relationship these morphosyntactic and semantic variables have with the existential interpretations of the clause as well as with the subject quantity and definiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partitive has often been acknowledged as problematic for L2 learners of Finnish. The purpose of this study was to identify possible instances of L1 influence in Estonian learners’ use of partitive predicatives and to explore the relation between L1 influence and L2 proficiency. Research materials (85,749 words) were selected from the Estonian subcorpus of the International Corpus of Learner Finnish and evaluated according to the CEFR proficiency scales (i.e. A1–C2). A frequency-error analysis revealed instances of both positive L1 influence (e.g. a virtual lack of partitive overuse errors) and negative L1 influence (e.g. frequent use of nominative plural instead of partitive plural predicatives). The latter error type was found to ultimately decrease with increasing L2 proficiency, suggesting an inverse relation between negative L1 influence and L2 proficiency. Nonetheless, interactions between L1 influence and several other variables also reflected the extremely complex nature of the phenomenon of L1 influence.