Abstract
This chapter introduces an interesting meaning change phenomenon concerning the Finnish mental process verb epäillä ‘doubt/suppose’. The chapter will also illustrate how different complementation patterns may affect the interpretation of the main clause verb. In Modern Finnish, the verb epäillä displays a peculiar polysemy: in certain contexts it is interpreted to convey doubt, and in certain other contexts supposition. Both meaning variants describe the epistemic stance of the conceptualizer,1 but the directions of this stance are mutually contrary. This current polysemy is the result of diachronic changes (cf. Hansen 2012: 241).
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© 2015 Jutta Salminen
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Salminen, J. (2015). From Doubt to Supposition: the Construction-Specific Meaning Change of the Finnish Verb Epäillä . In: Höglund, M., Rickman, P., Rudanko, J., Havu, J. (eds) Perspectives on Complementation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137450067_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137450067_9
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