nominatiivivuoroa

Nominatiivivuoroa is a term used in Finnish linguistics to describe the role and position of the nominative case-marked noun phrase as the subject of a clause. The concept emphasizes that in languages with rich case systems and relatively free word order, the nominative NP often assumes the subject function and places this NP in a prominent position at or near the beginning of the sentence. The idea is used to discuss how syntactic roles are encoded morphologically and how information structure interacts with basic clause architecture.

In practice, nominatiivivuoroa points to the typical alignment in which the NP in nominative marks the doer or topic of the action, while the verb phrase presents the predicate. Finnish, with its extensive case system and flexible word order, often exhibits a basic pattern where the nominative subject precedes the verb and other non-finite elements, though word order can shift for focus or emphasis. The concept helps linguists separate the function of subjects from other noun phrases that may appear in non-nominative cases, and it is often contrasted with structures where a non-nominative NP assumes a different syntactic role.

Examples illustrating nominatiivivuoroa are simple declaratives such as “Koira juoksee” (The dog runs), where “koira” is in the nominative and serves as the subject. The term is mainly used as a descriptive tool in analyses of sentence structure rather than as a prescriptive rule for everyday language. Related concepts include subject formation, case marking, and information structure.

See also: Finnish syntax, nominative case, sentence structure, information structure.