Remarks on the coding of Goal, Recipient and Vicinal Goal in European Uralic

This paper discusses the coding of three roles, Goal, Recipient and Vicinal Goal (‘to the vicinity of’) in European Uralic languages. The paper shows that Uralic languages typically use cases for Recipients and Goals, while Vicinal Goals bear adpositional coding except for a few languages with extraordinarily rich case inventories. The explanation given for this is that Goals and Recipients are expected roles, borne by inanimate and animate endpoints of transfer, respectively, while Vicinal Goal is a marked role, not retrievable directly from the features of the landmark. Consequently, a more elaborate coding is needed. Many studies only concern Goals and Recipients, but the findings of this paper show that a broader perspective is needed for arriving at a better understanding of Goal.

• Affiliations: 1: University of Helsinki; 2: University of Helsinki & Sámi University College