‘I Am Also Found on Facebook’ Locuphoric ‘Find’-Based Strategies in Finnish Internet Corpora

Abstract

Allophoric forms of the Finnish verb löytyä ‘to be found’ are used in locational constructions similarly to copulas, while the verb’s locuphoric forms have been claimed to be marginal. This paper confirms this claim by looking into Internet corpora and provides a qualitative overview of the types of utterances found in the sample, arguing that locuphoric forms may as well convey a locational function in certain contexts. The article also suggests a parallel between locuphoric ‘find’-based strategies and competing impersonal constructions containing the verb löytää ‘to find’, discussing the role of partitive-marked object arguments.