Description
@jpiitula, @fginter, @jmnybl, @flammie, @jasiewert, @nikopartanen, @dan-zeman, @jnivre,
In Finnish, the so-called subject of an existential or ownership clause diverges in both case and verbal agreement strategies from those of the subject of an intransitive or transitive verbal clause. In VISK §923,
(1) there is no agreement between the e-subject and the verb olla 'be/exist', which is always limited to the third person singular, whereas a locative clause, for instance, takes the verb olla 'be', which agrees for the categories of person and number.
(2) in many instances the e-subject reminds one of the object of a passive or second person imperative clause, as it appears in the nominative, partitive and even accusative.
(3) unlike the object, however, the e-subject of a negated clause will appear in the nominative when the focus of negation is on the modifier of the e-subject.
It seems that this could be reflected in the deprel, such that e-subject could be labeled as nsubj:exist.
This would assume that the third person singular olla verb is root, and the inessive- or adessive-case nominal would take the deprel obl or possibly a subcategory.
What are your thoughts?