The Finnish projector phrase se että as a fixed expression

This chapter shows that the Finnish expression se että ‘it (is) that’, consisting of a demonstrative followed by a complementizer, is a fixed projective element in talk-in-interaction both on its own and with collocating elements. It shares features with projector phrases identified for other languages: it is used both to prepare the addressee for the nature of the upcoming and to underline the upcoming as central to the ongoing interaction. The analysis of se että having grammaticized into a projector phrase is supported by prosodic evidence: the two elements are most often produced as one prosodic word. The findings support the idea that se että emerges in interaction with a fixed form rather than being generated by a syntactic rule.