The aim of this article is to propose a syntactic analysis of a construction found in spoken Swedish, namely the so-called ba-construction, similar to the English like-construction. In the construction at hand, ba is usedto introduce a quotation in a narrative sequence of the speech, hence fulfils the role of the finite verb in the clause; the construction does not contain any main verb. In my analysis, however, I assume that there is a null verb UTTER in V°. In the presence of an adverbial (of time), the word order of the clause is classified as V3, which word order normally is ruled out in Swedish, being a V2 language. I will propose that in order to account for the deviating clause structure in the presence of ba, and in addition, ba and an adverbial, one needs a split CP analysis. My proposal is that ba is to be considered a finiteness marker, situated in Fin° and carrying a [Fin]-featwe, and that the adverbial, when present, is situated in Spec,ForceP, constituting a frame topic for the whole utterance.