Circum-Baltic Languages, Volume 2: Grammar and Typology 9789027230591, 9781588110428

Table of contents :
Introduction --
the Circum-Baltic languages --
introduction to the volume, Osten Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm. Part 1 Survey of selected Circum-Baltic languages and language varieties: the Latvian language and its dialects, Laimute Balode and Axel Holvoet
the Lithuanian language and its dialects, Laimute Balode and Axel Holvoet
Russian varieties in the southeastern Baltic area --
urban Russian of the 19th century, Valeriy Cekmonas
Russian varieties in the southeastern Baltic area --
rural dialects, Valeriy Cekmonas
Swedish dialects around the Baltic Sea, Anne-Charlotte Rendahl
the Finnic languages, Johanna Laakso. Part 2 Early history of the Circum-Baltic languages: the origin of the Scandinavian languages, Osten Dahl
Baltic influence on Finnic languages, Lars-Gunnar Larsson. Part 3 Contact phenomena in minor Circum-Baltic languages: the role of language contact in the formation of Karelian, past and present
syntactic code-copying in Karaim, Eva Agnes-Csato
Yiddish in the Baltic region, Neil G. Jacobs
the North Russian Romani dialect --
interference and code switching, Aleksandr Yu. Rusakov
on some Circum-Baltic features of the Pskov-Novgorod (northwestern central Russian) dialect, Valeriy Cekmonas. Part 4 Selected topics in the grammar of the Circum-Baltic languages: impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic, Axel Holvoet
on the development of the nominative object in East Baltic, Vytautas Ambrazas
lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles, Bernhard Walchli
on the development of the Estonian aspect --
the verbal particle "ara", Helle Metslang
case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian, Baiba Metuzale-Kangere and Kersti Boiko
genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages, Simon Christen. Part 5 Typological perspectives: "a piece of cake" and "a cup of tea" --
partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
nonv Vol. 1. Typology and Contact

Citation preview

The Circum-Baltic Languages

Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) The SLCS series has been established as a companion series to Studies in Language, International Journal, sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of language”.

Series Editors Werner Abraham

Michael Noonan

Universities of Groningen, Berkeley and Vienna

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee USA

Editorial Board

Joan Bybee

Christian Lehmann

University of New Mexvico

University of Erfurt

Ulrike Claudi

Robert Longacre

University of Cologne

University of Texas, Arlington

Bernard Comrie

Brian MacWhinney

Max Planck Institute, Leipzig

Carnegie-Mellon University

William Croft

Marianne Mithun

University Manchester

University of California, Santa Barbara

Östen Dahl

Edith Moravcsik

University of Stockholm

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Gerrit Dimmendaal

Masayoshi Shibatani

University of Leiden

Kobe University

Martin Haspelmath

Russell Tomlin

Max Planck Institute, Leipzig

University of Oregon

Ekkehard König

John Verhaar

Free University of Berlin

The Hague

Volume 55 The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact; Volume 2. Edited by Östen Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

The Circum-Baltic Languages Typology and Contact Volume 2. Grammar and Typology

Edited by Östen Dahl Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm Stockholm University

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam
/
Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Circum-Baltic languages : Typology and contact / edited by Östen Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm. p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165–7763 ; v. 54–55) Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: v. 1. Past and present -- v. 2. Grammar and typology. 1. Baltic Sea Region--Languages. I. Dahl, Östen. II. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. III. Series. P381.B33 C57 2001 491’.9--dc21 isbn 90 272 3057 9 (Eur.) / 1 58811 020 6 (US) (Hb, v. 1; alk. paper) isbn 90 272 3059 5 (Eur.) / 1 58811 042 7 (US) (Hb, v. 2; alk. paper)

2001025046

© 2001 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

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Table of contents

List of abbreviations List of contributors

vii x

Introduction The Circum-Baltic Languages: Introduction to the volume Östen Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

xv

Part 4 Selected topics in the grammar of the Circum-Baltic languages Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic Axel Holvoet

363

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic Vytautas Ambrazas

391

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles Bernhard Wälchli

413

On the developments of the Estonian aspect: The verbal particle ära Helle Metslang

443

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

481

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages Simon Christen

499

Part 5 Typological perspectives “A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”: Partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

523

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vi

Table of contents

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages Leon Stassen

569

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives: To and fro coherence Thomas Stolz

591

Part 6 Synthesis The Circum-Baltic languages: An areal-typological approach Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

615

Appendix 1. Language contacts referred to in the volumes

751

Appendix 2. Linguistic phenomena mentioned in the volumes for the origin of which contact-induced changes have been evoked

754

Name index

i 1

Language index

i 9

Subject index

i 15



List of abbreviations

Abbreviations used in glosses abess abl abs acc acnnr act adess adj adjr adv advr all aux com comm comp cond conneg conv cop dat deb def dem det dim dir du dur elat

abessive ablative absolutive accusative action nominalizer active adessive adjective adjectiv(al)izer adverb adverbializer allative auxiliary comitative common (gender) complementizer conditional form of the verb used with negation converb copula dative debitive definite (article) demonstrative determiner diminutive direct dual durative elative

emph erg ess fem freq fut gen ger hab hon ill imp impf impr indef indir iness inf inst instruc int intr ipfv ips loc masc minf n neg nfin nom

emphatic ergative essive feminine frequentative future genitive gerund habitual honorific illative imperative imperfect impersonal indefinite indirective inessive infinitive instrumental instructive interrogative intransitive imperfective impersonal passive locative masculine Estonian ma-infinitive noun negative nonfinite nominative

viii List of abbreviations

nonpast nonpast nr nominalizer neut neuter obj object obl oblique opt optative part participle pass passive pf perfect pfv perfective pl plural po partial object poss possessive pot potential pp perfective particle ppa present participle active ppp past/preterit passive participle

pref prep pret pres prtv past refl sub sg subj suff sup term tinf to trnsl zerik

prefix preposition preterite present partitive past reflexive subject singular subjunctive suffix superlative terminative Estonian ta-infinitive total object translative Basque “zerik”-case

FSwd Gal Grg Grk Grm HGrm Hng Ice Ing Ir It Jat Kar Kom Krm Ksh Lat LGrm Lith

Finland Swedish Galindian Georgian Greek German High German Hungarian Icelandic Ingrian Irish Italian Jatvingian Karelian Komi Karaim Kashubian Latin Low German Lithuanian

Additional abbreviations Abx Arm Balt Blg BY Bylr CourlY Cur CY Cz Dal Dan Dut Eng ErzaMrd Est EY Fin Fr

Abkhaz Armenian Baltic Bulgarian Baltic Yiddish Belarusian Curonian Yiddish Curonian Central Yiddish Czech Dalecarlian Danish Dutch English Erza Mordvin Estonian: Eastern Yiddish Finnish French



List of abbreviations

LivK LivSal

Livonian in Curonia Salis-Livonian, Livonian in Vidzeme (near Salis). LRmn Latvian Romani Ltg LatgalianLtv Latvian Lud Ludian Mar Mari MarEast Eastern Mari Mrd Mordvin NEst Northern Estonian NEY Northeastern Yiddish NRRD North Russian Romani dialects Nsam North Sami OHGrm Old High German OLith Old Lithuanian Olo Olonetsian ONrs Old Norse OPrs Old Prussian Oss Ossete PC partitive nominal construction Plb Polabian

Pol PPC Rmn Rus SAE Sam SCr SEst SEY Slve Spn StY Swd SY Ttr Udm Ukr Vot Vps WY Yid ZY

Polish pseudo-partitive nominal construction Romani Russian Standard Average European Sami Serbian/Croatian South Estonian, Southeastern Yiddish Slovenian Spanish Standard Yiddish Swedish Southern Yiddish Tatar Udmurt Ukrainian Votian Veps Western Yiddish Yiddish zameter yidish, Samogitian Yiddish

ix



List of contributors Östen Dahl, [email protected] Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, [email protected] Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden Laimute Balode, laimute.balode@helsinki.fi Dept. of Slavic and Baltic Languages and Literatures, P. O.Box 4, Vuorikatu 5B, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland Axel Holvoet, [email protected] Lietuviu kalbos institutas, Antakalnio 6, 2055 Vilnius, Lithuania Valeriy Cˇekmonas, [email protected] Dept. of Slavic languages and literatures, Vilnius University, Krokuvos 1–24, LT-2005 Vilnius 5; Lithuania Anne-Charlotte Rendahl, [email protected] Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden Johanna Laakso, [email protected] Institut für Finno-Ugristik der Universität Wien, Spitalgasse 2–4, Hof 7, A-1090 Wien, Austria Lars-Gunnar Larsson, Lars-Gunnar.Larsson@finugr.uu.se Dept. of Finno-Ugrian languages, University of Uppsala, Box 256, SE-751 05, Uppsala, Sweden Stefan Pugh, [email protected] Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Duke University, Durham, NC 27 706, UK Éva Á. Csató Johanson, [email protected] Department of Asian and African Languages, Uppsala University, Box 527, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden



List of contributors

Neil G. Jacobs, [email protected] Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. The Ohio State University, 314 Cunz Hall, 1841 Millikin Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA Alexandr Rusakov, [email protected] Dept. of General Linguistics, St. Petersburg University, Lenin str. 11, apt. 4, 197136, St.Petersburg Russia Vytautas Ambrazas, [email protected] Kraziu˛ g. 7–3, 2001 Vilnius, Lithuania Bernhard Wälchli, [email protected] Dept of Linguistics, Stockholm University; and Inst. für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Bern, Länggassstr. 11, CH-3012 Bern Helle Metslang, [email protected] Tallinn Pedagogical University, Chair of Estonian, Narva Road 29, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia Baiba Metuzale-Kangere, [email protected] Dept. of Baltic Studies, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden Simon Christen, [email protected] Stadtbachstr. 42a, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland Leon Stassen, [email protected] Instituut voor Algemene Taalwetenschap, Erasmusplein 1 (k. 9–12), NL-6525 GG Nijmegen, The Netherlands Thomas Stolz, [email protected] Universität Bremen, Fachbereich 10: Linguistik Postfach 33 04 40, D-28334, Bremen, Germany Kersti Boiko, [email protected] Faculty of Modern Languages, Finno-Ugric Programme, University of Latvia, Visvalza 4a, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia

xi



Introduction



The Circum-Baltic Languages* Introduction to the volume Östen Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Areal linguistics and typology have multiple connections. The use of typology has long been recognized in areal linguistics: typological considerations are an important tool in evaluating suggested isoglosses, i.e. if typologically marked (crosslinguistically infrequent, idiosyncratic) features are attested in several neighbouring languages, this similarity can hardly be attributed to an accident. Typologists, on the other hand, have shown an increasing interest in areal generalizations: while some typologists try to minimize the risk for a potential areal (and genetic) bias in a sample by various sophisticated sampling procedures, others find uneven areal distributions of features a fascinating object of study: the most important recent contributions to areal typology include Dryer’s work on word order (1989), Nichols’ work on correlations among marking type and various other language parameters (1992), Dahl’s work on tense and aspect (1995), Stassen’s book on intransitive predication (1997). In practice, however, the contacts between areal linguistics and typology, as well as communication between experts in these two fields, often are weak. One basic problem is, of course, that both types of research require hard work with a huge amount of data, but with completely different focuses. For areal linguists, the desideratum is a complete documentation — both synchronically and diachronically — of linguistic properties in a restricted area, including minimal variation among closely related language varieties. Typologists, who sometimes find this preoccupation with details boring, dispense with a large portion of them — much to the irritation of areal linguists, who find this attitude superficial and suspicious. Practical difficulties are also an obstacle in contacts between areal linguistics and typology. Areal studies require enormous knowledge — of the languages spoken in the area and of the linguistic literature concerning their synchronic state and history. One can hardly expect areal linguists to have a good orientation in linguistic typology. On the other hand, one cannot expect that typologists will be able to have a good orientation in descriptions of various phenomena which appear or have appeared in small publications at various “obscure” places, are written in “smaller” languages and are directed towards a narrow circle of specialists.

xvi The Circum-Baltic Languages

The area around the Baltic sea provides ample illustration of these difficulties. Not only are there many languages and many dialects spoken here, but there are also several strong local linguistic traditions, some of them with fairly old roots. Making the information accumulated within those traditions more easily accessible to linguists outside them is a highly desirable but not an easily attainable goal. Recent developments in linguistics have brought about more intensive contacts with typologists and specialists in particular languages. Thus, the combined efforts of numerous linguists of different denominations involved in the programme “EUROTYP” resulted in many interesting generalizations about Europe as a linguistic area. The end of the cold war and new media of scientific communication paved a way for new fruitful dialogues among various specialists. There are still seemingly unsurmountable difficulties. General typologists and specialists in Baltic, Finno-Ugric, Slavic and Germanic languages will all perceive the goals of the areal study of CB-languages differently. The present pair of volumes represents the first major attempt to reconcile those differences. Our topic, then, is Circum-Baltic languages — the languages spoken around the Baltic Sea. Obviously, the delimitation of this set of languages will have to remain vague, for several reasons. The first source of vagueness resides in the

Northern Sami

Inari Sami

Skolt Sami

Lule Sami Pite Sami Ume Sami

Karelian

Southern Sami

Finnish Olonetsian

Dalecarlian

Norwegian

Swedish Estonian Livonian

Latvian Danish Northern Frisian Low German

Ludian Veps

Ingrian Votian

Russian

Lithuanian Kashubian

Karaim

Belarusian Polish High German

Map 1.
The Circum-Baltic languages. Non-territorial languages not shown: Romani varieties, Yiddish, Tatar.

The Circum-Baltic Languages xvii

preposition “around”. If a language is spoken on the coast of the Baltic, the case is clear, but how far from there should we go? Then, some languages may not have native speakers in the area but are still important for the study of language contacts, for instance, Latin and French. Should they be included? Finally, to make a list of the Circum-Baltic languages we need to draw the borderline between languages and dialects or varieties, a notoriously hopeless task. The list of Circum-Baltic languages given below, and the map of the area (Map 1), are therefore somewhat arbitrary, and should be taken only as a starting-point for the discussion.

Organization of the volumes The first of the two volumes — Circum-Baltic Languages: Volume 1 — Past and Present — surveys important sub-groups in the present-day Circum-Baltic languages, placing them in their geographical, historical and societal setting and discussing specific contact situations. The second volume — Circum-Baltic Languages: Volume 2 — Grammar and typology — focuses on grammatical phenomena in the Circum-Baltic languages, relating them to the larger typological perspective. Each of the volumes contains three sections. The first section of the first volume contains overviews of four subsets of Circum-Baltic languages and language varieties, representing all the major languages families in the area. Latvian and Lithuanian and their dialects are presented in two chapters by Laimute Halmode and Axel Holvoet. Johanna Laakso and AnneCharlotte Rendahl give surveys of the Finnic languages and the CB Swedish dialects, respectively. Finally, Valeriy Cˇekmonas discusses Russian dialects in the CB area in two chapters. The second section is devoted to the early history of the CB languages. Östen Dahl discusses the origin of the Scandinavian languages and Lars-Gunnar Larsson the influence of the Baltic languages on the Baltic Finnic languages. The third and last section of the first volume treats contact phenomena in some of the minor (in terms of number of speakers) CB languages and language varieties. Karaim, a Turkic language spoken by a small group in Lithuania, is treated by Éva Ágnes Csató. The formation of Karelian, a Finnic language spoken in the Karelian Republic (Russia) is discussed by Stefan M. Pugh. Neil Jacobs surveys the varieties of Yiddish in the CB region and Aleksandr Yu. Rusakov discusses interference and code switching in the variety of Romani spoken in Northern Russia, and Valeriy Cˇekmonas looks for contact-induced phenomena in the Pskov-Novgorod dialect of Russian. The first and largest section of the second volume comprises six chapters, which all treat grammatical phenomena in the languages east of the Baltic from the point of view of diachronic development and areal influence. Three of them focus on

xviii The Circum-Baltic Languages

nominal case: Simon Christen discusses different syntactic positions in which the genitive case may appear in the Baltic and Finnic mentioned and Baiba Metuza¯leKangere and Kersti Boiko compare the case systems of Latvian and Estonian. Vytautas Ambrazas concentrates on a more specific diachronic development: how the use of the nominative for object marking arose in the eastern CB area. The contributions of Helle Metslang and Bernhard Wälchli both treat the historical development of the use of verb particles for aspect or Aktionsart marking in Estonian, Latvian and Livonian. The three chapters in the following section also treat grammatical phenomena, but from a more explicitly typological point of view. A shared focal point of the chapters is the role of nominal case in various syntactic constructions: Leon Stassen’s chapter with the role of cases such as the instrumental, essive and translative in nonverbal predication, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm’s with partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions, and the chapter by Thomas Stolz with the expression of comitative and instrumental roles. In the concluding chapter of the second volume, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli survey a number of important features of CB languages, arguing that although the notion of a Sprachbund is not satisfactory for characterizing the linguistic situation in the CB area, the study of the CB languages from an areal-typological point of view reveals a linguistic landscape with many interesting properties of its own.

List of Circum-Baltic languages Germanic West High German (HGrm) Low German (LGrm) Yiddish (Yid) North Danish (Dan) Swedish (Swd) Dalecarlian (Dal) Norwegian (Nrw) Baltic West †Old Prussian (OPrs) ††Curonian (Cur) †Jatvingian (Jat)

The Circum-Baltic Languages xix

Central Lithuanian (Lith) Latvian (Ltv) East ††Galindian (Gal) Slavic West Polish (Pol) Kashubian (Ksh) †Polabian (Plb) East Belarusian (Bylr) Russian (Rus) Ukrainian (Ukr) Indo-Aryan Romani (Rmn) with varieties/sub-languages: Kelderash, Lovari, Kalo, Baltic, North Russian Finno-Ugrian Finnic Veps (Vps) Karelian (Kar) Olonetsian (Olo) Ludian (Lud) Finnish (Fin) Ingrian (Ing) Votian (Vot) Estonian (Est) with varieties/sub-languages: South Estonian, Northern Estonian (NEst) Sami (Sam) with varieties/sub-languages: Southern Sami, Ume Sami, Pite Sami, Lule Sami, Northern Sami, Inari Sami, Skolt Sami Turkic Karaim (Krm) Tatar (Ttr) † = extinct; †† = only onomastic sources and substratum In addition, more or less isolated dialects under strong influence of other languages, e.g. *Leivu (a Hargla Estonian dialect between Aluksne and Gulbene/Latvia), *Krevinian (Votian near Bauska/Latvia), Estonian Swedish, Nehrungskurisch, Latgalian, Russian of the Old Believers in the Baltics, Urban Russian in the Baltics,



xx

The Circum-Baltic Languages

Baltendeutsch, Halbdeutsch.

Note * In 1991, a six-year research program called “Language Typology around the Baltic Sea” was launched by the Faculty of Humanities at Stockholm University, with Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm as main researcher. A large part of the work behind these volumes was supported financially within this research program. We want to express our thanks here both to our sponsors and to all the people who have contributed to the volumes.

References Dahl, Östen. 1995. “Areal tendencies in tense-aspect systems”. In: Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Bianchi, Valentina, Dahl, Östen & Squartini, Mario (eds.), Temporal Reference, Aspect and Actionality. Vol. 2: Typological perspectives, 11–28. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier. Dryer, Matthew. 1989. “Large linguistic areas and language sampling”. Studies in Language 62: 808–45. Nichols, Johanna. 1992. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press. Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive predication. Oxford studies in typology and linguistic theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.



Part 4

Selected topics in the grammar of the Circum-Baltic languages



Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic* Axel Holvoet

1.

Introduction

1.1 Preliminary remarks In this paper, the passive and impersonal constructions of Latvian and Lithuanian will be considered against the background of similar constructions in Finnic, with the aim of pointing out possible areal links. The reason for dealing jointly with both above-mentioned categories (for which I will provide working definitions below) is twofold. First, it has already been pointed out that passives, from the functional point of view, are a device for backgrounding subjects/agents (cf. Keenan 1985). In this sense they are similar to impersonal constructions, by which I mean constructions serving to describe an action, state etc. ascribed to an indefinite (referential or non-referential) subject (the German term ‘man-Sätze’ would be more convenient than the too vague ‘impersonal’). Secondly, the passive of the Finnic languages seems to be particularly similar to an impersonal construction, and has in fact often been called impersonal. It will be seen that the same may be said, at least to a certain extent, about the passive of the Baltic languages. The point of departure of my considerations will be the similarity (already pointed out by Matthews 1955) between the Finnic ‘passive’ or ‘impersonal’ forms and certain passive constructions of Lithuanian and Latvian. I will attempt to show that the Latvian passive in particular shows striking similarities with the Finnic passive/impersonal; both in Finnic and in Latvian, the passive is, in principle, agentless, while special constructions are used to express the agent of an action by means of an agent phrase rather than by making it the subject of the sentence (i.e. in sentences of the type ‘this was done by so-and-so’). I will also argue that the Lithuanian agented passive, which is specific in being frequently derived from intransitive verbs and showing additional types of semantic marking, not connected with the basic functions of voice, has developed from an initial stage still preserved in Latvian. I will then proceed to a discussion of impersonal constructions with active verb morphology. Here I will not be concerned with sentences containing

364 Axel Holvoet

special indefinite personal pronouns like German man as their subjects, as such pronouns do not exist either in Baltic or in Finnic. Instead, zero subjects are used, i.e. an indefinite human subject, whether referential or non-referential, which has no representation in surface structure, though it is, of course, present in semantic structure. In this domain as well, I will try to point out the striking similarity between Latvian and Finnic constructions. 1.2 Impersonals and passives Some introductory remarks are needed on the relationship between passives on the one hand and impersonals on the other. The term ‘impersonal’ is used in various meanings. In one of its uses it refers to sentences describing ambient states or the activity of some force of nature, e.g. It’s raining, It’s growing dark etc. These will not be dealt with here. By the term ‘impersonal’ I will be referring to specific constructions (syntactic types) containing verbs capable of distinguishing person (build, work, sit, think etc.) and ascribing the action or state denoted by these verbs to an indefinite human agent or (intransitive) subject. Apart from the use of indefinite pronouns (one understands, someone said, anyone knows) or personal pronouns with indefinite reference (they say) in subject position, syntactic means of several kinds may be used to perform this function. One of them is the use of a zero subject (not to be confused with PRO-drop) with the basic, unmarked active verb form, which will be discussed in greater detail in the second part of this paper. Another consists in the use of verb forms or constructions related to, or derived from, passives. In fact, proper passives (i.e., constructions displaying all defining features of a proper passive in a given language) are often used in a function corresponding exactly to the above definition of an impersonal construction. There is the so-called impersonal passive, attested, for example, in many Germanic languages. It is subjectless, may be derived from intransitive verbs, and describes an action performed by an indefinite agent. By ‘subjectless’ I mean that there is no patient (object) promoted to subject. (1) German Hier wird getanzt. here aux.pres.3sg dance:part.pass ‘People are dancing/Dances are going on.’

This construction involves regular passive morphology, and if it is somehow singled out as a special kind of impersonal passive, it is because several features distinguish it from what is commonly felt to be the canonical passive in the average European language. Such a canonical passive might involve, for example, the promotion of the original object to subject, the shift of the original subject to the status of an optional agent phrase, and a reversal of the pattern of topicalization, with the promotion of the object reflecting its topicalization. An example would be (2):

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 365

(2) German Das Buch wurde von Hans gelesen. def book aux.pret.3sg by Hans read:part.pass

None of these features of the passive can be found in (2). As none of the features connected with the grammatical status of noun phrases and the pattern of topicalization seems to apply, the construction used in (2) is apparently reduced to a device for ascribing an action to an indefinite agent. Of course, this is not a sufficient foundation for setting it apart from other passives. A great deal of research has been carried out in the last decades on the typology and universal properties of passives (cf. Xolodovicˇ [ed.] 1974; Siewierska 1984; Shibatani 1985 etc.), and our present knowledge of the diversity of passive constructions in the languages of the world should make us cautious in our attempts to put forward a universal set of defining features for the passive. There are promoting and nonpromoting passives, passives with optional agent phrases and those which do not allow reference to the agent, etc. As to semantic and pragmatic properties, it may not simply be posited that passivization must reflect a reversal of the pattern of topicalization. Perhaps non-identification of the agent is an equally important function, since agentless passives seem to be universally more common than agented ones? If Frajzyngier (1982) argues that impersonal passives are, functionally, an independent category distinct from the passive proper, then this results, perhaps, from a too narrow view of the potential functional scope of proper passives. In many languages, however, there are constructions which it seems legitimate to call impersonal in the sense defined above, because they are distinct from what is generally considered to be the basic passive construction in these languages. As an example we may cite the Polish impersonal preterite as illustrated in (3), which is distinct from the corresponding passive construction illustrated in (4). It should be noted that this impersonal passive is historically derived from the passive (it was originally a neuter form of the passive participle contained in the periphrastic passive), but has become dissociated from it in the course of time: (3) Polish Zburzono s´ciane˛. pull down:pret.impr wall:acc.sg ‘They pulled down the/a wall’, ‘The/a wall was pulled down.’ (4) Polish S´ciana została zburzona wall:nom.sg aux.pret.3sg.fem pull down:part.pass.nom.sg.fem (przez robotników). (by workman:acc.pl ‘The/a wall was pulled down by (the) workmen.’

The construction with the impersonal past tense shows no object promotion (it has an object in the accusative). No agent phrase can be added, but the use of the

366 Axel Holvoet

impersonal past tense always implies that human agency is involved. In the corresponding passive construction, the object of the active construction is obligatorily promoted to subject, an agent phrase can be added (if this is not the case, then human agency is not necessarily implied, though the semantics of the verb may suggest it). The promotion of the original object to subject is usually associated with its topicalization, which is not the case in the corresponding constructions with the impersonal past tense. If a language has no separate impersonal construction distinct from the passive, as described above, but a single construction corresponding to both, then the decision whether this construction is to be termed impersonal or passive will, to a certain extent, be arbitrary. This is reflected in the terminological controversy concerning the Finnic constructions called ‘passive’ by some scholars and ‘impersonal’ by others. As similar situations may present themselves in other languages as well, more particularly in those I will be dealing with in this paper, it seems useful to have prototypical definitions of both types of constructions. I am aware that, even as prototypical definitions, the sets of features listed below can raise no claim to universality; they are formulated for the purposes of this paper. Though it is difficult to point out one universal invariant feature for all passives, demotion of the agent is certainly a good candidate, but this does not set passives apart from impersonals. The working definitions provided here will, therefore, concentrate on the remaining features. The passive: (a) promotes the original object of an active construction to subject; the passive verb form must agree with this subject in number at least; if the passive form is periphrastic and contains a participle, then this participle will agree with the subject in case and gender as well (provided we are dealing with a language where these forms of agreement exist); (b) must not necessarily contain an agent phrase, but may do so if necessary; if no agent phrase occurs, the sentence conveys no information about the kind of agent involved. The impersonal: (a) does not promote the original object to subject (the agreement features mentioned for passives will therefore not apply), and (b) does not allow an agent phrase to be added, but always implies human agency. We can now recapitulate. Three kinds of constructions will be referred to in this paper: (a) passive constructions, where the agent or intransitive subject of the basic active construction is demoted from the position of surface subject, but may be optionally reintroduced as an agent phrase; (b) passive-like impersonals, where the agent or intransitive subject is demoted from the position of surface subject and may not be reintroduced, although an indefinite human agent or intransitive subject is implied; (c) impersonals with zero subjects, where the agent or intransitive subject is not demoted from subject position, but the syntactic zero occurring in subject position denotes an indefinite agent or intransitive subject.

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 367

2.

Passives in Finnic and Baltic

2.1 The Finnic passive The Finnic forms traditionally called ‘passive’ are sometimes also referred to as ‘impersonal’, and even authors using the term ‘passive’ often emphasize that this is simply a traditional name for what is really an impersonal form. In some cases, however, this passive is not immediately distinguishable from a ‘canonical’ passive, e.g. (5) Finnish Naapuri kutsuttiin illalliselle. neighbour:nom.sg invite:pret.pass dinner:all ‘The neighbour was invited for dinner’

The verb contains no agreement morphemes, and it actually never does in the passive. Even though some forms of the passive are periphrastic and consist of a participle, combined with the auxiliary olla ‘be’, there will be no agreement in those cases either: the participle is not declined, and the auxiliary is always in the 3rd person singular. On the other hand, naapuri in (5) is in the nominative, the case also used for the subject. An agent phrase cannot be added. If, however, we replace the noun naapuri with a 1st or 2nd person personal pronoun, or a 3rd person pronoun denoting a person, then these will be in the accusative: (6) Finnish Minut kutsuttiin illalliselle. me:acc invite:pret.pass dinner:all ‘I was invited for dinner.’

Furthermore, if a negation is added, then the noun phrase corresponding to the original object will not be in the nominative, but in the partitive. This is reminiscent of object case marking, as the object of a negated verb is in the partitive. Note that the negative form of the passive preterite is analytic: it consists of the negative verb and a passive participle. (7) Finnish Naapuri ei kutsuttu neighbour:prtv.sg neg.3sg invite:2nd.part.pass illalliselle. dinner:all ‘The neighbour was not invited for dinner.’

If we add to this that the use of the Finnish passive always implies a human agent, then we see that this construction is something intermediate between a canonical passive and an impersonal construction described above. It differs from the latter by the possibility of object-to-subject promotion in cases like (5), but the variety

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illustrated in (6) appears to be a ‘pure’ impersonal. The interpretation of (7) is not immediately obvious, as the partitive may alternate with the accusative (genitive) as an object case, but also with the nominative as a subject case. It should be added that, in Finnish, even the occurrence of a noun phrase in the nominative is not a sufficient reason to exclude its interpretation as an object. It is true that indicative forms of the verb normally have an object in the accusative or partitive, but the nominative as an object case occurs with the imperative and certain uses of the infinitive. All this being taken into account, the term ‘impersonal’ would seem more appropriate than ‘passive’ as a description of the Finnish constructions discussed here. In modern standard Estonian, the situation is basically similar to what we observe in Finnish. It must be added here that in both languages there is a limited possibility of adding an agent phrase by using postposition-like expressions like Finnish taholta ‘on the part of ’, Estonian poolt ‘id.’ (Sulkala & Karjalainen 1992: 289; Tauli 1983: 32). This is no doubt a recent development based on foreign models, and there can be no doubt that the Finnish and Estonian passives were originally agentless. Apart from such innovations clearly arising in recent times under the influence of the major European languages (German, Russian etc.), there does not seem to be a tendency in Finnic to develop the agentless passive into a passive proper.1 What we observe is rather a tendency to integrate passive forms into the active paradigm, caused by the frequent use of an impersonal means of expression to avoid direct reference to a 1st or 2nd person subject. In Finnish, for example, the passive can now be combined with a 1st person plural subject in the nominative. The Finnic passive is thus clearly turning into an active form. 2.2 The Latvian passive The Latvian passive is always periphrastic. It consists of the ‘past’ passive participle (the term ‘past’ is more or less conventional, as between the present and past passive participles there is usually no difference of tense or aspect, the former usually being marked for additional meanings such as possibility or necessity), and an auxiliary. As an auxiliary the verb tikt ‘to get (somewhere)’ is commonly used; less frequently one finds tapt ‘to become’ and palikt ‘to stay, to remain’ or ‘to become’. This is used for the ‘dynamic’ passive (German Vorgangspassiv), i.e. the passive construction referring to the action itself rather than its result: (8) Latvian Ma¯ja tiek celta. house:nom.sg aux.pres.3 build:ppp.nom.sg.fem ‘The/a house is being built.’

An important fact to be noted in this example is that only the participle shows agreement morphemes, not the auxiliary. It is a general feature of the Baltic

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 369

languages that finite verbs do not distinguish singular from plural in the 3rd person. In order for the auxiliary to distinguish number, it would have to appear in a compound tense form, consisting of a form of the auxiliary bu¯t ‘to be’ and the active past participle of the auxiliary in the number and gender form required by agreement with the subject. (9) Latvian Ma¯ja ir tikusi house:nom.sg be:pres.3 aux.ppa.nom.sg.fem (uz)celta. (build:ppp.nom.sg.fem ‘The house has been built’

Usually, the active participle contained in the compound tense form of the auxiliary is deleted, which leaves only the auxiliary bu¯t; and even this can often be deleted. (10) Latvian Ma¯ja ir (uz)celta. house:nom.sg be:pres.3 (build:ppp.nom.sg.fem ‘The house has been built’

This form is ambiguous, however. The combination of bu¯t with the passive past participle can also be interpreted as a stative (resultative) passive, so that there are two meanings for (11): (11) Latvian Durvis bija sle¯gtas. door:nom.pl be:pret.3 close:ppp.nom.pl.fem. a. ‘The door had been closed.’ b. ‘The door was closed.’

With regard to the case marking of the original object, the Latvian passive behaves rather consistently as a ‘canonical’ passive, i.e. the object of the active construction is always promoted to subject, and the participle always agrees with this subject. In principle, the original object never retains its object case marking.2 An apparent exception is the retention of the genitive of negation in the passive, attested in the dialects (Endzelı¯ns 1951: 563). Note that the participle is in the masculine singular form, as in the impersonal passive (this is the regular outcome of gender neutralization, as neuter forms, used in similar circumstances in Slavic and Lithuanian, do not exist in Latvian). (12) Latvian Nuo ta¯ laika tur nav vair from that:gen.sg time:gen.sg there be:pres.3.neg any more neviena spuoka radzâts no:gen.sg ghost:gen.sg see:ppp.nom.sg.masc ‘From that time onward not a single ghost was seen there.’

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Such constructions are rare, as the genitive of negation with transitive verbs is becoming extinct in Latvian. Anyway, the exception is only apparent. The accusative/genitive alternation in transitive objects is echoed by the nominative/genitive alternation in intransitive subjects, and the latter pattern also extends to passives. We find the same pattern in negative sentences in Russian, which otherwise has only ‘personal’ passives with obligatory object-to-subject promotion. What is interesting to note is the high frequency of impersonal passives in Latvian. Latvian shares with Finnic the possibility of deriving an impersonal passive from virtually any intransitive verb (with a few restrictions). There is not even any need for the verb to express any kind of activity, as the German verb in (1) does. In (13) we have an impersonal passive derived from bu¯t ‘be’, a verb from which no passive construction could possibly be derived in German: (13) Latvian Te ilgi nav bu¯ts. here long be:pres.neg be:ppp.nom.sg.masc ‘One hasn’t been here for a long time.’

There is one restriction on the use of intransitive passives in Latvian: this construction does not comprise copular constructions. Perhaps this restriction is somehow connected with the Latvian pattern of agreement. Latvian always requires agreement with the subject in copular constructions, whereas the Finnic languages do not. In Finnish, the predicate nominal may be in the partitive plural, selected as a default case: (14) Finnish On oltu huolimattomia. be:pres.3sg be:ppa careless:prtv.pl ‘One has been careless’

In Latvian, predicate nominals are in the nominative with finite verb forms and in the dative with infinitives. In passive constructions there would be nothing for the predicate nominal to agree with, as there can be no agent phrase, and there is no default case for predicate nominals. The situation in Lithuanian is different: this language also requires agreement with the subject, but as it has agent phrases in the genitive, the predicate nominal can agree with them in passive constructions: (15) Lithuanian Jo bu¯ta gudraus. he:gen be:ppp.nom.sg.neut clever:gen.sg.masc ‘He (apparently) has been clever’

Otherwise there seem to be no lexical restrictions whatsoever on the derivation of impersonal passives in either Finnic or Latvian. In modern standard Latvian, the only restriction is of a formal nature: reflexive verbs are not passivized, though impersonal

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic

passives from reflexive verbs are attested in the dialects, cf. Endzelı¯ns (1951: 949). Structurally, the compound tense forms of the Latvian impersonal passive are closest to the Finnic ones. In the non-compound tenses, the periphrastic passive of Latvian is opposed to the synthetic forms of Finnic. It seems that it is also in the compound tense forms that the functional similarity is most evident. The noncompound tense forms of the Latvian impersonal passive are much less frequent than the compound ones. The functional equivalent of the non-compound Finnic passive is the 3rd person plural active form (see below) rather than the passive. 2.3 Agent phrases in Finnic and Latvian In order to fully appreciate the correspondence between the Latvian passive and the Finnic passive/impersonal as agentless constructions, we should here briefly consider the means used in both languages to express the agent in a non-active construction. It is a well-known fact that the Latvian passive, unlike the Lithuanian one, does not allow expression of the agent in what can be called a genuine dynamic passive (German Vorgangspassiv).3 (16) Latvian *Ma¯ja tiek (no) te¯va celta. house aux.pres.3 (by father:gen.sg build:ppp.nom.sg.fem ‘The/A house is being built by father.’

An agent phrase in the genitive may, however, be added to adnominal passive participles: (17) Latvian te¯va celta ma¯ja father:gen.sg built:ppp.nom.sg.fem house:nom.sg ‘a house built by father’

If the agent is expressed by a 1st or 2nd person personal pronoun or a reflexive pronoun, there are two possibilities: either the genitive is used, or it is replaced with the possessive pronoun (the latter construction is now archaic): (18) Latvian manis celta ma¯ja me:gen build:ppp house (19) Latvian mana celta ma¯ja my:nom.sg.fem build:ppp.nom.sg.fem house:nom.sg ‘a house built by me’

Such constructions with agentive genitives added to adnominal passive participles may be shifted to the position of nominal predicate, which yields sentences like

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(20) Latvian Ma¯ja ir te¯va celta. house:nom.sg be:pres.3 father:gen.sg built:ppp.nom.sg.fem ‘The house was built by father.’

This construction is, of course, reminiscent of a passive. But it is important to note that in (20) the verb bu¯t cannot be replaced by an auxiliary of the dynamic passive, such as tikt. In other words, (21) is ungrammatical: (21) Latvian *Ma¯ja tiek te¯va celta. house:nom.sg aux.pres.3 father:gen.sg built:ppp.nom.sg.fem ‘The house was built by father.’

The occurrence of possessive pronouns suggests that the adnominal agentive genitive occurring in such constructions was originally an ordinary possessive genitive, i.e. mana celta ma¯ja originally meant ‘my house, which I have built’, and subsequently came to mean ‘the house built by me’ (the agent and the possessor not being necessarily identical any more). This development is paralleled by that of resultative possessive constructions of the mihi est type in both Latvian and Estonian (see below). It is interesting to note that the Finnic languages, whose passive does not allow expression of the agent, have constructions reminiscent of the Latvian ones, used to express the agent. They are described as special agentive constructions rather than as passives (cf. Hakulinen 1955: 267–7). In Standard Finnish, constructions used to denote the agent do not contain the passive participle, but a form which is identical to the so-called 3rd infinitive in -ma/-mä — a form which, in this particular use, is sometimes referred to by a special term, the agentive participle, though other authors identify it as the 3rd infinitive in this construction as well. This form must originally have been a verbal noun, so that comparison with English constructions like of one’s own making suggests itself. Let us note that Finnic, like Latvian, uses this construction primarily to denote the agent adnominally, though it can also be transferred to the position of nominal predicate. The agent is added in the genitive; but it can also be expressed by a possessive suffix added to the infinitive, as in (24); and, with stronger emphasis, a personal pronoun in the genitive may be added to an infinitive which already has a possessive suffix, as in (25): (22) Finnish Pekan maalaama talo Pekka:gen 3rd.inf house:nom.sg ‘the house painted by Pekka’

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 373

(23) Finnish Talo on Pekan maalaama. house:nom.sg be:pres.3sg Pekka:gen 3rd.inf ‘The house was painted by Pekka.’ (24) Finnish Talo on maalaama- -si. house:nom.sg be:pres.3sg 3rd.inf poss.2sg (25) Finnish Talo on sinun maalaama- -si. house:nom.sg be:pres.3sg you:gen 3rd.inf poss.2sg ‘The house was painted by you.’

In Estonian, the situation is similar to that which we observe in Finnish, the difference being that such constructions contain the passive participle in -tud, also used in the compound forms of the passive, rather than a special agentive participle. This may also be observed in Votic (Ariste 1968: 19, where this construction is somewhat surprisingly called ‘ergative’), and in some Finnish dialects (Hakulinen 1955: 267). Of course, possessive suffixes are not used here, as they have generally fallen into disuse in Estonian. (26) Estonian Maja on isa ehitatud. house:nom.sg be:pres.3 father:gen.sg build:part.pass ‘The house was built by father’

The question arises whether the Latvian (and Estonian) construction with an agentive genitive in the predicate noun phrase can be considered a passive at all. At first glance, one would be inclined to interpret (20) as a stative passive (Zustandspassiv), as in (11) Durvis bija sle¯gtas ‘the door was closed’ (cf. German Die Tür war geschlossen ‘The door was closed’ as against Die Tür war geschlossen worden ‘The door had been closed’). But the general tendency is for stative passives not to contain agent phrases; in those European languages where the stative passive is always distinct from the dynamic passive (i.e. where it is not homonymous with the compound forms of the dynamic passive), the stative passive with an agent phrase is usually deviant, cf. German and Polish: (27) German *Die Tür ist von Peter geschlossen. def door be:pres.3 by Peter close:ppp (28) Polish *Drzwi sa˛ przez Piotra zamknie˛te. door:nom be:pres.3 by Peter close:ppp

As the stative passive describes a resulting state rather than the action, it is natural that when it contains a temporal adverbial this will refer to the time of the resulting

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state rather than to the time of the action; if, in (11), we add the adverb vakar ‘yesterday’, then this will not mean that the action of closing the door was performed yesterday, but that the resulting state of affairs persisted at that time. And when a sentence is meant to describe a resulting state rather than the action itself, then it will usually make no reference to the agent, because even if the agent’s identity can be established, it will often be irrelevant. It is therefore easy to understand why stative passives as illustrated by (27) and (28) will normally contain no agent phrase. There may be situations, however, where the identity of the agent is relevant without the time of performance being relevant. This situation seems to be illustrated by the Finnic sentences (22–25) and the Latvian sentence (20). Only the agent is identified, whereas the circumstances of the action are irrelevant. This explains, at least partly, why the auxiliary of the dynamic passive cannot be introduced in (20): the dynamic passive describes the circumstances of the performance of the action itself. In this respect, (20) is similar to a stative passive, but, as we have seen, the fact that it contains an agent phrase is not characteristic of a stative passive. Furthermore, in sentences like (20) the agentive genitive (te¯va) can never be moved away from the participle to be put, for instance, at the beginning of the sentence, although word order is otherwise quite free in Latvian. The fact that it must always be put immediately before the participle indicates that it has basically retained the status of an adnominal genitive, comparable with the genitive accompanying the 3rd infinitive in Finnish. And, if this is so, then constructions like (20) should properly be regarded as copular constructions rather than as passives. In order to render their structure correctly, one would have to compare them to English constructions with incorporated agents such as man-made fibres and these fibres are man-made. I would prefer to describe them as special agentive constructions as well, rather than to classify them with stative passives. It is worth noting here that both Latvian and Estonian regularly use a passivelike construction which, though primarily possessive, renders possible oblique reference to the agent. This construction (cf. Tauli 1983: 91 for Estonian, Holvoet 1994: 136–7 for Latvian) could be compared to the compound tense forms with the auxiliary ‘have’ found in many European languages. The English construction I have built a house must have originally meant ‘I have (own) a house, built by myself ’; this follows from the fact that the verb have originally expressed possession. Later on, this construction came to denote only agency, not possession. Similar constructions occur in many languages, even in languages that do not possess the verb ‘have’. In the Finnic languages as well as in Latvian, the possessive relation is expressed by the verb ‘be’, to which the possessor is added in the adessive (in Finnic), or in the dative (in Latvian), the object possessed being the subject of the sentence, occurring in the nominative, e.g.

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(29) Estonian Minul on maja. me:adess be:pres.3 house:nom.sg (30) Latvian Man ir ma¯ja. me:dat be:pres.3 house:nom.sg ‘I have got a house.’

As Latin had both constructions, with the verbs ‘have’ (habeo) and ‘be’ (occurring with the dative, as in mihi est ‘I have’), both constructions can be referred to, for the sake of briefness, as constructions of the habeo type and the mihi est type respectively. Let us now consider (31) and (32): (31) Latvian Vin¸am viss jau bija izteikts. him:dat all:nom.sg.masc already be:pret.3 say:ppp.sg.masc (32) Estonian Tal oli kõik juba öeltud. him:adess be:pret.3sg all already say:part.pass ‘He had already said everything (he had to say)’

These constructions are superficially reminiscent of passives, but in fact they are still possessive constructions: the agent is not the possessor of the object, but, in a way, he is the beneficiary of the accomplishment of the action. What is interesting about these constructions, which are probably not old (the Latvian construction has no equivalent in Lithuanian, where the possessive construction is of the habeo type), is that they echo, in a different way, the possessive origin of the adnominal agentive genitive of Baltic and Finnic. Originally, such constructions must have been restricted to cases of identity of agent and possessor (as can still be frequently observed), but they now extend to verbs whose objects exclude the notion of a possessor, as can be seen in (31), (32). The shift from possessor to agent parallels that which we observe in adnominal genitives. It is not a regular feature, however, and the whole construction has not yet completely dissociated itself from the possessive construction to become purely resultative. Possessive or at least benefactive meaning is usually retained, and this prevents us from comparing this construction to an agented passive. One could, however, conceive of a genuine passive evolving from it. A genuine passive has, in fact, evolved from a construction with a possessive genitive in Lithuanian, but there it must have arisen directly from the adnominal genitive. To this Lithuanian development I will now turn.

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2.4 The Lithuanian passive First, a few introductory remarks on the Lithuanian passive are needed here. It differs form the Latvian passive in that only one auxiliary (bu¯ti ‘to be’) is used, while, on the other hand, there is more diversity as to the choice of the participle: in part of the dialects and in the literary language, not only the past passive participle, but also the present passive participle may be used in passives, the opposition being more or less aspectual in nature: (33) Lithuanian Namas buvo statomas. house:nom.sg be:pret.3 build:part.pres.pass.nom.sg.masc ‘The house was being built’ (34) Lithuanian Namas buvo pastatytas. house:nom.sg be:pret.3 build:ppp.nom.sg.masc ‘The house was (had been) built’

There is also more variety as to case marking and agreement patterns. The Lithuanian passive shows at least two features reminiscent of impersonals. These are: 1. the original object may be promoted to subject with regard to case marking only, the participle being in the neuter singular form instead of agreeing with this nominative (Ambrazas 1990: 200ff.). In (35) the subject durys is feminine plural, but the participles are neuter; the auxiliary ‘be’ is deleted: (35) Lithuanian Durys atidaryta ir palikta. door:nom.pl open:ppp.nom.sg.neut and leave:ppp.nom.sg.neut ‘The door was opened and left (open)’

2. retention of the original object marking instead of promotion to subject. This may not only be observed in negative sentences, where it is also observed in Latvian and Russian, but in affirmative sentences as well: (36) Lithuanian Savo žeme˛ myle˙ta. one’s own country:acc.sg love:ppp.nom.sg.neut ‘People used to love their native country’

In this respect, the Lithuanian passive seems to be closer to the Finnic pattern than that of Latvian.4 It should be noted, however, that lack of agreement of the predicative adjective with the subject is not restricted to participles in passive constructions, and could be an archaic Indo-European feature (as Ambrazas 1990: 200ff. maintains). As to the retention of object case marking instead of promotion to subject, this could reflect a natural shift from a passive towards an impersonal

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construction, as is attested in Polish (see above), though it is somewhat surprising to find this feature in Lithuanian rather than in Latvian, where the passive is otherwise more similar to an impersonal, being consistently agentless. Though clearly related to the Latvian passive genetically, the Lithuanian passive differs from it in one important respect: while the Latvian passive is agentless, in Lithuanian, agent phrases can be added to virtually any passive. As the scope of passivization in Lithuanian is comparable to that which we observe in Latvian, i.e. it extends, practically without restrictions, to intransitive verbs, this leads to a practically unparalleled proliferation of agented passives in this language — at least by the standards of the average Indo-European language. It is true that languages with impersonal passives derived from intransitive verbs sometimes reintroduce agent phrases into them, cf. (37) Latin A militibus fortiter pugnatur. by soldier:abl.pl bravely:adv fight:pres.pass.3sg ‘The soldiers are fighting bravely.’

Such constructions are rare, however. Normally the form pugnatur ‘fighting is going on’ is used in order to leave the agent unexpressed; if the agent is to be expressed, then this will more readily be achieved by simply using an active construction. The frequent use of agented passives derived from intransitive verbs in Lithuanian is therefore remarkable. The historical relationship between the Latvian agentless passive and the Lithuanian agented passive is a point of controversy. Schmalstieg (1988: 30–4) argues that the Lithuanian genitive of agent (which has correspondences in other IE languages) is from an IE ergative construction. If this were true, then the Lithuanian clausal passive must ultimately be a continuation of some IE clause type. This seems to be contradicted, however, by some internal evidence from Lithuanian as well as by the evidence of Latvian. The Baltic agentive genitive shows clear traces of having originally been adnominal:5 in Lithuanian passive constructions, the 1st and 2nd person personal pronouns as well as the reflexive pronoun take the same genitive forms mano, tavo, savo, used adnominally, rather than the adverbal mane˛s, tave˛s, save˛s
: (38) Lithuanian Namas yra mano pastatytas. house:nom.sg be:pres.3 me:gen build:ppp.nom.sg.masc ‘The house was built by me.’

The genitive mano used here is the same as in mano te˙vas ‘my father’, but differs from the genitive mane˛s used in nuo mane˛s ‘from me’ and laukia mane˛s ‘is waiting for me’ (where the verb laukti ‘wait’ governs the genitive). This suggests that in Lithuanian as well, the agentive genitive was originally an adnominal possessive

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genitive, and that its status in sentences like (38) was originally the same as in the Latvian sentence (20). In (20), we have a passive construction in its embryonic stage, and Lithuanian seems to have developed it into a proper passive construction. At a certain stage, it became possible to move the adnominal agentive genitive away from the participle, which yielded sentences like (39): (39) Lithuanian Te˙vo buvo pastatytas namas. father:gen.sg be:pret.3 build:ppp.nom.sg.masc house:nom.sg

In (39), we already have a proper passive: the genitive is no longer adnominal, but functions as an agent phrase with buvo pastatytas, which is no longer a copular construction, but a periphrastic passive form. The passive itself can now have a dynamic interpretation, and if in (39) we add an adverb like pernai ‘last year’, then it will refer to the time of performance of the action, not of the existence of the resulting state. However, the possessive forms of the personal pronouns continue to be used even in the passive constructions proper. It seems therefore that Latvian has retained the original Common Baltic state of affairs, whereas Lithuanian has innovated. This innovation has led to some further changes. Before the rise of agented passives, the Lithuanian passive must have been similar to that of modern Latvian: it was probably similar to an impersonal, and could be derived from virtually any intransitive verb. This peculiarity was not lost when the agented passive was introduced. Lithuanian thereby acquired the capability of deriving agented passives from any intransitive construction, including copular constructions. The introduction of agent phrases into passive constructions, the main function of which, at least with intransitive predicates, was to eliminate the subject, certainly seems paradoxical. The productivity of agented passives derived from intransitive verbs was functionally motivated only by the additional semantic marking which predicative participles acquired in Baltic. It is known that in modern Lithuanian the passives derived from intransitive verbs are characterized by a number of additional meanings, such as inferential (40) or admirative (41) (cf. Ambrazas 1990: 228ff): (40) Latvian Cia vagies bu¯ta. here thief:gen.sg be:ppp.nom.sg.neut ‘There must have been a thief at work here.’ (41) Latvian Ir Petro cˇia esama. also Peter:gen here be:part.pres.pass.nom.sg.neut ‘Peter turns out to be here as well.’

Though this is an independent development in Lithuanian, the tendency underlying it should probably also be considered in the context of areal links with Finnic. The

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inferential or admirative marking connected with participial constructions in general cannot be dissociated from the system of the indirect mood (modus relativus) so well developed in Baltic, and generally associated with similar phenomena in some Finnic dialects (Estonian, Livonian), cf. Pisani (1959). The close association between imperceptive (indirect, evidential) mood and inferential or admirative marking is clearly shown by the parallel of the Balkan languages, where similar meanings are also associated with the use of participles primarily covering the domain of the perfect. For Common Baltic we must certainly posit a welldeveloped system of the indirect mood, comprising mainly constructions with active participles. The tendency to introduce passive participles into this system, with the aim of providing an impersonal pendant to the constructions with active participles, can be observed in both Baltic languages (on the parallel development of active and passive participles within the system of the modus relativus, as well as on the areal links with Finnic, cf. Ambrazas 1990: 219–235). The following Latvian example illustrates this (note the correspondence of the active participle ielaidusi and the passive participle vare¯ts): (42) Latvian Saimniece vin¸u ielaidusi landlady him:acc let in:ppa.sg.fem sava¯ istaba¯, kur pa val¸e¯ja¯m poss.refl.loc.sg room:loc.sg where through open:dat.pl durvı¯m vare¯ts redze¯t, door:dat can:ppp.sg.masc see:inf kad kundze izna¯ks when lady come out:fut.3 ‘The story goes that the landlady let him into her room, from where it was possible to watch through the open door when the lady would come out.’

The availability of a new series of agented passives from intransitive verbs, which had but a weak functional motivation of their own, led to their being assigned new functions within this system of modal or evidential marking in Lithuanian. This is, therefore, a separate Lithuanian development, the roots of which should be sought in some Common Baltic tendencies strikingly reminiscent of similar phenomena in Finnic.

3.

Introductory remarks on zero subjects

I will now turn to a discussion of the Finnic and Latvian constructions with zero subjects. First, some general remarks are needed. Deletion of the subject in the active construction is subject to various restrictions, at least in accusative languages, where it is usually easier to delete the object than the subject. No such operation is,

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of course, possible in languages requiring the subject position to be obligatorily occupied. Languages without this requirement often have more or less consistent PRO-drop, so that an indefinite or generic zero subject may be inconvenient: the language system must at least provide some mechanisms allowing to determine whether, in a particular utterance, one is dealing with a case of PRO-drop or with a syntactic zero, i.e. whether an obligatory zero in surface realization represents an indefinite or generic argument. The ideal conditions for the use of indefinite zero subjects seem, therefore, to be present in languages which do not have consistent PRO-drop but do not require the subject position to be always occupied either. A well-known instance of this is Russian, which makes extensive use of zero subjects. Compare: (43) Russian Oni menja obokrali. they me:acc rob:pret.3pl ‘They robbed me.’ (44) Russian Menja obokrali. me:acc rob:pret.3pl ‘I was robbed.’

As we see in these examples, the omission of the personal pronoun makes the subject indefinite. Actually (44) does not even imply that the action was performed by more than one person. The number opposition is neutralized here, and this neutralization seems to reduce the ambiguity between PRO-drop and indefinite subject. Indeed, this strategy is used even in languages without PRO-drop (cf. English they’ re so clever nowadays). Keenan (1985:248) mentions only the construction with the 3rd person plural as an alternative means of subject elimination or backgrounding alongside the passive. It appears that the 3rd person plural form, with or without an unstressed personal pronoun, easily allows referential but indefinite interpretation.6 The construction with the 3rd person singular seems to be much less frequent, being more subject to ambiguity. Apart from specific contexts, a 3rd person personal pronoun will always be interpreted as referential and definite, and a zero subject will be interpreted as an instance of PRO-drop. Probably a zero subject with a 3rd person singular verb will be possible only if the clause carries some special marking favouring non-referential interpretation, e.g. generic time reference etc. (examples from Finnic will be cited further on). 3.1 Plural zero subjects in Latvian and Finnic The use of the 3rd person plural to denote an indefinite, but referential subject seems to be a universal tendency. It is widespread among IE languages and can

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 381

apparently be activated at various times in various languages. One is not surprised to find this construction in both Baltic and Slavic. In both cases we have an obligatory zero, and a personal pronoun may not be added. In Slavic, the verb is always easy to identify as plural, as can be seen in (44). In Latvian, this is not always the case, as finite verb forms do not distinguish number in the 3rd person. However, the verb may be shown to be in the plural in sentences with compound tense forms containing active participles. The compound tenses of the Baltic verb consist of the auxiliary ‘be’ and an active past participle, which agrees with the subject: (45) Latvian Ja¯nis ir atna¯cis. John:nom be:pres.3 arrive:ppa.nom.sg.masc ‘John has arrived.’ (46) Latvian Viesi ir atna¯kuši. guest:nom.pl be:pres.3 arrive:ppa.nom.pl.masc ‘The guests have arrived.’

The following example also contains forms of this kind, but the auxiliary is deleted, whereby the form acquires the meaning of the indirect mood (the speaker indicates that he is only reporting events which he has not witnessed). Note that the participles are in the plural, like the Russian past tense in (44): (47) Latvian Manu dzı¯vokli kratı¯juši, mani my flat:acc.sg ransack:ppa.nom.pl.masc me:acc mekle¯juši. seek:ppa.nom.pl.masc ‘(I was told that) my flat had been ransacked and that I had been looked for’

However frequent this construction may be, it is not characteristic of Finnic, where its rise seems to have been blocked by the existence of the impersonal, which covered precisely the functional scope of the referential indefinite subject. It is only in those Finnic dialects which were exposed to a strong Slavic influence that the 3rd person plural came to be widely used (for Livonian, which was exposed to Latvian influence, see below). In Veps this has led to a reinterpretation of the original impersonal (passive) forms as a variety of the 3rd person plural form, and the former 3rd person plural and passive endings simply became competing allomorphs without functional differentiation (cf. Ritter 1977: 89; cf. Ariste 1968: 68 on Votic). The impersonal 3rd person plural is attested in Finnish (Mullonen 1963: 34) and in Estonian (Erelt et al. [eds.] 1993: 30–1). In both languages this usage is largely restricted to verba dicendi, cf. Finnish sanovat ‘they say’, Estonian räägivad
‘id.’ Mullonen describes the scope of the construction with the 3rd pers. pl. in situational rather than lexical terms, stating that it is used when reporting rumours etc. In view of the restrictions

382 Axel Holvoet

imposed upon this construction one would be inclined to assume a syntactic borrowing, especially with Russian constructions of the type govorjat ‘they say’ in mind. However, on this assumption it would be hard to explain why the use of the 3rd person plural should have extended to an indefinite subject ‘raised’ from an embedded participial clause in (48), cited by Mullonen (1963: 34): (48) Finnish Siellä kuuluvat tienaavan hyvin. there be-rumoured:pres.3pl earn:part.act well ‘It is said that one earns well there.’

No foreign model suggests itself for this construction. Though it is hard to imagine how this kind of communicative situation described by Mullonen could define a particular subtype of the indefinite referential subject, the construction with the 3rd person plural should probably be assumed to have arisen spontaneously, without foreign influence, in Finnic, especially in view of its overall typological commonness. 3.2 Singular zero subjects The examples cited until now contain zero subjects with plural forms of the verb. There are also sentences with zero subjects and the singular form of the verb. Judging from Zubatý’s (1907) article, not many examples of this can be found in Indo-European, when compared to the quite frequent 3rd person plural. This feature is, however, quite common in Finnic; it has been described for Finnish by Hakulinen & Karttunen (1973). Compare: (49) Finnish Puheesta-ni voi kuulla, speech:elat.sg poss.1sg can:pres.3sg hear:inf että olen ulkomaalainen. that be:pres.1sg foreigner:nom.sg ‘From my speech you can hear that I am a foreigner.’

There is no surface subject, and the verb is in the 3rd person singular. The meaning is ‘you can here’, ‘one can hear’, i.e., ‘anyone can hear’. In this case the subject is not referential any more; it is non-referential, as it makes a statement about any conceivable subject. The existence of this clause type in Latvian has always gone unnoticed because of the homonymy of the 3rd person singular and plural finite verb forms in Baltic. In grammars it is usually stated that the equivalent of German man-Sätze in Latvian is the use of a 3rd person verb form without surface subject. It is not specified whether this is a singular or a plural, as this cannot usually be seen. However, as stated above, the difference can be seen in the compound forms of the verb, containing active participles. Apart from sentences with zero subjects like (47),

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 383

where the verb is in the masculine plural, there are also sentences where a compound tense form containing a masculine singular participle occurs with a zero subject (for further details cf. Holvoet 1995). The gender form clearly results from the neutralization of the gender opposition, as in constructions with the plural form of the participle. Consider (50): (50) Latvian Ja pavasarı¯ dzird dzeguzi ku¯kojam un if spring:loc hear:pres.3 cuckoo:acc cry:part.act and ja nav e¯dis un naudas if be:pres.3.neg eat:ppa.nom.sg.masc and money:gen nav kla¯t, tad tai gada¯ slikti kla¯jas. be:pres.3.neg present then that year:loc badly fare:pres.3.refl ‘If in the spring one hears a cuckoo crying and one hasn’t eaten and one has no money on one’s person, then that year will be a bad one’

Here the protasis of the conditional period contains a non-referential indefinite zero subject. The subject is generic (and could be described, in logical terms, by means of the universal quantifier): anyone who hears a cuckoo crying in the circumstances described in the protasis, will have a bad year. The syntactic properties of this zero subject are shown by the form nav ¯edis ‘(if) one has not eaten’: here the singular masculine participle is associated with an indefinite non-referential (generic) zero subject, as opposed to the plural masculine participle with an indefinite referential zero subject in (47). The zero subject with a singular verb form, used in a generic sense, as illustrated above from Finnish and Latvian, can be found in part of the Slavic languages (West Slavic and Slovenian). In the past tense and conditional, where the Slavic verb shows gender oppositions, the verbs used with human non-referential zero subjects are in the masculine form, which clearly distinguishes this construction from those traditionally referred to as impersonal, i.e. those describing ambient states, physical and mental states etc. The latter are characterized by the use of the neuter form of the verb (or, alternatively, the predicative adjective). In Slavic, this construction can be found either as a relic (in idiomatical phrases), or as a substandard feature (substandard Polish, for example, frequently has this form in conditional clauses). Such is its status, say, in Polish, where it is still attested in a considerable number of idioms, usually comparative clauses such as: (51) Polish Cicho, jak makiem zasiał. silent:adv as if poppies:inst.sg sow:pret.3sg.masc ‘Everything is silent, as if someone had sown poppies’

The subject is non-referential here as well: if anyone had sown everything around with poppy seeds, the effect would be a silence like this.

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Other Slavic languages have lost this construction, if they ever had it. There is no trace of it in modern Russian, and even the instances occasionally cited for Old Russian (cf. Borkovskij, ed. 1978: 217–221) are extremely doubtful, as they point to ellipsis rather than to a zero subject. The West Slavic parallels do not seem to be relevant to Baltic from the areal point of view, so that we are entitled to attach a certain importance to parallels from Finnic. In fact, I think there must be an areal link between the Finnic and Latvian constructions, and I will try to substantiate this claim by showing that the conditions of their occurrence are similar. There seem to be two cases clearly favouring the occurrence of zero subjects with 3rd person singular verb forms. First, they often occur in conditional clauses, as illustrated by (50). In Finnish as well, the use of generic zero subjects is least subject to restrictions in conditional periods, as in (52) (cited from Hakulinen & Karttunen 1973: 165). Here, as in (50), the subject is generic: ‘anyone who wants to lose weight gives up eating’. (52) Finnish Jos aikoo laihtua, lopettaa syömisen. if intend:pres.3sg lose weight:1stinf finish:pres.3sg 4thinf.gen ‘If you want to lose weight, you give up eating.’

Secondly, modal verbs will also occur in constructions of this type. An example is (53), where the verb is in a simple tense form, but the zero subject can nonetheless be identified as syntactically singular because the predicate nominal traks is in the masculine singular: (53) Latvian Vare¯ja traks palikt no dusma¯m. can:pret.3 mad:nom.sg.masc become:inf with anger:dat ‘One could have got mad with anger.’

(49) is a Finnish parallel to this. Another group of verbs often used with a syntactically singular, non-referential zero subject are verbs of perception. A modal predicate seems to be implicit in these uses (e.g. ‘one sees’ instead of ‘one can see’), cf. (54). (54) Latvian No šejienes redz ju¯ru. from here see:pres.3 sea:acc ‘From here one can see the sea’

Hakulinen and Karttunen cite no similar examples from Finnish, but Tauli cites one from Estonian, containing the verb nägema ‘see’ (Tauli 1983: 27):

Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 385

(55) Estonian Siin, jaama ümbruses, näeb here station:gen.sg neighbourhood:iness.sg see:pres.3sg õhtuti suuri lambakarju. in the evenings great:pret.pl sheep flock:pret.pl ‘Here, around the railway station, one can see great flocks of sheep in the evenings.’

How are these conditions for the use of singular zero subjects to be explained? It should be noted, first of all, that the line of division between generic and specific subjects is not as clear-cut as one might expect. Generalizing statements concerning human actions or experience can be formulated as applying either to any conceivable subject (the linguistic equivalent of the universal quantifier) or to all members of a certain community to which the speaker himself belongs and to which he might be expected to confine his experience-based generalizations on human behaviour. In the latter case, the subject is referential (the referential indefinite subject denotes a group of persons which may extend even to ‘people in general’), and the statement is generic as to its temporal reference. Thus zero subjects of the non-generic type can occur in generic statements, though zero subjects of the generic type will not occur in non-generic statements. Which of the two interpretations of the subject is selected will depend, to a large extent, on the sentence type. A sentence type clearly favouring the generic singular subject is the conditional period, which usually takes the shape of a statement applying to a hypothetical singular subject (‘for any x…’). The event or situation on which the state of affairs described in the main clause is conditional need not always be explicitly expressed: it may simply be implicit in some adverbial modifier denoting place, time or circumstances. However, the presence of a conditional clause is always a clear indication for the generic interpretation of the subject, so that the use of the indefinite zero subject is least subject to lexical restrictions in this context. In their discussion of the lexical restrictions on generic zero subjects in Finnish, Hakulinen and Karttunen (1973) conclude that all lexical restrictions are lifted in conditional periods. Among verb classes capable of occurring with generic zero subjects, they cite modal verbs and verbs denoting ‘cognitive achievements’ (notice, learn, realize). Obviously the generalization underlying this observation is that volitional verbs describe events less likely to be conditional on external factors. At any rate, it is interesting to note that three types of situations can be identified which clearly favour the use of generic singular zero subjects in both Finnic and Latvian: conditional periods, constructions with modal verbs and constructions with verbs of perception. It seems quite possible that the Latvian constructions with singular zero subjects have arisen under Finnic influence. But whatever the relation between the Latvian and Finnic constructions may be, it seems almost certain that Latvian, in its turn, has exerted some influence on Livonian in this domain. Kettunen (1938:lx, fn.)

386 Axel Holvoet

states that under the influence of Latvian, Livonian has lost the impersonal passive form and replaced it with the 3rd person active form. As an example he cites kı¯tt6èb ‘he says’ and ‘they say, it is said’. This usage is remarkable in that the Livonian singular form renders a Latvian form which, though not immediately recognizable as such, is really a 3rd person plural form, as the indefinite subject is referential in this case. The Latvian construction involved here is the one illustrated in (47). What seems to have happened is that Livonian has consistently interpreted all Latvian 3rd person verb forms with indefinite zero subjects as singular forms, which was rendered possible by the formal non-differentiation of number in Latvian finite verb forms. Of course, this identification was facilitated by the fact that Livonian, just as the cognate West Finnic languages, certainly had the construction with the singular indefinite (non-referential) zero subject at the start. Thus this usage was not an innovation, and it was only the widening of the scope of this construction that was prompted by Latvian influence.

4. Conclusions When we consider the Latvian system of passive and impersonal constructions as a whole, and compare it to that of neighbouring Finnic, we may observe the following correspondences: – Latvian has sentences with non-referential indefinite zero subjects (treated as masculine singular syntactically), lacking in both Lithuanian and East Slavic, but with an exact parallel in Finnic. It seems doubtful whether this construction can be reconstructed for either Common Slavic or Common Baltic. In West Slavic, it seems to be a dialectal innovation rather than a peripheral archaism; and within Baltic its restriction to Latvian seems to point to a partial Latvian-Finnic convergence. – Latvian has a passive without any possibility of expressing the agent, similar in this respect to the Finnic passive; it also has a special agentive construction, where the agent is expressed by the genitive, and this also has a rather exact correspondence in Finnic (though the Estonian variety is closer to Latvian than the Finnish one). In neither Latvian nor Finnic is the agentive genitive, which is of possessive origin, transferred to passives proper. The basic difference between the Latvian and the Finnic passives is that the former is always periphrastic. – functionally, Latvian has two constructions covering the scope of the Finnish passive: the passive and the construction with a zero subject and a 3rd person plural verb form. The latter has no equivalent in Finnic (though it occurs marginally, perhaps as a result of Slavic influence). It was probably inherited by Latvian from Common Baltic and asserted itself even though it was not supported by the Finnic system, where it plays but a marginal part.



Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 387

The Lithuanian system differs rather markedly from the Latvian and Finnic ones; an agented passive has arisen on the basic of the agentless impersonal passive of Common Baltic, a development for which there seem to be no parallels in Finnic. On the other hand, constructions with generic singular zero subjects are lacking. A correct understanding of the development of passive and impersonal constructions in Baltic can be arrived at only if the areal links with Finnic are taken into consideration. The pattern of structural similarities is rather complex, and in some respects the Lithuanian passive bears a closer resemblance to the Finnic one (lack of agreement and/or object promotion). On the whole, however, it is Latvian that seems to have adapted its system of impersonal and passive constructions to a Finnic model.

Notes * The writing of this article was rendered possible by a two month’s stay at the Institute of Linguistics of Stockholm University in the framework of the research project on the Circum-Baltic languages. I wish to thank Jan Anward, Östen Dahl, Päivi Juvonen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, who were kind enough to read the preliminary draft of this paper. Their incisive and benevolent criticism allowed me to avoid a lot of mistakes; of course, they are not responsible for those flaws and mistakes which I have not been able to avoid. 1. Actually the reverse development is usually assumed for Finnish, as Agricola seems to have used a personal passive agreeing with its subject in all persons. This would be a natural development (paralleled, for example, by Polish), but it is not quite certain whether Agricola was not simply transferring a foreign model into Finnish. 2. The only instances of retention of an accusative object in a passive construction involve participial constructions with verbs of perception. An accusative originally functioning as the object of the matrix verb, but secondarily reinterpreted as the subject of the embedded clause, may, but need not be promoted to matrix clause subject when the matrix verb is passivized, e.g. Dzirde¯ts ju¯rniekus saka¯m, ka… hear:ppp.sg.masc sailor:acc.pl say:part.pres.act that ‘The sailors were heard saying that…’ Vanhalla-Aniszewski (1992: 92fn.) reports the same from Finnish, where the object of the passive/ impersonal is normally in the nominative, but is retained in the genitive when reinterpreted as the subject of a participial clause. 3. The Latvian written language actually had an agented passive until quite recently, but it was introduced by Germans writing Latvian, and based on the German model (with the preposition no translating German von). If Mühlenbach’s more tolerant attitude towards this construction had prevailed instead of Endzelin’s rejection of it, modern standard Latvian would have had an agented passive. 4. Passives without agreement with a nominative NP are reported from Latvian, but the only instances seem to be bi-clausal passives. Endzelı¯ns (1951: 990) cites

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Man ir atl¸auts me:dat be:pres.3 allow:part.pret.pass.nom.sg.masc rieksti e¯st. nut:nom.pl. eat:inf ‘I’m allowed to eat (the) nuts.’ Such constructions, however, should be considered in connection with the nominative object of the infinitive in Baltic, on which cf. Ambrazas, this volume. 5. For the Lithuanian agentive genitive parallels from the archaic IE languages are often cited, such as Skr. pátyuh» krı¯tØa ‘vom Gatten gekauft’. But to the extent that Lithuanian (and Latvian) inherited an agentive genitive, they probably inherited it as an originally possessive adnominal
genitive. Delbrück (1893: 348) translates pátyuh» kritØa as ‘die Gekaufte des Gatten’, i.e. ‘die vom Gatten gekaufte’. Benveniste subsequently reaffirmed the possessive nature of the Indo-Iranian agentive genitive, and though this point of view is not generally accepted, it seems quite plausible as a point of departure for agentive genitives as it also provides a parallel for the Lithuanian construction. 6. The 3rd pers. pl. pronoun they can often acquire non-referential value as well, cf. the use of this pronoun in tag-questions in English (No one could have guessed this, could they?). The number opposition seems to be neutralized here, as is shown by Slavic, where constructions of the type Russ. Menja (me:acc) obokrali (rob:pret.3pl) ‘They robbed me, I was robbed’ refer to an indefinite group of one or more individuals.

References Ambrazas, Vytautas. 1990. Sravnitel’nyj sintaksis pricˇastij baltijskix jazykov. Vilnius: Mokslas. Ariste, Paul. 1968. A grammar of the Votic language. Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series 68. The Hague: Mouton. Borkovskij, Viktor I. (ed.). 1978. Istoricˇeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka. Sintaksis. Prostoe predloženie. Moskva: Nauka. Delbrück, Berthold. 1893. Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen. Erster Theil. Strassburg: Trübner. Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1951. Latviešu valodas gramatika. Rı¯ga: Latvijas Valsts izdevniecı¯ba. Erelt, Mati et al. (eds.). 1993. Eesti keele grammatika. I. Süntaks. Lisa: Kiri. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt. 1982. Indefinite agent, passive and impersonal passive: A functional study. Lingua 58: 267–290. Hakulinen, Auli & Lauri Karttunen. 1973. Missing persons: On generic sentences in Finnish. In: C. Corum et al. (eds.), Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago, Ill., 157–171. Hakulinen, Lauri. 1955. Razvitie i struktura finskogo jazyka. II. Leksikologija i sintaksis. Perevod s finskogo Ju. S. Eliseeva. Moskva: Izdatel’stvo inostrannoj literatury. Holvoet, Axel. 1994. Notes on the Latvian passive. Linguistica Baltica 3: 131–140. Holvoet, Axel. 1995. Indefinite zero subjects in Latvian. Linguistica Baltica 4: 153–161. Keenan, Edward L. 1985. Passive in the world’s languages. In: Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description. 1. Clause structure, 243–281. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press.



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Kettunen, Lauri. 1938. Livisches Wörterbuch mit grammatischer Einleitung. Lexica Societatis Fenno-Ugricae, 5. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seura. Matthews, W. K. 1955. Lithuanian constructions with neuter passive participles. Slavic and East European Review Vol. 33 No 81: 350–371. Mullonen, M. I. 1963. Neopredelenno-licˇnye i obobšcˇenno-licˇnye predloženija v finskom jazyke. In: Makarov, G. N. & Mullonen, M. I. (eds.), Pribaltijsko-finskoe jazykoznanie. Voprosy grammatiki i leksikologii. Trudy Karel’skogo filiala Akademii Nauk SSSR Vol. 39, 31–38. Moskva-Leningrad: Izd. Akademii Nauk SSSR. Pisani, V. 1959. Zu einer baltisch-westfinnischen Partizipialkonstruktion. In: Sokols, E. (ed.), Rakstu kra¯jums. Veltı¯jums … Ja¯nim Endzelı¯nam. Rı¯ga: Latvijas PSR Zina¯tn¸u Akade¯mijas izdevniecı¯ba, 215–7. Ritter, Ralf-Peter. 1977. Die Distribution von finiter und “passivischer” Form der 3. Person Plural des wepsischen Verbs. Sovetskoe finno-ugrovedenie 13: 84–97. Schmalstieg, William R. 1988. A Lithuanian historical syntax. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1985. Passive and related constructions: A prototype analysis. Language 61, 4: 821–848. Siewierska, Anna. 1984. The passive: a comparative linguistic analysis. London: Croom Helm. Sulkala, Helena & Karjalainen, Merja. 1992. Finnish. London-New York: Routledge. Tauli, Valter. 1983. Standard Estonian Grammar. Part II. Syntax. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Uralica et Altaica Upsaliensia, 14. Uppsala. Vanhala-Aniszewski, Marjatta. 1992. Funkcii passiva v russkom i finskom jazykax. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Xolodovicˇ, A. A. (ed.). 1974. Tipologija passivnyx konstrukcij. Leningrad: Nauka. Zubatý, Jozef. 1907/1954. Die ‘man’-Sätze. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung 40: 478–520. (Here cited after idem, Studie a cˇlánky, II: Výklady tvaroslovné, syntaktické a jiné. Praha: Nakladatelství Cˇeské Akademie Veˇd, 1954: 437–76.)



On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic* Vytautas Ambrazas

1.

Introduction

1.1 A nominative object which depends on the infinitive or gerund in impersonal (subjectless) environments, is one of the syntactic features common to West Finnic languages and contiguous East Baltic and North Russian dialects. The construction can be exemplified by the following sentence of the East High Lithuanian dialect: (1) Reikia šienas gre˙bti need:3.pres hay:nom rake:inf ‘It is necessary to rake the hay’

In corresponding personal constructions the infinitive governs the accusative object, cf.: (2) Turiu šiena˛ gre˙bti have:1.pres hay:acc.sg rake:inf ‘I must rake the hay’

The nominative object with the impersonal infinitive is quite frequent in Finnic, but it is rather uncommon in the syntactic structure of Baltic, Slavic and other IndoEuropean languages. Its origin has been widely discussed and different explanations have been suggested.1 Two main trends in the diachronic treatment of the nominative with the infinitive in East Baltic and Slavic deserve mention. According to the first (traditional) opinion maintained by Potebnja (1958: 32–33) and Stepanov (1984) et al., the construction is supposed to be of Indo-European origin: the nominative is regarded as the former subject and the infinitive is treated as a reflection of the purposive dative of the action nominal. Kiparsky (1960, 1967, 1969) explained the retention of the nominative in Lithuanian, Latvian and North Russian by a conservative influence of the contiguous West Finnic language. Ambrazas (1987) and Holvoet (1993) have attempted to reveal the origin of this construction in Lithuanian and Latvian.

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The second interpretation was most consistently and comprehensively advanced by Timberlake (1974). He elucidated the main features of this construction in Russian historical texts of the 12th–18th centuries as well as in contemporary North Russian dialects. He compared them with those of the Finnish language and tested them on the examples cited in Lithuanian and Latvian grammars or other works. He came to the conclusion that the nominative used with the infinitive in early North Russian, Lithuanian and Latvian dialects always represents the grammatical object and “arose as a syntactic borrowing from some West Finnic language(s)” (220). These interpretations of the nominative with the infinitive are usually considered to be controversial and mutually incompatible.2 Both interpretations treat the construction as a unit of an invariant structure in which the nominative has the function of the subject (according to the first approach) or the object (according to the second approach), irrespective of the context.

1.2 The aim of the present article is not only to draw scientists’ attention to different types of this construction in Lithuanian and Latvian, but also to reveal diachronic stages of its development. Due to the specific character of the syntactic change3 and the conservatism of East Baltic (especially Lithuanian) dialects, a number of infinitive constructions retaining the earlier structure are found there, coexisting with more recent ones. In contemporary dialects the constructions are related in various ways to other constituents of the syntactic system. This enables us to explain the original pattern of the nominative with the infinitive and its change which created conditions for the introduction of the nominative object into the syntactic structure of Lithuanian and Latvian dialects. The following stages of the development of the nominative with the infinitive in East Baltic can be distinguished: – –

the inherited usage of the nominative subject related to the main verb in sentences with the purposive infinitive; the distribution of the nominative object as a result of reanalyzing the construction as an impersonal one.

Holvoet (1993) has recently pointed out a corresponding transition from the nominative subject to the nominative object in Latvian constructions with the debitive.

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 393

2.

The nominative subject with the infinitive

2.1 The original subject function of the nominative is represented by the constructions in which the infinitive has the meaning of purpose characteristic of Indo-European action nominals.4 The East Baltic infinitive ending in -ti/-tie < *-tei reflects the dative singular of the (t)i-stem verbal noun.5 In Old Prussian the first infinitive with -t corresponds to the Lithuanian and Latvian infinitive with -ti, while the second infinitive with -twei < *tu-ei used in the same meaning and functions (dat/datwei ‘give’, bout/boutwei ‘be’ etc.) is formed from the tu-stem. This difference in the stem-form, along with the identical dative ending indicates a parallel development of the infinitive following the split of the East and West Baltic languages. Due to its relatively recent origin, the infinitive in East Baltic, in particular in Lithuanian, has retained a close relationship with the dative form of (t)i-stem action nominals. Some of them coincide with the infinitive completely, cf. O.Lith. dat.sg mirti (e.g. po mîrti Daukša Post. 57442 ‘after death’, prie˙g mîrti 23042 ‘by dying’) and inf. mirti ‘to die’. After its separation from the paradigm of action nominals, the infinitive often retained the meaning of purpose which is apparent in many constructions with the nominative. Several types can be distinguished among them. 2.2 Constructions of the first type are formed by statal verbs such as Lith. likti, pa(si)likti ‘remain, stay, be left’. The infinitive may sometimes be replaced by the dative of the action nominal of a different form, e.g.: (3) Rugiai (mums) liko se˙ti/ se˙jai rye:nom.pl (we:dat.pl remain:3.past sow:inf/ sowing:dat ‘The rye remained (for us) to sow/for sowing’

Here the nominative has the semantic role of a Patient, whereas the optional Beneficiary can be expressed by the dative. The subject raising becomes evident by comparing (3) with the following sentence containing the accusative object: (4) Rugius (mes) palikom se˙ti/ se˙jai rye:acc.pl (we:nom.pl leave:1.pl.past sow:inf/ sowing:dat.sg ‘We left the rye to sow/for sowing’

The statal verbs tekti ‘fall to/on’, kliu¯ti ‘ib.’, atsitikti ‘happen’, patikti ‘please’, pavykti ‘turn out well’, ru¯pe˙ti, ‘concern’, ˛igristi ‘bother, pester’, ˛ikyre˙ti ‘ib.’, nusibosti ‘bore’ and the like form constructions with the nominative and the infinitive of the same syntactic structure, though the purposive meaning of the infinitive is less evident, e.g.:

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(5) Jam teko/ patiko/ ru¯pe˙jo laukas arti he:dat fall(to):3.past/ please:3.past/ concern:3.past field:nom plough:inf ‘It fell to him/He was pleased/concerned to plough the field’

The subject function of the nominative manifests itself in its agreement with the participle in periphrastic tense forms and the relative mood (modus relativus), cf.: (6) a.

b.

Jam (buvo) like˛s/ru¯pe˙je˛s/teke˛s laukas arti past.act.part.nom.sg nom.sg ‘The field (evidently) remained /concerned/fell to him to plough’ Jam (buvo) like˛/ru¯pe˙je˛/teke˛ laukai arti past.act.part.nom.pl nom.pl ‘The fields (evidently) remained/concerned/fell to him to plough’

The infinitive may be omitted in such cases without a substantial change in the function of the nominative, cf.: (7) Jam liko/ru¯pe˙jo/teko laukas ‘The field remained/concerned/fell to him’6

Corresponding sentences containing a statal verb and the infinitive expressing purpose are attested in Latvian, e.g.: (8) Pienin¸š e¯st/ e¯šanai nedere¯ja milk:nom eat:inf eating:dat non-fit:3.past ‘The milk didn’t fit for eating’ (9) Man tik ve¯l atliekas piezı¯me¯t viens va¯rds me:dat only still remain:3.pres.refl note:inf one:nom word:nom ‘One word still remains for me to note (to be noted).’7

2.3 Constructions of the second type are formed with the verb Lith. bu¯ti, Latv. bu¯t ‘to be’ which usually has the zero form in the present. Three subtypes can be distinguished here. 2.3.1 The infinitive indicates the purpose of the thing denoted by the nominative subject as the following examples from East High Lithuanian show: (10) a.

b.

Tos bulve˙s (yra) sodinti, o anos valgyti these potato:nom.pl (be:3.pres plant:inf and those eat:inf ‘These potatoes are for planting and those ones for eating’ O ta lazdele˙ bus pasiremti and this stick:nom be:3.fut lean:inf ‘And this stick will be to lean upon’

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 395

2.3.2 The infinitive of perception verbs (such as Lith. matyti ‘see’, girde˙ti ‘hear’, jausti ‘feel’) indicates that the thing denoted by the nominative subject can be perceived by some person (optionally expressed by the dative), e.g. in Lith.: (11) a.

b.

(Man) (yra) / buvo / bus namai matyti (me:dat (be:3.pres 3.past 3.fut house:nom.pl see:inf ‘(For me) is/was/will be possible to see the house’ Vakar griaustinis buvo girde˙ti yesterday thunder:nom be:3.past hear:inf ‘Yesterday it happened to hear the thunder’

The nominative subject controls agreement with the participle as the form of the relative mood, e.g.: (12) Petriuko balsas buve˛s girde˙ti Peter:gen voice:nom.masc be:past.act.part.nom.masc hear:inf ‘Peter’s voice (evidently) was heard’8

In some local dialects of Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) the infinitive is used side by side with the present passive participle. Their agreement is also controlled by the nominative subject, cf.: (13) a.

b.

Sodnas didelis yr garden:nom.masc big:nom.masc be:3.pres matoms / matyti see:pres.pass.part.nom.masc see:inf ‘A big garden is to be seen’ (from Skuodas) Karvide˙s matomos / matyti cowshed:nom.pl.fem see:pres.pass.part.nom.pl.fem see:inf ‘The cowsheds are to be seen’

In East Lithuanian the infinitive is widely supplanted by a reflexive verb, cf.: (14) Iš cˇia matos ežeras from here see:3.pres.refl lake:nom.sg ‘The lake is seen from here’

The nominative with the infinitive, however, is preserved in many isolated districts. Its relic character is witnessed by the wide distribution of such set phrases as Lith. Kas girde˙ti? ‘What is to be heard?’; Ltv. Kas jauns dzirde¯t? ‘What news is to be heard?’ The nominative in the constructions with the infinitive of a perception verb has the function of the subject and is never replaced by the accusative. In Latvian dialects, the negated infinitive is combined with the genitive, e.g.: (15) Vilku ne redze¯t, ne dzirde¯t wolf:gen.pl. non-see:inf non-hear:inf ‘no wolves are to be seen (or) to be heard’

396 Vytautas Ambrazas

Here the genitive is used according to the general negation rule, as in Lithuanian, cf.: (16) Žmogaus nematyti man:gen non-see:inf ‘no man is to be seen’

The nominative subject in combination with the verb ‘be’ and the infinitive of a perception verb is also attested in various Slavonic dialects. According to the prevailing opinion, it did not exist in Old Church Slavonic. However, Xodova (1980: 223) cites the nominative placed at some distance from the infinitive among the infinitive constructions in Codex Suprasliensis
: (17) i glasu˘ umlı˘cˇe. i ne by slyšati 570,18 ‘and the voice (nom.sg) became silent, and was not to be heard (inf)’

cf. in Old Russian (Borkovskij 1978: 404): (18) beˇ v to vremja videˇti….pecˇalı˘ gorı˘kaja ‘in that time bitter grief (nom.sg) was to be seen (inf)’

The construction is also found in contemporary South Russian and Belarusian dialects, in such phrases as derevnja vidat’ ‘a village is to be seen’, in particular.9 The Indo-European character of the nominative with the infinitive of a perception verb, originally expressing the purpose, can be corroborated by correspondences in Vedic cited by Sgall (1958: 221) and Disterheft (1980: 46), cf.: (19) táva spa¯rhé várna » a¯¢ samdrs » ´ i s´ríyah» RV 2,1,12b you:loc desired:loc colour:loc just see:inf beauty:nom ‘in your desired colour the beauty is just to be seen’

2.3.3 The nominative with the infinitive of various transitive verbs is used with the verb ‘be’ to express necessity. In Lithuanian the construction has the following pattern: (20) (man) (yra) buvo / bus namai statyti (me:dat (be:3.pres / 3.past / 3.fut house:nom build:inf ‘(for me) it is/was/will be necessary to build a house’

cf. also: (21) Šiandien bus šienas gre˙bti, rytoj rugiai pjauti today be:3.fut hay:nom rake:inf tomorrow rye:nom reap:inf ‘Today it will be necessary to rake the hay, tomorrow — to reap the rye’

The participle used as the relative mood form is in agreement with the nominative subject, cf. examples (6a, 6b, and 12):

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 397

(22) Man vienai buve˛s tas paršas šert me:dat alone:dat be:past.act.part.nom this pig:nom feed:inf ‘I alone had to feed that pig’

The construction goes back to the first writings in Lithuanian, e.g. in the Catechism by Mažvydas (1547: 76,5): (23) Taip ir gierti wine krauias ia schwentas so be:3.pres drink:inf wine:loc blood:nom he:gen sacred:nom ‘So his sacred blood must be drunk in wine’

This pattern is similar to that discussed under 2.3.1 and differs only in the meaning of necessity which, apparently, originated from the infinitive denoting purpose or designation (cf.: ‘the hay is meant to rake, the blood is meant to drink, for drinking’).10 The kernel sentence man yra namai, in its turn, represents the Proto-IndoEuropean possessive structure supplanted later by constructions with the verb ‘have’ (Lith. ture˙ti), which also acquired the modal meaning of necessity in the history of many parent languages. The constructions with the verb bu¯ti expressing necessity and the nominative subject are still widely used in the Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) dialect. In Latvian they are very rare; only one example from Nereta is cited by Endzelı¯ns (1951: 783): (24) Kungam e¯st tei meizı¯te! gentlemen:dat.pl eat:inf this bread:nom ‘The gentlemen have to eat this bread!’

In such cases the nominative is for the most part replaced by the accusative and the newly formed debitive is extensively used to express necessity in Latvian. Recently Holvoet (1993: 152) pointed out that the original pattern of a debitive phrase as reconstructed by Prellwitz and Endzelı¯ns provides a striking parallel to the nominative subject with the infinitive: (25) *man ir maize ja¯ e¯st me:dat be:3.pres bread:nom which eat:inf ‘I have bread for eating’

According to Holvoet, the nominative used with the debitive in Latvian dialects sometimes retains the subject function which is clearly reflected in the agreement, e.g.: (26) Lini bijuši ja¯kalte¯ flax:nom.pl be:past.act.part.nom.pl dry:3.deb ‘The flax was in need of drying’

Similar constructions in Old Russian have often been discussed, a popular example from 1235, in particular:

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(27) Takova pravda uze˛ti rusinu such:nom right:nom take:inf Russian:dat.sg ‘Such right is for the Russian to take’

The nominative in such cases is usually interpreted as the former subject, and the infinitive is treated as the descendent of the purposive dative of a verbal noun.11 On the other hand, Larin (1963: 93–99) and Timberlake (1974: 83–95) consider the nominative to be the object of an independent infinitive in a subjectless sentence. Unlike in East Baltic, the subject function of the nominative in Old Russian cannot be corroborated by the agreement. Such an agreement is found in the Vedic correspondences where the meaning of necessity is made more intense by the imperative form of the verb bhu¯ ‘be’ as in the following example cited by Sgall (1958: 221): (28) ¢a¯po bhavantu pı¯táye RV 10, 9, 4 water:nom.pl be:3pl.imp drink:inf ‘the waters must be for drinking’

Cf. also the Hittite parallels adduced by Disterheft (1980: 165–166).

2.4 The third type is represented by the constructions in which the infinitive of purpose is attached to the predicate consisting of an adjective and a link verb (usually absent in the Present).12 The adjective appears in masculine and feminine (29a–c) or neuter forms (30): (29) a.

b.

c.

Lithuanian (Man) medus (yra) / buvo / bus (me:dat honey:nom.masc (be:3pres / past / fut gardus valgyti delicious:nom.masc eat:inf ‘Honey is/was/will be delicious (for me) to eat’ Žeme˙ buvo sunki arti earth:nom.sg.fem be:3.past heavy:nom.sg.fem plough:inf ‘The earth was heavy /difficult to plough’ Latvian (Man) saulı¯te silta sildı¯ties (me:dat sunshine:nom.sg.fem warm:nom.sg.fem bask:inf ‘The sunshine is warm (for me) to bask’

(30) Lithuanian (Man) medus (yra) / buvo / bus (me:dat honey:nom.masc (be:3.pres / past / fut gardu valgyti delicious:neut eat:inf ‘Honey is/was/will be delicious (for me) to eat’

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 399

In the first subtype exemplified by (29a–c) the subject function of the nominative manifests itself in its agreement with the adjective inflected for the case, gender and number. In the second subtype, exemplified by (30), agreement is impossible due to the loss of neutral nouns in East Baltic and to the non-inflected character of the Lithuanian neutral adjectives. However, some constructions with neuter adjectives have been used as variants of the subtype (a) in the same local dialects of East Lithuania until the present time, cf. from E˙riškiai: (31) Šaltinio vanduo sveikas / sveı˜ka gerti spring:gen.sg water:nom.sg.masc healthy nom.sg.masc/neut drink:inf ‘Spring water is healthy to drink’

The infinitive is optional in such cases and it can be omitted as in (7) without causing any change in the relationship between the nominative subject and the predicative: (32) a. b.

Medus gardus/gardù ‘honey is delicious’ Vanduo sveikas/sveı˜ka ‘water is healthy’

Kernel structures medus gardù; vanduo sveı˜ka represent the pattern of an ancient nominal sentence with the pure stem-form in the predicate.13 Corresponding sentences with neuter adjectives are attested to in Old Prussian, cf.: (33) Erains bou¯sei poklusman III 8917 – Jederman sey unterthan ‘Everyone (must) be obedient (neut)’

In Latvian, neuter adjectives are already extinct and they are replaced by adverbs in infinitive constructions, cf. (44).

2.5 The syntactic features of infinitive constructions discussed under 2.2–2.3 show the original structure of the nominative with the infinitive in East Baltic and the subject function of the nominative in the constructions of a relic character. This function, categorically denied by Timberlake for Lithuanian and Latvian,14 can be corroborated taking into account the agreement of participial copula with the nominative in the constructions under (6a, b, 12, 22) and a parallel use of neuter predicatives with masculine and feminine ones (31, 32a, b) in Lithuanian.

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The spread of the nominative object

3. 3.1

The second stage in the diachronic stratification of the nominative with the infinitive is represented by impersonal constructions in which the nominative performs the function of the grammatical object. The origin and spread of these structures are determined by grammaticalization properties of the East Baltic infinitive. After its separation from the case paradigm of verbal nouns, the infinitive came into a close relationship with the main verb and turned into a constituent of a compound predicate in various sentence patterns (especially those containing modal and phrasal verbs). This process affected many constructions of the aforementioned type and brought about changes in their original structure. The nominative in the semantic role of the Patient or Contentive of a statal verb was reinterpreted as the object of the infinitive and in many cases was supplanted by the accusative currently prevailing in Standard Lithuanian, with the construction acquiring an impersonal character.15 The types of infinitive constructions discussed under 2.2–2.3 have been subjected to varying degrees of reanalysis.

3.2 The change in the syntactic pattern of the first type can be exemplified by the following example: (34) Jam teko laukas [arti] ‘the field fell on him to plough (= for ploughing)’ –Jam teko [laukas arti] ‘it fell to him to plough the field’

The fact that subjectless clauses characteristically express the Beneficiary or Experiencer by the optional dative case apparently was favourable to the reanalysis. Many constructions with other statal verbs (Lith. kliu¯ti ‘fall on’, ru¯pe˙ti ‘be concerned about’, sektis ‘go well, be successful’ etc.) acquired an impersonal character in a similar way. In such cases the object function of the nominative manifests itself in it being used alongside the accusative and in the fact that the infinitive cannot be omitted without bringing about a cardinal change in the meaning, e.g. in Lith.: (35) Teko jam tie pinigai atiduot (from Druskininkai) fall (to):3.past he:dat the money:nom.pl give-back:inf ‘He had to give back the money’ cf.: Teko jam tie pinigai ‘The money fell to his lot’.

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 401

(36) Cˇia sekas pagaut ešerys ‘Here it is easy to catch a perch’. (*Sekas ešerys is quite impossible.)

Most Lithuanian constructions with the verb (pa)likti ‘remain’ retain the subject function of the nominative. Only in rare cases, when this verb has a shade of the meaning of necessity, does the nominative appear in the function of the object of the infinitive and can be replaced by the accusative, e.g.: (37) Te˙vui beliko pirkt tas sodas/ta˛ soda˛ father:dat remain:past.3 buy:inf this garden:nom/acc ‘It remained for my father to buy this garden’

A similar reanalysis is observed in the constructions termed dativus cum infinitivo, cf.: (38) Lithuanian Ariau lauka˛ linams se˙ti plough:3.past field:acc flax:dat.pl sow:inf ‘I ploughed the field to sow flax’.

Here the infinitive also represents the purposive dative of the action nominal originally standing in an appositive relation to the first dative, i.e. ‘I ploughed the field for flax, for (its) sowing’. After grammaticalization of the infinitive, the first dative, initially related to the main verb, was reinterpreted as the object of the infinitive. In most Lithuanian dialects, the first dative retained its case form, however, in Latvian, it was replaced by the accusative object, e.g.: (39) Došu kumelin¸u da¯rzu noece¯t give:1sg.fut foal:acc garden:acc harrow:inf ‘I’ll give you a foal to harrow the garden’16

3.3 The sentences with the verb bu¯ti ‘be’ and the infinitive of perception verbs (see 2.3.2) have best retained their original structure in Lithuanian and the accusative object never replaces the nominative subject there. The nominative subject has also been preserved in many Lithuanian sentences containing the explicit verb bu¯ti ‘be’ in the meaning of necessity (see 2.3.3). Currently they are mostly supplanted by impersonal sentences with the verb reike˙ti ‘need’. Sentences containing no present form of the verb ‘be’ have a wider distribution, however, the nominative fills the function of the object in most of them and is used in parallel with the accusative or is replaced by it, e.g. in set phrases, such as Kas/Ka˛ daryti? ‘What is to do?’. Corresponding impersonal constructions in Latvian (so-called analytic debitives) are formed with the accusative object, e.g.:

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(40) Tev bij nemt niedres meitu you:dat be:3.past take:inf reed:gen daughter:acc ‘You had to marry the reed’s daughter’17

3.4 The generalized meaning characteristic of Lithuanian neuter adjectives encouraged the reinterpretation of the infinitive constructions discussed under 2.4. Their structure was subject to a corresponding change towards impersonality, e.g.: (41) Pienas saldu/saldus [gerti] ‘The milk (nom) is sweet (nom.neut/masc) to drink (= for drinking)’ – Saldu [gerti pienas/piena˛] ‘it is sweet (neut) to drink milk (nom/acc)’

The change of the word order (i.e. a shift of the nominative from the first place to the position next to the infinitive) is also conspicuous in such cases. According to the reanalyzed impersonal pattern, many new constructions have been formed in East Lithuanian with the nominative object depending directly on the infinitive. The infinitive cannot be omitted in such cases, cf.: (42) Linksma skint obuoliai ‘It is joyful (neut) to pick apples (nom.pl)’, but *Linksma obuoliai.

Alongside neuter adjectives, adverbs denoting states (gerai ‘good/well, anksti ‘early’, gana ‘enough’, etc.) have been introduced into the pattern, cf.: (43) Gerai/anksti/gana skint obuoliai ‘It is pleasant/early/enough to pick apples (nom.pl)’

Neuter adjectives have completely vanished from Latvian, supplanted by adverbs of state in constructions with the nominative object, e.g.: (44) Aka/Aku nav viegli rakt ‘The well (nom/acc) is not easy (adv) to dig’

3.5 Some neuter adjectives and adverbs used as predicatives in sentences with the nominative or accusative object gave rise to new impersonal verbs. Paradigms of the Lithuanian verbs gaile˙ti ‘regret, feel pity’, verte˙ti ‘to be worth’ are based on the neuter adjectives gaila ‘(it is) a pity’, verta ‘(it is) worth’ reinterpreted as 3rd person verb forms. Similarly, the predicative Lith. reikia/reike˙ ‘need’ gave rise to the paradigm of

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 403

the verb reike˙ti (cf. Fraenkel 1925: 35–38); this verb in combination with the infinitive became the main means of expressing necessity.18 In the infinitive constructions with reike˙ti, the nominative or accusative is used exclusively in the function of an object, e.g.: (45) Reike˙jo uždegt žiburys/žiburi˛ need:3past put-on:inf light:nom/acc ‘It was necessary to put on the light (nom/acc)’

In Latvian the predicative vajag(a) ‘necessity’19 borrowed from West Finnic also gave rise to the impersonal verb vajadze¯t ‘be necessary’ (pres. vajaga, past vajadze¯ja) which is used in combination with the infinitive and the nominative/ accusative object, cf.: (46) Vajadze¯ja malka skaldı¯t ‘It was necessary to chop wood’ (nom)20

4. The problem of West Finnic impact 4.1 The reanalysis of the nominative with the infinitive in East Baltic dialects evidently has native conditions. The main problem is the conservation and the subsequent extension of the use of the nominative in its new function of the object.21 The nominative object dependent on the infinitive is attested in many Latvian dialects and has been in common usage in the East High Lithuanian dialect (including its southern area) and the southern belt of West High Lithuanian until now.22 Its use in impersonal contexts has been extended to include not only constructions with the newly-formed impersonal verbs (as Lith. reikeÍti, Latv. vajadze¯t) and adverbs of state but also the debitive in Latvian and transitive gerunds (padalyviai) in Lithuanian. The infinitive can be replaced by the past gerund in some impersonal sentences containing (a) statal adverbs and (b) interrogative pronouns, e.g.: (47) a.

b.

Bu¯tu˛ gerai šaltinis radus (from Prienai) be:3subj nice:adv spring:nom find:past.ger ‘It would be nice to find out a spring’ Kur cˇia man karve˙ nusipirkus? (from Alytus) where here me:dat cow:nom buy:past.ger ‘Where is here for me a cow to buy?’

Such sentences are attested to only in those areas where the nominative object is commonly combined with the infinitive. The innovative use of the nominative object with the present gerund in adverbial clauses is more obsolete, cf. the example

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from Prienai (South Lithuania): (48) Rugiai pjaunant didele˙ talka reikalinga rye:nom.pl reap:pres.ger big:nom help:nom necessary:nom ‘When reaping rye a lot of help is needed’

4.2 The data from Lithuanian and Latvian dialects indicate that impersonal constructions with the nominative object were productive during a certain period. This is in accordance with the conclusion drawn by Timberlake (1974: 152) that “dialects of Lithuanian and Latvian possess the nominative object rule: a participant which would otherwise be designated as the accusative is designated as the nominative in a systematically impersonal environment, when there is no possibility of a grammatical subject in the nominative”. This rule has no clear equivalents in other IndoEuropean languages except for East Slavic dialects contiguous to the West Finnic area. Taking into account the fact that the nominative object is extensively and commonly used in West Finnic, its influence upon East Baltic dialects, presumed by

Map 1.Nominative object of the infinitive in Lithuanian and Latvian dialects.

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 405

Lithuanian

Latvian

Reikia laukai arti ‘it is necessary to plough the fields’ (cf. 3.5, (45))

:::

Vajag malka skaldı¯t ‘it is necessary to chop wood’ (cf. 3.5, (46))

==

(Tau) buvo/bus namai statyti ‘(for you) it was/will necessary to build a house’ (cf. 2.3.3, (20))

⁄⁄⁄ ⁄⁄⁄

Ja¯iet pïaut siens ‘it is necessary to go to cut hay’ (cf. 4.5, (49))

|| ||

••

Akmin¸š gru¯ti kustina¯t ‘the stone is difficult to move’ (cf. 4.5)

Namai statyti sunku ‘the house is difficult to build’ (cf. 2.4, (30))

Timberlake, seems to be a rational explanation of the spread of the nominative object in the Lithuanian and Latvian impersonal constructions.

4.3 Since the West Finnic nominative object rule applies to the impersonal environment (Timberlake 1974: 191, 196) it could have been introduced into the syntactic system of East Baltic dialects only after the infinitive had already been separated from the paradigm of verbal nouns and become a constituent of the impersonal construction. The comparatively recent origin of the Lithuanian and Latvian infinitives ending in -ti/*-tei and their undeniable relation to the dative of purpose in constructions with the nominative, speak against the supposition that the nominative object rule was borrowed during the prehistoric period of early BalticFinnic contacts or that it is a relic of the former ergative or active sentence structure.23 On the other hand, borrowing the syntactic rule from an unrelated language presupposes large areas of bilingualism and intensive interaction between the substratum and adstratum languages. Such conditions appear to have existed in present-day Central and Northern Latvia during the 5–7th centuries AD, when East Baltic tribes expanded to the North over the area which was previously inhabited by the West Finnic population.24 At that time East Baltic dialects were still relatively homogeneous and innovations could spread without much hindrance. So, the nominative object rule might have been borrowed first by Lettigallian, Semigallian and Curonian dialects and then through these dialects introduced into the dialects on the territory of what is now Eastern and Southern Lithuania. In Western Lithuania, in the Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) dialect in particular, the nominative in combination with the infinitive mostly preserved the function of the grammatical subject, whereas in the impersonal environment it is common for the infinitive to govern the accusative object.

406 Vytautas Ambrazas

4.4 Colonization of the former Finnic area between Pskov and Novgorodky Slavs, which began in the middle of the first millennium AD, created similar conditions for the distribution of the nominative object in North Russian. The nominative object with the infinitive was used from the 13th till the end of the 17th century in North Russian and Muscovite texts. According to Timberlake (1974), it is found there in the impersonal environment and is regarded as a borrowing from West Finnic. In North Russian dialects it has acquired more innovative features as a consequence of the syncretism of nominative-accusative case forms (cf. Žuravlev 1984). The subject function of the nominative in combination with the infinitive as a descendant of the purposive dative is reconstructed for Old Russian mainly on the basis of comparative evidence (except the cases discussed under 2.3.2). The Lithuanian data can be regarded as evidence in favour of the supposition that corresponding structures existed in early Slavonic as well. 4.5 The distribution features of the nominative object in Lithuanian and Latvian dialects indicate that the impact of West Finnic on the development of this construction came to an end a long time ago, most likely some centuries before the first writings had been published. Unlike in the Lithuanian dialects, in which the nominative object has been regularly used until now in a large and definite area, its distribution in contemporary Latvian dialects has a more sporadic character. According to the material collected for the Atlas of Latvian Dialects,25 the usage of the nominative object of the infinitive along the boundary between Latvian and Estonian is indicated only at some points (I¯dus, ¯Ipik¸i and Cirgali). Such constructions as akmin¸š gru¯ti kustina¯t ‘the stone (nom) is difficult (adv) to move’ are attested to in some districts of the Middle Latvian dialect, viz. in Birzuli, Baun¸i, Jaunburtnieci, Kusce¯n¸i, Katari and Dunte, separated by the areas in which the accusative predominates. The nominative object is distributed more widely in Curonia (Kurzeme), especially in the western part. In addition to the types mentioned, constructions of other types are also attested there, e.g. vajag/gribas malka skaldı¯t ‘it is necessary/one would like to chop wood (nom)’. In the Semigallian subdialect of Middle Latvian as well as in large areas of High Latvian (Augšzemnieki) the nominative object is rare and found in isolated places only. It is more commonly used in the constructions containing the debitive,26 e.g.: (49) ja¯iet pl¸aut siens ‘it is necessary to go to cut hay (nom).’

Attention should be drawn to the fact that a number of places in which the use of

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 407

the nominative object is common are situated along the border between Latvian and Lithuanian dialects (in Gramzda, Kale¯ti, Ezere, Be¯ne, Islı¯ce, Akn¸¯ıste, Kaplava).27 This distribution of the construction over the Latvian dialect area is characteristic of syntactic relics and reflects the progressive substitution of the nominative object by the accusative.

4.6 The fact that the nominative with the infinitive is retained in Lithuanian dialects better than in Latvian dialects can be accounted for by its relationship to constructions containing neuter adjectives discussed under 2.3. The nominative is also widely used in combination with neuter passive participles as their “semantic object” (Patient or Contentive) in the same East and South areas of the High Lithuanian dialect,28 cf.: (50) a.

b.

Laukai ãriama field:nom.pl.masc plough:pres.pass.part.neut ‘The fields are being ploughed’ Malkos kapóta wood:nom.pl.fem chop:past.pass.part.neut ‘Wood has been chopped’

Here the nominative is the grammatical subject of a passive construction and plays the same semantic role as the nominative used with the infinitive, cf.: (51) a.

b.

Laukai arti (jam) nusibodo fields:nom.pl plough:inf (he:dat bore:3.past.refl ‘To plough the fields (to him) became boring’ Malkos kapoti leñgva wood:nom.pl chop:inf easy:neut ‘Wood is easy to chop’

The loss of neuter adjectives and neuter passive participles in Latvian deprived the nominative object of such structural support. After the interference of West Finnic had decreased, it was gradually ousted by the accusative from most local dialects of contemporary Latvian.

5.

Conclusions

By means of the stratification of nominative and infinitive constructions in East Baltic dialects, their oldest layer in which the nominative was used as the grammatical subject and the infinitive represented the purposive dative of the action nominal has been distinguished. The relics of such constructions reinforced by their



408 Vytautas Ambrazas

relationship to ancient structures containing neuter adjectives and passive participles have been preserved in Lithuanian dialects until the present day. As a consequence of the grammaticalization of the infinitive, the construction with the nominative has been reanalyzed and acquired an impersonal character. The nominative turned into the grammatical object of the infinitive and spread in its new function under the influence of the West Finnic nominative object rule. The nominative object was also introduced into constructions containing newly formed impersonal verbs (as Lith. reike˙ti ‘need’), gerunds and Latvian debitive forms. The impact of West Finnic was most likely conditioned by the spread of East Baltic dialects over the West Finnic substratum area in 6–7th centuries AD. When the Baltic-Finnic contacts became less intense, the nominative object was replaced by the accusative in most local dialects of Latvian, however, it has been better preserved in the conservative East High Lithuanian dialect. In the light of East-Baltic evidence the traditional hypothesis about the IndoEuropean origin of the nominative with the infinitive (suggested by Potebnja, Endzelı¯ns, Jablonskis, Kiparsky et al.) and Timberlake’s hypothesis about borrowing the nominative object rule from West Finnic apply to different periods of the development of the construction. Thus, these explanations can be regarded as complementary. The nominative object can be put in line with the relative mood (modus relativus) and other syntactic phenomena based on the native structure of East Baltic languages and influenced by West Finnic in the course of their development.

Notes * The draft of the present paper was written during my research stay at the University of Stockholm in 1995 supported by the Swedish Institute. I am grateful to the scientific staff of the Finnish, Baltic and Linguistics Departments, especially to Ingrid Almqvist, Baiba Kangere and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm for their hospitality and fruitful discussion concerning the ideas and material presented in the paper. 1. A survey of references is presented by Larin (1963), Kiparsky (1969), Timberlake (1974), Ambrazas (1987). 2. This controversy can be exemplified by the following statements, cf.: “In such sentences (i.e. sentences containing the nominative with the infinitive — V. A.) the nominative always remains the subject” (Jablonskis 1935:32), and, on the other hand: “The comparable use of the nominative in Lith. and Latv. dialects is an instance of the nominative object; it undeniably does not represent the grammatical subject.” (Timberlake 1974: 220). 3. Unlike the change in phonological units, the reanalysis on the syntactic level and the subsequent extension of its results do not, as a rule, affect all former structures. Some of them, retaining the initial pattern, have been used for a long time alongside the new ones and they are often moved to the periphery of the syntactic system as marked archaisms, cf. Havránek (1968a), Harris & Campbell (1995: 97–106).

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 409

4. On action nominals as a means of expressing purpose in Indo-European cf. Jeffers & Pepicello (1980). 5. The relationship of the East Baltic infinitive to the dative singular of the (t)i-stem is discussed, in particular, by Ambrazas (1995). Haspelmath (1989) treats the development of the infinitive from purposive action nominals in different language families (including Indo-European, Turkic, Finno-Ugric, Semitic, Bantu, Nakho-Daghestanian, and Dravidian) as a universal process of grammaticalization. 6. The identity of a nominative function in sentences with and without the infinitive has been pointed out by Jablonskis (1935: 32) in the following example: Man jau ru¯pi avižos pjauti ‘I am already concerned to reap oats’/Man jau ru¯pi avižos ‘I am already concerned with oats’. 7. Cf. Endzelı¯ns & Mühlenbachs (1928: 193, 196); Endzelı¯ns (1951: 781); Ga¯ters (1993: 72). 8. Specifically about such agreement see Sirtautas (1971: 72–74). 9. Cf. Sprincˇak (1960: 179); Dunn (1982). Corresponding constructions in Old Czech, such as hora je videˇti ‘the mountain is to be seen’ (Porˇak 1967: 82ff.) are treated differently. The assumption about their native origin (Kiparsky 1969: 164; Jacobsson 1964: 72) is incompatible with the supposition that they have been formed under the influence of German (Reiter 1953: 175) or as a result of an innovative process taking place within Czech (Havránek 1968b: 175–176; Dunn 1982: 523–524). 10. Cf. Brugmann (1916:925) on shifting the meaning of designation resp. suitableness (Geeignetsein) from the infinitive to the verb ‘be’. 11. See Potebnja (1958: 403–407), the survey of references in Kiparsky (1967, 1969), Larin (1963: 88–92), Timberlake (1974: 83–86, 232) and exhaustive commentaries in Stepanov (1984). 12. Constructions containing the explicit link verb yr(a) (3.pres) are generally attested to in the Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) dialect. In other dialects the predicative is used without a copula in the Present. 13. For nominal sentences of this kind in Baltic with correspondences in other Indo-European languages and the lit. see Ambrazas 1990: 202–203. 14. Cf.: “for the same reasons that the nominative object cannot be the grammatical subject in Old Russian, it cannot be a grammatical subject in Lithuanian or Latvian. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the nominative was historically once a subject” (Timberlake 1974:153). Cf. also: “The comparable use of the nominative in Lith. and Latv. dialects is an instance of the nominative object; it undeniably does not represent the grammatical subject” (op.cit., 220). 15. Cf.: “The natural tendency in the Indo-European languages at least is to reinterpret certain personal constructions as impersonal constructions and concomitantly with this reinterpretation to replace the nominative case with the accusative case” (Schmalstieg 1990: 429). 16. Specifically about the development of dativus cum infinitivo in East Baltic with a survey of lit. see Ambrazas (1987). 17. See Endzelı¯ns & Mühlenbachs (1928: 173–174); Ozols (1961: 96–67, 1967: 182–183); Ga¯ters (1993: 325–326). 18. At present the verb reike˙ti ‘need’ is one of the most frequently used words in Standard Lithuanian. According to the Frequency Dictionary compiled by Žilinskiene˙ (1990:10), it occupies the fourth place among the verbs in a contemporary formal use. 19. The use of the predicative vajaga with the nominative subject had already been attested to in the Glücks translation of the Bible (1685–1689), e.g.: Kas jums vajaga ir Matth. 6, 8 ‘What (nom) is necessary to you’ (= was jr bedürffet).

410 Vytautas Ambrazas

20. Cf. also Holvoet (1993: 158). 21. On the relation between reanalysis and extension see Harris & Campbell 1995: 50–51, 59–119. The extension theory provides a rational explanation of a parallel use of constructions containing the nominative subject and object and of the possibility for the speaker/hearer to apply both analyses to ambiguous cases. 22. Reports about the distribution of the nominative object in Lithuanian dialects are generally based on the data collected for the Atlas of Lithuanian Dialects and stored at the Institute of the Lithuanian language. 23. Cf. the ascription of the nominative object to the prehistoric substratum of Baltic, West Finnic and North Russian by Larin (1963: 105), categorically rejected by Jacobsson (1964) and Kiparsky (1967, 1969). Cf. also considerations about the relation of the nominative object to the absolutive in Proto-Indo-European by Palmaitis (1977: 116–119). 24. Cf. Moora (1958:123–124); Gimbutas (1963:141); Veenker (1967:18); Zinkevicˇius (1984:338). 25. Special use is made of the data concerning questions 270–273, 276, 277, 280 of the questionnaire “Latviešu valodas dialektolog’ijas atlanta materialu va¯kšanas programa”, Rı¯ga, 1954. The information stored at the Institute of the Latvian Language in Riga is also used to represent the corresponding data in the scheme. I am grateful to the Director of the Institute and the Department of Dialectology for the opportunity I was offered to examine those funds during my research stay in 1988. I am not sure that the information concerning the distribution of the nominative object in Latvian is quite complete as I had no possibility to check the data of local dialects in situ. 26. Specifically about the nominative object with the debitive see Holvoet (1993). 27. In view of the data mentioned, the opinion that the nominative object is found in Lithuanian to a lesser extent than in Latvian (cf. Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 242) should be corrected. Larin (1963: 104) also noted that Latvian dialects have retained fewer traces of the nominative object than have Lithuanian dialects. 28. Specifically see Ambrazas (1990: 197–214 and references).

References Ambrazas, Vytautas. 1987. Die indogermanische Grundlage des Dativus und Nominativus cum infinitivo im Baltischen. Indogermanische Forschungen 92: 203–219. Ambrazas, Vytautas. 1990. Sravnitel’nyj sintaksis pricˇastij baltijskix jazykov/Vergleichende Syntax der baltischen Partizipien. Vilnius: Mokslas. Ambrazas, Vytautas. 1995. Der baltische Infinitiv aus der Sicht der syntaktischen Rekonstruktion. In: W. Smoczyn´ski (ed.) Analecta Indoeuropaea Cracoviensia Ioannis Safarewicz memoriae dicata. Cracoviae: Universitas, 51–60. Borkovskij, V. I. (ed.). 1978. Istoricˇeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka. Sintaksis. Prostoe predloženie. Moskva: Nauka. Brugmann, Karl. 1916. Vergleichende Laut-, Stammbildungslehre nebst Lehre vom Gebrauch der Wortformen 2.3. Strassburg: Trübner. Disterheft, Dorothy. 1980. The Syntactic Development of the Infinitive in Indo-European. Columbus: Slavica Publishers, Inc. Dunn, J. A. 1982. The nominative and infinitive construction in the Slavonic languages. The Slavonic and East European Review 60: 500–527. Endzelı¯ns, Janis. 1951. Latviešu valodas gramatika. Rı¯ga: Latvijas Valsts izdevniecı¯ba.

On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic

Endzelı¯ns, Janis & Mühlenbachs, Karlis. 1928. Latviešu gramatika. Rı¯ga: Valtera un Rapas akc. sab. Fraenkel, Ernst. 1925. Zur baltoslavischen Grammatik. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachhforschung (KZ) 53: 36–65. Ga¯ters, Alfreds. 1993. Lettische Syntax. Die Dainas, Hersg. H. Radtke. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin etc.: Peter Lang. Gimbutas, Marija. 1963. The Balts. London: Thames and Hudson. Harris, Alice C. & Campbell, Lyle. 1995. Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Cambridge: University Press. Haspelmath, Martin. 1989. From purposive to infinitive — a universal path of grammaticization. Folia Linguistica Historica 10: 287–310. Havránek, Bohuslav. 1968a. Quelques problèmes de l’étude diachronique de la structure syntactique, surtout en slave. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 3: 9–16. Havránek, Bohuslav. 1968b. Staroruskí osobní konstrukce ryba loviti a její obdoba v severoruských nárˇecˇích. Bulletin ustavu rusského jazyka a literatury 12: 169–178. Holvoet, Axel. 1993. On the nominative object in Latvian, with particular reference to the debitive. Linguistica Baltica 2: 151–161. Jablonskis, Jonas. 1935. In Balcˇikonis, J. (ed.), Jablonskio raštai 4. Kaunas; Švietimo Ministerija. Jacobsson, Gunnar. 1964. Zur Frage vom Nominativ als Kasus des direkten Objekts im Slawischen. In: I. Vahros & Martti Kahla (eds.), Lingua viget, commentationes slavicae in honorem V. Kiparsky. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisunden kirjapaino Oy. Jeffers, Robert J. & Pepicello William J. 1980. The expression of purpose in Indo-European. Indogermanische Forschungen 84: 1–16. Kiparsky, Valentin. 1960. Über das Nominativobjekt des Infinitivs. Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie 28: 333–342. Kiparsky, Valentin. 1967. Nochmals über das Nominativobjekt des Infinitivs. Zeitschift für slavische Philologie 33: 263–266. Kiparsky, Valentin. 1969. Das Nominativobjekt des Infinitivs im Slavischen, Baltischen und Ostseefinnischen. Baltistica 5: 141–148. Larin, Boris A. 1963. Ob odnoj slavjano-balto-finskoj izoglosse. Lietuviu˛ kalbotyros klausimai 6: 87–107. Moora, A. 1958. O drevnej territorii rasselenija baltijskix plemen. Sovetskaja Arxeologija 2: Akademija Nauk SSSR. Ozols, Arturs. 1961. Latviešu tautasdziesmu valoda. Rı¯ga¯: Latvijas valsts izdevniecı¯ba. Ozols, Arturs. 1967. Raksti valodniecı¯ba¯. Rı¯ga¯: Zina¯tne. Palmaitis, Letas. 1977. De˙l baltu˛ kalbu˛ nenominatyvine˙s praeities. Baltistica Suppl. 2: 114–123. Porák, Jaroslav. 1967. Vývoj infinitivních veˇt v cˇeštineˇ. Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Philologica, 16. Praha: Universita Karlova. Potebnja, Aleksandr A. 1958. Iz zapisok po russkoj grammatike 1–2. Moskva: Ministerstvo prosvešcˇenija RSFSR. Prellwitz, W. 1904. Zur Entstehung des lettischen Debitivs. Beiträge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen 28: 319. Reiter, Norbert. 1953. Die deutschen Lehnübersetzungen im Tschechischen (Veröffentlichungen der Abteilung für Slavische Sprachen und Literaturen des Osteuropa-Instituts an der Freien Universität Berlin, 3). Schmalstieg, William R. 1990. A comment on the Latvian debitive. Symposium Balticum. A Festschrift to honour Velta Ru¯k¸e-Dravin¸a. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. Sgall, Peter. 1958. Die Infinitive im R» gveda. Acta Universitatis Carolinae, Philologica, 2: 137–268. Praha: Universita Karlova. Sirtautas, Vytautas. 1971. Konstrukciju˛ buvo matyti, girde˙ti… struktu¯ra. Kalbotyra 22(1): 71–79.

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Sprincˇak, Jakov A. 1960. Ocˇerk russkogo istoricˇeskogo sintaksisa. Prostoe predloženie. Kiev: Radjans’ka škola. Stepanov, Jurij S. 1984. Oborot zemlja paxat’ i ego indoevropejskie paralleli. Izvestija AN SSSR, ser. lit. i jaz. 62(2): 128–143. Thomason, Sarah G. & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press. Timberlake, Alan. 1974. The nominative object in Slavic, Baltic, and West Finnic. München: Verlag Otto Sagner. (= Slavistische Beiträge begr. von A. Schmaus, 82.) Veenker, Wolfgang. 1967. Die Frage des finno-ugrischen Substrats in der russischen Sprache. The Hague: Mouton (IUP, Uralic and Altaic Series, 82). Zinkevicˇius, Zigmas. 1984. Lietuviu˛ kalbos istorija l. Lietuviu˛ kalbos kilme˙. Vilnius: Mokslas. Žilinskiene˙, Vida. 1990. Lietuviu˛ kalbos dažninis žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslas. Žuravlev, V. K. 1984. Nominativus cum infinitivo s tocˇki zrenija morfologicˇeskoj nejtralizacii. Baltistica 20 (2): 119–125. Xodova, K. J. 1980. Prostoe predloženie v staroslavjanskom jazyke. Moskva: Nauka.



Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles* Bernhard Wälchli

1.

Introduction

It is most profitable for an area study to focus on the central area of a language contact. In our study of the structural effects of the contact between Baltic and Finnic languages we thus focus on the languages most affected, i.e. Latvian (Baltic), Livonian (Finnic) and to a lesser extent Estonian (Finnic). Languages closely related to them (Baltic: Lithuanian; Finnic: Finnish, Veps) serve as a control which often represents an earlier stage of development as the central languages happen to be much more innovative in many respects. The contemporary territory of Latvia was settled by different Baltic tribes (Letti/ Lettgalians, Selians, Zemgalians and Curonians) before the arrival of the German crusaders. The most characteristic differences between contemporary Latvian dialects do not, however, coincide with the borders of earlier tribal areas but rather reflect language contact phenomena. The Low or Livonian dialect of Latvian is spoken in Northern Curonia (Kurzeme) and NW-Livonia (Vidzeme),1 which is the area where the Finnic (Livonian) population was most noticeable during several periods of time. The Finnic population was, however, not restricted to this area as the Finnic place names found throughout Latvia show. Even the names of the two neighboring tribes in Vidzeme — Letti and Lyvones — which were later extended to refer to the languages spoken in a wider area, might indicate a close relationship between the Finnic and Baltic populations.2 Archeological, toponymical and historical investigations have shown that Vidzeme and Kurzeme had mixed Baltic and Finnic populations during most of the last four millennia (see Tõnisson 1974, 1994; Johansen 1939). It is obvious that a large area (a good part of the entire Latvian and Livonian territory) which has had a mixed population for a long time provides good conditions for mutual linguistic influence. Hirt (1927: 33) and Kettunen (1938: vii) oversimplified this point in holding

414 Bernhard Wälchli

that Latvian is wholly derivable from Lithuanian, being the Lithuanian language as it developed in a colonized territory, and that the Latvian people is mixed LatvianLivonian, since its language is greatly influenced by Livonian (see Endzelı¯ns 1927, 1939 and Rudzı¯te 1994). With the help of verb particles, we will try to show that there was no unidirectional transfer of language structure from Finnic to Latvian, but rather a mutual partial transfer of structure in several diachronic steps leading to a semantic continuum in the area of Finnic and Baltic dialects.

2.

The Latvian and Southern Finnic verb particles

2.1 Verb determination in Baltic and Southern Finnic Baltic and Slavic languages (like most of the earliest attested Indo-European languages) have a strong tendency to express activities and states by means of the verb stem and to render the notions of achievement and accomplishment by means of an additional element (preverb in Baltic and Slavic), e.g. Ltv. redze¯t ‘see’, iet ‘go’ but sa-redze¯t ‘see (catch sight of)’, at-rast ‘find’, no-iet kilometru ‘go for a kilometer’. This tendency is somewhat stronger in Latvian than in Lithuanian (e.g. Lith. (su-)rasti ‘find’). Latvian, however, unlike Lithuanian, has an alternative way to determinate an activity by means of a verb particle (which often is an adverbialized local case form).3 In this respect Latvian is reminiscent of the Southern Finnic languages Livonian and Estonian which also use verb particles in order to determinate activities (e.g. Est. härra oli kõvasti ära keelanud… ‘the master had strongly forbidden “away”…’).4 The two Latvian verb determination procedures are said to constitute an aspect opposition, the preverb type being perfective while the verb particle type is imperfective (but cf. below). In spite of their general similarities there are many differences between the Baltic preverb and the Southern Finnic verb particle type of verb determination. In Baltic languages the preverbs are highly grammaticalized (there are only eleven of them in Standard Latvian, they cannot be separated from the verb, they are not longer than one syllable). As a rule, deictic relationships are expressed by means of verb stems in Finnic languages (e.g. Est. tulema ‘to come’, tuoda ‘bring’), but by means of preverbs in Baltic languages (Lith. at-, pri-eiti ‘to come’, eiti ‘to go’, but Ltv. na¯kt ‘to come’ which is a Finnic structure, see Wälchli 1996b). Consider also the related notions ‘open’ and ‘closed’ in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 below. We shall now discuss the question of to what extent the verb particles of Latvian, which are almost lacking in most of the Lithuanian dialect area, are of Finnic origin.

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles

2.2 Latvian verb particles Endzelı¯ns (1905–06: 2, 136–138) argued that what he called constructions with an uncompounded verb and an adverb (i.e. verb particle) spread in Latvian under the influence of Livonian and Estonian. Endzelı¯ns’ examples are as follows: Ltv. proja¯m (skriet) Ltv. cieti (taisı¯t) Ltv. val¸a¯ (taisı¯t) Ltv. iekša¯ (na¯kt) Ltv. lauka¯, a¯ra¯ (iet)

Est. ära (jooksma) Est. kinni (panema) Est. lahti (tegema) Est. sisse (tulema) Est. välja (minema)

Liv. jera¯ (ju¯okšõ) Liv. vi’zõ (pa¯nda) Liv. si’zõl (tu¯lda) Liv. ul¯zõ (l䯒dõ)

‘run away’ ‘close’ (“do closed”) ‘open’ (“do open”) ‘come in’ ‘go out’

Ltv. augša¯ (celties) Ltv. virsu¯ (likt)

Est. üles (tõusma) Est. peale (panema)

Liv. ü’lzõ (as¯tõ) Liv. pä¯lõ (pa¯nda)

‘go up’ ‘put on top’

Ltv. zeme¯ (na¯kt)

Est. maha (tulema)

Liv. mo¯’zõ (vie’dõ)…

Ltv. pa¯ri (le¯kt)

Est. üle (kargama)

Liv. ü’l¸õ (a¯stõ)

Ltv. pušu (raut)

Est. katki (kiskuma)

Liv. kat¸¯ki (ı¯edõ)

Ltv. kla¯t (na¯kt)

Est. juurde (tulema)

Liv. ju¯’rõ (a’jõ)

Ltv. kopa¯ (likt) Ltv. ka¯ja¯ vilkt

Est. kokku (panema) Liv. ku’bõ (pa¯nda) Est. jalga panema Liv. jal¯gõ vie’dõ…

‘come down’, Liv. ‘draw down’ ‘jump over’, Liv. ‘go over’ ‘tear to pieces’, Liv. ‘cut to pieces’ ‘come near’, Liv. ‘drive near’ ‘put together’

Ltv. roka¯ dabu¯t

Est. kätte saama

‘put on (shoes)’ (“put in the foot”) ‘get, catch’ (“get in the hand”)

Endzelı¯ns also indicates some relationships between the semantic origins of the particles in the three languages, but gives no details and does not even refer to the Latvian semantic background (which was obvious to him): Ltv. ciet ‘hard’, Est. kinni ‘hard, tightly close to’, Liv. viza¯ ‘hard’ (see Section 3.2); Ltv. iekša, Est. sisi ‘inner (part)’; Ltv. lauks, a¯re, Est. väli ‘(open) field’ (see Section 3.7); Ltv. zeme, Est. maa ‘land, earth’; Ltv. augša, Est. üli ‘upper (part)’; Ltv. kopa, Est. kogu, Liv. ku’b ‘pile’ (see Section 3.4). In Latvian there are many verb particles (also used as adverbs or postpositions) derived from relational nouns, many of them having no frequent Lithuanian equivalent5 e.g. Ltv. pakal¸a¯ ‘behind, going behind, going for’, apka¯rt ‘around’, virsu¯ ‘on top’. Their equivalents in Finnic are in some cases related to a noun in a similar way, but the nominal character is as a rule not as evident in Finnic as in Latvian, e.g.

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Ltv. iekša ‘inner part’, iekšas (pl) ‘viscera’ (Lith. ˛iscˇios id.). The corresponding Est. sisi ‘inner part’ occurs almost only as the first part of a compound as in sisi-kond
‘viscera’ (Fin. kunta ‘company’), Liv. si’ž-gõn-d
(the -d- being interpreted as a plural; Fin. sisäl-mykse-t [pl] id.). For the original meaning of the Latvian verb particle iekša¯ consider also (karpel¸i) neskrien iekša¯, Est. ei lähe sisse ‘I can’t get it (the potatoes) down’ (Kagaine 1992: 215) and with the corresponding preverb Ltv. ie-e¯st ‘eat (some little quantity, a certain quantity)’. Lithuanian has the expression vidun (ill), viduje (loc) “in(to) the middle” meaning ‘in(side)’ as in High Latvian vidu¯(n), vida¯. The common development of Latvian and Finnic is, however, not very distinctive; consider Rus. vnutri ‘in(side)’, vnutrennost’ ‘viscera’. (The same holds for e.g. Lith. žemyn, Est. maha etc. ‘down’ [“to the earth”], cf. Ger. zu Boden; Ltv. leja¯, Liv. luoı¯kõ ‘down’ [“into the valley”], cf. Blg. dol
‘valley’, dolu ‘down’ and Ltv. cauri ‘through[out]’ [“full of holes”], Est. läbi ‘through[out]’, Fin. läpi ‘hole’, cf. Rus. skvoz’ ‘through[out]’, skvažina ‘aperture, hole’.) In contrast to the verb particles, the Latvian preverbs which are semantically almost equivalent (but of a perfective aspectual value) correspond in most cases to etymologically identical preverbs in Lithuanian (and even in Slavic). It is thus evident that they are of Baltic origin: Ltv. proja¯m (skriet) Ltv. cieti (taisı¯t) Ltv. val¸a¯ (taisı¯t) Ltv. iekša¯ (na¯kt) Ltv. lauka¯, a¯ra¯ (iet) Ltv. augša¯ (celties) Ltv. virsu¯ (likt) Ltv. zeme¯ (na¯kt) Ltv. pa¯ri (le¯kt) Ltv. pušu (raut)

aiz-skriet aiz-taisı¯t at-taisı¯t ie-na¯kt iz-iet uz-iet uz-likt no-na¯kt pa¯r-le¯kt sa-raut, pa¯r-raut pie-na¯kt sa-likt uz-vilkt, ap-aut

Lith. nu-be˙gti (be˙gti tolyn) Lith. už-daryti Lith. ati-daryti Lith. ˛i-eiti (eiti vidun) Lith. iš-eiti (eiti laukan) Lith. pa-si-kelti (eiti aukštyn) Lith. už-de˙ti (de˙ti viršun) Lith. nu-si-leisti, (eiti žemyn) Lith. per-šokti Lith. per-traukti, per-ple˙šti (pusiau) Lith. pri-eiti Lith. su-de˙ti Lith. ap-si-auti

Ltv. kla¯t (na¯kt) Ltv. kopa¯ (likt) Ltv. ka¯ja¯ vilkt Ltv. roka¯ dabu¯t

‘run away’ ‘close’ ‘open’ ‘come in’ ‘go out’ ‘go up’ ‘put on top’ ‘come down’ ‘jump over’ ‘tear to pieces’ ‘come near’ ‘put together’ ‘put on (shoes)’

sa-dabu¯t

Lith. su-gauti

‘get, catch’

For Endzelı¯ns the class of “adverbs” (verb particles) is characterized by the fact that there are corresponding Latvian preverbs. This delimitation of the group is not unproblematic, e.g. in the case of the almost phraseological ka¯ja¯ “in the foot” and roka¯ “in the hand”. For our purpose it is best to adopt a less Latvian-centristic and more open tentative definition: A verb particle expresses the result that (eventually)

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 417

is achieved by the activity expressed by the accompanying verb. To express a state it is combined with the copular verb bu¯t. Ve¯r logu ciet! ‘Shut the window!’ Logs ir ciet ‘The window is closed’ Velk kurpes ka¯ja¯! ‘Put the shoes on!’ Kurpes ir ka¯ja¯ ‘The shoes are on the feet’

The notion of the verb particle can thus be extended to some further units that do not have characteristic equivalent preverbs in Latvian: (Pa)n¸em suni lı¯dzi! ‘Take the dog with you!’ Suns man ir lı¯dzi ‘The dog is with me’

In this case the copula construction is not only true at the end of the activity, but throughout the activity. In order to stress this difference between preverbs and verb particles Kazlauskas (cf. Girdenis/Kacˇiuškiene˙ 1986: 21, Note 1) claims that the former are of a perfective, but the latter of a “perficient” character. The aspectual difference between the two patterns in Latvian (the perfective one being of old Baltic origin while the “imperfective” or “perficient” one is influenced by Finnic) is especially developed in the Kurzeme part of the Low dialect as described for the subdialect6 of Stende by Dravin¸š/Ru¯k¸e (1958: 45–53, see also HauzenbergaŠturma 1971: 300–302). Hauzenberga stresses that there is always some notion of (distributive) plurality (i.e. non-punctuality) in the imperfective examples of the following type, which is restricted to concrete, mostly local contexts: (1) Latvian (Stende) a. Dze¯rves jau laižas proja¯m. crane:pl already let:3.refl away ‘The cranes are flying away (some of them are just leaving, others will leave soon).’ as opposed to the following perfective sentence: b. Putnin¸š aiz-laižas. bird:dim.nom.sg away-let:3.refl ‘The (little) bird flies away (and has gone).’

The “periphrastic imperfect” has an expressive meaning in abstract contexts: Ltv. (Stende) ka¯dreiz tik ienesı¯gais ma¯cı¯ta¯ja amats pute¯ja lauka¯ (instead of iz-pute¯ja) ‘the once well paying job of a priest (heavily) declined’, and Hauzenberga thus speaks of an imperfect in statu nascendi.7 Anyway, a distinction of different forms only with telic verbs (most of them of a local character) is not what we would expect in a language with a perfective-imperfective opposition.

418 Bernhard Wälchli

2.3 Preverbs in Livonian Hauzenberga holds that there is no direct Finnic influence on the constitution of an aspect relationship with a “periphrastic imperfect”, as there is no similar aspectual opposition in any Finnic language, but she is wrong in asserting that there are no preverbs in Finnic languages (loc. cit: 303). The Latvian prefixes also appear in Livonian in hybrid loanwords (Sivers 1971). Their frequency, however, fluctuates from speaker to speaker. Some of the prefixed verbs have the same specific meaning as their Latvian equivalents, e.g. Liv. samuoı¯stõ ‘understand’ (Ltv. sa-prast id.) in contrast to the unprefixed muoı¯stõ ‘be able to’ (Ltv. prast id.). Most of them, however, do not carry any additional lexical meaning, as can be seen in the following example (see also Rudzı¯te 1996): (2) Livonian ¯ ne’i je’n Se um sel¯¸i ke¯v, kis ne’i je’n sı¯eb, ku mi¯t-ikš it be:3sg such mare who so much eat:3sg that nobody so much äb nu’o-nı¯tõ aı¯nõ il¸ pä¯va, ku’i je’n ta nu’o-sı¯eb jera¯, not down-mow grass over day how much it down-eat:3sg away ¯ äb nu’o-ti’e pu¯’dõks. un ta situ¯b ne’i je’n, ku mi¯t-ikš and it shit:3sg so much that nobody not down-do clean ‘It is such a mare that eats as much grass as anybody can mow in one day, that much it eats, and it shits as much as anybody can clean up.’ (Setälä 1953: 323)

The most frequent Latvian preverb no- seems to function in Livonian as a default preverb, as can be seen from (2). In Latvian, one would rather say ap-e¯st ‘eat (up)’ than no-e¯st, and pa-darı¯t tı¯ru rather than *no-darı¯t tı¯ru (no-tı¯rı¯t ‘clean up’ would be better). Ltv. sa-pl¸aut “mow together” would be more appropriate to express a large quantity than no-pl¸aut.8 There are three verbs in (2) with a preverb and/or a particle and its hardly possible to see any difference in their aspectual value. The only difference is that the telicity of the verb is semantically spelled out to a higher degree with particles (“away”, “clean”) whereas the preverb is a pure marker of telicity. Only rarely is a Livonian adverb used like a Latvian preverb: (3) Livonian Aga¯ ku ke¯n¸ig um i’lz-nu¯zõn u¯ondžil. but when king be:3sg up-rise.part.past in-the-morning ‘But when the king got up in the morning…’ (Setälä 1953: 354)

The Latvian preverbs also occur in the Leivu subdialect of Estonian (Leivu murrak, also Koiva maarahvas, an old Estonian enclave in northeastern Latvia between Alu¯ksne and Gulbene now extinct) which is closely related to the southern Estonian subdialect of Hargla, but has many traits in common with Livonian to which it is not closely related in origin (consider also the common ethnonyms, Leivu ¯ı > ei) because of the parallel Latvian influence (see Vaba 1977: 21–29).9

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 419

2.4 An areal continuum The Latvian verb particles are claimed to have an imperfective function while the Estonian ones are claimed to be of a perfective character. So what do they have in common? As we saw the notion of perfective aspect is not very appropriate for the description of the Latvian and the Estonian phenomena. It is rather the notion of telicity that covers the semantics of Latvian, Livonian and Estonian verb particles and preverbs. The higher degree of grammaticalization of the preverbs in Latvian results in a very restricted opposition of two sets of markers of telicity where it seems that the preverbs are more “perfective” than the verb particles. But the mere fact that preverbs and verb particles can be combined in Latvian and Livonian, mostly without any difference in meaning, suggests that there is no fundamental categorial difference between preverbs and verb particles. The Estonian, Livonian and Latvian verb particles and the Baltic preverbs can be considered as different degrees of grammaticalization of bounders. The term bounder is used by Bybee/Dahl (1989: 85f) for particles of mostly local origin (such as English out, up etc.) often having the effect of making a verb more clearly transitive and of implying a definite limit or end-state of the process (the total consumption of the object). In Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) bounders (preverbs) can be used as almost fully grammaticalized markers of perfective aspect in some contexts. The derivational origin entails, however, a range of semantical differences in comparison to a purely inflectional perfective aspect and a considerable amount of morphological irregularity. According to Dahl (1985: 89) the Slavic-type aspect categories are no proper ‘inflectional categories’ but rather ‘derivational’ or maybe even ‘grammaticalized lexical categories’. As the preverbs in the Baltic languages are even less grammaticalized than in Russian it is very problematic to call the Baltic preverbs aspect markers. What we have thus in Latvian could be described as two different sets of bounders representing different stages of grammaticalization: a more aspect-like and less aspect like Aktionsart. Verb-particles and preverbs are thus doing basically the same job in Estonian, Livonian, Latvian and Lithuanian though there are a lot of contexts where these languages differ in their concrete usage. The main difference between the four languages is the frequency load of the two means of expression. In Estonian there are no preverbs. In Livonian verb particles are still dominant, the use of preverbs differs from speaker to speaker and does not contribute very much to the semantic content of the sentence. In Latvian preverbs are more dominant than verb particles and they are the more important means of expression for telicity. In Lithuanian verb particles are almost lacking, except the NW-dialects. The different degree of grammaticalization of verb particles and preverbs entails a different range of concrete functions. The semantically emptier preverbs tend to be purer markers of

420 Bernhard Wälchli

telicity and are found partly in contexts which is expressed by the perfective aspect in languages with a perfective-imperfective distinction. This can be summarized in Figure 1 (simplified).

“more imperfectivelike functions” Estonian

Lithuanian

“more perfectivelike functions”

verb particles

Livonian Latvian

expression of accomplished activity / telicity >>>>>>>>>>>

verb particles verb particles v.-p.

preverbs preverbs preverbs

Figure 1.Range of verb particles and preverbs

There is thus an areal continuum from Estonian to Lithuanian.

3.

Semantic relationships of Latvian, Livonian and Estonian verb particles

We will now discuss the corresponding Latvian and Livonian verb particles whose lexical context is specific enough to supply us with further evidence for the spread of verb particles in Southern Finnic and Latvian. The listing of lexical material might appear tiresome, but it cannot be avoided, as only cumulative evidence can prove a diachronic influence in similar characteristic lexical structures. 3.1 Ltv. val¸a¯ (loc) = Liv. va¯ldin ¸ (instruc) “in the power/will of” > ‘open’ The Lithuanian expression for ‘open’ is ati-darytas, the past participle of ati-daryti ‘to open’ (at[i]- ‘open’, daryti ‘to do’), also at-daras, at-viras and at-vertas (at-verti ‘to open’). Other verbs can also be prefixed by the particle at- to express the result ‘open, untied’ of the activity expressed by the verb stem, e.g. šuo ati-tru¯ko nuo grandine˙s ‘the dog broke away from the chain’. Old Prussian is similar to Lithuanian in this respect: tijt wı¯rst ioumus et-wiriuns (part.past.act.nom.sg.masc) ‘and so it will be opened to you’. This preverb at- is also used in Latvian in similar contexts, e.g. at-ve¯rts10 ‘open’ (also at-taisı¯ts), but it is more common to say val¸a¯ to render the notions ‘open; untied, loose, free’. Ltv. val¸a¯ is the locative form of the noun val¸a ‘freedom, leisure, free time; arbitrariness; power; permission; will’ and it is related to Lith. valia

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 421

‘freedom, will’ (valioti ‘subdue to one’s power’), Slav. volja ‘will’ (voliti ‘to prefer, desire’). In Livonian there is a very similar expression meaning ‘open’: va¯ldin¸ (also va¯ldiž < *-isin, vadı¯¸l with metathesis, LivSal. vallis) ‘open; untied, free’ is the instructive (plural) form of the noun va¯lda ‘power, free will; permission, authorization; arbitrariness; administrative district’, which is related to Est. vald
‘power; administrative district’ and Fin. valta ‘power; rule, authority; state, rule’. The Finnic word is a loan from Germanic, consider Old Norse vald
‘power, rule, someone’s territory’ (vera á valdi e-s ‘to be in somebody’s power, depend on’) (Thomsen, see SKES s.v. valta). Generally there are different particles of different semantic origin to express the meaning ‘open’ in Estonian and Finnish: Est. lahti ‘open; untied; loose’;11 Fin. auki ‘open’ (aukko ‘aperture, gap’, Liv. ou¯k ‘hole’), irti ‘untied, loose’ (probably < Baltic, see SKES s.v. irta). There are, however, peripheral sparsely used expressions of the same semantic origin as Ltv. val¸a¯ and Liv. va¯ldin¸ in Estonian, Finnish, Veps and Lithuanian: Est. vallali ‘free, untied, loose, not married’, valla ‘open, free, untied’ soo üsna valla ‘the fen is completely open, not frozen’, uks on vallal
(EstS. vallan) ‘the door is open’, vallale (all) tegema ‘to open’ (“make open”); Fin. vallalleen, -llensa ‘(get) loose, free’, sade, työt on vallassa “the rain/work is loose, in power”; Veps koir um vaudau (adess), päzui ˇcepišpäi ‘the dog is untied, free, he has got loose from the chain’. Lith. (dial.) palikti duris valioj (loc) ‘let the door open’, leisti kurtus ˛i valia˛ ‘let the greyhounds free’ (NSS: s.v. valia).12 Because of its spread in Baltic and Finnic languages the semantic development ‘in somebody’s power, in freedom’ > ‘untied, loose’ (> ‘opened’) must have taken place in Baltic and Finnic independently. These expressions not very common originally in either language group were favored in the language contact because of their structural identity and therefore they became common expressions of Latvian and Livonian. Finnic could not imitate the highly grammaticalized Baltic preverbs and it was impossible for Baltic to express an accomplishment by means of an unprefixed single verb.13 As a rule Latvian and Livonian favored and generalized the structures that already existed in both of them. Besides the accidental phonetic similarity, there are some additional common semantic features of the two nouns Ltv. val¸a and Liv. va¯lda confirming the LatvianLivonian lexical relationship: 1. Ltv. savval¸a¯, Liv. u’mõ va¯ldas ‘on one’s own (account)’: Ltv. be¯rni palika sava¯ val¸a¯ (loc) ‘the children were left to themselves’, Liv. lä¯pš um en¸¯tš va¯ldas (iness) ka’zõn ‘the child grew up without supervision’, Lith. vaikai palikti savo valiai (dat) ‘the children were left to themselves’, Fin. elää omin valloin (instruc) ‘to live on one’s own account’; Ltv. savval¸as augi, dzı¯vnieki ‘wild plants, animals’, Liv. voÏlda u’m va¯ldas ‘to be one’s own master’. Consider also the following example from Loorits (1936: 294):

422 Bernhard Wälchli

(4)

Livonian ve’l mi’n vo’l ˙ ¸ tä’m si’uv ¯ı’ž-e¯n¸tš va¯ldas vu¯olda, ve’l mi’n vo’l ˙ ¸ ¯ı’tõ tu¯oista kila¯-puoı¯sõ e¯rtlõ

Latvian ve¯l man bija šovasar pašai sava¯ val¸a¯ bu¯t, ve¯l man bij dažu labu tautas de¯lu kaitina¯t

‘I could be still this summer on my own (unmarried), I had still the occasion to tease some suitors’

2. Ltv. val¸u dot, Liv. val¯dõ an¯dõ ‘to allow’ (“give permission”), Lith. ar valia vogti? ‘is stealing permitted?’, savo vale˛ (= valia˛) duoti ˛i ka˛ (= kam) ‘consent to something’ (Kuršaitis: s.v. valia), Veps antta vauad
‘to allow’ ii§l’e vauad
‘it is not permitted (to)’. 3. Ltv. ve¯ja val¸a¯ ‘exposed to the wind’, tas sta¯v Ju¯su val¸a¯ ‘it is in your power’, Liv. lo¯ja um tu¯l va¯ldas ‘the boat is exposed to the wind, in the power of the wind’, Est. ma olen haiguse vallas “I am in the power of the illness”, ta on oppimise vallas ‘he is learning very assiduously’ (“in the power of learning”). Conclusion: The verb particles rendering the notion ‘open, untied, free’ seem to have developed independently in Baltic and Finnic from nouns with matching semantic structures and phraseological uses (and even similar forms although they are not etymologically related). The result of language contact was not to invent new expressions, but to use similar already existing but peripheral expressions more frequently. The older common Baltic (preverb at-) and Finnic expressions (achievement verb, other verb particles) could not be imitated in the other language group and were not supported by language contact.14 3.2 Ltv. ciet = Liv. vi’zõ (ill), viza¯s (iness) “hard” > ‘closed’ The adverb and verb particle Ltv. ciet(i) ‘closed; tied, fixed’ corresponds to the preverb aiz-, e.g. aiz-darı¯t, aiz-taisı¯t ‘to close’, aiz-sle¯gt ‘lock (up)’, whose Lithuanian equivalent is už-, e.g. už-daryti ‘to close’, už-rakinti ‘to lock (up)’. There is no verb particle or adverb with this meaning in Lithuanian. Ltv. ciet(i) is derived from the adjective ciets ‘hard, solid, fixed’ (Lith. kietas id., adverb kietai id.). ¯ In Livonian there is a similar situation: Liv. viza¯s (iness), vi’zõ (ill) ‘closed’ ukš ¯ um viza¯s ‘the door is closed’, panu¯b uks vi’zõ ‘shuts the door’ is related to the adjective viza¯ ‘hard; tough (wood)’ vi’zõ pu¯dõ um lä¯ lam u¯olõ ‘tough (fibrous) wood is hard to carve’. The Latvian and Livonian verb particles differ in their form, which is an adverb in Latvian, but a local case in Livonian, both derived from an adjective ‘hard’. Estonian has a similar structure as Latvian and Livonian: kinni ‘closed, hard, firm, tightly close to’ (pea pea külles kinni ‘(corn) ear tightly close to ear’). There is however no adjective in Estonian or Finnish from which the verb particles Est. kinni and Fin. kiinni id. are obviously derived as there is in Latvian and Livonian; note the derived adjective Est. kinnine ‘closed’ and the loosely related adjective kindel
‘sure, certain, reliable, fixed’.

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 423

There are many common phrases containing this verb particle or related words: 1. Est. kinnine jää ‘solid ice (without gaps)’, Ltv. pl¸avas ve¯l bij cieti ‘it was still not possible to graze on the meadows’. 2. Est. lehm jääb kinni, Liv. ni’emõ lä¯ ’b vi’zõ, Ltv. govs iet ciet ‘the cow stops giving milk’, (aiz-)laist govi ciet ‘stop milking the cow before the birth of the calf ’, but also Lith. kietapiene˙ karve˙ ‘cow that is not giving milk’. 3. Est. kinni panema jalad, Ltv. (dabu¯t) ka¯jas ciet E¯IV II, 39 ‘put on shoes’ (“put the feet closed”) (see Kagaine 1992: 226–228). The following phraseological structure has produced nominal derivations in Latvian and Livonian: Ltv. (sa-)n¸emt ciet ‘to arrest’ (“to take fixed” as Ger. fest-nehmen; the corresponding preverb is not aiz- but sa- in these cases,15 compare Lith. su-laikyti, su-imti ‘to arrest’), ap-ciet-ina¯t ‘to arrest’, cietums ‘prison’; Liv. võ¯tõ vi’zõ ‘to arrest’ tä¯ nda akı¯zti vi’zõ ‘he was arrested, caught’, ta ista¯b viza¯s ‘he is (“sits”) in prison’, viza¯-kuoda¯ ‘prison’; Est. ta on kinni/vangis ‘he is in prison’, kinni/vangi panema, kinni võtma ‘to arrest’ (but torn, puur, vangla ‘prison’). This verb particle is used more frequently in Livonian than in Latvian to render the notion of something ‘fixed’. (5) Livonian Kuo’jg a’iliz ku¯olka nana¯ pä¯l vi’zõ. ship run:past.3sg Kolka cape on fixed ‘The ship ran aground on the cape of Kolka.’ (Ltv. uz-skriet ‘run aground’), but consider sei cietı¯ to sune¯nu! E¯IV III, 314 ‘tie up this dog!’, Liv. lan¯g um viza¯ sida¯mõzt ‘the thread must be tied’.

Conclusion: The Latvian verb particle cieti ‘hard’ > ‘closed, fixed’ is semantically of Finnic origin (Est. kinni, Fin. kiinni). But there is a secondary development shared only by Latvian and Livonian, concerning both the verb particle (which is derived from an adjective) and the lexical semantics of Ltv. ciet(i) and Liv. viza¯s, vi’zõ (e.g. the derived notion of ‘prison’). 3.3 Ltv. roka¯ (loc) = Liv. kä’dõ (ill), kä’dsõ (iness) “in the hand of” >

‘got (hold of)’ Finnic tends to express meanings such as ‘to catch’ by means of a verb of a general character and a verb particle: Fin. ottaa kiinni ‘to catch’ (“take fixed”), for kiinni see (3.2). In similar contexts, especially in Estonian, we have to add a verb particle which is frequently used in Finnic, and whose Latvian equivalent is obviously of Finnic origin: Ltv. roka¯ (loc), Est. kätte (ill), kädessä (iness); Liv. kä’dõ (ill), kä’dsõ (iness) ‘gotten, caught’, derived from Ltv. roka, Liv. ke’jž, Est. käsi ‘hand, arm’ (see Endzelı¯ns 1905–06: 137 and Arumaa 1935: 128). There is no similar structure in Lithuanian as can be seen in the following examples: Ltv. roka¯ dabu¯t

424 Bernhard Wälchli

‘catch’, mekle¯t roka¯ (imperfective of sa-mekle¯t) ‘look for’, k¸ert, gra¯bt roka¯ ‘catch, grasp’, roka¯ bu¯t ‘be at hand, be seized by somebody’, jau roka¯ ‘(I have) already found it’. Liv. kä’dõ so¯dõ ‘reach, get’ je’nõ pin¸¯ıd sa¯bõd ki¯ps piga¯ kä’dõ ‘many dogs catch a rabbit soon’; ro¯’ um mi’nõn kä’ds ‘I have the money (at hand)’. Est. kätte saama ‘get, reach; understand’, kätte jõudma ‘get close to’, päikese kätte panema ‘expose to the sun’; käes (olema) ‘(be) present, at hand’, minu aega on veel käes ‘my time is not yet over’. But Lith. gaudyti ‘catch’ (Ltv. k¸ert roka¯), ieškoti ‘look for’ (Ltv. mekle¯t roka¯), rasti; nutverti, sucˇiupti (Ltv. dabu¯t roka¯) ‘find; get’. Kagaine/Bušs 1985: 25f. observed that Ltv. roka¯ is used in more contexts in NW-Vidzeme (as in Estonian) than in Standard Latvian, e.g. also speaking of animals (which do not have hands): nedo vis sun¸am roka¯, ape¯st uzreiz ‘do not give everything to the dog at once, he eats up everything’.16 Conclusion: In the case of roka¯ “in the hand” Latvian seems to have almost completely imitated the structure of a Finnic verb particle, differing only somewhat in the range of its use in special contexts. As we will see it is unusual that Latvian does not contribute any structural features in the genesis of its verb particles. Latvian, however, does not agree with Livonian and Estonian in the use of elativelike expressions of the same noun “hand”: Ltv. no rokas “from the hand” cannot be used in elative contexts similar to those of the inessive-like and illative-like examples above, but this is common in Livonian, e.g. ala¯ ki’z mi’n kä’dst (elat) sieda¯ ‘don’t ask me (“from my hand”) for this’. Latvian changes this elative-like expression to a locative, but very sparsely as in NW-Vidzeme prası¯šu roka¯ to sietin¸u ‘I will ask for this sieve’. The same is true of expressions with body parts which express ‘put on/take off (clothes)’. Latvian agrees with Estonian e.g. in Est. riideid selga (ill) panema ‘put on clothes (“into the back”)’ = Ltv. vilkt dre¯bes mugura¯, but not in riideid seljast (elat) võtma ‘take off the clothes (“from the back”)’ ´ Ltv. vilkt dre¯bes zeme¯/nost ‘take off the clothes (“to the ground/away”)’. Thus Latvian agrees with the Estonian alternative riideid maha panema ‘take off the clothes (“to the ground”)’ which is also generally used in Livonian: o¯’rnõd mo¯’zõ vie’dõ id. 3.4 Ltv. kopa¯ (loc) = Liv. kub’õ (ill), ku’bsõ (iness) “in(to) a pile” >

‘together’ Latvian, Livonian and Estonian have developed a verb particle meaning ‘together’ out of a local case of a noun meaning ‘heap, pile’: Ltv. na¯kt kopa¯ (loc), Liv. ku’bõ tu¯lda, Est. kokku (ill) tulema ‘come together’, Ltv. likt kopa¯, Liv. ku’bõ pa¯nda, Est. kokku panema ‘put together (to a pile)’; Ltv. kopa ‘pile (of corn)’; sheaf; bundle’, Liv. ku’b ‘pile, bundle of bast’, Est. kogu ‘pile; bulk; corpulence; whole’.17 There is a similar structure in Lithuanian: kru¯voj (loc), kru¯von (ill), ˛i kru¯va˛ ‘together’, su-rinkti ˛i kru¯va˛ ‘gather (together)’, but it is not commonly used.

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 425

Lithuanian generally uses other expressions meaning ‘together’: kartu (inst) (kartas ‘a time’, karta˛ ‘once’) or drauge (loc) (draugas ‘friend’, cf. also Ltv. biedru¯ ‘together’ [rare] to biedrs ‘companion’). These peculiarities have already been noted by Arumaa (1935: 132). He also observed that in all three languages (Ltv., Liv., Est.) there is an additional expression “to one pile” of the same (sometimes emphatic) meaning ‘together’: Ltv. vienkopu(s), -u¯, Liv. ¯ı’d(s)õ ku’b(s)õ, Est. ühte kokku (ill), ühes koos (iness). (6) Latvian Nauda atkal bijuse visa vienkopu. (M-E 4, 660) money again be:part.past.fem all:fem one pile:inst ‘All the money was again all together.’ (7) Livonian Siz ne zı¯dõd ¸ a’dtõ sa-kut¯sõnd (Setälä 1953:
98) then these Jews be:3pl together-invite:part.past.pl pä¯gin¸ ¯ı’dõ ku’bõ. many one pile:ill ‘Then these Jews had invited many people (together).’

(Note the Latvian preverb sa- in the Livonian example.) The structure “to one pile” seems to go back to Finnic (but cf. also Sw. ihop ‘together’, hop ‘pile, a lot’). It is common also in other Finnic languages, see e.g. Veps keratas ühthe kogoho ‘gather (intr)’. This is even more evident if we consider Finnic local case forms of the word ‘one’ meaning ‘together’: Fin. yhdessä (iness), yhteen (ill) etc., also Mrd. vejse (iness), vejs (ill) ‘together’. As the equivalent to Est. koos (iness), kokku (ill) is also common in the Northern Finnic languages, Ltv. kopa¯ (loc) ‘together’ is an evident structural trait of Finnic in Latvian. Are Liv. ku’b(s)õ and Est. koos/kokku then equally good equivalents to Ltv. kopa¯? The answer is no. Fin. koko has slightly different semantics: ‘whole (Adj. indecl.); size; (rarely) pile’. Estonian is similar in this respect (Est. kogu selle öö ‘the whole night’, but hunnik, kuhi ‘pile’; hulk ‘bulk, crowd’, also hulgas [iness] ‘together’ [rare]). Conclusion: The parallel development in the area of contact began with Finnic *koko ‘whole; size; pile’ forming the case forms *kokoon (ill), *koossa (iness) ‘together’. This was identified in Latvian with kopa ‘pile’ > kopa¯ (loc) ‘together’. There was no exact equivalent in Latvian to the complex meaning of Finnic *koko. As a secondary development in Livonian a new equivalent to Ltv. kopa ‘pile’, kopa¯ ‘together’ emerged: Liv. ku’b ‘pile, bundle of bast’ (Est. kubu ‘bundle’, kubu õlge ‘bundle of straw, 3 1/2 sheaves) forming the case forms ku’b(s)õ meaning ‘together’. This is perhaps originally a Baltic loan (Ltv. guba ‘pile [of hay], bulk’; guba¯ [loc] ‘together’ [rare]). There is no etymological equivalent to Est. koos (iness), kokku (ill) in Livonian.18

426 Bernhard Wälchli

3.5 Ltv. lı¯dz(i) = Est. kaasa(s) ‘(taking) with, along’ The next particle to be discussed has much in common semantically with the previous one. Consider the following examples from Baltic and Finnic languages: (8) Latvian Pama¯te no-su¯tı¯ja arı¯ ba¯renı¯ti lı¯dzi stepmother away-send:past.3 also orphan along (9) Livonian VoÕ rõz jema¯ so¯tiz ka ¯ın¸õ bo¯rin¸ la¯ps foreign mother send:past.3sg also along orphan kid (10) Lithuanian Pamote˙ nu-siunte˙ ir našlaite˙le˛ kartu stepmother away-send.past.3 also orphan along (11) Estonian Võõrasema saatis vaeslapse ka kaasa stepmother send.past.3sg orphan also along ‘The stepmother also sent the orphan along.’

Lithuanian differs in that it has the same expression meaning ‘together’ and ‘(taking) along’: kartu (alternatively drauge, see above):19 Lith.

Ltv.

Liv.

Est.

Fin.

Veps

Ger.

kartu

lı¯dz(i) ¯ın¸õ(z) kaasa(s) mukana/mukaan kerdau mit ‘along’ kopa¯ ku’b(s)õ koos/kokku yhdessä/yhteen ühtes zusammen ‘together’

Lithuanian differs also from Latvian, Finnic and German concerning the range of the expression kartu
: Lith. aš neturiu su savimi (Rus. s soboj) ´ Ltv. man nav lı¯dzi ‘I haven’t (it) on me’ — Lith. aš jo nepaveju/nespe˙ju su juo kartu, Ltv. netieku vin¸am lı¯dzi ‘I can’t follow him’. In the Lithuanian reflexive verb pa-si-imti ‘take along (with/for oneself)’ the notion of Ltv. lı¯dzi is rendered by a preverb in combination with a reflexive marker. Ltv. lı¯dzi and Liv. ¯ın¸õ can be constructed with the preposition Ltv. ar ‘with’ or with the Liv. translative case respectively: Ltv. lı¯dz ar manim ‘(along) with me’, Liv. tu’l¸ mi’n-kõks (trnsl) ü¯ n¸iz (Setälä 1953: 319) ‘come with me’. They are, however, generally constructed with a dative without any preposition:20 (12) Livonian Siz u’m tegı¯ž võ¯tõn e¯n¸tšõn ¯ı’d va¯lda õbı¯z ¯ın¸õ. then be:3sg again take:part.past self:dat one:acc white horse:acc along ‘Then (he) took again a white horse along with him (it is said).’

Liv. ¯ın¸õ (< ü¯ n¸õ) is related to Fin. ynnä ‘beside, and’ (ynnä muuta ‘and other [things]’), also ‘along’ (rare) tule ynnä minun kanssani ‘come (along) with me’. Fin.

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 427

ynnä is the ancient essive form to yksi ‘one’, for its meaning compare also Fin. yhdessä (iness), yhte-en (ill) ‘together’ etc, Mrd. vejs(e) (ill/iness) id. Mar. ikteš, ikvereš id. deriving from the same stem. Liv. ¯ın¸õ seems thus to be completely Finnic in character. Ltv. lı¯dz(i) is originally an adverb from the Baltic adjective (Lith) lygus ‘equal’ (adv lygiai), which has been lost in Latvian (Ltv. lı¯dz-ı¯g-s ‘equal’). Ltv. lı¯dz(i) was thus originally ‘equal (with)’ > ‘along with’. The dative construction is easily understood because of this semantic origin, see e.g.: (13) Latvian lai es arı¯ balta augu lı¯dz cita¯m in-order-that I also white:fem grow:1sg equal other:dat.pl.fem ma¯sin¸a¯m sister:dat.pl.fem ‘in order that I also grow pretty like the other sisters’

The Baltic adverb (Lith.) lygiai also developed the meaning ‘as far as’ (Preposition): Lith. ligi ryto (gen) ‘until morning’. Latvian preserved the dative construction: lı¯dz rı¯tam (dat) id., lı¯dz pat ezeram ‘as far as to the very lake’. We conclude that there is no common semantic origin of Ltv. lı¯dzi and LivK. ¯ın¸õ. But we have to consider Est. kaasa(s) and LivSal. ka¯zu. Est. kaasa (ill), kaasas (iness) Postpos. ‘with’, Adv ‘along’, which is also considered to be the source of the Estonian comitative case -ga and the Livonian comitative -ks (in Livonian merged with the translative), is related to Est. kaasa ‘companion; spouse’, abi-kaasa ‘spouse’. Est. abi-kaasa is a synonym compound: abi ‘help, helper, handyman; spouse’, abielu ‘matrimony’ (elu ‘life’). Consider the following derived Latvian nouns with similar meanings which are not found in Lithuanian: Ltv. lı¯gava ‘bride; playfellow, companion (female)’ is derived from the stem lı¯g- ‘equal’ by means of the Baltic suffix -ava, which has a collective sense ‘place where there is much of, a troop of ’: Lith. bernava ‘troop of young men’, velniava ‘nest of devils’ (see Skardžius 1941: 380).21 Ltv. lı¯gava then seems to have been originally ‘a person of the same company, companion’ (compare also Ger. Ge-fährte id.). This ties in with other Baltic designations of young women: Ltv. vedekla ‘daughter-in-law’ (vest ‘lead [along]’) and Lith. su-tuoktine˙ ‘bride’ (teke˙ti ‘run, flow; marry’). There is another interesting derivative of lı¯g- in Latvian: pa-lı¯gs ‘helper’, na¯kt palı¯ga¯ (loc), palı¯gos (loc.pl) ‘to come and help, help’.22 Compare Est. api ‘help, helper; spouse (male or female)’ mentioned above, appi (ill) tulema ‘come and help’. The Latvian verb palı¯dze¯t ‘to help’ and the noun palı¯dzı¯ba ‘help’ are derived. Latvian differs very much from Lithuanian in this respect: Lith. pagelbe˙ti ‘to help’ (pagalba ‘help’, gelbe˙ti ‘save, help’) is related to gale˙ti ‘can’ as Rus. po-mocˇ’ ‘help’ to mocˇ’ ‘can’. See also Lith. pa-de˙ti ‘help’ (“put under”) and šelpti ‘support, help’ (related to help).

428 Bernhard Wälchli

There is a straightforward correspondence between Latvian and Estonian if we consider that Est. api and kaasa have almost the same meaning (abi, kaasa, abikaasa ‘companion, spouse’): Ltv.

Est

lı¯dz(i) lı¯g-ava pa-lı¯gs pa-lı¯dz-e¯t

kaasa(s) kaasa/abi abi abi-ma

‘along (with)’ ‘bride/spouse; companion’ ‘helper’ ‘to help’

The Livonian of Vidzeme seems to have shared the Latvian-Estonian development, as the form LivSal. ka¯zu ‘with’ attests. Additionally the etymon is found in Livonian in the old compound ka¯z-gõnd
‘marriage’ (*kansa-kunta, Fin. kunta ‘company’). The Livonian loanword in Latvian ka¯zas (pl) ‘marriage’ seems to originate from the uncompounded *ka¯za. The lexical plural in Ltv. ka¯zas is of Baltic origin (see Ltv. vedı¯bas [pl] ‘marriage’, Lith. vestuve˙s [pl] id.) In Liv. ka¯z-gõn-d
the -d
is reinterpreted as a plural marker as in siž-gõn-d
‘viscera’ because of Latvian influence (ju¯odõ ko¯zgin¸i [prtv.pl] “drink marriage” i.e. celebrate marriage, also Ltv. ka¯zas dzert “drink marriage”, this phrase is of Finnic origin). Conclusion: Latvian, Finnic and (some) Germanic languages share the property of having two different particles to express ‘(taking) with, along’ and ‘together’ (cf. 3.4). Only in Latvian and Kurzeme Livonian is this particle commonly accompanied by a dative (cf. 4). In Latvian, Estonian and probably Vidzeme Livonian, but not in Kurzeme Livonian, the particles meaning ‘along (with)’ share special semantic relationships, including the concepts ‘bride, spouse, companion’ and ‘helper, help’. It is not clear whether this is an Estonian (or Vidzeme Livonian) feature in Latvian or whether there was a common development. 3.6 Ltv. nost = Liv. jära¯, jara¯, jera¯ “separated, remote” > ‘away’ Liv. jära¯, jara¯, jera¯ (also jera¯ndiz, LivSal. jära) ‘away’ is the most common verb particle in Livonian (as is the related Est. ära in Estonian). Its Latvian equivalent is nost ‘away’, which often corresponds to the most common Latvian preverb no-. E.g. Liv. jara¯ ku¯olõn (part.past) ‘dead’, Ltv. mirsti (imp.2.sg) nost!, no-miris (part.past) ‘dead’ — Liv. jara¯ sı¯edõ ‘eat (up)’, Ltv. ¯ed
(imp.2.sg) vien nost! ‘eat up!’, but ap-e¯st ‘eat (up)’ is more common than no-e¯st — Liv. jara¯ lä¯ ’dõ ‘go away’, Ltv. pa-ej (imp.2.sg) nost! ‘go away!’. We can distinguish two different sorts of ‘away’ in Latvian and Livonian. Ltv. nost, Liv. jara¯ means ‘away (out of contact)’ as opposed to Ltv. proja¯m, Liv. je’dspe¯d¸ õn¸ ‘away (to a completely different place)’, as in the following example:

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 429

(14) Livonian Ma to¯’ž mõtsa¯-iza¯ndõks rõka¯ndõ, aga¯ ta vo’l ˙¸ I want:past.1sg forest-ranger:com speak:inf but he be:past.3sg jõva¯ je’ds-pe¯dõn ¸ ¸ l䯒nd. already gone go.part.past ‘I wanted to talk to the forest ranger, but he was already gone.’

On the other hand ‘(take) away’ is usually translated as ‘away (out of contact)’: Liv. jara¯ võ¯tõ, Ltv. n¸emt nost, the Latvian preverb is at-: at-n¸emt, as Lith. at-imti, Rus. otnjat’ ‘take away’. In Estonian (but not in the Leivu dialect) there is only one corresponding equivalent ära for the two Latvian and Livonian lexical items. Let us now have a look at the semantic background of Liv. jära¯ and Ltv. nost. Liv. jära¯, Est. ära are related to the noun Est. ära ‘something separate, special, private’, e.g. ära-töö ‘second job (of a farm-hand)’, Fin. ero ‘difference’ (see above) and the particle is originally a lative form (*ära-k) of this noun, meaning originally “to the separation”. Ltv. nost and nosta¯n (ancient illative), are etymologically related to the adjective Lith. at-stus, Ltv. at-stats, ‘remote, distant’, a compound of the preverb at- and the stem stoti ‘to put (standing)’, also as an adverb Ltv. atstatu(s)
: na¯sis viena no otras labi atstatus ‘their noses are far away from each other’. We can reconstruct an adjective *nuo-stus, from which Ltv. nost is derived. It is very interesting that Lithuanian does not have this Latvian particle; ‘away’ is expressed — apart from the preverbs nu-, at- — by means of lauk, laukan (ill) ‘away; out(doors)’ (laukas ‘field’; see also Rus. von ‘away; out[doors]’; Old Prussian vinna ‘out[doors]’ with other semantic connotations); ˛i šali˛, šalin (ill), (“into the side”) and tolyn (toli ‘far, distant’): eiti lauk, šalin, ˛i šali˛, tolyn ‘go away’ (cf. 3.7). Conclusion: It cannot be considered a coincidence that a new expression with an illative or lative case marking meaning ‘away’ was derived from a particle meaning ‘separated, remote’ in Latvian, Livonian and Estonian and that this particle (or the corresponding preverb) became the most important marker of verb determination in the three languages. This parallel development started out from very different language-specific material (Ltv. adjective *nuo-stus ‘remote’, Liv.-Est. noun ära ‘difference’). 3.7 Ltv. a¯ra¯ = LivSal. velen “in the free field” > ‘out(doors)’ Nilsson (1995) has recently discussed the parallel semantics of Lith. laukan (ill) and Fin. pellolle (all), Veps pöudole (similarly Karelian) ‘to the field’ > ‘out(doors)’. In Lithuanian laukan, lauk, ˛i lauka˛ is the general expression meaning ‘out’, but in Finnish the older Finnic expressions ulos (lative), ulkona (ess) ‘outdoors’ are much more common (in Veps, irdau, vereil, väraš are most common). Nilsson, however, fails to mention Est. välja (ill), väljas (iness) ‘out’ to väli ‘field, plain’ and LivSal.

430 Bernhard Wälchli

vell, velle ‘out’, velen, velan, välen (ess) ‘outdoors’ to vell
‘field, place in the yard’. Although the semantic development ‘to the field’ > ‘out’ may be not very distinctive (see Nilsson 1995 and Nepokupnyj 1976: 77–82 for further examples), it must be stressed that “to the field” became the general expression meaning ‘out’ only in Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Vidzeme Livonian. In Latvian there is a second expression a¯ra¯ ‘out’, locative to a¯ra, a¯re, a¯rs ‘the free field, arable land’, which became more common than Ltv. lauka¯. Ltv. a¯ra and Est. väli share the peculiarity of occurring as the first components of compounds e.g. a¯ra (gen) pl¸ava ‘beautiful meadow in the neighborhood of the farm’, Est. väli-maa ‘free open land without trees’. Now Est. välismaa means ‘the foreign countries’ as Ltv. a¯rzeme (compare Grm. Ausland). Vidzeme Livonian seems to be very similar to Estonian (there is a lack of further evidence), but Kurzeme Livonian has not joined this semantic development and retains the old Finnic expressions ul¯õ (< *ulkona ess) ‘outdoors’ and ul¯zõ ‘out’. Conclusion: In this example a Latvian-Livonian-Estonian verb particle has generalized Baltic semantics, the Finnic term (Fin.) ulkona could not be analyzed in Latvian. As Fin. pellolle ‘out’ shows, the development ‘to the field’ > ‘out’ is nothing special, but the generalization of such an expression is. As in Ltv. lı¯dzi, LivSal. ka¯zu (see Section 3.5), Kurzeme Livonian is outside of the area of convergence in this case. Ltv. a¯ra and Est. väli have some additional semantic features in common, but it is difficult to say whether there is a special common diachronic development in favor of Ltv. a¯ra¯.

4. The Latvian-Livonian dative In contrast to the other Finnic languages, Kurzeme Livonian has a fully developed dative case (-n) of its own and seems to be Baltic in this respect.23 The functions of the Latvian and Livonian dative largely agree. A very characteristic function is the use of a dative in combination with a verb particle or a postposition. It must be stressed that Lithuanian does not use a dative in this context. It can therefore be assumed that this function is an important feature of the convergence of the Latvian-Livonian dative and we will try to outline the diachronic development leading to this isomorphism. Verb particles in Latvian and Kurzeme Livonian can be combined with datives almost as postpositions or prepositions. The difference is that the nominal phrase with the dative case need not precede or follow the verb particle immediately. Verb particles and datives seem to function as constituents and their word order is quite free. A verb particle can be combined with a preposition with the same semantics so that there are quite a lot of possible combinations. Consider the examples with the verb particles (VPrt) Ltv. cauri, Liv. le’bõ(l) and the corresponding prepositions

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 431

(Prp) Ltv. caur, Liv. le’b. The gaps do not mean that the corresponding combinations do not exist: Prp + acc dat − VPrt VPrt − dat Prp + acc − VPrt / VPrt − Prp + acc

caur pilse¯tu pilse¯tai cauri cauri pilse¯tai

le’b pilsä¯t pilsä¯tõn le’bõ(l) le’bõ(l) pilsä¯tõn le’b vie’d le’bõ(l)

cauri teku caur Jelgavu

‘through the city’ ‘throughout the city’ id. ‘through the water’ ‘Through I passed through J.’

The noun in the dative case depends as much on the verb particle (as on a post- or preposition) as on the verb: (15) Latvian Cel¸š ga¯ja cauri visu ciema septin¸u way go:past.3 throughout all:gen.pl village:gen.sg seven:gen.pl saimnieku pagalmiem. (LLVV: s.v. cauri) peasant:gen.pl yard:dat.pl ‘The path led through the courtyards of all seven peasants in the village.’24

The same holds for relational nouns such as body parts: (16) Latvian Vin¸š (uz-) ka¯pa zirgam mugura¯. he (on mount:past.3 horse:dat back:loc ‘He got on horseback.’

Sjögren wrote about this peculiarity in Livonian where the dative -n is closely related to the genitive -Ø
: Bisweilen noch kann es zweifelhaft erscheinen, ob man den auf n endigenden Casus für einen vom Verbum des Satzes abhängigen Genit. zu halten hat. So könnte z.B. mit ta astı¯z õbı¯zõn (übı¯zõn) säl¯gõ eben so gut gemeint sein «
er stieg auf den Rücken des Pferdes
» wie «
er stieg dem Pferde auf den Rücken
» und so sehr oft vor den als Postpositionen dienenden Kasus mancher Nomina, z.B. ra’dl¸õ õbı¯zõn (übı¯zõn) pÚal
(schlage auf das Pferd)… paka¯n v˙o’l¸tõ ka sie ¯ırmsõ bu¯tkõn ju¯rs (bald waren sie auch bei der gefürchteten Hütte), mı¯ez magu¯b naı¯zõn ku¯oral
(der Mann schläft neben dem Weibe) u.d.gl. (SjW II, 1 76).24

Sivers (1970) also observed that the dative and the genitive tend to appear in the same functions in many contexts in Livonian, such as e.g. ä¯ ma (gen) ä¯ man (dat) iza¯ ‘the father of the mother of the mother’.26 From the fact that the Livonian dative is not easily distinguished from the genitive in its position before a postposition or a (relational) noun we can learn something about its origin. The Livonian dative has developed from two sources, genitive (*-n) and essive (*-na), the latter comprising only a few functions (e.g. temporal Liv. piva¯n-pÚavan

432 Bernhard Wälchli

‘on Sunday’ as Fin. sunnuntai-na id.). As final -n is generally lost in Livonian, the Finnic marker of the genitive -n was preserved only in sandhi-position before vowels as in mie’r-n-ajga¯s ‘on the beach of the sea’. The split of the Finnic genitive in dative (-n) and genitive (-Ø) in Livonian thus started before postpositions beginning with a vowel (as al¯õ ‘under’, imõr ¯ ‘around’, ¯ın¸õ ‘along with’). So we can explain the variation of genitive and dative before postpositions (Liv. lo¯da[n] al¯õ ‘under the table’).27 Perhaps the same development took place in front of the conjugated forms of the verb ‘to be’ (e.g. u’m ‘I am, he is’) as in mi’nõn u’m le¯’mõzt ‘I must go’ (*minun om lähtemista) (see Wälchli 1996a on the Latvian-Livonian debitive). The Livonian dative was thus originally only a (more distinct) variant of the genitive. With its fuller ending there was a tendency to use it in exposed (e.g. predicative) positions where the ending -n should not be present according to the sound law). The spread of the use of a dative with a postposition in Latvian has a very different source. In Standard Lithuanian there are hardly any prepositions or postpositions constructed with a dative, and in Lithuanian dialects this phenomenon is never as common as in Latvian. The Latvian frequency of the dative with prepositions or postpositions is partly due to the loss of the instrumental case which merged with the dative in the plural. Thus, every plural noun dependent on a preposition is constructed with a dative in Latvian (except in the High dialect). There are however a considerable number of Latvian prepositions and postpositions constructed with a dative that are not known in Lithuanian. Some of them have developed out of adjectives, others out of local nouns. One of the first group we met already in our discussion of Ltv. lı¯dzi (see 3.5). As with lı¯dz(i) the dative construction of other examples is easily understood because of their semantical origin “equal to, along to”. From this source the dative was extended into other contexts: Ltv. blakus adv., prepos. and postpos. ‘near, beside’: apse¯sties blakus te¯vam (dat) ‘sit down beside the father’, but Lith. atsise˙sti šalia te˙vo (gen) id. Ltv. gar¸a¯m adv., prepos. and postpos. ‘(pass) along’: Ltv. paiet gar¸a¯m stacijai (dat) (stacijai gar¸a¯m) ‘to pass along the station’, but Lith. praeiti pro stoti˛ (acc) id. Ltv. cauri adv., prepos. and postpos. ‘through(out)’: u¯dens su¯cas cauri jumtam (dat) (jumtam cauri) ‘the water leaks through the roof ’, but Lith. vanduo teka kiaurai pro stoga˛ (acc) id. As a consequence of language contact in Latvian there was a strong tendency to use verb particles as prepositions or postpositions instead of the old Baltic prepositions. A considerable number of them were derived from adjectives and originally had a dative construction. As we saw above, Livonian also had a tendency to use the dative in constructions with postpositions but for completely different reasons. These separate tendencies had almost the same result and reinforced each other in the language contact situation. The emergence of the dative with postpositions and prepositions in Latvian and Kurzeme Livonian is thus a good example of how

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 433

language contact can make things look completely different than they were originally in any of the languages involved.

5.

Conclusions

5.1 The development of the Latvian-Livonian-Estonian verb particles The Latvian-Livonian-Estonian verb particles described here have their origin in the Southern Finnic area. Their lexical base contains many Germanic traits (e.g. the loanwords Fin. valta ‘power, rule’, kansa ‘people; companion’ < [Northern] Germanic) and some Baltic traits (Fin. irti ‘loose, untied’). The development toward a grammaticalization in the Southern Finnic area, beginning with a purely lexical application (as in Finnish), is influenced by the contact with the Baltic neighbors in the South. Baltic shows a strong tendency to designate perfectivity by means of prefixes to the verb. It was probably Baltic influence in the beginning, not Slavic — because of relative chronology — or Germanic — because of areal distribution — that acted upon Southern Finnic. The process must have started early; otherwise we could not explain the Finnic influence in the forming of the Latvian verb particles.28 The northernmost Baltic area joins the Southern Finnic development of using adverbs and nouns in local cases as well as prefixes in order to determinate verbs, choosing whenever possible Baltic word material already at hand. For this reason Latvian usually selected structures of unspectacular semantic origin; the main change was not to invent or translate expressions, but to use peripheral expressions of Baltic more frequently. It is clear that common expressions of equal semantic origin in different languages, as e.g. Est. maha, Lith. žemyn, Grm. zu Boden ‘to the ground, bottom’ > ‘down’, often are of general semantic character. There is however at least one very distinctive parallel development — Ltv. val¸a¯ ‘in the will/power of ’ > ‘free (adv)’ > ‘untied’ > ‘open’ and Liv. va¯ldin¸ ‘by power of ’ > ‘free (adv)’ > ‘untied’ > ‘open’ (cf. 3.1) — which seems to be old in both Baltic and Finnic, but was originally sparsely used in its meaning ‘open, untied’ in both Baltic and Finnic. In some cases Baltic already had a certain special structure at its disposal, as e.g. Ltv. pušu ‘to pieces, in two’ (Lith. pusiau id., puse˙ ‘half ’) and thus there was no need for any agreement with Livonian or Estonian (Liv. kat¸¯ki, Est. katki; consider Est. katk ‘Bruch, morastiges Gebüsch’, katke ‘brittle’). It can be stated as a rule that the verb particles that already existed or that were easily derived in both Finnic and Baltic were favored as soon as these languages came into contact. In this respect Latvian is often influenced in its development by Southern Finnic (Estonian and Livonian) and so is Livonian by Latvian. Kurzeme Livonian is in some cases outside the area of convergence (see Ltv. lı¯dzi, LivSal. ka¯zu but LivK. ¯ın¸õ and Ltv. a¯ra¯, LivSal. velen but LivK. ul¯õ). The verb

434 Bernhard Wälchli

particles thus provide important evidence that Vidzeme Livonian is more related to the Finnic dialects that most influenced early Latvian. As a secondary development in Livonian some expressions emerged that fit better as equivalents to the Latvian correspondent verb particles than the older Finnic expressions preserved in Estonian (see Liv. ku’bõ ‘together’ ´ Est. kokku id.; va¯ldin¸ ‘open’ ´ Est. lahti id., Fin. auki id.; Est. vallali seems to be old but rare). The development just sketched is represented in Figure 2. Finnic verbparticles

Germanic (and Baltic) loans

Language representing this stage

Finnish

grammaticalization of verbparticles in Southern Fennic

development of equivalent Livonian verb-particles

influence of the Baltic preverbs in Southern Fennic

development of Latvian verbparticles

Lithuanian

Latvian

Estonian

preverbs loaned in Livonian and Leivu

Livonian

Figure 2.The relative chronology of the verb particles in Baltic and Finnic.

The lexical material of the verb particles shows that it would be somewhat too easy to conclude that the Latvian verb particles are loans from Finnic. The situation is more complex and more thrilling than that. In our discussion of the Latvian and Livonian material we stated that almost every verb particle under consideration shows a slightly different area of distribution. This can be summarized in Table 3. 5.2 Some results concerning the Latvian-Livonian language contact Jakobson (1931) based his Circum-Baltic Sprachbund
on only a handful of phonetic facts.29 It is clear that in a geographically open region one cannot expect to find sharp linguistic borders when areal investigations are based on fuller material implying also the full weight of lexical structures. Lexical structure is richer and more specific than grammatical structure, and can therefore make a greater contribution to areal investigation. It is especially important to take into account lexical structure that interferes with grammatical structure whenever the origin of grammatical features of areal character is the object of the inquiry. As we saw, there are different isoglosses for different verb particles, e.g. Kurzeme Livonian is inside an isogloss in some cases whereas in other cases it is not.

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 435

val¸a¯ ‘open’

ciet kopa¯ lı¯dz ‘along roka¯ ‘got ‘closed’ (hold of)’ ‘together’ (with)’

Fin / Vps Estonian LivSal LivK Latvian Lithuanian

((x)) (x) x x x ((x))

[x] [x] x x x

(x) xx x x x

[[x]] [x] x x x (x)

type (simplified)

´

fl

Ø

fl

nost ‘away’

a¯ra¯ ‘out’

x

[x] x x x

[[x]] x x x/[x] [x]

Ø/´

´/fl

›/´

x x

x: verb particle of similar semantic origin as in Latvian, common y xx: the same as x, but used in more contexts than in Latvian (x): the same as x, but not common ((x)) the same as x, but very rare [x]: verb-particle with slightly different semantic structure [[x]]: the same as [x], but not common Ø: Fennic > Latvian fl: Fennic > Latvian, with special development in Latvian (and Livonian) ´: parallel development ›: Baltic > Southern Fennic, with special development in Estonian (and Latvian). LivSal — Livonian in Vidzeme (near Salis) LivKur — Livonian in Curonia (Kurzeme)

Figure 3.Areal distribution of some verb particles in Baltic and Finnic.

It seems more appropriate to speak of an areal continuum instead of a Sprachbund, in which Livonian frequently, but not in all cases is closer to Latvian than Estonian is and in which the verb particles are more developed in the Low dialect of Latvian than in the High-Latvian dialect of Latgale. Furthermore it would be wrong to say that Lithuanian is completely outside of the area of convergence; there are some tendencies toward the Latvian development especially in NW-Žemaitian and Northern Aukštaitian (esp. of the Šiauliai and Panevežys group) subdialects (cf. Girdenis/Kacˇiuškiene˙ 1986).30 Convergence is to be expected rather in cases in which there are already similar or identical but sparsely used structures at hand in both languages, or, to put it differently, a change due to language contact is more probable if there is less to change.31 It is thus extremely difficult to identify the origin of an areal development, because it is very rare that a completely new structure is taken over by translation into the neighboring language. The notion of loan translation seems to be more appropriate in the context of cultural interference. As a rule, it is not the whole



436 Bernhard Wälchli

lexical structure of a lexical item that is subject to transfer in language contact, as the transfer of lexical structures takes place at the phrasal and syntagmatic levels. Only those features that are not of a general character and that are infrequently found in the languages of the world are specific enough to characterize a special area. This holds despite of the fact that it is unspectacular features that transfer most easily. It is thus essential to consider as many common features as possible and to take into account their cumulative evidence, assessing the structural impact of a language contact, taking into consideration lexical and phraseological items to the same extent as grammatical and phonological structures.

Notes * Thanks to Simon Christen, Östen Dahl, Jan Peter Locher, Nicole Nau and †Marta Rudzı¯te for their valuable comments. Special thanks go to my informants Pauline Kl¸avin¸a (Livonian), Lembit Vaba (Estonian) and Jurgita Kaliasaite˙ (Lithuanian). Most of the examples cited are extracted from the following dictionaries: Latvian: Mü¯lenbachs/Endzelı¯ns 1923–1932, LVV, Balkevicˇius/Kabelka 1977; Lithuanian: Balkevicˇius/Kabelka 1977, LKŽ, Kuršaitis 1968–1973 and NSS; Livonian: Kettunen 1938, SjW II, 2; Estonian: Wiedemann 1973; Veps: Zajceva/Mullonen 1972. 1. The Latvian names Kurzeme (Curonia), Vidzeme (the Latvian part of Livonia) and Latgale refer to the main geographical parts of present Latvia. The term Finnic is used in the sense of Fin. itämerensuomalaiset kielet, Est. läänemeresoome keelet and Ger. ostseefinnisch. 2. As Solmsen (1922: 106) stated in his monograph about Indo-European proper names it can be repeatedly observed that the designations of neighboring tribes belong to the same semantic category. It is tempting to apply this to Henricus Letticus’ Letti and Lyvones of Vidzeme. The former name is related to OHG letto ‘loam, loamy soil’, Ir. latach ‘mud’ (compare the hydronyms in the region of Vilnius Leta, Lata, Letanka where they probably originated, see Fraenkel 1962–65: s.v. latvis), the latter to Est. liiv ‘sand, gravel’. The two ethnonyms seem to point to the preferred places of settlement of the two neighboring tribes of different linguistic background, the Letti being occupied mainly with agriculture, the Lyvones rather with fishing. It is exactly this situation that is found in the last remaining Livonian area in the northernmost part of Kurzeme. These Livonian fishermen from Curonia called themselves ra¯ndalizt ‘people of the beach’, and the Latvians were called mo¯-mi’ed
‘people of the land’ by them. 3. There is no generally established term for the category of Latvian items and their equivalents in Estonian and Livonian which includes Ltv. val¸a¯ ‘open’, apka¯rt ‘around’ etc. and whose special properties will be described below, we will refer to them as verb particles (following Hasselblatt 1990). Endzelı¯ns called them adverbs; unfortunately this designation could be misinterpreted, and furthermore, not all verb particles are adverbs. Girdenis and Kacˇiuškiene˙ (1986) call them postverbs. It must be stressed that the verb particles have nothing in common with what are called particles in traditional Baltic linguistics (such as e.g. Lith. gi, ar). 4. This tendency is much weaker in Northern Finnic languages such as Finnish. In contrast, in Mari, a Finnic-Volgaic language heavily influenced by Turkic languages, especially Chuvash, verb stems tend to express achievements and accomplishments and the notion of an activity is

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 437

expressed by a dependent participle, e.g. peren puaš ‘hit’ (“give by hitting”), ludyn lektaš ‘read (all)’ (“go out by reading”) (MRSl: 486). 5. The situation is different in North-Eastern Žemaitian and Northern Aukštaitian subdialects (esp. of the Šiauliai and Panevežys group; cf. Girdenis/Kacˇiuškiene¯ 1986). 6. In Latvian dialectology it is common to distinguish between larger and smaller areas referring to them by different expressions, i.e. dialects (dialekti) and subdialects (izloksnes). There are only three dialects (Low [also called the Livonian dialect of Latvian], Middle and High) but more than 400 subdialects. 7. The verb particles also appear, however, in combination with preverbs. This is especially frequent in the subdialects of NW-Vidzeme, e.g. karpel¸i sa-auguši vele¯na¯ kopa¯ ‘the potatoes grew together in the clod’ (see Kagaine 1992: 213; MLLVGr I, 571). The verb particle functions as a strengthening or as a more narrow specification of the semantics. Cf. also Dravin¸š/Ru¯k¸e (1958:46, Note 1) for Stende Latvian. In some cases there is not only a change between preverb and verb particle, but also a change of the verb, e.g. sa-plı¯st, sa-tru¯kt ‘tear (to pieces), intr.’ — iet pušu “go to pieces”, aiz-ve¯rties ‘to close (intr.) — (aiz-)iet ciet “go close”. The verbs combined with verb particles tend to be less specific in their semantic structure (often local: iet ‘go’, na¯kt ‘come’; likt ‘put’). 8. In Latvian there is no typical default preverb as in Lith. pa- or Rus. po-. The preverb no- is however generally used with foreign words in colloquial and publicist speech as no-cite¯t, no-dirig’¯et, no-riske¯t (see Hauzenberga-Šturma 1971: 290). 9. The Latvian preverbs appear also in Latvian Romani, which shows a similar opposition of preverbs and verb particles as Latvian: e.g. kerél pšı¯ró (Ltv. taisı¯t val¸a¯), ot-kerél
(Ltv. at-taisı¯t) ‘to open’. But the Latvian Romany dialect seems not to share the Latvian-Livonian lexical coincidence in this case. See Manuš-Belugin (1973: 128). 10. The Baltic verb Ltv. ve¯rt, Lith. verti, varyti (frequentative) ‘to open and/or to close’ is dependent on the existence of preverbs meaning “open” and “close”. Consider also the similar Rus. ot-kryt’ ‘to open’, za-kryt’ ‘to close’ and Lat. aperı¯re ‘to open’, operı¯re ‘to close’. Livonian has no word to express the notion of Ltv. ve¯rt ‘to open and/or to close’, as can be seen in the following example from Loorits (1936: 168): Livonian Latvian ämd¸i painõd¸i kodaj võ’dlõbõd visus ganus ma¯ja¯s gaida ama¯dõn a¯t vo˙’dlijizt visiem va¯rtu ve¯re¯ji ‘all the shepherds are awaited at home/every one of them has somebody to open and close the gate (Ltv.)/has somebody that waits for them (Liv.)’. 11. There are also some phraseological coincidences between Ltv. val¸a¯ and Est. lahti
: Ltv. zeme ir/iet val¸a¯, Est. maa on/läheb lahti ‘the ground has thawed’ (“the land is, goes open”) (see Kagaine 1992:215). 12. I am very grateful to Vytautas Ambrazas for his detailed communication about the data of the card files of LKŽ in Vilnius: Lith. valio(j) (loc) and more rarely valiai (adv) meaning ‘open’ is found in the northernmost strip of Lithuanian at the border to Latvia in different dialects (from West to East: Klk., Pp.; Jnš., Sb., Slm., Antš.; Lnkv., Pš.; Všk.; Skrb.; Brž., Rd.; Ppl., Pnd., Svn., PnmR.; Ob. For the abbreviations see LKŽ I, XVIIff) and in two subdialects of the Southern Žemaitian dialect (Krš, Klm). The forms are used in general in combination with doors, windows and gates and also with rooms that are not locked, as the house, the courtyard, the store. Consider also Vkš. kopu¯stu˛ daigiai buvo valioj ‘the young cabbage plants were open (i.e. not covered)’, which is semantically related to Ltv. ve¯ja val¸a¯ ‘exposed to the wind’. The meaning ‘free’ as in radau visus gyvulius valio Škn ‘I found all animals free’ can be found in a wider area.

438 Bernhard Wälchli

13. The Finnic languages can express the notions of ‘to open’ and ‘to close’ by means of specific verbs: Fin. avata, Est. avama ‘to open’, Fin. sulkea, Est. sulgema ‘to close’. In Livonian these expressions have been lost entirely in favor of the combinations with verb particles va¯ldin¸ ti’edõ ‘to open’, vi’zõ ti’edõ, vi’zõ pa¯nda ‘to close’ which is originally only a Finnic alternative (cf. e.g. Fin. panen oven kiinni ‘I shut the door’) besides the expressions consisting of a single verb. 14. It is interesting that in Middle Low German and in Baltendeutsch the particles for ‘untied’ and ‘fixed’ (see Section 3.2) are also used with the meaning ‘open’ and ‘closed’ respectively (Nicole Nau, personal communication). It can thus not be excluded that the parallel Latvian-Livonian development is due partly to influence by Middle Low German. 15. In Stende ciet additionally corresponds to the preverb ie- in be¯rs mieg ciet ‘the child falls asleep’ (cf. Dravin¸š/Ru¯k¸e 1958: 48). 16. Cf. also in Stende: jems tev suns roka¯! ‘our dog will seize you’ (Dravin¸š/Ru¯k¸e 1958: 51). 17. LivSal. ku¯b, ku¯p, kubs, ku¯ps ‘together’. 18. It is true that there are many secondary German loan translations in Estonian containing the verb particle kokku/koos (as well as in Latvian kopa¯, kop-). But Hasselblatt (1990: 80) is certainly wrong in holding that e.g. Est. kokku kuhjama ‘pile up’, Ger. auf-, zusammenhäufen and kokku kutsuma ‘call together’, Ger. zusammenrufen are loan translations from German. See e.g. Fin. kokoontua ‘gather (intr)’ and kutsua kokoon ‘call (together)’. 19. Only common expressions are listed in the table. 20. “Auch die Deutschen in Kurland haben ihn [the dative] sich angeeignet, und man hört sehr häufig Redensarten wie «
gehst du mir mit?
» statt «
gehst du mit mir?
» und ähnliche” (SjW II, 1:76). 21. Consider Ukr. družyna ‘wife’ but Rus. družina ‘(military) troop’, Pol. druz˙yna ‘meeting’ etc. The forms are related to Rus. drug etc. ‘friend’. The meaning ‘female person’ of the suffix -ava (as represented in Ltv. dail¸ava ‘beautiful woman’, jaunava) continues the female u¯-stems of PIE, cf. e.g. OInd. vadhu¯h» , nom.pl vadhvah» ‘bride, young woman’ ‘virgin’, but it is not common in Lithuanian. 22. As to the prefix consider Old Prussian stesmu poligu ‘desgleichen’ and prei prusnas poligun ‘zum Bilde’. 23. Finnic languages often render dative functions by means of the allative (Fin. antaa lapselle [all] leipää ‘give bread to the child’) and rarely by means of the genitive (as in Fin. Jumalan [gen] kiitos ‘thanks to god’). 24. For the sequence of genitives and quantifiers in this example see Christen in this volume. 25. Although Vidzeme Livonian has no dative there is a similar situation, as there is an allative instead of a dative and not a genitive: mil imi om tädl
(dat) vail
‘which man is between you’, ku sinnel
(dat) sizal sie vald om pind
‘when the light in you is dark’ (SjW I 76). Estonian is similar to Vidzeme Livonian in some cases. 26. “A cet endroit, on peut se demander, si le datif n’est pas quelquefois destiné à remplacer la forme génitivale disparue dans la plupart des paradigmes comme nous l’avons déjà signalé cidessus” (loc.cit: 497). 27. Consider SjW II, 1, 75: “Aber auch vor dem regierenden Worte selbst hört man noch öfters einen Genitiv mit n, besonders wenn dieses regierende Wort mit einem Vokal anfängt, aber auch ohne diese Rücksicht auf den zu vermeidenden Hiatus, z.B. jo’gn a’jg (an den Bach)…lo¯dan al¯ (unter dem Tisch)…”

Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 439

28. The specific use of verb particles in Estonian and to a lesser degree in Latvian in many cases is influenced by Middle-Low-German or German as a secondary development (see e.g. Hasselblatt 1990). 29. The expression “Sprachbund” in Jakobson (1931/1962: 137) is unnecessary. The argument becomes clearer if we substitute it by areal isogloss, e.g. (“)So bildet z.B. gewöhnlich die Polytonie weitgreifende areale Isoglossen … Ebenso bilden die Sprachen des Baltikums eine areale Isoglosse, die die Polytonie kennzeichnet …(”). 30. It is not a mere coincidence that the most common verb particle of Lithuanian žeme(n) (žemyn, ˛i žeme˛) was shown to have a very Baltic lexical structure. Quite common is also Lith. lauk, which is replaced by the Latvian-like ore in Northern subdialects of the Šiauliai group. In contrast the verb particle kietai (=Ltv. cieti) occurs only along the Latvian border and the metatony of Lith. l~ygiai Klk (cf. lýgus) indicates that this form is also formally a loan from Latvian (Girdenis/ Kaciuškiene¯ 1986: 22–24). 31. See Schuchardt (1884): “Wir werden sehen dass sehr häufig der Einfluss der fremden Sprache mit der in der eigenen Sprache herrschenden Tendenz zusammenwirkt” (loc.cit: 11) and “So sehen wir dass die Bedürfnisse der einen Sprache und der Reichtum der anderen zusammenwirken, was vielleicht bis jetzt nicht hinlänglich betont worden ist” (loc.cit: 37).

References Alvre, Paul. 1967. On the Baltic-Finnic Dative (with special reference to the Liv. language). Sovetskoe finnougrovedenie 3: 171–181. Arumaa, P. 1935. Eesti-liivi ja läti ühisest fraseoloogiast ning süntaksist. Eesti keel 14, 4: 124–136. Tallinn. Balkevicˇius, Jonas, Kabelka, Jonas 1977. Latviu˛-Lietuviu˛ kalbu˛ žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslas. Bybee, Joan L., Dahl, Östen 1989. The Creation of Tense and Aspect Systems in the Languages of the World. Studies in Language 13, 1: 51–103. Dahl, Östen 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Blackwell. Dravin¸š, Ka¯rlis, Ru¯k¸e, Velta. 1958. Verbalformen und undeklinierbare Redeteile der Mundart von Stenden. Slaviska och baltiska studier 4. Lund. E¯IV 1977–1983 = Silvija Raäge, Elga Kagaine. E¯rägemes izloksnes va¯rdnı¯ca. I–III. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1905–1906/1971. Latyšskie Predlogi. In: Darbu izlase I, 307–655. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1927/1979. Rec. par gra¯m.: H. Hirt. Indogermanische Grammatik. Teil I: Einleitung. I. Etymologie. II. Konsonantismus. Heidelberg, 1927. In Darbu izlase III, 1, 688–695. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1939/1980. Rec. par gra¯m.: Kettunen L. Livisches Wörterbuch mit grammatischer Einleitung. Helsinki 1938. In: Darbu izlase III, 2. 550–552. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1951b/1980. O latyšsko-finnskix jazykovyx zvjazjax. Pamjati Akad. L. V. Šcˇerby: 299–304/Darbu izlase III, 2: 416–422. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Fraenkel, Ernst. 1962–1965. Litauisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. 1–2. Idg. Bibliothek, Wörterbücher. Heidelberg, Göttingen: Winter, Vandenhoeck. Girdenis, Aleksas, Kacˇiuškiene˙, Genovaite˙. 1986. Paraleliniai reikškiniai latviu˛ ir šiauriniu˛ lietuviu˛ veiksmažodžio sistemose. Kalbotyra 37, 1: 21–27. Hasselblatt, Cornelius. 1990. Das estnische Partikelverb als Lehnübersetzung aus dem Deutschen. Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica 31. Wiesbaden.

440 Bernhard Wälchli

Hauzenberga-Šturma, E. 1971. Zur Frage des Verbalaspekts im Lettischen. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 93: 279–316. Göttingen. Hirt H. 1927. Indogermanische Grammatik. Teil I: Einleitung. I. Etymologie. II. Konsonantismus. Heidelberg. Johansen, Paul. 1939. Kurlands Bewohner zu Anfang der historischen Zeit. In: Brackmann, A. & Engel, C. 1939. Ostbaltische Frühzeit. Baltische Lande I: 263–306. Leipzig: Hirzel. Jakobson, Roman. 1931/1962. Über die phonologischen Sprachbünde. In: Selected Writings I, 137–143. The Hague: Mouton. (TCLP IV, Praha1.) Kagaine, Elga. 1992. Semantiskie Dialektismi Ziemel¸rietumvidzemes Izloksne¯s. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Kagaine, Elga, Bušs, Oja¯rs. 1985. Semantiskas parale¯les (galvenoka¯rt baltu un baltijas somu valoda¯s). Baltistica 21, 1: 14–36. Kettunen, Lauri 1938. Livisches Wörterbuch mit grammatikalischer Einleitung. Lexica Societatis Fenno-Ugricae 5. Helsinki. Kuršaitis, Aleksandras. 1968–1973. Lietuviškai-vokiškas žodynas. Thesaurus Linguae Lituanicae. I–IV. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck. LKŽ 1968– . Lietuviu˛ kalbos žodynas. I– . Lietuvos Mokslo Akademija, Lietuviu˛ Kalbos Institutas. Vilnius. Mokslas. Loorits, Oskar. 1936. Volkslieder der Liven. Õpetatud Eesti Seltsi Toimetused 28. Tartu. LVV = Dainuvı¯te Gul¸evska (red.). 1987. Latviešu valodas va¯rdnı¯ca. Rı¯ga: Avots. LLVV = Latviešu litera¯ra¯s valodas va¯rdnı¯ca. 1972-. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Manuš-Belugin, Leksa. 1973. O vlijanii baltijskix jazykov na dialekt latyšskix cygan. Latvijas PSR Zina¯tn¸u Akade¯mijas ve¯stis 309 (1973: 4): 124–139. MLLVGr = Mu¯sdienu Latviešu Litera¯ra¯s Valodas Gramatika. I. Fone¯tika un Morfolog’ija. 1959. Latvijas PSR Zina¯tn¸u Akade¯mija. Valodas un Literatu¯ras Institu¯ts. Rı¯ga: LPSR zina¯tn¸u akade¯mijas izdevniecı¯ba. MRSl = Vasil’ev V. M. et al. Marijsko-russkij slovar’. 1991. Joškar-Ola: Marijskoe knižnoe izdatel’stvo. Mü¯lenbachs/Endzelı¯ns. 1923–1932. Karlis Mühlenbachs Lettisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch. Ergänzt und fortgesetzt von Janis Endzelin. 1–4. Rı¯ga: Latvju gra¯mata. Nepokupnyj, A. P. 1976. Balto-severnoslavjanskie jazykovye svjazi. Kiev: Naukova dumka. NSS = Niedermann, M., Senn, A., Brender, F., Salys, A. 1932–1968. Wörterbuch der litauischen Schriftsprache: Litauisch-Deutsch. I–V. Indogermanische Bibliothek. Heidelberg: Winter. Nilsson, Torbjörn K. 1995. Directional adverbs of the type Lith. laukãn, Fi. pellolle ‘out’: A syntactic Balticism in Finnic? Linguistica Baltica 4: 199–207. Rudzı¯te, Marta. 1994. Latviešu un lı¯biešu valodas savstarpe¯ja¯ ietekme. Boiko, Kersti (red.). Lı¯bieši. 288–319. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Rudzı¯te, Marta. 1996. Latviešu un lı¯biešu valodas kontaktu atspulgi. Baltu filolog’ija 6: 3–7. Rı¯ga. Schuchardt, Hugo. 1884/19712. Slawo-deutsches und Slawo-italienisches. Dem Herrn Franz von Miklosich zum 20. Nov. 1883. Graz. Mit Schuchardts übrigen Arbeiten zur Slavistik hrsg. v. Dieter Gerhardt. München: Fink. Setälä, E. N. 1953. Näytteitä liivin kielestä. Kerännyt E. N. Setälä. Suomentanut ja julkaissut Väinö Kyrölä. Suomalais-ugrilainen seuran toimituksia 106. Sivers, Fanny de. 1970. Le datif en Live. Fs. Stang. Donum Balticum: 495–500. Stockholm. Sivers, Fanny de. 1971. Die lettischen Präfixe des livischen Verbs. Nancy. SjW 19692/18611. Joh. A. Sjögren. Gesammelte Schriften, bearbeitet von F. J. Wiedemann: II, 1: Livische Grammatik nebst Sprachproben, II, 2: Livisch-deutsches und Deutsch-livisches Wörterbuch. Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der DDR. (St. Petersburg1.) Skardžius, Pranas. 1941. Lietuviu˛ kalbos žodžiu˛ daryba. Vilnius: Lietuvos mokslo akademija.



Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 441

SKES = Suomen kielen etymologinen sanakirja. Y. H. Toivonen, E. Itkonen, A. J. Joki, P. Peltola. I–VII. 1955–1981. Lexica Societatis Fenno-Ugricae. Helsinki. Solmsen, Felix. 1922. Indogermanische Eigennamen als Spiegel der Kulturgeschichte. Herausgegeben und bearbeitet von Ernst Fraenkel. Heidelberg: Winter. Tõnisson, Evald 1974. Die Gauja–Liven und ihre materielle Kultur (11. Jh.–Anfang 13. Jh). Ein Beitrag zur ostbaltischen Frühgeschichte. Tallinn. Tõnisson, Evald 1994. Arheologu domas par lı¯biešu izcelsmi. In: Boiko, Kersti (red.), Lı¯bieši: 16–33. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Trautmann, Reinhold. 1910. Die altpreussischen Sprachdenkmäler. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck. Vaba, Lembit. 1977. Läti Laensõnad Eesti Keeles. Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia. Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut. Tallinn: Valgus. Wälchli, Bernhard. 1996a. Two Cases of Necessive Modality in the NEE Area: External Necessity Deriving from Modal Verbs and the Latvian-Livonian Debitive as a Case of Parallel Grammaticalization. Christen, S., Locher, J. P., Wälchli, B. 1996. Narmon’Gi. Arbeitspapiere des Berner Projekts zur vergleichenden Darstellung der nordosteuropäischen Sprachen I. 42–51. Wälchli, Bernhard. 1996b. Ms. Letto-livisches und Livo-lettisches. Eine Studie zur Bedeutungskonvergenz im nordosteuropäischen Kontaktraum. Wiedemann, F. J. 19734/18691. Estnisch-deutsches Wörterbuch. 4. unveränderter Druck nach der von Jakob Hurt redigierten Auflage. Tallinn: Valgus.



On the developments of the Estonian aspect The verbal particle ära* Helle Metslang

1.

On the verbal particle as an aspect marker

Like in other Finnic languages, aspect in Estonian has not developed into a consistent grammatical category. Still, it operates in a peripheral way, expressed by resultative or progressive constructions, by so-called bounders, that is, particles more or less tightly connected with the verb, and by alternative case markings of direct objects (Metslang and Tommola 1995: 300–301). The last-mentioned device is an old feature common to the Finnic and the Baltic area (see e.g. Klaas 1996: 40–43).1 Under certain conditions, so-called partial objects (po, marked by partitive case) carry imperfective meaning whereas total objects (to, marked by genitive or nominative) are interpreted as perfective. (1) a.

b.

Raul ehitas suvila-t. Raul:nom build:past cottage-prtv ‘Raul was building a cottage.’ (ipfv, po) Raul ehitas suvila. Raul:nom build:past cottage:gen ‘Raul built a cottage.’ (pfv, to)

However, testing the questionnaires on aspectual typology (e.g. the TMA questionnaire used in Dahl 1985) on the Estonian language, it appears that a typical imperfective-perfective opposition in meaning is expressed in the opposition of the forms of partial and total objects.2 Since the opposition partial : total also expresses a number of characteristics of the referent of the object noun (mass-count, bounded-unbounded, definite-indefinite) and, in addition, partial objects are obligatory in negated sentences, the number of sentences where the aspectual opposition can unambiguously be expressed by means of object case marking is rather limited. More specifically, the following conditions must hold: – – –

the sentence must be affirmative; the predicate verb must belong to the class of verbs referred to as “aspectual”; the object must be quantitatively bounded.

444 Helle Metslang

Moreover, due to extensive apocope processes in Estonian phonology, the opposition between the case forms is often neutralized, as in pesa (nom): pesa (gen): pesa (prtv) ‘nest’ (2a), (2b). (2) a.

b.

Lind ehitas pesa. bird:nom build:past nest:prtv ‘The bird was building the nest.’ Lind ehita-s pesa. bird:nom build-past nest:gen ‘The bird built the nest.’

In Finnish which is closely related to and in the immediate neighbourhood of Estonian and in which fewer historical changes have taken place, the forms of the object can clearly be distinguished (3a–b), along with a more consistent alternation of the form of an object also in case of infinite verb forms. (3) Finnish a. Lintu raken-si pesä-ä. bird:nom build-past nest-prtv ‘The bird was building the nest.’ b. Lintu raken-si pesä-n. bird:nom build-past nest-gen ‘The bird built the nest.’

However, in Estonian, perfectivity can also be explicitly expressed by bounders, viz. the verbal particles ära ‘off, away’, and valmis ‘ready’. (4) and (5) are thus unambiguously perfective: (4) Lind ehitas pesa valmis. bird:nom build:past nest:gen pp ‘The bird (has) built the nest.’ (5) Tuul lõhkus pesa ära. wind:nom destroy:past nest:gen pp ‘The wind destroyed the nest.’

The expression of the aspectual meaning via verbal particles is gaining ground in Estonian.3 (The perfective aspect which in Estonian is the marked member of the opposition is primarily expressed.) Such a development seems quite natural against the background of the following intralinguistic facts: – –

–

the possibilities for expressing an aspectual meaning in Estonian are rather limited; the development of Estonian from agglutination in the direction of flectivity has involved an increase of form homonymy and made the case alternation of the object less clear; the most natural way to restore transparency is to take into use a clear analytical marker;

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 445

– –

aspect is a category, characterizing a situation; taking into account the iconicity of a language, the most natural position of its marker is by the verb; an aspectual marker which belongs to a verb enables one to express aspectual meanings unambiguously in any sentence.

These intralinguistic factors conform to the extralinguistic ones: the German separating verbal prefixes and also verbal prefixes and suffixes in other contact languages carry often aspectual meaning.4 In the work of J. Bybee, R. Perkins and W. Pagliuca on the historical development of various grammatical categories several schemes have also been propounded about the paths of grammaticalization of aspectual categories (Bybee et al. 1994:55). The Estonian verbal particles take a position along the path of directionals Æ completive Æ perfective: their aspectual meaning has developed on the basis of the lative directional meaning5 (cf. also Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991: 48). The most extensively used Estonian particle ära expresses both perfectivity (lõhkus pesa ära ‘destroyed the nest’, lahendas ülesande ära ‘solved the problem’) and the direction (sõitis ära ‘drove away’),6 also some other particles, expressing perfectivity (maha ‘down’, läbi ‘through’, välja ‘out’, üles ‘up’) at the same time operate as directionals. The earlier form of the word ära was eräk, the lative form of the noun erä ‘something standing apart, detached’ (Mägiste 1992–93: 4057). The original meaning of the particle ära is thus ‘away, off, to another/the other place’. The particle is frequent also in Estonian dialects, in Southern Estonia, in particular, where the influence of Latvian can be supposed (Aavik 1936: 90). Analogical particles occur to a more moderate extent also in other Finnic languages: the Finnish pois ‘away’, Ingrian pois ‘away’, Votic vällä ‘out’(Seilenthal 1988: 58).

2.

Functions and usage of the verbal particle ära in Modern Estonian

The different steps in the chain from directional to perfective are all still available in Modern Estonian: 1. directional, deictic meaning: away from the area of the deictic centre. The sentences with ära are primarily perfective (6a), but a combination with a partial object inducing an imperfective interpretation is not excluded, as in (6b): (6) a.

b.

Ta saatis külalise ära. (to, pfv) he/she see:past guest:gen off ‘He/she saw the guest off.’ Ta saatis külalis-t ära. (po, ipfv) he/she see:past guest-prtv off ‘He/she was seeing the guest off.’

446 Helle Metslang

2. perfective + deictic meaning ‘off, from the area of the deictic centre, to the nonexistence’ (directional background meaning). The sentences with ära are perfective and their objects can only have a total form (7), (8). (7) Ta tappis külalise ära. he/she kill:past guest:to pp ‘He killed the guest.’ (8) Ta kaotas pileti taskust ära. he/she lose:past ticket:to pocket:elat pp ‘He/she lost the ticket from his/her pocket.’

3. pure perfective meaning. Occurs occasionally, e.g: (9) ·Kas te ootate ikka veel oma beebit? — Ò Ei, eile sünnitas Mari no yesterday give-birth:past Mari:nom ta lõpuks õnnelikult ära. he/she:to at-last luckily pp ‘·Are you still expecting your baby? — Ò No, luckily, yesterday at last Mari brought the child into the world.’

To examine the aspectual and other functions of the most regular verbal particle ära, we observed the use of this particle in the transitive sentences where the form of the object indicates the aspect of the sentence (affirmative sentences with a quantitatively bounded object). The transitive verbs divide according to their relationship to the particle ära into five groups (Metslang 1997a). Group 1. Verbs constituting aspectual pairs consisting of a simple imperfective verb (case A) and phrasal perfective verb (case B). Simple verbs can only be used imperfectively, with partial objects. With the total object, the perfectivizing particle is needed, yielding a perfective interpretation. In some cases there may be a lative adverbial instead of the particle. (10) a. b. (11) a. b. (12) a.

Ma tundsin presidenti. ‘I knew the President.’ Ma tundsin presidendi ära. ‘I recognized the President.’ Ta raiskas pärandust. ‘He/she was misspending the inheritance.’ Ta raiskas päranduse ära. ‘He/she misspent the inheritance.’ Ta luges raamatut. he/she read:past book:po ‘He/she was reading a/the book.’

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 447

Table 1.Transitive verb, verbal particle and object A: partial object, imperfective sentence

B: total object, perfective sentence

1

V+PO Ma tundsin presidenti I know:past president:PO ‘I knew the President’ Ta raiskas pärandust he/she misspend:PST inheritance:PO ‘He/she was misspending the inheritance’

V+TO+PP Ma tundsin presidendi ära I know:past president:TO PP ‘I recognized the President’ Ta raiskas päranduse ära he/she misspend:past inheritance:TO PP ‘He/she misspent the inheritance’

2a

V + PO Ta koristas tuba he/she clean:past room:PO ‘He/she was cleaning the room’

V + TO (+ PP) Ta koristas toa (ära) he/she clean:past room:TO PP ‘He/she tidied up the room’

2b

–

V + TO (+ PP) Ta tappis oma kaaslase (ära) he kill:past his companion:TO PP ‘He killed his companion’

3a

V + PO Ta veeretas vaati he/she roll:past barrel:PO ‘He/she was rolling a/the barrel’

V + TO + lat / PP Ta veeretas vaadi õue / ära he/she roll:past barrel:TO yard:ILLAT PP ‘He/she rolled the barrel into the yard / off, away’

3b

–

V + TO + lat / PP Ta pani raamatu lauale / ära he/she put:past book:TO table:ALLAT PP He/she put the book on the table / away’

4a

–

V + TO + ((PP)) Ta sünnitas lapse ((ära)) he/she give-birth:past child:TO PP ‘She brought / (did bring) the child into the world’

4b

V + PO Ta suudles tüdrukut he/she kiss:past girl:PO ‘He kissed the girl’

(V + TO + PP / lat) Ta suudles tüdruku ära / paiste he/she kiss:past girl:TO PP/swollen ‘He did kiss the girl / He kissed the girl swollen’

5

V + PO Ta vajas arvutit he/she need:past computer:PO ‘He/she needed a computer’

–

448 Helle Metslang

b.

Ta luges raamatu läbi / ribadeks / lõpuni. he/she read:past book:to pp shred:trnsl end:term ‘He/she read the book through/to pieces/to the end.’

The particle has the following characteristics in addition to its general function as perfectivizer: –

–

it takes often the last, stressed position in the sentence, participating in the closed-in construction (a German feature of the Estonian word order)7 and accentual structure; it may function as a means of expressing the information structure of the sentence: the penultimate unstressed position is the position to refer to known referents. Cf (13a) and (13b): (13) a.

b.

–

Päike sulatas suure jääpurika ära. sun melt:past big icicle:to pp ‘The sun melted the big icicle.’ Päike sulatas ära suure jääpurika. sun melt:past pp big icicle:to ‘The sun melted a big icicle.’

an iconic relationship can also be supposed between the situation and the form of the sentence: the finality of the situation is expressed by a clear completion by means of the perfectivity particle in a stressed position. The sentences where the latter is lacking (e.g. Ta raiskas päranduse ‘He misspent his inheritance’, Ta luges raamatu ‘He read a book’, but also the sentences with Group 2 verbs, e.g. Ta koristas toa ‘She tidied up the room’, Ta tappis oma kaaslase ‘He killed his companion’) seem incomplete with regard to their expression, particularly in oral speech.

In the 1st Group of verbs, many perfective phrasal verbs are lexicalized. The imperfective simple verb may have more general lexical meaning; its perfective counterpart is based on one specific, contextually restricted use of the simple verb: kasutama ‘to use’ – ära kasutama ‘to take advantage of ’, arvama ‘to think, to guess’ – ära arvama ‘to guess, to puzzle out’, kuulma ‘hear’ – ära kuulma ‘to hear of…, to get to know’. The phrasal verb usually denotes the completion or resultate of the situation expressed by the simple verb, but it may denote also its beginning: tundma ‘know’ – ära tundma ‘recognize’, cf. German kennen – erkennen, Russian znat’ – uznat’. Adding the particle to the verb is often analogous to the derivation via affixes. Nevertheless, the aspectual opposition is regular in these verb pairs. The simple verbs of Group 1 are mostly atelic durative verbs. They express activities and processes that are directed to an existing object; the object is preserved in this activity/process:

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 449

1. cognitive verbs: tundma ‘to know’ (– ära tundma ‘to recognize’); arvama ‘to think, to guess’ (– ära arvama ‘to guess’), seletama (– ära seletama) ‘to explain’; kuulma (– ära kuulma) ‘to hear’; 2. verbs of treating and attitudes: hirmutama (– ära hirmutama) ‘to frighten’, hoidma ‘to hold’ (– ära hoidma ‘to prevent’), ootama ‘to wait’ (– ära ootama ‘to wait till…’), needma (– ära needma) ‘to damn’, väsitama ‘to tire’ (– ära väsitama ‘to wear out’), hellitama ‘to pamper’ (– ära hellitama ‘to spoil’), petma (– ära petma) ‘to deceive’; tüütama (– ära tüütama) ‘to bore’; 3. other: kasutama ‘to use’ (– ära kasutama ‘to take advantage of…’), mõõtma ‘to measure’ (– ära mõõtma ‘to measure off’), kulutama ‘to spend’ (– ära kulutama ‘to run through’), raiskama (– ära raiskama) ‘to waste’, muutma ‘to change’ (– ära muutma ‘to cancel’), parandama (– ära parandama) ‘to repair’, sööma ‘to eat’ (– ära sööma ‘to eat up’). Group 2. In this group, the particle is optional, it emphasizes and doubles the perfective meaning of a sentence expressed already by the total object. ära displays perfectivity (and lativity which concurs with it) and has the same other characteristics as the verbs of the Group 1. They are more frequent in spoken language as a more analytical way of expression is generally inherent to spoken language. The simple verbs of Group 2 are divided into two: those in one part are used both imperfectively and perfectively (2a), while the verbs of the other part normally are used only with a perfective meaning (2b). Group 2a. The simple verbs of this subgroup are the so-called aspectual verbs that may be used both with partial objects (the sentence being imperfective) and total objects (the sentence being perfective). ära doubles the perfective meaning expressed by the total object and is optional. This is the group of verbs where ära is the only unambiguous perfectivity marker, if the case forms of the partial and total object are homonymous. For instance, due to the homonymy of the forms of the word kala ‘fish’: kala (nom.) – kala (gen.) – kala (part.), the phrase keetis kala may have both imperfective and perfective readings ‘was boiling/boiled the fish’, but the phrase keetis kala ära is unambiguously perfective ‘boiled the fish’ — see also examples (3)–(5) below. (14) a. b.

Ta koristas tuba. ‘He/she was cleaning the room.’ Ta koristas toa (ära). ‘He/she tidied up the room.’

To the simple verbs of this group belong telic durative verbs that denote an active activity or process that is directed to an existing object: koristama ‘to clean’ (– ära koristama ‘to tidy up’), keetma ‘to boil’ (– ära keetma), kuivatama ‘to dry’ (– ära kuivatama), täitma ‘to fill’ (– ära täitma ‘to fill in’).

450 Helle Metslang

Group 2b. Simple verbs of this subgroup are telic punctual, inherently perfective verbs that normally do not take a partial object: tapma ‘to kill’ (– ära tapma), kaotama ‘to lose’ (– ära kaotama), murdma ‘to break’ (– ära murdma), vahetama ‘to exchange’ (– ära vahetama), röövima ‘to rifle’ (– ära röövima), noppima ‘to pick’ (– ära noppima), hukkama ‘to execute’ (– ära hukkama), lõpetama ‘to complete’ (– ära lõpetama ‘to put an end to’), keelama ‘to forbid’ (– ära keelama ‘to ban’), lahutama ‘to divorce’ (– ära lahutama), unustama ‘to forget’ (– ära unustama), rikkuma ‘to spoil’ (– ära rikkuma), võitma ‘to win’ (– ära võitma), päästma ‘to save’ (– ära päästma), kustutama ‘to put out’ (– ära kustutama), varastama ‘to steal’ (– ära varastama), hävitama ‘to destroy’ (– ära hävitama). As a result of the event the object ceases to figure in the previous manner. (15) Ta tappis oma kaaslase (ära). ‘He/she killed his/her companion.’

The verbs that denote the appearing of the object into the area of the subject take other particles, as kätte (original meaning ‘into somebody’s hands’), üles (original meaning ‘up(wards)’, cf. German auf
): saama ‘to get’, kätte saama ‘to receive’, leidma – üles leidma ‘to find’. Group 3. In this group, either a directional adverbial or perfective particle is obligatory when a perfective interpretation is intended. ära has both aspectual and directional meaning and the same characteristics as in the previous groups. Group 3a. Here, the function of ära is to bound the situation. Simple verbs are atelic, inherently imperfective verbs of transition: veeretama ‘to roll’ (ära veeretama ‘to roll off, away’), ajama ‘to chase’ (ära ajama ‘to chase off’), lükkama ‘to push’ (ära lükkama ‘to push away’), tõrjuma (ära tõrjuma) ‘to ward off’, tooma ‘to bring’ (ära tooma ‘to get’), viima ‘to take’ (ära viima ‘to take away’). (16) a. b.

Ta veeretas vaati. ‘He was rolling a/the barrel.’ Ta veeretas vaadi õue/ära. ‘He rolled the barrel into the yard/off, away.’

Optionally these verbs may take directional adverbials or sometimes even directionally-minded particles, the object remaining in the partial form and the sentence imperfective: ta veeretas vaati (po) õue ‘he was rolling the barrel into the yard’, ta veeretas vaati (po) ära ‘he was rolling the barrel away’. Group 3b. Inherently perfective transition verbs take only the total object and are not used without an explicit marker of bound: a directional adverbial or a perfective particle is needed. panema ‘to put’ (– ära panema ‘to put off’), andma ‘to give’ (ära andma ‘to give up’), peitma ‘to hide’ (– ära peitma), heitma ‘to throw’ (– ära heitma ‘to throw away’), võtma ‘to take’ (– ära võtma ‘to take away’), müüma ‘to sell’ (– ära müüma ‘to sell out’), maksma ‘to pay’ (– ära maksma ‘to pay off’).

On the developments of the Estonian aspect

(17) Ta pani raamatu lauale / ära. he/she put:past book:to table:all pp ‘He/she put the book on the table/away.’ (18) Ta müüs oma maja vennale / ära. he/she sell:past his/her house:to brother:all pp ‘He/she sold his/her house to his/her brother/away.’

Group 4. Verbs that usually are not compatible with the perfective particle may take it occasionally. Here, ära has a pure perfective meaning. Group 4a. Inherently perfective, punctual verbs that take only the total object: saavutama ‘to achieve’, sooritama ‘to accomplish’, looma ‘to create’, leiutama ‘to invent’, korraldama ‘to organize’, anastama ‘to occupy’, loovutama ‘to yield’, püstitama ‘to erect’, tõlgitsema ‘to interpret’. Many of these verbs express causation of the existence of the object. To this group belong many verbs that are characteristic of the literary language and relatively new, brought by language planners in the 20th century. (9) Kas te ootate ikka veel oma beebit? — Ei, eile sünnitas Mari ta lõpuks õnnelikult ära. ‘Are you still expecting your baby? — No, luckily, yesterday at last Mari brought the child into the world.’

The functions of the perfective particle in a sentence as Ta sünnitas lapse ära ‘She brought/(did bring) the child into the world’ are as follows: – –

to emphasize perfectivity; to express a special information structure, where all the semantic content (e.g. the expected birth) of the sentence belongs to the theme and its realization (the perfective meaning alone) to the rheme:

Theme

Rheme

Ta sünnitas lapse she give-birth:past child:to

ära pp

Group 4b. Atelic verbs denoting situations that have no typical or other imaginary bound: suudlema ‘to kiss’, küsima ‘to ask’, kartma ‘to be afraid of ’, austama ‘to respect’, vihkama ‘to hate’, tunnustama ‘to accept’, varustama ‘to supply’. (19) a. b.

Ta suudles tüdrukut. ‘He kissed the girl.’ Ta suudles tüdruku ära. ‘He did kiss the girl.’

451

452 Helle Metslang

In the occasional use the functions of the perfective particle are (1) denoting perfectivity, (2) expressing of the rheme of the sentence (a special information structure as in (4a)). For instance, the verb suudlema ‘kiss’ is typically atelic. The sentence Ma suudlesin ta ära (literally ‘I kissed her off’) could be said if one has made a bet to kiss the girl. Group 5. Verbs that are totally incompatible with perfective particle and are used only with the partial object: atelic, mostly stative verbs denoting relations, for which no bound may be thought out, e.g. vajama ‘to need’, tähendama ‘to mean’, omama ‘to have’, evima ‘to have’, sisaldama ‘to contain’, tahtma ‘to want’, kohtlema ‘to treat’, vajama ‘to need’, sisaldama ‘to contain’. As in the previous group there are also a number of new verbs, introduced into the literary language of the 20th century. (20) Ta vajas arvutit. ‘He/she needed a computer.’

The functions of ära which appeared in case of transitive verbs, operate the same way as in case of intransitive verbs. If we omit rare usages of purely directional meaning, ära may be considered as a perfectivity particle which is used in two main functions: (1) for expressing or emphasizing the aspect of perfectivity; (2) for expressing information structure. The fact that a language joins these two functions together in verbal particles with one of them attempting to become a regular grammatical means is an exclusive development of Estonian, uncommon to any of its contact languages. Some of the combinations of ära and a verb have become part and parcel of the language (ära tundma ‘to recognize’, ära arvama ‘to guess’, ära jääma ‘to be cancelled’), some verbs are used with ära regularly in spoken rather than written usage (ära puhastama ‘to clear away’, ära surema’to die’, ära tapma ‘to kill’, ära lõppema ‘to end’, ära lõpetama ‘to finish’), in some cases with ära the directional meaning becomes predominant and is possibly expressed also by an adverbial (ära minema/koju minema ‘to go away/to go home’, ära viima/koju viima ‘to take away/to take home’). In all these cases older verbs operate as simple verbs and here the meaning of ära has preserved a lative, directional component. ära is the most extensive and general but not the only particle of perfectivity. The same functions are fulfilled by the particles of perfectivity, combined with definite simple verbs, such as läbi ‘through’ (läbi lugema ‘to read through’), maha ‘down’ (maha müüma ‘to sell out’), valmis ‘ready’ (valmis kirjutama ‘to write (to the end)’), välja ‘out’ (välja kannatama ‘to tolerate’), minema ‘away’ (minema minema ‘to go away’) etc. (Rätsep 1978: 31). Occasionally in colloquial usage only a genuinely perfective ära may be combined with any verb, as in the sentence (21) uttered by the daughter of the author, but also with verbs expressing generation (19) and even with new verbs which were introduced into the literary language in the 20th century in the course of Finnish-induced language development (22).

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 453

(21) Mind kutsuti reklaamipäevale klouni mängima. I:po invite:impr.past advertising-day:all clown:po play:minf Mängisin klouni ära ja sain sada krooni. play:past clown:to pp and get:past a hundred kroons:to ‘I was invited to play a clown on the advertising day. So I played the clown and got 100 kroons.’ (22) Nüüd tuleb see tähtis protsess ära sooritada ruttu now come:pres this important process:to pp accomplish:tinf quickly ‘Now this important process has to be quickly accomplished.’ (Estonian TV, 1994)

Let us recall, however, that there are no data in languages as yet about a complete grammaticalization of bounders (Bybee et al. 1994: 87–91). Where the grammaticalization of ära would lead is hard to tell. We still have a chance to glance at the hitherto dynamics of ära in literary Estonian. Estonian has been recorded for a relatively short time, the first known texts originate from the 16th century. The period of interest is the last hundred years of the Estonian national literary language which involves the development of the literary language as well as the periods of different social conditions. In the following we are going to attempt to take a glance at the usage of ära in the literary language of different periods and to find possible associations with extralinguistic facts.8 To begin with, we will give a brief overview about the periods under observation as well as about the earlier development of the literary language (see more closely Kask 1970; Hasselblatt 1990: 23–27).

3.

On the history of the periods of literary Estonian under observation

3.1 The earlier development of literary Estonian

(the period of foreign-related literary language) The native speakers of Estonian played no special role in the emergence and formation of the Estonian literary language. The ancient independence of Estonians was brought to an end by the German and Danish invasions in the 13th century. Although several alien powers had ruled Estonia for centuries, Baltic Germans remained as local authorities and inducers of culture up to the 19th century. The prestige of Estonian was low in that society, the German language was dominant. The first texts and books in Estonian originate from the 16th century, the first grammar from the 17th century.The Estonian language was recorded in writing by foreigners. On the one hand they could not speak the language as native speakers, therefore they were inevitably looking for their own native features in Estonian. On the other hand, it was the time when all the languages were subjected to an equable description pattern. The prevailing attitude was that Estonians themselves did not

454 Helle Metslang

speak their own language correctly. Thus various foreign features were taken over, primarily from German. This is the period, though, when both Estonians’ general literacy and hitherto lasting prestige of written word among Estonians had its rise. So, literary Estonian, formed by Germans (one of the reasons for this was their imperfect learning of Estonian) became an authentic pattern for the Estonians. In addition to Estonian-speaking Germans, the German influence was also carried on by German-speaking Estonian townspeople (cf. Labov 1971). Alongside with a strong and alien German influence it was the time of internal instability and great changes in the Estonian language (Rätsep 1989). The role of agglutination decreased, flectivity increased and forms became less transparent. The cumulative effect of internal and external factors (see Metslang 1997b) led the Estonian language to adopting several German-related features, including the increase in the role of analyticity, e.g. in the spread of verbal constructions and particles. As Jean Aitchison (1993: 161–162) asserts: if there is an internal predisposition for changes in a language, they will occur under the influence of sociolinguistic factors; at the same time a language attempts to retain its patterns and to clear up its oppositions. According to S.Thomason and T.Kaufman (1988: 84, 94) moderate grammatical borrowing has taken place in Estonian; V. Veenker and C. Hasselblatt have indicated German syntactic perstratum in Estonian as a result of a long-time German influence (Veenker 1967; Hasselblatt 1990: 18). Estonian phrasal verbs are an evidence of the phenomenon. Out of 2794 Estonian phrasal verbs, studied by Hasselblatt, 60% could directly be traced back to German verbs (Hasselblatt 1990: 205), on the other hand, a wide spread of phrasal verbs has been contributed to by the German pattern, one way or the other. 3.2 The period of national literary Estonian (beginning with the second

half of the 19th century) The national awakening, the development of capitalism and the formation of Estonian intelligentsia in the 19th century were concurrent with a new period in the history of the Estonian literary language. We will observe the dynamics of the use of the particle ära based on the materials from the following periods: 1. The end of the 19th century. The national literary language has emerged and is undergoing standardization. The social group moulding it consisted of the Estonian intellectuals who had received their education in the German cultural context. The main attention is paid to the formation of the word stock, to the standardization of morphology and spelling, whereas syntax is neglected. The pedantic attitude to the literary language, starting at that time, has continued up to the present (Kasik 1997). 2. The 1930s — the last decade of the period of the developing of the multifunctional Standard Estonian as a literary and official language that fills all needs of independent Estonia. Relationships with Finland and other European countries and

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 455

cultures are developed. According to the puristic attitudes Estonian’s “own” genuine features are being searched for in Finnish and other Finnic languages. Johannes Aavik’s language reform, which favoured rather Finnish than German influences and argued for the same expression potential as in traditional literary languages in Europe was very influential. J. Aavik’s principles included beauty, expediency, historicism and nationality; in grammar he preferred synthetic (often characteristically Finnish) ways of formation to analytical ones (often characteristically German). Among other things, Aavik opposed characteristically German word order and the overuse of verbal particles, especially of ära and argued for a more extensive use of the total object (see Aavik 1936). 3. The 1980s — the last decade of the Soviet period. Russian is used in various spheres of life, many texts in Estonian newspapers, books etc. are translated from Russian. Contacts with other languages are poor. Among Estonians the following attitudes are predominating: low prestige of Russian, respect towards all aspects of the Estonian national culture, including Standard Estonian as a means of retaining national identity; rigid attitudes towards the literary standard. 4. The 1990s — great changes in the society, a new period of independence. Democratic processes are taking place in Estonia. Estonian has again close contacts with Finnish, English and other European languages. Internationalist and cosmopolitan attitudes gain ground. Public communication becomes more intensive and extensive and less professional: many young people, often without special philological education, are publishing newspapers and books, making TV-programmes and WWW-sites etc. The attitudes towards language standard become more liberal.

4. The use of the verbal particle ära at various stages of

the development of the literary language 4.1 The old literary Estonian It appears from the old literary language materials of the 16th–18th centuries (see also Toomsalu 1995, 1996; Hasselblatt 1990) that ära (in the then spelling erra or ärra) was more regularly than in the modern language used as a marker of perfectivity. It is clear from German parallel texts and dictionary equivalents which German verbs correspond to which Estonian ära-verbs. In various phrasal verbs the Estonian ära corresponds to numerous German prefixes such as ab-, aus-, be-, davon-, ent-, er-, fort-, hinweg-, ver-, weg-, zer-. Literal directional equivalents in the literary language of that period are weg- (wegsegeln – ära purjetama, ‘to sail away’), hinweg, davon-, partly also aus- (ära ajama – ausstreiben, ‘to chase off’), in all other cases the particle has primarily an aspectual meaning (ära kaduma – verschwinden, ‘to disappear’, ära kirjutama – abschreiben, ‘to take down’, ära eksima – verirren, ‘to

456 Helle Metslang

be lost’, ära valitsema – auserwählen, ‘to single out’, ära päästma – erreten, ‘to save’, ära unustama – vergessen, ‘to forget’, ära keelama – verbieten, ‘to forbid’. In the 17th and 18th centuries grammarians indicate that ära is connected with the majority of verbs, without essentially changing their meaning and corresponding to several German prefixes (Göseken 1660: 68 and ff.; Hupel 1780: 4). (23) … ninck sahp seperrast igkawest and get:pres therefore for-ever errahuckatut ninck errakaotut pp.put-to-death:impr/pass.part and pp.do_away:impr/pass.part (und wird deshalben ewig verdammt und verloren) — Stahl, Leyen Spiegel (1641) ‘and therefore will be put to death and done away with.’

The spread of ära was possibly given a push by the 16th–18th century authors who began to use it as a universal perfectivity marker.9 Thus there was no need to go into looking for equivalents of German prefixes or into the case alternation of the object that could be so incomprehensible for Germans. On the other hand, it was safer to add ära also in the case when in German occurred a simple verb with perfective semantics (ära varastama – stehlen, ‘to steal’, ära puhastama – säubern, ‘to clean’, ära tahenema – trocknen, ‘to become dry’, ära lahutama – scheiden, ‘to sever, separate’). (24) Kes tahap meid erralahutama sest Jummala Armust. who want:pres we:po pp.sever:minf this God’s mercy:elat (Wer wil vns scheiden von der Liebe des Gottes) — Stahl, Leyen Spiegel (1641) ‘who wants to sever us from the God’s mercy’

Among the ära-verbs of the old literary language not a single verb, which was out of the modern usage, attracted attention. At the same time, the overuse of the particle (especially in the verb group 2b, e.g. ära lahutama ‘to sever’, ära kaotama ‘to lose’) struck the eye as too frequent for the modern usage. Thus in the old literary language already two specific tendencies of the development of Estonian could be observed: (1) following the German pattern more in the system than in the text, i.e. the regular use of ära regardless of the real use of verbal prefixes in German equivalents of the Estonian expressions (cf. Aitchison 1993: 161–162); (2) the generalization of ära into one universal particle, expressing perfectivity. ära became a lexical equivalent to numerous German particles and thus, resembling a means of grammar as to its function. Such grammaticalization of ära was supported by internal factors like the necessity for a clearly formed means of expression, the typological fit (see Metslang 1996), the facts that ära was a native word and that the opposition perfectivity — imperfectivity was already present in the language (was expressed by the case marking), On the other hand, this development corresponds to general regularities of grammaticalization, concerning both form and meaning shifts (see above).

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 457

4.2 The national literary language (the 19th–20th centuries) For the observation of the dynamics of the use of ära in the last-century literary language I picked out 34 verbs which were frequent and combined with ära either in the old literary language or in that of the 1890s and which are common also in the modern language. These verbs belong to three first groups. The fourth group, i.e. the occasional usage is practically unobservable on the materials of the past. In the corpuses the material compiled is based both on the language of press (P) and fiction (F) so that these two registers can be studied separately (Table 2). The scope of the excerpt and the frequency of occurrence of ära at different times and in different registers are shown in Table 3. Table 3.

The scope of the excerpt in words and the frequency of occurrence of the particle ära

Decade

Register

Source

Wordsa

Frequency Number of % of ära of ära words in source per one ära

1890s

P F

T, 30 files T, 10 files

037588 020160

178 085

0211 0237

0.47 0.42

1930s

P F

T, 70 files T, 20 files

017800 041092

024 037

0742 1111

0.13 0.09

1950s

F

SCLOMB, HAVU 038162 (1 file)

091

0419

0.23

1980s

P F

T, 20 files T, 10 files

015483 020813

008 073

1935 0285

0.05 0.35

1990s

P F

T, 1 file 252737 SCLOMB, ILU (1 058383 file)

104 105

2430 0561

0.04 0.17

502218

705

a

A compound word containing the particle ära is regarded as two words.

4.2.1The 1890s In the 1890s in the literary language ära occurs very frequently in all the verb groups without any great difference between the press language (0.47% of the words being ära) and the language of fiction (0.42%). In comparison with the modern language

ära arvama ‘to guess’ ära seletama ‘to explain’ ära petma ‘to deceive’ ära tundma ‘to recognize’ ära ootama ‘to wait till…’ ära sööma ‘to eat up’ ära pühkima ‘to wipe away’ ära põletama ‘to burn up / down’ ära koristama ‘to clear away’ ära valima ‘to single out’ ära puhastama ‘to purge away’ ära pidama ‘to have/hold’ (a party or some other activity)

1

2a

Verbs

Verb group

+ − +

+/− +/−

+

−/+

− −

−

−

−

+

−/+

(−)

+

(−)

(−)

−

F

+

1930s

−

−/+

+

(−)

P

+

+

+

F

(−)

1890s

+

+

P

+

+

+

+

16th-18th cent.

+/−

+

+

+

+

(−)

+

+/−

1950s F

Table 2.Use of some verbs with the particle ära in the various periods of the literary Estonian

−

+

P

1980s

+

−

−

+

−

+

+

+

(−)

+/−

+/−

F

−/+

−

+

+

−

P

1990s

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

F

458 Helle Metslang

Verbs

ära tapma ‘to kill’ ära hukkama ‘to put to death’ ära lõpetama ‘to finish’ ära keelama ‘to forbid’ ära lahutama ‘to sever’ ära unustama ‘to forget’ ära kaotama ‘to lose’ ära rikkuma ‘to spoil’ ära võitma ‘to win’ ära päästma ‘to save’ ära kustutama ‘to wipe away’ ära varastama ‘to steal’ ära hävitama ‘to destroy’

Verb group

2b

+

+ +/− +/− +

+ + +

+ + +

+ + +

+

+

+

+

+

+

+/−

+/−

−

−

−

−

−

−

−/+

+/−

+

+/−

−

−/+

−/+

P

−/+

+

F

+

1890s

−

+/−

P

+

+

16th-18th cent.

1930s

+/−

−

−

−

−

−

−

−

−

−

−

−

F

−

+

−

−

−

−/+

1950s F

−

−

−

P

1980s

−

−

−/+

−

−

−

−

−

−

+

+/−

−

F

−/+

−

−

−/+

−

−

−

P

1990s

+

+/−

+

+/−

+

−

−

+/−

F

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 459

ära ajama ‘to drive away’ ära tooma ‘to fetch’ ära viima ‘to take away’

ära peitma ‘to hide away’ ära heitma ‘to throw away’ ära andma ‘to give away’ ära võtma ‘to take away’ ära müüma ‘to sell (out)’ ära maksma ‘to pay off’

3a

3b

+ + +

+ + + +

+ +

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+/−

−

+/−

−

−

−

−

−/+

+

F

+

1930s

(−)

(−)

P

−

F

+

1890s −/+

P

+

16th-18th cent.

+

+

+

+

+

+

1950s F

+

P

1980s

+

+

+

−

+/−

+

+

+/−

F

+

+

+

+

+

P

1990s

+

+

+

+

+

+

F

The incidence in the excerpt: + with ära, perfective; − without ära, perfective (not observed in the materials of the 16th-18th centuries); (−) without ära, the aspect is unclear or the perfective usage avoided, a shift of the meaning or another particle

Verbs

Verb group

460 Helle Metslang

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 461

the overmarking of perfectivity attracts notice; in addition to the particle ära (26), also perfect and past perfect tenses, typical of German, (27), (28) as well as resultative constructions (29), (30), (32) are frequent. The latter consist of the auxiliary verb ‘become’ and the past participle passive (saab tehtud ‘will be done’, sai tehtud
‘was done’). The construction has spread thanks to the form correspondence of the German passive (wird/wurde gemacht). In the older literary language the resultative construction is used much more often than the morphological impersonal (or passive) without aspectual nuances (tehakse ‘is being done’, tehti ‘was done/was being done’). On the other hand, in single cases the progressive, as in (25) oli seletamas (the auxiliary olema ‘to be’ and the inessive form of the infinitive of the principal verb) can be found. The Estonian progressive carries a kind of imperfective aspectual meaning, has Finnic origin and is in the process of grammaticalization. Its source is the same construction with locative meaning (see Metslang 1995). The locative use of the progressive construction occurs in present-day Estonian alongside with its progressive use; in the texts of the 1890s, the locative use is predominating. (25) ·Ühel päewal lendas niisugune kuul just koolmeistrile otsekohe suhu,Ò kui see just seletamas oli, when this just explain:minf.iness be:past kuda täht a laulmise juures peab kõlama. (pro04.txt)10 how letter A singing during must sound:minf. ‘·One day such a ball flew directly into the schoolmaster’s mouthÒ when he was explaining how the letter A must sound when sung.’ (26) ·Kõige enam oli suur Rio Grando do Sul maakond uue walitsuse wiisi wastuÒ ja tahtis ennast selle pärast and want:past itself:po therefore koguni Brasiliast ära lahkuda ja ise riigiks even Brazil:elat pp separate:tinf and itself state:trnsl hakata. (sak03.txt) become:tinf ‘·The large county of Rio Grando do Sul was most of all against the ways of the new governmentÒ and therefore wanted even to separate from Brazil and become a state in itself.’ (27) Ünge-Tammiku kõrts, Jaagupi kihelk., Ünge-Tammiku tavern parish of Jaagupi on Jaani õhtal maani maha põlenud. (epo104.txt) be:pres on the St. John’s eve to the ground pp burn:part ‘The Ünge-Tammiku tavern of the parish of Jaagupi burnt to the ground on the St. John’s eve.’ (28) Südamerabandus oli teda tapnud. (pos1001.txt) heart failure be:past she/he:po kill:part ‘His/her heart failure had killed him/her.’

462 Helle Metslang

(29) ·Selle pärast palun ma kõiki ja iga üksikut inimest wastastikuliselt hoolt kanda,Ò et kõik terwisele kahjulikud olud ärakaotatud that all health:all harmful conditions:nom pp.do-away:part saaks, ·mis haigust wõiksiwad edendada.Ò (epo104.txt) get:cond.pres ‘·Therefore I implore all and sundry and every single person to see to itÒ that all conditions, ·harmful to the health and progressing illnessesÒ, should be done away with.’ (30) Siin saiwad toredad pulmad ära peetud. (pro05.txt) here get:past.3pl joyous wedding:pl.nom pp hold:part ‘A joyous wedding party was held here.’

There is a definite inconsistency in marking the aspect by an object, e.g. in the sentences (31) and (28) instead of the partitive mõnda muidu ettejuhtuvat koerustükki ‘some otherwise occasional prank’ and teda ‘him’ the genitive case should be used according to the norms of the modern standard language. (31) ·Johanna ei olnud mitte “mängurikkuja”, Ò tihti oli ta laste seas jooksnud ja mänginud, often be:past she child:pl.gen with run:part and play:part ja just selleläbi, mõnda muidu ettejuhtuwat koerustükki ärakeelanud. and namely thus some otherwise occasional prank:po pp.forbid:part ‘·Johanna was not a ‘kill-joy’,Ò she had often been running and playing with the children and doing this she could prevent some otherwise occasional prank.’

Other verbal particles than ära very seldom occur as aspectual markers, e.g. välja ‘off, from’ and maha ‘down, to the ground’ (27) are mainly connected with the verbs of motion, denoting direction, and only seldom can they be interpreted as perfective (32). (32) ·Sisemiste wõidulaenu piletite pääle langenud võidudÒ saawad piletite omanikkudele 3 kuud pääle wäljaloosimist get:pres owners of the tickets:all three months after raffle wälja makstud. (epo104.txt) pp pay:impr/pass.part ‘·The winning tickets of the internal premium bondsÒ will be paid down in cash to the owners three months after the raffle.’

The verbs of Groups 1–3 occur usually with ära, if the sentence is perfective. In Group 1 where in case of perfectivity ära is regarded obligatory according to the modern language sense, it is always present, e.g. (33). (33) “Nõnda, mu tütar!” ütles Makarios, teda ära tundes. (pro80.txt) so my daughter said Makarios he/she:po pp know:ger ‘“So, my daughter!” Makarios said, recognizing her.’

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 463

In Group 2, where the total object is sufficient for expressing perfectivity, ära is generally used (cf. (34)–(35)) although there are exceptions, as (28), (36). (34) ·Kõik nendest ehitatud ajutilised eluasemed kui ka materjal, millest need tehtud,Ò häwitatakse politsei käsul ära. (epo102.txt) destroy:impr police order pp ‘·All the temporary dwelling places built of them, including the material they were made of,Ò will be destroyed on the police’s order.’ (35) ·Lähemal läbikatsumisel leitud, et ta koleras olnud ja wiidud ruttu haigemajasse,Ò kuna ta korter rohtude abil tublisti ära puhastatud. (epo104.txt) whereas his flat:to by means of drugs well pp purge:impr.past ‘·At a closer examination he had been found to have had cholera and was quickly taken to the hospitalÒ whereas his flat had been well cleansed by means of disinfectants.’ (36) Laud oli walge linaga kaetud, table:to/sub be:past white table-cloth:com cover:impr/pass.part põrand ja majariistad tolmust floor:to/sub and household utensils:to/sub dust:elat puhastud, clean:impr/pass.part ·ja ämbliku wõrkusi, mis nii mitme talupere nurkadest wälja paistawad, ei olnud siin kuskilt nähaÒ. (pro02.txt) ‘The table was covered with a white table-cloth, the floor and household utensils well dusted ·and cobwebs, usually showing in the corners of peasants’ households, were nowhere to be seen here.Ò’

In the case of the Group 3 verbs, instead of or beside a directional adverbial ära can be observed, e.g. (37), (38). (37) ·Wiis meele parandamata wana poisiÒ müüsiwad omad kohad ära sell:past.3pl their steads:to pp ja rändasiwad kaugele… (pro11.txt) and wander:past far ‘·Five unrepentant bachelorsÒ sold their steads and wandered far away…’ (38) Need sedelid anti esimehele ära these slips:to give:impr.past chairman:all pp ·ja esimees pidi siis nendele teada andma, kes üks teist saada tahawad.Ò (pro11.txt) and the chairman then had to inform those who were interested in one another ‘These slips of paper were handed over to the chairman ·who then had to inform those who were interested in one anotherÒ.’

The task and purpose of the particle is to indicate the aspect, in the first place. The second function of the Estonian verbal particle, apart from that of German, suggests indicating information structure. In the 19th-century texts with the German-

464 Helle Metslang

influenced syntax there are single examples in which the infostructural function is effective, e.g. (39): kasvjas ‘tumour’ in the penultimate position is the same as referred to above.11 (39) Riia koolikonna kuratoril, Riga school board:gen curator:adess salanõunikul Lawrowskil wõeti privy counselor Lawrowski:adess take:impr.past ühe kaswja pärast mõne aja eest pääluu lahti due to a tumour some time ago skull:to open ja lõigati siis kaswjas ära. (epo104.txt) and cut:impr.past then tumour:to pp ‘Some time ago the curator of the Riga school board, privy counsellor Lawrowski had his skull opened due to a tumour and the tumour was cut off.’

4.2.2The 1930s The literary language of the 1930s radically differs from the language of the 1890s and when reading it now, it appears very much as the language of this day, with some Finnish-related syntactical features. The use of phrasal verbs decreased — the role of the verbal particles in modifying lexical meaning, marking aspect and information structure was often neglected (cf. Metslang 1997a). The particle ära was not used much,12 in the press language 0.13 and in fiction only 0.09%. Thus the characters’ language in prose works sounds painstakingly literary. The number of verbs used in the press language became limited. ära is retained in the literary language of that period first of all in lexicalised and fixed word combinations such as ära tundma (40) ‘to recognize’, ära sööma ‘to eat up’. One rather tried to avoid ära in several ways. The marking of the aspect was often left only for the object as in Finnish (41). In the contexts where the case alternation of the object is less systematic and predominantly or only partial object is used regardless of the possible perfective interpretation of the situation — e.g. with infinitive (42) and negative (43) verb forms —, ära was not used although it could be allowed. Sometimes a concrete directional adverbial (44) or other verbal particle (45) was used, and even obligatory ära could be omitted (46). A common ära pidama ‘to carry out‘(an action) of the previous period (30) was replaced by a simple verb pidama ‘to keep, to hold’ (47). The example (48) with ära pidama belongs to special cases of information structure described above in connection with Group 4. (40) Aasta pärast ei tunne sa enam iseennast äragi (lmg0039.txt) year:gen after know:pres.neg you more oneself:po pp.even ‘In a year you would not recognize yourself.’ (41) Lagedil tapeti wanapoiss. (paewa01.txt) at Lagedi kill:impr.past old-bachelor:to ‘At Lagedi an old bachelor got killed.’

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 465

(42) ·…Oodaku Maie teda kas või hommikuni — Ò küllap saab seletada niigi pikka viivitust… (nov0032.txt) surely may:pres.3sg explain:tinf such-a long delay:po ‘·…Maie may be waiting for him as long as till morning — Ò such a long delay can surely be explained…’ (43) ·“Ega me õlut joo?”Ò pöördus Saarde Pernambuki poole ja, turn:past Saarde Pernambuk:gen to and ootamata vastust küsis kelnerilt kaks punssi. (nov0035.txt) wait:minf.abess answer:po ask:past waiter:abl two punches:to ‘·“We won’t be having beer, shall we?”Ò Saarde turned to Pernambuk and, without waiting for an answer, ordered the waiter to bring two punches.’ (44) ·Ebajumalaid aga minu majas ei teenita — Ò käin kogu perega alati kirikus, go:pres.1sg all family:com always church:iness maksan õpetajale oma külimitu ning pay:pres.1sg pastor:all my peck:to and igal söömaajal pean Issanda tänupalve. (ram0041.txt) every meal:adess hold:pres.1sg grace to my Lord:to ‘·Idols are not worshipped in my house —Ò my family and I always go to church, I pay the pastor my peck and say a grace to my Lord at every meal.’ (45) Ehk kui on, siis on need samad räbalad, or if be:pres.3pl then be:pres.3pl the same rags:nom mis ma ise maha müüsin. (lmg0039.txt) which:to I myself pp sell:past.1sg ‘And if, then they are the same rags I sold myself.’ (46) ·Häwib miljonite hektaaride lõikus;Ò surewad nälga ning janusse wõi tapetakse ja die:pres.3pl hunger:ill and thirst:ill or slaughter:impr.pres and müüakse hädaga miljonid loomad. (pae0005.txt) sell:impr.pres in case of need millions domestic animals:to ‘·The crop growing on millions of hectares will be ruined,Ò people will die of hunger and thirst and millions of domestic animals will be slaughtered and sold due to this plight.’ (47) Kaitseliidu kodus peeti Defence-Union:gen house:iness hold:impr.past päevakohane aktus. (paew1003.txt) topical public ceremony:to ‘In the House of the Defence Union a topical public ceremony was held.’ (48) Teised ettenähtud kõned peeti kawa järele ära. other planned speeches:to hold:impr.past agenda:gen according pp (pae0009.txt) ‘Other planned speeches were held according to the agenda.’

466 Helle Metslang

In transitive verb groups the following could be observed. In Group 1 the obligatory use of the verbal particle was often avoided in the ways illustrated above. In Group 2 the particle was optional. In 19 verbs out of 20, marking of perfectivity by a total object without any particle was found. In four of these verbs (pidama ‘to hold’, tapma ‘to kill’, keelama ‘to forbid, hävitama ‘to destroy’) marking with ära also occurred (cf. (48)–(49)). (49) Suurem osa metsa laastati ära ja larger part of the forest:to clear:impr.past pp and paljakspügatud raiesmikud jäeti jumala hooleks defrauded clearings:to leave:impr.past God:gen care:trnsl wõi tehti põllumaaks; or make:impr.past arable-land:trnsl biisonid tapeti ära; rohumaa künti üles, wild-oxen:to kill:impr.past pp meadow:to plough:impr.past up häwitades seega eelmainitud niiskust hoidwa waiba. (pae0005.txt) root-up:ger so abovementioned moisture holding carpet:to ‘The larger part of the forest was recklessly cut down and the defrauded clearings were either commended to God or turned into arable lands; wild oxen were killed, meadows were ploughed and so the abovementioned moisture-retaining carpet was rooted up.’

In Group 3 where the verb requires either a concrete directional adverbial (a place of destination or beneficient) or a particle of directional origin there are several ways of performance: ära (50) or some other particle (45) can be used, a concrete adverbial can be found (44), or the position may remain blank (46). (Respective Finnish verbs allow the absence of the directional element in more cases, cf. e.g. in Finnish vei tavarat ‘took the things’ is possible but in Estonian the where-element cannot be omitted viis asjad ära/kaasa/jaama ‘took the things away, along, to the station’.) (50) “Näitasid ette sinu orderi”, nuuksus naine, “show:past.3pl before your order:to sob:past woman “ja viisid ta ära.” (lmg004.txt) “and take:past.3pl he/she:to pp ‘
“(They) produced your order”, sobbed the woman, “and took him away.”
’

The resultative construction as based on German was not used in the texts of the 1930s, the aspect being consistently marked by the the case form of the object. In some texts the progressive can be found (51). (51) ·Maasike oli tugeva rinnaga ema, kelle seelikust hoidis kinni kaks poissi,Ò ja paistis, et on tulemas kolmas (laps.ram0055.txt) and seem:past.3sg that be:pres come:minf.iness third child:nom ‘·Maasike was a mother with a high bosom, two boys clutching at her skirtÒ and the third child apparently on its way.’

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 467

In sum, while the 1890s can be characterized by the overuse of the particle ära, the 1930s are marked for its underuse. However, the development of literary Estonian towards more compact expression and syntheticity at the beginning of the 20th century seems to be at variance with the redundancy of oral Estonian and its analytical tendency; the variance has remained between the literary language and oral usage. 4.2.3The 1950s Before heading for the discussion of the language of the last decades we will make an intermediate break in the 1950s. The subcorpus HAVU which is part of the Turku University corpus SCLOMB contains the text and its translations of the novel of idiomatic usage “Havukka-ahon ajattelija” by the Finnish author Veikko Huovinen. Among other translations there is one into Estonian from the year of 1959 (translated by H.Lepik). The translator does not seem to have been influenced by the small number of particles in the original Finnish text but has attempted to use idiomatic and naturally-sounding Estonian, typical of the usage in colloquial speech. On the other hand, the language of the Soviet period was not very intolerant of verbal particles. Estonians were constantly in contact with the Russian language, numerous texts were translated from Russian, and Estonian verbal particles were often used as counterparts of Russian verbal prefixes, e.g. R. shodit’ — Est. ära käima, ‘to go’; R. provodit’ — Est. läbi viima, ‘to carry out’; R. sremontirovat’ — Est. ära remontima, ‘to repair’. The consistent though varied aspectual expression in Russian verbal lexemes amplified the use of bounders in Estonian, thus supporting the tendency of analyticity in the common language. Therefore the usage of ära in HAVU (0.23%) is considerably wider than in the language of fiction (0.09%) in the 1930s. (In addition to this a somewhat reducing influence of the original Finnish text on the use of the particles should be taken into consideration.) The particle is in use in all its functions: expressing perfectivity (52), (53), expressing both lativity and perfectivity (54), emphasizing perfectivity (55), indicating given (52) and new (53) information. (52) Ta otsis vedrukaalu seljakotist välja he/she seek:past spring-scales:to rucksack:elat out ja kaalus lõhe ära. (HAVU 1818) and weigh:past salmon:to pp ‘He sought spring-scales out of his rucksack and weighed the salmon.’ (53) Kanakull sõi Huolainlampi rannal ära goshawk eat:past Huolainlampi:gen coast:adess pp viimase liharaasu piilpardi-rääbakast last bit of meat:to messy carcass of the teal ja luhvatas siis lendu. (HAVU 3) and luff:past then air:ill

468 Helle Metslang

‘On the coast of Huolainlampi the goshawk ate up the last bit of meat of the messy carcass of the teal and then luffed up into the air.’ (54) Naabrimees, kes tuli kiriku juurest, neighbour who come:past church:gen from tõi posti ära. (HAVU 3609) bring:past mail:to pp ‘The neighbour who returned from the church, brought back the mail.’ (55) See tapab tõugud peas ära. (HAVU 2739) it kill:pres larvae:to head:iness pp ‘It kills the larvae in the hair.’

In the observed transitive verb groups ära occurs quite consistently in Groups 1 and 3 where it is the only or one of the possible obligatory elements, connected with the verb (53), (54). The particle ära occurred also in Group 2 where the total object was sufficient to express perfectivity. The particle was less used with the verbs of perfective semantics where, in addition to the verb itself and the case form of the object, it is the third aspect marker in the sentence: tapma/ära tapma ‘to kill’, (55), (56) but e.g. lõpetama ‘to finish’, unustama ‘to forget’, keelama ‘to forbid’ without any particle (57). In Group 2a where the aspect is not expressed in the semantics of a simple verb, the use of ära was more consistent (58). (56) Nikke tappis haugi liigendnoaga. (HAVU 274) Nikke kill:past pike:to clasp-knife:com ‘Nikke killed the pike with his clasp knife.’ (57) Viimaks lõpetas Ojasto-gi oma töörühmamise. (HAVU 2484) at-last finish:past Ojasto-even his drudge:to ‘At last Ojasto even finished his drudge.’ (58) Suure tuhinaga asus ta kartuleid koorima great eagerness:com begin:past he/she potatoes:po peel:minf ja puhastas ühtlasi linnud ära. (HAVU 2804) and gut:past also birds:to pp ‘Eagerly he began to peel potatoes, then also gutted the birds.’

There are no resultative constructions in this text though cases of progressive do occur (59). (59) Ojasto ja Kronberg istusid kägaras pingil, Ojasto and Kronberg sit:past.3pl crouching bench:adess möirgasid naerda, hingeldasid nagu lämbumas olles roar:past.3pl laugh:tinf pant:past.3pl as-if choke:minf.iness be:ger ja hoidsid kätega kõhtu kinni. (HAVU 3423) and hold:past.3pl hand:pl.com stomach:po fast ‘Ojasto and Kronberg were crouching on the bench, roaring with laughter, panting as if choking and holding their sides.’

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 469

4.2.4The 1980s The frequency of ära in the language of fiction of the 1980s rose to 0.35 per cent. The overestimation of syntheticity has been preserved in the more official press language where the frequency of ära has declined even lower (0.05%). In the language of fiction, however, the particle is used selectively, the general aspectual overemphasis of the end of the 19th century does not take place. Generally speaking, the picture is much the same as in the HAVU translation text, the obligatory ära is consistently used (60), (61), (62), the optional ära is often not used either in case of simple verbs with perfective semantics (63), cf. (64) or in aspectually neutral single verbs (65). (60) Tundsin ära Airi rohelise teekannu. (stkt0003.txt) know:past.1sg pp Airi’s green teapot:to ‘I recognized Airi’s green teapot.’ (61) Nagu ikka alati… me sööme ära salati… as always we eat:pres.1pl pp salad:to ketras Kildu talle vastu. (stkt0010.txt) purr:past Kildu he/she:all towards ‘As always… we eat up the salad…. Kildu purred, looking towards him.’ (62) Nad istusid ilmatu aja kahekesi Silvia kabinetis they sit:past.3pl long time:gen two-together Silvia:gen office:iness ja tavaliselt kinnine Eha Anderkop tahtis korraga kõik ära and usually taciturn Eha Anderkop want:past suddenly all:to pp rääkida. (stkt0005.txt) talk:tinf ‘The two of them were sitting in Silvia’s office for a long time and the usually taciturn Eha Anderkop wanted suddenly to pour out everything.’ (63) Ei, vaidlen vastu, minu tunded on ammu kustunud, no object:pres.1sg against my feeling:pl.nom be:pres long die:part olen ta unustanud. (stkt0005.txt) be:pres.1sg he/she:to forget:part ‘No, I object, my feelings have long died away, I have forgotten him.’ (64) Too lind suri ära. (stkt0010.txt) that bird die:past pp ‘That bird died.’ (65) Pühkis linnapuru jalgelt ja tuli alatiseks tulema. (stkt0043.txt) wipe:past town-dust:to feet:abl and come:past for-good away ‘He wiped the town dust away from his feet and came away for good.’

The expression of information structure attracts attention in the sentences like (60), (61) where the objects Airi’s green teapot and salad
are placed after ära, in the end of the sentence as expressing new information, something unmentioned before. On the

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other hand, the sentence like (64) reminds one of a typical utterance of oral speech where substantially redundant ära at the end of the sentence emphasizes perfectivity. The language of the Estonian press in Soviet times became more and more clichéd, avoiding the features of oral speech. Here are concentrated the Russian influences which operate through translations and other materials, on the one hand, and the overstandardization, on the other. The vocabulary and constructions used are limited. The occurrence of ära is very scarce and if used at all, then in such word combinations which are equal to translation loans of Russian prefixal verbs (ära kuulama – vyslušat’ ‘to listen to, to hear’, ära märkima – otmetit’ ‘to mark out’, ära tooma – privesti ‘to fetch’, ära tegema – sdelat’ ‘to do’, cf. Hint 1990: 100–101). (66) A. Berkovich ütles, et pärast seda, kui fašistid A. Berkovich said that after that:prtv when fascist:pl.nom tapsid tema isa ja vanema venna, kill:past.3pl his father:to and older brother:to saadeti ta koos ema ja kaksikõega send:impr.past he/she:to together mother and twin-sister:com Tšehhoslovakkiast Oswiecimi. (stat0013.txt) from Czechoslovakia to Oswiecim ‘A. Berkovich said that after the fascists had killed his father and older brother, he had been sent together with his mother and twin-sister from Czechoslovakia to Oswiecim.’ (67) Märgiti ära Kingissepa ja Tartu rajooni hea töö mark:impr.past pp Kingissepa and Tartu rayon:gen good work:to rajooni ettevõtete, asutuste ja organisatsioonide poolt rayon:gen enterprises, institutions and organisations:gen by põllumajandusele osutatud šeflusabi agriculture:all render:impr/pass.part patronage:gen organiseerimisel. (stat0005.txt) organising:adess ‘Good work done by the enterprises, institutions and organisations of the Kingissepa and Tartu rayons for organising patronage in the agriculture was marked out.’ (68) EKP Keskkomitee büroo kuulas oma korralisel istungil ära Central Committee of the ECP hear:past its regular session:adess pp Eesti NSV Agrotööstuskoondise Estonian SSR:gen Association of Agricultural Production and Industry:gen esimehe H. Veldi informatsiooni kevadkülviks chairman:gen H. Veldi:gen information:to spring-sowing:trnsl valmistumise kohta. (stat0004.txt) preparation:gen about ‘At the regular session the Bureau of the Central Committee of the ECP heard the information about the preparations for spring sowing given by the Chairman of the Association of Agricultural Production and Industry of the Estonian SSR H. Veldi.’

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 471

Resultative constructions were lacking in the excerpt of that decade, the progressive occured only in fiction (69). (69) Märganud, et senine päikesesära oli vahepeal notice:part that former sunshine be:past meantime taevasse tekkinud pilvedesse kadumas, sky:ill appear:part cloud:pl.ill disappear:minf.iness istus Kustas Lokk Willisesse ja sit:past Kustas Lokk Willis:ill and sõitis aeglaselt Sotsialismi Võidu poole. (stkt0014.txt) drive:past slowly Victory of Socialism:gen towards ‘Having noticed that the sunshine was disappearing into gradually developing clouds, Kustas Lokk sat into the jeep and drove slowly towards the Victory of Socialism.’

4.2.5The 1990s The choice of the materials of the 1990s is sadly one-sided. The press language materials in the corpus consist of the news by the news agency BNS. The language of fiction is represented by the subcorpus ILU from SCLOMB, containing the novel “The Beauty of History” by the Estonian authoress Viivi Luik which was published in 1992. The novel was written in praesens historicum — that the fact has reduced the use of perfectivity as opposed to the use of common preterite tenses, is not excluded. However, along with my personal observations it is possible to attain a definite overview of this period. The BNS news file is bulky. Although the role of ära is very insignificant, just as in the previous period (0.04%), on the one hand, a number of ära-verbs, descending from the press language of the Soviet time are still in use, such as ära kuulama ‘to hear’, ära märkima ‘to mark out’, ära tooma ‘to fetch, to bring forth’, ära muutma (cf. cf. Russian otmenit’) ‘to change’, ära tasuma (cf. R. uplatit’) ‘to pay’, ära kasutama (cf. R. ispol’zovat’) ‘to make use of ’ (70); on the other hand there are also common-language ära-verbs. Although ära is predominantly used in obligatory cases (71), (73), there are also a few optional uses of ära (72). ära is also used if the directional adverb which could have been made up by the authors of the 1930s, were an alternative (71). In all the examples given below the position of ära in the sentence operates also concerning information structure. All this brings the news language closer to the common usage and thus is obviously one of the appearances of the democratization of the press language. (70) ·Opositsioonilise Keskerakonna esimees Edgar Savisaar on veendunud,Ò et mis tahes järgmine valitsus muudab ära that any next government change:pres pp kultuuri-ja haridusminister Peeter Oleski käskkirja… (bns1094.txt) minister of culture and education Peeter Olesk:gen decree:to

472 Helle Metslang

‘·The leader of the oppositional Central Party Edgar Savisaar is convincedÒ that any following government would change the decree by the Minister of Culture and Education Peeter Olesk.’ (71) Välisministeeriumi teatel on ministry-of-the-foreign-affairs:gen information:adess be:pres täna Eestisse toodud hukkunud today Estonia:ill bring:impr/pass.part shipwrecked:pl.nom pärit enamasti maakondadest ning seepärast viiakse native mostly county:pl.elat and therefore bring:impr.pres nad ilmselt juba laupäeva õhtul they:to probably already Saturday:gen evening:adess Mustamäe haiglast ära. (bns1094.txt) Mustamäe hospital:elat pp ‘Based on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the shipwrecked, brought back to Estonia today were from the counties and therefore they will probably be taken away from the Mustamäe Hospital on Saturday evening already.’ (72) Raudtee noorsoopolitsei pidas kolmapäeval Tallinnas kinni the railway juvenile police hold:past on Wednesday in Tallinn fast kaks alaealist poissi, kes olid Pääsküla raudteejaamast two adolescents:to who be:past Pääsküla railway station:elat varastanud trafo, mis kindlustas signalisatsiooni steal:part transformer:to which insure:past signalization:gen korrasolekut raudteel. Tallinna politseiprefektuuri functioning:po railway:adess Tallinn:gen Police Prefecture:gen pressiteenistuse teatel varastasid 11-aastane Lauri news service:gen information:adess steal:past 11-years-old Lauri ja 12-aastane Riivo trafo esimest korda ära and 12-years-old Riivo transformer:to first time:prtv pp teisipäeval. (bns1094.txt) Tuesday:adess ‘On Wednesday in Tallinn the Railway Juvenile Police detained two adolescents who had stolen in the railway station Pääsküla a transformer which had been insuring the functioning of the railway signalization. According to the news service of the Tallinn Police Prefecture, Lauri, 11 years old and Riivo, 12, had stolen the transformer for the first time last Tuesday.’ (73) Lepingu järgi pidi USA firma tarnima contract:gen according must:past US company supply:minf kvaliteetset seemnekartulit, tehnikat ja kemikaale high-quality seed potatoes:po technology:po and chemicals:po ning ostma ära “Lekto” poolt 400 hektaril and buy:minf pp Lekto:gen by 400 hectares:adess kasvatatud kartuli. (bns1094.txt) grow:impr/pass.part potato:to

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 473

‘Based on this contract, the US company was to supply high-quality seed potatoes, technology and chemicals as well as buy up the potatoes grown by the Lekto on 400 hectares.’

The general usage of the written language has become rather informal in recent years, and interviews appear colloquial altogether. The standard language is still used in the news, cf. e.g. the sentence (74) on the radio and (75) in a newspaper. (74) Läti siseminister keelas eile ära Latvian minister of internal affairs:nom forbid:past yesterday pp tehnika demonstratsioonid. (Radio Kuku, 30.6.97) technology:gen demonstrations:to ‘Yesterday the Latvian Minister of Internal Affairs forbid the demonstrations of the technology.’ (75) Läti siseministeerium keelas eile Latvian ministry of internal affairs forbid:past yesterday varem kavandatud tehnikaesitlused. (Õhtuleht, 1.7.97) previously plan:impr/pass.part demonstrations-of-the-technology:to ‘Yesterday the Latvian Ministry of Internal Affairs forbid previously planned demonstrations of the technology.’

In the ILU text ära is style-consciously used with many verbs without producing any impression about exaggeration. It is concerned with presenting thoughts and memories with essentially colloquial features which create a natural effect. ära is used in all the transitive verb groups under observation. No particle may be used only in Group 2b (80) where the simple verb is semantically perfective. In the text ära fulfils all its functions. (76) ·Võib-olla juba siis, kui neil veel koer Nosson oli,Ò kes sõi ära kõik suitsukonid, mis ta maast leidis. (ILU 441) who eat:past pp all the cigarette stubs:to which it found on the ground. ‘·Perhaps then already when they had a dog called NossonÒ who ate up all the cigarette stubs it found on the ground.’ (77) Kui ta ei oska mundrimeestele Lioni kadumist if he/she not can men in uniform:all Lion:gen disappearance:po kuidagi ära seletada, anyhow pp explain:tinf ·siis olgu kuss ja ärgu jätku ilmaasjata muljet, et korteris keegi sees on.Ò (ILU 872) ‘If he cannot explain Lion’s disappearance to the men in uniform ·he should keep quiet and not leave an impression as if someone is in his flat.Ò’ (78) Tädi Olgal pole enam raha, sest ta andis aunt Olga:adess is-not more money:prtv since he/she give:past kõik oma raha Lioni ateljee ehitamiseks ära. (ILU 763) all her money:to Lion:gen studio:gen building:trnsl pp

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‘Aunt Olga has no more money since she gave up all her money for building Lion’s studio.’ (79) ·Või veelgi kõrgelennulisemalt öeldes — Ò poeg on isa tütar, kellele isa son is father:gen daughter:nom who:all father:nom püüaks kinni kas või tulilinnu ja kaevaks catch:cond.pres fast even firebird:to and dig:cond.pres koos juurtega üles ning tooks hõlma all ära ka with root:pl.com up and bring:cond.pres skirt:gen under pp even meretaguse tulipunase lillekese. (ILU 991) oversea fiery-red flower:to ‘·Or, using even a more high-flown expression —Ò the son is Father’s daughter for whom Father would even catch a firebird and would dig up the fiery-red flower by its roots and bring it secretly back from the overseas.’ (80) Isa tapeti NKVD poolt 1944. aastal. (ILU 1718) father:to kill:impr.past NKVD:gen by in the year of 1944 ‘Father was killed by the NKVD in the year of 1944.’ (81) Ühel on isa ära tapetud ja one:adess be:pres father:nom pp kill:impr/pass.part and teisel on taskus Nõukogude Liidu pass. (ILU 1735) other:adess be:pres pocket:iness Soviet Union:gen passport ‘One’s father was killed and the other had the Soviet passport in his pocket.’ (82) Sellejuures rikub ta ära doing-this spoil:pres he/she pp ·mitu head Faberi firmamärgiga pliiatsitÒ. (ILU 1385) ‘Doing this, he spoils ’ (83) Liiv on kuiv ja variseb kokku, sand be:pres dry and dribble:pres together kuid Lion roomab mööda randa, pühib mõned kriipsud ära but Lion crawl:pres along shore:prtv wipe:pres some stripes:to pp ning tõmbab teisi juurde… (ILU 461) and draw:pres other:pl.po to ‘The sand is dry and begins to dribble but Lion is crawling along the shore, wiping out some of the stripes and adding some more…’

Resultative constructions were not observed in either source, the progressive occurred only in ILU (84). In addition to the progressive, resultative constructions (85) can be found when observing the usage; along with those we also find mistakes in the use of the object — as in the 19th century already, perfectivity is not marked with the total object (86). In both cases the background influence of Indo-European language contacts can be supposed.

On the developments of the Estonian aspect 475

(84) Siin saarel on aga üks suvemaja just valmis here island:adess be:pres but a summer-cottage just ready saamas. (ILU 1232) get:minf.iness ‘On this island a summer cottage is just getting ready.’ (85) Homme saab üks suur võistlus ära peetud (Radio I, 1995) tomorrow get:pres a big competition:nom pp held:impr/pass.part ‘Tomorrow a big competition will be held.’ (86) Ta ütles, et vene poisiga räägime ikka he said that Russian boy:com talk:pres.1pl ever eesti keeles, vene poiss peab neid käskusid ära Estonian language:iness Russian boy must:pres these orders:po pp õppima. (Radio I, 1994) learn:minf ‘He said that with a Russian boy we keep talking in Estonian, a Russian boy has to learn these orders.’

5.

Conclusion

In Estonian as a result of the cumulative effect of internal and external influences the use of the verbal particles has extended in recent centuries. A particularly frequent verbal particle is ära which occurs in the directional meaning (ära minema ‘to go away’) but especially as an aspectual exponent (ära parandama ‘to repair’). In addition to the established phrasal verbs ära also occurs as an adherent perfectivity particle, offering competition to the Finno-Ugric way of expressing aspect by means of alternation of case forms of the object. In addition, ära contributes to the information and rhythm structure of the sentence. In the materials of literary Estonian we can observe the use of ära as a perfectivity particle at the starting period of the literary language, thus in the language of the 16th–17th centuries. During the period 1200–1900, Estonia belonged to various foreign powers, but the Baltic Germans made up the cultural and economic élite. Estonian was under strong German influence, one of the German-related syntactical features is phrasal verbs which conform to the pattern of German prefixal verbs. But the spread and the tendency of grammaticalization of one of the verbal particles ära is a specific development of Estonian, which was given a major impetus by the German speakers who formed literary Estonian in its earlier period. When the role of Estonians and their language grew in the society of the mid-19th century and led to the development of the national literary language, it still followed Germanrelated patterns. The use of both the particle and the German-like resultative construction was very frequent. During the first four decades of the 20th century a standardized literary language which would satisfy all the needs of an independent

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state (1918–1940) was developed. An attempt to get rid of everything Germanrelated and turning to Finnish examples brought along the decrease in using the verbal particles and returning to the Finnic pattern governing the more conservative Finnish where the case form of the direct object alone marked the aspect. The analytical expression began to give way to the synthetic one (typical of Finnish). The literary language of the period is characterized by a painstaking avoidance of ära, even in cases where it would normally be obligatory. At the same time, analyticity is inherent to Estonian and that is how the opposition, apparent in the modern language started between the syntheticity of the literary language and the analyticity of colloquial Estonian. The Russian influence of the Soviet period again contributed to the use of aspect markers with verbs, disseminating also the translation loans of Russian prefixal verbs in the clichés of the press language. The clichéd press language, standardized in the direction of syntheticity, is characterized by the minimum use of ära; the ära-verbs used in the common language are rare while Russian-induced phrasal verbs are frequent. The language of fiction started again to use ära moderately, alternating its use and disuse style-consciously, and did not attempt to elude obligatory cases. The 1990s is the period of democratization and restoring independence. In general, in formal texts the press language prefers syntheticity, however, the choice of ära-verbs has become wider. In more informal newspaper texts ära as a typically colloquial particle is used as a universal particle of perfectivity. An analysis of the text of a novel indicates the use of ära in all its functions, both obligatorily and optionally. (Only verbs with perfective semantics may often omit ära.) An influential factor to be considered in this case is colloquial language in which the processes of grammaticalization are currently gaining ground.

Abbreviations F minf P po pp T tinf to

— language of fiction — the ma-infinitive — language of press — partial object (in genitive or nominative case) — verbal particle with perfective meaning — corpora of the Tartu University — the da-infinitive — total object (in partitive case)



On the developments of the Estonian aspect 477

Notes * I wish to express my gratitude to Östen Dahl for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. This work was supported by the Research Support Scheme of the Higher Education Support Programme, grant No.: 516/1995. 1. The alternation of cases of the same type is reported from Nepali (Indo-Aryan) as well as from Yagua (a Peba-Yaguan language spoken mainly in Peru) (Larjavaara 1991: 373). 2. In addition to this, an interplay of temporal and aspectual meanings takes place in Estonian, e.g. a perfective sentence in the present tense refers to the future, in a narrative text perfective events follow one another. 3. The aspect is similarly expressed both by means of verbal particles and the alternation of the case form of the object in Baltic languages. The marking of a modified aspect by means of verbal prefixes in Estonian is a step from the Baltic- Finnic pattern towards the Indo-European pattern (Klaas 1996: 40–43). 4. See about the cumulative effect of the factors forming the languages of the Baltics e.g. in Stolz 1991: 95. 5. Lative meaning is directional meaning ‘where to’. The local cases, postpositions, adverbials in Estonian and related languages form triads: the lative member ‘where to?’ (e.g the illative and the allative case), the locative member ‘where?’ (the inessive, the adessive), the separative member ‘wherefrom?’ (the elative, the ablative). There was a case in the Proto-Uralic and Proto-FinnoUgrian that is called lative by historical linguistics. 6. The predominating role of the particle ära in the modern literary language both among verbal particles in general and as an aspectual particle is confirmed by C.Hasselblatt’s dissertation (1990) based on lexicographical sources and by M. Närvänen’s study (1992) based on texts of fiction. 7. Closed-in construction — a characteristical feature of the German word order, dissociating tightly connected elements of the sentence, e.g. Wir haben uns wieder ein ganzes Jahr nicht gesehen, Sie bereitete ihrem Sohn alles für die Reise vor. 8. I have made use of the following sources: the corpus and the file of the old literary Estonian which belongs to the Chair of the Estonian Language of Tartu University; the corpus of the modern literary Estonian as well as the corpuses of the literary Estonian in the 1890s and 1930s, belonging to the Chair of the Estonian Language of Tartu University (T); the corpus SCLOMB, belonging to the Department of the Finnish and General Linguistics of Turku University, materials of the Literary Museum of Tartu; personal observations based upon the usage in the newspapers, on TV and the radio. 9. The founders of the Literary Estonian — Germans, Lutheran pastors — lived and worked in Tallinn that was an international town. The Estonian townspeople in Tallinn in this time were bilinguals and belonged to a lower social class. Their Estonian was influented by German; probably there was a German-mixed, pidgin-like Estonian used in Tallinn. The Catholic texts of the same times written in South Estonian were much more “Estonian” than the texts and grammars published in North Estonian in Tallinn. Nevertheless, the Lutheranism won, the capital dominated in society, and the German-influenced language became a norm. Probably the case alternation of the object was not known in the dominating literary language up to the end of the 17th century. The objects are usually in nominative or genitive — often the form may be treated in both ways —, partitive forms are used only in pronouns — as (24) — and in some declension types (Ross 1999). Maybe it reflects the real usage and in the internationally used Estonian in Tallinn the compensation of the complicated aspectual alternation of object cases

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by ära was coined. On the other hand, the overuse of ära may be a kind of hypercorrection in expression the perfectivity that is contained in the meanings of several German verbal prefixes. 10. The references to the files in the respective corpus of Tartu University. 11. In German, definiteness-indefiniteness is indicated by articles just as in English — see (13). 12. That there are so few particles in Finnish to set an example can in its turn be regarded as a result of the anti-Swedish purism (Närvänen 1992: 4–5). So, there is a common influence of the Estonian anti-German purism and the Finnish anti-Swedish purism.

References Aavik, Johannes. 1936. Eesti õigekeelsuse õpik ja grammatika. Tartu: Noor-Eesti kirjastus. Aitchison, Jean. 1993. Language change: progress or decay? 2nd. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere, Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar. Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and aspect systems. Oxford: Blackwell. Göseken, Heinrich. 1660. Manuductio ad Linguam Oesthonicam. Anführung zur Östnischen Sprache. Reval. — Neu herausgegeben und mit Einleitung versehen von A.-L. Värri Haarmann. Fenno-Ugrica 3. Hamburg 1977. Hasselblatt, Cornelius. 1990. Das estnische Partikelverb als Lehnübersetzung aus dem Deutschen. Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica 31. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Heine, Bernd, Claudi, Ulrike, Hünnemeyer, Frederike. 1991. Grammaticalization. A conceptual framework. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Hint, Mati. 1990. Russian influences in the Estonian language. In: Keresztes, László & Maticsák, Sándor (red.), Congressus septimus fenno-ugristarum. Debrecen 27.VIII–2.IX 1990. Sessiones plenares. Dissertationes. Debrecen: 87–104. Hupel, August Wilhelm. 1780. Ehstnische Sprachlehre für beide Hauptdialekte, den revalschen und dörptschen, nebst einem vollständigem Wörterbuch. Riga und Leipzig. Kasik, Reet. 1997. Normatiivinen kielioppi virossa ja suomessa. In: Niemi, Jussi, Hägg, Minna, Järvikivi, Juhani & Nenonen, Marja (toim), XXIV Kielitieteen päivät Joensuussa 28.–29. toukukuuta 1997. Esitelmien tiivistelmät. Joensuu: Joensuun yliopisto. Kask, Arnold. 1970. Eesti kirjakeele ajaloost I, II. Tartu: Tartu Riiklik Ülikool. Klaas, Birute. 1996. Similarities in case marking in Estonian and Lithuanian. In: Erelt, Mati (ed.), Estonian: Typological Studies, vol. I. Publications of the Department of Estonian of the University of Tartu, n.s. 4, 35–67. Tartu. Labov, William. 1971. Hypercorrection by the lower middle class as a factor in linguistic change. In: Bright, W. (ed.), Sociolinguistics, 84–113. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. Larjavaara, Matti. 1991. Aspektuaalisen objektin synty. Virittäjä 95, 372–408. Mägiste, Julius. 1992–1993. Estnisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Helsinki: Finnisch-ugrische Gesellschaft. Metslang, Helle, Tommola, Hannu. 1995. Zum Tempussystem des Estnischen. In: Thieroff, Rolf (ed.), Tense Systems in European Languages II. Linguistische Arbeiten 338, 299–326. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Metslang, Helle. 1995. The progressive in Estonian. In: Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Squartini, Mario & Bianci, Valentina (eds.), Temporal reference, aspect and actionality. Vol. 2. Typological perspectives, 169–183. Torino: Rosenberg & Seller.



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Metslang, Helle. 1996. Evolutsioonilised ja revolutsioonilised uuendused grammatikas. In: Leskinen, Heikki & Maticsák, Sándor (red.), Congressus Octavus Internationalis FennoUgristarum. Jyväskylä 10.–15.8.1995. Pars IV. Sessiones sectionum: Syntaxis et semantica & Contactus linguistici et status hodiernus linguarum & Cetera linguistica, 87–92. Jyväskylä: Moderatus. Metslang, Helle. 1997a. Eesti prefiksaaladverbist ära soome keele taustal. In: Kasik, Reet (toim.), Lähivertailuja 9. Suomalais-virolainen kontrastiiviseminaari 3.–5.5.1996, Lammi. Castrenianumin toimitteita 53, 31–46. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto. Metslang, Helle. 1997b. Unterschiedene Tendenzen in den grammatischen Systemen des Estnischen und des Finnischen. In: Hahmo, Sirkka-Liisa, Hofstra, Tette, Honti, Lászlo, van Linde, Paul & Nikkilä, Osmo (Hrsg.), Finnisch-ugrische Sprachen in Kontakt. Vorträge des Symposiums aus Anlass des 30-jährigen Bestehens der Finnougristik an der Rijksuniversiteit Groningen 21.–23. November 1996, 165–175. Maastricht: Shaker Publishing. Närvänen, Mari. 1992. Viron adverbillisten yhdysverbien suomentaminen. Joensuu: Joensuun yliopisto. Rätsep, Huno. 1978. Eesti keele lihtlausete tüübid. Eesti Teaduste Akadeemia Emakeele Seltsi toimetised 12. Tallinn: Valgus. Rätsep, Huno. 1989. Eesti keele tekkimise lugu. Akadeemia 1, 1503–1524. Ross, Kristiina. 1999. Kas eesti kirjakeel võinuks kujuneda teistsuguseks? In Kalda, Maie, Kepp, Õnne, toim., Mis on see ISE: tekst, tagapõhi, isikupära, 9–30. Tallinn: Tuglase ja Underi kirjanduskeskus. Seilenthal, Tõnu. 1988. Aspektist ja muust eesti ja soome keeles. In: Nemvalts, Peep & Rintala, Päivi (toim.), Lähivertailuja 3, 52–59. Turku: Turun yliopisto. Stolz, Thomas. 1991. Sprachbund im Baltikum? Estnisch und Lettisch im Zentrum einer Sprachlichen Konvergenzlandschaft. Bochum-Essener Beiträge zur Sprachwandelforschung XIII. Bochum: Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer. Thomason, Sarah G. & Kaufman, Terence. 1988. Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press. Toomsalu, Epp. 1995. Ms. Clare sõnaraamatu küsimusi. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool, eesti keele õppetool. Toomsalu, Epp. 1995. Vana kirjakeele korpusest. (Paper presented at the Day of the Old Literary Estonian in Tartu, 21.5.1995.) Veenker, Wolfgang. 1967. Die Frage des finnougrischen Substrats in der russischen Sprache. Indiana University Publications. Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 82. Bloomington.



Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

1.

Introduction

The nominal category to be discussed at length in this paper is that of case. A contrastive study of Estonian and Latvian was undertaken in order to provide the basis for typological comparisons of the functioning of the various cases in both languages. The reason for choosing Estonian and Latvian was that the genetically related Baltic languages display many differences that have to date eluded satisfactory explanation and so it seemed that a regional approach of two languages with different case systems may throw light on general processes. There seems to be a tendency in Latvian and Lithuanian to reduce the number of morphologically marked cases and replace these by prepositional NP’s. The famous example of the instrumental in Latvian is an illustration of this, where the form of the instrumental was lost and the case replaced by the preposition ar ‘with’ but which still is included in paradigms of inflectionally marked cases even in modern grammars. There is also evidence both in dialects and even remnants in modern standard language of a former inessive, illative, adessive and allative in the Baltic languages (Stang 175–176); (Zinkevicˇius 1996: 112–113, 115–116). According to Zinkevicˇius (1984: 196–197), this occurred through merging of the accusative with the postposition *en to form the inessive, *na to form the illative and the postposition *pei with the locative to form the adessive and genitive to form the allative, a process that he attributes to Finnish influence. Similarly, according to late nineteenth century works on which among others Endzelı¯ns based his findings, the the genitive has overtaken the functions of the ablative in the Baltic languages (as well as in the Slavic languages and Greek). There is no formal evidence for this in the Baltic languages and it is generally accepted that the process occurred already in the proto-language stage. An underlying hypothesis was that the thirteen Estonian cases would have equivalents in any of the six, viz. five (the vocative was not treated) morphologically marked Latvian cases and the remainder would be catered for by prepositional NP’s.

482 Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

We were also interested in discovering the details of how economising of case functions in connection with case reduction would involve not only replacement by another structure (prepositional NP’s instead of case) but also an added syntactic load to already existing cases. Methodologically, however, we would not be inclined to extrapolate an historical development or a process of grammaticalisation from a study such as this since the material studied is insufficient. The study, naturally, involved working with the grammars written for both languages. It became patently obvious in the process of evaluating the material that grammatical tradition, differences in terminology etc. actually affects the classification of language facts present in the languages, at times obscuring rather than laying bare the basic similarities and creating differences that are in no way basic in the deep structure. Similarly, attitudes to language and its description are rooted in tradition which does not always display the language situation as it exists, but rather reflects an ideal partly based on the belief that the diachronic facts as synchronically perceived are more “correct” than the language of the day. The distinction between spoken and written language is brought to bear, the attitude being that only formal language (spoken or written) reflects the norms of the language as such and that conversational language falls short of these. Studies on the spoken language or even slang are most limited to lexical or phraseological listings and give the impression that the spoken language is a language (not a dialect) of its own. Neither should one dismiss lightly the fact that, for half a century, both Estonian and Latvian existed only in a bilingual situation as a local language. Even if the number of speakers never reached a critical limit, language changed at a much faster rate than it would have in a monolingual society — by a monolingual society is meant a language community that functions with one standard language to cover all spheres of language use. Norms were held as a life-belt in the face of language deterioration. In many instances language changed to the dismay of the speakers themselves some of whom held in high regard a purisitic attitude towards language norms dictated by linguists whilst others objected to these. Of interest to us is whether the language description available is going to allow us to draw conclusions in a methodologically acceptable way or not. The methodology adopted was to illustrate the uses of each case in Estonian by a structurally minimal sentence and translate this into natural Latvian. In instances where translation into natural Latvian obscured case relations or involved nonnominal categories, a more or less literal translation was included as an aid or by way of explanation. The final stage was to seek correspondences of case from Estonian to Latvian and consider the total pattern emerging in the process. Thus Estonian was the point of departure, since it has a larger spread of cases and the opposite process with Latvian as the basis has not been tested. It was thought to be necessary in time, but this would involve expanding both corpora to include all preand postpostitional constructions in both languages.

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 483

2.

A contrastive typology of Latvian and Estonian sentences

In order to create a frame of reference for the data studied, the discussion of case as such in Latvian and Estonian will be related to a contrastive typology of Latvian and Estonian syntax. For this, two relatively recent descriptions were used. 2.1 Raag’s typology of Estonian Both languages could be said to have a ‘basic sentence type’. Raag (1997: 106) uses the three notions of ‘grammatical subject’ (S), ‘logical subject’ or agent (A) and words or syntagms that form a theme of the sentence (T). a. The basic sentence type in Estonian (‘normalsatser’ in Swedish) is the one where these three can be equated to each other. The example given is: (1) Estonian Tiit andis Piretile musi Tiit gave Piret:all kiss ‘Tiit gave Piret a kiss’

Here, Tiit corresponds to T, S, A. We will refer to this type as Type 1E. b. Experiencer-possessor sentences where T, A correspond, but S is some other word, e.g. (2) Estonian Piretile meeldib tantsida Piret:all likes dance:tinf ‘Piret likes to dance’ (3) Estonian Arstil on prillid doctor:all is glasses:nom.pl ‘The doctor has glasses’

Here, Piretile, arstil
correspond to T, A and tantsida, prillid
to S. We will refer to this type as Type 2E. c. Existential sentences where A, S correspond, but another element in the sentence functions as T, e.g. (4) Estonian Pööningul on tonte attic:adess is ghost:prtv.pl ‘There are ghosts in the attic’

Here, pööningul
corresponds to T and tonte to A, S. We will refer to this as Type 3E.

484 Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

2.2 Zeps’s typology of Latvian Traditionally syntax in Latvian is treated in terms of subject and predicate as the point of departure and further discussion is in the main based around typologising the building blocks of which sentences are composed. Thus the role of case in syntax is often left aside. For Lithuanian, Ambrazas adopts a similar traditional approach, but goes one step further in actually making a typology where structure, semantic role and grammatical realisation according to category and its constants (e.g. case for nouns) is classified (Ambrazas 1997: 599–689). Zeps in an unpublished manuscript meant as teaching material of Latvian for students of general linguistics distinguishes three basic types of sentences that he describes as: a.

event (with nominative subject, objects in the accusative and/or dative — B.M-K.), e.g.: (5) Latvian Ja¯nis lasa. John:nom reads ‘John is reading’ (6) Latvian Ja¯nis lasa gra¯matu. John:nom reads book:acc ‘John is reading a book’ (7) Latvian Ja¯nis dod profesoram gra¯matu. John:nom gives professor:dat book:acc ‘John gives the/a book to the professor.’ (8) Latvian Ja¯nis tic profesoram. John:nom believes professor:dat ‘John believes the professor.’

b. condition (with dative subject experiencer and nominative object). (9) Latvian Ja¯nim sa¯p galva. John:dat aches head:nom ‘John has a headache.’

c.

equational (nominative subject =nominative — B.M-K), e.g. (10) Latvian Ja¯nis ir profesors. John:nom is professor:nom ‘John is a professor.’

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 485

(11) Latvian Ja¯nis ir mul¸k¸is John:nom is fool:nom ‘John is a fool.’

In view of the nature of the work, the notions are only partly discussed as a coherent typology. In fact, however, if the labels could be redefined, all Latvian declarative sentences may be included in the above classification. Henceforth ‘event’ sentences will be referred to as Type 1L, ‘condition’ as Type 2 L (a notion that needs to be expanded — see later) and ‘equational’ as Type 3L.

3.

Case and syntax

3.1 Subject–object relations — Type 1 It is in terms of the grammatical functions of the nominal elements of Type 1L that case is described in grammars of Latvian, i.e. the nominative is the subject case, the accusative the direct object and the dative the indirect object case. To contrast this with Estonian, the nominative is given as the basic form of the noun. This contrast in description is well founded since formally Latvian has no ‘basic’ form, but works on a root+suffix basis, all cases including the nominative having a suffix and the choice of the nominative as a base form is not related directly to form but rather to the role of the nominative case in syntax. In Estonian, on the other hand, subject– object relations do not have a one-to-one correspondence with case as in Latvian, but subjects and objects can be in the three so-called basic cases: ‘formes de base’ (de Sivers 1969: 149). A pattern for relating case to subject and object in a manner similar to the general pattern as in Latvian could be deduced for Estonian when two matters were taken into account: firstly, the historical development involving the loss of the direct object case due to syncretism with the genitive form in the singular and the nominative form in the plural that had resulted in case loss of the accusative; secondly, that case marking had a bearing on the aspect of the verb that affected object marking. The consequences of the loss of the direct object case are interesting with respect to perception of case in both languages. In Latvian, case is not only described but also perceived as a direct link to syntax in a deeper structure. In Estonian, case is more a surface structure form for which several semantic roles exist. It is true that case in Latvian also has several semantic roles, but there is a central role that is seen as more or less definitive and the other functions of each case are perceived as added roles. Now for Latvian, when the nominative and accusative (subject and direct object cases) of plural feminine nouns register no

486 Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

difference: ma¯sas ‘sisters’, ma¯tes ‘mothers’, sirdis ‘hearts’ they are still perceived as one or the other in Latvian because the analogy of the masculine paradigm is ever present and masculine plurals differ for the nominative and accusative case. In Estonian, however, syncretism has occurred and the former accusative now is perceived as the genitive case in the singular and the nominative case in the plural. Such developments become relevant to typology in that they are directly related to the organization of grammar in a language. The fact that the principles for describing declension in Estonian and the Baltic languages are different is well documented (e.g.Venkeer 1981). In Estonian: “Es gibt keine strengen Deklinationsklassen wie in einigen indogermanischen Sprachen” (Hasselblatt 1992: 121) or, to put it another way, Estonian has only one declension where the category of case appears only in one paradigm. The declensions and conjugations quoted in Estonian grammars are a result of historical phonological change in the stem/root segment of each lexeme and the set of endings does not determine declensional classes as distinct from languages where the different sets of paradigms in Latvian do exactly this. The complexity of rules for determining the case of the subject or the direct object in Estonian led us to consult a native speaker on this matter. We report this here not so much for the grammatical information that we obtained, but as an illustration of the deeply rooted search for norms on the part of the informant that mirrors attitude to language that we consider to be typical for the language communities under discussion. After subjecting the informant to a battery of sentences in an effort to arrive at some conclusion, he embarked on quoting Estonian grammar rules, in the course of which he explained that he had always “used cases wrongly” until the disappearance of the accusative and the consequences thereof were made clear to him. This raised the question as to which processes are operative in a natural language situation for marking subject–direct object relations in Estonian. According to our informant, it seems that what has actually happened is that the partitive in Estonian has now become the direct object case although grammar books still reflect the situation described above as being the correct usage. Whilst realising that this question is far more complex (e.g. see Nemvalts 1996), it seems that in broad, general terms, our informant is not so wrong: the choice of case for the object as presented by Raag (1997: 205–238), who also suggests that apart from passives (viz. impersonals) and imperatives, the choice of a case for an object is the partitive unless one has to mark what is very reminiscent of aspect marking for the terminative aspect (Verkuyl’s terminology for the perfective aspect (1993)). 3.1.1Aspect marking in Latvian and Estonian A significant difference in aspect marking in Latvian and Estonian at first seem to be that Latvian marks the entire paradigm of a verb for the terminative aspect through prefixation, i.e. aspect marking in Latvian is derivational whilst Estonian

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 487

also uses case to determine whether the action of a verb is terminative or not through its marking of objects as total or partial. (Estonian also has verbs that regularly take adverbs or adpositions that may be regarded as the equivalent of the prefixal aspect marking as in Latvian (cf. Metslang, this volume). Latvian, in turn, also registers instances of adverbial particles together with or separate from prefixed verbs as forms of aspect marking.) In grammars of both languages, tense is by and large omitted in descriptions of aspect. We are not pretending to present an approach to the treatment of aspect here. We do consider, however, that there is a difference in the description of the phenomenom whereby in Estonian, the focus is on the arguments of the verb and in Latvian on the form of the verb. For the reason that case marking in Estonian is related to aspect marking, we will consider the Latvian situation for which case and aspect are never related in grammar description. (12) Latvian Vin¸š e¯da maizı¯tes divas stundas. he ate:ipfv sandwich:acc.pl two:acc hour:acc.pl ‘He ate sandwiches for two hours.’ (13) Latvian Vin¸š ape¯da maizı¯tes diva¯s stunda¯s he ate:pfv sandwich:acc.pl two:loc hour:loc.pl ‘He ate up the sandwiches in two hours.’

On consideration of (10) and (11), the sandwiches in (10) imply an unspecified quantity, cf. partial object whilst those in (11) refer to a specified quantity, cf. total object. The relationship between between bounded activity implying delimitation of the object has been noted for Russian (Dahl 1985: 75). In Verkuyl’s work on aspectuality, the bounded-unbounded nature of the activity of the verb is formally linked with the quantification feature (Specified Quantity) or lack thereof of the arguments of the verb. Thus the above comes as no surprise in terms of general theory. This contrastive study demonstrates, however, that focussing the grammatical description of a language on features that are marked may lead to interpretations of language facts that seem very different, but in fact are two sides of the same coin. To put it another way, features interpreted in terms of universals lead us to consider both marked and unmarked features whereas grammars written for a given language often omit what is not marked. 3.1.2Total and partial objects The data lead us to believe that considerations on quantification for both Latvian and Estonian would need to pivot around the notions of totality and partiality rather than definiteness and indefiniteness, definiteness being a particular case of totality as indeed is specified quantity. The notion of partiality has a bearing on direct

488 Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

objects: in Lithuanian, this is a major consideration for case marking in that ‘partial’ objects are represented by the genitive case and ‘total’ objects by the accusative. Remnants of this are found in Latvian dialects as well as in modern Latvian in some constructions often involving negation. In both Lithuanian and Latvian quantification is based on the opposition of total/partial where the notion of partiality involves constructions using the genitive case and totality left unmarked. A consequence of the fact that Lithuanian distinguishes between objects that are total and represented by the accusative and objects that are a part of a total entity being expressed in the genitive case is that the genitive in Lithuanian is probably more frequent than the accusative. Similarly, negation is strongly linked with concepts relating to the notion of partitivity and reflected by the genitive case for the Baltic languages and the partitive in Estonian. Perhaps the main point to be made as a result of these observations is that the issue implicit in partiality, namely that of totality, be regarded as explicit and in opposition to that of partiality. If this opposition is regarded as dominant, then such notions as quantification, countability, lack of quantity vs. non possession and their relevance to nominal categories, negation and aspect may be regarded as a phenomenon of boundedness as present in the notion of totality. 3.2 Subject–object relations involving oblique case — Type 2 The term ‘oblique’ is used somewhat loosely here where the discussion will centre around sentences that have the structure of the sentences of Type 2L and 2E. In Latvian, there is a set of sentence types that ‘have the logical subject in the dative and the logical object in the nominative.’ The distinction between ‘grammatical’ subject and ‘logical’ subject was introduced for Latvian by Muhlenbachs in 1907 (Endselin & Muhlenbachs 1907: 212) and since then there have been numerous discussions on whether ‘nominative’ is synonymous with ‘subject’, whether other cases can designate the subject of a sentence. The formula quoted above is the current solution mainly applied to the problem of sentences in the debitive mood. It seems, however, that it is not only debitive sentences that display the case relationships as above with respect to subject /object relationships and it is not at all so very clear that the nominative is an object at all nor is the dative an unequivocal subject. Raag also makes the distinction between logical and grammatical subjects and sentences belonging to Type 2E are virtually of the same structure as Type 2L. We ourselves are considering whether it is not warranted to posit the notion of direct and indirect or reference subjects in view of this terminology: ‘logical’ as opposed to ‘grammatical’ implies that logic and grammar are at odds and this is surely not in line with the objectives of grammatical description.We have not, however, delved deeply enough into the literature on subjecthood to take this suggestion further, thus we will proceed in the traditional manner.

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 489

a. Debitive sentences are the ones on which interest in subjecthood and objecthood is focussed in Latvian grammars. Thus in the following sentence the logical subject is said to be in the dative and the logical object in the nominative: (14) Latvian Man ir ja¯lasa gra¯mata I:dat is read:deb book:nom ‘I have to read the book’ (N.B. Man ir corresponds to I have)

When the sentence is viewed from the point of view of semantics, then actually the person is not the subject of the verb, but rather the subject of the obligation since it is not known whether the action of the verb takes place or not. In languages with periphrastic constructions involving modal verbs (e.g. German, English, Swedish) or a separate verb for the semantics of the debitive (e.g. Estonian, French) the verb following the obligation is not a finite form. In Latvian, the form of the debitive is derived from a finite form marked for person, tense and mood. Otherwise Latvian can be seen to correspond to those languages that have a verb for ‘to have’ for the debitive meaning (e.g. ture˙ti in Lithuanian and to have to in English) since man ir means ‘I have’ (see below).The subjecthood or objecthood of the verb depends upon the interpretation of the verb form: if it is interpreted as an active form, then the nominative is in an object relationship with the verb, whereas if the verb is interpreted as a passive form (cf. Latin Liber legendus est), then the nominative is the subject form. This uncertainty obtains because of the form both of the phrasal construction and of the debitive which is derived from the third person present tense indicative active form of the verb including the inflectional ending. This means that it is easier to perceive the form marked for debitivity as a finite verb form. It was Endzelı¯ns who first described the debitive as a mood, an explanation that is not free of problems since as a rule one mood may not be combined with another. Debitive sentences in Latvian however, may be in the subjunctive mood: (15) Latvian Man esot ja¯lasa gra¯mata I:dat is:subj read:deb book:nom ‘It seems that I have to read the/a book.’

On the omission of the copula, a frequent occurrence, the debitive-subjunctive sentence may become: (16) Latvian Man ja¯lasot gra¯mata I:dat read:deb.subj book:nom (= (15))

In spoken Latvian, more often than not, one hears:

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(17) Latvian (spoken) Man ja¯lasa gra¯matu I:dat read:deb book:acc (= (15))

This actually indicates a shift in perception, i.e. that the ‘logical object in the nominative’ is becoming a regular object in the accusative as it has always been for personal pronouns. How far this grammaticalisation has progressed and what its limitations are is not being researched since the sentence is regarded as ungrammatical, not as a sign of an ongoing process of grammaticalisation. On comparing sentences of Type 2 in Estonian and Latvian, we may note their structural and semantic similarity. However, this syntactic type in Latvian has a far greater spread in Latvian than in Estonian. b. intransitive, viz. reflexive verbs expressing condition or involuntary action: (18) Latvian Man sa¯p galva I:dat hurts head:nom ‘I have a headache.’ (19) Latvian Man ape¯da¯s visa ku¯ka. I:dat eaten up:refl entire cake:nom ‘I inadvertently ate the whole cake up.’ (Incidentally, Zeps classifies this last instance as an aspect (129) for reasons that are not explained.)

c. possessive with regard to sentence subject indicating that the possessor is the topic of text, not the subject in the nominative of the actual sentence: (20) Latvian Man nomira te¯vs (kad man bija pieci gadi). I:dat died father:nom (when to me were five years ‘My father died (when I was five).’

cf.: (21) Latvian Mans te¯vs nomira (ar ve¯zi). my:nom father:nom died (with cancer ‘My father died (of cancer).’

In (21), the father is the topic, therefore the possessive pronoun is used in a regular sentence type whereas in (20), the dying of the father is an event for which there is a patient that is the real topic of the sentence and this is marked by the dative subject sentence type. This distinction does not in Estonian where the possessive pronoun sentence, viz. the equivalent of (21), is the only posssibility.

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 491

If we examine the gamut of sentences with the dative subject in Latvian, the common denominator seems to be that the dative subject is non-agentive. These sentences describe obligation to be fulfilled, conditions that affect the person, nonresponsibility, non-voluntary action etc. Thus the syntactic structure actually represents a semantic focus that depends on a reorganizastion of the semantic roles of case. One may of course discuss this as the semantics of the dative as done by Wierzbicka (1986: 419) for Polish. In Estonian, the allative case which in many respects corresponds to the the Indo-European notion of the dative, there is similar usage, e.g.: (22) Estonian Mulle meeldib süüa I:all like eat:tinf ‘I enjoy eating.’

cf. (23) Latvian Man patı¯k e¯st I:dat like to eat ‘I enjoy eating.’

The difference seems to be that in Indo-European languages, the directionality of the dative has been confounded with the notion of indirect object. This is not so in Estonian and therefore the question of indirect object is not relevant to a general description of syntax, but a particular instance of the use of the allative that is not so different from other uses of the allative, e.g. Raag describes the analogue of an indirect object in Estonian as an adverbial in the allative (Raag 1997:127). In fact, a comparison of Latvian dative and Estonian allative constructions reveals a very close similarity. According to Raag, Estonian has the equivalent of the condition sentences for Latvian with the referent not only in the allative and adessive, but also in the ablative, elative and the comitative or an adpositional group. these Estonian sentences also fall into the semantic category of ‘condition sentences’ as positied by Zeps. 3.3 Existential and equational sentences — Type 3 With respect to Type 3E, these Estonian sentences are catered for in Latvian by the basic Type 1L in that through fronting of any of the post verb elements a shift of emphasis is achieved, but the result can hardly be generalised as a syntactic type. Undoubtedly, this process often results in sentences of the ‘existential’ type, but since this is not always so, this type does not figure as such in Latvian. It seems that this phenomenon is related to two grammatical considerations, one characteristic of both Latvian and Estonian and the other to an idiosyncrasy of Latvian present in Estonian only for the verb ‘to be’.

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Both Latvian and Estonian seem to contravene the predication theory that states that a predicate must have a subject, for which reason dummy subjects such as it in it is raining occur, in that neither language has an overt subject. This does not mean that a subject may not be implied because the inflectional ending of the verb form should indicate the person and number of the subject. In Latvian, however, there is a common form for the third person for both singular and plural, thus Latvian does not mark number for the third person in verbs. This is so only for the verb olema ‘to be’ in Estonian. Otherwise Estonian, in this type of sentence, marks verbs for the singular regardless of whether the noun is in the plural or the singular and thus it is possible to distinguish a sentence type that has a plural subject with a singular verb: (24) Estonian Peenral kasvab lilli flower bed:adess grows flowers:prtv ‘There are flowers growing in the flower bed.’

Of course, agreement in number between subject and verb also exists: (25) Estonian Peenral kasvavad lilled flower bed:adess grow flowers:nom ‘Flowers are growing in the flower bed.’

Note also the difference in case of lilli/lilled.Whatever the shade of the difference in meaning (if any) between the two sentences is perceived to be, they represent two structural types. A similar differentiation in structure is not viable for Latvian: (26) Latvian Dobe¯ aug puk¸es flower bed:loc grow/*grows flowers:nom ‘There are flowers growing in the flower bed.’

This means that existential sentences as a semantic category is hinted at in Estonian but not in Latvian. The problem of existential sentences in Estonian is that they have weak marking in structure (see Nemvalts 1996), but Latvian has virtually none that can be set apart. Thus one may safely say that existential sentences exist in Latvian on the basis of comparison with other languages but it is doubtful whether this conclusion would be arrived at on examination of Latvian data alone. With regard to Type 3L, the verb, the copula ‘to be’, acts as the equality sign in the equation which means that case correspondence on either side of the equation is a logical development. This sentence type is set aside by Zeps mainly because it is difficult to analyse within the framework of Types 1 and 2 (these sentences are more like ‘condition’ i.e. Type 2, sentences semantically, but not structurally) thus it is

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 493

placed into a separate category. It is virtually based on sentences containing one verb bu¯t in Latvian: (27) Latvian Ja¯nis ir a¯rsts John:nom is doctor:nom ‘John is a doctor.’

In Estonian, sentences of this type with the same structure are as frequent as in Latvian, but they are not perceived as a separate type. Sentences involving change of state or condition have a prepositional phrase after the verb: (28) Latvian Ja¯nis kl¸uva par a¯rstu John:nom became prep doctor:acc ‘John became a doctor.’

The prepositional phrase in similar sentences in Estonian corresponds to the translative case. 3.4 Conclusion To summarise, Latvian and Estonian are quite alike with respect to sentence structure, but sentence types are not placed into matching slots in their grammatical description. The main differences between the two languages in this respect are: (a) in the spread of Type 2. Latvian has more subtypes in this group; and (b) the marking of existential sentences, weak though it may be, in Estonian but not in Latvian. The productivity of Latvian sentences of Type 2 may be explained as a generalisation of the model of the possessive sentence in the absence of the verb ‘to have’. The underlying semantic model is the statement of existence and then relating this general statement to a being (animate, inanimate or abstract) for which Latvian uses the dative case, but Estonian may choose from several (see above), the connection resulting in a metaphor for possession with a possessor and an object of possession connected by a copula: the subject of the existence becomes the object of possession. In Latvian, this metaphorisation may be used with all intransitive verbs, not only ‘to be’. In Estonian, on the other hand, this is restricted to the examples mentioned in Type 2E. Interestingly enough, the generalisation of the possessive construction to other sentence types with an intransitive verb in Estonian is only possible for the sentences that are marked as existential through partitive marking of the subject and lack of agreement in number between verb and grammatical subject. Thus, the sentences (24–26) in Latvian and Estonian may be headed by a dative, viz. adessive to result in:

494 Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

(29) Latvian Man dobe¯ aug puk¸es I:dat flower bed:loc grow flowers (30) Estonian Mul peenral kasvab lilli I:adess flower bed:adess grow flower:prtv.pl ‘I have flowers growing in the flower bed.’

Although (30) is considered somewhat unusual, it is perceived as grammatical in contrast to (31) which is ungrammatical: (31) Estonian *Mul peenral kasvavad lilled (cf. (25))

4. Case and the adpositional phrase Besides subject/object and genitive/partitive relations discussed above, the question of interest with regard to case is what types of categories are further expressed formally by case and which are adpositional constructions. Formally, Latvian has only one other case, the locative, whilst Estonian has a number of local cases (allative, illative, adessive, inessive etc.) and the translative and comitative case. The comitative in Estonian expresses both instrumental and comitative functions, as does the prepositional construction with the preposition ar in Latvian. With regard to terminology, if the prepositional construction is given the status of case in grammars of Latvian, it is then referred to as the instrumental (see Stolz in this volume). The translative and ablative in Estonian are mainly rendered by prepositional constructions in Latvian. If we were to summarize the other local cases in broad general terms, it becomes evident that the lative (allative, illative) cases in Estonian correspond to the dative (apart from the constructions as above) in Latvian whilst the essive (adessive, inessive) cases are rendered by the locative. Interestingly enough, Estonian grammar descriptions do not lump together as sets lative and essive cases, but sets named as internal local cases (illative, inessive, elative) and external local cases (allative, adessive, ablative) have evolved. The observation regarding the congruency of case between Estonian and Latvian is a generalisation, thus by nature imprecise and counter examples, e.g. where the illative corresponds to the locative etc., are not hard to find: (32) a.

Estonian Õde torkas talle süstla tagumikku nurse:nom injected him:all needle:gen bottom:ill

Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 495

b.

Latvian Ma¯sin¸a iedüra vin¸am šprici dibena¯ nurse:nom injected him:dat needle:acc bottom:loc ‘The nurse stuck a needle in his bottom.’

Similarly, prepositional constructions in Latvian may be used to render the above cases in Estonian. With respect to case and adpositional constructions, Estonian at present has parallel constructions especially with the ablative case and a postpositional construction e.g.: (33) Estonian a. Võtsin riiulilt käärid took:1sg shelf:abl scissors b. Võtsin riiuli pealt käärid took:1sg shelf:gen from scissors ‘I took the scissors from the shelf.’

This may be a sign of impending case loss, at least partially. One of our informants judged that (33a) is more likely to be used in formal written language but (33b) in spoken language.

5.

Conclusion

Through examining case which is easy to isolate on the basis of form and contrasting the typology of sentences in Estonian and Latvian, we found it necessary to establish the semantic link between existence and possession and the formal realisation of this link. It was here that the issue of sentence types in both languages warranted attention. Contrastively, these were both similar and different: similar in that both possession and existence works through the verbs olema, bu¯t ‘to be’ with an oblique case (cf. Russian here a prepositional phrase is used with the verb ‘to be’ instead of case despite the case system which otherwise is very much like the Latvian case system); different in that existential sentences are weakly marked in Estonian, but not perceivably in Latvian; different also in that the model of possession in Latvian is extended to include a much more extensive subset of mainly intransitive verb basic sentence types than in Estonian, but, interestingly enough, could be used in Estonian for the sentences that are marked for existentialism, but not in other semantically existential sentences. Case binds formally the semantics and grammatical function of nominal categories: “Der Kasus eines Wortes bestimmt seine Stellung innerhalb des Satzes und spezifiert seine Semantik” (Hasselblatt 1992: 93). Now all of (a) case; (b) adpositioning; (c) word order (juxtaposition or within the framework of the sentence) may perform identical grammatical and semantic functions. Nor is it easy

496 Baiba Metuza¯le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko

to discuss these as discrete notions: adpositioning may be described as a form of word order (juxtaposition); the distinction between inflection and adpositioning is not easily defined, e.g. de ‘of, from’ and à ‘to’ in French grammars are generally not treated together with avec ‘with’, par ‘by’, etc. There is, however, a theoretical dimension to the difference between bound morphemes that are lexemes and ones that are fused with another category, in this instance the difference between usage of nominal case forms as distinct from adpositional constructions. The fact that fused forms are of necessity discussed in grammar as a feature of another category, not semantically as in a lexicon, means that they are described in different contexts.Whilst adpositional constructions may be used equivalently with case in a given set of instances, the phenomenon of case itself is different from that of adpositional constructions, a difference that is addressed in contrastive studies, but not found explicitly in grammars of the separate languages. This study shows, however, that the phenomenon of case is of a different nature for subject-object relations as opposed to adverbials. If we now consider the question in quantitative terms relating the number of cases in a language to this opposition, our data would seem to suggest that if a language has a complex system of local cases, then the dative function is regarded as part of this system whereas if the case system is reduced, then the dative is integrated into the one system of basic sentence structure and their purely local functions are explained with reference to subject-object relations. This seems to hold for the Indo-European languages known to us. Latvian is interesting because it actually has an explicit local case which would allow for a mini local case subsystem, but whether for reasons of grammatical tradition or otherwise, the description follows the Indo-European pattern.

References Ambrazas, Vytautas (ed.). 1997. Lithuanian Grammar. Vilnius: Baltos lankos. Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Comrie, Bernard. 1986. On Delimiting Cases. In: Richard D. Brecht & James S. Levine, Case in Slavic, 86–106. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, Inc. Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford, New York: Basil Blackwell. Endselin, J., Muhlenbachs, K. 1907. Latweeschu gramatika. Riga: A. J. Eichman¸a apga¯ds. Endzelin, J. 1922. Lettische Grammatik. Riga: Kommissionverlag A. Gulbis. ¯ niversita¯te. Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1938. Latviešu valodas skan¸as un formas. Riga: Latvijas U Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1951. Latviešu valodas gramatika. Riga: Latvijas Valsts Izdevniecı¯ba. Hasselblatt, Cornelius. 1992. Grammatisches Wörterbuch des Estnischen. Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica, Band 35. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Holvoet, Axel. 1994. Notes on the Latvian Passive. Linguistica Baltica 3: 131–140.



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Lutkat, Florene-Silvia, Hasselblatt, Cornelius. 1993. Estnisch intensiv. Hamburg: Bibliotheca Baltica. Metslang, Helle, this volume. On the Developments of the Estonian Aspect: the Verbal Particle ära. Nemvalts, Peep. 1996. Case Marking of subject Phrases in Modern Standard Estonian. Studia Uralica Upsaliensa 25. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Oinas, Felix J. 1975. Basic Course in Estonian. 4th edition. Bloomington: Indiana University. Raag, Raimo. 1997. Elementär estnisk satslära. Uppsala: Finsk-ugriska institutionen. de Sivers, Fanny. 1969. Analyse grammaticale de l’estonien parlé. G. de Bussac, Clermont/Ferrand. Sokols, E., Bergmane, A., Grabis, R., Lepika, M. (eds.). 1959. Mu¯sdienu latviešu litera¯ra¯s valodas gramatika 1, Riga: Latvijas PSR Zina¯tn¸u Akade¯mijas Izdevniecı¯ba. Ulvydas, K. 1965. Lietuviu˛ kalbos gramatika, 1 tomas. Vilnius: Mintis. Veenker, Wolfgang. 1981. Nominale Kategorien in den ostseefinnischen und baltischen Sprachen. Finnisch-Ungrische Mitteilungen 5: 123–176. Verkuyl, Henk J. 1993. A theory of aspectuality. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 64. Cambridge University Press. Wierzbicka, Anna. 1986. The Meaning of a Case: A Study of the Polish dative. In: Brecht, Richard D. & Levine, James S. (eds.), Case in Slavic. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica. 386–426. Zeps, Valdis J. 1981. Ms. Speak You Latvian?



Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages* Simon Christen

In the Baltic and Finnic languages, attributive genitives appear before the head noun — along with demonstrative pronouns, quantifiers, numerals and adjectives. In contrast to these other premodifiers, whose order normally is fairly rigid,1 genitives may be placed more freely. In this article the structural relevance of different genitive positions will be examined. We will discuss material from both the Baltic and Finnic languages (mainly Finnish and Estonian in the latter group), because some important principles can be revealed only by their joint consideration.

1.

Semantic range of genitive attributes

The expression of possession is probably the prototypical semantic relationship of adnominal genitives. Beside this, there is a whole range of other relationships genitives may express. Only some of them will be considered in the next few paragraphs, insofar as they serve as cornerstones for detecting different syntactic genitive positions. 1.1 Possessor The basic possessive construction looks the same in the languages considered here, with the possessor-nominal (the dependent) in the genitive preceding the possesseenominal (the head of the noun phrase). In the Slavic languages, which are closely related to Baltic, the opposite word order is the norm. (1) Estonian tüdruk-u koer girl-gen dog ‘the girl’s dog’

The same meaning is expressed in Finnish as tytö-n koira, in Lithuanian as mergait˙es šuo, and in Latvian as meiten-es suns, but in Russian as sobaka devocˇk-i.2

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1.2 Material The material something is made of has a continuum of different expressions, ranging from denominal adjectives (2a) over genitives (2b, c) and juxtaposition of nouns (2d) to word-compounding (2e, f). It is not always easy to draw clear distinctions between these cases, the different possibilities being highly language code-dependent. (2) a.

b. c.

d.

e.

f.

Lithuanian auks-in-is žied-as gold-adjr-nom ring-nom auks-o žiedas gold-gen ring Latvian zelt-a gredzens gold-gen ring Meadow-Eastern Mari šörtn´ö šergaš gold ring Estonian kuld-sõrmus gold-ring Finnish kulta-sormus gold-ring ‘ring of gold’

In this particular case, modern Lithuanian usage slightly prefers the expression with an adjective, the genitive being more archaic and occurring mainly in folklore texts. Conversely, in the High Latvian dialect adjectives like in ku¯´cin¸ä ¸ližeika ‘wooden spoon’ are in decline now, being used only in a few subdialects (izloksnes),3 where they tend to be substantivized (Rudzı¯te 1964: 324). In literary Latvian, adjectives denoting materials are no longer used at all. Instead, the genitive construction has the highest frequency, with compounds occurring only occasionally, as in dzelzcel¸š ‘railway’.4 The Finnic languages, on the other hand, prefer compounds, and alternative constructions with an elative denoting the material often sound clumsy, as e.g. Fin sormus kullasta, Est sõrmus kullast ‘a ring from gold’. Adjectives denoting materials are more common in Livonian, although compounds and elative constructions do also occur. This tendency can be seen in examples like the following: (3) a.

Livonian piš¯ki-zt rou¯di-zt rat¯-õd-õks small-gen.pl ironadj-gen.pl wheel-pl-trnsl/com (Loorits 1936: 8)

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages 501

b.

Latvian ar maz-iem dzelz-s rat-in¸-iem with small-dat/inst.pl iron-gen wheel-dim-dat/inst.pl ‘with a small iron car’

Here Livonian uses an adjective, although neighboring Latvian has a genitive.5 Veps, on the other hand, prefers material adjectives, as does the neighboring Russian: (4) a.

b.

Veps ku
dein´e re]ghein´e golden ringlet Russian zolotoe kolecˇko golden ringlet ‘golden ringlet’ (Zajceva/Mullonen 1972: 251)

1.3 Agent There are two constructions where an agent is expressed as an adnominal genitive. In the first one it is used with verbal nouns:6 (5) Finnish Petteri-n lukeminen Peter-gen reading ‘Peter’s reading’

In the Baltic languages, however, this type of construction is avoided. The acceptability largely depends on the meaning of the action nominal. If it is an abstract noun as in Ltv celšana ‘the process of building’, the determination of the action nominal by a subject or object genitive seems almost impossible. On the other hand, in more concrete cases such as Ltv iekarošana ‘conquest’ (see 26 below), both agent and patient may exceptionally be expressed. The other type of agent genitive expresses the author of a work: (6) Lithuanian Cˇiurlion-io paveikslas Cˇiurlionis-gen painting ‘a painting by Cˇiurlionis’

The correct interpretation of this kind of agent genitive requires, however, the knowledge that Cˇiurlionis was, among other things, a famous painter. Otherwise, one would think of a possessive meaning, ‘a painting belonging to Cˇiurlionis’.

502 Simon Christen

1.4 Patient Action nominals do not only combine with agents, but also with patients. In this case, too, such constructions are more readily formed in Finnic than in Baltic languages. (7) Finnish kirja-n lukeminen book-gen reading ‘the reading of the book’

The coupling between patient and action nominal can be very tight, forming compounds: (8) Estonian raamat-u-lugemine book-gen-reading ‘reading books’ (Saagpakk 1982: 712)

The close relationship between compounds and descriptive genitives (see Section 3.1.2) suggests that raamatulugemine is used to denote the generic act of reading (somehow connected with) books, not the reading of a specific book. Also with picture nouns the person or thing depicted is easily rendered by a patient genitive: (9) Estonian a. katedraal-i foto cathedral-gen photograph ‘the photograph of the cathedral’ b. foto katedraali-st photograph cathedral-elat ‘a/the photograph of a cathedral’

As the translations suggest, the choice of the genitive or the elative is influenced by communicative properties of the dependent: if it is definite or already known the genitive is more common, otherwise the elative. In any case, the variant with the elative is preferred when there is another genitive present, e.g. to express the possessor or the agent. In Finnish, too, both the genitive and elative constructions are possible, with no difference in meaning. (10) Finnish a. kirko-n kuva church-gen picture b. kuva kirko-sta picture church-elat ‘a picture of the church’

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages 503

If the object denotes a class of pictures rather than a specific entity, a compound can be used: (11) a.

b.

Estonian kirik-u-pilt church-gen-picture Finnish kirkko-kuva church-picture ‘a church picture’

Such compounds refer to a kind or category of pictures, somehow related to a church (M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, p.c.). The Baltic languages almost exclusively use genitive constructions; the preposition Lith nuo Ltv no ‘from’, which is functionally equivalent to the Finnic elative, cannot be used in this context.

2.

Combination of attributes

Genitives can be combined with other attributes to form a complex attribute of the head noun. In the following paragraphs I will show the different possible combinations of attributive genitives in the languages under consideration. 2.1 Combination of genitives and adjectives Adjectives can modify the genitive dependent, the head noun, or both. Let us consider these possibilities in turn. Constructions with an adjective qualifying the genitive dependent pattern the same way in Finnic and in Baltic languages: (12) a.

b.

Finnish piene-n tytö-n tuoli little-gen girl-gen chair Lithuanian maž-os mergait-e˙s ke˙de˙ little-gen girl-gen chair ‘the little girl’s chair’

In both language groups, the genitive is immediately preceded by its adjectival attribute, which agrees with it in case, number and (for the Baltic languages) gender. There are positional differences in unmarked word order when the adjective qualifies the head noun:

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(13) Lithuanian a. maža mergait-e˙s ke˙de˙ little girl-gen chair b. mergait-e˙s maža ke˙de˙ girl-gen little chair ‘the girl’s little chair’

In Lithuanian standard word order (13a) the head noun and its adjectival attribute bracket the genitive attribute. This word order corresponds to the general Baltic pattern of presenting the most unspecific information first. Depending on the overall pragmatic structure of the sentence the reverse word order (13b) is also possible. In this case the girl’s ownership may be stressed. In Latvian the situation is almost the same, but complicated by the fact that the possible word orders depend on the use of the definite or indefinite form of the adjective. Only definite adjectives allow both word orders, whereas with indefinite adjectives only the order with the adjective preceding the genitive is possible (see example 39 below). In Finnish, on the other hand, in standard word order, which is obligatory for most cases, the genitive precedes the adjective: (14) Finnish a. nai-sen selvä käsiala woman-gen clear handwriting ‘the woman’s clear handwriting’

Only descriptive genitives, which precede the head noun immediately (see Section 3.1.1 below), show a different word order: b.

selvä nai-sen käsiala clear woman-gen handwriting ‘a/the clear woman’s handwriting’

Descriptive genitives tend to form compounds in Finnish, as in: (15) a.

b.

kirko-n kalteva torni church-gen slanting tower ‘the slanting tower of the church’ kalteva kirko-n-torni slanting church-gen-tower ‘a/the slanting church-tower’

It is evident that an adjective cannot be inserted between the two parts of a compound. Multiple compounding is discouraged in Finnish, so in examples like (14b), where käsiala already is a compound itself, naisen does not form a compound with it, but is used as an uncompounded descriptive genitive instead. Estonian, on the

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages 505

other hand, does not have such a restriction and generally allows compounds with more than two parts. Otherwise, it shows the same standard word order as Finnish. If the head noun is a genitive itself, there are two interpretations possible in Lithuanian standard word order (16a), whereas the alternative word order (16b) is unambiguous (and is thus preferred to express the corresponding meaning): (16) Lithuanian a. Iešk-au maž-os mergait-e˙s ke˙d-e˙s look.for:pres-1sg little-gen.sg.fem girl-gen.sg.fem chair-gen.sg.fem ‘I am looking for the little girl’s chair’ or ‘I am looking for the girl’s little chair’ b. Iešk-au mergait-e˙s maž-os ke˙d-e˙s look.for:pres-1sg girl-gen.sg.fem little-gen.sg.fem chair-gen.sg.fem ‘I am looking for the girl’s little chair’

When both the dependent and the head have their own adjectival attributes, each language shows the same specific behavior as when there is only one adjective modifying the head: (17) a.

b.

c.

d. e.

f.

Finnish piene-n tytö-n uusi tuoli little-gen girl-gen new:nom chair:nom Estonian väike-se tüdruk-u uus tool little-gen girl-gen new:nom chair:nom Lithuanian nauj-a maž-os mergait-e˙s ke˙d-e˙ new-nom little-gen girl-gen chair-nom maž-os mergait-e˙s nauj-a ke˙d-e˙ little-gen girl-gen new-nom chair-nom Latvian jaun-ais maz-a¯s meiten-es kre¯sl-s new-gen.def little-gen.def girl-gen chair-nom maz-a¯s meiten-es jaun-ais kre¯sl-s little-gen.def girl-gen new-gen.def chair-nom ‘the little girl’s new chair’

The word order in Finnish and Estonian is fixed. In Lithuanian it depends on the communicative structure of the sentence, where the neutral word order is (17c) and the alternative one (17d) often stresses the ownership. In Latvian, too, there are two possible word orders, but unlike in Lithuanian, the neutral word order has the genitive before the adjective (17f). (17e) requires that a heavy stress be put on the adjective if it is to be grammatical. So Latvian shows intermediate behavior here, using the same neutral word order as Finnish and Estonian, but allowing an alternative (although much more restricted in use) like Lithuanian.

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2.2 Combination of genitives and demonstrative pronouns Interestingly, all the languages considered here allow the use of genitives together with demonstratives. There are, however, some differences concerning possible word orders and combinability with other elements. In both Finnish and Lithuanian, word order can be used to mark contrastive stress on the demonstrative. In unmarked word order the demonstrative pronoun precedes the genitive, whereas to render the contrastive meaning this order is reversed, cf. Jokinen’s (1991: 8) example (10): (18) Finnish a. nuo Aimo-n koirat ovat vihaisia those Aimo-gen dogs are angry ‘those dogs of Aimo’s are angry’ b. Aimo-n NUO koirat ovat vihaisia Aimo-gen those dogs are angry ‘THOSE dogs of Aimo’s are angry’

As Jokinen (1991: 8) explains: In (18a), certain dogs are identified by pointing at a certain group of dogs (‘those over there’) and telling that they belong to Aimo, whereas in (18b), a contrast is expressed between Aimo’s dogs: those dogs are contrasted to other dogs of his. The order in (18a) is the neutral one, while (18b) requires a particular stress pattern: the pronoun must bear a contrastive stress. In speech, of course, both orders can be used to express a contrast, since a stress on the demonstrative pronoun will unambiguously mark the contrast between those and some other dogs, regardless of the specifier order.

In a similar vein in Lithuanian (19a) is the unmarked word order, whereas (19b) puts a contrastive stress on šie ‘these’: (19) Lithuanian a. šie te˙v-o žodž-iai these father-gen word-pl ‘these words of [my] father’ b. te˙v-o šie žodž-iai father-gen these word-pl ‘THESE words of [my] father’

Latvian, on the other hand, allows only the unmarked word order of Lithuanian and Finnish, i.e. the demonstrative pronoun has to precede the genitive: (20) Latvian šie te¯v-a va¯rd-i these father-gen word-pl ‘these words of [my] father’

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages 507

Here šie ‘these’ obligatorily gets a contrastive stress, so it is not necessary (and even not possible) to use another word order to express this meaning. Similarly, mana ‘my’ is also only used with a contrastive stress. The combination of these two contrastive elements is thus allowed only under very special circumstances, and is generally considered bad style, if not ungrammatical. Lithuanian allows such combinations without restrictions: (21) a.

Latvian mana te¯v-a va¯rdi these my father-gen words Lithuanian šie mano te˙v-o žodžiai these my father-gen words ‘these words of my father’

??šie

b.

In other languages the opposite word order is unmarked. In Mordvin e.g., neighboring the Circum-Baltic area, it is the rule to put the genitive first, also before a demonstrative pronoun, as in (22a), and consequently before an adjective modifying the same head, as in (22b), where it is combined with a material genitive: (22) Erzya-Mordvin a. t’et’a-nt’ n´et’ val-tne father-gen.def these word-def.pl ‘these words of [my] father’ (OM: 84) b. cˇuvto-n´ kuvaka kardo-s´ wood-gen long stable-def ‘the long wooden stable’ (KPN: 6)

2.3 Genitive chains Attribute genitives can themselves be further specified by other genitives. (23) Estonian pois-i koer-a jalg boy-gen dog-gen leg ‘a/the leg of the boy’s dog’

The same pattern can be observed in the other languages. In Lithuanian a practically unlimited number of genitives can be stacked one above the other. So, e.g., still in 1988 the newspaper Vakarine˙s naujienos ‘Evening News’ had the following subtitle:

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(24) [[Lietuv-os [komunist-u˛ partij-os]] [[Vilni-aus miest-o] [[Lithuania-gen [communist-gen.pl party-gen [[Vilnius-gen city-gen komitet-o]] ir [[Vilni-aus miest-o] [[liaud-ies committee-gen and [[Vilnius-gen city-gen [[people-gen deputat-u˛] taryb-os]] organ-as deputy-gen.pl council-gen organ-nom ‘Organ of the Vilnius City Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party and of the Vilnius City People’s Deputies’ Council’

Such recursive genitives are characteristic for Lithuanian, allowing highly condensed, succinct expressions. Chains of attributes can be combined with adjectives modifying each one of the genitives and the head noun itself: (25) a.

b.

c.

Estonian uu-e õpetaja kena nai-se vana sõber new-gen teacher:gen pretty:gen wife-gen old:nom friend:nom Lithuanian sen-as nauj-o mokytoj-o graž-ios žmon-os draug-as old-nom new-gen teacher-gen pretty-gen wife-gen friend-nom ‘an old friend of the new teacher’s pretty wife’ sen-as graž-ios mokytoj-o žmon-os draug-as old-nom pretty-gen.fem teacher-gen.masc wife-gen.fem friend-nom ‘an old friend of the teacher’s pretty wife’

In this case, too, the Finnic languages and Latvian put the adjectives next to the word they modify, whereas Lithuanian tends to bracket intermediate genitives. This is, however, observed only where a relatively small number of adjectives are involved, usually no more than two, only one of which should itself be in the genitive (as in 25c). Otherwise intermediate adjectives in the genitive tend to be placed next to their respective head (as in 25b). 2.4 Two genitive attributes to the same head Different attributes to the same head pose special problems of identification, as one could mistakenly be interpreted as determining the other. Several cases can be observed in which two genitives refer to the same head and are recognized as such. 2.4.1Nominalizations (26) Latvian Aleksandr-a E¯gä ipt-es iekaro-šana sagra¯v-a zem-i. Alexander-gen Egypt-gen conquer-acnnr destroy:past-3 country-acc ‘Alexander’s conquest of Egypt destroyed the country.’ (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 296)

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Such constructions with action nominals are very unusual in the Baltic languages. They tend to use verbal expressions, making relationships clearer by using participles where necessary. It is in fact possible to use the expression Aleksandra E¯gä iptes iekarošana, but constructions like Aleksandra karaga¯jiens uz E¯gä ipti ‘Alexander’s campaign to Egypt’ or Aleksandra iebrukums E¯gä ipte¯ ‘Alexander’s raid into Egypt’ are much easier to understand and would be strongly preferred. Lithuanian, which allows almost unlimited recursive genitive specifications, has quite severe limitations for two or more genitives to the same head. In fact, the expression of agent and patient in action nominalizations is not, as a rule, possible: (27) *Aleksandr-o Egipt-o užkariavimas Alexander-gen Egypt-gen conquest ‘Alexander’s conquest of Egypt’

In phrases like (27) the first genitive is interpreted as denoting the possessor of the second one, giving meanings like ‘the conquest of Alexander’s Egypt’. There are, however, some contexts where two genitives, one expressing the subject, the other a plural object, can be used with action nominals, e.g.: (28) tavo laišk-u˛ rašymas vis-iems nusibodo7 your letter-gen.pl writing all-dat bored ‘everybody is bored with your writing letters’

Sentence (28) has a habitual interpretation. If we change the object to singular laiško, the sentence gets a concrete meaning ‘everybody is bored waiting until you have finished writing that letter’. Estonian has similar action nominalizations with two genitives: (29) a.

Peetr-i maja-de ehita-mine Peter-gen house-gen.pl build-acnnr ‘Peter’s building (of) houses’ (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 294)

This is however only one possibility, others being: b.

c. d.

maja-de ehita-mine Peetr-i poolt house-gen.pl build-acnnr Peter-gen by ‘the building of houses by Peter’ maja-ehita-mine Peetr-i poolt house-build-acnnr Peter-gen by Peetr-i maja-ehita-mine Peter-gen house-build-acnnr ‘Peter’s housebuilding’ (ibid.: 188)

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Among the languages considered here, Finnish uses double genitives in action nominalizations most freely, showing no recognizable structural restrictions. Anyway, double genitives remain an unusual means of expression. 2.4.2Picture nouns In contrast to nominalizations, Lithuanian does allow two genitives with picture nouns, expressing the author and the person or thing depicted: (30) Lithuanian a. Rembrant-o Saskij-os portret-as Rembrandt-gen Saskia-gen portrait-nom ‘Rembrandt’s portrait of Saskia’ b. profesional-aus fotograf-o katedr-os professional-gen.masc photographer-gen.masc cathedral-gen.fem fotografij-a photograph-nom.fem ‘a photograph of the cathedral by a professional photographer’

Such constructions can only be used if the relationships the genitives express are very clear; otherwise, in double genitives the first one would be interpreted as possessor of the second one. The same reservation applies to Estonian, where e.g. in professionaalse fotograafi katedraali foto the cathedral could be interpreted as belonging to the photographer. In Latvian, then, *Rembranta Saskijas portrets is completely impossible as it would be associated with noun phrases in which both a first name and a last name are expressed, like Andra Pe¯tersona portrets ‘a portrait of Andris Pe¯tersons’.8 In both Baltic languages participles can be used to clarify the expressed relationships: (31) a.

b.

Latvian Palu¯kojieties vin¸a gleznot-aja¯s Ann-as sej-a¯s look.at:imp.2pl his paint:ppp-loc.pl.def Ann-gen face-loc.pl (LLVV s.v. gleznot) ‘Look at Ann’s portrait, painted by him’ Lithuanian visi tie penki Jon-o piešt-i portretai, all those five John-gen paint:ppp-nom.pl portraits kuri-uose pavaizduota Ona, which-loc.pl depict:ppp Ann priklausant-ys Ricˇard-ui belong:part.pres.act-nom.pl Richard-dat ‘all those five portraits painted by John, depicting Ann and belonging to Richard’

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages

In Estonian and Finnish the preferred construction uses an elative to express the person or thing depicted, as in Est Rembrandti portree Saskia-st, Fin Rembrandtin muotokuva Saskia-sta ‘Rembrandt’s portrait of Saskia’ (cf. 9b, 10b). 2.4.3Combinations with possessors Finnish allows the simultaneous use of a possessor genitive and a genitive expressing authorship, e.g. (32) Finnish Petteri-n Strindbergi-n kirjat Peter-gen Strindberg-gen books ‘Peter’s books of Strindberg’

In Lithuanian and Latvian such constructions do not have the intended meaning, as the first genitive would be interpreted as the possessor of the second one, not as the possessor of the head noun, e.g. Lith Jono Simonaityte˙s knygos ‘the books of/by John’s Simonaityte˙’, or as a sequence of first name and last name of the same person, e.g. Ltv Ja¯n¸a Rain¸a gra¯matas ‘the books of Ja¯nis Rainis’. On the other hand, a possessor genitive can easily be combined with another genitive expressing the material something consists of: (33) Latvian te¯v-a k¸ieägel¸-u ma¯ja father-gen brick-gen.pl house ‘father’s house of bricks’

In such constructions the genitive denoting the material is more tightly bound to the head noun. In neutral word order it is therefore closer to it, forming an intermediate step on the way to word compounding. This is also true for Lithuanian, where the different neutral word orders with a genitive or an adjective seem to underline the above claim: (34) a.

b.

motin-os auks-o žied-as mother-gen gold-gen ring-nom ‘mother’s ring of gold’ auks-in-is motin-os žied-as gold-adjr-nom mother-gen ring-nom ‘mother’s golden ring’

The second word order is the unmarked choice when an adjective and a genitive modify the same head (cf. (13a)), whereas the first one groups the material and the thing consisting of it closer together, thereby also accentuating the ownership of motina.9 The tendency for Lithuanian (unavailable in literary Latvian) is to use denominal adjectives whenever there could be an interpretation with recursive genitives, as in te˙vo plytu˛ namas ‘a house of father’s bricks’ instead of ‘father’s house

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of bricks’. In this case, to get the second interpretation it would be more appropriate to use plytinis te˙vo namas. Another possible combination is the one of species and possessor: (35) a.

b.

Finnish nuo muutamat Liisa-n ruskeat mäyräkoira-n pennut those few Lisa-gen brown dachshund-gen puppies (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 169) Lithuanian tie keli rudi taks-o veisl-e˙s Liz-os šunycˇiai those few brown dachshund-gen race-gen Lisa-gen puppies ‘those few brown dachshund puppies of Lisa’s’

The Finnish example shows the characteristic positions of the specifier genitive Liisan and the descriptive genitive mäyräkoiran very clearly (see Section 3.1.1). This is not the case in Lithuanian.10 The opposite order of the genitives might be caused by two factors strengthening each other. First, compared to Finnish there is an additional element veisle˙ ‘race’, giving this noun phrase more weight. Second, Lizos takso šunycˇiai would mean ‘the puppies of Lisa’s dachshund’; the addition of veisle˙ does not completely eliminate the possibility for this misinterpretation. To avoid such ambiguities, the order in (35b) is thus used.

3.

Two genitive positions

I do not have any acceptable example with three or more genitives to the same head. Such examples are consistently rejected by the informants. For the languages under consideration we may therefore suppose that there are at most two different syntactic positions possible for genitives. Where both of them occur, they can be identified with the specifier and the descriptive genitive positions. Semantically, they can be distinguished by their referentiality. A specifier genitive refers to a specific entity which modifies the head word. On the other hand, “descriptive genitives are characterized by their generic nature: they do not pick up specific entities in the universe, but refer to the class denoted by the noun as a whole” (Jokinen 1991: 12). The following three criteria can help to make a formal distinction between specifier and descriptive genitives: 1. Word order. If there are two genitives to the same head, the specifier genitive generally precedes the descriptive genitive. There may also be word order differences in relation to adjectival attributes to the same head. 2. Definiteness effect. In the Finnic languages and Latvian specifier genitives cause the noun phrase to be definite. Descriptive genitives do not make a phrase definite,

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages

even in a language where specifier genitives do. This characteristic of descriptive genitives stems from their semantic content. 3. Combinability. Specifier genitives can be freely modified themselves, e.g. by an adjective of their own or another genitive. Grammatical combinations are much more restricted for descriptive genitives. Most of them tend to be lexicalized, rather than being used productively. 3.1 Finnish The following description is largely based on Jokinen (1991), who discusses the characteristics of the specifier and the descriptive genitive in Finnish. 3.1.1Word order In a two-level structure of the Finnish noun phrase (see Jokinen 1991: 6) the descriptive genitive appears on the lower level, i.e. in the modifier position, more precisely after an adjective and directly before the noun, as a sister to both of them. The specifier genitive appears on the upper level, i.e. in the specifier position. Thus, the specifier genitive always precedes all modifiers (adjectives and descriptive genitives), whereas its position among other specifiers (demonstratives, quantifiers) is free. Different relative orders of genitive and adjective therefore reflect structural differences of the noun phrase, as in the following (see also example 14 above): (36) a.

b.

kaupungi-n aktiiviset asukkaat town-gen active people ‘the active people in/of the town’ aktiiviset kaupungi-n asukkaat active town-gen people ‘active town people’

In (36a) the genitive precedes the adjective and is thus occupying a specifier position. The genitive in (36b) follows the adjective and can therefore only be interpreted as a modifier, i.e. as a descriptive genitive. 3.1.2Definiteness effect The specifier genitive has a definiteness effect in Finnish: (37) a.

b.

tuoli-n vihreä jalka chair-gen green leg ‘the green leg of a/the chair’ vihreä tuoli-n-jalka green chair-gen-leg ‘a green chair leg’ (Jokinen 1991: 12)

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Estonian behaves exactly the same, having tooli roheline jalg vs. roheline toolijalg. This example shows that there is a close relationship between descriptive genitives and compounds (see 14 and 36 above for examples with true descriptive genitives). A criterion to distinguish between the two could be based on word stress: “compounds have only one primary stress, whereas modifier constructions have primary stress on both the descriptive genitive and the head noun” (Jokinen 1991: 12). As it occupies a specifier position and thus induces a definiteness effect, the Finnish specifier genitive is a determiner genitive according to Lyons (1986: 139). It does, however, deviate from the prototypical case, as shown in the next paragraph. 3.1.3Combinability The main difference between the Finnish specifier genitive and a pure determiner genitive is, that it can co-occur with demonstratives (see e.g. Example (18)).The Finnish data thus support Plank’s (1992) position that there is a continuum between the notions of determiner and adjectival genitive rather than a sharp dichotomy. For a similar phenomenon in Swedish see Koptjevskaja-Tamm (to appear). On the other hand, grammatical combinations are much more restricted for descriptive genitives. Although e.g. combinations with an adjective do occur, in general they are lexicalized, as in uusi Punaisen Ristin ambulanssi ‘a new Red Cross ambulance’ (Jokinen 1991: 12). As Jokinen (ibid.) points out, “descriptive genitives are actually picked from the lexicon as such, and they do not take part in syntactic phrase formation.” Nevertheless descriptive genitives retain a certain freedom in combinability with different head nouns. Compound formation is then the next step, even more lexicalized and restricted to certain combinations. 3.2 Latvian Latvian shows only a slight deviation from the Finnic type. The same three criteria can be used to distinguish specifier and descriptive genitives. 3.2.1Word order The position of a specifier genitive in a chain of determinative elements is very free, as shown in the next example: (38) Cel¸š ga¯ja cauri vis-u ciem-a septin¸-u road went through all-gen.pl village-gen.sg seven-gen.pl saimniek-u pagalmiem.11 peasant-gen.pl courtyards (LLVV s.v. cauri) ‘The road went through the courtyards of all seven peasants in the village.’

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages

In this example ciema ‘village’ is referential, i.e. it is used as a specifier genitive, not as a descriptive one. The stress is on ciema here, with a pause after visu. A more neutral word order would be Cel¸š ga¯ja cauri visu septin¸u ciema saimnieku pagalmiem. This is also the most neutral word order in Lithuanian, namely Kelias ˙ejo per visu˛ septyniu˛ kaimo valstiecˇiu˛ kiemus. In the variant Cel¸š ga¯ja cauri ciema visu septin¸u saimnieku pagalmiem the stress is on both visu septin¸u and ciema, with a longer pause after ciema. On the other hand, the position of the descriptive genitive is fixed. It always appears directly before the head noun (see examples 39c, d and 41a below) and thus after a specifier genitive, if they co-occur in the same noun phrase. 3.2.2Definiteness effect In Latvian the definiteness effect of the specifier genitive can be observed directly where adjectives appear in the same phrase. Latvian adjectives have two forms, a shorter, indefinite one and a longer, definite one, the latter historically formed by adding the personal pronoun of the 3rd person (originally a relative pronoun, see Senn 1966: 163) to the short form.12 This way of building definite adjectives is a Baltic-Slavic isogloss; the concrete meaning of the short and long form however is different from language to language. In Latvian the use of the long form indicates that the whole noun phrase is definite; e.g. after demonstrative or possessive pronouns only the long form is possible, as in mana maza¯ (*maza) ma¯sa ‘my little sister’. Thus, after a determining specifier genitive, only the long form should be grammatical. This is in fact the case: (39) a.

ze¯n-a jaun-ais kre¯sls boy-gen new-nom.def chair ‘the boy’s new chair’ b. *ze¯n-a jaun-s kre¯sls boy-gen new-nom.indef chair c. jaun-ais ze¯n-a kre¯sls new-nom.def boy-gen chair ‘the new boy’s chair’ d. jaun-s ze¯n-a kre¯sls new-nom.indef boy-gen chair ‘a new boy’s chair’

In the opposite order — adjective before genitive — both adjective forms are possible: (39c) marks jaunais more evidently than (39a); (39d) is only possible if ze¯na is interpreted as a descriptive genitive, not identifying a specific chair, but a certain class of chairs. The descriptive genitive interpretation is also available for (39c). Compared with (39d), a specific boy’s chair is identified here by the definite adjective jaunais.13 There is a similar phenomenon in Swedish in connection with inserted

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genitives (see Koptjevskaja-Tamm to appear). In a noun phrase that is indefinite by itself (as indicated by the indefinite article), an adjective that precedes the genitive is indefinite too (i.e. in accordance with the definiteness status of the whole phrase). If it follows the genitive, however, it has to take the definite marker: (40) Swedish a. en väldig kött-et-s man a:comm huge:comm.indef flesh-def.neut-gen man ‘a mighty man of flesh’ b. en hus-et-s olycklig-e kronprins a:comm house-def.neut-gen unhappy-def.masc crown.prince ‘an unhappy crown prince of the house’ (Koptjevskaja-Tamm to appear)

3.2.3Combinability There are some combinability restrictions for specifier genitives in Latvian as compared to Finnish. As seen in (39) adjectives that modify the same head as a specifier genitive appear only in the definite form because of the definiteness effect of the genitive. Then examples like (21a) are only barely acceptable because in general they are overspecified: a specifier genitive cannot be combined with two contrasting elements like a demonstrative and a possessive pronoun at the same time. Otherwise, the same distinction in possible combinations between specifier and descriptive genitives as in Finnish can be observed. As expected, only the specifier genitive, and not the descriptive genitive can combine freely with adjectival attributes of its own in Latvian: (41) a. b.

c.

uz galda skaista gald-a sega on table beautiful table-gen cloth uz galda skaista galdsega on table beautiful tablecloth ‘there is a beautiful tablecloth on the table’ skaist-a¯ gald-a sega beautiful-gen.def table-gen cloth ‘a cloth of the beautiful table’

It is impossible to read (41c) with a descriptive genitive interpretation. Of course, it has the irrelevant meaning ‘the beautiful tablecloth’, where skaista¯ is taken as a definite nominative form. As in Finnish, a phrase with a descriptive genitive is often interpreted as a compound. In fact, as shown in (41b) in certain cases Latvian forms true compounds (the compound galdauts is, however, more current in modern Latvian) in parallel to genitive constructions. In Latvian, too, it is possible to distinguish between the two based on the stress pattern. But most often, there is also a formal distinction: in compounds, the first component usually appears in the bare stem form.

Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages

3.3 Lithuanian The situation is quite different in Lithuanian. In this language, it is much more difficult to make the distinction between specifier genitive and descriptive genitive based on the criteria discussed above. Nevertheless Lithuanian, too, uses genitives everywhere the other languages had used a genitive. Although Lithuanian genitives can be used both referentially — i.e. to denote specific entities (as is characteristic for specifier genitives) — and non-referentially — i.e. to denote a class or category of related entities denoted by the head noun (as is characteristic for descriptive genitives) — there is little evidence that Lithuanian distinguishes between two syntactical genitive positions. First, the relative position of the two genitives is not fixed. The non-referential genitive does not necessarily precede the head noun immediately, as seen in (35b), where it is even followed by a referential genitive expressing possession. Lithuanian word order is thus freer than that of the other languages. However, as Lithuanian genitives have an unusually wide range of application, leading to a higher than average frequency of genitives, there are some cases where one of the generally possible word orders is disallowed (or at least discouraged), because its most natural interpretation would not be the intended one. Then we have in effect a fixed word order, which may or may not be the same as in the other languages. Second, as was pointed out by Payne (1993: 2), in Lithuanian, genitives do not induce a definiteness effect, in contrast to the other languages. E.g., the difference between ke˙de˙s žalia koja and žalia ke˙de˙s koja ‘a/the green leg of a/the chair’ or ‘a/the green chair leg’ is not one of definiteness, but depends on the information structure of the sentence the phrase appears in. The form of the adjective does not reveal whether the noun phrase is definite or not, since the long form of the adjective is not automatically used whenever the noun phrase is definite, but only when the characteristic quality expressed by the adjective can be used to identify a specific object within a class of similar objects. So e.g. juodas gandras is just a black stork, but juodasis gandras either means the species ‘black stork’ (ciconia nigra), or it might be used to identify the black one in a flock of differently colored storks. From the three criteria distinguishing specifier and descriptive genitives there remains only the much reduced combinability of non-referential genitives with modifiers of their own, i.e. valid combinations tend to be lexicalized, whereas referential genitives as a rule combine freely with another genitive, an adjective or another kind of modifier. This is, however, a semantic rather than a syntactic restriction. Finally, in contrast to the other languages, there is no special relationship between (non-referential) genitives and compounding. Rather, compounds are lexicalized, and the individual parts do not necessarily convey the semantic content of the isolated words. So genitives are almost exclusively preferred to compounding for the uses considered in this paper.

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4. Conclusion We conclude that Lithuanian does not clearly distinguish between two syntactic positions for genitives. Nevertheless, phrases with two (or even more) genitives occur quite frequently as Lithuanian genitives have a very wide range of adnominal uses. The interpretation of the genitives in such phrases rests solely on their semantic features, where the possessive relationship between the first and the second genitive has the strongest force. In this case the two genitives together are taken as a complex attribute modifying the head. Only when a possessive interpretation is impossible does Lithuanian allow the combination of other semantic types of genitives, and only then is it possible to have two genitives to one head. This contrasts quite sharply with Finnish, where there are arguably two different structural positions for genitives, namely the specifier and the descriptive genitive positions. On the other hand, the range of adnominal uses is more restricted (Estonian behaves almost the same, but has much more extensive compounding). Two genitives to the same head are thus allowed if they can fill the two structural slots. Other combinations, even if semantically unambiguous, are ungrammatical. Latvian occupies an intermediate position between these two extremes. On the one hand, we have also detected two structural positions for genitives, but the allowed combinations of specifier and descriptive genitives are more restricted than in Finnish. On the other hand, although the range of adnominal uses of individual genitives is almost the same as in Lithuanian, grammatical combinations are mostly sanctioned on structural, not on semantical grounds. The genitive is however not as tightly bound into the case system as in Lithuanian; in fact the whole case system is quite severely weakened, the oppositions in the system are much less clear than in Lithuanian, as seen e.g. in the widespread loss of the accusative/genitive alterations (see e.g. Endzelı¯ns 1951: 564) that are so characteristic for Lithuanian, and the shift of semantic content from cases to prepositions (cf. Note 5). It remains to be seen whether, under these circumstances, Latvian could have strengthened the syntactic dichotomy of specifier vs. descriptive genitive under the influence of neighboring Finnic languages.

Notes * I would like to thank Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm for her generous help, providing me with several papers I would not have gotten otherwise, and for her helpful comments to earlier versions of this paper. Very special thanks go to my informants Ramune˙ Dainoriene˙, Egida Matulioniene˙ and Raimondas Matulionis (Lithuanian), Andris Pe¯tersons (Latvian), and Natal’ja Gluxova (Mari).

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I am also grateful to Jan Peter Locher and Bernhard Wälchli for their valuable comments and discussions. Where nothing else is indicated, the examples are taken from the questionnaire on genitives and nominal attribution by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (for Finnish and Estonian) or are provided by the informants. 1. For Finnish see e.g. Jokinen (1991:5): “Premodifiers, except genitives, agree with the head noun in case and number, and their order is fixed: adjectives occur closest to the head noun, quantifiers precede determiners [i.e. adjectives], and determiners precede quantifiers.” 2. In all languages there are also alternatives available explicitly expressing ‘belonging to’ with a present active participle, e.g. Lith mergaitei priklausantis šuo, Est tüdrukule kuuluv koer ‘the dog belonging to the girl’. Constructions with kuuluv are normally used only when the possessor is human and the possessee non-human (Haldur Õim, answering the questionnaire of M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm). In Estonian and Finnish they are less marked than corresponding constructions in Lithuanian or Latvian. 3. Latvian has three larger dialects (low, middle, high) called dialekti, each one divided into a considerable number of subdialects called izloksnes. 4. In Lith geležinkelis, the first part is built from the adjective geležinis rather than from the noun geležis ‘iron’. 5. In a regional isogloss the morphological plural of the word ‘wheel’ is used to denote ‘car’, cf. Ltv. rats/rati, Liv. rat/ra¯tõd, Est. ratas/rattad, Fin. ratas/rattaat. In Livonian, the genitive of the adjective is used as a general oblique case with nouns in the translative-comitative, i.e. there is only incomplete agreement between adjectives and nouns. In Latvian, the instrumental is homophonous with the accusative in the singular and with the dative in the plural. All prepositions are combined with the dative/instrumental in the plural, although in the singular they select either the genitive, the dative, or the accusative/instrumental. 6. In some Finnic languages the verbal noun in *-minen (also called the IV infinitive) is also used predicatively, mainly in necessive constructions. In Finnish and apparently in Veps it has two case forms, the nominative and the partitive (Fromm 1982: 115; Kettunen 1943: 41, 501–2), whereas in Livonian the partitive has been generalized (Kettunen 1938: lxvii–viii). As Wälchli (1996: 53) points out, there has been a further development in the Livonian construction (also called the debitive), the ending -mõzt with a reduced vowel being used much more often than the partitive in -mizt. In Finnish alone the IV infinitive may be combined with an agent genitive (in Livonian the dative is used, in Veps the functionally equivalent adessive; the patient is expressed in the nominative or partitive), as in Fin poikien on lukeminen kirja ‘the boys must read the book’ (Fromm 1982: 192), Liv mi’nõn um a¯ndamizt (or a¯ndamõzt) ‘I must give’ (Kettunen 1938: lxviii). In Finnish, as opposed to Veps and Livonian, this construction is very rare. Necessive constructions are never rendered by verbal nouns in the Baltic languages. Special means include the debitive in Latvian and the necessive participle in Lithuanian, both combined with a dative agent. 7. Thanks to M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm for pointing this possibility out to me. 8. In a more archaic style the last name (rather in the genitive plural, but also in the genitive singular) might be put before the first name, giving an ever more precise parallel: Pe¯tersonu/ Pe¯tersona Andra portrets. The same principle is (stylistically neutrally) used in Pe¯tersona kunga portrets ‘a portrait of Mr. Pe¯tersons’. 9. Aukso motinos žiedas could only mean that mother is of gold, probably in a figurative sense. 10. A direct translation with two genitives is not possible in Latvian. An alternative is e.g. daži bru¯ni takša šk¸irnes kuce¯ni, kas pieder Lı¯zei ‘few brown dachshund puppies that belong to Lisa’. In



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both Baltic languages one would probably rather use diminutives of ‘dachshund’ to express ‘dachshund puppies’, e.g. Ltv taksı¯ši and Lith taksiukai, thus eliminating one of the genitives. 11. For the verb-particle cauri see Wälchli (this volume). 12. Due to phonetic processes this principle of formation is not as easily recognizable as in Lithuanian. 13. It should be pointed out that the same ambivalence as in (39c) is observed in noun phrases without adjectives: depending on the context ze¯na in ze¯na kre¯sls ‘a/the boy’s chair’ can be interpreted as a specifier or a descriptive genitive.

References Endzelı¯ns, Ja¯nis. 1951. Latviešu valodas gramatika. Rı¯ga: Latvijas Valsts izdevniecı¯ba. Fromm, Hans. 1982. Finnische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter. Jokinen, Kristiina. 1991. On the two genitives in Finnish. EUROTYP Working Papers, Theme 7: Noun Phrase Structure, no. 14. Kettunen, Lauri. 1938. Livisches Wörterbuch mit grammatischer Einleitung. Lexica Societatis Fenno-ugricae 5. Helsinki. Kettunen, Lauri. 1943. Vepsän murteiden lauseopillinen tutkimus. Suomalais-ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia 86. Helsinki. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 1993. Nominalizations. London/New York: Routledge. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. To appear. “A woman of sin”, “a man of duty” and “a hell of a mess”: non-determiner genitives in Swedish. In: Plank, Frans (ed.), The noun phrase in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. KPN = Doron´in, Al’eksandr Makarovicˇ. 1993. Kocˇkodikes´ — paks´a narmun´: Roman. Saransk: Mordovskoj kn´ižnoj izdat’el’stvas´. LLVV = Latviešu litera¯ra¯s valodas va¯rdnı¯ca. 1972–1997. Rı¯ga: Zina¯tne. Loorits, Oskar. 1936. Volkslieder der Liven. Õpetatud Eesti Seltsi Toimetused 28. Tartu. Lyons, Christopher. 1986. The syntax of English genitive constructions. Journal of Linguistics 22: 123–143. OM = Brižinskij, Andr´ej Ivanovicˇ. 1994. Ojmen´ moro: Povestt’, jovtn´emat. Saransk: Mordovskoj kn´ižnoj izdat’el’stvas´. Payne, John R. 1993. Lithuanian NPs. Ms. Plank, Frans. 1992. Possessives and the distinction between determiners and modifiers (with special reference to German). Journal of Linguistics 28: 453–468. Rudzı¯te, Marta. 1964. Latviešu dialektoloägija. Rı¯ga: Latvijas Valsts izdevniecı¯ba. Saagpakk, Paul Friidrih. 1982. Eesti-inglise sõnaraamat = Estonian-English dictionary. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Band I: Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter. Wälchli, Bernhard. 1996. Letto-livisches und Livo-lettisches: Eine Studie zur Bedeutungskonvergenz im nordosteuropäischen Kontaktraum. Ms. Wälchli, Bernhard. This volume. Lexical evidence for the parallel development of Latvian and Livonian verb-particles. Zajceva, Marija Ivanovna / Mullonen, Marija Ivanovna. 1972. Slovar’ vepsskogo jazyka. Leningrad: Nauka.



Part 5

Typological perspectives



“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”: Partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages* Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Introduction “A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” are both examples of what are traditionally called “partitive constructions” in linguistics. On closer inspection, however, we see that only in “a piece of the cake” are we really talking of a PART of something rather than an AMOUNT of some substance, as we do in “a cup of tea”. In this paper, “a cup of tea” will therefore be called a pseudo-partitive construction. The paper is thus a cross-linguistic, or rather an areal typological study of constructions such as those illustrated in (1) and (2) for Finnish, Russian, Swedish and English (seen in the translations of the other examples). (1) Partitive nominal constructions (PCs) a. Finnish pala tästä hyvästä kakusta bit:nom this:elat good:elat cake:elat ‘a bit of this good cake’ b. Russian cˇaška ètogo vkusnogo cˇaja cup:nom this:gen.sg.masc delicious:gen.sg.masc tea:gen ‘a cup of this good tea’ c. Swedish en kopp av detta goda te a:sg.com cup of this:sg.neut good:def tea ‘a cup of this good tea’ (2) Pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (PPCs) a. Finnish säkki perunoita sack:nom potato:prtv.pl ‘a sack of potatoes’

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b.

c.

Russian cˇaška cˇaja/cˇaju cup:nom tea:gen/tea:prtv ‘a cup of tea’ Swedish en kopp te a:sg.com cup tea ‘a cup of tea’

Although examples like those above are often referred to as partitive constructions, here I will follow the usage adopted in modern syntactic and semantic theories and discriminate between partitive (such as in Example (1)) and pseudo-partitive (such as in Example (2)) (nominal) constructions/NPs. The reasons for this terminological distinction will be given in Sections 1 and 2. As (1) and (2) illustrate, there is considerable variation among languages in the grammatical marking of the substance-denoting expression in partitive and pseudopartitive constructions, ranging from case inflections (as in (1a, b)) to prepositions (as in (1c)) to zero marking (as in 2c). It is this variation that will be the topic of this paper. Also, if we compare the two examples given for each of the languages, we will see another interesting difference: while Russian and English use more or less the same structure in (1) and (2) (involving the genitive case and the preposition of
respectively), Finnish and Swedish distinguish between the two (by choosing between the elative and the partitive case in the case of Finnish and by using or not using the preposition av in Swedish). This kind of morphosyntactic variation will constitute the main focus of the present paper, which will thus aim at answering the following question: –

What is the structure of partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions across languages in general and in the Circum-Baltic languages in particular?

This question is discussed both synchronically and diachronically. The data from a large number of European languages form the typological background for the study, whereas the Circum-Baltic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Belarusian, Polish, German, Swedish and Danish) are analyzed in a much more detailed way, in particular with respect to the changes in their construction types. Finally, the synchronic and diachronic facts are used to draw conclusions about possible grammaticalization sources for partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions in general. To my knowledge, no previous typological work has been carried out for this domain. The order of presentation will be as follows. Section 1 attempts to sort out the terminological mess in connection with the term “partitive”, while Section 2 sets the stage for the study itself, by defining the main terms used in it and formulating its

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main goals. Section 3 gives a fairly detailed account of the situation in two Finnic languages, Finnish and Estonian, which is then used as the basis for more general hypotheses about the structure and development of PCs and PPCs. These generalizations are discussed in Section 6 in connection with the Indo-European CircumBaltic languages, the data on which are presented in Sections 4 (Balto-Slavic) and 5 (Germanic). Finally Section 7 places the Circum-Baltic languages in a broader typological pan-European context.

1.

Various traditional usages of the term “partitive”

The term “partitive” is one of those many traditional grammatical terms, which have developed several, not necessarily related, meanings. Grammatical tradition knows of “partitive usages of cases (e.g. of genitive)”, “partitive case”, “partitive article” and “partitive construction/NP”. In this section I will merely list these usages of “partitive” — mainly to avoid possible misunderstandings as to what the paper actually looks at and what it leaves out. “Partitives” (usages, cases, articles or constructions) have to do with reference to: – – – –

parts of physical objects; subsets of definite (super)sets; definite quantification; and indefinite quantity.

Thus, within the Indo-Europeanistic tradition, the term “partitive” is normally associated with case semantics, primarily in relation to the genitive case. Discussions and lists of meanings attributed to genitives frequently include “partitive (meanings/uses of) genitives”. These terms, in their turn, are used quite inconsistently in different works. Thus, “partitive genitive” may cover: –

–

–

reference to body-parts and “organic” parts of objects: ‘the roof of the house’, ‘the middle of the street’, ‘the lion’s head’ (cf. Pitkänen 1979: 220–222; Herslund 1997) reference to a set from which a subset is selected by means of various nonverbal words (cf. Brugmann & Delbrück 1909: 597–599; Behaghel 1923: 485–498; Smyth 1956: 315–317; Wessén 1970: 25; another term for these usages is genetivus totius), e.g.: – adjectives in the superlative degree: ‘the best among the Troyans’; – numerals: ‘three of the boys’; – quantifier nouns: ‘a section of the barbarians’, ‘an amphora of that good wine’; definite quantification, i.e. indication of the kind of entity that is quantified by a nominal quantifier, a numeral, a quantifying adjective, etc. (e.g. Brugmann &

526 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

–

Delbrück 1909:597–599; Behaghel 1923:485–498; another term for these usages is genetivus generis): ‘an amphora of wine’, ‘dozens of soldiers’; indefinite quantity, i.e. reference to “partial objects” of certain verbs (‘to eat’, ‘to drink’ etc.), normally alternating with accusatives (cf. Behaghel 1923: 575–578; Smyth 1956: 320–325), e.g. in Classical Greek, Gothic and Old High German, Sanskrit and Balto-Slavic.

Note that as we proceed along this list, the original idea of partiality is growing more and more bleached. Thus, subsets of definite supersets may be considered as their parts only at a certain level of abstraction. For the other two cases — ‘an amphora of wine’ and ‘to eat some bread’ — the term “partitive” is in fact fairly misleading. More specifically, such constructions do not refer to a “part” in any reasonable sense, since there is no well-defined “whole” to which it could relate. In this paper we will mainly be interested in constructions expressing the second and the third meanings. These two meanings and the corresponding constructions are interrelated in various interesting ways, including grammaticalization, as will be shown in this paper. Such considerations motivate the relatively recent term “pseudo-partitive”, launched by Selkirk (1977). For Finno-Ugrists, “partitive” primarily refers to the partitive case which may be distinguished in the nominal paradigm of Finnish, Estonian and a few other mainly Finnic languages. As we will see, the partitive case can sometimes function as the Finnic equivalent to the partitive genitive. The “partitive article” occurs mainly in studies of French. Partitive constructions have attracted much attention in modern syntactic and semantic theories (cf. e.g. the papers in Hoeksema 1996), which also talk about the semantic notion of partitivity (Barwise and Cooper 1981; de Hoop 1992) and partitive as an Abstract Case in the sense of GB-theory (Belletti 1988). Now, given this terminological confusion, I will try to define the object of the present study in more precise terms.

2.

Pseudo-partitive vs. partitive nominal constructions (PPCs vs. PCs)

2.1 General: A tentative definition Let us repeat here the English examples introduced above which illustrate partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (hence PCs and PPCs respectively): (1) Partitive nominal constructions (PCs) a. a cup of that good tea b. a pile of Mary’s books

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(2) Pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (PPCs) a. a cup of tea b. a pile of books

Both partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions are noun phrases consisting of two nominals, one of which is a quantifier (cup, pile). Although the same quantifiers may appear in both types of NPs, their role is different: –

–

partitive nominal constructions involve a presupposed set of items referred to by one of the nominals (‘that good tea’, ‘Mary’s books’); and the quantifier indicates a subset which is selected from it; in a pseudo-partitive nominal construction the same word merely quantifies over the kind of entity (‘tea’, ‘books’) indicated by the other nominal.

The two main parts of PCs and PPCs will be called Measure vs. Substance in the rest of this paper. The two constructions differ thus primarily with respect to the referentiality and, in particular, the specificity of their Substance component: in PCs it receives a specific interpretation, while it is non-specific in PPCs. However, as we will see below, there is no watertight borderline between PPCs and PCs, and I will sometimes talk about the semantic space of nominal quantification to refer to the meanings which are covered both by PCs and PPCs. 2.2 The main question of the study The term “a partitive construction”, as it is most often used, actually covers all cases which have to do with a selection of a subset from a superset, and thus includes also NPs with numerals and other quantifiers such as (3) and (4): (3) a. b.

some of that good tea five of Mary’s books

(4) a. b.

some tea five books

What sets examples (1) and (2) apart from these latter is the nominal nature of the quantifier. Cup and pile are real nouns, which, at least outside their quantifier usages, share inflectional and syntactic behaviour with other nouns. In this sense, Examples (1) and (2) resemble other NPs consisting of two nominals, e.g. those in Example (5): (5) a. b.

a map of England a student of physics

For the purpose of this study, I have deliberately chosen to focus on constructions with nominal quantifiers. PCs as understood here are also close to constructions expressing (organic) parts of objects and body-parts, such as a corner of the room,

528 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

the main difference being the emphasis on quantification in the former case.1 In fact, the examples in (1) and (2) look like typical cases of adnominal attribution: the Measure nominal has an attribute introduced with the preposition of
, which is thus the construction marker in English PCs and PPCs. The English situation is by no means universal, as is illustrated by the following Armenian examples: (6) Armenian (Natal’ja Kozinceva p.c.) a. Partitive mi gavath ayd hamov surtch-ic one cup:nom that good coffee-abl ‘one cup of that good coffee’ b. Pseudo-partitive mi gavath surtch one cup:nom coffee:nom ‘one cup of coffee’

We can see that in Armenian –

–

there is a significant difference between PCs and PPCs: the construction marker in the former is the ablative case ending on the Substance, whereas the latter involves juxtaposition (there is thus no overt construction marker); both constructions differ from other NPs, in which nominal attributes preceding the head are normally marked with the syncretic genitive/dative case (Example (7)): (7) Armenian: nominal attribution (Natal’ja Kozinceva p.c.) surtch-i gavath coffee-gen/dat cup:nom ‘a coffee cup’

–

and, finally, the Substance in PCs is marked with the ablative case, which is typically used to mark a point of departure and various types of sources in expressions with the general meaning of movement and separation (Example (8) below). (8) Armenian: ‘FROM’ (Fairbanks & Stevick 1975: 44) im yehphayr-6 amerikha-ic e gal-is my brother-def America-abl is come-part.impf ‘My brother comes from America’

These observations lead us to the main question of the present study: –

What means are used to express the relationship between the Measure and the Substance in PCs and PPCs across languages in general and in the CircumBaltic languages in particular?

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 529

2.3 Nominal quantifiers vs. nouns, numerals and numeral classifiers The expected cross-linguistic variation in the internal structure of PPCs and PCs stems from the nature of nominal quantifiers, or rather, from the conflict between their origin and functions: – –

they are nouns, but they are used in functions which are fairly atypical for nouns.

Thus, typically, nouns are used for reference, or, in slightly different terms, for introducing and manipulating participants in a discourse (cf. e.g. Croft 1991; Hopper & Thompson 1984). The primary function of nominal quantifiers, on the other hand, is to create a unit of measure which may further be counted (Croft 1994: 162, Bisang 1999). This intermediate character of nominal quantifiers accounts for their double similarity, both with typical nouns and with typical quantifiers, e.g. numerals.2 The semantic connection with numerals is especially evident with count nouns, which can be quantified both by the process of counting (ten boys, eighty stones) and by the process of measuring (a group of boys, a cartload of stones). “Pair” is a good example of a word which is used both for counting and measuring: on the one hand, a pair of shoes is a new unit of measure as compared to shoes; on the other hand, pair has a precise numerical value — a pair of shoes consists of exactly two shoes. In the next sections we will see numerous examples of nominal quantifiers which show various degrees of association with or alienation from nouns and numerals in their inflectional and syntactic behaviour. Somewhat schematically we can represent this double-sided nature of nominal quantifiers in the following way: typical nouns

originate as function as ¨ nominal quantifiers Æ typical quantifiers

It has been repeatedly stated that there is a semantic distinction between nominal quantifiers/measures and numeral classifiers in such languages as Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese. Measures “create” units to be counted for those entities that either do not come in “natural units” (like mass nouns), or come in “different units” (cf. six bunches of carrots, two rows of trees and three fronds of a palm). Classifiers, on the other hand, actualize the semantic boundaries of a given count noun by designating its “natural unit”, e.g. in Hmong ib tug neeg ‘one classifier person’ or ib rab riam ‘one classifier knife’ (Bisang 1999: 115–118; Croft 1994: 162–163). In practice there is no sharp border between the two. And although European languages do not normally resort to numeral classifiers, comparable examples do occur in them. Thus, in Finnish the word kappale ‘piece’ may be used in counting individuals, as in kaksi kappaletta poikia ‘two (pieces of) boys:prtv.pl’ (Alho 1992:7),

530 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

and the same concerns the word styck(e) ‘piece’ in Swedish; such examples, however, are very rare, in contrast to the case of genuine numeral classifiers which are more or less obligatory in numeral constructions. Pair is again a good example of a measure word which has certain classifier-like uses in combination with nouns of the pluralia tantum kind: thus, even though scissors and trousers do come in natural units and are countable, the corresponding nouns have to be accompanied with pair when occurring in numeral constructions (three pairs of trousers). Semantically, the class of measure nominals/quantifier nouns is quite heterogeneous, and different classifications have been suggested in linguistic works (e.g. Eschenbach 1993). The following non-exhaustive list presents the major semantic subtypes of measure nouns: – – – – – – –

Conventionalized measures: a litre of milk, a kilo of apples Abstract quantity nouns: a large amount of apples Containers: a cup of tea, a pail of apples Fractions/parts: a slice of bread, a quarter of an hour, a large section of students Quantums (for mass nouns): a lump of sugar, a drop of milk Collections (for count nouns): a group of students, a herd of sheep Forms (both for mass and count nouns): a pile of sand/bricks, a bouquet of roses

We would thus expect that, even within one and the same language, there may be a certain degree of variation in the structure of (P)PCs matching these semantic differences. (Pseudo-)Partitive meanings can also be occasionally attributed to some expressions which normally lack this interpretation. Thus, correspondences to both a coffee cup and a cup with coffee in language after language have been reported to be sometimes used in the meaning of ‘a cup of coffee’. In this paper, however, we will restrict ourselves to major, standard patterns of (P)PCs across languages. There are also very interesting connections between constructions with nominal quantifiers and quantifying constructions with words like “many”, as well as between (P)PCs and verbal total vs. partial objects. These, however, will be more or less left out in the present paper. 3.

Finnic

3.1 General In Finnish and Estonian the semantic space of nominal quantification is divided between two main constructions, which differ in the case-marking of the Substance: the partitive vs. elative case. The synchronic division of labour between the two in Finnish is analyzed in Section 3.1; this analysis underlies the hypothesis about the grammaticalization path from separative /ablative-like constructions to PCs to PPCs suggested in Section 3.2. PPCs in Finnish and, especially, in Estonian also

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”

share a number of peculiarities with numeral constructions, which, in turn, invites further generalization about possible grammaticalization connections between the two, as suggested in Section 3.3. 3.2 Finnish: Constructions with nominal quantifiers In Finnish, PPCs and PCs involve partitive case marking on the Substance (Example (9a–b)). In PCs the Substance can sometimes be marked with the elative case (Example (9c)). In both instances, the Substance normally follows the Measure (but cf. below, Example (12)): (9) Finnish (Päivi Juvonen p.c.) a. Osta säkki perunoita! buy:imp.2sg sack:nom potato:prtv.pl ‘Buy a sack of potatoes!’ b. Anna minulle pala tätä hyvää kakkua / give me:all bit:nom this:prtv good:prtv cake:prtv / litra tuoretta maitoa-si. litre:nom fresh:prtv milk:prtv-2sg.poss ‘Give me a bit of this good cake /a litre of your fresh milk.’ c. Anna minulle pala tästä hyvästä give me:all bit:nom this:elat good:elat kakusta / litra tuoreesta maidosta-si cake:elat / litre:nom fresh:elat milk:elat-2sg.poss ‘Give me a bit of this good cake/a litre of your fresh milk.’

Such NPs differ considerably from typical instances of nominal attribution where attributes precede their head and are marked in the genitive case, e.g. poja-n tuoli — ‘boy-gen chair’ (‘a/the boy’s chair’). Dependents to non-quantifier nouns are never marked with the partitive case and only occasionally with the elative case (cf. Christen this volume). On the other hand, as we will see in Section 3.2, constructions with nominal quantifiers show significant similarities with numeral constructions. Even in the presence of definite determiners, partitive-marked NPs do not necessarily refer to a specific set or a specific quantity, but often receive the ‘kind’interpretation (Alho 1992 and p.c.). Example (9b) above can be interpreted both as ‘a bit of this good cake’ and as ‘a bit of this kind of cake’ and is thus ambiguous between a PPC and a PC. The next example, however, allows only the ‘set’-interpretation (and is, thus, clearly a PC due to the context from which it comes (Päivi Juvonen p.c.): (10) sit se osti ison kasan then (s)he bought:3sg big:gen.sg armful:gen.sg niitä ilmapalloja this:prtv.pl balloon:prtv.pl ‘Then he bought a big armful of these balloons.’ (Päivi Juvonen p.c.)

531

532 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Elative complements to quantifier nominals allow only the ‘set’-interpretation: thus, Example (9c) with ‘your fresh milk’ is most appropriate when there is a definite quantity of fresh milk as opposed to, say, yesterday’s milk (Päivi Juvonen p.c.). Leino (1993) suggests that whenever there is a choice between a partitivemarked and an elative-marked complement to a quantifier, the former seems to be the neutral choice for simply mentioning a quantity of the substance, while the latter somehow involves a part-of operation, treating the substance as a predefined entity in some way. Figure 1 shows the combinability of various quantifier nominals with elative-marked and/or partitive-marked complements in Finnish. Of these words, the word osa ‘part’ is particularly often used, both with a concrete meaning and with a more general quantifying meaning (‘some’) and shows the greatest degree of alternation between elative-marked and partitive-marked complements: (11) Osa poik-ia / poj-ista meni koti-in part:nom.sg boy-prtv.pl / boy-elat.pl went:3sg home:ill ‘Some of the boys went home.’ (Johanna Laakso p.c.)

Fractions, percentages

Parts and quan- Measures tums

kolmasosa – ‘one osa – ‘part’; pala, third’, puolet – palanen, kappale ‘half ’ – ‘piece’ viipale – ‘slice’, pisara, tippa – ‘drop’

Elative only elative

Container nouns

litra – ‘litre’, pullo – ‘bottle’, metri – ‘metre’; kori – ‘basket’ ‘ful’-derivatives:a pullollinen – ‘bottleful’, korillinen – ‘basketful’

Collections joukko – ‘crowd’, ryhmä – ‘group’, parvi – ‘flock’, sarja – ‘series’

¨—————————————————————Æ Partitive both elative and partitive partitive normal, elative only partitive dubious

a ‘Ful’-derivatives are adjectives derived from container nouns with the suffix -llinen, e.g. lasillinen from lasi ‘glass’; cf. lasi/lasi-llinen viiniä ‘glass:nom/glass-ful wine:part’.

Figure 1.Combinability of nominal quantifiers with elative-marked and/or partitivemarked Substance nominals (based on the description in Penttilä 1957: 367–368, 399–400).

In other words, –

elatives combine most naturally with words referring to parts of a whole (‘half ’, ‘a third’, ‘part’, ‘slice’, ‘bit’).

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Apart from combinatorial restrictions, there are other restrictions on the use of elatives in PCs which have to do with the overall meaning of the sentence, i.e. –

the most natural contexts for elative-marked complements to nominal quantifiers are those providing a fairly concrete interpretation: ‘a part comes /is taken away or separated from the whole in a way which has a clear impact on the whole’.

Thus, while Example (9c) is quite acceptable, the elative counterpart to Example (12) would be doubtful due to the meaning of the verb ‘to cost’ which does not readily convey any idea of separation: (12) Kuinka paljon pala tätä hyvää kakkua / how much bit:nom this:prtv good:prtv cake:prtv / litra tuoretta maitoa-si maksaa? litre:nom fresh:prtv milk:prtv-2sg.poss cost:3sg ‘How much does a bit of this cake /a litre of your fresh milk cost?’

These restrictions follow from the general meaning of the elative case and its relatively low degree of grammaticalization in PCs, which will be discussed in Section 3.2. The division of labour between the two constructions is schematically represented in Figure 2.

Partitive constructions

Pseudo-partitive constructions

Substance in the elative

Substance in the partitive

Figure 2.Division of labour between nominal constructions involving partitivemarked and elative-marked Substance nominals in Finnish.

An interesting property of PPCs and PCs in Finnish is the ease with which their constituents are split off and permuted, as in Example (13). Contrasted with the otherwise rigid order of constituents in Finnish NPs, this surprising looseness suggests that parts of PPCs and PCs have originated as separate single NPs, each having its own role in the clause, rather than together constituting one NP. In the next section we will elaborate on this idea. (13) a.

b.

Heillä oli kokonainen pullo they:adess be:pret.3sg whole:nom bottle:nom ranskalaista viiniä. French:prtv wine:prtv Heillä oli ranskalaista viiniä kokonainen pullo.

534 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

c. d.

Ranskalaista viiniä heillä oli kokonainen pullo. Kokonainen pullo heillä oli ranskalaista viiniä. ‘They had a whole bottle of French wine.’ (Seppänen 1983: 165)

3.3 Diachronic developments and synchronic results:

MOTION FROM Æ (P)PC Let us now discuss the facts presented above from the broader synchronic and diachronic prospective, starting with the general properties of the elative and the partitive cases. The elative case in Finnish is primarily used in constructions referring to “MOTION FROM INSIDE”. As such, it is a member of the INNER LOCAL case series which, in Modern Finnish, is opposed to the OUTER LOCAL case series. Each series involves three cases which express STATIC POSITION, MOTION TO and MOTION FROM (see Figure 3 on p. 531). The usage of the elative case has been extended from purely local/directional/separative to other contexts, including PCs. The partitive case is one of the four central grammatical cases in the Finnic languages. One of its main functions is to mark partial objects (and subjects) to verbs, finite and non-finite, where partiality is determined by an interplay of at least three conditions: aspect, scope of negation and quantity. Historically, however, the partitive is, together with essive and lative, a member of the most archaic local case series of Finno-Ugric and was originally used to refer to SEPARATION and MOTION FROM (see Figure 3 below). In modern Finnish, the local usages of these cases are restricted to certain postpositions and adverbs, e.g. partitive: ulko-a ‘from outside’, kauka-a ‘from far away’; essive: ulko-na ‘outside’, kauka-na ‘far away’; lative or translative:3 ulo-s ‘out’, kauka-ksi ‘(towards) further away’. Otherwise this case series has lost its original local function and is mainly used in more abstract senses, e.g. in nominal predication in the case of the essive and translative (Hän on oppetaja-na ‘She is a teacher’, Mehu tuli vahva-ksi ‘The juice became strong’), cf. Hakulinen 1957: 63–65; Denison 1957: 21–22, see also Stassen this volume. Synchronically local cases

Originally local cases

inner local case series

outer local case series

general local case series

static position

Inessive

Adessive

Essive

motion to

Illative

Allative

Translative

motion from

Elative

Ablative

Partitive

Figure 3.Local case series in Finnish.

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”

The partitive case has become particularly grammaticalized in Finnic languages whereas its Mordvin counterpart (called ablative: -do, -d’e) can still be used in a few ablative-like functions (Larsson 1983: 121). An important factor in the development of the Finnic partitive case into a grammatical case has probably been its identification and association with the genitive case of the neighbouring Indo-European, especially Baltic languages, with which it shared some functions (Larsson ibid.: 139–147; Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli this volume). Thus, the two markers of PCs and PPCs in Finnish have actually very similar sources — some variant of a separative case. As we will see in Section 6.2, separative constructions constitute the most popular source for PCs across languages, whereas PPCs based on separative constructions occur less frequently. This suggests that separative markers enter the semantic domain of nominal quantification via PCs, to start with, and then in certain cases may gradually get extended into PPCs. The data, both Finnic and cross-linguistic, suggest the following path of development/ grammaticalization for such constructions: 1. Starting point – Clauses referring to concrete separation of a part from the whole: predicates of separation (such as ‘take away’, ‘cut’, ‘remove’ etc.) combine with two dependents, one referring to a part and the other referring to the whole from which it comes.

‘He cut [a slice] [from the cake]’

2. Grammaticalization of PCs – Extension of “part”-expressions from concrete parts to a larger class of Measure expressions. – Reanalysis of the original construction — the “part” and the “whole” are being reanalyzed as making up one constituent instead of being two different dependents to the same predicate; the resulting constituent can, however, still retain a certain degree of “looseness” and allow splitting.

‘He cut [a slice of the cake]’

–

Extension of predicates from those referring to concrete separation to others.

With these changes accomplished, the former separative construction has been grammaticalized into a well-behaved PC, which in fact has not yet happened to the elative case in Finnish. 3. Grammaticalization of PPCs – PCs can further develop into PPCs. The “bridge” between the two is accomplished by cases like Example (9b), which are ambiguous between the ‘set’ and

535

536 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

the ‘kind’ interpretations. Similarly, “a glass of this wine”, as in “I would like a glass of this wine”, easily receives different interpretations in different situations: uttered at a little party, it is most probably a PC — “this wine” refers to a definite quantity, e.g. to the wine in a bottle on the table; uttered at a restaurant, it is rather a PPC — “this wine” stands for “this kind of wine”, as opposed to the others listed in a menu. This grammaticalization path is represented in Figure 4. ‘From’/ Separation

Partitive constructions

Pseudo-partitive constructions

Figure 4.The rise of PCs and PPCs in Finnish.

The history of PCs and PPCs in Finnish also show two other processes which are often found in grammaticalization: – –

at some stage during the grammaticalization process, the original separative meaning can gradually get lost. recycling: a new marker with the separative meaning can start expanding to partitive-like uses

Each of the stages in the development of Finnic PCs and PPCs finds parallels in a number of other languages and the whole scenario, which accounts for the development of separative case-marker into the marker of PCs and PPCs, looks like a plausible grammaticalization process, entirely motivated by language-internal factors. However, it is highly probable that external factors, i.e. contacts with the Indo-European, primarily Baltic languages, have played a major role in this development. This will be discussed in Section 7. 3.4 Nominal vs. numeral quantifiers: Finnish and Estonian Interestingly, constructions with nominal quantifiers in Finnish find close parallels in constructions with numerals, including the word pari ‘couple’ with a similar distinction between indefinite quantification (‘kind’) and selecting a subset from a larger definite set, cf. Example (13) below: (14) a.

Partitive complements kaksi saksalaista poikaa two German:prtv.sg boy:prtv.sg ‘two German boys’ (Seppänen 1983: 167)

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 537

b.

Elative complements: kaksi hänen veljistään two:nom (s)he:gen brother:elat.pl.3poss ‘two of his/her brothers’ (ibid.: 162)

Now, Example (14b) is not surprising: it often happens that numerals and nominal quantifiers build their PCs in the same way, and this is also true for Finnish PCs with elative-marked complements. Much more striking is the fact that numerals in “normal”, non-PCs combine with partitive marked complements in a way reminiscent of PPCs4 (cf., however, Section 4.3 on the Slavic situation). However, there are also important differences between the two types of constructions (cf. Seppänen 1983): –

complements to numerals are always marked as singular,5 whereas the number of the Substance in nominal PPCs varies in accordance with its countability etc: thus, ‘German boys’ after the numeral ‘two’ in (14a) are in the singular, whereas ‘potatoes’ in (9a) and ‘boys’ in (11) are in the plural.

However, this difference exists only in the unmarked situation, i.e., when numerals immediately precede their complements and both, thus, occur in their usual places. Numeral constructions can be moved around and split off, just like PPCs (cf. Example (13b–d)), but in such situations the number marking of their complements has to be changed from the singular to the plural. Thus, Example (15a) shows the normal, unmarked numeral construction; the word ‘child’ follows the numeral ‘three’ and is in the singular (lasta), while the plural is ungrammatical. In Example (15b–d) the two words have moved around and now only the plural form, lapsia, is allowed. (15) Finnish (Seppänen 1983: 165–169) a. Heillä on kolme lasta/*lapsia. they:adess be:pres.3 three:nom child:prtv.sg/*child:prtv.pl b. Heillä on *lasta/lapsia kolme. c. *Lasta/Lapsia heillä on kolme. d. Kolme heillä on *lasta/lapsia. ‘They have three children.’

In other words, combinations of numerals and their complements look much more similar to combinations of nominal quantifiers and their complements when they do not occur in their most usual places. Another difference between constructions with numerals and those with nominal quantifiers has to do with the partitive case-marking of the complement: –

whereas the Substance in nominal PPCs is always marked with the partitive case, nominals in numeral constructions appear in the partitive case only when the numeral itself is in the nominative or accusative, otherwise the nominal and the numeral agree in case, cf. Example (16) with (14a):

538 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

(16) Hän kirjoittaa usein kahdelle saksakaiselle pojalle he:nom writes often two:all.sg German:all.sg boy:all.sg ‘He often writes to two German boys.’ (Seppänen 1983: 167)

In other words, the internal syntax of numeral constructions is sensitive to the syntactic function of the whole NP and alternates between government (numerals in the nominative and accusative cases govern nominal complements in the partitive case) and agreement.6 The marking of the Substance in nominal PPCs is not sensitive to the marking of the Measure. Now, since most numeral constructions appear as subjects and objects of clauses, this distinction between constructions with numerals and nominal quantifiers gets neutralized in the unmarked situation. Thus, Finnish numeral constructions with the word order “numeral — complement” constitute a construction type of their own which is manifested in the following properties: – –

a highly idiosyncratic internal syntax, and “fixed” number marking of complements, which is not determined by any semantic considerations, but follows unambiguously from their syntactic status.

Both these properties can readily be interpreted as characteristic of highly grammaticalized constructions, i.e. constructions which have reached a very advanced stage of grammaticalization. Permutations and splitting, as in (15), result in less grammaticalized combinations which fall prey to semantic rather than purely grammatical considerations and betray their kinship with nominal PCs and PPCs in the choice of plural marking on the nominal. In other words, all these observations support the view that –

markers of (P)PCs can spread further to numeral constructions, although the exact details of this process remain unclear: either PPCs themselves give rise to numeral constructions, or both develop from PCs. This is represented graphically in Figure 5. Again, as in Section 3.2, we do not take into account the high probability of foreign influence on the development of numeral constructions (see Section 7 for discussion). ‘From’/ Separation

Partitive constructions

F i g 5  The rise of numeral constructions in Finnish.

Pseudo-partitive constructions

u

Numeral constructions

r

e .

Now, in Estonian, numerals behave just like their Finnish counterparts. However,

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 539

part of what I said about numeral quantifiers also holds for PPCs: the marking of the Substance alternates between the partitive case and case agreement with the Measure in the way that is characteristic of numeral constructions. Thus, in Estonian, nominal quantifiers share highly peculiar syntactic behaviour with typical quantifiers — numerals. (17) Estonian (Erelt 1993: 144–145) a. [Kott kartuleid] hakkas otsa saama [sack:nom.sg potato:prtv.pl] begin:pret.3sg end:gen.sg get:minf ‘The sack of potatoes is coming to an end.’ b. Kui palju sa [koti kartulite] eest maksid? how much you:nom [sack:gen.sg potato:gen.pl] for pay:pret.2sg ‘How much did you pay for the sack of potatoes?’

Thus, the Estonian facts show that nominal quantifiers can themselves acquire the morpho-syntactic properties of numerals, i.e. that numeral constructions in one or another way can contribute to the development of PPCs. The different stages in the development of PPCs in Estonian are seen in the following diagram:

‘From’/ Separation

Partitive constructions

Pseudo-partitive constructions

Numeral constructions

Figure 6.The rise of PCs, PPCs and numeral constructions in Estonian.

Table 1 summarizes the data on the internal syntax of PPCs in Finnish and Estonian as compared to that of typical noun phrases (such as ‘Peter’s hat’ or ‘the roof of a house’) and that of numeral constructions. Table 1.

Internal syntax of PPCs, noun phrases and numeral constructions in Finnish and Estonian

Finnish: PPCs word order: quantifier–complement

noun phrases

numeral constructions

dependent–head quantifier–complement

case-marking of complements/dependents: partitive case

−

+/−

no impact on number-marking of complements/dependents

+

−

540 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Estonian: PPCs

noun phrases

numeral constructions

dependent–head

quantifier–head

case-marking of complements/dependents: partitive case alt. agreement

−

+

no impact on number-marking of complements/dependents

+

−

word order: quantifier–complement

Thus, in Finnish, and even more so in Estonian, the syntax of nominal quantifiers distinguishes them sharply from “normal” nouns and can be interpreted as a symptom of their gradual alienation from the class of nouns and association with typical quantifiers. In the rest of this paper we will see more examples of similar processes.

4. Balto-Slavic Circum-Baltic languages The Baltic and most of the Slavic languages (apart from Bulgarian and Macedonian) have retained archaic constructions with nominal quantifiers and use the genitive case to mark Substance nominals both in PPCs and PCs, as illustrated in Example (18): (18) a.

b.

Russian stakan sok-a/ glass:nom juice-gen/ stakan von to-go sok-a glass:nom there that-gen.sg.masc juice-gen ‘a glass of juice/a glass of that juice’ Latvian gla¯ze te¯jas / glass:nom tea:gen / gla¯ze šı¯s garšı¯ga¯s te¯jas glass:nom that:gen good:gen tea:gen ‘a glass of tea/a glass of that good tea’

The genitive case in these uses is, thus, the Slavo-Baltic counterpart to the Finnic partitive and elative cases. On the one hand, the connection between the Balto-Slavic genitive and the Finnic partitive does not come as a surprise: both share a number of other functions. Thus, both Balto-Slavic genitives and Finnic partitives mark partial

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”

objects and sometimes subjects (these uses are much more productive in the Baltic languages than in Slavic) and also play a prominent role in the syntax of numeral constructions. On the other hand, these numerous similarities between the BaltoSlavic genitives and Finnic partitives betray language contacts as their plausible cause: some of the functions shared by the two cases are typologically too infrequent to be explained by a coincident parallel development (see Section 7). However, there is also an important difference between the two cases: the genitive, as opposed to the partitive, is the normal case for attributive nominals. It should also be noted that genitive-marked substance nominals have a broad distribution in other quantifying constructions, e.g. after quantifiers such as ‘many’, ‘some’, ‘little’ etc. Let us look at Slavic and Baltic separately (some more details can be found in Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli this volume, Section 8.3). All Slavic languages have different morpho-syntactic rules for lower numerals (1–4) and higher numerals (see Corbett 1978a, b, 1983 for an extensive discussion of the syntax of numeral constructions in Slavic). The two extremes — the numeral ‘one’ and the highest numerals, like ‘thousand’ and ‘million’ — show crosslinguistically well-attested patterns: ‘one’ behaves more or less like an adjective, agreeing in gender and case with the accompanying nominal, whereas the highest numerals show fairly nominal behaviour, governing the accompanying nominal in the genitive case. The rules for 2–4 spring from the extension of nominal dual forms used after ‘two’ to other contexts and the later reanalysis of the dual; the exact rules differ considerably across Slavic languages. For our purpose, the behaviour of higher numerals (starting with 5) is particularly interesting in most of the Slavic languages (with the exception of SouthSlavic). Together with their Finnic counterparts they share the typologically unique pattern of alternating between case-governing the accompanying nominal and triggering its case agreement under exactly the same conditions (direct case vs. oblique case of the whole NP). When governed, nominals in Slavic appear in the genitive case. However, their number assignment is normally the genitive plural, in contradistinction to Finnic, where the singular is found throughout.7 Russian is alone in having genitive singular government for the numerals 2–4, but this is the result of a reanalysis of dual and nominative plural forms. Thus, as the case was with Finnic, numeral constructions in Slavic show an idiosyncratic behaviour typical of highly grammaticalized constructions. Again it is reasonable to suggest the diachronic link between PPCs and numeral constructions: the morpho-syntax of the latter is modelled, at least partly, on that of the former. Genitives normally follow their heads, and thus (P)PCs look both like typical combinations of two nominals and like many numeral constructions, cf. Example (19) below. (19) Russian a. kilogramm jablok kilogramm:nom apple:gen.pl

541

542 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

b.

c.

‘a kilogram of apples’ pjat’ jablok five:nom apple:gen.pl ‘five apples’ komnata moix docˇerej room:nom my:gen.pl daughter:gen.pl ‘my daughters’ room’

Russian has a few masculine one-syllable mass nouns which may optionally use a form (sometimes called “partitive”) different from their “normal” genitive form in (P)PCs and as partial objects, e.g. vypit’ sok-u/-a ‘to drink juice-gen/-prtv’ and stakan sok-u/-a ‘a glass of juice-gen/prtv’ vs. cena sok-*u/-a ‘the price of juice*prtv/-gen’. These words behave, thus, somewhat similarly to their Finnic counterparts in distinguishing between the adnominal genitive case and the case used to express partiality/indefiniteness. In Modern Russian, however, the partitive forms are used only sporadically (Paus 1994). In Baltic, as in Slavic, higher and lower numerals follow different morphosyntactic rules.8 Lower numerals (‘1–9’) behave like adjectives in agreeing with quantified nominals in gender, case and number. In Lithuanian, higher numerals (teens ‘11–19’ and tens, ‘10’, ‘20’ etc.) behave basically like nouns — they inflect for case and always govern plural nominals in the genitive case. In Latvian, teens and tens are themselves indeclinable, but the quantified nominal is either governed (in the genitive plural) or appears in the case assigned to the function of the whole numeral construction. This latter option seems to be gaining more and more ground in Latvian at the cost of government. Thus, on the whole Baltic numerals govern nominals to a much lesser degree than in Slavic. However, numeral constructions share another important characteristics with (P)PCs — the word order “quantifier–quantified” (Example (20a–b)). The word order “Head–Gen” is otherwise highly marked among NPs, in which genitives normally precede their heads (Example (20c), cf. Christen this volume). Lithuanian allows the same order even with nominal quantifiers, as a marked alternative. However, these word order peculiarities show that nominals as quantifiers alienate themselves from nominals in other functions and associate themselves with numerals and other quantifiers. (20) Lithuanian (Ambrazas (ed). 1997: 587, 703) a. pieno stikline˙ milk:gen glass:nom ‘a glass for milk/a glass (full) of milk’ b. vienuolika vaiku˛ eleven child:gen.pl ‘eleven children’ c. stikline˙ pieno glass:nom milk:gen

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 543

‘a glass (full) of milk’

Thus, in Balto-Slavic we see the same tendencies for “cross-pollination” between PPCs and numeral constructions as in Finnic, even though we cannot always account for the actual historical processes behind these observable similarities. How did genitives come to be involved in (P)PCs? For Balto-Slavic we could hypothesize that these uses of the genitive case were inherited from the Proto-IndoEuropean ablative case which, in these languages, had merged with the older genitive case: according to this hypothesis, such constructions could have followed the same grammaticalization path as Finnish and Estonian (P)PCs (see Figure 1). This, however, cannot be the whole truth, since (P)PCs with genitive-marked Substance are attested at least in some of the Indo-European languages in which the ablative differed from the genitive (even though the ablative, on the whole, was weakly differentiated across Indo-European, cf. Brugmann & Delbrück 1909: 495): (21) a.

b.

Sanskrit gØonam ardhám cow:gen.pl half:acc ‘half of the cows’ Latin amphora vini amphora wine:gen ‘an amphora of wine’ (Brugmann & Delbrück 1909: 598)

Thus, separative/‘from’-constructions are not the only source from which PCs and PPCs can develop. We will return to this problem in Section 6. In Latvian, nouns which denote parts may take dependents marked with the preposition no, ‘from, off’ (cf. with what was said about most contexts for the elative-marked Substance nominals in Finnish in Section 3.1): (22) Latvian ikviens vare¯ja redze¯t [laukumin¸u no [matroža everyone could see [small.patch:acc of [sailor:gen Jura Varapogas kru¯tı¯m]] un uz ta¯m Jura Varapoga:gen chest:dat.pl and on they:fem.dat [dal¸u no [tetove¯ta pu¯k¸a galvas vai astes]]. [part:acc of [tattooed:gen dragon:gen head:gen or tail:gen ‘…everyone could see the small patch of the sailor Jura Varapoga’s chest and on it a part of a tattooed head or tail of a dragon’ (E¯IV: 246)

It seems that no sometimes marks the Substance even to other Measure nouns, e.g. viens piliens no mana alus ‘one drop of my beer’, but such examples are considered substandard and are attributed to German influence (see Section 5.2 on von-PCs in German).9 Figure 7 and Table 2 summarize the discussion of (P)PCs for Russian and Latvian.

544 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Partitive constructions

Pseudo-partitive constructions

Substance in the genitive case

Figure 7.Nominal quantification in Baltic and Slavic.

Table 2.

Internal syntax of PPCs, noun phrases and numeral constructions in Russian and Latvian

Russian: PPCs word order: quantifier-complement

noun phrases

numeral constructions

head-dependent

quantifier-complement

+

+/−

noun phrases

numeral constructions

dependent-head (GEN-N)

quantifier-complement

+

−/+

case-marking of complements/dependents: genitive case Latvian: PPCs word order: quantifier-complement (NQUANT-GEN) case-marking of complements/dependents: genitive case

5.

Germanic Circum-Baltic languages

5.1 General Nominal PCs and PPCs with genitive-marked Substance nominals are well attested in older Germanic languages, which also used genitives in some other quantifying constructions, e.g. those with higher numerals and words such as ‘many’. Modern Germanic languages have developed new types of PCs and PPCs, which have replaced these archaic constructions, either completely, as in Continental Scandinavian (Section 5.1), or partially, as in German (Section 5.2). Section 5.3 suggests possible motivations for this development.

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 545

5.2 Scandinavian Circum-Baltic languages Constructions with genitive-marked Substance nominals, such as those discussed for Balto-Slavic, also existed in the old Scandinavian languages: (23) Old Swedish a. halfw-œn span korn-s half-acc.sg bushel barley-gen ‘half a bushel of barley’ (Schwartz 1878: 125, from Upplandslagen Kk. 6:7, 1296) b. attundœ löter attung-z eighth part:nom.sg attung-gen ‘an eighth part of an attung (division of the country)’ (Schwartz 1878: 129, from Västgötalagen I. J. 7:3, 1220-ies)

Such constructions are completely absent from Modern Swedish and Danish. Archaic PPCs with genitivus generis, such as in Example (23a) from the end of the 13th century, were replaced in Old Swedish and Danish at an early stage by constructions involving juxtaposition of the Measure and the Substance or, more rarely, introducing the Substance nominals with the preposition med/mäþ, ‘with’ in PPCs: Example (24) contains instances of all three construction types. (24) Old Swedish (Wessén 1970: 111, from Östgötalagen Kr. 2: pr., end of the 13th century) [þrea spän hueti-s] ok [en þyn rugh] ok [three bushel wheat-gen.sg] and [one barrel rye] and [en þyn biug]… ok [fiura þyn-i hästakorn] ok þär [one barrel barley] and [four barrel-pl horse.barley] and there mäþ [tu las foþär] ok [þry pund mäþ smör] with [two load forage] and [three pound with butter] ok [fiughur pund mäþ fläsk]… ok [et halft pund mäþ uax] and [four pound with pork]… and [one half pound with wax] ‘Three bushels of wheat and one barrel of rye and one barrel of barley… and four barrels of horse barley and therewith two loads of forage and three pounds of butter and four pounds of pork… and one half pound of wax’

In PCs, the genitive sometimes alternated with the preposition av/af
(which in its turn governed the dative case on the accompanying nominal), as in Example (25a) (cf. with (23b)). The details of the use of av-complements are not quite clear from my sources, but it seems that in Old Swedish they could occur in PPCs as well (Muriel Norde p.c. and 1997: 214), cf. Example (25b): (25) a.

attundæ lot af attung-i eighth part of attung-dat.sg ‘an/the eighth part of an/the attung (division of the country)’ (Schwartz 1878: 130, from Västgötalagen I. J. 14: pr, 1220-ies)

546 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

b.

en alin af goþo kirsko one ell of good:dat.sg woollen.cloth:dat.sg ‘one ell of good woollen cloth’ (Norde 1997: 214, Example (14c) from Kopparbergsprivilegierna, 1347).

These usages are present in Modern Icelandic, in which the most frequent types of PCs and PPCs both involve af
-marked Measure nominals: (26) Icelandic (Delsing 1993: 201) a. eitt kiló af smjöri a/one:neut.nom kilo:nom.sg of butter:dat.sg ‘a/one kilo (of) butter’ b. eitt kiló af þessu smjöri a/one:neut.nom kilo:nom.sg of this:neut.sg.dat butter:dat.sg ‘a/one kilo of this butter’

In older Scandinavian languages, the preposition av/af
was originally used with ablative functions, to refer to motion from/separation from, which gradually gave rise to other usages. In Modern Scandinavian this concrete directional meaning hardly exists. Modern Swedish and Danish make a sharp distinction between PCs and PPCs: PPCs are formed by juxtaposing the Measure and the Substance, whereas, in PCs, the Substance is introduced by the preposition av/af
‘of ’.10 A few Measure nominals referring to collections, such as grupp ‘group’, mängder ‘lots’ can take av/af
-complements even in PPCs, but the exact details differ for the two languages. (27) Swedish a. ett glas vin a:neut glass wine ‘a glass of wine’ b. ett glas av det god-a vin-et a:neut glass of the:neut.sg good-def wine-def.neut.sg ‘a glass of the good wine’

There is also an alternative strategy for PPCs whereby the Measure noun is marked with the preposition med
‘with’. Here it will suffice to mention that –

not all Measure nouns allow this strategy. Thus, for Swedish, Delsing (1993: 204) suggests that Measure words fall into two categories: genuine quantifiers (including conventionalized measures and abstract quantity nouns) and pseudoquantifiers (e.g. container nominals, collections and forms), of which only the latter can take med-phrases; cf. *ett antal/flertal med människor ‘a number/majority of people’, ??ett dussin/tjog med ägg ‘a dozen eggs/a score of eggs’, ??en liter/ett kilo med jordgubbar ‘a liter/a kilo of strawberries’ vs. en grupp/ hop med ungdomar ‘a group/crowd of youngsters’, en bukett/ett fång med blommor ‘a bouquet/an armful of flowers’, en låda/flaska med vin ‘a case/bottle

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 547

–

of wine’;11 while the two strategies are often in free variation, the Juxtapositional strategy is not allowed under certain conditions. Thus, in Danish, nominal quantifiers with the suffixed definite article require med-marked Substance nominals, e.g. en spand (med) koldt vand
‘a pail (with) cold water’ vs. spanden *(med) koldt vand
‘pail-the *(with) cold water’ (Heltoft 1996: 23).

The discussion of (P)PCs in Swedish and Danish is summarized in Figure 8 and Table 3.

Partitive constructions

av/af preceding Substance

Pseudo-partitive constructions

med preceding Substance

juxtaposition of Measure and Substance

Figure 8.Stratification of the semantic space of nominal quantification in Swedish and Danish.

Table 3.The structure of juxtapositional PPCs in Swedish/Danish Swedish / Danish PPCs word order: quantifier–complement marking of complements/dependents: juxtaposition

noun phrases

numeral constructions

dependent–head quantifier–complement −

+

5.3 German Compared to the languages presented so far, Modern German demonstrates a striking diversity of PC and PPC types: archaic constructions with the genitivemarked Substance nominals and two newer types, involving juxtaposition of the Measure and the Substance nominals, and marking the Substance nominal with the preposition von. In Modern German, archaic constructions — both PCs and PPCs — with genitive-marked Substance nominals are used to a very limited degree and clearly

548 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

belong to an elevated written style. Thus, in PPCs, only Substance nominals with adjectival modifiers can normally be genitive-marked (cf. Example (28)). This option is particularly often chosen with Substance nominals in the plural (Hentschel 1993). (28) German eine Flasche guten Weins / one:fem.nom bottle good:masc.sg.gen wine:gen / eine Flasche des besten Weins one:fem.nom bottle the:masc.gen best:masc.sg.gen wine:gen ‘a bottle of good wine/a bottle of the best wine’

Single nominals with the genitive ending are sometimes possible, but have a clearly archaic and poetic flavour, e.g. purpurn sind die dicken Tropfen Bluts ‘crimson are the thick drops (of) blood.gen’ (Eschenbach 1993: 71). The most frequent type of PPC involves juxtaposition of the Measure and the Substance, which is reminiscent of the Swedish-Danish situation. However, there is a special problem here which neither Swedish nor Danish have to solve: how do various syntactic positions which a whole PPC occupies influence the morphosyntactic properties of its constituents? In other words, which of its constituents will inflect for case? This problem obviously does not arise in Continental Scandinavian which has lost its cases, apart from the somewhat problematic genitive. In general, PPCs occur very rarely in positions others than that of subject and direct object, and are considered fairly marginal by native speakers of German, who also differ in their intuitions about their acceptability. Here German has two main options. –

First, both Measure and Substance can agree in case, as in Example (29) below. (29) German: a. eine Flasche gut-er Wein one:fem.nom bottle good-masc.sg.nom wine b. trotz ein-er Flasche gut-en Wein-s in.spite.of one-fem.gen bottle good-masc.sg.gen wine-gen c. mit ein-er Flasche gut-em Wein(e) with one-fem.dat bottle good-masc.sg.dat wine(dat) ‘(in spite of/with) one bottle of good wine’ (Eschenbach 1993: 71)

–

Second, German may inflect the Measure part of PPCs which is seen in the form of the article in Example (30) below. (30) German trotz / mit ein-er Flasche Wein in.spite.of / with one-fem.gen/dat bottle wine ‘in spite of/with one bottle of wine’ (Eschenbach 1993: 71)

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 549

The choice between these options is partly dependent on the presence or absence of modifying adjectives to the Substance — their absence favours exclusive inflection of the Measure. In the most frequent type of PC in Modern German, the Substance nominal is marked with the preposition von ‘of, from’, as in Example (31a). von-phrases occur sometimes in PPCs — when the Substance is accompanied by an adjective (as in (31b)) and/or when the Measure is an abstract quantity noun or a collection noun, e.g. eine Reihe von arabischen Staaten ‘a group of Arabic countries’, eine Unzahl von Flüchtlingen ‘a number of refugees’ (Eschenbach 1993: 74). Interestingly, the class of Measure words allowing von-complements in German PPCs overlaps significantly with those allowing av/af
-complements in comparable Danish and Swedish constructions (cf. Section 5.1). (31) a.

drei Liter von diesem Wein three litre of this:dat.masc wine ‘three litres of this wine’ b. ???drei Liter von gutem Wein three litre of good:dat.masc wine ‘three litres of good wine’

The discussion of German (P)PCs is summarized in Figure 9 and Table 4.

Partitive constructions

von preceding Substance

Pseudo-partitive constructions

Substance in the genitive case

juxtaposition of Measure and Substance

Figure 9.Stratification of the semantic space of nominal quantification in German.

5.4 PPCs in the Germanic Circum-Baltic languages:

Diachrony and synchrony To summarize, the three modern Germanic languages under consideration have developed two main types of new constructions as compared to the Balto-Slavic Circum-Baltic languages, which came to replace, to various extents, combinations with genitives: – –

analytic constructions, mainly restricted to PCs, and juxtapositional PPCs.

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Table 4.The structure of juxtapositional PPCs in German German PPCs word order: quantifier–complement

noun phrases

numeral constructions

dependent–head/ head–dependenta

quantifier–complement

−

+

marking of complements/dependents: juxtaposition a

NPs with preposed genitives (rare) vs. NPs with postposed genitives or von-dependents.

Analytic constructions come from two sources: – –

the markers av/af
and von, involved in the major type of PPCs and, to a certain degree in PCs have originated in separative/ablative contexts; the marker med, involved in the minor type of PPCs and PCs in Swedish and Danish, have originated in comitative/associative contexts.

The former grammaticalization source is by now well known: Germanic (P)PCs with av/af/von and Finnish (P)PCs with the partitive/elative are in a way “local” variations on the same theme, i.e. different language-specific versions of the same grammaticalization path (see Section 3.2). The semantic reasons for the use of comitative markers in (P)PCs are also fairly clear in the case of container nouns. A glass of water is in fact a glass with water in it, and a box of apples is a box with apples in it; the difference, for English, consists in how much content there is in the container and/or whether the quantificational aspect is interesting for the speaker. Thus, when the glass or the box is half empty, the corresponding of-expressions would definitely be out of place. On the other hand, with-constructions do not necessarily imply that there is some space left in the container: if I say Could you please help me to carry this box with apples in it? or Katti put a glass with water in it on the table and started painting, both the box and the glass may very well be full, but the exact quantity is not so relevant for me (it might become so, when Katti starts washing her brush in the glass and the water runs over the edge of the glass). So the development probably follows the following path: containers containing some/indefinite quantity Æ Æ containers measuring a certain quantity Æ other measures Now, what about the origin of juxtapositional PPCs? On first sight, the emergence of juxtapositional PPCs appears to be well motivated by the decay and collapse of the older case systems in the Germanic languages. I will argue, however, that this explanation (at least on its own) is not feasible. I suggest that the association of PPCs with other quantifying, primarily

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”

numeral constructions has led to no other explicit markers having arisen in PPCs. Let us look at how the existence of juxtapositional PPCs relates to the collapse of the older case systems in Germanic. The Mainland Scandinavian languages have witnessed a very peculiar development from an old morphological genitive case to a phrase marking “genitive” marker -s. Also, in the older languages, the position of the genitive differed for different uses — from being free to being rigidly preposed or postposed to the head, whereas s-marked genitive phrases in the modern languages always precede their heads. Substance nominals always followed the Measure in the older languages and do so in the modern languages too, which puts them outside of the domain in which s-genitive markers operate. A straightforward and somewhat simplistic explanation for this development would, thus, suggest that, while nominals in other functions could replace their old morphological genitive markers with -s, this option was not available for Substance nominals; the old genitive case has simply been lost, and as a result PPCs have to manage without any overt marker. In German, the genitive case manifests itself as a morphological marker — but only for a subset of nouns (mostly masculine and neuter nouns in the singular). However, case distinctions are effectively expressed by means of inflecting articles, demonstratives and adjectives which normally accompany German nouns, cf. der Mann ‘the:masc.nom man:nom’ vs. des Mannes ‘the:masc.gen man:gen’ and die Frau ‘the:fem.nom woman’ vs. der Frau ‘the:fem.gen/dat woman’. In fact, in Modern German, only proper names can regularly appear as single genitive-marked nouns, as ein Glas Peters ‘a glass Peter:gen’ (‘Peter’s glass’), whereas all other genitive noun phrases involve determiners and/or adjectives. Genitive marking of substance nominals in PPCs and PCs seems to fit in into this general system: single (bare) Substance nominals are more or less avoided and the best examples are constituted by Substance nominals in the plural accompanied by adjectives. However, even these examples belong to an elevated and written style (cf. Section 5.2 for discussion). The exposé above seems, thus, to show that the loss of genitive marking in PPCs (and PCs) in Scandinavian and, to a lesser degree, in German follows from the more general decay of the morphological genitive and the subsequent reorganization of the “genitive domain” in these languages. However, there are at least two additional considerations that are not covered by this explanation, namely why no other marker has immediately replaced the older genitive marker in PPCs, and why juxtaposition in PPCs extended even to those contexts where genitive markers are normally effectively used. First, the allusion to the breakdown in the case systems provides only a partial explanation for the emergence of juxtapositional PPCs in Swedish, Danish and German. Thus, it explains why Substance nominals can never (in the case of Swedish and Danish) or need not (in the case of German) attach the genitive marker. What is does not explain, however, is why they do not take any other

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explicit marker. That is, other NPs with “old” adnominal genitives, including PCs, have been replaced with NPs involving prepositional phrases or compounding, e.g. the following example of the older genitivus materiae, den Schlafrock echt ostindischen Stoffs ‘the gown of genuine east-Indian cloth’ (Behaghel 1923: 520) will correspond to den Schlafrock aus echten ostindischen Stoff
in Modern German. Juxtaposition of two nominals, one of which was previously marked with the genitive, is thus unique for PPCs — a fact which has to be explained. Second, the general decay in the nominal case systems cannot explain why words which still inflect for case, such as adjectives in German, would appear in the non-marked form in PPCs. Thus, in German, the frequent coalescence of genitive and nominative forms led to zero-marked PPCs, starting in the 15th century, that is, in effect, to juxtaposition. At first juxtaposition applied to single Measure nouns (eine Tonne Holz ‘a ton of wood’), whereas a combination of Measure nouns with adjectives appear in the genitive (eine Tonne gespaltenen Holz ‘a ton of chopped:gen wood’). Later, however, the pattern spread further to combinations of nouns and adjectives resulting in examples like eine Tonne gespaltenes Holz ‘a ton of chopped:nom wood’ (Behaghel 1923: 532). Thus, the older construction with the nominal attribute, the genitive case of which coincided with the nominative case, came to be reanalyzed as juxtaposition of two nominals, that is as a construction type of its own, specifically employed for PPCs and different from normal combinations of a nominal head and a nominal dependent. The question thus arises why the internal structure of PPCs differs from that of other combinations of two nominals. My suggestion is that the reason for this lies in their semantically intermediate nature: nominal quantifiers, although (originally) nouns, are used in functions, which are atypical for nouns in general (cf. Section 2.2). And, consequently, it is not surprising that nominal quantifiers alienate themselves from typical nouns. A clear manifestation of this tendency is the loss of inflectional distinctions for some of the most usual nominal quantifiers (number in Swedish and Danish; number and case in German): e.g. in Swedish två liter/*litrar mjölk ‘two litre/ *litre.pl milk’, tre kilo/*kilon smör ‘three kilo/*kilo:pl butter’, fyra meter/*metrar tyg ‘four metre/*metre.pl cloth’ (cf. Delsing 1993: 204) and in German drei Glas/Gläser Bier ‘three glass/glass.pl beer’ and nach drei Glas/Gläsern warmem Bier ‘after three glass/glass:dat.pl warm:dat. beer’ (cf. Plank 1981: 142–148). The fact that nominal quantifiers take juxtaposed complements can be interpreted as a loss of typical nominal syntactic properties and, thus, as another manifestation of the same tendency. While disassociating themselves from typical nominal-nominal combinations, PPCs at the same time come closer to other quantificational expressions, e.g. constructions with numerals. In a way, numeral constructions constitute a natural focus of attraction for PPCs, as was demonstrated for Estonian (cf. Example (17))

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”

and for Baltic (cf. Example (20)). In other words, –

juxtapositional PPCs in Modern Germanic owe their existence partly to the influence from juxtapositional numeral constructions.

An interesting peculiarity of PPCs in Danish and Swedish is their prosody:12 the nominal quantifier loses its stress, whereas numerals do not, e.g. en skål ´ris ‘a bowl of rice’, en gruppe ´børn ‘a group of children’ (Da), ´två tunnor ´sill
‘two barrels of herring’ (Sw). The same de-stressing pattern is, in fact, employed in both languages for a number of various functions, among others, in verb-incorporating structures like læse ´tegneserier ‘to read cartoons’ (Da) and åka ´tåg ‘go by train’ (Sw) (cf. Anward & Linell 1976; Herslund 1995). A detailed account of exactly how prosody works in PPCs requires much more research.13 Here it will suffice to say that this particular pattern with a unitary stress to the right of the de-stressed unit is generally used when the two formal units correspond to one conceptual unit (e.g. when a verb and its object denote a special kind of activity) and/or when one (or even both) of the units is not used in its literal meaning. Combinations of Measure and Substance nominals seem to share both these properties, though to different degrees for different combinations: the meaning of Measure nominals in PPCs is often different from that in other contexts, and, even more importantly, the whole combination refers to a new countable entity (cf. Section 2.3).

6. (P)PCs in the European languages 6.1 The major (P)PC types and their distribution across

the European languages Let us now look at the structure of PCs and PPCs in a broader, pan-European typological prospective. My database on PPCs covers most of the European languages, whereas the information on PCs is, unfortunately, much more limited. PCs across the European languages show the same “dislike” for juxtaposition as the Circum-Baltic languages, i.e.: –

PCs in the European languages tend to be formed with an overt marker associated with the Substance, where overt markers are either inflectional (case endings) or analytical (prepositions).

PPCs across the European languages show the same two major types as in the Circum-Baltic languages: – PPCs without overt markers (juxtapositional) – PPCs with an overt marker associated with the Substance, where overt markers are either inflectional (case endings) or analytical (prepositions);

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This means that the following logically possible construction types are not attested among PPCs: – – –

constructions with an overt marker associated with the Measure; constructions with overt markers associated both with the Measure and with the Substance; constructions with a “linker” — an overt marker between the Measure and the Substance.

Table 5 and Map 1 show the occurrence of these types in the European language families and their geographic distribution. As is clear from the table and the map, the juxtapositional PPC type represents the unmarked option — it occurs in all the European language families, especially in two clear areas — the southern and south-eastern parts of Europe, where different families meet, and in the Germanic (but only marginally in its geographically most western members). In a few of these languages the juxtapositional type is clearly new and came to replace the more archaic genitive construction — in addition to Germanic, also in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Greek — whereas in most other languages this type has obviously existed for a long time. PPCs with prepositions have a very limited14 distribution and occur only among the most western European Indo-European languages, Romance, Celtic and, to a limited degree, Germanic. In all these cases the construction is of relatively recent origin. Finally, PPCs using case inflection to mark Substance occur in three language families, those with the genitive case in a few Indo-European and North-East Caucasian (Daghestanian) languages, and those with the partitive case in several Finno-Ugric languages. The Daghestanian genitive-marking PPCs constitute a clear island among the otherwise juxtapositional PPCs in this south-eastern European corner with some languages alternating between the two construction types and at least one (Lezgian) exclusively resorting to juxtaposition. Within Indo-European, PPCs with genitives represent an archaic construction, which has a compact distribution among Balto-Slavic (apart from the southern caseless languages Bulgarian and Macedonian) and also occurs in an island-like fashion in Celtic (Irish and Scottish Gaelic) and in Germanic (German and Icelandic, in both cases competing with more frequent and stylistically more neutral innovative constructions). Among Finno-Ugrian languages, such PPCs occur mainly among the Finnic languages and in Eastern Sami (e.g. in the Kildin dialect on the Kola peninsula, Example (32)), i.e. among those languages which have had the closest contacts with the most conservative “genitive-markers” among the IndoEuropean languages. The other languages (including other varieties of Sami) resort to the juxtapositional type, as illustrated by Example (33) below: (32) Eastern Sami (Itkonen 1973: 298)

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea”

Table 5 Language families

Indo-European

PPCs with overt markers Inflection

Prepositions

baltic

germanic: German (mrg.)

slavonic (except Bulgarian and Mace- English donian) Icelandic Faroese germanic: Swedish (mrg.) German Danish (mrg.) Icelandic (mrg.) Norwegian (mrg.) celtic: Scottish Gaelic Irish

celtic: Scottish Gaelic Irish Welsh romance: (exc. Romansch)

Finno-Ugric

finnic non-finnic: Eastern Sami

NE Caucasian

daghestanian: Agul, Akhvakh, Avar, Bezhta, Budukh, Chamalin, Godoberi, Khinalug, Khvarshi, Kryz, Lak, Rutul, Tabassaran, Tzahur

NW Caucasian Kartvelian Basque Semitic Turkic mrg = marginal use of a particular construction type in the language

Juxtapositional PPCs

slavonic: Bulgarian, Macedonian germanic: German Yiddish Dutch English (mrg.) Icelandic (mrg.) Swedish Danish Norwegian romance: Romansch other: Greek Albanian Armenian Romani non-finnic: N and W Sami Hungarian Mari Mordvin Komi Udmurt daghestanian: Budukh, Kryz; Lezgian

Abkhaz Georgian Mengrelian Basque Assyrian Maltese Turkish

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Icea,c

ESam

W/NSam

Far Nor b

Fin Swdb

ScGl

Est

Danb

Wls Eng c

Lith

Dut

Pol b

Grm

Fr

Spn

Cz

Ctl

Rus

Yid

Ukr

Slva Hng

Rmns

Bsq Prt

Mrd Udm Mri

Ltv

Ir

It

– PPCs with prepositions – PPCs with case inXection – juxtapositional PPCs

SCr

Rum Rmni

Alb Mlt

Blg Mcd

Abkh Mgr Grg Trk

Avr Bdh Gdb Tbs Lzg Rtl Arm Asr

Grk

a

Case inXection marginal in PPCs Prepositions marginal in PPCs c Juxtaposition marginal in PPCs b

Map 1. Geographic distribution of the main PPC types among the European languages munn tonne andDaù [v¢erc ja¯vv7] I:nom you(sg):dat give:1sg [sack:acc flour:prtv] ‘I am giving you a sack of flour’ (33) a.

b.

Northern Sami (Inari dialect; Itkonen 1973: 303) stuorra joavkku aalmug j˙a k˙aa˙ lguh big number people:prtv.sg and woman:prtv.pl ‘a big number of people and women’ Udmurt (Pirrko Suihkonen p.c.)

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c.

d.

e.

kyk s’umyk ts’aj two cup:nom tea:nom ‘two cups of tea’ Meadow-Mari (Zorina et al. 1990: 93) kok kilo šere olma two kilogram:nom sweet apple:nom ‘two kilograms of apples’ Erzya-Mordvin (Paasonen MW 2033)) kanst’ t’en’in’ [stopka vinin’e] hand:past.3pl I:dat [glass wine:nom] ‘they handed me a glass of wine’ Hungarian három liter piros lé three litre red juice:nom ‘three litres of red juice’

6.2 The origin of (P)PCs in the European languages As for the origin of the overt markers in PCs and PPCs, the following generalization holds: –

overt markers in PCs and PPCs in the European languages very often originate as markers of ‘direction FROM’/‘separation’ (Ablative and the like).

Section 3.2 suggested different steps on the grammaticalization path “SEPARATION FROM Æ PCs” for Finnic languages, summarized in Figure 1, which can possibly apply to the other languages as well. One of the important suppositions was that the two main components of such constructions, the Measure and the Substance, originate as two separate dependents to a verb and only gradually come to be related directly to each other and build a single noun phrase via the process of syntactic reanalysis. We can thus talk about a clausal source for (P)PCs. In addition to the numerous circum-Baltic examples discussed in the previous sections, Armenian examples (6a) and (8) were just such a case, and the same point is made for PCs by the Hungarian and Turkish examples, and for PPCs by the Welsh examples below: (34) Hungarian (Edith Moravcsik & Beata Megyesi p.c.) a. PC egy liter ab-ból a piros lé-bo˝l one litre that-abl the red juice-abl ‘a litre of that red juice’ b. Direction ‘FROM’ Péter Stockholm-ból érkeze-tt tegnap. Peter Stockholm-abl come-pret.3 yesterday ‘Peter came from Stockholm yesterday.’

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(35) Turkish (Kornfilt 1996: 114) a. PC Ahmet [pasta-dan iki dilim] ye-di Ahmet [cake-abl two slice eat-past ‘Ahmet ate two slices of the cake.’ b. Direction ‘FROM’ Ahmet bakkal-dan iki s, i,se s, arap çal-di Ahmet grocer-abl two bottle wine steal-past ‘Ahmet stole two bottles of wine from the grocery store.’ (35) Welsh a. PPC cwpanad o goffi du cup of coffee black ‘a cup of black coffee’ (Susan Clack, Alan Thomas and Robert Borsley p.c.). b. Direction ‘FROM’ Dw i’n dod o Fangor yn wreiddiol. be.pres.1sg-in come:vn from Bangor in beginning ‘I come originally from Bangor.’ (King 1993: 284)

In the same way as we have seen in the Circum-Baltic languages (cf. the discussion of the partitive case in Section 3.2 and of the prepositions av/af
and von in Sections 5.1 and 5.2), the derivational relationship between PCs and “ablative” constructions is often obscured by various other grammaticalization processes which frequently apply to the latter. More specifically, – –

‘from’ constructions serve as a popular grammaticalization source, e.g. for possessive NPs; and the original ‘from’ meaning may gradually get bleached and even lost in the course of time.

As a result of these processes, PPCs with the prepositions de in most of the Romance15 languages, of
in English and, marginally, von in German look like possessive NPs, but in all these cases the similarities are indirect and have to do with the ablative origin of both constructions. It seems, however, that overt markers in PCs and PPCs do not necessarily originate as ablative-like markers on the clause level. One example of a different grammaticalization source is the Scandinavian ‘with’-constructions (cf. Example (23) and the discussion in Section 5.1). In this case, PPCs develop from noun phrases with a clear noun-attribute structure: with tea is an attribute to cup in a cup with tea, which later came to be re-interpreted as PPCs (‘a cup of tea’), and we can talk about phrasal sources for (P)PCs. In such cases, the semantic changes leading to the development of PPCs do not presuppose the same degree of syntactic reanalysis as was the case with formerly separational clauses which give rise to (P)PCs.

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 559

Also, as mentioned above, there is no historical evidence whatsoever for a separative/directional origin of the genitive in a number of Indo-European languages where it has partitive and pseudo-partitive uses. A similar problem is presented by genitive-marking PPCs in Daghestanian: to my knowledge, too little is known about the origin of their genitive case (unfortunately, I lack information on PCs in Daghestanian). In the absence of relevant data, we should not reject the possibility that PPCs and “possessive” structures can be related in other ways which do not necessarily have to do with directional/separative meanings. “Possessive” structures, in a very broad sense of the word “possessive”, would constitute another phrasal source for (P)PCs. As is well known, possessive NPs across languages show a considerable degree of polysemy and are frequently used to express part-whole and material relations, just to name a couple. The PPC “a pile of stones”, where “pile” is a nominal quantifier, is semantically quite close to “a tower of stone” — both are made up of stones (and thus evoke the relation of material), while the PC “a slice of the cake” is fairly close to “a corner of the room” (where the relation of partwhole is evoked). Preliminary data show that these “local” similarities may result in different structures for the different nominal quantifiers in one and the same language, but the details remain to be investigated. The examples below show that possessive-like structures may sometimes be used as (P)PCs even in those languages which normally resort to other types (cf. (37a) with (35a), and (37b) with (12)): (37) a.

b.

Turkish (Kornfilt 1996: 121) Ahmet [,sarab-in yari-sin-i] iç-ti Ahmet [wine-gen half-3sg.poss-acc drink-past ‘Ahmet drank half of the wine’ Finnish (Leino 1993: 289) tuotanno-n valta-osa production-gen dominating-part ‘the bulk of production’

Figure 10 summarizes the discussion of grammaticalization sources for (P)PCs involving overt markers in the European languages. Partitive constructions

‘Separation’ / ‘FROM’ Clausal sources

Pseudo-partitive constructions

‘Possessive’-NPs

Nouns + ‘With’-attribute

Phrasal sources

Figure 10.The rise of PCs and PPCs with overt markers in the European languages.

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In a still broader typological prospective, European PPCs with overt markers, in particular with “genitive”/possessive markers, appear as very rare, if not unique. Thus, even in the Sino-Tibetan languages, notorious for their multifunctional possessive/attributive markers, which accompany almost any type of dependents to a nominal, PPCs involve juxtaposition. There are, as previously mentioned, at least two kinds of juxtapositional PPCs in the European languages: those that have arisen in connection with the loss of former case inflections and those for which no such development has been attested. I would suggest that the juxtapositional strategy on the whole may be accounted for by the tendency to develop a unified treatment of nominal and other quantifiers, in particular as cardinal numerals. At least for the European languages, nominals are normally juxtaposed to numerals (Hurford forthc): numerals govern their nominal complements, as in Balto-Slavic and Finnic languages, and especially the complicated alternation between government and agreement (in Slavic and Finnic languages) is a unique areal feature (Sköld 1990, who, however, explains the Finnic pattern by earlier contacts with Germanic languages). Interestingly, the morpho-syntactic behaviour of Measure words in juxtapositional PPCs and the mechanisms that shape it manifest a great deal of parallelism with numeral constructions in classifier languages: classifiers start off as fullfledged nominals, but gradually lose characteristic nominal features (cf. Bisang 1993, forthc.). However, it has been suggested that numeral classifier constructions normally go through syntactic reanalysis and end up with the constituency structure [[Numeral Classifier] [N]] which is not normally found in European languages (Croft 1996: 64). The problem is that usual constituency tests work very poorly when applied to PPCs, especially to juxtapositional ones (David Gil p.c.), and more comparative research is needed for generalizations on how the development of juxtapositional PPCs bears on their headedness and constituency structure. 7.

Conclusions: Circum-Baltic (P)PCs as an areal phenomenon

Finally, to what degree are (P)PCs in the Circum-Baltic languages interesting as an areal phenomenon? The data on the PPC-types in the Circum-Baltic languages is presented in Figure 11. For the Indo-European languages, PPCs with case-marked Substance nominals are archaic constructions which had a much wider distribution in the older languages, including the older stages of Germanic (see Section 5). Thus, to judge from our data, a few centuries ago the Circum-Baltic languages were more similar in this respect, as shown in Figure 12. However, cross-linguistically, PPCs with case-marked Substance nominals constitute a fairly unusual option, both in a world-wide perspective and, to a lesser degree, among the European languages. Also among the Finno-Ugric languages

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W & N Saami

E Saami Fin

Swd

Est Ltv

Dan

Pol

Lith

Rus

BRus

Grm

PPCs with case-marked Substance

Juxtapositional PPCS

Figure 11.The distribution of the PPC types in the modern circum-Baltic languages. W & N Saami E Saami Fin Swd

Est Ltv

Dan

Lith Pol

Rus

BRus

Grm

PPCs with case-marking on Substance

Figure 12.PPCs with case-marking on the Substance nominals in the circum-Baltic languages of the 13th century.

such constructions occur only in the Circum-Baltic languages and in Eastern Sami. Thus, the Finnic languages, in their PPCs, are much more similar to their IndoEuropean neighbours than to their Finno-Ugric relatives, most probably, as a result of contacts with the former.

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The cross-linguistic data provided in this article confirm the earlier suggestions made by Kont (1963), Larsson (1983) that some of the functions of the partitive case in Finnic were modelled on those of the Baltic genitive. According to this hypothesis, the two cases had been similar enough for bilingual Finnic-Baltic speakers to apply the same rules when speaking each of the languages. This hypothesis, thus, rests on an assumption that the Finnic partitive and the Baltic genitive case shared some function(s), to start with, and these functions were taken as a basis for identification of the two cases by bilingual speakers. The question is which functions the Finnic partitive could have shared with the Baltic genitive before the two were partly identified. Typological considerations may be of great help in this matter. That is, if crosslinguistically highly marked (unusual) phenomena occur in a number of genetically non-related neighbouring languages, the obvious explanation for this “coincidence” would be linguistic contacts, whereas development of cross-linguistically frequent phenomena in a language or several languages can normally be explained by language-internal forces. Let us now have another look at the shared functions of the Finnic partitive case, on the one hand, and those of the Baltic (and Slavic) genitive case and consider them from the point of view of their cross-linguistic usualness (frequency), as well as their occurrence within the larger families (FinnoUralic and Indo-European respectively). – Case-marking of Substance in PCs: the use of a separative case (or a separative marker in general) to mark Substance nominals is well attested cross-linguistically. In this respect Finnic languages seem to behave like their other relatives (cf. Example (33a) from Hungarian). The origin of the genitive-marking in IndoEuropean PCs is not quite clear — a separative source cannot be excluded, but can hardly be proven either. – Case-marking of Substance in PPCs: see the discussion above. – Case alternation for marking “total” and “partial” objects/subjects: although the details of this alternation differs considerably between Finnic, Baltic and Slavic, there is a considerable overlap here. Cross-linguistically the phenomena are extremely unusual (especially in case-marking of subjects), even though they have partial parallels in other languages. The distinction between total and partial objects by means of case alternation (accusative vs. genitive) is attested in a number of older Indo-European languages; partial subjects are attested too, but to a very limited extent. Within Finno-Ugric, outside Finnic, a certain parallel is provided by Eastern Sami (both for subjects and objects); in Mordvin, indefinite objects to verbs of eating and drinking and a few others are marked by the ablative — genetically the same case as the Finnic partitive.16 – Case-government of nouns by numerals: higher numerals govern their complements (determining either their case or adposition) in a number of languages, even though this is still a relatively infrequent phenomenon. It is also known

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 563

from several older Indo-European languages, at least marginally. However, within the Balto-Slavic languages, including the Slavic languages outside the circum-Baltic region, these phenomena came to be much more prominent: even lower numerals case-govern, in particular their complements, which is extremely unusual crosslinguistically. Nothing of this kind occurs anywhere in Uralic outside Finnic and Eastern Sami, which, in all probability, were influenced by the neighbouring IndoEuropean languages. It should also be noted that the rules governing alternation between government and agreement within numeral constructions are much more similar in Finnic and Slavic than in any of these languages and Baltic. Given the degree of complexity of these rules and their typological uniqueness a plausible hypothesis is that the Finnic system is in a certain sense “borrowed”. However, as far as we know, there were no historical preconditions for such an extensive influence on Finnic from Slavic, as opposed to that from Baltic. The only plausible conclusion is, thus, that at an earlier stage, the Baltic and Slavic rules for numeral constructions were much more similar, but were later simplified in Baltic. – To summarize: of all the above-listed functions of the partitive (formerly separative) case in Finnic, case-marking of Substance nominals in PCs is the one which has almost certainly arisen due to the internal Finnic (Uralic) development. Since the Baltic genitive could also be used in PCs, this function could be taken as a basis for the identification of the two cases by bilingual speakers who would later extend the Finnic partitive case to the other functions of the Baltic genitive. However, even though I wish to make a case for the importance of Substancemarking in PCs as an original shared function of the Finnic partitive and the Baltic genitive case, I would not like to exclude the possibility of others.17 Now, if the general conclusion is that (most of) the grammaticalized functions of the partitive case in Finnic are modelled on those of the Baltic genitive case, what is the purpose of the grammaticalization stories and diagrams (Figures 4–6) presented in Sections 3.2 and 3.3? It would have been sufficient to state that the use of the partitive case was extended both to PPCs and numeral constructions under the Baltic influence, without any further motivation. There is, however, an important methodological point here related to the issue of internal reconstruction, areal linguistics and typology. More specifically, each of the following grammaticalization steps suggested in Sections 3.2 and 3.3 represents a development which finds numerous parallels in other languages: – – – –

development of separative constructions into PCs; extension of PCs into PPCs/structural similarity between PCs and PPCs in a language; modelling of numeral constructions on the basis of PPCs, or development of partitive numeral constructions into non-partitive ones



564 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

In other words, the developments sketched in 3.2 and 3.3 represent reasonable grammaticalization paths which do not need to be externally motivated. In the eyes of traditional historical linguists this could have been a sufficient plausible explanation for the Finnic situation: very often in historical linguistics “the methodological inclination has been to consider the possibility of external causation only when all efforts to find an internal motivation for some change have failed” (Thomason & Kaufmann 1988: 57). And even the fact that the Finnic partitive and the Baltic genitive case share numerous similarities could have received internal explanation — each of the two cases followed more or less the same grammaticalization path. In this situation, only broader cross-linguistic evidence provides necessary arguments for the importance of external factors in the grammaticalization of the partitive case. Although each of the steps on its grammaticalization path finds cross-linguistic parallels, their cumulative effect is unique and is only shared by Baltic (and Slavic). Interestingly, while the same Finno-Ugric languages use the partitive case to mark the Substance in PPCs and partial objects, Swedish, Danish and German lost a similar distinction between whole objects and partial objects, which were marked with the genitive case, just as they lost their PPCs with genitive-marked Substance nominals. Thus, there exists a complicated relationship between the existence in a language of an opposition between whole and partial objects by means of case alternation, on the one hand, and the existence of PPCs with case-marked Substance nominals on the other. This relationship, however, deserves a special study of its own (for some discussion see Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli this volume).

Notes * I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who, in one or another way, have helped me in writing the paper. First of all, to those who have provided me with the data on the various languages used in the paper: Armenian — Natal’ja Kozinceva; Estonian — Diana Krull and Peep Nemvalds; Finnish — Irja Alho, Päivi Juvonen, Johanna Laakso, Riitta Korhonen and Maria Vilkuna; Hungarian — Beata Megyesi and Edith Moravcsik; Irish — Dónall P. Ó Baoill; Latvian — Laimute Balode, Axel Holvoet and Baiba Kangere; Mari — Simon Christen; Mordvin — Bernhard Wälchli; Old Swedish — John Swedenmark and Muriel Norde, Scottish Gaelic — Robert Mullally, Udmurt — Pirkko Suihkonen; Welsh — Susan Clack, Alan Thomas and Robert Borsley. The discussion in Section 3.1 is, to a significant degree, based on generous assistance from Irja Alho, Riitta Korhonen and Maria Vilkuna. At various stages in the preparation of this paper I have benefited a lot from discussions with Vytautas Ambrazas, Jan Anward, Brita Bergman, Bill Croft, Östen Dahl, Kari Fraurud, Michael Herslund, Axel Holvoet, Baiba Kangere, Edith Moravcsik, Muriel Norde, Tomas Stolz and Bernhard Wälchli. None of these kind people bears any responsibility for the possible errors (Pierluigi Cuzzolin and Elisa Roma deserve a special thank for pointing out an error in my analysis of Irish and Scottish Gaelic).

“A piece of the cake” and “a cup of tea” 565

1. To understand the connection between (organic) part of the whole and partitives consider the function of the word part in the following examples, from merely indicating a part of the body-part to quantifying a subset separated from the whole set: The upper part of his face is painted green Æ A part of his face is painted green Æ Part of my books have completely disappeared from my shelves. 2. Numerals, from the linguistic point of view, are a mystical category per se, but here I will refrain from any deep discussion of their nature and part-of-speech properties. 3. The translative, a case marker of younger origin attested for Mordvin and Finnic, has assumed the place of the former lative (-s, -k) in Finnic. 4. Greenberg (1989: 111) quotes interesting anthropological observations on actual methods of counting which provide evidence and an explanation for the close connection between between nominal quantifiers and, at least, higher numerals. Thus, when Basque shephards count sheep, they put pebbles in heaps of ten. When there are ten such heaps, a pebble is put aside to stand for one hundred. In this fashion, higher units become conceived of as objects which are themselves counted. 5. The assignment of the singular number to nouns by numerals is a widely spread phenomenon (Hurford forthc.), also among the Finno-Ugric languages, where it is considered to be an archaic feature (Sköld 1993). 6. With numerals in the partitive case, the distinction between government and agreement is of course blurred. 7. The origin of number assignment in Finnic numeral constructions is not quite clear. According to one hypothesis it may be accounted for by the earlier neutralization of number in the Finnic oblique cases. When the distinction between singular and plural was later introduced into the paradign of oblique cases, it did not “hit” highly grammaticalized numeral constructions (similar resistance to younger morpho-syntactic rules is typical of old, highly grammaticalized constructions in general). Another explanation motivates the singular number by considerations of economy (a numeral by itself signals that the noun it combines with refers to plural objects), as well as by genetic factors: nouns in the singular appear in numeral constructions in most of the other Uralic languages, even though the construction itself is different. 8. Note that the terms ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ are slightly misleading. Only the last digit in a numeral counts for morpho-syntactic rules in Slavic and Baltic, thus, ‘322’ is a ‘lower’ numeral, whereas ‘20’ is ‘higher’ numeral. Teens are always higher numerals. 9. I am grateful to Baiba Kangere for drawing my attention to this construction in Latvian and providing me with relevant examples. 10. In Northern Swedish local vernaculars, prepositions are sometimes found also in PPCs. Cf. Dalecarlian (Älvdalen) An tsjyöpt tau tsijlo åv mjöli ‘He bought two kilos of flour’. 11. Cf. this with Example (22) from Old Swedish where mäþ occurs after pund
‘pound’. 12. I am grateful to Michael Herslund for drawing my attention to this fact. 13. Pragmatic considerations and, in particular, a degree of lexicalization/novelty play a considerable role here. Thus, even very lexicalized numeral expressions may be pronounced with the same unitary stress pattern, e.g. tio Guds bud
‘the ten commandments’. On the other hand, less usual PPCs of the type en hink vin ‘a pail of wine’, though perfectly well-formed in theory, are hardly ever used in reality, which makes it difficult to find a natural context for testing to what degree the intonational pattern in PPCs is sensitive to their usualness/novelty. 14. Of course, in terms of the number of speakers using this type and the geographic region covered by it, the distribution of the prepositional PPC type is far from limited!

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15. In Rumanian, PPCs with the preposition de are opposed to possessive NPs in which the possessor attaches the genitive case, cf. un pahar de vin ‘a:masc glass of wine’ vs. casa fete-i ‘house:det girl-gen.det’ (‘the house of the girl’). De is however used as a marker of general attribution, as in o comoaræa de gospodinæa ‘a:fem treasure of (a) housewife’. 16. A striking parallel to the partitive/genitive case in the three above-listed uses of is, of course, provided by the French partitive preposition/article de, which also started off as a separative marker and later, via PCs, came to be used both with Substance nominals in PPCs and with partial objects and (existential) subjects. 17. Larsson (1983:139–147), on the basis of Mordvin data, suggests that the partitive case was used for marking objects to verbs of drinking and eating already at the Proto-Finnic stage, and that this could have been a shared function of the Finnic partitive and the Baltic genitive case. However, the Mordvin ablative case is on the whole a “relic” case in the sense that most of its modern functions are obviously derived from the older more concrete ones which are by now lost. This relic character of the Mordvin ablative case makes it a bad candidate for giving a fair picture of the Proto-FinnoVolgaic situation.

References Alho, Irja H. 1992. Distinguishing kind and set in Finnish. Studies in the Linguistic Sciences 22, 1: 1–16. Ambrazas, Vytautas (ed.). 1997. Lithuanian Grammar. Vilnius: Baltos Lankos. Anward, Jan & Per Linell. 1976. Om lexikaliserade fraser i svenskan. Nysvenska studier, årg. 55–56: 77–119. Barwise, Jon & Robin Cooper. 1981. General quantifiers in Natural Language. Linguistics and Philosophy 4, 159–220. Behaghel, Otto. 1923. Deutsche Syntax. Eine geschichtliche Darstellung. Band 1. Die Wortklassen und Wortformen. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universtitätsbuchhandlung. Belletii, Adriana. 1988. The Case of Unaccusatives. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 1–34. Bisang, Walter. 1993. Classifiers, quantifiers and class nouns in Hmong. Studies in Language 17: 1, 1–51. Bisang, Walter. 1999. Classifiers in East and Southeast Asian languages. Counting and beyond. In: Gvozdanovic´, Jadranka (ed.), Numeral types and changes worldwide. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 113–185. Brugmann, Karl & Berthold Delbrück. 1909. Grundriß der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. 2. Band: Morfologie, 2 Teil (2. neu bearbeitete Auflage. Corbett, Greville. 1978a. Problems in the syntax of Slavonic numerals. Slavonic and East European Review, 56: 1–12. Corbett, Greville. 1978b. Universals in the syntax of cardinal numerals. Lingua, 46: 355–68. Corbett, Greville. 1983. Hierarchies, Targets and Controllers. Agreement Patterns in Slavic. London & Canberra: Croom Helm. Croft, William. 1991. Syntactic categories and grammatical relations. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Croft, William. 1993. What’s a Head? In Rooryck, Johan & Laurie Zaring (eds.), Phrase Structure and the Lexicon. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 33. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 35–75. Croft, William. 1994. Semantic universals in classifier systems. Word 45.2, 145–171.

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Delsing, Lars-Olof. 1993. The Internal Structure of Noun Phrases in the Scandinavian Languages. A Comparative Study. Lund: University of Lund, Dept. of Scandinavian languages, dissertation. Denison, Norman. 1957. The partitive in Finnish. Annales Academiae Finnicae, ser. B, tom. 108. Helsinki. E¯IV 1977–1983 = Silvija Rag’e, Elga Kagaine. E¯rg’emes Gzloksnes V¿ardnica. I–III. R¿i ga: Zin¿atne. Erelt, Mati (ed.). 1993. Eesti keele grammatika. II. Süntaks. Tallinn: Eesti Teaduste Akadeemia Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituut. Eschenbach, Carola. 1993. Struktur- und Quantitätsbezug. Zähl- und Maßangaben in Wissensund Sprachverarbeitung. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, dissertation. Fairbanks, Gordon H. & Earl W. Stevick. 1975. Spoken East Armenian. New York: Spoken Language Services, Inc. Falk, Hjalmar & Alf Torp. 1900. Dansk-norskens syntax i historisk fremstilling. Kristiania: Forlagt af H.Aschenhoug & Co. (W. Nygaard). Greenberg, Joseph. 1989. The Internal and External Syntax of Numerical Expressions. Explaining Language Specific Rules. In: Kefer, Michael & Johan van der Auwera (eds.), Universals of Language. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 4: 105–118. Hakulinen, Lauri. 1957. Handbuch der Finnischen Sprache. 1 Band. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Heltoft, Lars. 1996. Det danske nominals udtrycks- og indholdssyntaks — et dependensanalytisk forsøg. Ny forskning i grammatik, fællespublikation 3. Odense: Odense universitetsforlag, pp. 7–34. Hentschel, Elke. 1993. Flexionsverfall im Deutschen? Die Kasusmarkierung bei partitiven GenetivAttributen. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik, 21: 320–333. Herslund, Michael. 1995. The Object Relation and the Notion of Incorporation. In: Schøslet, Lene & Mary Talbot (eds.), Studies in Valency 1, 1–18. Odense: Odense University Press. Herslund, Michael. 1997. Partitivity and inalienable possession. In: Baron, Irène & Michael Herslund (eds.), Possessive structures in Danish. Fagling-rapport nr. 3, 1–44, Copenhagen: Handelshøjskolen. Hoeksema, Jacob (ed.). 1996. Studies on the Syntax and Semantics of partitive and Related Contructions. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hoop, Helen de. 1992. Case Configuration and Noun Phrase Interpretation. PhD dissertation, University of Groningen. Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1984. The Discourse Basis for Lexical Categories in Universal Grammar. Language, 56: 251–299. Hurford, James. Forthcoming. numeral-noun interaction. In: Plank, Frans (ed.), The Noun Phrase in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Itkonen, Erkki. 1973. Zur Geschichte des Partitives. Finnish-Ugrische Forschungen, 40. Helsinki. King, Gareth. 1993. Modern Welsh. A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge. Kont, Karl. 1963. Käändsõnaline objekt läänemeresoome keeltes. Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Keele ja Kirjanduse Instituudi uurimused, VI: 190–199. Kornfilt, Jaklin. 1996. Naked partitive phrases in Turkish. In: Hoeksema, 107–143. Larsson, Lars-Gunnar. 1983. Studien zum Partitivgebrauch in den ostseefinnischen Sprachen. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Uralica et Altaica Upsaliensia, 15. Uppsala. Leino, Pentti. 1993. Polysemia — kielen moniselitteisyys. Kieli 7. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Dept. of Finnish Language. Mikkelsen, Kr. 1911. Dansk ordföjningslære. København: Lehmann & Stages forlag. Nemvalts, Peep. 1996. Case Marking of Subject Phrases in Modern Standard Estonian. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Uralica Upsaliensia 25. Uppsala.



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Norde, Muriel. 1997. The History of the Genitive in Swedish: A Case Study in Degrammaticalization. Doct. diss., University of Amsterdam. Paasonen, Heikki 1996. Bd 4: Mordwinisches Wörterbuch under Mitarbeit von Hans-Hermann Bartens bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Martti Kahla. Lexica Societatis Fenno-Ugricae. Paus, Charles. 1994.Social and pragmatic conditioning in the demise of the partitive case. Russian Linguistics, 18: 249–266. Penttilä, Aarni. 1957. Suomen kielioppi. Porvoo: Werner Söderström Oy. Pitkänen, Antti J. 1979. Binominala genitiviska hypotagmer i yngre nysvenska. Doct. diss. Helsinki: Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. Plank, Frans. 1981. Morphologische (Ir)Regularitäten. Tübingen: Narr. Press, J. Ian. 1992. The Structure of quantifier Phrases in Russian. Irish Slavonic studies 13: 75–90. Selkirk, E. 1977. Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In: Culicover, P. W. & A. Akmaijan (eds.), Formal Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 218–316. Seppänen, Aimo. 1983. Finnish ‘kaksi poikaa’.Studia Linguistica 37, 2: 161–174. Schwartz, Eugène. 1878. Om oblika kasus och prepositioner i fornsvenskan från tiden före år 1400. Upsala Universitets Årsskrift. Filosofi, Språkvetenskap och Historiska Vetenskaper. II. Sköld, Tryggve. 1990. The Finnish construction kolme poikaa and its background. Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 91, 1–2: 203–211. Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1956. Greek Grammar. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Thomason, Sarah Grey & Terrence Kaufman (1988) Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wessén, Elias. 1970. Schwedische Sprachgeschichte. Band III: Grundriss einer historischen Syntax. Berlin: Walter det Gruyter & Co. Zorina, Zoja Georgievna, Galina Semenovna Krylova & Émma Semenovna Jakimova. 1990. Marijskij jazyk dlja vsex: I. Joškar-Ola: Marijskoe knižnoe izdatel’stvo.



Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages Leon Stassen

1.

Introduction

In this paper, I want to draw attention to a peculiar feature of the encoding of nonverbal (i.e., adjectival and nominal) predicates in the languages of the CircumBaltic area. With the exception of the Germanic languages, all language families present in the area can be shown to display a double option in their encoding of predicate adjectives and nominals. More specifically, predicate adjectives and nominals in the languages at issue may vary between an encoding in the nominative case and an encoding in some oblique case. This variance in formal encoding can be seen to correlate with a semantic distinction, which can be phrased in terms of the notion of Relative Time Stability (see Givón 1984). As a general rule, encoding of predicate adjectives and nominals in the nominative case indicates a high degree of time stability. For predicate adjectives, the nominative encoding points to the ‘permanent’ or ‘inherent’ character of the property predicated by the adjective. Likewise, use of the nominative for predicate nominals indicates class-membership which is, in some way, ‘essential’ to the subject. In contrast, encoding of the nonverbal predicate by means of some oblique (and therefore, essentially, adverbial) expression designates a ‘temporary’, ‘contingent’, or ‘non-essential’ property or class-membership. In short, encoding in the nominative is used to refer to situations which are relatively ‘time-stable’ and thus unlikely to change over time, whereas the oblique encoding emphasizes the ‘fleeting’ or temporary nature of the situation. Hence, it is not surprising that one of the prominent uses of this oblique encoding is in contexts where the copular item is not stative (as it is in the case of the copula ‘to be’), but dynamic (as it is with copulas like ‘to become’, ‘to grow’, or ‘to turn into’). In the following sections, I will first illustrate the double encoding of nonverbal predicates in some detail in different language families of the Circum-Baltic area. Next, I will demonstrate that this double encoding, while undoubtedly an areal Circum-Baltic feature,1 is not unique in the world: there are several other linguistic

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areas which display similar double encoding. As a general conclusion, I advance the hypothesis that double encoding of nonverbal predicates must be seen as a ‘fringe phenomenon’ in the Indo-European mega-area.

2.

Double encoding in Balto-Finnic

Perhaps the most transparent example of the double encoding of nonverbal predicates in the Circum-Baltic area can be found in the Balto-Finnic languages. I will illustrate the phenomenon on the basis of data from Finnish, Votic, and Estonian. All three languages employ the verb olla ‘to be’ as the stative copula for both predicate adjectives and nominals. In Finnish and Estonian, predicate adjectives in constructions with olla take the nominative case if the predicate is rated as timestable. The ‘contingent’ reading of adjectival predicates is expressed by putting the predicate adjective in an adverbial case. In Finnish, the so-called essive case is used to this effect, while Estonian employs a special derived adverbial case form (Lehiste 1972; see (2b)). In addition, Estonian may also use the essive case for predicative adjectives when “there is a specification of place in the sentence” (Diana Krull, p.c.; see (3b)). (1) Finnish a. Tyttö on pieni girl:nom.sg is small:nom.sg ‘The girl is small’ (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 116) b. Hän on sairaa-na 3sg.masc is sick-ess ‘He is sick’ (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 139) (2) Estonian a. Asjad on halvad things is/are bad:nom.sg ‘Things are bad (in general)’ (Lehiste 1972: 224) b. Asjad on halvasti things is/are bad:advr ‘Things are badly (i.e., are going badly, are in a bad state)’ (Lehiste 1972:224) (3) Estonian a. Ta oli noor 3sg was young:nom.sg ‘S/he was young’ (Diana Krull, p.c.) b. Ta oli seal noore-na 3sg was there young-ess ‘S/he was there (as/when) young’ (Diana Krull, p.c.)

Interestingly, both Finnish and Estonian, as well as Votic, exhibit a second instance of this double encoding of predicate adjectives. As we saw above, predicate adjectives

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages

in Finnish (can) take the nominative case when they are constructed with the stative support verb olla ‘to be’. However, in constructions with the dynamic copula tulla ‘to come, to become’ predicative adjectives require the translative case, an adverbial form which is employed, among other things, to refer to points in time. A completely parallel situation can be encountered in Votic and Estonian. (4) Finnish a. Vanhus oli sokea old man was blind:nom.sg ‘The old man was blind’ (Kristina Jokinen p.c.) b. Vanhus tuli sokea-ksi old man became blind-trnsl.sg ‘The old man went blind’ (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 143) (5) Votic a. Tämä eli enneva 3sg was happy:nom.sg ‘He was happy’ (Ariste 1963: 35) b. Hullu-s meni crazy-trnsl.sg go:3sg.past ‘He went crazy’ (Ariste 1963: 35) (6) Estonian Peeter saab vana-ks P. becomes old-trnsl.sg ‘Peeter is getting old’ (Diana Krull, p.c.)

In the encoding of predicate nominals in Balto-Finnic similar double options can be attested. Thus, in Finnish, a predicate nominal may appear either in the nominative case (which is the morphologically unmarked case form), or in the essive case (marked by the suffix -na). According to Lehtinen (1963: 373), the essive in Finnish is used with “nouns of profession or particular stages in life”; it indicates temporary, or accidental functions or occupations. Exactly the same situation as in Finnish can be documented for Votic. (7) Finnish a. Ystävä-ni on pappi friend-my is vicar:nom ‘My friend is a vicar’ (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 115) b. Hän oli siellä opettaja-na 3sg was there teacher-ess ‘He was a teacher there/he worked there as a teacher’ (Lehtinen 1963: 373) (8) Votic a. Tämä on hakka 3sg is old woman ‘She is an old woman’ (Ariste 1968: 31)

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b.

Elin sematehe-nnä Tallina-za be:1sg.past soldier-ess T.-loc ‘I was a soldier in Tallin’ (Ariste 1968: 32)

For Estonian, Lehiste (1972) notes no fewer than three case-marking options for predicate nominals. Apart from the nominative, predicate nominals may select two oblique cases, viz. the essive and the translative. Examples are: (9) Estonian a. NN on meie saadik London-is NN is our ambassador:nom L.-iness ‘NN is our ambassador in London’ (Lehiste 1972: 216) b. NN on meie saadiku-na London-is NN is our ambassador-ess L.-iness ‘NN is our ambassador in London’ (Lehiste 1972: 216) c. NN on meie saadiku-ks London-is NN is our ambassador-trnsl L.-iness ‘NN is our ambassador in London’ (Lehiste 1972: 216)

As to the semantic status of these encoding options, the author remarks: “The semantic differences involved are subtle, but clear: [9a] implies that being ambassador is a permanent (inalienable) characteristic of NN, [9b] implies that NN is (temporarily) in London in his capacity as ambassador (he need not be the permanent or regular ambassador in London, or he may be in London occasionally in other capacities), and [9c] implies that NN is fulfilling the role of ambassador (in an official capacity, but it is not a permanent characteristic of NN)” (Lehiste 1972:216). In conclusion, we can state that the Balto-Finnic languages present a clear instance of double encoding for both predicate adjectives and nominals, and that this ‘switch’ in formal encoding appears to be correlated with a difference in degree of time stability. It must be added that double encoding has been attested for some languages from other Uralic sub-families as well. According to Sebrennikov (quoted in Veenker 1967: 252, fn. 685), Sami has an alteration between the nominative and the essive. Furthermore, some members of the Volgaic and Permic sub-families exhibit an encoding switch for nominal predicates: Mordvin (Volgaic) has double encoding between the nominative and the translative, while Komi (Permic) appears to allow a switch between the nominative and the instrumental.2 Opposed to this, double encoding seems to be absent in Ugric (Hungarian, Vogul), and in Samoyedic, be it Northern (Nenets) or Southern (Selkup). All in all, it seems safe to conclude that, within Uralic, double encoding of nonverbal predicates manifests itself most clearly and consistently in those languages that are spoken in the Circum-Baltic area.

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3.

Double encoding in Baltic and Slavonic

In addition to Balto-Finnic, the Circum-Baltic area comprises languages from three other genetic language groupings. In one of these, viz. Germanic, double encoding of predicate adjectives and nominals is absent: Swedish, Danish and German invariably encode these items in their morphologically unmarked form. For the other two language groupings, however, at least some form of double encoding can be documented, although, in particular for Slavonic, the situation is decidedly less straightforward than for Balto-Finnic. According to Fraenkel (1926: 85), a nominative-instrumental switch for nonverbal predicates is attestable even for the older forms of the Baltic languages, although it must be noted that this switch appears to be more extended in Lithuanian than in Latvian. In Modern Lithuanian, the double encoding of predicate adjectives appears to be monitored by the distinction between stative and dynamic predication of properties. Thus, the stative ‘be’-verb generally selects the nominative form of predicate adjectives, while the dynamic ‘become’-reading is usually encoded by the instrumental case. (10) Lithuanian a. Arklys yra geras horse:nom.sg is good:nom.sg ‘The horse is good’ (Senn 1974: 18) b. Nore˙jo turtingu tapti want:3past rich:inst.sg become:inf ‘He wanted to get rich’ (Senn 1966: 429)

Double encoding between the nominative and the instrumental cases is also allowed for predicate nominals in Lithuanian. For this predicate category, the stativedynamic opposition does not seem to play a crucial role: both case encodings are possible with the stative copula bu¯ti ‘to be’. There is, however, a clear distinction in terms of relative time stability between the two encoding options. “Bu¯ti ‘to be’ has its predicate in the instrumental, when this predicate does not belong to the essence of the subject, but merely indicates that the subject somehow acts as that which is expressed by the instrumental. Bu¯ti then means usually ‘to perform the function of” (Senn 1966: 430; my translation, L. S.). (11) Lithuanian a. Jis yra mokytojas he is teacher:nom.sg ‘He is a teacher’ (Senn 1974: 118) b. Jis buvo mokytoju he was teacher:inst.sg ‘He was (working as) a teacher’ (Senn 1974: 118)

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In short, we can conclude that, among the Baltic languages, at least Lithuanian parallels the Balto-Finnic languages in essential respects: both predicate adjectives and nominals exhibit a nominative-instrumental switch, and this switch is governed by either the stative-dynamic distinction or the permanent-contingent distinction. With respect to the Slavonic languages of the Circum-Baltic area, however, matters are considerably less clear. The two Slavonic languages which I have considered, viz., Polish and Russian, do feature a nominative-instrumental switch for nonverbal predicates, but the conditions under which this switch may occur are rather opaque, and cannot be defined exclusively in terms of relative time stability. In Polish, predicative adjectives and nominals can always be constructed with the multi-rooted support verb byc´ ‘to be’ (with the form jest for 3sg.pres). There is, however, an optional zero copula construction in the third person singular of the present tense. Now, with regard to the encoding of predicative adjectives in Polish, the following rules appear to hold. When they are encoded by the zero copula, predicative adjectives invariably take the nominative case. However, when predicative adjectives occur in constructions with the copular verb byc´, they may select either the nominative case or the instrumental case. Selection of this latter option is particularly common when the adjective indicates a temporary state or an accidental property (Meckelein 1926: 125). (12) Polish a. Ona młodsza 3sg.fem.nom younger:fem.sg.nom ‘She is younger’ (Meckelein 1926: 49) b. Dom jest nowy house:sg.nom is new:masc.sg.nom ‘The house is new’ (Meckelein 1926: 45) c. Mój brat jest chorym my brother:sg.nom is ill:masc.sg.inst ‘My brother is ill’ (Meckelein 1926: 125)

With predicate nominals, the same formal conditions hold. That is, the use of a zero copula always leads to nominative encoding, while with the lexical copula a switch between nominative and instrumental case is possible: (13) Polish a. On jest z˙oRnierz he is soldier:nom.sg ‘He is a soldier’ (Grappin 1963: 127) b. On jest z˙oRnierz-em he is soldier-inst.sg ‘He is a soldier’ (Grappin 1963: 127)

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With regard to the conditions which govern the selection of either (10a) or (10b), the sources which I have consulted on Polish present a somewhat fragmentated, “fuzzy”, picture. Some grammars and textbooks indicate that the by now familiar semantic distinction between permanency and contingency is at least part of the story. A relevant quotation is the following: “The predicate is in the nominative when it identifies an object, that is, designates an individual quality, and it is in the instrumental when it classifies the object, that is, when it marks a characteristic quality of a category […] The instrumental indicates group membership, titles, professions, nationalities” (Grappin 1963: 126–7; my translation, L. S.). Also, Brooks (1975: 368) states that “The predicate noun may occur in the nominative case when the permanent quality of the object in question is emphasized” (Brooks 1975: 368). Notwithstanding this, however, it is also clear that the choice between a nominative or instrumental encoding is influenced by other, probably not semantic, factors. Thus, there appears to be a marked difference in frequency: Grappin (1963: 126) notes that the instrumental is the most frequent option in modern Polish. Furthermore, there are formal contexts in which one of the options is explicitly forbidden. Meckelein (1926: 125) states that the instrumental is obligatory in the imperative, future, and conditional. Grappin (1963: 126) and Brooks (1975: 368) describe a context in which the nominative is obligatory; this is the case when the predicate nominal is a proper name, or when the sentence is identificational, featuring the pro-copula to. (14) Polish a. Ja jestem Piotr 1sg am P.:nom ‘I am Piotr’ (Grappin 1963: 126) b. Warszawa to stolica Polski W. cop capital Poland.gen ‘Warsaw is the capital of Poland’ (Stone 1980: 22)

All in all, then, it must be concluded that the nominative-instrumental switch for predicate nominals in Polish is (or has become) sensitive to a cluster of formal, semantic, and stylistic parameters, in which the semantic permanency-contingency distinction plays only a moderate, and probably not decisive, part. Even more opaque and complex conditions surround the options of nonverbal predicate encoding in Russian. Like Polish, this language distinguishes between encoding with a zero copula and a lexical copula, but zero-copula encoding in Russian is more extended than in Polish: it covers all persons in the present tense, and it is obligatory in that context. Russian shares with Polish the stipulation that predicate items which are constructed with the zero copula invariably select the nominative case. This, in effect, ensures that nominative-instrumental switches in Russian will be restricted to non-present contexts. An example of such a switch for predicate adjectives is given in (15b). The conditions governing this switch are very diffuse.

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According to Nichols (1981: 183ff) the selection of the instrumental is governed by the interplay of various formal, semantic, and stylistic factors, but time stability does not seem to play a major role in it. (15) Russian a. On molod-oj / *molod-ym he young-masc.sg.nom / young-masc.sg.inst ‘He is young’ (Nichols 1981: 292) b. On byl molod-oj / molod-ym he was young-masc.sg.nom / young-masc.sg.inst ‘He was young’ (Nichols 1981: 292)

It should be noted that the encoding of predicate adjectives in Russian is complicated further by an additional feature which is unique to the language. Apart from the instrumental option, there are two ‘nominative’ options for predicate adjectives, called the Short Form and the Long Form. The Short Form, which is illustrated in (16) Russian On molod he young:masc.sg ‘He is young’ (Nichols 1981: 292)

is invariable as to case. A few groups of adjectives have only a Short Form, but most adjectives have an additional Long Form, which is illustrated in (17), and which shows number-gender agreement with the subject. (17) Russian On molod-oj he young-masc.sg.nom ‘He is young’ (Nichols 1981: 292)

Like the selection of the instrumental, the selection of the Short Form versus the Long Form is sensitive to a set of interacting parameters. Some of these parameters are stylistic: the Short Form is technical, while the Long Form is colloquial. The ‘standard claim’ that the Short Form indicates temporal or time-limited predication is dismissed by Nichols (1981: 301–2) as too categorical, although some of the features of the contrast may be interpreted in terms of relative time stability. Thus, “short forms are used in broad generalizations, categorical statements, and general truths” (Nichols 1981: 307), while the following two sentences show the Short-Long Form contrast to be related to the distinction between Description (18a) and Class Membership (18b): (18) Russian a. Èto vino vkusno this wine good:short form.neut.sg ‘This wine is good’ (Nichols 1981: 302)

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b.

Èto vino vkusnoe this wine good:long form.neut.sg.nom ‘This wine is a good one’ (Nichols 1981: 302)

It must be said, however, that other factors such as modality also play their role in the selection of long vs. short forms (the imperative always requires the Short Form), and that, in general, dialectical and sociolectical factors heavily influence the actual choice made by individual speakers. A similar diffusion of conditioning factors can be encountered in the double encoding of Russian predicate nominals. The nominative-instrumental switch for these items (which, as we have seen above, is restricted to non-present contexts) is illustrated in the sentences in (19) Russian a. On byl durak he was fool:nom.sg ‘He was a fool’ (Nichols 1981: 152) b. On byl rebenk-om he was child-inst.sg ‘He was a child’ (Nichols 1981: 183)

It is true that some authors identify the permanency-contingency distinction as the prime mover of this switch. For example, Fennell (1961: 110) states: “The complement of the verb ‘to be’ in the past, future, or imperative (but very rarely in the present) is frequently in the instrumental, especially when a temporary state is implied […] The nominative can be used with past tenses, but tends to indicate a permanent rather than a temporary state”. However, in her classic study on the predicate nominal in Russian, Nichols (1981: Ch.3) concludes that this nominativeinstrumental switch must be seen as resulting from the interaction of a set of independent parameters, and that no single determinant factor can be identified. These parameters hail from different domains and levels of grammar, such as lexical semantics, style, and contextual circumstances. All in all, one can say that a predicate nominal in the complement of byt’ ‘to be’ preferably takes the instrumental; under negation this is even obligatory. Stylistically, the instrumental is more prestigious than the nominative. With respect to lexical semantics, there is a differentiation between “descriptive” or “characterizing” nominals such as ‘fool’ (which prefer the nominative) and nominals which indicate function, role or occupation, such as ‘teacher’ (which prefer the instrumental). Finally, the switch may encode an aspectual difference, in that the instrumental may indicate habitual aspect, pluperfect, “used to be”, “was but no longer is” (Nichols 1981: 155, 192). For this last parameter see the minimal pair in (20):

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(20) Russian a. On byl šaman he was shaman:nom.sg ‘He was a shaman’ (Nichols 1981: 189) b. On byl šaman-om he was shaman-inst.sg ‘He had been a shaman’ (Nichols 1981: 189)

In sum we can say that the double encoding of nonverbal predicates in Russian (and, to a somewhat lesser degree, also in Polish) contrasts with the Baltic and Balto-Finnic manifestations of the phenomenon, in terms of its relative lack of semantic transparancy. While in other Circum-Baltic languages the double encoding is firmly tied up with distinctions of relative time-stability, the Slavonic languages of the area tend to ‘blur’ these distinctions, to the point that double encoding tends to serve mainly as the expression of modal-aspectual, as well as sociolinguistic and stylistic, nuances. It is tempting to interpret this special status of Circum-Baltic Slavonic as an argument in favour of the independent, ‘internal’ development of the double encoding phenomenon in these languages. However, in the next section I will demonstrate that the ‘blurring’ of double encoding, which was once semantically motivated, into a vague, ‘stylistic’ encoding opposition is a general and presumably natural phenomenon, which can be observed in widely divergent language areas.

4. Double encoding in other language areas From the exposition in the foregoing sections I think it can be concluded that double encoding of nonverbal predicates is an areal feature of the languages around the Baltic Sea. The languages in this area belong to four major linguistic families, and, with the exception of Germanic, they all exhibit this double encoding at least to some degree. Moreover, those Circum-Baltic languages which have ‘relatives’ outside the area distinguish themselves by this feature. As we have noted above, the Balto-Finnic languages are the only Uralic languages with double encoding. Likewise, within Slavonic this double encoding appears to occur as a systematic option only in Polish and Russian; it is encountered only sporadically in Czech (see Fraenkel 1926), and in South Slavonic it does not seem to occur at all. This said, however, it should not be thought that double encoding of nonverbal predicates is a feature which makes the Circum-Baltic languages unique among the languages of the world. Stassen (1997: Ch. 5 and 6) demonstrates extensively that some form of this double encoding can be encountered in various parts of the world, among language families which are widely different as to genetic affiliation; thus, for example, the phenomenon can be observed in the Chadic languages of West Africa,

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 579

and in the Carib languages of Amazonia. For the purpose of this paper, I want to pay special attention to four such areas, and show that they exhibit a type of formal encoding of nonverbal predicates which, if not completely similar, is certainly functionally equivalent to the options allowed in the Circum-Baltic languages. First, we encounter double encoding in what may be called the Ibero-Celtic area, which comprises the languages of the Iberian peninsula (Spanish, Basque) and the Celtic languages of Ireland and Britain (Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic).3 A direct parallel to the situation in Balto-Finnic can be found in Northern Basque. Predicate adjectives in this language allow for two case forms, one of which is the morphologically unmarked absolutive, while the other is the partitive case form marked by the suffix -ik. Completely in accordance with the tendency we have noted in BaltoFinnic and Lithuanian, this latter oblique case form indicates non-inherent quality or temporary state (Schuchardt 1923: 13). (21) Northern Basque a. Zakurr-a beltz-a d-a dog-abs.sg black-abs.sg is ‘The dog is black’ (Saltarelli 1988: 62) b. Gizon-a d-a on-ik man-abs.sg is good-prtv.sg ‘The man is good’ (Schuchardt 1923: 13)

The other Ibero-Celtic languages, however, manifest double encoding of nonverbal predicates in a formally different, but functionally equivalent manner. In CircumBaltic, as well as in Northern Basque, double encoding takes the form of an opposition between two different case forms, one of which can be rated as oblique, or ‘adverbial’. A different way to construe this opposition is by using two different ‘copular’ items, one of which has a ‘locational’ function. That is, in this case the opposition is not marked on the predicate item itself, but on the supporting verb: while one of these verbs is a ‘real copula’, the other verb is an item whose primary function is the expression of adverbial (usually, locational) predication. Functionally, however, the two variants of double encoding are equivalent, in that the ‘lexical’ variant typically implies the same semantic opposition as the ‘case marking’ variant does. Thus, the construction with the ‘real’ copula usually designates states of affairs which are permanent, inherent, or essential, while the construction with the ‘locational’ support verb typically refers to states of affairs that have relatively low time stability. While Northern Basque presents an example of the case-marking variant of double encoding, the southern dialects of this language can be used to illustrate the lexical variant. In Southern Basque, predicate adjectives and nominals invariably appear in the absolutive case. Double encoding is effected here by means of a switch between the support verbs izan (third person singular present: d-a) and egon (third person singular present: d-ago). As the example in (22) shows, this latter verb is

580 Leon Stassen

obligatory in the predication of locational adverbs. In constructions with predicate adjectives, the izan-variant indicates permanency of property assignment, as opposed to the ‘temporary’ reading of the egon-variant. (22) Northern Basque Gizon-a kale-an d-ago man-abs.sg street-loc 3sg.abs-be:pres ‘The man is in the street’ (Saltarelli 1988: ii) (23) Southern Basque a. Gela hau hotz-a d-a room this:abs.sg hot-abs.sg 3sg.abs-cop.pres ‘This room is hot (permanently)’ (Saltarelli 1988: 248) b. Gela hau hotz-a d-ago room this:abs.sg hot-abs.sg 3sg.abs-be:pres ‘This room is hot (for now)’ (Saltarelli 1988: 248)

A well-known and frequently discussed case of the lexical variant of double encoding is the ser/estar switch in Spanish. Both predicate adjectives and nominals allow these two support verbs, but there is a marked semantic difference between the options. Use of the copula ser with predicate adjectives has to be interpreted as describing a permanent characteristic of the subject. If, on the other hand, the supportive verb estar (which is typically used in constructions with predicate locationals) is employed, the semantic implication is that the subject has this property only temporarily, and the property assignment may be subject to change over time (see (24a–b)). While predicative adjectives occur in the same form under both strategies, predicate nominals show formal differentiation. When constructed with the copula ser, predicate nominals are unmarked. A construction with estar requires that the predicate nominal be adverbialized; it occurs as the complement of the preposition de. Semantically, there is a clear distinction between the two options. The estar de-construction indicates role, temporary state, or profession, against the inherent class membership which is signaled by the ser-construction (see (25a–b)). (24) Spanish a. Juan es enfermo J. cop.3sg.pres ill ‘Juan is ill (i.e., he is an invalid)’ (Comrie 1976: 105) b. Juan está enfermo J. be:3sg.pres ill ‘Juan is ill (i.e., is now ill, but can be expected to recover, or was until recently in good health)’ (Comrie 1976: 105) (25) Spanish a. Julia es enfermera J. cop.3sg.pres nurse ‘Julia is a nurse’ (Bouzet 1945: 246)

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages

b.

Julia está de enfermera J. be:3sg.pres of/from nurse ‘Julia works as a nurse’ (Max Kerkhof p.c.)

Nonverbal predicate encoding in Irish and Scottish Gaelic closely resembles the situation in Spanish. For both predicate adjectives and nominals these languages allow a switch between the copula is and the locational support verb ta/tha. These items go back to the same Proto-Indo-European roots as Spanish ser and estar. As in Spanish, predicate nominals must appear in an adverbial form, as the complement of a preposition, when they are constructed with the locational support verb. (26) Modern Irish a. Is breoite é cop.pres ill he ‘He is ill (permanently)’ (Greene 1966: 43) b. Tá sé breoite be:pres he ill ‘He is ill (now)’ (Greene 1966: 43) (27) Modern Irish a. Is múinteoir é cop.pres teacher he ‘He is a teacher’ (Greene 1966: 40) b. Tá sé ina mmúinteoir anois be:pres he in-his teacher now ‘He is a teacher now’ (Greene 1966: 43) (28) Scottish Gaelic a. Is làidir e cop.pres strong he ‘He is strong (permanently)’ (Anderson 1910: 236) b. Tha e làidir be:pres he strong ‘He is strong (now)’ (Anderson 1910: 236) (29) Scottish Gaelic a. Is duine làidir e cop.pres man strong he ‘He is a strong man’ (Anderson 1910: 236) b. Tha e ´na thuathanach be:pres he in-his farmer ‘He is a farmer’ (Mackinnon 1977: 263)

As the translations to the sentences in (26) and (28) indicate, the encoding switch for predicate adjectives follows the Spanish pattern: the locational option is reserved for the ‘contingent’or ‘accidental’ reading. With predicate nominals, however, conditions are less clear. It is probable that in the copula construction for predicate nominals Old Irish designated permanent or inherent class membership, whereas the

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adverbial construction was used to express “occupation, profession, or a temporary state” (Dottin 1913: 170; my translation, L. S.) However, in the Celtic languages, the semantic differentiation between nominal and locational encoding of predicate nominals seems to be on the wane in general. On the subject of this encoding switch in Modern Irish, O’Dochartaigh (1992: 41) notes: “ Traditionally, it has been suggested that the difference between the copula and the substantive [i.e., locational, L. S.] constructions here lies in the fact that the former indicates a permanent state, while the latter has a more temporary attribute …. However, it is very doubtful if this distinction would be maintained in the current language, particularly in spoken forms, and it would appear that both may be used interchangeably ”. Similarly, MacAulay (1992: 180) remarks that copula constructions in Scottish Gaelic “… commonly denote inalienable class membership, but this does not always hold”. Thus, it seems that, in a way which is somewhat reminiscent of Polish and Russian, the once semantically transparent double encoding of predicate nominals in Irish and Gaelic has started to fade and has gradually moved into the realm of stylistics and sociolinguistics. In this connection, we can point to the situation in Modern Welsh. This language does not (now at least) have double encoding for predicate adjectives. In the case of predicate nominals, there is a contrast between the copula yw, which takes unmarked predicate nominals, and the existential item mae ‘there is’, which requires an adverbial form for its predicate nominal. In these constructions, there is no longer any trace of an opposition in terms of time stability: use of the copula with predicate nominals indicates emphasis. (30) Welsh a. Bachgen yw Tom boy cop T. ‘A boy is what Tom is’ (Rhys Jones 1985: 87) b. Mae Tom yn fachgen be:pres T. in boy ‘Tom is a boy’ (Rhys Jones 1985: 73)

It may be somewhat surprising to find that the Dravidian languages of southern India show a form of double encoding of nonverbal predicates which matches the options in Circum-Baltic and Ibero-Celtic in almost every respect. Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada all exhibit an encoding switch for predicate adjectives and nominals between a zero copula construction and a construction with a lexical verb: this lexical verb is the unmarked option in the encoding of predicate locationals.4 When constructed with the zero copula, predicate adjectives are obligatorily nominalized by means of a suffix; predicate nominals in the zero construction appear in their root form. The construction with the locational support verb requires adverbial marking for both predicate adjectives and nominals, which may be a suffix (in Tamil and Kannada) or a postposition (in Telugu). In other words, in this latter construction nonverbal predicate items are morphosyntactically treated as adverbials.

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 583

(31) Tamil a. Raaman nalla-van R. good-sg.masc.nr ‘Raaman is good’ (Asher 1982: 50) b. Pa,tam nall-aa iruntatu film good-advr be:3sg.neut.past ‘The film was good’ (Asher 1982: 50) (32) Tamil a. Avaru (oru) dak,tar he (one doctor ‘He is a doctor’ (Asher 1982: 49) b. Ippo oru dak,tar-aa taan irukkaraaru now one doctor-advr emph be:3sg.hon.pres ‘Now he is a doctor’ (Asher 1982: 50) (33) Kannada a. Naan doDDoonu 1sg big:1sg.nr ‘I am big’ (Schiffman 1983: 47) b. Ad hos-d-aag-ide that.neut.sg new-3sg.neut-advr-be:3sg.neut.pres ‘That is new’ (Schiffman 1983: 106) (34) Kannada a. Naan DaakTaru 1sg doctor ‘I am a doctor’ (Schiffman 1983: 106) b. Naan DaakTar-aag-iDDiini 1sg doctor-advr-be:1sg.pres ‘I am a doctor’ (Schiffman 1983: 106) (35) Telugu a. I:-pau pulla-di this-fruit sour-fem.sg.nr ‘This fruit is sour’ (Bhaskararao 1972: 194–5) b. Si:ta andam ga: undi S. beautiful advr be:3sg.fem.pres ‘Sita looks pretty’ (Bhaskararao 1972: 167) (36) Telugu a. Ra:ma:ra:v podugu-va:du R. tall-man ‘Ramarao is a tall man’ (Bhaskararao 1972: 194) b. Ra:ma:ra:v me:ne:ja:ru ga: unna:du R. manager adv be:3sg.masc.pres ‘Ramarao is a manager’ (Bhaskararao 1972: 172)

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Coupled with this formal variation there is a familiar difference in semantic interpretation between the two construction options. The sources report that zeroencoded adjectives are interpreted as permanent, whereas the locational-adverbial encoding of these items points to a contingent, or at least less time-stable, interpretation. The encoding switch for predicate nominals is also readily statable in terms of relative time stability. In all three languages, it is the adverbial option which indicates “contingency, nonhabitualness, a temporary state” (Schiffman 1983: 106) or “role of the subject” (Bhaskararao 1972: 172), against the permanency or inherent class membership designated by the zero strategy. There are, however, some signs that the semantic transparency of this double encoding has started to get “blurred” in at least some members of the Dravidian family. While South Dravidian languages like Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu keep the permanent-temporary distinction largely intact, hardly any such semantic match seems to be observable in North Dravidian languages like Parji and Kurukh. Parji shows double encoding for predicate adjectives and nominals alike: the choice is between the copular item a¯y (which is invariable and probably has a demonstrative-pronominal origin) and the locational verb m.n- ‘to be, to stay, to remain’. However, this switch does not seem to have any detectable semantic effect; as far as I can make out, the two options represent stylistic variants. In Kurukh, predicate nominals5 vary in their encoding between the copular verb talna and the locative support verb ra‘na ‘to remain’. Again, it is uncertain whether any semantics is involved in this switch. Older literature on the language suggests a distinction in terms of permanency, but Vesper (1968: 130–1) is sceptical. (37) Parji a. A¯n vilen a¯y 1sg white cop ‘I am white’ (Burrow & Bhattacharya 1953: 32) b. A¯n eden me˘dan 1sg good be:1sg.pres ‘I am good’ (Burrow & Bhattacharya 1953: 32) (38) Kurukh a. A’s xaluiyus talda’s he farmer cop.3sg.masc.pres ‘He is a farmer’ (Vesper 1968: 135) b. A’s tejgar kukfs ra‘das he bright boy be:3sg.masc.pres ‘He is a bright boy’ (Vesper 1968: 135)

To conclude this discussion of linguistic areas where double encoding of nonverbal predicates can be found, I want to mention briefly the situation in the Dagestanian languages of the Caucasus and in a number of languages from Nepal and Tibet. In this latter area, we find that several genetically unrelated languages allow switching

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 585

for predicate adjectives between the copula, which is the unmarked choice for predicate nominals, and a support verb which is the unmarked option for predicative locational adverbs. Thus, for example, in the Northern Indic language Nepali, predicative adjectives may select either the nominal copula ho- or the locative verb cha-. This adjectival switch is matched by an encoding opposition in several Tibetic languages, such as Tibetan, Ladakhi, Lepcha, and Dumi. The functional and semantic demarcation of the various support verbs in these languages is rather vague, but it seems that some of these items (Ladakhi and Tibetan yin, Lepcha gó, zero in Dumi) predominantly function as nominal copulas, while others (Ladakhi and Tibetan yod/yot and duk, Lepcha nyi, Dumi mo˜) are mainly used as support items for locational predicates. The semantic impact of the switch is equally vague. Clark (1966: 133) states that, in Nepali, there is a semantic distinction between the two options, but the difference is so subtle that native speakers do not seem to be able to make it explicit. For Dumi, the double encoding does not seem to have any semantic consequences at all. In the other Tibetic languages, the encoding options appear to be sensitive to different shades of evidentiality. Thus, a Ladakhi sentence like (40b), which features the locative support verb duk, indicates that the speaker has direct evidence for the truth of his statement (Koshal 1979: 185). Nowhere in these Himalayan cases does permanency seem to constitute a major motivation for the switch. (39) Nepali a. Ha¯mro ghar sa¯nu ho our house small cop.3sg.pres ‘Our house is small’ (Clark 1966: 133) b. Ra¯m-ko pasal t, hulo cha R.-gen shop big be:3sg.pres ‘Ram’s shop is big’ (Clark 1966: 81) (40) Ladakhi a. Ngä khang-pa rgyalla yot my house good be ‘My house is good’ (Grierson 1909: 55) b. Pu-mo rde-mo duk girl pretty be ‘The girl is pretty’ (Koshal 1979: 185) (41) Classical Tibetan a. Khyi cˇhu-ba yin dog small cop ‘The dog is small’ (Lalou 1950: 27) b. Na phyug-po yod 1sg rich be ‘I am rich’ (Bacot 1981: 102)

586 Leon Stassen

(42) Lepcha a. On a¯re ga¯n-bo gó horse this old cop ‘This horse is old’ (Grierson 1909: 271) b. Go ryú nyi 1sg good be ‘I was good’ (Mainwaring 1876: 58) (43) Dumi a. Thom khi:bi golpi that dog big ‘That dog is big’ (van Driem 1993: 78) b. Khi:bi khenikpa mo:-t-a dog good be:an-nonpast-3sg ‘The dog is good’ (van Driem 1993: 172)

Finally, we encounter at least the remnants of a double encoding system for predicate adjectives in the North Central Caucasian language Chechen, and in the Dagestanian languages Avar and Archi. In Avar, predicate adjectives usually occur in their unmarked form. However, they may take the adverbializing suffix -go “if the speaker expresses a subjective evaluation” (Kalinina 1993: 94). In older literature on Chechen mention is made of similar optional marking of predicative adjectives by means of derivational suffixes; an example is given in (45b). The function of these suffixes remains unclear. In Archi, nonverbally encoded predicate adjectives6 can take two forms. First, they can take the form of a converb, which, in this case, must be seen as a sort of adverbial marking. Alternatively, predicative adjectives may appear as a participial complement of the verb ‘to be’, that is, in the form of a nominalization marked by the suffix -tu. We may interpret this participial construction as a case of nominal encoding. This would lead us to expect that this participial construction will emphasize the permanency of the property, and this is indeed what seems to be the case (Aleksandr Kibrik p.c.). (44) Avar a. Hida-j jas bercina-j j-ugo that-fem girl beautiful-fem II-be:pres ‘That girl is beautiful’ (Kalinina 1993: 93) b. Mun jaka bercina-go j-ugo 2sg.fem today beautiful-advr II-be.pres ‘You look (lit. are) beautiful today’ (Kalinina 1993: 94) (45) Chechen a. Iza dika v-u he good I-be:pres ‘He is good’ (Nichols 1994: 30)

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 587

b.

Sfvo˘sa dika-var v-6 my brother good-suff I-be:pres ‘My brother is good’ (Dirr 1928: 145)

(46) Archi a. Bošor hiba-ši w-i man good-conv.dur I-be:pres ‘The man is (being) good’ (Aleksandr Kibrik p.c.) b. Bošor hiba-tu w-i man good-prtv I-be:pres ‘The man is good’ (Aleksandr Kibrik p.c.)

In my opinion, the comparison of Circum-Baltic with other areas that feature double encoding of nonverbal predicates is revealing for at least two reasons. First, this comparison makes it clear that this double encoding, while possibly having an initial motivation in a semantic permanent-contingent opposition, generally shows a tendency to move into the realm of aspect and modality, and may even turn out to be used mainly as the expression of stylistic preferences. In this respect, there is no need to ascribe special status to Polish and Russian within the Circum-Baltic language area: in their ‘blurring’ of the semantic basis of double encoding these languages follow a trend which can be documented independently in other linguistic areas. As a second point, I think it is interesting to note that all linguistic areas discussed in this paper are situated at some ‘fringe’ of the Indo-European megaarea. In particular, the phenomenon of double encoding is encountered at those places where Indo-European ‘meets’ some other language phylum. This is, of course, obvious for the Circum-Baltic area, which can naturally be viewed as a ‘meeting place’ between Uralic and Baltic/Slavonic, but the generalization also holds in the case of the Dravidian languages (Dravidian vs. Indic), the languages of the Himalayas (Tibetic vs. Indic), the Dagestanian languages (Dagestanian vs. Slavonic), and perhaps also even the Ibero-Celtic languages, which are situated at the very west of the Indo-European area, and which might show a pre-Indo-European substrate in their double encoding of nonverbal predicates. In short, the impression one gets is that double encoding is essentially a non-Indo-European (or perhaps pre-Indo-European) phenomenon, which has been ‘pushed to the fringe’ by the Indo-European expansion. In some of these ‘fringe areas’ (such as southern India, or the Caucasus) the bordering Indo-European languages do not seem to have been affected by the double encoding option which their ‘neighbours’ exhibit. But in other cases, such as the Himalayas, Circum-Baltic, and perhaps also Ibero-Celtic, ‘mixed’ Sprachbunds have been formed, in which Indo-European and non-IndoEuropean languages alike show double encoding of nonverbal predicates. If this general hypothesis on the areal status of the double encoding phenomenon is accepted, one may proceed to apply the analysis to a specific problem which

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has a long tradition in the literature, namely, the question of the origin of the nominative-instrumental switch in Russian and Polish. Suggestions that the Russian and Polish predicative instrumental might have a Uralic origin were already put forward by Meillet (1906–1908), but Fraenkel (1926), as well as a number of Soviet authors (see Veenker 1967: 130–1) have argued strongly in favour of an independent, ‘internal’ development at least for Russian. Whatever position one takes on this issue, it seems indisputable that the predicative instrumental constitutes a relatively ‘late’ encoding option in the history of Slavonic. According to Fraenkel (1926), the option could not (or only very sporadically) be encountered in Old Church Slavonic, and it does not seem to have taken root in the South Slavonic languages at all. In my opinion, the general areal developments sketched earlier in this section lend a certain renewed credibility to the ‘Uralic substrate’ theory for the predicative instrumental in Russian and Polish. It is clear, however, that this matter deserves further, and hopefully non-dogmatic, exploration.

5.

Conclusion

In this paper I have tried to demonstrate that the double encoding of nonverbal predicates, which takes the form of a nominative-oblique case opposition, is an areal feature of the languages of the Circum-Baltic area. In most cases, this double encoding mirrors a semantic distinction which is statable in terms of relative time stability. For the Slavonic languages of the area, this semantic distinction tends to be ‘blurred’ to the point of stylistics. However, it can be demonstrated that this does not have to constitute an ‘internal’ development within these languages; a similar shift can be demonstrated for quite a few other language areas in which double encoding of nonverbal predicates occurs. A second suggestion put forward in this paper is that the Circum-Baltic area, by way of its double encoding option for nonverbal predicates, can be counted among a number of ‘fringe areas’ of the Indo-European area. It can be observed that this double encoding typically occurs in areas which are situated at the border between Indo-European and non-Indo-European language groups. From this, one might venture the hypothesis that this double encoding is in essence a non-Indo-European characteristic, which has been ‘pushed aside’ by Indo-European expansion, but which may, in some border areas, continue to exert its influence on Indo-European languages as well.

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 589

Notes 1. See also Mathiassen (1985), who argues that double encoding in nominal sentences should be considered as a Circum-Baltic characteristic. (I am grateful to Bernhard Wälchli for bringing Mathiassen’s paper to my attention.) 2. Other members of these families, such as Mari (Volgaic) and Udmurt (Permic) lack double encoding; the syntax of these languages is heavily influenced by Turkish. 3. With some stretching of the imagination, Maltese might also be counted among this grouping. As is demonstrated extensively in Stassen (1996), Maltese is a language in which the encoding of nonverbal predicates exhibits a bewildering variety of options. 4. It must be noted that this zero-locational switch in these Dravidian languages holds only for the present tense. In other tenses, nonverbal predicates are invariably encoded by the locational support verb, and, as a result, they invariably show adverbial marking in those tenses. 5. Predicate adjectives in Kurukh are always encoded by means of the locative support verb taldas. 6. In addition to this, at least some adjectival predicates in Archi also have the possibility of being encoded in the same way as verbs (Aleksandr Kibrik, p.c.)

References Anderson, A.O. 1910. “Syntax of the substantive verb THA in modern Scottish Gaelic”. Zeitschrift für keltische Philologie 8: 236–241. Ariste, Paul. 1968. A grammar of the Votic language. Bloomington: Indiana University/The Hague: Mouton. Asher, R. E. 1982. Tamil. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Bacot, Jacques. 1981. Grammaire du Tibetain litteraire. Paris: Librairie d’Amerique et d’Orient. Bhaskararao, Peri. 1972. “On the syntax of Telugu existential and copulative predications”. In: Verhaar, J. W. M. (ed.), The verb “be” and it synonyms. Part 5. Dordrecht: Reidel. 153–206. Bouzet, Jean. 1945. Grammaire espagnole. Paris: Belin. Brooks, Maria Zagórstea. 1975. Polish reference grammar. The Hague: Mouton. Burrow, T. and S. Bhattacharya. 1953. The Parji language. Hertford: Austin. Clark, T. W. 1966. An introduction to Nepali. Cambridge: W. Heffers & Sons. Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dirr, Adolf M. 1928. Einführung in das Studium der kaukasischen Sprachen. Leipzig: Asia Major. Dottin, George. 1913. Manuel d’irlandais moyen. Paris: Champion. Driem, George. van. 1993. A grammar of Dumi. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Fennell, J. 1961. The Penguin Russian Course. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin. Fraenkel, E. 1926. “Der prädikative instrumental im Slavischen und Baltischen und seine syntaktische Grundlagen”. Archiv für slavische Philologie 40: 77–117. Fromm, H. and Sadeniemi, M. 1956. Finnisches Elementarbuch. I: Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter. Givón, Talmy. 1984. Syntax: a functional-typological introduction. Volume 1. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Grappin, Henry. 1963. La grammaire de la langue polonaise. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Slaves. Greene, David. 1966. The Irish language. Dublin: The Three Candles.



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Grierson, G. A. (ed). 1909. Linguistic survey of India. Part III. Tibeto-Burman family. Part I. General introduction. Specimens of the Tibetan dialects, the Himalayan dialects and the North Assam group. Calcutta: Government Printing Office. Kalinina, Elena. 1993. “Sentences with non-verbal predicates in the Sogratl dialect of Avar”. In: Kibrik, A. E. (ed.), “The noun phrase in the Andalal dialect of Avar as spoken at Sogratl”. Strassbourg: EUROTYP Working Papers, Theme 7: Noun Phrase Structure, Working Paper No. 18. 90–104. Koshal, Sanyukta. 1979. Ladakhi grammar. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Lalou, Marcelle. 1950. Manuel élémentaire du Tibétain classique. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Lehiste, Ilse. 1972. “‘Being’ and ‘having’ in Estonian”. In: Verhaar, J. W. M. (ed.), The verb “be” and it synonyms. Part 5. Dordrecht: Reidel. 207–224. Lehtinen, Mari. 1963. Basic course in Finnish. Bloomington: Indiana University/The Hague: Mouton. Macaulay, Donald. 1992. “The Scottish Gaelic language”. In: Macaulay, D. (ed.), The Celtic languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 137–248. Mackinnon, Roderick. 1977. Teach Yourself Gaelic. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Mainwaring, G. B. 1876. A grammar of the Rong (Lepcha) language. Calcutta: Superintendant Government Press. Mathiassen, Terje. 1985. “A discussion of the notion ‘sprachbund’ and its application in the case of the languages in the eastern Baltic area”. International Journal of Slavic Philology 21/22: 273–281. Meckelein, Richard. 1926. Polnische Grammatik. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Meillet, Antoine. 1906–1908. “La phrase nominale en indo-européen”. Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 14, 1–26. Nichols, Johanna. 1981. Predicate nominals: a partial surface syntax of Russian. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nichols, Johanna. 1994. “Chechen”. In: Job, D. M. & Smeets, R. (eds.), The indigenous languages of the Caucasus. Volume 4: The North East Caucasian languages. Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books. 1–77. O’Dochartaigh, Cathair. 1992. “The Irish language”. In: Macaulay, D. (ed.), 11–99. Rhys Jones, T. J. 1985. Living Welsh. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Saltarelli, Mario. 1988. Basque. London: Croom Helm. Schiffman, Harold F. 1983. A reference grammar of Spoken Kannada. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Schuchardt, Hugo. 1923. Primitiae linguae Vasconum: Einführung ins Baskische. Halle (Saale): Niemeyer. Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Heidelberg: Winter. Senn, Alfred. 1974. Kleine litauische Sprachlehre. Hildesheim/New York: Georg Olms. Stassen, Leon. 1996. “The switcher’s paradise: nonverbal predication in Maltese”. Rivista di Linguistica 8.1: 275–300. Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive Predication. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Stone, Gerald. 1980. An introduction to Polish. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Veenker, Wolfgang. 1967. Die Frage des finnougrischen Substrats in der russischen Sprache. Bloomington: Indiana University/The Hague: Mouton. Vesper, Don R. 1968. “A generative grammar of Kurukh copula”. In: Verhaar, J. W. M. (ed.), The verb “be” and it synonyms. Part 2. Dordrecht: Reidel. 112–148.



On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives To and fro coherence Thomas Stolz

1.

The European predilection for coherence

Recent investigations by our comitative Typology Research Group1 (Stolz 1996, 1997) have revealed that syncretism of comitative and instrumental categories is not as common among the languages of the world as formerly postulated (Lakoff/ Johnson 1980: 135). In the present paper, we will adhere to the following working definition of comitatives and instrumentals which is more or less identical to the one Lakoff/Johnson (1980: 135) seem to have had in mind, cf. (1)–(2). (1) Comitative A relationship between two participants of a verbal predication is labelled comitative if the two participants have the feature [+animate] and share the same macrorôle, while their degree of involvement in the situation described by the verbal predicate is not absolutely symmetrical. The relationship is one of accompaniment: one of the participants is the accompanee, the other the companion. (2) Instrumental A relationship between two participants of a verbal predication is labelled instrumental if one of the participants has the feature [+animate] and is assigned the macrorôle actor, whereas the other has the feature [−animate] and is assigned the macrorôle undergoer. Their involvement in the situation is asymmetrical in such a way that the inanimate participant serves as an instrument for the animate participant to carry out the action described by the verbal predicate. The relationship is one of instrumentality: one of the participants is the agent, the other the instrument.

On closer inspection, however, it turns out that there are many problems when it comes to delimiting the categories we are concerned with in this study. The history of case grammar amply documents how difficult it is to define the boundaries of case categories and related phenomena. In order to avoid getting lost in the intricacies of the particulars of case distinctions, we will content ourselves with

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discussing uncontroversial instantiations of (1)–(2), i.e. relations of accompaniment involving two human participants and relations of instrumentality involving a human agent and a concrete tool as instrument. As for instrumental relations, there is considerable variation across languages as to which types of instruments form part of the same grammatical category. Owing to this crosslinguistic variation, we disregard expressions of, e.g., means of conveyance and make do with prototypical instruments, viz. tools. In addition, we will simplify matters by concentrating on dominant strategies of encoding, cf. (3). (3) Dominant Strategy of Encoding The dominant strategy of encoding is the most frequent morpheme/construction used to express (the majority of) the relations corresponding to (1) and (2), respectively. Subdominant strategies restricted to a special subset of, e.g., tools or functioning as less frequent (stylistic) alternatives of the dominant strategies are not taken into consideration here.

Basically, comitative-instrumental syncretism requires expressions of accompaniment and instrumentality to be identical. The German preposition mit in (4)–(5) is a typical example of this syncretistic pattern.2 (4) German [tool] Fritz ißt die Suppe [mit einem Löffel]inst Fritz eat:3sg.pres def soup [with indef.dat spoon ‘Fritz is eating the soup with a spoon.’ (5) German [company] Fritz ißt die Suppe [mit einem Freund]com Fritz eat:3sg.pres def soup [with indef.dat friend ‘Fritz is eating the soup (together) with a friend.’

Having looked only at the syncretistic behaviour of English with, Lakoff/Johnson (1980: 135) assumed that syncretistic patterns of the type represented by (4)–(5) had to be universal simply because they viewed the syncretism as a kind of cognitively rooted natural metaphorical transfer from a more concrete meaning — comitative — to a more abstract one — instrumental. To their minds, there is a universally valid conceptual metaphor AN INSTRUMENT IS A COMPANION which requires expressions of instrumentality to be derived from expressions of accompaniment. Thus, the change from comitative to instrumental is, in a manner of speaking, an instance of grammaticalization. Since the present paper is concerned only with comitatives and instrumentals corresponding closely to the definitions (1)–(2), we cannot discuss in detail which categories serve as bridges between prototypical comitatives and prototypical instrumentals. Suffice it to say that there is some evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the conceptual space between the two prototypical cases contains categories all of which have something to do with possession. Anyway, this topic still needs to be investigated in more detail and,

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 593

therefore, has to be reserved for a separate study. However, the large-scale comparison of 323 languages has yielded a completely different result. Contrary to the supposed universal status of the above mentioned syncretistic pattern, two thirds of the languages in our sample distinguish between comitative and instrumental by formal i.e. morphological means (Stolz 1997: 127). Thus, the vast majority of the languages organize comitatives and instrumentals along the lines of the Vietnamese solution: Vietnamese uses bÓang to mark instrumental relations and vó˙i to mark comitative relations, cf. (7)–(8). These free morphemes cannot be interchanged. (7) Vietnamese [tool] (Hoàng Thi Châu 1982: 92) Tôi viêt [bÓang bút chì]inst I write [with pencil ‘I am writing with a pencil.’ (8) Vietnamese [company] (Hoàng Thi Châu 1982: 83) Hùng hoc [vó˙i ban]com Hung learn [with friend ‘Hung is learning (together) with a friend.’

Only a minority of slightly less than 25% of our sample languages behave like German i.e. are characterized by comitative-instrumental syncretism, while the remaining 10% allow for co-existing syncretistic and non-syncretistic morphemes (Stolz 1997: 127). The latter group is exemplified by the bound morphemes -wan and -ntin in Quechua: -wan covers both comitative and instrumental functions, but -ntin is exclusively restricted to comitatives, cf. (9)–(11). (9) Quechua [tool] (Hartmann 1987: 64) [Chakitaklla-wan]inst llamka-nku [Chakitaklla_spade-inst work-3pl.pres ‘They are working with the Chakitaklla-type spade.’ (10) Quechua [company] (Hartmann 1987: 64) [Paulina-wan]com ri-chka-n [Paulina-inst go-dur-3sg.pres ‘He is going with Paulina.’ (11) Quechua [company] (Hartmann 1987: 130) [wasiyoq-ni-ntin]com ri-n [landlord-lig-com go-3sg.pres ‘He is going with the landlord.’

For those languages which actually display comitative-instrumental syncretism we have suggested the label coherent languages. Languages which morphologically distinguish comitatives from instrumentals represent the incoherent type. Languages in which coherent and incoherent morphemes co-occur are classified as mixed languages (Stolz 1997: 123–125).

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As a matter of fact, coherent languages cluster in Europe whereas incoherent languages are by far more frequent outside Europe (Stolz 1997: 130). Therefore, it seems legitimate to consider coherence as one more areal feature of European languages (Stolz 1997: 143). In order to verify this hypothesis, we are presently looking more closely at comitatives and instrumentals in the European languages of our sample. Accordingly, the present paper focuses on comitatives and instrumentals in the Circum-Baltic languages with a view to answering the question of whether or not the treatment of comitatives and instrumentals could pass as a distinctive trait of — perhaps only certain — Circum-Baltic languages. Matthiassen (1985a: 143, 1985b: 278) especially complains that comitatives have never really been taken into account for comparative Circum-Baltic linguistics. However, we do not take up the issue of Bergland’s (1947) seminal paper on comitative-like 1st person plural expressions (as, e.g., Lithuanian mudu/mes su broliu ‘(lit.) we (two) with brother = my brother and I’ [Senn 1966: 425]). Instead, we are going to look a little bit closer at the distribution of coherence, mixing and incoherence across Circum-Baltic languages.

2.

The Circum-Baltic split

There are several strategies employed by the Circum-Baltic languages in order to encode comitatives and instrumentals, cf. (12).3 (12) Dominant strategies in modern Circum-Baltic languages Adpositional phrases Swedish Danish German Latvian Polish Russian Lithuanian Finnish Estonian Sami

med
+ med
+ mit + ar + z+ s+ su + n.gen +

n n n.dat n.acc.sg/dat.pl n.inst n.inst n.inst kanssa

Inflection

n.inst n.inst n.inst n.com n.adess n.com neut.com

The Germanic languages, viz. Swedish, Danish, and German, make use of cognate prepositions — med, med, mit —, cf. (13a), (13d), (13j) for comitatives and (14a), (14d), (14j) for instrumentals. Latvian has some highly lexicalized relics of a purely inflectional instrumental. In modern usage, the preposition ar is the uncontested

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 595

marker of both comitative and instrumental, cf. (13e) and (14e). Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian display a bipartite system made up of an inflectional instrumental, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, cognate prepositions — su, z, s — used together with the morphological instrumental to encode the comitative, cf. (13f), (13g), (13h) and (14f), (14g), (14h), respectively. For Lithuanian as a mixed language, cf. (16)–(17). Skipping the morphological instructive for the moment, Finnish has an inflectional instrumental — the so-called adessive -lla/-llä — and an inflectional comitative -ine-. However, the latter is beginning to disappear from current spoken Finnish. In its place, a postpositional construction with kanssa has become extremely popular, cf. (13c) and (14c). In Sami and Estonian, there is only one inflectional case for both functions, viz. Sami -(gu)in and Estonian -ga, cf. (13b), (13i) and (14b), (14i). (13) Circum-Baltic comitatives4 a. Danish Hver torsdag danser de [med
landsbyens unge piger]com every Thursday dance:pres they [with village:def.gen young:pl girl:pl b. Estonian Neljapäeviti nad tantsivad [külatüdrukute-ga]com on_Thursdays they dance:3pl [village_girl:pl-com c. Finnish He tanssivat joka torstai [kylän tyttöjen kanssa]com they dance:3pl every Thursday [village:gen girl:pl.gen with d. German Sie tanzen am Donnerstag [mit den Mädchen des they dance:pl on Thursday [with def.dat.pl girl:dat.pl def.gen Dorfes]com village:gen e. Latvian Ceturtdiena¯s vin¸i iet dejot [ar ciema meitene¯m]com thursday:loc.pl they go:3 dance:inf [with village:gen girl:dat.pl f. Lithuanian Ketvirtadieniais jie šoka [su kaimo mergino-mis]com thursday:inst.pl they dance:3 [with village:gen girl-inst.pl g. Polish W czwartek tan´cza˛ [z wioskowy-mi dziewcze˛ta-mi]com in Thursday:acc dance:3pl [with village-inst.pl girl-inst.pl h. Russian Po cˇetvergam oni tancujut [s derevenski-mi devuška-mi]com on Thursday:dat they dance:pl [with village-inst.pl girl-inst.pl i. Sami Ahte sii lávejit dánsut [nieiddai-guin]com duorastaga. that they use_to:3pl.pres dance:inf [girl:pl-com Thursday

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j.

Swedish På torsdagarna brukar de dansa [med
flickorna]com on Thursday:pl.def use_to:pres they dance:inf [with girl:pl.def i byn. in village:def ‘Every Thursday they would dance with the village girls.’

(14) Circum-Baltic instrumentals5 a. Danish Først nedskriver man de opdagelsesrejsendes beretning [med first write-down:pres man def explorer:gen report [with blyant]inst pencil b. Estonian Esialgu märgitakse maadeuurijate jutustused [pliaatsi-ga]inst üles. first write:impr explorer:gen.pl report:acc.pl [pencil-com up c. Finnish Sillä tutkimusmatkailijoiden kertomukset kirjoitetaan ensin muistiin for explorer:pl.gen reports:pl.acc write:ips first memory:ill [lyijykynä-llä]ins [pencil-adess d. German Zuerst notiert man die Erzählungen der Forscher first take_notes:3sg man def.acc.pl report:pl def.gen.pl explorer:pl [mit Bleistift]inst [with pencil e. Latvian Pe¯tnieku st¿astus vispirms pieraksta [ar zı¯muli]inst explorer:gen.pl report:acc.pl first write_down:3(sg) [with pencil:acc f. Lithuanian Tyrine˙toju˛ pasakojimai iš pradžiu˛ explorer:gen.pl report:nom.pl from beginning:gen.pl užrašomi [pieštuk-u]inst write_down:part.pass.pres.nom.pl.masc [pencil-inst g. Polish Raport badacza zapisuje sie˛ najpierw [ołówki-em]inst report explorer:gen write_down:3sg refl first [pencil-inst h. Russian Rasskazy putešestvennikov snacˇala zapisyvajut report:acc.pl explorer:gen.pl at-the-start write_down:3pl [karandaš-om]inst [pencil-inst i. Sami Oainnatgo sin muitalusat cˇállojit muitui vuos because:then they:gen report:nom.pl write:pass.3pl memory:ill first

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 597

j.

[liánta-in]inst [pencil-com Swedish Man antecknar nämligen först upptäcktsresandenas berättelser [med man note:pres namely first explorer:def.pl.gen report:pl [with blyerts]inst pencil ‘First the reports of the explorers are written down with a pencil.’

This shows that Circum-Baltic languages do not belong to a single language type. All three types of treatment of comitatives and instrumentals identified in the introduction can be found. The coherent type, the incoherent type, and the mixed type, cf. (15) are all represented. (15) Present distribution of language types in the Circum-Baltic area Coherent

Mixed

Incoherent

Swedish Danish German Latvian Estonian Sami

Lithuanian

Finnish Polish Russian

The reason why Lithuanian belongs to the mixed type should become clear if we compare examples (13f) and (14f) with (16) and (17): (16) Lithuanian *Ketvirtadieniais jie šoka [kaimo mergino-mis]com thursday:inst.pl they dance:3(pl) [village:gen girl-inst.pl (17) Lithuanian Tyrine˙toju˛ pasakojimai iš pradžiu˛ explorer:gen.pl report:nom.pl from beginning:gen.pl užrašomi [su piestuk-u]inst write_down:part.pass.pres.nom.pl.masc [with pencil-inst

The deletion of the preposition su from the comitative sentence (13f) yields a grammatically unacceptable sentence (16), i.e. the morphological instrumental alone cannot express accompaniment. However, one may add the preposition su to the morphological instrumental in (14f). The resulting sentence (17) is grammatically correct and stylistically acceptable, i.e. it makes no difference whether a relationship of instrumentality is expressed by the simple instrumental case or by the reinforced prepositional construction. In other words, the same construction — viz. the prepositional phrase — may be used not only as an expression of comitatives but also of instrumentals. On the other hand, the morphological instrumental

598 Thomas Stolz

alone is confined to expressing relations of instrumentality. This scenario including one general or syncretistic expression and one functionally restricted expression is typical for languages of the mixed type. As is the case with the bulk of European languages, the majority of the CircumBaltic languages are presently of the coherent type. However, this preference for coherence cuts across genetic boundaries. This fact gives us reason to believe that the synchronic state of affairs may not always have existed in the Circum-Baltic area. As will be made clear in the subsequent chapters, coherence seems to be an innovation, at least in the eastern part of the region under scrutiny.

3.

On the inroads of coherence

3.1 Coherent languages The Germanic languages of our Circum-Baltic sample are all of the coherent type. With the notable exception of Icelandic, coherence is common to all Germanic languages including Afrikaans. Prototypical instrumentals such as tools are encoded in the same way as prototypical comitatives such as companions. In order to keep things as short as possible, we will make do with two examples from Swedish, cf. (18)–(19). (18) Swedish [tool] (HH 46) Värdinnan torkade av bordet land_lady:def dry:pret off table:def.neut [med
ett handkläde]inst [with indef.neut towel ‘The land-lady wiped the table with a towel.’ (19) Swedish [company] (HH 71) Ty i hans släkt hade det förekommit giften for in his family have:pret it happen:part marriage:pl [med
flickor] nerifrån kustlandet [with girl:pl down_from coast_land:def.neut men inte i moderns. but not in mother:def.gen ‘For in his family there had been marriages with girls from the coastal region, but not in the family of the mother.’

Besides Swedish, Danish, and German, there are two Uralic languages and one Baltic language which qualify as coherent, viz. Estonian, Sami, and Latvian, respectively. Interestingly, their closest relatives are found outside the class of coherent languages, i.e. in contradistinction to the Germanic languages, coherence is not a dominant feature in the members of other language families in the CircumBaltic region.

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 599

Consider examples (20)–(21) from Sami. Functionally, the morphological comitative represents the instrumental as well as the comitative proper. (20) Sami [tool] (adapted from: Bartens 1989: 95) Son cˇuohpa [akšu-in]com he chop:3sg [axe-com ‘He is chopping wood with an axe.’ (21) Sami [company] (Nickel 1990: 500) Son orui doppe oktan [[etni-in-is] he live:3sg.pret there together [[mother-com-3sg.poss ja [mánáid-is-guin]]com and [child:pl-3sg.poss-com.pl ‘He lived there together with his mother and his children.’

There is however a remarkable difference between the comitative singular and the comitative plural: the former — as in etni-in-is ‘with his mother’ — is treated like any other case affix in Sami i.e. there is a morphological slot for the possessor morphemes to the right of the case affix. The morpheme of the comitative plural -guin does not obey this morphotactic rule. Rather, it comes last in the chain of grammatical morphemes: máná-id-is-guin ‘with his children’. Beronka (1937) and Oinas (1961) have explained this difference as follows. The inherited Uralic comitative — most probably an erstwhile instructive (= a general adverbial case with a wide range of meanings) — was transnumeral. The phonological shape of the original form was identical with that of the locative plural. It seems likely then that the subsequent grammaticalization of a noun etymologically identical to modern Sami guoibmi ‘comrade’ as the new case marker of the comitative plural was partly motivated by analogy and a homonymy conflict. Owing to its relatively recent coming into being, the new case marker has not yet been fully integrated into the morphological system (Nevis 1988b). Moreover, Tauli (1966: 33–34 and 112–114) demonstrates that, in the Uralic language family, the comitative is one of the most instable categories. There is ample evidence that quite a few Uralic languages have lost formerly well-established and distinct comitatives, whereas just as many others have developed new comitatives via the morphologization of postpositions into bound case markers. All this seems to happen time and again, especially in the Baltic branch of the Uralic phylum (Laanest 1982: 172–173). Estonian -ga is another case in point: in modern Estonian, the morphological comitative has much the same functional range as its equivalent -(gu)in in Sami, cf. (22)–(23). (22) Estonian [tool] (Lavotha 1973: 96) ma kirjutan [sule-ga]inst I write:1sg [pen-com ‘I am writing with a pen.’

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(23) Estonian [company] (Tauli 1983: 106) Isa läks [tütre-ga]com jalutama. father go:3sg.pret [daughter-com walk:inf ‘The father went for a walk with his daughter.’

Not only does Estonian -ga cover much of what counts among the principal functions of Sami -(gu)in, but it also has another feature in common with the Sami morpheme: both are relatively recent products of grammaticalization and morphologization processes. Nevis (1987, 1988a) has discussed the most important morphological aspects of Estonian -ga. Historically, it originated from a denominal postposition kaas (< kansa(ssa) ‘(in the) people/ethnos’, cf. the end of Section 3.2) which remained prevalent until the 17th century and is still in use as a postposition with the ga-comitative. Admittedly, there are some differences which prevent us from claiming that Sami and Estonian have experienced identical grammaticalization processes. Nevertheless, it strikes the eye that both languages have drawn on the same grammaticalization channel: Sami -guin and Estonian -ga go back to nouns which designate (societal institutions of) human beings, viz. comrade and people/ethnos. In spite of their etymological link to high animacy, neither -guin nor -ga is restricted to constructions in which two animate participants are involved, although, guessing from the semantics of the etyma, we may assume that, in the early stages of grammaticalization before morphologization, both grammemes were used exclusively to express the comitative proper i.e. an accompaniment relationship between two human participants. If the future bound morphemes were indeed restricted to the comitative function in preliterate times, there must have been another morpheme which expressed instrumental relations. Owing to the lack of reliable diachronic data from Estonian and Sami, we can only speculate that the inherited instructive fulfilled such functions in proto-Estonian and proto-Sami. The instrumental functions have been acquired by -ga and -guin later on in the grammaticalization process. We will come back to this issue below. It is much easier to come to grips with the situation in Latvian. Again, comitative and instrumental functions are expressed by a single morpheme: cf. the preposition ar governing the accusative singular/dative plural in (24)–(25). (24) Latvian [tool] (B 44) Ja cilve¯ks nebu¯s uzspe¯ris sevi gaisa¯ if man:nom neg:be:3fut blow_up:part self:acc air:loc [ar atombumbu]inst [with atom_bomb:acc ‘If man won’t have blown himself up with the atom-bomb…’ (25) Latvian [company] (B 40) Vin¸s [ar ze¯niem]com ka¯rtı¯gi iesvik¸oja he [with boy:dat.pl orderly drink-alcohol:3pret ‘He had a proper carousal with the boys.’

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 601

Ga¯ters (1993: 427–428) reviews the uses made of ar in the Dainas and notes that even in the older sources of Latvian, there are only a few cases in which a comitative could be expressed by the pure instrumental case. The vast majority of cases require the use of the preposition ar. At the same time, instrumental relations such as, e.g., tool, are only rarely expressed by a prepositional phrase with ar. The old inflectional instrumental clearly dominates when it comes to expressing instrumental relations proper. This is tantamount to saying that, in old Latvian, there obtained a formal distinction between comitative and instrumental (Ga¯ters 1993: 161–183). Partly owing to the generalization of the use of ar, the formerly distinct morphological instrumental was marginalized in the Latvian case system, so that it no longer makes sense to include an instrumental case in the paradigm of Latvian nouns (and pronouns) (Lötzsch 1978). Some vestiges of the prepositionless instrumental — morphologically identical with the accusative singular/dative plural — survive in the modern literary language (Nı¯tin¸a 1978: 66–67). What makes the Latvian case especially interesting for our present purpose is the fact that by the introduction of the preposition ar, the inherited Indo-European morphological instrumental which covered both comitative and instrumental functions first was split up in two distinct categories, viz. a prepositional comitative and an inflectional instrumental, before the new comitative took over the entire functional domain of the original instrumental. The prepositional phrase with ar started as a reinforced construction of the morphological instrumental. Eventually, the prepositional construction ousted the simple morphological instrumental. The development has now reached a stage which is functionally almost identical to the initial sitution. Nonetheless, the diachrony of Latvian ar lends support to the hypothesis that Sami and Estonian could have experienced a quasi-circular development (cf. above). 3.2 Incoherent languages None of the Slavonic languages of the Circum-Baltic area are strictly speaking coherent, though other members of the same family have become coherent, some of them, e.g. Slovene and Sorbian, most probably because of German influence (Lötzsch 1996: 56). Russian6 and Polish observe the formal distinction between instrumentality and accompaniment quite strictly, cf. (26)–(27). (26) Polish [tool] (Kotyczka 1976: 123) Pisze˛ [dlugopis-em]inst write:1sg [ballpen-inst ‘I’m writing with a ballpen.’ (27) Polish [company] (Kotyczka 1976: 123) Janek jedzie [z siostr-a˛]com do Poznania. Janek go:3sg [with sister-inst to Poznan ‘Janek goes to Poznan with his sister.’

602 Thomas Stolz

In Polish, the purely morphological instrumental is used exclusively in contexts where concrete material instruments such as tools are used, though there is some competition with prepositional phrases with na + acc (Laskowski 1972: 72). The pure instrumental is excluded from expressions of comitativity such as accompaniment. In order to express an accompaniment relationship the prepositional phrase z + inst has to be used, which in turn is excluded from prototypical instrumental relations. Thus, Polish is nowadays a proper incoherent language. The synchronic state of affairs in Polish, however, is itself an innovation, though one of rather long standing. Indeed, it is commonly accepted in IndoEuropean studies that the proto-language had only one morphological case — usually called instrumental — which covered the functions of both instrumental and comitative (Brugmann/Delbrück 1911: 520–523). Many of the older IndoEuropean languages, however, — sometimes only optionally — also make use of a prepositional phrase mostly, as in Polish, to distinguish the comitative from the instrumental with the preposition being reserved for the comitative (Brugmann/ Delbrück 1911: 545–547). Indo-European appears to have started out as a coherent language but after the proto-language split up into separate branches, a trend towards keeping comitative and instrumental formally distinct developed in various places. So, quite a few Indo-European languages, among them those of the Slavonic branch, became incoherent. As was stated above, those Slavonic languages which experienced long periods of Germanic influence have already lost this formerly common feature by reintroducing coherence. In the (pre-)history of Finnish, there appears to have been a strikingly similar development which eventually led from an erstwhile coherent state to the present incoherent one. Consider (28)–(29) from modern Finnish. (28) Finnish [tool] (Tarvainen 1985: 220) Halon puita [kirvee-llä]inst cut:1sg wood:prtv [axe-adess ‘I am cutting wood with an axe.’ (29) Finnish [company] (Tarvainen 1985: 221) a. Hän menee [vaimonsa kanssa]com kävelylle he go:3sg [wife:poss:3 with walk:all ‘He goes for a walk with his wife.’ b. Hän menee [vaimo-ine-en] kävelylle he go:3sg [wife-com-3 walk:all ‘He goes for a walk with his wife.’

Prototypical instrumental relations are presently encoded by the polyfunctional adessive which besides instrumentality encodes also possession and local relations such as, e.g., the superessive. While the locative functions of the adessive are clearly old functions, possessive and instrumental functions are secondary innovations i.e. they have been acquired in more recent times. Before the morphological adessive

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 603

became the major (or next to exclusive) means for expressing instrumental relations, there was the old instructive -(i)n which fulfilled these functions. Nowadays, only a handful of idiomatic expressions such as omin silmin ‘with one’s own eyes’ and kaksin käsin ‘with both hands’ (Karlsson 1978: 133) point to the former use of the instructive as an instrumental case. Historically, the Finnish instructive is cognate to the comitative singular -in in Sami (cf. above). Furthermore, Finnish has two7 competing ways to express a prototypical comitative: either you use the more literary inflectional comitative -ine- as in (29b) or you resort to the postpositional phrase with kanssa as in (29a). The choice between the two means, however, is not merely a question of style. Owing to its morphological peculiarities, the inflectional comitative is excluded from a number of potential constructions. As a matter of fact, the inflectional comitative is derived from the old instructive -in. The comitative -ine- is obligatorily followed by a possessive suffix. Collinder (1968: 46) considers the variation of inflectional and postpositional comitative more or less as a dialectal variation with the comitative -ine- being typical for the more conservative eastern dialects close to the Karelian border. The postposition kanssa, according to Collinder, is probably the reduced inessive kansassa of a Germanic loanword kansa (< Gothic hansa ‘troop, band’). In addition, Nau (1995: 135) convincingly demonstrates how the use of Finnish kanssa has been influenced by Swedish med. The most interesting fact about the Finnish case, however, is the persistence of incoherence. Just as with Indo-European languages, the predecessors of present-day Finnish, Estonian, and Sami must have been coherent languages. Very likely, the old instructive would have had much the same distribution as the old Indo-European instrumental. Almost exactly as in many Indo-European languages, the differentiation of comitative and instrumental functions was introduced and formally expressed by adpositional or similar structures in the Uralic languages of the Circum-Baltic region. In spite of the marginalization of the old instructive, Finnish continues to uphold the formal distinction by new means, whereas Estonian has given it up without any attempt at renovation. The so-called inflectional comitative -ga in Estonian is etymologically identical with the Finnish postposition kanssa; unlike the latter it is in general use for both comitative and instrumental functions. We agree with Nau (1995: 136–137) who claims that the semantics of the Estonian comitative have been largely influenced by Germanic languages, mostly Low German, German, and Swedish. The higher degree of Germanicization in Estonian — in contrast to Finnish — is of course most convincingly explained by the long presence of a German upper class in former Livland and the language contact between German and Estonian during the period of German dominance. Admittedly, there is no watertight proof that contact-induced restructuring has also occurred in the history of Sami. Nevertheless, it cannot completely be ruled out

604 Thomas Stolz

that the coherent pattern of Norwegian and Swedish has influenced the development of the Sami comitative. We are also positive that the Germanicization of the comitative-instrumental distinction goes beyond the language boundaries of Estonian. Latvian — sharing the same Germanic superstrate with Estonian for several centuries — has also remodelled its formerly incoherent system in terms of coherence. During the process of remodelling Latvian must, of course, have passed through a stage of mixing. 3.3 Mixed language(s) The only uncontroversial case of a mixed language in our present sample is Lithuanian (Schmalstieg 1988: 244). Contrary to the common practice in the standard varieties of Russian and Polish, Lithuanian does allow the use of the prepositional phrase su + inst to express prototypical instrumental relations, though the purely morphological instrumental may still be considered better or higher style, cf. (30)–(32) — and (16)–(17) above. (30) Lithuanian [tool] (LKG III §90) Seniau rugius [piautuv-ais]inst piaudavom formerly rye:acc.pl [sickle-inst.pl cut:freq.1pl ‘Formerly, we used to harvest rye with sickles.’ (31) Lithuanian [tool] (LKG III §246) Nue˙jo arti Jonelis smilcˇiu˛ go_away:3:pret plough:inf Jonelis:nom sand:gen.pl [su savo žagrel-e]inst [with his plough-inst ‘Jonelis went to plough sandy ground with his plough.’ (32) Lithuanian [company] (LKG III §243) Te˙vas ate˙jo [su ab-iem vaik-ais]com father:nom come:3:pret [with both-inst.pl child-inst.pl ‘The father came (together) with both children.’

Fraenkel (1929:187–203) and Senn (1966:426) briefly discuss the functional overlap of the two constructions. Obviously, making use of su + inst for instrumental relations proper is an innovation in Lithuanian which seems to be gradually gaining ground to the detriment of the pure instrumental. There can be no doubt that su + inst spread from prototypical comitative relations such as, e.g., in (32) to neighbouring functions. Therefore, it is a fair guess to say that Lithuanian was once an incoherent language just like present-day Polish, Russian, and Finnish are. Unlike these three, however, Lithuanian is slowly moving towards coherence. Latvian always seems to be at least one step ahead of Lithuanian when it comes to reductive change. The idea suggests itself that the increasing frequency of the prepositional phrase in

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 605

Lithuanian reflects more or less the same pattern as in Latvian. Latvian has long passed through the stage of mixing in which Lithuanian is presently to be found. Of course, the same is true of all the other languages which have changed from coherence to incoherence and back. If we disregard the Germanic languages, the predecessors of which lost the inherited morphological instrumental quite early on, Latvian, Estonian, and Sami must have been mixed languages not too long ago. Before that they most probably were incoherent languages for an unknown span of time. If we take proto-languages and the like into account, it is legitimate to hypothesize that Latvian, Estonian, and Sami — as well as the Germanic languages — have run a full circle from coherence to coherence. Since this is also a widespread phenomenon outside the Circum-Baltic area, comitatives and instrumentals have become the paradigm-case for the exemplification of grammaticalization processes (Heine/Claudi/Hünnemeyer 1991). From the point of view of grammaticalization research, there is nothing special about the processes observed in the Circum-Baltic region because changing from coherence to incoherence or vice versa seemingly happens to languages all over the place. However, the universalist’s way of seeing things is not the end of the story.

4. Grammaticalization universals and contact-induced change In their lexicon of grammaticalization processes, Heine et al. (1993: 272) observe that it is quite common for comitative relators to acquire instrumental functions in the normal course of semantic change. What is somewhat blurred however by this statement is the fact that many of the so-called instrumentals which are said to be derived from erstwhile comitatives, at least for some time, continue to be used for instrumental as well as comitative functions. Thus, the change does not directly lead from comitative proper to instrumental proper, rather it passes through a stage of functional ambiguity, i.e. through a stage of a comitative-instrumental case. This process on the morphosemantic level is in line with what has been observed above with regard to the typological change of languages from coherence to incoherence and vice versa. Languages of the mixed type obligatorily have one relator which is ambiguous as to the functional distinction of comitative and instrumental, whereas, in coherent languages, there are only ambiguous relators, which are, in turn, absolutely excluded from incoherent languages. Consequently, a morphosemantic change from comitative to comitative-instrumental always implies a typological change either from incoherence to mixing or from mixing to coherence. Heine/Claudi/Hünnemeyer (1991) and Heine et al. (1993) suggest that comitatives are prone to become instrumentals no matter where on the globe a language is spoken or to which macrophylum it belongs. If this is really true then the implication that incoherent languages tend to become mixed ones and mixed

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ones tend to become coherent ones must also be valid. However, there remains one great mystery: viz. the answer to the question how incoherence usually comes into being. For obvious reasons, we cannot solve this problem right here. Suffice to say that our glimpse back to the pre-history of the Circum-Baltic languages (cf. above) lends plausibility to the assumption that coherence is not the terminus of morphosemantic change — be it grammaticalization or something else — rather, it may turn into incoherence via mixing at any time. It could therefore be claimed that the morphosemantic and typological changes in the languages of the Circum-Baltic region are in no way historically interrelated. One might think that they rather reflect universally possible tendencies i.e. grammaticalization universals. Viewed from this angle, the typological parallels between Latvian, Estonian, and Sami (cf. 3.1) would be mere coincidence, for any language may experience such typological changes. Much the same could be said for instance with regard to the grammaticalization of denominal postpositions in Latvian and Estonian (Stolz 1990). Many of the common traits among the Circum-Baltic languages are, indeed, anything but restricted to the area under inspection. Similar structural solutions exist in languages from a variety of places around the word. Nevertheless, there is something that makes such common features among (a selection of) Circum-Baltic languages stand out: the accumulation of isoglosses which distinguish certain languages from their linguistic next of kin while tying them more closely to their geographical neighbours. Thus, irrespective of the potential universality of any single common feature of Circum-Baltic languages, it is the high number and combination of shared features that promote prima facie trivialities to distinctive Circum-Balticisms. In sum, these Circum-Balticisms or any other areally more restricted bundle of isoglosses have not come about by chance because the same grammaticalization universals, incidentally, were activated in different languages at roughly the same time. Rather, there was a special reason why the grammaticalization universals were triggered in the first place: viz. intensive language contact. Admittedly, neither coherence nor incoherence or even mixing qualifies for the status of a fully-blown Circum-Baltic isogloss. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a sub-area in which two genetically unrelated languages converge unexpectedly. These languages are Latvian and Estonian for which we have postulated a parallel development from incoherence in pre-literary times to today’s coherence (cf. above). Their closest relatives, Lithuanian and Finnish, have remained incoherent or mixed, respectively. This is tantamount to saying that Latvian and Estonian have a feature in common which is absent from their sister languages, viz. coherence. Therefore, it is not too far-fetched to count coherence among the features which — taken together — distinguish Latvian and Estonian from the rest of the CircumBaltic languages (Stolz 1991). However, because of their former option for incoherence, it cannot be claimed that coherence has spread from Latvian to Estonian or

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 607

the other way round. Rather, coherence was introduced into Latvian and Estonian via the Germanic languages which served as a common superstrate since the early days of the German Knights. Latvian and Estonian have not become similar in structure because of direct contact between them. Their similarity has been brought about more indirectly by way of being exposed to the pressure of exactly the same coherent prestige languages, viz. (Middle) Low German, German, and Swedish. The funny thing with grammaticalization processes is that a language may or may not experience them. If there happens to be a morphosemantic change then it will follow one of the pathways identified by grammaticalization research. However, one cannot, as yet, predict exactly when such changes will take place. Language contact is a strong factor when it comes to triggering off certain grammaticalization processes — though its role should not be overemphasized. As to the Circum-Baltic case, however, we need not hesitate to ascribe the diffusion of coherence into the territory of formerly incoherent languages to language contact. Via the contactinduced changes Latvian and Estonian as well as Sami have become more similar to the Germanic languages among which one, viz. German, is also responsible for coherence in a number of neighbouring Slavonic languages outside the CircumBaltic region. Viewed from a pan-European perspective, coherence seems to have spread from SAE languages of southern and western Europe. At the time when Germanic languages began to pass over the acquired typological feature of coherence to their neighbours, the predominant language type in the Circum-Baltic region must have been incoherent, cf. (33)–(35).8 (33) Stage I: Circum-Baltic languages in pre-conquest times

Fin Sam Swd

Est

Dan Lat Grm

coherent

Rus

Lith Pol incoherent

608 Thomas Stolz

(34) Stage II: Circum-Baltic languages in the early literary period mixed

Fin Sam Swd Est

Dan Lat Grm

Rus

Lith

coherent

Pol

incoherent

(35) Stage III: Circum-Baltic languages in the 20th century

Fin Sam Swd

Est

Dan Lat Grm coherent

Rus

Lith mixed

Pol incoherent

The very similar processes that led from an original coherent to an incoherent stage in the proto-languages of the Indo-European and Uralic members of the CircumBaltic languages are, most probably, historically independent of each other. The more recent changes, however, are likely to be explained by language contact between Germanic and non-Germanic Circum-Baltic languages.

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 609

5.

Conclusion

At present, a lot of what has been said in the previous chapters is based on conjecture owing to the scarcity of historical evidence. Despite such uncertainties, it seems safe to assume that the progress of coherence in the Circum-Baltic region was enhanced principally by the partial Germanicization in northern Scandinavia (Sami) and in the former state of the German Knights (Latvian and Estonian). Coherence is an innovation in the eastern part of the Circum-Baltic region which prior to the intrusion of typological features from western Europe was dominated by incoherence. The advances of coherence have contributed to a typological diversification among the Circum-Baltic languages. This diversification or threefold typological split does not allow us to include coherence, mixing or incoherence among the Circum-Balticisms. However, the largely parallel introduction of coherence to formerly incoherent Latvian and Estonian demonstrates how important the common superstrate has been for the development of common features at least among a subset of the Circum-Baltic languages. The interesting aspects of comitatives and instrumentals are not restricted to the subject we have chosen for the present paper. Besides features such as, e.g., coherence, there are many more phenomena worthwhile studying in detail. Some of these phenomena are more closely related to the competition between coherent and incoherent features. Therefore, in future studies, we will investigate inter alia the differential boundaries that separate the functional domains of comitatives and instrumentals in mixed and incoherent languages of the Circum-Baltic region. In addition, we will look at the systematicity of disambiguating constructions of the together with type in coherent and mixed languages of the same region. Hopefully, such additional studies will reveal more Circum-Baltic isoglosses which allow us to determine more precisely to what extent the Circum-Baltic area actually is a Sprachbund.

Notes 1. The present study forms part of a typological research project entitled Komitativ-Typologie kindly financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Thanks are due to all members of the Bremen research group, especially to Sabine Gorsemann, Traude Gugeler, Oxana Jarovaia, Cornelia Stroh, and Aina Urdze. Cornelius Hasselblatt, Armin Hetzer, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Terje Mathiassen, Nicole Nau, Raimo Raag, and Christel Stolz have also contributed their share although they may not know it. In addition, I have to express my gratitude to the discussants of a protoversion of the present paper presented at the University of Mainz during the summer term of 1994. The responsibility for the contents of the present paper, however, is exclusively mine. For further information on the project itself the reader is referred to the publications cited in the bibliography.

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2. Except where otherwise stated, German examples are based on my native-speaker competence. Throughout the text, comitative and instrumental NPs are identified by bracketing and indexing. The grammatical morphemes used to express comitatives and instrumentals are in italics not only in the original sentence but also in the transmorphemization and the English translation. For a number of examples from Swedish and Latvian, I have drawn on the prose of modern writers: HH is short for Stina Aronson. 1983. Hitom Himlen, Malmö: Författarförlaget, B identifies Visvaldis La¯ms. 1987. Ba¯lelin¸i. Rı¯ga¯: Liesma. In addition, LKG III refers to Lietuviu˛ Kalbos Gramatika, III tomas: Sintakse˙. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1976. As for sentences (13)–(14), cf. endnotes 4–5. 3. For practical reasons, only the ten languages listed in table (12) are taken into consideration in the present paper. It almost goes without saying that as soon as reliable data on comitatives and instrumentals in Low German, Ingrian, Livonian, Votian, Veps, Karelian, Old Prussian, and sundry Circum-Baltic languages are available, our hypotheses will have to be checked against this fresh evidence. 4. To facilitate comparison, examples (13a)–(13j) have been drawn on the following CircumBaltic translations of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Le petit prince
: Danish Den Lille Prins, København: Lindhardt & Ringhof, 1991, Estonian Väike Prints, Tallinn: Tiritamm, 1993, Finnish Pikku Prinssi, Helsinki: Werner Söderström, 1992, German Der Kleine Prinz, Düsseldorf: Karl Rauch, 1995, Latvian Mazais Princis, Rı¯ga¯: Spriditis, 1995, Lithuanian Mažasis Princas, Vilnius: Džiugas, 1995, Polish Mały Ksia˛z˙˛e, Warszaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1996, Russian Malen’kij princ. Moscow: Mezdunarodnye otnušenija, 1992, Sami Bás Prinssaš. Helsinki: Werner Söderström, 1981, Swedish Lille Prinsen, Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1995. The present sentence is number 103 in Chapter XXI. 5. Again, examples (14a)–(14j) are from The Little Prince. This time, sentence 58 of chapter XV has been chosen. 6. In the present paper, we are concerned exclusively with the standard languages. If one takes non-standard varieties into account, Russian may just as easily be classified as tending towards mixing. That is why we treated Russian as a mixed language in Stolz (1997). 7. Actually, there are even more alternatives on the postpositional side, as e.g. mukaan ‘together with’ (Sulkala/Karjalainen 1992: 224–225), but the way such additional morphemes interact with kanssa and the inflectional comitative (Stolz 1994: 60) remains to be investigated. Anyway, there can be no doubt that kanssa is the preferred option when it comes to expressing comitative relations in Finnish nowadays (Nau 1995: 133). 8. Needless to say, the maps in (33)–(34) depend to some extent on conjecture.

References Bartens, Hans-Hermann. 1989. Lehrbuch der Samischen (lappischen) Sprache. Hamburg: Helmut Buske. Bergsland, Knut. 1947. Omkring my s toboj ‘vi med deg’ (du og jeg) osv. In: Festskrift til Olaf Brochs 80-årsdag, 1–12, Oslo: Norske Videnskaps-Akademi. Beronka, Johan. 1937. Lappische Kasusstudien. Zur Geschichte des Komitativ-Instruktivs und des Genitivs im Lappischen. Oslo: Brœggers Boktrykkeri. Brugmann, Karl, Delbrück, Berthold. 1911. Grundriß der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. Band II 2/1–2. Straßburg: Karl Trübner. Collinder, Björn. 1968. Finnisch als Kultursprache. Hamburg-Volksdorf: Christoph von der Ropp.

On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives

Fraenkel, Ernst. 1929. Syntax der litauischen Postpositionen und Präpositionen. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Ga¯ters, Alfreds. 1993. Lettische Syntax. Die Dainas. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. Hartmann, Roswith. 1987. Rimaykullayki. Unterrichtsmaterialien zum Quechua Ayacuchano. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer. Heine, Bernd, Claudi, Ulrike, Hünnemeyer, Friederike. 1991. Grammaticalization. A Conceptual Framework. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Heine, Bernd et alii. 1993. Conceptual Shift. A Lexicon of Grammaticalization Processes in African Languages. Köln: Institut für Afrikanistik. Hoàng Thi Chì. 1982. Grundkurs Vietnamesisch. Leipzig: Enzyklopädie. Karlsson, Fred. 1978. Finsk grammatik. Helsinki: SKS. Kotyczka, Josef. 1976. Kurze polnische Sprachlehre. Berlin: Volk und Wissen. Laanest, Arvo. 1982. Einführung in die ostseefinnischen Sprachen. Hamburg: Buske. Lakoff, George, Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Laskowski, Roman. 1972. Polnische Grammatik. Leipzig: Enzyklopädie. Lavotha, Ödön. 1973. Kurzgefaßte estnische Grammatik. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Lötzsch, Ronald. 1978. Zur Frage des sog. instrumentals im Lettischen. Zeitschrift für Slavistik 23: 667–671. Lötzsch, Ronald. 1996. Interferenzbedingte grammatische Konvergenzen und Divergenzen zwischen Sorbisch und Jiddisch. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 49 (1): 50–59. Mathiassen, Terje. 1985a. Slavisk — Baltisk — Østersjøfinske syntaktiske isoglosser og spørsmålet om et sprachbund i den østlige del av østersjøområdet. Meddelanden från Stiftelsens för Åbo Akademi forskningsinstitut 102: 123–149. Mathiassen, Terje. 1985b. A discussion of the notion ‘sprachbund’ and its application in the case of the languages in the eastern Baltic area (Slavic, Baltic, and West Finnish). International Journal of Slavic Philology 21/22: 273–281. Nau, Nicole. 1995. Möglichkeiten und Mechanismen kontaktbewegten Sprachwandels unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Finnischen. München: LINCOM Europa. Nevis, Joel A. 1987. The comitative, terminative, abessive, and essive as clitics in Estonian. UralAltaische Jahrbücher NF 7: 79–98. Nevis, Joel A. 1988a. On the development of the clitic postposition category in Estonian. FinnischUgrische Forschungen 48: 171–197. Nevis, Joel A. 1988b. A morphotactic paradox in Northern Sami: comitative -guim. Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher NF 8: 38–50. Nickel, Klaus Peter. 1990. Samisk grammatikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Nı¯tin¸a, Daina. 1978. Priev¿ardu sist¿ema latviešu rakstu valoda. Rı¯g¿a: Zin¿atne. Oinas, Felix J. 1961. The Development of some Postpositional Cases in Balto-Finnic Languages. Helsinki: SUS. Schmalstieg, William R. 1988. A Lithuanian Historical Syntax. Columbus: Slavica. Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Band 1: Grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Stolz, Thomas. 1990. Natural morphosyntax, grammaticalization, and Balto-Finnic vs. Baltic casemarking strategies: a study into the nature of periphrasis. Papiere zur Linguistik 42 (1): 9–29. Stolz, Thomas. 1991. Sprachbund im Baltikum? Estnisch und Lettisch im Zentrum einer sprachlichen Konvergenzlandschaft. Bochum: Brockmeyer. Stolz, Thomas. 1994. Über Komitative. Essen: Fb Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft. Stolz, Thomas. 1996. Komitativ-Typologie. MIT- und OHNE-Relationen im crosslinguistischen Überblick. Papiere zur Linguistik 54 (1): 3–65.

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Stolz, Thomas. 1997. Some instruments are really good companions — some are not. On syncretism and the typology of instrumentals and comitatives. Theoretical Linguistics 23 (1/2): 113–200. Sulkala, Helena, Karjalainen, Merja. 1992. Finnish. London: Routledge. Tarvainen, Kalevi. 1985. Kontrastive Syntax Deutsch-Finnisch. Heidelberg: Julius Groos. Tauli, Valter. 1966. Structural Tendencies in Uralic Languages. The Hague: Mouton. Tauli, Valter. 1983. Standard Estonian Grammar. Part 2: Syntax. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet.



Part 6

Synthesis



The Circum-Baltic languages An areal-typological approach* Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Introduction Most of the papers in this volume focus on particular phenomena found in various subsets of the Circum-Baltic languages. The goal of this concluding paper is to show that the Circum-Baltic languages as a whole form an interesting linguistic landscape of their own among the languages of the world, in general, and the European languages, in particular. As the Circum-Baltic languages are spoken on the periphery of Europe, they differ in a number of aspects from Standard Average European languages (the term explained in Section 3.2), such as German or French. The paper will be organized as follows. We start with a sketch of the historical background of the area (Section 1) and the earlier approaches to the contacts among the CB languages, especially the various attempts to find a Sprachbund
or Sprachbünde in this area (Section 2). In Section 3, we argue that the notion of a Sprachbund is hardly satisfactory when applied to the CB languages. We focus instead on a few features of the CB languages by combining macro- and microperspectives: “macroperspective” refers to a panoramic view of certain phenomena against a general global typological background, whereas by “microperspective” we mean a much more nuanced and detailed analysis of the same phenomena across the CB varieties, much in the spirit of dialectology, linguistic geography and traditional areal linguistics. We discuss the following phenomena: pluralia tantum (Section 4), suprasegmental phonology (Section 5), morphological cases and subject and object relations (Section 6), various clause-level syntactic phenomena, such as nonverbal predication (7.1), predicative possession (7.2), comitative/ instrumental (7.3), comparatives (7.4), passives, desubjectives and zero-subject constructions (7.5), various phenomena within noun phrases, such as adjective agreement (8.1), gender loss (8.2) and syntax of numeral constructions (8.3); word order phenomena (Section 9) and, finally, evidentiality (Section 10). Section 11 draws conclusions about the CB area in its geographic, historical, political, cultural and — last but not least — linguistic context.

616 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

1.

Historical background of the area

In this section, we shall give a summary overview of the historical preconditions for common developments and mutual influences among the Circum-Baltic languages. As will be clear from the discussion, the CB area has been an arena for intensive linguistic contacts, migrations, colonizations, expansions, etc., constantly divided and redivided among different spheres of influence since time immemorial. At the same time, the CB area shows a strikingly high degree of continuity in its areal contacts — for the last three or four millennia the region has been inhabited by people speaking languages of only four language groups — Baltic, Slavic and Germanic (within Indo-European) and Finnic (within Uralic). 1.1 Why “Baltic”? The very name of the Baltic Sea testifies to the complex linguistic relationships of the area. In the History of the Archbishops of Hamburg of Adam von Bremen (11th century) we read the following: “that gulf is called Baltic (Balticus) by the inhabitants because it is extended in the manner of a long belt (in modum baltei longo) through Scythic regions until Greece”1 (emphasis ours, MKT & BW). In the Mecklenburgian Chronicle by Ernst von Kirchberg, mare Balticum is translated as Gortelmeer. It is, thus, most probable that the name Baltic is originally Germanic (cf. Dan. bælt ‘strait’, bælte ‘belt’) (cf. Endzelı¯ns 1982: 353–355, for an extensive discussion see Dini 1997: 1–8). The use of the term “Baltic” is relatively recent in most of the languages around the Baltic Sea. In Russian, the Baltijskoe More was previously called More Varjažskoe ‘the Sea of the Varyags’, where “Varyag” referred to the Scandinavian Vikings. From the Russian perspective, the Baltic Sea was obviously the Sea of the Scandinavians in earlier times. In Latvian, Baltijas ju¯ra has been used only since the middle of the 19th century; earlier the Baltic Sea was called Liela¯ ju¯ra ‘Big Sea’ in contrast to the Gulf of Riga which was called Maza¯ ju¯ra ‘Little Sea’.2 In German and Scandinavian languages, as well as in Finnish and Sami, the Baltic Sea is known as the ‘Eastern Sea’ (Grm. Ostsee, Swd. Östersjö, Fin. Itämeri, Sam. Nuortamearra). In Estonian, due to the different geographic relations, the same sea is known as the ‘Western Sea’ — Läänemeri. In Livonian the Baltic Sea is called va¯lda me’r¸. Liv. va¯lda is the merger of two etymons ‘power’ (Fin. valta) and ‘white’ (Fin. valkea).3 As a common name for Latvian, Lithuanian and Old Prussian, the term “Baltic” was first introduced by Nesselmann (1845: xxviii). Earlier Indo-Europeanists referred to the Baltic subgroup of the Indo-European stock by using either Latvian or Lithuanian in a collective sense. Historically, the term Baltic was used to refer to

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the territories of the Teutonic Order in present-day Estonia and Latvia, therefore, the German-speaking population of these regions were called Balten “Balts”. 1.2 Genetic relations among the CB languages In historical times (which only go back to the 11th century A.D. in the Eastern CB area), and during preceding epochs as far as we can tell by reconstruction, the region around the Baltic Sea has been mainly a meeting place of languages from two linguistic stocks: Indo-European and Uralic, namely Baltic, Germanic and Slavic languages deriving from the NW part of the Indo-European dialect continuum and Finnic and Sami deriving from the western branch of Finno-Ugric. Archeologists, geneticists and linguists claim to trace back the two language stocks in the CB area at least to the 2nd millennium B.C. According to the Finnish phonetician Wiik, who further develops the ideas of the archeologists Doluxanov and Nuñez, Northern Europe was originally Uralic whereas the Lithuanian-born American archeologist, Gimbutas, holds that the Balts arrived in the Baltikum4 before the Finno-Ugrians, to mention only two of several competing models. We do not know anything about the languages spoken in the area before this time (the CB area was inhabited by man at least since the end of the last glacial epoch), but there is reason to believe that the linguistic situation was not less complex than in any other place with a low density of population. There have been various suggestions about a common origin for the major language stocks of Eurasia, the most notable of which is known as the “Nostratic hypothesis”. However, this hypothesis, according to which all the Circum-Baltic languages would belong to the same super-stock, cannot be proven by the methods of classical historical linguistics. Genetic affiliation implies the continuation of systems. It is, for example, very difficult to imagine how the Indo-European sound system with three manners of articulation for stops but perhaps only one vowel can be brought into harmony with the Uralic system with its rich variety of vowels but only one manner of articulation for stops. On the other hand, recent typological investigation (e.g. Nichols 1992) has pointed to an unexpected accumulation of common features in several Eurasian stocks. It is not known whether these should be interpreted as pointing towards very old genetic relationships or to areal language contacts over a long period of time. Although Indo-European and Uralic have had large differences, especially in their phonological, morphonological and morphological structures, as far as we can go back, they probably had a number of common features, such as unmarked word order SOV, several cases, case marked converbs etc. By combining hydronymical and archeological data it is possible to show that large parts of northeastern Europe, approximately from Moscow to Berlin, including the northern part of the Dnepr system, was Baltic-speaking during the 1st

618 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

millennia B.C. and A.D. (cf. e.g. Toporov & Trubacˇev 1962; Tret’jakov 1966). The age of Germanic is much more open for discussion (cf. Dahl this volume; Elert 1995). Eastern and Western Slavic languages entered the CB area more recently. Slavic started expanding in the second part of the 1st millennium A.D. over large parts of Eastern Europe, at the expense of the Baltic and Finno-Ugric ethnic groups; the place of its origin has not, however, yet been determined accurately. The development of Western Finno-Ugric languages can be described more easily in terms of a family tree model. According to this model, the Permic group (Komi, Udmurt) was separated from Finnic-Volgaic which lost first Mari then Mordvin until the remaining Proto-Finnic broke up into Finnic and Sami. But this simpler image is perhaps due merely to the extinction of intermediary Finno-Ugric groups such as Merja and Muroma, which seem to have shared properties from Mari, Mordvin and Finnic (cf. Laakso this volume). 1.3 Prehistoric contacts Linguistic contacts are, almost by definition, unattestable for pre-historic periods, but we can at least postulate two peculiarities of that period, both of which facilitated language contacts. One was the apparent great mobility of at least some ethnic groups — as an example, consider the assumed migration of the Goths in the Roman period from Southern Scandinavia via the mouth of the Vistula across the continent down to the Crimea. The other was the existence of extensive bilingual areas — otherwise it is hardly possible to explain the huge amount of Baltic and Germanic loanwords in Finnic, including even kinship terms and names for body parts (cf. the papers by Laakso and Larsson in this volume). It is more difficult to trace loanwords in phonologically very similar dialects. In particular, the similarities between the cognate Baltic and Slavic languages have given rise to various theories, ranging from postulating a common Balto-Slavic stage in the development from Common Indo-European to the modern languages to viewing the similarities as a result of convergence. Stang (1972) suggests an earlier Sprachbund situation to account for at least some of the lexical isoglosses of Baltic, Slavic and Germanic. Common Slavic has a number of Gothic loanwords. 1.4 Viking Age The Viking age is a primarily Scandinavian historical period (approximately 800–1000 A.D.). But the Viking culture spread across the Baltic Sea, especially influencing the people of the coastal region (e.g. Estonians on the Island Saaremaa and Curonians). The Swedish Vikings controlled the fur and slave trade between the Eastern Slavic and the Arabian and Byzantine areas from the 8th century. The expansive

The Circum-Baltic languages 619

activities of the Scandinavians were an important factor in the development of the political centres Novgorod (862) and Kiev (882) in Rus’ (originally the name of the Vikings in Rus’, cf. Fin. Ruotsi ‘Sweden, Swedish’). Scandinavian expansion was less successful in the Baltic, although it left some linguistic traces, even in Lithuanian (Lith. pinigai ‘money’ < OSwd. pænninger). As a result of the Scandinavian assault, the peoples of the coastal region (especially the Livonians, the Estonians of the Island Saaremaa and the Curonians) took over Viking culture and continued to infest the Baltic Sea up to a time (12th century) when Scandinavia was already Christianized and “quiet”. As an effect of this development, the numerically inferior Livonian population became dominant in most parts of present Latvia (Tõnisson 1974). According to the report of Henricus Letticus, the Livonians controlled the lower part of the Daugava River and the River Gauja at the time when the German Knights of the Cross entered Livonia (cf. Heinrici Chronicon 1993). 1.5 The Middle Ages If the beginning of the Middle Ages is marked by Christianization, the Middle Ages started at different times in the Circum-Baltic area (Denmark 8–9th centuries, Poland 10th century, Rus’ 10–11th centuries, Sweden 11th century, Finland 12–13th centuries, Livonia, Estonia and Curonia 12–13th centuries, Lithuania 13th century). As can be seen from loanwords, the Finnic and Baltic peoples had contacts with the Orthodox Church first (Fin. risti, Ltv. krusts ‘cross’ < Eastern Slavic). The Orthodox Church was, however, on the whole, less expansive than the Catholic Church. Especially in Lithuania and Latvia, the pre-Christian beliefs persisted for a long time. Latvian folk songs still preserve a pre-feudalistic conception of the world; at some places Christian and pre-Christian concepts syncretisized (Ltv. Ma¯¸ra ‘Goddess of fertility’) (Biezais 1955). During the 12th and the 13th centuries the most expansive power (up to the Gulf of Finland) in the Baltic region was Denmark. A brief Danish dominance was followed by a Low German influence (especially Lübeck and Bremen) from the 13th century onwards. It relied on the economic (the Hanseatic League), religious (the Christianization of Livonia, Estonia and Curonia) and political (the Teutonic Order) control of the region; the economic control was the most successful. During this period, Middle Low German was (apart from Latin) the dominant language in large parts of the CB area except for Lithuania. In Sweden, the Hanseatic influence was mostly restricted to the cities. The intensive impact of Middle Low German, especially on the Scandinavian languages (to a lesser degree on the Swedish dialects of Norrland and Dalecarlia) is well known and amply documented (cf., e.g. Schöndorf & Westergaard 1987; Hyldgaard-Jensen 1989). The focus in earlier research has been on the vocabulary, and that goes even for recent works (e.g.,

620 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Ureland 1987; for Latvian see Sehwers 1953; for Estonian Hinderling 1981a). The breakdown of the old case system in the continental Scandinavian languages has been ascribed to influence from Low German where a similar process took place at the same time, but the assumed language situation in the Hanseatic cities with extensive “language mixing” may also have been an important factor (Wessén 1929). The possible existence of “creolized variants” of different languages in the region is a fascinating hypothesis that is regrettably difficult to verify (for different views on this issue see Haugen 1976; Braunmüller 1995). It was Lithuania (united under Mindaugas (1236–63)) that stopped the German assault in the Baltikum. The absence of a land connection between Prussia and Livonia limited the German colonization of Livonia, Curonia and Estonia whereas Prussia, the homeland of different Western Baltic tribes, was completely Germanized during the following centuries. Only through the union with Poland 1386 did Catholicism become the dominant religious force in Lithuania — for Mindaugas and its followers the vacillation between Orthodox, Catholic and pre-Christian religions was an instrument of politics. As a consequence of this development Lithuania was one of the religiously most tolerant countries in Europe of that time. This favoured the immigration of other religious groups such as Jews (Yiddish), Karaims, and Islamic Tatars (see the papers by Jacobs and Csató in this volume). The chancellory language of Lithuania was based on an Eastern Slavic language which can be considered as the predecessor of Belarusian. 1.6 The 16–20th centuries The role of Low German was gradually taken over by High German. After the Teutonic Order had vanished, Sweden and Poland became the most important political powers in the region around the Baltic Sea during the epochs of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The use of Swedish outside Sweden proper seems to have been restricted, except for Finland, which had already been under Swedish domination in the Middle Ages (on Swedish dialects in Finland and Estonia, see Rendahl this volume). The Polish influence was strongest in Lithuania, Belarussia, Ukraine and the Eastern part of present Latvia (Latgale) where there are still Polish minorities in many areas. The Reformation played a crucial role in the development of written languages even for the smaller peoples of the region. (Old Prussian and Lithuanian catechisms began to be printed in the duchy of Prussia at the end of the 15th century, and in 1548, Michael Agricola’s Finnish translation of the New Testament appeared.) In spite of the loss of political power (with the exception of a short intermezzo 1651–1690 when the duchy of Curonia even had colonies in Africa and America), German remained the dominant language in Livonia, Curonia and Estonia, even

The Circum-Baltic languages 621

after Russia under Peter the Great became the dominant power of the Baltic Sea after the Nordic War (1700–21). The foundation of St. Petersburg (1703, capital of Russia 1709) had a disastrous effect on the development of the Eastern Finnic languages, especially Ingrian and Votic which are almost extinct now. The Russification in the Baltikum in the 19th century had different effects. In Latvia and Estonia Russification was directed against German and the local languages Latvian and Estonian even got some support against German dominance. In the Catholic regions, Russification was very strong. After the Polish-Lithuanian rebellion, 1863–64, all publication using Latin letters in Polish, Lithuanian and Latgalian (the Eastern Latvian literary tradition) was forbidden. This encountered massive resistance on the part of native speakers in the form of various subversive countermeasures (smuggling of books, nonofficial schools known in Lithuanian as vargo mokykla ‘a school of trial’, for some details see Cˇekmonas this volume, a). The second half of the 19th century saw the national awakening in the Baltic countries and Finland and, in particular, activities directed towards the reformation and standardization of the national languages in these countries. This was not an altogether easy task given the considerable diversity of the dialects in each case and the high degree of foreign influence on them. In all these languages, language planners — one of the most extreme being the Estonian, Aavik, who even invented completely new word roots — had a great influence in the shaping of the literary languages; they often favoured or, in Estonian, even reintroduced archaic features. Towards the end of the 19th century and especially after World War I, the national languages of these countries established themselves and the role of Russian, German, Swedish and Polish was accordingly reduced. As a disastrous effect of World War II — holocaust, deportation and escape — some languages, such as Yiddish, the Swedish dialects in Estonia, Karelian and Baltendeutsch were completely or nearly completely extinguished or removed from their original territories. After World War II and up to 1991, there has been considerable pressure from Russian on the languages of the Baltic republics. This tendency was most marked in the cities and towns of Latvia and Estonia, some of which still have a Russian-speaking majority. Russian, being the lingua franca of Eastern Europe, had a great influence on all local languages with the formation of numerous expressions in the daily life of the communist society. English played a similar role in the Western part of the CB area and has now, after the fall of the Soviet Empire, begun to be the lingua franca even in the Eastern part of the CB area, especially among young people. Our short historical survey simplifies things by neglecting the continuous mixed ethnic and linguistic situation that has characterized parts of the Baltic countries, and also the role of non-indigeneous languages, such as Latin, French

622 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

and Hebrew. Some examples and discussion of these issues can be found in the papers by Cˇekmonas, Csató, Pugh, Jacobs and Rusakov. However, it should be clear for the reader that the Circum-Baltic area has been an arena for intensive language contacts since time immemorial, which must have left traces in the languages involved. The important point is that it has never been united, but has always been an extremely dynamic area, constantly redivided among spheres of dominance — economical, political, religious and cultural. Given this historical background, we might expect to find various layers of similarities among the languages as a reflection of the various language constellations in which they have participated. And we can hardly expect that there will be a significant number of isoglosses (if any!), covering the whole area.

2.

Earlier studies of language contacts in the CB area

There has been a tradition of studying contacts among the languages around the Baltic Sea which mostly concentrated on loanwords. The literature is vast, and can also be complemented by etymological dictionaries and standard books on the history of particular languages. A considerable number of older and more recent studies focus on structural interferences between two languages at a time. Without wishing to deny the great value of these studies, for the sake of space we have to refrain from even a brief listing of the most important studies. In contrast to the vast literature on contact phenomena between particular languages in the CB area, attempts to elaborate a comprehensive areal-typological profile of the languages of the region have been few and sketchy. What we will discuss here are some — including the most important — approaches that describe the CB area or any subpart of it as a linguistic area or Sprachbund. It was Jakobson (1931a, b) who first applied the term “Sprachbund” to the languages of the CB area. The criterion for a language or dialect to belong to Jakobson’s Baltic phonetic (more specifically polytonal) Sprachbund is whether there is a tonal suprasegmental phonologic opposition. The languages included are, according to Jakobson, Norwegian (except the North-Western dialects), most Danish dialects, Swedish, some Low German dialects, Northern Cashubian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Livonian and Estonian. Jakobson’s ideas have been further developed in numerous papers e.g. by Lehiste (1978, 1983, 1997) and Wiik (1995, 1997); the latter uses the term “The Baltic Sea Prosodic Area” as an alternative to Jakobson’s phonetic Sprachbund. We will come back to polytonicity in Section 5.2. The interest in Sprachbund-phenomena in the area was relatively low during the following decades. In a little known paper, Falkenhahn (1963) suggested that differences and similarities in verbal government — i.e., the requirements on the form (case- and preposition marking) of verbal arguments — might support evidence for at least two small Sprachbünde on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea:

The Circum-Baltic languages 623

the Latvian-Estonian-German Sprachbund, and the Polish-Lithuanian(-Belarusian) Sprachbund.5 It was not until the seventies that Décsy (1973) and Haarmann (1974, 1976) made a new proposal of a Sprachbund in the CB area. They concluded that Latvian, Livonian, Estonian and Votic share many isoglosses which justifies speaking of a “Peipus-Bund” (Décsy) or a “Baltischer Sprachbund” (Haarmann). Two other of Décsy’s Sprachbünde — the Wikinger-Bund (including the Scandinavian, Celtic, Northern Finnic languages and Sami) and the Rokytno-Bund (including Polish, Kashubian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian) — are at least partially situated in the CB area. Departing from earlier areal linguistic work, Mathiassen (1985a, b) discusses whether there is an Eastern Baltic Sprachbund which would include Finnic, Baltic and Eastern Slavic languages (especially Russian and its Northern dialects). He considers seven morpho-syntactic isoglosses and concludes that they could, by their cumulative evidence, constitute an argument for the existence of a Sprachbund, even though a less intensive one than the Balkan Sprachbund (1984: 145). Stolz’ monograph (1991) — though it concentrates mainly on the standard languages, and particularly on Latvian and Estonian — is an important step in the study of areal phenomena in the Baltic area, i.e. especially its south-eastern part — the Baltikum. Stolz’ main conclusion is that the whole Baltikum is a linguistic convergence zone whose core is made up of Latvian and Estonian. All the other languages in the Baltikum constitute the periphery of the convergence zone. Stolz suggests that the most reasonable understanding of the term “Sprachbund” is to equate it to the core of a convergence zone, which means that Latvian and Estonian form a Sprachbund of their own. In a similar way, Sarhimaa’s (1992) Karelian Sprachbund (including Northern Russian dialects, Karelian and perhaps Veps and Ingrian) is the centre of a Finnic-Russian convergence zone. The brief listing above demonstrates a fairly intensive hunt for Sprachbünde in the CB area, especially in its eastern part, which has resulted in a number of largely overlapping proposed Sprachbünde. There is an extensive discussion in the literature on matters concerning areal linguistics, questions of Sprachbund and linguistic areas which we will not consider here (some of the references can be found in Campbell et al. 1986 and Thomason & Kaufmann 1988). Here it will suffice to point out that the different approaches to areal linguistics and to Sprachbund research in the CB area to a high degree reflect the general situation in areal linguistics, as it is summarized in Campbell et al. (1986) and Campbell (1996). One point of disagreement concerns the number of isoglosses required to define a Sprachbund (or a linguistic area), in particular, whether a single trait is sufficient. Jakobson’s proposal is the only one where a Sprachbund is established on the basis of a single isogloss — polytonicity. Even in this case, as we will see in Section 5.2, it might be reasonable to talk about several prosodic features, interrelated, but still not necessarily implied by each other.6

624 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

The number of languages which potentially underlie a Sprachbund varies considerably for different researchers. The question of feature bundling — i.e., to what degree the proposed isoglosses should cluster at the same boundaries — has not been discussed at length, but our impression is that a sufficient degree of bundling has been taken as an important criterion for each of the postulated Sprachbünde in the CB area. However, as we have seen above, the different Sprachbünde cover different sets of languages with the result that all the isoglosses, when put together, hardly can be said to bundle. Actually, there is very little discussion in general of which material should be considered in order to delimitate a Sprachbund. Most authors intuitively select isoglosses that include genetically unrelated languages. In the CB area such a procedure automatically leads to a Sprachbund with Latvian, Estonian and Livonian as the centre of a convergence zone, because it is there the most intensive contacts between Finno-Ugric languages and Indo-European languages took place. An obsession with Sprachbünde is, however, not a necessary precondition for finding the linguistic situation in the CB area a thrilling object of inquiry. Both Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm (1992), who coined the term “Circum-Baltic languages”, and Raukko & Östman (1994), who talk about “Baltic Europe”, suggest new perspectives for such studies: an areal-typological approach vs. a process-oriented, pragmatic approach to areal linguistics. Christen et al. (1996) consider a slightly different area, that is largely overlapping with the CB area — North-Eastern Europe. All the three publications are research programs: they present a number of interesting cases of language convergence and demonstrate their methodology, but the real work is still left to be done. Nau (1996) shows, by means of several examples, that the notion “Sprachbund” does not cover the whole complex of contact phenomena in the convergence zone formed by the CB languages. We will turn to Nau’s methodology and her main conclusions, which are quite akin to ours, in the next Section.

3.

CB languages as a Contact Superposition Zone

3.1 Sprachbund vs. Contact Superposition Zone In general, we doubt whether the notion of Sprachbund in any of its less trivial interpretations does justice to an area of such historical and linguistic complexity as the one found around the Baltic Sea. Moreover, we even share Dahl’s (forthcoming) general scepticism towards the notion of Sprachbund: “In the end we are led to the following more far-going question about the notion of area: to what extent do areas in typology have a reality of their own and to what extent are they just convenient ways of summarizing certain phenomena?”

The Circum-Baltic languages 625

This does not mean that hunting for a heavy clustering of features in a region is an altogether uninteresting or unreasonable enterprise. From a typological perspective, repeated clusterings of properties in different areas are of course interpreted as implicational connections among these features — this is how typologists arrive at many of their generalizations. Conversely, a region where typological features cluster in a highly idiosyncratic way can bear witness to a historically, sociolinguistically etc. very special situation. But even typologically less spectacular properties, when clustering heavily, can be useful, e.g. for reconstructing the prehistory of the languages involved. They could, for example, be interpreted as pointing to a substrate area. In fact, very special extralinguistic conditions are needed for a linguistic situation when a significant number of postulated isoglosses cluster within one and the same region, and there are no, or very few isoglosses, which partly overlap with them. Such a linguistic situation arises primarily in geographic and/or historical “isolation”. A frequent prerequisite for such a situation is the existence of a dominant cultural centre from which various cultural, including linguistic, innovations, are diffused. In other words, a heavy predomination of isoglosses which cluster within an area rather than overlap with it, often has extralinguistic correlates — a culturally more or less homogeneous area. These issues have been discussed by Nau (1996) in connection with the CB area. Her point is that complex phenomena may demonstrate multiple language connections on different levels and in different ways — which she shows by a few examples. A particularly elegant case concerns verbal prefixes and particles which in various ways modify the meaning expressed by a verb — “bounders”, in Bybee & Dahl’s (1989: 85f.) terminology. Bounders make the process denoted by a verb telic, i.e. by implying a definite limit or end-state of the process — this is, for instance, the primary function of the bounder up in the English sentence He ate up the apple. These phenomena have been prominent in various discussions of contact induced changes in the CB area: prepositional verbs are quoted in Campbell (1996) as one of the five major isoglosses for the variously defined Baltic Sprachbünde; Metslang (this volume) is devoted to related issues for Estonian, Pugh (this volume) — to Karelian and Rusakov (this volume) — to Northern Russian Romani varieties. Nau analyzes the similarities among CB bounders at three different levels:7 –

–

With respect to material similarities among bounders, the CB languages fall into the following groups (bold and italics respectively indicate the giver and borrower of bounders): a. Low German, German and Swedish; b. Lithuanian, Latvian, Livonian and Estonian dialects); c. Russian, Veps and Karelian. Semantic, functional and lexical convergence is particularly frequent in the Baltikum, among Estonian, Latvian, Livonian (for multiple examples cf. Wälchli this volume), Low German and German.

626 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

–

With respect to syntactic similarities, bounders in the languages fall into the following groups: clear prefixes — Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Veps, Karelian, German, Low German and Swedish; prefixes in non-finite verbs vs. postpositional particles with finite verbs — German, Low German, Swedish, Estonian, Livonian and, restricted, in Latvian.

Nau’s main conclusion is that the CB area is linguistically very complex, both synchronically and diachronically, with many layers of micro- and macro-contacts and mutual influences superimposed on each other over a long period of time. Our guess is that intensive micro-contacts superimposed on each other sometimes create an impression of an overall macro-contact among the languages in an area, which has not necessarily been there. We believe that the notion of Sprachbund tends to overemphasize the overall macro-contact, which might, of course, be justified in certain specific areas. For the CB area (and others comparable to it in the actual complexity of linguistic contacts), we suggest the term Contact Superposition Zone. 3.2 In quest of areal convergence By abandoning the question of whether or not the CB languages constitute a Sprachbund, we can instead emphasize the most essential point in all areal linguistic studies, i.e. what kinds of areal convergence are found among the languages under consideration. Campbell et al. (1986: 533) distinguish two groups of areal studies: – –

those that simply catalogue observed similarities among neighbouring languages: the “circumstantialist” approach (Campbell et al. 1986: 533); and those that attempt to find arguments for accounting for these similarities; thus, while some of them have arisen due to borrowing or convergence, others may be simply accidental and/or typologically frequent, or even inherited.

Most of the areal studies in the CB area do attempt to find justification for the isoglosses they propose, which is of course a difficult enterprise. In assessing the explanative value of a synchronic similarity, various well-known problems may arise. We will discuss here only two types of cases with restricted explanatory power for areal contacts. The first concerns what we would like to term generalization of latent constructions; the second concerns the loss of a marked inherited structure — what Stolz (1991: 25) calls evidence [i.e. for areal contacts] ex negativo. In Latvian, Estonian, and Livonian (and to some extent in Russian) there is an analytic superlative of the type “better than all”.8 This was noted by Endzelı¯ns (1951: 479f.), while Stolz (1991: 50–54), who considers only Latvian and Estonian, suggests that this could be a shared innovation in these languages as a result of language contacts. The problem is, however, that none of these languages is a complete innovator — both build on models that have been in use in their families.

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Endzelı¯ns (1951: 479f ) quotes such Lithuanian parallels as visu-geriáusis ‘all:gen.pl-better’. Nau (1992/93) looks at a wider range of Finnic language varieties and finds five different constructions for the superlative degree, often co-occurring within one and the same language. While the synthetic superlative is attested only in Finnish, Karelian, and Ludian,9 the by far most widespread superlative construction across Finnic languages is an analytic construction of the type “better than all”. It occurs in all varieties of Finnic, even in Finnish and Karelian, where it is fairly infrequent. We would thus say that the model “better than all” exists in all the Finnic and Baltic languages at least as a latent construction. Now, what distinguishes Latvian, Estonian and Livonian from their closest relatives is, primarily, the frequency and, as a consequence, a higher degree of grammaticalization of such constructions. In other words, in these languages the latent construction has become generalized. Language contacts could possibly have played a role in this development. It seems, however, that the generalization and the higher degree of grammaticalization of a formerly latent construction are related to the loss of earlier dominant constructions. If there is any areal influence at all, it would probably be better to search for it in the loss of the synthetic superlative constructions. We believe that the frequency at which a feature occurs throughout an area is an important and often under-estimated factor in areal linguistics. In this connection, we will quote a little-known work by Tkacˇenko (1979). He studies an interesting lexical parallel of Finno-Ugric and Eastern Slavic languages — the use of a verbal compound Rus. žili-byli, MrdE. er´ast’-aštest’ etc. ‘they lived and were’ in the beginnings of fairy tales (comparable to “Once upon a time there were”). The fact that this compound verb is spread over the whole East Slavic area makes it difficult to postulate a Finno-Ugric substrate as a reason for its development in Russian. However, as has been shown by Tkacˇenko, the relative frequency of these constructions in his huge material of beginnings of fairy tales, shows dramatic differences ranging from 56% for Russian, 8% for Belarusian and 0.5% for Ukrainian. The low percentages for Ukrainian and Belarusian make it possible to postulate areal influences, given the expansive status of Russian in the last centuries, especially given that this type decreases in Ukrainian from the East to the West. But “live-be” is not equally distributed in Russian dialects either. It reaches a peak in Central Russia in areas that were at least partly Finno-Ugric (Merjan, Mordvin and Komi substrate) formerly (Moskva 74%, Rjazan 74%, Jaroslavl’ 71%, Tver’ 70%, Penza 67%, Komi 67%). In some cases the distribution of the three different types counted by Tkacˇenko shows a surprising degree of matching between Russian dialects and neighbouring Finno-Ugric languages. We find this method of studying possible areal similarities in terms of relative frequency very promising.10 The loss of a marked inherited structure (Stolz’ [1991: 25] evidence ex negativo) like the generalization of latent constructions is another very problematic case of

628 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

evidence for areal contacts. There are two circumstances that make it particularly difficult to ascribe the loss of a marked inherited structure to a specific language contact. First, the loss of a typologically marked structure is a natural process which is not necessarily dependent on language contacts. Second, if the language where the loss took place had contacts with several other languages, there are no structural arguments for which of these language contacts might be responsible for the loss. Take the absence of vowel harmony in Standard Estonian and Livonian, as opposed to all the other Finnic languages. Stolz (1991: 38–39) suggests that this could be due to their contacts with Latvian. Now, curiously, Southern Estonian, which was confronted with a stronger Baltic influence than Northern Estonian, still has vowel harmony (e.g. Võru küläst ‘from the village’, sõbrast ‘from the friend’). Why should Southern Estonian still have vowel harmony if this feature is areally determined? It has been suggested that the loss of inflection of the negative marker in Estonian (cf. Fin. en tule, et tule, ei tule ‘I, you, s/he go[es]’ >< Est. ei tule ‘I, you, s/he go[es]’) was at least partially induced by contacts with Indo-European languages — primarily Latvian (Mikkola 1930: 436, Stolz 1991: 73). Again some Southern Estonian dialects retain the inflection of the negation and the past tense form of negation that has been lost in almost all Finnic languages is retained in Southern Estonian and in Livonian. Now, whereas Estonian has simplified its negation, the system in Livonian has become more complex. Not only does the negative verb inflect for person, but the main verb inflects as well when the subject is in the plural (cf. Laakso this volume for a discussion of negation in Finnic). Curiously, contacts with Latvian have been held responsible for this complication of the original system, just as they are believed to have induced simplification in Estonian negation (Ariste 1954: 296f quoted in Rudzı¯te 1994: 310f). It is true that both the simplified Northern Estonian negation and the complicated Livonian negation deviate from the Finnish negation pattern. If, however, one takes into account that there is a considerable variation in the negation patterns throughout the Uralian languages, the arguments in favour of the areal explanation for Estonian and Livonian lose still more in their explanatory power. 3.3 CB languages: The European and the global perspectives An important characteristic of the CB languages is their relationship to what has become known as the “Standard Average European” (SAE)11 linguistic area. Recent typological studies, primarily carried out within the EUROTYP programme have shown a number of structural similarities among the typical European languages, not only such as French, German, English and Italian, but also Czech, Norwegian and Modern Greek. On closer inspection, some of these properties turn out to be fairly unique among the languages of the world and constitute, thus, typical

The Circum-Baltic languages 629

“Europeanisms” (see Dahl 1990; van der Auwera (ed.) 1998; Siewierska (ed.) 1998; and, most important for our purposes, Haspelmath 1998). According to van der Auwera (1998) and Haspelmath (1998), the nucleus of the SAE linguistic area is made up of Dutch, German, French and Italian; its core contains the other Germanic and Romance languages, as well as the Western and Southern Slavic and Balkan languages, whereas the periphery consists of Eastern Slavic, Baltic, BaltoFinnic and Hungarian, plus, perhaps, Basque, Maltese, Armenian and Georgian. Thus, the CB languages appear both at the core and on the periphery of SAE, which guarantees them a number of peculiarities, compared both to SAE languages and to other Eurasian languages. In the rest of this paper we have chosen to concentrate on some of the typologically interesting features of the CB languages that have been discussed in connection with areal studies. In doing so, we hope to combine the achievements of areal linguistics in the CB area and general linguistic typology. As will become clear, in many cases it is difficult to find a level of analysis, at which the comparison among languages will make sense for both points of view — the typological point of view and that of areal linguistics. We start by a detailed analysis of a pluralia tantum, a phenomenon which clearly shows multiple linguistic contacts in the CB area.

4. Pluralia tantum: A case study 4.1 Introduction It was noted by Vraciu (1965, 1976), that Baltic, Slavic and Finnic languages have a large number of pluralia tantum (PLT, plural nouns that lack or have only a very unusual secondary singular form) in comparison with other European languages. He suggested that this isogloss could be explained by linguistic contacts. To check this hypothesis systematically we have compiled a list of words which have been translated into 41 European languages.12 Since both Baltic and Slavic languages are notorious for their high number of semantically different PLT, we have selected two (partially overlapping) 30-word lists representing typical plural words either in Baltic (the Baltic sample) or in Russian (the Russian sample).13 We assumed that these lists, translated into various European languages, could serve, first, for estimating the general frequency of PLT throughout the languages of Europe and, second, for measuring the degree of cross-linguistic affinity of this category to the idiosyncratic microstructure of PLT in the Baltic languages and Russian. Traditionally a plurale tantum — as its Latin name reflects — is defined as a noun that in a certain language occurs only in the plural, like scissors. This definition, however, misses out nouns which in various respects behave like prototypical pluralia tantum, but happen to have a singular form as well (often a secondary or

630 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

derived singular). Thus, in Latvian, besides rudzi ‘rye’ (pl) there is a rare singular rudzs ‘a grain of rye; a blade of rye’ — a relatively frequent situation in Baltic languages. What is interesting, however, is the fact that Latvian normally resorts to a plural noun, rudzi, in those situations where many other languages, including SAE, would use a noun in the singular. To include such cases, we have chosen a more functional approach: what we are interested in is whether a certain meaning is regularly expressed in a language by a word (or by words) in the plural, in the singular or by both. For the sake of simplicity we will retain the traditional label pluralia tantum (PLT) for the phenomenon we have been studying — a more appropriate term would be lexical plurals. PLT as a category have so far received relatively little attention in linguistic literature. They are most often simply listed in grammars of particular languages, sometimes subdivided into semantic groups (the latter is the usual praxis for Baltic and Slavic, where PLT are frequent). Notable exceptions are Braun (1930), Wierzbicka (1988) and, inspired by the latter study, Kibrik (1992). PLT, however, provide an interesting object for cross-linguistic studies in that they shed additional light on the semantics and grammatical properties of nominal number in general. A few domains in which pluralia tantum and lexicalized plurals occur include various heterogeneous substances (with many subdivisions): Lith. putos ‘foam’, Swd. sopor ‘slops’, artificial objects which are clearly internally complex (with several discernible and more or less symmetrically arranged similar parts): trousers, Rus. ˇcasy ‘clock, watch’; places (with various sub-divisions): Rus. džungli ‘jungle’, woods (in English); diseases (these are spread over several body-parts and manifest themselves as multiple visible symptoms/spots): measles; periods of time: Rus. sutki ‘day-and-night, twenty hour hours’; various festivities/festivals/rituals: Grm. Weihnachten ‘Christmas’, Fin. häät/Lith. vestuve˙s ‘wedding’; activities involving multiple actions/multiple participants: Rus. prjatki ‘hide-and-seek’. The concrete situation with PLT in any particular language is highly specific. However, there are clear tendencies in the European languages as to which concepts favour expressions in the plural. The following table shows the frequency of PLT for specific concepts in selected languages of Europe.14 The membership of a word in a certain semantic group only rarely actually decides over its being a plural or a singular. A case in point may be names of plants in Baltic languages, where the collectivity of plants (on a field) or their (collective) fruits are plurals and single blades or single fruits are singulars. A semantic group with high inconsistency in the assigning of plural or singular is e.g. musical instruments. Thus, in Polish the word for a violin, but not for a cello, is plurale tantum (skrzypce). To sum up, general considerations show that the distribution of pluralia (or dualia) tantum is a good measure of the idiosyncratic structure of a language. This holds, however, only for languages with a highly grammaticalized plural (or dual) category. Since PLT are parasitic on the category of plurality, languages with a low

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Table 1.Frequency count of pluralia tantum in 41 languages of Europe Meaning ‘glasses’ ‘trousers’ ‘tongs’ ‘scissors’ ‘firewood’ ‘measles’, ‘Christmas’ ‘horse-race’ ‘money’, ‘slops’ ‘chicken-pox’ ‘gate’, (major) place names ‘christening’ ‘wedding’, ‘hide-and-seek’ ‘bran’, ‘sleigh’, ‘brain’, ‘door’ ‘organ’ ‘yeast’, ‘troubles’ ‘car(t)’, ‘sorcery’ ‘balance/scales’, ‘funeral’, ‘rake’, ‘childbirth’ ‘debate’, ‘jungle’ ‘mane’, ‘thickets’ ‘ashes’, ‘straw’ ‘flour’, ‘oat(s)’ ‘twilight’, ‘clock /watch’ ‘salad’, ‘twenty-four hours’, ‘ceiling’ ‘lunch’ ‘smoke’, ‘foam’, ‘wheat’, ‘ink’ ‘rye’, ‘saliva’, ‘cream’ ‘dung / manure’, ‘fat’, ‘shirt’, ‘south’, ‘laughter’ ‘anger, wrath’ ‘year’

Number of languages with pluralia tantum 24.0 22.5 20.0 19.5 14.5 14.0 13.5 13.0 11.5 11.0 10.5 10.0 9.5 9.0 8.5 8.0 7.5 6.5 6.0 5.5 5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0

grammaticalization of their plural are not expected to show any interesting effects with PLT. 4.2 Genetic and areal properties of PLT The investigation of the diachronic development of pluralia tantum reveals several important facts about the general nature of the phenomenon and about its behaviour in language contact. First of all, comparing the languages of a language family allows us to make some claims about the distribution of the phenomena at undocumented earlier stages.

632 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Though in many cases it is hardly possible to reconstruct a lexical plural for a specific meaning for a proto-language, it is clear e.g. from the comparison of older IndoEuropean languages that Indo-European, at least in its latest stage, had a lot of pluralia (and dualia) tantum.15 Such early attested stages of Indo-European languages as Vedic, Classical Greek, Latin and Old Norse all have a considerable number of pluralia tantum. While, for a specific meaning, number may differ in closely related languages, it seems that the frequency of pluralia (and dualia) tantum as a whole is diachronically fairly stable (at least in Old Indo-European languages). On the other hand, comparative evidence suggests that, in Finno-Ugric, the category of plurality was much less developed than in Indo-European languages. In some Finno-Ugric languages even pairs of body parts can be singulars, one member of a pair being expressed by its half as in Mari šincˇa sg ‘eyes, a pair of eyes’ and pel šincˇa ‘one eye’ (“half eye”)16 (cf. Honti 1997 for more details). The only FinnoUgric languages with pluralia tantum for some of the meanings in our samples are Finnic, Sami and Mordvin. It seems thus that pluralia tantum are an innovation in Finno-Ugric languages where they occur. Lexical plurals for the expression of a certain meaning can be more constant diachronically than the lexical item (etymon) used to express it. Among the 30 words in the Baltic sample 25 are plurals in both Latvian and Lithuanian, but only 13 words (if we include loanwords) are etymologically related. This suggests that the plurality for the expression of a certain meaning has a certain degree of independence from its concrete lexical realization. The plural may be motivated etymologically in some cases:17 OCS. kola ‘cart’ is the plural of kolo ‘wheel’; Lith. kapai ‘churchyard’ the plural of kapas ‘grave’ and Lith. metai pl ‘year’ the plural of metas ‘season, period of time’. In other cases a motivation can be detected in the etymology of the root of a word, thus Ltv. ragavas ‘sledge’ belongs etymologically to Ltv. rags ‘horn’, thus suggesting that the sledge is a plural because of the two runners at the front of it that look like horns. PLT can easily be transferred in language contact, provided the language that borrows a lexical plural has a highly grammaticalized plural category. Lexical plurals may be borrowed without the borrowing of the corresponding etymon. Thus among the pluralia tantum of Latvian Romani (Manuš et al. 1997) many words are genuine Romani words or in any case words that are not related with corresponding Baltic or Slavic forms, e.g. 1 thuvá ‘smoke’, 2 firjá ‘foam’, 29 opralé ‘ceiling’, other PLT in Latvian Romani are loans from Latvian, e.g. me¯’šl¸i ‘dung’, bri’l¸¸li ‘glasses’, or from Slavic, e.g. móhilki, poxróni ‘funeral’, nácˇistumi ‘slops’. In some cases the plural is somewhat more restricted if it is borrowed or there are coexisting singular and plural forms of the same word, e.g. Latvian Romani phus sg/phusá ‘straw’ occurs both in singular and in plural. At least for some speakers of Livonian, cereals are plurals only as plants on a field, but not as an accumulation of grains, whereas Latvian has plural for both.

The Circum-Baltic languages 633

Loanwords which are singulars in the original language may become plurals in borrowing languages, e.g. Ltv. ziepes pl ‘soap’ < MLGrm. se(e)pe, Ltv. kaposti pl ‘cabbage’ < ORus. kapusta. PLT may however also be borrowed along with their etyma, sometimes some of Braun’s “originally logical plurals” are borrowed along with their corresponding singulars: Fin. rattaat, Liv. rattõd
‘cart’ < Balt. > Lith. ratai, Ltv. rati id. ‘Cart’ is the plural of ‘wheel’: Fin. ratas, Liv. rattõz < Balt. > Lith. ratas, Ltv. rats ‘wheel’. From this word, plurality spread to other words denoting carts in Finnish such as vaunut and kärryt. For two contact languages, one may borrow plurality and the other the etymon: Liv. ko¯zgõnd
‘wedding’ originally derives from a compound *kansa-kunta (Est. kaasa ‘companion, mate, spouse’, Fin. kunta ‘company’), the -t- (> -d) in the second member was reinterpreted as the nominative plural marker in Livonian. Ltv. ka¯zas pl ‘wedding’ is a loan from the first component of the Livonian word. Its plural (cf. Lith. vestuve˙s pl ‘wedding’, Ltv.dial. vedı¯bas pl id.) is however Baltic. PLT are a dynamic category. Their concrete distribution changes diachronically.18 This can be partly explained by the expressive character of PLT. In some languages there are extremely many PLT denoting some sort of garbage, waste, clippings etc., e.g. Rus. sgrëbki, otbrosy, loxmot’ja, snimki, penki, otgonki, žmyxi, otžimki. To this group belongs even slivki ‘cream’ (originally “what has been poured away from above”). To sum up, the general tendency for or against pluralia tantum is inherited, but it may change in the development of languages. The concrete distribution of PLT is however much less stable than the general preference. Comparative investigation reveals that formal plurality of a concept is to a certain degree independent from the etymologic word. Thus a singular etymon may become a plural when borrowed into another language and vice versa and the continuity of plurality may be higher than the continuity of the lexical/etymological realization of a concept. 4.3 Results for the evaluation of a linguistic area in the CB region 4.3.1The Baltic based sample Map 1 shows the values for a number of European languages based on the 30 items of the Baltic sample. According to the number of items with plurals we may distinguish four groups of languages.19 The four groups include the following languages: – – –

24 or more: Central Baltic; 12 or more: the contact languages to Latvian (Livonian and Latvian Romani); 6 or more: most Slavic languages, Icelandic, (formerly) Latin; and among the Finno-Ugric languages Finnic, Sami and Mordvin. This isogloss contains thus languages of the North-Eastern European area plus some conservative Indo-

634 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Ice 8

Sam 7 Fin 9 Swd 4

Ir 1

Liv 14

Mar 0

Udm 0

Ltv 28

Rus 8 Tat 0 Lith 27 Bylr 10 Mrd 6 Dut 2 Pol 8 Krm 0 Cz 10 Yid 3 Ukr 8 Grm 2 Hng 0 Fr 4 Slve 10 Oss 1 It 3 SCr 9 Abx 1 Grg 2 (Lat 8) Spn 2 Blg 3 Arm 0 Grk 4

Eng 5

LRmn 12

Est 7

Vps 6

Map 1.Baltic based sample.

–

European languages; less than 6: all other languages.

What we see on the map is not a Sprachbund but more or less the degree of genetic and/or areal affinity of the languages of Europe to the Baltic languages. Areally close but unrelated languages — such as Finnish — and areally distant languages but genetically related languages — such as the conservative Germanic language Icelandic20 — have similar values on Map 1. The map is clearly selective: it does not show the areal influence of other languages on the Baltic languages (such as German on Latvian) but only the influence of Baltic or closely related languages on other languages. Thus, the diffusion of PLT from Latvian to the two small languages in Latvia, Livonian and Latvian Romani is quite salient, if we take into account that other varieties of Romani and Finnic do not have a comparable amount of PLT. Map 1 reflects a great many different language contact situations on the microlevel that are also known from other investigations. Combining all these facts we can reconstruct the following picture: Indo-European had a high frequency of pluralia tantum. The Baltic languages, and especially the Central Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian, increased this frequency21 and acquired a pattern for pluralia tantum that in some respects deviates from the late Indo-European one. Most Indo-European languages, however, continually diminished their frequency

The Circum-Baltic languages 635

of pluralia tantum. Some more conservative languages, such as the Slavic languages and Icelandic retained a value about of the range of an older Indo-European language such as Latin. On the other hand, some Finno-Ugric languages that were situated close to Baltic (and Slavic) languages increased their frequency for pluralia tantum from zero to a value that corresponds to the average level of a conservative Indo-European language. We assumed that the Baltic-based sample would not only show the affinity of European languages to the specific Baltic microstructure of lexical plurals, but would also serve as an indicator for the general frequency of pluralia tantum in the languages of Europe as the Baltic languages have the highest frequency of pluralia tantum in Europe. There is some evidence that this actually might be the case. All of the languages inside the isogloss 6 or more (except Romani) have an additional property in common: they dispose of a special set of numerals to count pluralia tantum, e.g. Lat. trinae aedes ‘three houses’, OIce. tvennar dyrr ‘two doors’, tvenn skéri ‘a pair of scissors’, Rus. dvoje ˇcasov ‘two clocks’, SCr. troja vrata ‘three doors’, Lith. dveji marškiniai ‘two shirts’, Mrd. ombonst usat ‘a second moustache’, Fin. kahdet häät ‘two weddings’, SamN. guovtek hæjâk ¯ id.22 The fact that there is a special set of pluralia tantum numerals has to do with the general frequency of pluralia tantum rather than with the specific Baltic conditioning of the sample. The correlation with pluralia tantum numerals is thus an argument that the Baltic based sample has a certain degree of representativity for the frequency of pluralia tantum in Europe in general. Besides of reflecting many language contacts, Map 1 also conceals a lot of relevant facts. It does, e.g., not tell us anything about the relationship between Livonian and Latvian Romani, i.e. it suggests that these two languages behave similarly. This is only true as to the similar weight of Latvian influence, but not as to the concrete distribution of pluralia tantum. For the 47 meanings in both samples Livonian (25) and Latvian (45) share 24 and Latvian Romani (23) and Latvian share 21 items. Livonian and Latvian Romani, however, share only 13 items, i.e. the two smaller languages share nearly all their PLT with Latvian, whereas they share only about half of the items with each other. This suggests that the language contact between Latvian Romani and Livonian was not very intensive. Actually, there is no evidence for such a contact from other sources. The European map of the Russian-based sample shows the areal and genetic relationships of Russian and, more generally, Eastern Slavic. Thus, Lithuanian has considerably higher numbers than Latvian, and Veps and Mordvin have higher numbers than the other Western Finno-Ugric languages with a much less intensive contact to Russian. Remarkable is also the relative high number of Ossetic — 5–if we take into account that this language otherwise has very few PLT.

636 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Ice 8

Sam 6 Fin 8 Vps 14 Swd 4

Liv 11

Ir 2 Eng 6

LRmn 13 Dut 1 Grm 4

Cz 13

Fr 3

Spn 3

It 5 (Lat 3)

Est 10

Mar 0

Ltv 19

Pol 17 Yid 6

Lith 24 Krm 0

Udm 0

Rus 30 Bylr 28

Mrd 13

Ttr 0

Ukr 29

Hng 0 Slve 14 SCr 13 Grk 4

Abx 2 Blg 6 (OGrk 6)

Oss 5

Grg 0

Arm 0

Map 2.The Russian sample.

4.4 PLT and areal contacts in the CB region The areal contacts among the CB languages that are reflected in the two maps are about the following: –

–

–

The genetic relationship among Indo-European languages, inasmuch as they did not lose their tendency for many PLT, is clearly visible. The data further suggest that there is a specific areal and/or genetic affiliation between Baltic and Slavic. It follows from the material that there was a considerable influence of some Indo-European languages on Finnic, Sami and Mordvin. This influence seems to have been very strong if we take into account that Finno-Ugric languages generally have no PLT (at least for our sample meanings). Our data suggest that Baltic influence in particular is responsible for PLT in Finnic (cf. also Ingo 1978). Baltic influence in the constitution of PLT in Finnic is obvious in the case of loanwords such as Fin. rattaat ‘cart’. Our data further suggest that Slavic influence, except for Veps and Mordvin, was not very strong. The degree of Germanic influence on Finnic, however, cannot be seen properly, because Germanic languages are showing a tendency to lose their PLT. As for Mordvin it seems that Russian was not the only Indo-European language involved. Baltic influence on Mordvin, however, cannot be established by our material. Our data suggest that there was a strong Finnish influence on Sami (i.e. Standard Sami). All PLT in our samples in Sami are found in Finnish as well.

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–

–

– –

There is a continuity of contact between Baltic and Finnic up to the contact between Latvian and Livonian. A considerable part of the PLT of Livonian are found also in Finnish. Between Finnish and Livonian, Estonian probably has lost many PLT. This could, at least partly, be due to German influence. The contacts of Eastern Slavic languages (our data do not allow us to distinguish Old Russian, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian) were more intensive with Lithuanian than with Latvian, and the Eastern Slavic influence was stronger on Veps and Mordvin than on Livonian and Finnish. Latvian Romani had some contact to Slavic languages, but there were no noteworthy contacts with Livonian. Yiddish has a higher frequency of PLT than other Western Germanic languages, especially because of Slavic influence, e.g. pamoyes (< Slav.) ‘slops’. But cf. also the plurals klayen ‘bran’, heyvn ‘yeast’, bahelterlekh ‘hide-and-seek’.

However, many contacts are not reflected in our material on PLT. We cannot see e.g. from our data the areal contacts of Karaim (Turkic languages do not have highly grammaticalized plurals). As a rule the influence of languages with a high degree of PLT is overemphasized in the results. The influence of languages with a low degree of PLT is hardly recognizable. Thus, our material on PLT does not, for example, reflect the influence of Finnic and Germanic languages on Latvian. On the one hand, PLT are a very good test for areal contacts in the CB area, as they represent an ordered and homogenous set of equally strong but mutually unrelated properties. The selection of a single ordered set of unrelated (or almost unrelated) equipollent properties all belonging to a single category makes it possible to see areal contacts in a diachronic perspective. This reveals the complexity of different waves across a linguistic area that cannot be seen in a traditional Sprachbund analysis. A high number of matching properties here does not, however, mean a high degree of belonging to a linguistic area but a high degree of areal and/or genetic affinity to some of the genetic strata in the area (here: Baltic, Slavic, Indo-European). Although PLT reflect a great many areal contacts in the CB area, they show us the CB region through a filter, in a distorting mirror where almost only the Baltic, Slavic and Indo-European elements are recognizable.

5.

Suprasegmental phonology

Suprasegmental features have been a major topic of areal research in the CB area since Jakobson (1931a, b). In this section we would like to present some of the most relevant phenomena, especially stressing the synchronic and diachronic similarities and differences in the languages and dialects of the CB area.

638 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

5.1 Initial stress Most of the CB languages have basically initial stress: the Germanic languages of the area, all the Finnic language, Latvian and Žemaitian (Northern) dialects of Lithuanian. In addition, certain Northern Russian dialects bordering on Karelian-Olonec and Veps-speaking areas show a tendency towards fixed initial stress (Veenker 1967: 74, Kiparsky 1970: 178). The details of the initial stress assignment, as well as the relative weight of these patterns show a considerable cross-linguistic variation. Thus, in Finnish, the stress appears on the first syllable of the word almost without exception, in Latvian there are only few exceptions, and Estonian widely allows other stress patterns in recent borrowings. In Germanic, the stress is normally fixed on initial root syllables; some prefixes are stressed, some not, and there is a relatively tolerant treatment of internationalisms, including words with borrowed suffixes. In Yiddish, the fixed Germanic stress on initial root syllables is mainly restricted to the Germanic component of its vocabulary, whereas the Hebrew and Slavic (and Baltic) components have their own stress rules. Actually the same could, mutatis mutandis, apply to the modern Scandinavian languages, where the numerous Romance loans have a stress system of their own.23 From the theoretical point of view, fixed stress is an unmarked option compared to mobile stress patterns (in the former case, word stress follows a simple algorithm, which is not possible in the latter) — the two most common solutions are fixed initial and penultimate stress patterns.24 However, in the European context, the Circum-Baltic languages do in fact show a high concentration of languages with initial stress. This is otherwise attested only in Celtic, the other Germanic languages, most (although not all) of the Finno-Ugric languages and the two Slavic languages Czech and Slovak (both spoken in areas contiguous to those of the initially stressed Hungarian and German). The question of whether initial stress in the Circum-Baltic languages can be attributed to language contacts has been vividly discussed in the literature. There is by now much evidence that stress patterns can easily diffuse across dialectal and language borders. At least for some of the cases in our area, there are no doubts about the contact origin of the stress pattern. This applies primarily to the tendency towards fixed initial accent in the above-mentioned Northern Russian dialects, spoken on the border to the initially stressed Finnic varieties (Veenker 1967: 74, Kiparsky 1970: 178 who both agree on the adstratal rather than substratal influence). There is also a generally accepted view that the initial stress in Latvian is due to Finnic influence (in this case, primarily substratal, see Balode & Holvoet this volume, a). This would be the obvious explanation for the striking difference between Latvian and its close relative Lithuanian, which — though with some innovations — still retains the free stress pattern of Indo-European. On closer

The Circum-Baltic languages 639

inspection, the situation turns out to be less straightforward than assumed. Even within Lithuanian there are north-western dialects (the Žemaitian dialects and some Aukštaitian dialects) which show different degrees of partial stress retraction and even initial stress (Cˇekmonas this volume c, Section 5; Laimute & Holvoet this volume b, Section 1.3), and there is some evidence that points to a continuous change, involving subsequent stages of partial stress retraction in Latvian too. The evidence is as follows: As a result of the accent shift, the tone system in Latvian was changed. Latvian acquired a third distinctive suprasegmental tone on long syllable cores. The new broken tone developed where the stress was retracted to a syllable that had acute tone in the original Baltic system. Stang (1966: 142f) points out that as the broken tone, originating according to the traditional view from the accent shift, is not restricted to initial syllables, it is a logical consequence of the traditional view on the development of the broken tone that there must have been several subsequent accent shifts in the history of Latvian. What matters most in a traditional diachronic reconstruction of a language development in contact is whether there is a continuous “organic” development or a radical sudden change (substitution). The latter variant may directly testify to strong impact of a contact language, whereas in the former case, one can never prove strictly that a change is due only to language contact. Now, whereas a radical change in Latvian from the free stress pattern to the initial stress pattern would be better accounted for by external factors, such as language contacts, continuous change does not, in principle, call for such an explanation and may be fully attributed to language-internal factors, in accordance with the traditional method of reconstruction. The two groups of factors and the two explanations do not, of course, need to exclude each other: the Finnish influence could still have played an important role in strengthening the tendency to repeat the process of stress retraction, which might have arisen due to languageinternal mechanisms. In Latvian, accent shift towards the initial syllable led to the loss of final short vowels and the shortening of final long vowels and diphthongs, which, in turn, had further important consequences for morphology. The weakening of non-initial syllables was even stronger in Low Latvian25 (the area with the strongest Livonian and Estonian influence). Initial stress per se does not automatically entail reduction of non-initial syllables, as Finnish shows. There are however also Finnic languages with a strong reduction of non-initial syllables (Livonian, Estonian dialects of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, to a lesser extent Estonian). Interestingly, these dialects form a contiguous area with Low Latvian. In both Finnic and Germanic initial stress is much older than in Latvian. Initial stress in Germanic is an innovation in comparison to Indo-European. Salmons (1992) suggests a shared Germanic-Celtic accent shift taking place in prehistoric northwestern Europe, most notably in the context of early and profound contacts

640 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

with Finno-Ugric languages. He analyzes several competing hypotheses about the origin of the accentual shift and arrives at a conclusion that a Finno-Ugric language would be the most plausible source — given the generally believed view that ProtoFinno-Ugric and, more broadly, Proto-Uralic had initial stress (Salmons’ ideas are further developed by Wiik 1995, 1997). However, although the majority of the Finno-Ugric languages have initial stress, it is not clear whether this pattern can be reconstructed for their common ancestor.26 There is a considerable number of Uralic languages that have different stress patterns, some of which have not yet received sufficient scientific treatment — for discussion see Viitso (1997: 224–25). Given that the accent shift to the initial syllable of the Western Indo-European languages included also the Italic languages (Latin underwent a stage of initial stress before changing to penultimate stress) and the sparse evidence of Finno-Ugric substrate in Germanic and Celtic, Salmons’ hypothesis about the Finno-Ugric source of the Germanic-Celtic accent shift is not very plausible. On the basis of the evidence presented so far, it is difficult to judge to what degree language contacts have been instrumental in the emergence of initial stress as the dominating stress pattern in the CB languages. 5.2 Polytonicity Besides the dominance of initial stress, polytonicity is perhaps an even more striking and typologically more relevant common suprasegmental property of many CB languages (with Finnish as an important exception). Jakobson (1931a, b) considered polytonicity to be the most important property of the languages around the Baltic Sea. In this section we would like to brievly present some of the basic features of the polytonal phonology of the CB languages, stressing especially the differences in origin across the different languages. There are at least three different layers of polytonicity in the CB languages: tones on long syllable cores in the Baltic languages that go back to Late Indo-European polytonicity (5.2.1), overlength in Southern Finnic and some Latvian dialects that does not seem to be much older than a thousand years (5.2.2) and phonologization of secondary stress in Continental Scandinavian (5.2.3). But this does not mean that there was no mutual influence in the development of the suprasegmental phonology of neighbouring languages. 5.2.1Tones on long syllable cores (especially on diphthongs) in the Baltic languages The general principle of polytonicity in the Baltic languages is that long syllable cores (i.e. long vowels and long diphthongs, the latter including combinations of vowels and tautosyllabic nasals or liquids, e.g. a¯, ei, am, il) have an opposition of tone contours. The phonetic realization and the contexts of occurrence of this opposition differ across the Baltic languages and dialects.

The Circum-Baltic languages 641

In Standard Lithuanian there is an opposition of Acute and Circumflex27 only in traditionally long stressed syllables. In the original Latvian system that is still retained in some dialects in Vidzeme and Kurzeme there are three tones (the third, broken tone resulting from a retraction of stress to an acute syllable). As stress generally falls on the initial syllable in Latvian, the tonal opposition is most salient in long initial syllables, but different tone contours exist even in unstressed long syllables. The polytonal opposition is functionally more noticeable in diphthongs (including vowels with tautosyllabic nasals and liquids) where it is also usually more salient phonetically. In Standard Lithuanian there is a tendency to retain polytonicity only in diphthongs. Baltic polytonicity is genetically related to polytonicity in Slavic languages, as still exists in dialects of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian in a very transformed manner, and more distantly to polytonicity in Classical Greek. Acute is generally explained as having been caused by Indo-European laryngeals, either directly or indirectly by an intermediate step of lengthening. Anyway, in the Baltic languages, polytonicity is much older than in any other part of the CB area. It is a relict of a wider phenomenon once including large parts of the Indo-European dialect area, at least the predecessors of Baltic, Slavic and Greek. Polytonicity in the Baltic languages is also specific among the CB languages in that it is not bound to initial stress. For more information on tones in Lithuanian and Latvian cf. Balode & Holvoet (this volume, a, b). 5.2.2Overlength The second complex of suprasegmental phenomena is directly correlated to initial stress and the concomitant reduction of non-initial syllables. In some languages and dialects of the CB area (especially Estonian, Livonian and Low Latvian) the reduction of a non-initial syllable was compensated by a secondary lengthening of the initial syllable. Whether this suprasegmental feature is realized phonetically and should be classified phonologically as a feature of length or of tone contour is of secondary importance. Traditional Estonian grammar distinguishes three quantities — quantity 1 (short), quantity 2 (long) and quantity 3 (overlong) — in both vowels and consonants. In most cases, quantities 2 and 3 are not distinguished in Estonian orthography. Quantity 3 is, however, not a quantity on a par with quantities 1 and 2. It occurs only in one specific position in a word (initial syllable for vowels, between the first and second syllable for consonants) unlike the two other quantities, its function is mainly grammatical. Quantity 3 is often (however, not always, cf. Krull 1997) accompanied by a characteristic falling contour (for the latest developments and the summary of previous research see Lehiste and Roos (eds.) 1997). As suggested in these and other studies, the quantity system of Estonian might be in the process of transition and Estonian might thus be developing tonal oppositions.

642 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Table 2.Quantity in Estonian quantity distinctions in:

Quantity 1

Quantity 2

Quantity 3

consonants (/n/)

lina ‘line:nom.sg’

linna ‘town:gen.sg’

linna ‘town:ill.sg’

vowels (/a/)

sada ‘hundred’

saada ‘send:imp’

saada ‘get:inf2’

The original system was based on the opposition between short and long vowels in both initial and non-initial syllables, as in Finnish. This system was brought out of balance about 500 years ago. As a result of apocope (reduction or loss of non-initial syllables) non-initial syllables were now all short and overlength (quantity 3) arose as a compensatory lengthening when the following syllable had been lost or reduced. The overlong syllable thus retained approximately the duration of the original disyllabic sequence. Lehiste (1978, 1983, 1997) suggests that the rise of phonetically different pitch patterns might be connected directly with the process of apocope. Disyllablic sequences with quantities 1 or 2 have a step-down pitch contour distributed over the two syllables. However, if the second syllable had lost its vowel, this same tonal contour could now be transferred to the lengthened first syllable, which thus acquired a falling contour. Overlong syllables, though still treated as disyllabic sequences in certain respects, are gradually losing their characteristics of disyllabicity, as can be seen in the placement of secondary stress in long words and in the assignment of words to inflectional paradigms. For example, since the first syllable of the word endine ‘former’ is overlong, it should “count” like the first two short syllables of the word inimene ‘person’. More specifically, secondary stress in some inflected forms of endine (e.g. comitative) should fall on the second syllable, cf. en.disega ‘former:com’ and ini.mega ‘person:com’ (“.” in these examples indicates secondary stress on the following syllable). Endine and inimene should also be assigned to the same inflectional paradigm. However, the new development in Estonian places secondary stress in endisega on the third syllable, endi.sega; the preferred partitive plural of the word is now endi.seid
like puna.seid
from the threesyllable punane ‘red’, rather then the expected en.disi, cf. with ini.mesi ‘person:pl.prtv’. Thus, as Lehiste (1997: 27) summarizes, there are two types of changes in the suprasegmental system of Estonian: “the change directed at eliminating the special status of overlength, and the change directed at reinterpreting the significance of the phonetic features accompanying overlength — from a manifestation primarily by quantity to a manifestation involving contrastive pitch”. Lehiste’s conclusion is also that the whole process leads to spontaneous tonogenesis in Estonian for which no areal explanation is needed. However, as she adds, some facts suggest that we are still dealing with linguistic convergence.

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Secondary lengthening is a more extended phenomenon in Livonian (of Curonia) where it can only partly be explained diachronically by the reduction of a non-initial syllable. The Livonian facts are very complex and therefore we have to present them in a slightly simplified manner here. In every stressed Livonian word, there is one secondary-lengthened element. Not all segments can be secondary-lengthened: short vowels in the first syllable (including short diphthongs) and voiced consonants between the first and second syllables (and initial consonants, of course) are excluded from secondary lengthening. If there is no segment that can bear a secondary lengthening, a broken tone (stød, written: ’) is inserted (e.g. me’r¸ ‘sea’). In Livonian, as opposed to Estonian, there is thus no suprasegmental opposition depending on whether there is secondary lengthening or not (because there always is one), but rather an opposition depending on where the secondary lengthening is placed, i.e. the opposition between degree 1 and degree 2. Broken tone (stød) can be considered as a further possibility of suprasegmental lengthening (degree 3) as it contrasts with degrees 1 and 2 in some contexts. As already mentioned, the opposition between secondary lengthening proper and stød can be neutralized if there is no segment available that can be lengthened. Interestingly, all three degrees can be distinguished only in long diphthongs. (As in the Baltic languages, combinations of a vowel and a tautosyllabic nasal or liquid may also be counted as diphthongs.) Both Livonian and the Baltic languages (see above) have the highest differentiation of suprasegmental oppositions in diphthongs. Table 3.Suprasegmental lengthening in Livonian degree 1

lengthening of…

degree 2

lengthening of…

van¿a (nom) ‘old’ mõts¿a (nom) ‘forest’

short vowel of the 2nd syllable short vowel of the 2nd syllable

va’nõ (prtv) ‘old’ mõt¯sõ (prtv) ‘forest’

(stød)

a¿ ndab (3sg) ‘he takes’

first component of the diphthong in the 1st syllable segmentally long vowel (secondary lengthening not perceptible)

an¯dõ (1.inf) ‘to take’

s¿ur (nom) ‘big’

su¯r (prtv) ‘big’

first voiceless consonant between the 1st and the 2nd syllable second component of the diphthong in the 1st syllable segmentally long vowel (secondary lengthening not perceptible)

In the forms with stød (’) there is no segment available that could be lengthened at the position afforded according to the requirements of degree 1 and 2.

644 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

In degree 2, (due partly to apocope) the second part of a long segment (long vowel or long diphthong) or a voiceless consonant (the first if there are several) between the first and the second syllables is lengthened. In degree 1, the first part of a long segment or the vowel of the second syllable (which is never segmentally long) is lengthened. The distinction between degrees 1 and 2 is neutralized with long vowels (lengthening of either part of a vowel has the same effect). The opposition between degrees 1 and 2 is often used to distinguish grammatical forms. Some examples are listed in table 3. The Livonian system of secondary lengthening is reminiscent of many Germanic dialects (e.g. Standard Swedish) where, in a stressed syllable, either the vowel is long and the following consonant short or vice versa, the vowel is short and the following consonant is long (this type of suprasegmental opposition was called Silbenschnittkorrelation by Trubetzkoy 1967). Secondary lengthening due to the reduction or loss of non-initial syllables occurs also in Low Latvian dialects. It consists of two aspects that are not considered to be connected in Latvian dialectology, although they actually make up a single suprasegmental phoneme. Before voiced consonants there is one of three secondary tones (according to the length of the syllable core and if it is long according to which primary tone it has): 1. rising-falling (or falling) tone (ka¯pjoši krı¯toša¯/krı¯toša¯ intona¯cija): lèab ‘well’ (< labi); i.e. secondary lengthening of an originally short syllable core. 2. drawn-falling tone (stiepti krı¯toša¯ intona¯cija) b«a˜ls ‘pale’ acc.pl (< b«alus); i.e. secondary lengthening of an originally long syllable core with stretched tone. 3. broken-falling tone (lauzti krı¯toša¯ intona¯cija): sniê˜g ‘snow’ acc (< sniêgu); i.e. secondary lengthening of an originally long syllable core with broken tone (cf. Rudzı¯te 1964: 157f). If the first syllable is short and the following vowel is voiceless, the consonant, not the vowel is lengthened: las¯ ‘s/he is reading’ (< lasa) (cf. Rudzı¯te 1964: 179). Low Latvian dialects have, thus, a similar system of secondary lengthening as Estonian. A further parallel is that overlength is described as having a phonetically falling tone contour. The main difference between Low Latvian and Estonian is that the new suprasegmental opposition is combined with the original Baltic suprasegmental system (opposition of tone contour in long syllable cores; cf. 5.2.1). There is a completely different type of overlength in Sami, not restricted to the first syllable, whose genesis is dependent on whether a syllable originally ended in a vowel (lengthening) or a consonant (no lengthening). 5.2.3Phonologization of secondary stress Most dialects of Norwegian, Swedish (except the dialects in contacts with Finnish and Estonian, cf. Rendahl this volume, Section 5) and Danish have a suprasegmental

The Circum-Baltic languages 645

opposition in which words that did not originally have a secondary stress (most of them originally consisting of a single syllable) now have accent 1 (or stød in Danish) and words that did originally have a secondary stress (most of them originally consisting of more than one syllable) now have accent 2 (or no stød in Danish).28 Originally means before the cliticization of the postposed definite article (*and hinn > Swd. anden ‘the mallard’) and before epenthesis in words ending in a syllabic sonorant (segl
> Swd. segel
‘sail’). Table 4.Quantity in Swedish

orig. one syllable orig. two syllables

now one syllable (article not counted)

now two syllables (article not counted)

1

1

and-en ‘the mallard’

segel
‘sail’ ande-n ‘the spirit’

2

A very similar development holds for various dialects of Scottish Gaelic according to Ternes (1980). 5.2.4Conclusion Regarding polytonicity, there are at least three different areas in the languages of the CB region: – – –

opposition of tone contours in long syllable cores — restricted to the Baltic languages; “overlength” — found in Estonian, Livonian, Low Latvian and perhaps in some Low German dialects (cf. Ternes 1980); word tone whose genesis is in some way associated with the original number of syllables of a word and is due to the presence or absence of an originally secondary stress — found in most Swedish, Norwegian and Danish dialects and in some variants of Scottish Gaelic.

Of these three phenomena the first one is is a clear archaism, a relic of the Late Indo-European polytonicity, while the other two phenomena are relatively recent innovations. There is no evidence that the emergence of any of these three areas was caused by the influence of another area. This means that polytonicity in the CB area has at least three different origins. This does not mean, however, that there was no mutual influence between the three polytonal areas. A clear example of overlapping is Low Latvian, which combines Baltic polytonicity in long syllable cores with the Estonian-type “overlength” caused by apocope. Phonetic realizations of suprasegmental phonemes vary greatly in the three areas and the same or very similar phonetic realizations (e.g.

646 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

stød) may be found in all three areas. It is not unlikely that there was some mutual influence involved, e.g. in the development of a phonetically very similar broken tone (stød) both in Latvian and in Livonian (though broken tone has very different functions in the suprasegmental systems of these two languages). There is a considerable convergence between the suprasegmental systems of Latvian and Livonian (cf. e.g. the role of tautosyllabic nasals and liquids in Livonian), yet the suprasegemental systems of Latvian and Livonian are completely different in origin. It seems that the two characteristic features of suprasegmental phonology in the CB area — initial stress (5.1) and polytonicity (5.2) — are not unrelated. Two of the three layers of polytonicity in the CB region developed only in languages with initial stress. This does not mean, however, that a language with initial stress necessarily develops polytonicity (in Finnish, e.g. this was not the case). It has not been possible to exhaustively treat the suprasegmental features found in CB languages in this section. Another typologically very marked feature is preaspiration (in “conservative” Scandinavian variants like Icelandic and Northern Swedish dialects and in Sami) whose core is, however, not located in the CB area.

6. Morphological cases, subject and object relationships in the CB area 6.1 Introduction The CB area belongs to the intermediate zone between the Western European languages, which have lost most of their morphological case distinctions, and the languages of the huge Eurasian area which exhibit more or less elaborate case systems for signalling grammatical relations. Both these extremes are represented in our area, stretching from the fairly caseless Standard Continental Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish and most of their dialects (although not all, cf. below Section 6.8), to Estonian with a system of 14 cases. In this section we will be mainly interested in the case marking of subjects and objects in the CircumBaltic languages (Sections 6.3–6.4), but will also discuss the case systems themselves (Sections 6.2, 6.7 and 6.8) and touch upon case marking of temporal adverbials (6.6). Section 6 will mainly focus on the languages to the East of the Baltic Sea, since they show more interesting differences from Standard Average European. The semantically and syntactically determined alternation in the case marking of subjects and objects is one of the more widely discussed common features in the Baltic, Finnic and Russian (cf. Larsson this volume, Section 5.1). Thus, in example (1) from Finnish, the object ‘apple’ to the same verbal lexeme ‘eat’ appears in three different cases. In the Fennicistic tradition, the alternation between the accusative in (1a) and the partitive in (1b) is said to signal the difference between total and partial objects: (1a), in contrast to (1b), implies that the whole apple was eaten.

The Circum-Baltic languages 647

Total objects to imperatives appear in the nominative case — (1c) presents an example of such a nominative object. (1) Finnish a. Söi-n omena-n. eat:past-1sg apple-acc ‘I ate an/the apple.’ b. Söi-n omena-a. eat:past-1sg apple-prtv ‘I was eating an/the apple.’ c. Syö omena! eat:imp apple:nom ‘Eat up an/the apple!’

In addition, although prototypical subjects in Finnish normally take the nominative case, some subjects appear in the partitive, as in (2) — these will be called partial subjects. (2) Finnish Vallankumous-ta ei tapahtunut. revolution-prtv not happen:nfin.past ‘The/a revolution did not take place.’ (Maria Vilkuna p.c.)

The terms “total” and “partial” are misleading in that they suggest that the distinction is semantically defined. However, as we shall see in Sections 6.3.1 and 6.3.2, we are dealing here with syntactic categories. To emphasize this fact, we shall call them Total vs. Partial objects/subjects, with the initial capitals. Thus, (direct) objects and subjects in Finnish can show alternative case marking according to Figure 1. Alternations in object marking

ACCUSATIVE

PARTITIVE

NOMINATIVE

Alternations in subject marking Figure 1.Alternations in case marking of objects and subjects in Finnish.

648 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

The Finnish case alternation finds parallels in other Finnic, Baltic and Slavic languages. However, a direct comparison among the languages meets at least two kinds of problems: – –

alternations involve different cases; and alternations are governed by different conditions.

Here we will discuss the first, much less serious problem. Somewhat confusingly, in Baltic and Slavic, the genitive takes the place of the Finnish partitive, as shown in Table 5. (To make the cross-linguistic comparison easier, we will consistently apply the terms ‘Total’ and ‘Partial’ subjects and objects to all these languages, even though this is not a general praxis.) Table 5.Total and Partial subject and object marking Total

Partial

subj

nom

prtv

obj

acc

prtv

Finnish

Total

Partial

subj

nom

gen

subj

obj

acc

gen

obj

Lithuanian/Russian/Polish

Total

Partial

nom

(gen) acc

Standard Latvian

The whole issue is further complicated by the dubious status of the accusative as a separate case in at least some of the languages involved — this will be discussed in Section 6.2. Section 6.3–6.5 will be devoted to the following questions: –

– – –

What are the factors governing case alternations for subjects and objects in each of the Finnic, Baltic and Slavic language varieties where such alternations are attested? How can these phenomena be accounted for historically? What are the common denominators underlying these alternations across the language varieties involved? What is the typological status of the phenomena under consideration?

The two latter questions are particularly intriguing. Differentiated case marking for subjects and especially objects is a cross-linguistically rather common phenomenon, as will be discussed in Section 6.5. The factors underlying such alternations in the CB languages (e.g., totality, polarity, animacy, aspect etc.) are prominent in Hopper & Thompson’s (1980) list of factors, which, in many languages, contribute to different degrees of transitivity in a clause and, thus, are operative in triggering different types of object marking. While it is difficult to find exact parallels to the CB systems in other parts of the world, many of the tendencies are shared. The problem is that it is actually almost impossible to find a common denominator for all of the CB languages showing such phenomena.

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6.2 Subject and object cases in Slavic, Baltic and Finnic:

Nominative, accusative, genitive, partitive Only in Baltic (apart from Low Latvian), are the three cases “nominative”, “accusative” and “genitive” clearly distinguished from each other: each of the cases — within the same number — has its own sets of forms, different from those of the other two cases.29 Only in Lithuanian and High Latvian may a subject be in the nominative or the genitive and an object in the accusative or the genitive — Standard Latvian usually has only accusative for objects and tends to lose the genitive as an option for the subject as well. Moreover, Low Latvian is on the verge of losing the genitive case altogether — the genitive tends to be substituted for by the nominative (in the subject function or in combination with nominal quantifiers), the accusative (in the object function) or the dative (in the function of adnominal possessors and other adnominal modifiers, especially if high on the animacy scale). In Eastern and Western Slavic, only some of the existing paradigms clearly hold apart the three cases, which will here be illustrated by Russian. Thus, in Russian, only singular nouns with the ending -a in the nominative (i.e. mostly feminine a¯-stems, which is, however, one of the most important declensions) and feminine singular adjectives consistently distinguish among the three cases. In all the other instances, the form of the so-called accusative case is identical either to that of the nominative case or to that of the accusative case, mainly depending on the animacy of the noun in question. Also, due to its importance for various syntactic rules in the language, the status of the accusative as a separate case in Russian is never questioned. Table 6 shows the situation in the two most productive nominal paradigms in Russian. Table 6.Most productive nominal paradigms in Russian I declension sg

nom acc gen

-a -u -i

II declension

pl

sg

pl

Inanimate Animate

Inanimate Animate

Inanimate Animate

-i -i –

-i – –

– – -a

– -a -a

-i -i -ov

-i -ov -ov

In Finnic, the accusative is much more controversial as a consequence of the merger of the former accusative ending *-m with the genitive *-n. Finnish is slightly reminiscent of Russian: some words distinguish among three different forms, while for the others, the accusative is identical to the genitive (in the singular) or to the

650 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

nominative (in the plural). All nominals have also a special partitive case which has grammaticalized from a separative case (see below). However, the only words which distinguish among the nominative, genitive, accusative and partitive are personal pronouns and the interrogative pronoun kuka ‘who’, as illustrated in Table 7. Table 7.Grammatical case markers in Finnish

nom acc gen prtv a

Nouns sg

Nouns pl

Personal pronounsa

– -n -n -(t)a/ä

-t -t -n/-(C)en -(t)a/ä

– -t -n -(t)a/ä

The table disregards some further complications in the inflection of pronouns.

In Estonian, even pronouns lack a special accusative form. This minimal linguistic difference leads to differences in the Finnish and Estonian linguistic traditions. For case marking of objects Finnish grammatical rules make reference to the accusative, partitive and nominative cases, whereas Estonian rules operate with the genitive singular/nominative plural, partitive and nominative — in our opinion, a fairly clumsy solution. However, first and second person singular pronouns in Estonian differ from other nominals: their partitive form covers, so to speak, both the partitive and the accusative uses. The other Finnic languages are further variations of the Finnish (e.g., Karelian and Votic) or the Estonian (e.g. Veps) systems. In Livonian, finally, the genitive has merged for the majority of nouns with the nominative even in the singular (and the partitive case shows a tendency to be generalized as the object case, cf. Section 6.3.1). Occasional instances of identity between partitive case forms and other case forms across Finnic can hardly shake its status as a separate case. In Sami, on the other hand, the partitive case exists only in the Eastern branch and only in the singular. The older partitive plural forms across Sami have been reinterpreted as the accusative forms: in all Sami varieties, nominals in the plural distinguish among the nominative, genitive and accusative, whereas in the singular, the two latter coincide — against the patterns of markedness. 6.3 Alternations in subject and object marking:

Partitive/genitive vs. accusative/nominative 6.3.1Alternations in object marking A suitable starting-point for the discussion may be the Finnish system, which is probably the one that has received most attention in the literature. Finnish grammars

The Circum-Baltic languages 651

traditionally make a distinction between Total and Partial objects which in finite clauses corresponds to accusative-marked and partitive-marked objects, respectively. In non-finite clauses Total objects take the nominative case (see 6.4). In Finnish, a direct object Total only if the following conditions are met: 1. the verb is not negated 2. the referent of the direct object undergoes a well-defined change as a result of the verbal action, e.g. he built a house (hän rakensi talon), and/or the direct object “measures out” the verbal action, as in he read two letters (hän luki kaksi kirjeettä);30 this is a subset of the contexts in which other languages typically use the perfective aspect of the verb 3. the referent of the direct object is “quantitatively delimited”, i.e. is an individual or a definite quantity of something (e.g., ‘a glass of milk’ rather than just ‘milk’). Particularly condition 2 is given in a deliberately simplified form here, and there are also lexical idiosyncrasies: some verbs, for instance, only take partitive and not accusative objects. There are also certain exceptions to rule 1 (cf. Almqvist 1987). If any of the conditions (1–3) is not met, the partitive is used: in such cases we have Partial objects, as in Example (4). The conditions are visualized in the flowchart (Figure 2) from Dahl & Karlsson (1975, slightly modified; lexical idiosyncrasies not included). Negated sentence? – Perfective aspect?

+ Partial object

+ IndeWnite quantity? + Partial object

– Partial object

– Total object

Figure 2.Case assignment to objects in Finnish.

Note that any semantic type of entity may turn up as Partial objects, not only mass nouns and plural nouns (typically referring to indefinite quantities), but also concrete nouns in the singular referring to discrete objects, as the word “apple” in example (4b).

652 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

(3) Total object = (1a) Söi-n omena-n. eat:impf-1sg apple-acc ‘I ate an/the apple.’ (4) Partial object a. En syönyt omena-a. neg.1sg eat:part2 apple-prtv ‘I did not eat/was not eating an/the apple.’ (condition 1) b. Söi-n omena-a. = (1b) eat:impf-1sg apple-prtv ‘I was eating an/the apple.’ (Sulkala & Karjalainen 1992: 115) (condition 2) c. Matti osti olu-tta. Matti buy:impf.3sg beer-prtv ‘Matti bought (some) beer.’ (Alho 1992: 3) (condition 3) d. Fred ihailee lingviste-jä/*lingvist-it Fred admire:3sg linguist-prtv.pl/*linguist-acc.pl ‘Fred admires linguists’ (ibid.: 5) (lexically determined)

Note that the traditional definition of “Partial objects” as being used when “the object is only partially affected” is misleading in that if a part of a definite object is affected by the verbal action, the elative rather than the partitive is often used, e.g. söin omena-sta (apple-elat) ‘I ate (a piece from) the apple’ (cf. KoptjevskajaTamm this volume on similar terminological problems with the term “partitive”). Most other Finnic languages represent variations on the same theme (if we ignore the partly terminological confusion relating to the status of the accusative as a case). Where, in Finnish, the case alternation of the object may express aspectual differences on its own, in other languages, aspect is expressed by the presence or absence of a verbal bounder. Thus, Metslang (this volume) argues that the verbal particle ära in Estonian is systematically used together with Total objects to ensure perfectivity of the clause. Modern Livonian, in which the nominative and the genitive-accusative have merged for most paradigms, shows a tendency to generalize the use of the partitive case to all objects (especially in contexts where the genitive-accusative is not distinct from the nominative) — thus, probably, replicating what once happened in Sami (cf. above). In Baltic and Slavic, the genitive takes the place of the Finnish partitive. In Lithuanian, the genitive is used for direct objects – –

if the verb is negated; or if the NP is not quantitatively delimited (i.e. refers to an indefinite quantity)

The Lithuanian system, thus, differs from Finnic systems in that aspectual considerations (cond. 2 for Finnish objects) are not relevant. There are, thus, fewer contexts which trigger the use of Partial objects, and the genitive case is undoubtedly the marked option for objects in positive clauses. Where aspectual differences are

The Circum-Baltic languages 653

connected to the alternation in the object case marking in Finnic, similar distinctions in Lithuanian are often expressed by the choice of verbal bounders, primarily prefixes. Those verbs that always govern genitives can be characterized as imperfective or even stative, e.g. laukti ‘wait for’, bijoti ‘be afraid of ’.31 The flow-chart in Figure 3 summarizes the factors determining the choice between Total and Partial objects in Lithuanian (again, lexical idiocyncrasies are not accounted for). Negated sentence? + Partial object

– IndeWnite quantity? + Partial object

– Total object

Figure 3.Case assignment to objects in Lithuanian.

In Latvian, genitive objects mainly occur in negated clauses and with certain verbs such as e.g. tru¯kt ‘lack’,32 but on the whole, the use of the genitive for objects is considerably reduced as compared to Lithuanian, except for the High Latvian dialect (cf. Berg-Olsen 1999 for a detailed study of the genitive in Latvian; Balode & Holvoet this volume, a, Section 5.1.12 attribute a higher degree of retention of the genitive uses in High Latvian to Slavic influence. Cf. also Kangere & Boiko this volume on the comparison between the Estonian and Latvian object marking). The Polish system is to a certain degree reminiscent of the Lithuanian one, but Partial objects are still less frequent. Again, direct objects are obligatorily put in the genitive –

if the verb is negated.

In non-negated clauses, genitive objects occur more rarely than in Lithuanian since –

they refer to quantitatively undelimited entities almost exclusively in the context of perfective verbs.

Thus, the Polish system — which seems to be representative for a number of Slavic languages — significantly differs from the Finnic system. Both the partitive in Finnish and the genitive marking in Polish are sensitive to aspect, but in opposite directions: the former is favoured by imperfective, the latter by perfective contexts. The major difference is, however, in the relative impact of aspectual characteristics in a clause on the possible occurrence of a Partial object in it. Thus, in Finnish, the imperfective context per se leads to the marking of the object as Partial — the two

654 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

conditions, “imperfectivity” and “indefinite quantity” operate in disjunction, each of them being sufficient for triggering the partitive marking on objects. In Polish, on the contrary, aspectual characteristics provide an additional restriction on the occurrence of Partial objects. The Finnish ban on Total objects in imperfective contexts (condition 2), absent from Baltic and Polish, leads, consequently, to considerable differences in the types of entities that can turn up as Partial objects in non-negated clauses. Thus, in both Polish and Lithuanian — this does not hold for Finnish however (cf. the partitive marking on the word “apple” in example (4b)) — discrete entities in positive clauses are not normally marked by the genitive. (For an insightful analysis of the semantics of the objective genitive in Polish vs. partitive in Finnish cf. Holvoet 1991: 99–102.) However, even in Polish and Lithuanian, discrete entities can be marked in the genitive, when used as direct objects to verbs such as “to give”, “to lend” and “to borrow” with the meaning of “temporarily restricted usage”. That is, the genitive marking on objects to such verbs is used to emphasize that the corresponding referents are given, lent, borrowed etc. “for a little while”, whereas the accusative marking lacks this implication. A similar distinction is known also in Finnish. (5) a.

b.

c.

Polish Daj mi ołówk-a. give:imp me pencil-gen ‘Hand me a pencil (for a while).’ (Holvoet 1991: 110) Lithuanian Duok man peilio (neilgam, tuoj sugra˛žinsiu). give:imp I:dat knife:gen (not:long:dat immediately give_back:fut.1sg ‘Give me the knife for a while, I will shortly give it back to you.’ (Larsson 1983: 135) Finnish Anna-han tänne kirves-tä-ni. give:imp-part here:ill ax-prtv-poss.1sg ‘Give here my axe (for a while)’ (Larsson 1983: 87)

Russian basically follows the Polish rules, but in a much more optional fashion. The genitive can be used for objects after negation, although much more optionally than in Finnic, Lithuanian and Polish. The choice between the nominative or accusative, on the one hand, and the genitive, on the other, is sensitive to various factors, including definiteness (e.g., Timberlake 1975), and on the whole, the genitive has been steadily losing its terrain to these other cases for a long time. The genitive is also used somewhat marginally with quantitatively unlimited objects, but again, only if the verb is in the perfective aspect. In these contexts, a special “partitive” form in -u may be used with some masculine nouns instead of the usual genitive in -a (this form is sometimes attributed to Finnic influence, Veenker 1967).33 Most of the Russian dialects show the same system as Standard Russian and Polish.

The Circum-Baltic languages 655

However, in Northern Russian dialects, genitive objects occur in other contexts as well. Thus, –

–

–

imperfective verbs combine fairly freely with genitive objects (kušajte strjapni-to moej, kušajte lepešek ‘Eat my cooking (gen), eat (some of the) cakes (gen), the dialect of Tipinicy, Medvež’egorsk, Karelia). In contrast to Standard Russian, but similarly to Polish, discrete entities in Northern Russian can turn up as genitive objects in clauses with the meaning of “temporarily restricted usage”: the typical verbs here are ‘take’, ‘get’, ‘send’, ‘ask for’ etc. (voz’mu topora u vas ‘I will take the axe (gen) from you’, Kostjanka Kotlass, Arxangel’sk). In addition, there is a large group of verbs (perception, cognition, emotion) which regularly combine with the genitive. In older Russian, these verbs could also take genitive objects, but in the modern Standard language, the accusative is the only option (Kuz’mina 1993: 28–39).

The discussion in this section is summarized in Table 8. Table 8.Contexts triggering the use of Partial objects in some CB languages Finnish Lithuanian Clausal negation Aspect Indeterminate quantity ‘Look for, ‘wait for’ Perception verbs Temporarily restricted usage

+ impf + + + +

+ − + + (+) +

Polish

a

+ (perf)a a a + + − +

Russian

Northern Russian

(+) (perf)a a a + + − −

(+) − + + + +

a

a

The two conditions (“perfective” and “indeterminate quantity”) operate in conjunction, i.e. Partial objects may occur only when both conditions are met.

As is clear from the table, the only cases where all the languages would more or less refer to the use of Partial objects are provided by perfective contexts and quantitatively indefinite objects. Or, put slightly differently, the opposition between Total and Partial objects in Finnish, Polish and Russian is relevant only for nonnegated perfective contexts, whereas it is neutralized in imperfective ones. This makes actually sense: as Dahl (1978: 23) writes, “if you are in the process of drinking a bottle of beer, the quantity that you have consumed at the moment in question is likely to be indefinite, although the final quantity might be well-defined”. When an action is bounded (in perfective contexts), you are in a much better position to judge whether it has affected a quantitatively indefinite object or not. The languages under consideration differ as to how much and in what direction they generalize the

656 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

object marking rules in cases where the opposition is less relevant. In Finnish, only quantitavely definite objects that are affected in their entirety by verbal actions are treated as Total objects — although being prototypical in many respects, these are not extremely frequent. Russian chooses the other extreme position — the Total object marking (the accusative case) is the default option, and the genitive is chosen only when there are good reasons for opposing it to the Accusative. Lithuanian, Northern Russian and Polish provide cases in-between. 6.3.2Alternations in subject marking “Normal” subjects in Circum-Baltic languages look more or less like the prototypical subjects of numerous other languages, including Standard Average European: – – –

they occur in preverbal position; they are in the nominative case (for standard Scandinavian languages and a large portion of other SAE languages this is true only for pronouns); and they trigger predicate agreement (again, restricted in the Scandinavian case).

Existential clauses are, of course, not a good place to look for normal subjects — and this is more than true for Finnic, Baltic and Eastern Slavic. Existential subjects often occur after the verb and alternate between the nominative and the partitive/ genitive case marking — the latter choice leads automatically to non-agreement of the predicate. The most grammaticalized case alternation is provided by Finnic — again illustrated here by Finnish. An existential subject receives partitive marking (i.e. turns up as a Partial subject), no longer triggers verb agreement (the verb is always marked for the third person singular) and typically appears in the non-initial position in a clause, if – –

it refers to a quantitatively non-delimited entity (indefinite quantity) (condition 1) and/or the clause is negated (condition 2) (6) Total subjects Kirj-at o-vat pöydä-lla. book-nom.pl be.pres-3pl table-adess ‘The books were on the table.’ (7) Partial subjects a. Pöydä-llä o-n kirj-oja. table-adess be.pres-3sg book-prtv.pl ‘There are (some) books on the table.’ (Alho ibid.) (condition 1) b. Vallankumous-ta ei tapahtu-nut. = (2) revolution-prtv not:3sg happen-nfin.past ‘A/The revolution did not take place.’ (condition 2)

The Circum-Baltic languages 657

c.

Sinu-a ei ollut siellä. you-prtv not:3sg be:nfin.past there ‘You were not there’ (Maria Vilkuna) (condition 2)

Whereas both these conditions on the use of the partitive case unite existential subjects with objects, there is also a crucial difference between the two entities: aspectual differences have no bearing on the marking of existential subjects, in contrast to objects. Now, the notion “existential clause” is used here in an extremely broad sense. The nominative/partitive alternation is a big issue in Fennistics (cf. e.g. Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979 and Vähämäki 1987 for Finnish, Nemvalts 1996 for Estonian, to mention just a few publications). Typical verbs which appear in such sentences express being, existence (at some place and/or time), coming into existence (event or action), ceasing to exist (event or action), secretion, movement and gathering. However, even typically actional verbs, such as ‘work’ may occasionally turn up in existential clauses, when the “existential” part of its meaning is foregrounded: (8) Finnish (Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979: 105) Tehtaassa työskentelee jopa 10-vuotiaita lapsia. factory:iness work:pres.3sg even 10-year.old:pl.prtv child:pl.prtv ‘There are even ten-year-old children working in the factory.’

Finally, such verbs as ‘cough/sneeze/snore’ or ‘shout/yell/scream/bark’, ‘have lunch’, ‘dance’, ‘do gymnastics’ are very unlikely in existential clauses, as in example (9b). However, even here, the restriction is not absolute: with most verbs it is possible to imagine a situation where the partitive under negation is marginally interpretable, if you take the whole statement as an existential claim and add a suitable locative phrase, as in (9c) (Maria Vilkuna p.c.): (9) Finnish a. Koira haukkuu. dog:nom bark:pres.3sg ‘The dog is barking.’ b. Koira / *Koira-a ei hauku. dog:nom / *dog-prtv not:3sg bark:nfin.pres ‘The/A dog is not barking.’ c. Kylä-ssä ei enää hauku yh-tä-än koira-a. village-iness not:3sg any-more bark:nfin.pres one-prtv-part dog-prtv ‘There’s no dog barking in the village anymore.’ (Maria Vilkuna, p.c.)

Actually, contexts allowing partitive-marked subjects under negation consist of two layers, or the core and the periphery. With the most frequently used, prototypically existential verbs, the partitive marking can apply to bare singular nominals (Example (7b)) and even definite ones (Example (7c)). Such verbs often take partitivemarked subjects even in positive clauses. A larger group of verbs allow partitive-

658 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

marked subjects only with negative quantifiers such as ‘not a single, no one’ and the like, as in Example (9c). This is visualized in Figure 4.

Verbs allowing Partial subjects more rarely Most frequent/ prototypical verbs allowing Partial subjects

• Partitive marking can apply to bare singular nominals and even deWnite ones. • Partitive subjects possible in nonnegated clauses

Partitive marking applies only to subjects with negative quantiWers

Figure 4.Verbs taking genitive subjects in Finnish.

There are also considerable differences across Finnic: thus, whereas in Finnish every verb that combines with a partitive subject may, under other conditions, take a normal nominative subject, in Estonian at least four verbs only take partitive to the exclusion of nominative subjects — jaguma and piisama ‘to be enough, suffice’, jätkuma ‘to last’ and tunduma ‘to be felt’ (Nemvalts 1996: 77). Also, even though existential verbs are normally intransitive, transitive verbs combining with Partitive subjects have been attested in Veps, e.g. end®e kikat pidelı¯bad mor´´smı¯d’ ‘earlier (many) married women (prtv) used to wear caps’ (Osnovy 1975: 108) (the verb pidelı¯bad
agrees in number with the subject). Roughly, the same two conditions — negation and indefinite quantity — govern the alternation between the genitive and nominative case marking on Baltic and Russian existential subjects, but on a significantly more restricted scale. In Latvian the genitive for subjects is used optionally and relatively seldom in the colloquial language (recall that the object genitive is also very restricted in Latvian). Berg-Olsen (1999) shows that e.g. in subjects with the verb bu¯t ‘to be’ in its existential usage the percentage of genitives differs considerably between written language (newspapers) and oral language (interviews) (94% vs. 49%). This points

The Circum-Baltic languages 659

also to a rather great difference between the Latvian written norm and the colloquial language in general. As with the object genitive, the subject genitive is found more often in High Latvian and is almost non-existent in Low Latvian. In both Russian and Lithuanian, the clearest instances of predicates requiring obligatory genitives is the negative existential copula (for Lithuanian ne˙ra, for Russian, net with its various tense-mood counterparts and its close synonym ne imet’sja < not have-refl). Genitive subjects with a meaning of indefinite quantity may occur in positive clauses, but only with a semantically restricted set of intransitive verbs. These verbs normally express a process implying quantification and measure and typically include (Leinonen 1985: 95, Ambrazas 1997: 504): –

–

– –

perfective verbs with prefixes which explicitly signal accumulation in great quantity, thoroughness of the action, exhaustiveness, involvement of many entities (e.g. prefixes na- and pere- in Russian, pri- in Lithuanian); verbs denoting a change of quantity, such as pribyvat’/pribavljat’sja (Rus.), (pa)dauge˙ti (Lith) ‘increase’ and ubyvat’/ubavljat’sja (Rus.), (su)maže˙ti (Lith.) ‘decrease’; the verbs dostavat’, xvatat’ ‘to be enough, sufficient’ in Russian — they always require genitive subjects, cf. with Estonian above; the verbs rastis/atsirasti ‘be found’, pasitaikyti ‘be found’, likti ‘remain’, bu¯ti ‘be’, užtekti, pakakti ‘suffice, be enough’ etc. in Lithuanian.

Significantly, Standard Russian does not allow genitive subjects with the verbs in the last group — the most existential ones in the whole list, but having in fact nothing to do with quantification per se! Once again, as was the case with objects, the notion of indefinite quantity is more typical of Lithuanian genitives and is less dependent on the context of the predicate than is the case with Russian. These restrictions are successfully eliminated in some of the Northern Russian dialects, where two main subtypes of such sentences are attested (Kuz’mina 1993: 116): –

–

those which denote the existence of a large quantity/amount of entities, e.g. komarov-to u nas byvaet ‘mosquitoes:gen at we:gen be:hab.pres.3sg’ = ‘we usually have a lot of mosquitoes’ (Šcˇelejki, Leningrad region), and those which lack the quantificational aspect altogether and merely state the occurrence/existence of entities, e.g. tam bylo i staryx monaxov ‘there be:past.3sg.neut also old:gen.pl monk:gen.pl’ = ‘there were old monks too’ (Pedasel’ga, Karelia).

These latter examples are particularly prominent in the dialects spoken in the vicinity of Lake Onega, where the Russian population has a heavy ethnic admixture of Karelian, Veps and Ludian elements. Even statistically, more than 35% of all the 1350 examples with genitive subjects gathered for the Atlas of Russian dialects come

660 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

from that relatively small area. The semantics and frequency of these instances leave no doubts about the role of the Finnic influence on their development. In Polish, genitive subjects (found in existential contexts and with negation) are much more restricted than genitive objects (cf. Holvoet 1991: 129–135). In existential contexts there may be a difference of meaning between nominative and genitive. Thus Ojca (gen) nie było w domu ‘Father was not at home’ in contrast to Ojciec (nom) nie był w domu would be adequate when the father was not found at home at a given moment whereas the latter could be used if the father was seen at another place at the relevant moment (Holvoet 1991: 131, referring to Klebanowska). In Czech, the genitive subject is even more restricted, to about three verbs and some idioms (cf. Short 1993: 512). In Lower Sorbian, the genitive is rarely found as a facultative variant of the nominative. In Upper Sorbian it can occur only with the particle ani (Stone 1993: 668). To summarize, genitive subjects are most common in Finnish, Estonian and Northern Russian dialects. While Lithuanian makes frequent use of them, they become more and more rare in Modern Latvian. In Polish and Russian they are more common than in other Slavic languages such as Czech and Sorbian. There seems to be a general parallelism to the frequency of genitive objects in all languages of the region. 6.4 Nominative object Ambrazas (this volume) sheds new light on the old and intensive debate about the phenomenon of nominative objects in the eastern Baltic area. In Finnic, as well as Baltic and Northern Russian dialects, there are several constructions in which the object appears in the nominative case and not in the accusative, which would otherwise be the natural choice. Such cases are also amply attested in Old Russian legal and official documents from the 12th to the 16th centuries written in the Northern Russian area: (10) a.

b.

Old Northern Russian (“Domostroj”, 16th c. quoted in Timberlake 1974:15) ino dostoiti mužu [žena svoja part fit:pres.sg husband:dat [wife:nom refl.poss.nom.fem.sg nakazyvati] punish:inf ‘It is fitting for a man to punish his wife.’ Lithuanian (Southern Lithuania, Prienai: Ambrazas this volume) Bu¯tu˛ gerai [šaltinis radus] be:3.opt nice:adv [spring:nom find:past.ger ‘It would be nice to find a spring.’

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c.

Estonian Võta raamat! take:imp book:nom ‘Take the book!’

Constructions in which nominative objects occur throughout the different languages are listed in Table 9. Table 9. Contexts for nominative objects in Old and Modern Northern Russian, Baltic and Finnic (based on the descriptions in Timberlake 1974 and Kuz’mina 1993) Old Northern Russian, Baltic, modern NR dialects

Finnic

objects of infinitives

the infinitive is: – either independent, or – the subject of the matrix predicate, both verbal and non-verbal, or – the subject of a past passive participle governed by an INF of the above listed types.

the infinitive is: – the subject of impersonal predicates (necessitive constructions), or – governed by a noun in special contexts, or – governed by such an infinitive, an impersonal passive or an imperative

objects of impersonals incl. imperatives

–

–

gerunds – (converbs) gov– erned by an INF of the above listed types (rarely)

Lith: gerunds Ltv: debitives (necessitive constructions)

–

impersonal passives imperatives

All these environments in the languages under consideration share one common feature: they systematically lack an overt personal subject (cf. Timberlake 1974). The exact inventory of verbal categories and syntactic contexts which are systematically impersonal depends on the structure of the given language. Another common feature of these constructions is the selective application of the nominative marking rule to different lexical classes: Table 10 shows which types of nominals are not hit by the nominative-object rules. In Timberlake’s (1974) analysis, the set of nominals which appear in the nominative may be defined as those which are not grammatically animate. There is an extensive literature on Northern Russian nominative object constructions, which have been one of the central issues of Russian dialectology and historical syntax. The problems arising around the nominative object in Baltic

662 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Table 10.Animacy hierarchy as manifested in nominative-object constructions Old Northern Russiana

Balticb

personal pronouns, adjecti- personal pronouns 1–2, val pronouns, animate mas- reflexive pronoun culine nouns

Finnic personal pronouns 1–3, the animate interrogative pronoun

a

For non-masculine nouns, the difference between the nominative and the accusative cases is seen only in singular nouns with the ending -a. Timberlake argues at length that the nominative object rule affects other feminine nouns too, even though this is not always visible. The modern Northern Russian situation is different. b The marking as described in the table holds especially for the object in the debitive construction in Latvian in those Latvian dialects that do not use the accusative case in the debitive construction (cf. (15) for examples). In the High Latvian dialect of Aknı¯ste, even the pronouns of the first and second person are found with nominative marking in object position (Ancı¯tis 1977).

languages have also been known at least since Jablonskis’ work in the 1930s. The central issue in areal studies is whether these constructions are the result of parallel development in Finnic, Northern Russian and Baltic or whether they witness of contact-induced changes, primarily in North Russian and Baltic. For Northern Russian, it has been alternatively argued that constructions “infinitive + nominative” are either a relict from common Slavic (e.g. Kiparsky 1946, 1960; Vahros 1959), the result of grammatical neutralization, parallel to but independent from Finnic (Dunn 1986), or the result of Finnic influence (Timberlake 1974). Ambrazas (this volume) argues that both hypotheses — the one claiming that impersonals with nominative objects in Baltic were the further development of an old Indo-European construction and the one appealing to contacts with Finnic — hold for Baltic. The inherited Indo-European construction, in which the nominative was used as the subject of the matrix verb which combined with an action nominal in the purposive dative, was later reanalyzed and acquired its impersonal character under Finnic influence. As shown by Holvoet (1993), a somewhat similar reanalysis from the nominative subject to the nominative object accompanied the grammaticalization of debitive constructions in Latvian. Nominative object constructions in modern Russian dialects have been subject to several important changes as compared to the Old Northern Russian situation, already noted by Timberlake (1974: 104–114). First of all, nominative objects are no longer restricted to systematically impersonal contexts, but appear even as objects to finite verbs: this is undoubtedly a further extension of the original contexts triggering the nominative-object rule. In Russian, such constructions are, at least occasionally, attested in different geographical regions, including Southern Russia, where any Finno-Ugric interference is excluded. However, their distribution is strikingly uneven (Kuz’mina 1993: 7–21). First, a regular, frequent occurrence of nominative object constructions34 is characteristic for a relatively well-defined

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geographic region in the north-western part of Russia (the dialects of Arxangel’sk, Olonets and the Western, i.e. Novgorod, and Eastern, i.e. Vologda-Vjatka groups of Northern Russian). Second, in these dialects, the absolute majority (= 70%) of nominative objects occur in impersonal necessitative constructions of the type nado/pora topit’ pecˇka ‘it.is.necessary/it.is.time to.heat (the) oven:nom’, as opposed to personal constructions like Ja topila pecˇka ‘I heated (the) oven:nom’. In the other dialects, where nominative objects are used more sporadically, impersonal contexts constitute no more than 25% of all the occurrences. Thus, dialects with a high frequency of nominative object constructions tend to restrict them to those contexts which served as a starting point for their further development. Whatever their initial origin may be, their geographically distributed peculiarities are highly symptomatic and must be taken as a result of prolonged linguistic contacts between the Russian and Finnic (Karelian and Ludian) populations (see especially Sahrimaa 1992). 6.5 Alternations in subject and object marking: Genetic and typological

connections 6.5.1Total vs. Partial subjects/objects The alternation between accusative-marked Total and genitive-marked Partial objects is well-known from some of the older Indo-European languages — e.g. Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Gothic, Old High German and Middle Low German (Brugmann & Delbrück 1897–1990: 575ff). Such alternation is restricted to a few semantic groups of verbs (e.g. ‘to eat’, ‘desire’, ‘touch upon’), where total affectedness/quantificational delimitation and/or negation, but hardly aspectual considerations influence the choice between the two cases. Occasional cases of genitive subjects are also attested in Classical Greek, Avesta, Umbrian and Gothic (ibid.: 567), but nowhere on a scale even slightly comparable with the modern situation in Baltic and Russian. Uralic on the whole makes frequent use of two case forms to distinguish between indefinite, mass or otherwise non-individuated objects — these normally appear in the non-marked form (the same as the nominative case) — and others, which take the accusative or genitive (e.g., in Mordvin, Permic, Samoyed). This system is, of course, fairly familiar from numerous other languages. Another typically Uralic way of doing things is to have two verbal conjugations of which one is reserved for verbs that take definite or individuated objects (e.g. in Hungarian, Mordvin, across Samoyedic, etc.). The object conjugation in Mordvin is used to mark perfective aspect for transitive verbs; it is, however, not sensitive to negation. Sami and Mordvin are those Finno-Ugric languages which show most affinities with the Finnic object marking system, although on a much lesser scale. In Sami, as mentioned in Section 6.2, the accusative plural originated as the partitive plural,

664 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

which points to earlier usages of the partitive case to mark objects. In Mordvin, the so-called ablative case (genetically the same as the Finnic partitive) can be used to mark objects to a few verbs, most notably quantitatively unlimited objects to such verbs as ‘to eat’ (jarsams) and ‘to drink’ (s´imems), an object to the verb peal’ems ‘to be afraid of ’ and a few others. Aspectual considerations seem to play some role here, but not negation. Note that this is also combined with the Uralic system of opposing non-marked to case-marked (genitive) objects and having two conjugations, not to mention the use of definite suffixed articles on nouns. Larsson (1983; also this volume, Section 5.1) suggests that these uses of the Mordvin ablative reflect the general Proto-Finnic-Volgaic stage, which further developed in Finnic under Baltic influence. Although we hardly question the latter part of the hypothesis (i.e., the plausibility of the assumption that Baltic could have played an important role in the grammaticalization of the partitive case in Finnic), we doubt its first part. Most of the uses of the ablative case in Mordvin look like relicts of an older system — it has, for instance, no concrete locative uses left — and it is difficult to imagine that this system can present a fair picture of the ProtoFinnic-Volgaic situation. It should be noted that the alternation between accusative- and ablativemarked objects is attested in many other languages, as the following Hungarian examples show: (11) Hungarian (Edith Moravcsik p.c.) a. Ettem a kenyer-et. eat:pret.1sg the bread-acc ‘I was eating/I ate the bread’ b. Ettem a kenyer-bo˝l eat:pret.1sg the bread-abl ‘I was eating/ate some of the bread’

The use of the ablative case in (11b) is, however, comparable not to the partitive, but rather to the elative case in Finnish (cf. the discussion following Example (3) in Section 6.3.1). The ablative marking in Example (11b) implies partitivity with respect to a definite set (some of the bread) and not indefinite quantity of a certain kind per se. Such examples probably originate as sentences involving partitive nominal constructions with nominal quantifiers like “to eat a slice/part etc. of the bread” from which the quantifier itself is dropped (cf. Kornfilt’s 1996 analysis of similar cases in Turkish). Although typical partitive-marked objects crucially differ from that in sentences like (11b) in their semantics, it is possible that partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions served as a basis for the grammaticalization for the partitive case in Finnish. As shown in Koptjevskaja-Tamm (this volume) markers used for referring to subsets of definite and/or presupposed sets, may be further extended to refer to quantity in general. There is an additional parallel between the Hungarian and Finnic constructions, namely aspectual factors:

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Hungarian verbs with perfectivizing prefixes do not allow ablative objects. Two possible diachronic scenarios for the grammaticalization of partitive (= ablative) marked Partitive objects in Finnic are visualized in Figure 5: in principle, each of the two processes (dropping of nominal quantifiers and semantic extension from definite sets to kinds of entities) may both precede or follow the other one. Starting point: Verbs taking objects built as nominal constructions with nominal quantifiers indicating a subset of a deWnite set (partitive adnominal constructions)

DeWnite set presupposed

No deWnite set presupposed

Nominal quantiWer

No nominal quantiWer

‘to eat a slice of the bread’

‘to eat of the bread’

‘to eat a slice of bread’

‘to eat of bread’

Figure 5.Possible developments of Partial object marking in Finnish from partitive adnominal constructions.

From the typological point of view, it is somewhat difficult to find exact counterparts to the phenomena we are talking about here, even though differentiation of subject and object marking depending on such factors as definiteness, animacy, totality etc. are quite widespread. (See e.g. Hopper & Thompson 1980 on the different degrees of transitivity as reflected in object marking.) The implementation of these factors in the systems found in the Baltic area seems fairly rare, to say the least — a careful investigation of how these systems have developed and influenced each other is likely to further our understanding of these phenomena. The highly grammaticalized Finnic way of dealing with aspectual distinctions through case alternations is particularly rare among the world’s languages (Östen Dahl p.c.). However, as we have seen in the preceding sections, the systems in the CB languages considerably differ as to the exact factors governing case alternations, which makes it difficult to contrast these languages as a group to others in which subjects and objects may choose among several marking options. It is also interesting that the case alternations cover both objects and at least some subjects — normally less subject-like subjects. The Unaccusative Hypothesis, according to which intransitive verbs are split among those that take “good” subjects and those that actually take objects (even though the latter may disguise themselves as subjects under certain conditions), is an obvious alternative to account for these rules (for Finnish this analysis is more or less assumed in Vainikka

666 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

& Maling 1996). We, however, tend to agree with Laitinen and Vilkuna (1993) in that there is a grey zone between typical objects and typical subjects which can be divided differently by different rules, thus threatening the idea of unaccusativity. We conclude this section with the Basque parallel to the Finnic-Baltic-Russian situation described in the preceding two sections — the alternation between the absolutive and the partitive case (which is sometimes called “zerik-case”). The partitive case is assigned for “presenting a quantity the exact size of which is not known or is irrelevant” (de Rijk 1972: 139), mainly in negative sentences, indirect yes-no questions, conditionals. The case alternation again applies both to objects and intransitive subjects: (12) Basque (Levin 1989 quoted in Van Valin, Jr. & LaPolla 1997: 303–304) a. Ez d-u.ø gizon-ak ikusi ikaslea-ø. neg 3sg.abs-aux-3sg.erg man-erg see student-abs ‘The man didn’t see a/the student.’ b. Ez d-u-ø gizon-ak ikusi ikasle-rik ikasle-zerik ‘The man didn’t see any students/a (single) student.’ c. *Ez d-u-ø gizon-ik ikusi liburua-ø. book-abs *‘Not a man saw the book.’ d. Ez d-a gizona-ø etorri. neg 3sg.abs-aux man-abs come ‘A/the man didn’t come.’ e. Ez d-a gizon-ik etorri. neg 3sg.abs-aux man-zerik come ‘No men came.’

The correspondence between Basque and Finnish is, however, not as complete as the examples presented so far suggest. In contrast to Finnish (and to the other relevant CB languages), the absolutive-partitive alternation in Basque operates on a true ergative basis and applies to all intransitive subjects.35 Thus, the Finnish translation of example (13) with the partitive-marked subject would be ungrammatical: (13) Basque Ez da ikasle-rik loditu (or: Ikasle-rik ez da loditu) neg 3sg.abs-aux student-zerik gain.weight ‘No student(s) gained weight.’ (Alan King, p.c.)

Interestingly, the partitive suffix -rik shows certain similarities with the ablative suffix tik; it has also a number of uses that typically develop from earlier separative meanings. It would be tempting to see here a historical parallel to the development of the partitive case in Finnic from a general separative case. The question of possible diachronic connections between the partitive and the ablative in Basque is, however, not settled (Alan King, p.c.).

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6.5.2Nominative objects The alternation between the accusative and the nominative cases for object marking is widely attested in Uralic, but, as mentioned in 6.5.2, it is normally used for semantic reasons. In some Uralic languages other than Finnic, however, objects to imperatives appear in the nominative case (non-marked form). Timberlake (1974: 210–215) quotes two Samoyedic languages, Nenets and Kamassian as examples of languages with such a syntactically conditioned alternation between the two cases. There are at least two different explanations for the use of a nominative object in all these constructions that are both well in line with the two different explanatory approaches to the functions of case marking. According to Timberlake (the characterizing approach), “languages with the nominative object assign case for at least the primary participants according to relative centrality — the nominative is used to designate the most central participant, and the accusative to designate the less central participants. In languages without the nominative object, the case of primary participants is assigned according to syntactic function — the nominative designates the absolutely central participant, and the accusative a participant to whom the action is directed” (pp. 98f). In other words, the function of the nominative case according to Timberlake is to characterize the argument as central (either relatively to other overt arguments or absolutely). According to Comrie (1975), who considered primarily Finnish imperative constructions with the nominative object, the explanation for the nominative is even more straightforward: the nominative case (the unmarked case) is used when there is no need to oppose two relatively central arguments to each other (the distinctive theory of case marking). In other words, the primary function of the privative opposition “nominative vs. Accusative”, is to distinguish two central arguments. Since there is no opposition between object and subject in systematically impersonal constructions, there is no need to use the accusative case, which is the marked member of the opposition. Comrie calls constructions which use different case marking strategies for the “full” and “reduced” argument loads anti-ergative. Typologically, they are more frequent in the realm of nominal constructions (as, e.g. nominalizations, KoptjevskajaTamm 1993: 203–210). There are, however, in addition to Nenets and Kamassian, some even more “exotic” direct parallels to the situation in the Baltic region, as shown by the following Yindjibarndi example:36 (14) Yindjibarndi (Pama-Nuyngan, Australia: Wordick 1982: 174, 169) a. ngaarta yungku-nha ngayu murla-yi man:nom give-past me:obj meat-obj ‘The man gave me the meat.’ b. karlima-nma Warrunha hold.back-imp Blackie:nom ‘Hold Blackie back.’

668 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

All these explanations notwithstanding, there is or has been a certain tension between the nominative case marking of a noun phrase and its object status in Finnic, Baltic and Northern Russian. Consider the debitive construction in Latvian, in which the nominative still betrays its former subject status by occasionally triggering agreement in the participle form of the auxiliary, as in example (15a). Such constructions are rare. As Nau (1998) implies by her comments, agreement may be favoured by the initial position of the nominative NP and the absence of the necessive agent (debitor). On the other hand, younger speakers show a tendency to mark the object with the accusative (cf. Kangere & Boiko this volume), as illustrated in (15b).37 The situation is, however, further complicated by the different behaviour of different Latvian dialects regarding nominative or accusative marking of the object in debitive constructions. (15) Latvian a. Lin-i bij-uš-i ja¯-kalte¯ flax-nom.pl be-nom-pl deb-dry ‘One had to dry the flax/the flax had to be dried’ (MLLVG I: 618) b. Un tie nav noziedzniek-i, and dem.nom.pl neg:be.3 criminal-nom.pl [tos ja¯-laiž] ma¯ja¯s. [dem.acc.pl deb-let.go home ‘And these aren’t criminals, one had to let them go home.’ (Nau 1998)

On the whole, Latvian seems to show a tendency to extend the normal object marking to the domain of nominative object constructions — in line with the general tendency that has been instrumental in Baltic and Russian for a long time. Thus, as shown by Ambrazas, nominative objects after infinitives have been gradually disappearing in Baltic. In Northern Russian, even in those dialects where nominative objects appear regularly, the nominative marking is optional — in all these contexts, nominative objects alternate with accusative objects, can even be co-ordinated with them and can combine with adjectival attributes in the accusative case. Finnish impersonals show the opposite tendency — to treat nominative objects as subjects.38 On the one hand, they show typical object behaviour — sensitivity to aspectual factors in alternating with the partitive: recall from Sections 6.3.1 and 6.3.2 that, although both subjects and objects in Finnish may receive partitive case marking, they differ in conditions triggering this alternation. On the other hand, they can be freely co-ordinated with clear subjects:39 (16) Finnish (Maria Vilkuna p.c.) Anna pyörtyi ja vietiin ulos. Anna faint:past.3sg and take:past.pass out ‘Anna fainted and was taken out’

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Also, there is fairly common and persistent hypercorrect number agreement in passive compound tenses, an “error” committed by some speakers/writers: this phenomenon is certainly supported by the possibility of passive participles as predicate complements, cf. (17a) and (17b): (17) Finnish (Laitinen and Vilkuna 1993: 35; Maria Vilkuna p.c.) a. Naiset ovat luotu(-ja) palvelemaan. woman:pl be:pres.3pl create:pass.part.(pl.prtv)40 serve:3inf.ill ‘Women were created to serve.’ b. Naiset ovat vahvo-ja. woman:nom.pl be:pres.pl strong-pl.prtv ‘Women are strong.’

These tendencies are most pronounced in nominals, which has a natural explanation since what seems to count here is the nominative case form of the nominal. First and second personal pronominal objects normally retain their accusative and, when co-ordinated with subjects, neither of these can be deleted (the normal pronominal correspondence to (17) would thus be ‘She:nom fainted and she:acc was taken away’). However, Maria Vilkuna’s Finnish corpus even contains some rare instances of pronominal deletion in similar syntactic environments. It is peculiar that impersonals in Finnish, and more broadly in Finnic, also show another line of re-analysis — as active forms that even can combine with normal subjects, first person plural in colloquial Finnish and some of the Finnish dialects (me syödään omena ‘we:nom eat:pres.pass apple:nom’ = ‘we eat an apple’) and third person plural in Karelian, Veps, Votic and Ingiran (see Holvoet Section 2.1 and Laakso Section 1.2.3.2 this volume). 6.6 Temporal adverbials as objects The case alternations described in Sections 6.3 and 6.4 are not restricted to direct objects stricto sensu, but also extend to adverbs specifying the duration of an atelic situation. Haspelmath (1997) shows that such “atelic-extent” adverbials often behave similarly to direct objects cross-linguistically. Given the complex encoding of objects, “atelic-extent” adverbials are an interesting object of study in the CB languages. As a rule, the same principles for the choice of case marking are operative for objects and temporal adverbials, though to a somewhat lesser degree for the latter. (18) Lithuanian (Haspelmath 1997: 125) a. Šitie paskutiniai te-dirbo viena˛ valanda˛ these last still-work:past.3 one:acc hour:acc ‘These last ones worked just one hour.’

670 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

b.

Taip ju¯s ne-i˛stenge˙te ne˙ vienos valandos pabude˙ti su so you neg-manage:2pl not.even one:gen hour:gen wake:inf with manimi? me:inst ‘So you cannot stay with me even for an hour?’

This phenomenon is found also in Polish, Russian and Finnish (and, most probably, in other Eastern Slavic and Finnic languages). In Finnish, such adverbials (and some others) also behave like objects in nominative object constructions (see Maling 1993 for a treatment of this phenomenon within the Case-Tier model). Also in Latvian, atelic extent adverbials may turn up as nominatives in debitive constructions and, sporadically, in constructions with passive participles (Holvoet 1992): (19) Latvian (Holvoet 1992: 105) Bekas abi pratuši izkl¸u¯t no Beka:nom.pl both:nom.pl.masc be.able:ppa.nom.pl.masc out-get:inf from fermas, kur tiem bija ja¯kalpo farm:gen.sg, where dem.dat.pl.masc be:past deb:serve lı¯guma gads. contract:gen.sg.masc year:nom.sg.masc ‘Both Bekas managed to escape from the farm, where they had to serve a year on agreement’ (I. Grebzde)

Timberlake (1974: 77,
150) also quotes examples from Old Northern Russian and Lithuanian dialects in which temporal adverbials and cognate objects are subject to the nominative object rule. In a number of Modern Russian dialects, atelic extent adverbials appear in the nominative case, but it is not quite clear how these relate to constructions with normal nominative object constructions. Thus, they do occur in all nominative-object dialects, but the highest concentration of nominativeadverbial constructions is found in two regions outside the Northern Russian zone (in the vicinity of Tver’ and in the region between Moscow and Rjazan’, Kuz’mina 1993: 9–15). The Finnic-Baltic-Slavic similarities in the treatment of objects and atelic extent adverbials (already noted in Timberlake 1974 and Holvoet 1992) are well in line with the general cross-linguistic tendency observed by Haspelmath (1997: 120–126). Whereas other temporal adverbials often have a special marker which more or less explicitly shows their function (e.g. after/before/during), atelic extent adverbials are either not marked at all or are marked with a “minimal case”. Haspelmath suggests a tentative explanation that this has to do with a common semantic denominator of extent phrases and objects: both may constitute bound events. The connection can be seen particularly clearly in Polish, Russian and Latvian, where temporal extent modifiers become even more object-like when modifying verbs with the perfectivizing prefixes prze-, pro- and no-. In Slavic, such verbs obligatorily occur with accusative objects, including temporal extent phrases (cf. in Russian *pro-cˇital

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‘pfv-read:past’ vs. pro-cˇital knigu ‘pfv-read:past book:acc’ and *pro-rabotal
‘pfv-work:past’ vs. pro-rabotal vsju nocˇ’ ‘pfv-work:past whole:acc night:acc’). In Latvian extent phrases to no-verbs occur regularly as nominatives in debitive and passive constructions. The parallelism between temporal adverbials and direct objects is, however, not complete in all of the languages involved. Thus, in Polish, temporal adverbials tend to retain their accusative marking even under negation (at least in the written languages), whereas direct objects have to be marked with the genitive in similar contexts (Björn Wiemer p.c.). Similarly, in Finnish, temporal adverbials sometimes prefer the accusative (n-form) in contexts where normal objects always take the nominative, e.g. in impersonal passives (Maria Vilkuna p.c.). 6.7 Other cases in Slavic, Baltic and Finnic The discussion so far has concentrated on the central grammatical cases in Slavic, Baltic and Finnic — nominative, genitive, accusative and partitive. The two other non-local cases in Slavic and Baltic are the dative and the instrumental — both with a wide range of functions partly inherited from IndoEuropean, but also effectively extended. The instrumental has been lost as a morphological case in Latvian (see the papers by Stolz and Kangere & Boiko, this volume), which has contributed to a certain extension of the functions of the dative case with which it had merged in the plural. Since both cases were governed by prepositions, the dative came gradually to mark plural nominals after all prepositions. There are also other pronounced differences between Latvian and Lithuanian datives: in Latvian, but not in Standard Lithuanian, datives often appear with postpositions, as well as with some prepositions derived from adjectives (e.g. lı¯dz ‘until’ (< ‘like’), blakus ‘besides’); in Low Latvian the dative is gradually taking over part of the functions of the adnominal genitive (cf. Section 6.2). On the other hand, both Lithuanian and Latvian have such common (and inherited) dative functions as marking the indirect object, benefactives, purpose, modal actors in necessitive constructions, dativus absolutus (converbs with different subjects) etc. Interestingly, the dative in Curonian Livonian — the only Finnic language that has developed a distinct dative case — has almost the same range of functions as the dative in Latvian (see Wälchli this volume). From the point of view of Indo-European languages, the complex local case systems of Finnic are very aberrant. Eastern Baltic, however, developed a partly similar system of secondary local cases which is retained by now only in some Eastern Lithuanian dialects (cf. Tables 11 and 12). It has been claimed repeatedly that the emergence of a complex local case system in Eastern Baltic could be due to Finnic influence (e.g., Thomason &

672 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Table 11.Secondary local cases in Lithuanian Lithuanian

where from?

where?

where to?

intern local series extern local series

– {prep. iš} – {prep. nu}

locative (< loc +*en) adessive (< loc + pi)

illative (< acc + na) allative (< gen + pi)

Table 12.Local cases in Finnish Finnish:

where from?

where?

where to?

intern local series extern local series

elative -stA ablative -ltA

inessive -ssA adessive -llA

illative -hVn allative -lle

Kaufman 1988: 242–43, Balode & Holvoet this volume, b, Section 1.3). This proposal is problematic, however, for several reasons: –

–

–

–

The secondary local cases of Eastern Baltic represent grammaticalizations of nouns with their postpositions. Similar developments are found also in Umbrian, Tokharian and Ossete in Indo-European languages. The functions of the cases do only match to a certain degree. To mention only two examples, in Finnic (Fin.) jäädä ‘stay’ is constructed with illative (where to?) whereas in Lithuanian pasilikti is constructed with the locative (where?) (Serebrennikov 1959). Body parts on which clothes are put are marked with internal local cases in Finnic (thus, you put your hat IN your head and your gloves IN your hands). Latvian has taken over (or remodelled, imitated) phraseological constructions from Finnic consisting of the verb ‘to put’ and body parts in a locative case, and of ‘to stay’ and a noun in a local case. The incompatibility of the Finnic and Baltic local case systems was removed by syncretism in Latvian. In Latvian, there is only one locative case left for the functions of inessive, illative, adessive, and allative. There is, thus, reason to believe that the phraseological incompatibility of macro-structurally identical local case systems played a major part in the breakdown of the local case systems in the core zone of the Finnic-Baltic contact area. In Livonian, there is the same kind of syncretism of the local cases as in Latvian, as seen in Table 13. Only the elative and the inessive are clearly distinguished (Rudzı¯te & Karma 1980). The old cases are however still used in some contexts; the illative alternates with the inessive in “where to”-functions and the old external series is still used in phraseologically fixed expressions (see Wälchli 1998/99).

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Table 13.Local cases in Livonian and Latvian where from?

where? / where to?

Modern Livonian: intern and extern local series

elative -st

inessive -s

Latvian: intern and extern local series

–{prep. no}

locative

6.8 Cases in Swedish and Norwegian dialects The highly elaborated case systems described in the previous sections find a striking contrast in the modern Germanic languages: apart from Icelandic and Faroese, all of them have been going through a gradual restructuring, reduction and collapse of their morphological case systems. The Continental Scandinavian languages, as well as English, have gone particularly far in this development, having effectively lost case as a morphological category. However, a number of Northern Swedish and Norwegian dialects (or vernaculars) have preserved certain case distinctions and have, thus, been only partly struck by the general deflectional wave sweeping across the Scandinavian peninsula (see Rendahl this volume, Section 4). The best survivor among the older cases is the dative case, and in particular, the dative case of definite nouns (both singular and plural), which is frequently employed in the Swedish vernaculars of Dalecarlia, Härjedalen, Jämtland, Västerbotten and Norrbotten, and in the Norwegian vernaculars stretching from Hedmark fylke in the east to Bergen and further to the north as far as Tröndelagen and Helgeland, as well as in the south-western part of Upper Setesdal (Reinhammar 1973: 16–26). The dative case of indefinite nouns is attested mainly in the Orsa, Mora and Älvdalian vernaculars to the north of the Lake Siljan in Dalecarlia (Ovansiljan) — the same vernaculars which have retained the accusative case, which is otherwise very rarely found in the Swedish and Norwegian vernaculars. The dative case has been best preserved in the function of the indirect object to ditransitive verbs such as “to give” and in the other functions of the old IndoEuropean dative, primarily to mark human arguments; datives are also frequently found with terms for body parts in constructions of the type “to blink with one’s eyes”, “to clap one’s hands” (ibid.: 242–244). The frequency of dative governing verbs differs significantly across dialects — in some, such as Älvdalian, the list of such verbs contains at least 150 items (cf. Reinhammar 1973: 76–212 for the complete overview of dative-governing verbs in the Swedish and Norwegian dialects). Interestingly, the use of the dative in some of the modern dialects shows a greater consistency than in literary Old Swedish, which was strongly influenced by Low German and Danish. According to Reinhammar (ibid.: 247–48), the dative

674 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

with verbs is not attested in those Swedish and Norwegian dialects that have been spoken in the Finnish-speaking surrounding area.

7.

Clause-level syntactic phenomena in the CB area

7.1 Nonverbal predication Stassen (this volume) discusses an interesting areal property of the CB languages in the encoding of nonverbal (nominal and adjectival) predicates, such as Peter is a teacher and Peter is young. With the exception of Germanic languages, Karaim and Romani, all the languages in the area display double (or even multiple) options in the case marking of predicate adjectives and nominals, which, thus, choose between the nominative case and some oblique case. Different cases of nonverbal predicates are used for different purposes. The areally most relevant opposition is the one between time-stable, constant situations (expressed by the nominative case) and temporary, less stable situations (expressed by the oblique case, such as essive and translative in Finnic, translative in Mordvin, instrumental in the East-Slavic languages, Polish and Lithuanian). The choice between the different options seems, thus, to correlate with the different positions of the predicates on the Relative Time Stability Scale, launched by Givón in a number of his works. The notion of time stability is, however, not equally important for the opposition in all the languages: thus, in Russian (and Mordvin), the primary factor determining the choice of the oblique vs. nominative case is the presence or absence of an overt verbal copula. In addition to time stability, Finnic (and, most extremely, Finnish) uses the partitive case to mark unboundedness of the subject on predicative nouns, adjectives and participles (Larsson 1983: 56–68), as in example (20): (20) Finnish (Larsson 1983: 56) Varpus-et o-vat lintuja sparrow-pl.nom be-pres.3pl bird:pl.prtv ‘Sparrows are birds.’

Latvian and Lithuanian found other ways to extend case marking on predicative adjectives and participles. Nonverbal predicates agree with the agent assuming the dative or the genitive as well, e.g. Lith. Jo (he:gen) bu¯ta (be:part.pret.pass.nom. sg.neut) gudraus (clever:gen) ‘He (apparently) has been clever’ (Holvoet this volume, Section 2.2) In Lithuanian double passives, the predicative participle (of the first passive) is in the genitive case (cf. example (30a¢)). In constructions with a dative subject (e.g. debitive, infinitive) the predicative adjective or participle stands in the dative in Latvian. In Curonian Livonian, it is difficult to say whether the case marking in non-verbal predication is the traditional Finnic one or the above mentioned Latvian one because of the merger of the essive and the dative.

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Within Uralic, the double encoding of nonverbal predicates depending on time stability is not only restricted to Finnic, but is also found in Sami, Mordvin and Komi. This distribution has been used for arguing that the Russian and Polish double encoding have a Uralic origin. In Indo-European the predicative instrumental is restricted to Baltic and Slavic; within the latter group its frequency is considerably higher in the northern languages (East-Slavic, Polish) than in the southern ones. The Circum-Baltic (or the North-Eastern European) double encoding has previously been quoted as an example of an areal phenomenon (cf. Matthiassen 1985a,
b), without, however, any larger cross-linguistic comparison. Stassen is the first to discuss this phenomenon in a broad typological perspective — his sample includes more than 400 languages of the world. It turns out that double encoding, although fairly infrequent, is by no means unique among the languages of the world. Stassen provides examples from four other areas which show some form of similar double encoding. Interestingly, all of them are situated at the ‘fringe’ of the Indo-European mega-area, paralleling the Circum-Baltic area. Stassen concludes with the hypothesis that “this double encoding is in essence a non-Indo-European characteristic, which has been ‘pushed aside’ by Indo-European expansion, but which may, in some border areas, continues to exert its influence on Indo-European languages as well.” 7.2 Predicative (sentential) possession Predicative possession in the Circum-Baltic languages, more specifically, the absence of have-verbs in some of them, has also long been considered in the context of areal influences (among others, Mathiassen 1985a,
b; Stolz 1991: 73–76; Nau 1996: 55). The CB languages display two main strategies for building possessive sentences: – –

by involving have-verbs (e.g. Swd. Jag har en bok ‘I have a book’), and by involving existential verbs (‘be’) and expressing possessors as locative phrases (e.g. Rus. U menja est’ kniga ‘At-me is (a) book, I have a book’).

“Have”-verbs occur in Germanic, Lithuanian, Old Prussian and most of Slavic, whereas locative-like possessives are mainly attested in Finnic. However, Latvian and Russian, the two Indo-European languages that have been subject to the strongest language contacts with Finno-Ugric languages, also employ the locative type of predicative possession as their dominant strategy. This has been attributed to Finno-Ugric influence, although opinions differ as to the relative weight of this influence in relation to Indo-European heritage. Actually, qualifying the absence of a verb “to have” as an areally relevant isogloss of Finnic, Russian and Latvian reflects a very SAE-centristic viewpoint. On the basis of a sample of about 400 languages, Stassen (in prep.) shows that the

676 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

“have”-possessive happens to be a cross-linguistically much more marked choice than the “locative”-possessive in Finnic, Russian and Latvian. –

–

Even though “have”-possessives can be found in small islands all over the world, Europe has the highest concentration of “have”-verbs in the world. It is the only basic option for possessive sentences in Germanic, Romance, Albanian, Modern Greek, and Slavic except the Eastern branch. The “locative” type41 is very much the “Eurasian Way To Do Things”. It is almost unchallenged for Uralic (except for Khanty and Mansi which have a “have”-possessive), many Altaic languages, Ket, Daghestanian, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Munda, Semitic, and Above-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, it is the option that is invariably chosen for those Indo-European languages that lack “have”-verbs (e.g. Celtic, Indic, Anatolian). In short, the Central-European, Ob-Ugric and Iranian habeo’s are “islands” in an otherwise consistent Eurasian locative possessive macro-area.

Comparative investigation suggests that in Indo-European languages, “have”-verbs are a recent innovation. “Have”-verbs in different IE-branches derive from different etyma (sharing however the original semantics ‘to hold, to grasp’).42 Indo-European most likely had a “locative”-possessive with a dative possessor, like the Latin “mihi est”-construction (cf. Watkins 1967). The only remaining question is, thus, whether Finnic influence was a relevant factor for Russian and Latvian to retain or reintroduce the “locative” possessive. The Latvian and the Russian constructions are principally different. In Latvian, the possessor is put in the dative case and might thus reflect the original IndoEuropean construction which has probably been retained and expanded under Finnic influence. In Russian, the possessor is encoded by a prepositional phrase headed by the preposition u ‘at’ with the nominal in the genitive case, which looks like a perfect correspondence to the Finnic adessive case. This indicates that the Russian sentential possession construction itself is, most probably, a Finnic borrowing (see Mathiassen 1985a: 128–130 for the different arguments for and against this position). Anyway, the locative strategy in Latvian and Russian is employed much less exclusively than in Finnic, since the verb “have” does exist in both languages. Thus, in Latvian ture¯t (‘to hold’) is used for predicative possession in the High Latvian dialect and sometimes also in older texts, very much as its cognate verb in Lithuanian. In Old Russian, imeˇti could be used in more contexts in predicative possession than in Modern Standard Russian. In the modern language it is primarily employed in sentences referring to more abstract instances of possession, but is also a useful alternative to locative possessives under special syntactic conditions where the latter option is impossible, e.g. imperative sentences and infinitives embedded under volitional and modal verbs:

The Circum-Baltic languages 677

(21) Russian (proverb) Ne imej sta rublej, a imej neg have:imp hundred:gen rouble:gen.pl but have:imp sto druzej. hundred:nom/acc friend:gen.pl ‘Don’t have a hundred roubles, but have a hundred friends’ (i.e. ‘It is better to have a hundred friends than a hundred roubles’)

The two other Eastern Slavic languages make much more restricted use of the “locative” possessives than Russian.43 There is, thus, some evidence that, at least in Russian, but probably also in Latvian, Finnic influence was an important factor in retaining or reintroducing a “locative” possessive. If we look more closely at Stassen’s “locative”-possessive type, the picture turns out to be more complicated. The “locative” (mega-)type is made up of several distinct subtypes, each of which receives the status of a separate possession type in Heine’s (1997a, b) classification. All of them are found among the Circum-Baltic and the neighbouring Finno-Ugric languages:44 –

–

–

(True) Locative (Heine’s “Location schema”): In Finnic, except Curonian Livonian the possessed is marked by the adessive case (“at/on”). Some other Uralic languages (Sami, Permic) also use some true local cases for the encoding of the possessor. Russian with its possessor u ‘at’ + gen may be put in this group, too. Dative (Heine’s “Goal schema”): Dative case is restricted to Latvian and Curonian Livonian. In the latter language the dative emerged in a split of the Finnic genitive under Latvian influence (cf. Wälchli this volume). Dative case also occurs in Baltic Russian dialects, where it might be attributed to either direct or mediated Baltic influence (Cˇekmonas this volume, b, Sections 4.3 and 5). Genitive with possessive suffixes (Heine’s “Genitive schema”): In Mordvin and Mari the possessor is in the genitive and there is a possessive suffix coreferent with the possessor on the possessed. This construction — found also in Turkic — is most likely to be the original Finno-Ugric construction.

Figure 6 visualizes the situation in the CB languages. If we now look at different functions of the predicative possessive constructions, this subclassification of the “locative” possessive seems to be relevant. Here we shall mention only one interesting case — the opposition between permanent and temporal possession, which is illustrated by the sentence I have a violin, but I don’ t have it with me. The languages with the “Genitive schema” (Mordvin, Mari, Chuvash) tend to make a distinction between permanent and temporary possession, using the genitive construction predominantly for permanent possession. In temporary possession we find mainly the “location schema” with the possessor in

678 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Possessive sentences in the CB languages

“BE” + locative phrases (Locative possession strategy)

“HAVE”-possessives

Possessor in the dative: Goal schema (Heine)

Germanic Lithuanian, Old Prussian, Most Slavic

Latvian

Curonian Livonian

Possessor in a locative case: Location schema (Heine)

Russian

Most Finnic

main pattern marginal pattern

Figure 6.Types of sentential possession in the CB languages.

a local case and without any possessive suffixes. A similar tendency, though to a lesser degree is found in Latvian. For some native speakers the “goal schema” (22b) can not be used in contexts as ‘Do you have Peter’s book?’ If Peter is the possessor of the book, the location schema is used instead (22a): (22) Latvian a. Vai Pe¯tera gra¯mata pie tevis?45 int Peter:gen book at you:gen ‘Do you have Peter’s book?’ b. Man ir gra¯mata I:dat be.3 book ‘I have a book’

Finnic and Russian and the “have”-languages of Europe make no distinction in the encoding of permanent and temporal possession. Another way of classifying the languages of Northern Europe according to their encoding of predicative possession would, thus, distinguish languages with the same means of expressions for permanent and temporary possession (the Western languages, Lithuanian, Slavic, Finnic) as opposed to the languages in which these domains are kept apart (Mordvin, Mari, Chuvash and partly Latvian).

The Circum-Baltic languages 679

There is some further evidence that “have”-possessive and “locative”-possessive are not as distinct as they look at first glance. Givón (1984: 104), discussing data from Modern Hebrew, observes that in languages with a “locative” possessive there may be a tendency towards reanalysis as a transitive construction (as with “have”verbs). Oblique possessors may thus acquire subject properties and possessees may acquire object properties. Stassen (in prep.) calls this phenomenon the “have-drift”. Initial position (i.e. topicalization) of the possessor in all “locative”-type CB-languages in unmarked word order (as opposed to e.g. Irish and Welsh where the locative possessor is sentence final) is one manifestation of the have-drift in CB-languages. In Latvian and Russian, possessors acquire further subject properties: they can control reflexivization (examples 23 and 24) and, at least in colloquial Russian, converbs (example 24):46 (23) Latvian (Nau 1998: Section 3.2.1.4) Tur ¸loti daudz visa¯d-as taut-in¸-as dzı¯vo there very much various-pl.nom nation-dim-pl.nom live:pres.3 katr-ai sav-a valod-a. each-dat.fem refl.poss-nom.fem language-nom ‘Very many different peoples are living there, each has its own language.’ (24) Russian Pereexav v gorod, u menja dolgo ne move:conv.pfv in town:acc at me:gen long.time neg byl-o svo-ej kvartiry. be:past-neut.sg refl.poss-gen.sg.fem flat-gen ‘Having moved to town, I did not have my own flat for a long time.’

In a different manifestation, the “have”-drift is operative in Finnish. In a sentence like (25) Minulla on sinut. I:adess be:pres.3sg you:acc ‘I have you.’

the possessed has accusative case marking. It thus behaves similarly to an object in impersonal constructions (i.e. usually nominative, but accusative when located high on the animacy hierarchy, see Section 6.4). 7.3 Comitative and instrumental In Standard Average European languages, the same preposition is normally employed in the expression of both comitative and instrumental functions, as in Peter is eating soup with his friend
and Peter is eating soup with a spoon. On the basis of this observation Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 135) formulate the generalisation, “With few exceptions, the following principle holds in all the languages of the world: The

680 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

word or grammatical device that indicates accompaniment also indicates instrumentality”. The conceptual explanation for the principle, according to Lakoff and Johnson, lies in the metaphor “an instrument is a companion”. However, Stolz (this volume) states that syncretism of comitative and instrumental categories among the languages of the world is not as frequent as Lakoff and Johnson imply. In a sample of 323 languages, only slightly less than 25% have a complete merger of their markers for comitative and instrumental functions (another 10% allow both for co-existing syncretic and non-syncretic markers). The European languages, however, manifest a high predilection for coherence in the expression of instruments and comitatives. Figure 7 shows the proportions of all the three types in Stolz’ global sample as a whole and, separately, for the European languages in the sample (the figures underlying the staples come from Stolz 1997).

250

200

150

100

50

0 1 Coherent lges

S2

2 Mixed lges

3

S1

Languages of the world

European languages

Incoherent lges

Figure 7.Proportions of languages showing coherent, mixed and incoherent types in expression of instruments and comitatives (based on Stolz 1997).

In this respect, the CB languages show interesting diversity: –

–

in some of the languages, the two categories merger — both are expressed by the same case in Estonian, Livonian (not in Stolz’ sample) and Sami, and by the same preposition in Latvian and the Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish, German); in some of the languages the two are strictly separated and the comitative is encoded in a less grammaticalized way than the instrumental — in Finnish, the instrumental function is expressed by the adessive (local) case marker, whereas the comitative is expressed by a postpositional phrase (e.g. gen + kanssa); in

The Circum-Baltic languages 681

–

the Slavic languages (Russian and Polish) the instrumental relationship is encoded by the instrumental case, as opposed to the comitative relationship, where the same case is now combined with the preposition s, z ‘with’; finally, Lithuanian is a mixture of the two types — it uses basically the same two strategies for comitative and instrumental relationships as the Slavic languages above, thus separating the two, but the prepositional phrase with the preposition su can optionally be used to encode instrumental relationships as well. Also Russian and Polish dialects in Lithuania often use the same type of prepositional phrases (with the preposition s, z ‘with’) for reference to instruments, in addition to the comitative relationship. This is explained by Lithuanian influence (Cˇekmonas this volume, b, Sections 4.3 and 5).

In Slavic and Baltic, as in many other Indo-European languages, the two categories have always been related — historically both involved the same case, the instrumental, which sometimes was reinforced with a comitative preposition. The Latvian merger is a relatively new development — in the Latvian folk songs (Dainas) instrumental relationships are primarily encoded by the pure instrumental case, which, in turn, is morphologically identical with the accusative singular and dative plural. In spite of this syncretism, the instrumental existed as a case as long as it had its own semantic and syntactic functions. However, it gradually became more marginalized and was, finally, lost due to the later extension of the uses of the erstwhile comitative preposition ar to instrumental and other relationships. In Finno-Ugric languages the markers for comitative and instrumental functions do not normally have anything in common — in this respect Finnish is quite typical (cf. with the use of the inessive case for instrumental relations and nom/gen + postposition marto in Mordvin). Estonian and Sami thus behave in a very non-Finno-Ugric way. Stolz’ conclusion is that the complete merger of instrumental and comitative functions in Estonian, (Livonian), Sami and Latvian is likely to be the result of the Germanic influence on these languages, even though the Latvian situation could in principle be accounted for by internal factors (the weak morphological distinctiveness of the instrumental case). Interestingly, the Latvian merger finds parallels in the Slavic languages Slovene and Sorbian, where it has most probably arisen because of German influence. Furthermore, there are some interesting lexical parallels of the comitative markers in Estonian and Livonian. The comitative case used in both comitative and instrumental functions by now in the Southern Finnic languages Estonian and Livonian47 Est. -ga/ka, Liv. -[kõ]ks is originally a lative form *kansa-k of the noun kansa (Fin. ‘people’, Est. ‘spouse’) which is an early Germanic loanword. Alvre (1983 and 1997) argues that *kansak was also the source of the particle Est., Liv. ka ‘also’ and of the Estonian interrogative particle kas. Interestingly, Latvian and

682 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Estonian have similar clusterings of these meanings: Ltv. ar ‘with’, arı¯ ‘also’ and ar, the old Baltic interrogative particle (substituted in Standard Latvian by vai, a loan from Livonian). Endzelı¯ns (1905/6) claims that the three Latvian elements are etymologically connected.48 If Alvre and Endzelı¯ns are right there is a convergent development in Estonian and Latvian resulting in an lexical isomorphism between Old Estonian and Old Latvian. Anyway, some differences remain: Latvian ar is a preposition and -ga/ka is a case marker deriving from a postposition. Table 14.Interrogative particles in Estonian and Latvian

(Old) Estonian (Old and High) Latvian

interrogative particle ‘also’

comitative

kas (*/kaas/) ar

-ga/ka (*/-kaas/) ar _

ka (*/kaas/) ar¿H

There is, thus, some evidence for a strong areal relationship between the Latvian and Estonian markers for comitatives that were generalized afterwards also to include instrumental functions. (For the distribution of interrogative particles see also Map 3.) 7.4 Comparative In the English comparative sentence, Peter is older than Paul, the standard of comparison (Paul) is marked with the particle than. The whole construction represents the so-called Particle type — one of the four major types of constructions used to encode comparison, suggested in Stassen’s (1985) cross-linguistic study of comparative constructions. The study is based on a more or less representative sample of 109 languages and focuses primarily on the marker associated with the standard of comparison, leaving aside the question whether or not the adjective itself has a special comparative degree, as is normally the case in European languages. Heine (1997b) further modifies Stassen’s typology and suggests that the different types represent in fact different cognitive schemas — relatively simple concepts which are used by human beings for understanding and dealing with the cognitively relatively complex concept of comparison. The different cognitive schemas thus provide different sources for the grammaticalization of comparative constructions. The Particle type is found almost exclusively in Europe — of the 18 languages with these constructions in Stassen’s sample, 13 are found in Europe. Conversely, only one European language of the 14 in Stassen’s sample (Breton) does not show this type.49 Haspelmath (1998) interprets the particle type as a typical SAE-feature, a common innovation — the dominant strategy in older Indo-European languages was to mark the standard of comparison with an ablative case or other cases with

The Circum-Baltic languages 683

original separative or ablative meanings. Such constructions represent Stassen’s other major type, the Separative type, which has a very wide distribution, but is especially favoured by Asian languages (of the 24 Asian languages in Stassen’s sample, 16 represent this type. The total number of Separative-type-languages is 32; the figures refer to languages which have such constructions as their primary, major choice). Both types are amply represented in the CB area. The Particle type is the most heterogeneous type in Stassen’s typology: it is primarily defined in a negative way, as the type involving a marker whose morphosyntactic status and whose semantics are fairly obscure. Particle comparative constructions arise as bi-clausal sentences (Peter is cleverer than Paul is) which are gradually reanalysed as simplex clauses, thereof the cross-linguistically frequent oscillation in the form of the standard of comparison (He is cleverer than me/I). The Particle type in the CB languages is likewise represented by several subtypes which are not mutually exclusive: –

–

–

Some of these comparative particles are etymologically of a correlative origin — interrogative or demonstrative stem, as in Russian Peter umnee, ˇcem ego brat ‘Peter (is) cleverer than (< what:inst) his brother’. Similarly, Fin. kuin, Est. kui are derived from an interrogative stem (instructive case). Finnish and Estonian use the same marker (kui, kuin) both in comparative and in equality constructions (cf. Estonian Peeter on targ-em kui Paul
‘Peter is clever-comp than Paul’ vs. Peeter on sama tark kui Paul
‘Peter is as clever as Paul’). This subtype, involving what Heine calls “Similarity Schema” is also found in Colloquial German (Klaus ist so groß/größer wie ich): the marker in all these three languages is actually an interrogative adverb and a marker of manner clauses, ‘how’. In the Baltic languages, Polish and, occasionally, Russian interrogative and other particles are often used in combination with the marker for negation (Pol. niz˙, Rus. neželi, Ltv. neka¯, (ne) and Lit. negu, (ne)) ‘Peter is cleverer not than Paul’. This strategy is found also in other languages, e.g. Gaelic, Scottish English and partly in Romance (Stassen 1985: 217). The negation marker can even stand alone with the standard of comparison. This type has spread from Latvian to Livonian and Leivu Estonian50 (Vaba 1997).

The Separative type among the CB languages is particularly well represented in Finnic, where the standard of comparison is marked with the elative, ablative or partitive (originally ablative) case. Constructions involving the genitive case in Russian and some other Slavic languages could probably also be said to belong here: the Slavic genitive shares a number of functions with highly grammaticalized separative cases in some other languages and diachronically represents a merger of genitive and ablative. However, this classification is far too straightforward, given that Slavic genitive-marked comparison constructions have reached such an advanced

684 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

stage of grammaticalization when their connection to their grammaticalization source has become sufficiently opaque. There is, thus, no synchronic evidence left for ascribing Slavic genitive-marked comparative constructions to the Separative type, not to mention any attempts to assign them meaningful cognitive operations or schemas, apart from comparison itself. Such classificatory problems are inevitable in typologies that take into consideration the different grammaticalization “age” of constructions and, hence, the differences in their connection to their grammaticalization sources. Clearer instances of the Separative type can still be found in some dialects of Belarusian and Ukrainian, where the standard of comparison can be marked with the preposition ot, at, vid
‘from’ and genitive (Valeriy Cˇekmonas, p.c.).51 Typologically, the most interesting cases are, probably, represented by the Baltic prepositions, which are most frequently used to mark the standard of comparison. These prepositions have a clear spatial origin — their original meaning is either ‘behind’ (Lith. už, Ltv. rarely aiz) or ‘above, about < before’ (Ltv. par). The standard of comparison is put in the accusative case, which is more typical for directional than for spatial relations; in Stassen’s typology these constructions should probably be assigned to the fairly unusual Goal type, rather than to the somewhat more frequent Location type. However, these prepositions show a considerable range of meanings, and it is, in fact, not quite clear to what extent their comparative functions can be derived directly from the directional ones; at least ‘behind’ has not been reported for any of Stassen’s languages as a source for comparative markers. According to Cˇekmonas (p.c.) the “behind” type is found in the following Slavic dialects: – Belarusian (geographical distribution not known); – Polish: in the “Prussian” dialects of Mazowsze, i.e. in the North-Eastern dialects close to Lithuania; – Ukrainian: some Western dialects; – Russian: in the North-Western periphery, especially the Pskov dialect (see Cˇekmonas this volume, b, Section 4.3 for examples of the latter). Cˇekmonas suggests that, on the basis of this distribution, the “behind”-type cannot be considered original in Slavic languages and could be due to a Baltic substrate. The different markers with the standard of comparison for some CB languages are listed in Table 15. To summarize: the Particle comparative is the typical SAE way of encoding the standard of comparison, whereas the Separative comparative is preferred in Eurasia on the whole. Since the CB region is located between these areas, many CB languages have both options. According to Stassen (1985: 217) the negation particle type is characteristic of some Indo-European languages (Gaelic, Scottish English, Latvian, and perhaps Classical Greek), its appearance in Livonian and Leivu is, thus, obviously a result of language contact. The “behind”-type is clearly a Baltic encoding strategy, which has been transferred to some Slavic dialects by Baltic substrate.

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Table 15.Comparative constructions in the CB languages Particle

Goal/Locative

Separative

not involving involving negation negation

“behind/for” “over/for”

separative

Fi Est Mrd Leivu Liv Ltv Lith Ru

kuin kui, nagu

ˇcem

Swd

än

? (ku) (ka¯)

partitive case elative case ablative case ei, iz äbku neka¯, (ne) negu, (ne) neželi

üle aiz už Dial: za

par genitive Dial: ot

7.5 Passives, desubjectives and zero-subject constructions Holvoet (this volume) considers several constructions whose primary function is backgrounding and syntactic demotion of the agent or of the “normal” subject. In the first category, the verb looks like a normal agreeing verb, but the subject is systematically absent (zero-subject constructions). The second category covers cases when the verb has an explicit marker showing that the erstwhile subject is demoted (passives and desubjectives/impersonals). These topics have been the focus of modern morphosyntactic theories for several decades, and there is a huge literature containing a battery of radically different views both on their definitions and on their properties.52 In what follows we have chosen to concentrate on a few issues, where the CB languages show interesting areal connections and/or typological features. 7.5.1Zero-subject constructions In zero-subject constructions, the verb looks like a normal agreeing verb marked for the singular or plural (cf. examples (26a) and (26b) below from Holvoet this volume), but the subject is systematically absent:53 (26) a.

Finnish Puheesta-ni voi kuulla, speech:elat.sg-poss.1sg can:pres.3sg hear:inf että olen ulkomaalainen. that be:pres.1sg foreigner:nom.sg ‘From my speech you can hear that I am a foreigner.’

686 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

b.

Russian Menja obokrali. me:acc rob:pret.3pl ‘I was robbed.’

Such constructions refer to generic (example (26a)) or indefinite (example (26b)) subjects. Holvoet observes important distributional differences in the two constructions illustrated above: – Sentences with non-referential, indefinite zero subjects (with the verb marked for the singular) are found in Finnic, Latvian and Western Slavic, but are lacking in both Lithuanian and Eastern Slavic. It seems doubtful whether this construction can be reconstructed for either Common Baltic or Common Slavic. Its occurrence in Western Slavic is, in all probability, a dialectal innovation, whereas its restriction to Latvian within Baltic seems to point to a partial Latvian-Finnic convergence. – Sentences with generic zero subjects (with the verb marked for the plural) are found across Baltic and Slavic, but are not characteristic of Finnic, apart from those varieties that have been exposed to a strong Slavic influence (Veps, Votic). – Finally, where Slavic, Baltic and Finnic have zero-subject constructions, more typical SAE languages have to resort to sentences with “generic pronouns” like man (Grm. or Swd.) or on (in French)54 to fill in the obligatory subject position. 7.5.2Passives and desubjectives (impersonals) Let us now turn to cases when the verb has an explicit marker showing that the erstwhile subject is demoted. The CB languages show a great variation in regard to: – – –

what happens with the erstwhile direct object; what happens with the erstwhile subject; and what restrictions there are on verbs that can undergo such processes.

We will now look at these aspects separately. 7.5.2.1 Promotion vs. non-promotion of erstwhile direct objects. In the clearest case of more or less canonical passives, the object is promoted to the subject position and acquires all or most of the subject properties, among others, case marking and the ability to trigger verb agreement in those languages where subjects have these properties. Such passives are found in all the CB languages with the exception of Finnic.55 In addition to canonical passives, there are also various “desubjective”56 constructions (in Haspelmath’s 1990 terminology) in the CB area, which lack grammatical subjects: the erstwhile subject is demoted, but the erstwhile object does not show up as a subject either (for a detailed and insightful overview of passives and desubjectives in Slavic see Siewierska 1988). Holvoet (this volume) considers the Polish impersonal verb forms ending in -no/-to — they combine with accusative/ genitive marked objects in exactly the same way as the verbs they are derived from

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and do not have any subject NP to agree with (see example (27a)). Originally these forms are petrified neutral forms of passive participles; similar constructions are found in Ukrainian, Lithuanian dialects (where they are used in evidential meanings, cf. the end of Section 10.2) and Russian dialects where they are primarily involved in the expression of possessive perfects. All these cases seem to originate in impersonal passives (see below on impersonal passives). Polish has another desubjective construction, reflexive desubjectives, in which the erstwhile direct object retains its marking — sentences with the reflexive particle sie˛ and the verb in the third person singular (neuter) used for generalized subjects and sometimes for avoiding reference to the speaker or to the hearer (example (27b)). Both desubjective constructions imply that the unexpressed subject is a human being: (27) Polish (Fici Giusti 1998: 356, 354) a. No-/to-desubjectives: Na wieczorze Jana tanczo-no, mia-no sie˛ at party:loc Jan:gen dance-impr laugh-impr refl i pi-to wódke˛. and drink-impr vodka:acc ‘At Jan’s party there was dancing and vodka drinking.’ b. Reflexive desubjectives: W kawiarni “Praga” co tydzien´ pi-ł-o sie˛ herbate˛ in café:loc “Praga” each week drink-past-3sg.neut refl tea-acc i rozmawia-ł-o sie˛. and chat-pret-3sg.neut refl ‘Every week at the café “Praga” one drank tea and chatted.’

For such constructions, there is no evidence whatsoever that the erstwhile direct object has been promoted to the subject position. Now, interestingly, as shown in Siewierska (1988: 263–64), these constructions behave as if the implied agent were the surface subject — and the Polish linguistic tradition treats them as active and not passive constructions. Thus, the inherent human subject can control swój-reflexivization (example (28a)) and Equi-NP-deletion into converbial clauses (example (28b)) — properties which are otherwise restricted to surface subjects: (28) a.

b.

Swoich przyjaciół tak sie˛ ne traktuje one’s(refl) friends:gen/acc thus refl not treat:3sg ‘One doesn’t treat one’s friends like that.’ Analizuja˛c szczegółowo zdje˛cia satelitarne analyzing in.detail pictures:acc satellite otkry-to mała˛ wyspe˛. discover-impr small:fem.sg.acc island:acc ‘When one was analyzing satellite pictures, one discovered a small island.’ (Siewierska 1988: 263–64).

688 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Now, whereas the objects in the examples (27) and (28) remain intact as compared to the corresponding “normal” active sentences, there are also desubjective constructions in which the erstwhile direct object looks and behaves like something between an object and a subject. Finnic impersonals/passives belong here: as was shown in Section 6.4 on nominative object constructions, the erstwhile object has both object and subject properties.57 The same applies to some Lithuanian dialectal constructions, in which the erstwhile direct object appears in the nominative, but does not trigger any agreement in the passive participle. Desubjective constructions discussed in this section pose certain problems for theories that state that the demotion of subjects has to be motivated by promotion of another argument to the subject position. The data force us either to abandon this hypothesis, or to look for subject properties in those arguments that are left in desubjective constructions, which more or less boils down to saying that there are no really desubjective constructions at all (cf. Siewierska 1988: Ch. 3).58 7.5.2.2 Demotion of subjects (agents). Demotion of subjects (agents) can also vary as to its extent; Table 16 shows how this parameter is combined with promotion vs. non-promotion of objects in various constructions across the CB languages. Table 16.Passives and desubjectives in the CB languages Canonical passives

Desubjectives (impersonals)

Object promoted to subject position

Object partly promoted

Object intact

Agent disallowed

Ltv.

Fin. impersonals

no-/to-impersonals in Pol., Ukr., Lith. & Rus. dialects; reflimpersonals in Pol.

Agent allowed

Lith.; Slavic; Germanic

(Est. impersonals)

[normal active sentences]

There are diachronic connections among the various constructions discussed above: thus, desubjectives can arise from passives and agented passives can arise from agentless ones (see Holvoet this volume). 7.5.2.3 Restrictions on verbs. Finally, there is an interesting cross-linguistic variation in which verbs all these passive and desubjective forms can be derived from. Thus, passives in Standard Russian and Polish are mainly restricted to transitive verbs, with a few notable exceptions (such as veleno ‘ordered’, xoženo ‘gone, walked’, požito ‘lived’). Polish -no/-to-impersonals, although lexically restricted, can be

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derived from verbs that otherwise lack passive participles, such as most intransitive and reflexive verbs, whereas reflexive based impersonals cannot be derived from reflexive verbs. This restriction is not universal: Italian, in which reflexives also can build generalized sentences, avoids repetition of two identical reflexive markers by using ci instead of one of the two si’s (e.g. Qui ci si diverte tutto il giorno ‘Here one (refl1) enjoys oneself (refl2) the whole day’. Germanic allows passivization of intransitive verbs, which results in a rich range of impersonal passives — the process is, however, severely restricted to verbs of certain lexical classes. At least some speakers of German allow also passivization of reflexive verbs, cf. (29b) and (29a); this is a cross-linguistically rare option, found much more regularly in Latvian and Lithuanian (see Plank 1993). (29) German (Plank 1993: 135) a. Man wäscht sich hier täglich! Das ist ein Befehl. ‘One washes oneself here daily! This is an order’. b. Hier wird sich täglich gewaschen! Das ist ein Befehl. ‘Here is oneself daily washed! This is an order.’

Latvian and Finnic are very tolerant in this respect: passives/impersonals can be derived from almost any verb. The only restriction in Finnish is that the underlying verb has to be “personal” in the sense that it can take a normal subject in the nominative; Latvian cannot passivize copular constructions. Rendahl (this volume) shows the influence of Estonian on Estonian Swedish passives which can be derived from the most “unpassivizable”, from the Swedish perspective, intransitive verbs. But Lithuanian passives are really amazing in their non-conformity to most of the cross-linguistic restrictions on passives that have been suggested, e.g. within Relational Grammar (cf. Postal 1986; Christen 1995). Thus, – – –

–

Lithuanian allows double passives (i.e. passives can be built from passives, example (30a¢)); Lithuanian allows passives from typical unaccusatives (of which verbs of existence are instances par excellence; example (30b)); Lithuanian allows passives from constructions with verbs like “to belong” (in Relational Grammar these are described as involving inversion, i.e. a marked construction in which the nominal that normally would be the subject looks like an indirect object, example (30c)); and Lithuanian allows passives from sentences with verbs which systematically lack subjects (impersonal verbs, example (30d)). (30) Lithuanian (Christen 1995: 123)59 a. Niekas nebuvo senos moteries bucˇiuojamas a¢. Niekieno nebu¯ta senos moteries bucˇiuojamo. ‘(Apparently) No one was kissed by the old woman.’ b. Gorilos dar egzistuoja Afrikoje.

690 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

b¢. Gorilu˛ dar egzistuojama Afrikoje. ‘There still exist gorillas in Africa.’ c. Ta verge˙ priklauso Silvijai. c¢. Tos verge˙s priklausyta Silvijai. ‘This slave belongs to Sylvie.’ d. Jiems reike˙jo to aspirino. d¢. Jiems reike˙ta to aspirino. ‘They need this aspirin.’

Passive participles in Northern Russian dialects are fascinating in many respects (see Timberlake 1974), but strictly speaking, do not belong to the discussion here: they are used not for passivization, but form the basis of possessive perfect sentences. Therefore the agent, or the subject is not in the nominative case, but looks like a possessor in a possessive sentence, i.e. is expressed by the prepositional phrase of the form “u ‘at’ + gen”. In a way, it is demoted, but it functions syntactically more or less like normal subjects, apart from its abnormal marking and inability to trigger verbal agreement (however, in some dialects passive participles agree with such subjects). Most significantly, in the overwhelming majority of examples, the subject is present and can trigger deletion of co-referential nominative marked subjects under coordination. (This occurs regularly when the coordinated clauses have different tense reference, i.e. “Anna has picked a lot of mushrooms and is cooking them” see also Cˇekmonas this volume.) There is an important dialectal difference between some of the Northern Russian dialects (primarily Onega dialects) and others, in that the former can build passive forms of intransitive and even reflexive verbs (Markova 1987; Kuz’mina 1993). This fact has been discussed in connection with a possible influence from the local Finnic population (Karelians and Ludians), but the parallels in the use of impersonal/passive forms in these varieties are too weak to postulate anything more than a conservative effect on the part of these contacts. 7.5.3Reflexive postfixes Passive constructions across the CB area involve either auxiliary verbs combined with passive participles or verbs which are, at least historically, reflexive. Since the world’s greatest concentration of both of these techniques is found in Europe (Haspelmath 1990, 1998), this makes most of the CB languages good SAE-languages. The form of reflexive-based passives in North Germanic and Eastern Slavic is, however, very peculiar, as will be discussed below. Table 17 summarizes the data on the use of various auxiliary verbs in participle-based passives and on the factors governing the choice between reflexive-based and participle-based passives in those languages that have both options. Many of the Circum-Baltic languages — Northern Germanic, Baltic and Eastern Slavic — are characterized by the expression of certain verbal voice functions such as reflexive, reciprocal, anti-causative, passive, by means of verbal postfixes (post-

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Table 17.Expression types of passive constructions across CB languages Ltva

Grm Participles: + BE (Stative) + BECOME werden

Lith

(Stative) + tikt, tapt etc.

Reflexivebased: restrictions a

Pol

Swd/Dan

Rus/Bylr

(Stative) zostac´, byc´

(Stative) bli

+

only agent- free varialess tion

sensitive to aspect

Livonian behaves exactly like Latvian.

inflectional affixes), i.e. affixes in the last position of a word following, for example, tense/aspect and agreement markers (we will touch on the peculiarities of Lithuanian reflexive markers below). These postfixes have developed in the course of grammaticalization due to “Univerbierung”, i.e. the process of coalescence between the main verb and permutable reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. The corresponding postfixes (-s and -st < sik and sér in the Scandinavian languages, -s < si in the Baltic languages, and -s’/-sja in Eastern Slavic) manifest an extensive polysemy and provide beautiful illustrations of the different stages in grammaticalization of reflexive markers to markers of middle voice and, later possibly, to passives (Geniušiene˙ 1987; Haspelmath 1987; Kemmer 1993), as shown in Table 18. Table 18. Expression formats used for passives, reflexives, reciprocals and related voice functions in Baltic, Eastern Slavic and Northern Germanic (simplified) Typical reflexives (‘I see / hit / scold myself ’) Baltic Eastern Slavic Northern Germanic

postfixes independent pron.a independent pron. –

Grooming (‘I wash’), Passive various other middle meanings, reciprocity etc. participle-based postfixes postfixes: fossilized

– postfixes: regular

a

The development in Northern Germanic and Eastern Slavic shows repartition and recycling of reflexive markers: the new independent reflexive pronouns are cognates to the postfixes.

Cross-linguistically, reflexivity/anticausativity and other related meanings characterizing valence recession are most often expressed by stem affixes, as in the majority of the Finno-Ugric languages. Clitization of reflexive markers is also relatively wide-spread. However, as shown by Haspelmath (1987), postfixes as markers of reflexivity and related meanings are typologically fairly unusual and are

692 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

limited to the languages of the Baltic Sea region. Thus, in this respect, Baltic, Eastern Slavic and Northern Germanic manifest a transition from the (crosslinguistically second most frequent) pattern of many other Indo-European languages, including German, Dutch, the Western and Southern Slavic languages, in which marking is accomplished by means of a reflexive pronoun (pronominal clitic), to the cross-linguistically most frequent pattern of the Finno-Ugric languages, which use suffixation for similar purposes. Lithuanian (including some Latvian dialects) is particularly interesting here, since the position of the reflexive element, which is bound to the verb, is variable: if a verb has a prefix (preverb), the reflexive marker is placed between the prefix and the stem, otherwise it is attached word-finally, e.g. moky-ti-s ‘teach-inf-refl’ (= ‘to learn’) vs. ne-si-moky-ti ‘neg-refl-teach-inf’ (= ‘not to learn’).60 The common Northern Germanic, Baltic and Eastern Slavic development of postfixes has sometimes been attributed to contact-linguistic relationships among these lanaguages and even, possibly, by the existence of Finno-Ugric languages in the same region (Ureland 1980, 1986). Finno-Ugric influence seems, however, very doubtful as there are no comparable structures in Finno-Ugric languages. Whatever the proportion between the universal grammaticalization and possible contactinduced changes may be in this case, the use of postfixes for reflexivity, anticausativity and passivization is a peculiarly Circum-Baltic phenomenon.

8. Nouns and noun phrases 8.1 Adjective agreement In all the CB languages, with the exception of Karaim and Sami, attributive adjectives agree with their head nouns –

– –

in gender, number and case (in Baltic, Slavic and in some of the Germanic languages, such as German, Yiddish and some Northern Swedish and Norwegian dialects); in gender and number (in Standard Continental Scandinavian, where case distinctions have been lost); and in number and case (in Finnic).

Since adjective agreement clearly distinguishes Finnic from all the other FinnoUgric languages, it has been suggested that it might be a result of areal contacts of Finnic with Indo-European languages, where similar phenomena are widely attested (Schlachter 1958; Laakso this volume, Section 2.2). Adjective agreement in Finnic is a very regular phenomenon: in Finnish, all adjectives, except for a closed group of adjectives including ensi ‘next’, viime ‘last’ and pikku ‘little’ show complete adjective agreement in case and number. Another

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apparent exception to the rule is the partial case agreement, found with nouns in some oblique cases of the Southern Finnic languages: thus, in Estonian, nouns with a case suffix of the structure -CV (comitative -ga, terminative -ni, essive -na) take attributive adjectives in the genitive. This inconsistency is the result of a secondary development due to the on-going grammaticalization of new cases from postpositions (and analogy, in the case of the essive). The uniformity with which adjective agreement is implemented in all Finnic languages bears witness to the relatively great age of this phenomenon, but also leaves no indications as to its possible source. Even though the Indo-European origin of adjective agreement in Finnic is a plausible hypothesis, it is hardly possible to point to a specific language group (Baltic or Germanic) within Indo-European which could have provided the ultimate impetus for the spreading of adjective agreement in Finnic. However, the situation in Finno-Ugric and Uralic on the whole is more complicated than is often assumed. Agreement of attributive words with nouns is not completely absent from Uralic outside Finnic. For example, Udmurt and Nenets show optional number agreement of attributive adjectives (cf. Vilkuna 1998), whereas in Hungarian, the demonstrative agrees. In both Sami and Mordvin attributive agreement with nouns is found – –

in demonstrative pronouns; in the adjective ‘good’ (though not always), and occasionally some other adjectives.

The actual rules in Sami and Mordvin differ, however, to a considerable extent. Whereas in Mordvin, demonstrative elements show only number agreement, in Sami, they agree both in number and case, even though the latter is often partial (reminiscent of the partial agreement in Southern Finnic mentioned above; case agreement of demonstrative pronouns in Sami follows very complex rules). The Sami, Mordvin and Finnic evidence seems to suggest the following progression in the development of adjectival agreement, shown in Figure 8. agreement in number: demonstratives Mordvin

agreement in case/number: >

demonstratives Sami

>

all adjectives Finnic

Figure 8.Agreement in Mordvin, Sami and Finnic.

At present we still lack detailed data on agreement in the languages of the world, in particular about the relative propensity of different attributive words to agree with the head.61 In Sami cardinal numerals also show partial agreement with nouns (for details

694 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

see Section 8.3). This strikes us as a very peculiar behaviour — our general impression is that the presence of agreement in numerals normally implies the presence of adjectival agreement in the same language. To conclude from what has been said above: the development of complete adjectival agreement in Finnic was, most probably, based on the already existing agreement of demonstrative pronouns in noun phrases, which was further extended into the realm of other attributive words under the Indo-European influence in a step-by-step fashion rather than all of a sudden. A concomitant effect of this development is the crystallisation of a new part of speech in Finnic, that of adjectives, as opposed to most of Uralic where adjectives cannot be formally distinguished from nouns. Adjectives as a clear-cut word class are also found in Sami, which distinguishes between unmarked predicative and special attributive forms. Finally, it should be emphasized that adjectival agreement in Finnic, although reminiscent of agreement found in its Indo-European neighbours, differs from it at least in two important respects. First, Baltic, Slavic and Germanic have developed an opposition between definite vs. indefinite or weak vs. strong adjectives, which is employed differently across languages and which we will not consider here62 (for some data on Baltic and Slavic see the papers by Christen and Stassen in this volume). Finnic does not have anything similar. Second, while adjectives in the IndoEuropean CB languages (and not only these) normally show gender agreement, gender as a grammatical category is not found in Finnic. This leads us to the topic of the next section — gender reduction and loss in the Indo-European CB languages. 8.2 Loss of gender63 In the CB area, gender proper is a feature that is restricted to Indo-European languages: no Finno-Ugric (but see the end of this section) or Turkic language has acquired it. The old Indo-European three gender system is most clearly preserved in Slavic languages, German and most varieties of Yiddish (apart from North-eastern Yiddish), in the two standard Norwegian varieties Bokmål64 and Nynorsk and in a number of Continental Scandinavian dialects. Both the Baltic languages and Standard Danish and Swedish, including many dialects, have reduced the former three-gender system. The Baltic languages lost neuter gender, still present in the oldest Old Prussian documents and to the present day in Lithuanian in impersonal constructions. In Standard Danish and Swedish, a new genus commune absorbed, in the general case, both feminine and masculine genders, but the resulting system is far from simple (see below on gender in Swedish). Some Scandinavian varieties have gone even further and diminished or even neutralized all NP-internal gender distinctions — thus, in the Danish dialects of Western Jytland, articles, attributive adjectives and other attributes do not show any gender agreement; anaphoric

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pronouns, however, retain certain gender distinctions (Nielsen 1959: 45–46). In the Swedish dialects of Karleby-Nedervetil (Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland), NP-internal agreement is restricted to demonstratives and optional preposed definite articles (Huldén 1972; Rendahl this volume, Section 4). Finally, most Romani varieties distinguish between masculine and feminine nouns. In certain instances gender reduction has been attributed, at least partly, to language contacts, e.g. the transition from three to two genders in North-eastern Yiddish, spoken in the Baltic surrounding. Jacobs (this volume: Section 4.2.1) argues that this process is to a high degree motivated by language internal mechanisms, but that the influence of Lithuanian is not to be ruled out as a contributory factor. Basically the same can be said about the Swedish dialect of KarlebyNedervetil (Northern Ostrobothnia), spoken in Finnish surroundings (Huldén ibid.). Finnish influence is most probably responsible for the gradual loss of gender distinctions in Finnish Romani (see below). There is one obvious instance of areally conditioned loss of gender — the gradual gender loss in Low Latvian dialects as an effect of Finnic (Livonian and Estonian) substrates. Most varieties of Latvian have a masculine-feminine distinction in nouns, visible in different agreement patterns of adjectives, demonstratives, numerals and pronouns. This is an example of a well-behaved gender distinction, according to the currently most accepted view which defines gender as “classes of nouns reflected in the behaviour of associated words” (the formulation comes from Hockett 1958 and is adopted in Corbett’s influential book 1991). In addition, there is a close association between declensional paradigms in Latvian and gender: two of them involve mainly masculine nouns (e.g. o-stems are always masculine), while two others are mainly reserved for feminine nouns (e.g. a¯-stems are almost always feminine with the notable exception of puika ‘boy’, borrowed from Livonian). In most Latvian varieties, there will thus be a substantial correspondence in the rules governing the inflectional form of the noun itself and the form of agreeing adjectives. In fact Dahl (1998), discussing the relationship of declensional types to gender, suggests including at least some inflectional distinctions as gender by substituting “morphemes” for “words” in Hockett’s definition — a point to which we will return below. Rudzı¯te (1964: 204f) distinguishes four subsequent stages in the loss of gender in different Low Latvian subdialects, where the first stage occurs more often and in more subdialects than the second stage etc. –

1st stage: loss of agreement with personal and demonstrative pronouns: (31) a.

Vin¸am i laps v«Frs. (Aloja) she:dat be:pres good:nom husband:nom ‘She has a good husband’

696 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

In other dialects, vin¸am is masculine — the corresponding feminine form being vin¸ai. – 2nd stage: loss of agreement with predicative adjectives and predicative participles: (31) b.

Ju˜r i glumš ka gl«az (Sve¯tciems) sea:nom.sg be:pres even:nom.sg like glass:nom.sg un spı˜dik-s ka spi«eg’els. and bright:nom.sg like mirror-nom.sg ‘The sea is even like glass and bright as a mirror’

The word ‘sea’ is feminine; in those subdialects which retain agreement, the corresponding adjective would be spı˜dig, whereas spı˜dik-s is masculine.65 – 3rd stage: loss of agreement with attributive adjectives: (31) c.

ar gatavim uogam (Lielupe) with ripe:dat.pl berry.dat.pl ‘with ripe berries’

The word for ‘berry’ is feminine in the other Low Latvian subdialects and the corresponding adjective would be gatavam (Standard gatava¯m), rather than the masculine gatavim (Standard gataviem). Having reached stage 3, the Low Latvian subdialects have no “associated words”, which would distinguish between masculine and feminine — according to Hockett & Corbett, the masculine-feminine distinction has been lost. On the other hand, the partly semantically motivated declensional distinctions sometimes survive after agreement distinctions have been lost — in Dahl’s extended understanding of the notion gender, this would mean that these Low Latvian subdialects still have a masculine-feminine distinction. However, even this distinction is further neutralized, at least partly, in some Low Latvian subdialects: “masculine” declensional patterns extend to the former “feminine” stems as well. – 4th stage: loss of “feminine” noun class endings: (31) d.

Vienam t««evam un m«a«tam nebi (Limbaži) one:dat.sg father:dat.sg and mother:dat.sg not:be.past neviêns bêrs no:nom.sg child:nom.sg ‘A father and a mother did not have a single child’

Note the identical endings for ‘father’ and ‘mother’ — in Standard Latvian the form would be ma¯tei. The situation in Finnish Romani is highly reminiscent of Low Latvian.66 Finnish Romani exists in a continuum of varieties, ranging from the more conservative “higher” styles (older, more original forms of the language) to the grammatically simplified, recent “lower” varieties, displaying a strong influence from Finnish. In

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the “lower” varieties, gender seems to be completely lost as an agreement category, both within NPs and in anaphoric (personal) pronouns, thus corresponding to Stage 3 above (Vuorela & Borin 1998). In the “higher” varieties, personal pronouns have neutralized gender distinctions (only the former masculine pronoun is used), whereas adjectives still distinguish masculine and feminine forms — this corresponds to Stage 1 for Low Latvian (Aalto 1977). The older inflectional distinction between the masculine and the feminine nominal declensional paradigms, however, still survives, although originally feminine nouns sometimes take originally masculine inflections; we can see here the incipient Stage 4 (Vuorela & Borin ibid.). One of the most interesting facts about the gradual gender loss in Low Latvian is the loss of masculine-feminine gender distinctions in pronouns (stage 1) long before they are lost in nominals (stage 3 or 4), in contradiction to Greenberg’s Universal 43: “If a language has gender categories in the noun, it has gender categories in the pronoun”. However, in Low Latvian pronouns have a gender-like distinction of their own, based on animacy. The tendency to show animacy distinctions in pronominal systems manifests itself in a number of CB languages, both Indo-European and Finnic. Thus, in Scandinavian languages, most Finnic languages and dialects (apart from colloquial Finnish) and Standard and Low Latvian there is a strong tendency to refer to things and animals by demonstrative pronouns and to humans by personal pronouns. For instance, although the three words ‘chair’, ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ belong to the same common gender in Standard Swedish and trigger the same agreement in articles and attributive adjectives (cf. e-n lite-n stol/flicka/pojke ‘a:comm little-comm chair/girl/boy’), they are referred to by different anaphoric pronouns — den ‘this:com’/hon ‘she’/han ‘he’; words of the neuter gender are normally referred to by det ‘this:neut’.67 In German, Russian, Lithuanian and High Latvian, on the other hand, one can refer indiscriminately to human beings and things (such as a table) by personal pronouns. Interestingly, this isogloss goes across the Latvian dialect area, separating Central (Standard) and Low Latvian from High Latvian. The situation is actually much more complex than presented here (Nicole Nau is presently carrying out research on this topic). A consistent application of Hockett-Corbett’s gender definition would imply that animacy distinctions in Finnic, Standard and Low Latvian are nominal genders (they are regularly seen in the behaviour of associated words — pronouns). Finnic turns out to have gender after all! Finally, still on the topic of animacy: the Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian have only one interrogative pronoun corresponding both to who and what. As shown in Lindström (1995), cross-linguistically this is very unusual: Lithuanian and Latvian are the only languages in her sample of 48 genetically and areally fairly different languages which lack animacy distinctions in interrogative pronouns. Lithuanian and Latvian are, however, not completely unique in this respect: thus,

698 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Majtinskaja (1969: 221) quotes similar cases from Narrinyeri (Australian: PamaNjungan), Algonquin (Algonquian) and Ewe (Niger-Congo).68 8.3 The syntax of numeral constructions Koptjevskaja-Tamm (this volume) discusses a striking parallelism in the morphosyntax of Finnic and Slavic numeral constructions. In Finnic and most Slavic, most cardinal numerals higher than ‘one’ alternate between case-governing and agreeing with their complements, as in the Russian examples (32–33) below: (32) Russian Government: the complement of the numeral is in the genitive case Ja vižu [pjat’ stakan-ov] I:nom see.pres.1sg [five:nom/acc glass-gen.pl ‘I see five glasses.’ (33) Russian Agreement: both the numeral and its complement are in the same case Ja prišla s [pjat’-ju stakan-ami] I:nom come:past.fem.sg with [five-inst glass-inst.pl ‘I came with five glasses.’

The choice between the two options is determined by the syntactic function of the whole numeral construction in a larger context, which is in turn reflected in the case of the numeral. Thus, since in (32) the whole numeral construction functions as the direct object of the verb ‘to see’, the numeral ‘five’ is marked with the nominative-accusative case; (33) illustrates a typical context for the instrumental case (noun phrases after the preposition s ‘with’), which is again seen in the case of the numeral. When the numeral appears in one of the “direct cases” (the nominative and the accusative) it governs its complements, as in example (32); otherwise (in the “oblique cases”) it agrees with them, as in (33). Although the main syntactic rule is the same both for Finnic and most Slavic, some of its details differ for the two language families (for examples see Koptjevskaja-Tamm this volume): Thus, the case of a governed nominal is the partitive in Finnic and the genitive in Slavic — and exactly the same case is assigned by Measure nominals (such as a cup, a pound or a slice) to their complements in pseudo-partitive constructions (such as a cup of tea, a pound of sugar or a slice of bread). In other words, Slavic and Finnic numerals behave like nouns in the direct cases69 and like adjectives in the other ones. The languages also differ in the generality of the rule: whereas in Finnic all cardinal numerals70 higher than ‘one’ behave identically, in Slavic the set ‘2–4’ can be singled out by its special behaviour. Finally, while, in Slavic, nominals after numerals appear generally in the plural,

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numerals in Finnic assign singular number to their complements. Within Slavic, Russian is alone in having genitive singular government for the numerals ‘2–4’, but this is the result of a reanalysis of dual and nominative plural forms.71 Among the Indo-European languages, the Slavic situation, with one and the same set of numerals alternating between agreeing with and case-governing their complements under well-defined syntactic conditions is almost unique (however, cf. below on Latvian). Numerals agreeing with complements and those governing them are widely attested within Indo-European, but normally these two properties are associated with different sets of numerals — agreement with lower and casegovernment with higher numerals (such as ‘100’, ‘1,000’ and ‘1,000,000’, see Corbett 1978). Lithuanian carries out this principle in a very consistent way, distinguishing lower numerals (‘1–9’ and all the other whose last digit is ‘1–9’ with the exception of teens) and higher numerals (teens ‘11–19’ and tens, ‘10’, ‘20’ etc.) which have different syntactic patterns. Lower numerals behave like adjectives in agreeing with quantified nominals in case (and, occasionally, gender). Higher numerals either inflect for case or remain uninflected, but always govern plural nominals in the genitive case; the inflected forms are relatively rare (the word for ‘10’ inflects more often than ‘20’, ‘30’ etc.). Latvian behaves basically like Lithuanian in its treatment of lower numerals as adjectives.72 With higher numerals, however, it shows however a different and more fluid situation: quantified nominals are either governed (in the genitive plural) or appear in the case assigned to the function of the whole numeral construction. Crucially, in Latvian, teens and tens are themselves indeclinable. Government by numerals is only possible when the whole construction should be assigned the nominative or the accusative case, i.e. under the same syntactic conditions as in Finnic and most of the Slavic languages. Even here, however, it is possible for the nominal to appear in the case of the whole phrase, and it is unclear what factors might possibly determine the choice between the two options. The latter option, well-known from various languages of the world and also found both in older IndoEuropean and in numerous non-Finnic Uralic languages (see below), seems to be gaining more and more ground in Latvian at the cost of government. In Low Latvian, the genitive is losing even more ground (Endzelı¯ns 1951). Finnic numeral constructions are even more unusual in the larger Finno-Ugric and Uralic context, where the basic numeral construction involves a non-inflected numeral preceding its nominal complement, which carries case inflection of the whole construction. That is, Uralic numerals normally neither govern their complements, nor agree with them — the latter is hardly surprising given the general scarcity of attributive agreement across Uralic (see Section 8.1). What varies is the number assigned by a numeral to its complement — thus, in Mari, Permian and Hungarian it is always singular, while in Mordvin it is plural after ‘2–10’ and either singular or plural after higher numerals. The actual plural marker is, however,

700 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

“seen” fairly infrequently, since indefinite nonpossessed nouns in Mordvin distinguish number only in the nominative case. In Ob-Ugric and Samoyedic, nouns after numerals may be both singular, plural and dual (Honti 1997; Bergsland 1953),73 which has caused disagreement among Uralists about the original Proto-Uralic numeral construction. The only non-Finnic Uralic varieties which show similarities to Finnic in their numeral constructions are the Sami languages. Sami also distinguishes between “direct cases” (nominative-accusative, which coincide for numerals, but not necessarily for nouns) and “oblique cases”. In “oblique cases” numerals show complete or partial case agreement74 with the nominal in the singular. In “direct cases”, the different Sami varieties choose different options: – – –

nominative plural (Southern Sami) or nominative and accusative plural (in the by now almost extinct Ume Sami and Pite Sami); genitive singular — after most numerals in (Pite Sami, Lule Sami and Northern Sami), or after “2–6” (in Eastern Sami, Skolt Sami and Kildin Sami); partitive singular after “7” and higher numerals in Eastern Sami (Bergsland 1953: 43).

Bergsland (ibid.) suggests that what looks like government in Sami numerals has originated in a system similar to the Mordvin one at the time when number distinctions were only realized in the “direct cases”. This would explain the distinction between the singular oblique cases and the nominative plural (the first option in the list above). The “genitive singular” form, used in some varieties, stems, most probably, from a structural reanalysis of the more archaic nominative plural forms (in these varieties, the genitive singular form and the nominative plural are generally difficult to distinguish from each other). The origin of the partitive assignment after numerals higher than ‘6’ in Eastern Sami is not quite clear: they look like their Finnish counterparts (as well as some of the other instances in which the partitive case is used), which is suspicious given the strong Finnish influence on these varieties, which does not, however, exclude the possibility of an archaic origin. Whatever the explanation for the government by Sami numerals may be, their agreement remains remarkable, given the fact that attributive agreement in Sami is highly restricted and does not apply to adjectives (cf. above with the reverse situation in Latvian). Looking at matters in an even broader cross-linguistic context, we do find both agreement of numerals with their complements, and government of complements by higher numerals in a number of languages, even though these are relatively infrequent phenomena (Corbett 1978; Greenberg 1978, 1989; Hurford forthc.). However, the Finnic and Slavic systems, with their complex rules governing alternation between government and agreement within numeral constructions, seem to lack any counterpart elsewhere. Given the degree of complexity of these

The Circum-Baltic languages 701

rules and their typological uniqueness it is highly probable that the Finnic system is “borrowed”.75 Surprisingly, in this respect, Finnic and Slavic are much more similar to each other than any of these languages and Baltic. However, as far as we know, there were no historical preconditions for such an extensive influence on Finnic from Slavic, as opposed to that from Baltic. The only plausible conclusion is, thus, that at an earlier stage, the Baltic and Slavic rules for numeral constructions were much more similar, but were later simplified in Baltic. As mentioned above, Finnic differs from Baltic and Slavic in assigning singular to nominals after numerals. Interestingly, some Swedish dialects in close contact with Finnic also apply similar rules. Thus, in Estonian Swedish, masculine and neutral nouns are normally assigned singular after numerals: tri mann (sg) ‘three men’ (cf. tre män in Standard Swedish), whereas feminine nouns are normally assigned plural: fem bärkiar (pl) ‘five birches’. In the more peripheral dialects, i.e. those where the Estonian influence is significantly higher (e.g.Vippal), even feminine nouns are also put in the singular (Lagman 1971: 215; Rendahl this volume). Similar phenomena are found in the Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia in Finland and in Westbothnia in Sweden. Although there are no doubts about the strong Finnic impact on the generalization of the singular to nouns after all numerals, the degree of this impact is not quite clear. The model of assigning singular to nouns expressing measure and weight after numerals (such as vier Meter ‘four meters (sg)’ in German and sex fot ‘six feet (sg)’ in Swedish) is found across Germanic, and the Finnic influence might have consisted in generalizing this model to other cases as well (Lagman ibid., Seppänen & Seppänen 1984: 55–58). Seppänen & Seppänen also argue that there is an interesting difference between the Germanic and the Finnic cases in that the formally singular nouns in Germanic numeral constructions are treated syntactically as plurals, taking e.g. plural adjectives, whereas in Finnic, adjectives are in the singular: Swd. trettio tyska mark ‘thirty German(pl) mark(sg)’. Similarly in the Karleby dialect (Osthrobothnia), all nouns after numerals are in the singular; however, any adjective modifying them is put in the indefinite plural form. However, further research is needed for checking to what extent Seppänen & Seppänen’s observation holds across Swedish dialects: thus, in Estonian Swedish, uninflected nouns after numerals trigger singular forms in accompanying adjectives, cf. trı¯ svat¯¯t aike ‘three black (sg) horses (sg)’.76 Another shared feature of numerals in Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Sami, Mordvin and Icelandic is the existence of special numerals used for counting pluralia tantum (cf. Section 4). Table 19 summarizes the data on the internal syntax of numeral constructions in Finnic, Baltic and Slavic.77

702 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Table 19.Internal syntax of numeral constructions in Finnic, Baltic and Slavic (´‘one’ not included) Government (G)-strategy: case on the nominal governed by numerals

Agreement (A)-strategy: case on the nominal determined by the function of the whole phrase

Language

Numerals included

When is G What case is What is the When is A used? governed by number of used? the numer- the nomial? nal?

What is the number of the nominal?

Finnic

All

Direct cases Partitive

SG

Ume Sami

All

Pite, Lule, N. Sami Eastern Sami

All

Direct cases Genitive

SG

2–6

Direct cases Genitive

SG

7 and higher Direct cases Partitive

SG

Lithuanian 2–9, 22–29 etc 10, 12–19, Alwaysa1 Genitive 20, 110, 120 etc. Latvian 2–9, 22–29 10, 12–19, Direct cases Genitive 20, 110, 120 (partly) a2,b etc. Russian

2–4, 22–24 Direct cases Genitive etc. Others Direct cases Genitive

Belarusan, 2–4, 22–24 Ukrainian etc. Others Direct cases Genitive

SG

Oblique cases Always

Oblique cases Oblique cases Oblique cases Always

PL in dir.cases; SG in obl. cases SG SG SG PL

PL

PL

PL Always PL Oblique cases (direct cases partly)

a2,b

SG PL

PL

Oblique cases Oblique cases Always Oblique cases

PL PL PLc PL

The Circum-Baltic languages 703

Government (G)-strategy: case on the nominal governed by numerals

Language

Numerals included

Polish

2–4, 22–24 etc. Others Direct cases Genitive

Slovak

Agreement (A)-strategy: case on the nominal determined by the function of the whole phrase

When is G What case is What is the When is A used? governed by number of used? the numer- the nomial? nal?

2–4, 22–24 etc. Others Direct cases Genitive (partly) + lexically determinede

PL

PL

What is the number of the nominal?

Lexically PL determinedd Oblique PL cases (partly) + lexically determinedd Always PL Oblique PL cases + partly lexically determineda 3,e

Czech

2–4, 22–24 etc. Others Direct cases Genitive

Serbo-Croat 2–4

Slovene

Others 2–4, also 22–24 etc.

Almost alwaysf Alwaysf

Genitive (“paucal form”) Genitive

Direct cases Genitive

Others Old Church 2, 22, 32 etc. Slavonic 3–4, 13–14, 23–24 etc. 12 Uncleara4,g Genitive 20 Uncleara4,g Genitive Others Uncleara4,g Genitive

Always PL

Oblique cases rests of dual Extremely seldomf

PL PL PL?

PL PL

Always Oblique cases Alwaysa4 Alwaysa4

PL PL PL

DU (for 2, 22 etc.), PL otherwise PL DU PL

Uncleara4,g DU/PL Uncleara4,g Unclear

704 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

a1

In Lithuanian, of the tens only “10” regularly, but not necessarily, declines. For “20”, “30” etc. the indeclinable forms are preferred to the declinable ones. a2 In Latvian, teens and tens are themselves indeclinable. a3 In Slovak, higher numerals normally, but not necessarily, decline. a4 In Old Church Slavonic, lower numerals decline, higher numerals are indeclinable. b Alternation between G-strategy and A-strategy is only possible when the whole phrase functions as a subject or an object (i.e. in functions when NPs are assigned the nominative or the accusative case). Factors influencing the choice between the two strategies are unclear. In other functions, only the A-strategy is used. c Full plural agreement, but stress pattern like genitive SG for feminine and neutral nouns in the nominative. d Special construction for masculine personal nouns (obligatory with lower nominals, optional with higher ones). e With masculine animate nouns A-strategy is always possible. f In Serbo-Croat, numerals do not decline with G-strategy, but do so with A-strategy. g Data insufficient for defining variation (G-strategy is gradually losing ground).

9. Basic word order properties 9.1 Highly flexible word order at the sentence level with

predominant SVO Compared to the world on the whole, Europe seems to have a much higher percentage of languages with a relatively flexible word order on the clause level, i.e. those having four or five word order variants in addition to the basic one. Thus, nearly half (48%) of the languages in Siewierska’s (1998) European 48 language-sample show flexible word order, as opposed to 14% of languages in her world-wide 171 language-sample. Still more striking are the differences in the distribution of different word order combinations in Europe and in the world. Nearly half of the highly flexible European languages have SVO as their basic word order and SOV as one of the other variants — these constitute 21% of Siewierska’s European sample, whereas their proportion in Siewierska’s global sample is much lower (4% of all the languages, i.e. less than a third of all the highly flexible languages). Even given the restricted availability of data for many non-European languages (some of the variants in highly flexible word order occur very rarely), the differences in these figures are too great to be ignored. Interestingly, a large portion of the European flexible SVO languages is found in the CB area. These include Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, as well as Northern and Eastern (at least Inari) Sami. Word order in Southern Sami is also fairly flexible, but its basic order is SOV. Finally, the Germanic CB languages are V-second. The isogloss of flexible SVO-order covers, however, also genetically related languages outside the region — all Slavic languages,78 and also Mordvin and Komi within FinnoUgric. Among the Finno-Ugrian languages with highly flexible word order,

The Circum-Baltic languages 705

Vilkuna (1998: 178) distinguishes the “Eastern” SVO (Komi, Mordvin, Karelian, Veps) with extensive ordering variation and spontaneous verb object focusing SOV and the “Western” SVO (Finnish, Estonian, Northern and Inari Sami) with discourse-configurational nodes, V2 tendencies (especially Estonian) and where the occurrence of OV is restricted to specific constructions. It seems, that the Baltic and the Eastern Slavic languages and probably even Livonian can be classified as “Eastern SVO”. In Europe, the only other flexible SVO languages are found in the Balkans, and include Greek, Rumanian and Romani (in addition to the neighbouring Southern Slavic languages). Highly flexible SVO languages form, thus, a more or less continuous zone in Europe, stretching from North-eastern Europe (including the CB area) across the Slavic languages to the Balkans, showing both a strong genetic (Baltic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric) and areal bias. The other highly flexible languages in Siewierska’s European sample (i.e. flexible SOV or split SOV/SVO languages) include 7 languages of the Caucasus (Abkhaz, Armenian, Avar, Dargwa, Chechen, Kabardian, Georgian), Basque, 2 Finno-Ugric languages (Hungarian, Udmurt), 2 Old Indo-European languages (Gothic, Latin) and Upper Sorbian. It seems that highly flexible word order was originally associated with the Indo-European stock (not Hittite, however), the Caucasus, and perhaps the Uralic stock (not Nenets, however). Thus, highly flexible word order with dominant SOV vs. SVO could probably be interpreted as different stages in the general cline from SOV to SVO in Indo-European and Uralic (Table 20). Table 20.From SOV to SVO in Europe SOV

highly flexible SOV

split SOV/SVO

highly flexible SVO

flexible SVO

V2

SVO

Hittite Nenets

Latin, Old Greek

Hungarian

Russian, Lithuanian etc. Komi, Veps etc.

Finnish, Estonian

Swedish, German

English

9.2 Rigid possessor-possessed (GN) word order in noun phrases Most of the CB languages combine the (flexible) SVO basic order on clause level with GN as the only possible or by far most frequent word order in noun phrases. This is true for Baltic and Finnic (Christen this volume), Standard Swedish, Danish and to a certain degree Norwegian. Slavic dialects in the Baltikum (Russian, Belarusian and Polish, cf. Cˇekmonas this volume, b) frequently prepose their genitives, as opposed to the more frequent NG order across Slavic.79 The Germanic languages outside the CB-area either have both GN/NG orders, or simply prefer NG order.

706 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

In a global perspective, GN tends to correlate with OV orders, whereas verbinitial languages tend to be NG — both tendencies find strong support among the European languages (SOV/GN languages include Altaic, Basque, most Caucasian, including the Indo-European Armenian and Ossetic, and Uralic, while Celtic is both V-initial and NG). Again in the global perspective there is nothing strange in the SVO/GN combination: both GN and NG are equally common among SVO languages of the world (Dryer 1992, 1997). Here, however, Europe differs from the rest of the world in that the consistent GN order in combination with SVO is found only in the CB languages and the two Finno-Ugric languages Komi and Mordvin. There is, thus, a clear geographic clustering of SVO/GN languages in Europe. This, however, seems to be a general tendency: as Dryer shows in a later study (1999), SVO/GN languages in his global sample always turn up in clusters in geographically contiguous areas. Dryer argues that geography is the best predictor for whether a SVO language will show the GN word order or not. If a SVO language is spoken in the geographic proximity to SVO/GN languages, there is a high chance that it also shows the GN word order; the unmarked option otherwise is SVO/NG. This suggests, thus, that whenever several languages in one and the same area manifest the SVO/GN word order (more or less to the exception of the NG order), we can suspect language contacts at work. Let us now have a look at what is known about the history of the SVO/GN word order in the CB languages. The GN order in itself is unremarkable for Uralic languages where it is found all over the place. In this respect, the Uralic stock is very stable, and its GN order might ultimately be explained as a reflection of the previous SOV characteristics. It seems thus that for Finnic, Komi and Mordvin, the simplest explanation would be that the GN order reflects their recent change from OV to or towards VO order. This explanation seems to find additional support in the fact that all nominal modifiers, except for relative clauses and adpositional phrases, precede the head, in accordance with one of the best known and most often quoted cross-linguistic generalizations: in OV languages (most typically SOV languages) nominal modifiers tend to precede nouns, while in VO languages nominal modifiers tend to follow nouns. However, Dryer (1997) suggests an alternative and, in fact, more exciting explanation. The famous correlation quoted above turns out to be a myth, as has been proven by Dryer’s recent findings, based on a huge sample of more than 700 languages. First of all, in a worldwide perspective neither the order of adjectives with respect to nouns, nor the order of demonstratives correlate significantly with the basic word order: adjectives normally FOLLOW nouns, while demonstratives and numerals normally PRECEDE nouns. Second, correlations like the one quoted above result from the genetically and areally biased samples used in previous studies, with a significant overrepresentation of Eurasian languages. It appears that a very large area of central Eurasia is inhabited by peoples who speak OV languages with a number of similarities which are not normally shared by OV languages in

The Circum-Baltic languages 707

other places. Thus, the SOV/NumN/DemN/AdjN/GN /RelN type is actually the most frequent Eurasian language type. It is still unclear how old this area is and how areal forces have operated during the last two thousand years or even more. Against this typological background, the characterization of word order in Baltic and Finnic as compared to the rest of the European languages can be modified: with the order GN, Baltic and Finnic80 appear to be the only VO-language families in Europe in which all nominal modifiers, except for relative clauses and prepositional phrases, precede the head. The European VO languages themselves form the following hierarchy from mostly heavily “Noun + Modifier” to mostly heavily “Modifier + Noun”: Celtic < Albanian, Romance < Greek, Slavic < Baltic, Finnic Dryer’s point is that the extreme positions of Celtic vs. Finnic/Baltic cannot be explained by appealing to any world-wide cross-linguistic correlations, as might have been hypothesised on the basis of the earlier, erroneous generalizations. Rather, it could be explained in terms of the geographical and chronological distance to the dominant Eurasian OV type. Depending on the age of the dominant Eurasian OV type, there are two different scenarios for the development of VO languages in Europe. According to the first one, many of these languages descended from the Eurasian OV type and have gradually changed both their clause level order from OV to VO and the order of various nominal modifiers from the prenominal to postnominal position. According to the second one, the spread of the Eurasian OV type postdated the early European languages. Finnic languages (together with Komi, Mordvin and Northern and Eastern Sami) are apparently recent members of the VO area in Europe. Most of their eastern relatives conform to the Eurasian OV type — and this is done by Finnic too, apart from VO order. In addition, they are geographically close to the area of the dominant Eurasian OV type. The Celtic languages, on the other hand, are both geographically farthest away from the area of the dominant Eurasian OV languages and have been separated from them for a considerable period of time: the other Indo-European groups in Europe are either later migrations from the east and/or migrations that have not gone that far. Dryer’s explanation stops here: fine for Finnic, but what about the other OV/GN languages in the CB area? Starting with Baltic, which shares with Finnic the same place in Dryer’s hierarchy, it is definitely difficult to justify the difference between its the predominate GN and the Slavic NG in terms of geographic and chronological distance from the Eurasian OV type: chronologically, they are probably the same, while geographically, Slavic, in particular Eastern Slavic, is probably closer. A hypothesis compatible with Dryer’s account would thus have to seek at least some reasons for the Baltic

708 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

GN in Finnic influence (Matthew Dryer, p.c.). The role of this influence is, however, not clear. Old Indo-European languages like Latin, Greek and Vedic had both order types GN and NG. GN was however the rule in Hittite. Lehmann (1974: 74), therefore, concludes that Proto-Indo-European had GN. It is difficult to say how far the Eastern Baltic languages retain this original state of affairs (in which case they would be more archaic than Classical Greek and Latin in this respect) or whether the preservation of GN is due to Finnic influence. The few texts from Old Prussian (only translations) do not allow conclusions about the word order in Western Baltic. Lithuanian and Latvian also differ in whether GN order is mandatory. Not surprisingly, Latvian is closer to Finnic than Lithuanian: in Latvian, GN is as fixed as in Finnic, while Lithuanian allows NG, even though GN is the normal case in Standard Lithuanian (cf. Christen this volume). This relative mobility of genitive attributes in Lithuanian seems to be an old feature. In an investigation on word order in selected Old Lithuanian texts, Vasiliauskiene˙ (1996) shows that the frequency of GN word order varies considerably from text to text, according to whether the genitive is a noun or a pronoun. Thus, the low frequency of GN (13% for nominal genitives vs. 16% for pronominal ones) in Daukša’s “Postile˙” can be partly accounted for by the NG word order in the Polish original from which it was translated (Wuyek “Postilla Cotholyczna mnieysza…”). Bretkunas’ “Postile˙” from Western Lithuania seems to show less foreign influence in general: GN occurs in 32% (for nominal genitives) vs. 69% (for pronominal genitives) of all instances. Interestingly, the latter figures (in the Old Lithuanian from Western Lithuania) are similar to those in dialectal texts from Eastern Lithuania collected in the 19th century (41% vs. 86%). Vasiliauskiene˙ (ibid.: 12) suggests also that different word order may entail a difference in the information structure: thus when a genitive pronoun is postposed, its head noun is stressed. Vasiliauskiene˙ concludes that the examples of postposed genitive, though evidently influenced by Polish, Latvian and German to a certain extent, “in other cases reflect a characteristic feature of Old Lithuanian, that of allowing some freedom of word order in the noun phrase” (ibid.). Vasiliauskiene˙’s statistics are problematic for areal comparative purposes since we do not know which percentage is covered by genitives in (pseudo-) partitive functions, such as ‘a pound of apples’ (these always follow their heads). A short look at folktales collected in the 19th century reveals, however, a great many NG sequences besides the more common NG even in non-partitive (“possessive”) functions. There seems to be no difference in context: in a tale from Garliava (SW-Lithuania) collected by Brugmann (Basanavicˇius 1996: 281–284) the sequence kupcˇiaus dukte˙ ‘the daughter of the merchant’ occurs eleven times with preposed and two times with postposed genitives: (ta) dukte˙ kupcˇiaus. Old Lithuanian and some Lithuanian dialects thus reflect a similar state of affairs as other old Indo-European languages, with both GN and NG. The much more rigid GN order in Latvian can, in all probability, be attributed to contacts with

The Circum-Baltic languages 709

Finnic (Latvian and Finnic prenominal attributes show also other similarities, see Christen this volume). Finally, it is difficult to see any clear connection between the GN in Continental Scandinavian and that in Baltic/Finnic. The rigid GN word order in Standard Continental Scandinavian is a relatively recent phenomenon, in Swedish dating from 1250–1350; before that genitives could both precede and follow their head. Stabilization of GN order in Continental Scandinavian went hand in hand with the transition from the morphological genitive case to the phrase-final clitical s-genitive (see Norde 1997 for a detailed account of this process in terms of “degrammaticalization”); most importantly, this development seems to have started earlier in Danish, where there are no reasons at all to suspect any Baltic or Finnic presence, than in Swedish. Continental Scandinavian dialects on the whole show an impressive diversity in their possessive NPs, a large portion of which, including some of the dialects spoken in the Finnish surroundung (e.g., the dialect of Överkalix in Västerbotten) manifest NG word order (see Delsing 1996; Koptjevskaja-Tamm forthc.; Rendahl this volume, Section 4). The properties discussed in 9.1–9.2 are summarized in Table 21. Table 21.Flexible SVO order and GN in the CB area and in a few Uralic languages Grm, Yid Standard Slavic Swd, Nor, Dan

(x)b

x

Mordvin, Mari, Komi Udmurt

x

x

x

x

(x)[SOV]a

(x)b

x

x

x

x

flexible SVO GN

Finnic, Eastern Northern/ Baltic Eastern Saami

b

Nenets, Southern Saami

x

a

Predominant SOV word order in Mari and Udmurt is obviously due to the strong influence of Turkic languages (Chuvash, Tatar). b Refers to morphologically restricted “possessive” forms — preposed s-forms in German and possessive adjectives in Slavic. Preposed genitives are attested in some Russian dialects, including those in Baltikum (Cˇekmonas this volume, c, Section 4.3).

Thus, concerning word order, the CB area seems to be (very much like the Caucasus), a residual or a transitional area in the general European development from the Eurasian SOV and GN language type to SVO and NG. And even though there is no evidence for relating the development of preposed genitives in many varieties of Continental Scandinavian, including the Standard ones, to contacts with other SVO/GN languages (most probably, with Finnic. Dryer’s (1999) global data suggest that further research could throw a new light on this phenomenon.

710 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

9.3 The word order of adpositions The most salient difference in word order between the Indo-European and the Uralic languages of the CB area is the predominant use of prepositions in Baltic, Germanic and Slavic and of postpositions in Finnic (cf. also Csató this volume on adpositions in Karaim). There is, however, a tendency to level out this difference. Thus, both Finnic and Latvian are known as languages with mixed adpositional systems: Finnic has a restricted set of prepositions, Latvian has many more postpositions than Lithuanian and Slavic, and both Finnic and Latvian have adpositions that can appear both before and after the noun they govern.81 Language contacts have mainly been discussed in literature in connection with at least two phenomena: first, the development of postpositions and mixed pre/postpositions in Latvian, and second, the seeming expansion of prepositions at the cost of postpositions in Estonian. Laakso (this volume, Section 2.2) ascribes the initial development of prepositions in Finnic to Indo-European influence, but this problem on the whole seems to have received much less attention than the other two mentioned above. While there are no prepositions at all in more continental Uralic languages such as Mordvin and Mari, Finnic (and Sami) has a restricted set of prepositions (such as Fin. ilma ‘without’) or adpositions that can appear both before and after the noun they govern (Fin. läpi ‘through’, ympäri ‘around’). The percentage of prepositions is probably somewhat higher in Livonian and Estonian than in Finnish. Prepositions and postpositions in Finnic differ in their governing properties. While the vast majority of postpositions assign genitive to their complements (e.g. 98% of all postpositional usages in Estonian, Ehala 1994: 180), the case assigned by prepositions shows considerable variation (e.g. in Estonian genitive in 38.4%, partitive in 29.3%, otherwise comitative, abessive, terminative and nominative, Ehala ibid.) — again a surprising variation in the Uralic context. On the other hand, in Latvian there are many more postpositions than in Lithuanian and Slavic and especially adpositions that can appear both before and after the noun they govern (caur[i] ‘through’, ap[ka¯rt] ‘around’).82 Many of these originate as nouns in various forms. Some of these apparently new adpositions (they are less grammaticalized, often phonetically longer) in Latvian are formally identical to verb particles (see Wälchli this volume). All dialects of Latvian are, however, still predominantly prepositional. A plausible hypothesis discussed in the literature attributes the development of postpositions in Latvian to Finnic influence (cf. Stolz (1991: 81–8). However, as Holvoet (1993: 144–45) points out, the importance of this influence should not be overestimated. Thus, the pattern of developing adpositions out of case forms of nouns with a spatial meaning is not specifically Latvian, but must have been common for both Eastern Baltic languages, as can be seen in a few noun-based

The Circum-Baltic languages

prepositions in Lithuanian. Given the rigid GN order in Latvian noun phrases, the postpositional character of its noun-based adpositions comes out as quite natural (cf. Section 9.2). On the contrary, as Holvoet suggests, Lithuanian noun-based prepositions are much more surprising given the predominate GN order. Thus, the difference between Latvian and Lithuanian in this particular case can be attributed either to a possible Finnic influence in Latvian, a possible Slavic adstratal influence in Lithuanian, or both (if areal influence is a major factor at all). Changes in word order with adpositions have been studied extensively for written Estonian in the last century. The discussion shows how complex word order change can be in a micro-perspective. During the 20th century, Estonian has been witnessing a significant expansion in the use of its prepositions at the expense of postpositions (as discussed in Hint 1990; Ehala 1994, 1995). This is primarily noticeable in those adpositions which have both prepositional and postpositional uses. Thus, some of them, used as prepositions, have acquired meanings which earlier only characterized their postpositional occurrences. A good illustration is provided by läbi which as a postposition means ‘by, by means of, with the help of, by the use of ’. As a preposition, it used to mean ‘through’, but in contemporary Estonian, it is rapidly acquiring the erstwhile postpositional meaning as well. Also, where there are two parallel constructions of which one is prepositional and the other is postpositional, the prepositional construction is preferred: thus, of the two following expressions with the adposition ümber, ümber laua and laua ümber ‘around the table’, the former is preferred. Hint (1990) attributes this development to the heavy Russian influence on Estonian during the last fifty years. To check and partly reject this hypothesis, Ehala (1994, 1995) has collected a data sample containing occurrences of adpositions in newspaper text corpora from three different time periods — 1905, 1972 and 1992 (approximately 6,000 items for each period). The study confirms the rise in the relative frequency of the prepositional occurrences only among all the adpositional occurrences between 1905 (8.9%) and 1972 (16.5%), whereas the period 1972–1992 witnesses a reversing of this tendency. As the comparable data are restricted to three years, it is, however, difficult to be sure about the reasons for the changes in the adposition rate. In particular, the data do not show us what happened during the intensive process of purification during the 1920s and 30s when Estonian became a national language.83 Finally, in a global perspective, mixed pre-/postpositional systems appear to be fairly infrequent. In Dryer’s 700-language sample (Matthew Dryer, p.c.) there are only 54 languages (7.7%) with mixed adpositional systems. Among them there is also an additional asymmetry: whereas 20 languages with prepositions as their primary option have postpositions as well, only 8 predominately postpositional languages show prepositions, which is more or less in line with the higher frequency of postpositions in the languages of the world. In other words, the question of whether

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712 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

the initial emergence of prepositions in Finnic should be accounted for by internal development, by contacts with the Indo-European or both still remains a problem. 9.4 Particle initial yes/no-questions One of the characteristic innovations of Standard Average European languages is the strategy of verb fronting as the marker of direct questions (Dahl 1990; Haspelmath 1998). Only some of the CB languages share this innovation. In Germanic, and, to a lesser degree, Estonian, verb fronting occurs as an interrogative marker on its own, whereas in Nothern Sami, Finnish (and some of its closest relatives) and Russian this strategy is combined with a second-position clitical interrogative particle (-go, -ko/-kö and li respectively). In addition, a considerable number of the CB languages construct yes/no-questions by simply adding a sentence-initial particle to the affirmative sentence, without other changes (except sometimes a rising intonation pattern). This shared feature, noted in Raukko & Östman (1994: 48), is attested in Baltic, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Southern Finnic (Estonian and Livonian) and Southern Sami. While verb fronting alone is normally restricted to direct questions (which leads to structural differences between direct and indirect questions in the languages concerned), interrogative particles are normally used in both direct and indirect questions, which, thus, turn out to be structurally isomorphic, cf. examples (34–36): (34) Initial interrogative particles: isomorphism of direct and indirect questions a. Lithuanian Ar jis ateis? / Nežinau, ar jis ateis. int he:nom come:fut.3 / neg:know:fut.1sg … b. Ukrainian Cy vin pryjde / Ne-znaju, cˇy vin pryjde. int he:nom come:pres.3.sg / neg-know:pres.1sg … c. Livonian Voi ˙ ta tula¯b? / Ma äb tı¯edõ, voi ˙ ta tula¯b. int (s)he:nom come:pres.3sg / I neg know:pres.1sg … (35) Second-place interrogative particles: isomorphism of direct and indirect questions Finnish Tulee-ko hän? / En tiedä, tulee-ko hän. come:pres.3sg-int (s)he? / neg.pres.1sg know:nfin … (36) Verb fronting alone in direct questions vs. complementizers in indirect questions Swedish Kommer han? / Jag vet inte om han kommer. come:pres he:dir / I:dir know:pres neg if he:dir come:pres ‘Does he come?/I don’t know whether he comes.’

Standard Russian and most of its dialects use other strategies for yes/no-questions

The Circum-Baltic languages

(a rising intonation alone or the second-position interrogative clitic li, often combined with the predicate-subject inversion). However, in Russian dialects of the upper Dniepr and the upper Western Dvina regions (thus the areas neighbouring Belarusian and the Baltic languages), an initial question particle ti (and variants) is used. The particle ˇci (and variants) is used in South-western Russian dialects almost up to Voronež, e.g. ti (int) blizko (‘close.by’) ž vy jagody sobirali? Vel. ‘Did you gather berries close by?’ (Kuz’mina 1993: 187). The verb is sometimes placed before the subject: ti (int) xodil
(‘went’) Kolja v griby? ‘Did Kolja go out to collect mushrooms?’ (Smolensk district, ibid.). The initial particle can sometimes be combined with the general Russian question particle li in second position: ti pojdeš li ty? ‘Do you come?’ (Smolensk district, ibid.: 188), or ti, ˇci can be used in second position like li, though this is not common: a korovy ti prišli? ‘Did the cows arrive?’ (Velikie Luki district, ibid.). The examples from Western Russian dialects show that this is a border region of the particle initial type. Yes/no-questions in the CB area provide several beautiful examples of language contacts: –

–

–

Yiddish is interesting in that combines SAE verb-fronting with an optional initial question particle tsi, borrowed from Slavic: (tsi) (int) zogst (‘tell:pres.2sg’) du mir ersht itst? ‘Are you telling me now for the first time?’ (Jacobs et al. 1994: 413). The Finland Swedish dialect of Solf has extended the Swedish conjunction om ‘whether’ (cf. example (36b)) from indirect to direct yes/no-questions: Åm dö tałar engelsk? ‘Do you speak English?’. Raukko and Östmann (1994: 48–50) explain this development by the Finnish model, in which the enclitic particle -ko/kö is used in both types of clauses. A particularly good example to show the complexity of contacts in the Circum Baltic area is the following. As noted in Stolz (1991: 65–68), the Southern Finnic languages developed an initial question particle following the Baltic example (step 2). The grammaticalization source for this particle in Estonian is, according to Alvre (1983; see also Section 7.3) originally a Germanic loanword in Finnic (step 1). Livonian went even further in taking over Baltic stuctures: as in Baltic (and Slavic) languages the Livonian question particle is also the disjunctive conjunction (step 3). Later Latvian substituted its own particle and disjunctive conjunction by borrowing this Livonian word (step 4). This complex relative chronology (at least four subsequent steps) reflects the long duration of different overlapping language contacts.

Finally, a few words about the two strategies of building yes/no-questions, verbfronting and inital particle-strategy, in the global perspective. Cross-linguistically, the verb-fronting strategy is fairly infrequent — in Ultan’s (1978) 79-language sample it is found in only seven languages (8.9%), of which six are European.

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Yes/no-questions involving initial particles are more frequent — they occur in 100 languages in Matthew Dryer’s 700-language sample (14%); in Europe, however, they are mainly attested on the periphery (apart from the CB area, in the Celtic languages, in Sardinian and in the Balkan languages — Greek, Albanian and SerboCroat; Matthew Dryer, p.c.). Map 3 shows some properties of yes/no-question in the CB-languages.

Sam

FSw d Sw d

Fin

V ps

Est

Liv

Ltg Rus

Ltv Lith

Bylr

Pol Yid

U kr

G rm

INT = particle ‘whether’ particle-initial type INT = ‘or’ INT = ‘also’ = ‘with’

INT = vai/voi

Map 3. Areal features of the yes/no-question.

Direct and indirect (subordinate) yes/no question can be identical The yes/no question has (mostly) an initial particle The question particle is identical or almost identical with ‘or’ The question particle is (almost) homonymic to the elements ‘also’ and ‘with’. The three elements are perhaps etymologally identical. The question particle is vai/voi/u

The Circum-Baltic languages

10. Evidentiality 10.1 Introduction One of the most important areal features for the Baltic Sprachbund suggested by Haarmann (1976) is the existence of an evidential mood84 (called modus relativus and modus obliquus in the Baltic and Finnic traditions respectively). Evidential markers indicate something about the source of information in the speaker’s assertion (Willet 1988; Bybee et al. 1994: 95). The basic distinction, according to Willet’s cross-linguistic study, is between direct, or attested evidence versus indirect evidence for a speaker’s factual claims, i.e. whether the source of his/her information is primary (based on his/her own visual, auditory and/or other sensory senses) or secondary. Within indirect evidence, there are two main types — reported evidence, based on verbal reports, and inferring evidence, i.e. evidence upon which an inference is based and which involves either observable results or only reasoning. As we will see, the evidential mood in Finnic and Baltic mainly expresses reported evidence — the primary function of Dahl’s (1985: 149–153) category “quotative”. A special type of reported evidence — narrated evidence — is provided by oral fiction (fairy-tales, stories). In his earlier work, Haarman (1970) suggested that indirect evidentiality (indirekte Erlebnisform) constitutes an Eurasian isogloss. The four languages, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Livonian form, however, a special area, locally separated and differing from other Eurasian languages in having an evidential mood for different tenses. Ambrazas (1990: 219–234) gives a thorough synchronic and diachronic analysis of the Baltic “modus relativus”. He argues that the distribution and frequency of the evidential mood in the Baltic languages and dialects, having its centre in Latvian and in Northern and North-eastern dialects of Lithuanian,85 correlates positively with the degree of contacts with Finnic languages. These contacts are either by direct Finnic substrate (Livonian and Southern Estonian for Latvian) or indirectly by substrate of the now extinct Baltic languages Curonian (for the NW-dialects of Lithuanian and Western Latvian) and Selonian (NE-Lithuanian and SE-Latvian). As the immediate relatives of the languages of the Baltic area86 do not show any comparable category, Ambrazas holds that the evidential mood emerged in situ (in the Baltic area) and that the primary impetus for its development probably came from the Southern Finnic languages. The argument for this, according to Ambrazas, would be the widely attested tendency to mark indirect evidence by special tenses and/or moods across Finno-Ugric: by the perfect in Permic, by the Past durative II tense in Mari, by the so-called absentive mood in Mansi etc. (Haarmann 1970). The formation of the evidential mood in the Baltic area must have occurred after the dissolution of the Finnic languages (since it is lacking in several of the Finnic

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languages and since Estonian and Livonian use different formants in their oblique moods), but at the time when the Baltic varieties still formed a tight unity in which innovations could easily spread. Combining these considerations with the archeological evidence, Ambrazas dates the emergence of the relative mood in Baltic to the 5–6th centuries A.D. In spite of a long tradition of treating evidentiality as an areal Baltic phenomenon (cf. also Arumaa (1935), Stolz (1991) and Klaas (1997)), the whole picture remains unclear. The phenomena covered by “modus relativus” and “modus obliquus” are highly dependent on particular pragmatic conditions and discourse types, whereas most of the examples quoted in the literature are given without any context. To quote just one, particularly irritating, example: the examples ta lu’giji and ta vo’l¸ lu’giji are handed down from one publication to the other (Vääri 1966: 148, Haarmann 1970: 63, Ambrazas 1990: 231) as if their translations ‘he is said to read’ vs. ‘he is said to have read’ or the labels (nastojašcˇee-budušcˇee ‘presentfuture’ vs. složnoe-prošedšcˇee ‘compound past’) were self-explanatory. Willet’s words (1988: 52) that “our understanding of evidentiality as a grammatical phenomenon is still in its infancy” are still true. There is little consensus on the terminology in this domain and, more important, there is very little systematic and detailed work on evidentiality (some exceptions, apart from Willet 1988 being Chafe & Nichols 1986; Guéntcheva 1997; Matras 1995). This complicates any attempt to evaluate the Finnic-Baltic situation from a typological point of view. The following exposition will, thus, necessarily have a fairly preliminary and sketchy character. Our starting point will be the forms and functions of the relative mood in Lithuanian (mainly drawing on Ambrazas 1990) which will then be compared to evidential forms in the other Baltic and Finnic varieties. 10.2

Oblique mood (modus relativus) in Lithuanian

In Lithuanian, what is traditionally known as the oblique or relative mood (cf. Ambrazas 1997: 262–266) is expressed by short forms of active participles in the nominative case which agree with the subject in gender and number. The paradigm of the oblique mood is in complete correspondence to that of the indicative mood. For each of the simple tenses in Lithuanian (present, past, frequentative past and future) there is a special active (and passive) participle; for the compound tenses (perfects and continuatives) this difference is manifested in the distinction between finite vs. participial forms of the copula verb bu¯ti ‘to be’. In the same vein, the distinction between active and passive indicative forms is paralleled in the oblique mood: passives involve the same copula, again distinguishing between finite and participial forms, combined with various passive participles.87 Table 22 presents a fragment of the paradigms of the oblique vs. indicative moods for the

The Circum-Baltic languages 717

verb mesti ‘throw’. Only the active voice is shown here, the oblique mood is given only in the masculine singular forms. Table 22.Some forms of the modus relativus in Lithuanian Tense

Simple forms

Compound active forms: Perfect

ind.sg.3

obl.masc.sg

ind.masc.sg.3

obl.masc.sg.3

Present

meta

meta˛s

(yra) mete˛s

esa˛s mete˛s

Past

mete˙

mete˛s

buvo mete˛s

buve˛s mete˛s

Past frequent.

mesdavo

mesdave˛s

bu¯davo mete˛s

bu¯dave˛s mete˛s

Future

mes

mesia˛s

bus mete˛s

bu¯sia˛s mete˛s

The oblique mood in Lithuanian is mainly used in the following functions: a.

for indirect reported evidence (Ambrazas 1997: 263–265), either

–

as reported (indirect) speech after verbs of saying, perception and the like, a fact learned from report, hearsay or other sources of information (37) Lithuanian (Ambrazas 1997: 264) Girde˙jau, jis gyvena˛s mieste. heard:1sg he:nom live:part.pres.act.nom.sg.masc town:loc ‘I heard he lives in town’

— or independently — referring to a doubtful action, the information on which is not quite reliable: (38) Užkastieji pinigai dega˛. buried.nom.pl.masc.det money:nom.pl burn:part.pres.act.nom.pl.masc ‘Buried money burns, as they say’ (ibid.)

b. for inferring evidence — to indicate an action implied by its results (rarely).88 (39) Jau tie vaikai pupo-se already that:pl.nom.masc kid:pl.nom bean-loc.pl buve˛: didžiausios bryde˙s be:part.past.act.nom.pl.masc biggest:nom.pl.fem.def track:pl.nom paliktos. leave:part.past.pass.nom.pl.fem ‘Those children must have been in the beans again, wide tracks were left.’ (ibid.)

718 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

c. for admirative functions — to refer to an unexpected or surprising action (not very frequently, mainly restricted to present participles) (40) Jis atsigre˛že˛s žiu¯ri — he:nom turn.around:part.past.act.nom.sg.masc look:pres.3 stovi˛s velnias stand:part.pres.act.nom.masc.sg devil:nom.sg ‘He looked back and there a devil was standing.’ (ibid.)

d. for narrated evidence — in special kinds of (oral) narrative texts, primarily tales and legends (usage restricted to past participles, which are, thus, typical narrative forms) (41) Vieno pono miru-si pati one:gen lord:gen die-part.past.act.nom.sg.fem wife:nom ir paliku-si dvylika su¯nu˛ ir and leave-part.past.act.nom.sg.fem twelve:acc son:gen.pl and dar viena˛ duktere˙le˛. Po kiek laiko still one:acc.fem.sg daughter:dim.acc.sg after some time:gen te˙vas pamil-e˛s kita˛ father:nom fall.in.love-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc some:acc.fem.sg mergina˛, ragana˛. woman:acc.sg witch:acc.sg ‘The wife of a lord died and left twelve sons and a little daughter. After some time the father fell in love with another young woman, a witch.’ (Ambrazas 1997: 265)

The oblique mood in Lithuanian, in contrast to the indicative, conditional and imperative, does not have morphological markers of its own (cf. Klaas 1997 for a survey of the different opinions on whether oblique forms should be treated as a separate mood or not). The forms involved in the oblique mood have also other functions. There is a potential and actually not so infrequent ambiguity between past forms of the oblique mood, including narrative forms, and present perfect forms of the indicative mood, which both involve the short form of the past participle. Perfect tenses of the indicative mood combine these forms with the copula verb ‘to be’, the present form of which, yra, is, however, often omitted, leading to a frequent blurring of the distinction between the indicative and the oblique mood, as in example (42).89 We will return to this issue in the next section: (42) Jonas ate˙je˛s. Jonas:nom come-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc Ind. pres.perf: ‘Jonas has (yra) come.’ Obl. past: ‘Jonas is said to have come’ or Narrative: ‘Jonas came.’

Clauses with the oblique mood share striking similarities with clauses involving constructions ‘nominativus cum participio’ (the nominative case with participles).

The Circum-Baltic languages 719

These constructions – – – –

normally depend on verbs of saying, cognition, perception and the like; are used for logophoric contexts, i.e. the subject of the matrix verb (S1) is coreferential with the implicit subject of the embedded predication (S2), and the embedded predicate is expressed by the short participle in the nominative case; in the most frequent cases, the matrix verb attaches the reflexive marker as a marker of logophoricity: (43) Te˙vas sake˙-si šiandien dirb-a˛s/ Father:nom say:3.past-refl today work-part.pres.act.nom.sg.masc/ dirb-e˛s. work-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc ‘Father said that he was working/had worked today.’

In non-logophoric contexts, complements to the same matrix predicates (this time without reflexive markers) appear as gerunds — non-inflected non-finite forms — with the subject in the accusative case, as in (44). These constructions have historically developed from constructions ‘accusativus cum participio’ (the accusative case with participles), which would be the exact parallel to the ‘nominativus cum participio’ in non-logophoric contexts; such forms are mainly attested in Lithuanian and Latvian writings of the 16–17th centuries and occur as relicts in dialects, as exemplified by (45): (44) Gerunds as embedded predicates: Sakiau te˙va˛ šiandien dirb-ant/ say:past.1sg father:acc today work-ger.pres.act/ dirb-us. work-ger.past.act ‘I said that father was working/had worked today’ (45) ‘Accusativus cum participio’ (Lithuanian dialects, Ambrazas 1990: 142) Girdžiù põna˛ mı¯rusi˛ hear:pres.1sg lord:acc die-part.pres.act.acc.sg.masc ‘I hear that the lord has died.’

Thus, in the prototypical case, the difference between clauses with ‘nominativus cum participio’ and the oblique mood is as shown in Table 23 (overleaf). Interestingly, the geographic distribution of the oblique mood in Lithuanian dialects almost coincides with that of “nominativus cum participio” constructions. Also, in some dialects of North-eastern Lithuania, verbs of saying, perception and cognition in logophoric contexts do not attach reflexive markers, and the two constructions cannot be distinguished:

720 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

Table 23.Oblique mood and nominativus cum participio

Syntactic type of predication: embedded S1 is coreferential with S2 S2 deleted Reflexive marker on the matrix verb Intonation unity of the matrix and embedded predications

Oblique mood

Nominativus cum participio

Not necessarily Not necessarily Not necessarily No Not necessarily

Yes Yes Yes Yes (normally) Yes

(46) Sako šiandien dirb-a˛s/ say:3.pres today work-part.pres.act.nom.sg.masc/ dirb-e˛s. work-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc ‘He says that he is working/has worked today’ (Ambrazas 1990: 225)

These obvious diachronic and synchronic connections between the oblique mood and the nominative-with-participle constructions in Lithuanian have been at the centre of numerous theories aimed at explaining their origin (cf. Ambrazas 1990: 132–141, 222–230). Thus, it has been suggested that the oblique mood originated in nominative-with-participle constructions, i.e. that the oblique mood itself developed from participles as dependent (embedded) predicates, but later came to be extended to independent, non-embedded contexts as well. Ambrazas argues, however, that the use of participles as independent predicates is an old Indo-European feature, which predates both ‘nominativus com participio’ and the oblique mood. His hypothesis is that the oblique mood developed from the earlier uses of participles as independent predicates via grammaticalization of some of the modal meanings frequently associated with them. The forms and uses of the oblique mood presented so far are characteristic of Standard Lithuanian. In dialects, they are mainly attested in two regions: in Žemaitian and some Western Aukštaitian dialects (primarily on the territory of former Eastern Prussia), as well as in the North-eastern corner of Lithuanian. These two regions are connected by a narrow strip along the border to Latvia; to the south of this strip the oblique mood is either not attested at all or occurs only sporadically. Lithuanian dialects have also another non-finite form which partly has the same functions as the oblique mood — the neuter form of passive (past?) participles. That form is primarily used for inferring evidence, as in ˇcia kiškio gule˙ta, ˇcia lape˙s kasta – aš viska˛ regiu ‘here a hare has been lying (lie: part.past.pass.neut), here a fox has been digging (dig: part.past.pass.neut) — I see everything’ (Ambrazas 1990: 227), but can also be used for reported evidence and admirative meanings. These forms occur mainly in those dialects where the relative mood is not devel-

The Circum-Baltic languages 721

oped, the only exception being the northern and, in particular, north-eastern dialects where both constructions co-occur and tend to be associated with different uses. (For a more detailed description cf. Ambrazas 1977 and Christen 1995: 35f.)

10.3

Evidentials in Latvian and Southern Finnic

The oblique mood of the Lithuanian type, primarily the agreeing present and future participles, occur also in an island-like fashion in some of the Latvian dialects (both in High Latvian and western Latvian dialects) and are attested in the earlier writings in Latvian. However, in the majority of Latvian dialects, as well as in Standard Latvian, the paradigm of the oblique mood shows an interesting split between the past forms, which basically follow the Lithuanian pattern, and the present (and future) forms: – the past participle is in the nominative and agrees with the subject in gender and number, it may also be accompanied by the copula esot — the present oblique form of the copula verb bu¯t ‘to be’. Again, as in the Lithuanian case, the past participle in combination with the verb bu¯t is involved in the formation of perfect tenses of the indicative mood. The absence and presence of the copula in the oblique mood do not seem to follow any systematic rule (except for the tendency to be omitted in the 3rd person). A single form of the oblique mood, therefore, corresponds to two tenses of the indicative mood — the present perfect, which has similar patterning, and the simple past; – the present and future participles appear in the non-agreeing forms with the endings -ot /-šot (originally the accusative masculine/neuter singular form of participles) — these correspond to the simple present and future tenses. Now, the present and future forms of the Latvian evidential mood show a striking similarity, already noted by Arumaa (1935), to the present form of the evidential mood in most Southern Estonian dialects (but not Võru), as well as in Standard Estonian. This is also an invariable form of the present participle with the ending -vat, again historically an object case form (partitive).90 Judging from the object case, these forms most probably originated as dependent predications governed by verba dicendi, sentiendi etc., as in example (46) from Lithuanian dialects and example (47) from Finnish: (47) Finnish Hän sanoi vanhempien tänään teke-vä-n he say.3sg.past parents:gen.pl today do-part.pres.act-acc.sg työtä. work:prtv.sg ‘He said that the parents were working/had worked today.’

722 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

The development of invariable participles is generally interpreted as a case of convergence between Latvian and Estonian (Ambrazas 1990: 230–231; Stolz 1991: 45–50). Now, whereas the oblique mood in Standard Estonian is formed of “frozen” and/or non-inflected forms (actually Standard Estonian reflects Southern Estonian in this case)91 and, thus, does not show any traces of agreement with the subject, the South-eastern Võru dialect (Võru keel, lit. Võru language) differs from it in two respects: – –

the present participle (in -va) is in the nominative case; both the present and the perfect participles inflect for number and, thus, agree, with the subject. This is consistent with the behaviour of the perfect participle in other functions where it also inflects for number.

Livonian behaves basically in the same way as Southern Estonian: its correspondence to the present participle is, however, the form in -iji (pl -ijid), which originally marks the nomen agentis, but now functions basically as the present participle. The forms considered in this section up to now are mainly used for reported evidence, in usages comparable to examples (37) and (38). Reference to inferring evidence and admirative contexts, as in examples (39)–(40) is not typical for the oblique mood in either Latvian or Finnic. For narratives in folk tales and legends, both Northern and Southern Estonian, as well as Livonian, prefer bare perfect participles, even though the oblique mood in Northern Estonian can appear in narrative contexts too. In Estonian dialects present participles can also be used as a sort of a praesens historicum for narrated evidence. In Latvian, as in Lithuanian, past participles occur frequently as forms for narrated evidence in folk tales and legends. In these cases, the copula seems to be preferably omitted, as opposed to reported evidence, where it may be present. One of the common traits in all languages is the striking similarity between typically narrative forms and perfects: the two differ only in the absence/presence of the copula (and the copula is facultative with the perfect at least in the Baltic languages). The extension of perfects and resultatives to various evidential uses and similar splits between “normal” perfects and copulaless perfects are well known from a number of languages, the textbook examples being Bulgarian and Macedonian, Turkish and Georgian (cf. Dahl 1985: 152; Willet 1988: 79; Bybee et al. 1994: 95–7) and, joining this group of the Black-Sea-languages, also Romani (Matras 1995). The evidential forms in these languages are primarily used for reported and inferring evidence, however, and only rarely for narrated evidence. The peculiar fact about the Baltic region is that the perfect-based narrative forms in some of the languages (Estonian and Livonian) cannot be used in any other evidential functions.

The Circum-Baltic languages 723

It seems, thus, that there were two different domains that played a crucial role in the development of the evidential mood in the Baltic region: perfect and participle constructions depending on verba dicendi. Actually, we still know too little about the functional relations between various verbal forms in real discourse. The following text in the Leivu dialect of Estonian provides an instructive piece of evidence for the (at least apparently) messy usage of five different verb forms — perfect [4] and present [3] indicative, a present participle [5], a past participle [2] (the narrative form) and a sequence of a present and a past participle [1]: (48) Leivu Estonian (Niilus 1937: 53) jen´emustu uołłew uołnu [1] (be:part.pres + part.past) tark kierik-jezand ma¯ vałłan: jengl¢i’ tułłude [2] (part.past) püö bäle, ku tu¯ kansl¢ide ku¯ppas [3] (pres.3sg) un uom pałłełnu [4] (be:3sg + part.past)… bet ütte riei õikkuv [5] (part.pres)… ‘in ancient times there was a wise priest in Estonia: the angels came (down) on his palm, when he mounted to the pulpit and prayed… but once he called…’

Although past participles (part.past) are probably the most widespread form, perfect (copula + part.past) and “participle perfect” (‘be’-part.pres + part.past) can be used in basically the same contexts, the latter especially at the beginning of a tale. Present participles are the “historic present” of reporting narratives, their function is to actualize, to foreground a special event. Last but not least, the present, which has two synonymic form series in Leivu (and Võru), as the unmarked form par excellence, can be used with narrative evidence text internally. In the absence of systematic large-scale cross-linguistic studies of evidentiality, it is impossible to say anything definite about the typological status of the Baltic and Finnic evidentials. At least the following features are characteristic for these, but not necessarily for other languages with evidential distinctions: –

– –

–

evidential forms are central for the expression of reported evidence and appear both as complements to higher predicates (indirect speech) and as independent predicates; evidential forms are basically non-finite verb forms, primarily participles; evidential forms distinguish several tenses which either correspond to all the indicative tenses (Lithuanian) or neutralize only some of the distinctions found in the indicative (Latvian, Estonian, Livonian); typical narrative forms are basically perfects without a copula

724 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

11. Conclusions: The CB area as a contact superposition zone We can now conclude this paper by giving a general characterization of the CB area in its geographic, historic, cultural and linguistic context. A good starting point here will be Johanna Nichols’ (1992: 13–23) approach to the concept of an area, where an area has to do with groups of contiguous languages as defined by a geographic, cultural/historical and linguistic context. Nichols’ book has a rather different focus than our paper. Yet, in writing this paper, we have been influenced very much by it and we think we should summarize some basic ideas in it for those readers that are not familiar with the book. Nichols makes the distinction between two types of language areas — residual zones (RZ) and spread zones (SZ). The two prototypical examples illustrating the distinction are the Caucasus, as opposed to the adjacent Western Eurasian steppe. Taking into consideration the most important features, a residual zone can be defined as a dense grouping of genetically diverse languages in a sizeable area with ongoing accumulation of languages, increasing diversity (both genetic and structural), and no centre of innovation, whereas a spread zone can be defined as the combination of language spread, language succession, and low genetic density over some sizeable area. There are obvious geographic correlates for this distinction: at least, in the Old World, residual zones are often found in mountainous regions, where contacts, both peaceful and military, among the different settlements and groups of people are severely restricted by the natural preconditions. The steppe, on the other hand, puts no obstacles on movements of large groups of people in any direction. The following is a detailed list over the properties distinguishing RZs from SZs (ibid.: 13–21). Genetic diversity, which can be quantified as genetic density (the ratio of genetic stocks to million square miles of area): – –

RZ: high. E.g. six linguistic stocks in the Caucasus — the same number of stocks as in the whole of Europe, the Caucasus excluded. SZ: low (“at least since the Eneolithic, at any one time all or most of the steppe has been dominated by a single language family, and often a single language has covered most of it”, ibid.: 15)

Structural diversity, i.e. to what extent the languages in the zone differ from each other in their structure – –

RZ: high SZ: low: “the structural type of the steppe languages has been fairly consistent and standardly central and western Eurasian throughout” (ibid.: 15)

The Circum-Baltic languages 725

Time depth of the language families in the zone – –

RZ: deep. E.g. Southern Caucasian and North-eastern Caucasian are roughly as old as Indo-European) SZ: shallow. E.g. the first identifiable language spreading over the steppe, IndoEuropean, attained an age of only two millennia on the steppe before it was replaced by its daughter and successor Iranian; Iranian in turn also dominated the steppe for two thousand years; the next successor, the Turkic family, is now almost two millennia old, and Mongolian, starting to replace Turkic in the early Middle Ages, is still younger.

Spread of languages or language families; language succession – –

RZ: No appreciable spread, no language succession. The languages in the Caucasus tend to remain in one location for as long as they can be traced. SZ: Rapid spread, consequent language succession. “The dynamic of linguistic and ethnic interaction on the steppe may be spoken of as language (or ethnic) succession: approximately every two millennia a new linguistic group sweeps westward from the vicinity of Mongolia, rapidly attains military and cultural hegemony on the steppe… and replaces the previous language or language family. The previous linguistic group is obliterated unless it has extended into refugia such as the Caucasus…, the mountains of Central Asia…, or the Danube plain and surrounding central Europe…” (ibid.: 15–16).

Centre vs. periphery –

–

RZ: no clear centre of innovation. However, strong areal properties are often present. Thus, in the Caucasus, as in other mountain areas, innovations often arise in the periphery (in the lowlands), whereas the interior (the highlands) is much more conservative and retain archaisms. Although there is no standard centre of innovations, there are several clearly pan-Caucasian features, such as ergativity and glottalized consonants. In the same fashion, there are clearly panCaucasian cultural traits, even in the absence of any centre of political, economic or cultural influence. SZ: “classic dialect-geographic area with innovating centre and conservative periphery. The centre is a centre of cultural, political, and/or economic influence. The centre may shift as political and economic fortunes shift” (ibid.: 16). Thus, for the steppe the vicinity of the Volga seems to have been a standard centre of economic and cultural influence, a site of trading centres and military headquarters.

Long-term net increase in diversity –

RZ: accretion of languages and long-term net increase in diversity; language isolates are often found here. E.g. Ossetic (Iranian) and Karachay-Balkar (Turkic) have intruded into the Caucasus, pushed away from the lowlands by

726 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

–

other expanding languages. The newcomers in the Caucasus are added to the older languages and the overall genetic and structural diversity in the Caucasus increases over time. SZ: “no net long-term increase in diversity. A spread zone is a long-lasting phenomenon, but it preserves little linguistic evidence of its history” (ibid.: 16). In the steppe each new language sweeping westward replaces the older one.

Lingua franca – –

RZ: no lingua franca for the whole area; inter-ethnic communication is mainly achieved thanks to local bilingualism or multilingualism. SZ: the spreading language serves as a lingua franca for the entire area or a large part thereof.

The CB area fits somewhere between Johanna Nichols’ two types of zones in various respects. First, it has different geographic preconditions, as compared to the prototypical examples the Caucasus and the Russian steppe. The sea does not restrict contacts in the same way as mountains. Thus, in the case of the Baltic Sea, contacts, both peaceful and military, have been achieved both across the sea and by land, as opposed to prototypical residual zones where contacts among groups of people in most directions are inhibited. However, movements across the sea differ from those on land in that they normally involve less people, either tradesmen, missionary, warriors or colonizers. There is, thus, a smaller chance that the newcomers will “sweep” through the area in the way characteristic of spread zones. Also, coastlines and numerous islands often serve as refugia for the languages pushed from the inland by expanding ones. The following properties characterize the CB region: The CB area shows moderate genetic diversity: although it comprises mainly two stocks (or, if we count Karaim, three), the core of languages consists only of four families and three of them — Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic — are rather closely related within IndoEuropean. In this respect the CB area is slightly more exciting than or comparable to the Balkans (which, for Nichols, constitute a part of a larger residual zone) and the Standard Average European area, but definitely loses in comparison with the Caucasus and New Guinea. Connected to this is the relatively low or moderate structural diversity in the area, i.e. the CB languages are sufficiently similar to each other in various respects. There is another factor that characterizes the CB area most significantly: continuity of contacts over a long period of time. Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages that were the predecessors of Baltic, Germanic and Finnic have been present in the area over four or almost four milennia, and — as far as we can see — these three families (plus Slavic which entered later into the area) were the only relevant factors for language contact over the last three, perhaps four milennia in the CB-area. This means that the CB-area has a rather high degree of areal continuity

The Circum-Baltic languages 727

and a high time depth (at least compared with other regions of Europe). In this respect, the CB area is reminiscent of Southern Asia, which has, however, a much higher number of languages (Ebert forthc.). We do not find language spread and language succession over the whole area or a large portion thereof, which is typical of spread zones, except for the initial spread of Uralic and Indo-European. On the other hand, the ethnic groups and the languages in the CB area have been constantly involved in various kinds of contacts differing, thus, from typical residual zones. Neither do they always remain in the same location. The following list summarizes some of the most important linguistic contacts in the CB area, whereas Appendix 1 lists all the language contexts referred to throughout the papers in the whole volume. More or less local contacts among particular languages and language groups during different historical periods: – –

–

prehistoric contacts among Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Europeans, both outside and within the CB area; migrations, among others, the northward expansion of groups of Indo-Europeans, or much later the Slavic northward expansion to the former Baltic and Finnic-speaking regions; mixed bilingual or multilingual areas over long periods of time entailing local contacts leading to assimilation, acculturation, language convergence and/or language shifts (so-called adstrate or substrate situations) are an ever-present component in various places in the area (for example, Northern Russian and Karelian, Livonian and Latvian, Romani and the surrounding dominant languages).

More global contacts having to do with dominance over larger portions of the area (the list is not exhaustive): –

–

–

800–1000: expansive activities of the Scandinavian Vikings and the emergence of the Scandinavian, Polish and Russian states, each with its own sphere of dominance; 1100–1500: Denmark’s expansion; the crusades and the establishment of the Teutonic Order states in Northern Baltikum; dominance of the Hanseatic leagues; expansion of the Polish and the Lithuanian states, later the PolishLithuanian state; divisions and redivisions of the area among powers such as Sweden, Prussia (later Germany), Russia (later the Soviet Union) and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Each of the dominant powers brought with it a new prestige language (Danish, Low German, the Eastern Slavic variety used in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Polish, Russian, Swedish and German) that expanded over a large area and influenced the

728 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

local languages. Indirectly this development entailed convergence among the local vernaculars themselves. Again, notably, the prestige languages came from the CB area itself. The centres of influence and the borders of their sphere of dominance shifted constantly, which makes it impossible to talk of any long-lasting centres of linguistic innovations and peripheries even for subparts of the CB area, not to mention the whole area. The CB zone has also been divided and redivided among the three main religions in the area — Catholicism, Lutheranism and Greek Orthodoxy, each of which efficiently promotes cultural, including linguistic, influence within its own sphere of dominance and inhibits communication and influences across the borders (cf. Csáto, Jacobs and Cˇekmonas this volume on the role of the “deviating” religions, Judaism and the “Old Faith” in the preservation of Karaim, Jewish and Russian dialects in the CB area). To summarize, the CB area — constantly divided and redivided among different spheres of influence — has been an arena for intensive linguistic contacts, migrations, colonizations, expansions, etc. However, the whole area has never been economically, politically, culturally or linguistically united. In the CB area, convergence works primarily on a micro-level. It reflects language contacts of groups of people and maximally, of two or three languages. Convergence that comprises more than two or three languages, it seems, is always the result of the overlapping and superposition of different language contacts. On the basis of these considerations we suggest the concept of contact superposition zone (or Kontaktüberlagerungsareal
for those readers preferring German terminology) which, in our opinion, better reflects the relations among the CB languages than the traditional term “Sprachbund”. We find that the consideration of dialects and minor languages in the CB area is very important for the understanding of the language contacts. It is in border dialects and minor languages that language contact has been most intensive and where we find the most exciting structural changes. Throughout the present paper we have been discussing a number of potential areal features in the CB area both at the micro-level — by giving a nuanced and detailed analysis of these phenomena, much in the spirit of dialectology, linguistic geography, historical linguistics and traditional areal linguistics — and at the macro-level — by plotting the same phenomena against a general cross-linguistic background. Also, since the CB languages are spoken on the periphery of Europe, we have chosen to distinguish between the global and the European perspectives. Table 24 summarizes the main areal phenomena in the CB area discussed in this paper. Appendix 2 lists all the other linguistic phenomena mentioned in the present volume for the origin of which contacts have been evoked. Significantly, as is clear from Table 24, there are no isoglosses covering all the CB languages; moreover, the isoglosses pick up different subsets of the languages, in

Nominative object (6.4, 6.5)

Finnic, Baltic, Northern Russian

Various hypotheses; in Baltic and Probably unusual, but not unique (cf. Nenets, Kamassian, Southern Northern Russian; probably a com- Paiute, Yindjibarndi)a bination of inherited Indo-European models reinforced by contacts with Finnic

Case alternation for marking Total Finnic, Baltic, Eastern and Western In embryo attested in Indo-Europe- Probably unusual, but not unique (cf. Basque)a vs. Partial objects/subjects (6.3, 6.5) Slavic an; common innovation in the CB area with several layers of influence (Baltic -> Finnic -> Russian)

c. Phonologization of secondary stress (5.2.3)

b. Overlength (5.2.2)

A relatively high concentration in the CB area

Relatively unusuala

Europe

Probably relatively unusual.a Unclear whether the three phenomena are related to each other.

Extension of Indo-European prop- Relatively unusuala erties in Baltic and Slavic and their influence on the other languages of the region (each with its own sphere of influence)

Relict of a more wide-spread phenomenon in Indo-European dialects (also Slavic, Old Greek) Common innovation as a conseEstonian, Livonian, Low Latvian, quence of initial stress and reducsome Low German dialects? tion of non-initial syllables Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Scot- Innovation tish Gaelic

Baltic

Finnic, Latvian, Germanic, (North- Probably Finnic for Latvian; Uralic Frequent ern Russian dialects) source for Germanic highly disputable

Initial stress (5.1)

Polytonicity: a. Tones on long syllables (5.2.1)

Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, Latvian Romani, Icelandic

Globally

Typological pological status

Pluralia tantum (4)

Possible sourc source(s)

Languages primar primarily ily inv involv olved

Phenomenon

Table 24.Areal properties in the CB area (figures in the first column refer to the sections in the paper where the phenomenon is discussed)

The Circum-Baltic languages 729

Various hypotheses

Fairly infrequent, but far from unique. Occurs mainly at the fringe of Indo-European and is most probably a non-Indo-European characteristics

Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Finnic

adjective agreement (8.1)

flexible SVO (9.1)

Only in the CB languages

SAE allows no zero-subjects, but resorts to generic pronouns like man/on

21%, with a high concentration in the CB (and North-eastern European) area

Indo-European influence on Finnic Fairly usual, but areally and genetically unevenly distributed Very unusual, probably not unique (cf. Arabic)a

Expansion of the Indo-European model in Baltic and Slavic. IndoEuropean (most probably Baltic) influence on Finnic and Sami.

Fairly unusual

No data available

Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Komi, North- Word order flexibility is, probably, Rare — 4% ern and Eastern Sami a retention of older Indo-European and Uralic properties in transition from SOV to SVO

alternation between case-governBaltic, Slavic, Finnic, Sami ment and agreement within numeral constructions (8.3)

Northern Germanic, Baltic, Eastern Various hypotheses Slavic

reflexive postfixes as markers of valence recession (7.5.3)

Slavic influence on Veps and Votic

Baltic, Slavic; Veps, Votic

generic zero subjects (7.5.1)

Finnic influence on Latvian; an innovation in Western Slavic

Finnic, Latvian, Western Slavic

Finnic, Slavic, Baltic, Germanic

Comparatives involving particles (7.4)

Zero-subject constructions: non-referential indefinite zero subjects;

Retention of old Indo-European and Uralic models; various local influences (Baltic -> Eastern Slavic dialects, etc.)

Finnic, Slavic, Baltic

Comparatives: “Separative” and “Goal”

A high concentration in the SAE area (a common innovation?)

“Separative” and “Goal” compara- The SAE area shows the cross-lintives frequent, particularly in Eur- guistically highest concentration of asia; “Particle” comparatives rela- “Particle” comparatives tively infrequent

Germanic influence (in Latvian, In 25% of languages probably combined with languageinternal factors)

Syncretism of instrumental/comit- Estonian, Livonian, Sami, Latvian, ative (7.3) Germanic

Predicative possession not based on Finnic (and most of Uralic), Latvi- For Latvian and Eastern Slavic, Very frequent, in particular in Eur- Outside of the SAE area, where ‘have’-verbs (7.2) an, Eastern Slavic most probably, a combination of asia. ‘have’-verbs are a common innovathe inherited Indo-European model tion reinforced by contacts with Finnic

Case alternation in nonverbal pred- Finnic, Sami, Mordvin, Komi, ication (7.1) Baltic, Eastern Slavic, Polish

730 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

no large scale cross-linguistic comparisons available

Particle-initial questions mainly on the periphery; SAE area shows the cross-linguistically highest concentration of languages with verbfronting in questions

Infrequent

Only in the CB (and North-eastern European) area

A shared innovation, probably Difficult to estimate to what extent Certain parallels in the Balkans starting from Finnic. However, also the Baltic/Finnic phenomena have some Indo-European precondiparallels elsewherea tions.

Baltic, Southern Finnic (Estonian, Livonian)

Evidential mood (10.2)

verb fronting — 8.9%

Particle-initial questions: common Particle-initial questions — 14%; innovation of Baltic and some of the Slavic; Baltic influence on Estonian and Livonian; Slavic influence on Yiddish; indirect Finnish influence on Swedish. Various local lexical connections.

Germanic, Estonian, Finnish, Rus- A shared SAE innovation sian

a

Frequent

Probably a combination of internal- Infrequent — 7.7% ly motivated factors and Finnic influence for Latvian. Unclear for Finnic

Retention of the older Eurasian order within NPs in Uralic; probably a combination of inherited structures and Finnic influence in Baltic. Independent innovation in Continental Scandinavian

Verb-fronting (9.4)

Baltic, Estonian, Livonian, Southern Sami, Yiddish, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian dialects; Swedish dialects in Finland

Finnic, Latvian

Mixed adpositional systems (9.3)

Yes/no-questions: Particle-initial yes/no-questions

Baltic, Finnic, Komi, Mordvin, Continental Scandinavian

SVO/GN (9.2)

The Circum-Baltic languages 731

732 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

many cases also extending outside of the CB area proper. Furthermore, there are only few common innovations in the area. It is rather the languages outside the CB-area, especially those to the south-west (SAE) that innovated structural properties. In Sections 2 and 3, we have suggested that one of the principal shortcomings in most of areal studies is the disregard of the typological naturalness or markedness of features. In our discussion of areal features in the CB region we therefore emphasized the global perspective wherever possible, i.e. to what extent the property under consideration is cross-linguistically common. From this point of view, most of the features that exist both in Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages of the CB region cannot be said to be highly marked typologically. Even in the case of a typologically highly marked feature such as the system for object marking in Finnic, Baltic and Slavic it is rather the combination of several features that make it unique, whereas most of its components find cross-linguistic correlates (Section 6.5). Thus, complex properties (multiple feature properties) supply us with cumulative evidence for convergence. This is especially true for complex properties involving lexical idiosyncrasy such as e.g. pluralia tantum (Section 4). Complex properties may reflect a complicated situation of contact superpositions much better than simple properties as e.g. initial stress (Section 5.1). Here, of course, there is an additional tension between the methods and goals of typology, on the one hand, and areal studies, on the other. Whereas areal studies tend to emphasize details, typology traditionally aims at establishing fairly rough types of linguistic phenomena, neglecting details (the more details taken into consideration, the greater will be the number of types, ultimately leading to the conclusion that each language presents its own type of the phenomenon in question), and a reasonable balance between the two approaches may be hard to achieve. Besides the global perspective, the continental perspective turned out to be equally important for the evaluation of the CB-area. From this point of view the CB-region was found to form a border zone between the Central Eurasian languages in the East (prototypically represented by Turkish, Mongolian, Dravidian, Uralic and others) and the SAE-languages in the West (prototypically represented by Central European Germanic and Romance languages). We found that Western CB-languages often behave like SAE-languages, whereas Eastern CB-languages often follow the Central Eurasian pattern. There is however no bundle of isoglosses cutting the CB-areas neatly in two parts. Thus, for example, concerning predicative possession Latvian is Central Eurasian and Lithuanian is SAE, whereas concerning case inflection Lithuanian is much more Central Eurasian than Latvian (Section 6.7). We found that the CB-languages for some features such as word-order behave similarly to the languages of the Balkans and the Caucasus which similarly form part of the border zone of the Central Eurasian area. Finally, areal linguistics — like typology and other types of comparative linguistics — is a way out of particularism in linguistics. Particularism has been



The Circum-Baltic languages 733

especially strong in Baltic and Finnic philology and one of the basic aims of this volume has been to contribute to the building of a bridge between Finno-Ugric and Indo-European philologies. Even if this bridge is still very weak, it is up now to the specialists in each of the philologies to make this bridge hold for the future.

Notes * We would like to express our gratitude towards the many colleagues and friends who have, in one or another way, assisted us in the writing of this paper — Vytautas Ambrazas, Umberto Ansaldo, Harald Bethelsson, Vladan Boskovic´, Simon Christen, Greville Corbett, Valeriy Cˇekmonas, Östen Dahl, Matthew Dryer, Håkan Edgren, Elisabet Eir Cortes, Sofia GustafssonCˇapková, Pétur Háldursson, Martin Haspelmath, Axel Holvoet, Neil Jacobs, Päivi Juvonen, Alan R. King, Jurga Kaliasaite˙, Diana Krull, Jan Peter Locher, Elena Maslova, Yaron Matras, Beata Megyesi, Everita Milcˇonoka, Edith Moravcsik, Damra Muminovic´, Nicole Nau, Andreas Nord, Vladimir Plungian, Thomas Riad, Anna Siewierska, Leon Stassen, Thomas Stolz, Niklas Tamm, Lembit Vaba, Peteris Vanags, Ljuba Veselinova, Marilyn Vihman, Maria Vilkuna, Björn Wiemer. Our paper has also benefited greatly from all the other papers in the present volume, and we would therefore like to thank their authors. The responsibility for the paper rests, of course, with us. Parts of the paper have been presented at seminars at the Departments of Linguistics in Stockholm and Konstanz and at the Sprachbund Workshop in Halle (March 1998). 1. Sinus ille ab incolis appellatur Balticus, eo quod in modum baltei longo tractu per Scithicas regiones tendatur usque in Greciam (IV, 10). 2. The term Baltic has a very good association in the Baltic languages. Lith. baltas, Ltv. balts ‘white’ has the connotation of ‘pure, good, morally blameless’ in the Baltic folklore. Several scholars have tried to explain the term Baltic by this Baltic etymon which is also recognizable in semantically slightly different words such as Rus. bolóto ‘swamp’ and several Latvian, Lithuanian and Old Prussian place names for swamps and lakes with the element balt-. 3. It is not clear whether the Livonian name is a calque of the recent Latvian name Baltijas jura with the interpretation of Baltic as ‘white’ (Ltv. balts ‘white’) or whether it should be associated with the term valtameri ‘ocean’ (“mighty sea”) of Finnish folklore. 4. Following German and Swedish usage we use the term “Baltikum” for the region of the three Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 5. This issue was further pursued in Matthiassen (1985a, b) and Nilsson (1991). 6. Actually Sahrimaa also defines her Karelian Sprachbund by only one isogloss in only two languages, since she has particularly looked at only one type of construction — necessitive sentences of the types “I need a needle” or “I need to heat the sauna” in Northern Russian and Karelian. These constructions are, however, chosen as an example to illustrate the complex linguistic relationships between Northern Russian dialects and Eastern Finnic languages. Sahrimaa’s research goal is much more programmatic and ambitious and is intended as a challenge to numerous previous studies of Russian-Finnic contacts in substrate- and superstrate terms. 7. The point of departure for the present situation is as follows: In Baltic and Slavic, verbal prefixes are the most usual means of expressing various semantic and grammatical modifications of verbs. High German, Low German and Gothic make frequent use of non-separable and separable verbal prefixes; the latter have arisen from prepositions or adverbs. Northern Germanic

734 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

(Scandinavian) languages lost their verbal prefixes at an early stage in their development; prepositions and adverbs were frequently used in Old Norse as verbal modifiers. As such, they followed the verb, their preposition and compounding to the stem occurred only in the formation of perfect participles. In Finnic, modification of verbal meanings is historically carried out by suffixes. Adverbs, which build a rich system, have concrete local uses and do not normally build any compounds with verbs. 8. Both Baltic and Finnic had synthetic superlatives that are still found in Lithuanian and Finnish. In Russian, the construction “better than all” is very common and, in fact, the only way of forming superlative constructions for adverbs, e.g. Ona prygaet vyše vsex ‘She jumps higher than all’. Latvian expresses the superlative degree of an adjective by prefixing vis- ‘all’ (< gen.pl) to its definite comparative form (vis-vec-¿ak-ai-s ‘all-old-cmpr-def-nom.sg.masc’) while Estonian combines the adjective in the comparative degree with the standard ‘all’ in the genitive singular (kõige van-em ‘all:gen good-comp’). (Curonian) Livonian, which, like Latvian dialects in Curonia, does not have any separate comparative degree (Liv. ama vana ‘all:gen/nom old’), uses the genitive singular like Estonian. An important structural difference is the singular number of the genitive in the word for ‘all’ in Finnic languages and the plural in Latvian and Russian. 9. In Standard Estonian it is partly reintroduced by purists, cf. Laakso this volume. 10. Frequency analysis has offered important evidence for areal contacts in other linguistic areas. Cf. e.g. for Southern Asia, Kuiper (1967), Hook (1993) and Ebert (forthcoming). 11. The term “Standard Average European” originates from Whorf (1956). 12. The data came from dictionaries and grammars, from ourselves and from numerous kind people whom we would like to thank here. The sample includes the following languages: Abkhaz, Armenian (Vladimir Plungian), Bulgarian (Ljuba Veselinova), Belarusian (Valeriy Cˇekmonas), Czech (Sofia Gustafsson-Cˇapková), Dalecarlian (Östen Dahl), Dutch (Leon Stassen), English, Estonian (Diana Krull), Finnish (Päivi Juvonen), French, Romani, Georgian, German, Hungarian (Beata Megyesi), Irish (Harald Bethelsson), Icelandic (Pétur Háldursson), Italian (Umberto Ansaldo), Karaim, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Livonian, Latvian Romani, Mari (Simon Christen), Modern Greek (Håkan Edgren), Mordvin-Erzya, Classical Greek, Ossetic, Polish (Axel Holvoet), Russian, Romanian, Sami, Slovenian (Simon Christen), Spanish, Serbo-Croatian (Vladan Boskovic´ and Damra Muminovic´), Swedish, Tatar, Ukrainian (Valeriy Cˇekmonas), Veps and Yiddish (Neil Jacobs). 13. The Baltic sample contains the following nouns (Lith./Ltv., if not marked as sg, all words are plurals): 1 du¯mai/du¯mi ‘smoke’ 2 putos/putas ‘foam’ 3 pelenai/pelni ‘ashe(s)’ 4 me˙šlas sg/me¯sli ‘dung’ 5 taukai/tauki ‘fat’ 6 miltai/milti ‘flour’ 7 šiaudai/salmi ‘straw’ 8 rugiai/rudzi ‘rye’ 9 smegenys/ smadzenes ‘brain’ 10 plaucˇiai/plaušas ‘lungs’ 11 solotos/sala¯ti ‘salad (dish)’ 12 kelne˙s/bikses ‘trousers’ 13 marškiniai/sva¯rki ‘shirt’ 14 akiniai/brilles ‘glasses’ 15 žirkles/šk¸¯eres ‘scissors’ 16 ratai/rati ‘car’ 17 durys/durvis ‘door’ 18 vargonai/e¯rg’eles ‘organ’ 19 vestuve˙s/ka¯zas ‘wedding’ 20 pietu¯s/pusdienas ‘lunch’ 21 pietu¯s/dienvidi ‘South’ 22 tymai/masalas ‘measles’ 23 pyktis sg/dusmas ‘anger’ 24 juokas sg/smiekli ‘laughter’ 25 Šiauliai/Ce¯sis (major place names) 26 metai/gads sg ‘year’ 27 pinigai/nauda sg ‘money’ 28 kale˙dos/ziemassve¯tki ‘Christmas’ 29 lubos/griesti ‘ceiling’ 30 karcˇiai/kre¯pes ‘mane’. The Russian sample contains the following nouns: pomoi ‘slops’, slivki ‘cream’, otrubi ‘bran’, drožži ‘yeast’, brjuki ‘trousers’, ocˇki ‘glasses’, nožnicy ‘scissors’, šcˇipcy ‘tongs’, vesy ‘balance, scales’, san(k)i ‘sleigh’, vorota ‘gate’, poxorony ‘funeral’, krestiny ‘christening’, sutki ‘twenty-four hours’, sumerki ‘twilight’, den’gi ‘money’, svjatki ‘Christmas Eve’, prjatki ‘hide-and-seek’, salki ‘a game’, grabli ‘rake’, ˇcasy ‘clock, watch’, prenija/debaty ‘debate’, rody ‘childbirth, labour’, xlopoty ‘trouble, cares’,

The Circum-Baltic languages 735

drova ‘firewood’, debri ‘thickets’, džungli ‘jungle’, ˇcernila ‘ink’, skacˇki/bega ‘horse-race, the races’, ˇcary ‘sorcery’ 6 items are found both in the Baltic and in Russian samples, there is thus an overlap of 20%. 14. Fractional numbers here and elsewhere in this section reflect cases where there are different words for a concept in a certain language, some of them being plurals and some singulars, or where a concept is expressed by the same word either in the plural or in the singular. 15. There are also non-Indo-European languages with a high number of pluralia tantum words, e.g. Bantu languages, Kiowa, Zuni, Burushaski and some of the Semitic languages. 16. Even Finnish has retained some lexical reflexes of this Finno-Ugric tendency, e.g. silmäpuoli ‘one-eyed’ (“eye-half”). 17. Braun (1930: 4) calls this type “erstarrter ursprünglich logischer Plural” (stiffened originally logic plural). He holds that this type is important in the development of pluralia tantum in a language. 18. This can be seen e.g. from the comparison of Russian singulars with etymologically related plurals in related Slavic and Baltic languages:

‘door’ ‘cart’ ‘mill’ ‘foam’ ‘harrow’ ‘mouth’ ‘stairs’

Rus. sg

OCS pl

dver’ telega mel’nica pena borona rot lestnica

dveˇri kola žrı˘novi pı˘ny usteˇna

Czech pl

brany rty schody

Scr pl

Latv pl durvis rati dzirnavas putas ece¯šas

ljestve

ka¯pnes

19. The delimitation into four groups should not be taken too seriously. We draw lines where it gives the best areal results. Consider e.g. that the difference in number between Latvian Romani (12.5) and Belarusian (10.5) is certainly not significant. 20. Dalecarlian as spoken in Älvdalen, Sweden, behaves similarly to Icelandic, cf. e.g. the plurals SwdÄ dörär ‘door’, fläter ‘cream’, orgur ‘organ’ where Standard Swedish has singulars (Östen Dahl, p.c.). 21. There is some evidence that the Western Baltic language, Old Prussian, had less PLT than the Central Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian. Thus, unlike Lithuanian and Latvian, Old Prussian had a singular dumis for ‘smoke’ as OCSl dymı˘. 22. Numerals for pluralia tantum in Indo-European languages are originally collective numerals (cf. Brugmann 1907), the same is true for Mordvin. Finnic and Sami use the plural of cardinal numbers in the same function. This structurally simpler option cannot be realized in Baltic except for the numeral for ‘one’, because, unlike Finnic and Sami, numerals generally appear as plural forms in Baltic. In Finnish and Icelandic the specific set of numerals for pluralia tantum is also used to express different sorts of a kind (Hurford forthc.). 23. We are grateful to Tomas Riad for this observation. 24. According to Salmons (1992: 50–51), from a broader cross-linguistic perspective, the initial stress pattern does not constitute the most frequent option, although it is by no means rare. In Ruhlen’s (1987) sample, of 312 languages with stress, 58 (18.6%) have initial stress, as against 72 (23.1%) with final stress and 94 (30.1%) with phonemic stress (the last category includes languages which have minimal pairs based on stress).

736 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

25. Traditional Latvian dialectology distinguishes three dialects (the “Livonian”, the Central and the High dialect) and more than 400 subdialects (cf. Rudzı¯te 1964). Standard Latvian is based on the Central dialect. To avoid confusion we do not use the term “Livonian” when applied to a Latvian dialect. In this paper we use the term Low Latvian for the dialect called traditionally “the Livonian dialect” as this seems to be the most natural solution in contrast to High and Central Latvian. Balode & Holvoet (this volume, a) use the term Tamian dialect instead. 26. According to Salmons (1992: 50–52), Uralic shows an unusually high frequency of initially stressed languages — 16 of 23, which is only comparable to Australian languages, for which Ruhlen (1987) gives 14 of 24 as initially stressed. 27. The labels Acute and Circumflex are used to refer to diacronically corresponding and not to phonetically identical tones. Acute is falling in Standard Lithuanian, but a high level tone in Latvian and was probably rising in Old Prussian and Classical Greek. Circumflex is rising in Standard Lithuanian, but falling in Latvian, Old Prussian and Classical Greek. 28. This is a strong simplification, for a survey of various theories about the development of accent 1 and accent 2 see Riad (1998). The phonetic realization of accent 1 and accent 2 varies in the Norwegian and Swedish dialects. One common feature seems to be that an extreme (high or low) pitch falls on the initial part of the word in accent 1 and on a non-initial part (second syllable or second part of the first syllable) in accent 2. 29. However, across numbers there is a certain amount of syncretism of case/number endings, especially in Latvian, which can be seen in the following table for two of the four most important declension paradigms (masculine o-stems/feminine a¯-stems) in Lithuanian, Latvian and Low Latvian — bold refers to syncretic case endings. The loss of distinctiveness of case endings in Latvian, and even more radically, in Low Latvian follows from the reduction of endings due to the initial accent. The Low Latvian case system comes very close to a complete breakdown. The feminine declension classes tend to follow the masculine paradigms (possibly under influence from Livonian which lacks gender), as indicated by the brackets around the feminine forms, and even the masculine paradigm shows minimal distinctions. For Low Latvian the brackets mean that though there are still forms for the genitive and for the feminine paradigms, there is a tendency to avoid these forms, i.e. to use other cases and the masculine paradigm instead:

nom gen acc

Standard Lithuanian

Standard Latvian

Low Latvian

Masculine o-stems: sg/pl

Feminine a-stems: sg/pl

Masculine o-stems: sg/pl

Feminine a-stems: sg/pl

Masculine o-stems: sg/pl

Feminine a-stems: sg/pl

-as/-ai -o/-u˛ -a˛/-us

-a/-os -os/-u˛ -a˛/-as

-s/-i -a/-u -u/-us

-a/-as -as/-u -u/-as

-s/– (–/– –/-s

(–) (/-s) s/–) (–) (/-s)

The genitive singular and the nominative plural of the a¯-stems in Lithuanian often differ in accentuation. 30. In this example, we may observe a further complication. Numerals other than “one” do not distinguish nominative and accusative, i.e. the nominative form (kaksi) is used here. The partitive singular form kirjeettä is due to the numeral (cf. Section 8.3). 31. As pointed out to us by Ambrazas, perfective derivations of these verbs, however, as sulaukti ‘wait until arrival’, pabijoti ‘fear’ etc. also govern the accusative.

The Circum-Baltic languages 737

32. In this respect, Latvian is similar to conservative styles of German where a genitive object is found with some few verbs. 33. In Slavic languages -u is originally a u-stem ending and -a an o-stem ending. In other Slavic languages -u is even more frequent as a genitive ending for masculine nouns in the singular, but there is no functional differentiation of the two forms. 34. Only constructions with singular feminine a-nouns are considered here; constructions with animate objects in the nominative case represent a different problem — uneven development of animacy distinctions among the Russian dialects. 35. One problem is that some Basque verbs, which lack a direct object and are, thus, syntacticallysemantically intransitive, are morphologically transitive, i.e. they take a subject in the ergative, not absolutive, and combine with the conjugation markers and auxiliaries selection which are normally associated with transitive verbs. Partitive-absolutive alternation applies only to morphologically intransitive subjects. On the other hand, in the progressive aspect periphrasis, the subject is absolutive even if the main verb is transitive and may then, in principle, also be made partitive. It is, however, unclear to what degree such examples occur in natural speech. We are grateful to Alan King for an insightful discussion of the Basque partitive. 36. We are grateful to Matthew Dryer for providing us with this example. In declarative sentences, third person objects may optionally appear in the nominative, but we do not know the details of this alternation. 37. Nicole Nau (p.c.) comments that examples like (15b) are relatively rare — the absolute majority of the examples with debitives in her sample involve nominative-marked objects. 38. We are grateful to Maria Vilkuna for the information on Finnish impersonals and other constructions with subject-like objects and object-like subjects. 39. The same is actually true also for Latvian debitive constructions: Indra nog’¯ıba un bija ja¯nes a¯ra¯ ‘Indra:nom faint:past.3 and deb-carry out’ = ‘Indra fainted and had to be carried out’ (Everita Milcˇonoka, p.c.). 40. About the partitive marking of the participle cf. Section 7.1. 41. Stassen’s “locative” possessives include any construction consisting of a possessor with an oblique marking (local case, dative, genitive, local pre/postposition, comitative), a non-oblique possessed and an existential verb or copula (that may be zero). 42. Thus, e.g. Lith. ture˙ti and Old Prussian turrı¯twei ‘to have’ is a formation found in this form only in Baltic languages (Ltv. ture¯t ‘to hold’. Originally a stative verb related to Lith. tverti ‘to grasp’). 43. In Ukrainian, the negative nemaje ‘not-has’ is opposed to the affirmative je ‘(there) is’ (both forms may be constructed with u+gen). 44. Although rare, “have”-verbs are attested in Uralic as well, primarily in the Ob-Ugric languages Khanty and Mansi. The Sami aednât is a loan from Old Norse (Norwegian äge), and the Finnish omata ‘to possess’ has a very limited, literary use (Kangasmaa-Minn 1984). 45. Notice that the local possessor phrase is not sentence initial (i.e. not topicalized) as it usually is in Finnic and Russian. 46. The Russian language norm disapproves of sentences like (24), but they are frequently attested in the speech of virtually all Russian speakers, from least educated to most educated, like Leo Tolstoy. We are grateful to Elena Maslova for bringing this point to our attention. 47. In Livonian there is a secondary merger of comitative and translative. 48. The Latvian preposition ar ‘with’ is an anomaly among the Baltic and Slavic languages. All other Baltic and Slavic languages use forms etymologically related to su ‘with’, OPrs sa(n) ‘with,

738 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

together’, Rus. s(o) in this function. It is true that the older languages often used a mere instrumental without a preposition, but the Latvian preverb sa- shows that this etymon was the original Baltic expression for ‘with, together’ in nominal (besides mere instrumental) and verbal contexts. The comitative function of case forms of *kansa- is amply documented in Finnic. The meaning ‘also’ is found likewise sporadically in Finnish. The interrogative function is not attested, however, in any Northern Finnic language. 49. The figures about the distribution of types across area come from Heine (1997). He obviously counts the two Caucasian languages Laz and Ubykh, as well as Turkish, which all have Separative comparatives, among the Asian languages. 50. Leivu is an Estonian dialect once spoken in a small area in Northern Latvia that is closely related to the Southern Estonian Võru dialect. 51. The genitive plural (or singular) of “all” used in the superlative constructions in Slavic, Baltic and Finnic languages discussed in Section 3 is not a prototypical standard of comparison. 52. Thus, in some opinions, zero-subject constructions are viewed as a subtype of impersonal passives (cf. Siewierska 1984: Chapter 3 for an overview). 53. Finite verbs in Baltic do not distinguish between singular and plural in the third person. Participles that are used in complex tenses, however, manifest the singular-plural distinction. 54. Haspelmath (1990) suggests the term “generalized-subject construction” to cover zero-subject constructions, man-sentences and other semantically similar sentence types. 55. We do not consider stative passives here. 56. Since the term “impersonal” is highly polysemantic, we prefer the term “desubjective” as a cover term for the various constructions discussed in this section. 57. It is generally assumed that proto-Uralic had a “canonical” passive (Laakso this volume: Section 1.2.3.6), but the evidence is fairly shaky and this view has been debated (Maria Vilkuna personal communication). 58. Finnish impersonals are reminiscent of the so-called impersonal passives in Welsh widely discussed in the literature on grammatical relations (Comrie 1977; Perlmutter and Postal 1984). In Welsh, the subject is demoted with the object retaining the same form as in normal active sentences. The marking of objects is, however, minimal: only pronouns distinguish between subject and object forms. 59. The examples with passives have been elicited and have been accepted at least by some native speakers of Lithuanian. Passive sentences in contrast to active sentences have evidential meaning. 60. Actually this reflects the original state when the reflexive element, being an enclitic particle, was always located in the second position (Wackernagel position). In some Latvian dialects in Curonia and Latgale, the reflexive element -s(a)- appears two times: after the prefix and as a postfix. 61. Nichols (1992) provides useful information about the occurrence of attributive agreement in a large cross-linguistic sample; however, she does not distinguish between demonstratives and other attributes, nor among the different subtypes of agreement — number, gender, case and combinations thereof. 62. In Slavic and Baltic, definite adjectives derive from suffixation of an inflected relative pronoun with the stem *yo- to the inflected form of the adjective. The German strong adjective is formed with an n-suffix that is also found in Latin proper names. 63. In writing this section, we have profited a lot from discussions with Grev Corbett and Andreas Nord.

The Circum-Baltic languages 739

64. Bokmål shows a certain oscillation between the two-gender system, which it had inherited from Dano-Norwegian, and the three-gender system, which was reintroduced into Bokmål through the language reforms in the twentieth century. 65. For glumš ‘even’ the difference between masculine and feminine is neutralized across Low Latvian for phonetic reasons. 66. We are grateful to Nicole Nau for drawing our attention to Finnish Romani. 67. The Swedish gender system is further complicated by the optional masculine agreement in weak (definite) attributive adjectives and could best be characterized as consisting of several layers/ subsystems. See Dahl (1998) for further details. 68. We are grateful to Nicole Nau for drawing out attention to Majtinskaja (1969). 69. Numerals higher than “one” in the Finnic languages neutralize the distinction between nominative and accusative — the same nominative case is used in those contexts where other nominals have the nominative or the accusative marking. A similar tendency is found in Colloquial Latvian: nouns with the numerals “2–9” can stand in the nominative when accusative or even another oblique case is otherwise required (cf. Nau 1998). As there are no numerals belonging to the first (a-)declension in Slavic, Slavic numerals higher than “one” do not distinguish nominative and accusative. 70. Here we are not talking about “plural” cardinal numerals, i.e. those that pertain to pluralia tantum and nouns referring to pairs and other well-established sets. Cf. Section 4. 71. The integration of the Slavic dual into the nominal agreement system is a fascinating story, which would deserve to be treated in more detail than is possible here. In the Southern Slavic languages (except Slovenian) the old dual has fossiziled into a form used exclusively after the numeral “2” (Macedonian), “2–4” (Serbo-Croat) or “2–6” (Bulgarian; only masculine nouns). In Russian, the dual in the context of the numerals “2–4” has been reinterpreted as a genitive singular, but the identification is not perfect. Thus, when nominals after “2–4” have adjectival attributes, these latter appear in the plural and show thus that the nominal itself is hardly interpreted as singular for further syntactic rules. Also, some nouns follow deviant stress patterns when used after “2–4”, e.g. dva ˇcasá ‘two hours’ (rather than the regular gen.sg. ˇcása). 72. A further complication is that constructions with numerals “2–9” sometimes stand in the nominative case in syntactic functions which normally require other cases. This frequently occurs in temporal (“atelic-extent”) and locational adverbials, e.g. ˇcetr-i (four-nom) gad-i (year-nom.pl) me¯s tikai no tiem desmit nodzı¯voj-a¯m tur ‘we lived there only four of the ten years…’, the adverbial ‘four years’ in the nominative, instead of the accusative case (Nau 1998: 3.2.1.3, Example (6)). Numerals “2–9” show, thus, a tendency to neutralize the accusative-nominative distinction; cf. with the similar case neutralization in Finnic and Sami. 73. Bergsland (1953: 65) points out that the most consistent singular assignment by numerals to nouns is found in precisely those Finno-Ugric languages which have been strongly influenced by the Turkic languages (which use precisely this model) and where the nominal plural suffixes are of recent origin. 74. Partial agreement takes place primarily when the nominal head is in the illative, inessive and elative singular — the attribute appears in the genitive, essive and partitive respectively. Complete agreement covers the genitive and comitative singular, the essive and, with minor exceptions, the plural cases. 75. Sköld (1990) suggests too that the Finnish system is borrowed from Indo-European, either from Germanic (which we find rather implausible) or from Baltic.

740 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wälchli

76. When complements to numerals have long attributes, both can appear in the plural, e.g. pa¯r sticke små¯ er, änn-aikes va¯]ar ‘a couple of little (pl) one-horse wagons (pl)’ (Lagman 1971: 21). 77. The numeral 1 is not included; “direct”, i.e. nominative and accusative, vs. “oblique cases” refer to the cases which would normally be assigned to NPs in the syntactic functions, identical to those of numeral constructions under consideration. 78. For the lack of statistical data on Upper Sorbian, it is classified by Siewierska (1998: 513) as being a split SOV/SVO language, more or less in reaction to conflicting claims in the literature on either SVO or SOV as its basic word order. 79. The use of the alternative strategy of expressing possessors, by means of the so called possessive adjectives, which precede their heads, has considerably declined through the ages in most varieties of Slavic, and Slavic on the whole seems to have been steadily on the move towards postposition of possessors. 80. Komi and Mordvin are not in Dryer’s sample; note also that Dryer argues in terms of “language families”, which might be a reason for not mentioning Northern/Eastern Sami in the hierarchy (SVO is not a feature of Sami on the whole, see Section 5.10.1). 81. The notions pre-, post- and adpositions are used in here in a comparative sense, i.e. our discussion disregards that one might class these items in different word classes in the description of single languages. E.g. Latvian would then have three classes of “relational words”: prepositions (that all govern the dative in the plural), postpositions (that govern the genitive) and “halfprepositions” that may appear before and after the noun and that may be even separated from it and that always govern the dative. 82. In traditional Latvian grammatical terminology the term “postposition” is restricted to a few items; other postposition-like markers are referred to as “semi-prepositions” (pusprieva¯rdi) (cf. Holvoet 1993: 131). 83. What is still more interesting, and even unexpected, is the overall decrease in the frequency of adpositions in present-day Estonian compared to the beginning of the century. In the 1905 sample, adpositions formed 4.4 per cent of all the words in the texts in the text corpus, as compared to 2.43 per cent for the 1972 sample. Estonian, thus, uses synthetic constructions (caseinflected nominals) to a higher degree now than at the beginning of the century. Note that we are not talking here about the usual grammaticalization pattern from postpositions to case endings; rather, there is a tendency to skip relatively young periphrastic constructions in favour of the older synthetic ones. To quote one example, the frequency of peale ‘on’, nearly synonymous with the adessive case (cf. laua-l
‘table-adess’ = laua peale ‘table-gen on’) has decreased almost 6 times between 1905 and 1972. Ehala suggests that this tendency might have been an indirect consequence of the language renewal campaign, which explicitly encouraged a replacement of analytic comparative constructions by synthetic ones. Interestingly, the absolute frequency of prepositions in Estonian has hardly changed during the last century, so the rise in the preposition-postposition ratio is mainly due to the overall decrease in the use of postpositions. In the light of this, the suggested role of foreign influence seems to lose its ground even more. 84. There are various opinions as to whether these forms do constitute a special mood, we cannot enter this terminological question and use the term evidential mood here merely as a matter of convenience. 85. In Lithuanian dialects, evidential mood is mainly attested in two regions: In Žemaitian and a part of western Aukštaitian dialects (primarily on the territory of former eastern Prussia) and in the northeastern corner of Lithuania. These two regions are connected by a narrow strip along the

The Circum-Baltic languages 741

border to Latvia; to the south of this strip the oblique mood is either not attested at all or occurs only sporadically. 86. It is not known whether there was an evidential mood in Old Prussian. 87. There is also an evidential correspondence to the optative and in certain Aukštaitian dialects even to the conjunctive mood (cf. Ambrazas 1977: 8 and Christen 1995: 35f). 88. This function is mainly expressed by passive participles in Lithuanian, cf. below. 89. Interestingly, negation disambiguates these forms: Jonas ne ate˙j-e˛s. ‘Jonas is said not to have come/Jonas did not come’ Jonas ne˙ra (< ne + yra) ate˙j-e˛s. ‘Jonas has not come.’ (Wiemer 1998/1999) 90. In Standard Estonian, the oblique mood distinguishes between two tenses: present, expressed by non-inflected participles in -vat, and perfect/past, in which the -vat-participle of the copula verb olla ‘be’ combines with the perfect participle (with the ending -tud/-nud) of the lexical verb. In this latter case, the oblique mood again patterns as the present perfect of the indicative mood, which also involves the copula olla and the perfect participle. 91. Northern Estonian dialects use mainly the infinitives in -da and -ma for the oblique mood in the present. For a thorough description of the different forms of the oblique mood in Estonian dialects cf. Kask (1984).

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Appendix

Appendix 1. Language contacts referred to in the book Languages involved

Reference

FINNIC FINNIC Estonian Finnish Estonian Livonian Finnish Karelian Finnish, Ingrian Votian SAMI Finnish FINNIC, EAST (Karelian, Komi Vepsian, Votic, Ingrian) Udmurt URALIC INDO-EUROPEAN FINNO-UGRIC (FINNIC, INDO-EUROPEAN SAMI, Mordvin) (BALTIC, GERMANIC, EAST SLAVIC) SAMI Baltic Mordvin Baltic FINNIC BALTIC, EAST SLAVIC FINNIC BALTIC

Laakso 2.4 Laakso 1.2.4.3, 2.3 Laakso 1.2.4.3 Laakso 1.2.4.3; Pugh 6; 7 Laakso 1.2.4.3 Larsson 1; Laakso 1.2.4.3, 2.1 Laakso 1.2.4.3

FINNIC Lithuanian FINNIC, (SOUTHERN) Latvian

Estonian Livonian

Latvian Latvian

Stassen 4, 5 Larsson 1; Laakso 1.2.4.2; MKT&BW: 1.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4 Larsson 3 Larsson 1 MKT&BW 2 Larsson; Pskov-Novg.; Ambrazas; Laakso 1.2.1, 1.2.3.3, 1.2.4.2, 2.2; MKT 3.2, 7; MKT&BW 1.2 Lith 1.3 Pskov-Novg., 2); Christen 4; Wälchli; Holvoet; Latv. 1.3; MKT&BW 3.2 Larsson 6; MKT & BW 2 Larsson 6; Wälchli, Holvoet (3), Latv. 4.1.2–4.1.4, 4.1.6, 4.1.7, 4.2, Laakso 1.2.4.1, 1.2.4.3, 1.2.4.3, 2.5

752 Appendix

Languages involved

Reference

FINNIC

Laakso 1.2.1.1, 1.2.3.9, 1.2.4.2 Pskov-Novg.

Russian Russian dialects: Pskov/ Novgorod dialects, NWCentral; North Russian Baltic Russian dialects FINNIC, EAST (Karelian, Russian Vepsian, Votic, Ingrian) Estonian Russian; Old Believers’ Russian Karelian Russian Votian (-ic?) Russian (in the Jizaku area, Estonia) FINNIC GERMANIC

FINNIC Estonian Estonian

Swedish Low German German

Estonian

Swedish

Finnish

German

Swedish Finnish Swedish Swedish; Norwegian GERMANIC Swedish Low German, High German SLAVIC; BALTIC and SLAVIC Latvian

German, Low

Latvian

Yiddish Yiddish Yiddish Yiddish

Latvian Lithuanian Slavic Belarusian

SAMI GERMANIC German, Low Yiddish GERMANIC

Ambrazas 1 OB. 5 Laakso 1.2.3.6, 1.2.3.9.3, 1.2.4.1, 1.2.4.3, 2.5; MKT&BW 2 Metslang (in particular, 3.1.2; 4.2.3 and 5); Urb. Rus; OB 3, 5 Pugh OB. 5 Dahl 4; Larsson 1, 7; Laakso 1.2.1.2, 1.2.3.3, 1.2.4.1, 1.2.4.2, 2.2; Stolz 3.2; MKT&BW 1.2 Rendahl 4 MKT&BW 1.4; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5; Metslang (in particular, 3; 4.1 and 5); Urb. Rus. 1; Laakso 1.2.4.3; MKT&BW 1.5; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5 Rendahl 3.2; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5 Larsson 6; Laakso 1.2.4.3; Stolz 3.2 Rendahl 3.1. Larsson 1; Stolz; Rendahl 4 MKT&BW 1.4 Jacobs (for CourlY — 4.5) Dahl 5; MKT&BW 1.2 Latv. 1.2, 1.4; Urb. Rus. 1; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5; MKT&BW 1.5, 2 Latv. 1.4; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5; MKT&BW 1.4 Jacobs (for CourlY — 4.5; 5) Jacobs 4.1, 4.2.2, 4.4. Jacobs 3, 4.2.1; 4.3 Jacobs 4.2.2.

Appendix 753

Languages involved

Reference

Yiddish Yiddish SLAVIC SLAVIC SLAVIC, EAST Byelorussian Byelorussian Polish Polish Russian

Polish Russian Latvian (Latgalian) Lithuanian Lithuanian Lithuanian Latvian Lithuanian Latvian Lithuanian

Russian

Latvian

SLAVIC Polish Polish Polish, Belarusian Karaim Karaim Karaim Romani Romani

SLAVIC Belarusian Ukrainian Russian (in Lithuania), Old Believers Slavic Polish Russian Russian Turkish

Romani

Finnish

Jacobs 4.3. Jacobs (for Y. in Estonia — 4.5) OB. 5.1 OB. 5.1 Lith. 1.4 Lith. 1.4; MKT&BW 2 Latv. 1.4 Lith. 1.4; MKT&BW 1.5, 2 Latv. 1.4, MKT&BW 1.5 Lith. 1.4; Urb. Rus. 1; OB 3, 4.3, 5; MKT&BW 1.5 Latv. 1.4; Urb. Russ. 1; OB 3, 4.3, 5; MKT&BW 1.5 MKT&BW 1.5 MKT&BW 1.5 Urb.Russ. 1; OB 3, 5 (Polish) Csató Csató Csató Rusakov Rusakov 3 Rusakov 3

Explanations of references in the above table to chapters in the volumes: Latv. = Laimute & Holvoet, The Latvian Language and its Dialects Lith. = Laimute & Holvoet, The Lithuanian Language and its Dialects Urb.Russ. = Cˇekmonas, Russian varieties in the southeastern Baltic area: Urban Russian of the 19th century OB= Cˇekmonas, Russian varieties in the southeastern Baltic area: Rural dialects Pskov-Novg. = Cˇekmonas, On some Circum-Baltic Features in the Pskov-Novgorod (Northwestern Central Russian) dialect MKT&BW = Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wälchli, The Circum-Baltic Languages: An ArealTypological Approach All other chapters are referred to by the name of their author(s).

754 Appendix

Appendix 2. Linguistic phenomena mentioned in the book, for the origin of which contact-induced changes have been evoked

1.

Lexical loans/borrowings etc.

Comments

Target language(s)

Source language(s) Reference

Massive penetration in the lexicon (incl. words for body parts, kinterms, etc.) Borrowed conjunctions

Estonian

German

Estonian

Finnish

Finnic

Baltic

Larsson 2

Finnic

Germanic, Russian, Latvian Russian Russian Swedish Russian and Polish

Laakso 1.2.4.1.

Loan noun-derivational Finnic agent suffix nik Finnic, Eastern Finnish Karaim Massive borrowing, including prepositions. Code-copying: adaptation to the structure of the recipient language Borrowed items are used Karelian Vepsian to replace earlier borrowings from Russian Massive penetration in Karelian all semantic spheres (incl. Numerals, conjunctions, prepositions); deep integration Restricted borrowing Komi, Udmurt Latvian Massive borrowings Borrowed words with regular sound substitution; phraseologisms

Latvian, Latgalian Lithuanian Livonian

Laakso 1.2.4.3

Laakso 1.2.3.9 Laakso 1.2.4.3 Laakso 1.2.4.3 Csató (in particular, 3)

Finnish

Pugh 6; Laakso 1.2.4.3

Russian

Pugh 2

Vepsian, Karelian (Old) Russian, German Slavic Slavic (Russian, Belarusian, Polish) Estonian

Laakso 1.2.4.3 Latv. 1.4; Urb. Russ. 1 OB. 5.1 Lith. 1.4 Laakso 1.2.4.3

Appendix 755

Comments

Target language(s)

Source language(s) Reference

Massive penetration of borrowed words into many spheres “Barbarisms” for new social and political realities rather than proper loan-words Heavy borrowing: adapted vs. unadapted loans (primarily verbs inflected according to foreign models)

Livonian; southern Latvian Estonian

Larsson 6; Laakso 1.2.4.3

Polish and Lithuanian dialects in Lithuania

Russian

Urb. Rus. 1

Romani (North Russian) Romani dialects of Kabudzhi in Albania and the Agia Barbara dialect in Greece Russian dialects in Abundance of loan words (also influence on the Jizaku and Mexikorma (Estoall levels) nia) Russian of Old Believers in the Baltic Sami Differently in different Swedish in Estonia varieties Noticeable, but not Swedish in Finland overwhelming loans Massive borrowings Votic Deeply integrated into Yiddish the recepient language

Russian Turkish

Rusakov 3

Estonian

OB. 5

Mainly Polish, some OB. 5 Lithuanian and Latvian Baltic Larsson 3; 5 Estonian Rendahl 3.2 Finnish

Rendahl 3.1

Finnish and Ingrian Lithuanian Jacobs 4.1.; 4.3; 4.4; 4–6 Yiddish Polish Jacobs 4.3 Yiddish Slavic Jacobs 4.4.23 Highly restricted Yiddish (CourlY) Latvian Jacobs 4.5 Jacobs 4.5; 4.6 Adaptation to the struc- Yiddish (CourlY; Y. German in Estonia) ture of the recipient language Yiddish (in Estonia) Russian Jacobs 4.6

Lexical isoglosses

Slavic, Baltic, Germanic

An earlier Sprach- MKT&BW 1.2 bund has been suggested

756 Appendix

2.

Phonetics/Phonology/Prosody

Phenomenon

Languages involved Explanation

Reference

Consonant clusters allowed Consonant gradation

Karelian

Russian influence

Pugh 3

Finnic

Somehow connect- Laakso 1.2.1.2. ed to Verner’s Law in Germanic (?) Russian Pugh 3; Laakso 1.2.1.2. Earlier attempts to Larsson 4 attribute the process to Baltic influence have been rejected Finnic influence Pskov-Novg., 3 (substrate)

Consonant palatalization Karelian, Vepsian Consonant palatalization Finnic (*ti > si)

Consonants: Šokan’e = confusion of soft sibilants s, z and hushing sounds š, ž; S/š-cases = mixing together of the hard s, z with š, ž

Consonants: voicing sandhi (progressive assimilation of consonants Consonants: new consonants — voiced stops and sibilants, š and word-initial affricates Consonants: palatalization of dentals and alveolars before vowels stem-finally Consonants: reduction of the consonant system Consonants: replacement of word-final unvoiced stops fortes with unvoiced lenes

Russian (NWCentral and other central dialects, Northern); Lithuanian (small area in Northern L., “šlekiavimas”); historically in Latvian Yiddish (NEY) Slavic influence

Karelian, Vepsian, Votian, Livonian

Jacobs 4.2.1

Russian and Latvian Laakso 1.2.1.2 influences

Tamian (Low Latvi- Livonian substraan) dialects tum

Latv. 4.1.6

Finnic (compared to Proto-Uralic) Some Tamian (Low Latvian) dialects

Laakso 1.2.1.

Early Germanic or Baltic influence Livonian substratum

Latv. 4.2.2.

Appendix 757

Glottal stop (Stoßton)

Livonian

Glottal stop (Stoßton)

Lithuanian, Žemaitian (Northern)

Vowel harmony process- Karelian es, restructuring (prefixes and not only roots dictate the front-back colouring of suffixes) Vowel harmony, loss Northern Estonian, Livonian

Yiddish (ZY) Vowels: retention of the distinction between long and short monophtongs

Vowels: a new higher mid vowel (æH)

Dialects of Karelian, Vepsian, Ingrian, Votian and Estonian

Vowels: apocope

Lithuanian, Žemaitian (Northern)

Vowels: loss or shorten- Tamian (Low Latviing of unstressed vowels an) dialects Almost identical phono- North Russian logical systems Romani

Possible (but not necessary) influence from Latvian ? A shared feature with Livonian, Latvian and Estonian dialects. Curonian (shared Baltic substratum)? Russian (as a result of the penetration of Russian prefixes into the Karelian verbal system) Contacts with Baltic suggested as an explanation; hardly plausible (Southern Estonian still has vowel harmony) A possible (weak) role of Baltic, Estonian and Baltic German in the maintenance of the distinction Introduced or at least enforced by the influence of Russian loan words ? A shared feature with Latvian, Livonian, Votian and Estonian dialects Livonian substratum Russian

Larsson 6

Pskov-Novg., 5; Lith.1.3,

Pugh 3

MKT&BW 3.2

Jacobs 4.3.

Laakso 1.2.1.1.

Pskov-Novg., 5

Latv. 4.1.2, 4.1.3 Rusakov 1

758 Appendix

3.

Word-formation, grammar

3.1 Verb bounders (particles, prefixes and preverbs functioning as mark-

ers of aspect and/or Aktionsart) Languages involved

Explanation

Reference

Livonian, Estonian, Veps, Kare- Complex relationships on different lian, Low German, German, Swe- levels (material similarities; semantic and functional similarities; dish, Baltic, Russian syntactic similarities) Latvian, Livonian, Estonian, Leivu Estonian

Karelian North Russian Romani

MKT&BW 3.2

Mutual influences; preverbs in Livonian Wälchli (in and Leivu borrowed from Latvian particular 2.3; 2.4) A cumulative effect of internal devel- Metslang opments and German and Russian influences during different time periods Borrowed Russian prefixes can be Pugh 4 attached to indigeneus stems Russian

Rusakov 2

3.2 Case (case systems, case uses etc.) Phenomenon

Languages involved

Explanation

Case: breakdown in Continental Scandinavian Influence from Low German the case system (standard varieties and most in one or another form has been suggested of the dialects) Case: emergence of a Livonian (in Kurzeme) Latvian influence; mutual dative case convergence in uses (e.g., in combination with verb particles or postpositions) Possible areal influences Case: differences in Two groups — Polish/ verbal government Lithuanian(/Belarusian) vs. Latvian-German-Estonian Case: experiencer Russian of Old Believers in Possible syntactic loans from the Baltic languages or Polish datives in possessive the Baltics (in extended sense) constructions Case: local cases

Eastern Baltic

Possible influence from Finnic (problematic)

Reference MKT&B W 1.4 Larsson 6; Wälchli 4; Laakso 1.2.3.7.3 MKT&B W2 OB. 4.3 (10), 5

Lith.1.3; MKT&B W 6.7

Appendix 759

3.3 Gender Phenomenon

Languages involved Explanation

Reference

Gender system reduction Yiddish (NEY) (three genders: masc, fem, neut Æ two genders: masc, fem) Russian of Old BeGender: changes from neuter to feminine and lievers in the Baltic the expansion of the feminine paradigm

Jacobs 4.2.2 Possible (but not necessary) Lithuanian influence

Gender: Reduction and/or loss of gender distinctions

Finnic influence: Latv. 4.1.7; Livonian substratum MKT&BW 8.2 (for Latvian), Finnish superstratum (for Romani). Finnish influence possible as a contributing factor

Tamian (Low Latvian) dialects; Romani in Finland; Swedish dialect of Karleby-Nedervetil (Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland)

Weak Baltic influence not excluded

OB. 5

3.4 Verbal categories Phenomenon

Languages involved Explanation

Tense: compound tenses Finnic based on copular constructions Occasional number neu- Russian of Old Betralization of the 3d per- lievers in East Lithuania son of verbs Existence of agent partici- Finnic (except for ples Estonian) Extensive uses of reflexive Easter Finnish (Karelian, Vepsian, suffixes (-te, -tte) — “reflexive conjugation” Ingrian, Votian) Structure of present parti-Yiddish ciples combined with reflexive pronouns

Reference

Laakso 1.2.3.3. Modelled on the Baltic and/or Germanic constructions May be a result of OB. 5 Lithuanian influence Possible Baltic influence Russian influence has at least partially contributed to the development Possible (but not necessary) Lithuanian influence

Larsson 5.2 Laakso 1.2.3.6, 1.2.3.9.3

Jacobs 4.2.2

760 Appendix

Negation: loss of inflection in negative verbs; Further elaboration of inflection in negative verbs

Northern Estonian Livonian

Negation: the form net Russian of Old Be(negation of the existen- lievers in the Baltic tial copula) in clauses with nominal predicates

In both cases con- MKT&BW 3.2 tacts with Latvian have been suggested as a possible influencing factor Possibly a calque from Latvian (via Polish)

OB. 4.3 (14), 5

3.5 Other structural phenomena Phenomenon

Languages involved Explanation

Availability of two struc- Finnish, Latvian (to tural positions for geni- a lesser degree) tives within a noun phrase Copular sentences Karaim Correlative constructions Karaim Essive constructions (case Karaim assignment) Highly grammaticalized Livonian, Estonian, Latvian analytic superlatives (‘better than all’) Reflexive constructions Southern Finnic vs. Finnish

Reference

Possible Finnic influ- Christen (especially ence on Latvian 4)

Polish Polish?, Russian? Polish?, Russian?

Csató (2) Csató (5.3) Csató (5.3)

Convergence possi- MKT & BW 3.2 ble, but not necessary Possible influence Larsson 6 from Latvian vs. Swedish

Formulaic expressions East Slavic varieties, Finno-Ugric subMKT&BW 3.2 “they lived-were” in the Finno-Ugric strate influence probeginning of fairy tales bable



Appendix 761

4. Code switching/shifting Languages involved Karelian Romani Karaim

Reference

Russian Pugh 2.6 Russian Rusakov 3 Russian, Polish, Lithuanian Csató (2)

North Russian Romani – moderate to high structural interference from Russian on all levels: – identity of phonological structure; – heavy lexical borrowing (adapted and unadapted, code-mixing); – borrowing of morphological markers; – influence on morphological categories: (a) meaning changes of the elements of already existing morphological categories; (b) the structural reshaping according to the Russian models of the forms of already existing morphological categories; – identity of syntactic structures; – code-switching.



Name index

Note: page numbers 1–359 refer to Volume 1. A Aalto, Pentti 701 Aavik, Johannes 202, 445, 455, 625 Abondolo, Daniel 179 Ågren, Per-Uno 164, 165 Ahlbäck, Olav 143, 148–151, 163, 166 Aitchison, Jean 454, 456 Aleksandravicˇius, Egidijus 82, 87 Alho, Irja H. 531, 533, 656, 660 Almqvist, Ingrid 408, 655 Alvre, Paul 685, 686, 717 Ambrazas, Vytautas 376, 378, 379, 391, 408–410, 484, 544, 663, 664, 666, 672, 719–726 Anderson, A. O. 585 Antonsen, Elmer H. 222, 223, 225 Anward, Jan 555 Ariste, Paul 201, 203, 302, 304, 305, 373, 381, 575, 576, 632 Arndt, W. W. 220, 222 Arumaa, P. 423, 425, 720, 725 Asher, R. E. 587 Auer, Peter 322 Avanesov, R. I. 342, 348 B Bacot, J. 589 Bakker, Peter 313, 332 Balin´ski, M. 82 Balode, Laimute˙ 642, 645, 657, 676 Barannikov, A. P. 316, 331 Barotov, M. A. 331 Barwise, Jon 528 Basanavicˇius, Jonas 712 Behaghel, Otto 527, 528, 554

Berg-Olsen, Sturla 657, 662 Bergman, Gösta 162, 164 Bergsland, Knut 704 Beskrovnyj, V. M. 316 Bhaskararao, P. 587, 588 Bhatt, Rakesh M. 322 Bhattacharya S. 588 Bielenstein, A. 16 Biezais, Haralds 623 Bisang, Walter 531, 562 Bjørnflaten, Jan Ivar 339 Boiko, Kersti 675 Bokamba, Eyamba G. 325 Boretzky, Norbert 315, 316, 323, 332 Borin, Lars 331, 701 Borkovskij, Viktor I. 384, 396 Bouzet, J. 584 Braun, Maximilian 634, 637 Braunmüller, Kurt 624 Brooks, M. Z. 579 Brugmann, Karl 409, 527, 545, 606, 667, 712 Bubrix, D. V. 344, 345, 350 Burrow, T. 588 Bušs, Oja¯rs 424 Bybee, Joan 419, 445, 453, 629, 719, 726 C Campbell, Lyle 408, 410, 627, 629, 630 Cˇekmonas, Valeriy 341, 348, 625, 626, 643, 681, 685, 688, 694, 709, 732 Chafe, Wallace 720 Christen, Simon 533, 544, 628, 693, 698, 709, 712, 713, 725 Claudi, Ulrike 445, 609

i 2 Name index

Collinder, Björn 238, 241, 244, 607 Comrie, Bernard 193, 584, 671 Cooper, Robin 528 Corbett, Greville 543, 699–701, 703, 704 Courthiade, Marcel 313, 331 Croft, William 531, 562 Csató, Eva 276, 624, 626, 714 D Dahl, Östen 340, 419, 443, 487, 622, 628, 629, 633, 655, 659, 669, 699, 700, 716, 719, 726 Dahlstedt, Karl-Hampus 164, 165 Danell, Gideon 147, 153–158, 160, 164 de Rijk, R. P. G. 670 de Sivers, Fanny 485 Décsy, Gyula 192, 355, 356, 627 Delbrück, Berthold 527, 528, 545, 606, 667 Delsing, Lars-Olof 137, 144, 159, 163, 548, 554, 713 Denison, Norman 536 Dini, Pietro U. 620 Dirr, A. 591 Disterheft, Dorothy 396, 398 Dottin, G. 586 Dressler, Wolfgang 333, 334 Driem, G. van 590 Dryer, Matthew 710–713, 715, 718 Dunn, J. A. 409, 666 E Ebert, Karen H. 731 Ehala, Martin 714, 715 Ejskaer, Inger 145 El’sberg, I.Ja. 111, 114 Elert, Claes-Christian 166, 168, 220, 232, 622 Eloeva, Fatima A. 313, 332 Endzelı¯ns (Endselin), Ja¯nis 345, 352, 369, 371, 397, 408, 409, 414–416, 423, 481, 488, 489, 518, 620, 630, 631, 686, 703 Erelt, Mati 381, 541 Ericsson, Torsten 168 Eschenbach, Carola 532, 550, 551

F Fairbanks, Gordon H. 530 Falkenhahn, V. 626 Fennell, J. 581 Fici Giusti, Francesca 691 Filin, F. F. 347, 348 Forsberg, Hannele 193 Fraenkel, Ernst 403, 577, 582, 592, 608 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt 365 Friedman, Viktor A. 315 Fries, Sigurd 147 Fromm, Hans 201, 574, 575 G Gårding, Eva 166, 167 Ga¯ters, Alfreds 409, 605 Geniušiene˙, Emma 695 Gimbutas, Marija 410, 621 Girdenis, Aleksas 52, 350, 417, 435 Givón, Talmy 573, 678, 683 Gluskina, S. M. 113, 340, 342, 343, 348, 349, 351, 353 Goldberg, B. A. 84 Gomonov, I. T. 120 Gorškova, K. V. 347 Göseken, Heinrich 456 Grappin, H. 578, 579 Greenberg, Joseph H. 276, 701, 704 Greene, D. 585 Grierson, G. A. 589, 590 Grünthal, Riho 179 Gun, Otton 91, 229 Gustavson, Herbert 158, 159, 162, 164, 165 H Haarmann, Harald 627, 719, 720 Hahmo, Sirkka-Liisa 198 Häkkinen, Kaisa 179 Hakulinen, Auli 661 Hakulinen, Lauri 372, 373, 382, 384, 385, 536 Hallberg, Göran 142 Halling, Tiina 198 Hansegård, Nils Erik 238 Harris, Alice C. 408, 410

Name index i 3

Haspelmath, Martin 409, 633, 673, 674, 686, 690, 694, 695, 716 Hasselblatt, Cornelius 453–455, 486, 495, 613 Hausenberg, Anu-Reet 202 Hauzenberga-Šturma, E. 417 Havránek, Bohuslav 408, 409 Heine, Bernd 445, 609, 681, 686, 687 Heinrici Chronicon 7, 623 Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa 196 Helimski, Eugene 184 Heltoft, Lars 549 Hentschel, Elke 550 Herslund, Michael 527, 555 Hertzen, Erik von 240 Hesselman, Bengt 139, 141, 143, 147, 159, 228, 229 Hinderling, Robert 624 Hint, Mati 187, 195, 470, 715 Hirt, H. 413 Hock, Hans H. 322 Hockett, Charles F. 699–701 Hoeksema, Jacob 528 Holm, Gösta 148, 155, 156 Holvoet, Axel 374, 383, 391, 392, 397, 410, 642, 643, 645, 657, 658, 664, 666, 673, 674, 676, 678, 689, 690, 692, 714, 715 Honti, László 188, 636, 704 Hoop, Helen de 528 Hopper, Paul J. 531, 652, 669 Huldén, Lars 162, 699 Hummelstedt, Eskil 159 Hünnemeyer, Frederike 445, 609 Hupel, August Wilhelm 456 Hurford, James 562, 704 Huss, Leena 238 Hyenstrand, Åke 218, 219, 232 Hyldgaard-Jensen, Karl 623 I Igla, Birgit 315, 323, 332 Ingo, Rune 640 Itkonen, Erkki 558, 559 Itkonen, Terho 184, 202–204, 242

Ivars, Ann-Marie 148, 166 Iwaniec, E. 102, 103 J Jablonskis, Jonas 408, 409, 666 Jacobs, Neil G. 624, 626, 699, 717, 732 Jacobsson, Gunnar 409, 410 Jakobson, Roman 355, 434, 626, 627, 641, 644 Janhunen, Juha 180, 182, 184, 186 Jansson, Valter 143, 148 Jaunius, Kazimieras 251 Jeffers, Robert J. 409 Johansen, Paul 413 Johanson Lars 272, 277, 278 Johnson, Mark 595, 596, 683, 684 Jokinen, Kristiina 506, 512–514, 575 Jonaityte˙, Aldona 350 Jörgensen, Nils 144–147, 155, 159, 161, 162–165 Jurginis, J. 82 K Kacˇiuškiene˙, Genovaite˙ 417, 435 Kagaine, Elga 416, 423, 424 Kalima, Jalo 237–239, 250 Kalinina, Elena 590 Kandaurova, T. N. 348 Kangasmaa-Minn, Eeva 195 Kangere, Baiba 408, 657, 672, 675 Kapterev, N. F. 101 Karinskij, Nikolaj Mixajlovicˇ 341, 342, 346, 348 Karjalainen, Merja 368, 614, 656 Karlsson, Fred 248, 607, 655, 661 Karma, Tõnu 676 Karsten, Torsten Evert 238 Karttunen, Lauri 382, 384, 385 Kasatkin, L. L. 354 Kasatkina, R. F. 354 Kasik, Reet 198, 454 Kask, Arnold 453 Kaufman, Terrence 87, 305, 313, 320, 332, 334, 410, 454, 676 Kauppinen, Anneli 192

i 4 Name index

Keenan, Edward L. 363, 380 Kemmer, Susanne 695 Kenrick, Donald 332 Kettunen, Lauri 21, 249, 250, 344, 385, 413 Kibrik, Aleksandr 590, 591, 634 King, Gareth 229, 286, 560, 670 Kiparsky, Valentin 304, 341, 352, 391, 408–410, 642, 666 Klaas, Birute 443, 720, 722 Koivisto, Vesa 195, 200 Koivulehto, Jorma 201, 203, 238 Kolesov, V. V. 351, 353 Kont, Karl 443, 564 Koponen, Eino 201 Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria 340, 408, 503, 508, 509, 512, 514, 516, 613 Koreckij, P. I. 102 Koreva, A. 83 Korhonen, Mikko 180, 183, 191, 194, 195, 241 Kornfilt, Jaklin 560, 561, 668 Koshal, S. 589 Krause, Wolfgang 223–225 Krull, Diana 574, 575, 645 Kruuse, E. 168 Kuhn, Hans 222 Kulakauskas, Antanas 82, 87, 88 Kulonen, Ulla-Maija 195 Kuršaitis, Aleksandras 422 Kuz’mina, Irina Borisovna 117, 119, 120, 122, 125, 659, 663, 666, 674, 694, 717 Kytömäki, Leena 199 L Laakso, Johanna 534, 622, 632, 673, 696, 714 Laalo, Klaus 186 Laanest, Arvo 179, 184, 185, 187, 192, 198, 250, 603 Labov, William 332, 333, 454 Lagman, Edvin 705 Lagman, Herbert 153, 155, 156, 163 Laitinen, Lea 670, 673 Lakoff, George 595, 596, 683, 684

Lalou, M. 589 LaPolla, Randy J. 670 Larin, Boris A. 398, 408–410 Larsson, Lars-Gunnar 160 Larsson, Seth 237, 239, 240, 242, 246, 247, 536, 564, 622, 650, 658, 668, 678 Lehiste, Ilse 187, 574, 576, 626, 645, 646 Lehmann, Winfried P. 712 Lehtinen, M. 192, 194, 199, 575 Leino, Pentti 534, 561 Leinonen, Maria 663 Lënngren, Tamara 106, 108, 109, 114, 115, 116, 118, 120–123, 125 Levanda, L. O. 84, 85 Levander, Lars 137, 143, 159 Levin, Beth 670 Levinson, Stephen 164 Lindqvist, Natan 141, 146 Lindström, Eva 701 Linell, Per 555 Loman, Bengt 148 Loorits, Oskar 421, 500 Lyons, Christopher 514 Lytkin, V. I. 341 M Mackinnon, R. 585 Mägiste, Julius 237, 445 Makaev, Ènver A. 222, 223 Maling, Joan 670, 674 Manuš, Leksa 325, 636 Markelov, G. V. 105 Markianova, L. F. 198 Markova, N. V. 694 Marold, Edith 222 Mathiassen, Terje 247, 291, 294, 295, 613, 627, 679, 680 Matras, Yaron 322, 720, 726 Matthews, W. K. 363 Meckelein, R. 578, 579 Meillet, A. 592 Merkys, V. 88 Messing, Gordon M. 331 Metslang, Helle 179, 487, 629, 656 Mikkola, Joz 632

Name index i 5

Milovidov, V. 104 Misius, Kazys 87 Mühlenbachs, Karlis 409, 488 Mullonen, Marija Ivanovna 381, 382, 501 Murav’ev, Mixail 82 M’urkxejn, Vera 125, 129 Murnikova, T. F. 103, 105, 106, 108, 124, 129 N Nau, Nicole 607, 613, 614, 628, 629, 630, 631, 672, 679, 683, 701 Nemceva, L. I. 111, 114, 128 Nemvalts, Peep 486, 492, 661, 662 Nepokupnyj, A. P. 430 Nesselmann, G. H. F. 620 Nesser, Anne 238 Nichols, Johanna 580–582, 590, 621, 720, 728, 730 Nielsen, Niels Åge 699 Niilus, V. 727 Nikiforovskij, N.Ja. 123 Nikkilä, Osmo 201 Nikula, Kristina 160 Nilsson, Torbjörn K. 250, 429, 430 Norde, Muriel 548, 713 Noreen, Adolf 138, 215 Novgorodov, M. A. 108, 112–114, 113–117, 120–122, 125 Nyström, Staffan 168 O Oinas, Felix J. 603 Ojanen, Muusa 238 Ojutkangas, Krista 198 Orlova, A. I. 341, 342, 345, 347, 348 Östman, Jan-Ola 628, 716 Ozols, Arturs 409 P Paasonen, Heikki 559 Pabre˙žña, Juozas 350 Pagliuca, William 445 Pajusalu, Karl 207 Palmaitis, Letas 410

Pamp, Bengt 161, 162, 165, 166 Paunonen, Heikki 189, 205 Paus, Charles 544 Payne, John R. 517 Pepicello, William J. 409 Perkins, Revere 445 Pisani, V. 379 Pitkänen, Antti J. 527 Plank, Frans 514, 554, 693 Plöger, Angela 238 Poplack, Shana 325 Postal, Paul 693 Posti, Lauri 182, 184, 204, 238, 243 Potebnja, Aleksandr A. 391, 408, 409 Pozdeeva I. 104 Prince, Ellen F. 614 Proxorova, S. M. 120–122 Prozorov, I. 101, 102 Prugavin, S. 104 Pugh, Stephan 626, 629 Pyöli, Raija 208, 261 Q Qvigstad, Just Knud 238 R Raag, Raimo and Virve 195, 205, 483, 486, 488, 491, 613 Rätsep, Huno 452, 454 Raukko, Jarno 628, 716, 717 Ravila, P. 345, 352 Reinhammar, Maj 161, 677 Reiter, Norbert 409 Rendahl, Anne-Charlotte. 624, 648, 677, 693, 699, 705, 713 Rhys Jones, T. J. 586 Ritter, Ralf-Peter 381 Rixter, E. V. 123 Robinson, Orrin W. 216, 220 Roos, Jaan 645 Rothstein, Robert A. 274 Rudzı¯te, Marta 414, 418, 500, 632, 648, 676, 699 Rusakov, Aleksandr 626, 629

i 6 Name index

S Saagpakk, Paul Friidrih 502 Sajantila, Antti et al. 241 Salminen, Tapani 179, 205 Salmons, Joe 643, 644 Saltarelli, M. 583, 584 Salys, A. 52 Sammallahti, Pekka 180, 182, 203 Sankoff, Gillian 325 Sarhimaa, Anneli 208, 627 Savijärvi, Ilkka 193 Sawyer, Peter 228 Šaxmatov, A. A. 341, 342, 346–348, 350 Schagerström, August 142 Schiffman, H. F. 587, 588 Schlachter, Wolfgang 696 Schmalstieg, William R. 377, 409, 608 Schöndorf, K. E. 623 Schuchardt, Hugo 583 Schwartz, Eugène 547, 548 Sedov, Valentin Vasil’evicˇ 339, 340 Sehwers, Johannes 624 Seilenthal, Tõnu 200, 445 Selišcˇev, A. M. 341, 342 Selkirk, E. 528 Semenova, M. F. 81, 85, 90–95, 106, 111–113, 122, 124, 131 Senn, Alfred 515, 577, 598, 608 Seppänen, Aimo 705 Seppänen, Ruth 536, 539, 540 Serebrennikov, B. A. 676 Setälä, E. N. 418, 425, 426 Sgall, Peter 396, 398 Shibatani, Masayoshi 365 Shore, Susanna 194 Short, David 26, 31, 46, 47, 154, 580, 581, 664 Siewierska, Anna 365, 633, 690, 691, 692, 708, 709 Sinica, A. I. 106, 108, 114, 122, 123, 128, 129 Sinor, Denis 179 Sirtautas, Vytautas 409 Sivers, Fanny de 418, 431 Sivickene, M. 109, 114, 125, 126

Sjöberg, Åke G. 158 Skardžius, Pranas 427 Sköld, Tryggve 238, 562 Smyth, Herbert Weir 527, 528 Söderman, Tiina 202, 207 Solove’v, S. M. 101 Sprincˇak, Jakov A. 409 Stang, Christian S. 243, 481, 622, 643 Stassen, Leon 536, 678, 679, 681, 683, 686–688, 698 Stepanov, Jurij S. 391, 409 Stolz, Thomas 355, 356, 494, 627, 630, 631, 632, 675, 679, 684, 685, 714, 717, 720, 726 Stone, Gerald 579, 664 Stroganova, T.Ju 340 Suhonen, Seppo 179, 238, 250 Sulkala, Helena 368, 614, 656 Svonni, Mikael 238 Swenning, Julius 162 Szemerényi, Oswald 249 T Tauli, Valter 368, 374, 384, 603, 604 Ternes, Elmar 649 Thomas, G. 560 Thomason, Sarah G. 305, 313, 320, 332, 334, 410, 454, 566, 627, 675 Thompson, Sandra A. 531, 652, 669 Thomsen, Vilhelm 238, 241, 242, 421 Tiberg, Nils 154–158, 161, 163 Tikka, Toivo 197 Timberlake, Allan 392, 398, 399, 404, 405, 406, 408, 409, 658, 664, 665, 666, 671, 674, 694 Tiselius, G. A. 145, 159 Tkacˇenko, Orest Borisovicˇ 631 Tommola, Hannu 194, 443 Tõnisson, Evald 413, 623 Toomsalu, Epp 455 Toporov, V. N. 622 Tret’jakov, P. N. 622 Trosterud, Trond 191, 194 Trubacˇev, O. N. 622 Tyla, Antanas 87



Name index i 7

U Udolph, Jürgen 220, 221 Ultan, Russel 717 Ureland, P. Sture 624, 696 V Vääri, E. 720 Vaba, Lembit 238, 250, 418, 687 Vähämäki, Börje K. 661 Vahros, I. 666 Vainikka, Anne 669 Valtonen, P. 331 van der Voort, Hein 332 Van Valin, Jr Robert D. 670 Vare, Silvi 200 Vasiliauskiencˇ, Virginija 712 Vasmer, Max 344 Vaxtin, Nikolaj B. 334 Veenker, Wolfgang 340, 341, 410, 454, 576, 592, 642, 658 Ventzel, Tatiana V. 321 Verešcˇagin, E. M. 331 Verkuyl, Henk J. 486, 487 Vesper, D. R. 588 Viitso, Tiit-Rein 204, 644 Vilkuna, Maria 651, 661, 670, 672, 673, 675, 697, 709 Vraciu, Ariton 633 Vuorela, Katri 331, 701 Vysotskij, S. S. 126 W Wälchli, Bernhard 414, 432, 536, 543, 567

Watkins, Calvert 680 Wessén, Elias 139–141, 143, 144, 146, 147, 158, 162, 163, 165, 166, 223, 226, 230, 231, 527, 547, 624 Westergaard, K-E. 623 Widmark, Gun 229, 230 Wiemer, Björn 675 Wierzbicka, Anna 491, 634 Wiik, Kalevi 621, 626, 644 Wiklund, Karl Bernhard 238 Willet, Thomas 719, 720, 726 Winkler, Eberhard 206 Woolford, E. 325 Wordick, F. J. F. 671 X Xejter, X. 108, 113, 124, 125, 129 Xodova, K. J. 396 Xolodovicˇ, A. A. 365 Z Zajceva, Marija Ivanovna 501 Zaliznjak, A. A. 341, 347, 348 Zavarina, A. A. 102–104, 123 Zen’kovskij, Sergej 101 Zeps, Valdis J. 484, 490–492 Žilinskiene˙, Vida 409 Zimmermann, Christiane 222 Zinkevicˇius, Zigmas 52, 86, 88, 243, 356, 410, 481 Zorina, Zoja Georgievna 559 Žuravlev, V. K. 406 Zverkovskaja, N. P. 114, 116



Language index

Note: page numbers 1–359 refer to Volume 1. A Abkhaz 709 Albanian 331, 680, 711, 718 Archi 590, 591 Armenian 530, 559, 633, 709, 710 Avar 590, 709 Avesta 667 B Baltic 8, 43, 122, 126, 129–131, 238, 243, 244, 247, 248, 291, 293, 352, 363, 368, 379, 387, 393, 414, 419, 481, 486, 488, 501, 502, 503, 509, 510, 519, 520, 536, 538, 543, 577, 578, 582, 583, 591, 602, 631, 633, 634, 638, 639, 644, 645, 647, 649, 665, 687, 695, 698, 701, 712, 714, 717, 719, 726, 739, 741 Baltic, Common 8, 9, 18, 20, 21, 24, 43, 47, 65, 68, 69, 71, 378, 379, 386, 387, 690 Baltic, Common East 43 Baltic, East 243 Balto-Slavonic (Balto-Slavic) 20 Belarusian 9, 10, 36, 42, 45, 65, 81, 84, 85, 91, 92, 109, 110, 112, 121, 122, 123, 126, 128, 291, 302, 350, 396, 526, 624, 627, 631, 641, 688, 709, 716, 717 Bulgarian 542, 556, 726 C Caucasian, North Central 556, 590, 710, 729

Celtic 556, 583, 586, 591, 627, 642, 643, 644, 680, 710, 711, 718 Chechen 590, 709 Cheremis (= Mari) 180, 203, 248, 446, 451, 500, 559, 622, 636, 681, 682, 703, 714, 719 Chuvash 681, 682 Crimean Tatar 271 Curonian 7, 9, 16, 21–25, 31, 32, 37, 45, 405, 675, 678, 681, 719 Czech 409, 582, 632, 642, 664 D Dag(h)estanian 409, 556, 561, 588, 590, 591, 680 Dalecarlian 137, 161 Dalecarlian, Älvdalen 677 Danish 15, 139, 158, 453, 526, 547, 548, 549–552, 554, 555, 567, 577, 598–602, 614, 623, 626, 648, 649, 650, 677, 684, 698, 709, 713, 731 Dravidian 586, 588, 591 Dumi 589, 590 Dutch 304, 633, 696 E Estonian 27, 28, 81, 96, 97, 103, 105, 107, 109, 110, 113, 124, 125, 129, 153, 154, 156, 276, 293, 297, 304, 305, 340, 344, 345, 353, 355, 356, 368, 372, 373, 374, 375, 379, 381, 384, 385, 386, 406, 413–415, 418, 419, 420–430, 433–435, 526–528, 532, 533, 538, 540, 541, 545, 555,

i 10 Language index

574–576, 598, 599, 600–605, 607–611, 613, 614, 620, 624–632, 641–643, 645, 646–650, 654, 656, 657, 661, 662–665, 684–687, 693, 697, 699, 705, 709, 714–717, 719, 720, 725–727 Estonian, Leivu 418, 429, 687, 688, 727 Estonian, Setu 124, 340 F Faroese 677 Finnic 3, 6, 7, 9, 17, 19, 21, 27, 29, 31, 32, 38, 43, 44, 221, 391, 404–406, 408, 443, 445, 455, 461, 476, 527, 528, 532, 536, 537, 538, 543–545, 556, 559, 562, 564–566, 574–578, 582, 583, 620–623, 625, 627, 631, 632, 633, 636–638, 640, 641, 642–644, 650, 652–654, 656, 657, 658, 660, 662, 664, 666, 667–676, 678–682, 685, 687, 690, 692–694, 696–699, 701, 702–705, 708–717, 719, 720, 725–727, 730, 731, 736, 737 Finnic, West 386, 391, 392, 403, 404, 405–408, 410 Finnish 38, 103, 124, 148–150, 163, 166, 267–269, 304, 331, 341, 355, 367, 368, 370, 372–374, 381–386, 392, 408, 413, 421, 422, 429, 433, 444, 445, 452, 455, 464, 466, 467, 476, 525–528, 531–541, 545, 552, 561, 574, 575, 598–601, 606–608, 610, 614, 620, 621, 624, 631, 632, 637, 638, 640–644, 646, 648, 650, 651, 652–662, 664, 668–675, 678, 683–685, 687, 689, 693, 696, 699–701, 704, 709, 713, 714, 716, 717, 725 Finno-Ugric 409, 475, 536, 556, 564, 565, 567, 621, 622, 628, 631, 636, 637, 639, 640, 642, 644, 666, 667, 679, 681, 685, 695, 696–698, 703, 708–710, 719, 730, 736, 737

G Georgian 633, 709, 726 German 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 26, 38, 78, 85, 90–92, 94–97, 120, 153, 158, 192, 201, 206, 222, 229, 238, 286, 303–305, 315, 331, 363, 364, 365, 368, 370, 371, 373, 382, 409, 413, 426, 445, 448, 450, 453–456, 461, 463, 466, 475, 476, 489, 526, 539, 540, 546, 547, 549–551, 553, 554, 556, 560, 567, 577, 596–602, 607, 611, 613, 614, 619, 620, 621, 623–625, 627, 629, 630, 632, 633, 638, 642, 684, 687, 693, 696, 698, 701, 705, 712, 731, 732 German, Baltic 297, 300, 302, 304, 306, 453, 475 German, High 222, 303, 528, 624 German, Low 10, 303, 304, 607, 611, 614, 624, 626, 629, 630, 649, 677, 731 German, Middle High 42, 304 German, Middle Low 623, 667 German, Old High 667 Germanic 38, 182, 184, 191, 200, 201, 203, 204, 237–239, 243, 249, 251, 286, 297, 300, 364, 421, 428, 433, 527, 546, 547, 551, 552, 553, 555, 556, 562, 573, 577, 582, 598, 602, 606, 607, 608, 609, 611, 612, 620, 621, 622, 633, 638, 640–644, 648, 677–680, 684, 685, 693, 694, 696–698, 705, 708, 709, 714, 716, 717, 730, 736 Gothic 222, 225, 226, 528, 607, 622, 667, 709 Gotlandic 139, 144, 147, 158, 159, 163 Gotlandic, Old 158 Greek 331, 481, 556, 632, 645, 680, 709, 711, 712, 718, 732 Greek, Classical 528, 636, 645, 667, 688, 712

Language index i 11

H Hebrew 272, 626, 642, 683 Hungarian 192, 195, 198, 242, 248, 276, 325, 559, 565, 576, 633, 642, 667–669, 697, 703, 709 I Icelandic 226, 548, 556, 602, 637, 638, 639, 650, 677, 705 Indic (Northern) 589 Indo-European 7, 8, 14, 43, 44, 201, 203, 204, 216, 350, 353, 376, 377, 382, 391, 393, 396, 397, 404, 408–410, 414, 474, 491, 496, 527, 536, 538, 545, 556, 558, 561, 562, 564, 565, 574, 585, 591, 592, 605–607, 612, 620–622, 628, 632, 636–645, 649, 666, 667, 675, 676, 677, 679, 680, 685, 686, 688, 696–698, 701, 703, 709, 710–712, 714, 716, 724, 729, 730, 731, 736, 737 Ingrian 179, 180, 182, 184–186, 189–192, 195, 198, 200, 202, 204, 206–208, 340, 344, 353, 445, 614, 625, 627 Iranian 680, 729 Irish 556, 583, 585, 586, 683 Izhorian, see Ingrian J Judeo-Slavic 286 K Kamassian 671 Kannada 586–588 Karachay 271, 729 Karaim 641, 678, 696, 714, 730, 732 Karelian 344, 352, 429, 607, 614, 625, 627, 629–631, 642, 654, 663, 667, 673, 709, 731 Kashubian 627 Ket 680 Kumyk 271 Kurukh 588

L Latgalian (Letgalian) 8–10, 15, 17, 20, 103, 108, 113–116, 123, 128, 129–131, 625 Latin 6, 82, 87, 201, 228, 375, 377, 489, 545, 623, 625, 633, 636, 637, 639, 644, 680, 709, 712 Latvian 43–45, 60, 70, 74, 75, 77, 81, 91, 92, 95, 97, 105, 109, 110, 120, 122, 125, 126, 128–131, 185, 187, 193, 198, 201, 202, 207, 208, 238, 239, 249, 250, 291, 293, 297, 303, 304, 306, 345, 350, 352, 353, 355, 356, 445, 473, 526, 542, 544, 545, 546, 577, 598–602, 604, 605, 608–611, 613, 614, 620, 623–632, 634, 636, 637–639, 641–645, 648, 650, 653, 657, 662–664, 666, 672, 674–676, 678–688, 690, 693, 696, 699–701, 703, 704, 712, 713–715, 717, 719, 723, 725, 726, 727, 731, 736 Latvian, High dialect 8, 9, 15, 17, 18, 19–23, 28, 31, 33–39, 406, 416, 500, 653, 657, 663, 680, 701, 725 Latvian, Livonian/Tamian dialects 17, 18, 19, 21, 25–32, 38 Latvian, Low dialect 17, 19–21, 34, 37, 38, 643, 645, 648, 649, 653, 663, 675, 699–701, 703 Lepcha 589, 590 Letgalian, see Latgalian Lezgian 556 Lithuanian 81, 82, 84–91, 95, 97, 101, 102, 103, 105, 108–110, 113, 115, 122, 125, 126, 127–132, 193, 238, 243, 244, 245–251, 288, 289, 291, 293, 294–302, 304–306, 345, 350, 352, 353, 355, 356, 413, 414, 415, 416, 419–427, 429, 430, 432, 435, 481, 484, 488, 489, 526, 544, 577, 578, 583, 598, 599–601, 608–610, 614, 620, 621, 623–627, 629–631, 636, 638, 639, 641–643, 645, 653, 656–658, 660, 663, 664, 673, 674–676, 678–680, 682, 685,

i 12 Language index

690–693, 695, 696, 698, 699, 701, 703, 712, 714–716, 719–727, 731, 736 Lithuanian, East 59, 62, 395, 402 Lithuanian, East High 391, 394, 403, 408 Lithuanian, High (Aukštaitian) 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58–61, 63, 69–76, 289, 300, 356, 403, 407, 435, 643, 724 Lithuanian, High East (East Aukštaitian) 45, 53, 58, 62, 63, 69, 75 Lithuanian, High West (West Aukštaitian) 44, 53, 58, 62, 63 Lithuanian, Low (Samogitian, ðemaitian) 42, 43, 45, 51, 52, 56, 69–78, 296, 300, 350, 356, 395, 397, 405, 409, 435, 642, 643, 724 Lithuanian, South 45, 58 Livonian 179, 182–189, 191–193, 196–198, 201, 202, 204, 207, 208, 238, 249, 250, 352, 353, 355, 356, 379, 381, 385, 386, 614, 620, 623, 626, 627, 628–632, 636–639, 641, 643, 645, 647–650, 654, 656, 675, 676, 678, 681, 684–688, 699, 709, 714, 716, 717, 719, 720, 726, 727, 731 Ludian 182, 192, 205, 206, 631, 663, 667 M Macedonian 542, 556, 726 Maltese 633 Mansi 680, 719 Mari, see Cheremis Merya 180 Mordvin 180, 188, 196, 197, 201, 203, 237, 246–248, 345, 352, 507, 536, 559, 565, 576, 622, 631, 636, 637, 639–641, 667, 668, 678, 679, 681, 682, 685, 697, 703–705, 708–711, 714 Mordvin, Erza 237 Mordvin, Moksha 180, 237 Munda 680 Muroma 180, 344, 622

N Nenets 576, 671, 697, 709 Nepali 589 Nordic (Scandinavian) 15, 137, 138, 201, 237, 238, 355, 547, 548, 550, 553, 560, 620, 622–625, 627, 642, 644, 650, 660, 677, 695, 696, 698, 701, 713, 731 Nordic, East 226, 227, 230 Nordic, West 226, 230 Norwegian 143, 165, 226, 238, 608, 626, 632, 648–650, 677, 678, 696, 698, 709 Norwegian, Bokmål 698 Norwegian, Nynorsk 698 O Ob-Ugrian (-ic) 188, 195, 680, 704 Old Church Slavonic 129, 396, 592 Old Prussian 9, 43, 393, 399, 420, 429, 614, 620, 624, 679, 698, 712 Olonetsian 181, 192, 206 Ossetic 639, 676, 710, 729 P Parji 588 Permic 576, 622, 667, 681, 719 Polish 3, 7–10, 20, 34, 36, 38, 41, 42, 45, 47, 54, 81–92, 94, 95, 101, 102, 103, 109, 110, 112, 122, 125–132, 291, 293, 296, 297, 301, 302, 304, 350, 365, 373, 377, 383, 491, 526, 578, 579, 582, 586, 591, 592, 598, 599, 600, 601, 605, 606, 608, 614, 624, 625, 627, 634, 657, 658, 659, 660, 664, 674, 675, 678, 679, 685, 687, 688, 690, 691, 692, 709, 712, 716, 731 Proto-Baltic 57–59, 71, 243 Proto-Finnic 27, 180, 182–188, 190, 191, 197, 200, 204, 205, 622, 668 Proto-Lithuanian 69 Proto-Nordic 215, 216, 222, 226 Proto-Sami 180, 241, 242 Proto-Uralic 182, 187, 190, 200, 201, 644, 704

Language index i 13

R Romance 556, 560, 633, 642, 680, 687, 711, 736 Romani 207, 313, 629, 636, 638, 639, 678, 699, 709, 726, 731 Romani, Agia Barbara 331 Romani, British 332 Romani, Finnish 332, 699, 700 Romani, Kabudzhi 331 Romani, Latvian 636–639, 641 Runic 223 Runic, Early 222, 223, 225, 226 Runic, Late 226, 227 Russian 6, 9, 10, 13, 20, 34, 36, 41, 45, 60, 70, 81–97, 101–111, 113, 114, 115–117, 119–132, 153, 180, 181, 182, 184–186, 189, 191, 192, 195, 199–202, 206, 207, 208, 222, 238, 239, 249, 286, 288, 303, 305, 368, 370, 376, 380–382, 384, 419, 448, 455, 467, 470, 471, 475, 476, 487, 495, 499, 501, 525, 526, 542, 543, 544, 546, 578–582, 586, 591, 592, 598, 599, 600, 601, 608, 614, 620, 625, 627, 629–631, 633, 639, 640, 641, 650, 653, 658–660, 662–667, 670, 672, 674, 678–683, 685, 687, 688, 690, 691, 692, 701–703, 709, 715, 716, 717, 730–732 Russian as variety of an Old Church Slavonic (Ducal Chancery style) 45 Russian, Northern 627, 629, 642, 659, 660, 663–667, 672, 674, 694, 731 Russian, Northwestern Central/PskovNovgorod dialect 103, 123, 341–348, 350, 354, 356 Russian, Old 10, 42, 45, 201, 341, 346, 384, 396–398, 406, 409, 641, 664, 680 S Sami 166, 180, 184, 188, 197, 198, 201, 202, 203, 207, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 247, 350, 355, 556, 558, 559, 564, 565, 576, 598, 599–605,

607–611, 613, 614, 620–622, 627, 636, 637, 640, 648, 650, 654, 656, 667, 679, 681, 684, 685, 696–698, 704, 705, 708, 709, 711, 714, 716 Sami, North 242 Samoyed(ic) 179, 182, 184, 188, 350, 576, 667, 671, 704 Sanskrit 528, 545, 667 Scandinavian, see Nordic Scandinavian, Mainland 553 Scottish Gaelic 556, 583, 585, 586, 649 Selonian 7, 9, 38, 39, 719 Semigalian 7–9, 23, 25, 45 Semitic 289, 300–304, 409, 680 Serbo-Croat 645, 718 Sino-Tibetan 561 Slavic (Slavonic) 43, 45, 46, 69, 107, 109, 110, 122, 124, 131, 180, 201, 222, 229, 230, 237, 238, 243, 275, 281, 286, 293, 297, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 315, 317, 319, 339, 340–343, 346–348, 352, 354, 369, 381, 383, 384, 386, 391, 414, 416, 419, 433, 481, 499, 515, 527, 528, 539, 542, 543, 544, 545, 547, 551, 556, 562, 565–567, 620–624, 627, 631, 633, 634, 636, 637, 639, 640, 641, 642, 645, 652, 653, 656, 657, 660, 664, 666, 674, 675, 678–682, 685, 687, 688, 690, 694–696, 698, 702–705, 708, 709, 711, 714, 715, 717, 730, 731, 736 Slavic, East 45, 65, 81, 91, 120–122, 238, 339, 340, 342, 345, 347, 350, 386, 404, 631 Slovak 642 Slovene 339, 342, 605, 645, 685 Sorbian 605, 664, 685, 709 Spanish 583–585 Standard Average European 619, 632, 650, 660, 683, 716, 730 Swedish 3, 10, 90, 180, 192, 201, 207, 215, 216, 218, 219, 221, 223, 224–226, 228, 229, 238, 239, 248, 251, 295, 301, 302, 304, 408, 483, 489,



i 14 Language index

514–516, 525, 526, 532, 547, 548, 549–552, 554, 555, 567, 577, 598, 600–602, 607, 608, 611, 614, 622–626, 629, 630, 648, 649, 650, 677, 678, 684, 693, 696, 698, 699, 701, 705, 709, 713, 716, 717, 731 Swedish, Birka/Hedeby 228, 230 Swedish, Estonian 144, 149, 152, 153, 154–157, 160, 162–164, 693, 705 Swedish, Finland 148, 151, 157, 159, 163, 165 Swedish, Old 139, 141, 142, 144, 151, 153, 154, 158, 165, 166, 547, 677 Swedish, trans-Baltic 138, 139, 142, 143, 144, 147, 148, 158, 161, 162, 163, 166, 169 T Tamil 586–588 Telugu 586–588 Tibetan 589 Tibetic 589, 591 Tokharian 676 Turkic 409, 641, 681, 698, 729 Turkish 277, 278, 280, 331, 559, 560, 561, 668, 726, 736 U Udmurt 202, 248, 259, 559, 622, 697, 709 Ukrainian 92, 331, 627, 631, 641, 688, 691, 716 Umbrian 667, 676 Uralic 241, 565, 566, 576, 582, 591, 592, 602, 603, 607, 612, 620, 621, 644, 667, 668, 671, 679, 680, 681, 697, 698, 703, 704, 709, 710, 714, 731, 736

V Veps(-ian) 238, 249, 265, 266, 344, 352, 353, 381, 413, 421, 422, 425, 426, 429, 501, 614, 627, 629, 630, 639–642, 654, 662, 663, 673, 690, 709 Volgaic 180, 203, 576, 622, 668 Votic(/-an) 340, 344, 353, 355, 373, 381, 445, 574, 575, 614, 625, 627, 654, 673, 690 W Welsh 559, 560, 583, 586, 683 Y Yiddish 641, 696, 698, 717 Yiddish, Baltic 285, 295 Yiddish, Belarusian 296 Yiddish, Central 286 Yiddish, Courland 285, 296, 302 Yiddish, Eastern 286 Yiddish, Estonian 285, 305 Yiddish, Northeastern 286 Yiddish, Polish 296 Yiddish, Samogitian 295 Yiddish, Southeastern 286 Yiddish, Southern 287 Yiddish, Standard 288, 292 Yiddish, Suvalker 295, 296 Yiddish, Western 286 Yindjibarndi 671



Subject index

Note: page numbers 1–359 refer to Volume 1. A accent 13, 49, 51, 142, 165–168, 356, 642, 649 accent shift 643, 644 accent, acute 144, 154, 166–168 accent, grave 51, 54, 154, 166–168 accusativus cum participio 723 action nominal/verbal noun/nominalization 193, 199, 200, 391, 393, 401, 405, 407, 409, 501, 502, 508–510, 590, 666, 671 adjective 5, 29, 74, 115, 142, 144, 146, 150, 152, 154, 156, 160, 161, 162, 165, 187, 199, 200, 228, 244, 276, 291, 292, 301, 302, 323, 324, 328–330, 376, 383, 398, 399, 422, 423, 427, 429, 432, 499–501, 503–505, 507, 508, 511, 513, 514, 515–517, 527, 543, 544, 551, 553, 554, 573–575, 578, 580, 584, 588–590, 653, 675, 678, 686, 696–705, 710 adjective incorporation 143, 146, 154, 160 adjectives, comparative form 115 adjectives, neuter 399, 402, 407, 408 adjectives, superlative form 13, 198, 205, 527, 630, 631 admirative 378, 379, 722, 724, 726 adstratum, adstrata 9, 17, 18, 20, 43, 44, 45, 124, 405, 731 affrication 45, 58, 59, 71 agglutinative, agglutination 6, 187, 188, 195, 324, 444, 454 agreement 93, 162, 366–370, 376, 387, 394–399, 409, 433, 492, 493, 540,

543, 562, 565, 580, 660, 672–674, 690, 692, 695, 697, 698–704, 726 agreement, adjective 146, 162, 291, 619, 696, 697 agreement, verbal 694 Aktionsart 187, 199, 419 animacy distinctions 701 animacy hierarchy 683 anti-ergative 671 apocope 57, 154, 156, 162, 186, 187, 207, 356, 444, 646, 648, 649 aspect 313 aspect marker/particle 419 attribute 156, 159, 182, 195, 294, 481, 499, 503, 505, 508, 512, 516, 533, 672, 698, 712, 714, 715 B b/p-cases = unmotivated changes of voiceless to voiced and vic 351, 352, 354 bilingualism 10, 45, 94, 97, 125, 126, 153, 187, 202, 204, 217, 239, 240, 268, 313, 321, 332, 342, 405, 730 bilingualism, Estonian-Russian 97 bilingualism, German-Russian 94, 96 borrowing 8, 9, 11–13, 24, 36, 86, 95, 129, 130, 238, 239, 241, 242, 257, 261, 262, 265, 267, 272, 300, 313–315, 317, 320, 321, 323, 330–333, 343, 344, 382, 392, 405, 406, 408, 454, 630, 636, 637, 642, 680, 717 borrowing, lexical 85, 130, 334 bounder 419, 443, 444, 453, 467, 629, 630, 656, 657

i 16 Subject index

C case reduction 482 case system 150, 161, 195, 197, 264, 292, 518, 553, 554, 605, 624, 650, 675–677 case, abessive 194, 197, 199, 714 case, ablative 197, 277, 481, 491, 494, 495, 530, 532, 536, 545, 548, 552, 559, 560, 565, 668, 669, 670, 686, 687 case, accusative 6, 30, 31, 38, 61, 93, 119, 121, 143, 156, 161, 163, 194, 196, 244, 246, 273, 281, 292, 365, 367, 368, 370, 379, 391, 393, 395, 397, 400–409, 518, 528, 540, 565, 604, 605, 650, 652–656, 658, 659, 660, 664, 667, 668, 671, 672, 673–675, 677, 683, 685, 688, 690, 702–704, 723, 725 case, adessive 44, 61, 197, 374, 481, 491, 493, 494, 599, 606, 676, 680, 681, 684 case, allative 44, 61, 197, 481, 491, 494, 676 case, comitative 197, 427, 491, 494, 552, 619, 646, 683–685, 697, 714 case, dative 6, 30, 32, 38, 70, 92, 93, 113, 114, 121, 125, 129, 130, 143, 145, 146, 161, 163, 198, 225, 250, 277, 279, 292, 370, 374, 375, 391, 393, 395, 398, 400, 401, 405–407, 409, 426, 427, 428, 430–432, 530, 547, 604, 605, 653, 666, 675, 677, 678, 680, 681, 685 case, elative 197, 424, 491, 494, 500, 502, 503, 511, 526, 532–536, 538, 539, 543, 545, 552, 656, 668, 676, 687 case, essive 197, 274, 281, 427, 431, 494, 536, 574–576, 678, 697 case, exessive 197 case, genitive 6, 30, 31, 38, 43, 61, 66, 71, 92, 115, 118, 120, 122, 155, 156, 160, 161, 188, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 204, 244, 245, 246, 248, 275–280, 368, 369, 370–372, 374, 375, 377, 378, 386, 395, 396, 431, 432, 443,

462, 476, 481, 485, 486, 488, 494, 526, 527, 530, 533, 536, 542–547, 549, 550, 553, 554, 556, 558, 561, 564–567, 652–654, 656–660, 662, 663, 664, 667, 668, 675, 678, 680, 681, 687, 688, 690, 697, 702–704, 712–714 case, genitive chain (stacking/recursive) 507 case, genitive, adnominal 374, 375, 499, 501, 544, 554, 675 case, genitive, agentive 371–375, 377, 378, 386 case, genitive, partitive 31, 38, 527, 528 case, genitive-adjective combinations 503 case, grammatical 125, 195, 536, 675 case, illative 44, 60, 61, 63, 187, 197, 424, 429, 481, 494, 676 case, inessive 60, 61, 197, 199, 207, 424, 461, 481, 494, 607, 676, 685 case, instructive 197–199, 421, 599, 603, 604, 607, 687, 727 case, instrumental 5, 6, 30, 43, 93, 114, 120, 197, 274, 281, 432, 481, 494, 619, 644, 672, 675, 678, 679, 683–686, 702 case, local 44, 60, 195–197, 200, 414, 422, 424, 425, 433, 494, 496, 536, 675, 676, 681, 682 case, locative 37, 60, 61, 70, 121, 197, 277, 279, 420, 424, 430, 461, 481, 494, 588, 589, 603, 606, 661, 668, 676, 679–681, 683 case, nominative 6, 31, 69, 75, 115, 121, 125, 150, 156, 161, 186, 194, 195, 196, 244, 246, 304, 323, 367, 368, 370, 374, 376, 391, 392–410, 443, 476, 516, 540, 543, 554, 637, 651, 653, 654, 655, 656, 658, 660–662, 664–667, 671–675, 678, 683, 692–694, 702–704, 714, 720, 722–726 case, nominative with the infinitive 391, 392, 395, 396, 399, 400, 403, 407, 408

Subject index i 17

case, nominative with a participle (nominativus cum participio) 722, 723 case, partitive 159, 183, 187, 188, 193, 194, 196, 197, 200, 244, 245, 246, 248, 367, 368, 370, 443, 462, 476, 527, 543, 583, 646, 650–658, 660–662, 667–670, 672, 675, 678, 687, 702, 704, 712, 714, 725 case, prolative 198 case, terminative 197, 316, 317, 486, 487, 697, 714 case, translative 197, 426, 427, 493, 494, 536, 575, 576, 678 causative 194, 199, 694 Central Russian dialect area 339 classifier, numeral 531, 532, 562 clause/sentence, equational 484, 485, 491 clause/sentence, existential 31, 145, 244, 483, 491–493, 495, 586, 660, 661–664, 679 clause/sentence, subordinate 43, 192, 244, 295, 334 code-mixing 313, 328, 330 code-shifting 272 code-switching 313, 328, 329 comitative (relation, context) 684, 686 common Nordic hypothesis 215, 216, 222 comparative construction 119, 686, 687, 688 comparative marker 688 compound 13, 38, 143, 154, 155, 186, 190, 191, 195, 202, 225, 277, 369, 371, 373, 374, 381, 382, 383, 400, 416, 427–430, 500, 502–505, 514, 516, 517, 631, 637, 673, 720 conjunction 156, 158, 200, 244, 264, 717 consonant cluster 22, 141, 142, 151, 154, 158, 168, 186, 187, 251, 261 contacts, prehistoric 240, 622, 731 convergence 264, 271, 281, 333, 386, 430, 433, 435, 622, 628–630, 646, 650, 690, 726, 731, 732, 736

copula 191, 204, 399, 409, 417, 489, 492, 493, 573, 589, 663, 678, 720, 722, 725–727 corded ware culture 44 correlative construction 280 D debitive 6, 392, 397, 401, 403, 408, 410, 432, 488, 489, 666, 672, 674, 675, 678 declension 5, 43, 49, 61, 68, 70, 74, 486, 653 definite adjective 504, 515 definite article 151, 156, 160–162, 226, 291–293, 516, 549, 649, 699 definite quantity 246, 527, 528, 534, 538, 552, 655, 656, 658, 660, 662, 663, 668 definite suffix (+extended uses) 145, 146, 149, 152, 154–156, 159, 160, 161, 668 definite(-ness) 139, 151, 154, 159, 160, 161, 162, 189, 223, 224, 230, 244, 347, 380, 419, 443, 452, 462, 471, 487, 502, 504, 512, 515–517, 527, 528, 533, 539, 629, 656, 658, 660, 661, 667, 668, 669, 677, 698, 727 definiteness effect 512–517 desubjective 690–692 diphthongization 18, 23, 32, 36, 159, 184 direct calque 321 disyllabicity 168, 186, 646 double encoding (of nonverbal predicates) 679 dual 56, 78, 188, 543, 634, 703, 704 E evidential(-ity) 43, 379, 589, 619, 691, 719, 720, 725–727 F fennicization 203 flective 188 future 25, 75, 121, 316, 320, 725

i 18 Subject index

G gender 28, 29, 118, 125, 126, 150, 159, 162, 188, 291–293, 301, 303, 323, 328, 366, 369, 383, 399, 503, 543, 544, 580, 619, 696, 698–701, 703, 720, 725 gender, feminine 5, 29, 93, 125, 139, 142, 144, 150, 151, 156, 162, 291, 292, 293, 301, 323, 324, 328, 376, 398, 399, 485, 653, 698, 699–701, 705 gender, masculine 5, 29, 68, 93, 125, 142, 144, 149, 150, 156, 162, 291, 292, 293, 301, 323, 324, 369, 383, 384, 386, 398, 399, 486, 544, 553, 658, 698–701, 705, 721, 725 gender, neuter 125, 291, 303, 698, 701 genitive, see case, genitive geocentric space 164 Germanism, germanized, germanicization 231, 303, 607, 608, 613,624 gerund 294, 295, 391, 403, 408, 723 gerundive 199 gradation (consonant alternation) 184, 185, 188, 204, 206 gradation, suffixal 185 grammaticalization 191, 193, 281, 321, 331, 400, 401, 408, 409, 419, 433, 445, 453, 456, 461, 475, 476, 482, 490, 526, 528, 532, 533, 535, 537, 538, 540, 545, 552, 559–561, 566, 596, 603, 604, 609–611, 631, 635, 666, 668, 669, 686, 688, 695, 696, 697, 717, 724 H Hanseatic league 158, 231, 623, 624, 731 hatched pottery culture, 9, 44 heterogloss see isogloss heterophone 355 I imperative 43, 70, 163, 191–196, 368, 398, 579, 581, 671, 680, 722 imperfect 189–192, 314, 316, 318, 319, 320, 417, 418, 454

impersonal 189, 190, 194, 248, 249, 391, 392, 400, 402, 403, 408, 461, 486, 665–667, 672, 673, 689, 690, 692–694 impersonal construction 291, 363, 364, 366, 367, 376, 400, 401, 404, 405, 409, 671, 683, 698 impersonal environment 404–406 impersonal pattern 402 impersonal sentence 401, 403 incoherent languages 606, 608 inferential 378, 379 infinitive 22, 25, 66, 75, 145, 155, 159, 163, 193, 199, 294, 302, 325, 368, 370, 372, 374, 391, 392, 393–403, 405–409, 461, 464, 476, 666, 672, 678, 680 infinitive, negated 395 influence, Baltic 433, 566, 632, 640, 668, 681 influence, Danish 230, 231 influence, Finnish 241, 247, 481, 640, 643, 699, 704 influence, German 8, 10, 78, 95, 303, 454, 455, 475, 546, 605, 623, 641, 685 influence, Latvian 95, 250, 304, 350, 381, 386, 418, 428, 639, 681 influence, Lithuanian 126, 289, 298, 299, 685 influence, Slavic 45, 46, 69, 287, 291, 297, 381, 386, 640, 641, 690 influence, Swedish 238, 249, 250 influence, Yiddish 304 instrumental (relation) 596, 597, 604, 605–608, 685 isogloss; heterogloss (-phone) 8, 59, 70, 149, 204, 217, 289, 290, 348, 353, 355, 434, 610, 613, 622, 626, 627–630, 633, 637, 639, 679, 701, 708, 732, 736 J juxtaposition 495, 496, 500, 530, 547, 550, 553–556, 561

Subject index i 19

L language change 216, 217, 247, 333, 343, 344, 482 language death 192, 333 language shift 241, 731 length, see quantity, vowel quantity linguistic change 149, 216, 220, 343 linguistic innovation 217, 226, 732 Lithuanianism 299, 302, 305 loan translation 316, 318, 330, 435 loanword, hybrid 418 M man-Sätze 363, 382 measure 19, 268, 449, 529–533, 537, 540, 541, 546–548, 550, 551, 553, 554–556, 559, 562, 634, 663, 702, 705 middle voice 695 mixed languages 597, 609, 613 monophthong 46, 231 monophthong, long 46, 51, 296, 298 monophthong, short 297 monophthongization 19, 36, 39, 76, 78, 165, 229, 230 mood 43, 117, 119, 163, 189–191, 193, 379, 381, 394, 395, 396, 408, 488, 489, 663, 719, 720–727 mood, conditional 189–192 mood, imperative 70, 193, 486, 651, 671 mood, indicative 190, 191, 193, 368, 489, 720, 722, 725, 727 mood, oblique (modus obliquus) 191, 719, 720 mood, potential 193 mood, relative (modus relativus) 379, 394, 408, 719, 720 multilingualism 305, 730 N narew culture 44 44 negation 31, 38, 43, 122, 157, 193, 194, 367, 369, 370, 396, 488, 536, 581, 632, 658, 661, 662, 664, 667, 668, 675, 687, 688

negation, double 145, 163 negative verb 193, 194, 367, 632 nominal attribute 530, 554, 713 nominativus cum participio 722, 723 non-finite construction 194 nonverbal predication 619, 678 noun, relational 415, 431 numeral 156, 161, 328, 499, 619, 639, 697–699, 702–705, 710 O object 6, 31, 38, 61, 66, 88, 122, 155, 164, 194–196, 223, 238, 240, 244, 245–247, 294, 322, 370, 375, 391–393, 398, 400–403, 405, 407, 408, 410, 419, 434, 443, 444, 446, 448–451, 456, 462, 464, 466, 468, 469, 474, 475, 501, 503, 509, 517, 527, 528, 529, 540, 555, 565, 567, 579, 619, 628, 634, 650–675, 683, 690, 692, 709, 725, 736 object, direct 305, 443, 476, 550, 655, 656, 657, 658, 673, 675, 677, 690, 691–693, 702 object, nominative 484, 651, 664, 665, 666, 667, 671, 672, 674, 692 object, partial 196, 487, 528, 532, 536, 543, 544, 565, 567, 650, 651, 655–659, 667 object, total 487, 651, 655, 656, 658, 660 Old Believers (raskol’niki) 91–93, 101, 102, 103–107, 109–114, 113, 116, 119, 120, 122–126, 129, 130, 131, 132 Older Futhark 222–225, 224, 226 optative 70, 192 overlength 644–646, 648, 649 P participle 119, 121, 132, 157, 162, 191, 192, 194, 247–249, 294, 321, 394–396, 672, 678, 694, 720, 723, 724, 726, 727 participle, active 369, 379, 381, 382, 720 participle, agentive 372, 373

i 20 Subject index

participle, passive 118, 119, 249, 365, 367, 368, 371–373, 376, 379, 395, 407, 408, 673, 674, 691, 692, 693, 694, 720 participle, passive perfect 194 participle, past (preterite) 118, 163, 199, 295, 369, 381, 420, 461, 722, 725–727 participle, predicative 378, 678, 700 participle, present 152, 155, 193, 194, 199, 247, 248, 294, 295, 722, 725–727 particle 70, 274, 276, 278–280, 294, 321, 445, 446, 448–452, 454, 455, 456, 461, 463, 464, 466, 467, 468, 469, 473, 475, 476, 664, 685–688, 691, 716, 717 partitive article 159, 527, 528 partitive construction 702 passive 43, 118, 119, 126, 155, 159, 189, 190, 191, 194–196, 199, 247, 248, 249, 321, 407, 461, 486, 489, 619, 673, 675, 678, 689, 690–695, 720, 724 passive, agented 43, 363, 375, 377, 378, 379, 387, 692 passive, agentless 43, 365, 368, 377 passive, dynamic 371–374 passive, impersonal 156, 248, 364, 365, 369–371, 377, 386, 387, 675, 691, 693 passive, Indo-European passive 194 passive, stative 373, 374 perfect, periphrastic 163 perfective 116, 117, 314, 316, 317, 414, 416, 417, 419, 420, 486, 655, 657–659, 663, 667 person marker 189–191 picture noun 502, 510 pluralia tantum 291, 293, 532, 619, 633, 634–639, 705, 736 polytonicity 626, 627, 644, 645, 649, 650 possessive 122, 152, 189, 277, 279, 372, 374, 375, 377, 378, 386, 397, 490, 501, 518, 560, 561, 606, 679–681, 683, 691, 694, 712, 713

possessive construction 6, 277, 372, 375, 493, 499, 681 possessive pronoun 146, 250, 372, 515 possessive sentence 493, 679, 680, 694 possessive suffix 188–190, 277, 372, 373, 607, 681, 682 postpositions 194, 195, 197, 200, 204, 274–281, 368, 415, 430, 431, 432, 481, 536, 586, 603, 604, 607, 610, 675, 676, 685, 686, 697, 714, 715 potential marker 192 predicate adjectives/adjectival predicates 678 predicate nominal 370, 384 prepositions 5, 6, 30, 38, 60, 61, 120, 121, 130, 146, 157, 158, 161, 165, 200, 204, 225, 275, 276, 279, 280, 281, 292, 293, 321, 426, 427, 430–432, 481, 494, 503, 518, 526, 530, 545, 547, 548, 550, 551, 555, 556, 560, 584, 585, 596, 598, 599, 601, 604, 605, 606, 626, 675, 680, 683, 684–686, 688, 702, 714, 715, 716 preverb 696 pronoun 5, 13, 29, 37, 69, 75, 93, 115, 118, 151, 158, 161–163, 189, 194, 196, 200, 204, 226, 292, 328, 364, 367, 371, 372, 377, 378, 380, 381, 490, 506, 515, 605, 654, 660, 690, 695, 699, 701, 712 pronoun, demonstrative 69, 75, 141, 145, 151, 156, 160, 499, 506, 507, 697–699, 701 pronoun, interrogative 403, 654, 701 pronoun, possessive 156, 160, 163, 250, 371, 490, 516 pronoun, reflexive 22, 294, 371, 377, 696 pronoun, relative 6, 145, 515 prosody, prosodic features 13, 17, 18, 49, 52, 54, 55, 168, 186, 555, 627 Q quantifier 31, 383, 385, 499, 513, 662, 668

Subject index i 21

quantifier, nominal 527, 529, 531, 532, 533, 535, 538–542, 544, 549, 554, 555, 561, 653, 668, 669 quantifier, numeral 538, 540 quantity (length) 11, 13, 21, 27, 49, 54, 56, 63, 65, 66, 165, 183, 187, 416, 418, 487, 488, 532, 533, 534, 536, 548, 551, 552, 645, 646, 659, 663, 668, 670 (see also vowel quantity) R reanalysis 185, 400, 401, 403, 408, 410, 537, 543, 559, 561, 562, 666, 683, 703, 704 reflexive 18, 22, 23, 37, 119, 195, 198, 199, 200, 204, 250, 294, 321, 370, 371, 395, 426, 490, 691, 693–696, 723 reflexive postfix 694 resultative construction 461, 466, 468, 471, 474, 475 Runic koiné 222 Russian-Lithuanian bilingualism 109 russification 10, 45, 46, 82, 83, 85–88, 90, 96, 97, 102, 105, 110, 113, 204, 208, 342, 625 S secondary lengthening 645, 647, 648 shadow paradigm 119 singularia tantum 291 SOV, see word order, SOV speech community 216, 217, 219, 220, 222, 304 Sprachbund 202, 208, 247, 285, 355, 434, 435, 591, 613 stød (glottal stop, Stoßton) 15, 647, 649, 650 stone battle-axe culture 44, 204, 216 stress retraction 45, 52, 54, 57, 63, 66, 69, 73, 643 stress, free 642, 643 stress, initial 9, 642–645, 650, 736 stress, mobile 4, 9, 13, 642 subject 6, 31, 77, 78, 87, 95, 96, 106, 107, 108, 115, 119, 122, 124, 145, 151,

158, 164, 165, 185, 188, 195, 196, 203, 232, 239, 241, 244–247, 251, 258, 266, 294, 305, 318, 363, 364, 370, 385, 391–399, 401, 402, 404–410, 436, 450, 501, 509, 536, 540, 543, 550, 565, 573, 577, 580, 584, 586, 588, 613, 619, 632, 650–654, 660–667, 669–675, 678, 679, 683, 689–694, 717, 720, 723, 725, 726 subject, dative 484, 490, 491, 678 subject, indefinite 380–382, 385, 386 subject, partial 565, 651, 660, 667 subject, total 660 subject, zero 364, 366, 379, 380, 382, 383, 384–387, 690 substance 525, 526, 529, 530, 532, 533, 534, 539, 540, 542, 543, 545, 546–551, 553–556, 559, 562, 564–567 substratum 7–9, 18, 24, 27–29, 31, 44, 45, 97, 124, 129, 203, 340, 341, 342–344, 346, 347, 350, 352, 354, 356, 405, 408, 410, 591, 592, 629, 631, 644, 688, 699, 719, 731 substratum, Finno-Ugric 340 superlatives 13, 198, 205, 527, 630, 631 superstratum 124, 201, 207, 608, 611, 613 supine 66, 68, 142, 150, 154, 157, 163, 168 SVO, see word order, SVO syllable length 165 syllable lengthening 166 syncope 186, 207, 226 T temporal adverbial 373, 650, 673, 674, 675 tense 6, 51, 75, 119, 143, 162, 168, 190, 191–194, 196, 314, 316, 320, 321, 354, 368, 369, 371, 374, 381, 383, 384, 394, 487, 489, 578, 579, 663, 694, 695, 719 tense, imperfect/preterite 6, 18, 21, 22, 25, 37, 190–192, 194, 248, 318, 320, 365, 367, 471

In the STUDIES IN LANGUAGE COMPANION SERIES (SLCS) the following volumes have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. ABRAHAM, Werner (ed.): Valence, Semantic Case, and Grammatical Relations. Workshop studies prepared for the 12th Conference of Linguistics, Vienna, August 29th to September 3rd, 1977. Amsterdam, 1978. 2. ANWAR, Mohamed Sami: BE and Equational Sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Amsterdam, 1979. 3. MALKIEL, Yakov: From Particular to General Linguistics. Selected Essays 1965-1978. With an introd. by the author + indices. Amsterdam, 1983. 4. LLOYD, Albert L.: Anatomy of the Verb: The Gothic Verb as a Model for a Unified Theory of Aspect, Actional Types, and Verbal Velocity. Amsterdam, 1979. 5. HAIMAN, John: Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Amsterdam, 1980. 6. VAGO, Robert (ed.): Issues in Vowel Harmony. Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistics Conference on Vowel Harmony (May 14, 1977). Amsterdam, 1980. 7. PARRET, H., J. VERSCHUEREN, M. SBISÀ (eds): Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics. Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8-14, 1979. Amsterdam, 1981. 8. BARTH, E.M. & J.L. MARTENS (eds): Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation. Containing the Contributions to the Groningen Conference on the Theory of Argumentation, Groningen, October 1978. Amsterdam, 1982. 9. LANG, Ewald: The Semantics of Coordination. Amsterdam, 1984.(English transl. by John Pheby from the German orig. edition “Semantik der koordinativen Verknüpfung”, Berlin, 1977.) 10. DRESSLER, Wolfgang U., Willi MAYERTHALER, Oswald PANAGL & Wolfgang U. WURZEL: Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. Amsterdam, 1987. 11. PANHUIS, Dirk G.J.: The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence: A Study of Latin Word Order. Amsterdam, 1982. 12. PINKSTER, Harm (ed.): Latin Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Proceedings of the 1st Intern. Coll. on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, April 1981. Amsterdam, 1983. 13. REESINK, G.: Structures and their Functions in Usan. Amsterdam, 1987. 14. BENSON, Morton, Evelyn BENSON & Robert ILSON: Lexicographic Description of English. Amsterdam, 1986. 15. JUSTICE, David: The Semantics of Form in Arabic, in the mirror of European languages. Amsterdam, 1987. 16. CONTE, M.E., J.S. PETÖFI, and E. SÖZER (eds): Text and Discourse Connectedness. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989. 17. CALBOLI, Gualtiero (ed.): Subordination and other Topics in Latin. Proceedings of the Third Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Bologna, 1-5 April 1985. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989. 18. WIERZBICKA, Anna: The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1988. 19. BLUST, Robert A.: Austronesian Root Theory. An Essay on the Limits of Morphology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1988. 20. VERHAAR, John W.M. (ed.): Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles on Melanesia. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990.

21. COLEMAN, Robert (ed.): New Studies in Latin Linguistics. Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Cambridge, April 1987. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, 1991. 22. McGREGOR, William: A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 23. COMRIE, Bernard and Maria POLINSKY (eds): Causatives and Transitivity. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 24. BHAT, D.N.S. The Adjectival Category. Criteria for differentiation and identification. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 25. GODDARD, Cliff and Anna WIERZBICKA (eds): Semantics and Lexical Universals. Theory and empirical findings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 26. LIMA, Susan D., Roberta L. CORRIGAN and Gregory K. IVERSON (eds): The Reality of Linguistic Rules. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 27. ABRAHAM, Werner, T. GIVÓN and Sandra A. THOMPSON (eds): Discourse Grammar and Typology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 28. HERMAN, József: Linguistic Studies on Latin: Selected papers from the 6th international colloquium on Latin linguistics, Budapest, 2-27 March, 1991. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 29. ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, Elisabeth et al. (eds): Content, Expression and Structure. Studies in Danish functional grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 30. HUFFMAN, Alan: The Categories of Grammar. French lui and le. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 31. WANNER, Leo (ed.): Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 32. FRAJZYNGIER, Zygmunt: Grammaticalization of the Complex Sentence. A case study in Chadic. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 33. VELAZQUEZ-CASTILLO, Maura: The Grammar of Possession. Inalienability, incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaraní. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 34. HATAV, Galia: The Semantics of Aspect and Modality. Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 35. MATSUMOTO, Yoshiko: Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese. A frame semantic approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 36. KAMIO, Akio (ed.): Directions in Functional Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 37. HARVEY, Mark and Nicholas REID (eds): Nominal Classification in Aboriginal Australia. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 38. HACKING, Jane F.: Coding the Hypothetical. A Comparative Typology of Conditionals in Russian and Macedonian. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 39. WANNER, Leo (ed.): Recent Trends in Meaning-Text Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 40. BIRNER, Betty and Gregory WARD: Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 41. DARNELL, Michael, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I: General papers. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999.

42. DARNELL, Michael, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II: Case studies. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 43. OLBERTZ, Hella, Kees HENGEVELD and Jesús Sánchez GARCÍA (eds): The Structure of the Lexicon in Functional Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 44. HANNAY, Mike and A. Machtelt BOLKESTEIN (eds): Functional Grammar and Verbal Interaction. 1998. 45. COLLINS, Peter and David LEE (eds): The Clause in English. In honour of Rodney Huddleston. 1999. 46. YAMAMOTO, Mutsumi: Animacy and Reference. A cognitive approach to corpus linguistics. 1999. 47. BRINTON, Laurel J. and Minoji AKIMOTO (eds): ollocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English. 1999. 48. MANNEY, Linda Joyce: Middle Voice in Modern Greek. Meaning and function of an inflectional category. 2000. 49. BHAT, D.N.S.: The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. 1999. 50. ABRAHAM, Werner and Leonid KULIKOV (eds): Transitivity, Causativity, and TAM. In honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. 1999. 51. ZIEGELER, Debra: Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 dialect. 2000. 52. TORRES CACOULLOS, Rena: Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language Contact.A study of Spanish progressive -ndo constructions. 2000. 53. FISCHER, Olga, Anette ROSENBACH and Dieter STEIN (eds.): Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English. 2000. 54. DAHL, Östen and Maria KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 1: Past and Present. 2001. 55. DAHL, Östen and Maria KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 2: Grammar and Typology. 2001. 56. FAARLUND, Jan Terje (ed.): Grammatical Relations in Change. 2001. 57. MEL’C
UK, Igor: Communicative Organization in Natural Language. The semanticcommunicative structure of sentences. 2001. 58. MAYLOR, Brian Roger: Lexical Template Morphology. Change of state and the verbal prefixes in German. n.y.p.