Reanalysis in the Russian past tense
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Jan Ivar Bjornflaten
Abstract
The large majority of the Slavic languages have in historical times lost the synthetic past tenses of the aorist and the imperfect. These tenses were replaced by a new past tense based on the erstwhile perfect. This transformation created space for new ways of forming a past tense, and one of these was a novel past tense based on the past active participle, also called the gerundial past tense, a past tense found in Northwest Russia, above all in the Pskov area, cf. Pskov dialectal i jon pom'orši toper’ uže, versus Standard Russia i on teper’ uže umer, ‘and he died now already’. The point of this article is to demonstrate how the emergence of the l-participle as the general past tense opened up for a reanalysis of the past active participle as a finite past tense verb-form. The actualization process following this reanalysis is illustrated by examples from the Pskov Chronicle.
Abstract
The large majority of the Slavic languages have in historical times lost the synthetic past tenses of the aorist and the imperfect. These tenses were replaced by a new past tense based on the erstwhile perfect. This transformation created space for new ways of forming a past tense, and one of these was a novel past tense based on the past active participle, also called the gerundial past tense, a past tense found in Northwest Russia, above all in the Pskov area, cf. Pskov dialectal i jon pom'orši toper’ uže, versus Standard Russia i on teper’ uže umer, ‘and he died now already’. The point of this article is to demonstrate how the emergence of the l-participle as the general past tense opened up for a reanalysis of the past active participle as a finite past tense verb-form. The actualization process following this reanalysis is illustrated by examples from the Pskov Chronicle.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
- Perspectives on language structure and language change 1
-
Part I. On the theory of language change
- Andersen (1973) and dichotomies of change 13
- Induction and tradition 35
- Approaching the typology and diachrony of morphological reversals 81
- Deconstructing markedness in sound change typology 107
-
Part II. Indexicality
- Diachronic morphology, indexical function and a critique of the morphome analysis 125
- Word order as grammaticalised semiotic systems 151
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Part III. Problems of reanalysis
- Anticausative and passive in Vedic 181
- Grammaticalization and degrammati(calizati)on in the development of the Iranian verb system 193
- Aspects of grammaticalization and reanalysis in the voice domain in the transition from Latin to early Italo-Romance 205
- From preverbal to postverbal in the early history of Japanese 233
- Reanalysis in the Russian past tense 253
- From a single lexical unit to multiple grammatical paradigms 271
- Morphosyntactic reanalysis in Australian languages 295
- Definiteness in Germanic and Balto-Slavic 311
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Part IV. Actualization
- Diatopy and frequency as indicators of spread 327
- Suppletion or illusion? 345
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Part V. Language change and diachronic typology in Balto-Slavic
- A complicated relationship 359
- Name-calling 381
- Changes of tense and modality in Late Mediaeval Slovene 395
- Index 411
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface ix
- Perspectives on language structure and language change 1
-
Part I. On the theory of language change
- Andersen (1973) and dichotomies of change 13
- Induction and tradition 35
- Approaching the typology and diachrony of morphological reversals 81
- Deconstructing markedness in sound change typology 107
-
Part II. Indexicality
- Diachronic morphology, indexical function and a critique of the morphome analysis 125
- Word order as grammaticalised semiotic systems 151
-
Part III. Problems of reanalysis
- Anticausative and passive in Vedic 181
- Grammaticalization and degrammati(calizati)on in the development of the Iranian verb system 193
- Aspects of grammaticalization and reanalysis in the voice domain in the transition from Latin to early Italo-Romance 205
- From preverbal to postverbal in the early history of Japanese 233
- Reanalysis in the Russian past tense 253
- From a single lexical unit to multiple grammatical paradigms 271
- Morphosyntactic reanalysis in Australian languages 295
- Definiteness in Germanic and Balto-Slavic 311
-
Part IV. Actualization
- Diatopy and frequency as indicators of spread 327
- Suppletion or illusion? 345
-
Part V. Language change and diachronic typology in Balto-Slavic
- A complicated relationship 359
- Name-calling 381
- Changes of tense and modality in Late Mediaeval Slovene 395
- Index 411