В. Храковский - 40 лет Санкт-Петербургской типологической школе

2. the periphrastic passive voice having a perfective participle usually expresses a resulting state with stative or dynamic meaning according to the context, whereas an imperfective participle expresses either a process or a complex state, represented as an open class of events.

The analysis of genuine corpora and a thorough study of the Slavic lexicon should help circumscribe the distribution of forms and the meanings encoded in such forms.

1. The structure to be + participle with — n/-t

Diachronically, it is well known that the passive past participle is based on the Indo-European adjective with *-to or *-no, which was originally attached to a root or to a nominal stem. Therefore, these forms were initially independent of the verbal system and served to indicate «a state resulting from the possession of the notion indicated by the noun or of the process expressed by the root» [Meillet 1965: 268]. Their integration into the verbal system is therefore an innovation in Indo-European languages. Concerning the earliest period of common Slavic, forms with *-to or *-no are no longer nominal derivatives but participles, by virtue of their integration in the verbal system. This is why constructions with an — n/-t participle and the auxiliary «to be» first functioned as denoting a state, their actional meaning only appearing later [Maslov 1988: 77].

It is therefore unsurprising that in Slavic languages the interrelation of constructions with — n/-t is organised around a stative reference which, depending on several factors, may or may not imply a preceding event. In fact, certain constructions are conceived as purely stative for two raisons:

1. the participles may sporadically acquire this meaning because, diachronically, they are linked to a root or a nominal theme or because they are semantically removed from the verb (in this case, Khrakovskij [1991:151] speaks of lexicalisation):

(1) Bolšaja čast ee territorii byla pokry-t-a

great part its territory.GEN was cover.PF-PPP-SG.F

lesami

forest.INSTR.PL

«The greater part of its territory was covered with forest».

(2) Straty są spowodowane dlugotrwalą suszą

losses are cause.PF.PPP long.term.INSTR drought.INSTR

«The losses have been caused by a long term drought»;

2. the verbs are polysemic and the participles are used in their true sense (3a) or may take on psychological connotations (3b):

(3a) Lodkata beše privărzana do našata ograda

boat.the be.IMPF attach.PF-PPP.SG.F beside our.the gate

«The boat was attached to our gate».

(3b) Deteto e privărzano kăm majka

child.the be-PRES attach.PF-PPP.SG.NEUTER to mother si

REFL.DAT

«The child is attached to his mother».

Only (3a) is open to discussion because, out of context, it may be analyzed either as an objective resultative, as defined by Nedjalkov and Jaxontov [Nedjalkov, Jaxontov 1988: 9][18], or as a passive form, because the perfective participle is bound to the base verb privăr-zvam/privărza «to tie/attach» and the meaning of the construction is thus linked to transitivity and passivization (4a). But this perfective participle is mostly used in a psychological sense (3b) and it is thus semantically bound to the reflexive intransitive verb privărzvam se/privărza se and to (4b):

(4a) Toj privărza lodkata do našata ograda

he attach.PF-AOR-3 SG boat.the beside our.the gate'

He attached the boat beside our gate'.

(4b) Deteto se privărza kăm mene

child.the REFL attach.PF-AOR-3SG to me.DAT

«The child is attached to me».

The literature provides many examples in which the constructions «to be» + — n/-t participles are used with a purely adjectival meaning. They then predicate a property of the entity in the same manner as an adjective:

(5) Šinelite bjaxa tănki i iznoseni, kepetata

coats.the were light.PL and wom.out.PF.PPP.PL kepi.the izpomačkani…

wrink.PF.PPP.PL

«The coats were thin and worn, the kepis (were) wrinkled…».

Removed from any context, one may consider iznoseni «worn-out» and izpomačkani «wrinkled» as resultative participles, since they may be associated with transitive verbs and allow the characterisation of the objects «coats» and «kepis» as affected and changed by a preceding event, but the coordination of the adjective tănki «light» leads to the elimination of the resultative interpretation in favour of an adjectival interpretation. Therefore (5) denotes a state. Syntactically, the construction is predicative for the two following reasons: 1. «to be» does not function as a voice auxiliary because it operates on the past passive participle as it operates on the coordinated adjective tănki «light»; 2. the past passive participle fills the syntactic function of an attribute, and, being a verbal adjective, cannot be treated as a participle oriented toward the patient of the basic transitive verb. More complex is the following Bulgarian example (quoted by [Barakova 1980: 141]):

(6a) Njakoi ot lozjata bjaxa veče obrani i

some of vines be.IMPF.3PL already pick.PF.PPP.PL and pusti

empty.PL

Lit. «Some vineyards were already harvested and deserted».

If one admits that the form bjaxa obrani «were harvested» is resultative because it is formally derived from the verb obiram/obera «harvest, pick fruit» and because it implies a resulting state evidenced by the adverb vece «already», it would be difficult to explain the occurrence of the coordinated adjective pusti «empty». Just as in example (5), the participle is part of the paradigm of adjectives and the utterance denotes a state. As a result, it is impossible to give it either a corresponding active counterpart (6b) or to introduce an agent (6c):

(6b) *Xorata bjaxa veče obrali lozjata i

people.the be.IMPF.3PL already pick.PF.APP.PL vines and pusti empty.PL

Lit. «The people had already picked the grapes and deserted».

(6c) Njakoi ot lozjata bjaxa veče obrani i pusti

some of vines.the were already pick.PF.PPP.PL and empty.PL

*(ot studentite)

*(by the students)

«Some vines were already stripped and deserted».

This analysis shows that the double interpretation which may be assigned to a construction depends on the discursive context. Let us compare the following utterances:

(7a) Kolata e sčup-en-a / poprav-en-a

cart.the is break.PF-PPP-SG.F repair.PF-PPP-SG.F

«The cart is broken/repaired».

(7b) Toj vidja kolata i razbra, če e

he saw cart.the and understand.PF.AOR that is

sčup-en-a

break.PF-PPP-SG.F (7c) Toj vidja kolata i razbra, če e

He saw cart.the and understand.PF.AOR that is

sčup-en-a i posle poprav-en-a

break.PF-PPP.SG.F and later repair.PF-PPP-SG.F

«He saw the cart and understood that it had been broken and later repaired».

From the preceding examples, it is clear that the aspectual properties of the participle can change according to the construction. Examples (7a) and (7b) are of the descriptive type and code the state of the entity. As in (6a), the participle behaves like an adjective, but of verbal nature, and which with the auxiliary constitutes a syntactic predicate. Thus, it seems difficult to speak of the «orientation» of a participle. On the other hand, (7c) belongs to the domain of passivisation, even though the agent is not specified: the participle is oriented toward the patient of the basic transitive verb. The comparison between examples (7b) et (7c) merits special attention as it shows how the adjunction of a coordinated participle (popravena «(is) repaired») leads to the transformation, as noted by Maslov [1988: 77], of the stative meaning of the completive če e sčupena that we identified in (5a) as «an actional passive perfect» («had been broken and repaired»). Thus, the auxiliary transforms the resultative participle into a verbal unit (a passive verb) which functions as a one-place predicate [Desclés & Guentcéva 1993: 91].

If this type of syntactic condition is not limited to Russian, as Maslov[19] affirmed, the data show that the interpretation of a given construction with — n/-t is always context dependant. This can be illustrated with two Russian examples borrowed from [Knjazev 1988:344]:

(8a) My dvaždyj prošli mimo levogo bašennogo kryla zamka….

Vpervyj raz okna byli zakry-t-y.

windows were close.PF-PPP-PL

«We passed twice by the left tower wing of the castle. The first time the windows were shut».

(8b) Rita noč'ju zatejala ssoru: trebovala zakryt' okno….

Takprepiralis' dolgo, i Rita, razumeetsja, vzjala verx:

okno bylo zakry-t-o.

window was close.PF-PPP-SG.NEUTER

«At night Rita began a quarrel insisting that the window should be shut. They carried on for a long time and it was Rita who had the upper hand: the window was shut».

According to Knjazev, in (8a) the construction okna byli zakryty «the windows were shut» is an objective resultative, whereas in (8b) the construction okno bylo zakryto «the window was shut» is an actional passive. In other words, the construction in (8a) has the meaning of a state and implies: a) on the semantic level, one participant only about which a contingent property is predicated through the past passive participle; b) on the syntactic level, the structure is of the predicative type where the predicate, even though it has the form of a past passive participle, has the status of an adjectival determiner. On the other hand, the construction in (8b) has the meaning of a resultative state having, on the semantic level, three characteristics [DesclSs & GuentcMva 1993: 91]: 1. it implies a preceding event and the existence of an agent (specified or not); 2. it determines a property of the patient; 3. the property is not necessarily contingent upon the implied preceding event. On the syntactic level, the auxiliary operates on the past passive participle, associated with an abstract passive predicate which includes the notion of an unspecified agent, in view of its transformation into a verbal unit [ibid].

The resultative state, which I have just defined, must not be confused with the resultant state. Indeed, in languages such as Bulgarian, where there is an overt expression of the perfect (9b) and of a periphrastic passive (9a), these two notions are clearly distinguished:

(9a) Otvori čekmedžeto i razbra: parite

open.PF.AOR drawer.the and understand.PF-AOR money.PL bjaxa otkradnati.

was steal.PF.PPP

«He opened the drawer and understood: the money had been stolen».

(9b) Otvori čekmedžeto i razbra: bjaxa

open.PF-AOR drawer.the and understand.PF.AOR were

otkradnali parite

steal.PF.APP.PL money.PL

«He opened the drawer and understood: someone had stolen the money».

Although these two forms may appear in the same context, each has its own meaning: (9a) denotes a resultative state as defined above; it permits therefore to draw attention to the patient and to the characteristic which is attributed to it by the passive predicate; if the verbal form is a reminder of the implied event, it is in order to signify that at its origin is an agent. On the contrary, (9b) is an overt expression of the perfect; it denotes a resultant state: that is, a state which is brought about by an event and which is contiguous to this event.

It has often been pointed out that the periphrastic passive tends to be constructed with a perfective past participle, whereas the reflexive passive tends to use the imperfective form. On this subject Siewierska [1988: 247] notes that in Slavic languages, with the exception of Polish, the periphrastic passive including an imperfective participle rarely appears, and quotes Czech and Serbo-Croatian where the constructions are said to be used mainly in scientific texts. This affirmation is not wholly justified. In Russian, the contrast is not any clearer: the constructions with an imperfective past passive participle are sporadically attested [Maslov 1988; Poupynin 1996: 131] and are subject to strong lexical, syntactic and contextual constraints; they are allowed in varying degrees in Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, and above all Bulgarian.

The «be»-perfective passive is claimed to convey both the meaning of a state resulting from a previous action and that of an action. The main argument for justifying such an analysis comes from a distributional property of the form, founded upon the compatibility of the perfective form with localisation markers. According to Khra-kovskij [1991; 151–154] and Knjazev [1988:350–351], the actional passive is compatible with time adverbials and adverbial phrases which are precise indications of the temporal interval relative to the preceding event and place markers ((10), (11)) whereas the resultative state is compatible with those which mark duration (12) or iterativity.