В. Храковский - 40 лет Санкт-Петербургской типологической школе

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M. Leinonen

Possessive resultative perfects in Komi-Zyryan

Komi-Zyryan, which belongs to the Uralic languages and to the branch of Permic languages, is an agglutinative language with the predominant order SVO. Except for the order of the main constituents, it is a typical determiner-head language with postpositions, possessive suffixes, 15 cases, no gender, no congruence between adjectival attributes and their heads, and no copula in the present tense.

The temporal categories include the simple tenses (present and past, the future tense is expressed morphologically in the third person only), and the so-callpd analytic or compound tenses. Between these stands the perfect-like construction based on a past participial form without copula, sometimes called the 2nd past, sometimes unwitnessed past, and in the new grammar of Komi unwitnessed perfect. The copula may have the forms of the simple past and the 2nd past with the participial marker — dm(a), which is neutral as to active or passive. This together with the lexical verb forms produces the analytic constructions. The order of the copula and the lexical verb may vary. The term «unwitnessed» equals evidentiality and covers in the language system the same basic variants of «indirectness» as in the Turkic, Georgian, Bulgarian etc. languages where the category is being studied: quotation, hearsay, conjecture and mirativity (see e. g. [Journal of Pragmatics 2001; Johanson & Bo Utas 2000; Guentchdva 1996]).

The paradigm of vetlyny «to go»:

In the above paradigm, the tenses are labeled by terms that give an approximate content to the categories. In the grammar, the author of the section on the verb, E. A. Cypanov, cautiously uses simply numbers for the past tenses: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th past.

In the literary language and the majority of the dialects, for the first person of the perfect/unwitnessed past an impersonal construction is preferred. It consists of the genitive form of the personal pronoun/animate noun and the participle-based form with the 3rd person reflexive suffix — s'öma. The meaning of the construction is always that of an involuntary or non-conscious action:

Menam dyr uz's'öma

I-GEN long sleep-REFL-PERF-3 SG

«I have slept/overslept».

The construction is specialized for the meaning of involuntary action in other tenses as well, and has parallels in other Finno-Ugric languages in that the demotion of the subject (nominative), adding a reflexive suffix (in Finnish, a causative suffix), the directionality, controllability of the action is cancelled. Unplanned actions are often expressed by this construction:

A menam tajö ködzyd lunjasys kežlö bytt'ö tödömön

but I-GEN this cold days-POSSDEF during as.if knowingly

vajs'öma gortys' medrad'ejtana kn'igaös

bring-REFL-PERF-3SG home-ELAT most.favored book-ACC

«But for these cold days I happened to have brought as if knowingly from home my most favourite book» [I. Toropov 1988:157].

There is another usage for the reflexive forms. In grammars, it is presented separately as an Aktionsart which expresses finality, exhaustiveness, apparently in all tenses:

Taltn kežlö udžavs'is

today during work-REFL-PST-3RD

«For today, (we/you/they) have worked enough», «Enough work has been done» [Fedjunjova 1998: 32].

In Komi-Zyryan, a development seems to be taking place which is very natural, and possibly aided by areal influence: the genitive subject appears together with the — oma perfect, which is invariant, that is, impersonal. With transitive verbs, the object is either in the nominative or in the accusative. When nominative, the object can be called a subject, as in other languages which express their perfects with habere verbs:

Menam stavys das'töma

I-GEN all-NOMDEF prepare-PERF-3 SG

«I have everything prepared».

The accusative object also produces a resulting state interpretation:

Menam stavsö das'töma

I-GEN all-ACC prepare-PERF-3SG

«I have everything prepared».

Note that the corresponding grammatical construction is found, though rarely, in the surrounding north Russian dialects, which use a locative possessor with accusative object and a past participle predicative form:

U bat'ki u tvoego saženo berezku

at-father at-your planted-NEUTRE birch-ACC

«Your father has the/a birch planted, has planted the/a birch».

[Kuz'mina & Nemčenko 1971:93]; «possessive perfect» in [Fici Giusti

1995: 222–231].

While it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether any areal influence is at work here, we may note that in Komi, there is a construction with the genitive as an agent of participial attributive forms:

Starukalön s'etöm sumkays

old.woman-GEN give-PRTC bag-NOMDEF

«the bag given by the old woman» [Bubrih 1949:128].

In present-day Komi, the genitive seems to have been replaced by the instrumental everywhere, but the former usage can be found in the texts of certain writers; it appeared in the spontaneous dialectal speech in the 1940s as well:

No menym okotamunny vorsny, köt'i mamölön s'etöm

but I-DAT desire go-lNF play-iNF although mother-GEN give-PRTC

urkövöjys ez ešty

task-NOMDEF NEG-PST-3SG end

«But I want to go and play, although the task given by my mother was not finished» [Syijänische Texte 1995:192].

In other non-finite verbal constructions as well, as in gerundials, the genitive may express the agent of the action [Fedjunjova 1998].

With certain verbs, the genitive expresses the non-active subject, as with the verbs byrny «to be finished», vunny «to be forgotten»: menam vunöma I-GEN forget-PERF-3SG «I have forgotten» [Fedina 1997:10]. All these usages may have served as analogical basis for the possessive impersonal with — öma. |

The bare impersonal form without any expression of the agent is nowadays very common, possibly influenced by the literary Russian past passive predicates with — no/-to [M. S. Fedina, paper presented at the International Congress of MAPRIJAL, June 1998, Syktyvkar].

The newness of the Komi possessive impersonal construction can only be presumed, since there is no mention of them in old grammars and descriptions. Perhaps accidentally, there seem to be no examples in the folkloric texts available, which represent the state of the language at the beginning of the XXth century. In the Komi prose of the 1930s, the construction becomes more common in the texts of individual writers. Earlier grammars written by native linguists do not mention it, except the grammar of 1949 by D. V. Bubrih. He gives examples of the 2nd past (=perfect) transitive and reflexive verbs and translates them by using the north Russian impersonal constructions with passive participial predicates:

Murtsa abu kuvs'öma

almost not die-REFL-PERF-3 SG

«(I) almost died».

«Edva ne bylo umerto».

Menam omöl'ys' abu polöma

I-GEN evil-ELAT not fear-PERF-3SG

«I was not afraid of evil».

«U menja dumogo ne boeno».

Mens'ym vokös viöma

I-ELAT brother-ACCPOSS 1 SG kill-PERF-3SG

«My brother was killed».

«Moego brata ubito».

Jegorlön abun'in etša c'ukörtöma embursö

Iegor-GEN not already little gather-PERF-3SG riches-ACC

«U Egora uže ne malo sobrano dobra».

«Yegor has already gathered not a little riches» [Bubrih 1949:124–125].

The new Komi grammar lists the uses of the genitive agent as follows:

1) a real active subject:

a) in an attributive construction with the participial form:

<…> jenmyslön s'etöm mic'a da söstöm vör-va

God-NOMDEF-GEN give-PRTC beautiful and clean nature

«the beautiful and clean nature given by God».

b) with the perfect:

Ö'itortö kykys' šuny Jakovlön abu

one-ACCDEF twice say-lNF Jakov-GEN not

velalöma…

get-accustomed-PERF-3SG

«Yakov was not used to saying one thing twice».

2) a passive subject: someone does something because of being told to do so, or someone is in a state:

a) with verbs of passive meaning (vunny «be-forgotten», byrny «be finished», mynny «pass (about time)», artmyny «come out (of state)», vošny «vanish, be lost» etc.

No tajo istog vylo On'dlon vosi stav nad'ejays

but this match upon Andrej-GEN be-lost-PST-3SG all hope-NOMDEF «But Andrei lost all hope for this match»;

b) with the reflexive suffix — s':

Stariklön s'ojs's žö n'in

old.man-GEN eat-REFL-PST-3 SG PTL already

«The old man has finished eating already»;

Virin'ejalön ez na c'ec'c'yss'y

Virineja-GEN NEG-PST-3SG yet get.up-REFL-PST-3SG

«Virineja did not feel like getting up / could not get up»;

c) with modal predicates:

Povodd'ayslön kolö n'in vežs'yny

weather-DEF-GEN must already change-INF

«The weather must change»;

d) the subject of certain phraseological predicates indicating non-voluntary state (vež petö «to want something», lit. «desire comes out») [Fedjunjova 2000: 66].

To illustrate the difference between the possessive impersonal construction and the impersonal construction expressing involuntary action with the reflexive suffix, some citations and an excerpt from the history is in order. The eminent Komi linguist, V. I. Lytkin (Illa Vas'), was arrested in 1930 and accused of national bourgeois tendencies and espionage. He had just returned from Hungary, and, occupied as he was with studying, writing poems and publishing them he had no idea about what was going on at home. On returning to the USSR, he was publicly criticized, and he made a full «confession», explaining his motives with all the possibilities of subject demotion available in the language.

First, he wrote that he had answered the critics, but the text had not been published:

Menam kuz'a gižs'öma da «Ordym» žurnalyn

I-GEN long write-REFL-PERF-3SG and Ordym joumal-lNESS

ez pet

NEG-PST-3SG appear

«I had written (unintentionally, apparently) extensively, and (it) did not appear in the magazine Ordym» [IllaVas' 1994(1931): 91].

Lytkin continues to excuse himself by thanking the critics who had opened his eyes to many blemishes in his text Munflny: it was neither a poem or a poema, but something in between, and it would not produce any great ideas.

Sess'a bara žö gižöma völi zev termas'ömön

then again PTL write-PERF-3SG COP-PST very hurriedly

«Then again, it was written in a great hurry»,

Me völi seki (1927 voyn) Budapeštyn

I was then (1927 year-INESS) Budapest-iness

zil'a-eštöda dissertacijaös

exert-finish-PRES-1SG thesis-ACC

«I was then (in 1927) in Budapest trying hard to finish my thesis».

<…>Ses'an' menam möd n'el'uc'ki: