Past Tense Habitual Expressions in Old Croatian Texts

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Dutch Contributions to the Fourteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid: Linguistics (SSGL 34). Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi, 2008, 333-348.

PAST TENSE HABITUAL EXPRESSIONS IN OLD CROATIAN TEXTS

JANNEKE KALSBEEK

1. Past tense habitual expressions in Slavic It is a well-known fact that besides the many similarities, there are considerable differences between the aspectual systems of the individual Slavic languages. Dickey concludes that, on the basis of systematic differences observed in the behaviour of the imperfective and perfective aspects in the individual Slavic languages, “the Slavic languages pattern into two distinct groups, a western group consisting of Cz, Sk, Sor and Sn, and an eastern group consisting of Ru, Uk, Br and Bg” (Dickey 2000: 287). Moreover, “two languages, SC and Pol, show an intermediate patterning, and are thus best viewed as transitional zones between the two groups” (ibidem).1 This patterning manifests itself clearly in the differences between the Slavic languages in the expression of repeated actions in the past, where so-called unbounded repetition is concerned.2 Several studies have pointed to the fact that especially in these cases there exists a broad east-west division of Slavic, wherein preference for the imperfective aspect (imperfective preterite) figures as a typical feature of the eastern half of the Slavic language area. Russian and Polish tend to use the imperfective preterite, while Bulgarian normally uses the imperfective imperfect (the perfective imperfect does occur, but “only in habitual-correlative constructions, and never in single main clau- ses”, Dickey 2000: 76). On the other hand, the most western Slavic languages, Czech, Slovak and Slovene, frequently use the perfective preterite, especially when repetition is expressed by an adverbial or is otherwise obvious from the context. 3 In this respect the C/B/S continuum not only “shows an intermediate patterning”, as Dickey concludes (2000: 287), but also constitutes a transitional area by its internal geographical divergence, which is also the tendency Dickey

1 Here, of course, Cz stands for Czech, Sk for Slovak, Sor for Sorbian, Sn for Slovene, Ru for Russian, Uk for Ukrainian, Br for Belarusian, Bg for Bulgarian, SC for Serbo-Croatian, Pol for Polish (Dickey 2000: 2). 2 “[I].e. cases of repetition in which the number of repetitions is not limited” (Dickey 2000: 50). 3 Cf. besides Dickey (2000), especially Galton (1976), Iviǀ (1983), Mønnesland (1984) and Ba- rentsen (2008); see for further references Kalsbeek and Luǁiǀ (forthc.). 334 JANNEKE KALSBEEK observes (2000: 87, fn. 31). 4 Whereas the western part of this area (kajkavian dialects, and the north-western part of the ǁakavian dialect area) tolerates perfective preterite referring to repeated events in the past, like Slovene or Czech, the eastern part favours imperfective preterite.5 Apart from the use of perfective preterite, a second striking correspondence in western aspectual features between the north-westernmost dialects of Croatian and the western group of Slavic aspect is the occurrence of specific habitual/iterative verbs, which is also a well-known feature of Czech (e.g. Žminj hiǀievբt ‘throw regularly, be in the habit of throwing’, beside hզtati and hզtitp, cf. also Kalsbeek 1998: 179).6 In addition, most of the C/B/S continuum distinguishes itself from almost all other Slavic languages by the use of modal forms and constructions for the de- notation of repeated actions in the past, among which the use of the conditional is on the one hand the most common, and on the other forms a more or less unique feature within the Slavic languages (the possibility of using the conditional, beside the imperfective preterite, Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian share with Upper Sorbian only). 7 Interestingly, Macedonian, too, can use a modal construction to express a repeated event in the past: the particle ԀӾ plus imperfect. “When ѱѦ/Ԥe is added to the imperfect […] it forms the future-in-the-past (anterior future), the expectative unfulfillable (irreal) conditional or the past iterative: ѱѦ ҦҸҎҦѦҗѦ/Ԥe dojdeše can be translated ‘he will have come’, ‘he would have come’, or ‘he would come’” (Friedman 2002: 270).

4 In the following pages, I will use the term “C/B/S continuum” referring to “the region in which Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are spoken”. 5 See also Iviǀ (1983: 50-51, fn. 30). 6 See for Czech e.g. Danaher (2003). 7 Apart from the conditional, several other habitual expressions occur in the C/B/S continuum, e.g. znati or umjeti/umeti plus infinitive or plus da + present (cf. Hellman 2005). In some dialects, užբt + infinitive is used (e.g. Žminj (Istria), cf. Kalsbeek 1998: 287). Both constructions are used to denote habituals in the past as well as extratemporal habituals. Furthermore, the construction šǀaše plus infinitive, the so-called Balkan conditional, can have an iterative/habitual function in some Montenegrin dialects, cf. Belyavski-Frank (2003: 33 ff.), in some Bosnian dialects a habitual imperative occurs (simple imperative or bi + imperative, cf. Valjevac 2002: 240), and in some Montenegrin dialects šǀaše plus imperative occurs (Sladojeviǀ 1953: 222). The conditional and the construction šǀaše plus the infinitive (or plus da + present) share several functions, especially that of the counterfactual past conditional, habitual/iterative in the past, and attenuated modal expression (“softened volition”), cf. Belyavski-Frank (2003: 31-36). Apart from these functions, the conditional covers the functions of “potential, including gnomic and non-past potentials (but not the future-in-the-past), subjunctive expressions, opta- tive expressions, […] and the non-past conditional. There is one invariant component in the above list: potentiality” (Belyavski-Frank 2003: 22).