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Evidentiality and Admirativity: Semantic-Functional Aspects of the Bulgarian 1-Participle

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Evidentiality and Admirativity: Semantic-Functional Aspects of the Bulgarian 1-Participle 言 語 研 究(Gengo Kenkyu)126(2004),1～38 1 Evidentiality and Admirativity: Semantic-Functional Aspects of the Bulgarian 1-Participle Eleonora YOVKOVA-SHII (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) Key words: 1-participle, evidentiality, admirativity, speaker's attitudes toward knowledge, pastness, presentness 1. Introduction 1.1 The Problem This paper deals with the meanings and functions of 1-participleconstruc- tions in Bulgarian, and proposes a new definition of their basic semantic feature that enables us to provide a unified description of the various functions and usages of such constructions. The paper also shows how participle type (aorist participle or imperfect participle) determines func- tion distribution. The1-participle constructions have functions and usages (some invariant, some contextual) in the domains of aspectuality, temporality, and modality including resultant state (Vlakat e pristignal. 'The train has arrived.'), current relevance of past action (Az sam cela taxi kniga. 'I * ABBREVIATIONS USED IN GLOSSES AOR aorist ATCL article AUX auxiliary verb EVID evidential FEM feminine IPF imperfect IPFV imperfective MASC masculine NEUT neutral PFV perfective PL plural POSS possessive PP participle PRES present (indicating here the 1-participle) QUES. PTCL question particle RFLX reflexive SG singular 2 Eleonora YOVKOVA-SHII have read this book.'), indefinite past (Az sam hodil v Japonija. 'I have gone to Japan.'), inference (Ti si plakala. 'You have been crying.'), report (Toj dosal. 'It is reported that he came.'), surprise/irony/compliment(Tja svirela mnogo hubavo. 'She plays very well.'), and disbelief (Zagubili sme bili voijnata. 'We have lost the war (but I can't believe it).'). The 1-parti- ciple also appears in conditional (bi kazal 'he would say') and pluperfect constructions (bjah kazal'I had said')'). At first glance, functions such as inference and report seem to have nothing in common with functions such as surprise, irony, and compli- ment. However, the semantic domain of the 1-participledoes possess a feature that underlies these various functions and usages. Many previous studies2)(Balan, 1886, 1957/1976; Andrejcin, 1944, 1957/1976;Jakobson, 1957/1971;Aronson, 1967; Pencev, 1967; Stankov, 1967; Gerdzikov, 1977, 1984; Friedman, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1999, 2000) deal with the semantic description') of the 1-participleand many notions have been proposed ('non-witness', Balan; 'indirect speech', Andrejcin, Pencev, Stankov; 'source of information', Jakobson; 'non-confirmativity', Aronson, Friedman; 'speaker's commitment to the utterance regarding the event', Gerdzikov). The definition of the basic semantic feature of a form depends on what functional parameters are taken into account; in other words, it is a matter of degree. Thus, notions such as 'non-witness', 'indirect speech' or 'source of information' are valid if one deals only with the evidential functions of the l-participle in Bulgarian, as most traditional studies do, but cannot account for its non-evidential functions (surprise, doubt, irony, 1) This paper will not deal with the conditional and pluperfect constructions be- cause these linguistic phenomena do not directly affect the problems discussed in this study. 2) Some of the studies cited (e.g. Jakobson) do not fundamentally deal with the l-participle or Bulgarian. 3) It should be mentioned that the main concern of most of the studies cited is not exactly the semantic description of the 1-participle but rather the classifica- tion of the 1-forms. Evidentiality and Admirativity 3 compliment, etc.). Previous analyses are unsatisfactory in that, in general, they either do not attempt to provide a unified account of the evidential and non-evidential uses (they are actually treated separately in some of the studies), or the notions they propose do not explain some of the func- tions (mainly the non-evidential ones). There are several studies (Friedman, 1981; Gerdizkov, 1977, 1984) which deserve special attention in that they note and explain the connec- tion between the evidential and non-evidential uses of the 1-participle,but the definitions of the basic semantic feature proposed in these studies dif- fer4)from what will be proposed here. My hypothesis aims not only to explain the semantic relationship between the evidential and non-evidential functions of l-participle con- structions, but also to substantiate their relationship to the meaning of their prototype (the Present Perfects)). I propose the notion of 'conscious involvement of the speaker at the moment of speaking regarding the event', or, in a broader sense, the speaker's attitudes toward knowledge'. Although this definition' men- tions only 'the moment of speaking', it nevertheless implies two tempo- ral aspects, i.e. presentness (the state of the speaker's knowledge at the moment of speaking) and pastness (the condition of the speaker's con- scious involvement before the moment of speaking including past states of 4) Friedman (1981:13-14) defines the Indefinite Past (a term broader than what has been called the Indefinite Past in the- normative Bulgarian grammars) as unmarked with respect to the Definite Past's specification of confirmativity. Because of this unmarkedness for confirmativity the Indefinite Past generally implies non-confirmativity,e.g. reportedness or dubitativity; according to Fried- man, the constant meaning specifiedin all contexts is 'pastness'. On the other hand, the notion ('speaker's commitment to an utterance regard- ing the event') proposed by Gerdzikov (1977, 1984) is satisfactory with regard to Gerdzikov's classification,where the admirative is treated as an extension of the inferential. However, from my point of view, this notion does not satisfacto- rily account for what I call 'present admirative'. 5) The terms spelled with a capital first letter (Perfect) indicate the category while the terms spelled with a lower case first letter (perfect) indicate the mean- ing or the function. 4 Eleonora YOVKOVA-SHII knowledge, past assumptions, or even lack of knowledge which appear to be different from the speaker's present state of knowledge). The semantic elements of pastness and presentness are what relate this semantic feature to the prototypical meaning preserved in the non-modal uses of the 1-par- ticiple. The above-mentioned definition and some suggestions in this study follow proposals in two earlier works (Slobin & Aksu, 1982; Akatsuka, 19856)),whose theories will be briefly outlined later. Finally, the analysis in this study will be limited to 1-constructionsin the predicate of the main clause, and will not account for the behaviour of l-participles in subordinate clauses'). 1.2 Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Bulgarian Bulgarian has a very complicated TAM system preserving some old aspects of tense, aspect, and mood categories not found in other modern Slavic languages. The linguistic phenomenon of the 1-participleis also not found in other Slavic languages except Macedonian, and instead shows typological similarities to phenomena found in other non-Slavic Balkan languages (Turkish, Albanian) or even languages from other linguistic areas (Japanese, Tibeto-Burman). 1.2.1 The Tense System Normative Bulgarian grammars (Stojanov, 1964/1993;Gramatika, 1983) distinguish nine tense forms as follows8):1) Present (hodja 'I go, I am going'), 2) Past Definite/Aorist (hodih 'I went'), 3) Past Imperfect/Imper- 6) The research of Slobin & Aksu and Akatsuka do not specificallyconcern the Bulgarian 1-participle.My reasoning for referring to these studies is explained in section 2. 7) I do not deal with 1-constructionsin subordinate clauses because, as has been pointed out (Jespersen, 1924:313), in some cases the modality of the subordi- nate clause is determined by its relation to the main nexus on which it is depen- dent. 8) The verb used here is hodja 'to go' and the forms are given in 1SG. Evidentiality and Admirativity 5 fect (hodeh 'I was going'), 4) Past Indefinite/Present Perfect (sam hodil I have gone'), 5) Past Perfect/Pluperfect') (bjah hodil 'I had gone'),' 6) Future (ste hodja 'I will go'), 7) Future in the Past (stjah da hodja 'I should go'), 8) Future Perfect (ste sam hodil 'I should have been gone'), 9) Future Perfect in the Past (stjah da sam hodil 'I should have gone'). The temporal system of Bulgarian has been the subject of great dis- pute (cf. Pencev, 1967; Bunina, 1970, 1971; Gerdzikov, 1973), mainly con- cerning problems resulting from the number of tenses, the distinction of absolute and relative tenses, and the distinction of tense and taxis (Pencev, 1967;Bunina, 1970, 1971; Gerdzikov, 1973) or tense and modal- ity (Janakiev, 1962; Golfb,1964; Aronson, 1967). Another problem with the temporal system of Bulgarian is the characterization and classification of the so called Past Indefinite tense (Minalo neopredeleno vreme), one of the 1-participleforms. The charac- terization and classification of this form affects the analysis of the whole 1-participlesystem. 1.2.2 Aspect Types There are two types of aspect in Bulgarian represented by two differ- ent oppositions: the perfective/imperfectiveopposition (the so-called Vid) and the aorist/imperfect opposition. In accordance with the first opposition, all verbs in Bulgarian are marked for one of the features perfective or imperfective.There are many verbs which form pairs for this opposition, where one verb in the pair is perfective (kaza 'say') and the other imperfective (kazvam 'say'); these pairs differ only grammatically.However, other pairs differ not only gram- matically but also lexically (pica 'to write' and prepisa 'to rewrite'). The 9) The terms Past Definite and Past Indefinite are traditionally used in standard grammars, but the forms do not actually specify 'definiteness'. For this reason I prefer to refer to these forms as Aorist and Present Perfect (or simply Perfect). Also, for Past Imperfect I use only Imperfect, and for Past Perfect, Pluperfect. When referring to the positions of normative grammars or traditional studies, I use the terms used in those studies but refer to them as 'the so-called...'.
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