Reconstruction and Idiomaticity: the Origin of Russian Verbless Clauses Reconsidered

Folia Linguistica Historica 2015; 36: 219–243

Mikhail Kopotev* Reconstruction and idiomaticity: The origin of Russian verbless clauses reconsidered

DOI 10.1515/flih-2015-0007

Abstract: There are three types of Russian verbless clauses, which emerged through the ellipsis of the copula and other (full) verbs. This paper provides arguments against the hypothesis that they owe their existence to contact with Uralic languages. It argues that Finnic verbless clauses developed in parallel or even later than their Russian counterparts, and that the verbless clauses in Samoyedic languages, which preserve ancient Proto-Uralic features and use predicate nominal suffixes, differ structurally too much from those in Russian to represent likely models. It is argued that verbless clauses can naturally emerge when the meaning expressed by a frequent and semantically bleached verb is also included in the meaning of the phrase dependent on it. Other factors (contact-induced change, pragmatic and contextual factors) can support the emergence of – usually highly idiomatic – verbless clause constructions.

Keywords: language change, language contacts, non-verbal predication, syntactic zero, Russian language, Uralic languages

1 Introduction

One of the oldest discussions in Russian–Uralic comparative studies concerns the emergence of verbless clauses in Old East Slavic and (later) in Russian.1 The Uralic languages (most often Finno-Ugric) have repeatedly been proposed as possible models. The idea is based on the fact that verbless clauses exist in some Uralic languages, so that it is claimed that corresponding clauses in Russian are possibly the result of ancient contacts (R. Gauthiot 1908–1909; W. Veenker 1967; R. L’Hermitte 1978; among others). However, there is also an

1 Following K. Hengeveld (1992), I distinguish non-verbal clauses –“construction with a main predicate of the non-verbal category” (Hengeveld 1992: 47) – and verbless clauses, where a verb (incl. copula) is omitted.

*Corresponding author: Mikhail Kopotev, Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 B), 00014 Helsinki, Finland, E-mail: [email protected]

Brought to you by | Helsinki University Main Library Authenticated | [email protected] author's copy Download Date | 1/21/16 2:49 PM 220 Mikhail Kopotev opposite view, which claims that the arguments in favor of Uralic influence are rather weak in this case (G. Décsy 1967; V. Kiparsky 1969; H. Birnbaum 1984; among others). Mostly, linguistic investigations in this domain have been restricted to verbless clauses that seem to lack, specifically, a copula. The present article contributes to the discussion by considering additional constructions and offering a unified explanation for developments from Old East Slavic to modern Russian.2 In modern Russian, there are three types of clauses that lack conjugated verb forms in their surface structures.3 They possess specific pragmatic or semantic features, and some of the constructions are idiomatic, i.e. they are semantically and/or syntactically restricted. Although they cannot be considered as elliptical clauses in synchronic analyses of the modern language, they nevertheless constitute diachronic reflexes of verb omission:4

1) Clauses lacking the copula byt’ ‘to be’ Okno slomano (‘The window is broken’; lit. ‘The window Øcop broken’)

2) Clauses lacking the full verb byt’ ‘to be located/to have’ Mama zdes’ (‘Mother is here’; lit. ‘Mother Øbe here’)

3) Clauses lacking full verbs (verbs of motion and their semantic extensions) Tatyana – v les (‘Tatyana went/walked/is going to the forest’; lit. ‘Tatyana Øv to the forest’)

Although it is not always easy to distinguish between Øcop and Øbe clauses, the two constructions display markedly different degrees of syntactic idiomaticity:

Øcop-clauses are semantically and syntactically much less restricted than clauses 5 in which full verbs are missing (i.e. Øbe- and Øv-clauses). The latter are typically highly idiomatic.

2 Some of the issues with which this paper deals can be addressed only superficially, due to necessarily restricted length. For more details, see Kopotev (1999). 3 Different types of gapping, sluicing and other types of ellipsis that have a strong contextual motivation are beyond the scope of this article. Also, constructions like Prišel i nu ego bit’ ‘(He) came and started to beat him’ where a non-verbal predicate substitutes the verb are also outside my focus here.

4 Hereafter, Øcop,Øbe and Øv mean zero of the copula, of the full verb ‘to be’, and of other full verbs, respectively. 5 My approach to idiomaticity is wider than the traditional definition that takes into account only semantic non-compositionality. The definitions of idiomatic syntactic items, alternately called constructions (Lakoff 1987), formal idioms (Kay and Fillmore 1999) or syntactic phrasemes

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In this article, I argue that the degree of idiomaticity is indicative of syntactic developments. For that purpose, I describe the gradual transition of the Old East Slavic syntactic system from being verb-centered to being more nominal. I then argue that both form–function iconicity and the regularity of changes are useful parameters for internal syntactic reconstruction (Barðdal 2013). The proposed reconstruction makes it possible to reconsider the main question the article addresses, namely whether the described changes reflect Russian–Uralic language contact. I take both the diachronic Uralic context and typological perspectives into account for identifying possible points of interaction between Russian and Uralic languages that might be relevant for the issue at hand.

2 Development of the Russian constructions

Verbless clauses are attested in several Slavic languages, but the frequency of verbless clauses is particularly high in modern Russian written and oral com- munication (see Mrazek 1990; McShane 2000); there is a considerable amount of evidence that makes it possible to trace the emergence of that phenomenon throughout the history of the language (Isačenko 1976; L’Hermitte 1978, Zaliznjak 2008).

6 2.1 The emergence and spread of Øcop-clauses

In this article I do not address the question of the copula versus verb distinction in Modern Russian (see Chvany 1975; Arutjunova and Shirjaev 1983; Apresjan 1995). I follow K. Hengeveld (1992) in considering both the copula and the full verb to be as being involved in regular predication with no sharp border between the two. In Old East Slavic and later in Old-Russian, however, the copula and the full verb

(Mel’čuk 1995a) is found, for example, in (Mel’čuk 1995) “A syntactic phraseme is a surface- syntactic tree containing no full lexical nodes (its nodes are labeled with either lexemic variables or structural words) but possessing a specific signified, having as its signifier a specific syntactic construction, and a specific prosody, and featuring as well a specific syntac- tics” (Mel’čuk 1995: 215). 6 The Old East Slavic and Old Russian sources (a. 1500 texts, a. 5.000 clauses per century) have been investigated mainly de visu; in the last stage, some electronic corpora were used as well (for more see Kopotev 1999).

Brought to you by | Helsinki University Main Library Authenticated | [email protected] author's copy Download Date | 1/21/16 2:49 PM 222 Mikhail Kopotev byt’ ‘to be’ were clearly distinct, being unstressed and stressed, respectively (Zaliznjak 2008: 221). I will show that a clear distinction is also reflected in the frequency and chronology of Øcop-andØbe-clauses. The functions of the copula in Old East Slavic were similar to those in other Indo-European (IE) languages. It appeared in – copulative constructions like Eng. The book is interesting, John is a student. – analytical tense forms (perfect and pluperfect), which in Old-Russian were formed with be, as in estь pisalъ ‘be.3PRSSG write.PTCPSG’, ‘has written’).

It is well established that the copula was absent already in the oldest sources. One of the first examples (1) has been found in the earliest Novgorodian birch- bark letter:

(1) a zamъke Øcop kěle a dvьri Øcop kělě And lock Øcop.3SG.PRS intact.SG and doors Øcop.3.PL.PRS intact.PL ‘Both the lock and the doors [are] intact’ (Birch-bark letter # 247, XI cent.)

The same is true of the Old East Slavic perfect tense. The original common Slavic perfect was formed with a copula and so-called l-participles (2) and was structurally identical with copula-plus-nominal-predicate constructions involving adjectives or participles:

(2) Se pověsti vremęnьnych lět. otkudu estь pošla ruskaja zemę. kto vъ kievě nača pervěeknęžiti i otkudu ruskaja zemlę stala estь ‘These [are the] tales of the bygone years, whence has come the land of Rus’, who first began to rule in Kiev, and whence the land of Rus’ has come about’ (Tale of Bygone Years, The Laurentian codex, 1377)

Reduced perfect tense forms were attested very early on, for example, in the Tmutarakan Stone – a marble slab with an inscription dating from 1068 – where the analytical perfect tense [est] měrilъ ‘has measured’ occurs without est’ (3):

(3) Vъ lěto 7576 indikta 6 Glěbъ knjazь Øcop měrilъ more po ledu otъ tьmutarakanja do kъrčeva 10000 i 4000 sjaženъ th ‘In the year of 7576, 6 indict, Prince Gleb [Øcop.3SG.PRS ‘has’] measured the sea by ice from Tmutarakan to Kerch, 10,000 and 4,000 sazhens’ (Tmutarakan Stone, 1068)

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As recoverable from the oldest sources, copula deletion started with Øcop.3.prs and extended to other persons. For the first and second persons (as opposed to the third person) the occurrence of copula deletion depended on a set of morphological, syntactic and pragmatic parameters (for details, see Zaliznjak 2008: 239–262):

C синтаксической точки зрения эволюция состоит в том, что связки постепенно уступают свои функции личным местоимениям.<.… > Со временем достигается конечная точка этого движения – связки полностью исчезают. [From the syntactic point of view the development is that the copulas gradually yield their functions to personal pronouns. <…> With the lapse of time, the terminal point of this development is reached, where the copula has fully disappeared.] (Zaliznjak 2008: 222)

According to Zaliznjak (2008: 255), “Резкое движение в сторону современного состояния приходится на XVI век <…>. В XVII веке ситуация уже практически не отличается от современной [A sharp shift towards the modern state occurred in the 16th century <…>. In the 17th century, the situation did not basically differ from modern one anymore].” Since then Øcop.PRS has been a characteristic morphological feature of Russian.7 The loss of the copula has been regarded as the first and crucial indicator of long-time changes by which the Russian tense system was eventually completely restructured.

2.2 The emergence and spread of Øbe-clauses

As a result of copula loss, constructions began to emerge that lacked the full verb to be. The earlier birch-bark letters, however, still display its regular usage (4 and 5):

(4) a estь mǫžь sъ nimь And BE.3SG.PRS man with him ‘There is a man, [then] with him [send the money]’ (Novgorodian birch-bark letter #296, the end of 12th cent.)

(5) zanoda ou naso kouplę este bele because at us rush BE.3SG.PRS squirrel-fur ‘Because there is a rush for squirrel fur’ (Pskovian birch-bark letter #6, 13th cent.)

7 In modern Russian the constructions with zero and non-zero copulas have different grammatical properties; thus, it is problematic to consider modern Russian Øcop as a full analogue of the non-zero form (Testelets 2008; Letuchiy 2014).

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Øbe-clauses gradually became more frequent until they eventually became the regular construction. The first examples date back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They are idiomatic and ambiguous and can hardly be distinguished from constructions with Øcop (6 and 7):

(6) ježemiotьcь daęlъ i rodi sъdaęli What me father gave and relatives gave atoØcop/ Øbe za nimь and that Øcop.3SG.PRS/Øbe.3SG.PRS after him ‘What father and relatives gave me, that is his’ (Novgorodian birch-bark letter #9, 1160–1180)

(7) A bogъ Øbe za mězdojuili ladivьsę and God Øbe.3SG.PRS for reward or agree.1.DU ‘Either God [is] the reward, or we agree [with each other]’ (Novgorodian birch-bark letter #549, 1180–1200)

It is hard to say when exactly Øbe constructions entered the grammar, but they occur regularly from the fourteenth century onwards, and become more frequent than the constructions in which the verb was still expressed in the sixteenth century (for details, see Kopotev 1999). Again, the first form to be omitted was est’ ‘be.3.SG.PRS’ (8 and 9):

(8) Sud emu Øbe v Nověgorodě vъ Velikom Court he.DAT Øbe.3SG.PRS in Novgorod.LOC in Great.LOC ili Toržku or Torzhok.LOC ‘[There is] a court for him in Novgorod the Great or in Torzhok’ (A contract charter, 14th cent.).

(9) Lětě kormъ Øbe na polě summer.LOC fodder Øbe.3SG.PRS on field.LOC ‘In the summer the fodder is in the field’ (Domostroj, 16th cent.)

There are two crucial points in this development. First, the expansion of personal pronouns made it optional to mark verbs for person (Zaliznjak 2008: 241–246). Second, the verb to be has a number of near-synonyms, so that in clauses that lacked a verb due to be-deletion each of them was equally “inferrable.” For example, in example (9) not only est ‘be.3SG.prs’ can be inferred or “restored,”

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but also others such as lezhit ‘lay.3SG.prs’,ornaxoditsja ‘exist.3SG.PRS’. This possibi- lity in turn suggested that also other verbs than to be were deletable, so that zero usage came to be extended to other full verbs. Thus, the verb byti ‘to be’ played a pivotal role in the gradual spread of verb deletion, since it was homon- ymous with the copula on the one hand, and synonymous with some other full verbs on the other.

2.3 The emergence and spread of Øv-clauses

These constructions were the last to appear (Borkovskij 1968, 1983; Kopotev

1999). The developments were more complex than with Øcop and Øbe, because they involved a larger and more diverse set of verbs. Primarily, they were verbs with “motion” meanings, and later their semantic extensions. Although this group of verbs was the last to undergo loss, already some of the oldest examples can – most probably – be classified among them. They involve verb loss in formulaic signature phrases in birch-bark letters, which take the form ‘letter from [name] to [name]’.

? (10) gramota Øv/Øbe ot vonega kъ stavъrovi. ? letter Øv/Øbe from Voneg to Stavr ‘The letter ?[was sent/is] from Voneg to Stavr’ (A birch-bark letter № 613, 11th cent.)

While these cases are to some extent problematic, unequivocal evidence of verb loss can be found in fifteenth-century texts. Until the seventeenth century the frequency of Øv-clauses doubled and has remained more or less constant since then (for details, see Kopotev 1999). One of the first pieces of unambiguous evidence is found in the Journey beyond the Three Seas, a text written in highly colloquial language:

(11) Vse tovarъ běloj Øv na besermenьskuju zemlju. All good.N toll-free.adj Øv to Moslem land ‘All toll-free goods [go] to the Moslem land’ (A. Nikitin, Journey beyond the Three Seas, 15th cent.)

From that time onward these constructions have occupied a special place in the language; they are idiomatic and used mostly in colloquial registers. Typical occurrences end in an NP (in the dative case), a PP or an AdvP with directional meaning. Primarily, they convey meanings of “physical motion” (12):

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(12) Tatьjana Øv v les; medvedь Øv za nej. Tatyana Øv to forest; bear Øv behind her ‘Tatyana to the forest [walked]; the bear behind her [stalked]’ (A. Pushkin, Evgeny Onegin, Ch.5:XIV, 1823–1831)

However, “motion” can also be involved metaphorically, as a conduit metaphor (13), or metonymically, indicating motion of “(specific parts of) the body” (14):

(13) Ja Øv emu v otvet. I.NOM Øv he.DAT in response.ACC ‘I [said] to him in response’ (My own example)

(14) Ja Øv emu po ruke. I.NOM Øv he.DAT to hand.DAT ‘I [slapped] his hand’ (My own example)

To sum up, the emergence of Russian verbless clauses involved three phases, first producing Øcop-, then Øbe- and finally Øv-clauses.Inthatprocess,Øbe functioned as a bridge between the deletion of light verbs and that of full ones. The chronological order of their emergence is mirrored in the degree of idiomaticity characterizing

Verbless clause constructions in modern Russian: Øcop-clauses are non-idiomatic (Bezdenežnyx 1972; Chvany 1975): they are syntactically unconstrained, and their semantic compositionality is fully transparent. Thus, in modern Russian Øcop is a pragmatically neutral morphological zero variant of COP.PRS, although zero and non- zero copulas are slightly differently distributed. However, the distribution of Øbe- clauses differs significantly from that of Øcop-clauses (see Letuchiy 2015). Although the latter are pragmatically also neutral, they are semantically non-compositional, i.e. more idiomatic in the modern language. The third type, finally, i.e. Øv-clauses in which motion-verbs are deleted, is a relative newcomer and possesses much more idiomatic features and is both pragmatically and semantically restricted.8

3 The Uralic verbless constructions

Among experts on Uralic languages, there is consensus that the nominal (i.e. verbless) clause was an original feature of the protolanguage (Klemm 1928;

8 Significantly, other East Slavic languages – Ukrainian and Belorussian – have followed and reflect the same line of development (Borkovskij 1968: 194–226).

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Ravila 1943; Hakulinen 1946; Collinder 1960; Hajdu 1970; Rédei 1970; Honti 1992). In the modern languages the situation is quite complicated due to both internal developments and language contact. Two extremes with respect to the status of nominal clauses have been identified among modern Uralic languages. One is represented by Samoyedic languages, which are considered to have preserved Proto-Uralic syntax more faithfully (Serebrennikov 1987; Honti 1992); the other is found in Finnic, Lappi and Hungarian, which show newer – in fact more IE – syntactic features (Korhonen 1981; Campbell 1990). An overview is presented in Table 1.9

Table 1: Verbless clauses in Uralic languages.

LANGUAGES Contacts with Øcop Øbe ØV Rus. since

Finnic and Samic VI-VII cent. þ (idiomatic) þ (idiomatic) þ (idiomatic) groups Mordvinic group IX-XI þ (nominal þ (nominal – conjugation) conjugation)

Mari XI þ (SG) þ (SG) – Permian group XIV-XV þþ– Ugric group XVII þþ– Hungarian VI-VII cent. þ (d person) þ (d person) þ (idiomatic) Samoyed group XVIII-XIX cent. þ (nominal þ (nominal – conjugation) conjugation)

3.1 Samoyedic languages

Samoyedic languages (Nenets, Nganasan and Enets) possess predicate suffixes, which can be added to any nominal parts of speech to mark Number, Person and even Tense; they also have copulative clauses (for more data, see Honti 1992; Tereschenko 1973). Below are Enets examples of nominal (15 and 16) and copulative (17) clauses, where these suffixes are clearly shown.

9 In the table, the periods of the earliest contacts of the different groups with (Old-)Russian reflect G. Decsy’s (1988: 632) estimates. In order to save space, I use Øcop, Øbe and ØV in the table, which is an oversimplification, in so far as Uralic clauses can be non-elliptical in origin. Within groups, only some languages are displayed separately if they demonstrate important particular features. Minimally, the nominal clause is implicitly third person, but sometimes it can also be first or second person (for more, see Turunen 2010: 45–57).

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(15) Modinьʹ ėsėjʹ. We.DU fathers.DU-PRS ‘We two [are] fathers’ (Tereshchenko 1973: 155)

(16) Modinьʹ ėcė-bidь. we.DU father.DU-PST ‘We two [were] fathers’ (Tereshchenko 1973: 155)

(17) Modinьʹ ėcėėҫь ӈa-bidь. we.DU father.DU COP.DU-PST ‘We two were fathers’ (Tereshchenko 1973: 160)

Crucially, the nominal predicate is not derived from the “full” copulative counterpart; for example, the same suffix ‘bidь.DU-PST’ is used to mark a predicate, regardless of whether the predicate position is occupied by a noun or a verb. Whatever the origin of these suffixes, there is no question of their syntactic idiomaticity, because they are morphologically well-formed items, which points to their relatively early origin in comparison to Russian syntactic zeros. Following P. Hopper and E. Traugot’scoursecontent word → grammatical word → clitic → inflectional affix (2003: 7), I can say that the grammaticalization path has gone to its full extent in this case. This means that Samoyedic (and presumably Proto-Uralic) and Russian nominal clauses are fundamentally different. The former are realized through clearly distinguished morphological markers that originated earlier and in a different way than their Russian counterparts, which resulted from the ellipsis of a verb. Equally important is the fact that Russian verbless clauses do not formally match any of the Samoyedic ones; thus, their emergence cannot be explained in terms of form–function pairing.

3.2 Finnic languages

A quite different situation is found in Finnic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Veps, etc.) and in Hungarian, which are fairly uniform in this respect. For the present argument, I describe the situation in Finnish, which I have selected because of its rather long written history (see Kettunen (1943) for Veps, Zlobina (1971) for Karelian and Hetzron (1970) for Hungarian).

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3.2.1 Øcop- and Øbe-clauses10

In the Old-Finnish corpus (hereafter KOTUS), only a few examples of Øcop- and

Øbe-clauses have been found. It can hardly be claimed that one type is more frequently used than another. Nevertheless, both were already attested in the earliest of M. Agricola’s works (18), and they have remained in use until present times (19 and 20):

(18) Nin mös itze Øcop/ Øbe Templin wastan. so also myself Øcop/Øbe.1.PRS Temple for. ‘So, I [am] myself for the Temple also’ (KOTUS; M. Agricola. Weisut ja Ennustoxet, 1551)

(19) Läpikulku Øcop kielletty PASSAGE.nom Øcop.3.prs forbidden ‘Passage [is] forbidden’ (SKP, 20th cent.)

(20) Uutuudet Øbe myymälöissä novelties Øbe.3.PRS shop.PL.INESSIVE ‘Novelties [are] in the shops’ (SKP, 20th cent.)

Although Øcop- and Øbe-clauses are attested in Finnish sources, however, they are highly infrequent and all types seem to be highly constrained. While the rarity of clauses in textual sources does not allow one to make strong claims about their frequency in more informal genres, the kinds of clauses that are attested are all highly idiomatic. Today they are in use in colloquial language and in some pragmatically restricted situations such as announcements and advertisements.

3.2.2 Øv-clauses

The oldest Finnish texts do not contain a single example of a verbless clause in which the “missing” verb represents a full verb with specific lexical meaning,

10 The Finnish data has been collected from the Old-Finnish corpus (hereafter KOTUS; http:// www.kotus.fi/aineistot) and from the Finnish language bank (hereafter SKP; www.csc.fi/tutkimus/alat/kielitiede).

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(21) Øv Mitat pois! Øv.IMP yardsticks away ‘[Take] yardsticks away!’ (KOTUS; G. A. Hippius. Piirustusopin alkeet, 1867)

(22) Pullot Øv piiloon BOTTLES.nom-pl Øv.IMP HIDING-PLACE.illative.sg ‘[Move] bottles to the hiding-place’ (SKP, 19th cent.)

(23) Kaikki Øv Citymarketiin! All Øv SHOP.illative Everyone [go] to the Citymarket’ (My own example)

Again, no clear description of a pathway on which these clauses developed can be derived from the Finnish data, but attested expressions are both idiomatic and rare. Almost all the Finnish constructions – regardless of whether it is a light or full verb that is absent – could be placed under the pragmatic Motivation Frame, which means that the main goal of the speaker is to motivate the listener to do (or not to do) something. This pragmatic frame produces several types of usage with slight differences between them, like announcements, ads, orders, etc. (see more in Kopotev 2006; Västi 2012). The essential distinctions between Russian and Finnish verbless clauses can be described in terms of different degrees of syntactic ‘frozenness’ ranging from the syntactically free Russian Øcop-clauses to the more restricted ones Russian Øv-clauses and all Finnish constructions. This difference can be related back to the history of these constructions, as the Russian items are much older than the Finnish ones. Thus, the emergence of verbless clauses in Finnish (and other Finnic languages) may reflect a rather recent development. To sum up, internal reconstruction suggests a gradual diffusion of verbless clauses for Russian. This view is supported by the strong correspondence between the evidence documented in written texts and the different degrees of idiomaticity in the modern language. Both Øbe-andØv-clauses have been drawn into the grammaticalization path initiated by Øcop-clauses, rather than reflecting the influence of external sources. Although nominal clauses have been reconstructed for Proto-Uralic (they are best preserved in the Samoyedic

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languages, in which both Øcop-andØbe-clauses are detected), their distinctive feature is the morphological marking of predicate nominals. The low degree of their idiomaticity (in fact, their full morphologization) supports the view that they are ancient in origin. Thus, Samoyedic verbless clauses are potential source constructions for the borrowing of Øcop-andØbe-clauses into Russian. In Finnic languages, there are also syntactic structures similar to those in Russian, but they are definitely newer,11 so that Finnic clauses are hardly good candidates for borrowing into Russian. In the next section, I discuss arguments against direct borrowing in detail.

4 Arguments against direct borrowing

4.1 Linguistic arguments

The first argument is that original Proto-Uralic structures cannot have been transferred intact, because there is no similar morphological marking on nominal predicates in Russian. Another, though weaker, argument is related to the Uralic negation system, which is a distinct feature of this group of languages (see more Laakso 2011; Wagner-Nagy 2011). Almost all modern Uralic languages (and supposedly Proto- Uralic) form negation clauses with a conjugated negative marker. For example, the Finnish negation paradigm is as follows (Table 2):

Table 2: Finnish negation markers.

Person Singular Plural

. en ‘I am not’ emme ‘we are not’ . et ‘You are not’ ette ‘yo are not’ . ei ‘s/he is not’ eivät ‘they are not’

According to Campbell (1990: 71–73), in negation the Proto-Uralic Perfect Tense employed a conjugated negative marker together with a participle. Traces of such forms are clearly discernable in some languages, for example, in Finnish (24b) versus (24a):

11 Researchers suppose that Germanic and Russian languages are the sources for the emergence of copula in Finnic-Lapp languages (Korhonen 1981: 304), as well as its falling out of use (Kettunen 1943; Zlobina 1971).

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(24) a. Minä olen kirjoittanut I be.1SG write.PTCP.ACT ‘I have written’ b. Minä en kirjoittanut I neg.1SG write.PTCP.ACT ‘I haven’t written’

In Russian, there is neither a conjugated negative marker nor a difference between verbal and verbless negation in present and past tenses12 (25a and 25b; 26a and 26b).

(25) a. Ja ne pišu I not WRITE.1.prs ‘I do not write’ b. Ja ne pisatel’ I not writer ‘I am not a writer’

(26) a. My ne pisali we not WRITE.pl.pst ‘We did not write’ b. My ne byli pisateljami we not BE.pl.pst WRITER.instr ‘We were not writers’

In general, ancient Uralic non-verbal predication had the following features: – no conjugated verb; – suffixes attached to nominal predicates and marking of Person, Number and Tense; – a non-verbal conjugated negation system.

Thus, although the absence of a copula reconstructed for ancient Uralic had its equivalent in Old East Slavic language, none of the other Uralic features do.

12 In connection with negation, the Old East Slavic (or even common Slavic) forms such as нѣсмь NEG.BE.1.sg нѣси NEG.BE.2.sg, etc. are a different phonetic process, where negation ne ‘no’ and finite forms of BE.prs are amalgamated. Later in Russian, this process resulted in the complicated negation system, which is independent from any F.-U. influence (Babby 1980; Savelyeva 1989).

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At the same time, Øcop.3.PRS appears so often in different languages all over the world that it does not require local language contact to be explained. Typologically very much the same processes may have caused the deletion of copula in African American Vernacular English (cf. He is working → He workin’; for more, see Ferguson 1971; Bender 2000). Øcop has been established for many languages of Oceania, Central and South America, as well as for Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan languages13 (see Hengeveld 1992; Stassen 1994; Adamou and Costaouec 2010 for more data and further discussion). The ancient IE languages (and most likely Proto-IE) had this kind of Øcop usage as well (see Meillet 1906–1908; Gauthiot 1908–1909; Benveniste 1950). The disappear- ance of the COP.3SG.PRS is shared by other Slavic languages, e.g. Old Church Slavonic (a South Slavic language; see Zlatanova 1973) and Polish (West Slavic; see Stassen 2001), none of which had close contacts with Uralic. Thus, it is more plausible to assume, on typological grounds, that copula deletion is simply a very natural process. Also, it seems to be natural for third-person copulas to be omitted more readily than copulas in any other persons. As Stassen puts it, “If a language allows a zero copula at all, it will minimally select this option for predicate nominal sentences in the Present Tense with a Third Person subject” (1994: 111). Also in this respect, then, the Russian situation is compatible with the hypothesis that it reflects a natural language-internal development. The only aspect where influence from Uralic may have played a role is the noticeable increase in frequency. In fact, Russian Øcop-constructions do not differ at all from other IE languages in terms of structure, but they have become increasingly more frequent since Old East Slavic period. Having at first been constrained to idiomatic use as in other IE languages (proverbs, headlines and ‘telegraphese’ messages), their use may have increased through contact, so that the constructions eventually overcame their pragmatic constraints. These pragmatic modifications had a direct effect on language structure, producing a morphological zero-variant of the copula (for a theoretical discussion, see Kemmer and Barlow 2000).

4.2 Extra-linguistic arguments

There are also several arguments based on extra-linguistic factors. One can suppose that Øv-clause types developed under the influence of Permian or

13 The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) gives comparable figures for use of zero and non-zero copula: 175 and 211 languages, respectively (wals.info/chapter/120).

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Ugric groups, where both Øcop- and Øbe-clauses are still used today. The earliest contacts with these languages were established in the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, whereas both Øcop- and Øbe-clauses showed a visible change in frequency in the sixteenth century. The problem is that both types of zero verb clauses had already existed in Old East Slavic before the Old-Russian language was separated and before contacts between Slavonic and Ugric tribes were attested. A change in frequency can be, of course, contact-induced; however, we should be aware that this scenario implies that a language change in Central Russia should have been provoked by linguistic communities located thousands of kilometers to the east, around the Ural Mountains. Another often cited and somewhat more plausible hypothesis assumes an influence of assimilated Finno-Ugric tribes, who had lived in Northern and Central Russia before the arrival of the Russians. R. L’Hermitte (1978) showed that both Øcop-andØbe-clauses started spreading from those areas, while the South was much more conservative. Leaving aside the lack of clear evidence from those languages, this proposal is controversial on genetic grounds. DNA investigations provide data for the reconstruction of the demo- graphic history, migration and ethnic contacts, including Finno-Ugric–Russian DNA similarity. From these data, it becomes evident that things are not as simple as previously thought:

The Y chromosomal data (reflecting the most differentiated paternal lineages) indicates that all populations from Archangelsk province are included in the vast “northern” cluster, along with Vologda Russians, Baltic speakers (Latvians and Lithuanians), Finnic speakers (Komi, Finns, Estonians, pooled group of Karels, Vepsa and Izhors) and Germanic speak- ing Swedes. Note, that North Russians are more genetically similar to geographically distant Baltic populations rather than to Finnic speakers [emphasis mine]: the similarity with Baltic populations was revealed for each North Russian population, while degree of similarity with Finnic speakers and set of similar Finnic populations do vary. < … > The mitochon- drial DNA data (reflecting the maternal lineages) demonstrates the similarity of the Russian North to the widest set of populations from northern half of Europe. Norwegians and Germans appear to be the most genetically similar to the Russian North. The cluster also includes Austrians, Swiss, Poles, Bosnians, Lithuanians, Irish, and Scottish. The neighbor cluster is formed by other Russian populations, Swedes, Estonians, Latvians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Czech, Slovaks, Hungarians. But the main corpus of Finnic speakers (Finns, Karelians, Komi, Mordvinians, Mari) is very distant from European populations and from Russian North, which rejects the (previously supposed) strong contribution of Finno-Ugric populations into the Northern Russians [emphasis mine]. (Balanovskaja et al. 2011: 58).

In other words, Russian–Finnic DNA similarity is evident, but it is weaker than Russian–Baltic similarity and is not attested for the maternal lineage. Thus, the geographical spread of Øcop- and Øbe-clauses is not in line with the mapping derivable from genome data.

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Perhaps instead of viewing ancient Uralic deī ex machina and typologically grounded arguments for internal developments as two alternative explanations, they might each be seen as contributing some part of the explanation, provided that one makes a distinction between the direct transfer of a construction and the mechanics by which contact can lead to its increased frequency:

If it is sometimes difficult to draw a sharp line between what must be considered live and literary influences in syntax, the same is probably true to an even higher degree of the suggested distinction between a mere mechanical transfer of foreign syntactic patterns and the activation and intensification of the pre-existent indigenous syntactic models or formal–functional means, inherent in the affected language but triggered by foreign influence. (Birnbaum 1984: 38)

The extension of Øcop-toØbe- and to Øv-clauses in Russian can be explained much more easily as an internal development than as a borrowing. As we have seen, the specific form–function pairings in Russian are different from those in Uralic languages. Also, the chronologies and the geography do not match; therefore, the hypothesis of mechanical structure transfer is implausible. However, the results of the changes are too similar to Uralic counterparts for any influence to be ruled out completely.14 Thus, what may represent a contact-induced development in Russian, may be the increase in the frequency of Verbless clause constructions and the fact that they overcame their originally rather tight pragmatic constraints.

5 Cognitive considerations

In this part I look for other – cognitive – explanations, asking specifically: – why precisely did these three types appear? – why is it hardly possible to imagine examples like (27)?

(27) Rus. *Ivan Øznaet ėto stichotvorenie.

Fin. *Juha Øtietää tämän runon.

Eng. *John Øknows this poem.

As a starting point for the discussion, consider the following “Relational Succession Law,” which has been formulated by Perlmutter and Postal (1974)

14 Most of the syntactic parallels are considered as in the Uralic-to-Russian direction (Timberlake 1974; Veenker 1967; Tkačenko 1979; Künnap 1997; Thomason and Kaufman 1988; Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Wälchli 2001; Weiss 2012, among others), though some of the phenom- ena remain the subject of criticism for now; cf. Petruxin (2007).

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“[a]n NP promoted by an ascension rule assumes the grammatical relation borne by the host out of which it ascends” (quoted from: Perlmutter and Postal 1983: 35). The law implies that host removal is an intricate process involving inter- relations between an omitted verb and its governed NP. To examine this, I first consider arguments based on the analysis of omitted verbs, and then on the analysis of the dependent phrases.

5.1 Omitted verb features

As was shown above, the first lexeme to be omitted was the copula. Obviously, its omission was less problematic than that of other verbs due to its semantic emptiness: when a copula is left out, hardly any semantic information is lost. Second, and related to this, verb frequency seems to play an important role. Table 3 shows the most frequently used Russian verbs (Lyashevskaya, Sharoff 2009), four of which (in bold) are subject to omission.

Table 3: The most frequent Russian verbs. byt’ ‘to be’ moch’‘can’ skazat’ ‘to say’ govorit’ ‘to speak’ znat’‘to know’ stat’‘to become’ hotet’‘to want’ idti ‘to go’ imet’‘to have’ videt’‘to see’

Although it is difficult to calculate what verbs were most frequent in Old East Slavic and later in its descendant dialects, the verb byti ‘to be’–both copulative and full – is very likely to have been at the top of the list. Hence, as frequent usage correlates with lack of semantic weight, highly frequent verbs are pre- dictably more likely to be omitted than others. This clearly applies to verbs of motion (both physical and metaphorical), which, being highly frequent, are also highly grammaticalized and bleached in many languages (Maisak 2005). Thus, omission represents a predictable further backgrounding of verbs that are regularly and frequently used and therefore semantically highly bleached

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5.2 Dependent phrase features

Consider that in clauses with overt verbs the verbs and their dependent phrases may share overlapping semantic elements that feature in the amounting meaning of the whole syntactic group (e.g. locative group), so that the meaning of the group does not fully depend on the meanings of both of the individual lexemes that form it. When that is the case, a phrase may omit its verb, without there being any essential information loss. Cf.

(27) John is here/in the garden [Locative Phrase]

John Øcop here/in the garden

On the contrary, in the clause John knows this poem the overall meaning of the verb phrase depends both on the noun AND on the verb and cannot be inferred from the object NP by itself (Cf. John knows Mary). Therefore, the verb is necessary and the elliptic clause *John this poem is not normally used. To make it clear consider the following example (28):

(28) Okno Øcop slomano

window Øcop broken ‘The window [is] broken’

The main function of the copula is to signal a predicate. However, this information is redundant, as the participle phrase is filled with a short form of participle that functions exclusively as a predicate in Russian. Thus, the participle itself expresses a function that fully overlaps with the main function of the copula. Similarly, in (29) both the zero verb, implying ‘to be’, and the AdvP express the same semantic component, i.e. the indication of location (est ‘to be’ ≈ ‘is located’; Locative AdvP ≈ ‘place’):

(29) Kniga Øbe zdesь

Book Øbe here ‘Book [is located] here’

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Likewise, in (30), both the inferable verb (e.g. “run”) and the PP contain a component that designates movement (to run ≈ “move”; directional PP ≈ “movement to”):

(30) Tatjana Ø‘move’.3SG v les

Tatyana Ø‘move’.3SG into forest ‘Tatyana [is running] into the forest’

While human languages naturally allow (and even encourage) redundancy, redundancy also permits speakers to shorten expressions. Therefore, it is not surprising that the meanings of phrases that function as predicates in verbless clauses usually correspond to the meanings of the omitted verbs. In other words, the resulting constructions are semantically complete even without the verb, while they are at the same time syntactically restricted, and idiomatic. Thus, syntactic idioms reflect verbless clauses that are grammatical, because the verb that is “lost” in them is light and semantically bleached, and its omission does not reduce their meaning. The same cannot be claimed for examples like *John

Øv poem, where the meanings of the (omitted) verb and the NP do not overlap in this sense. Generalizing from this, one can say:

Verbless clauses can develop when (1) the meaning of a frequently used verb is highly bleached and overlaps with the meaning of a dependent phrase, and when (2) the com- municative context favours brief and idiomatic forms of expression.

Of course, historical circumstances, specific pragmatic conditions and occasions of language are highly contingent and will vary considerably. Thus, the common cognitively grounded factors just described only create the general conditions for the emergence of verbless clause types, while the question which specific constructions emerge when, where and how will depend additionally on pragmatic and extra-linguistics factors.

6 Summary and conclusion

As has been demonstrated, there are three types of verbless clauses in Russian. They emerged through ellipsis of both the copula and other (full) verbs. They can be distinguished from one another in terms of different degrees of idiomaticity and possess different constructional, pragmatic and semantic features. Their emergence is reconstructable from textual sources and involved three phases, producing first Øcop-, then Øbe- and finally to Øv-constructions. Their idiomaticity reflects the order in which they emerged: Øcop-constructions are fully grammatical and

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non-idiomatic, while Øbe- and Øv-constructions are currently still restricted – to different degrees – to syntactic idioms. As far as the hypothesis is concerned that Russian verbless clauses owe their existence to contact with Uralic languages, it has been argued that it is most probably wrong. Thus, the verbless clause constructions found in Samoyedic languages do not fully match their Russian counterparts: they involve a sophisticated system of nominal predicate conjugation and verbless negation, which is not found in Russian. Thus, it is highly unlikely that Russian verbless constructions were borrowed from a Samoyedic-like language such as Proto-Uralic is assumed to have been. As far as Finnish is concerned, it seems that its verbless clauses have emerged in a similar way as the Russian ones, but since Finnish verbless constructions are highly idiomatic, this points to relatively recent origin. Thus, they are also unlikely to have served as models for their Russian counterparts. Although contact with Uralic languages can most probably be ruled out as the source of verbless clause constructions in Russian, however, it is nevertheless plausible to assume that contact with Finnic languages may have contributed to their long-term establishment and helped to increase their frequency. This assumption is plausible both because of the long co-existence of the two languages in close vicinity and because of the clear presence of some syntactic borrowings that have been discussed in previous studies.

Acknowledgments: The author deeply thanks A. Tenser, M. Lounela and two anonymous reviewers for their comments to the draft of this article.

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