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Home , Altaic languages, Finnic languages, Finnish language, Japonic languages, Khanty, Martine Robbeets

Typological overview of the Uralic Chingduang Yurayong 28.01.2019 Uralic languages General typological profile of Uralic languages

• Intolerant towards complex initial consonant clusters: • Fi ranta (< Germanic *strandō-) • Head-final word order: • ADJ- • OBJ- • Postposition • : • Fi talo-ssa-ni-kin [house-INES-1SG-PTCL] ‘also in my house’ • No : • Fi vanha mies ‘old man’ = vanha nainen ‘old woman’ • etc. Matthias Castrén (1813-1852)

. 1838-1849 – Four expeditions to , and . Dissertation 1850 De affixs personalibus linguarum Altaicarum (comparison of personal endings in Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic and ) . 14 March 1851 Imperial Alexander University’s (today University of ) first ever professor of Finnish and literature . Founder of the -Altaic hypothesis M. A. Castrén’s expeditions 1838-1849 “Ural-” Ural-Altaic hypothesis

• Uralic languages resemble Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic and a lot by their structure > genealogical relation? • Primary attention of early day’s Finnish historical between the late 19th c. and the early 20th century • Problem: we cannot establish a firm argument for Ural-Altaic relation on the basis of regular sound correspondences in lexicon, which is the primary method in , because the similarities only concern the area of grammar • Modern view: Uralic languages and the rest resemble each other only in their language structure but not substance > contact explanation! “Trans-Eurasian” ?

• (Max Planck, Jena) • Conventional “Ural- Altaic” language family became “Trans-Eurasian” • Uralic languages are excluded • Problem: the language to represent the whole Uralic family in her studies is Eastern … (see later why) Phonology http://eurasianphonology.info/reports?family=Uralic Stops

• Three places of articulation • Labial p • Dental t • Velar k • distinction p t k – d is absent from Saami and outside (except Livonian), Mari, Eastern Khanty, Mansi, most Samoyedic (except Nganasan and Enets) (https://wals.info/feature/4A) • Voice distinction that maintains two series of stops is common to most “Altaic” languages Sibilants

• Three sibilant series s – ś ź – š • ś ź common to the majority of Uralic languages (but not Finnish!) • š ž common to the majority of Uralic languages but not Finnic, Khanty, Mansi and Samoyedic • Turkic have two distinct sibilant series s z – š ž, while the palatal series ś ź Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic and Japonic is to the plain series s z in a palatal sound environment Nasals

• Four places of articulation • Labial m • Dental n • Palatal ɲ • Velar ŋ • Velar ŋ rare in the word-initial position, but observed in Samoyedic of the zone (https://wals.info/feature/9A) • Initial ŋ is also rare among “Altaic” languages (still observed in some Tungusic languages: Even, Udege, Uilta, etc.), but common to Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo- Laterals

• Lateral l common to the majority of Uralic languages • Voiceless lateral l̥ or latero- ł observed in Kildin and Ter Saami, Moksha, Komi, Northern Khanty and Forest Nenets • Voiceless lateral/latero-fricative is common to Yeniseic, Yukaghir, Chukotko- Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut as well as Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic spoken in Siberia inventories

• Uralic languages are generally rich in (> 6 vowels) • Labial vowels in the non-initial only observed in Saami and Finnic languages • Length distinction is mainly lost in Mordvin, Permic and Mari Erzya (Mordvin) Hill Mari (Mari) Taz Selkup (Samoyedic) Hungarian

Khanty • Palatal type of harmony (front vs. back) • Representative “Ural-Altaic” feature that can possibly be reconstructed to all proto-languages, despite evolving into root harmony (tense vs. lax / unpharyngealised vs. pharyngealised) in most modern Mongolic, Tungusic and Koreanic as well as some Turkic like Kazakh (Barrere & Janhunen 2019) • Collapse in several Finnic languages (.g., Estonian, Veps) • Fi se – sitä, Est see – seda, Ve se – sida • Fi emä, Est ema, Ve ema(ga)

Barrere, Ian G. & Janhunen, Juha. 2019. Mongolian Vowel Harmony in a Eurasian Context. International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics 1(1). 46–77. https://brill.com/view/journals/jeal/1/1/article-p46_4.xml?language=en Phonotactics

• Prototypically vowel-ending structures (C)V and (C)V(C)CV • Consonant-ending monosyllabic structure emerging later, especially in Permic, Mari and Hungarian • (Complex) initial consonant clusters are rare, cf. Germanic loanwords in Finnic

• Word-initial stress in westernmost Uralic languages (Saami, Finnic) as well as Khanty and Nenets • Mobile stress in the rest of Uralic languages (https://wals.info/feature/14A) Morphosyntax Number

• Tripartite Singular-Dual- system still present in the languages of Tundra zone (Saami, Khanty, Mansi, Samoyedic) • Dual is lacking from the steppe languages “Altaic”, but common to other Paleo-Siberian languages of the and Tundra zone Hungarian Case marking

• Grammatical cases for core arguments (subject, direct , indirect object, adverbial) like in Indo- European, for instance • Rich in locational cases, resulted from grammaticalisation of relational (e.g. ‘top’) • Northern Khanty is an extreme case of case loss, N Khanty xɔt ‘house’ ewĭ ‘girl’ kǫśa ‘farmer’ NOMINATIVE xɔt ewĭ kǫśa only 3 Proto-Uralic cases LATIVE-DATIVE xɔta ewĭja kŏśaja remaining LOCATIVE xɔtnĭ, xɔtən ewĭnĭ, ewĭjən kǫśani, kǫśajən marking in Meadow Mari

Remarks:

• Order of case and possessive

• In most languages, predominantly case-possessive

• In Khanty and Mansi, predominantly possessive-case

• In Permic and Mari, the order is variable Verb paradigm and • Object conjugation (i.e. incorporation) is feature observed widely across the Uralic languages, but not in Finnic, Saami, Permic and Mari! object conjugation • Unknown to “Altaic” but very common to other Paleo-Siberian languages

Northern Khanty

Southern Ainu Noun phrase

• No between modifier and head noun, i.e. does not take the same case and number as head noun, which is a common phenomenon across the Northern e.g. Erzya t’e vele ‘this village’ – t’e velese ‘in this village’ (** t’ese velese) • However, • Finnic adjective always declines after its head noun in case and number • Saami adjective has two forms: predicative – attributive, e.g., in Northern Saami vielgat – vilges ‘white’ čáhppat – čáhppes ‘black’ ruoksat – rukses ‘red’ • cf. Indo-European languages have this modifier-modified agreement! Adpositional phrase

• Predominantly postpositions like “Altaic”, but prepositions later emerged under the contact with Indo-European languages (Germanic, Baltic, Slavic)

Northern Saami & Finnish Verb phrase

• Proto-Uralic is regarded to have possessed SOV , i.e. verb- final syntax, which is common in “Altaic” and Paleo-Siberian languages. • This verb-final tendency is still dominant in Eastern Uralic languages: Permic, Mari, Khanty, Mansi and Samoyedic, despite it has been recently weakening in many languages due to heavy Russian influence (same applies to Evenki and many other Tungusic languages, for instance)

• The original use of verb ‘to be’ seems to be the expression of location ‘to be somewhere’ • The equative use ‘to be someone/something’ seems to be a secondary semantic extension • Some Uralic languages do not use a verb ‘to be’ for expressing equation, but use only a predicative that can receive person ending • Moksha mon žurnalistan – ton žurnalistat – son žurnalist – sin’ žurnalistiht’ • Mari myj žurnalist ulam – tyj ulat – tudo žurnalist – nuno žurnalist ulyt cf. • Kazakh men žurnalistpĭn – sen žurnalistsĭŋ – ol žurnalist – olar žurnalister Comparative

• Two types of comparative constructions Estonian Ants on pike-m kui Mart analytic ≈ European type Marti-st pike-m synthetic ≈ Asian type ‘Ants is taller than Mart.’ • The use of degree marker on adjective is mainly observed in Saami and Finnic languages, whereas the other Uralic languages use an absolute degree of adjective • A synthetic model with adjective in absolute degree is common across Northern Eurasia all the way to Northern Sinitic languages! Predicative

. The predicative BE-possession is predominant across the Uralic family and the entire Northern Eurasia Alternation in Khanty and Mansi Predicative possession

. The predicative HAVE-possession secondarily emerged in Khanty and Mansi languages Predicative possession in the Ural-Altaic context uaog Cigun. 09 Peiaie ossin in possession Predicative 2019. Chingduang. Yurayong, ora d l Scéé Finno Société https:// la de Journal Ural the in documents Birch Novgorod journal.fi/susa//view/74592 - Ougrienne - Altaic context.Altaic 7 183 97. – 233. D = = C = B2 = B1 A = With Locational possessive with the the with possessive Locational Topic possessive Topic Have Have - possessive - - possessive possesssive : Northeast Eurasia Northeast : : Far East Far : : : : SAE : - Ugric adessive and North Africa North and possessor : Finnic and and Permic

• Uralic languages are nominative-accusative languages • Nominative as a subject case is unmarked, while accusative as an object case is marked with a *-m • Uralic languages are generally thought to be causativising languages • is usually derived from plain (in)transitive verb form with a suffix *-t- Relative clause

• Prototypically as a prenominal modifier with non- • A postnominal model with subordinate clause and finite verb emerged under the contact with Indo-European languages (Germanic, Baltic, Slavic) Finnish Täällä asu-va mies prenominal [participle] Mies, joka asuu täällä postnominal [subordinate clause] ‘A man who lives here’

• “Altaic”, most other Paleo-Siberian and Sinitic languages exclusively use prenominal construction Korean Khalkha Mongolian yŏki sa-nŭn namcha en-d am’dar-dag hün here live-PTCP man this-LOC live-PTCP man Lexical semantics esh_lists wiki/Appendix:Uralic_Swad https://en.wiktionary.org/ Body parts (Swadesh list) tongue tooth mouth nose eye ear head hair feather tail horn egg fat bone blood Gloss liver heart breast back neck guts belly wing hand knee leg foot fingernail (noun) maksa sydän rinta selkä kaula suolet maha siipi käsi polvi jalka jalka kynsi kieli hammas suu nenä silmä korva pää tukka karva sulka häntä sarvi muna rasva luu veri Finnish jalkaterä vatsa hiukset (human head hair) (human , hius , buoidi dákti varra SaamiNorthern vuoivvas váibmu čižži čielgi čeabet čoalli čoavji soadji giehta čibbi juolgi juolgi gazza giela bátni njálbmi njunni čalbmi beallji oaivi vuovttat vuokta dolgi seaibi čoarvi monni (SG), (PL) куя ловажа верь Erzya максо седей меште кутьмере кирьга потмот пеке сёлмо кедь кумажа пильге пильге (кедьсур)кенже кель пей курго судо сельме пиле пря черь толга пуло сюро ал - сюлот мус сь мор мыш [[]] [[]] кын борд ки пыдз кок кок гыж кыв пинь вом ныр син пель юр юрси г б сюр кольк [[]] лы вир Komi ö ö н ж л ö ö ö с ö м м с mājt sim [[]] sis [[]] [[]] [[]] [[]] kāt [[]] [[]] [[]] [[]] ńēləm [[]] sūp ńol sam palˈ puŋk āt pun [[]] āńt mūŋi [[]] [[]] [[]] Mansi máj szív mell hát nyak bél has szárny kéz térd láb gyalog láb köröm nyelv fog száj orr szem fül fej szőr haj toll fark farok, szarv tojás zsír csont vér Hungarian fő (foot/leg) (leg/foot), (head) ajak szű kebel mony (body) (on foot) (on (archaic) (lip) (archaic) - (archaic) lábszár lábfej (foot) (leg) [[]] sʲeyə [[]] [[]] jiikə [[]] [[]] [[]] ŋuda [[]] ŋææ ŋææ [[]] nʲaəmi tʲibʲa nʲah pija sææwə [[]] ŋææwa ŋebto [[]] tææwə nʲamtə [[]] [[]] le weja TundraNenets

• Pronouns are declinable in cases

Hungarian Demonstratives Finnic languages

Demonstratives Language Proximal Medial Distal se / ne West Livonian tämä / nämä sjoo / njoo taa / naa tuu / nuu North Estonian see / need se / ne Votic kase / kane Ingrian tämä / nämä se / ne too / noo Finnish tämä / nämä se / ne tuo / nuo Karelian proper tämä / nämä še / ne tuo / nuo tämä / nämä se / net tua / nuat Karelian neče / nenne tämä / ńämäd se / ńed tuo / nuod Lude ńeče / ńeńe se / ne East Veps ńece / ńene Demonstratives

Saami languages Numerals

• ‘one’ to ‘six’ can be regarded as native Uralic • ‘seven’ might, but not necessarily, be related to Indo-European, Caucasian, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan, etc. • Septimal system might have been an original one • cf. Fi kah-deksan ‘eight’ and yh-deksan ‘nine’, Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥ t ‘ten’ Tense-Aspect-Mood

• Dichotomy between present and is predominant, but some languages might have developed a or periphrastic construction to mark future tense • Aspect distinction is observed in some languages with complex past tense, e.g., Udmurt (Mari Saraheimo will discuss this issue more in her lecture “Morphosyntax”) • Indicative and imperative are commonly found in verb paradigm across the entire Uralic family, while a strategy to mark may vary Pragmatics Question

• Polar question can be formed by question tag or the use of rising intonation • Finnic, Saami, Mordvin and Komi focalise and raise to the clause-initial position, while the other Uralic languages predominantly have in situ word order in wh-question

Udmurt – in situ type

• Hungarian has a prenominal definite article á/áz, while have enclitic definite articles, both of which have been grammaticalised from demonstratives • Other Uralic languages can also mark definiteness by means of possessive , especially in Komi, and demonstratives, especially in Finnic -Egophoricity-Engagement

A thorough survey by Jalava https://www.academia.edu/download/49316095/SLE_2016_Jalava.pdf

1. Reported evidentials • Estonian and Livonian (Kehayov & al 2012) 2. Indirect evidentials • Mari, Komi and Udmurt (Serebrennikov 1960; Bereczki 1984; Leinonen 2000), Khanty and Mansi (Nikolaeva 1999, Csepregi 2014, Sipőcz 2014, Skribnik 1998, Skribnik & Janda 2012) 3. Complex evidential systems • many with specialized markers for sensory, indirect, inferred, assumed (Jalava 2015) 4. No affixal evidentials • Finnic languages (except for Estonian and Livonian), Sámic languages, Mordvin languages (Erzya, Moksha), Hungarian In Uralic languages, when there are specialized suffixes for encoding evidentiality, these evidential forms are based on nominalizations, mainly (resultative) participles (Jalava 2016)

Some classic literature on the Uralic typology

• Collinder, Björn. 1957. Survey of the Uralic languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. • Collinder, Björn. 1960. Comparative grammar of the Uralic languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. • Janhunen, Juha. 1982. On the structure of Proto-Uralic. Finnisch- Ugrische Forschungen 44. 23-42. https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10224/4083/janhunen23-42.pdf?sequence=1 • Hajdú, Péter. 1983. The main characteristic features of the Uralic languages. Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 33(1/4). 101-112. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44310119