Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Ústav jazykovědy a baltistiky Bakalářská diplomová práce 2013 Martin Frodl Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of Linguistics and Baltic Studies Aspect marking in Udmurt Bachelor’s thesis Martin Frodl Advisor: Dr. Kozmács István, PhD. Brno, spring 2013 Declaration Hereby I declare, that this paper is my original authorial work, which I have worked out by my own. All sources, references and literature used or excerpted during elaboration of this work are properly cited and listed in complete reference to the due source. Martin Frodl v Acknowledgement I wish to express my gratitude to advisor Dr. Kozmács István, PhD. thanks to whom I got the opportunity to get acquainted with the enchanting Udmurt language several years ago. I am grateful he eventually also took on the uneasy task of supervising my thesis, notwithstanding all the difficulties such a long-distance communication brings about. vii Abstract The aim of this thesis is to provide insight into the aspectual system of the Udmurt language. In the very beginning, a historical overview on the notion of aspect itself is given, followed by an introduction of some essential terminology. The core part exam- ines three principal ways that can be used to specify aspectual meanings in Udmurt. The first way consists in attaching various suffixes to verb stems, the second makes use of the aspectual characteristics of certain past tenses and the third one expresses particular aspects by coupling verbs with certain other verbs into participial construc- tions (so-called paired-verb constructions). The capabilities of each of these three meth- ods are explored and compared to one another. ix Shrnutí Cílem této práce je podat ucelený pohled na aspektový systém udmurtštiny. Text za- číná přehledem vývoje chápání pojmu ‘aspekt’ v průběhu historie, za nímž následuje uvedení do terminologie používané ve zbytku práce. Hlavní část zkoumá tři nejvýz- namnější prostředky vyjadřování aspektuálních gramémů, kterými současná udmurt- ština disponuje. Prvním způsobem je připojování některých sufixů, druhý využívá as- pektuálních charakteristik jistých slovesných časů a třetí spočívá ve spojování plno- významových sloves s tzv. spárovanými slovesy do participiálních konstrukcí. Práce analyzuje vyjadřovací možnosti každé z uvedených metod a navzájem je porovnává. xi Keywords Aktionsart, aspect, aspekt, Finno-Ugric, paired verbs, Udmurt, udmurtština, ugrofin- ské jazyky, vid xiii List of abbreviations 1pl first-person plural 1sg first-person singular 2pl second-person plural 2sg second-person singular 3pl third-person plural 3sg third-person singular abl ablative case acc accusative case aux auxiliary verb conneg connegative verb form dat dative case def definite suffix elat elative case egr egressive case freq frequentative suffix gen genitive case ger1 gerund with ending -sa ger2 gerund with ending -ku ger3 caritive gerund with ending -tek ill illative case ines inessive case inf infinitive form ins instrumental case neg negative verb nwpast second (nonwitnessed) past tense past first (witnessed) past tense pl plural pp past participle pres present tense xv px.1pl first-person plural personal suffix px.1sg first-person singular personal suffix px.2pl second-person plural personal suffix px.2sg second-person singular personal suffix px.3pl third-person plural personal suffix px.3sg third-person singular personal suffix xvi Contents 1 Introduction ................................... 3 2 The notion of aspect and related concepts ................. 5 2.1 Understanding of aspect throughout history ................. 5 2.2 Contemporary classification of aspects .................... 9 3 Aspectual roles of verbal suffixes ...................... 13 3.1 -i̮l-/-ľľa- suffix ................................ 14 3.1.1 Verbs not marked by the -i̮l-/-ľľa- suffix ............ 15 3.1.2 Verb marked by the -i̮l-/-ľľa- suffix ............... 17 3.2 -i̮- and -(j)a- suffixes ............................. 22 3.3 Other verbal suffixes with aspectual meaning ................ 24 4 Aspectual meanings of tenses ........................ 29 4.1 First past tense ................................ 30 4.2 Second past tense .............................. 30 4.3 Analytic tenses with val/vi̮lem ........................ 31 4.3.1 Present tense + val ........................ 32 4.3.2 Future tense + val ......................... 33 4.3.3 Past tense + val .......................... 34 4.4 Past participle + vań (e̮ve̮l) .......................... 35 5 Paired-verb constructions .......................... 37 6 Conclusion .................................... 43 1 1 Introduction In contemporary linguistics, verbal aspect is widely regarded as a separate grammat- ical category comparable to tense or mood. Following Comrie’s (1976, p. 3) defini- tion, individual aspects represent various ways of viewing the internal temporal con- stituency of a situation. Using different aspectual grammemes, one can thus for exam- ple refer to a situation as a whole or, by contrast, emphasize its duration. Other aspects make it possible to refer to particular phases of the situation like its beginning, termi- nation, resulting state etc. The distinction between tense and aspect has not always been made in the way it is done nowadays. Before the concept was first described in Slavic languages, semantic oppositions that would now be described as aspectual used to be classified as tenses (Plungjan, 2003, p. 292). This has in fact remained a common practice for languages where aspectual oppositions are grammaticalized to a lesser extent than in Slavic lan- guages: grammar handbooks most often describe the contrast between, say, French il lut ‘he read’ vs. il lisait ‘he was reading’ or Spanish leyó ‘(he) read’ and leía ‘(he) was reading’ as an opposition of tenses, even though it clearly is an aspectual one (Comrie, 1976, p. 1). To avoid confusion, it is essential to define the meanings of the terms Iam going to use in the following text. This will be done in Chapter 2, which will also give a short survey of how the understanding of the term aspect and similar concepts has changed throughout history. Following this general overview, I will turn my attention to the situation in the Ud- murt language, which is the central theme of my thesis. Udmurt has several ways to express the nuances which correspond to individual aspectual meanings. The one that is mentioned in nearly every work dealing with Udmurt aspect is by means of various verbal suffixes. These will be explored one after another inChapter 3. In fact, these suffixes are what is most often understood by the term ‘aspect’ (vid) in Udmurt lin- guistic tradition, as evident from the historical overview given in Kondrat’jeva (2011, p. 221–223). The general concept of verbal aspect is nevertheless much wider, as will be shown shortly, hence it is worth exploring other grammatical constructions as well. I have already indicated above that certain constructions conventionally desig- 3 1. Introduction nated as ‘tenses’ do also carry an aspectual meaning, in addition to the temporal one. Udmurt is no exception to this tendency: in Chapter 4, I will go through the individual Udmurt tenses, both simple and compound ones, examining the aspectual character- istics of each of them. Both suffixation and the choice of the tense are fairly common methods ofexpress- ing aspectual meaning in the languages around the world. Apart from them, there is one more way to accomplish this goal in Udmurt, characteristic of the languages of the Volga-Kama area. It consists in coupling a verb with another one into a participial construction. Verbs that can serve as ‘coupling partners’ to other verbs are known as paired verbs. There is several dozens of them in Udmurt, each connected with partic- ular aspectual meaning. Paired-verb constructions will be the subject of Chapter 5. In the concluding chapter, I will summarize the results of my findings and try to compare the capabilities of the three presented methods. 4 2 The notion of aspect and related concepts This work seeks to give a description of the formal devices that express aspectual meanings in the system of one particular language – Udmurt. In order to do so, I shall set this task within a wider framework first, defining the key concepts and point out some possibly confusing terminology. As will be shown further on, the notion of aspect is far from unambiguous and it is therefore crucial to make clear which definitions I will draw on. In order to understand the rather complex terminology, it is worth having a look first at how the key terms of aspectology came into existence and how theirusede- veloped over time. The first section of this chapter will therefore provide a histor- ical overview of the matter. After that, I will outline the most important aspectual meanings that are distinguished in present-day linguistics, creating firm terminolog- ical background for the subsequent analysis. 2.1 Understanding of aspect throughout history The very concept of verbal aspect (not the designation itself, though) has its roots in Russian linguistics. Here, it has traditionally been referred to as vid and has been known since the early 17th century at latest (Plungjan, 2003, p. 292; Młynarczyk, 2004, p. 35). In Russian, as well as in all the other Slavic languages, most verbs occur in pairs, each pair consisting of one verb of the imperfective aspect (e.g. pisat’ ‘to write’) and one verb of the perfective aspect (e.g. napisat’ ‘to write’);