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G. Authier & T. Maisak (eds)

Tense, aspect, modality and finiteness
in East Caucasian languages

 

About the book

Gilles Authier & Timur Maisak (eds)

Tense, aspect, modality and finiteness in East Caucasian languages.

(Diversitas Linguarum, 30)

Bochum: Brockmeyer, 2011.

204 pp.

ISBN 978-3-8196-0800-1

Based on selected presentations given at the conference “Morphosyntax of Caucasian Languages” held in December 2006 at the Collège de France (Paris).

With a map by Yuri Koryakov

Tense, aspect, modality and finiteness in East Caucasian languages

 

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Table of contents,
with page numbers and abstracts

 

GILLES AUTHIER & TIMUR MAISAK: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Transcription conventions and grammatical labels . . . . .  . . . .. . . . xiii

MARINA CHUMAKINA: Morphological complexity of Archi verbs . 1

The verbal morphology of Archi has been claimed to be outstandingly complex. I test
this claim by establishing the amount of information about the verbal paradigm that has to
be memorized as opposed to being inferred. I first provide some general information on
Archi, its speakers, and the sources of the data used here (section 1), and then give some
information about Archi inflectional morphology (section 2). Section 3 gives details of the
morphology of the Archi verb, discussing the size of the paradigm and the irregularities it
shows. Section 4 discusses different views of morphological complexity in relation to
Archi. Section 5 describes the production of verb forms in Archi. Section 6 gives some
conclusions.

TIMUR MAISAK: The Present and the Future within the Lezgic
tense and aspect systems
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

This paper discusses those finite verb forms found in the Lezgic languages whose main
function is to express present or future time reference. As a rule, such forms are built on
imperfective non-finite forms and include a present copula. The following source patterns
which usually give rise to Presents and Futures in these languages are analysed in detail:
the Infinitive Pattern (“Infinitive + Copula”), the Locative Pattern (“Imperfective Converb
+ Locative Copula”), the Imperfective Converb Pattern (“Imperfective Converb + Copula”),
and the Participle Pattern (“Imperfective Participle + Copula”). The grammaticalization
paths of these patterns have much in common, in particular the semantic development
from ‘present’ to ‘future’.

GILLES AUTHIER: From adlocative case to debitive mood
without desubordination
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

A finite modal form with debitive meaning is found in both Kryz and Budugh, most
often ending in a suffix -u, which can be identified with the nominal adlocative case
marker. Budugh uses the same form with nominalized, non-finite value, while Kryz does
not. This seems to indicate that the grammaticalization process by which a case may come
to express modality when added to a verb stem does not necessarily imply a nominalized
stage followed by desubordination.

NINA DOBRUSHINA: The Optative domain in East Caucasian
languages
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

The Optative is an inflected verb form dedicated to the expression of the wish of the
speaker. Caucasian languages tend to have morphologically specialized forms to convey
this meaning. The purpose of this paper is to explore the volitional domain based on an
analysis of the Optatives in 16 Caucasian languages, including 15 East Caucasian languages
and one Turkic language of Daghestan (Kumyk). The paper provides typological
arguments for distinguishing between two different kinds of optatives. The Performative
Optative is dedicated to the expression of blessings and curses, while the Desiderative
Optative expresses a ‘powerless wish’ of the speaker (his/her dreams, longings etc.).

NINA SUMBATOVA: Person hierarchies and the problem of
person marker origin in Dargwa: facts and diachronic problems
. . . . 131

The Dargwa languages are well known for their complex person marking systems,
which in most cases include three person-marking sets distributed across different TAM
paradigms. This paper presents an overview of person marking systems in the Dargwa
dialects. It shows that in Dargwa, two basic tendencies of person ranking are observed:
some dialects (especially those located in the North of the Dargwa-speaking area) invariably
place 1st and 2nd person on the same level of the hierarchy, while other dialects (especially
those located in the South-West) give preference to the 2nd person. The paper
also suggests several ideas for diachronic explanations of these tendencies.

ELENA KALININA: Exclamative clauses in the languages
of the North Caucasus and the problem of finiteness
. . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

In this article exclamative constructions in several languages of the Caucasus are
presented and analysed in the light of modern studies on the exclamative sentence type. I
identify various strategies of exclamative formation and demonstrate that these strategies
are comparable across the different languages examined here. I also provide functional
explanations for the strategies observed.

List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

 

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