(Komi-Permyak)
NoPfm
NoPfm: No special verb form exists to express the perfect.
| (1) | žugdöt-i-sö | stokan. |
|---|
| break‑PST‑3PL | glass |
| ’They broke a glass.’ (L. P.) |
| (2) | žugdöt-ömaś | stokan. |
|---|
| break‑PST2.3PL | glass. |
| ’They broke a glass.’ (L. P.) |
| (3) | öndi | völ-i-s | ńi | finľanďija-yn. |
|---|
| Andrey | be‑PST‑3SG | already | Finland‑INE |
| ’Andrey has already been to Finland.’ (V. E.) |
| (4) | öndi | völ-öm | ńi | finľanďija-yn. |
|---|
| Andrey | be‑PST2.3SG | already | Finland‑INE |
| ’Andrey has already been to Finland.’ (V. E.) |
| (5) | tön | irina | verd-i-s | mös-sö. |
|---|
| yesterday | Irina | feed‑PST‑3SG | cow‑ACC.3SG |
| ’Yesterday Irina fed the cow/her cow.’ (L. P.) |
| (6) | tön | irina | verd-öm | mös-sö. |
|---|
| yesterday | Irina | feed‑PST2.3SG | cow‑ACC.3SG |
| ’Yesterday Irina (reportedly) fed the cow/her cow.’ (L. P.) |
The second past tense of Komi-Permyak has been identified as having a perfect function by several studies (for more details see Cypanov 2005: 105–117 and Batalova 2002: 99–100). It is based on claims that the second past can be used to express past events that affect the present (2), or experiential events (4) as well. According to native speakers, however, these meanings can also be expressed by first past verb forms (1), (3). There is agreement on the main difference between the two synthetic past tenses being in encoding evidentiality: the language differentiates between witnessed (5) and non-witnessed (6) past (cf. Leinonen–Cypanov 1995, Bartens 2000, Cypanov 2005, Ponomareva 2010, and the parameters Evidentiality and Encoding evidentiality). In Komi-Permyak, similarly to other languages, evidentiality may have been grammaticalized from an earlier perfect function (Szabó 2022). More research is needed to establish the details.
Author: Nikolett F. Gulyás
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