(Udmurt)

WCxPx & WPxCx

WCxPx: The morpheme order is as follows: root, case affix, possessive affix.

WPxCx: The morpheme order is as follows: root, possessive affix, case affix.

(1)bakča-je-len
garden1SGGEN
’my garden’s’ (Kel’makov – Hännikäinen 2008: 82)

(2)eš-m-e
friend1SGACC
’my friend (ACC)’ (Winkler 2011: 62)

(3)kar-eeš-en-ymmyn-iśk-o.
townILLfriendINSCOM1SGgoPRS1SG
’I am going to town with my friend.’ (Keľmakov – Hännikäinen 2008: 168)

(4)bakča-ja-m
gardenINE1SG
’in my garden’ (Kel’makov – Hännikäinen 2008: 82)

(5)bakča-ja-m
gardenILL1SG
’into my garden’ (Kel’makov – Hännikäinen 2008: 82)

In Udmurt, the co-occurrence of the case morpheme and the possessive morpheme can be realized in one of two ways depending on the type of the case morpheme, both in singular and plural forms. The PxCx order is attested with the following case suffixes: genitive (1), accusative (2), dative, ablative, abessive, adverbial, approximative. When other case morphemes combine with the possessive suffix the result is a CxPx order (Csúcs 1998: 284). The cases in question are the following: instrumental-comitative (3), inessive (4), illative (5), elative, egressive, transitive, terminative. Combining Px and Cx may result in specific morpheme variants. One representative example is the first person singular possessive suffix, which is -e-/-je- or -y in the absence of a case marker, but after e.g. the instrumental-comitative suffix it is realised as -ym (3), whereas it has the form -m when combined with accusative case (2). To account for how accusative case combines with the possessive suffix (2), some accounts propose that no separate morphemes can be identified (cf. Bartens 2000: 158), others (pl. Winkler 2011: 60–63) claim that it is possible to do; in the latter case the irregular forms can be regarded as morpheme alternants. When illative and inessive case suffixes combine with Px the case suffixes are realised as -a-/-ja, resulting in homonymy. The function of the -a-/-ja suffix can be identified based on the context it appears in (4)–(5).

Author: Laura Horváth


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