(Udmurt)
PerifA & SyntA
PerifA: Aspect is expressed periphrastically.
SyntA: Aspect is expressed through the use of a polyexponential synthetic affix.
| (1) ʒ́uć | kyl-yn | umoj | veraśk-iśk-o | | val, |
|---|
| Russian language‑INE good | speak‑PRS‑1SG | | AUX.PST1 |
| no | rod-ez | putat' | | kar-yl-i. |
| but | gender‑ACC | mix_up.INF | do‑FREQ‑PST.1SG |
| ‘I spoke Russian well, but mixed up (different forms of) gender.’ (Informant) | |
| (2) | ogpol | ńules | durti | škola-je | myn-iśk-om | val. |
|---|
| once | forest | along | school‑ILL | go‑PRS‑1PL | AUX.PST1 |
| šödtek_šoryś | ńules | kuš-e | ludkeć | byźy-sa | pot-i-z. |
| suddenly | forest | clearing‑ILL | rabbit | run‑CVB | go_out‑PST1‑3SG |
| ’Once we were walking to school by a forest. Suddenly a hare ran into the clearing.’ (Kel’makov – Hännikäinen 2008: 270) |
| (3) | pinal-jos-ty | tuž | zol | tyškašky-l-o | no |
|---|
| child‑PL‑ACC | very | strong | argue‑FREQ‑3PL | and |
| žugy-l-o | val. | |
| beat‑FREQ‑3PL | AUX.PST1 | |
| ’The children were scolded and beaten very hard.’ (Serebrennikov 1960: 131)) |
| (4) | so | ǯyt-jos-y | lykt-o-z | val | tatćy. |
|---|
| (s)he | evening‑PL‑ILL | come‑FUT‑3SG | AUX.PST1 | here |
| ’(S)he used to come here in the evenings.’ (Keľmakov–Hännikäinen 2008: 270) |
| (5) | eššo | | jyr-y | | berlo | dyr-e | viś-yl-e. |
|---|
| plus | | head‑1SG | last | time‑ILL hurt‑FREQ‑3SG |
| ‘I’ve even been having headaches lately.’ (UdmCorp.) |
| (6) | maly | mon | so sovremennoj literatura-jez |
|---|
| why | I | DET | modern | literature‑ACC | |
| lidʒ́y-sa | kyľľ-iśk-o (...) |
| read‑CVB | lie‑PRS‑1SG |
| ‘Why do I always read modern literature (...)’ (Informant) |
| (7) | kot'ku | (...) | uram-e | pot-iśk-o | | šunyt diśaśky-tek. |
|---|
| always | street‑ILL | go_out‑PRS‑1SG | warm dress‑CVB.ABE | |
| ‘I always (…) go to the street without dressing warmly.’ (UdmCorp.) |
| (8) | gurt-a-m | odig | nunal-ly | berty-l-i. |
|---|
| home‑ILL‑1SG | one | day‑DAT | return‑FREQ‑PST.1SG |
| ’I went back home for a day.’ (Keľmakov – Hännikäinen 2008: 265) |
| (9) | tazalyk-ez | ľabʒ́-em-en, | | | bydes | |
|---|
| health‑3SG | weaken‑PTCP‑INSCOM | whole | |
| gaźet-ez | | lydʒ́y-sa | śot-iśk-o |
| newspaper‑ACC | read‑CVB | give‑PRS‑1SG | | |
‘Since (s)he is in poor health I read the whole newspaper [for him/her].’ (UdmCorp.)
In Udmurt, aspect can be expressed using complex past tenses, auxiliaries of grammaticalized converb constructions, or the frequentative suffix. There are several strategies used for the different subcategories of the imperfect aspect (cf. Horváth 2015, 2018): habituality can be expressed in the past (i) using the so called durative preterite form (verb in the present tense + the auxiliary val/vylem) (1), which is also used for past progressive meanings (2); (ii) combining the past tense verb form with the frequentative suffix (1); (iii) a combination of these two (3); (iv) or, less commonly, the so called frequentative preterite form (cf. Perevoshchikov et al. 1962: 208) (4). Present habitual meanings can be expressed using the frequentative suffix (5) or a converb construction with an imperfective auxiliary (6), but the absence of any grammatical marking is also a possibility (7) (Horváth 2018: 97). The frequentative suffix can be regarded as a polyfunctional morpheme not restricted to expressing imperfective aspect: it can be used for repeated events, which is closely connected to aspect (cf. e.g. Serebrennikov 1960: 135–137, Karakulova 1997, Keľmakov – Hännikäinen 2008: 263–265, Kondrateva 2011: 226–227), but it can also have a single event reading when combined with durative time adverbials (Keľmakov – Hännikäinen 2008: 265). The auxiliaries of complex past tenses are val/vylem (PST/PST2), which, depending on the type of the past tense, combine with different tense forms of the verb. The encoding of perfectivity is less significant in the aspectual system of Udmurt, and is mainly expressed using aspectual auxiliaries (with some of the aspectual auxiliaries having imperfective readings (6)). The Udmurt language has so called aspectual verb pairs (cf. Kel’makov 1975), that is, grammaticalized converb constructions that act as complex predicates. In these cases the lexical meaning of the predicate comes from the converb, with the other member losing a part of its lexical meaning. In these constructions the verbs combining with the converb can be phasal verbs like bydtyny ’finish’, posture verbs (e.g. kyľľyny ’lie’, sylyny ’stand’, pukyny ’sit’), verbs of motion (pl. koškyny ’go away/leave’, pyryny ’go in’, potyny ’go out’, lyktyny ’come’), or verbs from other semantic fields (such as śotyny ‘give’, baśtyny ‘take’, kuštyny ‘throw’, leźyny ’allow’, keľtyny ’let’), which behave like main verbs syntactically but in certain cases are interpreted as aspectual markers. For instance, the verb śotyny (< ‘give’) can express a perfective event with a beneficiary participant (9), while the verb potyny (< ’go out, leave’) can simultaneously encode the direction and the perfectivity of the event expressed by the converb (2). The degree of grammaticalization of a construction varies: the same construction can be grammaticalized to different degrees depending on context, just like the same auxiliary can have different degrees of grammaticalization depending on the type of converb it is combined with. That is, the status of the auxiliary is contingent on the pragmatic and other properties of the context of the utterance (cf. Horváth 2011, 2013).
Author: Laura Horváth
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