Slavic Verb Research Articles

Не те чух: опит за обяснение на една глаголна употреба в разговорния български език през погледа върху етимологията

The text attempts to explain the use of a verb in Bulgarian colloquial speech by examining the etymology of the corresponding common Slavic verb. On the basis of the registered forms in Slavic and the formal semantic parallels in more distant Indo-European languages, as well as what is known in science regarding the possible semantic evolution of the verbs for sense perception, an assumption is made as to what the considered meaning is due to.

The Origin of the Slavic Verbs in the Catechism of Daukša (1595) and the Anonymous Catechism (1605)

The Origin of the Slavic Verbs in the Catechism of Daukša (1595) and the Anonymous Catechism (1605)

Semantic Continuity in a Cross-Linguistic Perspective: Evidence from Slavic Verbs of Pulling and Pushing

This article presents some results of cross-linguistic research on verbs of pushing and pulling in nine Slavic languages. These data call into question the traditional notion of the semantic field as a clear-cut class of lexical units. It is shown that, due to semantic adjacency, fields may overlap, so that in different languages the same event may be described by verbs that would be assigned to different semantic fields in the traditional approach. The violation of inter-field boundaries is evidenced by both synchronic and diachronic data.

АРХІТЕКТУРНІ НАЗВИ, МОТИВОВАНІ ДІЄСЛОВОМ *STATI /STAVITI, В УКРАЇНСЬКІЙ МОВІ ТА МОВАХ БАЛКАНО-СЛОВ’ЯНСЬКОГО КОНТИНУУМУ

The article examines the semantics and internal form of architectural names motivated by the common Slavic verb *stati / staviti, wich has the Indo-European origin, in the Ukrainian language and its dialects, as well as their parallels in the languages of the Balkan-Slavic continuum. We call the Balkan-Slavic lingual continuum the integrate lingual space of the Balkans, Carpats and Slavia, which includes the languages of the Balkan Peninsula, as well as all Slavic languages, not only those that are part of the Balkan language union. In particular, ukr. stajnja, stan, stąja, zastajka, stajenka, styna, stodola, pol. stania, stań, stajnia, stajna, stąj, stąja, stodoła, chech stání, stájňa, stáj, stájе, chech and slovac stajna, staj, staja, stodola, slovac stajеń, stajňa, stajńja, chech, slovac, slovenian stavba, slovenian stajеń, stajňa, stajńja, stavisko, štala, blg. stuna, blg. and mak. staja, blg., srb., slvc., croat, chech stan, srb., vojev. staj, staja, stajnica, croat., montenegr. staja, sln. staj, stájа, stajna, stajnica, blg., srb. stan, mak. stanovi, rom. stînă, gr. στάνη, hung. esztena, and their phonetical and morphological variants have been studied. Based on the semantic and word-formation analysis of the lexical material, conclusions are drawn that the studied words are formed on the basis of common European nominative models for names of housing and livestock premises, motivated by verbs with the meaning ‛put’. It is determined that the nominative models and semantics of names, which reflects the different purpose of buildings, are due to a certain shade of meaning of the verbmotivator. The considered architectural names are formed according to two productive word-forming models ‛to build’ — ‛building’ and ‛to put’ — ‛reservoir, room’. The names of premises for livestock are formed according to the final nominative model, which is based on the purpose, functions and meaning of the verb ‛to place’ (stable ‛place where cattle are placed or where they stand’), and the names of buildings for people are formed according to causal nominative model, which is based on the meaning of the verb ‛to put, to build’ (building). Separate groups are East, South and West Slavic formations and mutual borrowings between Slavic languages and languages of the Carpathian-Balkan continuum.

The Romanian harnic ‘industrious, hardworking’ as key to the etymology of the Ukrainian гарний ‘beautiful, good’

The author suggests a new etymology of the Ukrainian гарний ‘beautiful, good’ and the Romanian harnic ‘industrious, hardworking’. He thinks that a Slavic (of the Proto-Slavic time) verb with the meaning ‘to work hard’ was the source of both mentioned lexeme. The existence of this verb is supported by the Ukrainian dialectal [гарувати] with the same meaning, which has direct analogies both in East Slavic, some West Slavic and South Slavic (Serbian, Slovenian) languages. The origin of this Slavic verb can be explained through the analysis of two other Ukrainian dialectal words that are semantically close to each other, but differing in phonetics and, as some researchers believe, according to origin. The mentioned words are [гара] и [ґара], with the meaning ‘a cart with a box for transporting earth or sand; a sledge for transporting large loads’. Since in this case there is an indisputable semantic identity of both forms (practically identical phonetically as well), we cannot, contrary to the versions expressed earlier, separate from each other the question of their origin. The phonetic difference has to be explained by the difference in the time of the borrowing. Thus, the author thinks that the for-Slavic verb, which became the source for the Ukrainian [гарувати], гарний (as well as [гарник] ‘cart worker’), and the Romanian harnic, came from a word borrowed during the Proto-Slavic time with the meaning ‚cart’. However, contrary to the previous opinion, the author thinks that this borrowed word comes not from the German Karre ‘kart, wheelbarrow’, but from the Romanian car ‚cart‘.

HOMEOSTASIS AND COMPENSATION AS LINGUISTIC PHENOMENA (COMPETITION OF ASPECT AND TENSE ON THE EXAMPLE OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO POLISH)

The present paper deals with two universal linguistic phenomena, homeostasis and compensation. The author examines their function in relation to two categories, aspect and tense in the history of the Slavic languages. It is beyond doubt that one of the most important categories of the Slavic verb is aspect the origin of which may lie in the Proto-Indo-European language. The effects of its emergence as a verbal category were far-reaching and can be well traced in the history of the most Slavic languages. Taking a close look to the linguistic data, it seems quite obvious that the category of tense and aspect were closely related and did interact, creating different patterns in modern Slavic languages. A certain competition between the category of aspect and that of tense can already be observed in Old Slavic and also in Old Russian and Old Polish where tenses like the aorist and the imperfect were becoming increasingly obsolete. The perfect, on the contrary, has gained ground, while the pluperfect has almost completely fallen into disuse. In the further development, the aspectual opposition also extended to the future tenses thereby affecting the entire tense system. This scenario took place everywhere in the East and West Slavic languages with some nuanced differences. Consequently, in the aspect-tense system of the modern East and West Slavic languages the tendency of the category of aspect to prevail over the category of tense together with the gradual decline in the number of tenses seems to be quite clear. The South Slavic languages, however, have taken a slightly different path showing perhaps the most complex picture. Although the Serbian and Croatian languages have preserved the old tenses, their use is rather limited. In terms of their aspectual development, these languages are getting closer and closer to the Eastern and Western Slavic language groups. In contrast, in Bulgarian and Macedonian one can see an intricate interplay of the aspectual system and the developed tense system. In the case of the change of the different Slavic languages, the phenomenon of linguistic compensation can be observed in all cases on the example of aspect and tense categories as the main means of striving to maintain linguistic homeostasis. Keywords: linguistic homeostasis, compensation, aspect, tense, Old Slavic, Slavic languages, Polish

The translation and transmission of \u2018diatribal\u2019 verbs in the textual traditions of the Zlatostruj collection

The ‘diatribe’ is a dialogical mode of exposition, originating in Hellenistic Greek, where the author dramatically performs different voices in a polemical-didactic discourse. The voice of a fictitious opponent is often disambiguated by means of parenthetical verba dicendi, especially φησί(ν). Although diatribal texts were widely translated into Slavic in the Middle Ages, the textual history of the Zlatostruj collection of Chrysostomic homilies especially suits an investigation not only of how Greek ‘diatribal’ verbs were translated, but also how the Slavic verbs were transmitted or developed in different textual traditions. Over time, Slavic redactional activity led to a homogenization of verb forms. The initial variety of the original translation was partly eliminated, and the verb forms and became more firmly established as prototypical diatribal formulae. Especially the (increased) use of the 2sg form has theoretical consequences for the text’s dialogical structure. Thus, an important dialogical component of the diatribe was reinforced in the Zlatostruj’s textual history on Slavic soil.

Factors contributing to prefixation of biaspectual verbs in Croatian

One of the distinctive features of Slavic verbs is their aspectual morphology: typically each finite and non-finite form of a verb has a constant aspectual value: either perfective (PFV) or imperfective (IPFV). Nevertheless, in all Slavic languages, besides these prototypical verbs with only one assigned aspectual value, there are also verbs with underspecified aspectual value, usually called biaspectual verbs (BVs).As argued in the literature, on the sentence level such verbs have the potential to express both aspectual values, PFV and IPFV, without any further aspectual affixation. However, some scholars assert that the intended aspectual value of such verbs can rarely be unambiguously signaled. To resolve the ambiguous aspectual value, native speakers often provide additional context signals or derive a new aspectually defined verb to indicate the intended aspectual value. The latter possibility has been addressed in numerous papers, but mainly with the goal of detecting the (most common) prefixes used in this process.This study aimed to examine the patterns behind BV prefixation in Croatian. In order to detect factors with a statistically significant impact on prefixation of BVs in Croatian, a random stratified sample of 237 Croatian BVs (BVs of Slavic origin and biaspectual borrowings) was compiled. The data regarding the existence of perfective derivatives were extracted from three different corpora of contemporary Croatian and one subcorpus: the Croatian National Corpus, the Croatian Language Repository, and the Croatian Web Corpus and its subcorpus Forum, and afterwards analyzed using R software with the help of the lme4 package.The results obtained with the generalized linear mixed model revealed five factors statistically significant for prefixation of BVs in Croatian, which can be attributed to the lexical (semantical), morphological and sociolinguistic domains.

НЕСПЕЦИАЛИЗИРОВАННЫЕ СРЕДСТВА ВЫРАЖЕНИЯ КАУЗАТИВНОЙ СЕМАНТИКИ В СЛАВЯНСКИХ И ГЕРМАНСКИХ ЯЗЫКАХ (на примере ЛСГ защиты)

The paper deals with the peculiarities of verbs that convey causative semantics without being specialized for it. The objective of the research is to identify the specific features of Slavic (Russian, Belarusian) and Germanic (English, German) defense and protection verbs with regard to causativity. The study of lexical semantic groups in the aspect of causativity is topical, because it contributes to the specification of causativity as a category. It works towards resolving a controversial causativity theory issue about the scope and boundaries of causative verbs class, as well as helps to reveal some internal laws of the causative category development (gradual nature of the causative category). The following methods were used: contextual, transformational, comparative methods; dictionary definitions analysis, component and distributive analysis. It was found that defense and protection verbs in three (Russian, Belarusian, German) of the four studied languages have units that do not contain a causative component. Within the analyzed lexical semantic group, there are verbs with a high and low degree of causativity (vertical changes of causativity degree). In these two groups, it is possible to identify the units that are able and unable to change the causativity degree in a context (horizontal changes of causativity degree). The gradual character of causativity is an integral feature of the studied Slavic and Germanic verbs. The degree of causativity is their differential trait.

Гибридная немецко-славянская семантика глаголов языка идиш с префиксом op-

This article examines the phenomenon of German-Slavic hybridity of the word formation and semantics of Yiddish prefixed verbs with the hybrid polysemous prefix op- as an example. It provides definitions of such notions as hybrid language and hybridization, outlines the genetic origin of the prefix op- and proposes a classification of situation types described by prefixed verbs with op-. The article writer compares word-forming and semantic characteristics of Yiddish verbs with op- prefix to German verbs with ab- and Slavic verbs with od-/од-(від-)/ад-, demonstrates that verbs with op- represent a situation either following a common German-Slavic or a Slavic model.

РОЗВИТОК ЕМОТИВНОГО ЗНАЧЕННЯ У ПОХІДНИХ ВІД ПРАСЛОВ’ЯНСЬКИХ ОСНОВ *VIDĚTI ТА *ZЬRĚTI У ПОЛЬСЬКІЙ МОВІ

The article is devoted to the study of the etymology and development of the semantics of the names of emotions of envy in the Polish language. The article focuses on nouns and verbs. In modern Polish, the nouns zawiść, zazdrość and the verb zazdrościć are used to denote envy. The names of envy in Polish were formed from semantically close Common Slavic verbs, meaning visual perception *viděti ‘see’ and *zьrěti ‘look’. To explore the semantic evolution of the names of envy, we turned to lexicographic sources that fix lexical composition of the Polish language of previous centuries. Analysis of the lexicographic material suggests that from the point of view of the diachrony, the names of envy in the Polish developed mainly in the direction from polysemantic to narrowing and concretization of semantics.

Universal Annotation of Slavic Verb Forms

Abstract This article proposes application of a subset of the Universal Dependencies (UD) standard to the group of Slavic languages. The subset in question comprises morphosyntactic features of various verb forms. We systematically document the inventory of features observable with Slavic verbs, giving numerous examples from 10 languages. We demonstrate that terminology in literature may differ, yet the substance remains the same. Our goal is practical. We definitely do not intend to overturn the many decades of research in Slavic comparative linguistics. Instead, we want to put the properties of Slavic verbs in the context of UD, and to propose a unified (Slavic-wide) application of UD features and values to them. We believe that our proposal is a compromise that could be accepted by corpus linguists working on all Slavic languages.

Verbs of emotion with se in Slovene: between middle and reflexive semantics. A cognitive analysis

Verbs of emotion with se in Slovene: between middle and reflexive semantics. A cognitive analysisThis article presents a cognitive analysis of Slovene emotion verbs with the personal pronoun se ‘self’, e.g., bati se ‘to be scared’. Slavic verbs of this type are traditionally considered reflexive. The objectives of the article are twofold. First, the article aims to demonstrate that se in Slovene verbs of emotion indicates not the reflexive, but the middle voice construction. However, given specific pragmatic factors, these verbs also form reflexive constructions with the heavy form sebe ‘self’, or even both middle and reflexive constructions with se and sebe, respectively. Second, this article challenges Anna Wierzbicka’s assumption that the Slavic verbs with the light form of the personal pronoun or the -sja affix (Russian) express (almost) volitional, i.e. self-induced emotion. In line with cognitive Suzanne Kemmer, it is claimed that the constructions with the verbs under discussion indicate a low degree of volitionality in the process of emotional change i.e. they lexicalize an event that occurs independently of the Experiencer participant’s will.

HASKO, VICTORIA, & PERELMUTTER, RENEE (Eds.). New Approaches to Slavic Verbs of Motion. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins2010. Pp. x, 392. $149.00, cloth. ISBN 978–9–02720–582–7.

The Modern Language JournalVolume 97, Issue 1 p. 300-301 Book Review HASKO, VICTORIA, & PERELMUTTER, RENEE (Eds.). New Approaches to Slavic Verbs of Motion. Philadelphia/Amsterdam: John Benjamins 2010. Pp. x, 392. $149.00, cloth. ISBN 978–9–02720–582–7. Mark J. Elson, Mark J. Elson University of VirginiaSearch for more papers by this author Mark J. Elson, Mark J. Elson University of VirginiaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 21 February 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2013.01456.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume97, Issue1Spring 2013Pages 300-301 RelatedInformation

Keletas baltų ir slavų kalbų "semti" reikšmės veiksmažodžių ir jų kilmė

SOME BALTIC AND SLAVIC VERBS DENOTING “DRAW, SCOOP” AND THEIR ORIGINSummarySome evidence (cf. Lith. griẽbti, griẽti, kabìnti, kaũšti, kõpti, Lith. kriẽti : Latv. krìet, Pr. kniēipe : Lith. kniẽpti, kneĩpti) indicates that the meaning “draw, scoop” is historically con­nected with the meaning “take, grasp, pick up”, on the one hand, and with the meaning “fasten, tack, clasp, press together, link, bind”, on the other. On this basis it is assumed that the ety­mological counterpart of Sl. *čъrрǫ, *čerpti “draw, scoop” is most likely Lith. kér̃pti (-ia) “bind, tie up”; Latv. smel̂t (smeļu, smêlu) “draw, scoop” belongs probably to the root *mel- “bind, tie, link” (with the “movable” s-), contained in Latv. sa-mel̂t (-meļu, -mêlu) “tie together, couple”, Tokh. AB mälk-, A malk- “join”, Hit. malk-, malkia- “turn, twist together, spin” (<IE *mel-k-), and related lexemes of Lith. sémti (-ia, sė́mė) “draw, scoop” seem to be Lith. somúoti (-úoja, -ãvo) “to form a new strophe with another word when singing”, Tokh. sām- “take for oneself, conserve, preserve, amass”, A sum-, В sāmp- “take away, remove, lift, draw up”, Old Norse semja “put together, arrange, settle, adjust, order”, etc.

New approaches to Slavic verbs of motion (review)

Victoria Hasko and Renee Perelmutter, eds. New approaches to Slavic of motion. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2010. [Studies in Language companion series, 115.] A Slavist seeing Slavic of thinks immediately of the dozen or so imperfective verb pairs like Ru. idti-xodit, bezat'-begat', and nesti-nosit, and a third of the 15 papers in this heterogeneous collection deal with them. (1) But New approaches predominate. As the first editor observes, During the last several decades the field of linguistics has witnessed the emergence of a rich body of typological studies investigating the domain of motion (197). She is referring chiefly to the work of Leonard Talmy (2007, first published 1985), who has classified the languages of the world into those in which expressions are satellite-framed and those in which they are verb-framed. In the former, the verb expresses the manner of and a satellite the path of motion, e.g., run (manner) down the stairs (path); in the latter it's the other way around: descendre (path) l'escalier en courant (manner). Ten of the papers take Talmy's typology as their point of departure, several of them arguing that although the Slavic languages are satellite-framed like English, there are intratypological differences between the two that call for study. Another new feature is that nine of the papers draw data from web corpora and subject them to statistical analysis. (2) I discuss the papers in their published order (with one exception). The title of Joanna Nichols's article (47-65) asserts: Indeterminate are denominal. I don't think so. A denominal verb is a verb that has a noun as its root. Clearly denominal is zeniti with its noun root, likewise dariti, the root of which is headed by a noun suffix. But I see no basis for claiming that the root of vodit[??] is the nominalization of /ved/, as in vozdb, rather than /ved/, as in vedet[??],. According to Kurylowicz (1928: 197; 1964: 87), there are three syntactic environments for o-grade ablaut: iterative, primarily with transitive (neset[??], vedet[??], vezet[??] ~ nosit[??], vodit[??], vozit[??]), causative, with intransitive (lezet[??], sedet[??], tecet[??] ~ lozit[??], sadit[??], tocit[??]), and nominalization (prinos[??], voz[??], zalog[??], sad[??], otok[??]). Nichols downplays the iterative function, subsuming it under causative, to bolster her claim that vodit[??] contains the nominalization of /ved/. (She concentrates on determinate / nondeterminate vedet[??] / vodit[??], ignoring perfective / imperfective privedet[??] / privodit[??].) We should not let morphology dictate our analyses. Iteratives may share o-grade with nominalizations but they are not more closely related to them than they are to the e-grade base. Vodit[??] may appear 'derived from' (or 'motivated by') the root of vozdb, but consider the meaning: a vozdb is one who vedet[??] people toward a goal, not someone who vodit[??] them here and there. Likewise for /nes/, as in Ru. neset, nosit, and nosa; the noun denotes a burden, typically heavy, which one neset from point A to point B, not something light like an item of clothing which one nosit. Nichols goes on to discuss deverbal nouns, deadjectival verbs, and the accentuation of -it' (giving percentages for fixed and mobile stress in Russian). I don't see how any of this supports her claim that (pri)voditi, (pro)xoditi, (ob)nositi, etc. are denominal (which would make them suppletive with regard to (pri)vesti, (pro)jti, (ob)nesti). Stephen M. Dickey's Common Slavic 'indeterminate' of were really manner-of-motion verbs (67-109) argues that the determinate / nondeterminate distinction is a North Slavic innovation which is not reflected in the earliest texts. In ORu. Jaroslav[??] xodi na jatvjaze 'Jaroslav marched against the Jatvjags', it is wrong to read aorist xodi like the nondeterminate xodil of Vcera ja xodil v kino. It does not denote 'went and came back' but rather the manner of motion, campaigning on foot. …

On the Origin of Aspects of the Slavic Verb

On the Origin of Aspects of the Slavic Verb

Reduplication in Slavic and Baltic: loss and renewal

The exposition comprises three parts. Part 1 surveys the Indo-European reduplication patterns (RPs) that have been lost in Slavic and Baltic: the languages show little or no evidence of inherited RPs in present and perfect formations, and in intensive verbs (Sect. 2.1), but some vestiges of reduplication in nouns can be identified (Sect. 2.2). Part 2 describes innovated RPs in the Slavic verb; they can be posited on the basis of scanty evidence that has survived the Late Common Slavic loss of coda obstruents. Part 3 describes Baltic innovations reflected in Lithuanian: reduplicative root formations (Sect. 4.1), several minor lexicalized RPs (Sect. 4.2.), and the para-lexical part of speech called eventives (Sect. 4.3). Their content categories, types of expression, patterns of iconicity, and grammatical function are analysed and exemplified in some detail. It is suggested that formations such as these may form the natural background for the creation of new patterns of morphological expression including patterns of reduplication.

The syntax of the Balkan Slavic Future tenses

The paper discusses the structure of the Balkan Slavic Future tenses, with a particular reference to the Future tenses with modal clitics and finite verbs. It is shown that all the Balkan Slavic Future tenses have developed from restructuring configurations in which subjunctive constructions appear in complement positions of forms of the Old Slavic verb xotěti ‘will/want’. The development has gone through three stages, though not all Balkan Slavic languages have gone through all of them. In the first stage, represented in contemporary Serbo-Croatian, we have finite modal clitics plus infinitives or subjunctive constructions. In the second stage, which is to some extent represented in the South-Eastern Serbian dialects, non-finite modal clitics are followed by subjunctive constructions. In the third stage, represented in Macedonian and Bulgarian, non-finite modal clitics are followed by finite verbs. In contemporary Serbo-Croatian, the Future tense is constructed by finite modal clitics plus infinitives or subjunctive constructions. The Serbo-Croatian Future tense with subjunctive constructions is a mono-clausal raising configuration with a finite auxiliary and a finite lexical verb. Like the Macedonian and Bulgarian Future tenses, it has evolved from a restructuring configuration with two finite lexical verbs, though the evolution of the Macedonian and Bulgarian Future tenses has passed through three stages. In the first stage, the Macedonian and Bulgarian Future tenses had a structure such as the one in the Serbo-Croatian Future tense; in the second stage, they had another intermediate structure—the one witnessed in the contemporary South-Eastern Serbian dialects, in which a non-finite modal clitic is followed by a subjunctive construction; in the third stage, the non-finite modal clitics came to be followed by finite verbs. The change from finite to non-finite modal clitics relates to the loss of the subjunctive mood complementizer: When the ϕ-features of the modal clitics disappeared and T/AgrSP reappeared to the left of the lexical verb, the subjunctive mood complementizer became superfluous.

Aspectual Variations in Russian and Serbo-Croatian

1. The most distinctive feature of the verbal system of a Slavic language is undoubtedly its verbal aspect. Stated simply, a particular Slavic verb has either perfective (P) aspect, which mean that a commitment as to completion has been added to the verb's basic meaning, or it has imperfective (I) aspect, in which is no such implication.' To express the meaning 'to write' in Russian, a choice has to be made between the two aspectual partners pisat' I 'to write, to be in the process of writing' and napisat' P to write, to get written, to complete the writing (of)'. There are also morphological implications to aspect, in that in certain constructs the selection of a verb form of a particular aspect is obligatory; for example, the periphrastic future of Russian permits only the use of an I verb, as in ja budu pisat' 'I will write, I will be writing' (*ja budu napisat' does not occur). Exceptions to this typical aspectual pairing, such as Russian obescat' 'to promise', which functions as either an I or a P verb, testify by their very oddity to the pervasiveness of the aspectual dichotomy.2 In the last hundred years, the Slavic languages have generated many verbs which have, for the most part, loan elements for their base, e.g. Russian patentovat' 'to patent'. A striking characteristic of these new verbs is that very many of them operate outside or only partially inside the traditional aspect system. Patentovat' is both I and P: it has two aspects-or, stated in another way, it has no aspect. I propose to examine this blurring or elimination of aspectual distinctions in the Slavic languages by considering the status of new verbs in two languages, Russian of the East Slavic group and Serbo-Croatian of the South Slavic group.