40 лет Санкт-Петербургской типологической школе
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b) with the reflexive suffix — s' :
Starikl"on s'ojs's z"o n'in
old.man-GEN eat-REFL-PST-3 SG PTL already
«The old man has finished eating already»;
Virin'ejal"on ez na c'ec'c'yss'y
Virineja-GEN NEG-PST-3SG yet get.up-REFL-PST-3SG
«Virineja did not feel like getting up / could not get up»;
c) with modal predicates:
Povodd'aysl"on kol"o n'in vezs'yny
weather-DEF-GEN must already change-INF
«The weather must change»;
d) the subject of certain phraseological predicates indicating non-voluntary state ( vez pet"o «to want something», lit. «desire comes out») [Fedjunjova 2000: 66].
To illustrate the difference between the possessive impersonal construction and the impersonal construction expressing involuntary action with the reflexive suffix, some citations and an excerpt from the history is in order. The eminent Komi linguist, V. I. Lytkin (Illa Vas'), was arrested in 1930 and accused of national bourgeois tendencies and espionage. He had just returned from Hungary, and, occupied as he was with studying, writing poems and publishing them he had no idea about what was going on at home. On returning to the USSR, he was publicly criticized, and he made a full
First, he wrote that he had answered the critics, but the text had not been published:
Menam kuz'a gizs'"oma da «Ordym » z urnalyn
I-GEN long write-REFL-PERF-3SG and Ordym joumal-lNESS
ez pet
NEG-PST-3SG appear
«I had written (unintentionally, apparently) extensively, and (it) did not appear in the magazine Ordym» [IllaVas' 1994(1931): 91].
Lytkin continues to excuse himself by thanking the critics who had opened his eyes to many blemishes in his text Munflny: it was neither a poem or a poema, but something in between, and it would not produce any great ideas.
Sess'a bara z"o giz"oma v"oli zev termas'"om"on
then again PTL write-PERF-3SG COP-PST very hurriedly
«Then again, it was written in a great hurry»,
Me v"oli seki (1927 voyn) Budapestyn
I was then (1927 year-INESS) Budapest-iness
zil'a-est"oda dissertacija"os
exert-finish-PRES-1SG thesis-ACC
«I was then (in 1927) in Budapest trying hard to finish my thesis».
<…>Ses'an' menam m"od n'el'uc'ki :
from.that I-GEN other blemish
«Because of that I made another error:»
menam komi j"ozt"o, Komi mut"o vyvti jona
I-GEN Komi people-ACC Komi land-ACC too strongly
idealizirujts'"oma i
dealize-REFL-PERF-3SG
«It came out that I (had) idealized the Komi people and land too much».
Kritilgas g"og"orvo"oma"os': me p"o c'ol"om bytt'"o
critics understand-PERF-3PL I Quot greeting as.if
vis'tala komi kulakly, komi bedn'akly i
say-PRES-lSG Komi kulak-DAT Komi poor.people-DAT and
byd"only
everyone-DAT
«The critics seem to have thought that Iwas greeting the Komi kulaks, the Komi poor people and everyone».
Mees'k"o ac'ym k"osji zuny: stavudzalys' Komi j"oz…
I maybe myself want-PST-lSG say-INF all working Komi people… «I myself would have wanted to say: to the entire working Komi people».
In the first case, the agent is not expressed, but the construction is impersonall, thus the responsibility is to some extent hidden and avoided. The pluperfect with the copula v"oli has here apparently the same function as the past-in-past of the Western European («Standard Average European») pluperfect. In the second example, the reflexive suffix expressly removes the responsibility of the author, the event just happened without his volition. The objects are retained, as is shown by the morphological markers. In the third example, the authorship is shown, but again demoted by the genitive form, although the verb form is the perfect without the reflexive suffix. Thus it only shows the resulting state. The critics' part in this is based on the result, and the perfect of the verb «understand» has a clear evidential meaning: the critics must have understood the author's words in a certain way. The author tries to avoid their interpretation by using the quotative particle p"o. The last predicate in the simple past k"osji «I wanted», shows what the author did intentionally and in full consciousness.
The impersonal constructions based on the participle — "om(a) are, as was noted in the beginning, neutral. One of the fullest descriptions of Komi from the XDCth century states:
Das Passiv kann zwar durch eine besondere Classe der abgeleiteten Zeit-w"orter ausgedruckt werden, die Verba Media, aber diese k"onnen auch reflexive, sogar active Bedeutung haben. Deutlicher und zugleich fehlende Zeitformen ersetzend ist die Umschreibung mit dem ersten und zweiten Tempus des Zeitworts
That is, there is no formally marked passive in Komi, and the analytic constructions with instrumental agents that appear in grammars are obvious loan translations from Russian (E. A. Cypanov in [Fedjunjova 2000: 282]). In earlier grammatical descriptions, e. g. [Lytkin 1955], such constructions are claimed to represent genuine Komi passive forms. The tradition has been faithfully continued until today, and has taken root in modem written Komi (see e. g. [Ludykova 1993]).
As in the historical development of languages with habere perfects, a predilection of the possessive impersonal construction to be used with transitive verbs is apparent in Komi, at least with respect to the frequencies of transitive and intransitive verbs. With transitives, it is often difficult to decide whether the genitive should be interpreted purely as the possessor of an item, or as the agent responsible for the action; it can be both. P. Doronin, a prolific writer who began publishing in the 1930s used the construction with transitives, verbs both with and without an object. In all cases, the interpretation as an evidential is possible, since it often coincides with the basic meaning of the forms with — oma, that of a state resulting from an event/action in the past:
Jenl"on es'k"o koz'nal"oma taj men"o ydzyd
God-GEN maybe present-PERF3SG PRTCI-ACC great
vyn-eb"os"on, <…> strength.strength-INSTR
«God must have given me a lot of strength <…>» [Doronin 1995: 68]; texts from the 1930s reprinted.
Another example shows the verb «work», which is certainly active, but hardly transitive:
Tydal"o, Mikoll"on tadzs"o udzal"oma
appear-PRES3SG Mikol-GEN thus-ACC work-PERF3SG
«It seems that Mikol has worked in this way» [Doronin 1995: 87].
In the context, the father is inspecting the ploughing done on his field. Dissatisfied, he draws the conclusion that his son must have been at work. The adverb tadz «thus» is suffixed with — s"o, marker of 3rd person singular definiteness and accusative, is also used in Komi as an emphatic particle, comparable to the Russian — to. The suffix — s"o marks definite objects, while indefinite ones remain unmarked:
To, pac'yn mon'ydl"on rys' kasn'ikjas
there oven-iNESS daughter.in.law-POSS2SG-GEN curd cheese.pots
s'ujal"oma
put-PERF-3SG
«There, your daughter-in-law has put curd cheese pots in the oven» [Doronin 1995:17].
In the following example, the construction can hardly be interpreted as evidential, conjecture or hearsay; it simply reports on the appearance of a person. The meaning of state becomes very clear due to v"oli: