Sussex R., Cubberley P. The Slavic Languages

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

(70) Blg tu

ke xo

deno

here Aux-3Sg walk-NeutSgPastPart

‘someone has walked here’ (lit. ‘here it has been walked’)

The Slavic passive, whether the morphological passive or the reflexive, is less

common than the passive construction in a language like English. One of the key

roles of the passive in English is to provide a way of inverting the new/old

information distribution in the sentence (7.5). In Slavic a natural way to do this

is to use OVS word order, particularly when the agent is expressed.

7.1.6 Conditionals

The conditional (5.5.5.7) is formed with the l-participle of either aspect (in

Bulgarian, the aorist participle) plus either an invariant particle, usually enclitic

(71a), or the inflected conditional of the auxiliary ‘be’, which may be either clitic

(71b–c) or non-clitic (71d):

(71a) Rus ja

by le ˇza

I CondCl lie-MascSgPast

‘I [Masc] would lie’

(71b) Pol poczeka-ł-by-m

wait-MascSg-CondCl-1Sg

‘I [Masc] would wait’

(71c) Cz ˇzil bych

live-MascSgPast be-CondCl-1Sg

‘I [Masc] would live’

(71d) Blg bı

x napisa

be-Cond-1Sg write-MascSgPart

‘I [Masc] would write’

The past conditional, a rather literary tense not found in Russian and Belarusian,

belongs properly with the more complex constructions treated below under 7.2. It is

formed with the l-participle and the past conditional of the auxiliary ‘be’. Once

again, the condition can be expressed by an invariant particle (72a), or a variant

clitic (72b) or non-clitic (72c) construction:

(72a) Slk byl bi som robil

be-MascPastPart Cond Aux-1Sg do-MascPastPart

‘I [Masc] would have done’

7.1 Overview 369

(72b) Pol był-bym zrobił

be-MascSgPast-CondCl-1Sg do-MascSgPast

or: zrobił-bym był

do-MascSgPast-CondCl-1Sg be-MascSgPast

‘I [Masc] would have done’

(72c) Sorb bych był zdz

´eˇ

łał

be-1SgCond be-MascSgPast do-MascSgPast

‘I [Masc] would have done’

Bulgarian and Macedonian have special forms for this tense. Bulgarian has either

the imperfect of the auxiliary s

ta + da + Present/Perfective Present (72d), or a new

form which adds imperfect endings to the aorist (perfective) stem (72e; both these

forms also express the ‘‘future in the past’’: 5.5.5.5):

(72d) Blg s

tja

xdapa˘tu

vam

Aux1SgImperf that go-1SgPres

‘I would have gone’

(72e) Blg proc

ˇita

read-2SgImperf-PrfvStem

‘you would have read’

In Macedonian the usual form is k

e + Imperfect (72f), though Macedonian also

has a special form, constructed like that of Bulgarian (72e), except that the future

particle k

e is retained (72g):

(72f) Mac da me sakas

,nek

e imas

strav

Q I-Acc love-2SgImperf Neg Fut have-2SgImperf fear

‘If you loved me you wouldn’t be afraid’

(72g) Mac k

e izbegas

Fut run-out-2SgImperf-PrfvStem

‘he would have run out’

7.1.7 Possession

Slavic is not as prone to expressing possession explicitly as English is. For this

reason body parts, relatives and other inalienable possessions, as well as obvious

personal possessions, are often specified without an explicit possessive unless

possession is contrastively emphasised or specifically assigned to someone else

(7.3.1). When it is explicitly expressed, the possessive expression can also be a

370 7. Sentence structure

dative personal pronoun, which may also indicate involuntary involvement, or the

‘‘dative of the interested person’’:

(73) Rus o

n mne

ukra

ˇemoda

he I-Dat stole-MascSg trunk

‘he stole my trunk’

7.2 More complex constructions

The simple sentence can be expanded by coordination (the ‘‘compound’’ sentence,

7.2.1) or subordination (the ‘‘complex’’ sentence, 7.2.2). Coordination is marked by

conjunctions like ‘and’, ‘or’ and ‘but’, and the coordinated sentences are of equal

grammatical status – neither dominates the other:

(74) Bel [Na s

bax sne

h lja ˇzy

iskry

stym pu

xam], a [u

ce pa

xne

sty me

d ]

‘[On the roofs snow is lying like a sparkling powder], and

[in the hut is the smell of fresh honey]’

The complex sentence consists of a superordinate sentence and a subordinate

sentence, which may be introduced by a conjunction/complementizer:

(75a) Bel [mne

malasja], c

to [Vası

verne

cca dado

mu]

‘[I thought] that [Vasil’ would return home]’

(75b) Rus [o

n ne zna

l], [slu

aet (li) ego

gor

li ne

(no complementizer ¼ more colloquial; li ¼ more literary)

‘[he didn’t know] (whether) [Igor was listening to him or not]’

Or the subordinate sentence may contain infinitives and gerunds which do not have

an expressed subject:

(75c) Bel Symo

n sabra

sja iscı

y dro

‘Simon was getting ready to go and cut some wood’

(75d) Bel Dau

ne by

y uro

dnaj ve

scy, Vası

uba

t perame

‘not having been in his native village for a long time, Vasil

noticed there a lot of changes’

7.2.1 Coordinate constructions

Coordinating constructions are conventionally divided into conjunction and

disjunction.

7.2 More complex constructions 371

7.2.1.1 Conjunction

Conjoined constructions in Slavic, as in English, may be signalled by the conjunc-

tion ‘and’, or by the juxtaposition of the conjoined constituents. Only the ‘‘logical’’

and allows the inversion of the two components (76a):

(76a) Cz vy odjedete, a my z

ustaneme

‘you will leave, and we shall stay’

(76b) Cz r

ekl, ˇze se brzo vra

tı

,(a) odes

‘he said that he would come back quickly, (and) left’ (i.e. ‘and

then’)

(76c) Cz zlomil se nohu, a nem

uˇze chodit

‘he broke his leg, and cannot walk’ (i.e. ‘and therefore’)

Slavic tends to omit the coordinating conjunction more often than English, includ-

ing the last ‘and’ in a series of conjuncts:

(76d) Rus s

lre

dkij sne

g, fonarı

ne gore

li, te

mnaja u

lica byla

perec

ˇe

ˇena

polosa

mi sve

ta iz o

kon

‘a light snow was falling, the street lights were not on, (and) the

dark street was criss-crossed by strips of light from the windows’

Doublet conjunctions of the ‘both ...and’ and ‘neither ...nor’ types place the first

conjunction before the first of the conjoined constituents:

(77a) Blg bilı

sme za

edno i vs

stie,

be-PlPastPart Aux-1Pl together both in happiness

i v beda

and in misfortune

‘we were together both in happiness, and in misfortune’

(77b) Bel ni me

sjac-a, ni zo

rak ne bylo

neither moon-GenSg nor star-GenPl Neg be-NeutSgPast

vida

za husty

mi xma

rami

see-Inf behind thick-InstrPl cloud-InstrPl

‘neither the moon nor the stars was visible behind the thick

clouds’

7.2.1.2 Adversative conjunction and disjunction

These types are signalled by a conjunction:

(78) Rus Pe

tr, Ma

a ili Irı

na ¼ Pe

tr ili Ma

a ili Irı

‘Peter, Masha or Irina ¼ Peter or Masha or Irina’

372 7. Sentence structure

The typical adversative conjunction is ‘but’, whether as a word or as a clitic:

(79a) Blg ne sa

mo to

j, no i a

Neg only he but also I

‘not only he, but I also’

(79b) Rus ja

uez ˇza

ju, o

nˇze ostae

tsja

I-Nom leave-1SgPres he however-Encl remain-3SgPres

‘I am leaving but he is staying’

East Slavic a is used when the second element is not totally opposed to the first, but

simply contrasted:

(80a) Bel [ne

kal

ki dze

nby

ˇzd ˇz], a [se

nnja sve

cic

nca]

‘[for several days there was rain], and/but [today the sun is

shining]’

while Russian no ‘but’ implies a stronger opposition of the conjuncts (e.g. contrary

to expectations):

(80b) Rus [onı

li ta

m], no [o

nı

xnevı

del]

‘[they were there], but [he didn’t see them]’

In Czech, Slovak and Sorbian, however, a has the meaning of both East Slavic

i (Ukr i, ta ) ‘and’ and a ‘and/but’:

(81) Cz [ je listopad ], a [ je teplo jak na jar

‘[it is November], and/but [it is warm as in the spring]’

Other types include the temporal disjunctive ‘now ... now’:

(82) Blg tu [pla

e], tu [se sme

‘now [he weeps], now [he laughs]’

the limiting ‘only’:

(83) Slk [vs

etci sa zasmiali], iba [slec

ˇna

sa odvra

tila]

‘[all laughed], only [the girl turned away]’

the concessive ‘though, although’:

(84) Pol [ było ciemno], choc

wiec paliło sie˛ duz

]

‘[it was dark] although [many candles were burning]’

7.2 More complex constructions 373

and the explanatory ‘that is’:

(85) Rus [kry

i zde

plo

skie], to

est

[doma

postro

eny po-azia

tski ]

‘[the roofs here are flat], that is, [the houses are built in the Asian

fashion]’

as well as logical disjunctions ‘or’ and ‘either ... or’:

(86) B/C/S ı %li [us

elu] ı%li [u gra

du] ‘either [in the village] or [in the city]’

7.2.2 Subordinate constructions

Slavic has two main types of subordinate constructions: complements and rela-

tives. In complements the subordinate sentence is introduced by a word or phrase,

usually followed by a complementizer:

(87a) Slk [no vidı

m],

ze [uˇz davno myslı

na to]

‘[but I see] that [he has already been thinking about that for a

long time]’

(87b) Cz [citı

l ], jak [ho ne

kdo zatahal ze-zadu za ruka

(‘[he felt] how [someone ...]’ )

‘he felt someone pulling him from behind by the sleeve’

Infinitive complements lack both the complementizer and the subject of the sub-

ordinate sentence:

(88a) Rus my

ubedı

li ego

pojtı

k vrac

‘we persuaded him to go to the doctor’

cf. (88b) Rus my

ubedı

li ego

vto

m, c

ˇto

we persuade-PlPrfv he-Acc Prep it-Loc in-order-that

n pos

l k vrac

ˇu´

he go-MascSgPrfv to doctor

‘we persuaded him (of it that he [should]) go to the doctor’

Relative clauses are attached to a nominal in the main clause (except for a small

class of ‘‘free’’ relatives – see below). Traditional grammars recognize only a small

number of relative types, based on the k-/j- (wh-) words like ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘whose’

(5.5.5.2, 8.6.2). A relative pronoun introduces the subordinate clause:

(89) Slk tento Bartos

, ktory

ˇo

pracuje na dvore, ...

that Bartos

who-MascNomSg/that work-3Sg in yard-LocSg

‘that Bartos

who is working in the yard ...’

374 7. Sentence structure

Traditional Slavic grammars add a third class of subordinate sentences, covering

adverbial subordination for place, time, manner and so on:

(90a) Slk spı

, kedy chces

sleep-2SgPres when want-2SgPres

‘you sleep when you want’

(90b) Mac toj me pras

a, kolku godini imam

he me-Acc asked how many years have-1SgPres

‘he asked me how old I was’

as well as cause, goal, comparison, condition, concession:

(91) Slk ujst’ som musela od neho,

go-away-Inf Aux-1Sg must-FemSgPast from he-Gen

aby nevidel moje slzy

in-order-that Neg-see-MascSgPast my-AccPl tear-AccPl

‘I [Fem] had to leave him so that he would not see my tears’

The structure of Slavic conjunctions shows how these ‘‘inter-sentence’’ subordina-

tions are connected to relatives. In (92) the conjunction potomu

to ‘because’ is

morphologically decomposable into ‘‘for it that’’, a paraphrase more clearly shown

in iz-za togo

to ...‘‘because of it, that ...’’:

(92) Rus o

n peresta

l kurı

he stop-MascSgPast smoke-Inf

potomu

ˇto

(iz-za togo

ˇto

) boı

tsja ra

because fear-3SgPres cancer-GenSg

‘he has stopped smoking because he is afraid of cancer’

For this reason we shall discuss such types of subordination under the general

heading of relatives. Adverbs in particular have often been treated in this way by

Slavic grammars in the past: words like ‘when’ are often classed with ‘‘pronouns’’

rather than as adverbs or conjunctions.

7.2.2.1 Infinitival constructions

Slavic grammars do not usually treat infinitival constructions as complex sen-

tences, but describe them as ‘‘adjunction’’ (Rus primyka

nie) to the governing

word or expression. The similarity of infinitives to both sentence-objects and

subordinate sentences is seen in paraphrases like:

(93a) Sorb kazas

emłodymaj c

e dychac

order-3SgAor young-DatDu quieter-Adv breathe-Inf

‘he ordered the young people [Du] to breathe more quietly’

7.2 More complex constructions 375

(93b) Sorb kazas

emłodymaj c

iche dychanje

(...) quiet-NeutSgAcc breathing[Neut]SgAcc

‘he ordered the young people to breathe quietly’

(93c) Sorb kazas

emłodymaj zo bys

taj c

(...) that Aux-Cond-3Du quieter-Adv

dychałoj

breathe-DuPastPart

‘he ordered the young people to breathe more quietly’

Infinitival constructions are limited by morphological availability: Macedonian

has no infinitives, and Bulgarian has only a vestigial infinitive which may be used

after a negative command (94a). This vestigial infinitive can also be used with the

uncommon inflected form of the usually invariant future auxiliary, in s

ta, s

tes

...

(5.5.5.5) – this form is now literary and obsolescent (94b); and with the verbs ‘dare’

and ‘be able’ (94c):

(94a) Blg nede

jte pı

ta! ‘don’t ask!’

(94b) Blg vı

dja s

tes

‘you [2 Sg] will see’

(94c) Blg ne sme

ja/mo

ga napra

vi tova

Neg dare-1SgPres/be-able-1SgPres do-Inf that

‘I don’t dare to/can’t do that’

But we also find the alternative construction of a subordinate clause introduced

by da:

(95a) Blg nede

jte da se sa˘

rdite!

NegImper that ReflCl be-angry-2Pl

‘don’t be angry!’

(95b) Blg ne sme

ja da napra

vja tova

‘I don’t dare do that’

Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian, especially in its eastern dialects, regularly show

da + Sentence constructions where the other Slavic languages have infinitives.

Infinitives can occur like a noun phrase as the subject of a simple sentence (10).

And infinitives can occur in impersonal sentences (7.3.3) expressing commands,

requests, exclamations and so on. Their use as complements requires them to

depend on a predicate expression like a verb, adjective, noun, prepositional phrase,

predicative impersonal and even ‘be’. The imputed subject of the infinitive con-

struction is the same as that of the dominating word or expression, except when the

dominating verb governs an object as well as the infinitive:

376 7. Sentence structure

(96a) Cz zac

ˇal

padat snı

began-MascSgPast fall-Inf snow[Masc]-NomSg

‘snow began to fall’

(96b) Sorb mi chce so spac

I-Cl-DatSg want-3SgImpers self-Cl-Acc sleep-Inf

‘I feel like sleeping’

(96c) Sorb dowolich jemu wotpoc

ˇnyc

allow-1SgAor he-DatSg rest-Inf

‘I let him rest’

If a given language has a special predicative (short-form) adjective, then this is the

form which is preferred with a following infinitive:

(97a) Rus ja

sogla

sen zaplatı

I-Nom agreeable-MascSg pay-Inf

‘I agree to pay’

(97b) Ukr ja

bı

e nic

ˇo

ho ne ho

den

I-Nom more nothing-GenSg neg worthy/able-MascSg

slu

xaty

listen-Inf

‘I am not capable of listening to anything more’

Nouns may occur as predicates with ‘be’, or in Verb + Noun + Infinitive con-

structions:

(98) Ukr vy

jete na

mir proda

ty avtomobı

you-Pl have-2Pl intention-AccSg sell-Inf car[Masc]-AccSg

‘(do) you have any intention of selling the car?’

Prepositional phrases often have parallels with verbs when followed by an infinitive:

(99) Pol on nie jest w stanie

he-NomSg Neg be-3SgPres in condition

(nie mo

ze) przyjechac

dzisiaj

(Neg be-able-3SgPres) come-Inf today

‘he isn’t in a fit state to (he can’t) come today’

Predicative impersonals are particularly common with infinitives:

(100a) Slk nebolo mi mo

zno odı

st’

Neg-be-NeutSgPast I-Cl-Dat possible-NeutSg leave-Inf

‘it wasn’t possible for me to leave’

7.2 More complex constructions 377

(100b) Cz nenı

eba se oba

vat

Neg-be-3Sg necessary ReflCl fear-Inf

‘there is no need to be afraid’

And ‘be’ is found, though more marginally, in some infinitival constructions:

(101) Slk bolo badat’, ˇze sa premenila

be-NeutSgPast see-Inf that ReflCl change-FemSgPast

‘it could be seen that she had changed’

The nouns which can govern infinitives are in most instances either derived

from verbs (Ukr na

mir ‘intention’ (98) ), or adjectives, or are semantically related

to them:

(102a) Rus sklo

nnost

zablu ˇzda

sja ‘tendency to get lost/go astray’

(102b) Pol szansa wygrac

‘a chance to win’

There are also some restricted Agent + Infinitive constructions, with a small and

closed list of nouns (103a), though a noun phrase or prepositional phrase after a

nominal is more usual (103b):

(103a) Rus ma

ster igra

na skrı

pke

master play-Inf on violin-LocSg

‘a master at playing on the violin’

(103b) Rus specialı

st po obs

stvennym nau

kam

‘a specialist in the social sciences’

A few languages also show a dialectal or non-standard Common

noun + Infinitive, where the infinitive carries the meaning of ‘goal’. The construc-

tion in (104b) is more correct and more common:

(104a) Rus gvo

zdik ve

pal

nail hang-Inf coat

‘a nail to hang a coat on’

(104b) Rus gvo

zdik dlja ve

anija pal

(...) for hanging-GenSg (...)

‘a nail for hanging a coat (on)’

Goal-infinitive expressions show several typically Slavic properties. Verbs of

motion with tautosubject infinitives (infinitives with the same subject as the domi-

nating word or expression) may optionally include the ‘in-order-that’ complement-

izer (105a). In East and West Slavic this complementizer is otherwise used with

378 7. Sentence structure