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Date: Среда, 2007-10-24, 9:33 PM | Message # 1 |
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2006-08-29 |
Aorist and pseudo-aorist for Svan atelic verbs — K. Tuite
0. Introduction. The Kartvelian or South Caucasian family comprises three languages: Georgian,
which has been attested in documents going back to the 5th century, Zan (or Laz-Mingrelian) and
Svan. In the case of Zan and Svan, there is almost no documentation going back beyond the
mid-19th century. There is a concensus among experts that Svan is the outlying member of the
family, whose family tree would be as in this diagram:
COMMON KARTVELIAN
COMMON GEORGIAN-ZAN PREHISTORIC SVAN
GEORGIAN ZAN
MINGRELIAN LAZ Upper Bal Lower Bal Lashx Lent’ex
(Upper Svan dialects) (Lower Svan dialects)
In this paper I will look at one segment of the formal system in Svan — in particular, in the more
conservative Upper Svan dialects — for coding aspect. In this introductory section I will go over the
system of what Kartvelologists term “screeves” (sets of verb forms differing only in person and
number), and then the classification of verbs by lexical aspect with which the morphological facts
will be compared.
0.1. Screeves and series. In the morphology of verbs in each of the Kartvelian languages, one of
the fundamental distinctions is between verb forms derived from the SERIES I OR
“PRESENT-SERIES” stem, and forms derived from the SERIES II OR “AORIST-SERIES” stem. We
will not go into all of the formal differences between these two stems for the various groups of
verbs in each language, save to note that for most verbs the Series I stem contains a suffix (the
“series marker” or “present/future stem formant”) which does not appear in Series II forms.
(There is also a third series of verb forms, the “perfect series,” in the Kartvelian languages. These
forms appear to be of relatively recent origin, and in any event are built on recognizably Series I or
II stems. Series III will not be discussed in this paper).
In Old Georgian (5th-11th centuries) those screeves employing Series I stems were aspectually
durative or LINEAR (Geo. xazovani ), while those verb forms built on Series II stems were
characterized by PUNCTILIAR (Geo. c’ert’ilebrivi ) aspect. That is, the system offered a choice in
the representation of an event: it could be viewed as extending over a period of time, or the narrative
spotlight could be directed, in a sense, at a salient point, a change of state. The nature of the
semantic distinction conveyed by the formal opposition of Series I and II screeves in the modern
Kartvelian languages has changed somewhat from that of Old Georgian (though relics of the older
aspectual system are preserved in all branches of the family [Machavariani 1974]).
The screeves of Svan and, for the purpose of comparison, Modern Georgian, derived from Series
I and Series II stems are shown in {1} [Gudjedjiani & Palmaitis 1986] (Zan is not discussed here):Добавлено (Сегодня, 9:33 Pm)
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http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/tuitekj....ist.pdf |
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