The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death: Evidence from Minor Finnic 9783110524086, 9783110521856, 9783110521993

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Petar Kehayov The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death

Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs

Editor Volker Gast Editorial Board Walter Bisang Jan Terje Faarlund Hans Henrich Hock Natalia Levshina Heiko Narrog Matthias Schlesewsky Amir Zeldes Niina Ning Zhang Editor responsible for this volume Volker Gast

Volume 307

Petar Kehayov

The Fate of Mood and Modality in Language Death Evidence from Minor Finnic

ISBN 978-3-11-052185-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-052408-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-052199-3 ISSN 1861-4302 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. 6 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: RoyalStandard, Hong Kong Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

For Kadri

Acknowledgments This book is a revised version of my habilitation thesis, mentored by Elena Skribnik, Rogier Blokland and Björn Hansen, reviewed by Johanna Laakso and Johannes Helmbrecht, and approved by the Faculty of Languages and Literatures at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The study reported in it could not have been accomplished without the valuable support of many people and institutions over the past ten years. I am particularly indebted to the University of Tartu and the University of Regensburg, which have provided the best possible conditions for me to do my work. In the years before 2011 I participated in different research projects sponsored by the Estonian Research Council and by the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Estonia. Although the main focus of these projects was elsewhere, they paved the ground for the present investigation in various ways. In 2011 and 2012 the research reported in this thesis was sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and between 2013 and 2015 by the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies at the University of Regensburg and LMU‑Munich. I am also grateful to the Department of Slavic Philology at the University of Regensburg, which has contributed enormously to the research process since 2011. The institutional support has kept my feet on the path, but it was the people that I met on this path who helped me to face the surprises and pitfalls often waiting behind the corner. For their inspiration and ideas, articulated at regular forums or informal conversations, as well as for practical support of various kinds, I owe a debt of gratitude to Vahur Aabrams, Werner Abraham, Sandra Birzer, Rogier Blokland, Kasper Boye, Martin Ehala, Mati Erelt, Mai Frick, Björn Hansen, Heidrun Hamersky, Andreas Kalkun, Kristian Kankainen, Elisabeth Leiss, Liina Lindström, Elena Markus, Helle Metslang, Helena Metslang, Irma Mullonen, Helen Plado, Renate Pajusalu, Christian Rapold, Katharina Rosengarth, Fedor Rozhanskiy, Ilona Tragel, Virve Vihman, Dóra Vuk, and Björn Wiemer. For providing interdisciplinary perspectives on the topic of this study, I am grateful to my colleagues at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies. I am also grateful to my fieldwork colleagues, some of whom were already mentioned above. Others include Heinike Heinsoo, Grethe Juhkason, Andres Karjus, Natalia Kuznetsova, Ellen Niit, Miina Norvik, Maarja‑Liisa Pilvik, Eva Saar, Triin Todesk, and Kristel Uiboaed. I also wish to thank all Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto consultants whose speech was recorded for the purposes of this study. Accessing these consultants and their social networks DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-202

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Acknowledgments

would have been much more difficult without the help of people living in the area. Here special thanks go to Sergeĭ and Galina Ivaniv welcoming me at their home in Pryazha. It has been a pleasure for me to communicate with my mentors Elena Skribnik, Rogier Blokland and Björn Hansen, who provided a stimulating atmosphere for the preparation of the thesis and furthered my thinking with questions and comments. Finally, I am grateful to my external reviewers Johanna Laakso and Johannes Helmbrecht for their constructive criticism. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for all remaining errors and shortcomings.

Table of contents Acknowledgments vii xiii Transliteration and transcription conventions Abbreviations of languages, dialects and names of settlements xv Abbreviations of linguistic notions xvii List of figures, maps and tables

xiv

1

1

Introduction

2 2.1 2.2

5 Language death: current state of the research 6 Types of language death Delimiting LD: what is and what is not a case of language 7 death? 12 Structural characteristics of LD

2.3 3

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their 18 organization 18 3.1 Modality 20 3.1.1 A glossary of modality values 21 3.1.1.1 Simplex values 28 3.1.1.2 Complex (abstract) values 34 3.1.2 Gradience and modality scales 3.1.3 Multifunctionality and vagueness of modal expressions 39 3.1.4 The scope of modality 44 3.2 Mood 45 3.2.1 Clause type (sentence mood) 46 3.2.2 Grammatical mood 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.3.1 4.3.2

36

52 Mood and modality meets language death 52 Why is the combination of MM and LD special? 59 Possible explanations for attested behaviour of MM in LD Linguistic evidence for the behaviour of MM and related concepts 61 in LD Typological evidence for consecutive loss, change and innovation 62 in LD 64 Probabilistic hierarchies as a frame of reference

x

Table of contents

5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.4 5.4.1 5.4.2 5.4.3 5.4.4 5.4.5

The languages studied 67 Phylogenetic relationship and geographical location 73 Size of speech communities 75 Language contact and related phenomena 76 Language contact proper 78 “Visible-hand” phenomena 82 Extra-linguistic factors in LD 84 Political factors 86 Economic factors 90 Demographic factors 93 Cultural factors 95 Résumé of the extra-linguistic circumstances

6 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.4.1 6.4.2 6.4.3

96 Methods of inquiry 96 Data elicitation 100 Accumulation of data 103 Assembly of the corpus 108 Retrieval, selection and verification of hypotheses 108 How are hypotheses generated? 110 Form of hypotheses Verification of hypotheses and assessment of their typological 111 value

7

Intensity of the language contact and the degree of contraction outside 114 MM-domain 114 Changes according to expression format 115 (Morpho)phonological change 117 Morphological change 119 (Morpho)syntactic change 133 Change of verb categories other than MM 134 Valency 136 Tense 145 Person and number 145 Inflection reduction on the negation verb Extension of impersonal morphology to personal forms of 151 the verb 161 Polarity 164 NEG/AFF-(a)symmetry 166 Scope (a)symmetry

7.1 7.1.1 7.1.2 7.1.3 7.2 7.2.1 7.2.2 7.2.3 7.2.3.1 7.2.3.2 7.2.4 7.2.4.1 7.2.4.2

67

Table of contents

xi

8 MM in the receding varieties 170 170 8.1 Modality 170 8.1.1 Modality in Finnic: the point of departure 176 8.1.2 Developments attested in LD 176 8.1.2.1 Restructuring of the inherited linguistic matter 177 8.1.2.1.1 Semantic changes without morphosyntactic consequences 178 8.1.2.1.1.1 Multifunctionalization 195 8.1.2.1.1.2 Idiolect divergence 200 8.1.2.1.2 Morphosyntactic changes with semantic correlates 200 8.1.2.1.2.1 Particlization of modal verbs 208 8.1.2.1.2.2 Omission of the infinitive and de-auxiliarization 214 8.1.2.1.2.3 Change in person inflection 215 8.1.2.2 Transfer of linguistic matter 216 8.1.2.2.1 Transfer of modals 226 8.1.2.2.2 Transfer of complement-taking predicates 231 8.1.2.2.3 Transfer of subordinators 231 8.1.2.2.3.1 Complementizers 236 8.1.2.2.3.2 Adverbializers and relativizers 239 8.1.2.3 A brief summary 240 8.2 Mood 240 8.2.1 Mood in Finnic: the point of departure 240 8.2.1.1 Grammatical mood 240 8.2.1.1.1 The Imperative 246 8.2.1.1.2 The Conditional 250 8.2.1.1.3 The Potential 251 8.2.1.1.4 Other grammatical moods 252 8.2.1.2 Sentence mood (clause type) 253 8.2.2 Developments attested in LD 253 8.2.2.1 Grammatical mood 253 8.2.2.1.1 Intracategorial changes 254 8.2.2.1.1.1 The Imperative 254 8.2.2.1.1.1.1 Formal changes in the Imperative paradigm 262 8.2.2.1.1.1.2 Changes affecting the functional range of the Imperative 265 8.2.2.1.1.2 The Conditional 265 8.2.2.1.1.2.1 Formal changes in the Conditional paradigm 273 8.2.2.1.1.2.2 Changes affecting the functional range of the Conditional 285 8.2.2.1.1.3 The Potential 286 8.2.2.1.2 Transcategorial comparison: Imperative vs. Conditional 288 8.2.2.2 Sentence mood (clause type) 288 8.2.2.2.1 Interrogatives

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8.2.2.2.2 8.2.2.3 8.3

9 9.1 9.2 9.2.1 9.2.2 9.3 9.4 9.5

10

Selection of indirect and direct speech 289 291 A brief summary Mood and modality in LD: recapitulation of the most noticeable 292 findings

Toward a uniform account of the phenomena observed in the domain 295 of MM 296 Markedness as conceptual complexity 300 Semantic scope 300 The notion of layered conceptual structure 307 Explaining the discoveries in terms of semantic scope Cases that cannot be solved in terms of conceptual complexity or 313 semantic scope Summary: major determinants of the observed 322 phenomena Reducing relative semantic scope to relative conceptual 324 complexity Conclusions

326

330 Appendices: examples of elicited linguistic data 331 Appendix I. Q5: materials from Eastern Seto Appendix II. Non-controlled elicitation: materials from Central Lude 345 References 375 Language index: Finnic varieties 377 Subject index

338

Transliteration and transcription conventions Examples and references in Russian are romanized according to the BSI (British Standards Institution & Chemical Abstracts Service) BS 2979 standard. The names of those Russian authors who conventionally transliterate their names according to another system are, however, presented in this conventional shape and not converted to BSI. The same goes for article and book titles which have appeared in a transliterated form: these are not re-transliterated according to BSI. Linguistic examples from my Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic, and Eastern Seto material are transcribed according to a relatively simple but unified system, whereas examples from published materials are presented in the transcription system of the respective source. Applying the same transcription system to all languages studied (instead of using different orthographies) facilitates the identification of common structures across these languages – an important aid for a reader not familiar with the Finnic languages. At the same time, I have avoided “editing” individual occurrences of the same form in order to make them look more similar and recognizable for the reader. On the contrary, I have tried to reproduce the articulation of my consultants, no matter how deviant it was from what I expected to hear. The transcription system combines the following special characters and symbols: palatalized consonants are marked by an apostrophe (l’, d’, t’) or acute accent (ń, ŕ, ś, š́ ). An apostrophe occurring after a vowel represents the Eastern Seto laryngeal stop. An alveolar sibilant affricate is marked by ts and palatoalveolar sibilant affricate by tš. The Cyrillic л stands for an alveolar lateral approximant. Long consonants are marked by double characters (vv, tt, ss), long vowels by single characters with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ǟ, ȫ, ǖ). The character e̮ represents an unrounded mid back or mid central vowel, i ̮ a higher central vowel, and ǝ a reduced vowel. Capital vowel letters (A, O and U) occurring in morphemes discussed in the text mark generalizations of back (a, o, u) and front (ä, ö, ü) vocalic versions of these morphemes. Superscripts (e.g. i or z) mark super-short vowels and consonants.

DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-204

Abbreviations of languages, dialects and names of settlements (in Russian and in the respective Finnic variety) C‑L D‑Pol Dub Eng Est Fi Glk Grk Ing‑L Ing‑S Izb Izv Ktz Kr Li Ls Lu N‑Izb Pl Pdl Pr Ps Ru Se‑E Sl Sm Sok S‑P Sv T‑P U‑L Val Vd Vot Vs Yg

Central Lude Dal’nyaya Polyana / Pol’ana (Lower Luga Ingrian) Dubki / Tammikontu (Soikino Ingrian) English Estonian Finnish Glinki / Savimäki (Soikino Ingrian) Gorki / Mättäsi (Soikino Ingrian) Lower Luga Ingrian Soikino Ingrian Izborsk / Irboska (Eastern Seto) Izvoz / Tiesuu (Lower Luga Ingrian) Kotkozero / Kotkatjärvi (Olonets Karelian) Krakol’e / Jõgõperä (Votic) Lizhma / Lidžmi (Central Lude) Lezgi / Leski (Eastern Seto) Luzhitsy / Luužitsa (Votic) Novyĭ Izborsk / Vahtsõnõ Irboska (Eastern Seto) Polovina / Puoliväli (Cenral Lude) Podles’e / Podles’e (Eastern Seto) Pryazha / Priäža (Central Lude) Peski / Liivtšülä (Votic) Russian Eastern Seto Slobodka / Säätinä (Soikino Ingrian) Smenkovo / Otsave (Soikino Ingrian) Sokolovo / Sokolova (Eastern Seto) Soava‑Priäžä (Central Lude) Svyatozero / Pyhäjärvi (Central Lude) Teru‑Priäža (Central Lude) Ust’‑Luga / Ust‑Luga, Laukaansuu (Votic) Valyanitsy / Voloitsa (Soikino Ingrian) Vidany / Viidan (Central Lude) Votic Vistino / Viistina (Soikino Ingrian) Yugantovo / Saarove (Soikino Ingrian)

DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-205

Abbreviations of linguistic notions ABE ABL ACC ACNOM ACT ADE ADJ AdjP ADV AdvP AFF AGR ALL AOR ASP CL CMP COM COMP COND CONNEG CTP DAT DEB DEF DIST ELA ESS F FOC FUT GEN ILL IMP IMPF IMPS IND INE INF

abessive case ablative case accusative case action nominal active adessive case adjective adjective phrase adverb adverbial phrase affirmation agreement allative case aorist aspect clitic comparative (in the adjective or adverb gradation) comitative case complementizer conditional mood connegative complement taking predicate dative case debitive mood definite distal demonstrative pronoun elative case essive case feminine focus clitic future genitive case illative case imperative mood imperfective aspect impersonal indicative inessive case infinitive

DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-206

xvi INS INTERJ IRR JUSS LD M MM N NEC NEG NFACT NOM NP O OPT PART PASS PL POS POSS POT PP PROH PRON PRP PRS PST PTCL PTCP Q(yes/no) REFL REL S SG SUBJ SUP TF TRM TRNSL V VAL VP

Abbreviations of linguistic notions

instrumental case interjection irrealis marker jussive language death masculine mood‑and‑modality neuter necessity negator, negation non‑factual complementizer nominative case noun phrase object optative partitive case passive plural possibility possessive suffix potential mood adpositional phrase prohibitive pronoun prepositional case present tense past tense particle participle polar question reflexive marker relative pronoun, relativizer subject singular subjunctive superlative marker the traditional form of a language or dialect terminative case translative case verb valency verb phrase

List of figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5

Modality values within the domain of possibility and necessity 33 46 Mapping between speech act, sentence mood, and grammatical mood 68 Ancestry of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto Layers of speakers as imaginary stops passed by the language on the way 107 towards extinction 127 Head-directionality in typological drift

List of maps Map 1 Map 2 Map 3 Map 4

Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto speech areas in Northeastern 72 Europe Approximate speech area and contemporary settlements of speakers of Central 72 Lude Approximate speech area and contemporary settlements of speakers of Eastern 72 Seto Approximate speech area and contemporary settlements of speakers of Ingrian 72 and Votic

List of tables Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4 Table 5 Table 6 Table 7 Table 8 Table 9 Table 10 Table 11 Table 12 Table 13 Table 14 Table 15

Speech population and level of endangerment 75 76 Knowledge of other languages in order of decreasing probability 96 Elicitation formats according to degree of control and naturalness 100 Overview of the fieldtrips 102 Overview of the questionnaires 103 Number of consultants and hours recorded 105 Types of speakers on fluency continuum Types of hierarchies of relative susceptibility to borrowing, loss or 111 change 119 Borrowed derivational affixes 135 Verb forms showing Russian stems and Finnic anticausative morphology 138 The Finnish tense system: istua ‘to sit’ (affirmative, active, indicative) 147 Conjugation of the negation verb; present tense of the verb ‘see’ 149 Extensions of the negator ei within the person/number paradigm Totals of instantiations of persistence and loss (substitution) in the person/ 150 number paradigm of the negative verb Extensions of the impersonal/3PL forms to other person and number 153 slots

xviii

List of figures, maps and tables

Table 16 Table 17 Table 18

The original (or premodal) meanings of the core modal verbs in Finnic 171 173 Compatibility of core modals with the impersonal modal pattern Frequencies of the possibility modals mahtā, jaksā and sāvva in Soikino Ingrian 181 in the non-epistemic domain Formal distinction between inherent and acquired ability in the modality 182 system 187 Possibility–necessity blending in affirmation and negation Possibility–necessity blending according to modal value: dynamic/circumstantial, 189 deontic and epistemic Occurrence of possibility‑necessity blends according to polarity and modal 190 value ‘Possibility‑to‑necessity’ extension: occurrences of possibility modals instead of 192 necessity modals according to polarity and modal value ‘Necessity‑to‑possibility’ extension: occurrences of necessity modals instead of 194 possibility modals according to polarity and modal value 199 Idiolect divergence in the marking of modal possibility 203 Left‑detachment in particlization Frequencies of modals borrowed from Russian according to their modal value in 217 C1 Frequencies of modals borrowed from Russian according to the distinction 218 ‘epistemic’/‘non‑epistemic’ modality in C1 Frequencies of modals borrowed from Russian according to the distinction 219 ‘non‑epistemic possibility’/‘non‑epistemic necessity’ in C1 Transfer of different semantic types of complement taking predicates in 227 C1 229 Lexical sources of transfer 234 Transfer of complementizers in Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude in C1 Transfer of adverbializers in Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude in C1 according to the 238 semantic role of the adverbial clause Morphological moods in the TFs of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern 240 Seto 241 The paradigm of the Finnish Imperative: istua ‘sit’ (active forms) The paradigm of the Finnish present (non-past) tense Conditional: istua ‘sit’ 247 (active forms) The paradigm of the Finnish past tense Conditional: istua ‘sit’ (active 247 forms) 255 Imperative formation according to polarity in C1 260 Explication of the Cohortative/Imperative/Jussive Opting for different grammatical mood in C1: ‘Imperative proper’ instead of 263 ‘Indicative’/‘Conditional’ or vice versa Persistence and substitution of the analytic past tense forms of the 267 Conditional Transfer of the Russian Subjunctive into contexts reserved for the 270 Conditional 272 Hosts of the subjunctive b(i )̮ in mixed structures 274 Substitutions of the Conditional by alternative inherited matter in C1 276 Conditional as a substitute of alternative inherited matter in C1

Table 19 Table 20 Table 21 Table 22 Table 23 Table 24 Table 25 Table 26 Table 27 Table 28 Table 29 Table 30 Table 31 Table 32 Table 33 Table 34 Table 35 Table 36 Table 37 Table 38 Table 39 Table 40 Table 41 Table 42 Table 43 Table 44 Table 45

List of figures, maps and tables

Table 46 Table 47 Table 48 Table 49 Table 50 Table 51 Table 52 Table 53 Table 54 Table 55 Table 56

xix

Substitution of the Conditional in conditional sentences in C1 279 Substitution and persistence of the Conditional in other semantic contexts in 282 C1 284 Reinforcement of the Conditional in conditional sentences in C1 286 Substitution among grammatical moods 292 Non‑hierarchical statements 293 Affectedness hierarchies in the modality domain Affectedness hierarchies in the domain of (grammatical or sentence) 294 mood 303 Relevant layers of meaning structure Cross-linguistically salient meanings according to the units in their immediate 305 semantic scope The immediate semantic scope of the Conditional according to type of 322 context Covariance between ‘MM-1 . . . MM-23’ and the variables ‘conceptual complexity’ 323 and ‘semantic scope’

1 Introduction This study investigates the expression of mood and modality (MM) in four severely endangered Finnic varieties: Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto. By virtue of its basic commitment – to examine the coding of certain functions in certain linguistic varieties – it is solely an observational study. Considering, however, that the last speakers of a language do not represent the typical environment from which we obtain insight about the coding of comparative linguistic concepts, this study can also be regarded as an experiment: the behaviour of MM in such an “extraordinary” environment as the advanced stage of language obsolescence could be expected to be suggestive as to those properties of MM which remain hidden to the observer in “normal” circumstances. This expectation accommodates two premises underlying the present investigation: a) The structural change that accompanies language death (LD) is not (entirely) identical to language change in full‑fledged functional languages (such as e.g. French or German). This assumption identifies LD as a unique environment in which the behaviour of linguistic phenomena could be “tested”. b) The process of LD is characterized by functional modularity: different conceptual and grammatical domains are affected in different ways and/or at different speeds by this process. This assumption identifies MM as a unique category among the grammatical categories of a language affected by LD. The literature on language death is mostly concerned with the sociolinguistic aspects of the obsolescence situation (e.g. Dressler & Wodak‑Leodolter 1977a; Gal 1979; Dorian 1981; Schmidt 1985; Hill 1989; Dixon 1997; Nettle & Romaine 2000; Janse & Tol 2003; Crystal 2007). Although the investigation of the structural aspects of LD has intensified in the last decades, most studies exhaust the issue either by presenting interesting but non‑systematic observations, or by discussing general structural processes which apply concurrently to several areas of grammar: e.g. reduction without compensation, paradigmatic levelling, increase of morphotactic transparency or suppression of marked in favour of unmarked features (see e.g. Dressler 1981; Schmidt 1985: 213; Knowles‑Berry 1987; Campbell & Muntzel 1989; Dimmendaal 1992; 1998; Sasse 1992a; Palosaari & Campbell 2011). This circumscription to general phenomena is partly understandable, as language decay is usually a rapid process affecting different domains of grammar simultaneously and not consecutively. Another reason for the lack of research on particular functional domains in LD is the non‑aprioristic approach adopted by the students of LD. The examination of certain functional domains in LD is justified by the two assumptions mentioned above. The DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-001

2

Introduction

assumption that processes in LD differ from regular language change is implicitly present in many studies, yet it is rarely acknowledged and stated (exceptions include Schmidt 1985: 213 and Sasse 1992a: 16). As far as functional modularity is concerned, I am not aware of studies on LD of indigenous languages which adopt this assumption, although many authors provide indirect evidence for it. Sasse (1992b), for instance, noted that the weaker speakers of Arvanitika (a variety of Albanian spoken in Greece) tend to preserve the Imperative1 while losing the other moods; translated into functional terms this means that speakers tend to retain the expression of commands and requests in their native varieties, while borrowing expressions of other modal meanings from the dominant language. By contrast, in related fields of linguistic inquiry, the idea that different semantic domains are affected by linguistic change in different ways and/or at different speeds is both presupposed and confirmed by the data: see e.g. Matras (2007; 2009: 161‒162, 186‒188, 195‒196) on language contact and “borrowability” in particular, Stephany (1993; 1995), Shepherd (1993), Papafragou (1998), Lee (2009) on first language acquisition, and Dittmar (1993), Bernini (1995), Giacalone Ramat (1995) and Giacalone Ramat and Galèas (1995) on second language acquisition. By addressing a particular functional domain in the conditions of language death this study takes a small step towards bridging this research gap in the study of structural consequences of LD. The specific goals of the study are: a) to make observations and submit implicational statements about the relative susceptibility of expressions of different modal values to loss, change and innovation in LD, and b) to propose explanations for the observed differences in the relative susceptibility of expressions of different modal values to loss, change and innovation in LD. Minor Finnic languages and their dialects are excellent candidates for a study of grammatical systems in language death. On the one hand they are severely endangered, whilst on the other hand they have a relatively long research history, which means that they are well documented with respect to earlier stages of their “life cycle”. This availability of evidence from earlier periods is crucial in light of the fact that most of the existing research on language death is based on languages from Africa, Australia and the Americas that are poorly documented from a historical point of view. 1 Language-specific descriptive categories are capitalized, thus being distinguished from comparative typological concepts, which are not capitalized (see Bybee 1985: 141 and Haspelmath 2010 about this convention in linguistic typology).

Introduction

3

At the same time, these endangered Finnic languages are closely related, share the same donor language (Russian), and their speech populations manifest similar patterns of multilingualism. Therefore, the verification of the statements made in this study requires finding an independent control situation which involves languages that are as different as possible from Finnic (receding) and Russian (dominant). Due to the lack of comparable data from such an independent sample, I am forced, however, to rely on language‑internal structural diversity to validate my generalizations. Fortunately, the domain covered by MM is linguistically coded by formal means so diverse that it allows us to test hypotheses on entities with different coding but similar function, and thus independently of structure. In the Finnic languages MM is expressed by grammatical mood, non‑finite verb forms, finite verbs (auxiliaries or lexical verbs), adverbs, particles, nouns, predicative adjectives, complementizers, intonation and ellipsis. The book is structured as follows. Following this introductory chapter, Chapter 2 delineates the concept of ‘language death’, providing an in-depth discussion of its characteristics and delimiting it from similar but distinct phenomena, and presents the current state of research on LD. Chapter 3 delimits the notion of ‘mood‑and‑modality’ and discusses models of structured polysemy accounting for the internal design of the MM domain. Chapter 4 brings together the object of the study (MM) and the relevant environment (the advanced stage of LD), and discusses intersections with other fields of interest in modern linguistics. This chapter also discusses the possible explanations for the observations made and provides an overview of previous evidence concerning the behaviour of MM in LD. Chapter 5 presents the languages studied and the reasons why they are endangered and will eventually vanish. Chapter 6 presents the elicitation procedure, the collected primary data, the criteria applied for the compilation of a workable corpus from it, the methods applied for analysis of the data, and for the retrieval, selection and verification of hypotheses. Chapter 7 establishes the background of the study, assessing the levels of structural decay in the four varieties under scrutiny by looking at changes outside the domain of MM. Chapter 8 constitutes the backbone of the study; here the behaviour of MM in the receding Finnic varieties is presented, analysed and arranged into statements, most of which take the form of scales of susceptibility of expressions of different modal values to loss, change and innovation. In Chapter 9, I propose a functional explanation of the observed orders in these scales in terms of ‘markedness’ (understood as conceptual complexity) and ‘layered conceptual structure’ (as assumed in Functional Discourse Grammar). Chapter 10 summarizes the results of the study. Throughout the discussion, I illustrate my claims with individual sentences, presented without additional context. The processes taking place in the receding

4

Introduction

Finnic varieties are illustrated in a more general way in the two appendices provided at the end of this book. Appendix I and Appendix II contain longer samples of text from Eastern Seto and Central Lude, respectively. These two varieties constitute the genealogical extremities among the four varieties studied, and were therefore chosen for this illustration.

2 Language death: current state of the research Although the interest in language death is quite old, before the late 1970s it was only manifested in sporadic outbursts of scholarly activity (for an overview of earlier literature see Janse 2003) which did not lead to systematic accumulation of knowledge or any other kind of intradisciplinary cohesion. Nonetheless, early work on the phenomenon already achieved a consensus as to the basic definitional feature of LD: the disruption of intergenerational transmission (see Crystal 2007: 20 for a concise formulation). Put in layman’s terms, this means that language death is manifested in the breaking point beyond which a language is no longer being learned as a mother tongue. The self-reflection in the field soon led to the agreement that death is no more but a conventional metaphor2 which, as it happens, emphasizes the terminality of the process (see e.g. Harmon 1996 as an obvious example of this), and downplays its succession and continuity aspect (see Gal 1996 for discussion). The latter aspects are better captured by the term language shift (e.g. Mackey 1980), which seems to provide a more realistic description of the phenomenon (Dal Negro 2004: 18 for an overview of the uses of the term). Clearly, members of speech communities do not lose their abilities to communicate; moreover, otherwise as in scholarly discourse, they do not necessarily perceive languages as separate systems: it is rather one language that they continuously optimize in everyday communication by changing the available expression codes (see Siragusa 2015, for a discussion from a linguistic ecology point of view). Nevertheless, as terminality metaphors are still prevalent in the literature, I will adhere to them. Given that I am going to deal with purely linguistic issues, rather than the rhetoric of language endangerment (see Errington 2008 for an extensive discussion on this issue), the use of terminality metaphors will do no harm to the object of scrutiny. One advantage of using such metaphors is that different terminality metaphors show a modest bias towards certain aspects of the phenomenon (Dal Negro 2004: 18‒21) and could be alternated when required by the context. Such metaphors include: – language loss (e.g. Polinsky 1995; Dixon 1997: 107‒115), which is often used to designate the loss of linguistic abilities due to language pathologies (Dal Negro 2004: 21); however, sometimes ‘loss’ is used as a cover term for the decline of linguistic skills both in L1 and L2, and both in individuals and in speech communities (de Bot 1996); 2 The adoption of the medical metaphor of death presupposes that languages have a “natural life cycle”, a figure of speech often found in the works of students of LD (e.g. Dorian 1981; Wolfram 2007). DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-002

6 –

–

–

Language death: current state of the research

language decay (e.g. Dressler 1981; Knowles-Berry 1987; Sasse 1990; 1992b) accentuates the structural consequences of the reduced use of the language (Dal Negro 2004: 19); language obsolescence often focuses on the sociolinguistic aspects of the phenomenon, looking at it from a communal perspective (e.g. Palosaari & Campbell 2011: 110‒111); language attrition looks at the phenomenon from the perspective of an individual speaker rather than from the perspective of the community (de Bot 1996; Dal Negro 2004: 21; Riionheimo 2013a: 14). According to Polinsky (1995: 88), this term refers to two different but related phenomena: a) first language loss as a result of the forgetting of the language system by once fluent speakers (most commonly due to the influence of the dominant language in emigration; e.g. Schmid 2011); b) intergenerational reduction of grammar: a process in which, due to incomplete learning, the grammar of the language undergoes a significant reduction when passed from one generation to the next. In addition, ‘language attrition’ sometimes refers to the loss of L2; cases in point are gastarbeiter who gradually forget one or more of the languages they have learned in their home country (Dal Negro 2004: 18).

2.1 Types of language death Classifications of types of LD are usually based on particular variables in the sociolinguistic setting. Campbell and Muntzel (1989: 182‒185), for instance, base their classification on the speed and directionality of the process of obsolescence, and distinguish four types of LD:3 – sudden death (also known as linguicide): occurs when a language suddenly disappears because its speakers die or are killed (e.g. Tasmanian). According to Wolfram (2007: 1), in such cases, “the transitional phase is so abrupt that there are few if any structural consequences as the language dies.” Unlike the other types, sudden LD can also affect monolingual speakers; – radical death: resembles sudden LD in terms of the abruptness of the process, but differs in as much as the speakers do not disappear, but shift to another language. In radical LD, the speakers cease to speak the language in order to avoid political repression and possible genocide (Wolfram 2007: 2); 3 These types are not mutually exclusive (see Wolfram 2007).

Delimiting LD: what is and what is not a case of language death?

–

–

7

gradual death: concerns a gradual shift to the dominant language in a contact situation (Sasse 1992: 22). This is worldwide the most common type of LD; it is characterized by a proficiency continuum among speakers, which correlates with different birth cohorts. This type typically produces semispeakers (Wolfram 2007: 2); bottom-to-top-death (the term comes from Hill 1983: 260): concerns cases where the repertoire of stylistic registers is reduced from the bottom up, remaining only in formal and ceremonial genres.

Dixon’s classification of types of LD (Dixon 1997: 107‒111) is based on the impetus of the process, including the following types: – LD due to population loss (through genocide or disease); – LD as a forced language loss: includes cases where the language of the minority group is being forbidden by the dominant group; – LD due to “voluntary language switching”: in this case it is the speakers’ choice to abandon the language. This choice may have trans-generational effects (e.g. the parents cease to speak the language with their children) or concern a single generation (the children abandon the language themselves). This type constitutes a typical case of language attrition in immigrant communities; – LD due to “involuntary language switching”; in this case there is a considerable imbalance in the prestige of the languages and the speakers have no choice but to switch the language (e.g. the lack of an alphabet or vocabulary necessary for elementary education).

2.2 Delimiting LD: what is and what is not a case of language death? In this section, I would like to ensure against the misunderstanding that could be caused by transposing statements about the structural decay of indigenous small languages to other phenomena, such as processes taking place in heritage languages of immigrant communities, creoles and mixed languages. The differences and similarities between LD in compact indigenous communities and language attrition in immigrant communities could be the topic of a separate study. In order to limit the scope of the conclusions made in this study, I will accept that LD and first language attrition in immigrant communities (cf. Schmid 2011) are related but distinct phenomena.4 The differences relate to 4 This exploratory decision is met also by other students of LD; cf. Dal Negro (2004: 20): “It seems sensible to restrict the label ‘language death’ to studies on the so‑called indigenous enclaves.”

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Language death: current state of the research

the sociolinguistic setting, and are specifically connected to the following factors: a) the time spent in (or outside) the contact environment, b) the compactness of settlement, c) the information value of L1, and d) the attitudinal setting (affecting the speed of assimilation). a) Polinsky (1995) argues that in the case of indigenous communities or their members time factors are generally more difficult to measure than for heritage language speakers. For instance, in the case of immigrant speakers, changes in the intensity of exposure to L2 are more abrupt and their time of occurrence is easily determinable. On the other hand, immigrants may be subjected to rehearsal and temporary exposure to their L1 (this concerns mostly non-interactive exposure: reading, watching TV etc.), whereas the speakers of dying indigenous languages do not have this opportunity. b) The compactness of settlement (see e.g. Dal Negro 2004: 20‒21) obviously tends to be higher in the case of indigenous languages: their speakers shift to L2 collectively, whereas immigrants are often subjected to attrition individually. As a result, the immigrant individuals belonging to the same generational cohort are expected to manifest greater differences in their proficiency of L1 than members of indigenous speech communities. c) The first language of immigrants may have a higher (or at least different) information value than the L1 of indigenous speakers. In immigrant communities it is often a medium of news about the home country, while in indigenous communities it is restricted to everyday communication about the immediate environment of the interlocutors. d) The attitudinal setting of these two groups is also different. While speaking the language is often a political statement in immigrant groups (as a token of pride in the common cultural heritage), this is rarely the case in indigenous communities, where the language is spoken by elderly people only as a habit. The list of differences can be expanded by the perspectivation bias mentioned above: individual perspective in language attrition research vs. community perspective in language death research (Dal Negro 2004: 21; Riionheimo 2013a: 14). Attrition is conceived of as a temporal process affecting the competence and production of individual speakers throughout their lifes, and therefore could be seen as a mainly psycho- and neuro-linguistic phenomenon (Riionheimo 2013a: 14), whereas LD usually has a communal connotation. The specific structural consequences of these differences have not yet been studied in detail. Polinsky (1995: 88) has argued that attrition in immigrant languages is milder than in the classical case of LD of (indigenous) communities, but there are still no systematic comparative studies to verify her claim. Just like with language attrition, I assume that the emerging phenomena in pidginization, creolization and the development of mixed languages are not

Delimiting LD: what is and what is not a case of language death?

9

entirely identical to the emerging phenomena occurring in LD. Trudgill (2011: 67) defines a pidgin as “a stable contact language, without native speakers, which is the outcome of the pidginization – simplification, admixture, and reduction – of some source language, where reduction means that there is simply less of a language as compared to the form in which it is spoken by native speakers: the vocabulary is smaller, and there are fewer syntactic structures, a narrower range of styles and so on” (see Holm 2000: 5‒6 for a more elaborate description). The degree of phenomenological overlap between pidginization and advanced LD has been an object of controversy in the literature. Dorian (1978: 580) represents the dissimilarity-view by stating that pidginization and language death are two distinct processes. The opposite view is articulated by Dressler and Wodak-Leodolter (1977b: 37), who state that LD can be seen as a sort of pidginization. Many authors see both structural similarities as well as differences between pidginization and the process of LD. One obvious similarity is the extensive structural reduction (Dal Negro 2004: 24) which for a large part seems to be governed by the cognitive and functional principles of markedness (Andersen 1982). Both LD and pidginization tend to suppress marked members of categories and replace them with unmarked members, and both share a preference for analytic instead of synthetic structures (Dimmendaal 1992: 119, 130). The differences include the rise of “empty morphology” in LD, which is unparalleled in pidginization. Dimmendaal (1992: 131) observes shrinkage in morphological alternation that can lead to formal retention of grammatical morphemes (affixes and clitics) devoid of any function; such desemantization without formal loss does not seem to occur in pidgins. Another difference is that pidgins tend to manifest cross-linguistically uniform syntactic patterns, which is not typical of dying languages. Romaine (1989: 377), for instance, noted that in contrast to receding languages of indigenous communities, which do not show a tendency toward uniformity of word order, many pidgins and creoles develop SVO word order. A ‘creole’ is defined by Trudgill (2011: 67‒68) as “a pidgin which has acquired native speakers and undergone non-contact-induced expansion, where the expansion process ‘repairs’ the reduction which occurred during pidginization: a creole language is a language which, relative to its lexifier, is simpler and mixed, but not reduced” (see Holm 2000: 6‒9 for a more elaborate description). The relationship between LD and creolization seems to be reversed: a “successful” revitalization of a dying language seems to be accompanied by creolization. The strongest allegation in this direction is made by Sasse (1992b: 59), who claims that a receding language can be revitalized exclusively by means of drastic creolization. This means that a linguistic idiom, which is a result of revitalization after the interruption of the intergenerational transmission in an obsolescent language, is nothing but a creole based on the obsolescent variety

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Language death: current state of the research

as its lexifier. Dressler and Wodak-Leodolter (1997b: 37) claim the same by looking at it from the other side of the coin: they imply that language death is a case of decreolization (see also Jones-Jackson 1984). Another link between LD and creolization is provided by something that can be conditionally described as ‘language brokering’, a term often used to account for linguistic behaviour in immigrant communities where children translate and interpret linguistic information for their parents (see e.g. Tse 1995). One consequence of the disruption of intergenerational transmission in LD is that the command of both the obsolescent and the dominant language differs considerably across generations. This leads to transmission of linguistic information and negotiation of expression-conventions between speakers of different age and language proficiency. Such recurrent “brokering” going in both directions (e.g. from full speakers to semi-speakers of L1 and vice versa) constitutes an entropic force that may give rise to more or less stable grammatical systems which can be described as creoloids (see Holm 2000: 10‒11 about the uses of this term).5 Considering mixed languages, their very existence is a contested issue (see e.g. Johanson 2002; Thomason 2003). In any case, elaborate but stable mixed languages – i.e. bilingual mixtures with split ancestry (Matras & Bakker 2003) – are so rare that their structural comparison with decaying indigenous languages would be speculative. In this study, I focus on linguistic varieties which are often not the default choice of their native speakers for mutual communication; this issue will be repeatedly touched upon in the following discussion (e.g. in Sections 4.1, 4.2, 6.3, and 8.1.2.1.1). Many linguistic structures to be discussed in the study can be accounted for in terms of code-mixing, although they do not manifest the levels of stability stipulated for mixed languages (or ‘fused lects’; Auer 1999). For the most part, this mixing cannot be analyzed in terms of code-switching either, as it often takes place clause-internally, and is not semantically, pragmatically or sociolinguistically meaningful (see Sridhar & Sridhar 1980 for these aspects of code-switching). The final stage of language death in indigenous communities is a specific situation involving native but passive speakers of the language, and therefore I will adopt a phenomenological approach to the data and will generally refrain from classifying observed structures into categories like ‘codemixing’ or ‘code-switching’.6 5 This is consistent with the idea that creoles originate as conventionalized interlanguages spoken by foreign learners (Plag 2008). 6 See also Section 8.1.2.2 for a similar caveat concerning the distinction between ‘codeswitching’ and ‘transfer’.

Delimiting LD: what is and what is not a case of language death?

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Before we close the discussion about the boundaries of the phenomenon of language death, let me consider again the relationship between LD and regular language change in “healthy” varieties. Clearly, language death does not occur separately from language contact, but is usually a follow-up of intense contact; structural decay goes hand in hand with heavy structural borrowing from L2. But the exact nature of this relationship has also been a subject of polemics, where the opposite viewpoints are: a) normal language change and processes in LD differ not only in terms of surface realization, but are governed by different principles (e.g. Sasse 1992a: 16); b) none of the structural developments occurring in language death are unique to it; the constitutive features of the phenomenon of LD are exclusively social and not linguistic (Johanson 2002). Between these two poles we could find intermediate views; for example the idea that the differences between developments in LD and language change in functional languages are quantitative rather than qualitative. Dimmendaal (1998: 72‒73), for instance, argues that the changes occurring in normal language development and LD are similar, but the latter are conducted within a compressed timespan. I am reluctant to take a definitive stance as to the question of whether processes in LD and normal language change operate according to different laws and/or have different structural manifestations, or whether the difference is merely quantitative one. Nevertheless, the following qualitative differences pointed out by previous studies can hardly be challenged: a) Unlike normal language change, LD involves reduction of complexity without compensation; I will discuss this structural characteristic of LD in detail in Section 2.3 below. b) Non-full speakers of obsolescent languages memorize and produce linguistic structures by rote, rather than by rule (see e.g. Dressler 1981): in the course of LD rules are being de-activated and the linguistic repertoire is kept intact by repetition. Semi-speakers of an obsolescent language rely on formulaic knowledge to a greater extent than full speakers (Menn 1989: 340). An apparent consequence of the fact that the language is stored and produced in chunks is that syntagmatic relations between linguistic units gain prominence over paradigmatic relations. c) A third difference concerns the increased role of analogy in LD. In addition to rote-memorization and rule-operation, another strategy applied in the formation and selection of morphological and syntactic structures is analogical formation (see MacWhinney 1975 for an overview). Analogy plays a greater role in the formation of linguistic structure in LD than in normal language change (cf. e.g. Sasse 1992b: 66, 71).

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Language death: current state of the research

As already noted in the introduction, it is a silent assumption of the present study that these underlying differences between LD and normal language change produce different structures.

2.3 Structural characteristics of LD As a rule, languages approaching extinction are characterized by massive structural reduction (e.g. Dimmendaal 1998: 76‒96; Sasse 1992a: 16; Palosaari & Campbell 2011: 113; McWhorter 2005). Apart from lexical reduction – the loss of words designating certain concepts – dying languages are confronted with extensive grammatical reduction. This includes category reduction: a decrease in the number of morphologically marked nominal or verbal categories (Polinsky 1995: 95; Wolfram 2007: 7); and rule reduction: certain rules become optional or fail to apply (Dressler 1981; Romaine 1989: 379). Rule reduction includes loss (or decrease) of allomorphy (Wolfram 2007: 7), and decrease of irregularity (e.g. loss of irregular paradigms; Polinsky 1995: 95). All these particular developments lead to a decrease in complexity,7 which is not followed by compensation. Schmidt (1985) describes this peculiarity of LD as follows: A distinctive difference between language death and change in healthy languages is that reduction in the dying language is not always compensated for by structural expansion elsewhere in the language system. In normal change, if a linguistic form is dropped or altered, then its function is usually transferred to alternative linguistic devices within the system, and the original distinction is maintained. (Schmidt 1985: 213; see also Trudgill 2011: 15 about this ‘equicomplexity’ hypothesis)

In other words, the process of LD does not involve the complexity trade-offs between subsystems of the language we encounter in normal language change: for example, we know from the history of many languages that losing morphological complexity usually correlates with developing high phonological complexity and complex word order rules (Fenk-Oczlon & Fenk 2008; Sinnemäki 2008). The complexity reduction we find in LD is in this sense global and not local as in normal language change. It is more difficult to attribute particular examples of reduction solely to LD; almost incontrovertible are those cases in which we observe a loss of categories that exist in the dominant contact language and as such cannot be accredited to language contact (Sasse 1992a: 16). An example often mentioned in the literature (see Wolfram 2007: 8 for references) is the loss of clausal subordination mechanisms. Leyew (1989: 176‒177) for instance reports that the semi-speakers of 7 See Karlsson, Miestamo and Sinnemäki (2008) and Dahl (2011) for a concise overview of what could be understood as ‘linguistic complexity’.

Structural characteristics of LD

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K’emant (Central Cushitic) have problems in producing subordination structures, because most of the subordinating particles have been forgotten. Likewise, Polinsky’s comparative study of language decay in six languages (1995: 103‒ 106) shows that relative clauses tend to be replaced by formally independent clauses. Palosaari and Campbell (2011: 116) explain the diminishing use and the eventual loss of clausal subordination in dying languages in terms of two tendencies: i) “since speakers of moribund languages produce few complex sentences, a child exposed to such language input would have an inadequate model for acquiring them”; ii) “certain subordinate clauses tend to be used in higher (more formal) styles, but the strong solidarity function of the dying language in some communities emphasizes ‘lower’ (less formal) styles”. The majority of other characteristics of LD discussed in the literature could be seen as instantiations of the parameter ‘reduction-without-compensation’. Consider the following characteristics: Generalization and paradigmatic levelling (Campbell & Muntzel 1989: 187‒ 190, 191‒196; Knowles-Berry 1987: 333; Menn 1989: 342; Romaine 1989: 379; Polinsky 1995: 96; Palosaari & Campbell 2011: 114). An example is the generalization of the third person singular form of the verb in other persons. This loss of paradigmatic distinction is a manifestation of decrease of paradigmatic complexity (see Riionheimo 2013b: 50), which in the case of advancing LD is not expected to be compensated by overt pronominal person marking. The process of LD puts a spoke in the wheel of the so-called agreement cycle (e.g. van Gelderen 2011: 38‒39) and the predicate loses part of the nexus information: the specification for person. Another development recurring in LD, which can be regarded as a prototypical instantiation of the characteristic ‘generalization and paradigmatic levelling’, is the loss of suppletion (Dressler 1981: 8). Increasing constructional iconicity and morphotactic transparency (e.g. Dressler 1981: 6‒9; Andersen 1982: 99; Wolfram 2007: 8). Decaying languages tend to preserve and enhance constructions which reflect underlying semantic and syntactic relations transparently, and to abandon portmanteau marking. In other words, decaying languages develop diagrammatic relationships between meaning and form; another term for this one-meaning-one-form constraint8 is ‘biuniqueness’ (Dressler 1981: 8‒9). The increase of morphotactic transparency is a manifestation of reduction of syntagmatic complexity (Riionheimo 2013b: 50, 52).

8 This constraint is considered to be a feature of second language acquisition. Andersen’s (1989: 388) ‘One‑to‑One Principle’ states that the interlanguage system of L2 learners is constructed in such a way that the underlying meaning is expressed with a dedicated invariant form or construction.

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Language death: current state of the research

Preference for analytic (isolational) structures (e.g. Dorian 1977: 27; Dorian 1978; Andersen 1982: 99; Dimmendaal 1992: 130; Dal Negro 2004: 230‒231; Wolfram 2007: 7). Palosaari and Campbell (2011: 115‒116) mention an example of this from Pipil, an obsolescent Uto-Aztecan language of El Salvador, where the synthetic morphological future is replaced by an analytic syntactic future. Another example comes from the endangered Albanian dialects of Arvanitika studied by Sasse (1991: 229‒230), where the most frequent verbs jám ‘be’ and kám ‘have’ have lost their Imperative forms and replaced them by analytic subjunctive forms. In accordance with this tendency, Dal Negro notes that in decaying Formazza German (Piedmont, Italy) analytic constructions are never replaced by synthetic forms (Dal Negro 2004: 230). The analytic marking could then develop into isolating morphological coding: an example comes from the weaker speakers of Young People’s Dyirbal (Pama-Nyungan, Australia), who tend to abandon bound morphemes (Schmidt 1985: 61). Loss of redundancy (e.g. Dressler 1981: 8). Trudgill (1992: 202‒204) distinguishes between two types of redundancy: syntagmatic redundancy, involving linear repetition of information (for example in person agreement on the subject and verb, or the possession marking on the possessor and possessed in many Turkic languages), and paradigmatic redundancy, affecting different conjugations and declensions (e.g. gender specification). He argues that in LD situation syntagmatic redundancy is lost before paradigmatic redundancy (see also Trudgill 2011: 22‒23). Suppression of marked in favour of unmarked forms (e.g. Dimmendaal 1992: 119, 130; Campbell & Muntzel 1989: 187‒190, 191‒196; Furbee, Stanley & Rogles 1993). Marked linguistic forms tend to be replaced by unmarked ones and the markedness opposition is lost. Appleyard (1989: 148‒149) for instance reports that the last speakers of Qwarenya (Central Cushitic) use the unmarked singular forms of nouns instead of plural forms. Likewise, Schmidt (1985: 64) notes that in Young People’s Dyirbal, the future tense suffix is lost and the respective form is replaced by the unmarked non-future form. An example of suppression of marked in favour of unmarked features is also the loss of the distinction between alienable and inalienable possession through generalization of the forms for alienable possession in Teun, Nila and Serua (Central and Southwest Maluku, EastIndonesia) (van Engelenhoven 2003: 54‒55). Palosaari and Campbell explain this characteristic of LD as follows: “[m]arked features are traits of language which tend to be more unusual cross-linguistically, more difficult for children to learn, and more easily lost in language change. They tend to be replaced by less marked ones (more common cross-linguistically, more easily learned) in language change.” (Palosaari & Campbell 2011: 113).

Structural characteristics of LD

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Contact-driven redistribution of grammatical categories across the semantic space: the ultimate result of this development is full equivalence (categorial isomorphism) with the grammatical system of the donor language. This includes preservation of grammatical categories identical to those of the donor language (Sasse 1992b) and negative borrowing, where a grammatical category is abandoned by the speakers of the receding language because of the absence of a corresponding category in the dominant language (Sasse 1992a: 16). Examples of negative borrowing include the disappearance of gender in the Greek dialects of Asia Minor due to the contact with Turkish, a language lacking grammatical gender (Dawkins 1916: 87), or the disappearance of gender in Dahalo (Cushitic) as a result of the contact with Swahili (Tosco 1992: 147‒148). The tendency towards identical category systems usually accommodates the development of structurally similar devices to mark these categories (Sasse 1992b); in other words, the tendency towards functional isomorphism is combined with increasing formal isomorphism. Of course, the easiest way to achieve such formal isomorphism is direct borrowing9 (understood as matter replication, in terms of Matras 2009: 146‒165). Dying indigenous languages are going through the last stage on Thomason and Kaufman’s (1988: 75‒76) borrowing scale (“very strong structural pressure: heavy structural borrowing”), including borrowing of bound morphemes together with the morphophonemic rules necessary to apply them. Another way of achieving formal isomorphism is the so-called grammatical accommodation (Aikhenvald 2002: 149), where a native morpheme, which has similar phonemic substance to a morpheme of the dominant language, is extended to cover functions covered by its (near-)homophone in the dominant language. Aikhenvald (2002: 149) provides an example from Tariana, a North Arawak language, which has been subjected to a heavy influence from Tucano languages. The latter have the morpheme -ɾi, used to express commands with a scent of ‘warning’ (e.g. ‘Make sure you don’t fall!’). To fit the Tucano pattern, Tariana has extended the inherited relativizer -ɾi (which goes back to Proto-Arawak) to express commands with similar meaning. Stylistic shrinkage leading to monostylism (e.g. Dressler & Wodak-Leodolter 1977b: 36‒37; Campbell & Muntzel 1989: 191‒196; Knowles-Berry 1987: 332; Dal Negro 2004: 231; Wolfram 2007: 9). Palosaari and Campbell (2011: 116) claim that the reduction of grammar is accompanied by reduction in speech genres and stylistic alternatives (such as verbal art, oral literature, formal registers and 9 Here I use the term ‘borrowing’ in the widest possible sense, to account for phenomena ranging from matter replication with full adaptation to transfers (i.e. to a kind of a code alternation related to a particular conversational structure; Auer 1988).

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Language death: current state of the research

figurative speech). Stylistic shrinkage proceeds usually in a top-down direction, where the last retreat of the dying language is casual everyday speech. Discussing receding Breton, Dressler and Wodak-Leodolter (1977b: 36‒37) note that the diminishing number of speech situations in which the language is still used leads to the consequence that style differentiation does not seem to be important anymore: the styles merge, giving rise to monostylism. In some cases, shrinkage can also proceed in a bottom-up direction; the moribund language is retained in high-style ritual settings, long after its extinction in low-style settings (an oft-cited example is Coptic; another example is Hebrew before the creation of the state of Israel). I have so far presented only evidence for unidirectional developments, the most basic of which is ‘reduction-without-compensation’. Some studies of the structural characteristics of LD have presented counter-evidence to such absolute unidirectionality. Riionheimo (2013b: 69), for instance, observed simultaneous reduction in complexity and increase in complexity of the verb inflection of Ingrian Finnish. Cook (1989: 235) observed a drastic increase of form variability in the vanishing Athabaskan languages Chipewyan and Sarcee that is due to aberrant and incongruent phonological change. Similar increase of variability is observed also by Campbell and Muntzel (1989: 187‒190), who note that obligatory rules becoming optional leads to profusion of alternative forms expressing the same meanings. In addition to an increase in variability (partly corresponding to an increase in paradigmatic redundancy), Polinsky (1995: 119) also observes an increase in syntagmatic redundancy: terminal speakers tend to consistently overmark relationships between words. The observed increase of variability and syntagmatic redundancy can be seen as compensatory processes counter-balancing the process of reduction. Thus, it seems that although ‘reduction-withoutcompensation’ is a basic feature of LD, it is not an indispensable constituent of it. This takes us to the question of the innovativeness of last speakers of receding languages, as acknowledged by Gal (1989) and Dal Negro (2004: 179, 210). Case studies provide evidence for the emergence of genuine morphological innovations in the last generation of speakers of dying languages. Schmidt (1985: 215) reports that, although terminal Dyirbal shows extensive loss of inflectional affixes, there is also evidence for the creation of new affixes; for example the antipassive -lay and the purposive -gu are merged into -laygu, a sort of purposive adverbializer. Similar developments, but concerning derivational morphology, are reported by Gal (1989: 326), who observes that younger narrow users of Burgenland Hungarian are more innovative in the domain of word formation than elder broad speakers. These innovative word formations, Gal argues, are surprising, given the general loss of productivity of different word-formation devices in the speech of the younger generation. Without delving further into

Structural characteristics of LD

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the innovativeness of last speakers of receding languages, I refer to Wolfram, who argues against “a simplistic, unidimensional reduction-based model of language obsolescence.” (Wolfram 2007: 12). Another characteristic of LD often counter-evidenced in the literature is the suppression of marked features in favour of unmarked ones. Palosaari and Campbell (2011: 113) observe an overgeneralization of marked features instead: features that seem bizarre from the point of view of speakers of the donor language can start to be overused in unpredictable contexts by terminal speakers of the receding language. They illustrate this with a Jumaytepeque Xinka (Xinkan) semi-speaker, who pronounces nearly every consonant as glottalised – a change which is unnatural and would not be expected to occur if the language was completely functional. Campbell and Muntzel (1989: 187) explain this overgeneralization of marked features as follows: “[t]hings that are marked or ‘exotic’ from the point of view of the dominant language may not be completely mastered by imperfect learners, and not knowing exactly where they belong, these speakers go sometimes hog-wild, as it were, employing the ‘exotic’ version with great frequency in way inappropriate for the healthy version of the same language.”10 One general obstacle for the estimation of the relative weight of counterexamples to the decrease of complexity in LD stems from the lack of agreement in the scholarship as to the measure(s) of language complexity (see Juola 2008; Dahl 2011; Szmrecsanyi & Kortmann 2012, for some measures), as well as with regard to the appropriate procedure for assessing global complexity across subsystems of languages.

10 In some cases this generalization of exotic patterns could be due to Labov’s Martha’s Vineyard effect (Labov 1963), where speakers exagerate features not present in the contact variety in order to distance themselves from the dominant group, and respectively increase their group‑internal coherence.

3 Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization MM is understood in the present study as a collective category which includes what is traditionally considered as modality and what is traditionally considered as mood. One immediate problem with such treatment is that this category is illformed, because its constituency is determined according to disparate criteria. While ‘modality’ is a purely semantic notion, ‘mood’ is often equated with ‘grammatical mood’ and as such is formally defined as a paradigmatic sets of linguistic forms with modal meanings (Narrog 2005b: 167; Thieroff 2010: 2).11 In what follows, I will circumvent the problem by saying that the collective category of MM encompasses any linguistic expression of modal meaning(s), regardless of whether this expression is more or less grammaticalized (especially in terms of paradigmaticity, bondedness and syntagmatic variability; Lehmann 2002: 118‒123, 131‒142). In other words, I relegate both ‘modality’ and ‘mood’ to the functional notion ‘modal’ (a solution often practiced in linguistics; see van der Auwera & Zamorano Aguilar 2016, who show that in the history of linguistics mood has been often explained in terms of modality). I will discuss modality and mood in separate chapters for the obvious reason that the Finnic languages happen to be languages with a salient distinction between less grammaticalized expressions of ‘modality’, which do not constitute paradigmatically delimited sets of forms, and ‘mood’ forms, which do constitute paradigmatically delimited sets of forms.

3.1 Modality Despite ample research, there is little agreement in the literature on what the foundational feature of the notion ‘linguistic modality’ is. Contrary to what might be expected, this lack of agreement is characteristic not only for the study of ‘modality’ in cross-linguistic perspective (e.g. Narrog 2005a; 2005b; Nuyts 2006 for an overview of the debate), but also for discussions of modality systems of individual languages or language families (see e.g. Hansen 2001: 6‒8 for the situation in Slavic). 11 There is also a parallel tradition (stretching from antiquity to the present), in which ‘mood’ is used to designate the functional domain of sentence type or speech act (e.g. declarative, interrogative, exclamative) (see the discussion in Section 3.2 and van der Auwera & Zamorano Aguilar 2016 for a detailed overview of the parallel uses of ‘mood’ through the history of the Western linguistics). DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-003

Modality

19

Three semantic properties have been argued to be common of all semantic values traditionally subsumed under the heading ‘modal’, and as such could be considered to be constitutive properties of ‘modality’ (see Narrog 2005a: 678; Depraetere & Reed 2006: 269 for an overview): – Speaker’s attitude (or judgment) (e.g. Halliday 1970; Lyons 1977: 462): according to this view modality concerns primarily the expression of the attitudes and opinions of the speaker towards contents of utterances. – Factuality (of propositions) and/or reality (of events) (e.g. Vinogradov 1950; Perkins 1983; Chung & Timberlake 1985; Kiefer 1987; Narrog 2005a; 2005b): in this view modality serves to qualify a conceptual entity as to whether it is (non-)factual and/or (ir)real. Perkins (1983: 6‒7), for instance states that “[by] marking modality, a speaker speaks in terms of ‘things being otherwise’ and conceives of something ‘being true or real in some non-actual world, or true or real in some state of the actual world at a point in time other than the present moment’”. Most accounts do not distinguish between the factuality of propositions and the reality of events (states-of-affairs), which is crucial for the present study and will be applied in Chapter 9. After an extensive theoretical and empirical contemplation, Narrog (2005a: 679; 2005b: 184) defines modality as “a linguistic category referring to the factual status of a state of affairs”. In his words “[the] expression of a state of affairs is modalized if it is marked for being undetermined with respect to its factual status, i.e., is neither positively nor negatively factual.” – Possibility and necessity (especially in formal linguistics; e.g. Kratzer 1978): the study by van der Auwera and Plungian (1998: 80) is the commonly cited functionalist work representing this stance. They propose to use the term ‘modality’ for “those semantic domains that involve possibility and necessity as paradigmatic variants, that is, as constituting a paradigm with two possible choices, possibility and necessity”; particular modal values within these domains include ability, physical and mental need, circumstantial possibility and necessity, permission, obligation, probability and certainty. These three candidates for the lowest common denominator of the domain have different extensions. There is increasing agreement in the scholarship that the feature ‘speaker’s attitude’ is leading us astray from what ‘modal(ity)’ used to designate traditionally: clearly, expressions of attitude modify entire propositions, while core modal values such as ‘ability’, ‘permission’ and ‘obligation’ are sub-propositional (i.e. are contained within propositions), and therefore cannot be captured by this definitional characteristic. The third constitutive feature, ‘necessity–possibility’, on the other hand, covers the core area of what traditionally has been subsumed under the heading ‘modality’, but is too narrow to cover

20

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

notions such as volition, which is often integrated in structured modality systems (cf. Mortelmans, Boye & van der Auwera 2009 on Germanic modals). Finally, the idea that ‘factuality’ is the crucial feature responsible for the coherence of modality systems cross-linguistically seems to be gaining dominance in contemporary functional linguistics (see e.g. Narrog 2005a; 2005b); not least because defining modality in terms of factuality has a strong foundation in formal semantics, where our ability to talk about non-actual situations is conceptualized in terms of possible (but accessible) worlds12 (Hogeweg, de Hoop & Malchukov 2009: 6). In the remaining part of this section, I will provide an overview of the modal values occurring in the literature on linguistic modality. The discussion of MM in the obsolescent Finnic varieties will generally follow the terminology used in modality’s semantic map as presented by van der Auwera and Plungian (1998) and its revised version submitted by van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant (2009).

3.1.1 A glossary of modality values The basic concepts of modality are possibility and necessity. The opposition of these two concepts can be found in modal logic (von Wright 1951; Lyons 1977: 787), where they constitute the major modal operators applied in the propositional calculus. In linguistics possibility and necessity are often considered to be universal categories along which modality systems of natural languages are organised.13 These modality systems serve to express certain semantic values in a coherent way. In the following exposition I will divide modality values in two types according to their semantic complexity. Some values, such as ‘deontic’ or ‘epistemic’ occur as individual terms in the modal logic tradition, and in case they are present on van der Auwera and Plungian’ semantic map (1998), they do not enclose other values (i.e. they occur only as hyponyms). In this sense, they can be regarded as simplex concepts in the modality domain. Other values 12 The conceptualization of modality in terms of possible worlds (one of which is the actual world) comes from Kripke (1959). 13 A healthy dose of scepticism over this understanding has been expressed by Palmer (1986: 20), who suspects that the possibility–necessity contrast need not be as universal as a basic formative of modality systems as it may seem. The logicians’ preoccupation with this contrast, he argues, might be “a reflection of the linguistic systems of only some of the languages of the world, especially those of Europe.”

Modality

21

occurring in modality literature are more abstract and semantically more complex, in the sense that they cover more than one simplex value and occur as hyperonyms in geometric representations of modality; for example, ‘agent-oriented modality’ covers concepts like ‘ability’ (dynamic possibility), ‘internal need’ (dynamic necessity), ‘permission’ (deontic possibility), ‘obligation’ (deontic necessity) and ‘desire’ (volition) (cf. Bybee & Pagliuca 1985: 63–64), and ‘participantexternal modality’ (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998) covers concepts like ‘permission’ (deontic possibility), ‘obligation’ (deontic necessity) and ‘circumstantial possibility or necessity’. Such complex values are designed within the study on linguistic modality and are usually meant to account for first order splits (just like ‘possibility’ vs. ‘necessity’) in branching hierarchies of modalities.14 3.1.1.1 Simplex values Dynamic modality (alternative, but much rarer labels, for this modal value are ‘facultative modality’ and ‘inherent modality’; see Nuyts 2005). According to Palmer (2001: 9), ‘dynamic modality’ refers to cases where the conditioning factors for the modal qualification are internal to the relevant individual. Likewise, Nuyts (2005) associates dynamic modality with the internal capacities and needs of the “controlling” participant in the state of affairs described by the utterance. As could be anticipated from Nuyts’ description, there are two kinds of dynamic modality: ability (or capacity) which in models of structured polysemy is often called dynamic possibility, and internal need, often called dynamic necessity (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998: 80). Ability and internal need can be either physical or mental/emotional; cf. the English verbs can and need in (1). (1)

a.

He can lift a Trabant with one hand.

(dynamic possibility: physical)

b.

He can tell you the capitals of all African countries.

(dynamic possibility: mental)

c.

I need to have a nap, I’m so tired.

(dynamic necessity: physical)

d.

I need to call her, I miss her so much.

(dynamic necessity: emotional).

14 The distinction between ‘simplex’ and ‘complex’ modality values comes close to de Haan’s distinction between ‘functions’ and ‘domains’ (de Haan 2005), but is not identical to it. De Haan’s notion of ‘function’ is more restricted than my notion of ‘simplex value’; functions must be both primitive and unique. The very fact that a simplex value like ‘deontic’ has paradigmatic variants of possibility and necessity indicates that it is not semantically primitive.

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

Another divide within the dynamic modality, which happens to be relevant for the description of the Finnic languages, concerns the distinction between ‘inherent’ (or ‘intrinsic’) and ‘learned’ (or ‘acquired’) (see Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 212); consider the examples in (2a) and (2b) with inherent ability and learned ability, respectively. (2)

a.

I had a nap, so I can help you now.

(dynamic possibility: inherent)

b.

She can read Sanskrit.

(dynamic possibility: learned)

A third feature surfacing at the area of dynamic modality in some languages concerns the question of whether the ability is permanent or temporary. In Icelandic, for instance, the verb geta, a descendant of the Germanic ‘get’ etymon, is used for temporary capacity, while kunna, a descendant of the Germanic ‘can’ etymon, is used to designate permanent capacity (Thráinsson & Vikner 1995: 85). Based on the premise that the description of the internal condition(s) of the participant is what defines this type of modality, van der Auwera and Plungian (1998: 80) call dynamic modality participant-internal modality. Other authors, however, do not assume a pivotal role of the feature ‘internal conditions of a participant’ for the concept of dynamic modality. Perkins, for instance, adopts a much broader understanding of dynamic modality which according to him “is concerned with the relationship between empirical circumstances or states of affairs and non-actualized events, which are the result of natural laws of e.g. physics, chemistry, biology, etc.” (Perkins 1983: 11). According to this somewhat vague characterization, ‘dynamic modality’ rests also on circumstances in the ‘environment’. This kind of modality is often called circumstantial (e.g. Narrog 2005a: 722). Consider examples (3a‒d). (3)

a.

To get into the garden you can pass through the kitchen; this is one of the possible ways leading there (circumstantial possibility) (Nuyts 2005: 8, modified)

b.

To get into the garden you must pass through the kitchen; there’s no other way. (circumstantial necessity) (Nuyts 2005: 8)

c.

Wine can grow in Saxony. (circumstantial possibility)

d.

Every child must grow up. (circumstantial necessity)

Circumstantial modality specifies what is possible or necessary in the light of certain facts about the world (Kratzer 1991; Davis, Matthewson & Rullmann 2009: 225). Sometimes these facts concern circumstances of a specific situation,

Modality

23

as in (3a‒b); examples like these induced Nuyts, Byloo, and Diepeveen (2005: 8) to introduce the label situational dynamic modality. In other cases, as in (3c‒d), the circumstantial possibility or necessity is due to more general properties of the world and often has non-specific reading; Beijering (2012: 13) therefore calls this type of circumstantial modality root (=general) possibility (or necessity). Expressions of circumstantial modality typically occur in main clauses of purpose clauses, as in (3a‒b), or conditional clauses and in sentences presenting generic truths, as in (3c‒d). Many authors consider circumstantial modality to be closer to deontic modality (see below) than to dynamic modality. It is the external circumstances that ‘allow’ or ‘oblige’ us (notions associated with deontic modality) to undertake actions, irrespectively of these circumstances being only physical, or also moral (or ethical) as is the case in deontic modality. On the other hand, deontic modals are often subjective and interpersonal, while circumstantial modals are objective (see the discussion below about the distinction between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ modality). Therefore van der Auwera and Plungian (1998) group circumstantial modality with the deontic modality in the common domain of participant-external modality, and call it non-deontic participant-external possibility or necessity15. Deontic modality. Lyons (1977: 823) defined deontic modality as a type of modality “concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents”. Obligation (or deontic necessity as expressed by English must, have to etc.) and permission (or deontic possibility as expressed by English may, can etc.) have been traditionally considered the major types of deontic modality. Palmer (2001: 9), for instance, states that “deontic modality relates to obligation or permission, emanating from an external source.” More recent accounts have proposed a narrower definition of deontic modality; consider the examples in (4a‒d). (4)

a.

You must stay out and wait until we are ready here. (deontic necessity)

b.

Can I come in now? (deontic possibility)

c.

John should apologize for what he has done. (deontic necessity) (Nuyts 2006: 4‒5)

d.

You can drink beer in the park in Bavaria. (deontic possibility)

15 Labels containing negative descriptions (cf. non‑epistemic, or non‑root modality; Beijering 2012: 17) are usually avoided in the literature; exceptions are made for less salient types of modality, which as a rule do not get a dedicated marking cross‑linguistically (as is the case with ‘circumstantial modality’).

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

In prototypical contexts of obligation and permission, as in (4a‒b), we have human deontic authority and addressee. Nuyts, Byloo, and Diepeveen (2005: 9‒10) set such articulations of directive speech acts, and by virtue of this the prototypical notions of ‘permission’ and ‘obligation’, apart from deontic modality, which they reserve exclusively for estimations “of the moral acceptability of the state of affairs”, as is the case in (4c‒d). The bottom line of this distinction is that moral judgements are merely descriptions of desirability or possibility of states of affairs, whereas directives (i.e. permissions and obligations) have performative status. Accordingly, Nyuts (2006) considers ‘obligation’ and ‘permission’ to be peripheral in relation to deontic modality (in striking contrast with previous views on the issue): expressions of permission, obligation and interdiction, he argues, [..] are more complex because they not only involve an assessment of the degree of moral acceptability of a state of affairs, but also a translation of this assessment into (nonverbal) action terms. Specifically they also involve an intention to instigate or (not) hinder another person’s actions or positions (usually the addressee’s, [. . .]) pertaining to the state of affairs, in view of the judgment of its degree of acceptability. (Nuyts: 2006: 5)

In this view, deontic modality is all about the moral desirability of the state of affairs expressed in the utterance, where the notion of ‘morality’ covers a range of possible standards: legislation, societal norms, ethical standards and personal convictions (Nuyts 2005; Nuyts 2006: 4‒5). In summary, according to the traditional view deontic modality includes both utterances describing moral desirability, and utterances changing the social reality described, whereas Nuyts (and associates) include only the first but not the latter category in the notion of ‘deontic modality’. It should be also noted that the distinction between descriptive and performative deontic modals roughly coincides with the distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ deontic modality, which is more frequently encountered in the literature and will be discussed below. Epistemic modality. Summarizing a large body of theoretical research, Boye (2012: 21) concludes that epistemic modality is typically defined in terms of one of the following notions: ‘degree of commitment’, ‘degree of confidence’, or ‘degree of certainty’. Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994: 179‒180), for instance, define epistemic modality in terms of commitment: “[e]pistemic modality applies to assertions and indicates the extent to which the speaker is committed to the truth of the proposition”. Coates (1983: 18), on the other hand, defines it in terms of confidence: “[Epistemic modality] is concerned with the speaker’s assumptions or assessment of possibilities and, in most cases, it indicates the speaker’s confidence (or lack of confidence) in the truth of the proposition expressed”. For

Modality

25

van der Auwera, Schalley, and Nuyts (2005) ‘(un)certainty’ is the best gloss to account for the essence of epistemic modality: “[e]pistemic possibility concerns the speaker’s degree of uncertainty about the truth-value of his/her assertion”. Major epistemic modal meanings are (un)certainty, (im)possibility, (im)probability (see Boye 2012: 31 for an overview of these and other possible glosses of epistemic meanings). Just like with dynamic and deontic modality, the boundaries of the category of epistemic modality have been an object of debate. Consider the examples in (5), the first two adapted from Beijering (2012: 14‒15). (5)

a.

Maybe they have run out of fuel. / They may have run out of fuel (epistemic possibility)

b.

Certainly they have run out of fuel. / They must have run out of fuel. (epistemic necessity)

c.

He seems to have been playing football in the mud; his dirty shoes are in the entrance. (inferential)

d.

Probably he has been playing football, as always on Saturday. (inferential)

The sentences in (5a‒b) represent typical, uncontroversial cases of epistemic modality by specifying the degree of certainty that the proposition ‘they have run out of fuel’ holds true. The conceptual affiliation of examples like (5c) and (5d), on the other hand, has raised controversy among scholars. Some students of evidentiality such as Aikhenvald (2004), have considered such inferences based on indirect evidence to belong to the category of ‘evidentiality’ rather than to ‘epistemic modality’. Aikhenvald calls examples like (5c), where the speaker’s reasoning is based on immediate evidence about the consequences of the event described by the proposition, ‘inferred evidentials’, and examples like (5d), where the reasoning process is based on some common generic rather than episodic knowledge, ‘assumed evidentials’ (Aikhenvald 2004: 2‒3). In terms of logical reasoning, one may say that (5c) exemplifies abduction where the precondition is abduced from the consequence, while (5d) exemplifies deduction where the direction of the entailment is opposite: the premises that one plays always football on Saturday and today is Saturday lead to the logical consequence that he has been playing football. Within the study of linguistic modality, the difference between examples like (5c) and (5d) is often accounted for in terms of ‘subjective’ vs. ‘objective’ epistemic modality; cf. the discussion about this distinction below.

26

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

Crucial about examples (5c) and (5d) is that they indicate that the inferential reading constitutes the junction point of epistemic modality and evidentiality. Van der Auwera and Plungian, for instance, regard ‘inferential’ as an overlap category between modality and evidentiality (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998: 85‒86; see also van der Auwera, Ammann & Kindt 2005 for a similar treatment).16 Besides the definitions accounting for epistemic modality in terms of (degree) of commitment, confidence, certainty or reliability, there is an older tradition, whose origins are in modal logic, and where epistemic modality is defined in more general terms, such as truth, knowledge, and belief. An exemplary representative of this tradition is Lyons (1977: 793), who states that epistemic modality is concerned with matters of knowledge and belief. This view is also reflected in contemporary functional linguistics; compare for instance Boland (2006: 72): “[e]pistemic modality ascribes the source of the modality to knowledge”. Accounts like these bring us to notions from modal logic, which are not formally specified in natural languages, but occasionally occur in the literature on linguistic modality. One such notion is alethic modality (von Wright 1951: 1‒2) which refers to the truth occurring ‘in the world’ as opposed to epistemic modality concerning the truth ‘in someone’s mind’. More specifically, alethic modality refers to different modes of truth (necessary, possible, contingent and impossible truth of a proposition) independently of human mind, while epistemic modality refers to truth of a proposition, which is assessed by a human mind: verified (known to be true), falsified (known to be false) or undecided (neither known to be true nor to be false) (see also Lyons 1977: 791‒792). This distinction has been criticised to be artificial, and only part of the critique is that there are no natural languages in which alethic and epistemic modalities are formally distinguished. Nuyts, however, is one of the few contemporary functional linguists who leaves the door open to possible applications of the notion in a cognitively realistic semantic theory. He argues that it is possible that the distinction ‘alethic vs. epistemic’ corresponds to the empirical distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ epistemic modality (see below) or to the distinction between ‘situational dynamic modality’ (recall the discussion of types of dynamic modality) and ‘epistemic modality’ (Nuyts 2005: 8‒9). Lyons’ definition above brings us to the notion of doxastic modality, a modality type pertaining to the expression of ‘belief’ as opposed to epistemic modality which is concerned with knowledge. It is often the case, however, that ‘belief’ is reduced to a weaker knowledge and epistemic modality refers both to knowledge and belief (see e.g. Meyer 2003 and Boye 2012: 16 for an overview). 16 There are different views about the exact relation between modality and evidentiality; see Kehayov (2008: 167) for an overview of different treatments in set‑theoretical terms of exclusion, inclusion and intersection of these conceptual categories.

Modality

27

Volition (and volitive modality): there is little agreement in the literature as to where the notion of ‘volition’ should be situated in a model of structured polysemy of modality domain. The same concerns the related notion of boulomaic modality (see e.g. Perkins 1983: 9, 11; Beijering 2012: 65) which specifies the ‘desirability’ of a given state of affairs and could be paraphrased by verbal meanings like ‘hope’, ‘like’, ‘fear’ or ‘regret’ (see Nuyts 2006). (6a) and (6b) provide examples of the meanings covered by these notions. (6)

a.

I want you to tell me the truth. (Nuyts 2006: 9)

b.

I like it that you are not lying to me.

Some authors consider volition (including boulomaic modality as a co-extensive term) to be a sub-value of dynamic modality, mainly because it denotes a state internal to the participant (i.e. it is a kind of participant-internal modality) (see e.g. Palmer 2001: 10). In a scalar model assuming gradualness between possibility and necessity, volition could be situated within the domain of dynamic modality occupying the notional slot between dynamic possibility (ability) and dynamic necessity (internal need) (Boland 2006: 73). A problem that arises with this account is that ability and internal need lack the meaning component of intentionality which seems to be constitutive for ‘volition’ as such (e.g. Searle 1983: 1‒4). Therefore, volition is often grouped together with deontic modality (see Nuyts 2006 for an overview). Narrog (2005a) even proposes an analytical solution that organizes the entire modality domain according to the feature ‘[±] volitive’, which in his account seems to be a near-equivalent of what earlier research understood as ‘[±] intentional’: “[w]hile epistemic, evidential, and dynamic (‘ability’) modalities are non-volitive, deontic and boulomaic modalities are volitive.” (Narrog 2005a: 684) In addition to these treatments there is a third option. If one decides to keep ‘volition’ and ‘boulomaic modality’ separate, one may extrapolate that the first is conceptually closer to deontic modality, as it concerns the (often rational) aspiration of an agent to change the world (as is the case of obligation and permission), while the latter concerns an (emotional17, non-controlled) ‘disposition’ which matches closely the dynamic modality notions of ability and internal need. Finally, some authors totally exclude volition from the conceptual space of possibility–necessity (e.g. van der Auwera & Plungian 1998; van der Auwera, Kehayov & Vittrant 2009). 17 Nuyts (2005), for instance, claims that boulomaic attitude concerns “an indication of the speaker’s (or someone else’s) liking or disliking (emotionally) of the state of affairs”.

28

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

3.1.1.2 Complex (abstract) values Root modality. The notion of ‘root’ modality has two uses in the literature (see Narrog 2005a: 681; Nuyts, Byloo & Diepeveen 2005: 8 and Nuyts 2005 for discussion). Within the Anglo-American linguistics and philosophy of language, it usually covers all simplex modality types presented above with the exception of ‘epistemic modality’ to which it is opposed; in this view ‘root modality’ is a word for ‘non-epistemic modality’ (e.g. Sweetser 1982; Coates 1983). There is another view, however, according to which ‘root modality’ has a much narrower extension: it applies exclusively to what was described above as circumstantial or participant-external non-deontic modality (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994: 320; van der Auwera & Plungian 1998: 84; see also Boland 2006: 70 and Beijering 2012: 13 as recent representatives of this view). Agent-oriented modality as opposed to epistemic modality. This term, introduced by Bybee and associates (e.g. Bybee & Pagliuca 1985: 63–64; Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994), is notionally co-extensive with ‘root modality’ in its broader sense. It confines all non-epistemic values, and as such is a positive equivalent of ‘non-epistemic’ modality. The rationale behind the qualification ‘agent-oriented’, according to Narrog (2005a: 681), is that in all non-epistemic modalities, “typically the agent (of the verb) is the location of the modal state expressed by the modal marker” (see also Nuyts 2005 for an overview of the use of this term). Situational modality as opposed to epistemic modality. The notion of situational modality was introduced by van der Auwera and Ammann (2005) and van der Auwera, Amman, and Kindt (2005). This term is co-extensive with ‘root modality’ (in its first use described above) and ‘agent-oriented modality’, and just like them was coined to avoid the negative characterization ‘non-epistemic’. A modal reading is situational if the possibility or necessity is a component of the situation referred to by the sentence, in contrast to the epistemic reading, in which the modality is not part of the situation, but concerns the degree of certainty as to whether or not the situation described obtains (van der Auwera, Amman & Kindt 2005). Event modality as opposed to propositional modality. Palmer introduced this distinction in the second edition of his work “Mood and Modality” (see Palmer 2001: 7‒8). The collective category ‘event modality’ includes dynamic, deontic and circumstantial modality, while ‘propositional modality’ includes epistemic modality and evidentiality (in Palmers terms ‘evidential modality’). The distinction between event and propositional modality coincides thus by and large with the distinctions ‘root (in the broader sense) vs. epistemic’, ‘agent-oriented vs. epistemic’, and ‘situational vs. epistemic’.

Modality

29

Participant-external modality as opposed to participant-internal modality (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998; van der Auwera, Kehayov & Vittrant 2009). Participant-external modality ascribes the source of the modal qualification to conditions external to the participant and subsumes what was above defined as ‘circumstantial’ and ‘deontic’ modality. Participant-internal modality, on the other hand, attributes the source of the modality to properties internal to the participant, and corresponds thus to ‘dynamic’ modality (capacity and internal need). Speaker-oriented modality (as opposed to event-oriented modality) According to Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994: 176–181), ‘speaker-oriented modality’ includes mostly non-epistemic sentence moods, the core of the category being directive moods, such as imperative, prohibitive, jussive and optative. Narrog uses the term with different sense, opposing it to what he calls ‘event-oriented’ modality (Narrog 2005a: 685‒690). Narrog defines this distinction not as bipartite, but as continuum: Speaker-oriented modality, at one end of the dimension, is directly linked to the speaker’s own modal judgement at the time of speech in the given speech situation, potentially including the hearer. In contrast, in the case of event-oriented modality, the non-factuality is the result of a modal judgement expressing conditions on a participant of the described event, independent of the speaker and the present speech situation. (Narrog 2005a: 685).

This distinction correlates with the binary distinctions ‘subjective’/‘objective’ modality (see below) and ‘epistemic’/‘non-epistemic modality’. Speaker-oriented modality, exemplified by (7a), and situated on the left pole on the scale of speaker-orientation (Narrog 2005a: 290) translates into a more casual terminology as ‘subjective epistemic modality’; event-oriented modality, exemplified by (7b), and situated on the right pole on the scale translates as ‘objective dynamic modality’. (7) a. I’m sure I’ll hate myself tomorrow. (Narrog 2005a: 685) b. I can only type very slowly as I am quite a beginner. (Narrog 2005a: 686) Volitive modality as opposed to non-volitive modality. Narrog (2005a: 683‒685) claims that the distinction between ‘volitive’ and ‘non-volitive’ is an important watershed cutting the entire modality domain in two. Deontic and boulomaic modalities share the ‘element of will’ (as a force relevant to the actualization or non-actualization of certain state of affairs; Heine 1995: 29) and as such are ‘volitive’. Dynamic, epistemic, and evidential modalities, on the other hand, do not have this element of will and as such are non-volitive.

30

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

Subjective modality as opposed to objective modality. The distinction between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ has a long tradition in the study of linguistic modality. Cumulative research has demonstrated that this distinction appertains to the entire domain of modality. Within the epistemic domain, the distinction ‘subjective vs. objective’ has been analysed in terms of various dimensions and even recent accounts show little agreement as to which of them is the fundamental one. For instance, the distinction between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ has been considered to be a reification of properties like ‘non-quantifiable vs. quantifiable possibility/necessity’, ‘personal opinion vs. common sense’, ‘attitudinal vs. non-attitudinal’, ‘non-speaker vs. speaker’ and ‘performative vs. descriptive’. Lyons (1977: 800) introduced the distinction between subjective and objective epistemic modality; cf. the example in (8). (8) John may have drawn the short straw. Taken out of the context, this sentence can have both objective and subjective epistemic meaning. Consider three persons who have to determine which one of them should do the least pleasant job. They decide to pick a straw, where the more pleasant jobs are assigned to those who draw either of the long straws, and the unwanted job is assigned to the one who picks the short straw. Without knowing the outcome of the situation (who has picked what), we know there is a 33, 3% objective chance that a man named John has picked the short one. This is the objective epistemic reading of (8) where the possibility expressed by the modal is quantifiable. The subjective epistemic reading is manifested by the metaphorical reading of the expression draw the short straw. By uttering (8) the speaker could have expressed his purely subjective opinion that John may have been unlucky in certain situation without knowing the size of the universe in which the probability of having or not having luck can be estimated; in this case the epistemic possibility is not quantifiable (Beijering 2012: 17). Successive research has shown, however, that quantifiability captures the difference between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ readings within the epistemic domain, but fails to do this in the non-epistemic domain. Furthermore, even in the epistemic domain, possibility and necessity that are not strictly quantifiable could still be objective; cf. (9) with possibility. (9)

It is possible that he will show up at the party tonight.

This example receives objective reading, given that the speaker’s modal assessment is an inference based on general knowledge about the current state of affairs. Thus, quantifiability cannot be the underlying factor we are looking for.

Modality

31

Hengeveld and Mackenzie (2008: 174) call such objective epistemic readings “epistemic event-oriented modality” (see also the above remarks about the relationship between the speaker-oriented vs. event-oriented’ and ‘subjective vs. objective’ distinctions). Narrog (2005a: 696) assumes that the distinction between ‘subjective and ‘objective’ epistemic modality is scalar rather than bipartite: “[t]he epistemic use of a conclusion can range from tending to being more based on the speaker’s personal knowledge to being more based on common sense.” In English, objective readings are best paraphrased with the impersonal construction ‘it is possibly/necessarily the case that’, whereas subjective readings are best paraphrased by personal constructions like ‘I guess/ think/am sure that’. While the first type of periphrasis does not convey the personal attitude of the speaker, the second type does. Therefore Narrog (2005b: 170) assumes that the distinction ‘objective vs. subjective’ is essentially a distinction between ‘non-attitudinal’ and ‘attitudinal’ modal stance. Another possible dimension at which these paraphrases hint is ‘speaker’ vs. ‘non-speaker’. Boye (2012) is one of the works assuming that this is the factor responsible for the distinction between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ (see Verstraete 2001: 1512‒1513 for references to other studies representing this view). According to Boye “[s]ubjective epistemic meaning represents the speaker’s epistemic evaluation. Nonsubjective epistemic meaning represents a non-speaker epistemic evaluation.” (Boye 2012: 269); consider (10). (10) It is probably certain that Caesar Augustus did send an embassy to Scotland about the beginning of the Christian era [. . .]. (Boye 2012: 270) In this sentence, the speaker expresses her own judgement that the certainty of that proposition is probable. In other words, probably expresses here the speaker’s epistemic evaluation, whereas it is certain conveys someone else’s (i.e. nonspeaker’s) certainty about the facts expressed by the complement clause. Yet another account of the difference between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ relegates it to the distinction between ‘performative’ and ‘descriptive’ (or ‘nonperformative’) uses of linguistic expressions (Verstraete 2001; Nuyts 2005). While in subjective uses the speaker expresses her personal commitment (here-andnow) to the status of the proposition, in objective uses she only reports or describes a judgment about the status of the proposition. As already mentioned, the ‘objective vs. subjective’ distinction is attested also in the non-epistemic domain, and as a rule, the approximations ‘personal opinion vs. common sense’, ‘attitudinal vs. non-attitudinal’, ‘speaker vs. nonspeaker’ and ‘performative vs. descriptive’ apply to this domain as well (recall

32

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

also the remarks made in the previous discussion about the difference between deontic and circumstantial modality, between descriptive and performative deontic and between speaker-oriented and event-oriented modality). Consider the examples in (11) (see Narrog 2005a: 686‒687 and Narrog 2005b: 171 for more details). (11)

a.

“You must tell me how to get to it” (Coates 1983: 34)

b.

“If you commit murder, Charlotte, you must be punished.” (Coates 1983: 34)

While the sentence in (11a) expresses an order directed from the speaker to the hearer and thus exemplifies subjective deontic modality, (11b) states a common law and thus spells out the objective consequences of certain behaviour. Obviously, all dichotomies mentioned above apply to these examples: (11a) expresses personal opinion, is attitudinal, comes from the speaker and is performative (at least in the way considered by Verstraete 2001 and Nuyts 2005); conversely, the modal assessment in (11b) is triggered by common knowledge, is non-attitudinal, its source is not the speaker, and is descriptive (i.e. non-performative). Finally, even the dynamic domain can be said to be affected by the distinction ‘objective vs. subjective’. One can speculate that ‘internal need’ (dynamic necessity) could be physical, and as such uncontrollable by the actor, or intellectual, and as such a function of the human ratio. The first type of dynamic necessity could be conceptualised as objective and the second as subjective. The discussion in the remainder of this study is based on the semantic map of modality proposed by van der Auwera and Plungian (1989) and revisited by van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant (2009). Figure 1 is a modified version of the map presented by van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant (2009: 276), to which I have added the alternative terms discussed in Section 3.1.1, together with their, often arguable, meaning extensions. The map is a geometric representation of modality ‘senses’18 and their relationships, which is restricted to the domains of possibility and necessity. The adjacency of different modality ‘senses’ reflects the multifunctionality patterns of linguistic forms in the samples of van der Auwera and Plungian (1989) and van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant (2009), from which the map is extracted. If a bound morpheme, modal auxiliary, or modal construction has two or more meanings, these meanings are contiguous on the map; for instance epistemic possibility is contiguous with participant-external possibility but discontiguous 18 The map assumes a polysemist view to the multifunctionality of modality markers in different languages; see Haspelmath (2003: 212‒213) for other possible views.

Modality

33

Figure 1: Modality values within the domain of possibility and necessity

with participant-internal possibility. The semantic contiguity is signalled also by connecting lines. The ovals on the map symbolize modality values, simplex or complex. For both possibility and necessity, there are four sub-types of modality: ‘participant-internal’, ‘participant-external’, ‘deontic’, and ‘epistemic’. The deontic area is enclosed within the participant-external area: this indicates that deontic modality is a subtype of participant-external modality.

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

Notions that are scalar per definition (recall Narrog’s 2005a proposal concerning the degree of speaker orientation) are not included in the map because the mode of representation presupposes discreteness. Scalar models will be discussed in the next section. Likewise, in order not to overburden the representation, I have not included in the map semantic primitives like ‘ability’, ‘capacity’, ‘internal need’, ‘permission’ or ‘obligation’, which could be used in paraphrases of the terms occurring in the map. As already mentioned, the belonging of ‘volition’ and ‘boulomaic modality’ to the possibility–necessity dimension is far from obvious, but there are indications that it could be located between possibility and necessity and participantinternal and participant-external modality. Every type of modality represented by an oval shape on the map breaks down into objective and subjective, the only exception being the non-deontic part of the participant-external type: the circumstantial domain which is always objective.

3.1.2 Gradience and modality scales Although the semantic domain of modality is usually conceptualized in terms of dichotomies, such as ‘possibility vs. necessity’ or ‘participant-internal vs. participant-external’ (see Narrog 2005a: 68), most contemporary scholarship shares the view that this landscape is characterized by gradualness, rather than by abrupt boundaries. Scalar models of modality assume that specific modal meanings (such as ‘permission’) are nothing but nodes on a value-scale; this means that modal values specify the degree of occurrence of certain property. For instance, the distinction between possibility and necessity is often considered to be scalar and not binary. Boland (2006: 69) for example, speaks about a scale reflecting the degree of ‘modal strength’ (a term taken from Harder 1998): potentiality19 > disposition > weak necessity > necessity In a similar vein, van der Auwera, Ammann, and Kindt (2005), observed that modality systems are often arranged along scalar rather than polar oppositions: certain German modals, for example, are arranged along a scale from weak possibility to ultimate necessity: könnte > kann / mag > sollte > müsste / dürfte > wird > muss.

19 Boland uses the term ‘potentiality’ instead of ‘possibility’.

Modality

35

The question that arises in the light of these facts is what the diapason of this scalarity is. Could we say that all values on the map in Figure 1 are nodes on gradience scales? Boye (2012: 107) spells out the positive answer of this question by stating that all members of modal systems “have meanings that can be classified along intensity or degree”. Probably the most uncontroversial area on the map with respect to gradience is the domain of epistemic modality. Wärnsby (2006: 26), for example, argues that the English modals must, will, should, may, might, could and can form a sequence on a scale reflecting the strength of inference: confident inference > reasonable inference > tentative inference > possible conclusion Wärnsby’s scale which concerns only evaluation of positive evidence, differs from most of the epistemic scales occurring in the literature, which have both a positive and a negative side.20 The opposite poles in such scales are ‘conviction that p’ and ‘conviction that not p’. Probably the most economic representation of an epistemic scale with positive and negative side, using English as a meta-language, would include three polarities: (un)certainty, (im)probability and (im)possibility: certain > probable > possible / uncertain > improbable > impossible. Narrog (2005a: 696) assumes that even the distinction between subjective and objective epistemic modality is scalar rather than bipartite. Conceptualising the deontic domain in terms of value-scales is somewhat less established, but still fairly common practice, found already in the earlier work on linguistic modality (e.g. Hermeren 1978: 98, 114 ff.), and particularly common in contemporary cognitively oriented functionalist accounts. Nuyts, Byloo, and Diepeveen (2005: 53), for instance, argue that “deontic modality is a semantic category which must be defined in terms of a scale featuring the notions of (moral, ethical) acceptability or necessity”. In a more elaborate account, substantiated by examples, Nuyts (2005) claims that deontic modality should be defined

20 Frequently cited epistemic scales are Akatsuka (1985) and Nuyts (2001: 22); for an extensive overview and discussion of epistemic scales see Boye (2012: 43‒47).

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

[. . .] as an indication of the degree of moral desirability of the state of affairs expressed in the utterance, typically but not necessarily on behalf of the speaker. As the notion of ‘degree’ already implicates, this may be taken to involve a gradual scale going from absolute moral necessity via the intermediary stages of (on the positive side of the scale) desirability, acceptability and (on the negative side of the scale) undesirability, to absolute moral unacceptability. (Nuyts 2005: 9)

In like manner, Narrog (2005a: 684, 687, 696) extends the scalarity conception to his distinction between ‘volitive’ and ‘non-volitive’ modality: the relevant scale contains various degrees of strength of will (on its positive side) and dislike (on its negative side), and to the distinction between ‘speaker-oriented modality’ and ‘event-oriented modality’, where the speaker-orientation forms a continuum. Importantly, these two extensions show that not only the vertical axis of the map in Figure 1 could be construed as scalar, but also the horizontal axis: volitivity and speaker-orientation are dimensions functioning on the horizontal axis; in Narrog’s account deontic and boulomaic modalities are volitive, while dynamic and epistemic modalities are non-volitive; likewise, epistemic modality is more speaker-oriented than dynamic and circumstantial modalities which tend to be event-oriented. Finally, dynamic modality (especially in its narrow sense excluding volition and circumstantial modality) is least responsive to scalar analysis. Theoretically, the notions of ‘capacity’ and ‘internal need’ can be construed as scalar (e.g. ‘more capable’, ‘less capable’ and ‘strong need’, ‘weak need’), but it is difficult to ascertain what would be the neutral value between them; i.e. which semantic meaning can be located on the scale half-way between ‘capacity’ (dynamic possibility) and ‘internal need’ (dynamic necessity).

3.1.3 Multifunctionality and vagueness of modal expressions A marker of modality in a language can be dedicated to a specific modal function (e.g. ‘physical ability’ or ‘obligation’), or can be employed to express two or several modal functions. In the latter case the “cartographers” of modality’s semantic space speak by convention about polyfunctionality of modal expressions (e.g. Diewald 1999). In its more specialised technical sense, the notion ‘modal polyfunctionality’ has been applied to refer to forms having both epistemic and non-epistemic (root, situational, agent-oriented) modal meanings (van der Auwera, Amman & Kindt 2005). Well known examples of this type of polyfunctionality are the modal verbs in most European languages; for example, English can, Russian moč’ and Finnish voida express non-epistemic (dynamic, circumstantial, deontic) and epistemic possibility (e.g. Coates 1983: 85‒107; Hansen 2001: 171‒176; Kehayov & Torn-Leesik 2009).

Modality

37

In order to differentiate between ‘polyfunctionality’ in this narrow sense and other multiple uses/senses of modality markers within the possibility–necessity domain, I will use the term multifunctionality in the latter case. By ‘multifunctionality’ of a modal form I understand the use of this form to express more than one semantic primitive, such as e.g. ‘physical ability’ or ‘obligation’. A multifunctional modal marker is usually disambiguated by the immediate semantic and/or grammatical context.21 Although we do not know the larger context of (12a) and (12b), we know that in the first example must expresses deontic modality and in the second epistemic modality. (12)

a.

You must tell me the truth.

b.

She must be a really nice person.

There are cases, however, where the context, no matter how explicit, does not help the analyst to scale down the function of the form to one modal meaning. In such cases the speaker leaves the reading of the modal marker unspecified or even “hides” it from the interlocutor(s). In such contexts we must comply with the monosemist view that the form in question has one general abstract meaning, instead of being distributed across a number of concrete meanings, and speak about vagueness of modality forms. Discussing a type of indeterminacy which she calls “merger”, Coates provides a concise definition of what vagueness is essentially about: “it is not necessary to decide which meaning is intended before the example can be understood” (Coates 1983: 17). Such vagueness can be observed in various sectors of the modality’s semantic space, illustrated in Figure 1; consider (13a) from English, with the modal auxiliary should, (13b) from Russian, with the so called dative-infinitive construction, and (12c) from Finnish, with the third person Imperative (the ‘jussive’). (13)

a.

Well, Sir. Don’t ask me. You ask the people here. They should know. (Coates 1983: 78)

b.

A but

otkuda from.where

mne 1SG . DAT

tebya you.GEN

jest’ be.PRS .3SG

pistolet? gun

znat’, know.INF

chto that

u at

‘But how could/should I know that you have a gun?’22

21 See Hansen (2014) about the syntactic manifestations of modal polyfunctionality. 22 The example comes from a translation of Ray Bradbury’s The Town Where No One Got Off, 1958 (http://lib.ru/INOFANT/BRADBURY/r_town_off.txt_Ascii.txt, accessed 24.10.2015).

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

c.

Meijjäv our siinä there

voar grandfather

[oli] be.PST.3SG

sanonu say:PST. PTCP

että that

ol-koo be-JUSS

vene. boat

‘our grandfather [had] said that the boat must/could stay there.’ (dialectal, Mäntyharju; Peltola 2016: 684) The expressions of modality occurring in these three examples are formally very different: modal auxiliary in English, the infinitive construction in Russian, and morphological mood in Finnish. What these forms have in common, however, is that they are vague (or underspecified) with respect to basic modal distinctions. The English should in (13a) is vague in relation to the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic (root) necessity; Coates (1983: 78) argues that both meanings, ‘it is probable that they know’ (epistemic) and ‘they have a duty to know’ (root), are available and intended in (13a). The Russian dative-infinitive construction in (13b), on the other hand, is underspecified in relation to the distinction between (participant-external) possibility and necessity.23 The rhetorical question uttered by the speaker equally addresses the ‘necessity to know about p’ and the ‘possibility to know about p’ (see Fortuin 2005 for some features that disambiguate this construction). Finally, as argued by Peltola (2016), permission and obligation are simultaneously present in the interpretation of the Finnish jussive form in (13c). The question of how multifunctionality of modality markers evolves has drawn considerable attention in functionally oriented research (see Narrog 2005a: 723). The proposed semantic maps of modality are in essence panchronic typological generalizations which outline the synchronic relationship between modal values and the diachronic paths along which markers of modality develop. The lines in Figure 1, which represent connections between functions, are usually turned into arrows indicating that a form is extended from function x to function y. These paths are usually unidirectional and the course of development is from left to right: dynamic → participant-external (→ deontic) → epistemic. The only exceptions concern the connection between the participant-external possibility and participant-external necessity areas, where development in both directions is attested (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998) and the connection between participant-internal and participant-external possibility, where the revised version of modality’s semantic map (van der Auwera, Kehayov & Vittrant 2009) conceded additional bidirectionality. 23 See van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant (2009: 275) for a similar example from German, where the construction ‘sein ‘be’ + zu + infinitive’ is vague between participant‑external possibility and participant‑external necessity.

Modality

39

The generalizations made by semantic maps are achieved through accumulation of descriptive evidence. The next step taken is the question of why the semantic extension follows cross-linguistically exactly these and no other paths (see Narrog 2005a: 723). One of the influential explanatory models assumes semanticization (i.e. development of conventional coding) of pragmatic meanings through ‘subjectification’ and ‘intersubjectification’. According to Traugott (2010: 61) “[s]ubjectification is the development of meanings that express speaker attitude or viewpoint, while intersubjectification is the development of the speaker’s attention to addressee self-image.” A typical example of subjectification is the development of event-oriented (non-epistemic) modal verbs to speaker-oriented (epistemic) modals in the Germanic languages. In English, for instance, the extension of modal verbs to the epistemic domain is simply an outcome of the process of subjectification, where the modal assessment is increasingly based on speaker’s subjective belief or attitude toward the contents of the proposition (see Traugott 1989: 31, 36). Cases of intersubjectification include the development of discourse markers like you know, you see or modal particles like the German wohl and ja which serve to convey speaker’s awareness of the attitudes and expectations of the addressee, in other words his concern with addressee’s “face” and “self-image”.24 Another explanation of the paths occurring on the map is provided by the so-called force-dynamics approach (Talmy 1988; Sweetser 1990), where the functions of modality markers are defined in terms of presence or absence of potential barriers. In the possibility spectrum for instance, the force of an absent potential barrier applies to internal conditions (dynamic possibility) or external world (deontic possibility). By metaphorical extension this force is applied to the world of reasoning and a possibility marker (e.g. English may) acquires the epistemic meaning ‘there are no barriers obstructing inferences as to p’. Likewise, in the necessity spectrum, the force urging an action (deontic necessity) is re-interpreted as a force urging a conclusion (epistemic necessity). (Sweetser 1990: 61) 3.1.4 The scope of modality In this book, I exploit the idea that expressions encoding different modal values have different semantic scope. The semantic scope of a linguistic expression is the domain within which it can affect the interpretation of other expressions.25 24 For a somewhat different conception of ‘(inter)subjectivity’ and ‘(inter)subjectification’ see Nuyts (2001). 25 Boye (2012: 183‒184) defines semantic scope as a relation exclusively between meanings (i.e. independently of expression).

40

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

The semantic scope of linguistic elements26 tends to be reflected in their linear ordering in the sentence; cf. (14) and (15) from English. (14) Honestly, Michael has evidently had enough beer. (Iulia Zegrean, p.c.) (15)

Does anybody possibly know if there is research about case syncretism in Estonian?

According to the terminology used in contemporary functional linguistics, the adverb honestly in (14) functions as an illocutionary force marker which takes ‘Michael has evidently had enough beer’ in its immediate scope. This means that the evidential adverb evidently, which modifies the proposition ‘Michael has had enough beer’, is within the scope of honestly.27 The given scope relation is diagnosed by the fact that exchanging the places of honestly and evidently in the sentence will render it unacceptable. In (15) the polar question word, which specifies that the utterance has the illocutionary force of an interrogative speech act, has in its scope the epistemic adverb possibly, which in turn has the proposition ‘x knows if there is a research about y’ in its immediate scope. What these examples have in common is that relative to some ‘common core’ – the state of affairs in the scope of both co-occurring expressions (Boye 2012: 220) – the expression with higher scope (the illocutionary force marker) occurs outside the expression with lower scope: the evidentiality marker in (14) and the epistemic modality marker in (15). This shows that expressions with higher scope tend to occur outside of expressions with lower scope, and, conversely, expressions with lower scope tend to occur inside expressions with higher scope (see Boye 2012: 220‒221 for discussion). Consider now (16) from Estonian: (16)

Ta s/he

peab must:PRS .3SG

saama get:INF

meiega we:COM

kinno movie.ILL

tulla. come.INF

‘S/he must be allowed to come with us to the cinema.’ 26 Boye (2012: 183‒184) distinguishes between explicit scope and implicit scope which is illustrated by the following sentences: There were three other guys on the train – they were thieves, unfortunately and There were three other guys on the train – thieves, unfortunately. In the first sentence, the explicit scope of unfortunately is ‘they were thieves’, whereas in the second, it is only ‘thieves’. The implicit scopes are however similar. In both sentences, the meaning of unfortunately arguably applies to the meaning of the whole clause ‘they were thieves’. 27 Here and elsewhere I distinguish between two figures of speech: ‘x is in the immediate scope of y’ and ‘x is in the scope of y’. Although ‘Michael has had enough beer’ is in the scope of honesty in (14), the immediate scope of honestly is ‘Michael has evidently had enough beer’.

Modality

41

In this example the epistemic modal peab ‘must; ought to’ outscopes the deontic (or circumstantial) modal saama ‘get; can; be allowed’. A formal manifestation of this semantic relationship is the relative order of the two modal elements: the epistemic modal occurs outside the deontic modal in relation to the common core: the state-of-affairs ‘x going with y to the cinema’. Just like in the examples above, exchanging the places of the epistemic and deontic modal verb renders the sentence ungrammatical. The examples in (14)‒(16) warrant (by means of transitivity) the postulation of the following scope hierarchy; where “x > y” stands for ‘y is in the scope of x’: illocutionary > evidential or epistemic > deontic Example (17) from (Cinque 1999: 135) determines the relationship between the notions ‘evidential’ and ‘epistemic’ and makes the hierarchy more specific. (17)

a.

Evidently John has probably left.

b. *Probably John has evidently left. The fact that (17a) is grammatical and (17b) is not shows that epistemic modality falls in the scope of evidentiality and not vice versa, which prompts the following modification of the hierarchy: illocutionary > evidential > epistemic > deontic The only important modal notion still missing from the hierarchy is ‘dynamic modality’. Example (18) from Finnish shows that dynamic possibility (in this case intellectual ability) occurs within the scope of deontic modality. (18)

Lapsi child

ei NEG .3SG

piirroshahmoa drawn.figure:PART on be.PRS .3SG

saa get.CONNEG

pystyä be.able:INF

yhdistämään associate:INF

elävään living:ILL

henkilöön, person:ILL

vaan but

oltava be:PASS . PRS . PTCP

täysin fully

pelin game:GEN

kuvitteellinen. imaginary

‘It should not be possible for the child to be able to associate the figure drawn with an existing person; the game must be fully imaginary.’28 28 http://www.pegi.info/fi/index/id/201/ (accessed 13.11.2015).

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

Here the speaker explains the game rule (moral necessity) that the child should not be able to associate a figure drawn to her with a person she knows. If we reverse the order of the two modal verbs and insert the deontic modal ‘get’ under the scope of the dynamic modal ‘be able’, the sentence becomes unacceptable; cf. *The child is not able to be given the possibility of associating the figure with an existing person. With the inclusion of dynamic modality, the scope hierarchy acquires the following shape. illocutionary > evidential > epistemic > deontic > dynamic Finally, objective modality is usually found in the scope of subjective modality; cf. (19) from (Hengeveld 1989: 139). (19) It is certainly possible that John is ill. Here the adverb certainly, which presents a subjective evaluation made by the speaker, outscopes the adjective possible, which describes objective information about the world. Hierarchies like the one above can be extended to include conceptual categories outside the domain of modality. For instance, different proposals place ‘time’ and ‘aspect’ below the deontic (or participant-external) domain on the hierarchy (compare Nuyts 2004: 84; 2005 with Cinque 1999: 106, whose hierarchy is not explicitly reducible to scope relations). The position of certain concept on the hierarchy could be explained in simple functional terms. The higher scope of subjective epistemic modality relative to objective epistemic modality for example can be explained by the idea that people as deictic origo’s will express their personal opinions about common sense probabilities rather than common sense probabilities about their personal opinions. Despite the ample evidence for iconicity between the sequential ordering of linguistic forms and their semantic scope, the interdependency is not absolute. As a rule functional theories, such as Role and Reference Grammar (e.g. Van Valin 2005: 21), Functional Grammar (e.g. Hengeveld 1989) and its successor Functional Discourse Grammar (e.g. Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 311‒316), assume a strong connection between semantic scope of different adverbial modifiers or verbal affixes and the surface ordering of members of these classes (see also Bybee 1985). But even though the semantic feature of scope seems to be the strongest determinant of such orderings, other factors interfere. A competing factor in the sequential ordering of linguistic elements is for example their informational prominence in the particular speech situation (Nuyts 2005, footnote 36).

Modality

43

Formal approaches within the generative tradition of thought, on the other hand, are usually reluctant towards the idea that discovered linear orders can be reduced to semantic relations. Cinque and Rizzi (2008) for instance, who work in the framework of the so-called Cartographic Approach, remain agnostic as to the nature and the extent of the relationship between scope and formal ordering. They write about discovered hierarchies of “clausal functional projections” that “[t]he question whether such universal hierarchies of functional projections are primitive objects of UG [Universal Grammar], or can be derived from interface or more general external conditions is important, but fundamentally orthogonal to the prior task of drawing their precise map, and perhaps not easily determinable at the present state of our knowledge.” (Cinque & Rizzi 2008: 43); and continue that in certain cases, “it is very plausible that certain aspects of the hierarchy (like the relative height, or scope, of the elements that constitute it) depend on independent properties of their semantics, even though precisely what elements make up the hierarchy may simply be the result of the linguistic crystallization of a particular set of cognitive categories among the many more that simply do not find a grammatical encoding in UG.” (Cinque & Rizzi 2008: 52). The concept of ‘(scope) hierarchy’ implies that the semantic content of clauses is layered, although ‘layering’ can be conceptualized in different ways. Functionalist accounts which do not claim theory status exhaust the issue by stating that the hierarchy unfolds (“grows” or is being “peeled off”, depending on the perspective) around a common core; such a core can be the ‘state-ofaffairs’ (see Nuyts 2005; 2009) or ‘the inherent meaning of the lexical stem’ (see Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994: 22).29 Such accounts do not postulate specific layers around which conceptual structure evolves: the extension of scope is gradual and ideally infinite. Elaborate functionalist theories of grammar, by contrast, tend to define layers in terms of discrete entities with specific properties. In Functional Grammar, for instance, layers are conceptualized as ontological entities such as ‘individuals’, ‘states-of-affairs’ or ‘propositions’ (e.g. Hengeveld 1989; Dik 1997). In Chapter 9, I will provide an introduction to this framework and its successor, Functional Discourse Grammar. After that I will propose an explanatory account of observed scales of loss, change and innovation in the MM domain, which will be based on this framework and its underlying idea of ‘layered structure’.

29 Nuyts (2005: 21) defines that “climbing up this hierarchy involves a gradual extension of the perspective on the state of affairs and thus of the role of information external to the state of affairs in assessing its status.”

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

3.2 Mood As already mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 3, unlike ‘modality’, which is semantically defined, ‘mood’ typically refers to (paradigms of) forms, usually in verb inflection, whose main function is to express modality30 (Narrog 2005b: 167). According to Bybee and Fleischman (1995: 2), “mood refers to a formally grammaticalized category of the verb which has a modal function”. Likewise, the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Brown 2006) defines ‘mood’ as “[t]he grammatical category by means of which the attitude of the speaker toward what is said (uncertainty, possibility, probability, necessity, etc.) is expressed by verbal inflections or the use of modal auxiliary verb forms, e.g., would, should, ought, etc.”. Finally, based on a typological study of mood in the European languages, Thieroff (2010: 2) considers mood to be “a morphological category of the verb, just as are the verbal categories person, number, aspect, tense, and voice. Mood categories express modalities such as orders, wishes, (non-)factivity, (non-)reality and the like.” Put in a nutshell, these accounts semantically reduce mood to modality and define it as a morphological expression of the latter. Conforming to this view on ‘mood’, I will keep the exposition here short, assuming that the discussion of modality provided in the last section is explanatory as to the semantic properties of mood. Another reason to keep the following overview concise is that the description of moods is inevitably bound to their specific form, and therefore the presentation of the Finnic mood system in Chapter 8 should serve the purpose of introducing the properties of ‘mood’ in a natural language. One circumstance that undermines this view is the fact that along with the tradition assuming a default meaning of ‘mood’ as ‘grammatical (or morphological) mood’, there is a parallel tradition of regarding ‘clause typing’ as a mood distinction.31 The phenomenon of clause typing was not included in Section 3.1, because it is only indirectly related to modality, given that the latter is resolved in terms of ‘speaker’s attitude’ or ‘possibility/necessity’. However, ‘mood’, even in its narrow sense, cannot be conceptually disentangled without reference to clause types and illocutionary force. The Indicative mood for instance, can only be defined negatively in terms of its form: as the unmarked mood. A positive

30 A classical example of including ‘mood’ in a polysemy model of ‘modality’ is (Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca 1994: 176–181), where the semantic category of ‘speaker‑oriented modality’ encompasses moods like imperative, prohibitive and optative. 31 Ziegeler (2006: 260), for instance, notes that “mood has been described both as the inflectional representation of modality and as the clause type in which modal inflection may appear (in some languages)”.

Mood

45

account of the Indicative is possible only with reference to the declarative clause type and its illocutionary force of assertion (see Allan 2006). Given that the Finnic languages have grammaticalized the clause type distinction to a high degree and the means used to encode this distinction interact with mood proper, I have included clause typing to the discussion of MM in contracting Finnic. The following short overview of clause typing is thus a prerequisite for the introduction of grammatical mood.

3.2.1 Clause type (sentence mood) The notion of clause type, also sentence type or sentence mood (e.g. Reis 1999; König & Siemund 2007), refers to the grammatical function of a sentence, which is related to its pragmatic function captured by the notion of ‘speech act’ (Searle 1976). Speech acts and clause types should be clearly distinguished, though: a speech act specifies the function of the sentence without reference to form, while the clause type refers to the morphosyntactic, lexical or prosodic coding of the function of a sentence. Speech act type specifies for example whether the sentence has the illocutionary force of an assertion, question or directive, whereas the clause typing specifies whether the sentence has the grammatical coding of a declarative, interrogative or imperative sentence.32 Although there is considerable overlapping between certain speech acts and certain clause types, where assertion corresponds to declarative, question to interrogative and directive to imperative, the correspondence is not absolute. For example, declarative clauses can express both questions and directives, and interrogative clauses can express both assertions and orders; compare (20), which can be interpreted as a statement of disapproval, with (21), which is usually interpreted as a request. (20) Who is eating at three in the morning?/. (21)

Could you open the window?/!

32 In accordance with the practice of explaining speech act distinctions in terms of illocutionary force, some authors relegate clause typing to the workings of the semantic feature of ‘sentential force’ (see Portner 2009: 262‒263; a case study adopting this analytical concept is e.g. Bruil 2014). FDG, on the other hand, explains the observed discrepancy in terms of layering at the Interpersonal Level of language (i.e. the level dealing with communicative strategies and interaction): in FDG, ‘speech act’ roughly corresponds to “Discourse Act” (e.g. ‘emphatic discourse act’), while sentence type, corresponding to ‘Illocution’, is specified within the ‘Head’ of the Discourse Act (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 60‒84).

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Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

Figure 2: Mapping between speech act, sentence mood, and grammatical mood

In addition to their association with particular speech acts, some clause types (or sentence moods) have a near equivalent in the system of grammatical moods; see Figure 2. Expressions of orders exemplify the three-fold interdependency between illocutionary force, clause type and grammatical mood. Typically imperative clauses express orders or requests by means of the morphological category of the imperative mood. In other cases, languages do not display isomorphism between clause type and mood. In the European languages, for instance, the interrogative sentence mood does not have a near equivalent in the grammatical mood system; the morphosyntactic marking of interrogative clauses is instead distributed between the Indicative and Subjunctive which occur mainly in other clause types.

3.2.2 Grammatical mood It was acknowledged above that ‘grammatical mood’ is defined in terms of form. The moods of European languages for example are signalled by affixes, auxiliary verbs, particles and combinations thereof 33, which form paradigms, in other words, delimited sets of complementary expressions. Complementarity is probably the crucial factor for granting ‘mood’ the status of a uniform category (along with tense for example), instead of characterizing it in terms of family resemblance of entities (i.e. different moods in the same language) with overlapping similarities, but no essential feature common to all. A question rarely addressed in case studies and typological overviews is whether this complementarity of moods is a formal or semantic constraint. In other words, does it suffice to say that ‘mood’ is a distinct grammatical category in a language, because mood forms occur in the same morphosyntactic slot, or do we need to specify the semantic rationale behind this complementarity? Thieroff (2010: 3), for instance, 33 It is often the case that moods can be decomposed to non‑dedicated elements; the “conditional mood” forms found in Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Albanian, Basque, Armenian and Kartvelian consist of a past and a future morpheme, which means that we are dealing formally with tense form rather than with mood form (Thieroff 2010: 11).

Mood

47

observes that a major reason to separate grammatical evidentiality from mood “is the fact that very often Mood and evidential categories can both appear in one verbal form, i.e. a finite verb form can be categorized with regard to mood and evidentiality simultaneously”, but does not specify whether and how this lack of complementarity is semantically motivated. The co-occurrence of different grammatical moods is not as rare as often assumed. Latvian, for instance, has a grammatical mood expressing necessity (dynamic, deontic, or epistemic) which is called ‘debitive’ and which co-occurs with the Conditional (irrealis) mood in the same verb form (see Holvoet 2001: 33‒34; 2007: 176‒177); cf. (22). (22)

Traukam bowl:DAT

obligāti obligatorily

jā-bū-tu DEB -be-COND

no from

metāla. metal.GEN

‘The bowl should be from metal.’34 In this example, the circumstantial request for the bowl to be from metal expressed by the Debitive marker jā is mitigated by the Conditional marker tu, one of whose typical functions is to mark optative clauses (Holvoet 2001: 95‒97). The simultaneous use of two grammatical moods is explained by the fact that their markers occupy different morphological slots: the Debitive is a prefix, whereas the Conditional is a suffix, and by the fact that they are semantically compatible: one can express one’s wish that something is necessary. Such mood combinations are very informative with respect to the scope of mood, and we will return to them at the end of the present section. Consider the following list of some cross-linguistically recurrent grammatical moods, with relevance for the description of the Finnic languages. The glossary starts with the Indicative and the Imperative which are present in all European languages (see Thieroff 2010); examples are provided only for grammatical moods lacking from English, French, or German. – Indicative. This is the default, semantically unmarked mood, which is typically used in declarative sentences to express statements that have truthvalues (e.g. Allan 2006: 268). – Imperative. The imperative is functionally defined as a mood expressing commands, and requests addressed from the speaker to the hearer(s). More generally, one speaks about the imperative if the person having control over the state of affairs desired by the speaker is the addressee (or addressees), in other words is in second person singular or plural. In case the command or

34 Internet, 10.11.2014.

48

–

Mood and modality: definitions, semantic values and their organization

request does not come from the speaker and/or the individual in control of the desired state of affairs is not the addressee (i.e. the addressee is in the first or third person), the functional concepts often occurring in the literature are hortative (cf. van der Auwera, Dobrushina & Goussev 2013) and jussive (cf. Palmer 2001: 81). This purely functional categorization of the imperative tends to collide with the practical objective of grammarians to keep the definition of mood independent of person; as a result one often comes across designations like ‘first person Imperative’ and ‘third person Imperative’ instead of ‘(co)hortative’/‘jussive’. Descriptions and normative grammars of Finnic languages often have followed this terminology and spoken about 1st, 2nd and 3rd person Imperative forms (e.g. Tauli 1980: 36; Zaikov 1993: 27‒30). The typological probability that the Imperative mood has distinct grammatical forms is highest in second person singular (see van der Auwera & Lejeune 2013) and lowest in first person singular.35 Conventionalized means for expressing negative commands and requests are called prohibitives. Typically, the prohibitive presents a state of affairs as undesirable and demands from the hearer to refrain from it or stop realizing it (see Van Olmen 2010: 471).36 Subjunctive/Conditional. Almost all languages in Europe have moods called “Subjunctive” or “Conditional” (Thieroff 2010) which are multifunctional to the extent that their Grund- as well as Gesamtbedeutung are not easily detectable. In French, for instance, the Subjunctive mood expresses wishes, orders and hypotheses in simple sentences, is often required in conditional, temporal, purpose and concessive adverbial clauses, complement clauses of manipulative, propositional attitude and evaluative predicates and in relative clauses with non-specific reading (De Mulder 2010). Likewise, the contexts in which the Russian Conditional (also called “Subjunctive”) mood commonly occurs include optative main clauses (expressing wishes and polite requests), hypothetical and counterfactual conditional clauses, adverbial clauses of purpose, complements of manipulative, emotive predicates, modal predicates, predicates of fearing and achievement, some predicates of propositional attitude, and some perception predicates when negated (Hansen 2010a; Dobrushina 2012). What such contexts have in common is that they describe events which have not taken place until the moment of

35 Languages with morphological first person singular imperative forms include Irish and North Saami (see e.g. Koskinen 1998: 203‒204 on North Saami). 36 The negative counterpart of the hortative is sometimes called dishortative (e.g. Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 72).

Mood

–

(23)

49

speech (including it), which has motivated scholars to replace the denominations ‘subjunctive’ or ‘conditional’ with ‘irrealis mood’ (see e.g. Holvoet 2007: 57‒80 on Baltic). The notion of ‘irrealis’ which will be discussed in separate below, is however too vague and weak to capture the semantics of the subjunctive/conditional family; with the exception of the indicative, all moods listed in this section are ‘irrealis’. Optative. The term ‘optative’ usually refers to inflectional verb forms dedicated to the expression of wishes or hopes of the speaker (Dobrushina, van der Auwera & Goussev 2013). Unlike the imperative, jussive and hortative, the optative does not convey a direct appeal to the addressee to make the wish of the speaker true (van der Auwera, Dobrushina & Goussev 2013); see (23) from Abkhaz (Northwest Caucasian). Ma PTCL

a-dzə DEF-water

l-zhʷə-nda. 3.F-drink-OPT

‘I wish she’d drink the water.’ (Dobrushina, van der Auwera & Goussev 2013; the example is originally provided by George B. Hewitt). Potential. The term ‘potential’ is used for grammatical moods with narrowly epistemic functions. Consider (24) from North Karelian, a Finnic variety, which will not be examined in the present study; the Potential mood, signalled by the inflectional suffix -ne, expresses probability. (24)

Huomenna tomorrow

lähte-ne-n go-POT-1SG

meččäh. forest:ILL

‘Tomorrow I might go to the forest.’ (Zaikov 1993: 34) At the end of the overview we cannot ignore the binary distinction between ‘realis’ and ‘irrealis’, which often occurs in the literature of mood, but in a disturbingly inconsistent way. The reader is referred to Narrog (2005b), Ziegeler (2006) and Boye (2012: 32‒34) for a critical survey of the uses of these notions in descriptions of mood and modality systems. A significant impulse to the career of these notions as comparative concepts in typological inquiry has been provided by the data from the native languages of North America. In her comprehensive typological overview of these languages Mithun defines ‘(ir)realis’ as follows: “[t]he realis portrays situations as actualized, as having occurred or actually occurring, knowable through direct perception. The irrealis portrays situations as purely within the realm of thought, knowable only through imagination.” (Mithun 1999: 173)

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The main reason to reject ‘(ir)realis’ as an analytical concept from the present study is its notional vagueness. It is too general to be explanatory. Bybee (1998), for instance, has criticized the structuralist practice of describing mood in terms of binary distinctions (such as ‘realis’ and ‘irrealis’) as inadequate. But what bears particular relevance to the present topic is the fact that for some authors ‘(ir)realis’ captures the distinction between actual and non-actual events (i.e. states of affairs) (e.g. Chung & Timberlake 1985: 241), while other consider this notion to be closely related (if not tantamount) to epistemic modality (e.g. Akatsuka 1985, placing ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ on his epistemic scale; see also Boye 2012: 33 for a discussion), which modifies thoughts about events (i.e. entire propositions). The latter understanding of ‘(ir)realis’ makes it identical to the much better rooted distinction between ‘factual’ and ‘non-factual’ propositions (e.g. Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 144) and by virtue of this renders it superfluous. In Chapter 9, we will see that qualifications of states of affairs and qualifications of propositions convey ontologically different messages about distinct entities. Given these facts, the notion of ‘(ir)realis’ exceeds the limits of imprecision that can be tolerated in a comparative study and I will try to avoid using it in the analysis of the MM systems of receding Finnic. The last issue to be discussed in this overview of mood and related notions is the scope of mood. Provided that mood can be semantically reduced to modality, the scope of different moods is identical to the scope of the modality values they express. This is best illustrated by examples, where grammatical moods co-occur (an example was already presented in [22]) or are combined with non-declarative sentence moods. Consider (25) from Finnish, (26) from Latvian, and (27) from Lithuanian. (25)

Tietä-nee-kö know-POT:3SG - Q (yes/no) tehty make:PASS . PST. PTCP

kukaan, somebody

tieteellistä scientific.PART

onko be-Q (yes/no)

noista these:ELA

tutkimusta? research.PART

‘Does anybody possibly know if scientific research has been carried out on these things?’ (26)

Man I.DAT

nebū-tu NEG :be-COND

jā-strādā, DEB -work

ja if

es I.NOM

bū-tu be-COND

bagāts. rich

‘I wouldn’t have to work if I were rich.’ (Holvoet 2001: 34)

Mood

(27)

Jeigu if

bū-či-ąs be-COND - EV

negaus, NEG :get:FUT 3 vietos place

tai then

žinojęs, know:PST. PTCP. NOM . M . SG ne-bū-či-ąs NEG -be-COND - EV

nė even

kad COMP

51

nieko nothing

iš from

judinęsis. stir:PST. PTCP. NOM . M . SG . REFL

‘(He says) if he had known he would get nothing, then he wouldn’t have stirred from the place.’ (Holvoet 2007: 88; glosses modified) The sentence in (25) demonstrates the scope of the epistemic modality with respect to the interrogative: the polar question clitic -ko/-kö, which specifies that the utterance has the illocutionary force of an interrogative speech act, has in its scope the epistemic morpheme -ne (the marker of the Potential mood in Finnish), which in turn has the proposition ‘x knows if there is a scientific research about y’ in its immediate scope. (26) from Latvian shows that the agent-oriented modality (‘one has to work’) falls within the scope of the irrealis meaning. The Conditional mood which conveys that the state of affairs described in the apodosis of the conditional sentence is not real, takes in its scope the Debitive mood which conveys here circumstantial or deontic necessity: (26) negates the potentiality of certain necessity, not the necessity for certain potentiality. Finally, (27) shows that the specification of state of affairs as not real falls within the scope of reported evidentiality. Lithuanian has an inflectional coding of reported evidentiality which outscopes the Conditional mood specifying that the states-of-affairs described are not real. In this sentence, the hypothetical situations ‘having known about y’ and ‘stirring from the place’ are reported, rather than speculations (hypotheses) about reports expressed. Resuming these scope relations, we arrive at the hierarchy illocutionary > evidential> epistemic > deontic/circumstantial which, as expected, is consistent with the scope hierarchy accumulated in Section 3.1.4.

4 Mood and modality meets language death After this outline of the object of the study (‘mood-and-modality’), and the environment in which this object will be explored (‘language death’), the obvious step we need to take now is bringing these together. In Section 4.1, I will discuss the uniqueness of MM and LD in the relevant universes, in Section 4.2, I will briefly consider the possible types of explanations for discovered regularities in the behaviour of MM in LD, and in Section 4.3 I will present some available evidence for the behaviour of MM and related grammatical notions associated with the predicate in LD.

4.1 Why is the combination of MM and LD special? The juxtaposition of MM and LD raises two questions with identical spelling but different contrastive foci: a)

Why study mood and modality in language death?

b)

Why study mood and modality in language death?

The two assumptions formulated in Chapter 1 provide the most straightforward answers to these two questions. The assumption that developments taking place in language death differ from developments taking place in normal (or regular) language change establishes LD as an environment which is unique among the possible environments in which MM can be studied, and substantiates the contrastive focus in question (a). The functional modularity assumption, which identifies MM as a unique category in the relevant population of grammatical categories of a language affected by LD, substantiates the contrastive focus in question (b). In this section, I will discuss the possible merits of these “uniqueness”-assumptions in greater detail and will present some empirical considerations in support of them. As already noted in Chapter 1, previous research on structural aspects of LD has been concerned with processes and phenomena pertaining concurrently to several areas of grammar. This focus is deserved: often the first impression one gets from a dying language is that the signs of reduction are all over the language, rather than in restricted domains of grammar. Furthermore, leaving aside substrate phenomena, the ultimate consequence of LD is that a language is literally lost, and, as it happens, linguists tend to look at language obsolescence from the point of view of its outcome rather than its characteristics as a DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-004

Why is the combination of MM and LD special?

53

process.37 Another circumstance which explains the excessive occupation with structure is that upper expression levels (semantics and pragmatics) have been less studied in LD than lower levels, such as phonology or morphophonology, which are not directly relevant to meaning (Campbell & Muntzel 1989). As a consequence of this situation in the field, the pre-theoretical belief in the pervasive nature of structural decay is rarely put under scrutiny. One exception is Polinsky (1995), who presents both corroborating and counter-evidence for it. On the one hand, she observes a positive correlation between the preservation of vocabulary and preservation of grammar, and concludes that “non-aphasic language attrition has consistent manifestations in various language components” (Polinsky 1995: 116). At the same time, she argues that attrition is modular and affects different structural domains at a different rate. At a syntactic level, for instance, attrition follows the hierarchy: discursive syntax > sentential syntax > clausal syntax > phrasal syntax (Polinsky 1995: 120). Another researcher who has submitted a proposal for structural modularity is Myers-Scotton (1998), who claims that that there is a predictable order in the loss of morphemic material during LD: content morphemes standing for thematic roles are more likely to resist loss than system morphemes which do not stand for thematic roles. Importantly, the available modularity proposals account for LD-phenomena in terms of structure rather than in terms of function; the presented hierarchies of relative disposition to loss (or change) in LD relate structural entities and not meanings. It follows that the underlying assumption among students of LD has been that the linguistic aspects of the process of language obsolescence are form- or structure-determined. In this study I change the perspective and adopt the working hypothesis that the relative susceptibility of linguistic elements to loss, change and innovation is meaning-driven and thus organised along functional notions rather than along structural patterns. This switch of perspective may have far-reaching consequences. First, the excessive attention on structural patterns that are not directly dependent on meaning and the lack of interest in the fate of specific conceptual domains in LD has a limitative effect on our understanding of language change 37 One may seek parallels in linguistic impairment as another type of “language death”. In agrammatic aphasia, for instance, language reduction affects all levels of grammar and therefore mistakes made by aphasic patients cannot be easily ascribed to a certain category but to deficits affecting the linguistic structure as a whole. For this and other reasons there is relatively little research targeting the fate of particular grammatical categories in aphasia (Katharina Rosengarth, p.c.). One exception, which claims specific reduction hierarchies in the domain of MM upon agrammatism, is Seewald (1998: 102‒109); I am thankful to Elisabeth Leiss for drawing my attention to this work.

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Mood and modality meets language death

and its underlying principles. The formal perspective clearly steers the attention of the observer towards detecting global (systemic) developments; local developments in the system related to the expression of particular functions may, on the other hand, remain unnoticed. The change of perspective may also challenge our perception of the underlying principles in substrate interference. Is a linguistic substrate distributed according to purely structural criteria (e.g. substrate is more likely to be found in sound patterns and syntax than in morphology) or is its distribution governed partly by linguistic meaning? For example, expressions of time and expressions of speaker stance may have different chances for “afterlife” in the form of substrate. Secondly, assuming dependency between meaning and susceptibility to loss, change and innovation of its expression, we enter into a little-explored domain of contact linguistics. Curnow (2001) identifies the existing knowledge gap as follows. One important issue to consider is whether a hierarchy for borrowing is the same hierarchy as that for loss – if, as has often been suggested, tone or an inclusive-exclusive distinction in pronouns is easily ‘borrowed’, does this mean only that these features are easily transferred from a language which has them into a language which lacks them, does it also mean that they are easily lost from a language which has them when it is in contact with a language which lacks them, or does it means precisely the opposite, that they are extremely difficult to lose from a language which has them when in contact with a language which does not? In the development of constrains on borrowing, we need to establish whether loss of feature is to be included or excluded, or whether a separate ‘loss hierarchy’ should be developed in parallel with ‘borrowing hierarchy’. (Curnow 2001: 414)

A consequence of the preoccupation with formal patterns diagnosed above is the lack of systematic studies on the behaviour of cross-linguistically salient notional categories in LD, a research gap which provides an incentive for studies like the present one. But in addition to these general reasons why the research on certain notional domains in LD is welcome, there are also practical reasons why particularly MM should attract attention. MM is structurally an extremely diffuse domain: it generally extends over great number of structures in individual languages; more so than other ‘grammatical categories’, such as tense, aspect, or comparison. As already noted in Chapter 1, MM is expressed in Finnic by grammatical moods, predicative nonfinite verb forms, finite verbs (auxiliaries or lexical matrix predicates), adverbs, particles, nouns, predicative adjectives, complementizers, intonation and ellipsis. Discoveries concerning more than one of these means of MM-marking could be symptomatic for the whole structure in LD. This means that looking at systems of vanishing languages from seemingly narrow semantic perspective may broaden our view to global structural developments in LD.

Why is the combination of MM and LD special?

55

Anthropological linguists have made several thought-provoking observations with potential relevance to the functional modularity assumption. Emerging usage conventions in languages undergoing LD may indirectly affect the relative vulnerability of modal expressions to obliteration. Furbee, Stanley, and Rogles (1993: 1), for example, report that there is a politeness requirement in Chiwere (Western Siouan) society “that mandates younger conversational partners to invite the discourse of older persons and to reply in brief, respectful responses to their elders, but not to engage them in vigorous turn-taking”. As a result, young speakers acquire only limited active expertise, which is one of the factors speeding up the decline of this indigenous language of North America. One might be also tempted to speculate that in a language community in which youngsters are expected to refer to facts and not to deliver evaluations of facts, the reduction and loss of expressions of epistemic modality, which addresses the propositional contents of utterances, would proceed in a faster pace than the reduction and loss of expressions of modality values with sub-propositional scope. Furbee, Stanley, and Rogles’ observation pertains to register loss, also known as ‘stylistic shrinkage’ (recall Section 2.3). Given that the use of moods and modal elements is not evenly distributed across register types, the loss of certain registers may have ramifications for the MM system of the language. KnowlesBerry (1987: 338) reports for Chontal Mayan a loss of ritual speech, which (among other things) is characterized by the use of linguistic mediation, and by cognitive-attitudinal detachment and lack of involvement of the speaker; clearly, these characteristics of ritual speech require the use of MM expressions. Another interesting observation made by Furbee, Stanley, and Rogles (1993) concerns an advanced stage of language obsolescence, where the language is used only “on purpose”. Vanishing Chiwere has become a precious medium where the possession of only a few phrases or a memorized story elevates the speaker in the eyes of the community. For the members of the speech community their language becomes objectualized (in Michael Silverstein’s terms), as it reaches heirloom status. In like manner, Dal Negro (2004: 232) notes that certain varieties of the German spoken in Italian Alps are becoming limited to “symbolic functions linked to traditional, nostalgic and ethnic connotation”. The result of this development is that the obsolescent variety (the ‘minority code’) hardly ever fulfils its essential tasks in communication. A similar emergent function of the language in fading linguistic communities is acknowledged by Tsitsipis (1989), who argues that the dying language may become an “object language” which invites conscious attention and peculiar behaviour. Probably the most extreme example in this direction is reported by Schilling-Estes (1998), cited by Wolfram (2007): “[the] conscious attention to a dialect icon of a moribund language variety in Ocracoke [English] may evoke a ‘performance style’ in which obsolescing forms

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Mood and modality meets language death

are offered in rote phrases”. In all these cases the language is re-instrumentalized by the community and its new functions(s) are directly connected to, if not even conditioned by, the process of obsolescence in itself (see Wolfram 2007: 9). It could be hypothesized that such an objectualized language, which has lost its role as a medium of everyday communication, and, as such is “devoid of pragmatics”, would abandon certain MM expressions (e.g. illocutionary force markers). To cut the long story short, in cases of ‘objectualization’ certain modality values may become external to the new hermeneutics of the language: an attestation of this on a structural level would provide direct evidence for functional modularity as an operational factor in LD. This in turn leads us to expect that MM would show different pathways of loss, change and innovation than tense or aspect, for example. What concerns the peculiarity of LD compared to the structural development of “healthy” languages one can draw parallels to the behaviour of complex systems studied in physics, biology, social sciences etc. Contracting languages can be seen as systems which are neither characterized by chaos, nor rigidly organized according to a unified set of principles (see e.g. Heylighen 2008 about this “mixed-nature” of complex systems), and which are pushed out of a certain state of equilibrium which they seek to restore. In this case ‘equilibrium’ refers to the stasis of a full-fledged language which changes with a constant speed and in a constant manner. LD does not usually take a long time and is irreversible: typical properties of non-equilibrium systems. It is also known that systems brought out of balance exhibit different properties and behaviour than systems in equilibrium, which justifies the exploration of MM specifically in LD, as a kind of a stress situation. The bottom-line question is whether we find types of MM systems in languages undergoing the last phase of LD that differ from the types attested in functional languages. The claim that rare configurations of grammatical features (“rare grammars”) tend to be found in endangered languages with small populations recurs in the typological literature (e.g. Wohlgemuth 2010; Bakker 2011; Trudgill 2011: 100, 187). An often cited example from Nettle is that all languages which have object-first basic word order (OSV or OVS) are spoken by very small speech communities: the median number of speakers of such languages is 750, as compared to the median of 5,000 for the world’s languages as a whole. Cognitively and information-theoretically non-optimal constituent orders are more likely to occur in small speech communities, since these are more prone to stray from the optimal state of equilibrium. The reasons for this are statistical: the probability that a non-optimal configuration is successful is negatively correlated with the size of the population (Nettle 1999a: 139; 1999b). But while the chance to find “exotic” features and the sheer size of the speech community are in statistical

Why is the combination of MM and LD special?

57

dependence, the relationship between the probability for occurrence of exotic innovations and the relative degree of ethnolinguistic vitality seems to be causal. In Section 2.3, I presented empirical evidence from the literature about the innovativeness of last speakers of dying languages. Further evidence includes Dal Negro’s (2004: 117) observation that together with the weakening of their role within communities’ repertoire, minority varieties can develop idiosyncratic and non-genetic linguistic features. A language left without its raison d’être – to serve as a basic instrument for communication – loses its structural balance and starts changing in less predictable ways: “[i]n a situation where change is simultaneously affecting many different structures within the system in a compressed time frame, there will be many more items undergoing variation, thus giving the appearance that change is chaotic and incongruent” (Wolfram 2007: 12). Another argument for the importance of research on LD concerns the potential contribution of the phenomenon to linguistic theory. Palosaari and Campbell (2011) hint at the risk of erroneous theorizing about constraints on possible structural patterns in natural language, if certain languages would have become extinct without leaving any traces. The nine languages that have OVS basic word order, and by virtue of this violate Greenberg’s Universal 1, are all endangered. These languages have expanded our knowledge “about the potentials and limitations of human cognition” (Palosaari & Campbell: 2011: 106). Another area, where the study of MM in language death can contribute to linguistic theory is linguistic complexity (recall the discussion in Section 2.3 about reduction, generalization and morphotactic transparency). Language death has received only marginal attention in the complexity debate (cf. Dahl 2004; Miestamo, Sinnemäki & Karlsson 2008; Sampson, Gil & Trudgill 2009). Consider, however, the following example from the study of language contact. Trudgill (2009: 101) proposes two types of contact settings with diametrically different effects on morphology. High-contact settings involving adult speakers, which typically produce pidgins, lead to simplification of the morphology. Stable, long-lasting contact settings, which involve child bilingualism, are argued to favour complexification often implemented through borrowing of additional morphology (see also Adamou 2012: 143 for discussion). It is far from obvious where receding languages of indigenous communities belong in this system. Languages of indigenous communities approaching extinction occur in longterm and high-contact settings. As I noted in Section 2.3, although at a structural level complexity reduction prevails, examples of complexification or maintenance of complexity recur in reports of LD. According to Dal Negro (2004: 13, 236), for instance, the decaying German dialect in the village of Formazza reveals maintenance of surprisingly rich, though not necessarily functional morphology.

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The final phase of the process of obsolescence of this dialect is a sudden interruption in language use and shift to the dominant language rather than gradual disintegration and “mutation” into the dominant code. Types of linguistic complexity or complexification discussed in the literature include ‘system complexity’ (i.e. complexity of rules) vs. ‘structural complexity’ (i.e. complexity of strings of linguistic matter) (Dahl 2011: 154‒155), ‘overt complexity’ (i.e. complexity of overt marking and recursive application of rules) vs. ‘hidden complexity’ (i.e. complexity based on pragmatic inference) (Bisang 2009), ‘global complexity’ (i.e. complexity of the entire language system) vs. ‘local complexity’ (i.e. domainspecific complexity; e.g. complexity of clause combining) (Miestamo 2008) or ‘additive complexification’ (e.g. addition of new morphological categories) vs. ‘non-additive complexification’ (e.g. morphological irregularization, increase of opaqueness) (Trudgill 2011: 63‒65). These types are rarely confronted with genuine material from LD. In this study, I venture an account of the relative susceptibility to loss, change and innovation of forms and structural patterns in LD in terms of the conceptual complexity of the semantic entities these expressions encode. The notion of conceptual complexity will be explained in Section 9.1. Finally, discoveries about the behaviour of mood-and-modality in LD may have an eye-opening effect and serve as a basis for comparison with other “non-equilibrium” systems. This would include a comparison between the characteristics of MM in language death and MM in other transitional stages of languages’ “life cycle” where the competence of an individual is at stake: first and second language acquisition and linguistic impairment. The existing hypotheses about correlation between processes in LD and language acquisition remain speculative and still wait for empirical confirmation. An assumption commonly referred to as regression or de-acquisition hypothesis states that the process of language loss mirrors the process of acquisition of the same language (see Hyltenstam & Viberg 1993: 12; Dal Negro 2004: 35‒38; Wolfram 2007). The mirror metaphor implies that the order of decay should be the reverse of the order of acquisition; in other words, an acquisition hierarchy a > b > c predicts the order of decay c > b > a as its mirror image.38 We know, for instance, that modals conveying deontic modality tend to be acquired by children before modals expressing epistemic modality (e.g. Shepherd 1993; Smoczyńska 1993; Stephany 1993; 1995). Likewise, we know that in second language acquisition non-epistemic (deontic or dynamic) modality is usually grammaticalized earlier than epistemic modality (Dittmar 1993; Terborg 1993; Giacalone Ramat & Galèas 38 Mithun (1989: 255) formulates the regression hypothesis in terms of complexity: “[t]hose aspects of a language that are the most complex tend to be acquired last and lost first”.

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1995; Giacalone Ramat 1995; Stephany 1995; Bernini 1995).39 In consideration of the de-acquisition claim, these orders of acquisition predict that the relative order of loss, change and innovation in LD is epistemic modality > non-epistemic modality; a prediction which will be validated by the data from obsolescent Finnic. To my knowledge, there are virtually no empirical studies devoted exclusively to testing the regression hypothesis. One exception, restricted to phonology, is Cook’s study on phonological change in two obsolescent Athapaskan languages, which suggests that the regressive process of LD is a mirror image of the developmental processes in child language (Cook 1989: 241). The present study does not aim at testing the regression hypothesis in the domain of MM; it is rather devoted to do the preparatory work which would enable such a comparison. Hierarchies of loss, change and innovation in LD will be posited in the same form and using the same concepts as the existing acquisition hierarchies; this would allow for automatic check for correlations between these hierarchies.

4.2 Possible explanations for attested behaviour of MM in LD I assume that despite the fact that LD looks like a heterogeneous disorder in which emergent phenomena abound, many processes attested in the material can be scaled down to a definite set of fundamental principles. The basic modus operandi I follow is to seek to explain as many attested phenomena as possible with as few distinct principles as possible (where a reasonable amount of idiosyncratic noise can be ignored). 39 Given that there is a negative correlation between the relative order of loss, change and innovation in LD and the order of acquisition, the next step will be to clarify with which sort of acquisition – first or second language acquisition – the correlation is stronger, before the underlying rationale for this correlation is stipulated. But even without empirical research verifying the regression hypothesis, the cognitive similarities and differences between LD and L1 acquisition have been an object of occasional discussion. Menn (1989: 340), for example, finds certain parallels between first language acquisition and language death: both, children acquiring their first language and semi‑speakers of a receding language rely on formulaic knowledge to a greater extent than full speakers of the respective language. Scepticism concerning the connection between language decay and L1 acquisition has been expressed by Schmidt (1985: 218‒222), who argued that children acquire their mother tongue and adults lose it in a fundamentally different way. The language of small children is mainly restricted by their cognitive development, whereas speakers of contracting languages encounter no parallel shrinking of their cognitive capacities when they “migrate” to another language for their purposes. Schmidt suggests that the mirror image of first language acquisition is aphasia, rather than language obsolescence.

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But what kind of explanations are we looking for? Consider we observe that the Imperative mood is more susceptible to loss, change and innovation than the Conditional/Subjunctive. As already noted in Chapter 1 and Section 4.1, case studies on LD tend to focus exclusively on the structural aspects of the phenomenon. As a consequence, such studies tend to explain specific phenomena occurring in LD in terms of structural-phenomenological factors, such as ‘markedness’, ‘frequency’ or ‘obligatoriness/optionality’. Morphological change for instance is affected, according to Andersen (1982: 97), by factors like frequency and markedness. Likewise, Dorian (1977: 26) considers ‘obligatoriness/optionality’ to be the decisive factor as to the relative propensity of the negative Imperative (prohibitive) to loss and change in LD. I will avoid explanations with reference to these factors for two reasons. The first is that it is debatable whether they are independent variables. The notion of ‘markedness’, at least in some of the senses in which it is employed in the literature, can be reduced to ‘frequency’ (Haspelmath 2006), and ‘obligatoriness/ optionality’ correlates with frequency in a trivial way; obligatory categories like tense occur more frequently than non-obligatory categories like reported evidentiality. The second, more important reason is that explaining changes occurring in LD with these factors often leads to circularity: the observed processes in LD invoke shifts in the formal markedness and frequency of linguistic structures and therefore formal markedness and frequency cannot be explanatory as to LD (the process explained cannot be part of the explanation). In contrast, I will assume that the observed phenomena can be explained by functional motivations which operate beyond language. Explanations of this kind are usually divided into ‘internal’ and ‘external’ (see e.g. Bowern & Evans 2015: 20‒22 for an overview). Internal explanations assume that language change is conditioned internally by the cognitive and physiological characteristics of individual speakers (e.g. by their capacity to conceptualize), whereas external accounts assume that language change is a social phenomenon instigated by intentional behaviour of members of speaker groups. An example of an internal cognitive explanation is the force-dynamics account proposed by Talmy (1988) and briefly introduced in Section 3.1.3, whereas external explanations, relegating language change to social interaction, prevail in language contact research (e.g. Myers-Scotton 1993; Matras 2009). Provided that cognition and pragmatics are in constant interaction, recent research favours accounts in terms of multiple causation (Narrog 2012: 68; Bowern & Evans 2015: 20‒22). Conceding that the integrated approach (including both interaction and cognition) is probably the most adequate one, in this study I will focus on internal motivations. There are two reasons for this choice.

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First, the languages studied are seldom used in everyday communication, even by full native speakers. Given this lack of use, I assume that the speech production of my consultants (when forced to speak the language) is governed by internal cognitive factors – such as the ease of retrieval of words and grammatical constructions, interplay of short- and long-term memory in the selection of elements from the linguistic repertoire, and the conceptual structure of utterances – rather than by social factors. In addition, the structural parameters held responsible for the phenomena occurring in LD are governed by internal factors. Frequency, markedness and obligatoriness/optionality can all be explained in terms of internal motivations of languages change, such as conceptual complexity, entrenchment and cognitive salience in the mind of speaker (see e.g. Schmid 2010 about the relationship between frequency and entrenchment40). As already noted in the last section, in this study I will attempt to explain discovered processes and phenomena in terms of complexity of conceptualization.

4.3 Linguistic evidence for the behaviour of MM and related concepts in LD The fact that there are no studies addressing the performance of MM in language death circumstances was repeatedly underlined. Nevertheless, many studies of indigenous languages undergoing LD provide evidence about markers and constructional templates encoding MM or other TAM notions. In Section 4.3.1, I will present examples from such studies, which suggest that expressions of different functional notions undergo changes at different times and/or with different speed in LD. The list of such examples is by no means exhaustive; it serves just to illustrate the kind of evidence from which one can generate hypotheses about the behaviour of MM in LD. In Section 4.3.2, I will discuss some probabilistic hierarchies from language contact research. The format of ‘probabilistic hierarchy’ provides a suitable lay-out for articulating generalizations about the relative propensity of MM-elements to loss and change in LD. Apart from this practical reason for relying on stipulation from contact linguistics, drawing on evidence from this field is inevitable, because works on language contact often do not discriminate between intense contact settings and LD. It will be pity not to 40 The notion of ‘entrenchment’ is understood here in its Cognitive Linguistics’ sense, and concerns the extent to which the activation of cognitive units and expressions associated with them from the memory is automated (Schmid 2010: 118‒119).

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utilize a large number of valuable typological generalizations only because of their ignorance as to the premise that LD is a unique environment.

4.3.1 Typological evidence for consecutive loss, change and innovation in LD Case studies on structural aspects of language obsolescence tend to provide more information about tense than about MM. In his longitudinal study on Arvanitika (an obsolescent variety of Albanian spoken in Central and Southern Greece), Sasse notes that the tense system of Arvanitika is usually reduced to the present and the Aorist, while the Perfect is retained only in certain prototypical contexts (like the experiential ‘I have been in Athens’) (Sasse 1992b: 71). Dimmendaal (1992: 124) observes that in Kore (an obsolescent language of the Maa [Eastern Nilotic] family in Africa) past tense forms have been generalized as the primary reference form of the verb; this, he claims, is a common phenomenon in contracting languages. As for the future tense, Schmidt (1985: 64) states that Traditional Dyirbal distinguishes between future and non-future tense affixes. The future tense affix is lost in Young People’s Dyirbal and its function is overtaken by the unmarked non-future form or by a separate time word. Regarding MM-systems, grammatical mood has been more often an object of interest than other expressions of modality. Sasse (1991: 228), for instance, observes that the tense system of Arvanitika is better preserved than the mood system. Considering different moods, he notes that in the contracted versions of Arvanitika and in other obsolescent languages the forms of the Imperative are usually best preserved and remembered, and even sometimes used instead of the Indicative forms (Sasse 1992b: 71, 75). This is not surprising, as in many languages (including Arvanitika) the 2SG Imperative is identical with the present tense stem which is the least marked form of the verb (Sasse 1991: 209‒210). While this is in agreement with the general drift of dying languages towards unmarked structures (recall Section 2.3), it is interesting that in the endangered dialects of Arvanitika, the most frequent verbs jám ‘be’ and kám ‘have’ have lost their Imperative forms. These missing Imperative forms are replaced by analytic Subjunctive forms (Sasse 1991: 229‒230), which in turn is consistent with the propensity of receding languages to develop analytic/isolational structures (also discussed in Section 2.3). In contrast to the Imperative, the Albanian Optative and Admirative moods are absent from the vanishing varieties of Arvanitika. The first of them is de facto moribund, as it occurs only in some idiomatic and frozen expressions (Sasse 1991: 149, 230‒231, 365); as for the latter, it is not even sure that it has existed as a grammatical category in this version of Albanian

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(Friedman 2010: 37‒38). The loss of the Optative and (the absence of) the Admirative in Arvanitika is consistent with the universal drift of dying languages toward categorical isomorphism with L2 and particularly with the phenomenon of negative borrowing (Sasse 1990: 42f; 1992a: 16). In the case of Arvanitika, the dominant language Greek does not have Optative and Admirative moods. What concerns other moods, in the German Sprachinsel of Formazza the Subjunctive I (which is a typical SAE type of subjunctive occurring in conditional clauses and qualifying the state of affairs as irrealis) is better maintained than Subjunctive II which expresses reported evidentiality (Dal Negro 2004: 216‒217). In general, markers of moods of the subjunctive/conditional type are taken over from the dominant language earlier than Imperatives. For example, Finno-Ugric varieties that have been exposed to heavy Russian influence tend to use the Russian Subjunctive marker by to build Conditional forms of original verbs; for examples from Mordvin, Mari and Karelian, see Juhász (1929: 298), Maitinskaya (1979: 37) and Õispuu (1984), respectively. Taking over imperative (incl. cohortative/jussive) morphology from the dominant language, on the other hand, is barely attested and thus seems to take place at a much later stage of LD. One of the few examples comes from some spoken varieties of Komi (Zyrian and Permyak), where speakers add the Russian marker of the second person plural Imperative -te either to the first or the second person plural Indicative or Imperative of the verb: e.g. Komi-Zyrian lokte̮ juam-te ‘come:IMP.2PL drink:IND.1PL- IMP.2PL ’ (Sidorov 1992: 110), Komi-Permyak bośte̮-t’e ‘take:IMP.2PL- IMP.2PL ’ (cf. Ru beri-te ‘buy-IMP.2PL) (see Lytkin 1962: 249 and Batalova 2002: 103).41 This relative stability of the Imperative concerns, however, only its positive forms. Cross-linguistic data suggests that the negative imperative (prohibitive) mood is much more vulnerable to change and loss than its affirmative counterpart. A case in point comes from the Australian language Warlpiri as discussed by Bavin (1989: 279). In traditional Warlpiri, negative Imperatives are formed by the negator wangu which follows the infinitive of the lexical verb. Young semi-speakers of Warlpiri have invented a new model of building negative Imperative forms, which consists of the English loanword nati ‘not’ and the affirmative form of the Imperative (see also Aikhenvald 2010: 386). Another example of a structural shift in the paradigm of the negative imperative triggered by language contraction comes from Young People’s Dyirbal. Schmidt (1985: 66, 78) reports that while the forms of the positive Imperative are preserved in Young People’s Dyirbal, the forms of the negative Imperative, which in Traditional Dyirbal are formed by negative particles and a special connegative inflectional affix attached to the verb stem, consist of a new negator invented by 41 These facts were brought to my attention by Rogier Blokland, to whom I am very thankful.

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the semi-speakers and either the unmarked (non-future) form of the verb or the positive Imperative form of the verb. In addition to the Australian examples, where semi-speakers tend to substitute the marked connegative for an unmarked verb form, Sasse (1991: 209‒210) provides a slightly different example of a novel negative Imperative formation. The inherited forms of the negative Imperative in Arvanitika consist of the negation marker mós and the affirmative form of the Imperative (e.g. háp ‘open.2SG . IMP ’ > mós háp ‘Don’t open!’). However, young speakers tend to use a construction which replicates the Greek pattern of negative Imperative, and which consists of the negator mós and the Indicative present tense form of the lexical verb. Finally, Dorian (1977: 26) notes that the inherited negative Imperative tends to get lost in the speech of younger semispeakers of East Sutherland Gaelic, and provides a functional explanation for this loss: the negative imperative is just a stylistic option among many others (cf. Don’t go!, You shouldn’t go and You don’t have to go.). Discussions of lexical modality markers in LD are often limited to instantiations of matter replication. Usually, such examples of borrowing or transfer concern modals expressing necessity. Granqvist (2013: 124, 131), for instance, reports a frequent use of the Finnish modal verbs of necessity (such as pitää ‘must’, täytyä ‘must’ and tarvita ‘need’) in contracted idiolects of Finnish Romani. This is in accord with what we know about borrowability of modals in healthy languages: necessity modals are more likely to be borrowed than possibility modals (Hansen & de Haan 2009: 547‒549; Hansen & Ansaldo 2016), although it is self-evident that LD will sooner or later evoke transfer of possibility modals. In the nearly moribund Arvanitika, for instance, the core modals, both of possibility and necessity, are borrowings from Greek; this includes mborés(əη) ‘can’ < μποζ-ώ (Konj. Aor. μποζ-έσ-ω) (Sasse 1991: 281) and préps(ən) ‘must’ < πζέπει (Konj. Aor. *πζέψ-ει) (Sasse 1991: 283).

4.3.2 Probabilistic hierarchies as a frame of reference The most economic display recapitulating the evidence for relative susceptibility of MM elements to loss, change and innovation is the ‘hierarchy’-format. A hierarchy states that the item to the left of greater-than sign ‘>’ tends to be affected by ‘loss, change or innovation’ earlier than the item to the right of it. The data from Arvanitika, Kore, Dyirbal, Formazza German, Komi, Mari, Mordvin, Karelian, Warlpiri, East Sutherland Gaelic and Finnish Romani presented above suggests the following hierarchies of susceptibility of MM to loss, change and innovation in LD.

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mood > tense future tense > non-future tense potential mood > imperative mood conditional/subjunctive mood > imperative mood negative imperative (prohibitive) mood > positive imperative mood reported evidentiality > subjunctive/conditional mood necessity > possibility These hierarchies are of course highly speculative, as they are not generated from a representative sample of languages. But they are not meant to be more than speculative: they only serve to illustrate how working hypotheses about the susceptibility of the MM domain to loss, change and innovation in LD can be excerpted from the random observations on what is lost and what is preserved in different languages at the moment of examination or within a certain time window. These hierarchies are probabilistic at best. The hierarchy postulates that the item to the left is likely, with greater than chance frequency (if the statement is based on a more or less representative sample), to experience loss, change or innovation earlier than the item to the right of it. The fact that an item is affected by loss, change or innovation does not automatically entail that the item to the left of it is also affected by either of these changes. Probabilistic and implicational hierarchies are a common format for submitting typological statements about the distribution of linguistic phenomena cross-linguistically. The closest equivalent of what the present investigation aims at, are the borrowing hierarchies (or ‘borrowing scales’), postulated in the study of language contact, and acquisition hierarchies in the study of language acquisition; fields of research which are much more advanced not only in negotiating such generalizations, but also trying to explain them. Borrowing scales predict the likelihood that an item is borrowed relative to the intensity of the contact. Consider the borrowing scales proposed by Matras (2009: 162), where x > y means ‘the domain x is more susceptible to borrowing than the domain y’. modality > aspect/aktionsart > future tense > (other tenses) obligation > necessity > possibility > ability > desire concessive, conditional, causal, purpose > other subordinators

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These hierarchies are determined by a complex variable, called by Matras “speaker’s secure knowledge and control, external force and semantic integration”. According to Matras, the objects at the left end of these hierarchies “may put the speaker’s assertive authority at risk”: for example, modality is associated with weaker control by the speaker upon the propositional facts, and obligation (in contrast to ability and desire) involves external force acting on the speaker. This may cause tension that interferes with the speaker’s control over the mechanism of “selection and inhibition” of linguistic structure, and eventually trigger code-switching and borrowing (Matras 2009: 162). Some examples of first language acquisition hierarchies, where x > y means ‘x is learned by children before y’, are presented below: possibility > necessity (Shepherd 1993; Stephany 1993: 136; 1995: 107) dynamic/deontic possibility > epistemic possibility (Shepherd 1993: 178; Smoczyńska 1993: 149; Stephany 1995: 106; Pérez-Leroux 1998: 591) imperative mood > conditional/subjunctive mood (Stephany 1993: 136; Smoczyńska 1993: 149; Menn 1989: 342; Lee 2009: 209‒210, 219) These orders of acquisition are often explained in terms of multiple causation (although cognitive development is often seen as crucial). Stephany (1993: 135), for instance, explains the acquisitional sequence ‘deontic modality > epistemic modality’ with the early developmental specifics of speech acts. The ontogenesis of deontic and epistemic modality goes back to the pre-linguistic stage in the development of requestive and indicative acts. While requestive or imperative acts represent instrumental behaviour, indicative acts are a precursor to the descriptive function of language. The fact that instrumental behaviour plays a more important role for young children than indicative acts (which usually aim at establishing joint attention) explains why deontic modality develops prior to epistemic modality. An attentive reader may have noticed that the “naïve” hierarchies of susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in LD presented above constitute a mirror image of these acquisition hierarchies. This seems to corroborate the de-acquisition hypothesis. However, let me emphasize again that neither the random speculations based on cross-linguistic evidence from LD, nor the borrowing and acquisition hierarchies presented above have been used as exploratory hypotheses in this study. The hypotheses about the behaviour of MM-systems in LD arise exclusively from the data from obsolescent Finnic. The hierarchies discussed in the present section serve only as an illustration of the format in which generalizations about LD in Finnic will be put forward.

5 The languages studied The previous chapters considered the object of the study – MM, and the circumstances in which this object will be investigated – LD. The actual population in which MM-systems will be studied, is neither all languages undergoing obsolescence, nor a principled sample of them (from which characteristics of the entire population can be inferred), but only four relatively closely related idioms belonging to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. In this chapter I will present the genetic affiliation and geographical distribution of these varieties, the size of their speech communities, their contacts with other languages, as well as the specific factors leading to their obsolescence.

5.1 Phylogenetic relationship and geographical location Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto belong to the Finnic (also BaltoFinnic or Baltic Finnic) subgroup of the Uralic language family. As can be seen from Figure 3, a complete description of the descendance from Uralic to Finnic contains at least three intermediate phylogenetic units: Finno-Ugric, FinnoPermic and Finno-Saamic. A fourth possible unit could be the supposed FinnoVolgaic branch, whose existence is nowadays generally rejected, as the nameless node immediately before the split into Finno-Saamic and Volgaic42 indicates. The Finnic branch comprises seven languages: Veps (also Vepsian), Karelian, Finnish, Ingrian (also Izhorian), Votic (also Vote or Votian), Estonian and Livonian (also Liv) (Laanest 1975: 11; Uibopuu 1984: 188‒200). Some classifications tend to catalogue as separate languages also Lude (or Ludic or Ludian) apart from Karelian (see e.g. Laakso 2001), Olonets (or Olonetsian) apart from Karelian (see Grünthal 2010: 19), and South Estonian apart from (North) Estonian (Viitso 1998; Grünthal 2007). Recent sociolinguistically inclined work would also include Kven and Meänkieli as separate varieties which due to geographical isolation and political reasons have been subjected to increasing emancipation from their cognate Finnish dialects, although they are still mutually fully intelligible with them (see Karjalainen et al. 2013: 47). In terms of branching, the tree diagram in Figure 3 is complete and shows the Uralic language family in its entirety: each node, including those connected by a broken line, represents an existing taxonomic unit (branch or individual 42 As the existence of the Volgaic branch is also highly questionable (e.g. Janhunen 2009: 65), this unit is presented in brackets. DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-005

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Figure 3: Ancestry of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto

language). However, only those branches relevant to the direct ancestry from Uralic to individual Finnic languages and their immediate sister branches are presented with their names; the other ones, connected by broken lines, are not. As can be seen, the tree “grows” beyond the level of idioms recognized as distinct languages, but it stops being comprehensive when it comes to dialects. Not only Karelian and Estonian, but also the rest of the Finnic languages have distinct dialects (and dialect groups) which in many cases are more diverse than those explicated on the diagram. It should be also noted that this tree diagram does not strictly reflect the historical diverging of linguistic varieties, but presents a present-day taxonomy which partly depends on the status of languages. For example, according to the purely historical taxonomy the direct descendants of (Late) Proto-Finnic would be Livonian, Southern Estonian, Northern Estonian, Votic, Western Finnish, Old Karelian, and Old Veps (Salminen 1998; Grünthal 2010: 21). The present languages (especially if conceptualized in terms of their

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dialects) do not straightforwardly derive from these proto-forms, but display a kind of split ancestry. The Finnish dialect area, for example, encloses descendents of Western Finnish and Old Karelian, and also Standard Finnish has features from both. While Ingrian and Votic are recognized as separate Finnic languages, Central Lude and Eastern Seto are classified as (sub-)dialects of Finnic languages (even if we admit that Lude and South Estonian are languages and not dialects). I would like to stress, however, that this disparity of political and academic status has no repercussions for the relative value of the different varieties for the study of their obsolescence. This implies that Eastern Seto is structurally and functionally such a full-fledged linguistic idiom as Ingrian, for example. Moreover, upon different political conditions, the ethno-linguistic vitality of this subdialect of Võru could have been higher, and it could have gained the status of a distinct language, just like Kven and Meänkieli in Norway and Sweden; in fact, recent trends in Russian minority policy support such promotion; cf. the recent census data presented in Table 1 on page 75, where the Setos are considered as an ethnic minority separate from Estonians. Map 1 on page 72 shows the areas in Northern Europe where Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto are spoken, while Maps 2‒4 on the same page illustrate the Sprachraum of each vernacular with some important settlements in it. Ingrian (spoken in historical Ingria), see Map 4, is genealogically very closely related to the southern dialects of what is now Karelian Proper (a major dialect of this language) and to the southeastern dialects of Finnish: for this reason Ingrian has been classified, especially by Finnish linguists, as a Karelian dialect (e.g. Porkka 1885; Nirvi 1971: V) and even as a Finnish dialect (see Kettunen 1930: 177‒ 209). Its precise classification today is problematic due to the secondary influence of Finnish, triggered by the immigration of Lutheran Finns from Karelian Isthmus and the region of Savo to Ingria in the 17th century (Kokko 2007: 14‒21), and due to the intense contacts with Votic, the indigenous language of Central and Western Ingria (Laanest 1964; 1980; 1986: 4‒6). Until 1960s Ingrian had four dialects: the Soikino dialect, the Lower Luga dialect, the Heva dialect and the Oredezh dialect (Laanest 1960), the last two of which are extinct, whereas the first two are both considered in this study. The Votic influence on Ingrian decreases as one moves eastwards: it is strongest in the Lower Luga dialect and is practically non-existent in the Heva and Oredezh dialects (Laanest 1986: 5‒6). Votic, spoken in Ingria around Ust’-Luga (see Map 4), belongs genealogically to the southern group of Finnic languages, its closest cognate being Estonian (in particular its Eastern and Northeastern Coastal dialects; Ariste 1962b; 1965; Alvre 2000; Viitso 2008: 64‒67; Kask 1984: 22). The traditional classification distin-

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guishes four dialects: Western Votic, Eastern Votic, Kurovitsy (or Kukkuzi) Votic and Krevin (or Krevinian) (see e.g. Ariste 1968: v). Krevin, the language of Votes, who were displaced in the 15th century as prisoners of war to what is now the southern part of central Latvia, became extinct already in the middle of the 19th century (Winkler 1997: 13‒24). Eastern Votic, spoken in the eastern part of Ingria around the town of Kopor’e, became extinct in 1970s (Ernits 2005), whereas the Kukkuzi dialect, which is restricted to a single village and has been characterized as a mixed Votic-Ingrian vernacular, has become extinct recently (cf. Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011a: 18; Heinsoo & Kuusk 2011)43. The last speakers of Votic speak the Lower Luga (or Krakol’e-Luzhitsy, Votic: Jõgõperä-Luuditsa) sub-dialect of a loose dialect group traditionally named “Western Votic”. Other, defunct sub-dialects of this group are the Kotly (Votic: Kattila) dialect, Lempolovo-Pumalitsi (Votic: LempolaPummala) dialect and Mattiya-Korvetino (Votic: Mati-Kõrvõttula) dialect (Ariste 1968: v; see also Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011a: 18‒19 and Markus & Rozhanskiy 2013 for more fine-grained sub-dialect distinctions and for alternative classification of Western Votic). Along with Northern and Southern Lude, Central Lude, see Map 2 below, is one of the three dialects of Lude – a Finnic variety which occupies intermediate position between Veps and Karelian. Until 1930s Lude was commonly treated as a dialect of Veps (Genetz 1872‒1873; Kujola 1932); in the time following, Finnish scholars have usually considered it to be a mixed dialect group between Veps and Karelian (see e.g. Turunen 1947; Kettunen 1960), while Soviet (and some Finnish) scholars have classified it as a dialect of Karelian (Laanest 1975: 20, 26–27; Virtaranta 1972; see also Pahomov 2011: 10). In the last decades, Lude has been increasingly regarded as a separate Finnic language (e.g. Laakso 2001: 182; Grünthal 2007). The three dialects of Lude44 are quite different from each other, which is partly due to their mutual isolation, partly to the fact that they have been in contact with different Karelian dialects during their history: while Southern Lude is most archaic and isolated, and by virtue of this, most similar to Veps, Northern Lude has been in contact with the southern dialect of Karelian Proper, whereas Central Lude has experienced a heavy influence from Olonets Karelian (especially its western constituents are being increasingly levelled out by Olonets) (see Pahomov 2011: 10; Kehayov et al. 2013). The Central Lude, 43 According to Markus and Rozhanskiy (2012), there were still a few speakers of Kukkuzi Votic in 2012. 44 In addition to these three dialects, there were two isolated language islands to the east of the principle Lude area: the Järventakuinen island and the Lohmoioja island; these vanished in the late 1940s (Turunen 1946: 3‒6; Turunen 1977).

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studied here, can be further divided into Vidany sub-dialect (which most clearly stands apart from the rest), Pryazha sub-dialect (which is a mixture of Olonets and Lude), and a sub-dialect covering Svyatozero and everything to the south of this village (Kehayov et al. 2013). As can be seen in Figure 3, Eastern Seto is a descendant of a long taxonomic chain. The traditional Estonian dialectology distinguishes three dialects of South Estonian (see Iva & Pajusalu 2004 about the status of ‘South Estonian’ as a language): Mulgi, Tartu and Võru (see Kask 1984: 23; Pajusalu 2003; Iva 2007: 21‒22 for an overview); the last of these includes Seto as its eastern dialect (Kask 1984: 26; Keem 1997). Some classifications include Seto as a distinct dialect on the same level with the three main dialects of South Estonian (see Pajusalu 2000). An extralinguistic impulse for setting Seto apart from Võru has been the cultural uniqueness of Seto people, who are Orthodox Christians, unlike the other speakers of the Võru dialect, who are Lutherans (Jääts 1998; Juhkason et al. 2012: 20‒21 for details). The Seto dialect group is divided further into western, northern and eastern sub-dialects (Pajusalu 2000). This study is concerned with Eastern Seto and more specifically with its easternmost vernaculars spoken north of Izborsk in the Pskov Oblast of the Russian Federation; see Map 3 below. Eastern Seto has been characterized on the one hand by the presence of several archaic South Estonian features, and, on the other, by heavy Russian influence (Juhkason et al. 2012). Maps 1‒4 present the contemporary speech areas of the four varieties studied. The designation ‘contemporary’ should not be taken literally: one could be certain that in 2010 all villages on the map had native speakers of the respective varieties. As of year 2017 some of them have certainly lost their last native speakers; it is highly probable, for instance, that Central Lude is no more spoken in Signavolok. At the same time, the maps differ in their comprehensiveness as to the villages (and other settlements) where the respective varieties are still spoken. While Map 2 presents all settlements in the original Central Lude area, where this dialect is (or was recently) spoken, Map 4 is all-inclusive with respect to Votic, and almost all-inclusive with respect to the settlements where Ingrian can be heard (see Kuznetsova, Markus & Muslimov 2015 for an extensive list of settlements with numbers of speakers), Map 3 presents only some easternmost settlements of the Eastern Seto dialect area which still have inhabitants speaking this dialect; these are the settlements in which I have carried out field work. All locations occurring in plain letters on the maps are villages within the speech area of the respective Finnic varieties; the places occurring in bold letters are either cities (such as Petrozavodsk), urban-type settlements (such as Ust’-Luga), or large villages (Izborsk and Novyĭ Izborsk) which occur on the fringe or outside of the indigenous speech area, but which have residents speaking the

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The languages studied

Map 1: Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto speech areas in Northeastern Europe (the arrows point to the other maps)

Map 2: Approximate speech area and contemporary settlements of speakers of Central Lude

Map 3: Approximate speech area and contemporary settlements of speakers of Eastern Seto

Map 4: Approximate speech area and contemporary settlements of speakers of Ingrian (brighter dotted line) and Votic (darker dotted line)

variety. Such fringe areas, in which the speakers of minor Finnic varieties can be considered to be migrants, who preserve, however, close ties with the adjacent autochthonous speech areas, are particularly important for a study on LD. In those cases where linguistic minorities are promoted with school lessons of (or in) their native variety, this is usually done in their indigenous territories. As a rule, this promotion does not concern schools in such fringe-area settlements, which is a valuable detail for a fieldworker looking for authentic material of spoken language that is “unspoiled” by the influence of literary standards

Size of speech communities

73

which do not coincide with the native dialect of consultants (see Section 5.3 for further discussion). I have collected material from all these urban settlements, with the exception of Petrozavodsk. From the present point of view, the varieties addressed in this study are all language islands. This means that they are surrounded from all directions by Russian-speaking populations and in case their speakers are exposed to influence from cognate idioms, it is Finnish or Estonian that exert such influence (through media and schools), rather than their closest taxonomical cognates.

5.2 Size of speech communities Table 1 on page 75 presents the size of the speech communities of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto at different points of time, as well as my subjective estimation of their endangerment levels as of 2014, according to the EGIDS scale. The EGIDS scale (Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale: Lewis & Simons 2010) is used as a measure of vitality status by Ethnologue (2017) and consists of 13 levels: the higher the number on the scale the higher the degree of disruption of the intergenerational transmission among speakers of the language. The levels are: 0 (International), 1 (National), 2 (Provincial), 3 (Wider Communication), 4 (Educational), 5 (Developing), 6a (Vigorous), 6b (Threatened), 7 (Shifting), 8a (Moribund), 8b (Nearly Extinct), 9 (Dormant), 10 (Extinct). The varieties studied here fall in the categories ‘Moribund’ and ‘Nearly Extinct’ which are defined as follows (Ethnologue 2017; http://www.ethnologue. com/about/language-status): – Moribund: “The only remaining active users of the language are members of the grandparent generation and older.” – Nearly Extinct: “The only remaining users of the language are members of the grandparent generation or older who have little opportunity to use the language.” The linguistic vitality evaluations for Ingrian and Votic in the last column of the table come from Ethnologue (2017); the evaluations for Central Lude and Eastern Seto, which are considered dialects and therefore not separately treated in Ethnologue, are mine. The reader should be warned that the figures in Table 1, although adequately representing the trend, should not be taken as an absolute truth. The numbers of speakers in the first three columns come from the USSR/Russian censuses from 1926, 1989 and 2010, while in the next column they are my evaluations based on personal counts and indirect evidence (such as communication

74

The languages studied

with other field linguists). Furthermore, the census figures stand for overlapping, but slightly different sets. The 1926 census did not include the native language of speakers; the figures in the table show only the ethnicity of the respondents. It could be assumed, however, that unlike in the later periods of the Soviet state, in this early period the set of people counted as Ingrians or Votes is similar to the set of people speaking Ingrian and Votic as a native language. The figures from 1989 and 2010 (which was the last census in the Russian Federation) show the number of native speakers of Ingrian and Votic. The estimation of the number of native speakers of Central Lude and Eastern Seto is more problematic as we do not have primary data from census at our disposal, because these varieties did not feature in the censuses as separate languages. Speakers of Central Lude belong to the sub-ethnic group of Ludes, which were counted as Karelians in Soviet census practices, and their language as Karelian, together with the speakers of Karelian Proper and Olonets Karelian, the other major varieties of this language. For instance, the entire Karelian population recorded in the 1926 census is 248,100 individuals, in the 1989 census 124,921 individuals, and in 2010 census 60,815 individuals (Karjalainen et al. 2013: 23). The approximate number of Central Lude speakers for 1926 is calculated by totalling the number of speakers of “Karelian” in the historical Central Lude area and subtracting a marginal of 10% potential Olonets Karelian speakers (see Kehayov et al. 2013: 62). Such computation for the following censuses is, however, too complicated. The estimation for 2014 is generated from a database of consultants and their social networks (acquaintances, relatives) in the villages in the indigenous area of this dialect (Kehayov et al. 2013: 64‒65). As already noted, Eastern Seto vernaculars are subdialects of the Seto dialect that are spoken in the Pskov Oblast of the Russian Federation. In 1926, the area where Eastern Seto was spoken belonged to Estonia, and the speakers of this autochthonous dialect were not counted as a separate group.45 The census from 1989 provided data for the number of Seto individuals, not the number of Seto speakers in Pskov Oblast, whereas the 2010 census provided data about the native language of the individuals who designated themselves as Seto. The rough estimate for 2014 is based on my personal database of potential consultants and on Juhkason et al. (2012). Note also that the figures from 1926, 1989 and 2010 censuses present the number of speakers in what is now the Russian Federation, whereas individual 45 Admittedly, considering variables like place of residence, place of birth and religious denomination, one would be probably able to determine the approximate number of Eastern Seto speakers in the area at that time, but such a count is too complicated.

Language contact and related phenomena

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speakers of all these varieties could be found also in contemporary Finland and/ or Estonia. Furthermore, the estimate for 2014 is based on an even more restricted territory: it captures the native speakers in the indigenous area where these Finnic varieties were spoken in the 20th century, but leaves out individual speakers living in bigger cities not far from these speech areas (such as Saint Petersburg, Petrozavodsk and Pskov). Despite this restriction, Ingrian and Eastern Seto seem to show an increase of the speech population from 2010 to 2014. This is clearly a mistake: the number of native speakers is drastically decreasing in the entire area studied, and the observed discrepancy is due to the fact that a field linguist has greater access to background knowledge than enumerators in census situations, who simply record answers to a single question; field linguists often discover latent (or “dormant”) native speakers who have not been recorded by the census. For further reading about the totals of native speakers and respective criticism about such figures see Pahomov (1995) and (2011) on Lude, Kurs (1994), Chush’yalova (2011), Rozhanskiy & Markus (2013b) on Ingrian, Kurs (1994), Ernits (1996), Heinsoo & Kuusk (2011) and Heinsoo (2012) on Votic, Hurt (1904), Jääts (1998) and Lõuna (2003) on Seto and Blokland and Hasselblatt (2003) for a general overview in the context of other Uralic languages; for data from the last census of the Russian Federation consult VPN. Table 1: Speech population and level of endangerment Number of speakers

Language / Variety

1926 census

1989 census

2010 census

2014 estimate

Linguistic vitality

Central Lude

2000 +

N/A

N/A

90‒100

nearly extinct

Ingrian

16 137

302

63

70‒80

nearly extinct

Votic

705

31

8

4

nearly extinct

Eastern Seto

N/A

950

103

150‒200

moribund

5.3 Language contact and related phenomena This section deals with two factors which directly affect the development of the varieties under concern: a) the language contact situation and b) the conscious linguistic intervention in the form of language planning and revitalization.

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5.3.1 Language contact proper The areas under scrutiny manifest complex patterns of multilingualism; Table 2 presents the common knowledge of other languages and dialects among the speakers of the four Finnic varieties. Table 2: Knowledge of other languages in order of decreasing probability L1

multilingualism patterns

Central Lude Ingrian Votic Eastern Seto

Russian‑Olonets‑Finnish Russian‑Finnish Russian‑Ingrian‑Finnish Russian‑Estonian

The designation ‘L1’ in the table is not unproblematic because the strongest language of most of the speakers of these varieties (with the possible exception of Eastern Seto) is not the language of their parents and grandparents, but Russian. In addition to this language, many, if not most of the speakers of these varieties have at least passive command of one or two cognate Finnic varieties. In those cases where we have another adjacent or co-territorial minor Finnic variety, we observe status hierarchies which correlate with the size of the speech communities and the chronological order of migration to the target area. Those ethnolinguistic groups which have inhabited the area earlier, tend a) to be outnumbered today by groups which arrived later in the target area and, b) to have mastery of the language of the latecomer groups rather than vice versa. In the western part of the Central Lude area, the Lude speakers tend to have command of Olonets Karelian, more so than Olonets Karelians of Central Lude. Asking Lude consultants to sing something in their vernacular, they often presented to my colleagues and me a song in Olonets or Finnish (Kehayov et al. 2013). In historical Ingria, the Votes, which can claim ultimate autochthony in the area, have adopted the language of Finnic groups who reached Ingria later: many reports of the sociolinguistic situation in the area have noted that Votes used to speak Ingrian and shift to this language, whereas the command of Votic among Ingrians has been traditionally poorer (see Markus & Rozhanskiy 2013 for an overview). These asymmetries have produced a twofold influence: an Ingrian superstrate in Votic and a Votic substrate in Ingrian, as well as an Olonets superstrate in Central Lude and a Central Lude substrate in Olonets Karelian. An extra-layer of Finnic superstrate is supplied in both areas by Finnish. The multiple contacts between the indigenous languages of Ingria with dialectal or standard Finnish have left superstrate traces of this language in Votic and

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Ingrian (e.g. Laanest 1966b: 18; Savijärvi 1996; 2001: 163‒165; 2003: 273‒281). Likewise, contact with Finnish (which was a mandatory language in Karelian schools until 1956; Kangaspuro 1998; Klement’ev & Kozhanov 2009; Karjalainen et al. 2013: 112) leaves noticeable superstrate traces in the speech of Central Lude and Olonets natives who went to school at the time.46 In Section 5.4, I will discuss the processes that led to contact between these varieties and Finnish in greater detail. It is worth mentioning at this point that especially in Western Ingria the convergence of Finnish, Ingrian and Votic has been so heavy that some scholars have felt encouraged to speak about a Sprachbund. Implying an adstrate interference, for example in the Lower Luga and Kurgola Peninsula area (see Alvre 1990; Kokko 2007: 33), is however problematic because of the apparent status hierarchies among these languages, and because applying the concept of a Sprachbund to closely related languages is questionable. Note also, that even vernaculars spoken in the area, which on first sight look like mixed varieties, allow themselves to be “de-composed” to strata of linguistic influence (see e.g. Markus & Rozhanskiy 2012 about Kukkuzi Votic as an extreme case of linguistic mixture).47 The situation in Eastern Seto is different. In terms of intensity, the influence of standard Estonian on this variety surpasses the influence of the cognate Finnic varieties on Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic. This is a consequence of the spread of Seto-Estonian bilingualism. Practically every speaker of Eastern Seto is able to switch between “registers” and communicate in Estonian, which is due to the fact that almost all Seto speakers have attended Estonian-language school in the area (see Juhkason et al. 2012: 14‒16). Together with my Estonian colleagues, I have collected information about the educational biographies of more than 40 Eastern Seto individuals and found only one who did not go to an Estonian-language school and therefore was not able to adapt her speech in communication with Estonians.

46 According to Takala (2009: 127) in 1932 99,6% of Karelian children studied Finnish in school. Klement’ev (2009: 156) present more precise data, according to which in 1933 84,3 % of all Karelian pupils aged 8‒9 were taught to read and write in Standard Finnish (Klement’ev 2009: 156). See also Klement’ev and Kozhanov (2009) for the dynamics of the education in Finnish after WWII. 47 Future research could estimate the levelling impact of the fact that unlike in the Olonets Isthmus and the area north of Lake Ladoga, the converging cognate languages of historical Ingria do not form classical dialect continuum, where structural distance is gradually accumulated as an icon of geographical distance. While Central Lude, Olonets and the southern dialects of Karelian Proper are points on a dialect continuum, for Ingrian Finnish dialects, Ingrian and Votic no such continuum can be postulated (see e.g. Viitso 1998; Laakso: 2001 on internal classification of Finnic).

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The languages studied

Finally, media consumption is an important factor generating passive multilingualism among the speakers of all Finnic varieties studied here. This concerns particularly the consumption of TV and radio programs. Many Setos living in the Pechorskiĭ District listen to Estonian radio programs and used to watch Estonian TV before its digitalization in 2010; watching Estonian TV is now reduced to those few people who can afford a Digibox (see Juhkason et al. 2012). In the Republic of Karelia TV and radio broadcast in Finnish and in other standardized versions of Karelian, but not in Lude (see Karjalainen et al. 2013: 38, 92). Unfortunately, there are no studies investigating whether and how this leads to levelling of Lude by Karelian Proper, Olonets and Finnish. The situation in Ingria is similar: until the Finnish analogical networks stopped broadcasting in 2007, watching Finnish TV-channels was popular among the Finnic population in the area.48 Occasional exposure of individuals and groups of individuals to other Finnic varieties (not itemized in Table 2) should be also acknowledged. Of special relevance here are three types of phenomena: a) watching TV or listening to radio broadcasting in a “wrong” standard: Ludes, for instance, occasionally watch TV programs in Karelian Proper; b) mismatched language instruction: there are cases, where a teacher trained in Karelian Proper is sent to the Lude area to teach Karelian to pupils (see Pahomov 2003 for a similar note); c) commuting (often on a seasonal scale) between the area of origin and another region with population speaking a Finnic language: examples include elderly speakers of Ingrian who visit or partly live with their relatives in Estonia (more elaborate discussion in Rozhanskiy & Markus 2013a) or Central Lude consultants spending each summer with their relatives in the central or northern part of the Republic of Karelia, where Karelian Proper is spoken. Such potential sources of linguistic interference have only a marginal impact on linguistic conventions on community level. 5.3.2 “Visible-hand” phenomena Language planning and revitalization49 are masterminded by conscious actors: institutions or individual language planners, who are often concerned with the 48 Many Ingrians and Votes went to school in Finland during World War II and thus became familiar with the standard version of Finnish already as children. 49 Language revitalization is, strictly speaking, a subcase of language planning. Typical revitalization programs contain elements of all major types of language planning: ‘status planning’, ‘corpus planning’ and ‘acquisition planning’. I will, however, distinguish between the two, and use the term ‘planning’ to describe past activities targeted at languages with intergenerational transmission and chances for survival, and ‘revitalization’ to describe efforts aiming at reversal of the factual obsolescence.

Language contact and related phenomena

79

propagation of “correct” lexical items and grammatical patterns. From a broader point of view language planning and revitalization are integral parts of nation building projects (e.g. Taylor-Leech 2008; Orman 2008) which involve ‘othering’50. A recurring practice in the construction of the ‘constitutive Other’ (distinct from one’s own ‘Self’), for instance, is the disentanglement of closely related linguistic varieties as a token of group emancipation. An example from the Balkans is the preference of the morphological infinitive as a clausal complement construction in Croatian, as opposed to the semi-infinitival da-construction with a finite complement verb, which is more frequent in Serbian (Dóra Vuk, p.c.). Another recurring practice triggered by the construal of the Other is the purification of the language from lexical and grammatical traces of foreign influence exerted by former high-status languages. A somewhat anecdotal example of this is the “one-man” struggle against certain grammatical features in Estonian, for example the verb-final word order in subordinate clauses. This word order pattern was considered to be manifestation of the German influence in this language; a campaign against this pattern was initiated and led exclusively by the Estonian language reformer Johannes Aavik (Ehala 1998). But ‘disentanglement’ and ‘purification’ are corpus planning practices which are usually implemented in the advanced stage of nation building process that has been more or less successful. All nation-building attempts among the minor Finnic communities living in Russia, on the other hand, are known to have failed. In the case of Finnic the nation building efforts of Soviet authorities were usually exhausted by the official recognition of certain variety as a distinct language (status planning) and the creation of a written standard (corpus planning). Especially in the time between 1928 and 1936, during the first wave of the so- called ‘indigenization’ (korenizatsiya), the official agenda of the Soviet government comprised cultivation of national intelligentsias through increasing the literacy among the members of ethnic minorities not only in Russian but also in their native tongue. This required a codification of the respective literary standard languages and an increase in their status (Silver 1974; Lallukka 1990: 67‒69; Slezkine 1994; Brubaker 1996: 29; Kuutma, Seljamaa & Västrik 2012). In this section, I will shortly present the history of such external intervention in the area studied. Karelian is the language with the longest history of standardization attempts among the minor Finnic languages.51 The first attempt took place in 1930 in the Kalinin (now Tver) Oblast of the Russian SSR, where a compact Karelian minority 50 See Zuckermann (2006) for analysis of linguistic phenomena in terms of ‘othering’. 51 For a short overview of pre‑20 century printing activity in Karelian, see Kovaleva & Rodionova (2011: 8‒13) and Karjalainen et al. (2013: 36).

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The languages studied

had been living since the 17th century: the teaching of this literary standard in schools was stopped, however, already in 1939. In the Karelian ASSR, Karelian was promoted to the status of an official language in 1936 (Zakharova 2009: 304)52, and attempts were made at creating a unified literary standard of the language on the basis of the southern dialects of Karelian Proper (which are rather close to the “migrant” dialects spoken in Tver Oblast). After the failure of this unification project, in 1939 another literary standard based on Olonets Karelian was developed.53 These status promotion and standardization attempts were followed by a deterioration of the linguistic rights of Karelians, which reflects a general turn in the Soviet nationality policy beginning from the end of the 1930s: while the promotion of Soviet ethnic nationalities (nacional’nost’i; see Brubaker 1996: 31) and their languages was seen as a strategic short-term move, in the long term the official doctrine foresaw the disappearance of nationality differences within the soviet supra-national identity54 (Lallukka 1990: 38‒42; Appleby 2010). This doctrine was abandoned only in the time of perestroika, which brought a kind of standardization pluralism that lasts to the present day. As a result, we have three literary traditions, based respectively on Karelian Proper, Olonets and Tver Karelian (the first two stronger than the third), whereas the attempts to promote Lude as a written language have not been successful (cf. Kovaleva & Rodionova 2011: 27‒30). The closest literary variety to Central Lude nowadays is Standard Olonets which is an intelligible idiom. After having visited all original Central Lude settlements, my impression is that the influence of Olonets literacy on native speakers of this Lude dialect is marginal. Ingrian replicates the developments observed for Karelian, but with a lower intensity and convolution as well as with lesser success. Soviet authorities treated Ingrian as a distinct language and since Ariste (1956) it increasingly gained sovereignty also in the academic discourse. In the beginning of the 1930s, a standard version of Ingrian was developed and in the period between 1932 and 1936 more than twenty books were published. In 1937 written Ingrian was abolished, books were destroyed and schoolteachers repressed (Dubrovina 1961; Kurs 1994: 109; Rozhanskiy & Markus 2013b). Despite some recent attempts to teach Ingrian (Chush’yalova 2011: 100), at present no form of “written Ingrian”

52 See Klement’ev (2009) and Takala (2009) for an overview of the earlier struggle‑for‑status between Finnish and Karelian in Karelian ASSR. 53 This standard was abandoned in 1940 after the establishment of the Karelo‑Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (Austin 1992; Anttikoski 2003; Kovaleva & Rodionova 2011: 13‒23; Klement’ev 2009). 54 See Brubaker (1996: 28) about the doctrine of supra‑national ‘Soviet People’.

Language contact and related phenomena

81

has an impact on the linguistic practices of its speakers; the closest related language some of the last speakers of Ingrian are able to read is Finnish. The only reaction to LD of the contemporary Ingrian community and related activists is what Fishman (1991: 91) called ‘folklorization’: focusing on activities – like concerts, theatrical performances, poetry readings – that are not concerned with intergenerational linguistic continuity but have symbolic value. Unlike Ingrian, Votic never saw an upgrade to literary standard.55 Already in 1930, this language was considered to be too marginal for independent agency in the process of indigenization (Kuutma, Seljamaa & Västrik 2012; Blokland & Hasselblatt 2003: 131). Instead, for a short period in the 1930s, Votic children were partly taught in Ingrian (Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011a: 14), and just like Ingrians, some Votes have been able to read Finnish. Along with typical folklorization phenomena, in the recent years there have been attempts at codification of Votic and even some publications in the newly developped alphabet (see Heinsoo 2013 for an overview). However, due to the lack of readers – recall the number of Votic speakers from Table 1 – these tend to function only as an instrument of self-construal and group-bonding for enthusiasts interested in Votic history, culture and language. Eastern Seto is exceptional compared to the other varieties, because the area where it is spoken belonged to Estonia during the interwar period. As a consequence, Seto people were not subjected to the indigenization which affected linguistic communities with similar size elsewhere in the Soviet Union. In the decades following WWII, Seto people living in the Pechorskiĭ District were considered Estonians and, as a rule, received primary and secondary education in Estonian. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Seto people, who live in the border area between Estonia and Russia, have earned a considerable increase in status for their language. In Estonia, Seto has the status of a ‘regional language’ and in the Russian Federation Seto people were officially recognized in 2010 as an ethnic minority (Juhkason et al. 2012). The result of this gain in status has been a general increase of visibility of the Seto community on both sides of the border. On the Estonian side, where the community is more numerous, the language and culture have profited more. After the codification of the Seto variety (see Iva 2007: 233‒240 for an overview), despite some orthographical controversies, schoolbooks, journals, songbooks, fiction and an anthology of Seto poetry have been published in Estonia. As a rule, these activities do not reach their potential consumers living on the other side of the border in Pechorskiĭ District. Based on a considerable number of interviews from 55 However, the strandartization of Votic is still on the agenda of language activists; Heinsoo, for example, recently published a Votic reader (Heinsoo 2015).

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The languages studied

the villages presented on Map 3, I dare to generalize that this young Seto literacy has no impact on the linguistic practices of the Setos living in the area under scrutiny. The preceding discussion can be recapitulated by the statement that external intervention in the form of standardization and revitalization has hardly had any impact on the language of contemporary Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto speakers. This is true regardless of how close a codified literary language is to the given variety: as a rule, members of the communities at hand do not consume written media and only marginally consume audio or visual media in emerging standardized idioms. Likewise, revitalization endeavours have not had any impact on Central Lude and Eastern Seto, and have had only marginal impact on Ingrian and Votic.56 The fact that much of the revitalization practice occurs in the new media only contributes to the miscommunication with the last native speakers, who, due to their age, barely use the Internet.

5.4 Extra-linguistic factors in LD In Section 2.1 I presented two classifications of LD. In Campbell and Muntzel’s (1989: 182‒185) classification, which hinges on speed and (dis)continuity of the process, the Finnic varieties instantiate the type of ‘gradual language death’, characterized by the presence of many ‘forgetters’ and semi-speakers. In Dixon’s classification (1997: 107‒111), which is based on the stimuli of language shift, all these varieties seem to exemplify ‘involuntary language switching’, a consequence of the considerable prestige imbalance between the languages. This notion of a lack of voluntariness should not be taken literally, though: despite the prestige and status imbalance on a macro-level (i.e. on community level), on a micro-level, speakers usually do not feel that the shift is in one way or another imposed on them, but usually rationalize it as a joint effect of various extra-linguistic circumstances. In the previous section, some such circumstances (e.g. media consumption, educational policies etc.) were touched upon; in the present section I will approach the extra-linguistic causes for LD in a more methodical fashion. Campbell (1994: 1963) provides a long list of factors leading to LD. Such factors include discrimination, repression, rapid population collapse, lack of 56 It can be observed that vernaculars promoted to the status of a “language” are more attractive for revitalization activists than dialects, although neither of these is superior in ecological terms: varieties with a higher status do not make a greater contribution to the linguistic diversity of the world. This compromising fact simply shows that the revitalization enterprise is not steered by the ecological concern of saving linguistic diversity.

Extra-linguistic factors in LD

83

economic opportunities, on-going industrialization, rapid economic transformation, work patterns, migrant labour, communication with outside regions, resettlement, dispersion, migration, literacy, compulsory education, official language policies, military service, marriage patterns, acculturation, cultural destruction, war, slavery, famine, epidemics, religious proselytizing, resource depletion and forced changes in subsistence patterns, lack of social cohesion, lack of physical proximity among speakers, stigmatization, low prestige of the dying variety, absence of institutions that establish norms (schools, academics, texts), particular historical events, etc. Random lists like this raise more problems than they provide solutions. Apart from the fact that some of these factors (like ‘literacy’) are true variables, whereas others (like ‘war’) are descriptions of states, the whole list is post factum generated, based on random observations from different instantiations of linguistic obsolescence. No attention is paid to the typological recurrence, compatibility and clustering of factors. As a result they lack predictive power. More discerning accounts of the interplay between extra-linguistic factors in LD are conducted within the so-called ethnolinguistic vitality theory (see Yagmur & Ehala 2011 for an overview). Here vitality is usually reduced to demographic, status, and institutional factors. This framework aims at developing exact measures for assessment of vitality (e.g. Ehala 2010). Nonetheless, the question to what extent LD can be predicted from a uniform set of variables has not received a satisfactory answer.57 Finally, in an even more rigid fashion, some accounts organize the extralinguistic phenomena accompanying LD in binary sets of abstract variables which are based either on the type of impulse or on the type of reaction to an impulse on the part of the speech community. One taxonomy, concerned with the impulse, assumes a distinction between ‘macro-variables’, referring to general situations external to the speech community, and ‘micro-variables’, referring to specific conditions of the speech community. An example of the first is general economic conditions in national economies and governmental institutions affecting the life of minority speech communities; an example of the latter is intra-communal economic relations, institutions and social practices of the natives that affect their everyday life (Wolfram 2007: 3). An example of a reaction-based dichotomy is Andersen’s distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ communities and ‘endocentric’ and ‘exocentric’ ones (Andersen 1988: 74‒75). The former refers to the magnitude of contact with the outside world, whereas 57 Although the European Language Vitality Barometer (EuLaViBar) as developed by the ELDIA project (http://www.eldia-project.org) is a considerable step forward.

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The languages studied

the latter distinction refers to the relative focus on the community’s internal norms versus external pressure. The following discussion of causes of LD in minor Finnic does not aim at a theoretical contribution to the issue. It is only meant to be a description of the extra-linguistic setting of vanishing speech communities, with focus on the aspects that have pertinence to the process of linguistic obsolescence. Hence, the discussion will not be based on such abstract and strictly complementary (ad hoc) sets of variables, but rather on domains of social experience, traditionally believed to have an effect on linguistic vitality. In particular, I will distinguish between demographic, political, economic, and cultural factors contributing to the decay of the four varieties studied, with the necessary caveat that all these are in one or another way interrelated. Ideology, for example, often connects politics with culture, migration is caused by certain political or economic conditions, but also has demographic consequences, while endogamy/exogamy practices relate culture with demography.

5.4.1 Political factors Adverse political conditions have been operative in the process of extinction of minor Finnic languages in the Republic of Karelia, Ingria, and the Pechorskiĭ District of the Pskov Oblast. While in the first two cases a major variable is the Soviet policy toward solving the so-called nationality question, in the case of Eastern Seto the triggers of obsolescence should be equally sought after in the pre- and post-Soviet realities. Historical Karelia was unique in the Soviet context: together with neighbouring Lapland to the north, it was the only area where the Soviet Union had a land border with a western capitalist country. Moreover, unlike Russian Lapland, Karelia received a status of a high-rank national republic. Its special position at the margins of the Soviet order turned it into a locus of experimentation, especially in the realm of language policy. The name of the national unit enclosing historical Karelia changed several times: from Karelian Labour Commune in 1920, to Autonomous Karelian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1923, to Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936, to Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic in 1940 and back to Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1956. In the beginning of the Soviet period, this change in rank between first and second order nationality-based units (SSR and ASSR) was accompanied (although at different pulsation) by a change in size.58 Thus, between 1922 and 1955, the 58 Changes in size have been a much rarer practice in the Soviet management of national units (Schwarz 1990: 142).

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Republic experienced several corrections of its boundaries, which mostly led to territorial expansion (see Takala 2009: 112‒113 about the first waves of expansion), but also to shrinkage59. The causal relation between the above facts and the linguistic vitality of the indigenous Finnic varieties spoken in Karelia can be explicated as follows. All territorial expansions led to a decrease of the proportion of speakers of Karelian varieties in the titular republic, which had long-term consequences for their status. But the changes in rank, name and size of the Karelian national unit could be also seen as deeper, twisted reflections of the relations between the Soviet Union and Finland. Fluctuations in the nationality policies had consequences for choices made in education, administration, media and official celebration, which all influenced the relative spread of multilingualism among the indigenous linguistic communities of Karelia. Due to space concerns, this will be illustrated with education alone. In the first decades of the Soviet rule, the Finnish communist elite (mostly consisting of expatriates from Finland) had an upper hand in the governance of the Republic and moulded the matters of state according to the strategic aim of eventual integration of Finland into the Soviet Union. This led to the “import” of the Finnish language in the spheres of education, administration and culture (Zakharova 2009). With the exception of a short period in the late 1930s, Karelian children received primary education in Finnish. The first high period of finnizaciya (‘Finnicisation’) was the period 1931‒1933, where nearly 100% of Karelian school children were instructed in Finnish (Klement’ev 2009: 155‒156). The second wave of ‘Finnicisation’ took place in the period 1941‒1944, during Finland’s occupation of Karelia, while the third peak of the Finnish school education was reached in the early 1950s (see Klement’ev & Kozhanov 2009: 338‒339). From the mid-1950s Finnish started to lose ground in primary education and in the school year 1958/1959 instruction in Finnish in Karelian schools was abolished (see Klement’ev & Kozhanov 2009: 340). The sum-and-substance of these facts is that until 1958 most of the children speaking Central Lude at home received (to varying extents) education in Finnish. As a result, many of my consultants have not retained the structural coherence of their mother tongue (as documented by the earlier generations; e.g. by Genetz 1872‒1873; Georgievskiĭ 1908; LK) but use Finnish words and grammatical constructions in their everyday speech. Unlike the Karelians, Ingrians and Votes did not have the opportunity to be titular groups in a national administrative unit. The major determinants of the 59 This was the case with the Kandalaksha District which in 1938 was adjoined to the Murmansk Oblast.

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relative linguistic vitality in Ingria are not centrally regulated language policies60, but demographic developments, mostly related to deportation and migration, which will be discussed below. What concerns Eastern Seto, until 1940 natives of this South Estonian variety were seen as ethnic Estonians by the Estonian authorities and thus were not subjected to differentiated linguistic policy. During the Soviet period (between 1940 and 1991), native speakers of Eastern Seto were regarded as minority of a titular nation of the Soviet Union (the Estonians), between 1991 and 2010 as Estonian minority in the Russian Federation, and only after 2010 as a part of the separate ethnic group of Seto people. The main reasons for the obsolescence of Eastern Seto and the ultimate assimilation of Seto people are, in order of importance, the seclusion from their siblings in Estonia by the state border (which since 2004 has been also a border of EU and NATO), the ensuing migration to Estonia (to be discussed in the subsection on demography below) and the delayed status recognition and institutionalization.

5.4.2 Economic factors The role of economic factors in language shift has been repeatedly acknowledged in the literature (see e.g. Thomson 1990 on Scottish Gaelic). In the case at hand, the reasons for the vanishing of the indigenous linguistic communities in Karelia and Ingria should be sought exclusively in the Soviet period. The Soviet Union was notorious for its clumsiness and incompetence in the spheres of economic and environmental management (e.g. Young 1992: 92; Armstrong 1992: 38). Throughout the history of this multinational state, the national question has always been intertwined with economic issues, like regional development and specialization, as well as with concrete praxis of investment, subsidy and distribution (Ericson 1992: 240). The question to be raised in this connection is in which direction the causality was stronger. Studies within the tradition of the western Sovietology tend to give priority to economic matters: Ericson (1992) for instance, claims that the economic structure had a stronger impact on the “national question” than vice versa. On the other hand, scholars in Finland and especially in Estonia, trapped in what could be seen as ‘methodological nationalism’61 (especially in its naturalizing variant; see Wimmer & Glick Schiller 60 Except from the short time period in which Ingrians and many Votes learned Ingrian in school. 61 The notion of ‘methodological nationalism’ designates the assumption that nations, states and nation states are natural (social and political) kinds (Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002).

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2002), have tended to assume pre-eminence of ethnic considerations over economic incentive.62 The tides in the Soviet nationality policy, where different indigenization waves alternated with periods of consolidation around the idea of socialist supranationality, were matched by oscillation in economic life. The time of the New Economic Policy (the first decade of the Soviet rule) was a period of genuine economic decentralization that was annulated by its reverse, Stalin’s Great Socialist Offensive of collectivization and the First Five Year Plan, which revoked all ethnic and regional considerations for the sake of centrally planned industrialization. The wave of decentralization was reproduced by Khrushchev’s economic policies, though with somewhat lower intensity. Regardless of the current conjuncture, industrial and infrastructure investment generally flowed into less developed regions, but this generated uneven development within those regions: colossal projects launched without local consultation and approval resulted in the uprooting of indigenous ethnic groups and ways of life (Ericson 1992). The forced economic turn in the high Stalinist period (1935‒1953), which envisaged industrialization of the workers and proletarization of the peasantry, had severe consequences for the indigenous Finnic population in Karelia and Ingria, while the Seto area, which was part of independent Estonia between 1935 and 1940, remained somewhat less affected. The following figures about Karelia suffice to illustrate the scale and speed of industrialization. In the period 1923‒1929 the share of industry in the gross national product of Karelia grew from 7% to 62%. In the agriculture sector, the degree of collectivization was 15% in 1930, which was four times below the average Union level, while towards the end of Stalin’s era collectivization was practically completed (Takala 2009: 117, 120). As already hinted at, the Soviet industrialization and collectivization campaigns had direct consequences on the perception of homeland by the native Ludes and Ingrians. Administrative centres of collective and state farms and industrial sites were not founded in the existing villages, but a few kilometres 62 Consider the border corrections of the national‑territorial units. Sovietologists do not explain such corrections in terms of competition between ethnic groups, but as expressions of centrally governed policy of optimizing national units in alignment with two conflicting criteria: ethnic concentration (aiming at achieving a maximal percentage of the titular group from the total population of the autonomous unit) and ethnic containment (aiming at a maximal incorporation of the ethnic population union‑wide to the titular republic) (Schwarz 1990: 130). On the other hand, the border adjustments of the Karelian (A)SSR have been explained by some Estonian scholars by the deliberate plan of the authorities to increase the proportion of Russian population in the republic at the cost of the Finnic speaking population (see Kurs & Taagepera 1998: 108).

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away, and the autochthonous population was forced to move to these new settlements, where the common Soviet mentality prevailed over inborn identities. In the course of the industrialization of the Central Lude area, for instance, the original village of Vidany, a kind of a polyfocal settlement, with five adjacent nucleated villages, became part of Chalna–Petrozavodsk–Shuya industrial region, where one of the largest forestry centres in the republic – the ShuyaVidany lespromhoz – was situated. Its administrative centre Chalna was built and inhabited by Finnish and other (im)migrants63, while Vidany is reduced today to a single village which fulfils an auxiliary function in relation to Chalna. This pattern recurs all around the area. The foundation of Vazhinskaya Pristan’ on the southern shore of Svyatozero lake had a devastating effect on Simanishto, an original Lude village nearby. The establishment of the forestry settlement Verkhnie Vazhiny had the same impact on Kashkany, the southernmost Central Lude village, which was abandoned by its inhabitants already in 1970s. The urban-type settlement of Pryazha (a centre of municipal district) swallowed up the conglomeration of Teru, Soava and Keski villages. In Ingria the raise of the town of Sosnovyĭ Bor as an industrial centre in the 1960s‒1970s (which culminated with the installation of a nuclear power plant) led to depopulation of the Ingrian villages along Kovasha River and eventually led to the death of the Heva Ingrian dialect.64 Living just a few kilometres from the places where their ancestors have been living for centuries, and accepting the rule of the migrant communities, often stemming from distant regions in Southern Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central Asia, these people grew estranged from their native community. These processes gave rise to another type of “inner emigration”, the spiritual dimensions of which could be compared to the infamous seclusion of the Russian intelligentsia from the social life. To understand this mechanism of uprooting, one should also appreciate the fact that the Soviet system replaced the traditional typology of settlement, captured by the dichotomy ‘village vs. town/(city)’, with a more complex system consisting of several intermediate types: urban settlements, urban-type settlements, worker settlements, dacha settlements and larger rural-type settlements. Many Ingrian, Votic and Lude people were relegated to an existence in this intermediate zone, where they were uprooted from their native cultural and linguistic

63 Finnish immigrants, especially American Finns, were instrumental in the establishment of several localities in the indigenous Central Lude area; e.g. Matrosy, Vilga and Interposelok (see Takala 2009: 125). 64 The growth of Ust’‑Luga, especially in connection with the construction and the development of the Ust’‑Luga portside area, has had a similar impact on the Votic and Ingrian settlement in Lower Luga area.

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scenery, but at the same time had only limited access to the artefacts of modernity available in the cities. The proximity of larger cities like Petrozavodsk, Saint Petersburg and Pskov to the Central Lude, Ingrian-Votic and Eastern Seto linguistic areas respectively, only contributed to this uprooting; the inflow of dachniki (‘holiday visitors in the country’) from these cities causes considerable seasonal variation of the number of population in these areas, which in turn brings about economic transformation. Of major relevance for indigenous communities in Ingria and Karelia were the changes in the livelihood of their members and the development of transportation. While river logging was the main source of livelihood among the Ludes before 1960, it receded with the development of transport infrastructure. Centuries-old waterways, mainly along the rivers Shuya and Vazhenka, connected the Central Ludes with their Northern and Southern Lude siblings. For example, the female consultants AM and AR (born in Kashkany) remembered the log driving from Kashkany to Metšuońiemi, the northernmost Southern Lude village. Although these villages are separated by a 30-km-wide unpopulated forest belt, the contacts established at splavnoi (log driving) were kept and enhanced by mutual visits on important religious festivities, weddings etc. The development of land transport had severe consequences for the consistency of the linguistic areas: asphalt and railroads replaced those rivers along which the area was once populated and which had served for centuries as transport arteries keeping the community together. The new transport routes connect linguistically non-contiguous areas and in this way disrupt century-old mental maps and weaken the coherence of the community. All these three geographical areas are crossed by major roads of international or federal importance: the Central Lude area is cut through in the direction west-to-east by the Helsinki– Lappeenranta–Petrozavodsk road, in the direction south-to-north by the Saint Petersburg–Petrozavodsk–Murmansk road and by the Joensuu–Petrozavodsk railway; Ingria is transversed by the Tallinn–Narva–Saint Petersburg road, and the Eastern Seto area by the road and railway connecting Estonia (Tartu) and Pskov. These transportation arteries tend to cleave rather than unite the autochthonous linguistic communities. For instance, the Ludes in Pryazha area and the Ludes in Vidany have lost contact with each other (despite the distance of only about 30 km), because the modern road between the villages passes through Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia. Although the time necessary to reach one of these settlements from the other has decreased, the social gravity of the capital (with its 270 000 Russian-speaking inhabitants) is weakening the ancient connection between their residents. In the Eastern Seto area, the natives living south from the rail track connecting Pskov with Estonia do not know much about those living north of it; for example, the autochthonous inhabitants of

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Rakovo, Tryntovo and Sokolovo could not tell us whether Seto is still spoken in Lezgi, a village which is less than 5 km away but on the other side of the rail track. These two examples show that the mental maps of the natives have zoomed out, now covering a larger area, but at the same time places crucial for community’s coherence are disappearing from them. The resulting insularity leads to dialect (and even idiolect) divergence and triggers ‘last speaker syndrome’, where consultants are convinced that there are no more speakers of the language in the next village, because no-one could have survived what they have gone through.

5.4.3 Demographic factors The most important demographic factor contributing to the linguistic obsolescence in the areas concerned is migration; the other major variables influencing population change – fertility and mortality – are, by and large, dependent on migration. In the following discussion, I adopt a broad understanding of migration, comprising voluntary (mainly labour) migration, forced migration (expulsion) and evacuation which, depending on the circumstances, can be either voluntary or forced. The instrumentality of migration for political expansion, contraction and reconfiguration in the Soviet Union is a longue durée phenomenon, a legacy of the preceding imperial era (Brubaker 1996: 148). While in the period before the 1950s the main demographic cause for language obsolescence in the northwestern corner of the Soviet Union were evacuation and expulsion (internal deportation), in the following period labor migration is of greatest importance (whose voluntariness in the Soviet circumstances is, of course, conditional). In Soviet Karelia and Ingria the landmarks of the history of population movement in the first period are a) migration of Finns to and from the target areas, b) expulsion and voluntary migration of the indigenous population to Finland and Estonia during the Finnish, respectively German occupation of these areas in World War II, c) concurrent evacuation of people (by Soviet authorities) to Central Russia, and d) post-war deportations. In contrast to Central Ludes, Ingrians and Votes, the Seto people were spared from those processes which took place before or during the war, because until 1940 the area south of Lake Pskov belonged to independent Estonia. The witnesses of the period 1918‒1935 saw three major migration waves of Finns to Soviet Karelia; this includes a) political refugees from Finland (the so called Red Finns), who began to arrive in 1918, b) emigrants, who started arriving from Finland, for different (including economic) reasons, from 1930 on, and c) left-wing American and Canadian Finns, whose emigration to Soviet Karelia

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begun in the late 1920s, but culminated in 1930s (in the period 1931‒1934 more than six thousand North American Finns moved to Soviet Karelia; Takala 2009: 107‒111). A fourth wave followed the war: from the end of 1940s until April 1950 the Republic accommodated more than 21 000 Finnish newcomers from Ingria (Zakharova 2009: 300). These migration waves contributed to the increase of the Finnish element in Soviet Karelia; an increase which cannot be measured in terms of sheer numbers alone, as most of the migrants of the first three waves were intellectuals or highly qualified workers (see Takala 2009: 109 for details), who acquired influential and better-than-average paid positions in the administration, education and production sector.65 The migrants found themselves subject to a new classification scheme in the destination area (see Young 1992: 73), which was often a source for tensions, especially between the North American Finns and the local population (Takala 2009: 139). The Central Lude area was in the vanguard of industrialization of Karelia, and therefore was affected by the influx of Finns more than other parts of the Republic. During World War II, most of the territory of Soviet Karelia was occupied by Finland, whereas Ingria was occupied by German troops on their way towards Saint Petersburg. In Karelia, the Soviet authorities evacuated a considerable part of the population, but due to the rapid advance of the Finnish army and some mistakes made in the organization of the evacuation, about eighty-six thousand people were left in the occupied area. The evacuation route led to east and southeast: many residents of Svyatozero and Pryazha were sent to Arhangelsk Oblast, those from Vidany were sent to Bashkiria or Komi ASSR, while inhabitants of Kashkany were sent to Kirov Oblast. The conditions were severe: the evacuated (including children, who could not visit school) were subjected to hard physical work, and hunger and starvation were common (see Kehayov et al. 2013). On the other hand, those who remained under Finnish rule were often subjected to obligatory labour service, the severity of which was decided on ethnic principle. Individuals of Finnic origin were often sent to Finland to be trained for different purposes or to work on farms, and at the end of the so-called Continuation War in 1944 many Central Lude natives joined the retreating Finnish troops and never came back to Karelia. The course of the events in Ingria was similar. In 1943, following a treaty between Finland and Germany, most Ingrians and Votes were sent to Finland to 65 It is known for instance that North American emigrants financially supported the technological renewal of the industrial and agricultural sectors in the Republic (Takala 2009: 125). With regard to education, Klement’ev and Kozhanov (2009: 338‒339) observe a direct correlation between the inflow of Ingrian Finns and the growth of school education in Finnish in the post‑war period.

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work on farms as cheap labour force. In 1944 most of them had to return to the Soviet Union, as a consequence of another treaty, this time between Finland and the Soviet Union (see Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011a: 15‒16; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2013: 55‒56). War-time hardship was followed by post-war deportations. These deportations were targeted predominantly (but not exclusively) against the Finnic population which had remained in the occupied territories under the administration of the Axis Powers, or had spent time in Finland during the war. Labelled as “enemies of the people” many individuals of Finnic origin were deported to diverse parts of the Russian SSR. Worst hit were the Votes and Ingrians, who were directly sent to Central Russia after their arrival from Finland without being allowed to see their villages. For most of them the legal opportunity to return home came as late as in 1953, after the death of Stalin (Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011a: 15‒16; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2013: 56). All these events had consequences for the reproduction of trans-generational knowledge in the indigenous minor Finnic communities. Those who went or were sent to Finland (temporarily or forever) and those who were deported to Inner Russia were cut off from their linguistic environment. A striking manifestation of discontinuity is the ‘missing-generation’ phenomenon. One of my fieldwork observations is that due to the wartime famine it is nearly impossible to find consultants born between 1935 and 1942; young children were particularly liable to die of starvation in evacuation conditions. This led to disconnection of generational cohorts and subsequent interruption of the community’s linguistic and cultural memory. After the death of Stalin, seemingly voluntary labour migration became more important as a factor influencing the vitality of the small Finnic languages of Russia. Despite conceding more pluralism in the cultural sphere, Khrushchëv’s time intensified Russification of the national regions by sending Russian specialists and mature cadre there (Ericson 1992: 245). Brezhnev’s administration followed suit by encouraging inter-region migration by means of investment and subsidization. A concrete manifestation of this policy was the introduction of differential income scales depending on the region (Ericson 1992: 249). The rapid industrialization of Karelia and Ingria created a work force deficit, which induced massive campaigns for recruitment of workers from South and Central Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (see e.g. Zakharova 2009: 299‒300 about Karelia). Reverse in direction, but concordant in impact has been the migration of Ludes, Votes, Ingrians and Setos to social and economic hubs like Petrozavodsk, Saint Petersburg, Pskov or Tallinn. While the effect of such union-scale migration has been the Russification of the Finnic heartlands in Russia, small-scale migration between adjacent areas

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has had a more insidious influence on the languages concerned; such migration often connects linguistically related areas and results in dialect levelling. In the southern part of Karelia, the populous Olonets regions which were less industrialized than the Central Lude region, have constantly fed the urban-type settlements of Pryazha and Vidany-Chalna region with workers and public officials, causing the levelling of Central Lude dialect by Olonets. A similar effect can be observed in the Pechorskiĭ District, where in the 1920s and 1930s the inflow of Estonians with Lutheran background, who speak dialects very close to Seto, has caused a subtle dialect levelling westward. The Seto case must be highlighted, as this is the only area where the era after the demise of the Soviet Union has been crucial for the obsolescence of the language. Eastern Seto was a vital idiom until the 1980s, when even the middle generation (30‒40 year old) was speaking the language. The demise of the Soviet Union, though, brought massive emigration to Estonia, thereby proving to be the breaking point, beyond which LD could not be reversed anymore.

5.4.4 Cultural factors As culture is hardly a tangible domain of human activity, I restrict myself here only to a couple of remarks without aiming at comprehensiveness. The topics I will touch upon are the marrying practices in terms endogamy/exogamy, the role of traditional religion in the communities, and the new syncretistic movements assuming values of cultural and linguistic demarcation (‘othering’). In Karelia and Ingria ethnic endogamy as an instrument of group bonding and self-segregation was lost latest by the time of the major deportations, but probably already in the interwar period. Markus and Rozhanskiy (2011a: 13‒14; 2013) report on endogamy based on religion in Ingria, where marriages between Orthodox Ingrians, Votes and Russians were common, but not those with Lutheran Ingrian Finns. The Eastern Seto area is the only one which shows traces of ethnic endogamy in modern times: in 2012 an 80-year old consultant in Sokolovo described the practice of endogamy in her youth, where marrying a Russian was not seen with approval within the Seto community in her village. According to Vahur Aabrams (p.c.), extensive ethnic endogamy among the eastern Setos could be observed at least until the 1950s.66 A similar discrepancy can be observed with regard to traditional religiosity, both in terms of activity and belief. Here the alienation from traditional forms of 66 See also Paas (1928) about the marrying practices in relation to endogamy/exogamy among Setos in the 1920s.

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Christianity grows from south to north and roughly correlates with the degree of industrialization and urbanization. The tendency is best detectable by observing external characteristics like the number and density of churches in the area67 or the frequency of occurrence of the so called “sanctum corners” in the homes of consultants. While in the Eastern Seto area the demolishing of churches has not been as common as in the other areas and many, if not most, of the Seto homes have holy corners, in Ingria fewer churches survived through the Soviet rule and holy corners are rarer. In the Central Lude area, even the churches of the largest Lude settlements Pryazha, Vidany and Svyatozero were destroyed in Soviet times and I did not see any holy corners in people’s homes. There is no research on the correlation between the preservation of the language and the traditional theism (vs. atheism) in the minor Finnic communities, but it could be speculated that in the areas like the Central Lude the correlation is insignificant. The consultants VS and MS, for instance, were pronounced communists, who had enjoyed All-Union life (e.g. with frequent visits to Moscow) as party secretary and director of the local sovkhoz, respectively, but, nevertheless, were just as good language guides as individuals with more domestic and traditional biographies (see Kehayov et al. 2013). Finally, the current urge for linguistic revitalization goes hand in hand with efforts toward cultural revitalization, which include designing new bases for cultural nationalism. This involves a constant construal of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ and a constant re-invention of the culture within the community, which is a prerequisite of its persistence. Syncretistic movements usually play an important role in the formation of new sources of nationalism and in the ensuing competition of interpretations of history. An example is the ethnofuturistic movement, one of whose aims is to promote the uniqueness of the minor Finnic cultures by translating their traditional folklore – often by referring to preChristian practices – into contemporary art discourse, thus making it more attractive for the target audience. Ethnofuturism (originating in Estonia) can be seen as a support structure of those Finno-Estonian historical narratives which attempt to reduce the influence of the Russian-Orthodox cultural legacy and the influence of contemporary Russian popular culture on the minor Finnic groups in Russia. Unlike among the elites of the larger Finno-Ugric nations of Russia (e.g. the Udmurts), syncretistic movements have little to no impact on the four Finnic people studied here.

67 The existence of a church has an impact on the social need for visiting it.

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5.4.5 Résumé of the extra-linguistic circumstances The extra-linguistic phenomena with an impact on the linguistic vitality of Central Lude, Votic and Ingrian are very similar, both in terms of nature and chronology. The southern part of Karelia and Ingria are characterized by relatively high levels of industrialization and urbanization, low population density, high levels of forced and voluntary immigration in Soviet times, low significance of religion (both in terms of activity and belief), early loss of ethnic endogamy, and continuity of the extra-linguistic setting from the Soviet to the post-Soviet period. Conversely, the Eastern Seto area stands out with its relatively low levels of industrialization and urbanization, high population density, low levels of forced and voluntary immigration in the Soviet time, high significance of religion, late loss of ethnic endogamy, and discontinuity of the extra-linguistic setting from the Soviet to the post-Soviet period. This discontinuity was triggered by the emergence of the state border between Russia and Estonia.

6 Methods of inquiry This chapter describes the methods used for elicitation of linguistic data from the studied varieties (Section 6.1), the conducted fieldwork and the data collected (Section 6.2), the organization of these data into workable corpora (Section 6.3), the procedures of retrieval of hypotheses about the relative susceptibility of linguistic elements to loss, change and innovation in LD from the corpora, and the formal structure of such hypotheses, the criteria for assessing the relevance and strength of hypotheses, and the respective verification procedures applied (Section 6.4).

6.1 Data elicitation The elicitation methods used in this study of MM are production rather than comprehension oriented. This section presents the elicitation tasks with which language guides were confronted, together with their advantages and disadvantages compared to other possible methods. I have used three data elicitation formats which differ in terms of degree of control on behalf of the elicitor and in terms of “naturalness” of the linguistic output; cf. Table 3. Table 3: Elicitation formats according to degree of control and naturalness elicitation format

controlled

natural

translation questionnaires spontaneous narratives and conversation stories to‑be‑retold

+ – +/–

– + +/–

Combining disparate types of elicitation in the study of the same phenomena is what social scientists call triangulation (convergence of measurements as a validation tool). The first elicitation format concerns situations where consultants are presented with sentences to be translated from Russian. Among the elicitation modes presented in the table, this is the most pointed one, because it allows the elicitor to address specific MM meanings and, to a lesser extent, formal structures. This degree of pointedness is, however, achieved at the price of naturalness. As both languages are active in the process of translation (Riionheimo 2013a: 23), there is a danger that the consultant is translating word for word, replicating structures from the source language, instead of using the most conventional construction occurring in the given context in the target language (see also DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-006

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Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 364, 377‒378). Translation questionnaires – combined with some additional methods – are, however, the basic elicitation format I have used in the acquisition of facts about the behaviour of MM in the four vanishing Finnic varieties. The following considerations should serve to defend this choice. Many influential works on LD use sentences for translation as a principal method of elicitation (e.g. Dorian 1977: 25; 1978: 592; Schmidt 1985: 8; Polinsky 1995; see also Dal Negro 2004: 106‒107 for an overview of other studies using this method). There are certain reasons why translation questionnaires are a suitable elicitation tool exactly in LD situation. Unlike in large monolingual communities, in vanishing communities that are characterized by extensive multilingualism, translation is a common everyday practice. According to Dal Negro (2004: 107) “translating is considered by some scholars as a common communication mood [my emphasis] in minority speech communities”. This means that translating from the dominant language of the area to the native variety is not only a familiar task but also routine to speakers of dying languages. I have tried to minimize the risk of parrot translations from Russian by making certain tactical choices in relation to the language of communication and by implementing checking procedures. During the interview I speak with consultants in their language, which in reality means that I speak to consultants a mixture of their variety and something which looks like an eastern Finnish or south-eastern Estonian dialect – the closest varieties to the target languages in which I can imitate fluency. I also consciously insert some Russian loanwords to my utterances in order to frame the expression as everyday informal speech. Thus, I am having free conversation with consultants in their language and switch to Russian only during the scheduled translation task. This is motivated by my intention to compensate the disadvantages of the translation questionnaires. Being approached by a foreigner, who is to some extent proficient in their language, makes consultants more alert with regard to possible interference from Russian. As a result, they sometimes consciously search for a translation equivalent which is not isomorphic with the Russian source. The two reasons for choosing Russian as a source language in the questionnaires are that Finnish or Estonian, as close cognates, would have produced much more interference and levelling in the output, and, as already noted, translation to and from Russian is a common domestic practice among the speakers of minor Finnic languages. The verification procedures include checking the same feature several times in different (non-consecutive) translation sentences, containing different semantic and grammatical contexts, at different time, place and with different speakers of the same variety. The questionnaires contain 308 sentences and although the number of responses to each source sentence varies, the number of comparable

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translations of sentences checking the same feature usually allows discerning translation interference from more conventionalized expressions. This, in conjunction with the fact that all languages under concern are well documented and described and the consultants’ output can be compared with earlier evidence about the morphosyntactic structure, makes a strong argument for relying on translation questionnaires. Another checking-procedure I used was repetition: after receiving a translation from a consultant, I waited some time (during which other issues could be discussed), and then repeated her translation asking if she thought it was correct, and whether the meaning intended could be formulated in another way. When two or more consultants attended the interview, I also asked consultants to mutually check each other’s output and discuss it. By applying these checking procedures, I have amended the translation questionnaire method with elements from other methods of controlled elicitation.68 The request for mutual audit, for example, could be considered to be a form of covert elicitation, where the fieldworker is indirectly provoking disagreement between the participants, who are not aware what s/he is actually looking for (Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 279‒280). Other methods of controlled elicitation I have occasionally used include syntagmatic elicitation (where an element is added to the sentence and the consultant is asked to provide feedback; Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 372), transformational elicitation (where the consultant is asked to execute a grammatical transformation in the sentence she has produced69; Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 373), corrective elicitation (where the consultant is deliberately confronted with an incorrect form and asked to react to it; Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 373), and meta elicitation (where the analysis is provided by the consultant herself 70; Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 381). Another reason for using translation questionnaires is that other major elicitation formats turned out to be inapplicable. Due to the age of the consultants (involving visual impairment, poor hearing, and other manifestations of ageing), the lack of constant speaking practice in their variety and the total absence of reading practice in a literary version of their variety (in case such exists), I have discarded some common elicitation modes. This includes felicitousness judgments of sentences in the target language, especially judgments in the form of rating tasks: due to the lack of practice and due to ageing phenomena, the responses of consultants to such tasks are not reliable (see e.g. Vaux & Cooper 68 The following list of methods is based on Chelliah and de Reuse (2011); method labels vary in other sources (cf. Bowern 2007). 69 For example, to change an affirmative sentence to a negative. 70 A typical example of meta elicitation are cases where the consultant is asked about the semantic difference between two constructions.

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2003: 115‒116; Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 375‒366 about the application of these tasks). I have also refrained from using non-linguistic stimulus-driven elicitation (Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 368‒370), such as pictorial elicitation: photographs, video-clips or drawings. This is partly because of the advanced age of the consultants (causing problems like bad eyesight), and partly because the MM domain does not allow easy visualization (i.e. modality is not visible).71 Likewise, with some marginal exceptions to be discussed below, I have refrained from tasks requiring reading, such as the paradigmatic substitution elicitation (where the fieldworker writes a sentence on paper, deletes a constituent from the sentence, and asks for another constituent that can replace it; Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 371‒372; see also Vaux & Cooper 2003: 105‒106, 108). Due the age of the consultants, it is also difficult to excite them by language games or role plays which would produce more natural speech. Even if one succeeds to initiate a game, the experiment is not rewarding with elderly consultants; this method is more effective with children. Finally, the major flaw of translation questionnaires – the fact that they contain sentences out of context – is counteracted by using sentences that together form a coherent story. As we will see in Section 6.2, two of the five questionnaires are actually stories which were presented to the consultants and translated by them sentence-by-sentence. In case the consultants were not visually impaired to the degree that they could not read, they were given the story to read through before the translation task was commenced. I assumed that previous acquaintance with the plot influences the performance in the translation exercise. The second elicitation format applied in the present study – ‘spontaneous narratives and conversation’ – concerns non-controlled elicitation in a communicative event, which, as a rule, evokes nearly natural speech: so-called naturalistic data (Chelliah & de Reuse 2011: 8).72 Because of the lack of control by the fieldworker the probability that modal meanings or structures of interest will crop up in the speech of the consultant is relatively low. In those cases where the communicative event takes the form of a dialogue between the fieldworker and the consultant, the elicitation can be said to be quasi-controlled. Many MM-structures are so rare, however, that a corpus compiled of data from uncontrolled or quasi-controlled elicitation has to be enormous in order to allow generalization over populations. This mode of elicitation is applicable only in the investigation of frequently occurring phenomena (for further discussion of 71 Some notable exceptions, where modality is handled by means of pictorial elicitation include Totem Field Storyboards (totemfieldstoryboards.org) and Nuyts & Vonk (1999). 72 This is what anthropologists call participant observation (see also Dixon 2007).

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the disadvantages of participant observation, see Riionheimo 2013: 22). Appendix II in the end of this book presents a sample of data elicited with this method. The third elicitation mode present in Table 3 is intermediate in relation the criteria of pointedness (control) and naturalness. Here consultants are presented with a story which is designed to invoke the usage of certain modal notions in their language, and then are asked to retell the story in their own words. Due to the age of the consultants, and ensuing memory problems (information storage and retrieval) and short attention span, this exercise was not very fruitful. In most of the cases, I had to simplify the task by asking the consultants to translate the sentences one by one; a procedure which has already been described above. Data produced by this elicitation format is presented in Appendix I.

6.2 Accumulation of data This study is based on recordings of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto native speech, collected during fieldwork in the respective areas between 2007 and 2013.73 Table 4 presents some details about the individual fieldtrips. As can be seen, I did not take part in all fieldtrips in which elicitation for this study had been carried out. In case I could not participate, I distributed the questionnaires to my colleagues of the University of Tartu, who gave me the recordings after the end of their fieldtrip (for which I am grateful). Table 4: Overview of the fieldtrips year

language(s)

interviewer

2007 2007 2009 2010 2010 2011 2011 2012 2012 2013 2013

Ingrian Votic Ingrian Eastern Seto Ingrian Central Lude Votic Central Lude Votic Eastern Seto Ingrian, Votic

Natalia Kuznetsova (and colleagues) Heinike Heinsoo Petar Kehayov Petar Kehayov (and colleagues) Eva Saar Petar Kehayov Heinike Heinsoo Petar Kehayov (and colleagues) Elena Markus Petar Kehayov (and colleagues) Petar Kehayov

As already noted, I used altogether five questionnaires, the last two in the form of plotted narratives, addressing different structural aspects of MM. Table 5 on page 102 gives some information about the different questionnaires, labelled respectively 73 All fieldtrips took place in summer.

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Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 and Q5. The numbers in the labels of questionnaires reflect the relative order in which they have been composed through the years; lessons from elicitation with earlier questionnaires have been implemented in the composition of subsequent questionnaires. The first questionnaire addressed lexical expressions of modality (mostly modal verbs and adverbs) and the second expression of grammatical mood and sentence mood. The third questionnaire addressed inter-sentential modality in general, and complementizer and mood selection in complement clauses (finite or non-finite), according to the type of complementtaking predicate, in particular; the role of complementizers in the expression of modality will be introduced with some Finnic examples in Section 8.1.1, but see Frajzyngier (1995) and Kehayov & Boye (2016), for a general discussion.74 The two plotted narratives (Q4 and Q5) combine all these domains. Thus, while the first three questionnaires were restricted to language-specific expression formats in the minor Finnic languages and Russian (as a donor language), the two plotted stories were designed to subsume as much as possible of the available structure and in this sense to be independent of structure. It must be clearly stated that this is not a longitudinal study. First, a time window of seven years is too short a period to trace linguistic change on individual or community level even in a rapidly vanishing language. Moreover, several fieldtrips to the speakers of the same variety does not imply recurrence of consultants; relatively few speakers have been subjected to controlled elicitation on more than one fieldtrip. In relation to semantics, the questionnaires cover together all MM meanings discussed in Chapter 3 and in this sense are comprehensive (for a comparison with another questionnaire on modality, see e.g. Vander Klok 2012). As already noted above, all MM meanings were cross-checked in different lexical and grammatical contexts within the same questionnaire and/or across questionnaires. Most of the fieldtrips included elicitation from at least two questionnaires with the general tendency that earlier questionnaires were applied in earlier fieldtrips and succeeding questionnaires in more recent fieldtrips. What could be stated with certainty is that all meanings and expression formats (lexical, grammatical and inter-clausal) were checked for all languages. Achieving such coverage was one of the intentions behind compiling the mixed-domain questionnaires Q4 and Q5.

74 Results of the study of complementation marker functions in some Finnic languages (not all identical with the present ones) elicited with the help Q3 are reported in Kehayov (2016).

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Table 5: Overview of the questionnaires Questionnaires

Expression format

N sentences

N words

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 (plotted) Q5 (plotted)

Lexical (verbs, adverbs, particles etc.) Grammatical (mood and clause type) MM across sentences: complementation marking Combined Combined

60 46 101 91 37

421 287 610 904 359

Σ = 335

Σ = 2518

One may wonder what the use of knowing the number of words in each questionnaire (presented in the rightmost column of Table 5) is. This number is presented in order to give an idea about the bulk of context in which the expressions of MM are embedded. While in the non-plotted questionnaires (Q1, Q2 and Q3) every sentence contained an expression of MM, for obvious reasons the plotted questionnaires contained some declarative sentences without overt MM expressions: it is not possible to construct a coherent plot, where every sentence contains a lexical modal, is in non-declarative/non-indicative mood or contains a complement clause. As a result, the two plotted questionnaires contained 27 plot-linking sentences which are unmarked in relation to MM (Appendix I demonstrates data elicited with Q5). Subtracting these sentences from the total of the sentences in the questionnaires we arrive at 308 source sentences with overt expression of MM occurring in a contextual body of 2518 words. This body constitutes the totality in which MM expressions are elicited from the target languages. As should have become clear, however, not all data collected comes from questionnaire elicitation. The fieldtrips resulted in more than 100 hours of recordings, most of which contain naturalistic data, and some of which are from consultants who were not subjected to controlled elicitation. In order to keep the population consistent with regards to individual speakers I have included in the corpus only naturalistic data from consultants from whom I also have controlled elicitation data. This way the raw audio-material, from which the corpus was selected, was reduced to about 46 hours of recordings from 3875 consultants. The hours of recorded time and the number of consultants in the four varieties studied are presented in Table 6.

75 There is one consultant from which I have only a hand‑filled questionnaire; he is included in the count of the consultants in the table.

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Table 6: Number of consultants and hours recorded Variety

N consultants

Hours recorded

Central Lude Ingrian Votic Eastern Seto

8 16 5 9

11.39 21.72 2.38 10.43

6.3 Assembly of the corpus The corpus selected from the collected data was organised in two sub-corpora, one consisting of data elicited from questionnaires (C1) and one of naturalistic data (C2). C1 comprises 1824 transcriptions of translations of the 308 source sentences containing overt expression of MM. The number of translations divided by the number of source sentences equals 5.92 translations per source sentence. This value was multiplied by the already mentioned measure of checking the same MM value (e.g. affirmative third person deontic modality) with several source sentences. As a result, in most of the cases I achieved populations of occurrences of the same MM values, which are large enough to test distributions of their formal characteristics for statistical significance. The range of contexts in which the same MM values occur was expanded by the data included in C2. This subcorpus comprises 202 transcriptions of sentences containing an overt expression of an MM value and attested during non-controlled interaction with the consultants. The extension of the corpus with naturalistic data increased both the type and the token frequency of the units of analysis: as a result the hypotheses about the behaviour of MM in LD are retrieved from a statistical universe of 2026 tokens and 510 types (308 sentences for translation and 202 utterances from a natural or quasi-natural speech). As can be surmised from the figures in Table 6, the four Finnic varieties are not evenly represented in this population: Ingrian exceeds the other varieties both in terms of tokens and types, while Votic is represented with the least number of tokens and types. As a result, many units of analysis did not reach sufficient type and token frequencies to warrant statistical hypothesis testing in all languages, though most of them achieved sufficient frequency for conducting such tests in at least one language. C1 and C2 were created as separate Excel tables, where each sentence was annotated in relation to a number of descriptive metadata variables. The translated sentences in C1 were defined with respect to the following meta-data.

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Number of the utterance, as produced by the consultant (ordinal values from 1 to 1824) Number of the source sentence (ordinal values from 1 to 308) Questionnaire (ordinal values from Q1 to Q5) Variety (nominal values: Central Lude, Soikino Ingrian, Lower Luga Ingrian, Votic, Eastern Seto76) Consultant (nominal values: abbreviations consisting of the first letters of the names of consultants; such capitalized abbreviations consist of the initials of the first and the family name, and sometimes are extended with the initial of the father name)

In C2, which consist of data collected in uncontrolled elicitation, the sentences were encoded only in relation to a ‘number of the utterance’, ‘variety’ and ‘consultant’. A possible, but highly problematic variable would have been the fluency of the speakers. It has been a recurrent practice in studies of language death to classify speakers according to the degree of command of their language. Clearly, the receding use of the language as a tool of communication is accompanied by respective shrinkage of the competence of its speakers, if not on individual level, at least between speakers of different generations. As a consequence, the last speakers of an obsolescent language – whether they are five, twenty or hundred – cannot all be full speakers of the language, but are likely to represent different degrees of fluency in speech production or comprehension. Most of the work on LD conceives of fluency as a continuum (“fluency” or “proficiency continuum”; see e.g. Dorian 1986) with gradual transition between different conditions. Despite the gradualness, it is also a common practice to assume discrete categories of speakers according to their fluency. Some of the most detailed classifications of speaker types according to fluency are put forward by Dorian (1977), Dressler (1981: 6‒7) and Campbell & Muntzel (1989). All of these, presented in Table 7, are primarily based on speech production; the degree of fluency in the respective scales decreases from left to right.

76 Ingrian is the only variety for which division of dialectal values was necessary. The sub‑ dialectal differences between the speakers of the other varieties are such that is suffices to be aware of them, but granting them separate values would have been superfluous.

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Table 7: Types of speakers on fluency continuum Dorian 1977

older fluent speakers > younger fluent speakers > semi‑speakers

Dressler 1981

healthy speakers > weaker speakers > preterminal speakers > better terminal speakers > worse terminal speakers

Campbell & Muntzel 1989

strong or nearly competent speakers > imperfect (or semi‑) speakers > weak semi‑speakers > rememberers

It is not difficult to guess that some of the labels in the table used by different authors have the same denotatum. Let me present some salient types of speakers, the existence of which is broadly accepted in the literature. The category of fluent speakers – roughly corresponding to healthy and competent speakers in the classification of Dressler and Campbell and Muntzel – seems to be self-evident. This notwithstanding, this category is sometimes broken into subcategories, for example on generational principle, as done in the classification of Dorian above. Young fluent speakers have native command of the language, but show slight deviations from the norms of older fluent speakers; whether and to what extent such deviations differ from trans-generational language change in healthy languages is a matter of discussion. More interesting are the so-called semi-speakers (or incomplete learners, Polinsky 1995). This type concerns speakers who have been exposed to insufficient linguistic input in their childhood; as a result, their command of the language is “imperfect to a pathological degree” (Sasse 1992b: 61; see also Knowles-Berry 1987: 332). In Trudgill’s account (2011: 35) semi-speakers have passed the critical threshold for language acquisition without, however, achieving full acquisition of the language of their parents. This is highlighted in Campbell and Muntzel’s (1989) qualification ‘imperfect speakers’ in Table 7. Based on the usage range of the language, semi-speakers are usually distinguished from the so-called passive bilinguals. Despite the deficient acquisition, semi-speakers continue to use the language (at least in certain domains), whereas passive bilinguals are usually unable to produce coherent speech and their linguistic competence is restricted to comprehension. According to Knowles-Berry (1987: 332), for instance, in Chontal Mayan passive bilinguals encounter difficulties in constructing coherent sentences, although they have no problems understanding the language. A recurring category, which does not feature in the scales in Table 7, are the so-called forgetters or rusty speakers, who, according to Sasse (1992a: 23), have received sufficient input in the acquisition period, and have once been fluent speakers, but “whose interaction opportunities have been limited for a long time and who have to invest a great deal of energy in retrieving words and putting sentences together” (see also Sasse 1992b: 61‒62).

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Polinsky subsumes the types ‘forgetters’ and ‘incomplete learners (semispeakers)’ under the label terminal speakers (cf. Dressler’s scale in Table 7), arguing that the differences between these types concern only comprehension (acceptability judgments) and not production (performance). Acceptability judgments of semi-speakers tend to be generally worse and more skewed than judgments of forgetters (Polinsky 1995: 95, 118). At the same time, Sasse argues that ‘forgetter/rusty speaker’, on the one hand, and ‘semi-speaker’, on the other, are not only different conditions, but represent nodes on different scales (continua). While rusty speakers are produced during the process of loss of linguistic skills occurring in adult age (the so called ‘later loss hypothesis’), semi-speakers are produced through incomplete acquisition of the language by adolescents (Sasse 1992b: 63). Riionheimo (2013: 15‒16) relegates this discrepancy to the perspectivation bias mentioned in Chapter 2: the distinction between individual and community perspective. While the notions ‘semi-speakers’ and ‘terminal speakers’ refer to LD focusing on the collective decay, the notion of ‘rusty speakers’ concerns language attrition with a focus on individual decay. The last type of speakers often distinguished in the literature is the so-called rememberers, who know only few words or isolated phrases in the moribund language (Campbell & Munzel 1989; Sasse 1992b: 62). This category represents a stage on the cline of extinction in which the language is practically defunct. Finally, an obsolescent language may be “blessed” with an afterlife in the form of substrate; sometimes to the extent that structure of the language can be reconstructed based exclusively on substrate information77. Figure 4 is a somewhat simplistic representation of the typology discussed above. The types ‘(nearly) fluent speakers’, ‘forgetters’ and ‘rememberers’ are salient in my material; the type ‘semi-speakers’ seems to be less represented, with major candidates individuals born in mixed marriages, where one of the parents is Russian. The output of such consultants does not show significant deviation from the output of ‘forgetters’ (i.e. from the output of individuals who once have been fluent speakers). Considering the fact that the elicitation tasks were production- rather than comprehension-oriented, this seems to corroborate Polinsky’s claim that the difference between forgetters and semi-speakers is not encoded in the performance. In this study, I have chosen to ignore the degree of fluency as a variable in the analysis of data. Even though ‘semi-speakers’ or ‘forgetters’ can be said to constitute observable real-life sets, it is very difficult to operationalize them 77 Tkachenko (1985), for instance, used such information (toponymy and traces in local Russian dialects) to reconstruct phonological, lexical and grammatical features of the Merya language which died out before the 16th century and which is assumed to have been a member of the Volgaic group of Finno‑Ugric.

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Figure 4: Layers of speakers as imaginary stops passed by the language on the way towards extinction

as discrete values of a categorical variable ‘layer of fluency’. Instead, I will compare the linguistic output of my respondents, regardless of their relative production fluency, with the respective language or dialect in its ‘traditional’ form. The traditional form of a language or dialect (TF) is defined as the variety documented by older sources, published (or containing material gathered) before 1985. Although none of the respective varieties was a healthy language with full-fledged intergenerational transmission thirty years ago, all of them had a sufficient number of fluent speakers using their L1 in everyday communication (e.g. between neighbours). Besides, at the time field linguists were mostly concerned with comparative-dialectological, etymological and phonological questions. Steered by the desire to document the language in its “pure” and “original” form (as determined by its autogenesis), they preferred to work with the most fluent speakers. As a result, the material documenting until 1985 reflects the usage of the most fluent speakers at each time. The expressions of MM-meanings attested in C2 and C2 are checked against respective data from the following types of sources which together make up the traditional form of the language: dictionaries: e.g. LmS for Central Lude, Nirvi (1971) for Ingrian, VKS, VKKMS and Tsvetkov (1995) for Votic, and EMS for Eastern Seto; grammar descriptions: e.g. Laanest (1986) for Ingrian, Ahlqvist (1856), Tsvetkov (2008 [1922]), Ariste (1968) and Heinsoo (2010) for Votic, and Toomsalu (1995: 9‒41) for Seto; in the case of Central Lude and Eastern Seto, which lack comprehensive grammatical descriptions, the relevant information is often extracted from studies of specific features (or collections of grammatical forms) of these varieties or from studies with broader scope (e.g. on several Finnic languages) which contain relevant information about them; e.g. Grünthal (1941), Barantsev (1956), Saukkonen (1965; 1966), Virtaranta (1986), Larjavaara (1986), Zaikov (1987; 2000) about Central Lude, and Paide (1969), Pille (1981) and Toomsalu (1991) for Eastern Seto; text collections: e.g. Genetz (1872‒1873), Georgievskiĭ (1908), Makarov (1971), Barantsev (1978), LK, Virtaranta (1994), LF

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(33‒37) for Central Lude; Porkka (1885), Ariste (1960), Laanest (1966a), Virtaranta (1967: 137‒169), Virtaranta & Suhonen (1978: 53‒57) for Ingrian; Kettunen & Posti (1932), Ariste (1933; 1941; 1962a; 1974; 1977; 1982), Mägiste (1959), Virtaranta (1967: 171‒182) for Votic; Hurt (1905), Keem & Käsi (2002) for Eastern Seto; studies addressing specific aspects of MM in these variaties (in those rare cases where such exist): e.g. Rapola (1925), Szabó (1964; 1982), Heinsoo (1984; 1990), Kuusk (2001), Agranat (2004), Markus (2004), Rozhanskiy (2009) for Votic, Mägiste (1940) Kuus (1950) for Seto, and Mägiste (1933), Leskinen (1966) and Forsberg (2000) for the Finnic languages in general, including material from some of the varieties treated here. In putting the pieces of the traditional form together, I have not hesitated to also use newer accounts of the morphosyntax of the varieties under concern, especially if these discuss MM structures in relation to earlier evidence (e.g. Agranat 2007; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b). Finally, I rely on the standardized translations of Q4 and Q5 to the conventional version of Seto spoken and written in Estonia. These translations were kindly provided to me by Andreas Kalkun (a native speaker of this variety). This version of Seto is much better sustained, and therefore can be tentatively equated with the TF of Eastern Seto. The ‘traditional form’ is not an objective entity, but an abstraction based on earlier conditions of the language as documented in the respective sources. In case of a knowledge gap, truths about corresponding structures in closely related varieties are transposed to the varieties under scrutiny. This means that if none of the above sources gives us a clue as to certain linguistic expression in TF, this expression is considered to be similar to an expression attested in a closely related variety. For instance, although we do not know much about the functions of the Conditional mood of Lude, we can assume that it has similar functions to those of the Conditional moods of Karelian and Veps. The basic method applied in the analysis of the data involves comparison of the MM systems featuring in the elicited data with the MM systems documented in the traditional form. Any systematic difference between these systems is assumed to be a sign of a trend leading to a hypothesis about the behaviour of MM in LD.

6.4 Retrieval, selection and verification of hypotheses 6.4.1 How are hypotheses generated? Hypotheses relevant to the research question of the study are generated in a rather classical non-algorithmic way; i.e. hypothesis generation cannot be reduced

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to a mathematical formula. I have drawn inferences about the relative susceptibility of elements of MM systems to loss, change and innovation in LD from non-matching distributions of features between traditional varieties and contemporary primary data. This is the only method of hypothesis generation applied in this study. Suppositions based on earlier studies of processes in decaying languages, or based on evidence from language contact (e.g. borrowing scales) or language acquisition research (e.g. acquisition scales), as well as considerations about typological salience of linguistic meanings and grammaticalization paths, are ignored during the procedure of hypothesis retrieval. As all hypotheses are exclusively based on inferences derived from the data itself, the approach could be said to be fundamentally empirical and essentially qualitative. In fact, the method applied comes close to what social scientists call grounded theory: a methodological framework in which hypotheses emerge exclusively through line-by-line examination of the data. The process of hypothesis generation can be outlined by the following steps: – Each utterance of each consultant was analysed in the light of the facts from the TF. – Observed variation gave rise to preliminary hypotheses: any regular difference between distributions of linguistic features in TFs and the target varieties is a sign of a trend. – After thorough examination of the corpus, a list of 41 such incipient hypotheses was compiled. – The inventory of variables, in relation to which each utterance constituting a row in C1 and C2 is defined (‘number of the utterance row in the corpus’, ‘source sentence’, ‘questionnaire’, ‘variety’ and ‘consultant’), was extended by 41 new variables, each one standing for a preliminary hypothesis (H1 . . . H41). – A second reading of the corpus was conducted. This time each utterance was checked against each hypothesis candidate and was given a value ‘r’ (relevant for hypothesis Hx) or the respective cell was left empty if the utterance did not provide information relevant to the given hypothesis. – During the process of encoding of each utterance in relation to each hypothesis with the values ‘r’ or ‘empty’, some hypotheses were re-formulated, specified, or split into two or more hypotheses; in a couple of cases entirely new hypotheses arose. – Each change of the definition of a hypothesis variable required re-starting the evaluation procedure for the given hypothesis variable from the first sentence in the corpus. This procedure of updating all values given so far with respect to a given hypothesis was repeated until the last hypothesis was reached, for which a qualitative correction was necessary. Likewise, adding a new hypothesis variable to the set of existing hypothesis variables

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required re-reading the corpora from the beginning and assigning each utterance with a value as to this new hypothesis variable. Considering all replays, this procedure took very long, but only in this way could I be sure that reaching the last cell of the table – where the last sentence of the last corpus (C2) was given a value in relation to the last hypothesis – I had achieved a qualitatively optimal and quantitatively maximal set of variables, and that each utterance in C1 and C2 have been given a value for each member of this set. The final number of hypothesis variables for which each utterance was annotated reached a total of 54 (the respective variable labels being H1. . .H54).

This means that in the final version of C1 each utterance (corresponding to an individual row in the Excel table) was encoded in regard to the following variables: ‘number of utterance’, ‘number of source sentence’, ‘questionnaire’, ‘variety’, ‘consultant’, ‘H1’. . . ‘H54’. The final version of C2 contained the same information about the same variables minus two – ‘number of source sentence’ and ‘questionnaire’ (recall that C2 consists of spontaneous speech data). Excel allows combining variable values and conducting very detailed searches in the corpora. Section 6.4.3 discusses the criteria used for evaluation of the quality of hypotheses (e.g. in term of relevance or scope) and for verification of the statements formulated by these hypotheses. With the help of these criteria the population ‘H1’. . . ‘H54’ has been considerably reduced. A further reduction of the number of the validated statements was carried on by conjoining more specific statements into more general ones.

6.4.2 Form of hypotheses It should have become clear from the discussion above that the TF is a control of the “online” observations made during the study of the corpus: any systematic difference between the TF and the data in the corpus is assumed to be a sign of a trend, which in turn generates hypotheses about the behaviour of MM in LD. Such working hypotheses could be formulated in two different formats: – Processes: ‘the element p undergoes x-ion’ (e.g. pragmaticization, structural reinforcement, de-subordination etc.) – Implicational/probabilistic hierarchies: p > y, meaning ‘p is lost (or changed) before y’ (i.e. ‘p is more susceptible to loss, change and innovation than y’). But processes can affect, and hierarchies relate to, different kind of objects. The comparability of different hierarchies is guaranteed only if they relate the same

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sort of entities. Hierarchies of formal structures are not strictly comparable with hierarchies relating semantic functions. Consider the structural characteristic of ‘lexical class’. The relative borrowability of word classes claimed by Matras (2007) implies in our case a relative probability for borrowing of MM markers from different word classes presented in the left column of Table 8. While hierarchies of borrowability of lexical classes apply to structure (expression format), hierarchies relating MM-values, as in the second column of the table, or distinctions between values, as in the third column of the table, are exclusively based on semantics.78 The hierarchy ‘epistemic possibility > non-epistemic possibility’, for instance, states that epistemic possibility is more affected by change in receding Finnic than non-epistemic possibility. The hierarchy ‘participant-internal vs. participant-external possibility > non-epistemic vs. epistemic possibility’ states that speakers of decaying Finnic varieties face more difficulties in the marking of the distinction between participant-internal and participant-external possibility than in the marking of the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic possibility, given that both distinctions are consistently encoded in TF. Table 8 classifies types of hierarchies according to the elements they connect. Table 8: Types of hierarchies of relative susceptibility to borrowing, loss or change relating markers

relating MM-values

modal verbs > modal adjectives > modal adverbs > mood affixes

epistemic possibility > non-epistemic possibility prohibitive > imperative

relating distinctions between MM-values participant-internal vs. participant-external possibility > non-epistemic vs. epistemic possibility

Although I give priority to hierarchical statements of the second and the third type, it will be too delimitating to reject statements of the first type which relates structural entities. This concerns especially structural implications drawing on semantically restricted populations (the domain of MM or subsets of it).

6.4.3 Verification of hypotheses and assessment of their typological value Hypotheses can be statistically tested and the statements they contain validated or rejected. In addition, validated statements can be qualitatively evaluated as to their potential merit for the study of LD. 78 See Cysouw (2008) about the distinction and the relationship between form‑scales and meaning‑scales in language typology.

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Let us consider the phenomenon of modal verbs losing their verbal properties and being increasingly used as particles. Like many other innovations, the development of a modal verb to a particle is characterized by gradualness (where verbal features are gradually lost) and by path-dependence (e.g. particlization is dependent on the semantic and constructional properties of the source verb), the consequence of which is the recurrence of the process in specific semantic, pragmatic or grammatical contexts. This development can be studied in different statistical populations. We can study the number of instantiations of different stages of the particlization process within the population of all elicited utterances in which particlization could potentially take place: this is the population of all utterances containing verbal forms which give rise to particles. Given that we also want to explore the contextual type frequency of particlization, we can place the phenomenon in the population of all sentences with different meanings in the relevant data, that is, in the population of all distinct source sentences from C1 and all distinct sentences from C2, which could be translated with modal verbs giving rise to particles. The variables ‘relative loss of verbal features’ and ‘type of context’ can be correlated with each other as well as with the variables already presented in Section 6.3: ‘variety’ (e.g. Central Lude, Votic etc.), ‘speaker’ (e.g. MVT, NL etc.) and ‘form of elicitation’ (controlled in C1 vs. randomized in C2). This may bring us to very specific discoveries, like both in controlled and uncontrolled elicitation, in the context of present tense third person singular, verbs taking Nominative subjects and expressing ability and epistemic possibility tend to feature in contracting Votic and Ingrian as particles followed by a finite form of the former infinitive; however, even those individual speakers with highly particlicized uses produce structures reflecting earlier stages on the particlization cline (where the degree of preservation of verbal features varies). In the ideal case, a trend is confirmed to hold true if it shows significant distribution of tokens and types in both sub-corpora, with as many as possible speakers and in as many as possible languages or dialects.79 It should be clearly stated, however, that due to the small size of the corpus, which produces low frequencies, I have not combined variables systematically but somewhat opportunistically: in many cases it is clear from the beginning that the available data does not allow the factoring of certain variables. As already noted, due to the 79 In other words, if we convert the categorical variables ‘variety’, ‘speaker’ and ‘form of elicitation’ into numeric variables ‘number of varieties’, ‘number of speakers’ and ‘number of forms of elicitation’, an optimal result in our case would be a function of the highest possible values of these numeric variables: maximal number of varieties, maximal number of speakers and maximal methodology triangulation (disambiguation).

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lack of data many hypotheses cannot be statistically tested for each language in separate. Likewise, unless otherwise specified, the statistical analysis of data in Chapter 8 is based on the total of occurrences in C1 and C2; i.e. the frequency of occurrence of a phenomenon is not discussed separately for each corpus. Accordingly, the procedure applied does not even come close (in terms of technical sophistication) to a systematic multivariate analysis (see Bickel 2010 as an example of multivariate analysis in linguistic typology). Two additional factors have impact on the value of the discoveries made applying the above procedure: a) Can the identified tendency be explained as interference from the superseding language? Can the identified tendency be explained as an autogenetic process occurring upon regular language change? Both questions can be answered negatively: there are phenomena in receding Finnic languages which cannot be straightforwardly explained as pattern replications from Russian and which do not occur in the more vital Finnic languages with intergenerational transmission. Precisely these phenomena are of greatest theoretical value for this study: they occur independently of auto-genetics and specific contact situation, and therefore could be ascribed par excellence to LD. b) Is the phenomenon explicable in terms of semantics (or pragmatics), or could it be relegated to purely structural factors (e.g. morphophonemic analogy)? This study deals with semantically (or pragmatically) conditioned developments rather than with structural particularities, and therefore discoveries captured by semantic or pragmatic explanations are of greater interest. The basic modus operandi followed in the quantitative analysis of the data is pairing observations on two variables in a contingency table and testing their distribution for statistical significance with Pearson’s chi-squared test of independence which is amended by Yate’s correction for continuity (improving the accuracy of the null-condition sampling distribution of chi-square). In those cases where any expected frequency is below 1, or if the expected frequency in more than 20% of the cells is less than 5, the chi-squared test is inappropriate, and I have applied Fisher’s exact test which calculates the significance of the deviation from a null hypothesis exactly80. All contingency tables, which present observations to be tested for statistical significance, contain absolute frequencies81. 80 The tool (see: http://graphpad.com/quickcalcs/contingency1/) computes the two‑tailed p‑value from Fisher’s exact test using the method of summing small p‑values. 81 Chi‑squared tests can only be applied on absolute numbers of occurrences and not on percentages, proportions, or means.

7 Intensity of the language contact and the degree of contraction outside MM-domain This chapter provides information about Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto that will help us to pinpoint the general degree of contraction of these languages. The facts presented in the following paragraphs are supposed to yield the minimum background information about the “acute condition” of these varieties we need for an adequate analysis of their MM-systems. Additional observations can be made by studying the two appendices at the end of this book. The overview of the intensity of language contact and the symptoms of structural decay will be organised along two axes: a) according to level of linguistic expression, and b) according to grammatical category specified in Finnic on the verb (valency, tense, agreement and polarity). The discussion of these categories will bring us smoothly to the MM-domain which is the topic of Chapter 8.

7.1 Changes according to expression format A bottom-up list of levels of linguistic expression contains phonology, morphophonology, morphology, morphosyntax and syntax. Although the relative affectedness of these levels to contact-induced change depends on the intensity of the contact82, it is self-evident that in the case of LD all levels are eventually affected. A textbook example of extremely intense language contact are the Greek dialects once spoken in Asia Minor and described in detail by Dawkins (1916). Dawkins depicted the general conditions in which he found these dialects with the now famous allegory “[the] body has remained Greek but the soul has become Turkish” (Dawkins 1916: 198). He observed Turkish interference at all levels of linguistic expression. In the realm of phonology, for instance, Asia Minor Greek dialects had taken over Turkish consonants that are not present in other Greek dialects (Dawkins 1916: 86). An example of interference in the morpho-phonological level is the occurrence of Turkish vowel harmony in most of the dialects he studied (Dawkins 1916: 41‒43, 67). Contact-induced morphological change was most remarkably manifested by the pervasive transformation of the declension morphology from synthetic-fusional to agglutinative (Dawkins 82 Morphological interference, for example, usually lags behind phonological and syntactic interference (see e.g. Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 74‒76). DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-007

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1916: 89‒90, 92‒93, 98, 101‒104, 114 and elsewhere), but also by changes in the coding of individual morphological categories, such as the comparison of adjectives (1916: 48‒49, 116, 203). In verb morphology, Dawkins observed borrowing of person agreement markers from Turkish (1916: 59, 144) and employment of Turkish valency-changing derivational suffixes (1916: 130, 203). In the morphosyntax, he observed contact-induced restructuring of the object case-marking patterns and Pluperfect forms built on the Turkish model (Dawkins 1916: 94, 203). The Turkish influence on Greek syntax was manifested for example by the shift to exclusively left-branching syntax in the NP (e.g. where the genitive always precedes the head noun); a manifestation of the same shift to head-final NP structure was also the increasing use of relative clauses that are pre-posed in relation to their nominal heads (Dawkins 1916: 201‒202). Dawkins did not provide information about the dispersion of these changes in the grammars of individual speakers. Provided that his generalizations over dialects can be translated into generalizations over individuals, one can compare them with first-hand data from minor Finnic. The available data shows that individual speaker grammars of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto are not less “afflicted” than Asia Minor Greek speaker varieties were in the beginning of the 20th century. In the remainder of this section I will present examples of (morpho)phonological, morphological and (morpho)syntactic innovations in the four Finnic varieties. This list of innovations (relative to the TFs) is by no means extensive; it provides only an approximation of the general degree of affectedness of these levels of linguistic expression.

7.1.1 (Morpho)phonological change Consider the following phonological innovation which does not have an analogue in the donor language (Russian), but is due to internal analogical generalization. Central Lude is traditionally characterized by the regular sound change j > d’ in the beginning of the word (cf. Fi joki ‘river’ and C-L d’ogi ‘river’) and by rj > rd’ in the inlaut (cf. Fi marjoineen ‘with the berries’ and C-L mard’oŋke ‘id.’) (Turunen 1946: 318, 323). In Kehayov et al. (2013: 73) we registered the innovative substitution lj > ld’ (cf. Fi neljää ‘four.PART ’ and C-L Pr ńel’d’ä ‘four.PART ’) in receding Lude, which is explainable by an analogy with the rj > rd’ substitution. A further expansion of this analogical change, which is not documented in the existing literature, is l’ > d’ in the beginning of the word; consultant IIS (C-L, Sv) produced the infinitive form d’ähtä instead of l’ähtä ‘to depart’.83 The corpus 83 It cannot be excluded that ďähtä is actually based on the reflex lähtä (cf. LmS: 223).

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manifests a further generalization of the palatalized dental stop d’. By analogy with j, also the anlaut of words beginning with the vowels i and e is affected: speaker VIS (C-L, Sv) produced the forms d’ehtād ‘evening.PART ’ (cf. eht ‘evening’, LmS: 46) and d’iлdad ‘evening.PART ’ (cf. iлd ‘evening; sundown’, LmS: 88). One can argue that these reflexes come from forms that have lost j in front of e and i in words for which the semi-vowel is reconstructed in Proto-Finno-Lappic or its predecessor forms (e.g. jiek̀ tē ‘evening’, cf. Lude eht; Sammallahti 1998: 249; SSA I: 101), in which case we would be dealing with the regular sound change j > d’. Note, however, that the semi-vowel in these words has been lost long before the change j > d’ took place, and therefore they cannot have been affected by it. This in turn leads us to the conclusion that we are dealing with recent innovation, which took place in LD circumstances. Examples of morphophonological innovation that are not attested in previous literature include inconsistencies in the inflectional stem-alternation. Consider the occasional morphophonemic inlaut strengthening in the Inessive case form of the word for ‘work’. In Soikino Ingrian, the consultant OM (Ing-S, Vs) adds an intervocalic dental stop and coins a “fake” strong grade of the singular Inessive form, producing tǖdüs instead tȫz or tǖz ‘at work’.84 Likewise, in Votic the speaker NL (U-L) produces the Inessive form tǖdüz and the speaker SJ (Lu) produces the Inessive form tǖtez, while the correct form is tǖz. We might be dealing in both languages with morphophonemic strengthening, through re-analysis and generalization of the Partitive form ending in -D into an inflectional base from which the oblique case forms are derived. Such forms are not registered by earlier studies, as a check in TF showed (Laanest 1986; Мarkus & Rozhanskiy 2011a; 2011b). An inverse development, of weakening of the steminternal consonantism in the case inflection, comes from Eastern Seto. In conformity with the extensive system of inflectional consonant gradation of Seto, the singular Partitive form of ‘mother’ exhibits the strong grade form immä ~ emmä (cf. the Nominative imä ~ emä). However, the consultants EH (Ls), MVK (Sok) and NP (N-Izb) occasionally produce the erroneous singular Partitive form emät (or emat) which manifests the weak alternation grade of the consonant in the beginning of the second syllable, but which exhibits the suffix -t which is the allomorph of the Partitive in other declensional types. Compared to quantitative consonant gradation this allomorph has the advantage of being morphotactically transparent and a constructionally iconic exponent of the Partitive, which is immediately recognizable as a dedicated marker. Similarly, the consultant MVK (Sok) produces the singular Partitive form isad, instead of the “correct” 84 This change is by no means regular; the same speaker produces elsewhere correct Inessive forms of this word.

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form issä ~ essä ‘father.PART ’, where the fusional case inflection (a quantitative stem-alternation with the Partitive form being in the strong grade) is replaced by agglutination of the dedicated Partitive allomorph -d to the weak-grade Nominative form.

7.1.2 Morphological change Morphological innovation is abundantly attested in the available data. Consider the following examples of “erroneous” formation of inflectional forms of numerals, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, which in most cases involve analogical generalization. In the numeral paradigm, the formation of ordinal number stems is gradually de-activated and replaced by the morphologically less complex cardinal number base. The zero point of this process is the inherited Finnic ordinal system. In Estonian, for instance, the cardinal number neli ‘four’ is expanded to produce the ordinal number neljas ‘fourth’ (Genitive neljanda ‘of the fourth’, Inessive neljandas ‘in the fourth’, Adessive neljandal ‘on the fourth’ etc.). In Finnish, the respective cardinal is neljä and the respective ordinal neljäs (Genitive neljänteen, Inessive nelänteessä, Adessive neljänteellä etc.). In those cases where the numeral modifies a noun, it occurs before the noun and agrees with it in case, or, in combination with some marginal cases, takes the Genitive form; compare the Estonian neljanda klassini ‘fourth.GEN grade:TRM ’ which means ‘until the fourth school grade’. The Eastern Seto consultant MVK (Sok) failed, however, to derive the ordinal number in this phrase, and produced nelja klassini (‘four.GEN class:TRM ’) where the numeral modifier is erroneously in the cardinal form. Likewise, the Votic consultant ZS (Kr), which could be characterized as a semispeaker, produced the Nominative case form of the cardinal instead of the Inessive of the ordinal in the phrase kūve̮tšümmet-vīz vūvves (‘sixty-five:NOM year:INE ’),85 which is supposed to mean ‘in the year 1965’. The correct Inessive ordinal form would be vījjennes or vījjettamaz (cf. Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 140‒141). Markus & Rozhanskiy (2011b: 141) note that the contemporary Votic speakers face difficulties forming the ordinals between ‘seventh’ and ‘tenth’, which in their opinion could be related to LD. In the given case, however, we observe an incorrect formation of a lower ordinal (‘five’). In the declension of nouns, one can often observe inconsistency in the morphological adaptation of Russian words and in the selection of the proper 85 This utterance shows also defective agreement: the numeral does not agree with the noun in the Inessive, but remains in the Nominative.

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inflectional element.86 The obsolescent varieties studied here show a low degree of adaptation of “loanwords”; consider the following examples from Central Lude. VIS (C-L, Sv) hesitated in choosing the right plural Nominative form of the word gośt’ ‘guest’ borrowed from Russian. She produced the forms gośt’id vs. gośt’ad which are both attested in Svyatozero dialect (LmS: 56), but in this case we have a vacillation on idiolect level. Other speakers simply adopt the Russian plural form without adjustment; the rememberer MVT (Pr), for instance, spelled gost’i (cf. Ru gosti ‘guests’). Likewise, the speakers EVM (C-L, Pr) and PIK (C-L, Sv) produced the adapted Nominative form of the Russian loanword komnat(t)e ‘room’, while the speakers IIS (C-L, Sv) and NIP (C-L, Vd) produced in the same context the non-adapted komnata (cf. Ru komnata). What concerns the selection of an appropriate inflectional element from the pool of congenital allomorphy, the output of the Eastern Seto forgetter MVK (Sok) contains a typical example of inconsistency: this speaker hesitates in the production of the correct singular Partitive form of the word vasik ‘calf’ between vasikat (which is the correct form) and vasiku which is probably an analogy with the Genitive or Partitive forms of words belonging to other declensional types. The domain of word formation shows excessive Russian influence. Consider the word forms showing derivational elements borrowed from Russian in Table 9. None of these formations is documented in the TFs of the respective varieties.87 Consider also the following example of pattern replication from Russian in the coining of measure (quantity) antonyms. Unlike some other European languages, the Finnic languages usually express such antonym pairs by means of suppletion; compare Central Lude лoitton ‘far away’ and lähiл ‘closely, near’, sūŕi ‘big, large’ and pieńi ‘small’, hüvin ‘good, well’ and pahoin ‘badly, wrongly’ ammu(i) ‘long ago’ and vast or äsköi ‘recently’. Russian, on the other hand, often lexicalizes antonyms by negating their opposites – a strategy used especially in the colloquial language along with the use of unique antonym stems. The lexical negation prefix used in such formations is ne-: cf. daleko ‘far away’ and nedaleko ‘close, near’, bol’shoi ‘big’ and nebol’shoi ‘small’, plokho ‘badly’ and neplokho ‘not badly’, davno ‘long ago’ and nedavno ‘recently’. Conforming to this model, Central Lude consultants coin antonyms adding the negator to their opposites; e.g. EVM (Pr) ei лoittō (‘not-far’), VIS (Sv) ei sūri (‘not-big’), VS (Pr) ei pahoin ‘not-bad’, NIP (Vi) ei ammui ‘not-long.ago’ (see also Ojanen 1985: 319). 86 Such inconsistency can be observed also in healthy languages; fresh loanwords often manifest formal variation, although probably not on idiolect level. 87 Although the use of Russian aspectual prefixes is not unprecedented in other eastern Finnic varieties (see e.g. Mägiste 1937 and Myznikova 2014: 39 on Karelian and Veps).

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Table 9: Borrowed derivational affixes source

example

meaning

context

origin

Adjective derivational suffix

Se-E LB

vab-na

‘free-ADJ ’

vabna tuba piät ole̮ma lastel ‘there should be a free room for the kids’

< Ru adjective derivative suffix -nV (cf. svobodnaya ‘free.F ’)

Aspectual derivational prefix

C-L NIP

at-šeišottī

‘stand through; defend; save: PST.3PL ’

gospitaľa atšeišottī ‘they defended the hospital’

< Ru perfectivizing prefix ot- (cf. otstaivat’ ‘stand through; defend’)

Aspectual derivational prefix

Ing-S AIE

paillastaisend

‘dine:PST. PTCP (a little)’

parveš ne ollisivad paillastaisend ‘they would have had a dinner together’

< Ru delimitative prefix po- (cf. pouzhinat’ ‘to dine [a little])’

7.1.3 (Morpho)syntactic change In the Finnic languages MM notions are typically conveyed by morphosyntactic and syntactic means of expression. Therefore I will devote more detail to LDconditioned innovation occurring at these levels of linguistic expression. Given that we are dealing with languages where morphology plays a considerable role in the coding of syntactic functions, I will not distinguish between ‘morphosyntax’ and ‘syntax’, but will discuss these together under the label ‘morphosyntax’. All innovations to be discussed below concern case-marking and word order. Assuming a constituency-based approach to syntactic structure, I will move upward the parse tree, first discussing grammatically encoded relations (of agreement or government) between internal constituents of PPs, NPs, AdjPs and AdvPs, and then will discuss grammatical features of constituents of the verb phrase, which are determined by the verb as its head. Concerning adpositional phrases (PPs), one would expect that the receding Finnic varieties will diverge from the inherited predominantly postpositional pattern in order to conform to the prepositional morphosyntax of Russian.88 88 While the eastern Finno‑Ugric languages are almost exclusively postpositional, the Finnic languages are predominantly postpositional, but also have small classes of prepositions (cf. Grünthal 2010: 45).

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Interestingly enough, the data from C1 and C2 does not provide much evidence in support of this assumption. Apart from the cases where a preposition or an entire preposition-complement sequence is directly transferred from Russian, which will be discussed below, I did not attest novel prepositions in the varieties studied (see Stoebke 1968 and Grünthal 2010 for an overview of Finnic prepositions). With regard to NPs, the available material shows inconsistencies in the agreement of their constituents. Direct object NPs receive Partitive, Genitive or Nominative case in Finnic, depending on certain properties of the context (see the discussion below on immediate arguments of the verb). In the TF the adjective modifier always agrees with the nominal head in case, but in the clause miä oman tǖd jo tein (‘I already did my own job’), produced by the Soikino Ingrian consultant OM (Sl), we observe a defect agreement pattern. Given that certain piece of work has been brought to an end, the underlined object NP must be in the Genitive in the TF (cf. oman tǖn ‘own:GEN work:GEN ’). In the utterance produced by OM the dependent constituent is (correctly) in the Genitive (oman), but the head noun is in the Partitive (tǖd ‘work:PART ’). Note that the agreement malfunction in this example cannot be easily explained as a pattern replication from Russian, where the constituents of the object NP agree in case; see Ru ja sdelal svoyu rabotu ‘I did my.own:ACC work:ACC ’. In other cases the Russian phrase structure is mirrored by patterns occurring in the receding varieties. A case in point is the structural change in NPs with Genitive nominal modifiers. The Soikino Ingrian consultant AIE (Sm) produced the sentence pittǟ katsoa pragnoz ilmā. ‘one should watch the weather forecast’, where the object NP differs from the inherited TF construction both in terms of word order and case marking. Instead of producing the inherited left-branching (head-final) Finnic phrase pattern, where the dependent is in the Genitive or Nominative (cf. Finnish sääennuste ‘weather.NOM :forecast.NOM ’), the speaker produces the right-branching (head-initial) structure pragnoz ilmā (‘forecast.NOM weather:PART ’, lit. ‘forecast of weather’) where the dependent is in the Partitive case and follows the head noun. This pattern matches its Russian functional equivalent only halfway: the respective phrase structure in Russian is rightbranching, but the dependent is in the Genitive and not in the Accusative which is the closest functional equivalent of the Finnic Partitive (cf. Ru prognoz pogody ‘forecast.NOM weather.GEN ’). This speaker produced also the utterance vaderaz t’ot’al on ükš tühjä komnatti (‘there is a free room in aunt’s apartment’) containing the right-branching phrase vaderas t’ot’al (‘apartment:INE aunt:ADE ’) instead of the inherited left-branching structure (cf. TF tädin fatteraz ‘aunt:GEN apartment:INE ’). In this novel formation which replicates the Russian phrase structure (cf. Ru v kvartire t’oti ‘in apartment:PRP aunt:GEN ) the dependent

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‘aunt’ is marked as an external possessor in the Adessive case.89 The same consultant, which otherwise can be classified as a nearly-fluent speaker, produces also phrases that are structurally identical with their Russian equivalents. Consider the subject NP in the question Mis on izä lapšin? ‘Where is the father of the children’), where the word order is inverted to head-initial, but the Genitive modifier expressing “internal possession” in the original head-final structure is preserved; the transformation is as follows: lapšin izä ‘children:GEN father.NOM ’ > izä lapšin ‘father.NOM children:GEN ’. The resultant structure is a precise equivalent of the Russian source (cf. papa detei ‘father.NOM children:GEN ’). The typological drift toward head-initial (right-branching) NP structure is attested in other varieties too. In Votic, the forgetter ZS (Kr) produced the question A kuzǝ on tātta лahsī? (‘Where is the father of the children’), in which the subject NP tātta лahsī exhibits a head-initial structure with the dependent noun marked as external processor, just like in the Ingrian example above (‘father.NOM children:ADE ’). An identical construction is attested also in Eastern Seto (VH, N-Izb) A koh om esä latsil Vasja? (‘Where is Vasya, the father of the children?’), where the postposed dependent noun features as an external possessor in the Adessive case (esä latsil ‘father.NOM children:ADE ’). Novel structures and pattern replication from Russian is observable also in the make-up of adjective and adverbial phrases, most notably in comparative constructions. Here too, we can observe an inversion of the head-dependent word order, which results in a head-initial phrase structure. For example, the consultant AIE (Ing-S, Sm) produced the utterance hän on nūremb minnua (‘S/he is younger than me’). The predicative adjective phrase of comparison nūre mb minnua (‘young:CMP 1SG . PART ’), where the adjectival head of the phrase precedes the dependent standard of comparison, is identical to the structure common in Traditional Ingrian but is inverted (cf. Fi minua nuorempi ‘1SG . PART young:CMP ’)90. This right-branching comparative AdjP mirrors the respective construction in Russian (cf. molozhe menya ‘young:CMP 1SG . ACC ’). The same holds for the comparative adverbial phrase attested in the speech of the Lower Luga Ingrian speaker ZP (Iz). In the utterance hän tuntā lukkea paremp minnoa (‘S/he can read better than me’), this speaker produced the head-initial AdvP paremp 89 Russian is a mixed‑type language with respect to the head‑directionality parameter (see e.g. Polinsky 2012), as it has head‑final NPs with denominal adjective modifiers. This structure is also attested in the output of the speaker AIE (Ing‑S, Sm). For example, she used the Russian female denominal adjective t’ot’kina to produce the phrase t’ot’kina nāpuri (‘aunt:ADJ. F. NOM neighbour.NOM ’; cf. Ru tetkina sosedka ‘aunt:ADJ. F. NOM neighbour.NOM ’). 90 Admittedly, the right‑branching structure nuorempi minua occurs in Finnish, but is much rarer than the left‑branching variant.

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minnoa (‘better 1SG . PART ’), which constitutes the reverse of the inherited headfinal structure (cf. Fi minua paremmin ‘1SG . PART better’), and which mirrors the respective construction in Russian (cf. luchshe menya ‘better 1SG . ACC ’). The above overview of syntactic innovation in the composition of PPs, NPs, AdjPs and AdvPs concerned restructuring of inherited linguistic matter. In order to make the picture complete, I will present in the following a brief overview of matter replication in the phrase types discussed. It could be observed that speakers of the obsolescent Finnic varieties tend to “take over” from the dominant language entire phrases rather than individual constituents. Both corpora contain abundant examples of Russian prepositional phrases embedded in innate Finnic structure; all these increase the relative weight of the head-initial marking in PPs and in the syntax in general. The speaker of Soikino Ingrian AIE (Sm), for instance, produced the clause hǟ ono na pensī (‘S/he is retired.’ lit. ‘S/he is on retirement.’), where the predicative prepositional phrase na pensii (‘on retirement:PRP ’) is directly transferred from Russian without any kind of adaptation to the Ingrian structure. Another case of “borrowing” of a PP comes from the output of the consultant AG (Ing-S, Grk), who produced the clause hänen pidi mürnǟ od radosti (‘s/he almost jumped out of delight’). In this utterance the Russian PP od radosti (‘out_of delight:PRP ’) is taken over by the Ingrian speaker together with its prepositional case marking (just like in the previous example). Likewise, the consultant AIE (Ing-S, Sm) produced the Russian prepositional phrase s Tolikom ‘with Tolik:INS ’ to express the adverbial relation of concomitance in the clause s Tolikom on helbomp ‘it is easier with Tolik’. A more challenging case is exemplified by the prepositional phrase in the utterance Miu piti jävva . . . müöhäštüä ot avtobusa (‘I almost got late for the bus.’), produced with some hesitation by the rememberer KV (Ing-S, Yg). In this sentence the speaker first produces the verb jä(ä)vvä ‘remain, stay; get out’, which is a correct option in the given context, but then changes her mind and uses the verb müöhästüä ‘be late; be delayed’, which is another correct option. While the former verb governs an Elative complement (the Elative is a separative case; cf. ‘from the bus’), the latter governs an Illative complement (the Illative is a lative case; cf. ‘for/to the bus’)91. Interestingly enough, the speaker opts for the Russian separative preposition ot ‘from’ in the prepositional phrase, which is not the “correct” option in combination with müöhästüä. This use cannot be explained by Russian influence, because in Russian the verb ‘be.late’ governs a lative preposition (cf. opozdat’ na avtobus ‘be.late.INF for bus.ACC ’, ‘be late for the bus’). The usage of the Russian separative preposition can be explained as 91 Compare mȫhäsüĭn töihe ‘be.late:PRS .1SG work:ILL ’ ‘I was late for work’ (Nirvi 1971: 330).

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some kind of long-distance production error mirroring the rection of the verb jä(ä)vvä ‘remain, stay; get out’. Or, alternatively, it can be explained as a reflection of the Finnish structure where the verb ‘be late’ governs the Elative (cf. Fi myöhästyä bussista ‘be.late.INF bus.ELA ’; Johanna Laakso, p.c.); this pattern may have existed in some varieties of Ingrian, although it is not documented. Note also that the PP has a peculiar structure, consisting of a Russian preposition followed by the weakly adapted loan avtobus ‘bus’, whose shape avtobusa provides too little information about its case marking (the alternatives being the Partitive and the local cases Adessive/Ablative). Using entire PPs borrowed from Russian is a common phenomenon in the other varieties as well. In Votic, for instance, the consultant IG (Lu) uttered huome̮n peäb mennä v dorogu (‘one must set out tomorrow’), where the lative PP v dorogu (‘to road:ACC ’) is directly transferred from Russian. A case of uncompleted adaptation is the utterance müö tulime kons ku is evakuatsia (‘At some point we came back from the evacuation.’), where the Central Lude rememberer VS (Pr) uses the Russian preposition iz ‘from’, followed by the loan evakuatsia. Curiously, the latter is in its uninflected Nominative form which is not idiomatic with this preposition in Russian. (cf. the Russian source construction iz evakuatsii ‘from evacuation:PRP ’). It will probably be too simplistic to explain all these examples as representing relative degrees on a linear scale of adaptation to the host structure. Especially the examples where the speakers produces an erroneous Russian preposition followed by defectively inflected complement cannot be easily explained in terms of two apparent pressures: the accommodation pressure by the TF structure, and the pressure towards preservation of the original Russian structure. With the possible exception of Eastern Seto, Russian is the strongest language of the majority of my consultants. Speculating about functional pressures in pattern and matter replication is not what the present section aims at, but another possible pressure is the desire for ‘explicit marking’, which often leads to morphosyntactic redundancy.92 Examples of redundant marking of grammatical notions within PPs abound in the available material. Consider the following example of a double internal locative marking (expressing enclosure, ‘in’). The Central Lude consultant IIS (Sv) produced the clause vnutška elǟ v linnas ‘(my) granddaughter lives in the town’ where the PP v linnas ‘in town:INE ’ exhibits 92 Redundant morphosyntactic coding can be explained in conversational praxis by the Gricean Maxims; by overloading the meaning with dedicated markers, the speaker acts in accordance with the Maxim of Manner (and especially with the expectation to avoid ambiguity), and simultaneously violates the Maxim of Quantity (Do not make your contribution more informative than is required) (see Grice 1975).

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both the Russian preposition v ‘in’ and the inherited Inessive case suffix -s on the noun, which expresses locative inclusion. An example of redundant marking of the external locative relation comes from Eastern Seto. The consultant LB (N-Izb) produced the utterance vanaisä se̮javäeh oli olnu . . . se̮javäes na Ukrainah ‘grandfather had been in the army . . . in the army in Ukraine’ (lit. ‘on Ukraine’), where the PP na Ukrainah consists of the Russian external locative preposition na ‘on’ (typically expressing position on the surface of an object) and the Inessive (internal locative case) form Ukraina-h of the word ‘Ukraine’. The external and internal locative marking are combined also in the following example. The Central Lude consultant VS produces the clause ruodoz ol’in na železnoi dorogez ‘I was working on the railway’, where the Russian preposition na ‘on’ (marking external location) occurs with the Inessive case on the head of the NP (doroge-z, work-INE ), which encodes internal location. In these examples from Central Lude and Eastern Seto, the ‘locative’ notion is marked twice, one time by an inherited postposed bound morpheme, and a second time by a borrowed preposition; other such examples can be found in Appendix II. The surfacing structure is defective from the perspective of both Russian and Finnic. Redundant marking in PPs is, however, not restricted to spatial relations. The Central Lude consultant VFS (Vi) produced the clause läht’in opastumma na lehmiŋke ruota ‘then I started learning to work with the cows’ (Kehayov et al. 2013: 83), where in the PP na lehmiŋke ‘with cows:COM ’) the Russian instrumental preposition na ‘on; with’ functionally duplicates the Comitative suffix -ke. The Central Lude forgetter MVT (Pr) produced the phrase vahnin iz mužikois ‘the oldest of the men’ – a comparative AdjP containing the PP iz mužikois, where the Russian suffix iz ‘from’ is followed by a complement noun in the Elative case (which is a separative internal local case). In such redundant forms the speakers merge two morphological types: Russian analytic and Finnic synthetic morphology. Although Russian has also a synthetic case system and Finnic has also analytic adpositional marking, I have never seen the reverse type of redundancy, where a Finnic adposition is combined with case-inflected Russian noun. There may be various reasons why such structures are blocked,93 but 93 One possible explanation could be that the Finnic semantic (or adverbial) cases (i.e. cases which do not express grammatical relations but specific semantic notions; EKG I: 48‒61; ISK 2008: § 1223) express the given meanings alone, whereas the Russian cases in the examples above are rather abstract and cannot convey the given meaning alone, but only in combination with adpositions. This means that a Finnic adposition cannot be reinforced by a Russian case suffix alone, but only by a combination of equal semantic weight – a Russian case suffix and preposition. Such sequences are longer and more cumbersome that the combination of Russian preposition and Finnic semantic case, and therefore seem to be dispreferred.

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what is clear is that such examples cannot be conceived of as random production errors. In Chapter 8, I will discuss further cases of redundancy, this time in the MM-domain. The ‘separative’ elements in the last example do not code spatial relations, but occur in a comparative construction which builds an adjective phrase. This brings us to the question about matter replication in other types of phrases with non-verbal heads. The typology of matter replication and adaptation outlined for PPs is germane for other phrases as well. Direct transfer without adaptation is common in expressions referring to the life outside of the rural daily routine, especially in professional designations in the production and service sector. The Soikino Ingrian consultant AIE (Sm) said teki natšal’nikom haladil’nika tǖdä. ‘worked as a chief of the cold storage’, where the depictive natšal’nikom haladil’nika ‘chief:INS cold_storage:GEN ’ is transferred from Russian together with its case-marking and its head-initial word order. Cases where a phrase is composed of a transferred and an innate constituents and inflectional morphology include the Eastern Seto (VH, N-Izb) example Vasja ve̮ip rohke̮p vremeni lastega (olla) (‘Vasya can [spend] more time with the children’), where the underlined constituent consists of the Seto word rohke̮p ‘more’ (with its perfectly correct comparative grade marker -p) and the Russian head noun vremeni (‘time:GEN ’), which in terms of inflectional morphology is equally intact with the source language. In adjective phrases expressing superlative degree of comparison, the superlative functional word is often taken from Russian while the adjective is in the original inflected form. The Soikino Ingrian speaker OM (Sl) for instance produced the sentence Petja oli samoi nōremb ‘Petya was the youngest’, where samoi is a Russian superlative marker, and nōremb ‘young:CMP ’ is the inherited Ingrian form with the comparative suffix -mb (cf. Ing kaikkīn sūremB ‘SUP big:CMP ’ ‘the biggest’; Laanest 1986: 124). On another occasion the same speaker uttered samoi paremb miul oli Sūmeš ‘I had it best in Finland’, where the superlative adverbial expression samoi paremb (lit. ‘most better’) is built according to an analytic-synthetic model common in the Finnic languages, but contains the Russian superlative word samyĭ instead of the inherited word for ‘most’. Summing up the discussion about phrases with non-verbal heads, the main tendencies detected are the disposition for agreement-failure, the tendency toward redundant marking, and, most pervasively the shift in the relative order of the head and its dependents. The endangered Finnic varieties experience a typological drift from head-final to head-initial phrase structure. One may assume that the developments in different constructions and phrase types do not only contribute individually to the spread of the novel headedness-pattern, but reinforce each other in the accumulation of right-branching constituency. The structural association between the order of the genitive modifier and the noun,

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on one hand, and between the adposition and its complement, on the other, was implied by the first two of Greenberg’s universals: 1) In languages with prepositions the genitive almost always follows the governing noun; 2) In languages with postpositions the genitive almost always precedes the governing noun. A typological drift towards certain configurations of structural patterns is often explained in terms of an urge for cross-category harmony as an “ideal state” of languages (see e.g. Falk 2008). In our case, the cross-category harmony concerns the consistency of the head-dependent ordering across different constructions. Polinsky (1995: 108) argues that “reduced languages lose consistency in the ordering of heads and dependents across various constructions”. Her claim gains support from the evidence discussed above; for example, both orders – Gen-N and N-Gen – co-occur in the structure of the languages approaching LD. Despite this reduced structural consistency, however, we have a general increase of the head-initial syntax in all phrase types discussed. This is illustrated in Figure 5 which recapitulates the discussion assuming an idealized cline from purely head-final to purely head-initial structure. The tendency is compared in the last row with the shift of the word order from OV to VO. The original FinnoUgric SOV word order (still dominant in the most languages of the family) has changed in Finnic and most Saami languages to dominant SVO, an innovation which took place already in Proto-Finnic94 or earlier (see e.g. Collinder 1960: 249; Campbell 1987; Grünthal 2010: 36). The last issue to be discussed in this subsection is innovation in VPs. I will approach this issue from inside-out, beginning with exceptional marking of core arguments of the verb and ending up with non-obligatory adverbial constituents (adjuncts). Considering the obligatory constituents of the verb, determined by its valency, the major syntactic functions to be checked for marking “anomalies” are objects and predicative expressions. Direct objects with their complex Partitive/ Genitive/Nominative alternation rules (see Kont 1963 for an overview and Ojajärvi 1950, Tveite 2004 and Miljan 2009 for accounts on individual Finnic varieties) are ideal candidates for investigation of fluctuation and inconsistency in the coding of grammatical relations due to decreased production fluency. The choice of the direct object case in Finnic depends, among other things, on the aspect, partitivity, voice, mood and polarity of the state-of-affairs described by the utterance (see e.g. EKG II: 46‒54 for a description of the alternation rules in Estonian which are similar in complexity to those in the other Finnic languages). Consider 94 Given that also Saamic is affected by this change, Proto‑Finnic‑Saamic would be a more accurate label here.

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Figure 5: Head-directionality in typological drift

example (28) from Soikino Ingrian, (29) from Lower Luga Ingrian and (30) and (31) from Central Lude. The telic and perfective context in (28) requires that ‘work’ receives so-called total object marking. In finite, active, indicative and singular predications the total object case is the Genitive, as produced in (28a) by the nearly-fluent consultant VFD. In (28b), on the other hand, the weaker speaker AG, which could be characterized as forgetter, produces in the same context erroneously an object in the Partitive case. Partitive objects, commonly called also partial objects (cf. EKG II: 46 and ISK 2008: §230) constitute the antithesis of total objects, and occur in atelic, imperfective, quantitatively indefinite95 or semantically negative contexts. The generalization of the Partitive as an object marker is something Russian L2 speakers of Finnic languages often do (see e.g. Ehala 2012 on Russians learners of Estonian). In the present case, we seem to be dealing with aspectual neutralization of the Partitive by a native forgetter. (28)

a.

Hän s/he

mahtā may.3SG

lopettā finish:3SG

kūs six

olla be.INF

koiz, home

što because

tǖ-n work-GEN

hän s/he

tunnia. hour:PART

‘S/he may be at home, because s/he finishes work at six o’clock.’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi) 95 As in ‘I found some water in the basement’.

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Intensity of the language contact

b.

Hǟ s/he

jakša may.3SG

tǖ-dö work-PART

kūš six

olla be.INF

koiz, home,

jo already

hǟ s/he

lopettā finish.3SG

tunnia. hour:PART

‘S/he may be at home, s/he finishes work at six o’clock.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) The sentences in (29) from Lower Luga dialect of Ingrian exemplify object case assignment after an achievement verb expressing visual perception. Although most of the Ingrian speakers mark the object of the verb ‘see’ (in active, indicative and affirmative context) with the Partitive case, as in (29a), the consultant ZP produces a Genitive object in (29b). vanaemmä. (29) a. Ku hän männȫ meiekä, siz näkkȫ if s/he go.PRS .3SG we:COM then see.PRS .3SG grandma.PART ‘If s/he comes with us, s/he will see grandma.’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) vanaemä-n. b. Jesli hän männȫ meienkä, hän näkkȫ if s/he go.PRS .3SG we:COM s/he see.PRS .3SG grandma-GEN ‘If s/he comes with us, s/he will see grandma.’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) In contracting Central Lude the choice of an object case after the verb ‘see’ is even less decided, with slight prevalence of the Partitive over the Genitive in the data. (30) demonstrates the inconsistency of case assignment in the same context as (29), with (30a) exhibiting Partitive object and (30b) Genitive object. The examples in (31) illustrate the same inconsistency with an object noun that is inherited and not a loanword like buabo ‘grandma’ in (30) (cf. Ru baba). (30)

a.

Jesli if

hän s/he

lähtȫ go.PRS .3SG

meidenkera, we:COM

to then

t’erävǟ soon

nägeme see.PRS :1PL

buabo-d. grandma-PART ‘If s/he comes with us, we will soon see grandma.’ (C-L, PIK, Sv) b.

Jesli If

hän s/he

lähtȫ go.PRS .3SG

meidinked, we:COM

t’ervah soon

nägȫ see:PRS .3SG

babuška-n. grandma-GEN ‘If s/he comes with us, s/he will soon see grandma.’ (C-L, NIP, Vi)

Changes according to expression format

(31)

a.

Minä nägin egläi lindu-d. I.NOM see:PST:1SG yesterday bird-PART ‘I saw a bird yesterday.’ (C-L, NIP, Vi)

b.

linduiže-n Egläi nägin yesterday see:PST:1SG bird-GEN ‘I saw a bird yesterday.’ (C-L, PIK, Sv)

129

The above examples show that the object-case assignment system, which consists of hierarchical rule-inventory, is losing its coherence in Soikino Ingrian, Lower Luga Ingrian and Central Lude. The inconsistency in the object case marking cannot be relegated to the contact with Russian, as Russian would invariably use the Accusative case in the examples (28)‒(31), which in terms of frequency could be regarded as an equivalent of the Finnic Partitive (see Ehala 2012).96 Similar inconsistency in the selection of the object case is observable in predicative expressions. Consider the example in (32) with an accusativus cum participio construction from Soikino Ingrian. The speaker KV hesitates whether to use a Genitive or a Translative object participle. Similar inconsistency can be observed also among other consultants, which mark the object of this sentence either in the Genitive or in the Translative case. In (33) from Central Lude, we have a predicative, which is not of deverbal origin, but is an adjective marked in the Translative. (32)

Hä s/he

näüttiä look.PRS .3SG

Kutsume̮ call:IMP.1PL

läššivä-n . . . be_sick:PTCP-GEN

läššivä-ks. be_sick:PTCP-TRNSL

tohtria! doctor:PART

‘S/he looks sick. Let’s call the doctor!’ (Ing-S, KV, Yg) (33)

Hän s/he

katšoaze look.REFL : PRS .3SG

kutšume call:PRS .1PL

bolnoa-kse. sick-TRNSL

Davaite let’s

vratšuat! doctor:PART

‘S/he looks sick. Let’s call the doctor!’ (C-L, IIS, Sv) 96 The case of the object of the immediate perception verb ‘see’ shows variation among the Finnic languages. Finnish, for instance, marks object NPs of this verb in active, indicative and affirmative contexts in the Genitive, whereas Estonian uses in such contexts consistently the Partitive (EKG II: 50). This variation across languages does not explain, however, the variation between speakers of the same variety we observe here.

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The Genitive predicative is an option which recurs in the traditional Finnic varieties (see e.g. Kask 1984: 257 on Estonian dialects), while the Translative marking in both examples above seems to copy the Russian pattern of marking the predicative in the Instrumental case (cf. Ru vyglyadit bol’nym ‘looks sick:INS ’; see Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 245 for a parallel use of the Translative in Votic after the verb meaning ‘look, seem’). It should be noted in this relation that in certain contexts the function of the Russian Instrumental overlaps with the function of the Finnic Translative (see e.g. Erelt & Metslang 2003 for details about Estonian). Another case, which overlaps with the Russian Instrumental in the coding of non-verbal predications, is the Finnic Essive. One of the central functions of this case is to express being-in-a-state, in particular, practicing a certain profession (e.g. C-L, SP ižanda-nnu ‘as a landlord-ESS ’; Turunen 1946: 268), and in this sense it corresponds to the Russian Instrumental (see also Erelt & Metslang 2003). The Essive shows occasional extension to predicatives of dynamic semicopular verbs such as ‘become’; see (34) from Central Lude. Such uses are not attested in the TF, where such verbs require that the predicative complement is in the Translative (Erelt & Metslang 2003); cf. Sununsuu, Northern Lude (LmS: 362): rod’īhe hüviń t’ühjä-kši ‘became very poor-TRNSL . The apparent model in such uses is the Russian Instrumental which is assigned to predicative expressions marking professional occupation both in static and dynamic contexts (cf. Ru on rabotaet vrachom ‘he works [as a] doctor:INS ’ with on stanet vrachom ‘he will.become doctor:INS ’). (34)

Naverna rodih vratša-nnu. probably become.PRS .3SG doctor-ESS ‘(S/he) will probably become a doctor.’ (C-L, IIS, Sv)

Moving on from typical predicative expressions, another domain of hesitance and inconsistency in the case-marking of VP constituents are place adverbials. Loss of formal distinction between the exponents of the lative and locative external cases (Allative and Adessive, respectively) is amply attested in the Eastern Finnic varieties (see e.g. Laanest 1986: 103 on Lower Luga Ingrian; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 84, 300 on Votic, Palmeos 1962: 32‒34 on the Valdai dialect of Karelian and Kettunen 1938: LII on Livonian). This merger of the Allative and the Adessive is due to the similar phonological shape of the exponents of these cases, which is a reflection of their related diachronic sources (Korhonen 1996: 174, 204; Hakulinen 2000: 104‒105). The available corpus also reveals examples of obliteration of the distinction between the Illative and the Inessive which are the equivalents of the Allative and the Adessive in the

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internal local case system. This is something unprecedented in the TF; consider (35), where the Soikino Ingrian consultant AIE erroneously produces the Inessive (internal locative) case form armejaz instead of the Illative (internal lative) case form, which is expected in the given contexts, and whose plausible shape would be armejā (cf. Laanest 1986: 100‒102). (35)

armeja-z. Vel’ odettih brother.NOM take:IMPS army-INE ‘[Our] brother was taken into the army.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm)

Interestingly, this failure of the speaker to mark explicitly the distinction between lative (‘into’) and locative (‘in’) internal meaning does not reflect the Russian pattern, where these meanings are formally differentiated (cf. oni vzyali ego v armiyu ‘they took him into the army:DAT ’ and on byl v armii ‘he was in the army:PRP ’). Erroneous case-government is attested with other adverbials as well. The speaker of Eastern Seto MVK produced examples (36) and (37) which manifest considerable lexical and phonological influence of Estonian. In (36) an adverbial of manner (cf. ‘smell of/like’) is in the Comitative case, an option which to my knowledge is not available in the TF but which can be explained with the Russian pattern, where the verb ‘smell’ governs the Instrumental (v komnate pahlo kolbasoĭ ‘in the room smelled (of) sausage:INS ’). This is an expected pattern replication, because the Russian Instrumental is the straightforward equivalent of the Seto Comitative in the domain of concomitance. Example (37) illustrates a different situation, which cannot be easily explained as a pattern replication from Russian. The consultant NK utters here a complement of the verb ‘wound’ in the external lative case Allative, instead in the internal lative case Illative. This suggests that the collapse of the case government system does not affect only the distinction ‘lative vs. locative’ case, but also the distinction ‘internal vs. external’ case; note that Russian, much like English, uses here a preposition marking inclusion (ego ranili v glaz ‘he was wounded in the eye.ACC ’). (36)

terveh tare le̮hnas vorsti-ga whole.NOM room.NOM smell:PST.3SG sausage-COM ‘The whole room smelled of sausage.’ (Se-E, MVK, Sok)

(37)

Siäl sai hāvata silmä-le. there get:PST.3SG wound:INF eye-ALL ‘He got wounded in the eye there.’ (Se-E, NK, Izb)

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Before we conclude the section on morphosyntactic change, we need to cast a glance at the transfer of constituents of the predicate. This concerns especially “take-overs” of immediate arguments of the verb97; examples of transfer of multiword adjuncts were already presented above. Examples (38) and (39) present cases where a Russian pronoun occurs as a subject NP. These examples are presented here to illustrate different degrees of adaptation to the host structure. In the first example from Soikino Ingrian, we have a subject NP which consists of a demonstrative pronoun and a noun, both borrowed from Russian (cf. Ru étot starik ‘this.NOM old_man.NOM ’). Interesting in this example is that the noun starikka features as a morpho-phonologically adapted loan (cf. Nirvi 1971: 544) and the pronominal determiner does not show the grammatical gender specification of the donor language: as starik is a masculine noun in Russian, the form of the pronoun should be etot ‘this.M . NOM ’. Instead, the form of the pronoun, which is identical with the feminine form in Russian, suggests either gender neutralization and generalization of the feminine reflex, or some kind of phonological adaptation with the head-noun ending in -a. In the second example, we observe the Russian 3PL personal pronoun ‘they’ occurring as a subject of the verb without any signs of adaptation. (See Blokland 2012 for a discussion of borrowed pronouns in Uralic languages.) starikka sīl istū, dūmai, što hä (38) Eta this.NOM old.man.NOM there sit.PRS .3SG think.PRS .3SG that he kedäikkee tuttavia näkkȫ. somebody.PART acquaintences:PART see.PRS .3SG ‘This old man is sitting there, he thinks that he sees people he knows.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) (39) A koлme vel’l’et oni uže kuoлtih. and three brother:PART they.NOM already die:ACT.PST.3PL (≈PST. IMPS ) ‘And these three brothers, they already died.’ (C-L, AS, Pr) Russian forms occurring as objects are presented in examples (40) and (41) from Eastern Seto and Soikino Ingrian, respectively. In the first example, we have the same Russian pronoun as in (38), but in object position. There are no signs of adaptation here as the pronoun occurs in the form required by the Russian syntax (in the Accusative) and not in the Genitive which would be the correct

97 I will digress here from the constituency approach adopted earlier by discussing also subject NPs which are not considered to be part of the VP in phrase structure grammars.

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object case in Eastern Seto. Likewise, in example (41) the object NP babušku is a non-adapted form showing the Russian object case (the Accusative). (40) Tal ol’ vaja vī ala minna’ . . . i and s/he:ADE be.PST.3SG necessary still down go.INF eto tu tekiki. this.ACC DIST. PRON do:PST.3SG : FOC ‘S/he had to come . . . and she did it.’ (Se-E, HT, Pdl) (41) Esli hän männȫ meijen=kera, to näkkȫ babušku. then see.PRS .3SG grandma.ACC if s/he.NOM go.PRS .3SG us=with ‘If s/he comes with us, s/he will see grandma.’ (Ing-S, KV, Yg) Consider finally one intriguing example of a matter replication in a predicative expression. In (42) from Central Lude, the infinitive predicate of the copula verb ‘be’ and its complement are subjected to epistemic qualification expressed by the finite modal verb voida ‘can; may’. The predicative orлom is the Instrumental form of the Russian word for ‘eagle’, which is surprising, because Instrumental marking is not licensed in such epistemic contexts; only the Nominative is allowed in the Russian input sentence that served as a source of (42) (cf. éto mog byt’ orël ‘this could be an eagle.NOM ’). The speaker might have been deceived by the fact that the Instrumental is possible in Russian if the possibility modal has dynamic modal reading (cf. Ru Mozhet li on byt’ orlom? ‘can s/he be an eagle’; e.g. taking the role of an eagle in a play). This is bizarre, considering that she is generally more fluent in Russian than in Lude, and is supposed to have command over the distinction between epistemic and dynamic modal constructions. This example provides a hint to the intricacies we are going to encounter in the investigation of MM-domain in Chapter 8. (42)

Minä I.NOM

nägin see:PST.1SG

oлda be:INF

orлom. eagle:INS

egläi yesterday

lindud. bird:PART

Hän it

voi can.PRS .3SG

‘I saw a bird yesterday. It could have been an eagle’ (C-L, NIP, Vi)

7.2 Change of verb categories other than MM This overview of the structural anomalies attested in the coding of the categories for which the Finnic verb is obligatorily specified will proceed from inside out. I

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will first discuss the innermost categories of the verb which affect its lexical meaning as an auto-semantic unit, and then proceed with external categories coding its relations with other components of the contexts. Bybee (1985: 13‒ 24) arranges cross-linguistically salient notions associated with the verb according to the extent to which they affect the meaning of the stem as follows: [[[[[[[V]VAL]ASP]Tense]Mood]AGR]. In this section, I will address ‘Valency’, ‘Tense’, ‘Agreement’ and ‘Polarity’. The last is missing from the Bybee’s sequence, but is highly relevant to the expression of MM and will therefore be discussed separately. The category ‘Mood’ will be in the centre of the attention in Chapter 8. The category ‘Aspect’ is not encoded on the verb in the Finnic languages and will be left out. Aspectual meanings are conventionally expressed in Finnic by means of case alternation on the core arguments of the verb. Some observations on erroneous case-selection relative to aspectual meanings were presented in the last section; recall the discussion of examples (28)‒(31).

7.2.1 Valency The quantitative valency of the receding Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto is generally intact. Most of the Finnic languages have productive and regular valency-decreasing morphological devices (suffixes) deriving intransitive verbs from transitive ones98. Following Haspelmath (1993), I will call such derived verbs ‘anticausatives’. The functional class of anticausatives includes the major subtypes of anticausatives proper (i.e. verbs expressing spontaneous activities without a causer, e.g. The door opened), autocausatives (i.e., verbs with animate, non-agentive arguments, e.g. They congregated around the holy stone) and reflexives (e.g. He undressed in full view of everyone). Russian has valency-decreasing derivation which in terms of class-coverage and productivity is in no way inferior to the inherited Finnic one, and even exceeds the derivational inventory of some Finnic languages.99 On the whole, the valency-decreasing derivation devices of the Finnic languages spoken in Russia are more regular and productive than the respective devices of the South Finnic languages Estonian and Livonian, which suggests that the centuries-long contact with Russian has had conservational, if not reinforcing impact on the valency-decreasing derivation of the former (Zaitseva 2002: 171). Based on considerations related to the productivity 98 Consult Kasik (1996: 52‒57) for Estonian and ISK (2008: §334, §335, §336) for Finnish valency‑decreasing derivation. 99 Hint (2002: 116‒117), for instance, has suggested that the contact with Russian has increased the productivity of the valency‑decreasing suffix ‑u in the Estonian verb derivation.

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and the morphotactics of the anticausative formatives in Veps, Lude, Karelian and Ingrian dialects, anticausativization has been “promoted” to the status of inflectional category in certain dialects of these languages (see Zaitseva 2002: 170‒221 for Veps, Tunkelo 1924 for Lude, Lehtinen 1978 for Ingrian, Bogdanova 2003 for Karelian and Koivisto 1995 for general discussion). This means that the TFs of the Eastern Finnic readily have an extensive apparatus for converting transitive stems to intransitive. The only further insight I could gain from the available corpus is related to Central Lude, the language where the valency-decreasing verb formation100 is more productive than in the rest of the varieties studied. It seems that the anticausative vocabulary of the contemporary speakers of this receding vernacular is richer in Russian loanverbs than their non-anticausative vocabulary. From 23 occurrences of verbal forms with anticausative morphology in the corpora, only four were not Russian loans. The majority of the remaining eighteen occurrences consist of a Russian loan-stem and a Lude anticausative morphology and are not attested in the TF as documented by LmS; see Table 10. Table 10: Verb forms showing Russian stems and Finnic anticausative morphology attested form

gloss

speaker

source (presented in the infinitive)

uťtšidakse

learn:INF : REFL

MAT, Sv

< Ru uchit’sya ‘learn’

zdorovīheze

get.healthy:REFL . PRS .3SG

PIK, Sv

< Ru zdorovit’sya ‘be in good health’

zaderžīheze

be.late: REFL . PRS .3SG

PIK, Sv

< Ru zaderzhat’sya ‘hold; be late’

kažīheze

seem:REFL . PRS .3SG

PIK, Sv

< Ru kazhetsya ‘seem, appear’

okažidahse

turn.out:REFL . PRS .3SG

PIK, Sv

< Ru okazat’sya ‘turn out’

dūmaitšehe

think:REFL . PRS .3SG

AS, Pr

< Ru dumaetsya ‘appear; come up with something’

rugaitšieze

swear:REFL . PRS .3SG

AS, Pr

< Ru rugat’sya ‘swear’

These data suggest that the invasion of Russian anticausative verbs is what keeps the anticausativization in Central Lude alive and productive. Another important observation concerns the degree of adaptation. Taking as a basis the regular mechanisms of assimilation of Russian anticausative derivatives in the Finnic structure (e.g. Pugh 1999: 138‒139), one could see that for some contemporary speakers the adaptation rules are no longer operative. The consequence of this are either mixed forms with half-way adaptation (a sort of 100 In Central Lude anticausitivization is predominantly an inflectional category, whereas in Northern Lude it is predominantly derivational (Koivisto 1995: 91‒98).

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structural compromise) or raw take-overs. An example of the first is dūmaitšetśa (MVT, Pr) consisting of a Russian loan verb (cf. dumaet) which is morphophonologically adapted to the Lude structure (see the long vowel in the first syllable and the element -tše which is an affix accommodating loan verbs), but exhibits the Russian anticausative suffix -śa, instead of the Central Lude -hez. Examples of the latter are tšustvujetsja (MVT, Pr), which is a raw insertion of the Russian word for ‘feels’ and kaž(e)tsja (AS, Pr), which is a transfer of the Russian word for ‘seems, appears’.101

7.2.2 Tense The tense system of the four Finnic varieties is considerably afflicted by the process of language death. In order to back up this statement, I will need to provide a short overview of the Finnic tense system. Disregarding some weakly grammaticalized structures (see Metslang 1996), the members of Finnic branch of Finno-Ugric have been traditionally regarded as languages without a grammatical future tense. Otherwise, the Finnic tense system coincides structurally with the tense systems of the Germanic languages. This isomorphism has two dimensions: a) the basic distinction between four grammatical tenses: Present tense, Imperfect, Perfect and Pluperfect; b) the compositional rules according to which these four tenses are built allow to distinguish (both in Finnic and Germanic) between two simple tenses (Present and Imperfect), and two compound tenses (Perfect and Pluperfect) consisting of an auxiliary verb, carrying the finiteness properties of the predicate, and a past participle of the lexical verb (see EKG I: 237‒242; Viitso 2003: 55‒56, 61‒62 on Estonian and ISK 2008: §112, §1527‒1529, §1530‒1533, §1534‒1537, §1540‒1541 on Finnish). The differences between individual Finnic varieties in the marking of tense are rather small, especially in the affirmative, where the number of tenses and their compositional patterns are more or less uniform across the Finnic area. The negative tense forms display somewhat greater variation, which can be relegated to the coding of the notion of ‘polarity’ rather than to the coding of ‘tense’, and therefore will not be discussed here. It suffices to mention the novel negative preterite in Veps, which negates all past tense forms in this language: 101 One factor that facilitates the raw transfer of verbs like ‘seem’ and ‘appear’, or ‘feel’ is that these perception verbs tend to function as hedges. Their secondary status is often signalled by defective (or missing) verb inflection, which facilitates their transfer from one language to another.

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Imperfect, Perfect and Pluperfect (Kettunen 1943: 460‒465), or the different morphological structure of the negative Imperfect in South Estonian and Livonian on the one hand (see e.g. Kettunen 1938: 63), and in North Estonian, Votic and Northern Finnic on the other. Table 11 illustrates the Finnish tense system in the active voice, indicative mood and affirmative polarity; the inflectional paradigm of Finnish is representative as to the maximal form-inventory found in other languages.102 In order to avoid any ambiguity as to the descriptive labels such as ‘imperfect’ in the last column, I have marked off the temporal reference of each grammatical tense in terms of the Reichenbachian primitives ‘S’ (time of speech), ‘E’ (time of event) and ‘R’ (reference point), as applied in Comrie’s (1985: 122‒130) theory of tense; these primitives are comparative concepts independent of categories applied in the description of individual languages. Note that the time scheme of the ‘present’, ‘imperfect’ and ‘perfect’ includes ‘R’ which is irrelevant for the description of the temporal semantics of these case forms; the reference point does not play a role in the expression of absolute tenses (Comrie 1985: 122‒124). The specification ‘R’, which is redundant in this case, is added in brackets only for the sake of comparability with the ‘pluperfect’ which cannot be described without reference to ‘R’.103 The compound tense forms are built from a finite form of the auxiliary verb olla ‘to be’ and the past participle of the lexical verb. While the Indicative shows the maximal choice of tenses, the Conditional and the Potential moods display a reduced tense choice, with only two tenses: one simple (present tense), and one compound (preterite); the Imperative shows no differentiation of tense. The aberrations from the TF attested in the corpora can be relegated to developments that can be arranged in two categories: a) developments leading to reduction of the verbal periphrasis (consisting of function word[s] and a content word) to the detriment of the compound tense forms; b) changes without reduction of periphrasis; such changes include substitution of different synthetic tense forms for other synthetic forms, where no decrease of the number of morphemes in the verbal complex takes place. The first category can be straightforwardly explained by the influence of Russian, as this language has only one synthetic (or simple) past tense which

102 Estonian, for instance, does not differentiate grammatical number in participles; its tense paradigm is thus slightly less complex. 103 Note that removing ‘R’ from the reference of the ‘imperfect’ and ‘perfect’ undoes the distinction between these tenses (as originally intended by Comrie 1985: 78). This is a realistic account, because in many languages (including Finnic ones) these two tenses are partly interchangeable.

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Table 11: The Finnish tense system: istua ‘to sit’ (affirmative, active, indicative) TENSE

FORM

GLOSS

TEMPORAL REFERENCE 104

sit.PRS -1SG sit.PRS -2SG sit.PRS .3SG sit.PRS -1PL sit.PRS -2PL sit.PRS -3PL

E (= R) = S

Imperfect (or simple past glossed as PST )

istu-i-n istu-i-t istu-i istu-i-mme istu-i-tte istu-i-vat

sit-PST-1SG sit-PST-2SG sit-PST.3SG sit-PST-1PL sit-PST-2PL sit-PST-3PL

E (= R) < S

Perfect

ole-n istu-nut ole-t istu-nut on istu-nut ole-mme istu-neet ole-tte istu-neet ovat istu-neet

be.PRS -1SG sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. SG be.PRS -2SG sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. SG be.PRS .3SG sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. SG be.PRS -1PL sit-ACT. PST. PTCP. PL be.PRS -2PL sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. PL be.PRS .3PL sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. PL

E < (R =) S

Pluperfect

ol-i-n istu-nut ol-i-t istu-nut ol-i istu-nut ol-i-mme istu-neet ol-i-tte istu-neet ol-i-vat istu-neet

be-PST-1SG sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. SG be-PST-2SG sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. SG be-PST.3SG sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. SG be-PST-1PL sit-ACT. PST. PTCP. PL be-PST-2PL sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. PL be-PST-3PL sit-ACT.PST. PTCP. PL

E (ii) grammatical contexts with explicit 1PL subjects > (iii) predicates with explicit person agreement marking (person endings). The first stage (i) concerns occurrences which are structurally similar to impersonal uses proper, where the argument realization is constrained, but no valency-reduction takes place. Such uses may have served as bridging contexts for the re-employment of the Impersonal form to cover the expression of first person plural. Consider (63) from Central Lude. In this example we have an inclusive hortative use, where an invitation is addressed to a definite number of individuals present in the speech situation. Such uses represent a compromise between the initial impersonal context and personal uses, where the agent of the verb is not overtly expressed. (63)

D’uo-tān tšaju. drink-ACT. PRS .1PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) tea.PART ‘Let us drink tea. / Shall we drink tea.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv)

Upon the assumption that we are dealing with an extension which is (at least partly) internally motivated, the second step in the extension of the IMPS /3PL form invokes uses with explicit 1PL subjects. Examples of this stage were presented in (61) and (62) above. Another, morphologically somewhat malformed example of a use of IMPS /3PL form with a 1PL subject is presented in (64). The third person plural form of the negated verb does not correspond to the expected form ei (recall the negative conjugation in Table 12 on page 147), but seems to be borrowed from Finnish. On the other hand, Finnish does not have the construction eivät + V-IMPS . PST. PTCP, which suggest that we are dealing with a production error motivated by the unconscious desire of the speaker to overtly mark the relation of the Impersonal participle to its original locus of extension – the third person plural. Accordingly, the 3PL-suffix on the negation verb in this example provides a clear indication that we are not dealing with a direct extension of Impersonal marking to the first person plural, but with a substitution of the original 1PL ending with the novel third person plural marking exhibiting impersonal morphology. (64)

Erhǟt some:PL . NOM

sanad word:PL . NOM

voi-du can:IMPS .PST. PTCP

daže even

mü we.NOM

karjaлaized Karelians.NOM

ei-väd NEG -3PL

po . . . ponjat understand.INF

‘Some of the words were such that even we Karelians couldn’t understand them.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv)

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155

The last stage on the extension cline is attested by one example produced by the forgetter AM, a speaker of Lower Luga Ingrian. In (65) the Conditional verb form oл-ta-isi-m agrees with the 1PL subject pronoun as its last morpheme is the first person agreement marker. The preceding form oл-ta-isi on the other hand is identical with the Impersonal form of the Conditional mood (cf. Ing-S oltaiZ ‘be:IMPS .COND.3SG ’; Laanest 1986: 138). Alternatively, one may regard the form produced by the speaker as some kind of generalization of the strong consonantal grade which happens to coincide with the Impersonal form of the verb. At any rate, the compatibility of the personal ending with a morphological structure associated with the Impersonal voice strongly suggests that the initial functional dedication of the Impersonal morpheme is completely lost for the speaker. (65)

Kui if

isä father.NOM

ei NEG .3SG

oл-ta-isi-m be-PRS .IMPS ? - COND -1PL

mennüt go:PST. PTCP

kaukaл far

ni ̮nta so

omast own:ELA

kīrest fast

sis then

mi ̮ we. NOM

majast. home:ELA

‘If father had not driven so fast, we would have still been far from home.’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) As should have become obvious, the discussed stages are not attested in a single linguistic variety. This, as well as the fact that in some of the cases we might be dealing with direct influence of a contact language, should make us suspicious of considering the stages in the literal sense as representing actual developmental points on the path of functional extension of the Impersonal voice morphology. Rather, they represent different degrees of obliteration of the relationship between a grammatical morpheme and its original functional dedication, some of which might be present in one language and absent from another. Consider now the second extension in Table 15, which is a natural follow-up of the stage exemplified in (65), and is documented by only one instantiation. In this example, (66) below, the same Lower Luga Ingrian speaker extends the same Conditional form with the arguably Impersonal element -tä- to first person singular, as manifested by the marker -n on the verb, which signals agreement with the first person subject pronoun miä ‘I’. One may argue that -tä- is not an Impersonal marker here, but an analogical generalization of the strong consonantal grade in what could be an Indicative simple past form, where the element -(i)si is a marker of the Imperfect tense and not of the Conditional mood (Elena Markus, Liina Lindström, p.c.). In any case, the presence of the redundant 1SG marking – expressed by the pronoun and by the person ending on the verb –

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suggests that for the speaker this form bears no transparent relation to the impersonal meaning.113 (66)

Oliz be:COND.3SG

miu I:ADE

rohkeb more

men-tä-isi-n go-PRS . IMPS ? - COND -1SG

aikā time:PART

miä I.NOM

buittə as_if

teiekä. you:COM

‘If I had more time, I would go with you’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) The third extension in Table 15, where the Impersonal/3PL form comes to replace the original third person singular form of the verb, is the most frequent one in the corpora. It is documented in all varieties, with 27 instantiations altogether. As in the case of the IMPS /3PL → 1PL shift, we are dealing with an on-going extension as the semantic relation to plurality of the singular uses is in most of the cases still transparent. Nevertheless, there are a considerable number of examples of the further phase in the process, where a semantic plurality component is missing from the context. This extension displays a notable paradigmatic range: there are both affirmative and negative, both present and past tense and both Indicative and Conditional forms of the verb, among the target singular forms. Consider example (67) from Central Lude with a present affirmative form114, example (68) from Votic with a present negative form, (69) from Central Lude with a past negative form, and (70) from Lower Luga Ingrian with a Conditional form of the verb. (67)

el’e-ttäh. A vot tämä Suojärves and well this.NOM Suojärvi:INE live-ACT. PRS .3SG (≈PRS . IMPS ) ‘and well, he (the grandson) lives in Suojärvi.’ (C-L, AS, Pr)

(68)

meil mokoma se̮na eb e̮л-dǝ word NEG .3SG be-ACT. PRS .CONNEG (≈PRS . IMPS ) we:ADE such ‘We don’t have such a word.’ (Vot, ZS, Kr)

113 In addition to the Conditional examples in (65) and (66), there is one uncertain example of an Indicative form containing the Impersonal morpheme and an active third person plural marker. The Votic consultant ZS (Kr), who can be regarded as forgetter, produced the form лauл‑da‑va ‘they sing’, which seems to contain the Impersonal morpheme ‑da‑ (redundantly) supplemented by the present tense third person plural marker ‑va. 114 The forgetter AS speaks a kind of a (levelled‑out) mixture of Central Lude and Olonets.

Change of verb categories other than MM

(69)

jälgezǝ afterwards i and

müö we.NOM

kirikko church.NOM

tulime come:PST.1PL

ei NEG .3SG

kons ku some_time

s from

157

evakuatsia evacuation

oл-tu. be-ACT. PST.CONNEG (≈PST. IMPS )

‘After that at some point we came back from evacuation and the church wasn’t there.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv) (70)

Mokom such

pitk long.NOM

talv. winter.NOM

Kīrem faster

tuл-ta-iz come-PRS . IMPS - COND.3SG

kevät. spring.NOM ‘What a long winter. I wish spring came faster.’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) A number of grammatical contexts seem to have served as hotbeds for the extension of the impersonal form from the coding of 3PL-participants to the coding of 3SG -participants. One such context concerns existential sentences with plural Partitive subjects, where in the TFs of the Finnic languages the copula verb does not agree with the subject in number but remains in singular; consider the Votic example from Markus & Rozhanskiy (2011b: 222), where the subject pujt is in plural, but the predicate kazvoB is in singular: pujt mejl kazvoB pal’l’o ‘tree:PL . PART we:ADE grow:PRS .3SG plentifully’ (‘there are plenty of trees growing here’). Sometimes the semantic plurality (where the existence of more than one entity is asserted) impels consultants to use the 3PL /Impersonal form in a context of grammatical singularity; consider (71), where the speaker uses the 3PL /Impersonal form of the verb ‘be’ in a context requiring singular form of the copula. oлt paljo. (71) A vot Jāmas heitä and well Jaama:INE they:PART be:ACT. PST.3SG /PL (≈PST. IMPS ) many ‘And well, there were many of them (Gypsies) in the town of Jaama.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) Another type of contexts providing fertile soil for number-agreement errors and for extension of the Impersonal form to third person singular are cases where participants enter the scenery at different times. In (72) from Votic, the speaker states that two different actors have performed the same activity at different times. Focus on the similarity of the activity (‘coming’) being performed would require plural marking, and this is how the speaker begins his utterance selecting the Impersonal form which is generalized in the expression of third person

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Intensity of the language contact

plural. Focus on the temporal sequence of two distinct events would require singular marking, and this is how the speaker continues his utterance by forming two consecutive clauses with distinct singular actors. Paul’ Ariste, sīs tuli (72) Tuл-ti come-ACT. PST.3SG /PL (≈PST. IMPS ) Paul Ariste then come:ACT. PST.3SG Paul’ Alvre. Paul Alvre ‘Paul Ariste came, and then came Paul Alvre.’ (Vot, NL, U-L) This last example brings us to the semantic domain of concomitance which is a common source of hesitance in number assignment. One of the functions of the Comitative case in Finnic is to derank one of two equal ‘partner participants’ requiring plural agreement (cf. ‘John and Peter went.PL ’) to a less-then-equal ‘companion’ (‘John went.SG with Peter’), where the verb is in singular. One the one hand the Comitative marking in examples (73) and (74) requires that the predicate is in singular. On the other hand we have in both examples participants that are equal on the empathy and control hierarchy (see Lehmann & Shin 2005; Stolz, Stroh & Urdze 2006), which implies an equivalent partnership and usually invokes a construction where the partners are symmetrically marked as constituents of the subject NP and agree with a plural form of the predicate. This discrepancy between form and meaning leads to erroneous uses of the IMPS /3PL-form in singular contexts with Comitative constituents (for similar examples from the extinct Valdai Karelian, see Leppik 1960). se̮ide-ti dovariša-ga linna. (73) Miez man.SG . NOM drive-ACT. PST.3SG /PL (≈PST. IMPS ) friend-COM town.ILL ‘The man went with a friend to the town.’ (Vot, IG, Lu) (74) Hän oudā Koljaga ühtēn vuotēn. s/he.NOM be:ACT. PRS .3SG /PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) Kolya:COM one:ILL year:ILL ‘He is born in the same year as Kolya.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv) Another context leading to ambiguity between plural and singular concerns collective nouns like ‘youth’, ‘people’, ‘family’ etc., which require singular agreement in Finnic (see e.g. Neetar 1964 for a detailed description of the subjectpredicate agreement in Estonian dialects). Due to their semantic plurality, such subject nouns cause inconsistency in the number agreement of the verb, which leads to relaxation of the agreement rule. Markus and Rozhanskiy (2011b: 222)

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159

write in their grammar of contemporary Votic that in some rare cases the predicate of a collective noun (e.g. vätši ‘people’) can be in both numbers; e.g. vätši meni mettsäse ‘people.SG . NOM go:PST.3SG forest:ILL ’ which is the inherited option, but also vätši menti mettsäse ‘people.SG . NOM go:PST.3PL (≈PST. IMPS ) forest:ILL ’ (for similar inconsistency in Valdai Karelian, see Leppik 1960). An example of such ambiguity, which leads to the extension of the IMPS /3PL form to singular contexts, is (75) from Central Lude. (75) Heitä finskoi voiska taba-tti da they.PART Finnish.NOM army.NOM catch: ACT. PST.3SG /PL (≈PST. IMPS ) and sih d’ätti. there.ILL leave:ACT. PST.3SG ‘The Finnish army caught them and left them there.’ (C-L, VK, Sv) In this example, the subject ‘army’ (which agrees with singular predicates in the TF of Lude) takes as its complement the IMPS /3PL-form of the predicate, which seems to be reanalysed as singular. In favour of this interpretation speaks the fact that the coordinated predicate d’ätti ‘left’ is in the regular third person singular, as required by the collective subject noun. It should be noted that this hesitance in number assignment is observable in other areas of syntax as well; for example, in the agreement of an adjective modifier with its head; the Central Lude speaker VIS (Sv), for instance, produced the NP vahnad rahvaz ‘old folks’ where the singular collective noun rahvaz ‘folk, people’ is erroneously modified by the plural vahna-d ‘old-PL ’. In some cases the failure of number agreement seems to be triggered by the fact that the receding and the dominant language differ in terms of grammatical number as to the same lexical item. This concerns oikonyms, which in one of the languages are singular, but in the other are formally plural. In (76), the Central Lude consultant refers to an indigenous Lude village, whose name-shape in Lude is singular (Kaškana), but in Russian it is plural (as signalled by the pluralizer -y in Kashkany). The speaker produces, however, the Russian name of the village – which lost its last inhabitants already in 1970s and therefore is not very salient in the consciousness of the community – and, accordingly, selects the 3PL /Impersonal form of the predicate. Such uses may lead to conventionalization of the plural agreement every time this village is a topic of conversation. (76)

Kaškani ̮ ouda Kaškana be: ACT. PRS .3SG / PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) ‘Kashkany is far away.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv)

лoittоn. far_away

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Finally, in some cases, for pragmatic or other reasons, the singularity or plurality of the actor(s) is irrelevant and the grammatical number of the respective verb forms remains underspecified. Contexts where the specification of number is unimportant are intrinsically contiguous with the notion of ‘impersonality’. Consider (77) from Eastern Seto containing a single protagonist x in the first clause, whereas in the second clause the impersonal form may – but need not – encode undetermined plurality (‘x and his family’). (77)

sugulane relative

jah, yes

sugulane, relative.NOM

sugulane . . . relative

ke̮ik everything

lōder lazy_bum

a but

olle̮=i be:ACT.CONNEG = NEG .3SG

mǖ-di sell-ACT. PST.3SG /PL (≈PST. IMPS )

maha away

‘Relative, what a relative . . . he is a lazy bum, not a relative, he/they sold everything.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) In addition to such examples, where the semantic relation to plurality is transparent, there are twelve occurrences in the corpus, where the Impersonal form is used with unmistakably singular third person referent, like ‘car’, ‘church’, ‘word’ etc. Some examples were already presented in (67)‒(70), but consider (78) from Central Lude referring explicitly to a singular human encoded by the subject pronoun hän ‘s/he’. In (79) the extension of the IMPS /3PL-form to the third person singular form of the verb is brought to its extreme (bordering on absurdity) as the singulare tantum ‘much time’ is governed by a negative existential. This is a context which always requires that the existential verb is in its singular form. Clearly, the IMPS /3PL morphology in these examples is semantically opaque. (78)

Pomoemu, in_my_opinion täl here:ADE

hän s/he

ei NEG .3SG

oл-da be-ACT. PRS .CONNEG (≈PRS . IMPS )

ruodos. work:ADE

‘As far as I know he doesn’t work here.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) (79)

Heil they.ADE äiju much.PART

ei NEG .3SG

rodi-da be.FUT-ACT. PRS .CONNEG (≈PRS . IMPS )

aigad. time:PART

‘They will not have much time.’ (C-L, IIS, Sv)

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Summing up the discussion of the ‘IMPS /3PL → 3SG ’ extension, we can conclude that although this substitution is attested in all varieties studied, out of 27 instantiations 15 (more than a half) are semantically transparent uses in bridging contexts. This means that the extension of the Impersonal form to contexts with third person singular referents has not yet been conventionalized on an interpersonal level. To my knowledge, Veps is the only Finnic language where the extension of the Impersonal form to several persons in the active has been mentioned and discussed in the literature. In this language, the past Impersonal form has been conventionalized in all negative plural past tense forms; cf. the active simple past tenses forms of ‘do’: en t’ege-nd ‘NEG .1SG do-ACT. PST.CONNEG ’ ‘I did not do’, ed t’ege-nd ‘NEG .2SG do-ACT. PST.CONNEG ’ ‘you did not do’, ii ̯ t’ege-nd ‘NEG .3SG doACT. PST.CONNEG ’ ‘s/he did not do’, emei͔ t’eh-tud ‘NEG .1PL do- IMPS . PST. CONNEG ’ ‘we did not do’, etei͔ t’eh-tud ‘NEG .2PL do- IMPS . PST.CONNEG ’ ‘you did not do’, ii ̯ t’eh-tud ‘NEG .3PL do- IMPS . PST.CONNEG ’ ‘they did not do’ (Zaitseva 1981: 252). Such forms have been also attested in the Conditional. Zaitseva (2002: 154) reports that according to some uncertain sources, negative Conditional forms for 1st and 2nd person plural like emei g’ä-da-nui(ž)‘NEG .1PL drink-IMPS - PST: COND ’ (‘we wouldn’t drink’), etei g’ö-da-nui(ž) ‘NEG .2PL drink-IMPS - PST: COND ’ (‘you wouldn’t drink’) have been in use in the eastern sub-dialects of Central Veps. Veps also knows sporadic extensions of the impersonal morphology to singular forms; cf. the extension to second person singular in sina l’äh-tud ka mina ištun ‘you.NOM go- IMPS . PST and I. NOM sit.ACT. PRS :1SG ’ ‘you went and I am sitting (here)’ (Myznikova: 2014: 146). The discussion in this section showed that the extension of the Impersonal form to several persons occurs also in other Finnic varieties. 7.2.4 Polarity The opposition of polarity includes the values ‘affirmative’ and ‘negative’. This section deals with exceptional, non-congenital strategies of marking negation, which occur in the available corpora and can be ascribed to the process of LD. The discussion will be limited to changes in the expression of negation in declarative (and marginally so) in interrogative clauses, whereas the discussion of changes in the coding of imperative/prohibitive meanings will be postponed to the analysis of mood systems in Chapter 8. The negation-related phenomena to be investigated here extend beyond what is understood as a ‘standard negation’ in the literature. According to Miestamo (2013: 1) standard negation “can be defined as the basic way (or ways) a language has for negating declarative verbal main clauses”; this excludes “[the] negation of existential, copular or non-verbal clauses, the negation of subordinate

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clauses, and the negation of non-declarative clauses like imperatives.” Besides negation of finite verb forms in main clauses, I will discuss negation of infinitive complements and negation in subordinate clauses. In particular, this section focuses on changes according to two parameters: i) ‘(a)symmetry between negation and affirmation’, and ii) ‘(a)symmetry between constructions with different scope of negation’. Miestamo (2013: 1) defines that “[in] symmetric negation the structure of the negative is identical to the structure of the affirmative, except for the presence of the negative marker(s). In asymmetric negation the structure of the negative differs from the structure of the affirmative in various other ways too, i.e. there is asymmetry between affirmation and negation.” Russian, for instance, has symmetric negation; cf. ona znaet ‘she knows’ and ona ne znaet ‘she does not know’. As the parameter (ii) suggests, I will expand the notion of ‘(a)symmetry’ beyond its limits intended by Miestamo. For the purposes of the present study, I will apply this notion also to differences between negative constructions according to the scope of the negation relative to the meaning of a verb taking an infinitive complement. In modal–infinitive constructions for instance, the negative operator may have wide or narrow scope with respect to the modal (cf. ‘not necessarily p’ and ‘necessarily not p’) and this difference can be encoded in two principally different ways: either by simply changing the position of the negator (cf. Ru on ne mozhet est’ ‘he NEG can.3SG eat.INF ’, wide scope negation, and on mozhet ne est’ ‘he can.3SG NEG eat.INF ’, narrow scope negation), or by using another modal word (cf. the English equivalents of the Russian examples: he cannot eat, wide scope negation, and he must not eat, narrow scope negation) (see van der Auwera 2001 for discussion and examples). In his work on the interaction of modality and negation, de Haan (1997: 16‒17) calls the first strategy Negation Placement Strategy, and the second Modal Suppletion Strategy. Other complement-taking predicates (CTPs), which typically take infinitive complements, are manipulative, desiderative, achievement and phasal predicates (see Noonan 2007). Just like with the modals, different scope of the negation with respect to the meaning of the CTP can be encoded either by simply changing the position of the negator (everything else being constant), or by using different lexical and/or morphological matter. Russian has both structural types with some verbs, but generally shows preference for the symmetric type; cf. Ja ne hochu pit’ ‘I don’t want to drink’ (external, wide scope negation) and Ja hochu ne pit’ ‘I want not to drink’ (internal, narrow scope negation). Both parameters – ‘NEG /AFF-(a)symmetry’ and ‘scope-(a)symmetry’ – are such that their positive value ‘symmetric’ designates a simple (one-step) operation of inserting a negator or exchanging its place, where everything else remains the same. The ‘asymmetric’ value, on the other hand, designates by both parameters a more laborious operation of inserting new lexical item(s) and/or transforming the morphological make-up of the construction.

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In relation to the first parameter, the Finnic languages have asymmetric negation; for example, the negative equivalent of the Lude nägen ‘I see’ en näge ‘I don’t see’ (recall Table 12 on page 147) consists of the first person singular form of the negative verb and a special connegative form of the negated verb, which is not identical with its affirmative form (see Savijärvi 1977 for an extensive historical-comparative account of the structure of verbal negation in Finnic). What concerns the second parameter of ‘scope (a)symmetry’, here too the Finnic languages are of the asymmetric type; consider example (80) with a modal and (81) with a desiderative CTP from Estonian. In both examples the sentences in (a) illustrate the external negation structure, where the verbal negator ei precedes the finite CTP. The sentences in (b) illustrate two alternative constructions conveying internal negation: one consists of using another negator (mitte) after the finite verb, the other of the verb ‘to leave’ and the Abessive case form115 of the infinitive. As can be seen, the switch from the examples in (a) to the examples in (b) is not merely configurational, but involves insertion of lexical items and, in the case of the Abessive structure, of morphological features. (80)

a.

ei saa Ta s/he NEG can.CONNEG ‘S/he can’t come.’

tulla. come.INF

b.

mitte tulla. Ta saab come.INF s/he can:PRS .3SG NEG ‘S/he can choose not to come.’ or Ta saab jätta tule-mata. s/he can:PRS .3SG leave.INF come-INF: ABE ‘S/he can choose not to come.’

(81)

a.

ei taha tulla. Ta s/he NEG want.CONNEG come.INF ‘S/he doesn’t want to come.’

b.

Ta tahab mitte s/he want:PRS .3SG NEG ‘S/he wants not to come.’

tulla. come.INF

or Ta tahab jätta s/he want:PRS .3SG leave.INF ‘S/he wants not to come.’

tule-mata. come-INF: ABE

115 The Finnic Abessive negates (or cancels) the meaning of the inflectional base.

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At the same time, it should have become clear from the examples above that Russian is rather different from Finnic: it has symmetric negation and often displays scope symmetry in constructions with CTP and infinitive. These facts provide the point of departure in the analysis of the deviations observed in the decaying Finnic varieties. Another departure point is that LD-induced typological drift from asymmetric to symmetric negation is documented in the literature. Discussing the structural decay of Chontal Mayan, Knowles-Berry (1987: 336‒ 337) notes that semi-speakers have generalized the affirmative inflection to negatives and thus reduced the distinction between affirmative and negative verb forms to only the negative particle mač/mah. In traditional Chontal Mayan, this particle is accompanied by a special connegative inflectional form of the verb, just like in Finnic. Developments like this can be caused either by general rule reduction, triggered by the decreased competence of the speakers, by language-contact (in case the dominant language has symmetric negation), or by both. 7.2.4.1 NEG /AFF -(a)symmetry The four Finnic varieties show some incipient signs of typological drift from the inherited asymmetric negation pattern toward a symmetric negation pattern.116 Instantiations of symmetric negation, which are still to be regarded as production errors, are attested in both corpora and in all varieties (although Eastern Seto features with only one example). There are altogether thirteen unequivocal occurrences of symmetric negation in the corpus. NEG /AFF-symmetry is attested in the formation of Present and Imperfect tense forms and in all persons. Consider the examples (82) and (83) from Soikino Ingrian, where a 1SG present tense and a 1SG Imperfect tense form of the verb are negated. In (84) from Votic and (85) from Eastern Seto we observe symmetric negation of a 3SG Imperfect tense and 3SG present tense forms, respectively. (82) Miä en ühtǟn žālivoita-n. I.NOM NEG .1SG at_all regret-PRS .1SG ‘I don’t regret at all.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) 116 The only evidence for Indicative symmetric negation in Finnic which I am aware of comes from the plural paradigm of the verb in Livonian, from Old Finnish, and Veps. The negated verb in the Livonian is conjugated and the connegative forms are identical with the respective affirmative plural forms (Kettunen 1938: LXI). Likewise, Finnish texts from the 16th and 17th century contain forms like eet olet sine (NEG .2SG be:PRS .2SG you ‘you are not’), where the verb is negated by adding the negator (inflected for person) to its affirmative form (Savijärvi 1977: 222). Similar forms are attested in Veps; e.g. en hondot sai ̯n NEG .1SG bad:PART get: P ST:1SG ‘I did not get the bad one’ (Kettunen 1943: 437–438).

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(83) Migä . . . minä en=hä jakso-in tehä . . . , se this.NOM what I.NOM NEG .1SG = FOC be_able-PST:1SG do.INF piti hänen obezjatel’no tehä. must:PST.3SG s/he:GEN necessarily do.INF ‘What I wasn’t able to do, he necessarily had to do.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) (84) Mil ep piti mennä jaлke̮zǝ. we:ADE NEG .3SG must:PST.3SG go:INF on_foot ‘We didn’t have to go on foot.’ (Vot, SJ, Lu / IG, Lu) (85) S’ō inemine . . . ei ve̮i-b vällä nätta’ nī nūr. this.NOM person.NOM NEG can-PRS .3SG out look.INF so young.NOM ‘This person cannot look so young (or can’t be so young).’ (Se-E, LB, N-Izb) In all examples the negated verb occurs in the respective affirmative form inflected for tense and person and the only manifestation of negation is the preposed negator. The (correct) inherited asymmetric forms, where the negator is followed by the connegative form of the verb, would have been en žālivoita in (82), en jaksand in (83), ep pitännüd in (84), and ei ve̮i in (85)117. Votic seems to be the only language, where the asymmetric pattern is to some degree conventionalized, at least in the negation of certain frequent verbs, such as pittää ‘must’. Three out of four consultants reacted to the input sentence in (84) with the novel symmetric pattern ep piti, and only one with the appropriate eB pitännüD. Against a conventionalization of this innovation speaks, on the other hand, the fact that it is not recorded in the newest grammatical descriptions of Votic (cf. Chernyavskiy 2005a: 43‒44; Agranat 2007: 95‒96; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 149‒150, 232‒ 233). Note that the negated verb in (82) is a Russian loanword meaning ‘regret; feel pity’. In some cases the direct transfer of Russian linguistic matter seems to have contributed to the switch from the original asymmetric pattern to the symmetric pattern of the donor language. In the following examples from Soikino Ingrian and Central Lude, the speaker uses the Russian negator, which seems to function as a trigger of the affirmative form of the lexical verb which is used instead of the connegative form. In (86) the Russian negation particle ne is pro-cliticized on the affirmative present 1SG form of the verb instead on the 117 In (85) the consultant produces the Estonian 3SG affirmative present tense form of the epistemic verb võima ‘can’, instead of the Seto form ve̮i.

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respective connegative. Likewise, in (87), the Russian negation particle is followed by the affirmative Imperfect 1PL form of the verb instead of the respective connegative. (86)

Miä I.NOM

NEG =must-PRS .1SG

miä I.NOM

oman own:GEN

ne=beä-n

noiž start.INF

tǖd work:PART

tǖd work:PART

jo already

tegömä, do:INF

tein. do:PST.1SG

‘I don’t have to start working, I already did my work.’ (Ing-S, OM, Vs) (87)

mü nikunna ni kävüimme we.NOM nowhere NEG go:PST:1PL ‘We didn’t go anywhere.’ (C-L, NIP, Vi)

Clearly, these novel formations replicate the Russian model of forming negative forms of the verb by simply adding the negator to the affirmative forms. At the same time, the symmetric pattern conforms to the general tendency towards transparency (constructional iconicity), economy and rule reduction characteristic for language decay. While the traditional Finnic pattern requires two operations in converting affirmative forms to negative: i) insertion of the negator and ii) substitution of the finite verb form with a connegative form, the new model requires only one operation – insertion of the negator. 7.2.4.2 Scope (a)symmetry Another innovation leading to a “low-cost” expression of negation is the tendency to encode the switch of the negation scope simply by changing the word order, where the negation marker is shifted on the other side of the finite verb. As already noted above, the traditional Finnic varieties are characterized by scope asymmetry in ‘CTP + infinitive’ structures. There are, however, 23 occurrences of the symmetric pattern in the material. The examples come from Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude.118 Consider example (88) from Soikino Ingrian, (89) from Lower Luga Ingrian and (90) from Central Lude.

118 The potential Eastern Seto examples were disregarded because this variety tends to express wide scope negation in a post‑verbal position, which means that ‘CTP + infinitive’ structures with wide scope negation and ‘CTP + infinitive’ structures with narrow scope negation are often identical (cf. the German Ich will nicht trinken which is ambiguous between wide scope negation ‘I do not want to drink’ and narrow scope negation ‘I want not to drink’).

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(88) Siä tože šāt ei sǖvä, jesli et taho. NEG .2SG want.CONNEG you.NOM also can:PRS .2SG NEG eat.INF if ‘You can also not eat, if you don’t want to.’ (Ing-S, OM, Vs) (89) Hänel pittǟ ei gul’aitta a tehä tǖtä. s/he:ADE must.PRS .3SG NEG have_time_off.INF but do.INF work:PART ‘He should not hang around, but work.’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) (90) Minä voin enämpi ei ruota, mina omat I.NOM can:PRS .1SG anymore NEG work:INF I.NOM own:PART ruodod ruodoin. job:PART work:PST:1SG ‘I don’t have to work anymore, I already did my job.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv) Unlike with the NEG /AFF-symmetry, this symmetric strategy of marking internal negation seems to prevail in the collected material from Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude, which is surprising considering that to my knowledge it has not been discussed in previous studies. Based on the examples in this and the previous sections, one might have gotten the impression that in the Finnic languages the negator always precedes the entity over which its scope extends. Actually this is not true. One factor that could have facilitated the development of the symmetric pattern – i.e. the commutation of the negator according to its scope – is that most of the Finnic varieties spoken in Russia can express wide scope negation also by a structure where the negator follows the verb in its scope (see e.g. Iva 2007: 102 for VõruSeto, Zaitseva 2002: 75 for Veps, Zaikov 2000: 138‒142 for Karelian dialects, and Kehayov et al. 2013: 80 for Central Lude). Consider the Central Lude example (91), where the negation marker ei negates the verb ‘believe’, but follows it. (91)

a but

kelle who.ALL

karjaлaks Karelian:TRNSL

sano tell.INF

uskota believe:IMPS .CONNEG

ei NEG .3PL

što that

opastetti teach:PST. IMPS

‘But no matter whom you tell, they don’t believe you that we were taught in Karelian.’ (C-L, AM, Li) (Kehayov et al. 2013: 80) With the exception of (some) Võru-Seto dialects, the pre-verbal negation pattern is dominant in all contemporary Finnic varieties, while the post-verbal pattern is

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rarer. What is relevant in the present context is that some of the Finnic varieties considered here already have a structure identical with the structure illustrated in (88)‒(90), which only needs to be reanalysed as an expression of narrow scope negation. The assumption that we are dealing with reanalysis of an expression of wide scope post-verbal negation into an expression of narrow scope negation cannot be unequivocally confirmed. Apparent negative evidence is that about half of the occurrences of scope symmetry in the corpora come from Soikino Ingrian, a variety for which postposed wide scope negation is barely attested in modern times. On the other hand, it is remarkable that most of the instantiations of symmetric internal negation display person/numberagreement between the complement-taking finite verb and the negator. Although the negation marker negates the infinitive, its formal properties are such as if it negated the finite CTP. For instance, most of the consultants reacted to the source sentence of (88) with a negation marker agreeing in second person singular with the preceding finite verb; cf. (92) from Soikino Ingrian and (93) from Votic. An example of second person plural agreement of the negation verb with the finite CTP from Central Lude is presented in (94). sāt et sǖva, jesli et taho. (92) Siä NEG .2SG want.CONNEG you.NOM can:PRS .2SG NEG .2SG eat.INF if ‘You are allowed not to eat, if you don’t want to.’ (Ing-S, KV, Yg) (93) Siä tože ve̮id et süvvǝ, ko=et taho. you.NOM also can:PRS .2SG NEG .2SG eat.INF if=NEG .2SG want.CONNEG ‘You are allowed not to eat, if you don’t want to.’ (Vot, PK, Ps) (94) takšto sinne voite tože ette mändä so there.ILL can.PRS :2PL also NEG .2PL go:INF ‘I advise you not to go there too.’ (lit. ‘You can also not go there.’) (C-L, VIS, Sv) This might look like a positive evidence for the reanalysis-hypothesis, but the problem is that the negation of the modal CTP requires that the latter be in the connegative form and not in a person/number-inflected form as in the examples above. By insisting that the wide-scope postposed negation structure have served as a model for the expression of the narrow scope infinitive negation, we end up with a kind of contradiction, as we have to allow that (92)‒(94) contain NEG/AFF-symmetry, which itself is an innovation.

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Leaving this issue undecided, we can conclude that the rise of scope symmetry described above conforms to the general tendency towards constructional iconicity, economy and rule reduction characteristic for language decay. While the traditional Finnic pattern requires changing the lexical and/or morphological constituency of the ‘CTP + INF’ expression in switching between wide and narrow scope negation, the new model requires only changing the position of the negator.

8 MM in the receding varieties In this chapter I will discuss in detail the developments attested in the MM domain of contracting Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto. The chapter, which constitutes the main analytical contribution of the study, will be structured as follows. Modality and Mood will be addressed in separate sections, 8.1 and 8.2 respectively, each beginning with a short overview of the expressions of these domains in the traditional form(s) of Finnic languages. Presenting each time the starting point of the process – the MM-system of each variety in its TF-state – is for space considerations not reasonable. Instead, I will introduce the congenital Finnic MM system using examples from Finnish, a language which has almost all structures and semantic distinctions to be explored and as such incorporates the whole “autogenetic diversity” which is necessary for the analysis of LDrelated phenomena.

8.1 Modality 8.1.1 Modality in Finnic: the point of departure The main expression formats of modality in Finnic are modal verbs, predicative non-finite verb forms, complementizers, adverbs, particles, nouns and predicative adjectives. The first three of these could be considered to be parts of the grammar of the language and will therefore attract the principal attention of this introduction. Adverbs, adjectives, particles, and nouns are idiosyncratic lexical entries for which no specifically Finnic typology can be established, and therefore need no introduction. The modal verbs in Finnic form a fuzzy class of verbal lexemes which do not share a uniform set of morphosyntactic properties (see Kehayov & Torn-Leesik 2009). Owing to the lack of anything comparable to the NICE properties of the English equivalents of the Finnic modal verbs (see Huddleston 1976), there is no full agreement in the literature about the exact membership of this class, and the number of verbal items included in it varies from publication to publication (cf. e.g. Flint 1980, Kangasniemi 1992; Kehayov & Torn-Leesik 2009). There are series of partly overlapping paradigmatic, syntagmatic and functional similarities119 between the modal verbs, but no essential feature common to all 119 A recurring paradigmatic trait is morphological degeneration (lack of person/number, mood, tense or voice inflection, lack of negative or affirmative forms, or lack of nominalizations that are productive with other verbs; Kehayov & Torn-Leesik 2009); a syntagmatic trait is the mismatch between the number of semantic arguments and the number of syntactic slots available in constructions with modal verbs (e.g. Hansen 2014), and a functional trait is the multifunctionality of modal verbs. DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-008

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171

which distinguishes them from other verbs. Table 16 presents the modal verbs which occur in the corpora and express one or more simplex modal values from those listed in Section 3.1.1.1. Each item in the table is presented by its equivalent in Finnish (which in this case plays the role of a meta-language), its pre-modal etymon in the cognate languages (where meanings after ‘*’ are not synchronically available), and by its basic semantic engagement in the modality system according to the distinction ‘possibility vs. necessity’. The first three items can be characterized as core modals: they occur across the language family and are always multifunctional in the sense defined in Section 3.1.3. The other verbs are, to various degrees, on average less multifunctional, and as a rule bear a stronger relation to their lexical source. In those cases where the pre-modal meaning is synchronically associated with the given form, the premodal and modal meanings tend to be contiguous; i.e. their relationship is transparent.

other modals

core modals

Table 16: The original (or premodal) meanings of the core modal verbs in Finnic reflex in Finnish

etymon

modal domain

voida

‘be able/capable’ < *‘be strong’ (Saukkonen 1966: 74–75)

possibility

saada

‘get’ < *‘come’ (Saukkonen 1966: 5)

possibility

pitää

‘seize; hold’ (Saukkonen 1965: 113; Laitinen 1992: 137)

necessity

tulla

‘come’ (Saukkonen 1965: 150‒151)

necessity

tarvita

‘need’ (Laitinen 1992: 130)

necessity

lie-

a variant of the copula ‘be’ expressing modality/ futurity (Saukkonen 1965: 174; Norvik 2013: 132)

possibility/future

huolia

‘take care; worry; mourn’ (Saukkonen 1966: 129)

negated necessity

jaksaa

‘be (physically) able’ < *‘unfasten; undress’ (Saukkonen 1966: 72)

possibility

joutaa

‘have time; be free; be able; manage something quickly’ (Saukkonen 1966: 68‒70)

possibility

mahtaa

‘be (physically or intellectually) able’ (Saukkonen 1966: 55)

possibility

malttaa

‘be peaceful; be patient, be persistent’ (Saukkonen 1966: 84‒85)

possibility

taitaa

‘be able; know’ < *‘fold up; break off; bend’ (Saukkonen 1966: 60‒61)

possibility

tuntea

‘sense; have experience; know’ (EES: 554)

possibility

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Based on the morphosyntactic environment in which modal verbs occur, Kehayov and Torn-Leesik (2009) distinguished between two patterns in Finnic: the ‘personal modal pattern’ and the ‘impersonal modal pattern’. In the personal pattern, the verb agrees in person and number with the subject of the sentence, which is in the default case (Nominative); see (95a) from Finnish. Such modal verbs do not select the subject of the sentence, but preserve the subject requirements of their infinitival complements and therefore can be characterized as ‘raising-to-subject verbs’. In the impersonal pattern, the modal verb is invariably in its third person singular form and shows no agreement with the actor argument which is either in the Genitive, see (95b) from Finnish, or in one of the external local cases Adessive or Allative. Such modals share the syntactic features of ‘control verbs’ (see e.g. Torn-Leesik 2007 about Estonian). (95) a. Sinä voi-t syödä. you.NOM can-PRS .2SG eat. INF ‘You can eat.’ b. Sinun pitää syödä. you.GEN must. PRS .3SG eat. INF ‘You must eat.’ These two syntactic patterns show different distributions in different varieties. The descendants of a common etymon in two languages or dialects may have the same modal semantics but occur in different syntactic patterns. In some cases, a verb may occur with both patterns in the same variety and even in the idiolect of the same speaker. There is, however, a rough association between the personal pattern and modal possibility. In the western Finnic languages Livonian, Estonian and Finnish, which have been spared the extensive influence of Russian, verbs expressing possibility occur exclusively in the personal pattern. On the other hand, in the Finnic languages spoken in Russia, verbs expressing possibility can occur also in the impersonal modal pattern, mirroring this way the syntax of their functional equivalents in Russian, where expressions of possibility often co-occur with Dative subjects (cf. nam mozhno rabotat’ we:DAT possible work.INF ‘It is possible for us to work’; see Besters-Dilger, Drobnjaković & Hansen 2009: 172). The Russian Dative case is substituted in Finnic with external local cases (see Pyöli 1996: 257–258 for a note on Karelian) which are its closest functional equivalents. See example (96) from Olonets Karelian and (97) from Tver Karelian, where the logical subject is encoded in the Adessive-Allative case; in these examples the two core modals expressing possibility (the equivalents of the Finnish saada and voida) occur in the impersonal modal pattern.

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173

(96) Лapse-л ei suannuh muata, pidi opastuo. child-ADE /ALL NEG .3SG get.PST.CONNEG sleep.INF must:PST.3SG study.INF ‘The child could not sleep, s/he had to study.’ (Ktz, MPP, p.c.) (97) Void=go miu-la tei-l’ä üödä moata. can:PRS .3SG = Q I-ADE /ALL you-ADE /ALL night:PART sleep. INF ‘Can I sleep at your place tonight?’ (Palmeos 1962: 33) Consider Table 17, where the core modal verbs are compared in the seven Finnic languages according to their compatibility with the impersonal pattern. This table is a modified and supplemented version of a table presented by Kehayov and Torn-Leesik (2009: 391). The distribution in the table shows that the contact with Russian has triggered an “impersonalization” of the syntax of modal verbs of possibility in eastern Finnic. Table 17: Compatibility of core modals with the impersonal modal pattern

voida saada pitää

possibility possibility necessity

Livonian

Estonian

Finnish

Votic

Ingrian

Karelian

Veps

no no yes

no no no

no no yes

yes yes yes

yes yes yes

yes yes yes

yes yes yes

In addition to modal verbs, there are various non-finite verb forms occurring in morphosyntactic templates which convey modal meanings. Here I will present only three such constructions which contain different declensional deverbal forms and which are productive in several Finnic varieties. They all consist of a copula verb, which functions as a placeholder of the finiteness properties of the predicate, and a non-finite verbal form, which, based on its morphological properties and syntactic dedication, can be characterized as a participle, deverbal noun or infinitive. The construction in (98) from Finnish is specialised for the expression of necessity (Pekkarinen 2011: 161‒212). Here the finite copula verb ‘be’ is followed by a Nominative form of the passive participle of the content verb. In those cases where the agent of the activity expressed by the participle is specified, as in (98), it is in the Genitive case (Pekkarinen 2011: 14). opi-ttava sietämään (98) Meidän on we.GEN be.PRS .3SG learn-PASS . PRS . PTCP. NOM endure.INF tunteitamme. feeling:PL : PART: POSS .1PL ‘We have to learn to endure our feelings.’

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The construction in (99), also from Finnish, expresses impossibility (i.e. negated possibility; see ISK 2008: § 1637). It consists of the negated form of finite copula verb ‘be’ and a Partitive case form of the deverbal action nominal (corresponding to the English coming; e.g. John’s coming to the town is not expected.); the agentive NP receives an Adessive case marking. ei ole tulemista. (99) Tähän taloon hänellä this.ILL house:ILL s/he:ADE NEG .3SG be.CONNEG come:ACTNOM . PART ‘S/he is no allowed (or welcome) in this house.’ (lit. ‘There is no coming for him/her to this house.’) Unlike the construction in (98) which conveys necessity and the construction in (99) conveying negated possibility120, the construction exemplified by (100) from Estonian can express both necessity and possibility, as demonstrated by (100a) and (100b), respectively. This construction, which occurs in all eastern Finnic languages (see e.g. Sarhimaa 1992 on Olonets Karelian), consists of the finite form of the copula verb and the so-called A/DA-infinitive. While disambiguated by the surrounding context, this construction can be said to be formally underspecified in relation to the distinction between necessity and possibility (see Erelt 2013: 111‒113 for more examples). It has developed from a possessive structure, as the ambiguity in the interpretation of the examples suggests (see Lindström & Tragel 2006; 2007 about the polygrammaticalization of such possessive constructions in Estonian). on veel viis kilomeetrit minna. (100) a. Meil we:ADE be.PRS .3SG still five kilometer:SG . PART go.INF ‘We still have five kilometres to go.’ / ‘We still have to go five kilometres.’ tulevikult midagi loota. b. Mul on I.ADE be.PRS .3SG future:ABL something.PART hope.INF ‘I have something to hope for from the future.’ / I can expect something from the future.’ What these morphosyntactic templates with non-finite deverbal predicatives have in common is that they do not show meaning extensions to the domain of epistemic modality. Unlike the modal verbs, which tend to develop ‘root– epistemic’ multifunctionality, these constructions containing a copula and a 120 The positive correlates of this construction tend to express necessity and not possibility. In Livonian, for instance, this construction is not polarity-sensitive, and constitutes one of the principal means in the language for marking of agent-oriented necessity (see Viitso 2014 on the so called ‘debitive supine’ in Livonian).

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participle, deverbal noun or infinitive, express as a rule only non-epistemic meanings.121 Unfortunately, the available evidence from Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto does not allow me to speculate about the loss or persistence of such non-finite modal constructions in LD circumstances. It is only the construction in (100) which shows a couple of occurrences in the data, but these are too few for making generalizations about its usage by contemporary speakers. These constructions are just stylistic options among other expression formats of modality (such as modal verbs, adverbs etc.) in the TFs of the Finnic varieties, which makes them difficult to elicit. With regard to complementizer elements, the idea that all complementizers have modal functions was originally put forward by Frajzyngier (1995). This idea has been critically assessed in a recent study by Kehayov and Boye (2016), who show that ‘modality’ (no matter how broadly understood) is not an invariant meaning of complementizers, and that the complementizer systems of European languages show much broader semantics than usually assumed (e.g. encoding meanings related to temporality, polarity, quotativity, evidentiality, information structure, complexity of conceptual construal – propositions vs. states-of-affairs – etc.). The semantic functions of the complementation markers in Finnic are discussed in detail by Kehayov (2016); the following examples from this work should suffice to illustrate their contribution to the modal domain. In (101b) from Finnish the speaker expresses somewhat lower degree of certainty that the complement proposition holds true than in (101a). In minimal pairs with perception verbs like the one in (101), this difference is encoded by the switch of the neutral (or general) complementizer että ‘that’ with the similative complementizer ikäänkuin which in Finnish requires that the complement verb is in the Conditional mood. että joku itkee yläkerrassa. (101) a. Minusta tuntuu, feel.PRS .3SG that somebody cry.IND. PRS .3SG upper.floor:INE I:ELA ‘It seems to me that somebody is crying upstairs.’ (Kehayov 2016: 480) b. Minusta tuntuu, ikäänkuin joku itkisi feel.PRS .3SG as.if somebody cry:COND.3SG I:ELA yläkerrassa. upper.floor:INE ‘It seems to me as if somebody were crying upstairs.’ (Kehayov 2016: 480) 121 Marginal extensions of the participial construction in (98) to epistemic contexts have been reported for Finnish by Pekkarinen (2011: 192‒193).

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Consider now the indirect question contrast in the minimal pair of sentences in (102). Apart from being an enclitic, which does not occur clause-initially, the Finnish polar question marker -ko/-kö in (102a) fulfils the syntactic function of a complementizer (like if in I don’t know if she’s there.). In (102b) this complementation marker is exchanged for the conditional word jos ‘if’, which typically occurs in protasis clauses, but which in the given context introduces a complement clause. In indirect questions like (102) these two complementizers are mutually exchangeable, but with slightly different implicature. According to Korhonen (1993: 111), (102a) is epistemically neutral in the sense that here, the speaker does not take a position concerning the probability that Mari will manage to come and both options remain equally probable, while (102b) implies that the speaker is somewhat sceptical as to the chances that Mari will come. hän tulemaan. (102) a. Kysyin Marilta, pääsee=kö ask:PST:1SG Mari:ABL can.PRS .3SG = Q (yes/no) she:NOM come:INF. ILL ‘I asked Mari if/whether she can come.’ (Korhonen 1993: 111) b. Kysyin Marilta jos hän pääsee tulemaan. ask:PST:1SG Mari:ABL if she.NOM can.PRS .3SG come:INF. ILL ‘I asked Mari if she can come.’ (Korhonen 1993: 111) 8.1.2 Developments attested in LD This section focuses on two types of phenomena which will be discussed separately: a) changes of semantic and/or formal patterns without transfer of linguistic matter, and b) changes involving, and often limited to transfer of linguistic matter from a contact language. 8.1.2.1 Restructuring of the inherited linguistic matter The discussion in this section is also divided into two parts. First, I will discuss shifts of the meanings of modal lexemes which are not accompanied by morphosyntactic change; this subsection focuses on cases of multifunctionalization and semantic divergence that are not paralleled by alteration of the morphosyntactic patterns engaged in the coding of modality. In contrast, the second part deals with morphosyntactic pattern change, which as a rule correlates with the semantic structure of the expressions undergoing this change. This phenomenological mismatch between semantics and form derives from the fact that the discussion covers changes of lexical definitions of vocabulary entries which are not part of the grammar, at least in the strict sense of the

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concept. Any change in the grammar of modality, on the other hand, is functionally motivated. 8.1.2.1.1 Semantic changes without morphosyntactic consequences Two seemingly opposite processes occur in the available data from minor Finnic varieties. On the one hand, we observe multifunctionalization of modal verbs, where the range of modal values covered by a verbal item is expanded. On the other hand, there is a tendency for individual modal verbs to be generalized in the expression of a certain semantic value, suppressing or fully displacing other alternative items marking this value. The latter is expected to lead to decrease of the functional range of the suppressed alternative markers, in this way countereffecting the multifunctionalization. The two processes are not strictly contrary in terms of effect, however. As we know from grammaticalization theory, expansion (dropping of selection restrictions), desemantization (decrease of semantic integrity) and obligatorification (the decrease of the freedom with which the speaker chooses a sign) are not opposite, but complementary phenomena (Lehmann 2002: 123‒124, 126). Imagine a situation where the last speakers of an endangered variety extend a modal to cover the entire area from dynamic to epistemic modality, ousting another modal from the expression of certain simplex modal value (this phenomenon is known as ‘retraction’; see Haspelmath 2004: 33 and Hansen 2016). In this case we observe both multifunctionalization and obligatorification (generalization) of a formal sign over certain semantic area. Moreover, one may observe an absolute increase of multifunctionality and obligatoriness in the modality system as a whole. It is conceivable that more and more modals in the language are becoming multifunctional; the outcome of this development is that the average number of modal values that a modal verb is capable to express increases. However, it is equally conceivable that another concurrent development takes place: multifunctional modals are being increasingly associated with certain modal value(s) and increasingly marginalized in the expression of other value(s). The ideal outcome of these two processes is a modality system where each item is multifunctional, but its token frequencies in the expression of specific modal values considerably vary, because for one value it is the prototypical form and for another value it is a peripheral option. However, there is a catch to this that should make us cautious. We are dealing with linguistic varieties which lack speech communities in the usual sense of the word. Many speakers of Central Lude, for instance, communicate with each other in Russian. In the case of Ingrian and Votic, the speakers are so dispersed that they rarely see another speaker of their native variety. The lack of everyday communication practice leads to idiolect divergence with ramifica-

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tions for the expression of modality. Different speakers who lack practice and are not able to keep track of conventions in the speech of other users tend to generalize different modal verbs for the expression of the same meanings. This certainly skews the impression about form-function relationships we get from such a multi-speaker corpus as the one compiled for this study. What may seem like an unnatural diversity – many modals with broad semantics and high token frequency per semantic primitive – could be just a consequence of the fact that in our case idiolect modal systems (i.e. individual grammars) differ from each other more than idiolect systems of speakers of standardized “healthy” varieties that are used regularly in everyday communication. 8.1.2.1.1.1 Multifunctionalization The observed cases of multifunctionalization of modal verbs concern a) extensions to adjacent modal values within the possibility domain, and b) possibility–necessity blends, or, in other words, extensions from the possibility to the necessity domain or vice versa. The variation observed in the corpora gave rise to two hypotheses in connection with the first type of extension. The first of them states that speakers of the receding Finnic varieties pioneer extension of possibility modals across the conceptual boundary between participant-internal (dynamic) and participantexternal (circumstantial, deontic) possibility (recall Figure 1 on page 33). A condensed representation of this extension of possibility modals is ‘dynamic ≠ circumstantial = deontic > dynamic = circumstantial = deontic’. This extension is attested in both directions: from participant-internal to participant-external possibility, and from participant-external to participant-internal possibility. Most of the examples come from Soikino Ingrian. The first direction is attested with the Ingrian possibility verbs jaksā and mahtā which, interestingly enough, convey in the TF dynamic and epistemic, but not participant-external meanings; I have not found circumstantial or deontic possibility uses of these modals in the traditional form of Ingrian. This is peculiar, given that the extension from the dynamic to the epistemic domain presupposes extension to the participant-external modality (recall the semantic contiguity on Figure 1), but not entirely unexpected in the light of the fact that Traditional Ingrian has generalized the acquisitional modal sāvva (corresponding to saada in Table 16) to cover the participant-external possibility domain, which apparently has led to suppression of jaksā and mahtā in circumstantial and deontic contexts. It is mostly weaker speakers (forgetters or rememberers) of Soikino Ingrian, who re-extend these verbs to the domain of participant-external possibility. Consider (103) where the forgetter LSK uses mahtā to mark circumstantial possibility instead of sāvva which is the conventional choice in this context. The other

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modal undergoing (re-)extension to the participant-external possibility jaksā is used in (104) by the consultant LSI to express negated circumstantial possibility, and is further extended by the same speaker in (105) to a prototypical deontic context.122 (103) Sia mahad männa avtobussil, jesli tahod if want:PRS . 2SG you.NOM be_able:PRS . 2SG go.INF bus:ADE männä linnā. go.INF town:ILL ‘You can take the bus, if you want to go to the town.’ (Ing-S, LSK, Yg) (104) Hän ei jaksa meidä laskia, hänel s/he.NOM NEG .3SG be_able.CONNEG we.PART let_in.INF s/he:ADE ei NEG .3SG

ō avaimia. be.CONNEG keys.PART

‘She can’t let us in, because she doesn’t have the keys.’ (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) (105) Sä jaksat jūva oлutta. you.NOM be_able:PRS . 2SG drink. INF beer.PART (a doctor to the patient) ‘You can drink beer.’ (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) What is clear is that Traditional Ingrian (at least in its Soikino variety) is partitioning the semantic space in such a way that jaksā and mahtā are the canonical expressions of participant-internal modality (physical, mental, inherent or acquired ability), whereas sāvva is the canonical expression of circumstantial and deontic possibility (including moral and institutional possibility, as well as permission: possibility with a definite deontic source). We saw that jaksā and mahtā are innovatively extended by some speakers to encode participant-external modality: this development follows the common path of grammaticalization of modals ‘dynamic’ > ‘deontic’ > ‘epistemic’ (see Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991). Conforming to the tendency toward multifunctionalization, speakers of obsolescent Ingrian extend also sāvva beyond its semantic dedication in the TF. As ‘compensation’ for the intrusion of jaksā and mahtā to its territory, this modal is extended by some speakers to the area of participant-internal possibility. This development lapses against the grammaticalization path assumed by Heine, Claudi, and Hünnemeyer (1991), but fits the path ‘participant-external > 122 Both speakers (LSK and LSI) use these modals also in their original context of dynamic possibility (ability).

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participant-internal possibility’ observed by van der Auwera, Kehayov, and Vittrant (2009) for acquisitive modals like sāvva, whose premodal meaning is ‘get’. There are some attestations of sāvva in the context of inherent physical ability from the TF of other Ingrian dialects (see Nirvi 1971: 514 for an example from Laukaansuu [Ostrov], Lower Luga Ingrian), but I have not found examples of mental or learned ability. The extension of sāvva to the meaning of physical ability is illustrated by (106), and its novel use in the context of learned (acquired) ability by (107). sāb nosta vasikkā (106) Hǟ s/he.NOM get:PRS .3SG lift.INF calf.PART ‘He can lift a calf.’ (i.e. ‘He is so strong that he can lift a calf.’) (Ing-S, AG, Grk) (107) Miä sān uijua, no nüd en šā, I.NOM get:PRS .1SG swim.INF but now NEG .1SG get.CONNEG miun kivištǟ jaлkā. I.GEN hurt.PRS .3SG leg.PART ‘I can swim, but now I can’t, because my leg hurts.’ (Ing-S, LSK, Yg) It could be easily demonstrated that examples (103)‒(107) show borderline extensions to novel meanings by looking at the corpus frequencies of these modals in the respective contexts. Table 18 shows the absolute frequencies of mahtā, jaksā and sāvva according to the modal values ‘dynamic possibility’, ‘circumstantial possibility’ and ‘deontic possibility’. Even though the relative shares of dynamic, circumstantial and deontic expressions in C1 are not equal (neither in the input sentences nor in the responses), the distribution in the table suffices to show that the extensions observed are not entrenched in the grammar of modality. Out of 29 cases where Soikino Ingrian speakers express dynamic modality by means of a modal verb, they choose sāvva only in four cases. The relative entrenchment of the modal verbs in the participant-external domain is even better pronounced. Summing up the ‘circumstantial’ and ‘deontic’ occurrences we arrive at 81 participant-external occurrences of sāvva against only six participant-external uses of mahtā or jaksā; in fact, the single circumstantial use of mahtā and the single deontic use of jaksā can be regarded as production errors (or idiolect-idiosyncrasies). The frequencies in the table seem to suggest that jaksā, which is the prototypical expression of physical ability in Ingrian (see the discussion below), is more advanced in its extension to the participant-external non-epistemic domain; four circumstantial uses coming from

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the output of three different consultants cannot be random mis-assignments of a modal form to modal meaning. Table 18: Frequencies of the possibility modals mahtā, jaksā and sāvva in Soikino Ingrian in the non-epistemic domain

mahtā jaksā sāvva

dynamic

circumstantial

deontic

15 10 4

1 4 17

‒ 1 64

Other varieties provide only scarce evidence for the extension ‘dynamic ≠ circumstantial = deontic > dynamic = circumstantial = deontic’. The semispeaker of Eastern Seto EH, for instance, tends to extend the otherwise weakly grammaticalized dynamic modal verb joudma ‘manage; be physically able’ to the domain of participant-external possibility. Witness example (108), where this consultant reacts to a circumstantial context in the input sentence ‘The mother need not be there, she could just say few words to the kids over the phone’ with this modal verb. Such circumstantial or other participant-external uses of joudma are not attested in the TF of Seto and sound odd to fluent speakers of the standard variety of Seto (Andreas Kalkun, p.c.). Even odder is the extension of this ability-modal to what seems to be an objective epistemic context in (109), where the reading of joudma corresponds to what Hengeveld and Mackenzie (2008: 174) call “epistemic event-oriented modality” (recall the discussion in Section 3.1.1.2). ei joua da olla kohapǟltä, temä (108) Emä she.NOM mother.NOM NEG be_able.CONNEG to be.INF at.place joud ki ̮nelda läbi telefoni. be_able.PRS .3SG speak.INF through telephone.GEN ‘If the mother can’t be there, she can speak over telephone.’ (Se-E, EH, Ls) (109) Temä joud rǟkida kui nimä um s/he.NOM be_able.PRS .3SG speak:INF like they.NOM be.PRS . 3PL temä latse̮’. s/he.GEN children ‘She can speak to them as if they were her own children.’ (input sentence ‘She often speaks with them as if they were her own children.’) (Se-E, EH, Ls)

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All these extensions leading to loss of the distinction between participantinternal and participant-external possibility are documented on individual level. The participant-internal and participant-external possibility uses of the same modals (in this case Ing-S mahtā, jaksā, and sāvva, and Se-E joudma) are synchronically attested in the output of the same speakers. The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that the last speakers of the contracting varieties tend to extend available modals to adjacent modal functions, and these extensions are generally compatible with the paths identified by the study of grammaticalization of modals in normal language change. Another small-scale multifunctionalization involving adjacent modal values could be observed within the domain of participant-internal possibility. In their TFs the Finnic languages under consideration formally distinguish between ‘inherent (physical, mental or emotional) ability’ and ‘acquired (learned) ability’. Table 19 presents the typical modals employed to mark this distinction. Table 19: Formal distinction between inherent and acquired ability in the modality system

Central Lude Ingrian Votic Eastern Seto

inherent ability (physical, mental or emotional)

acquired (learned) ability

voida jaksā, (sāvva)123 ve̮jma, sāma, jahsama joudma, sāma, ve̮ima

maлttada mahtā, tuntia tunte̮ma me̮istma

The table immediately shows two important facts about the coding of this semantic distinction in the domain of dynamic possibility. Firstly, it demonstrates that inherent and acquired ability are differentiated in all four varieties. Secondly, it shows that while the domain of learned ability is usually covered by lexical (weakly grammaticalized) modal verbs, whose Finnish equivalents are presented in Table 16 on page 171 under the label ‘other modals’, inherent ability is often marked by core modal verbs, such as Central Lude voida, Votic ve̮jma and Eastern Seto ve̮ima (sharing the same etymon with Finnish voida) and Votic sāma and Eastern Seto sāma (sharing the same etymon with Finnish saada). This in turn indicates that the dynamic modal meaning of inherent ability bears closer conceptual relation to the participant-external domain (which is almost exclusively expressed by core modals) than the meaning of acquired ability. This regular distinction between inherent and acquired ability tends to get obscured in the advanced process of LD. The corpora contain signs of transition from ‘inherent ≠ acquired’ to ‘inherent = acquired’. Just like in the case above, 123 This verb is added in brackets, because in some dialects it has been extended to express inherent ability already in the TF (recall the discussion above).

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two types of extensions are possible: i) from inherent to acquired ability, and ii) from acquired to inherent ability. Before we take a closer look at these extensions, it should be noted that collapsing inherent and learned ability into one form cannot simply be explained as pattern replication from Russian. Just like the Finnic languages, Russian uses different verbs to convey these two meanings: moch’ for inherent ability and umet’ for acquired ability; cf. On mozhet podnyat’ tel’onka ‘He can lift a calf’ and On horosho umeet pet’ ‘He can sing well’. The extension ‘inherent-to-acquired’ is the one better attested in the material and involves the core modals of possibility corresponding to the Finnish verbs voida and saada. As already noted, in all varieties core modals participate in the marking of the ‘inherent ability’.124 The functional range of these modals is then extended by some contemporary speakers to cover the meaning of ‘learned ability’. Given that the ‘inherent ability’ meaning of these modals is always retained by the speakers pioneering this extension, it leads to partial loss of the congenital differentiation between inherent and acquired dynamic possibility. The extension ‘inherent-to-acquired’ is documented in receding Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude and seems to be restricted to LD. I have not found clear attestations of uses of core modals to mark ‘learned ability’ in the literature covering the TFs of the respective varieties. In Ingrian, the acquisitive modal verb sāvva is used by the consultant LSK to mark learned ability. The abnormal choice of sāvva to express the acquired ability of swimming was exemplified by (107) above; the conventional choice for this meaning is mahtā; all other respondents produce this verb in the context of (107). Votic delineates this tendency more clearly. As can be seen from Table 19, Votic uses the modals ve̮jma, sāma and jahsama to convey inherent ability and the weakly grammaticalized tunte̮ma (which goes back to a common Finnic etymon of sensual or mental perception; see Table 16 on page 171) to convey learned ability. Nonetheless, some last speakers of Votic extend the core modals ve̮jma and sāma to the domain of acquired dynamic possibility. In (110) the forgetter IG uses ve̮jma to convey this meaning, whereas all other respondents produced tunte̮ma in this context. Likewise, the context of (111) presupposes schooled singing, but the forgetter SJ uses sāma instead of tunte̮ma (chosen by the other of Votic speakers). The Russian input sentences of both examples contained the verb umet’ which is specialized to express acquired ability.125 124 The choice between different modal verbs encoding ‘inherent ability’ in a language can depend on micro-semantic specification, such ‘physical’ versus ‘mental’ ability, or on structural factors such as polarity sensitivity. 125 Markus and Rozhanskiy present some examples, where ve̮jma and sāma can be interpreted as carrying the meaning of acquired ability, but these are contemporary uses and cannot be used as evidence for the TF (Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011a: 125; 2011b: 249).

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(110) Tämä eb ve̮i tširjuttā. s/he.NOM NEG .3SG be_able.CONNEG write.INF ‘S/he can’t write.’ (i.e. ‘s/he is illiterate.’) (Vot, IG, Lu) (111) Tämä sāb üvässi лauлā. sing.INF s/he.NOM get:PRS .3SG well ‘S/he can sing well.’ (Vot, SJ, Lu) Central Lude, whose TF shows a clear division of labour between voida conveying inherent and maлttada conveying acquired ability, follows suit. Consider (112), where the forgetter MVT extends the core modal to the context of acquired swimming skills already exemplified in (107); the intended meaning of the first clause is ‘I know how to swim’ in the sense that the agent has acquired swimming skills, not that he is physically able to swim (in having the necessary constitution, muscles etc.). This extension of the core modal to the learned ability leads to depletion of the formal distinction between these two basic types of ability. külbiä, no nügö en voi (112) Minä voin I.NOM be_able:PRS .1SG swim.INF but now NEG .1SG be_able.CONNEG külbiä, mille i jaлg on kibiä swim.INF I.ALL leg.NOM be.PRS .3SG hurting ‘I can swim, but now I’m not able to swim, because my leg hurts.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) Eastern Seto, on the other hand, manifests the second extension: ‘acquired-toinherent’ ability. Here the weakly grammaticalized verb me̮istma ‘understand, apprehend; be mentally capable’ (occurring with this meaning only in Southern Finnic languages; see EES: 291) is extended from its source domain to the domain of physical ability (or inability). The forms of this verb in examples (113) and (114) convey (in)ability which depends on external obstacles for the physical performance of the agent and thus borders on the participant-external circumstantial domain: the literal interpretation of these examples is ‘I understand (or don’t understand) to do something because of certain objective conditions’. ei me̮ista suke̮lda, selleperäst et mul (113) Ma that I.ADE I.NOM NEG understand.CONNEG swim.INF because halutas jalg. hurt:PRS .3SG leg.NOM ‘I can’t swim, because my leg hurts.’ (Se-E, MVK, Sok)

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(114) Midägi olle̮=i jäljet, ma me̮ista’ nothing.PART be.CONNEG =NEG awful:PART I.NOM understand.PRS .1SG ust ve̮tta vallale̮, . . . uss oлe̮=i kinni. door.NOM be.CONNEG =NEG locked door.PART take.INF open ‘It is not that awful, I can open the door . . . it is not locked.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) There is one similar example from Votic, where the semi-speaker PK extends the functional range of the verb me̮istma ‘understand, apprehend’ to convey what seems to be circumstantial impossibility or lack of necessity; cf. (115) which literally means ‘I’ve finished my job; I don’t understand to work more.’ (115) Minä tǖ jo лe̮pe̮tin, miä enäpe I.NOM job.GEN already finish:PST.1SG I.NOM anymore tǖtˬtetšemä en me̮ist. work.PART _do.INF NEG .1SG understand.CONNEG ‘I already finished my job, I can’t (or don’t have to) work more.’ (Vot, PK, Ps) As with the loss of the distinction between participant-internal and participantexternal possibility, the loss of the distinction between inherent and acquired ability can be verified on idiolect level. For instance, the Soikino Ingrian speaker LSK, the Votic speakers SJ and IG, the Central Lude speakers MAT and MVT, and the Eastern Seto speaker MVK use the same items to express both meanings. I have discussed so far micro-extensions of modal verbs to adjacent values, causing loss of minor modal distinctions, such as between ‘inherent ability’, ‘acquired ability’, ‘circumstantial possibility’ and ‘permission’. The available data does not allow checking the relative succession of these extensions, and therefore no implicational statements are possible. The extensions will be considered simply as parts of the process of ‘multi-functionalization’. The distribution of the following phenomenon, on the other hand, invokes several implicational statements. The corpora provide evidence for macroextensions that will be called ‘possibility‒necessity blends’126. The notion of ‘possibility‒necessity blend’ will be applied to cases where i) modals127 express126 Not to be confused with the combining of (parts) of lexemes to form a new word, for which the term ‘blend’ is often used in linguistics. 127 ‘Modals’ stands here mostly for modal verbs; in some cases also for particles and predicative adjectives which occur with infinitive complements.

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ing possibility are extended to express necessity, and ii) modals expressing necessity are extended to express possibility. An example of the first extension is (116) from Eastern Seto, where the consultant produces the possibility modal võima ‘can’ instead of a necessity modal, as required by the source sentence containing the Russian necessity modal nuzhno. (117) is an example of the second extension; here the Eastern Seto consultant produces the negative form of the predicative construction ole̮ma vaja ‘be necessary’ instead of a negative form of a possibility modal, as required by the source sentence containing the Russian modal nel’zya ‘cannot’ (which is an univerbation of negated possibility). ve̮it ve̮tta är sāpa’ jalas. (116) . . . et koridoris that corridor:INE can:PRS .3SG take.INF off boots:NOM foot:ELA (The mother counts things that the kids are obliged to do) ‘. . . one can take his/her boots off in the corridor.’ (Intended: ‘. . . one has to take his/her boots off in the corridor.’) (Se-E, NK, Izb) ei ole vaja ärritada (117) Katja sul Katya you.ADE NEG be.CONNEG necessary irritate:INF nōre̮bad si ̮sarad. younger:PART sister:PART ‘Katya, you don’t have to irritate your younger sister.’ (Intended: ‘Katya, you are not allowed to irritate your younger sister.’) (Se-E, MVK, Sok) The preliminary analysis of the data led to the assumption that possibilitynecessity blends occur more often in negative contexts than in affirmative contexts. Table 20 presents the quantitative data necessary to test this hypothesis, both in relation to token and type frequency.128 The first column in the table contains the total number of instantiations of blending, which consists of the total of ‘possibility-for-necessity’ substitutions plus the total of ‘necessity-forpossibility’ substitutions observed in C1. The second column presents the total of corpus examples, where blending does not occur; this is the number of examples in C1, where the consultant does not “erroneously” use a possibility modal instead of a necessity modal, or vice versa, but produces the “correct” modal expressing 128 Type frequency will serve to supplement inferences based on token frequencies, but due to low frequencies and the general similarity of ‘types’ occurring in the input sentences, will not be decisive in the inferential process.

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possibility or necessity, as required by the source sentence. The third and the fourth column of the table present similar information, but for ‘type’, not ‘token’. The third column provides the number of source sentences in the translation of which blending (substitution) occurs, while the fourth column provides the number of source sentences containing a possibility or necessity modal in the translation of which (or with reference to which) substitution does not occur. These four groups are checked against the conditions ‘grammatical context of affirmation’ (i.e. contexts where the modal is in its positive form) and ‘grammatical context of negation’ (i.e. contexts where the modal is negated, and thus is in the scope of negation). Table 20: Possibility–necessity blending in affirmation and negation Tokens

affirmative negative

Types

N occurrences of POS ↔ NEC substitution

N occurrences of the “correct” possibility or necessity modal elicited by the source sentence

N source predications, which triggered substitution

N source predications containing modals of possibility or necessity, which did not trigger substitution

36 39

673 408

14 19

75 32

The distribution of tokens is statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 5.425, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0199), just as the distribution of types (Yates’ x2 = 7.186, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0073), which indicates that negation triggers more often possibility– necessity blending than affirmation. Decoded into more conventional terms, this means that speakers of the obsolescent varieties encounter greater problems to distinguish between possibility and necessity modals in negation than in affirmation. This is not a surprising result, given that negating a modal meaning is a more complex construal, which in natural languages often causes mismatch between the atomistic meaning of modal elements (predicted by the postulates of modal logic) and their actual meanings in the construction. Probably the most typical example of this are cases where, by virtue of a conventionalized implicature, the modal is raised above the negation; for example, although You don’t have to speak so loud literally negates the necessity of speaking loud, it is the necessity of not speaking loud which is implied: ‘You must not speak so loud.’ (see van der Auwera 2001: 33‒34, 39 about this type of implicatures as historical sources of semantic change). Another incipient hypothesis raised by the data was that ‘possibility– necessity blending’ is sensitive to modal values on the horizontal axis of Figure 1

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on page 33; in other words to the distinction between dynamic, circumstantial, deontic and epistemic modality. In (118) from Central Lude we have a context of negated dynamic modality, where the consultant produces the possibility verb voida instead of a necessity verb, as required by the Russian word dolzhen ‘be obliged’ in the source sentence. (119) presents a typical circumstantial context; here the Votic consultant produces the possibility modal sāma ‘get’ instead of the necessity modal, called by the Russian source sentence which contained the predicative expression nuzhno ‘necessary’. Deontic examples of ‘possibility– necessity’ blending from Eastern Seto were presented in (116)–(117). (120) is another example, this time from Ingrian, where the speaker produces negation of deontic necessity (ei piä ‘need not’) instead of negation of deontic possibility, as determined by the Russian source sentence with nel’zya (‘cannot; should not’). Finally, in (121) from Central Lude we have a substitution of the epistemic modal of possibility in the source sentence expressing middle certainty, for the epistemic modal of necessity dolžen ‘must be’ expressing higher degree of certainty on behalf of the epistemic agent. voi d’uoda uinoitajat tabletkat, (118) Tänpä mina en today I.NOM NEG .1SG can.CONNEG drink:INF sleeping:PART pill:PART potomušto äijaл väzuin, mugau uinodan. Because very get_tired:PST.1SG this_way fall_asleep:PRS .1SG ‘I cannot take my sleeping pill tonight; I got so tired that I will fall asleep in any case.’ (Intended: ‘I don’t have to take my sleeping pill tonight; . . .) (C-L, VIS, Sv) katsoa iлma, huome̮n лādimummǝ (119) Tänäbä sāb today get:PRS .3SG watch.INF weather.PART tomorrow prepare:PRS .1PL kuhunibut’ mennä. somewhere go.INF ‘Today we can watch the weather forecast, as we are leaving tomorrow.’ (Intended: ‘Today we must watch the weather forecast, as we are leaving tomorrow.’) (Vot, NL, U-L) ei piä jūa oлutta. (120) Siul you.ADE NEG must.CONNEG drink.INF beer.PART (Doctor to a patient) ‘You don’t have to drink beer.’ (Intended: ‘You cannot drink beer.’) (Ing-S, OM, Vs)

Modality

189

(121) Seitšas hän dolžen oлda ruados, no mina totšno now s/he.NOM must be.INF work:INE but I.NOM exactly en

voi sanoda. NEG .1SG can.CONNEG say:INF ‘S/he must be at work now, but I’m not sure.’ (Intended: ‘S/he can be at work now, but I’m no sure.’) (C-L, VIS, Sv) The figures in Table 21 show that the disposition to ‘possibility–necessity blending’ depends on the specific modal value. Table 21: Possibility–necessity blending according to modal value: dynamic/circumstantial129, deontic and epistemic Tokens

Types

N occurrences of N occurrences of N source predications, which triggered POS ↔ NEC the “correct” substitution substitution possibility or necessity modal elicited by the source sentence dynamic, circumstantial

N source predications containing modals of possibility or necessity, which did not trigger substitution

9

437

6

50

deontic

26

399

13

36

epistemic

40

245

14

21

These figures indicate that possibility–necessity blending occurs more frequently in the deontic domain than in the dynamic and circumstantial domain. Combining the token frequencies for the values ‘dynamic or circumstantial’ and ‘deontic’, we get a very significant distribution (Yates’ x2 = 8.450, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0036); the distribution of the type frequencies of these two values is not quite significant (Yates’ x2 = 3.408, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0649), but still suggestive for the stronger association of deontic modals with possibility–necessity blending compared to dynamic/circumstantial modals. Compared to epistemic modals, on the other hand, deontic modals are less likely to be subjected to blending. Combining the token frequencies for the values ‘deontic’ and ‘epistemic’, we arrive at extremely significant distribution (Yates’ x2 = 11.762, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0006), which however is not corroborated by the respective type frequencies (Yates’ x2 = 1.137, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.2863). All in all, the evidence for the claim that 129 The ‘dynamic’ and ‘circumstantial’ contexts are collapsed as their token and type frequencies are so low that their separation would be futile.

190

MM in the receding varieties

the speakers of the contracting varieties are more likely to make “errors” in the selection of the correct epistemic modal with respect to the distinction between necessity and possibility than in the selection of the correct deontic, dynamic or circumstantial modal is bold. The same holds for the relative susceptibility to possibility–necessity blending of deontic versus dynamic/circumstantial modals: speakers are more likely to make “errors” in the selection of correct deontic modal than in the selection of correct dynamic or circumstantial modal. Provided that possibility–necessity blending is associated with the variables ‘polarity’ and ‘simplex modal value’, one should feel encouraged to find out which particular value-combinations of these two variables are most sensitive to blending. The data is organized according to the respective criteria in Table 22. Table 22: Occurrence of possibility‑necessity blends according to polarity and modal value

dynamic, affirmative circumstantial negative

Tokens

Types

N occurrences of N occurrences of the “correct” POS ↔ NEC substitution possibility or necessity modal elicited by the source sentence

N source predications which triggered substitution

N source predications containing modals of possibility or necessity, which did not trigger substitution

4 5

279 158

3 3

34 16

deontic

affirmative 5 negative 21

206 193

3 10

23 13

epistemic

affirmative 27 negative 13

188 57

8 6

18 3

The frequencies in the table are so low that statistical testing would make no sense, but it is immediately visible that the major divide, both in the token and the type frequency, runs between the ‘deontic affirmative’ and ‘deontic negative’ values. The occurrence of possibility–necessity blends with affirmative deontic modals seems to be just as rare as with affirmative or negated dynamic/ circumstantial modals. Conversely, the occurrence of possibility–necessity blending with negated deontic modals seems to be just as common as with affirmative or negated epistemic modals. In terms of type frequency the “erroneous” marking of negated deontic possibility as negated deontic necessity or vice versa seems to be even more common than the “erroneous” marking of affirmative epistemic possibility as affirmative epistemic necessity or vice versa. These observations are corroborated by the respective evidence from Corpus 2: there are six occurrences of blending in C2 and all of them occur in negative deontic context.

Modality

191

This is a remarkable observation, considering that 30 out of the 47 possibility-ornecessity markers occurring in C2 encode dynamic or circumstantial meanings.130 An example from C2 is presented in (122) where the Soikino Ingrian speaker produces a negated possibility modal instead of negated necessity modal. (122) Lapšen ei sā šiult mittǟn küssüä. child:GEN NEG .3SG get.CONNEG you:ELA anything ask.INF ‘The child cannot ask you about anything.’ (Intended: ‘The child does not have to ask you about anything.’) (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) The prominence of the divide between the values ‘deontic affirmative’ and ‘deontic negative’ is easily demonstrated by comparing the total of the first three rows in the table with the total of the last three rows, both for tokens and types. Starting with tokens, we get a total of 14 occurrences of substitution against 643 cases of lack of substitution for the values ‘affirmative dynamic/circumstantial’, ‘negated dynamic/circumstantial’ and ‘affirmative deontic’, and a total of 61 occurrences of substitution against 438 cases of lack of substitution for the values ‘negated deontic’, ‘affirmative epistemic’ and ‘negated epistemic’. Applying the chi-square test with Yates’ correction to these figures we get an extremely significant distribution (Yates’ x2 = 45.975, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001). The respective data for type frequency only enhance the tendency: applying the Yates’ chi-square test to the total of 9 types showing substitution against 73 types lacking substitution for the values ‘affirmative dynamic/circumstantial’, ‘negated dynamic/ circumstantial’ and ‘affirmative deontic’, and to the total of 24 types showing substitution against 34 types lacking substitution for the values ‘negated deontic’, ‘affirmative epistemic’ and ‘negated epistemic’, we observe an extremely significant distribution (Yates’ x2 = 15.784, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001). So far I have not paid attention to the variable of ‘direction of blending’, which further fragments the picture. It has already been mentioned that blending is attested in both directions: a possibility modal can be “misused” by speakers of the receding varieties as a modal of necessity, and conversely, a modal of necessity can be “misused” as a modal of possibility. In the first case we have a ‘possibility-to-necessity’ extension, exemplified by (116), (118), (119) and (122) above; in the second, we have a ‘necessity-to-possibility’ extension, exemplified by (117), (120) and (121) above. Table 23 presents the frequencies of the first extension according to all parameters factored in Table 22. 130 The fact that C2 shows concentration of blending in the negative deontic domain is not indicative, however, as to the relative susceptibility of the epistemic domain to blending in natural speech production, as there are only seven occurrences of epistemic modals with infinitives in C2.

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MM in the receding varieties

Table 23: ‘Possibility‑to‑necessity’ extension: occurrences of possibility modals instead of necessity modals according to polarity and modal value

dynamic, affirmative circumstantial negative

Tokens

Types

N occurrences of N occurrences of the “correct” POS ‑for‑NEC substitution necessity modal elicited by the source sentence

N source predications, which triggered POS ‑for‑NEC substitution

N source predications containing modals of necessity, which did not trigger substitution

1 5

162 56

1 3

17 6

deontic

affirmative 1 negative 11

84 103

1 6

10 7

epistemic

affirmative 17 negative 4

59 13

3 1

7 2

The evidence in the table does not seem to add new insights to those already obtained. What certainly deserves attention is the high type frequency of the condition ‘deontic negative’: out of thirteen source predications containing a negated deontic necessity modal, in six cases one or more respondents produced a negated possibility modal. Some of the instantiations of this substitution are explicable with an implicature causing the phenomenon of ‘modal raising’ as described above. Consider (123) from Eastern Seto and (124) from Central Lude. In the respective source sentences a negated form of the Russian necessity modal nado ‘must; need’ occurs in a context, where the modal is pragmatically interpreted as having scope over the negator (Ne nado pugat’ mamu! ‘You don’t have to frighten mother!’ ⊃ ‘You should not frighten mother!’ and Emu ne nado vse razkazyvat’ ‘You don’t have to tell him everything.’ ⊃ ‘You should not tell him everything!’). hirmuta’ immä! (123) Ve̮i=i can.PRS .3SG =NEG frighten.INF mother.PART ‘You should not frighten mother!’ (Intended: ‘You don’t have to frighten mother!’) (Se-E, AP, Ls) (124) Hänellä ei sua kaikkead sanoda. s/he:ALL NEG .3SG get.CONNEG everything:PART tell:INF ‘You cannot tell him everything.’ (Intended: ‘You don’t have to tell him everything.’) (C-L, VIS, Sv)

Modality

193

It seems thus that one of the hotbeds of the ‘possibility-to-necessity’ extension is the context of negative deontic modality. Negated modals of deontic possibility (cf. Eng cannot) tend to be “misused” by speakers as negated modals of deontic necessity (cf. Eng must not). The second conspicuous fact in Table 23 is the low type frequency of ‘epistemic affirmative’. The seventeen tokens of the ‘possibility-to-necessity’extension in this semantic slot occur only in three ‘types’. All cases concern epistemic upranking of modals meaning ‘can; may’ to express full or nearly full certainty; witness example (125) from Soikino Ingrian, where the consultant produces ‘may be’ instead of ‘must be’, as required by the Russian source utterance u nix dolzhno byt’ mnogo deneg (‘They must have a lot of money.’). (125) Hǖd mǖväd koinē, nüd heillä jaksā they.NOM sell:PST. 3PL house:GEN now they:ADE may:PRS .3SG olla paljo rahhā. be.INF a_lot money.PART ‘They sold the house; they may have a lot of money now.’ (Intended: ‘they must have a lot of money now.’) (Ing-S, AG, Grk) This extension can be somewhat opportunistically explained in terms of pragmatic strengthening (and strengthening of informativeness in particular; see Traugott 1988), where the language-users increasingly “read more” into the degree of certainty originally marked by the epistemic modal. Table 24 presents the respective frequencies of the second extension, where a modal of necessity substitutes a modal of possibility. Here too, the figures in the table do not seem to add new insights to those already acquired. Just like with the opposite extension (see examples [123] and [124] above), in many cases the necessity-to-possibility extension in the ‘deontic negative’ type can be explained by the conversational implicature causing confusion between ‘don’t have to’ (negated necessity of p) and ‘should not’ (necessity of negated p). In some cases, however, there is no pragmatic excuse for the substitution, and the only explanation is that the speaker fails to differentiate between structures marking negated necessity and negated possibility. Consider (126), where the Soikino Ingrian speaker produces ‘don’t have to’ instead of ‘cannot’, as encoded by the Russian word nel’zya in the source sentence. peä kura kätte kǟntišǝ. (126) Tädä tīdä mǖt ei turn.INF this.PART road:PART along NEG .3SG must.CONNEG left to ‘You don’t have to turn left on this road.’ (Intended: ‘You cannot turn left on this road.’) (Ing-S, OM, Vs)

194

MM in the receding varieties

Table 24: ‘Necessity‑to‑possibility’ extension: occurrences of necessity modals instead of possibility modals according to polarity and modal value Tokens N occurrences of the ‘NEC ‑for‑POS ’ substitution

Types N occurrences of the “correct” possibility modal elicited by the source utterance

N source predications, which triggered ‘NEC ‑for‑POS ’ substitution

N source predications containing modals of possibility, which did not trigger substitution

dynamic, circumstantial

affirmative negative

3 –

117 102

2 –

17 10

deontic

affirmative negative

4 10

122 90

2 4

13 6

epistemic

affirmative negative

10 9

129 44

5 5

11 1

All occurrences of the value ‘epistemic affirmative’ in Table 24 relate to a phenomenon which recurs in normal language change and which was called “devaluation” by Boye (2012: 141). Epistemic adverbs such as for example Bulgarian sigurno, which once expressed (in Boye’s terminology) ‘full epistemic support’ (‘certainly’) have been devaluated to express partial epistemic support (‘probably’). The functional rationale behind this down-ranking of epistemic necessity markers to the domain of epistemic possibility is that such markers tend to be redundant, due to the default ‘full epistemic support’-reading of declarative sentences without overt epistemic specification (Boye 2012: 141). The same devaluation accounts for the ‘necessity-to-possibility’-extensions of modal verbs in the table. An example in point was (121) from Central Lude. (127) is an example from Lower Luga Ingrian, where the speaker uses the past tense form of a necessity verb in a source context of epistemic possibility, expressed by mog byt’ ‘could have been’ in the Russian source sentence. piti olla harakka. (127) Näen egle lintua. Se see:PST.1SG yesterday bird.PART it.NOM must:PST.3SG be.INF magpie.NOM ‘I saw a bird yesterday. It must have been a magpie.’ (Intended: ‘It could have been a magpie.’) (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) Finally, despite the insufficient populations of types and tokens (see the figures in Table 23 and Table 24), the ‘negative epistemic’ domain seems to be a common trigger of the possibility-to-necessity and necessity-to-possibility extensions.

Modality

195

Consider (128), where the Votic consultant produces a negated possibility modal instead of the negated necessity modal ne dolzhna byt’ ‘need not be’ in the Russian source sentence. (129) from Soikino Ingrian exemplifies extension in the opposite direction: the negated possibility marked in Russian by ne mozhet ‘cannot’ is substituted by the consultant for expression of negated necessity. ei ve̮i olla ni vana. (128) Ämmä siso grandma.GEN sister.NOM NEG can.CONNEG be.INF so old.NOM ‘Grandma’s sister cannot be that old.’ (Intended: ‘Grandma’s sister need not be that old.’) (Vot, NL, U-L) (129) Näin kauvan hänen ei peä olla tǖš. so long s/he:GEN NEG .3SG must.CONNEG be.INF work:INE ‘He shouldn’t be (is not supposed to be) that long at work.’ (Intended: ‘He could not be that long at work.’) (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) Comparing the presented evidence for possibility–necessity blends from LD with semantic extensions of modals occurring in normal language change, the most striking difference concerns the semantic range of blending. While in healthy languages the domains of ‘possibility’ and ‘necessity’ are relatively solid in terms of formal coding properties and leak into each other only through the contexts of participant-external (in particular deontic) modality (see the semantic maps of van der Auwera & Plungian 1998 and van der Auwera, Kehayov & Vittrant 2009), in LD-circumstances, extensions in both directions – from possibility to necessity and vice versa – are attested in all possible contexts: dynamic, circumstantial, deontic and epistemic, in the scope of affirmation as well as negation. The high number of attested extensions allowed us to pinpoint the relative sensitivity of specific semantic values to possibility–necessity blending, which is recapitulated by the following probabilistic scales: negative > affirmative; epistemic > deontic > dynamic/circumstantial; epistemic affirmative, epistemic negative, deontic negative > deontic affirmative, dynamic/circumstantial affirmative, dynamic/circumstantial negative. 8.1.2.1.1.2 Idiolect divergence The notion ‘idiolect divergence’ refers to situations where different speakers use different modal forms to express the same meanings. However, I will use this notion to describe the more specific situation of normalized divergence, where

196

MM in the receding varieties

the consultants generalize or strongly prefer different modals for the expression of the same sector of modality domain.131 The procedure applied in the search for idiolect divergence was simple. I checked to what extent different speakers of the same variety opt for different modals in the same semantic context. It should be noted, however, that depending on what counts as ‘the same semantic context’, idiolect divergence can be identified with different degrees of precision. It can be diagnosed for instance as a differential lexical coding of the same simplex modal value – (affirmative or negative) ‘dynamic’, ‘circumstantial’, ‘deontic’ or ‘epistemic’ (possibility or necessity) – without consideration of the specific context of the utterance. A more precise diagnostic of idiolect divergence assumes absolute context identity and is based on the choice of different modals with reference to the same source sentences. I will apply the second, more rigorous procedure. The evidence for idiolect divergence, obtained from the data, is rather restricted in scope. It comes exclusively from Soikino Ingrian and Votic and is limited to the domain of modal possibility. The first example comes from Soikino Ingrian and concerns discrepancy in the coding of inherent ability and circumstantial possibility. Although the consultants LSK and LSI (who can be characterized as forgetters) are from the same area (the villages Yugantovo and Slobodka, see Map 4 on page 72), they always expressed ‘inherent dynamic’ and ‘circumstantial’ possibility with different modals. There are seven source sentences expressing these meanings (which cannot be always contextually differentiated), to which both consultants provided translation: in six of them LSK produced the modal verb sāvva and in one mahtā, whereas LSI produced in all cases jaksā. Consider (130) which exemplifies the divergence between these two speakers in the marking of inherent ability and (131) exemplifying the divergence in the marking of circumstantial possibility. šāb nostā vazikan. (130) a. Hän s/he.NOM get:PRS .3SG lift.INF calf:GEN ‘He can lift a calf.’ (i.e. ‘He is able can lift a calf.’) (Ing-S, LSK, Yg) b. Hän jaksā nostā vazigan. s/he.NOM get:PRS .3SG lift.INF calf:GEN ‘He can lift a calf.’ (i.e. ‘He is able can lift a calf.’) (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) 131 Idiolect divergence is rarely discussed in the literature on LD. Granqvist (2013: 142), for example, briefly acknowledges that the abandonment of the Romani morphosyntactic frame by Finnish Romani speakers has led to increase in idiolect variation and idiosyncratic symbioses with the Finnish grammar. For remarks on idiolect differences in Ingrian Finnish, see Kokko (2007: 212‒215).

Modality

197

(131) a. Hän ei šā meidä laskea, što s/he.NOM NEG .3SG get.CONNEG we.PART let.in.INF because hänel ei ō avaime. s/he:ADE NEG .3SG be.CONNEG keys.PART ‘She can’t let us in, because she doesn’t have the keys.’ (Ing-S, LSK, Yg) b. Hän ei jaksa meidä laskea, hänelä s/he.NOM NEG .3SG be_able.CONNEG we.PART let_in.INF s/he:ADE ei NEG .3SG

ō avaimia. be.CONNEG keys.PART

‘She can’t let us in, because she doesn’t have the keys.’ (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) In Soikino Ingrian a similar discrepancy between speaker choices in the coding of epistemic possibility is attested. The consultants AG and VFD living in the near villages Gorki and Vistino invariably used different modals to express epistemic possibility. There are seven source sentences expressing epistemic possibility to which both of them provided translation: AG produced in five sentences jaksā and in two sāvva, whereas VFD produced in all of them mahtā. Consider (132) which exemplifies the divergence in the choice of a modal conveying epistemic possibility. jakša olla tǖzä, no miä en (132) a. Hǟ s/he.NOM can.PRS .3SG be.INF work:INE but I.NOM NEG .1SG tiä. know.CONNEG ‘S/he can be at work, but I don’t know.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) mahtā olla tüös, ni miä tarkka b. Hänen s/he:GEN can.PRS .3SG be.INF work:INE but I.NOM exactly en

tie. NEG .1SG know.CONNEG ‘S/he can be at work, but I don’t know exactly.’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi)

Votic provides evidence for idiolect divergence in the semantic domains of ‘inherent dynamic’, ‘circumstantial’ and ‘deontic’ possibility. Despite the fact that the consultants SJ and IG, both forgetters, are from the same village (Luzhitsy), they consistently selected different modals to mark these meanings. There were three source sentences expressing inherent ability and three source sentences expressing circumstantial possibility, to which both consultants provided an

198

MM in the receding varieties

input: in all these cases SJ produced sāma and IG ve̮jma; see (133) with inherent ability and (134) with circumstantial possibility. (133) a. tämä ep sā ne̮ssa stūlia. s/he.NOM NEG .3SG get.CONNEG lift.INF chair.PART ‘She can’t lift a chair.’ (Vot, SJ, Lu) b. Tämä i stūlia ei ve̮i ne̮ssa. s/he.NOM PTCL chair.PART NEG .3SG can.CONNEG lift.INF ‘She can’t even lift a chair.’ (Vot, IG, Lu) (134) a. Tämä eb sā teijed лassǝ . . . s/he.NOM NEG .3SG get.CONNEG you(2PL).PART let_in.INF ‘She can’t let you in (because she doesn’t have the keys).’ (Vot, SJ, Lu) b. Tämä eb ve̮i лassǝ, potomušto täl s/he:ADE s/he.NOM NEG .3SG can.CONNEG let_in.INF because eb ol ve̮ttima. neg.3SG be.CONNEG keys.PART ‘She can’t let us in, because she doesn’t have the keys.’ (Vot, IG, Lu) Likewise, there were six source sentences expressing deontic possibility, to which both consultants provided an input: SJ produced in all cases sāma, whereas IG produced in five sentences ve̮jma and in one sāma. See (135) exemplifying the divergence between these two speakers in the marking of deontic possibility. et sā mennä poiz, siu (135) a. Siä you.NOM NEG . 2SG get.CONNEG go.INF out you:GEN /ADE piäb e̮pe̮ttamа. must:PRS .3SG study:INF (Mother to her child) ‘You can’t go out, you have to study.’ (Vot, SJ, Lu) b. Siä et ve̮i mennä sinnǝ dolžen e̮pe̮se. you.NOM NEG . 2SG can.CONNEG go.INF you:GEN necessary study:INF (Mother to her child) ‘You can’t go out, you have to study.’ (Vot, IG, Lu) The aggregate figures for the expression of ‘inherent dynamic’, ‘circumstantial’ and ‘deontic’ possibility, which were achieved upon complete identity of the source context, are thirteen occurrences of sāma and zero of ve̮jma for SJ, and twelve occurrences of ve̮jma and one of sāma for IG.

Modality

199

In all cases discussed so far, we have two phenomena: generalization of a modal and suppression of another modal marking the given value in the TF. It cannot be determined to what extent this suppression leads to genuine retraction or only to ‘marginalization’, where the suppressed modal acquires specific connotation(s) or its compatibility with different verbs is restricted (see Hansen 2016). Table 25 recapitulates the instantiations of idiolect divergence presented above. Unlike in the case of multifunctionalization, the liability of individual grammars to divergence in the lexical choice for marking possibility does not seem to depend on specific modal value; cases of divergence were attested all along the possibility spectrum: in the ‘dynamic’, ‘circumstantial’, deontic’ and ‘epistemic’ domain. Likewise, idiolect divergence does not seem to be sensitive to polarity, as it is equally distributed across affirmative and negative contexts. From the source sentences in which divergence in the coding of the ‘dynamic/ circumstantial’ domain for Soikino Ingrian and Votic was identified, three are affirmative and five negative. For the deontic domain, where we identified divergence in Votic, the respective proportion is three ‘affirmative’ to three ‘negative’, and for the epistemic domain, showing divergence in Soikino Ingrian, the proportion is four ‘affirmative’ to three ‘negative’. Table 25: Idiolect divergence in the marking of modal possibility modal value

contrasts in speaker preferences

inherent dynamic & circumstantial

sāvva (LSK) sāma (SJ)

vs. vs.

variety jaksā (LSI) ve̮jma (IG)

Ing-S Vot

deontic

sāma (SJ)

vs.

ve̮jma (IG)

Vot

epistemic

jaksā (AG)

vs.

mahtā (VFD)

Ing-S

Finally, the fact that I could not identify clear-cut cases of idiolect divergence in the necessity domain should not lead us astray. The proviso for idiolect divergence is the availability of lexical alternatives in the marking of a specific modal value. The necessity domain shows in general lower lexical diversity in the TFs of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto; in other words, these varieties have fewer modal verbs marking necessity than marking possibility. The lack of marking alternatives, especially the lack of alternatives belonging to the same lexical format (such as verbs), has inhibiting effect on divergence. This should prevent us from implying that idiolect divergence is a phenomenon associated exclusively with ‘possibility’.

200

MM in the receding varieties

8.1.2.1.2 Morphosyntactic changes with semantic correlates This section is devoted to grammatical change in LD circumstances. All changes identified in the four obsolescent varieties concern modal verbs and all lead to reduction of their verbal properties (or the ‘verbiness’) relative to their antecedents in the TF. Three changes were best substantiated by the available material: a) the change of modal verbs to modal particles; I will call this phenomenon ‘particlization’; b) the omission of the infinitive complement of the modal verb, which could be seen as a sign of de-auxiliarization, and is related to the first change and c) occasional change in person inflection, which differs from the reduction phenomena described in Section 7.2.3, because it seems to be pioneered specifically by modal verbs. 8.1.2.1.2.1 Particlization of modal verbs Particles are usually defined in the European languages by several conditions, of which none is specifically restricted to them: lack of inflection, lack of syntactic integration, wide semantic scope and non-negatability (see Wiemer 2006, Wiemer 2010 and Birzer 2015 for overviews). In order to isolate modal particles from (sentential) adverbs, one should probably also add the specification ‘lack of internal morphological structure’ to the first condition, but even this restriction is not absolute. The second condition specifies that particles are not parts of the constituent structure of the clause (and as such do not have arguments, nor are they arguments of other constituents).132 The third condition assumes that particles have propositions or entire illocutions in their scope, which partly accounts for the fourth condition that they do not occur in the scope of negation. In this section, I will discuss cases where a modal verb becomes an epistemic particle in the contracting Finnic varieties. An ‘epistemic particle’ is defined here as a sentential particle which provides epistemic evaluation of the proposition in its scope. Particlization could be observed in Ingrian, Votic and (marginally so) in Central Lude, with examples from both corpora. Interestingly enough, particlization seems to be restricted functionally to the domain of possibility and structurally to ‘non-core’ modals; in other words, to less grammaticalized modal verbs which exhibit lower degree of multifunctionality than core modals. Given that modal verbs in Finnic have the usual inflectional properties of lexical verbs, they participate in the argument structure of the clause, their default position is immediately in front of the infinitive, and they can have various scopes, their transformation to particles would ideally involve loss of 132 This restriction also helps to differentiate between particles and sentential adverbs; the latter tend to have a closer relation to the verb phrase (predicate) in the clause (Wiemer 2006).

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inflection properties, syntactic disintegration and movement away from the infinitive and the VP as a core of the predication. Exactly this is what we observe in the available material. Example (136) from Finnish presents the departure point of the particlization process, where the verb taitaa ‘may; might’ is followed by an infinitival complement. olla seitsemänkymmentä taloa. (136) Siellä taisi house.PART there may.PST.3SG be.INF seventy ‘There might have been seventy houses there.’ Example (137) from Soikino Ingrian, on the other hand, presents the end point of the process, where the particlization of the modal verb seems to be accomplished. Here the original third person singular form of the verb taitā ‘may; might’ does not co-occur with an infinitive, but with a finite form of the main verb. This shows that taitā is no longer the locus of tense, mood, person and number inflection in the predicate, and that its finiteness properties have been overtaken by the verb which was previously in the infinitive. As a result taitā occurs in the petrified form of present tense third person singular of the verb and functions as an epistemic particle signalling uncertainty. Its status as a sentential particle is reflected by its movement to the left periphery, away from its former complement which is now the head of the VP. siellä oli talloja seitšekümmen. (137) Taitā may(.PRS . 3SG ) there be:PST.3SG house:PL . PART seventy ‘Probably there were about seventy houses there.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) The verb taitā has modal functions only in Ingrian133 and is the only modal verb, from those showing particle-like uses in the sample, which has been particlized already in the TF (see Nirvi 1971: 568 for examples). As such taitā is a forerunner in the spread of particlization and serves as a model for other verbs with similar functions and morphosyntax, which are about to enter the particlization cline. In the present data from Soikino Ingrian, two other verbs, jaksā and mahtā show epistemic particle-like uses.134 Consider (138) with jaksā and (139) with mahtā. 133 Epistemic taitā occurs also in Votic, but only as a particle and not as a verb (see VKS 6: 54‒55; VKKMS: 512). It lacks the regular present tense third person singular inflection (cf. the expected form *taitaB ) and thus seems to have been borrowed from Ingrian already as a particle. 134 Recall Table 16 on page 171 for the etymons of these two verbs and the discussion in the last two subsections, where examples with them were presented.

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(138) Jaksā hä on koiš. may(.PRS . 3SG ) s/he. NOM be. PRS .3SG at_home ‘Probably she is at home.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) (139) Ätti mahtā tänpä ei mǟ meijen kera, dad.NOM may(.PRS . 3SG ) today NEG .3SG go.PRS .CONNEG we.GEN with što hänel kivistǟ jaлkā. because he:ADE hurt.PRS .3SG leg:PART ‘Supposedly dad is not coming with us to the town. ’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi) Just like with taitā above, jaksā and mahtā show the regular repertoire of particle properties. They have bequeathed their inflection to the former infinitive which is now conjugated for tense, person and number. This may be not so obvious in the case of (139), where we have the probability of something not happening, but consider that the inflected negative verb followed by the connegative constitute the regular finite negation structure in Finnic. In both cases the wide scope of the particle-like element is reflected in its being separated by other constituents from the verb. Particle uses of jaksā and mahtā are not attested in the TF (cf. Nirvi 1971: 100, 290‒291; Laanest 1966a: 111‒154; Laanest 1997: 49, 112). The observed micro-variation in the data allows for closer examination of the particlization process. Some structures produced by the consultants represent less advanced stages of the process of particlization; such uses show some, but not all signs of particlization. Consider (140), where the consultant uses jaksā as a particle, which is moved to the left of the subject of the sentence and outside the negation, but the verb is (still) in the infinitive. hän ei olla kois. (140) Tänäbä jaksā today may(.PRS . 3SG ) s/he. NOM NEG .3SG be.INF at_home ‘Probably she is not at home today.’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi) Uneven distribution of manifestations of particlization allows us to stratify the process as accumulation of different formal changes which need not coincide. The corpora, however, contains only four occurrences of the kind exemplified in (140), where the particle-like form co-occurs with an infinitive, and all of them are produced by weak speakers (forgetters or rememberers). This implies that we are dealing with production errors rather than with representations of an entrenched stage on the particlization cline. Another parameter showing uneven distribution is the detachment of the particle-like form (the former modal verb) from its initial position before the

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former infinitive. This movement away from the verb phrase is iconic with the new function of modals as sentential particles which take the whole proposition in their scope. Although the evidence is scarce, there are indications that jaksā is slightly more advanced in its migration to the left, away from the VP. Consider Table 26 which shows whether there are clausal constituents separating the particle-like element from the finite form of the verb (the head of the VP) and the frequency of the left-detachment of jaksā and mahtā in Soikino Ingrian. Table 26: Left‑detachment in particlization separated by one or more clausal constituents from the finite form of the predicate (the former infinitive) jaksā mahtā

5 2

immediately precedes the finite form of the predicate (the former infinitive)

2 10

Although the figures are very low, they suggest that jaksā is predominantly detached by at least one clausal constituent from the predicate, while mahtā tends to occur closer to its initial position of a modal verb. Note that the instantiations in the right column of the table are not restricted to cases where the modal occurs in situ (i.e. in its original position). In affirmative contexts, the lack of clausal constituents between the modal and the verb indeed implies that particlization is exclusively identified by the inflection features on the verb. Witness example (141) where the tense, person and number marking on the verb ‘be’ and not the position of the modal show that the latter features as a particle and not as a verb. jakšā oli Pitteris. (141) Äti dad.NOM may(.PRS . 3SG ) be: PST.3SG Saint Petersburg:INE ‘Supposedly dad has been in Saint Petersburg.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) This is not the case, however, in negative contexts. Here the occurrence of negation between the modal and the verb can be used as a diagnostic of particlization (recall the ‘non-negatability’ condition above), just like the intervention of a clausal constituent. Note that jaksā and mahtā are epistemic verbs which cannot be used with wide scope negation to express ‘negated probability of activity’, but are always used with narrow scope negation, expressing the ‘probability of negated activity’. Despite the fact that the negation is semantically in the scope of the modal, in the TF it is usually raised over the modal. The equivalent of (139) in Finnish, for example, will be isä ei mahda tulla tänään meidän kanssamme (dad.NOM NEG .3SG may.CONNEG come.INF today we.GEN with:POSS .1PL

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‘dad may not come with us today’), where the negation precedes the modal but is semantically within its scope. This mismatch between semantic scope and formal structure seems to be widely restored in obsolescent Ingrian, where the negation usually occurs between the modal and the verb in its semantic scope. This shift, which leads to greater constructional iconicity, is logical, because a particle-like element cannot be negated by means of verbal negation. Thus, the structure of (142) can be taken to indicate that the word mahtā has been detached from its previous complement, as it occurs outside the negation.135 (142) Hän tänpä mahtā ei ō tǖs, sentä što s/he today may(.PRS .3SG ) NEG .3SG be.INF at_work because hänel on vīrāt. s/he:ADE be.PRS .3SG guests.NOM ‘He is probably not at work today, because he has guests.’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi) The consultant AG, for instance, reacts to this input sentence with the original structure, where the negation verb precedes the modal jaksā which itself is followed by the infinitive: ei jaksa olla tǖhüš (NEG .3SG may.CONNEG be.INF at.work ‘may not be at work’). A consequence of the increased positional mutability of the modals undergoing particlization is that their syntactic scope varies considerably. Compare (143) displaying what seems to be an NP-internal constituent scope of mahtā with (144), where mahtā seems to have scope over an entire illocution; both examples come from spontaneous narrative (C2). mahtā (143) Hän on nuore mb minnua, vūtta s/he.NOM be.PRS .3SG younger I.PART year.SG . PART may(.PRS . 3SG ) kolmea. three. PART ‘He is probably three years younger than me.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) (144) Mahtā midä panna sǖvä teile? may(.PRS . 3SG ) what. PART put.INF eat.INF you:ALL ‘What should I give you to eat?’ (Ing-S, OM, Vs)

135 The external semantic scope of the new particles with respect to negation makes one expect that they would not be sensitive to polarity. This expectation is confirmed by the fact that particle-like uses are equally frequent with affirmative and negated propositions.

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Starting with the second example, mahtā seems to have the widest possible scope here. Using the terminology of Functional Grammar, mahtā can be regarded as a marker of ‘mitigating mood’, which is used by the host to mitigate the effect of directly asking the guests what s/he can offer to them. It modifies the force of the basic illocution of the expression and has perlocutionary potential (Hengeveld 2005). That its scope is higher than the scope of an element with immediate propositional scope is formally manifested by its position outside the interrogative sentence in (144): a propositional operator cannot outscope the illocutionary meaning of a question. In (143), on the other hand, we have the narrowest possible scope of mahtā one can imagine. It seems to modify here the numeral modifier of the noun in the appositional structure vūtta mahtā kolmea (lit. ‘years might be three’). Note, however, that this appositional construction stands for the semantic entity ‘someone is probably three years younger than someone else’, which is a full-fledged proposition. This propositional message is conveyed despite the “omission” of the participants and the verb (see the next section about infinitive-ellipsis). In other words, even though the explicit scope of mahtā concerns only a phrase constituent in (143), its implicit scope is propositional (see Boye 2012: 252‒254 for relevant discussion).136 Before we proceed to particle-like uses of other verbs, consider the following structure, where we seem to be dealing with lexicalization of an epistemic adverb rather than with particlization. There are two examples in the material where the modal and the infinitive together are followed by a finite form of the former infinitive. While in all previous examples the modal was isolated from the part of the predicate carrying the finiteness properties, here the modal and the infinitive together are isolated and a new placeholder of the inflectional categories is introduced. See (145) containing what seems to be a new adverbial conveying uncertainty – mahtā-olla, and the negative form of the 3SG present tense form of the verb ‘be’. Such structures exemplify an alternative univerbation strategy affecting the entire ‘modal+INF ’ sequence, and are attested in many European languages (cf. Hansen 2010b about the specific path of lexicalization of this structure in Russian).

136 Boye argues that even if apparently in the sentence when passing in front of the police barracks the coach was hailed by two well-dressed men, apparently natives of Spain, who asked the driver if he would take them to the Bovedas has explicit narrow scope, its implicit scope is propositional (Boye 2012: 252). Accordingly, “[i]n order to understand apparently natives of Spain, one has to interpret the meaning of the noun phrase natives of Spain as being part of an identificational proposition like ‘the two well-dressed men were natives of Spain’; the evidential meaning of apparently can only be understood as applying to this whole proposition” (Boye 2012: 254).

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(145) Tänäbä hän mahtā=olla ei o kois. today s/he. NOM may(.PRS . 3SG )=be.INF NEG .3SG be.CONNEG at_home ‘Probably she is not at home today.’ (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) In addition to Ingrian jaksā and mahtā, the Votic verb ve̮jma shows signs of similar particlization, although to a much lesser extent. This is the only inherited core modal which shows uses as an epistemic particle. The evidence is scarce, though: there are only two occurrences of ve̮jma as a particle-like element, but they come from different speakers, and therefore cannot be discarded as occasional misspellings. One of these is exemplified in (146). ve̮id tänävä meile ovtuhusse̮лǝ ei tuлe̮, (146) Tāto dad.NOM can(.PRS . 3SG ) today we:ALL evening:ADE NEG come.CONNEG potomušto täl väilutab jaлkā. because he:ADE hurt:PRS .3SG leg:PART ‘Dad might not come with us tonight, because his leg hurts.’ (Vot, PK, Ps) The use of ve̮id as an epistemic particle in this example is obvious: it is moved to the left from its original position and is now separated by three clausal constituents from the content verb which is no more in the infinitive, but in the regular finite form of a VP head. Note, however, that the form ve̮id is not the etymological third person singular form of the verb ve̮jma (which served as a source of particlization): the expected form is ve̮ib. The dental stop in this form is either a generalized second person singular ending or echoes the Russian third person ending -t (cf. Russian može-t can.PRS -3SG ), in which case it could be seen as a production error.137 I have found only one example of a particle-like use of ve̮jma in the existing literature, which comes, however, from the TF; see (147), where the third person singular present tense form ve̮ib co-occurs with the third person singular form of the future copula lē-. The impossibility of having two finite forms in one predicate shows that ve̮ib has been particlized. ve̮ib lēp tšülm (147) päiv day.NOM can(.PRS . 3SG ) be. FUT:3SG cold ‘the day might turn cold’ (Heinsoo 2010: 64).

137 The latter scenario is extremely unlikely considering that there are no attestations in the literature of a Uralic language using Russian Indicative person endings.

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Interestingly, the material does not contain cases of particlization of core modals from Ingrian, where the particlization seem to be most advanced in terms of frequency and penetration in the system of modal verbs. Looking to particlization from a broader typological perspective, it should be noted that the verbiness of expressions of epistemic possibility is not universal, but seems to be a distinctive feature of Standard Average European (see Van Olmen & van der Auwera 2016). The particlization of epistemic possibility verbs, as an instantiation of loss of verbal features, is thus a change driving the obsolescent Finnic varieties away from SAE and bringing them closer to Russian which mostly relies on non-inflected classes (adverbs, particles and predicative adjectives) in the marking of epistemic possibility (van der Auwera, Schalley & Nuyts 2005; Hansen 2001: 168‒182). Some Votic and Central Lude consultants enhance the class of deverbal modal particles by using the 3SG present tense form mozhet of the Russian multifunctional possibility verb moch’ ‘can’ as an epistemic particle. This form shows particle uses already in Russian (as a sort of abbreviation of mozhet-byt’ ‘maybe, perhaps’) and occurs already in the TFs of Votic and Central Lude. Two of the four attestations of this item in Central Lude display adaptation through phonological reduction to može; see (148). može lähtēttä minū kera lidnā. (148) Mama küzüi, mum.NOM ask:PST.3SG may(be) go:PRS .2PL I.GEN with town:ILL ‘Mum asked: Maybe you two come with me to town!’ (C-L, PIK, Sv) The examples presented show that modal verbs expressing epistemic possibility are liable to particlization in some of the obsolescent Finnic variaties. But what is the logic behind the relative order in which different modal verbs are affected by the process? We saw that the etymon taitaa was the first to be affected by this development (with particle uses in the TF of Ingrian and Votic), and that it was followed by jaksaa and mahtaa which are not attested as particles in the TF, but are commonly used as such in contemporary receding Ingrian (there are nineteen particle-like occurrences of these items in the corpora). Finally, there is some tentative evidence suggesting that particlization currently also reaches the verbal etymon voida. This panchronic cline of affectedness by particlization seems to correlate with the relative multifunctionality of the modals under scrutiny. The first item which entered the cline – taitaa – displays the lowest score of multifunctionality: it is almost exclusively restricted to the domain of epistemic possibility; (rare) dynamic uses are documented for Votic (cf. VKS: 55 and VKKMS: 512), but not for Ingrian (cf. Nirvi 1971: 568). The modals jaksaa and mahtaa manifest a higher degree of multifunctionality in Ingrian (the language where they are subjected to particlization): apart from epistemic uses, they are

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canonical expressions of dynamic modality (recall Table 19 on page 182), and, as we saw in Section 8.1.2.1.1.1., show extensions to participant-external nonepistemic possibility. Finally, voida is a core modal covering the entire area between dynamic and epistemic possibility in Votic (see e.g. VKS: 225 and VKKMS: 611 for dynamic, circumstantial, deontic and epistemic uses of this verb). The necessary conclusion to be drawn from these facts is that we have a negative correlation between particlization and multifunctionality: particlization initially affected verbs with narrow semantics and then continued towards verbs with broader semantics. If this is true, one can predict that the higher the number of modal values a possibility modal expresses the less likely is that it will be subjected to particlization. The phenomenon of particlization is exemplary of the intricacy of the issue of linguistic complexity in those cases where we have several concurrent developments. The shift to a non-inflectional class could be accounted for as a case of reduction of structural complexity. Nevertheless, while the modal verb loses inflection, its complement verb gains in inflection and finiteness. There is no reduction of structural complexity here, only a transfer of complexity. In other words, we are dealing with a complexity trade-off on the syntagmatic axis. With regard to the increase of positional mutability and syntactic disintegration, using the notions of Bisang (2009) and Dahl (2011: 154‒155), we have a decrease of overt system complexity, which is compensated by an increase of hidden complexity, as the choice of position of the particle-like element is delegated to pragmatics. 8.1.2.1.2.2 Omission of the infinitive and de-auxiliarization Both corpora contain utterances in which Soikino Ingrian, Votic or Central Lude consultants omit the infinitive complement of the modal verb. The resultant structure is such that the modal is followed by an argument or modifier of the elided verb which is either explicitly mentioned in the preceding context or can be contextually inferred; see examples (149)‒(152). Ellipsis is attested with infinitives of the etymons pitää (in Soikino Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude), voida (in Votic), taitaa (in Soikino Ingrian), mahtaa (in Soikino Ingrian) and malttaa (in Central Lude). Consider (149) with the Central Lude pidädä ‘must’, (150) with the Ingrian taitā ‘may’, (151) with the Votic ve̮jma ‘can’ and (152) with the Central Lude maлttoa ‘can; know how’. (149) Meil on vai nel’ kažid. Eikö teille we:ADE be.PRS .3SG but four cat:PART NEG .3SG : Q (yes/no) you:ALL pidǟ Ø ühtä? must.PRS .3SG be.INF one.PART ‘But we have four cats. Don’t you need (to have) one?’ (C-L, MAT, Sv)

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(150) Hö müivad koin, hein nǖt taitā Ø they.NOM sell:PST. 3PL house: GEN they:GEN now may.PRS .3SG be.INF paljo rahā. much money:PART ‘They sold their house and they might have a lot of money now.’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi) (151) Miä nīku dūman, što tätä tänäbä koton ei I.NOM just think:PRS .1SG that s/he:PART today at_home NEG . 3SG ve̮i Ø. can.CONNEG be.INF ‘I just think that s/he cannot be at home today.’ (Vot, NL, U-L) (152) suomeks maltoi Ø hüvin.138 Finnish:TRNSL can:PST.3SG speak.INF good ‘She could speak good Finnish.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) The omitted infinitive, marked by ‘Ø’ in the examples, is usually recoverable both lexically and syntactically. Its lexical meaning can be implied from the surrounding context, its position in the sentence can be easily determined, and the sentence remains grammatically and semantically intact, if it is re-inserted (see Pustet 2005 for discussion of these ellipsis criteria). In examples (150) and (151) the modal verb expresses epistemic modality, whereas in (149) and (152) we have a circumstantial and dynamic use, respectively. Before I started checking the frequency of ellipsis against the modal context, I was quite sure that I would find more elliptical uses in epistemic contexts than in dynamic, circumstantial or deontic contexts. The reason for this expectation was that the omitted verb is better recoverable in epistemic contexts than elsewhere. In expressions of epistemic modality the speaker often estimates the likelihood that a referent is correctly identified (e.g. this must be an igloo), the likelihood of existence (e.g. there might be some food in the igloo) or the likelihood that a referent has certain properties (e.g. this igloo might be too small). But these are the major meanings conveyed by copular constructions in Finnic, in which the predicative expression is a noun, adjective or adpositional phrase. This means that epistemic verbs very often occur with the infinitive of the meaningless copula verb ‘be’, whose function is to connect constituents and 138 According to Johanna Laakso (p.c.), infinitive-less uses of maлttoa (in the context of knowledge of a language) could have existed already in the TF.

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to be a placeholder for the inflectional features of the predication. As copulas have no lexical meaning on their own and they constitute a close class, it is easier to infer them from the context. Given the association between epistemic contexts and the occurrence of the infinitive of the copula and the lesser effort with which this is retrieved upon omission, I expected to encounter ellipsis in epistemic contexts more often than in other contexts. This expectation was not borne out by the observed frequencies. Modals with dynamic or circumstantial meaning occurred 10 times without an infinitive, modals with deontic meaning occurred 21 times without an infinitive, while epistemic modals showed 12 such infinitive-less occurrences. Although the corpora contain more occurrences of deontic modals than of epistemic modals in general (recall the figures in Table 21 on page 189), the observed frequencies clearly show that the ellipsis is not more frequent in the epistemic domain than in the deontic domain. In defiance of this evidence, I decided to look into the impact of the Russian source structure on the occurrence of infinitive ellipsis in complements of modal verbs. Most of the occurrences of infinitive ellipsis can be explained by the pressure toward achieving structural isomorphism with Russian: this is the case in 37 out of 43 ellipsis hits. In some cases, mostly in deontic contexts, it would be probably appropriate to renounce the qualification ‘ellipsis’, as the modal verb which syntactically requires an infinitive complement, occurs in a context where the insertion of infinitive does not sound natural. Consider the following example from Votic. piäb? (153) – Midä sil what you:ADE must:PRS .3SG ‘What do you need? (lit. What must there [be] for you?’) piäb sōla. – Mil I:ADE must: PRS .3SG salt.PART ‘I need salt. (lit. There must [be] some salt for me.)’ (Vot, PK, Ps) Originally, the Votic modal verb pitämä could not take nominal complements, as it seems to do in (153), but had to be followed by an infinitive. One can, in principle, insert an infinitive of the copula (the verb ‘be’) or of the verb ‘give’ after the third person singular form piäb in these examples, but this would be artificial. We are dealing here with mechanic reproduction of the Russian structure in a context, where instead of pitämä the inherited lexical choice would be a verb of necessity taking nominal objects (a wide spread Finnic etymon for this purpose is tarvita ‘need’). The Russian model structure contains the adjective nuzhno ‘necessary’ which occupies the slot of the finite predicate

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and occurs without the copula verb ‘be’139; consider the input sentences of (153) Chto tebe nuzhno? (what you.DAT necessary.N ) and Mne nuzhna sol’ (I.DAT necessary.F salt.NOM ). The absence of the infinitive in these Votic sentences can be explained as a pattern replication from Russian, where the form piäb is reanalysed as a main predicate, whose valency template does not contain an infinitive. In fact all Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude respondents to the source sentences in (153), which used the etymon pitää, produced identical structures without the infinitive. This means that the infinitive-less structure has been conventionalized and the modal bears no structural relation to some equivalent syntagm with an infinitive. A check in the literature confirms that the etymon pitää manifests such conventionalized main verb uses already in the TFs of the minor Finnic varieties. Jan Nuyts has discussed similar main verb uses of the Dutch modals moeten ‘must’, kunnen ‘can’ and mogen ‘may’, and characterized the morphosyntactic change leading to them as “de-auxiliarization without demodalization” (Nuyts 2013). The similarity between the phenomenon described by Nuyts and our conventionalized uses is striking: the re-autonomization of the Dutch modals occurs predominantly in deontic and directive contexts, exactly where it is most frequent in my data. However, pattern replication from Russian occurs in non-deontic contexts as well. Consider (154) from Soikino Ingrian where the verb pittǟ is used predicatively in context of circumstantial need, copying the Russian predicative items nado ‘(be) necessary’ or nuzhno ‘(be) necessary’ (cf. Russian nado/nuzhno mnogo drov be_necessary a_lot firewood.ACC ). In (155) the Ingrian consultant uses the modal taitā ‘may’ in a context of uncertainty (epistemic possibility); this modal corresponds here to the Russian adverb naverno ‘probably’ and contributes to the isomorphism with the corresponding Russian expression éto naverno sosed (this.NOM probably neighbour.NOM ). (154) Pittǟ paljo halkkoa. A kust raha must. PRS .3SG a_lot firewood:PART but where.ELA money.PART odat? take:PRS . 2SG ‘A lot of firewood is necessary (for the winter period). But where do you take the money from?’ (Ing-S, EM, Vi) 139 The copula ‘be’ retreated from this and other copular contexts already in the 17th‒18th century Russian (Buslaev 2006: 114).

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(155) Kellǟ koputtā ovī, še taitā somebody knock.PRS .3SG door.PART this.NOM may.PRS .3SG nāpuri. neighbour.NOM ‘Somebody is knocking on the door, it may be the neighbour.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) The attentive reader might have noted that there is a partial overlap between the structures discussed in the previous and in the present section. Analyzing (155) as contact-induced infinitive omission is just an alternative of the particlization analysis provided in the last section, and conversely, the particlization analysis of (143) above is just an alternative of the infinitive-omission analysis presented here. The problematic area is the domain of epistemic possibility, which was the area where we observed particlization, and in particular cases, where there is no other finite verb in the clause and the modal occurs in situ. In (143) for instance, the lack of another verb in the clause can be interpreted as a result of ellipsis of the infinitive of the copula verb ‘be’. On the other hand, even though the modal mahtā seems to be the only verb left in the clause, it functions as a particle which predicates uncertainty on the underlying copular sentence ‘X is three years younger than Y.’ Likewise, even though the infinitive of the copula is perfectly recoverable in (155), the form taitā can be analysed as a sentential particle providing epistemic qualification of the proposition ‘It is the neighbour.’. Moreover, in some cases an infinitive of the copula verb can be “recovered” even if the clause contains a finite verb. Recall example (141) repeated in (156), which shows the supposed position of the infinitive. jakšā Ø oli Pitteris. (156) Ätti dad.NOM may(.PRS . 3SG ) be. INF be: PST.3SG Saint Petersburg:INE ‘Supposedly, dad has been in Saint Petersburg.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) The structure that seems to underlie (156) is actually attested in the data; recall (145), where the modal co-occurred with the infinitive of the copula and the finite verb form of the copula. Reconstructing an infinitive in all such finite environments is, however, analytically the less elegant solution and, due to the overload of verb forms, production-theoretically the less probable scenario, than assuming that the infinitive has been converted to a finite form by means of transfer of the inflectional features from the modal. Therefore, I have excluded such co-occurrences with finite verb forms from the count of infinitive ellipsis.

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Provided that the major motor of linguistic change producing the structures in (155) and (156) is the pressure toward achieving isomorphism with Russian, the phenomena of infinitive ellipsis and particlization are not contradictory but (potentially) complementary. Omitting the infinitive of the modal verb is a possible step toward convergence with the Russian construction containing the sentential particle naverno. Most importantly, C1 contains six uses of the modal verbs without the infinitive, where the ellipsis could not be straightforwardly explained in terms of pattern replication from Russian. These occurrences constitute the major payoff of the complex analysis of infinitive-less structures in the sample. All examples come from Ingrian and Votic and in all of them the modal has epistemic meaning and the omitted element is the copula ‘be’. One such example was (151), where the Votic ve̮jma occurs in situ without the infinitive of ‘be’. Omission of the infinitive of ‘be’ is not possible in the corresponding Russian sentence; in other words, while ego ne mozhet byt’ doma (he.GEN NEG can:PRS .3SG be.INF at.home ‘he cannot be at home’) is grammatical, *ego ne mozhet Ø doma (he.GEN NEG can:PRS .3SG Ø at.home) is not. Other occurrences of infinitive ellipsis in contexts, in which the infinitive is required in Russian, are presented in (157), with the Ingrian pittǟ and in (158), with the Votic ve̮jma. pittǟ Ø üks komnatti babuška (157) Koies at.home must. PRS .3SG be. INF one. NOM room.NOM grandma.GEN vasse. against ‘There must be a vacant room on the other side of the room of grandma.’ (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) (158) Ämmä ei ve̮i Ø vana. grandma.NOM NEG can.CONNEG be.INF old.NOM ‘Grandma could not be (that) old.’ (Vot, IG, Lu) Russian does not license omission of the infinitive of the copula byt’ ‘be’ in such epistemic contexts. Compare the equivalent of (157) v dome dolzhna byt’/*Ø odna svobodnaya komnata (at home necessary be.INF /*Ø one.NOM free.NOM room.NOM ), and the equivalent of (158) babushka ne mozhet byt’/*Ø (tak) staroi (grandma.NOM NEG can:PRS .3SG be.INF /*Ø [so] old). In all examples of this kind the modal occurs in situ as a genuine main verb. Its fixed position and its negatability, see (151) and (158), indicate that we are not dealing with particlization, but with degrammaticalization of an auxiliary verb to what seems to be a full verb. A modal

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verb, which was once grammaticalized from lexical verb to an auxiliary item, functions now without its infinitive complement as the only form of the predicate in the sentence. While elliptical uses of modal verbs that are explicable as replicas of the Russian structure can be occasionally found in the TFs of the respective varieties, I have not found examples of such non-motivated ellipsis in the TFs of Ingrian and Votic. We are dealing thus with an LD-specific ellipsis which is not imported from the dominant language and which is restricted to epistemic contexts. 8.1.2.1.2.3 Change in person inflection This section deals with one particular change in the inflection for person, which is exclusively attested on modal verbs, and therefore could be suspected to be pioneered by modal verbs. Although the inflection reduction on the negative verb, discussed in Section 7.2.3.1, and the extension of the Impersonal forms of the verb to encode personal ones, discussed in Section 7.2.3.2, concern loss of person/number inflection, these are not restricted to modal verbs and therefore are irrelevant to the discussion of MM in language obsolescence. Recall example (146), where instead of the expected third person singular ve̮ib (or ve̮ip) of the possibility modal ‘can’ the Votic consultant produced a reflex looking like the second person singular form ve̮id. It was noted that the dental stop in this reflex is either a generalized second person singular ending or an adaptation of the Russian third person ending -t (cf. Russian mozhe-t can.PRS 3SG ). With the help of examples (159) and (160) we can discard the second scenario. In (159) from Votic, the consultant produces the form sāt which coincides with the second person form of the acquisitive verb instead of the “correct” third person singular form sāb. In (160), the Central Lude consultant refers to the present tense first person singular, but produces the second person form void of the possibility verb ‘can’ (instead of the expected form voin). pe̮le̮ttā? (159) Kassen sā-t here get.PRS -3SG (≈2SG ) smoke.INF ‘Is it allowed to smoke here?’ (Vot, SJ, Lu) (160) Minä voi-d luge(a) otškita. I.NOM can.PRS -1SG (≈2SG ) read.INF glasses:ABE ‘I can read without glasses.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) Consider the form of the modal verb in (159). Following for the time being the second scenario above, one should accept that the dental stop of the Russian

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present tense third person form has been isolated from the context of the transfer and applied to verbs which lack a direct semantic equivalent in the donor language. As it happens, Russian does not use its acquisitive modal verb(s) to mark possibility. Borrowing (in the classical sense) of one of the most frequent grammatical morphemes in the language should be postulated, however, only upon lack of alternatives. Example (160) provides more decisive evidence against borrowing from Russian, as we have here the dental ending (void) occurring in a first person singular form, where Russian exhibits vowel in the Auslaut (cf. mogu ‘I can’). It follows that this ending cannot originate in Russian. An argument in favour of the first scenario assuming extension of the second person form to other persons rests on intragenetic evidence. In Seto and in other Võru dialects, the present tense second person singular forms ve̮it, sāt, piät of the core modals ‘can’, ‘get’ and ‘must’, respectively, have been extended to express other persons. This means that we have a Finnic precedent of the extension of the present tense second person singular form to other persons; an extension which is restricted to modal verbs. This extension is documented with only three occurrences from Votic and Central Lude, and seems thus to be marginal. Unlike in (146), where the extended second person singular form of the modal occurs as a kind of a frozen epistemic particle followed by a finite form of the former infinitive, here the infinitive is preserved. This means that the agreement features of what is third person singular in (159) and first person singular in (160) are carried now by the generalized second person singular form of the core modals ‘can’ and ‘get’. Although marginal, this extension is interesting, because it is not attested in the TFs of Votic and Central Lude. 8.1.2.2 Transfer of linguistic matter This section deals with incorporation of lexical items from one language into another. I will refer to this phenomenon in the following discussion with the proximate terms ‘borrowing’, ‘transfer’ and ‘matter replication’. The first term is preferred due to its common use in descriptive linguistics, and in particular, because it allows us to match “borrowing”-tendencies discovered in LD with the borrowing scales postulated in contact linguistics (e.g. Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 74 ff). The term ‘transfer’ is, however, more neutral, as it does not emphasize the barriers between linguistic codes to the degree ‘borrowing’ does (see Matras 2009: 146). The third term, introduced in contact linguistics by Yaron Matras (e.g. 2009: 146‒165) is applied for the sake of notional coherence with the term ‘pattern replication’, used elsewhere in the present study to refer to transfer of constructional patterns, which does not involve transfer of lexical or morphological material (for ‘copying’ as an alternative term, see Johanson 2002). These terms

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are applied technically to designate import of lexical and morphological structure with varying degree of adaptation to the phonetic and grammatical system of the target language, and will be interchanged according to the context. Due to the low degree of adaptation and the constant mixing of codes, the process of language death (especially in its advanced stages) does not allow us to strictly distinguish between what is traditionally understood as ‘codeswitching’ and ‘transfer’ (or ‘borrowing’) (see e.g. Auer 1988). The conceptual distinction between ‘code-switching’ and ‘transfer’ is problematic even in more stable contact situations (see Treffers-Daller 2009 for an overview of this perplexed issue), and therefore I will not be too meticulous about it. This section deals with borrowing or transfer of lexical items (independent and function words) which express or contribute to the expression of modality and closely related semantic notions. It is divided in three subsections: the first focuses on transfer of modal words (verbs, particles, adverbs etc.) and the respective loss of the congenital forms, the second on transfer of different types of complement taking predicates (according to their factivity and semantic scope) and the respective loss of inherited CTPs, and the third on transfer of subordinators (with relevance to the modality of the dependent clause) and the respective loss of inherited subordinators. 8.1.2.2.1 Transfer of modals The available data warrants the following statements. 1) Epistemic modals (expressing possibility or necessity) are transferred from the dominant language to the target varieties much more often than modals expressing agent-oriented modality (possibility or necessity). The relative susceptibility to transfer of these types of modals is thus ‘epistemic modality’ > ‘non-epistemic (agent-oriented) modality’. 2) Modals expressing agent-oriented necessity are transferred or borrowed much more frequently than modals expressing agent-oriented possibility. The relative susceptibility to transfer of these types of modals is ‘agent-oriented necessity’ > ‘agent-oriented possibility’. Table 27 presents the empirical basis of these two statements. The table presents the frequency of transfer of modal verbs, particles, adverbs and predicative adjectives from Russian into the Finnic varieties, both in terms of token and type. The first two columns contain the token frequencies of the outcomes ‘borrowed’ and ‘not borrowed’ (i.e. ‘inherited’) in four populations: ‘non-epistemic possibility’, ‘epistemic possibility’, ‘non-epistemic necessity’ and ‘epistemic necessity’ modals; the last two columns contain the frequencies of the source contexts of these outcomes in the same populations.

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Table 27: Frequencies of modals borrowed from Russian according to their modal value in C1 Tokens N occurrences of a borrowed modal

non‑epistemic possibility

Types N occurrences of an inherited modal

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed modal(s) occur

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed modal(s) do not occur

2

429

2

52

epistemic possibility

12

161

8

14

non‑epistemic necessity

16

389

14

37

epistemic necessity

12

60

9

4

The first generalization above, claiming that the epistemic domain is more liable to borrowing and transfer than the non-epistemic (agent-oriented) domain could be confirmed independently, for ‘possibility’ and ‘necessity’, and collectively, by comparing the figures in the table for ‘non-epistemic (possibility and necessity)’ and ‘epistemic (possibility and necessity)’. The distribution of the frequencies in the first two cells of the first two rows is extremely significant (Fisher’s exact test, p < 0.0001), which indicates that the value ‘epistemic possibility’ is more strongly associated with borrowing (transfer) than the value ‘non-epistemic’ possibility’. The same holds for the domain of necessity: the distribution of the figures in the first two cells of the last two rows is statistically extremely significant (Yates’ x2 = 15.662, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001), which suggests that modals expressing epistemic necessity are more sensitive to borrowing than modals expressing non-epistemic necessity. The respective type frequencies are generally low, but Fisher’s test produces significant distribution both in the possibility sector of the table (p = 0.0005) and in the necessity sector (p = 0.0087), which suggests that the transfer of epistemic modals is contextually more diverse than the transfer of non-epistemic modals. Table 28 recapitulates the totals for the values ‘non-epistemic (possibility and necessity)’ and ‘epistemic (possibility and necessity)’ from Table 27. With the figures in this table we eliminate the uncertainty that can be caused by low frequencies and strengthen the reliability of the inference. Summing up the token frequencies of the groups ‘non-epistemic possibility’ and ‘non-epistemic necessity’, we get a total of 18 occurrences of the outcome ‘borrowed’ and 818

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MM in the receding varieties

occurrences of the outcome ‘inherited’, and summing up the token frequencies of the groups ‘epistemic possibility’ and ‘epistemic necessity’, we get a total of 24 occurrences of the outcome ‘borrowed’ and 221 of the outcome ‘inherited’. The respective distribution is extremely significant (Yates’ x2 = 27.626, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001), which verifies the higher sensitivity of epistemic modals to transfer relative to non-epistemic ones. The respective totals of type frequencies are presented in the right part of Table 28. Here too the distribution is extremely significant (Yates’ x2 = 14.393, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0001), which suggests that the contextual range of the transfer in the epistemic domain is greater than in the agent-oriented domain: almost the half of the source predications expressing epistemic modality show at least one case of transfer. Table 28: Frequencies of modals borrowed from Russian according to the distinction ‘epistemic’/‘non‑epistemic’ modality in C1 Tokens

Types

N occurrences of a borrowed modal

N occurrences of an inherited modal

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed modal(s) occur

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed modal(s) do not occur

non‑epistemic

18

818

16

89

epistemic

24

221

17

18

The insights gained from this rudimentary quantitative analysis of the data from controlled elicitation are corroborated by the facts from the naturalistic data. C2 contains seven occurrences of borrowed modals and all of them express epistemic modality. The second generalization above is more specific than the first, by stating that modals expressing agent-oriented necessity are more likely to be transferred than modals expressing agent-oriented possibility. The relevant frequencies from Table 27 are repeated in Table 29. With regard to token frequencies, the association between the groups ‘nonepistemic possibility’ and ‘non-epistemic necessity’ and the outcomes ‘borrowed’ and ‘non-borrowed’ is considered to be statistically very significant (Yates’ x2 = 10.450, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0012). This shows that in the agent-oriented domain modals of necessity are more vulnerable to transfer than modals of possibility. The same can be inferred about the relative spread of the two groups in the population of specifically defined contexts (source sentences). The very significant distribution in the right part of the table (Yates’ x2 = 9.687, df = 1, Yates’

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Table 29: Frequencies of modals borrowed from Russian according to the distinction ‘non‑epistemic possibility’/‘non‑epistemic necessity’ in C1 Tokens N occurrences of a borrowed modal

Types N occurrences of an inherited modal

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed modal(s) occur

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed modal(s) do not occur

non‑epistemic possibility

2

429

2

52

non‑epistemic necessity

16

389

14

37

p = 0.0019) points at the higher contextual diffusion of borrowed modals of agentoriented necessity compared to borrowed modals of agent-oriented possibility. One may wonder what prevents us from expanding the second statement to a claim about the general borrowability of necessity and possibility modals. There are two reasons to refrain from such generalization: the first is of quantitative, the second of qualitative nature. Such an extension of the population over which statement two is made requires that we obtain a significant distribution of the observed frequencies for the values ‘epistemic possibility’ and ‘epistemic necessity’ in Table 27. Combining the respective token frequencies in the data set we get a significant distribution, though less significant than in the previous cases (Yates’ x2 = 4.402, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0359), but the respective type frequency figures produce a distribution (Yates’ x2 = 2.340, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.1261) that is statistically not significant.140 On account of this, and considering that most of the frequencies in the respective cells of Table 27 are rather low, I will refrain from inferences about the population. The qualitative reason to refrain from such generalization concerns the conceptual relation between ‘epistemic possibility’ and ‘epistemic necessity’. It was noted in Section 3.1.2 that the domain of epistemic modality is not only characterized by gradience between possibility and necessity, but that this gradience is definitional for ‘epistemic modality’. This means that natural languages have modals which can be ordered on a scale from epistemic possibility to epistemic necessity without a salient boundary between these two notions. Incongruence between 140 Nevertheless, out of thirteen source predications expressing epistemic necessity, transfer is attested in nine.

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MM in the receding varieties

the formally encoded degrees on the epistemic scale in two languages in contact may lead to re-categorization of borrowed modals. One of the most frequent epistemic borrowings in our data is the Russian adverb naverno which could be situated somewhere between ‘agnostic possibility’ and ‘full certainty’ on the epistemic scale and which lacks precise inherited equivalent in the varieties under concern. As a consequence of this indeterminacy between ‘possibility’ and ‘necessity’, the consultants use naverno both in contexts of epistemic possibility and epistemic necessity. Occurrences of this item are interpreted in the evaluation of the data as possibility modals, if the source sentence expresses epistemic possibility and as necessity modals if the source sentence expresses epistemic necessity (and counted as such in Table 27). Example (161) was produced in reaction to a source sentence which conveys epistemic possibility (Ru Éto mog byt’ orël ‘This could have been an eagle.’), whereas (162) refers to a source sentence which expresses epistemic necessity (Ru Teper’ u nikh dolzhno byt’ mnogo deneg ‘They must have a lot of money now.’). oli orjol. (161) Egläi mina nägin lindun. Naverno se yesterday I.NOM see:PST.1SG bird:GEN possibly it.NOM be:PST.3SG eagle ‘I saw a bird yesterday. It could have been an eagle.’ (C-L, EVM, Pr) (162) Hüö müödīh kodi. Naverno d’engad hüo they.NOM sell:PST. 3PL house.NOM certainly money they:ADE o ülen äijā. be.PRS .3SG very much ‘They sold their house. They must have a lot of money.’ (C-L, MAT, Sv) This artificial typecasting of the same lexical item for the sake of quantification does not produce reliable inference. Therefore I have chosen not to expand the claim about the relative susceptibility to transfer of possibility and necessity modals to the epistemic domain. The low frequencies in the tables above suggest that the structural erosion of the language does not necessarily lead to the lexical transfer of modals. Core modals of possibility and necessity are so frequent and entrenched in the lexical inventory of the varieties studied that they survive even in mixed-codes and even very poor speakers remember them. Note also that the data in the tables gives no information concerning the loss of congenital modals. Claims about loss of inherited modals on idiolect level can be made only after systematic observation of individual speakers. I have occasionally used the method of encouraging a consultant who has produced a borrowed word to try to recall “her own” expression of possibility or necessity appropriate in the given sentence.

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There are four cases in C1 where the consultant failed to produce the inherited modal upon repeated insistence, which shows that s/he does not remember the lexical unit fitting the respective context. All these cases of “forgetting” are attested in necessity contexts, and thus concern contextual loss of necessity modals (two of them concern agent-oriented and two epistemic necessity). Considering the lexical diversity of the observed transfer (i.e. the number of borrowed lexical entries) is not very rewarding. Most of the Russian modals expressing possibility or necessity are subjected to occasional transfer into obsolescent Finnic and some of them show conventional usage. Examples with the epistemic naverno (‘possibly; probably; certainly’) were presented in (161)‒ (162). Other cases of lexical transfer of epistemic modality are presented in (163)‒(166). In (163) we have the present tense third person singular form of the Russian possibility verb moch’, which is used in this example from Votic as an epistemic particle. Example (164) from Central Lude contains the Russian univerbation mozhet byt’, an expression of epistemic possibility, which structurally and semantically corresponds to the English maybe. Borrowing of modals expressing epistemic necessity is illustrated by the Russian predicative adjective dolzhen ‘necesssary’ in (165), also from Central Lude, and by (166) from Soikino Ingrian containing the Russian comparative-similative particle vrod’e (‘as if; likely’) which corresponds to a marker of epistemic necessity in the source sentence (cf. Ru Dedushka dolzhno byt’ byval v Peterburge. grandpa.NOM necessary be.INF be.IMPF: PST.3SG in St. Petersburg ‘Grandpa must have been in Saint Petersburg.’). (163) Egle näin lintua. Možet tämä oli yesterday see:PST.1SG bird:PART can:PRS .3SG it.NOM be:PST.3SG harakka. magpie.NOM ‘I saw a bird yesterday; probably a magpie.’ (Vot, PK, Ps) (164) Možet byt’ huomen rodīh vihmu. maybe tomorrow will.be:3SG rain:PART ‘It might rain tomorrow.’ (C-L, IIS, Sv) (165) Hüö müödih kod’i. Nügö heil dolžen oлda they.NOM sell:PST. 3PL house.NOM now they:ADE necessary be.INF äi d’engad. a_lot money:PART ‘They sold the house. They must have a lot of money now.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv)

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MM in the receding varieties

(166) D’eda vrod’e oli Petteris. grandfather.NOM probably be:PST.3SG Saint Petersburg:INE ‘Grandfather must have been in Saint Petersburg.’ (Ing-S, VFD, Vi) The picture is slightly more uniform in the domain of non-epistemic necessity, which is dominated by the conventionalized item dolžen (< Ru dolzhen ‘necessary’), followed by the obligation adverb obezatel’no (< Ru obyazatel’no ‘necessarily’). In (167), the Central Lude consultant uses dolžen to convey circumstantial necessity, whereas (168), also from Central Lude, exemplifies a typical deontic use of this modal. Example (169) from Soikino Ingrian conveys agent-oriented necessity with obezatel’no, which reinforces the obligation expressed by the modal pittǟ ‘must’. (170) from Eastern Seto shows an occasional use of the third person singular form of the Russian verb stoit’ ‘be worth; make sense’, which is weakly modalized to express circumstantial necessity in what is semantically a conditional clause. dolžen hüpäita, no hrabrostid ei (167) Hän s/he.NOM necessary jump.INF but courage:PART NEG .3SG täüdenü. suffice:PST.CONNEG ‘He had to jump, but he didn’t have enough courage.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv) (168) Sinä et voi lähtiä, sinä dolžen opastua. you.NOM NEG . 2SG can.CONNEG go.INF you.NOM necessary study.INF ‘You can’t go, you must study.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) (169) se piti hänen obezatel’no tehä this.NOM must:PST.3SG s/he:DAT necessarily do.INF ‘. . . he necessarily had to do this.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) (170) Stoit i ̮nne̮ kärähütä tǟ vōriga kulle̮s. be.worth:PRS .3SG only raise.voice.INF s/he.NOM at.once hear:PRS .3SG ‘One needs only to raise one’s voice, and he obeys at once.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) Transferred modals are, on the whole, minimally adapted to the morphophonemic systems of the host variety. Only the item dolžen, which is the most frequent borrowed modal in the data, provides insights as to the possible degrees of

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adaptation. Sarhimaa (1999) has thoroughly described the morphosyntactic and morphophonological adaptation of this modal in Karelian and the reader is referred to her study for details, which on the whole are pertinent to other endangered Finnic varieties as well. The following remarks can only briefly sketch the adaptation issue. The source of the item dolzhen is the Russian singular masculine form of the adjective ‘necessary’. In example (165) above, dolžen is frozen into a word which is partly adapted and does not follow the Russian morphological rules, because the source context requires the Russian de-adjectival adverb dolzhno (‘necessarily’). In (167) and (168) dolžen refers to the source of transfer – the masculine form of the predicative adjective, and therefore these examples are not informative as to its degree of adaptation. Consider now (171) from Soikino Ingrian, where dolzhen does not occur in its “default” adapted form, but in its feminine form in Russian, as required by the context. In fact, we seem to be dealing with code-switching in this example as the complement of the modal is the (non-adapted) infinitive form priehat’ (Ru ‘come; arrive’). dolžna priehat’. (171) Hä s/he.NOM probable(.FEM ) arrive(.INF ) ‘She should arrive (soon).’ (Ing-S, AJ, Val) What could be clearly said in relation to adaptation is that even speakers whose L1 shows signs of advanced erosion avoid using Russian verb forms inflected for person and number. Consider again examples (163) and (170) above. Although from a morphological point of view the third person singular forms of the verbs ‘can’ and ‘be worth’ in these examples are inflected, they are constructionally fixed in the sense that the constructions in which they occur do not allow paradigmatic variation of the respective verbs but require that they occur in one particular form. Consequently, the inflectional features of these verb forms in the source language are irrelevant to their function in the target language, and they seem to be transferred into the latter as uninflected items (particles, conjunctions or else). This means that we are not dealing with transfer of verb forms with their person and number agreement marking. I have come across only one Russian form inflected for person/number in a context which allows for paradigmatic variation with respect to these categories. Consider (172) from Central Lude, where the forgetter MVT utters the second person singular form of the Russian modal verb moch’ ‘can’. This form is, however, followed by a pause and the inherited modal verb voida ‘can’. It seems thus, that we are not dealing with transfer, but with an occasional production error which is self-repaired by the speaker.

224

MM in the receding varieties

(172) Sinä možeš . . . vuoit ajota avtomašinaл, jesli if you.NOM can:PRS . 2SG (Rus) can:PRS . 2SG drive.INF car:ADE tahtot lidnā. want:PRS . 2SG town.ILL ‘You can take the car, if you want to go to the town.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) Summarizing the findings presented in this section, it can be stated that epistemic modals are more responsive to transfer than agent-oriented modals. As the figures in the first row of Table 27 showed, the domain of agent-oriented possibility is almost immune to lexical transfer. The agent-oriented necessity modals are more responsive to transfer than agent-oriented possibility modals. This corroborates with what we know from the study of normal language contact, where necessity modals are claimed to be more likely to be affected by borrowing than possibility modals (Matras 2007: 45; Hansen & de Haan 2009: 547‒549; Hansen & Ansaldo 2016). Let us now consider the borrowing of lexical units which can be situated at the margins of the modal domain. What such items have in common is that they are uninflected items (particles, conjunctions or adverbs) and that they are licensed in irrealis or non-factual contexts.141 Borrowing of such items seems to be very common in all the varieties in this study, in terms of both token and type frequency. Moreover, they often occur in utterances of C1, in which they are not “invited” by the structure of the Russian source sentence. The following three items are most frequently attested in the data. The multifunctional Russian conjunction-particle hot’ has, among others, concessive (‘although’), adversative (‘however’) and more lexical meanings, such as ‘for example’. This conjunction-particle recurs in the TFs of the Finnic varieties spoken in Russia, often with the entire spectrum of meanings it has in Russian (see e.g. LmS: 75‒76 for Central Lude). Interestingly, in the present data hot’ often co-occurs with the Conditional mood in irrealis contexts expressed by source sentences, which do not contain it. For instance, although the Russian optative sentence Prishla by uzhe vesna! (come:PST. FEM SUBJ already spring. NOM ‘I wish spring would come sooner.’) did not contain this particle, three out of four Central Lude respondents produced it; one example is presented in (173).

141 I consider ‘(ir)realis’ as a feature of events (states-of-affairs) and ‘factuality’ as a feature of propositions (see Kehayov & Boye 2016 for explanation of this distinction).

Modality

(173) Oi INTERJ

225

on talvi mittuine pitkä. Tuliž hot’ terämpi be.PRS .3SG winter such.ADJ long come:COND PTCL sooner

vesne. spring.NOM ‘This winter is so long. I wish spring would come sooner.’ (C-L, PIK, Sv) An equally frequent, or even more frequent item, which recurs in all varieties under concern is the Russian comparative-similative element kak-budto (‘as if; as though’), which often conveys epistemic distancing from the proposition in its scope (Letuchiĭ 2008). Just like with hot’, this item is creatively manipulated by the consultants in contexts, in which it is not present in the source sentence. Witness (174), where the Soikino Ingrian consultant uses kakbudta instead of the particle slovno ‘as it were’ occurring in the source sentence, to convey that the dependent clause describes contrafactual proposition. (174) Emä lapšin kera nī läkäjä, što kakbudta mother.NOM children:GEN with so talk.PRS .3SG that as.if lapšet ovat hänen lapšet. children.NOM be:PRS . 3PL s/he:GEN children.NOM ‘(Grand)mother talks to the children as if they were her own children.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) Another item frequently occurring in the data is the Russian similative-comparative particle vrod’e ‘as if; it seems’ which was recruited to express epistemic modality in (166) above. Just like with hot’ and kakbudto, this item is conventionalized to the degree that it can be used independently of the source sentence. Consider (175), where vrod’e provides an equivalent of kak budto occurring in the non-factual source clause kak budto zhdët kogo-to ‘as if he were waiting for somebody’). vrod’e vuottau (175) Hän ištū täs kaiken aigan, s/he.NOM sit.PRS .3SG here all:GEN time:GEN as.if wait.PRS .3SG kedäto. somebody ‘He is sitting here all the time, as if he were waiting for somebody.’ (C-L, EVM, Pr) Summing up, the speakers of the obsolescent varieties have internalized certain Russian particle-like elements, marking (or contributing to the marking) of irre-

226

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alis and non-factuality, to the extent that they use them independently of provided source structure. Other, less frequent particle-like elements with somewhat similar functions, for which no such independent uses were attested, are ved’ ‘indeed; you see’, hotya ‘although; however’, budto ‘as if, as though’ and the contrastive objection particle zhe ‘but, whereas’. 8.1.2.2.2 Transfer of complement-taking predicates The modals discussed above constitute only one type of complement-taking predicates. The present section is devoted to other semantic types of CTPs which are indirectly pertinent to the study of MM in LD. Just like modal verbs, these types of CTPs have different semantic scope, and can be factive or non-factive, which influences the choice of the mood on the complement verb. In this section, I will discuss the susceptibility to transfer of different CTPs in relation to their scope properties, whereas the impact of the CTP on the complement mood will be examined in Section 8.2.2 which deals with the behavior of grammatical moods in contracting Finnic. Table 30 presents different CTPs attested in C1 in descending order of transferfrequency. The semantic classification of CTPs follows Noonan (2007), with the exception that I distinguish between ‘immediate perception predicates’, like see, hear and watch, and ‘mental perception predicates’, like seem, appear, which involve inferential process. The latter are often used with the meaning ‘understand’ (see e.g. Boye 2012: 147) and thus resemble predicates of knowledge or acquisition of knowledge in the table, or with the meaning ‘think; guess’, coming close to propositional attitude predicates. I have also excluded from Noonan’s nomenclature modal and negative predicates which were already discussed in the previous sections. The figures in the table clearly show that the domains of mental perception and propositional attitude attract transfer from Russian to a much higher degree than other semantic domains. Looking at the first two columns of the table, we see that 35 of 37 occurrences of CTPs borrowed from Russian come from these two domains, despite the fact that the vast majority of occurrences of CTPs in the corpus belong to other types. The other two columns show that the majority of source predications with mental perception and propositional attitude CTPs display transfer. Concerning the relative sensitivity to transfer of these two types of CTPs, the figures in the table are, however, slightly misleading, because of the floating nature of the ‘mental perception’ type acknowledged above. In 14 cases in which a consultant used Russian CTP in reaction to a source sentence with mental perception predicate (the first cell in Table 30), s/he actually produced the propositional attitude predicate ‘think’ (Ru dumat’). If we change the perspective and assume that these occurrences, which are counted in the

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Table 30: Transfer of different semantic types of complement taking predicates in C1 Tokens N occurrences of a borrowed CTP

mental perception (e.g. seem, appear)

Types N occurrences of an inherited CTP

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed CTP(s) occur

N source predications in the translation of which borrowed CTP(s) do not occur

28

45

11

5

propositional attitude (e.g. think, assume, believe)

7

9

7

2

(acquisition of) knowledge (e.g. know, realize)

1

14

1

10

manipulative (e.g. order, request)

1

129

1

14

immediate perception (e.g. hear, see, watch)

0

53

0

32

utterance (e.g. say, tell, report)

0

42

0

17

desiderative (e.g. want, desire)

0

34

0

8

fearing (e.g. fear, worry)

0

8

0

5

commentative (e.g. be sad, be important)

0

8

0

4

phasal (e.g. begin, finish)

0

2

0

1

table according to the meaning of the source sentence (under the label of ‘mental perception’), actually have propositional attitude meaning in the target utterances, we see that the ‘propositional attitude’ domain is much more sensitive to transfer than the domain of ‘mental perception’. This is also corroborated by the fact that in the only case where a consultant used Russian CTP in reaction to a source predicate of (acquisition of) knowledge, she produced the propositional attitude predicate ‘think’ instead of the knowledge verb. Thus, disregarding the semantics of the CTP in source sentences, we conclude that the vast majority of transfers of CTPs from Russian concern predicates conveying propositional attitude. This conclusion receives additional support from the distribution of transfers in C2. This corpus contains only two occurrences of CTP-transfer from Russian: one of the mental perception predicate ‘feel’, which is used with the propositional attitude meaning ‘assume’, and one of the propo-

228

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sitional attitude predicate ‘think’. While the Russian mental perception predicate is one of the three occurrences of this type of CTP in C2 (the other two being inherited), the borrowed propositional attitude verb is the only lexical occurrence of this type of CTP in C2.142 What could explain the different susceptibility to transfer of different types of CTPs? The available evidence strongly suggests that propositional attitude predicates are more often taken over from the dominant language than other complement taking predicates, and that the second type of CTPs most sensitive to transfer are the mental perception predicates. The hierarchy of susceptibility to transfer is thus: ‘propositional attitude predicates’ > ‘mental perception predicates’ > ‘other types of CTPs’. The only functional variable which seems to correlate with the order on this cline is the semantic scope of CTPs. Propositional attitude predicates have always propositions in their scope (e.g. Hengeveld 1990: 15), and mental perception predicates carry propositional attitude by virtue of conventional implicature; e.g. John seems/appears to be sick conventionally implies that the speaker assumes that John is sick. In contrast, most of the CTP types that seem to be immune to transfer have narrower scope, in the sense that they have lower-order entities in their immediate scope (see Chapter 9 for a detailed discussion). Manipulative, immediate perception, fear, phasal and desiderative predicates take states-of-affairs (events), but not propositions (ideas about events) in their scope (see the discussion in Chapter 9 and Hengeveld 1990: 15; Hengeveld 2005: 22‒23). The implicational relationship between ‘high susceptibility to transfer’ and ‘wide (propositional) scope’ is, however, not bidirectional, as other types of CTPs, on the right end of the scale, take propositions within their scope. Predicates of knowledge take complements expressing ideas about SoAs (e.g. I know John is probably back home), utterance predicates are used to provide reports of propositions (He said that John is probably back home; Hengeveld 1990: 15; Hengeveld 2005: 22‒23) and commentative predicates evaluations of propositions (It is regrettable that John is probably still at work), despite the fact that these types of CTPs seem to be immune to transfer. This means that while the high susceptibility to transfer of CTPs is associated with wider (propositional) scope, its reverse – the low susceptibility to transfer is not necessarily associated with narrow semantic scope.

142 The distribution of occurrences of different types of CTPs in C2 is as follows: mental perception predicates (3), propositional attitude predicates (1), (acquisition of) knowledge predicates (1), manipulative predicates (2), immediate perception predicates (3), utterance predicates (2), desiderative predicates (2), fearing predicates (0), commentative predicates (0) and phasal predicates (2).

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229

Consider now the lexical diversity of the transfer; in other words, the distinct lexical items with which the outlined semantic types of CTPs are represented in the corpora. Table 31 resumes the evidence from both corpora and presents the Russian lexical sources of transfer in order of frequency.143 Table 31: Lexical sources of transfer source

gloss

N occurrences

dumat’ kazhetsya dumaetsya pohozhe chuvstvuetsya podskazyvat’ razumeetsya okazat’sya prosit’

‘think’ ‘it seems’ ‘it seems; think (refl.)’ ‘it seems; it looks (as if)’ ‘it feels’ ‘prompt to; suggest to’ ‘it is clear; it is self‑evident’ ‘it turns out’ ‘ask; request’

25 4 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

The figures in the table show that the CTP ‘think’ is by far the most frequent source of transfer. The respective Russian verb occurs as an adapted loan already in the TFs of the Finnic varieties considered (see e.g. LmS: 40 for Lude, Heinsoo 2010: 45 for Votic and Nirvi 1971: 613 for Ingrian). The verb dumat’, together with its anticausative derivative dumaetsya, was attested in all varieties and aggregates two-thirds of the CTP-transfers in the data. The occurrences of this item display different level of integration, the highest of which corresponds to the pattern documented in the TF. Example (176) from Lower Luga Ingrian shows inflectional adaptation to the target language; the suffix to the left of the hyphen is the inherited Ingrian first person plural marker. In (177) we have the same context, but here the Votic consultant produces the Russian present tense first person singular form of the verb ‘think’ without any adaptation. (178) from Central Lude contains a more sophisticated example of adaption, where, on the one hand, the verb shows the Russian present tense third person reflexive (anticausative) morphology, but on the other, the stem of the verb contains the Lude adaptation formant -tš-, and the anticausative predicate governs an Allative experiencer, which is an additional sign of integration to Finnic morphosyntax. 143 As should have become clear from the preceding discussion, the English glosses which correspond to the invariant meaning of the lexical entry in Russian, do not always coincide with the semantic context in which the given item is used in the target language; for instance, the only occurrence of podskazyvat’ occurs in a context of mental perception, and both occurrences of chuvstvuetsya are attested in propositional attitude context.

230

MM in the receding varieties

(176) Dūma-mmǝ, što huomen lenȫ hüvä ilma. think-PRS .1PL that tomorrow be.FUT.3SG good.NOM weather.NOM ‘We think (hope) that the weather will be good tomorrow.’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) (177) Duma-ju, što ome̮ lēb üvä ilma. think-PRS :1SG (Rus) that tomorrow be. FUT:3SG good.NOM weather.NOM ‘I think (hope) that the weather will be good tomorrow.’ (Vot, PK, Ps) (178) Miulle duumaitše-tsja, što hä on kodis. I:ALL think-REFL . PRS .3SG (Rus) that s/he.NOM be.PRS .3SG at.home ‘It seems to me that she is at home.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) Examples (179)‒(181) show the other items from Table 31 with more than one occurrence in the data, and example (182) illustrates the only transfer of a manipulative predicate in the data. In (179) from Eastern Seto, we have a direct transfer of the mental predicate kazhetsya, which is probably aided by the fact that this item (originally a reflexive form of a verb) is lexicalized to a particle in the source language, and its complex morphological structure is not transparent. In (180) from Soikino Ingrian we have another deverbal particle-like element, which behaves like a CTP, as it takes a complement clause headed by the complementizer ‘that’; just as in (179). In example (181) from Central Lude the consultant produces the adapted third person singular form tšustvuitšō (with the formant -tš- and Lude inflectional morphology) of the immediate perception predicate ‘feel’, which is applied here to express propositional attitude (‘suspect’). Finally, (182) exemplifies the transfer of the Russian manipulative predicate ‘ask, request’ which is adapted to Lude inflectional morphology. e̮t ei olǝ oma majah. (179) Kažetsja seem.PRS .3SG (Rus) that NEG be.CONNEG own house:INE ‘It seems as if she is not in her own house.’ (Se-E, NK, Izb) (180) Pohože, što tädi on kohis it.seems that aunt.NOM be.PR .3SG at.home ‘It seems that aunt is at home.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) (181) Ivan tšustvuitšō, što Maša lähtȫ. Ivan.NOM feel.PRS .3SG that Maša.NOM leave.PRS .3SG ‘Ivan suspects that Maša is leaving. (C-L, MVT, Pr)

Modality

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(182) Mama prossī minū, štobi viezizin mina bring:COND.1SG I.NOM mom.NOM request.PRS .3SG I.PART to kirjaižen potštale. letter:GEN post.office:ALL ‘Mom asked me to bring this letter to the post office.’ (C-L, PIK, Sv) 8.1.2.2.3 Transfer of subordinators This section studies the frequency of transfer of clausal subordinators: a subject only marginally relevant to the study of MM. In Section 8.1.1 I mentioned complementizers which are sensitive to the factuality of propositions or reality of states-of-affairs, and thus contribute to the coding of the semantic concepts of ‘factuality’ and ‘(ir)realis’. This relationship between complementizers and the notions ‘factuality’/‘(ir)realis’ is structurally manifested by the phenomenon of ‘mood concord’, which captures the fact that complementizers are often compatible only with specific mood(s) in the subordinate clause, (see Kehayov 2016 about complementation markers with mood concord in Finnic). Concluding the discussion on the behaviour of modality in LD with the transfer of complementizers – a class of function words often characterized by mood concord – is a natural transition from the examination of ‘modality’ to that of ‘grammatical mood’. Despite the focus on complementizers, I will not restrict myself to them, but will also discuss other subordinators, such as adverbializers (adverbial subordinators) and relativizers (e.g. relative pro-forms). Unlike complementizers which were specifically addressed by Q3, adverbializers and relativizers were not given particular attention in the design of the questionnaires. However, adverbializers are, by virtue of their semantic dedication, also sensitive to ‘factuality’ and ‘(ir)realis’ – e.g. the adverbializers of purpose in order and so that are compatible only with irrealis SoAs in the subordinate clause – although they do not influence the choice of Mood in Finnic to the extent that complementation markers do. An additional reason to consider the borrowability of adverbializers and relativizers is that these two classes of subordinators, especially adverbializers, tend to be isomorphous with complementizers. They can be expressed by the same forms that are used to mark clausal complementation; see Kehayov and Boye (2016) about ‘complementizer–adverbializer’ and ‘complementizer–relativizer’ isomorphism in European languages. 8.1.2.2.3.1 Complementizers Three Russian complementizers were so common in the source sentences of the complementation marking questionnaire (Q3) and elsewhere that statistically

232

MM in the receding varieties

based inferences could be made as to their relative borrowability in the target varieties, or in reverse, as to the relative persistence of the corresponding inherited Finnic complementation marking devices. These complementizers, which represent cross-linguistically salient types (at least on a European scale; see Kehayov & Boye 2016), are a) the semantically neutral complementizer chto ‘that’ (cf. the English that in I didn’t know that she is back in town.) which is insensitive to the factuality of the complement proposition and which occurs with all kinds of CTPs taking propositional complements; b) the complementizer chtoby144 ‘to; in order’ which typically occurs in non-real state-of-affair complements of manipulative and desiderative predicates (cf. the English to in I asked/ wanted her to come back.), and c) the polar question clitic -li which occurs in Wackernagel’s position in the complement clause and which presents two opposite propositions as equally probable alternatives (e.g. the English if or whether in I don’t know if/whether she is back.) (see Hansen, Letuchiy & Błaszczyk 2016 for more details on these complementizers, and Kehayov & Boye 2016 for typological discussion).145 The Finnic varieties notably differ in their acceptance of complementizer transfer. Eastern Seto has preserved the South-Estonian complementizer system intact and even weak speakers unfailingly use the inherited complementizers; see (183), where the consultant uses the inherited neutral complementizer et (Standard Seto õt) which is the functional equivalent of the Russian chto; (184), where the consultant uses an inherited structure consisting of the neutral complementizer and the Conditional mood on complement verb, which is the functional equivalent of the Russian complementizer chtoby; and (185), with the polar interrogative particle kas which is the prototypical equivalent of the Russian enclitic -li. et timä imä sā (183) Nadja arvas, Nadja.NOM think:PRS .3SG that her mother.NOM get.PRS .3SG latsiga rohke̮p hakkama ku ta is. children:COM more start:INF than she.NOM herself ‘Nadya thinks that her mother can cope better with the children than she herself.’ (Se-E, HM, N-Izb) 144 This complementizer is originally a univerbation of the element chto and the subjunctive morpheme by (Hansen, Letuchiy & Błaszczyk 2016). 145 I will expel from the discussion complementizers forms which are highly frequent in the data, but which have argument status in the complement clause (e.g. I don’t know what to do), because these could be alternatively analysed as relativizers in free relative clauses.

Modality

233

(184) Emä ütel, et Katja i Ljonja puhastazi mother.NOM say.PST.3SG that Katya.NOM and Lenya.NOM clean:COND. 3PL hamba’ puhtast. teeth.NOM clean:TRNSL ‘Mother said that Katya and Lenya should brush their teeth.’ (Se-E, MVK, Sok) (185) Imä küsse, kas sa taha=i mīkä mother.NOM ask.PST.3SG Q (yes/no) you.NOM want.CONNEG = NEG we:COM üteh līna minna’. together town.ILL go.INF ‘Mother asked whether you don’t want to come with us to town.’ (Se-E, HT, Pdl) The corpora contain only one case of transfer of a complementizer from Russian to Eastern Seto. In this case, however, the neutral complementizer chto is selfrepaired by the consultant within the same sentence. The intense contact of Eastern Seto speakers with Estonian, via school education leading to full command of Estonian, seems to have had a conservational if not reinforcing effect on the inherited complementizer system of this variety. Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic, on the other hand, display Russian complementizers already in their traditional forms. The neutral complementizer što (< Ru chto) is generalized in the TFs of these varieties to an extent that the inherited forms with such functions, like the Ingrian jod/jott (Nirvi 1971: 104‒ 105), Votic etti/jotti (Ariste 1968: 112) or Central Lude ku (see Kehayov 2016), have been marginalized. The item štobi ̮ (< Ru chtoby) is much rarer in the TFs of these varieties, and is found mostly in adverbial clauses of purpose (see e.g. LmS: 400), its main functional domain in Russian, whereas the polar enclitic is absent from the TFs of Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude. Table 32 paints a picture of the contemporary situation, which essentially follows the borrowability patterns of the TFs, but represents a further step on the path toward full adoption of the Russian complementizer system by the Finnic varieties. Examples (186), (187) and (188) illustrate the complementizer uses of these three items by contemporary Votic, Lower Luga Ingrian and Soikino Ingrian speakers. što mašina on le̮htši. (186) Tämä jutte̮b, s/he.NOM speak:PRS .3SG that car.NOM be.PRS .3SG broken ‘He is saying that the car is broken.’ (Vot, ZS, Kr)

234

MM in the receding varieties

(187) Emä küsüi, štob mie veisin kirje mother.NOM ask:PST.3SG COMP. IRR I.NOM bring:COND :1SG letter.GEN potšta. post.office.ILL ‘Mother asked me to bring the letter to the post office.’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) (188) Mǟ käü katso kiehu-li go.IMP. 2SG pop.in.IMP. 2SG watch.IMP. 2SG boil.PRS .3SG - Q (yes/no) suppi! soup.NOM ‘Go and check if the soup is already boiling.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) Table 32: Transfer of complementizers in Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude in C1 Complementizers and their semantic dedication

Tokens N occurrences of the borrowed COMP

N occurrences of an inherited COMP146

N source predications in the translation of which the borrowed COMP occurs

N source predications in the translation of which the borrowed COMP does not occur

što (semantically neutral)

138

13

72

4

50

12

14

1

4

25

4

8

štob(i )̮ (irrealis SoAs) ‑li (agnosticism over alternatives)

Types

The different susceptibility of these complementizer types to transfer can be statistically confirmed. I will test only token frequencies for statistical significance, as the type frequencies are too low. The distribution of complementizers što and štob(i )̮ according to the conditions ‘borrowed’ and ‘inherited’ is statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 3.917, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0478), which suggests that the 146 In addition to complementizer words heading finite complement clauses, complement SoAs are expressed in the Finnic languages also by infinitives, especially in cases where the matrix and the complement share subject referent (e.g. I want to go back). As infinitives are not dedicated complementation markers and cannot be said to constitute complement clauses in the traditional sense of the term (see Kehayov 2016 for a discussion), I have excluded them from the count of inherited COMPs in the table.

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235

semantically neutral propositional complementizer is more prone to transfer than the complementizer occurring in complements describing unreal states-ofaffairs. Applying the test to the first two columns of the second and the third rows, we obtain an extremely significant distribution of the frequencies of the irrealis/non-factual complementizer štob(i ̮) and the polar complementation clitic -li (Yates’ x2 = 33.880, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001), which indicates that the latter is much more immune to transfer than the first. Based on this evidence, I argue the following scale of susceptibility to transfer: ‘semantically neutral propositional complementizer(s)’ > ‘complementizer(s) introducing irreal states-of-affairs’ > ‘complementizer(s) introducing polar propositions’. This scale seems to be substantiated by the scarce evidence in C2, which contains six occurrences of the complementizer što, three occurrences of the complementizer štob and zero occurrences of the clitic -li as a complementizer. The reversal of this hierarchy of susceptibility to transfer is a hierarchy of persistence of complementation markers dedicated to semantic transparency in relation to ‘factuality’, irreality of SoAs and polar propositions, respectively. The implications submitted by this hierarchy are vulnerable, because unlike the hierarchies concerning the relative borrowability of modals of possibility and necessity and types of CTPs, this hierarchy is based on specific markers, and thus is inevitably bound to form. Note also that the first implication in this hierarchy ‘semantically neutral propositional complementizer(s)’ > ‘complementizer(s) introducing irreal states-of-affairs’ cannot be attributed exclusively to LD, because the neutral complementizer was borrowed already in the TFs of Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic. It is not surprising thus that this implication is compatible with the typological evidence from language contact. Matras (2009: 162, 196) and Matras and Tenser (2016) note that “factual complementizers”, which in our terminology correspond to semantically neutral propositional complementizers, are more sensitive to borrowing than “non-factual complementizers”, a category including the irrealis state-of-affairs complementizer of the štob(i ̮) type. Likewise, based on evidence from the languages of Europe, Kehayov and Boye (2016) arrive at the conclusion that the class of semantically neutral propositional complementizers is more susceptible to borrowing than the polar complementizers of the if/whether-type. The scale of borrowability based on evidence from Central, Lude, Ingrian and Votic above fixes a third binary relation, stating that the irrealis type is more prone to transfer than the polar type. The resistance to transfer of the polar type may be explained by the fact that it is a clitic, and, as we know from the literature on language contact, bound morphemes are less likely to be borrowed than free elements. The relative order on the scale of the irrealis complementizer and the polar propositional complementizer suggests that the morphological type (bound vs. free) is a stronger factor determining borrowability of complementizers than semantic considerations.

236

MM in the receding varieties

8.1.2.2.3.2 Adverbializers and relativizers Just like with the complementizer system, the adverbializer system of Eastern Seto is generally intact, even in the speech-production of forgetters. There are only three occurrences of borrowing from Russian in this variety, all concerning the conditional adverbializer (protasis marker) ( j)esli ‘if’ (< Ru esli) and all produced by a single speaker, the forgetter EH. Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic, on the other hand, often use Russian subordinating conjunctions in front of adverbial clauses. As already noted, the questionnaires were not designed to elicit adverbializers. Nevertheless, certain adverbializers are overrepresented in the source sentences. This concerns conditional adverbializers which are overrepresented because of the many conditional clauses in the sample required for the elicitation of the Conditional mood. The source sample contains also many adverbial clauses of reason which were necessary in the construction of connected narratives for the plotted questionnaires. On the whole, C1 contains enough adverbial clauses to make generalizations about the liability to transfer of four types of adverbializers (i.e. conjunctions fronting different types of adverbial clauses): reason-adverbializers (e.g. because), purpose-adverbializers (e.g. in order to), conditional adverbializers (e.g. if ), and temporal adverbializers (e.g. when). Examples (189)‒(192) present the borrowed adverbializers of reason attested in the corpora. The Central Lude sentence in (189) contains the subordinator potomušto (< Ru potomu chto ‘because’) which is documented in the TF of this variety (LmS: 329). In many cases, Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic consultants use the conjunction što (< Ru chto ‘what; that’) as an adverbializer of reason, which is surprising, because Russian does not use this conjunction in such contexts; see (190) from Votic. Many Ingrian consultants produce the complex adverbializer sentǟ što which consists of the inherited adverb sentǟ ‘therefore’ and što ‘what; that’; see (191) from Soikino Ingrian. This formation is probably a calque of the Russian potomu čto (< potomu ‘therefore’ plus chto ‘that’) which contains transfer of linguistic matter (in the face of što), and for this reason is included in the count of borrowed elements. It is possible that the uses of što as adverbializer of reason, exemplified in (190), have emerged through omission of the inherited element sentǟ. Finally in (192), also from Soikino Ingrian, we observe transfer of univerbation expressing reason: takkak ‘because’ (< Ru tak kak ‘because’ < tak ‘so’ plus kak ‘how’). potomušto (189) Minä en voi pestä aśt’š́ eloi, I.NOM NEG .1SG can.CONNEG wash.INF dishes:PART because miulle käded boleittā. I.ALL hands.NOM hurt.PRS . 3PL ‘I cannot wash the dishes, because my hands hurt.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr)

Modality

237

(190) No emä ei ve̮i je̮ka ke̮rd avittā, but mother.NOM NEG can.CONNEG every time help.INF što täl on niku märännü tervis. because s/he:ADE be. PRS .3SG somehow bad.NOM health.NOM ‘But mother can’t help each time, because her health is not very good.’ (Vot, ZS, Kr) (191) Hänēl ei piä olla tȫš šōttan, s/he:ADE NEG .3SG must.CONNEG be.INF at.work Saturday:ESS šentä što hänēl on prāznikka. because s/he:ADE be.PRS .3SG feast.day.NOM ‘She does not have to be at work on Saturday, because she has a free day.’ (Ing-S, EM, Vi) (192) Ovi pittä avad perttī, takkak avaimet door.NOM must.PRS .3SG open:INF room:ABL because keys.NOM varašteti. steal:PST. IMPS ‘One must open the door from inside, because the keys have been stolen.’ (Ing-S, LSK, Yg) Genuine pattern replications are not an issue of this section, but consider the example in (193) from Soikino Ingrian, just as an illustration. Although Ingrian does not derive reason-adverbializers from interrogative elements, the consultant ZK uses the interrogative pronoun mikš ‘why’ to express ‘because’, probably in analogy with the Russian potomu chto and tak kak, whose second constituents are interrogative elements. mikš (193) Hän tänäbä taitā ei lē tȫž, s/he.NOM today probably NEG be.FUT.CONNEG at.work because hänēl ono vērahad s/he:ADE be.PRS .3SG guests.NOM ‘She is probably not at work today, because she has guests.’ (Ing-S, ZK, Glk) The examples of transfer of adverbializers of purpose are limited to occurrences of štob(i ̮) ‘in order to’ which, as we saw above, is employed also as a complementizer. Examples of transfer of conditional adverbializers are limited to

238

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occurrences of ( j)esli and ( j)eslibi ̮ which consists of the Russian protasis marker esli and subjunctive morpheme bi ̮ (< Ru by) indicating the irreality of the SoAs described in the conditional clause. See example (194) from Central Lude with štob(i ̮), (195) from Eastern Seto with ( j)esli and (196) from Central Lude with ( j)eslibi ̮. štobi ̮ ei külmetäiš (194) botinkat sinna paneme, bootees.NOM there put:PRS .1PL in.order NEG freeze:COND.CONNEG d’aлkat. feet.NOM ‘We put the bootees there in order to keep our feet warm.’ (C-L, VIS, Sv) (195) Esli sǖte är ta supita, vanaemä hume̮n if eat:PRS .2PL out this soup:PART grandma.NOM tomorrow tuлe jälki gostimahe. come.PRS .3SG again visit:INF ‘If you eat your soup, grandma will come again tomorrow to visit us.’ (S-E, EH, Ls) jeslibi ̮ (196) Minä kūlin, što Īvan tuliž, I.NOM hear:PST.1SG that Ivan.NOM come:COND.3SG if müö hänelle maksaižime. we.NOM s/he:ALL pay:COND :1PL ‘I heard that Ivan would come if we would pay him.’ (C-L, AS, Pr) Table 33 presents the total frequency of transfer of Russian adverbializers and the total frequency of occurrence of inherited adverbializers in Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude. Table 33: Transfer of adverbializers in Ingrian, Votic and Central Lude in C1 according to the semantic role of the adverbial clause Tokens N occurrences of a borrowed adverbializer

reason 58 purpose 19 condition 64 time 0

Types N occurrences of an inherited adverbializer

N source sentences in the translation of which borrowed adverbializers occur

N source sentences in the translation of which borrowed adverbializers do not occur

12 3 51 21

18 3 26 0

0 0 3 12

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239

The first remarkable fact shown by the distribution in the table is the lack of transfer of temporal adverbializers despite the considerable number of source sentences containing such adverbializers. With regard to the remaining three types, the observed frequencies of the types ‘reason’ and ‘condition’ allow to testing their distribution relative to the outcomes ‘borrowed’ and ‘not borrowed’ (i.e. inherited). This distribution is extremely statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 13.155, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0003), which suggests that adverbializers of reason are more susceptible to transfer than conditional adverbializers. The purposeadverbializers show rather low token frequencies, but they seem to align with reason rather than with conditional adverbializers. We arrive thus at a scale of susceptibility of adverbializer types to borrowing ‘reason’, ‘purpose’ > ‘condition’ > ‘time’, which, if not directly corroborated, is at least not contradicted by the evidence from C2. This corpus contains five occurrences of adverbializers of purpose, five of condition and no adverbializers of reason and time. This scale has no precise analogue among the borrowability scales in normal language contact. Matras (2009: 195), for instance, formulates the borrowing scale of subordinators ‘concessive’, ‘conditional’, ‘causal’, ‘purpose’ > ‘other subordinators’ which assumes the same borrowability for items showing different borrowability in my scale. I will not speculate here as to the factors responsible for the order on the scale, and will elaborate later on in Chapter 9 on its congruity with the variable of conceptual complexity, together with other scales postulated in this study. With regard to relativizers, Finnic languages mark relative clauses by means of constituent (question) words occurring in the beginning of the clause and typically immediately after their antecedent in the main clause. Neither of the corpora reveals cases of relativizer transfer from Russian to Finnic, although the input population in C1 is also small. This corpus contains 15 responses to input sentences, where the subordinator unmistakably functions as relativizer (i.e. has overt constituent-correlate in the main clause). Despite this poverty of input, it is relatively clear that relativizers are more resistant to transfer than complementizers and adverbializers. 8.1.2.3 A brief summary In this section, I studied various coding structures (including verbs, adverbs, particles, and subordinators) and observed a number of structural changes, such as loss of formal distinctions between semantic values, idiolect divergence, particlization, infinitive ellipsis, and transfer of linguistic matter from Russian. I also analyzed the distribution of the observed changes in relation to certain semantic values, such as ‘epistemic modality’, ‘deontic modality’, ‘negation’, ‘reality of a state of affairs’ etc., and found out that in most of the cases these

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changes are not evenly dispersed in the semantic space, but affect different meaning domains to a different extent. I will resort to this finding in Chapter 9 where will I search for a common rationale for the changes attested in the material.

8.2 Mood 8.2.1 Mood in Finnic: the point of departure 8.2.1.1 Grammatical mood The Finnic languages are characterized by a rich grammatical mood system. In addition to the unmarked Indicative, there are three inherited grammatical moods which exhibit dedicated morphological marking: the Imperative, the Conditional and the Potential. The Imperative and the Conditional occur in all Finnic varieties and display a remarkable formal homogeneity across the family; the Potential has been lost in most Finnic varieties. Table 34 presents the facts about the occurrence of these grammatical moods in the traditional forms of the four Finnic varieties; ✓ symbolizes ‘existing and in use’, (✓) ‘marginal, out of use’ and – stands for ‘lost’. Table 34: Morphological moods in the TFs of Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto

Imperative Conditional Potential

Central Lude

Ingrian

Votic

Eastern Seto

✓ ✓ ✓

✓ ✓ –

✓ ✓ –

✓ ✓ (✓)

In this introductory section I will present the conjugational paradigms of these Moods and will provide examples of their use. Instead of providing all this information for each variety separately, where possible, I will use Finnish as a meta-language in order to save space. 8.2.1.1.1 The Imperative The paradigm of the Finnish positive and negative Imperative is presented in Table 35. We are concerned here with an inflectional paradigm, whose members share exponents: all forms of the IMP-suffix in the table display the element -kV(V)-. In order to emphasize this uniformity, I will disregard the functional dedication of the different forms and, instead of using notions like ‘cohortative’, ‘jussive’ and ‘prohibitive’, will mostly speak about ‘first person imperative’, ‘third person imperative’, and ‘negative imperative’.

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The table shows that Finnish has almost the full range of person/numberforms. Only the first person singular forms are missing from the paradigm of this Mood in contemporary Finnish, although remnants of such forms have been attested within the Finnic linguistics area (see Häkkinen 1994: 264‒265 for Finnish).147 As can be seen from the table, the formation of the Imperative is fairly agglutinative. In first person plural and in third person singular and plural (both for positive and negative polarity) the Imperative and the person/number are encoded by different morphemes. Only the second person forms, which stand for what linguists usually understand by ‘imperative’ and which are crosslinguistically least marked, show deficient marking of these grammatical categories: the second person singular form is expressed by the bare stem of the verb, whereas the second person plural form manifests the Imperative suffix, but lacks overt marking of person/number.148 The negative forms of the Imperative consist of the prohibitive marker äl- (in 2nd singular älä) which manifests all inflectional features of the positive forms, and a special connegative form which contains the Imperative marker -ko/kö. The negative forms of the morphological Imperative are thus doubly marked for the Imperative: once on the negator and once on the connegative. Table 35: The paradigm of the Finnish Imperative: istua ‘sit’ (active forms)

negative

positive

singular

1st person

plural

form

gloss

form

gloss

–

–

istu-kaa-mme

sit-IMP -1PL

2nd person

istu

sit.Ø

istu-kaa

sit-IMP.Ø

3rd person

istu-ko-on

sit-IMP -3SG

istu-ko-ot

sit-IMP -3PL

1st person

–

–

äl-kää-mme istu-ko

PROH -IMP -1PL

2nd person

älä istu

PROH

sit-IMP. CONNEG sit.Ø

äl-kää istu-ko

PROH -IMP.Ø

sit-IMP. CONNEG 3rd person

äl-kö-ön istu-ko

PROH -IMP -3SG

sit-IMP. CONNEG

äl-kö-öt istu-ko

PROH -IMP -3PL

sit-IMP. CONNEG

147 First person singular Imperatives usually express the intention of the speaker to carry out an action and simulatenously a request for appoval from the listener (Dobrushina & Goussev 2005: 183). 148 There have been distinct second person Imperative markers in the language, and remnants of these markers are still manifested in the form of specific (morpho)phonological processes (e.g. syntactic gemination and vowel lengthening; Johanna Laakso, p.c.), but this is irrelevant for the present discussion and therefore I have glossed the respective forms with zero in Table 35.

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The reader is referred to Leskinen (1970) for a detailed description of the marking of the Imperative in the individual Finnic languages, but few words are due about the varieties studied here. Although the Imperative paradigms of the minor Finnic varieties are basically similar to the Finnish paradigm, they exhibit several differences, either in terms of person/number-coverage, or in terms of coding-strategies employed. In Votic, the inherited Imperative has special morphological forms only for second and third person, lacking the first person plural forms in Table 35. As in Finnish, the affirmative second person singular form is signalled by zero (e.g. luge̮! ‘Read!’; cf. the infinitive luke̮a ‘to read’), the second person plural by the suffix -ka/-ga (luke̮ga! ‘You [plural] read!’), the third person singular form by the suffix -ko/-go (luke̮go! ‘Let him/her read!’) and third person plural by -kod/-god (luke̮god! ‘Let them read!’). The negative forms of the morphological Imperative are, just like in Finnish, redundantly marked. They include the prohibitive form (el-) of the negation verb inflected for person/number and the positive Imperative form of the lexical verb which, as already noted, is also inflected for person/number; cf. 2SG elä luge̮! ‘Don’t read!’, 2PL el-ka luke̮-ga! ‘Don’t read!’, 3SG el-ko luke̮-go! ‘S/he should not read!’ (see Rozhanskiy & Markus 2015). Earlier grammars such as Ariste (1968: 73) or Tsvetkov (2008 [1922]: 78–79) present also 3PL forms of the morphological Prohibitive – el-kod luke̮-god! ‘They should not read!’ – but according to the most recent accounts (Agranat 2007: 98; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 186; Rozhanskiy & Markus 2015) this form does not occur in contemporary Votic. The paradigm in Ingrian is similar to that of Votic, with the Imperative being restricted to second and third person. One difference from Votic and Finnish, however, is that Ingrian lacks the redundancy characteristic for the negative Imperative forms; the connegative does not show the Imperative morpheme, but occurs in the form of the infinitive: e.g. el-kǟ tehhä PROH - IMP.Ø do.INF (=CONNEG ) ‘(plural) Don’t do this!’ (Chernyavskiy 2005b: 50). Another difference concerns the third person plural. The positive 3PL-forms are built from the Impersonal form of the verb with the addition of the 3SG Imperative affix; e.g. teh-tä-kǟ! do-IMPS - IMP (‘Let them do [this]!’; Chernyavskiy 2005b: 50). This is consistent with the general tendency of replacing the finite 3PL-forms of the verb with the forms of the Impersonal voice (recall the discussion in Section 7.2.3.2). With regard to negation, Porkka (1885: 93) presented a distinct 3PL-form of the Negative Imperative (el-kässe hȫ panna[k] ‘They should not lay [them]!’), but there is a suspicion in the scholarship that this form was artificially constructed by Porkka (Eva Saar, p.c.). Even if such forms had really existed in Ingrian, they have become obsolete already long ago. In the 1950s‒60s, when Arvo Laanest did fieldwork among Ingrians, the positive third person singular forms of the

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Imperative were already extended to express positive third person plural (Laanest 1986: 136) and in negation the third person plural was exclusively expressed by analytic Imperative forms (see the discussion on analytic forms below). There is not even an elementary description of the Imperative of the TF of Central Lude, but the available evidence indicates that its paradigm is similar to the paradigms of its cognates presented above. Unlike Votic and Ingrian, this variety has positive (e.g. paŋ-ga-m put-IMP-1 PL ‘Let us put . . .!’; LK 299) as well as negative 1PL-forms. The latter are not redundantly marked as in Finnish, but attach the Imperative marker only to the connegative form, while the negative verb is in its Indicative form (e.g. emme paŋ-go NEG . IND.1PL put-IMP.CONNEG ‘Let us not put . . .!’; LK: 299). Second person Imperative is formed as in Finnish; consider the plural negative eu-gàt varài-kòi PROH - IMP.Ø sit-IMP.CONNEG ‘don’t be afraid’ (LmS: 475). Like in Ingrian, the third person plural forms exhibit Impersonal morphology but without the Imperative marker; cf. d’uo-dau! drinkIMPS .Ø ‘They should drink!’.149 In terms of coverage, the Imperative paradigm of Eastern Seto is just as elaborate as the Finnish one: all person/number distinctions made in Finnish are made in this variety as well (see Iva 2007: 97‒99, 102 about the morphological Imperative in Võru which is roughly the same). At the same time, the Imperative paradigm of Eastern Seto is structurally quite different from the paradigms of Finnish, Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic. One of the main differences concerns the negative 2SG -forms; unlike in the other varieties which exhibit bare stem of the verb here, Seto adds the third person Imperative marker -gu/-ku to the verb stem: Aŕ jūsk-ku PROH run-IMP ‘Don’t run’. An alternative structure used to code this function contains the Indicative negator which is cliticized to the Imperative formant; cf. Jūs-ku-i! run-IMP- NEG ‘Don’t run!’, and very often these constructions are combined to produce a structure with double negation: aŕ jūsk-ku-i PROH run-IMP- NEG ‘Don’t run’. Another peculiarity of the Võru dialects of South Estonian, and Eastern Seto in particular, is the expansion of the second person plural forms of the Imperative to first and third person plural; the form sȫ-ge’! eat-IMP.2PL ‘Eat!’ could be applied to mean ‘Let us eat!’ and ‘They should eat!’ (see Iva 2007: 97, 99). The most important difference between Finnish and the minor Finnic varieties studied here, however, is that the latter relay predominantly on analytic imperative marking in third and first person. Analytic Imperatives lack the dedicated morphological markers of synthetic Imperatives presented above. In those cases where there is no morphological marking for third person, such analytic 149 See also Markianova (1995: 40) for description of the Olonets Imperative paradigm which is structurally very similar to the paradigm of Central Lude.

244

MM in the receding varieties

Imperatives are the only choice available, and even in cases where the morphological marking is available, these constructions are the more common means of expressing requests addressed to individuals not participating in the interaction. Analytic Imperatives have been generalized already in the TFs of the varieties studied; see Ariste (1968: 74) for Votic, Laanest (1986: 134‒136) for Ingrian, and Leskinen (1966) for a general historical overview of analytic Imperatives in Finnic. Analytic Imperatives typically consist of a hortative/jussive particle corresponding to the English ‘let’ and fronting a structure identical with the structure occurring in declarative clauses: subject (overt or covert) plus verb in the Indicative; see examples (197)‒(202). In (197) from Lower Luga Ingrian the particle la ‘let’ is used to convey an (affirmative) order to a third person singular addressee; (198) from Votic contains the same particle occurring in a third person plural positive context. In (199) we have the Seto particle las ‘let’, probably of the same origin as the Ingrian and Votic particles, occurring in a third person singular context of prohibition, and in (200) we have the Lude anda (< give.PRS .3SG ), in a context of third person singular (positive) Imperative.150 (201) and (202) exemplify borrowed particles. The particle puś (< Ru pust’ ‘let’) in (201) from Central Lude covers the expression of third person Imperative, whereas the raw loan davaite (< Ru davaĭte ‘let:1PL ’) in (202) expresses encouragement addressed toward the first person plural addressee.151 (197) La hän ūttelō uksen takkan! let s/he.NOM wait.IND. PRS .3SG door:GEN behind ‘Let him wait behind the door!’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) (198) Ла pikke̮raizǝd lahze̮d menne makkama. let small:PL . NOM child:PL . NOM go.IND. PRS . 3PL sleep:INF ‘Let the small children go to sleep.’ (Vot, ZS, Kr) (199) Las Ljonja läe=i üt’śindä me̮tsa. forest.ILL let Lyonya.NOM go.IND.CONNEG = NEG alone ‘Lyonya should not go alone to the forest.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) (200) Anda vuottau veräjän taga! let wait.IND. PRS .3SG door:GEN behind ‘Let him wait behind the door!’ (C-L, EVM, Pr) 150 The reflex of this etymon occurs as a hortative/jussive particle also in Ingrian. 151 In the first person, the lack of morphological Imperative is also compensated by the Indicative 1PL -form of the verb used without a subject NP.

Mood

245

(201) Pus’ vuottau uksen taga! let wait.IND. PRS .3SG door:GEN behind ‘Let him wait behind the door!’ (C-L, NIP, Vi) (202) Hän näüttiä lässiväks. Davaite kutsumǝ tohtria! call:PRS .1PL doctor.PART s/he.NOM look.IND. PRS .3SG sick:TRNSL let ‘He looks sick. Let us call the doctor!’ (Ing-S, OM, Vs) In addition to the inherited morphological Imperative, several Finnic varieties have Imperatives that are used to express either milder commands (requests) or repeated insistence (see e.g. Mägiste 1933 about the latter). Such Imperatives, sometimes labelled “optative” in the literature, are often recent innovations which exist along with the inherited Imperative and, as a rule, remain marginal compared to it. Due to their non-inherited character they manifest considerable formal diversity across the Finnic linguistic area; a number of them are based on inherited linguistic matter (e.g. the Finnish optative forms [Leskinen 1972] or the diminutive optative forms in Karksi dialect of Estonian [Pajusalu 1996: 161]), and others (e.g. in Tver and Valdai Karelian, Veps, Ingrian and Votic) on the Russian “soft” Imperative with the exponent -ka (Mägiste 1933; Palmeos 1962: 62‒63; Laanest 1975: 154). I will ignore such secondary Imperatives, as they are so marginal (both in the TF and in the data) that no comparative observations on their performance in LD are possible. Finally, the expansion of third person Imperative forms to cover other persons in indirect commands, which are issued from a third party, has been accounted in terms of a separate mood, called “jussive” or “concessive”. To my knowledge, this expansion is most highly developed in Standard Estonian, and accordingly the Jussive has found its place among the morphological moods in the grammaticography of this language (e.g. Erelt 2002; Erelt 2013: 240‒245). Assuming an implicit or explicit matrix clause with manipulative CTP (‘X said/ordered/ demanded . . .’), one can combine the Estonian Jussive form ending in -gu/-ku with all persons, as addressees of a request; cf. (203). teh-ku talle teene. (203) ma/sa/ta/meie/teie/nemad I/you/(s)he/we/you/they.NOM do-PRS . JUSS s/he:ALL favour.NOM ‘(that) I/you/she/he/we/you/they should do her a favour.’ This means that Estonian has two different inflectional paradigms, one with distinct inflectional suffixes for different person/number-combinations (as in Table 35 above) used for direct (Imperative) commands, and one with the invariant marker -gu/-ku (originally a third person Imperative marker) for indirect

246

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commands. These two paradigms overlap in the third person, which always marks indirect commands, because it refers to participant(s) not present in the speech situation. I will not deal with the Jussive in this study, as none of the varieties at hand has grammaticalized it to the extent Estonian has. Note, however, that the Jussive construction exemplified in (203) could alternatively be analysed as a mixture of direct and indirect speech, where, on the one hand, the verb form originally used by the source agent of the request (with its third person agreement) is preserved, but the personal pronoun used, aligns with the speaker as a new deictic centre of the reported utterance.152 In the end of Section 8.2.2, I will elaborate on the coding of direct and indirect speech in LD circumstances and will touch upon the issue of deictic shift again. 8.2.1.1.2 The Conditional The Conditional mood displays greater uniformity across Finnic than the Imperative, both in terms of coverage and formal structure. It is signalled by the suffix -isi- in Finnish, Karelian, Veps and Ingrian, by -ksi- in Estonian and Livonian and by the descendants of both suffixes in Votic153 (see Lehtinen 1983 for a historical overview and Proto-Finnic reconstruction). The Conditional paradigm of Finnish is presented in Tables 36 and 37. This Mood exhibits the full range of paradigmatic distinctions of the Indicative, except that the distinction between three past tenses in the Indicative is neutralised in the Conditional to one single past tense, which is compound of the person/number-inflected Conditional form of the auxiliary ‘be’ and the past participle of the content verb. In negation person/number inflection is expressed on the negation verb and is followed in the present tense by the connegative form of the verb and in the past tense by the connegative form of the auxiliary and the past participle of the content verb. The Conditional moods of the obsolescent Finnic varieties show minor differences from the Finnish one in terms of coding structure, but no differences in terms of paradigmatic coverage. The Votic Conditional manifests the structure of its Finnish cousin with two major differences. It shows greater allomorphic variation, including redundant marking, where the inherited Conditional morpheme is reduplicated (e.g. tolkutta-iz-iz speak-COND - COND.3SG ‘s/he would speak’ Kuusk 2001: 202). Secondly, in analogy with the generalization of the 152 This is not the only example of such deictic mismatch in Finnic; see Kehayov (2016) for another example. 153 The Northern Finnic type -isi- is probably a borrowing in Votic.

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Table 36: The paradigm of the Finnish present (non-past) tense Conditional: istua ‘sit’ (active forms)

form

gloss

form

gloss

affirmative

plural

istu-isi-n

sit-COND -1SG

istu-isi-mme

sit-COND -1PL

istu-isi-t

sit-COND -2SG

istu-isi-tte

sit-COND -2PL

istu-isi

sit-COND.3SG

istu-isi-vat

sit-COND -3PL

negative

singular

en istu-isi

NEG .1SG

sit-COND. CONNEG

emme istu-isi

NEG .1PL

sit-COND. CONNEG

et istu-isi

NEG .2SG

sit-COND. CONNEG

ette istu-isi

NEG .2PL

sit-COND. CONNEG

ei istu-isi

NEG .3SG

sit-COND. CONNEG

eivät istu-isi

NEG .3PL

sit-COND. CONNEG

Table 37: The paradigm of the Finnish past tense Conditional: istua ‘sit’ (active forms)

negative

affirmative

singular

plural

form

gloss

form

gloss

ol-isi-n istu-nut

be-COND -1SG sit-PST. SG . PTCP

ol-isi-mme istu-neet

be-COND -1PL sit-PST. PL . PTCP

ol-isi-t istu-nut

be-COND -2SG sit-PST. SG . PTCP

ol-isi-tte istu-neet

be-COND -2PL sit-PST. PL . PTCP

ol-isi istu-nut

be-COND .3SG sit-PST. SG . PTCP

ol-isi-vat istu-neet

be-COND -3PL sit-PST. PL . PTCP

en ol-isi istu-nut

NEG .1SG

be- COND. CONNEG sit- PST. SG . PTCP

emme ol-isi istu-neet

NEG .1PL

et ol-isi istu-nut

NEG .2SG

be- COND. CONNEG sit- PST. SG . PTCP

ette ol-isi istu-neet

NEG .2PL

ei ol-isi istu-nut

NEG .3SG

be- COND. CONNEG sit- PST. SG . PTCP

eivät ol-isi istu-neet

NEG .3PL

be- COND. CONNEG sit- PST. PL . PTCP be- COND. CONNEG sit- PST. PL . PTCP be- COND. CONNEG sit- PST. PL . PTCP

Impersonal form of the verb to 3PL-Indicative, Votic tends to attach the Conditional morpheme to the Impersonal form of the verb in third person plural (see e.g. Rapola 1925; Ariste 1968: 73‒73; Markus 2004; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 151‒152). Ingrian shares with Votic both the extensive allomorphy (including the double-marked forms) and the extension of the Impersonal stem to 3PL-forms of the Conditional (see Laanest 1986: 133; Chernyavskiy 2005b: 48‒49).

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MM in the receding varieties

The Central Lude paradigm is more elaborate than the Finnish, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto paradigms. Next to the analytic forms this variety has a synthetic past form (e.g. lähte-nö-iži-mme go-PST- COND -1PL ‘we would have gone’ VIS, Sv) which can be further combined with the past participle to create something which looks like Conditional Pluperfect (e.g. ol-nu-iž süö-nü be-PSTCOND.3SG eat-PST. PTCP ‘would have eaten’; Kehayov et al. 2013: 79). There are no examples of the Conditional paradigm of Central Lude in the literature, but the impression is that this Mood has tense paradigm almost as elaborate as that of the Indicative (recall Table 11 on page 138). Conditional marking in Eastern Seto differs from the Conditionals of the other varieties in two respects. This variety (together with the other Võru dialects) has been a hotbed of major innovation – extension of the past participle to a Conditional marker. This novel marking is employed both in counterfactual and hypothetical contexts; cf. hypothetical Kas ti tul-nu-s mulle̮ ke̮rrast aost appi! Q (yes/no) you.PL come-PST. PTCP (= COND )- NEG me one:TRNSL time:TRNSL help.ILL (‘Wouldn’t you come help me for a moment.’ Andreas Kalkun, p.c.) (Juhkason et al. 2012). This type of Conditional marking co-exists with the inherited Conditional with the formant -si and is believed to be a calque from Russian, where the Conditional is also based on a past tense form of participial origin (Pajusalu & Muižniece 1997). The second peculiarity of Eastern Seto is the complete lack of person/number-distinctions both in the novel Conditional (which is based on a non-finite form) and in the inherited Conditional which triggers an overt subject NP (resp. blocks zero anaphora); cf. ma/sa/tä/mi/ti/nä tule̮s ‘I/you/(s)he/we/you/ they would come’ (see Iva 2007: 94). The variety of meanings conveyed by Finnic Conditional can be reduced to three major concepts: ‘irrealis’, ‘possibility’ and ‘politeness’, which makes it functionally similar to the Subjunctives of the Romance and Germanic languages (see Peltola 2009 for a comparison of the French Subjunctive and the Finnish Conditional). Although these three notions capture the entire contextual distribution of the Conditional, they may be entangled in a rather opaque way when it comes to specific uses of this mood, and therefore are not particularly suitable to illustrate the specific contexts where this mood occurs. Therefore, I will rely on more concrete, context-generated labels. There are some language-specific idiosyncrasies within the family (see Metslang 1999 for differences between Finnish and Estonian), but the most salient contexts requiring the use of the Conditional in the four varieties studied are as follows: hypothetical and counterfactual conditional sentences, see (204) and (205), complement clauses of desiderative and manipulative predicates, see (206), expressions of assumptions (guesses), see (207), adverbial clauses of purpose (final clauses), see (208), adverbial or complement ‘as if’-clauses, see (209), non-epistemic modal and

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desiderative verbs (would, should, could) in main clauses, see (210), and wishes and curses (i.e. optative contexts), which can be analysed as insubordinations (Evans 2007), see (211); all examples are from Finnish. ajattelisi, jos serkku, jota (204) Mitä hän what.PART s/he.NOM think: COND.3SG if cousin.NOM REL :PART hän ei tunne, ottaisi yhteyttä? s/he.NOM NEG .3SG know.CONNEG take:COND.3SG connection.PART ‘What would he think if a cousin, whom he doesn’t know, would contact him?’ (205) Jos olisit kysynyt mistä tunnen hänet, if be:COND : 2SG ask:PST. PTCP where:ELA know:PRS .1SG s/he:ACC olisin sanonut sinulle. be:COND :1SG tell:PST. PTCP you:ALL ‘If you had asked me how I know him, I would have told you.’ (206) Hän pyysi, että kaikki tulisivat mukaan. s/he.NOM request:PST.3SG that everyone.NOM come:COND :3PL with ‘She asked everyone to come with her.’ (207) Tämä ateria sopisi koiralle. this.NOM dish.NOM be.suitable:COND.3SG dog:ALL ‘This dish would be good for the dog.’ (208) Hän yritti syödä hitaasti, jotta kukaan ei s/he.NOM try:PST.3SG eat:INF slowly so.that nobody NEG .3SG huomaisi nälkäänsä. notice:COND.CONNEG hunger.PART:3POSS ‘He was trying to eat slowly, so that nobody would see that he was hungry.’ (209) He kohtelevat meitä ihan kuin olisimme rikollisia be:COND :1PL criminals:PART they.NOM treat:PRS . 3PL we:PART as if ‘They treat us as if we were criminals.’ avata ikkunan? (210) Voisit=ko can:COND :2SG = Q (yes/no) open:INF window:GEN ‘Could/Would you open the window?’

250

MM in the receding varieties

(211) Tulisi jo kesä! come:COND.3SG already summer.NOM ‘I wish that spring would come!’ What concerns the relationship between form and function, the rule of thumb is that past forms of the Conditional are compatible only with unrealized states-ofaffairs, see (205), while the non-past forms are compatible both with situations that are not real at the moment of utterance, but are potentially possible, see (204), (206), (207), (208), (210) and (211), and with SoAs that are not and will not be real; see (209). 8.2.1.1.3 The Potential The Potential mood is marked uniformly across the Finnic area. Its marker -neattaches to the verb stem and is followed by the person endings; e.g. Fi saa-n ‘I get.IND. PRS -1SG ’ > saa-ne-n ‘I (would) supposedly receive’ (recall also example [24] from Karelian). As shown in Table 34 on page 240, the Potential has been lost in most of the varieties studied, and as such is only of marginal interest for the study of MM in language obsolescence. The loss of the Potential mood in Ingrian and Votic is beyond the temporal scope of this study. By the time Arvo Laanest started doing fieldwork among the Ingrians in the 1950s, the Potential was already practically defunct (Laanest 1986: 134).154 Likewise, Ariste (1968: 74) noted that the Potential is no longer used in Votic and “perhaps” occurs only in folk songs.155 Newer grammars of this language do not even mention it (e.g. Agranat 2007; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b). In Võru dialect of Estonian (which includes Eastern Seto), the Potential mood has been attested in the so-called runic songs and in the speech of the oldest speakers, for which recordings exist: those born in the middle of the 19th century (Iva 2007: 99). This leaves Lude as the only variety in which the Potential is still productive. The most salient function of the Finnic Potential is to express epistemic modality (recall example [24]), although it has additional, more idiosyncratic meanings in the languages in which it is still productive. In Finnish, for example, the Potential expresses also polite requests and invitations, see (212); occurring 154 The last refuge of the Potential marker -ne- in Ingrian is the suppletive future form of ‘be’ lē-/lī-. The forms lēnȫ or līnȫ ‘will be, could be’ contain the inherited Potential marker, but are petrified and unsegmentable. They are employed in the TF of Ingrian for two different purposes: a) to predicate futurity (‘will be’) to the copula verb and b) to predicate uncertainty to the copula verb; see the functional account of the Finnish Potential below. 155 The Votic Potential seems to have been intact in the 19th century. Ahlqvist (1856: 56‒73) presents forms for all persons in singular and plural and Impersonal forms of the Potential.

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in questions, it expresses doubt or suspicion, whereby the questions are often rhetorical, see (213) (see Forsberg 1998 for more details, especially for the dialectal distribution of the functions of the Potential).156 (212) Kiirellisissä tapauksissa otta-ne-tte yhteyttä urgent:PL : INE matter:PL : INE take-POT-2PL connection.PART Suomen ulkoministeriöön. Finland:GEN foreign.ministry:ILL ‘In urgent matters you are invited to contact the ministry of foreign affairs of Finland.’ (213) Kun hätä on suurin, on apu when emergency.NOM be.PRS .3SG big:SUP be.PRS .3SG help.NOM lähinnä. Pitä-nee-kö enää paikkaansa? close hold-POT.3SG - Q (yes/no) anymore place:PART.3POSS ‘When the emergency is big the help is close. Does this hold true anymore?’ (ISK 2008: §1598) In Lude, Veps and Karelian, on the other hand, the Potential is frequently used in protases of factual conditional sentences; consider the following example from Sununsuu, Northern Lude; for examples from Veps and Karelian, see Kettunen (1943: 469‒470), Zaitseva (2002: 160), and Ahtia (2014: 84). tahto-nou, ka mina andan (214) d’esli hän if s/he.NOM want-POT.3SG then I.NOM give.IND. PRS :1SG ‘If s/he wants, I will give her/him.’ (LmS: 30) 8.2.1.1.4 Other grammatical moods The Finnic languages show occasional innovations in their grammatical mood systems. The southern branch of Finnic (except from Votic), for instance, has grammaticalized reported evidentiality into a special mood called “Indirect” or “Reportative” (e.g. Ikola 1953; Kask 1984: 220‒285), and Livonian has a configurational mood (i.e. mood with no dedicated morphology) which expresses necessity and is called “Debitive” (Viitso 2014). Occasionally, there are also compounds of congenital moods; an example is the so-called “Eventive” in Finnish, 156 In subordinate clauses, the Potential is mostly used in Finnish in indirect (referred) questions, in complements of non-factive propositional attitude predicates, and in concessive clauses (ISK 2008: §1599).

252

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which is a blend of the Conditional and Potential morphemes (Häkkinen 1994: 268‒269; Forsberg 1998: 203‒204)157. Such mood formations are not treated by the present investigation, because they do not occur in the varieties investigated here. The only exception is the Reportative mood which occurs in the TF of Eastern Seto (see Iva 2002 about the forms of this mood in Võru), but I have left it out, because I could not elicit a single form of it. 8.2.1.2 Sentence mood (clause type) In Section 3.2.1, I mentioned that there is a one-to-one relationship between the imperative sentence mood and the grammatical imperative mood. Therefore, I consider the issue of the imperative sentence mood to be exhausted by the overview of the Finnic Imperative provided in this section. The other major sentence mood – the ‘interrogative’ – does not have a direct equivalent among grammatical moods (recall Figure 2 on page 46 in Section 3.2.1), and thus its coding strategies need a short introduction. The major types of interrogatives are content questions and polar questions (also known as ‘yes/no-questions’). The first type is encoded in Finnish by a content question word: interrogative pronoun, proadverb or proadjective, occurring in the beginning of the sentence. See the Finnish example (215) with a proadverb. alkaa? (215) Milloin koulu when school.NOM begin.PRS .3SG ‘When does school begin?’ The Finnic languages do not differ in the strategies they use for marking of content questions; just like Finnish, Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto encode such questions with pronouns, proadverbs and proadjectives, although they show some differences as to the sources from which content question words are lexicalized. Polar questions, on the other hand (including choice questions such as Is she blond or brunette?), are expressed in two fundamentally different ways. Northern Finnic languages (Finnish, Karelian, Ingrian, Lude and Veps) employ an enclitic which is attached to the first constituent of the interrogative sentence, typically the verb which in such questions occurs in sentence-initial position 157 The Eventive was invented by the Finnish language reformer Volmari Kilpinen (Häkkinen 1994: 268‒269).

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(cf. ISK 2008: §1679; Zaikov 1993: 74‒75; Laanest 1975: 196; LmS: 54; Kettunen 1943: 290); cf. (216) from Finnish. Southern Finnic languages (Estonian, Votic and Livonian), on the other hand, use a question particle occurring in the beginning of the sentence (see EKG II: 168; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 261‒262; Moseley 2002: 59); cf. (217) from Estonian. sinä Jannea? (216) Muistat=ko remember:PRS . 2SG =Q (yes/no) you.NOM Janne.PART ‘Do you remember Janne?’ (217) Kas sa Jaani mäletad? Q (yes/no) you.NOM Jaan.PART remember:PRS .2SG ‘Do you remember Jaan?’ As determined by their genealogical affiliation, Central Lude and Ingrian align with the enclitic type, whereas Votic and Eastern Seto align with the sentenceinitial particle type. An alternative way of expressing polar questions found in all languages of the family does not involve overt morphemic material, but consists of inversion of the order of the subject and the verb. The basic (declarative) word order SV is changed in (218) from Estonian into VS. sa Jaani? (218) Mäletad remember:PRS .2SG you.NOM Jaan.PART ‘Do you remember Jaan?’ 8.2.2 Developments attested in LD 8.2.2.1 Grammatical mood Given that the ‘Imperative’, the ‘Conditional’ and the ‘Potential’ are descriptive categories, I will divide this section in two parts. The first of them deals with intra-category phenomena, or in other words, with changes affecting the formal properties or the semantic range of each grammatical mood. The second part provides transcategorial comparison between the Imperative and the Conditional and focuses on their relative susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in LD. 8.2.2.1.1 Intracategorial changes In this section I discuss for each Mood separately the formal and functional deviations from the TF.

254

MM in the receding varieties

8.2.2.1.1.1 The Imperative 8.2.2.1.1.1.1 Formal changes in the Imperative paradigm The formal changes observed in the corpora concern the coding of ‘person’, ‘number’ and ‘polarity’ – categories which were pertinent to the analysis of the modal verbs as well. Unlike with modal verbs and with other elements investigated in Section 8.1, in this section I will consider only the token frequency of deviation from the TF. Due to its specific directive function, the second person Imperative is distributed over very similar contexts; this similarity renders the type (i.e. the contextual) frequency of deviation superfluous. Considering the type frequency would tell us the proportion of source sentences containing second person Imperative in the translation of which we have a defective Imperative formation from the total of source sentences with second person Imperative, but given that the ‘directive interlocutionary context’ is practically a constant (rather than variable), this information is useless. In the case of first and third person Imperatives, we have another reason to ignore type frequency. First and third person Imperative forms (either synthetic or analytic) are only stylistic options among other structural choices (in which the verb is in the Indicative or Conditional) and therefore the correlation between the source structure and the actual occurrence of the first and third person Imperative forms in the corpus is not straightforward. The number of Russian source sentences which can elicit first or third person Imperative is not instructive as to the actual occurrence of the Imperative forms in the target varieties. Let us start with polarity. Table 38 compares the number of defective forms produced by the consultants with the number of “correct” forms (i.e. the forms attested in the TF for the given person/number-slot) in two populations: positive and negative Imperative. The notion of ‘defective Imperative form’ is very restrictive and subsumes two sorts of substitutions. The first concerns substitutions, where one member of the person/number paradigm of the Imperative is substituted for another member of the paradigm, given that this substitution is not attested in the TF. For example, we observed that the second person plural form of the Imperative is extended in the TF of Eastern Seto to first and third person plural. Such extensions are not counted as defective, but are included in the right column of Table 38. The second subsumes structures which are not attested in the TF of the respective variety and which cannot be predicted from the internal evidence available for this variety. Such ill-formed structures consist of inherited linguistic matter, but are not grammatical from the perspective of the TF. The notion of ‘defectiveness’ does not take stance as to the question whether we are dealing with a random production error or with something more conventional (i.e. with innovation).

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Before we proceed with the analysis of the figures in the table one other thing must be mentioned. Both congenital synthetic and newer analytic Imperatives can either show deficiencies or be intact with the TF. The distinction ‘synthetic’ vs. ‘analytic’ already emerged in the TFs of the varieties studied (recall again the discussion in 8.2.1.1.1) and therefore is irrelevant for the examination of changes occurring in LD. Table 38: Imperative formation according to polarity in C1 N occurrences of defective Imperative structures

N occurrences of expected Imperative structures

Positive

8

106

Negative

13

61

The association between the groups (‘positive’ and ‘negative’) and conditions (‘defective’ and ‘sound’) in the table is statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 4.026, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0448), which indicates that consultants were more likely to produce an erroneous Prohibitive form than erroneous (positive) Imperative form.158 I will correlate the defectiveness variable with the person distinction separately below, but it suffices to note here the predominance of second person Imperative forms in the sample. Out of 21 defective occurrences in the table only four (two positive and two negative) were not second person forms of the Imperative, and out of 167 “correct” occurrences in the table, only 76 were occurrences of the expected first or third person Imperative structures.159 This means that the greater disposition of the Prohibitive compared to the Imperative to production error or innovation could be empirically substantiated only for second person; the data for other persons is insufficient. What about the typology of deficiency? The data shows that the positive Imperative is much more uniform in terms of possible kinds of “errors” than the negative one. All positive defective formations concern the first sort of substitution – i.e cases where the consultant produces a grammatically correct Imperative form which differs in number and/or person from the input sentence. Consider example (219) from Votic, where the consultant produces a 2SG -Imperative form in reaction to a source sentence with 2PL -Imperative form (Ru Pozovite vracha ‘Call[PL] the doctor!’). 158 C2 contains a couple of appropriate second person Imperative forms (positive and negative), but no defective formations. 159 The structures in question are either synthetic or analytic in third person, and only analytic in first person. I could not elicit a single synthetic form of first person plural Imperative.

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MM in the receding varieties

(219) Kutsu dohtǝria! call.IMP. 2SG doctor:PART ‘Call the doctor!’ (Vot, PK, Ps) In contrast, the defective formation of the negative Imperative shows greater variation in the data and seems less predictable. Although the kind of “grammatical” person/number-substitution exemplified in (219) occurs in the formation of negative Imperative too, most of the examples concern the second sort of substitution, where the speaker produces a grammatically ill-formed structure. Consider the following examples illustrating the typology of such defective formations. Given that Soikino Ingrian expresses the negative 2PL-Imperative by means of the prohibitive verb form elkǟ and a connegative form coinciding with the infinitive of the lexical verb, one would expect elkǟ männä (PROH . IMP.Ø go.INF.CONNEG ) in (220). Instead, LSI produces a form consisting of the prohibitive verb form and the 2PL-form of the positive Imperative. Forms like this are current in the Lower Luga Ingrian dialect (Laanest 1986: 141) and in Votic (Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 187) and considering that LSI comes from an area which is not far from the Votic and Lower Luga Ingrian speech areas160, such uses can be considered either as cases of occasional interference or as examples of genuine dialect levelling toward Votic and Lower Luga Ingrian, or, alternatively, as a pattern replication from Russian in which the negative Imperative contains the positive Imperative form of the verb. el-kǟ men-kǟ makkamā. (220) Emä sav’ . . . mother.NOM say:PST.3SG PROH - IMP go-IMP.CONNEG sleep: INF ‘Mother said: don’t go to sleep.’ (Ing-S, LSI, Sl) While in (220) we have a form of the content verb which is abnormal from the point of view of the TF of Soikino Ingrian, in (221) from Central Lude, it is the form of the prohibitive verb which is abnormal. Although the utterance in (221) refers to a source sentence with a 2SG-form of the negative Imperative, the prohibitive verb seems to exhibit the Impersonal morpheme -dA- which is attested

160 LSI is born in Koskolovo, and lives in Slobodka. Although the evidence from Slobodka is scarce, the speakers from this village seem to follow the regular pattern, where the negative 2PL Imperative contains the infinitive of the content verb (Elena Markus, p.c.). On the other hand, Koskolovo, from which no evidence about the formation of the negative 2SG -Imperative is available, could be suspected to be a transition zone between Soikino and Lower Luga Ingrian (Elena Markus and Fedor Rozhanskiy, p.c.).

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in 3PL-forms of the prohibitive verb; e.g. Olonets äl-dä-hes otetta-hes (PROH - IMPS REFL take: IMPS - REFL ‘ They should not take!’; Markianova 1995: 40). Such attestations are in accordance with the extension of the Impersonal forms to encode active third person plural of the verb (discussed in Section 7.2.3.2), but here we seem to have an occurrence of the Impersonal element in the second person singular. This element is followed by the expected 2SG connegative consisting of the bare stem of the content verb. (221) Äl-dä

kutšu vratšad! call.CONNEG doctor: PART ‘Don’t call the doctor!’ (C-L, IIS, Sv) PROH - IMPS ?

Another group consists of transfers, where the negative Imperative form shows morphological features of a cognate language but are combined following an inherited pattern. Consider example (222) from Lower Luga Ingrian. As already noted in Section 8.2.1.1.1, the inherited negative 3PL -form of the Imperative had been lost in Ingrian already before field workers could document it. Interestingly, I elicited such a negative 3PL Imperative form; consider the underlined structure in (222). This form, produced by the forgetter ZP, resembles the Finnish prohibitive form much more than the Ingrian 3PL prohibitive reconstructed by Porkka and presented in Section 8.2.1.1.1. Both constituents of the negative Imperative construction in (222) exhibit Finnish morphology: cf. äl-kö-öt PROH - IMP-3PL and men-kö-öt go-IMP-3PL (see Table 35 on page 241); nevertheless, the underlined sequence in this example is not the grammatical form of the negative 3PL Imperative in Finnish. The correct Finnish form is äl-kö-öt men-kö (PROH - IMP-3PL go-IMP.CONNEG ), where the form of the content verb does not show person/ number-marking. The form we observe in (222) seems to be composed based on the Lower Luga Ingrian pattern of using the positive Imperative form of the verb as a connegative form; thus the Finnish positive Imperative form men-kö-öt ‘They should go!’ has invoked by means of analogy äl-kö-öt men-kö-öt ‘They should not go!’. äl-kö-öt men-kö-öt (222) Emä sanoi, štobi ̮ lapset mother.NOM say:PST.3SG that children.NOM PROH - IMP-3PL go-IMP-3PL vēl makkama. yet sleep:INF ‘Mother said that the children should not go to sleep yet.’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) A fourth group of defective formations consists of examples where the consultant produces a form which is ill-formed in terms of its sequential characteristics

258

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(word order). As already mentioned in Section 8.2.1.1.1, Seto and other Võru dialects form negative Imperative forms either by preposing the prohibitive marker äŕ or postposing the Indicative negator ei to the connegative Imperative form (or combining both negators with this form). (223) contains another structural possibility which, as far as I know, is not acceptable in the TF of Seto; here the Indicative negator is preposed to the connegative Imperative form of the content verb. (223) Ei

jōs-ku nī! Ma ei joua su takahi. run-IMP so I.NOM NEG manage.CONNEG you.GEN behind.ILL ‘Do not run this way! I can’t catch you up.’ (Se-E, NP, N-Izb) NEG

Finally, there is one negative Imperative form in the data, which is perfectly sound in terms of morphology and internal syntax, but which is part of an argument-predicate construction that is not grammatical in the TF of the language; witness (224) from Soikino Ingrian. The correct 2SG Prohibitive form is combined in this example with logical subject in the Genitive case. Such Genitive subjects are, however, compatible only with the so-called ‘impersonal modal pattern’; recall the discussion of example (95) on page 172. Personal forms like the second person Imperative in (224) agree with Nominative actors. Besides this, the semantic context in which this Prohibitive form occurs is very odd. The source sentence of (224) was expected to elicit a modal verb of necessity occurring within the scope of negation (see the English translation), and it did so in all other output utterances. The Imperative, on the other hand, is an illocutionary operator which outscopes negation. In other words, don’t study is a paraphrase of you must not study (where the negation is in the scope of necessity), not of you don’t need to study (where the necessity is in the scope of negation). I will discuss functional extensions of the Imperative forms to novel contexts in Section 8.2.2.1.1.2.2, but the occurrence in (224) goes against the fundamental conceptual dedication of the Imperative. äl’ä oppihu, šāt männa d’ukkuma. (224) šiun you:GEN PROH . 2SG study:REFL .CONNEG get:PRS . 2SG go.INF play:INF ‘You don’t need to study anymore; you can go playing.’ (Ing-S, AG, Grk) Summing up, the negative Imperative (the Prohibitive) structures seem to be more susceptible to error and innovation in LD than the positive Imperative structures; an observation which is consistent with cross-linguistic evidence presented in Section 4.3.1 (see also Aikhenvald 2010: 386–388). This difference can be directly explained by the complexity (both ‘system complexity’ and

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‘structural complexity’ in Dahl’s terms) of the constructions used to encode negative and positive Imperative forms. That the formation of the Prohibitive is more complex than the formation of the positive Imperative and requires greater effort and rule-competence is proven by the sheer length of the respective structures in Table 35 and by the fact that in order to produce a correct Prohibitive form, one must have command of the formation of the positive Imperative. Note however, that the implication ‘negative Imperative > positive Imperative’ does not say anything as to the relative obligatoriness of the respective structures for the language users. This can be stated for the second person slot for which the corpora display enough occurrences and where the (positive or negative) morphological Imperative mood is an obligatory category in the TF.161 There were 29 feedbacks to the source sentences containing the second person positive Imperative form in Russian, and in all of them the consultant used a form of the Imperative mood. The situation with the negative second person Imperative is similar: from 36 feedbacks to source sentences containing the Russian second person negative Imperative form, only in two did the Finnic consultant use an Indicative and not an Imperative form of the verb. We can conclude that for the speakers of the obsolescent Finnic varieties the second person negative Imperative is just as an obligatory category as the second person positive one, and the scale above concerns only the relative susceptibility to error and innovation in the application of the morphosyntactic rules generating Imperative/Prohibitive forms. The variable ‘person’ correlates with the relative persistence of the Imperative in a rather trivial way, which could be predicted from the changes observed in the TF. Summing up the figures just mentioned in the last paragraph, we get a total of 65 feedbacks to source sentences designed and expected to elicit forms of the second person Imperative, of which only two do not contain an Imperative form. The situation in first and third person is strikingly different even with the caveat that the synthetic or analytic expressions with primary cohortative or jussive functions described in Section 8.2.1.1.1 are only stylistic options among other structures that are less dedicated to the expression of first person encouragement or requests addressed to non-participants. Let us compare two groups of outputs to source sentences expressing requests/orders addressed to first or third persons. These groups can be tentatively labelled ‘dedicated’ and ‘nondedicated’ expressions. The first group subsumes occurrences of the morphological Imperative and structures with hortative/jussive particles (like la [or лa], las, anda and davai; recall examples [197]‒[202]); the second group subsumes occurrences lacking any of these features, or, in other words, structures without 161 Unlike in first and third person, where, if preserved, it is merely a stylistic option.

260

MM in the receding varieties

dedicated cohortative or jussive marking. Consider examples (225) and (226) which refer to the same source sentence, from Soikino Ingrian. The first example shows dedicated cohortative marking in the face of the particle la ‘let’, whereas the second does not show dedicated marking, and out of the context, can convey meanings other than cohortative (e.g. future Indicative: ‘We will call the doctor.’). (225) Hǟ niku on läššivä, la kutsumǝ tohtria! s/he.NOM like be.PRS .3SG sick.NOM let call:PRS .1PL doctor.PART ‘He looks sick. Let us call the doctor!’ (Ing-S, AJ, Val) (226) Hän näüttiä lässivän. Kutsumǝ tohtǝria! s/he.NOM look.PRS .3SG sick:GEN call:PRS .1PL doctor.PART ‘He looks sick. Let us call the doctor!’ (Ing-S, EM, Vi) The statistical universe in which these two groups are compared are all feedbacks to sentences designed to elicit dedicated cohortative or jussive forms.162 Table 39 presents the relative figures for ‘occurrence’ versus ‘non-occurrence’ of dedicated marking in all persons. These totals are gathered only from feedbacks to source sentences designed and expected to produce first, second or third person Imperative form (i.e. cohortative, imperative or jussive form); occurrences of dedicated marking that were not envisaged by the input context are left out. The reader is already familiar with the facts for second person: there are altogether 63 occurrences of the dedicated Imperative and only two occurrences in which the speaker reacted to an Imperative source context with a structure which is not dedicated to the expression of second person Imperative. Table 39: Explication of the Cohortative/Imperative/Jussive N occurrences of dedicated marking (upon expectation based on the source sentence)

N occurrences lacking dedicated marking (upon expectation based on the source sentence)

1st person

12

33

2nd person

63

2

3rd person

46

15

162 Unlike with ‘polarity’ we will not be able to study the susceptibility of the different persons to defection (ill-formation), because, as already indicated in the discussion after Table 38, the frequency of defective formations in first and third person is too low: we have two defective formations in the first and two in the third person.

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The obligatory use of the Imperative in second person is remarkable, but what about the form-function dedication in the first and third person? Combining the figures in the first and third row of Table 39 we get an extremely significant distribution (Yates’ x2 = 22.903, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001), which suggests that the last speakers of the contracting Finnic varieties are more likely to use dedicated marking in the third person (the jussive) than in the first person (the cohortative). This in turn indicates that while the loss of dedicated expression in third person precedes the loss of dedicated expression in second person, the loss of dedicated expression in first person precedes the loss of dedicated expression in third person; viz. we have a hierarchy of susceptibility to loss of formal dedication ‘first person Imperative (cohortative)’ > ‘third person Imperative (jussive)’ > ‘second person Imperative (imperative proper)’. This hierarchy mirrors the order of reduction of person specification undergone by the morphological Imperative in the TFs of Finnic. One explanation of the order in this hierarchy that immediately comes to mind has to do with the formal complexity: cohortative and jussive forms are structurally more complex than the second person Imperative forms (see the forms and their glosses in Table 35 on page 241) and therefore are sooner affected by the complexity (or markedness) reduction occurring in LD. At least in the case of the jussive (third person Imperative) this complexity is overtly iconic with semantic complexity: unlike second person Imperatives, which express directives (i.e. speech acts causing the hearer[s] to take an action), third person Imperatives (jussives) are addressed to non-participant(s) in the speech situation and thence are descriptions of directives. Given that a description of a speech act is conceptually more complex than the speech act itself, third person Imperatives can be said to have more complex conceptual structure than second person Imperatives.163 Finally, we should consider the category of ‘number’. Which member of the number opposition (‘singular’ versus ‘plural’) is more liable to loss? The answer to this question is simple for first and third person: even if we assume that first person singular Imperative existed as a regular morphological category in Finnic, it has left hardly any traces in the Finnic varieties for which we have grammatical descriptions, whereas first person plural Imperatives occur in most of the Finnic area. Similarly, the overview provided in Section 8.2.1.1.1 showed 163 It should be noted, however, that while this account explains the relative order of ‘second person Imperative’ versus ‘non-second person Imperative’, it fails to explain the relative susceptibility of ‘first person Imperative’ and ‘third person Imperative’ to loss of dedicated marking. The order of these two entities on the hierarchy stipulated here does not match the markedness hierarchy of the Imperative postulated in the typological literature. This hierarchy which rests on structural and frequency considerations is ‘2nd person Imperative’ < (i.e. less marked than) ‘1st person Imperative’ < ‘3rd person Imperative’ (Greenberg 1966: 44).

262

MM in the receding varieties

that third person plural Imperatives are lost before third person singular Imperatives. The only conceptual slot, where the present investigation can contribute is thus the second person; the TFs of all Finnic varieties have productive 2SG and 2PL morphological Imperatives. Considering the evidence from the other persons, it is not difficult to guess in which direction the reduction of number distinction would proceed. The corpus contains seven cases in which the consultant uses second person singular form of the Imperative in reaction to a source sentence containing second person plural form of the Imperative (these occurrences were included in the count of defective forms in Table 38) and zero occurrences of the opposite extension: substitution of the second person singular form for a second person plural form of the Imperative. Considering that the form of second person singular Imperative is formally unmarked (recall the Imperative paradigm presented in Table 35), the observed extension can be regarded as a reduction of structural complexity. 8.2.2.1.1.1.2 Changes affecting the functional range of the Imperative A grammatical mood can be either extended to novel contexts or become demotivated and suppressed from contexts in which it is used in the TF. This section deals only with signs of functional expansion, as the material does not show any signs of suppression of the Imperative. I will be exclusively concerned here with the second person morphological (positive and negative) Imperative, because third and first person forms of the morphological Imperative have been suppressed by the analytic cohortative and jussive constructions already in the TF. What concerns the functional range of these constructions, they are only weakly grammaticalized and have not undergone obligatorification that could be later reversed in the course of language obsolescence. The fact that these constructions are interchangeable with different ‘non-dedicated’ structures, as well as with the remains of the morphological (first and third person) Imperative, means that we are missing the background against which LD-driven changes in their functional range can be identified. Table 40 shows that the consultants tend to use predicate structures in which the verb is in the second person Imperative in reaction to Russian source sentences where the predicate is in the Indicative or Subjunctive.164 These occurrences of the Imperative proper are remarkable considering that the Russian source structures have precise equivalents in Finnic, where the verb is either in

164 The Russian soslagatel’noe naklonenie is translated in English either as “conditional mood” or as “subjunctive mood”. In order to avoid confusion with the Finnic Conditional, here and elsewhere I use the label ‘Subjunctive’ for this Russian mood.

Mood

263

the Indicative or in the Conditional. It is even more remarkable that the opposite substitutions, where in reaction to a source predication in the Imperative the consultant produces structure with the predicate in the Indicative or Conditional, are very poorly attested in the sample; see the figures in the last two rows in the table. Yet, such substitutions are conceivable given that deontic verbs in the Indicative are used to express directives (e.g. You must stay here and wait!) and, as we already know from example (210), the Finnic Conditional is used to encode requests (cf. Could you open the window?). Table 40: Opting for different grammatical mood in C1: ‘Imperative proper’ instead of ‘Indicative’/‘Conditional’ or vice versa Substitution of constructions according to the predicate mood

N occurrences

Imperative‑for‑Indicative Imperative‑for‑Conditional Indicative‑for‑Imperative Conditional‑for‑Imperative

27 16 2 0

The classification in the table is based on the obligatory Mood marking on the predicate and in this sense is slightly misleading. The substitutions observed do not solely pertain to the discrepancy between expected and occurring Mood form, but instead to the entire constructions in which the mood specification is embedded. This will be illustrated with examples. All instantiations of the ‘Imperative-for-Indicative’ substitution in the table comprise cases where a construction consisting of a modal in the default Indicative mood and an infinitive of the content verb is replaced by an Imperative form of the content verb. Example (227) from Soikino Ingrian displays the structure that was expected in reaction to the source sentence ‘You don’t have to work anymore, you can rest’, where we have a negated modal of necessity in the first clause and a possibility modal in the second clause. Most of the feedback to this source sentence met this expectation. However, the Lower Luga Ingrian consultant ZP replaces in (228) the modality expressions in both clauses with the Imperative proper. As can be seen from Table 40, this kind of substitution (‘modal.IND V:INF → V:IMP ’) is the most commonly attested type of expansion of the Imperative. ei peä tehhä tǖdä, (227) Šiun ennä you.GEN anymore NEG .3SG must.CONNEG do.INF work:PART šāt hūvata. get:PRS . 2SG rest:INF ‘You don’t have to work anymore, you can rest.’ (Ing-S, EM, Vi)

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MM in the receding varieties

(228) Siä elä enempǟ tē tȫtä, siä you.NOM PROH . 2SG anymore do.CONNEG work:PART you.NOM nüt hōkā! now rest.IMP. 2SG ‘Don’t work anymore, get some rest now!’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) In contrast, most of the instantiations of the ‘Imperative-for-Conditional’ substitution (the second type in Table 40) are such that a complement clause of a manipulative predicate (mostly ‘tell to’) expressing indirect speech, in which the verb is in the irrealis mood (Subjunctive in Russian, Conditional in Finnic), is replaced by an independent clause expressing direct speech with the verb in the Imperative. Compare the control sentence from the standardized version of Seto in (229) (which structurally reflects the Russian input sentence with the Subjunctive) with the output of the consultant NK in (230). The embedded Conditional in the first example is replaced by a direct speech Imperative in the second example.165 (229) Vanaimä ütel’, õt latsõ’ uma supi grandma.NOM say.PST.3SG that children.NOM own.GEN soup.GEN aŕ söönü’. out eat:COND. 3PL ‘Grandma said that the children should eat their soup.’ (Seto, standard; Andreas Kalkun, p.c.) (230) Vanaemä ütel’ sȫge är oma suppi. grandma.NOM say.PST.3SG eat:IMP.2PL out own.PART soup.PART ‘Grandma said: eat your soup.’ (Se-E, NK, Izb) What are the factors responsible for the substitution in these constructions? Both examples above present situations where an underlying directive speech act is formally encoded within declarative clause(s) in the source sentence. By means of the substitution, the “covert directivity” is made overt and the diagrammatic relationship ‘directive speech act’ – ‘imperative clause’ – ‘Imperative mood’ (recall Figure 2 on page 46) is straightened up (or restored, if one is fond 165 A minor group of examples of the substitution ‘Imperative-for-Conditional’ concerns cases where a soft request conveyed by a necessity modal in the Conditional (e.g. Could you help me a little?) is invigorated by employing the second person Imperative of the content verb (Help me a little!).

Mood

265

of underlying representations). In the first case, (227)‒(228), we have a deontic source, which is part of the speech situation and for whom the most economical way to exert her authority is producing an overt directive marked by the Imperative. Given that we are dealing with a substitution of expressions of necessity/ possibility for Imperative forms, the 27 examples of this kind constitute perhaps the stronger evidence in the available data for interplay between mood and modality in LD circumstances. Due to their functional and expression-site mismatches these domains generally seem to be impervious to compensatory tradeoffs. In the second case (229)‒(230), we have a report of directive (indirect speech), which is exchanged for the directive (direct speech) in its supposed original form. I will discuss examples like (230) in greater detail in the section on sentence mood below (Section 8.2.2.2), which deals with observed deficiencies in the shift from direct to indirect speech. Clearly, we have complexity reduction in both major types of substitution; this includes reduction of structural complexity (the complexity of string length) and system complexity (e.g. loss of the argument structure of modal verb or loss of the more complex deictic structure of indirect speech). Furthermore, in the second type of substitution we do not have to search long for parallels from other languages undergoing LD. The tendency for reduction and loss of clausal embedding was noted in Section 2.3 as one of the typical features of LD (see also Hill 1989; Schmidt 1985: 119; Knowles-Berry 1987; Menn 1989; Sasse 1992b: 79). Returning again to the surface realization of grammatical mood, based on the figures in Table 40 we can assume that the token frequency of the Imperative increases at the expense of the frequency of the Indicative and Conditional. This may lead one day to a fixation of random Imperative forms in the impoverished inventory of rememberers of the extinct variety. An ultimate example of this is that the last full sentence documented in extinct Krevin Votic contains an Imperative form of the verb ‘come’ (see Winkler 1997: 117‒118). 8.2.2.1.1.2 The Conditional 8.2.2.1.1.2.1 Formal changes in the Conditional paradigm Three changes are in the focus of attention in this section: a) the demotivation and decline of the analytic past forms of the Conditional, b) the extension of the Impersonal/3PL forms of the Conditional to other persons in one certain idiolect, c) the transfer of Russian Subjunctive morphology, often leading to redundant marking of the meanings conveyed by the Conditional. The first change was already discussed in Section 7.2.2 in relation to the general tendency for reduction of periphrastic past tenses in Finnic. The decline of periphrastic tense forms is not restricted to the Conditional but also affects

266

MM in the receding varieties

the past tense forms of the Indicative and signs of it could already be gathered from the TFs of the Finnic varieties. Concerning the possible substitute structures, it was said that the consultants replace the periphrastic past tense forms of the Conditional (whose morphosyntactic structure was presented in Table 37 on page 247) with simple past tense forms, either in the Conditional or in the Indicative. The following exposition is devoted exclusively to the extent of this substitution in LD circumstances. Consider the following examples from Soikino Ingrian which illustrate the three possible outcomes of our structural inquiry: i) persistence of the periphrastic form of the Conditional, ii) substitution of this periphrastic form with a simple past form of the Conditional, and iii) substitution of this periphrastic form with a simple past form of the Indicative. In (231) we have a conditional sentence whose counter-factuality is marked in the TF with periphrastic forms of the Conditional, occurring both in the protasis and the apodosis clause; this pattern is preserved by AIE (a fluent speaker), who produces the appropriate compound forms of the Conditional in both clauses. Example (232) presents a reaction to a counterfactual complement clause (cf. She thought that she could have helped), which, likewise, requires using the past tense Conditional form of the complement verb; the consultant produces, however, the simple (non-past) form of the Conditional. This type of substitution was already illustrated by example (46) in Section 7.2.2 (for earlier observations on this substitution, see Kuusk 2001 on Votic). Finally, (233) is a counterfactual conditional sentence (just like [231]), where the compound Conditional is expected to occur. The consultant, however, produces the regular negative form of the Indicative simple past tense in the protasis clause; this form consists of the inflected negation verb and the connegative past participle of the lexical verb. oliž tuлd vähäiže varhaimes, (231) Jeslibi ̮ Vanja if:IRR Vanya.NOM be:COND.3SG come:PST. PTCP a.little earlier parveš ne ollisivad illastaisend. together they.NOM be:COND :3PL have.dinner:PST. PTCP ‘If Vanya had come earlier, they would’ve had a dinner together.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) jaksaiš enemmän (232) Hä dūmai et s/he.NOM think:PST.3SG that be.able:COND.3SG more avittā help.INF

ädillē. dad:ALL

‘It appeared to her that she could have helped her dad a little more.’ (Ing-S, AI, Val)

Mood

267

(233) Još ätti ei ajan nii šelvä, müö if father.NOM NEG .3SG drive:PST.CONNEG so fast we. NOM oleisimǝ vīl oikein että koišta. be:COND :1PL still very far home:ELA ‘If father hadn’t driven so fast, we would’ve been still far from home.’ (Ing-S, EM, Vi) Table 41 shows the spread of the given changes in terms of token frequency. There are seven input sentences in C1 which have been specifically designed to elicit periphrastic past forms of the Conditional. As can be seen from the figures in the last two rows of the table, in the vast majority of cases these source sentences brought off reduction of periphrasis without substitution of Mood (i.e. without changing the Mood of the target predicate). Table 41: Persistence and substitution of the analytic past tense forms of the Conditional Structural outcome

N occurrences

Persistence Substitution with a simple past tense of the Conditional Substitution with a simple past tense of the Indicative

9 54 4

The distribution in the table receives support also from C2. This corpus contains three occurrences of the simple form of the Conditional in a context requiring the periphrastic form in the TF, and only one occurrence of the periphrastic form (i.e. one case of ‘persistence’). The ‘Indicative-for-Conditional’ substitution, which seems to be the least common option, will be dealt with in the next section, which discusses changes in the functional range of the Conditional. The major consequence of the substitution ‘simple-for-periphrastic Conditional’ is that the language is denuded of its formal devices to distinguish between conditional sentences describing counterfactual SoAs (which are known to have not taken place) and conditional sentences describing hypothetical (but possible) future events; more details about the marking of these conditional types in the next section. Before we proceed with the next topic, a few words are necessary about the intra-genetic spread of the ‘simple-for-periphrastic Conditional’ substitution among the varieties studied. The speakers of all varieties – Central Lude, Soikino Ingrian, Lower Luga Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto – replace the periphrastic past tense forms of the Conditional with simple past tense forms of this mood, but also the reverse is true: persistence of the periphrastic past tense of the Conditional is

268

MM in the receding varieties

attested in all these varieties. The latter means that the described re-distribution of form-to-function assignment is advanced but in no way accomplished. Let us now return to a remark made in Section 7.2.3.2, which dealt with the extension of the Impersonal morphology to personal forms of the verb. This extension began in 3PL-forms of the verb (where it became widespread already in the TFs). Its final destination – occurrences of the Impersonal suffix with person agreement markers, in complete defiance of the original dedication of this suffix –, was attested exclusively in Conditional verb forms; recall examples (65) and (66), the latter repeated in (234). In this example the exponent of the Impersonal -tä- co-occurs with the 1SG ending -n in a Conditional verb form. (234) Oliz miu rohkeb aikā miä buittə be:COND.3SG I:ADE more time:PART I.NOM as_if men-tä-isi-n teiekä. go-PRS . IMPS - COND -1SG you:COM ‘If I had more time, I would go with you’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) It was noted in Section 7.2.3.2 that the element -ta/-tä can also be a generalization of the strong consonantal grade of the stem, which happens to coincide with the Impersonal form of the verb. What is peculiar in this context is that all extensions of this morpheme to mark other persons than 3PL in Conditional forms of the verb are attested in the output of the single Lower Luga Ingrian speaker AM. This speaker seems to have generalized the Impersonal morpheme to first person (singular and plural) and third person singular forms of the Conditional. Out of nine personal (but non-3PL) Conditional forms produced by AM, the Impersonal morphological exponent occurs in seven. Consider example (235), where AM produces the Impersonal form of the Conditional in 3SG context. (235) Emä sanoi, štob dǟd tul-ta-is səl. mother.NOM say:PST.3SG that uncle.NOM come-PRS . IMPS - COND.3SG here ‘Mother said that uncle should come here.’ (Ing-L, AM, D-Pol) Forms like this are identical with the 3PL /Impersonal forms produced by this consultant and there can be little doubt that they are related to them, either diachronically or at least analogically (i.e. through analogical association). The extension of the element -ta/-tä to first person forms and third person singular forms of the verb does not affect the Conditional, and therefore is irrelevant to the expression of MM. It is peculiar, however, that the Conditional seems to be the locus of this innovation.

Mood

269

One of the major differences between the Imperative and the Conditional in the data is the resistance of the first and the relative sensitivity of the latter to matter replication from Russian. The Russian Subjunctive, a close functional equivalent of the Finnic Conditional, is formed from the subjunctive particle/ clitic b(y) and the past tense form of the verb (see e.g. Dobrushina 2012 about the distribution of the Subjunctive and the Indicative in Russian). Depending on whether or not the Russian b(y) is combined with the inherited Conditional or Indicative, three types of replication can be distinguished in the material. The first type subsumes raw transfers (or code-switches). Consider (236), where the Ingrian consultant produces the Russian Subjunctive form bi ̮li-bi ̮ which consists of the past form of the copula ‘be’ and the clitic bi ̮ (< Ru by). Such occasional raw transfers of the Subjunctive form as a whole are often followed by self-repair or at least trigger hesitation, as in (236). Note that the speaker produces the correct Conditional in the more elaborated (in terms of circumstances) conditional clause, whereas the code-switch in the main clause seems to be triggered by the fact that the clause describes highly conventional state-of-affairs, and is probably produced by rote. jo kois. (236) Esli mašina oliz porjadkaš, bi ̮li=bi ̮ . . . be:PST: PL = SUBJ already at.home if car.NOM be:COND.3SG in.order ‘If the car were in order, we would have already been home.’ (Ing-S, KV, Yg) The second type, exemplified by (237) from Central Lude, represents a mixture of matter and pattern replication in a context which requires the Conditional in the TF. The Russian Subjunctive marker by is cliticized here on an adapted loan exhibiting inherited Lude morphology. The host of the clitic is not, however, the Conditional form of the verb (as required by the optative context), but its Indicative past tense form. This structural pattern166 mirrors the Russian Subjunctive formation, where the Subjunctive marker is combined with a form of the verb, which is identical with the Indicative past tense form. popravij=bi ̮. (237) Anda sinun tütär let your daughter.NOM get.better:PST. 3SG = SUBJ ‘I hope/wish your daughter would get better.’ (C-L, IIS, Sv) The third structural type is different from the second in that the Russian b(y) is combined here with the expected Conditional form of the verb. This construc166 This structural type has been reported by Markus (2004) for Votic.

270

MM in the receding varieties

tion is redundant in the sense that we have a double marking of the ‘irrealis’ meaning – once by the dedicated Finnic Conditional suffix and once by the Russian subjunctive element. Consider (238), from Votic, where the optative context triggers the Conditional coding, to which the Russian subjunctive marker is cliticized. tuliz=bi ̮ tšesa! (238) Tšīrep fast:CMP come:COND.3SG =SUBJ summer.NOM ‘I wish summer came faster.’ (Vot, PK, Ps) Table 42 shows the token frequencies of these transfer types against the total of occurrences of the Conditional forms in the two corpora. The order of the types in the table constitutes a bottom-up cline of relative increase of affectedness of constructions which require the Conditional in the TF. We have the inherited Finnic coding at the bottom and its reverse – purely Russian coding – at the top of the table. The types in-between represent mixed structures, where the type with the Indicative is (due to the one-to-one pattern replication) closer to the Russian source than the (redundant) type with the Conditional. Table 42: Transfer of the Russian Subjunctive into contexts reserved for the Conditional N occurrences Structural types

C1

C2

Exclusively Russian Subjunctive morphosyntax Russian b(y) combined with a native Indicative form of the verb Russian b(y) combined with a native Conditional form of the verb Exclusively native Conditional morphosyntax

3 2 22 263

2 0 7 23

The distribution in the table shows that for some reason the second type, displaying a mixture of matter and pattern replication, is rejected. It seems also that C2 is richer in Russian interference than C1; compare the totals of all occurrences of the Conditional in these corpora. There are two caveats to the figures in Table 42, however. The first is related to the intra-genetic diversity of the sample, the second to the status of b(y) in the semantic structure of the clause. The relative likelihood that the clitic b(y) co-occurs with the Conditional is a parameter where the minor Finnic varieties differ immensely, the opposite poles in our sample being Votic and Eastern Seto. In Votic, a variety which is underrepresented with respect to the occurrence of the Conditional, we have five occurrences of the third type ‘b(i ̮) + COND ’ against

Mood

271

14 occurrences of the original Conditional structure; this means that approximately a quarter of all occurrences of the Conditional mood in Votic are accompanied by the Subjunctive b(i ̮). In Eastern Seto, on the other hand, we have only one occurrence of the type ‘b(i ̮) + COND ’ against 61 occurrences of the inherited Conditional forms without matter transfer. This suggests that the chances of encountering the structure ‘b(i ̮) + COND ’ in Votic are much greater than in Eastern Seto. This sensitivity of the Votic Conditional to the Subjunctive b(i )̮ , which could be seen as a reinforcer of the irrealis semantics attributed to the SoAs, is repeatedly noted in the recent accounts of this language (e.g. Kuusk 2001; Markus 2004; Agranat 2007: 99; Markus & Rozhanskiy 2011b: 151).167 The rest of the occurrences of the third type, which are roughly equally shared between Ingrian and Central Lude, suggest that this attraction relation could be postulated, though with lower intensity, for these two varieties as well. The second caveat is related to the autonomy and semantic import of the element b(i ̮). The frequencies in the second and the third row of Table 42 would have been considerably higher if I would have chosen to include the co-occurrences of the subordinator štob(i ̮) (< Ru chtoby ‘in order [that]’) with the Conditional or Indicative (where Conditional is due) in subordinate clauses. This subordinator has adverbializer (purpose) and complementizer uses (discussed in Section 8.1.2.2.3.1; see also Hansen, Letuchiy & Błaszczyk 2016) and is conventionalized already in the TFs of Central Lude, Ingrian and Votic. It consists etymologically of the content question word chto (‘what’) and the subjunctive b(y), but its compositional characteristics are not transparent (i.e. it is accessed holistically). We are dealing with univerbation where the element b(y) does not have independent Subjunctive semantics on sentential level and therefore occurrences of štob(i ̮) have been excluded from the count in Table 42. The corpora contain 68 occurrences of ‘štobi ̮ + COND ’ and seven occurrences of ‘štobi ̮ + IND. PST ’, where the context requires using the Conditional. Although in the latter case we have pattern replication from Russian, where the Indicative simple past is extended to an area originally covered by the Conditional, we are not dealing with transfer of overt Subjunctive morphemicon in the case of štobi ̮. Non-verbal elements exhibiting b(i ̮), which are accessed analytically, are however included in the count in Table 42. In such cases b(y) is a genuine clitic with discernible Subjunctive meaning, which is appended to a word preceding

167 Kuusk (2001: 202) even notes that in paradigmatic elicitation (where consultants are asked to conjugate a verb) consultants tend to add b(i )̮ to each Conditional form they produce.

272

MM in the receding varieties

the VP, typically the first word in the clause.168 Consider the following conditional sentences from Central Lude; in (239) the speaker attaches the subjunctive b(i ̮) to a subject pronoun in the apodosis clause, while in (240) the host of the subjunctive clitic is the protasis marker jesli (< Ru esli ‘if’). mina=bi ̮ lähtisin (239) Oliz minuл enämpi aigad, time:PART I.NOM =SUBJ go:COND :1SG be:COND.3SG I:ADE more teid’enke. you.PL : COM ‘If I would have more time I would go with you.’ (C-L, NIP, Vi) (240) Jesli=bi ̮ olis lämmä, to klubnike olis=bi ̮ if=SUBJ be:COND.3SG warm then strawberries.NOM be:COND. 3PL = SUBJ aigembi valmiš. earlier ready ‘If it were warm, the strawberries would be ripe earlier.’ (C-L, NIP, Vi) Before we approach the Conditional from a functional perspective in the next section, let us make a small digression to the issue of redundancy, as exemplified by the structural type ‘b(i ̮) + COND ’. According to Lehmann (2005: 120) “[a] message is redundant if it contains such elements which contribute nothing to the information not already conveyed by the rest of the message.” Here we have a typical case of redundancy, where the semantic component of ‘irrealis’ (which in Lehmann’s terms is the “focal component” in the construction) is expressed twice, once by the morphological Conditional mood and second time by the subjunctive element b(i ̮). As already noted in Section 2.3, Dressler (1981) has argued that the advanced stage of language obsolescence is characterized by loss of redundancy. Dressler’s statement addresses basically grammatical 168 The frequencies in Table 43 suggest that non-verbal hosts are somewhat more preferred by b(i )̮ than verbal hosts. A reason for this could be that in the case of verbal host the Russian b(y) is appended to inherited productive inflectional morphology, with its allomorphy and rules of morphological cohesion, whereas in the other cases the clitic is often appended to an invariable word which is often borrowed from Russian (as in the case of jesli ‘if; whether’). Table 43: Hosts of the subjunctive b(i )̮ in mixed structures Structural types

N occurrences

on the verb form on a word preceding the verb form

10 21

Mood

273

redundancy, a more specific redundancy type which corresponds to Lehmann’s (2005) notion of ‘hypercategorization’ (redundancy restricted to grammar). It was also noted in Section 2.3, that Trudgill (1992: 202‒204) distinguished between two types of redundancy: ‘syntagmatic redundancy’, involving linear repetition of information and ‘paradigmatic redundancy’, concerning category specification in different conjugations and declensions. In a language death situation, Trudgill claims, syntagmatic redundancy tends to be lost before paradigmatic redundancy (Trudgill 2011: 22). Many pieces of evidence provided in this study challenge both Dressler’s claim about general redundancy loss and Trudgill’s more specific statement about decrease of syntagmatic redundancy. Contrary to Trudgill’s expectation, we observe an increase of syntagmatic redundancy. Take the local case forms of nouns occurring in prepositional phrases, which were discussed in Section 7.1.3. In attested forms like v linna-s (in town-INE ; C-L) and na Ukraina-h (on Ukraine-INE ; Se-E) we have double marking of spatial relation, once by means of an inherited morphological case and a second time by a Russian preposition; just like the morphological Conditional and the semi-independent b(i ̮) doublemark the irrealis meaning in the examples above. Corroborating examples of increased syntagmatic redundancy will be provided also in the sections to come, but already now it is clear that the process of structural decay is accompanied by an increase – rather than a decrease – in syntagmatic redundancy. This claim is consistent with Polinsky’s observation that terminal speakers of obsolescent languages tend to over-mark relationships between constituents of constructions (Polinsky 1995: 119). The redundancy observed in fading varieties is neither random nor functionless. As Lehmann (who was not concerned with language obsolescence in any form) succinctly noted, it is a truism in information theory that redundancy guarantees understanding under difficult communication conditions (Lehmann 2005: 120). Assuming that syntagmatic redundancy signals that the genuine functional dedication of the inherited grammatical means is becoming opaque for the users, I will use it in the next section (along with the parameter of ‘substitution’) as a diagnostic of the relative affectedness of the Conditional to loss, change and innovation in LD circumstances. 8.2.2.1.1.2.2 Changes affecting the functional range of the Conditional In Section 8.2.2.1.1.1.1 we looked at the gamut of Mood substitution from the perspective of the Imperative. We saw in Table 40 on page 263 that the Imperative is never substituted by the Conditional while the opposite substitution is attested in 16 cases. Table 44 below adds to the picture by looking at substitution from the perspective of the Conditional; it provides the quantitative facts about substitution of the Conditional with inherited non-Conditional structures.

274

MM in the receding varieties

The sets in the table include only cases of substitution, where a) Finnish and Estonian (as close cognates of the varieties studied) use the Conditional in the given context, and b) the Russian source structure contains the irrealis markers b(y), chtoby and budto ‘as if’ which correspond in Finnic to syntagmas marked with the Conditional. These two restrictions ensure that the occurrence of the Conditional is “licensed” both intragenetically and by the structure of the donor language. I will not include examples from C2 to the count of the substitution and persistence populations, as this corpus contains naturalistic data, and thus condition (b) cannot be fulfilled. The totals in the table are generated from the differences between ‘expectation’ and ‘realization’, while the lack of source sentences in C2 means that we have no fixed expectation as a comparative background. Table 44: Substitutions of the Conditional by alternative inherited matter in C1 Substitute of the Conditional

N occurrences

Indicative present tense Indicative simple past tense Imperative Potential

92 35 16 1 Σ = 144

With regard to the fact that we have 285 occurrences of the Conditional in C1 (recall Table 42), the rate of substitution of the Conditional with other inherited structures is impressive. The total of substitutions in Table 44 shows that at least in one third of the cases, in which the Conditional is the only or the most preferred formal choice in the TF, the consultants opt for a structure marked for another grammatical mood, mostly the Indicative. The following examples illustrate the typology of substitution featuring the Conditional. The sentence in (241) from Eastern Seto presents the expected structural response to the Russian hypothetical conditional sentence Ya by poshel esli by smog . . . ‘I would go, if I could/can’, where the Subjunctive occurs both in the protasis and apodosis clause. Fitting this pattern, and in accordance with the respective TF-structure, the consultant uses the Conditional (in the form of the past participle) in both clauses. In (242), on the other hand, the Eastern Seto consultant produces Indicative present tense form instead of the Conditional form of the verb. The second most frequent substitution in Table 44 (‘Indicative simple past for Conditional’) is exemplified in (243)‒(244), also from Eastern Seto. The first example manifests the expected structure with a Conditional form of the complement verb of manipulative predicate, whereas the second manifests the substitute structure,

Mood

275

in which the complement verb is in the simple past tense form of the Indicative. Examples of the other two substitution types will not be provided here; an example of the ‘Imperative-for-Conditional’ substitution was presented in (228)‒ (229) above, and the only example of what seems to be ‘Potential-for-Conditional’ substitution will be discussed in Section 8.2.2.1.1.3 which is devoted to the behaviour of the Potential mood in LD circumstances. lännü ku sānu no muл (241) Ma I.NOM go:PST. PTCP (≈COND ) if get:PST. PTCP (≈COND ) but I:ADE vaja avita’ onu Vasjale̮ garāži. necessary help.INF oncle Vasya:ALL garage:INE ‘I would go if I can, but I need to help uncle Vasya in the garage.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) (242) Ma lǟn, no mul vaja unole̮ avita’ garaži. I go:PRS .1SG but I:ADE necessary oncle:ALL help.INF garage:INE ‘I would go, but I need to help uncle (Vasya) in the garage.’ (Se-E, LB, N-Izb) (243) Emä ütel, et Katja i Ljonja mother.NOM say.PST.3SG that Katya.NOM and Lyonya.NOM puhastazi hamba’ puhtast. clean:COND. 3PL teeth:NOM clean:TRNSL ‘Mother said that Katya and Lyonya should brush their teeth.’ (Se-E, MVK, Sok) (244) Imä ütel’, et Katja i Ljonja mother.NOM say.PST.3SG that Katya.NOM and Lyonya.NOM puhasti hamba’. clean:PST. 3PL teeth:NOM ‘Mother said that Katya and Lyonya should brush their teeth.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) The speakers’ preference for structures manifesting Indicative present tense instead of the expected Conditional forms169 could be explained by the general

169 In some cases the substitution is not restricted to mere exchange of the mood of the predicate (other things held constant), but we have the exchange of a construction in which the verb is in the Conditional with another construction in which the verb is in the Indicative (or Imperative).

276

MM in the receding varieties

decrease of markedness. The substitution of the morphologically marked mood for morphologically unmarked mood constitutes the formal facet of this drift; one of its functional facets is the loss of distinction between hypothetical conditionals (marked with the Conditional) and factual conditionals (encoded with the Indicative present tense). The substitution of the Conditional forms for structures with VP in the Indicative past tense, on the other hand, could be accounted for as a pattern replication from Russian which builds the Subjunctive from the subjunctive particle and the past tense form of the verb. Note that the first substitution leads to conflation of previously encoded functions under a single formal term, while the second substitution leads to new form-function relation, which does not occur in the TFs of the affected varieties. Table 45 provides information about the inverse substitution, where the Conditional is used in reaction to a source sentence which lacks b(y), chtoby and budto and in which the predicate is in the Indicative (present or past) or in the Imperative. In most of the instantiations counted in the table, the modal force of the Indicative form of a modal verb (or other predicative expression) in the source sentence is mitigated by using the Conditional form of a Finnic modal (cf. can > could, must > should etc.), which is a legitimate operation in the TFs of the respective varieties. Table 45: Conditional as a substitute of alternative inherited matter in C1 Substituted by the Conditional

N occurrences

Indicative present tense Indicative past tense Imperative

14 8 0 Σ = 22

The discrepancy between the figures in Table 44 and Table 45 is so striking that we need not test it for statistical significance: we have 92 instantiations of the ‘Indicative present for Conditional’ substitution against only 14 instantiations of the reverse substitution, and for the Indicative past and the Imperative the respective figures are 35 to 8 and 16 to 0 instantiations. The conclusion that forces itself upon us is that structures with the Conditional are more likely to be replaced by structures with the Indicative or Imperative, than vice versa. Let us now approach the substitution phenomenon from a functional perspective, a more rewarding enterprise for one looking for semantically motivated changes in LD. This involves studying the frequency of substitution of the Conditional with an inherited non-Conditional structure according to the semantic context in which the substitution occurs. The major contexts triggering Conditional coding on the predicate were presented in Section 8.2.1.1.2 and exemplified by (204)‒(211). As we will see, none of these contexts is entirely immune to

Mood

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substitution, but there are huge differences between meaning domains as to the relative probability of occurrence of substitution. Consider first the replacement of the Conditional by alternative mood marking in conditional sentences: hypothetical and counterfactual ones. In (245) from Central Lude, we have a report of a hypothetical conditional sentence, where the ‘payment’ does not strictly entail ‘coming’; the fulfilment of the condition only increases the probability of the described consequence, but it need not necessarily occur. In (246) the consultant fails to produce the hypothetical meaning expressed by the Conditional in the source sentence and provides structure corresponding to a factual conditional sentence with Indicative present tense occurring in both clauses; in this form, the conditional sentence simply conveys that ‘if x holds, then so does p’. tuliž, jesli=bi ̮ (245) Minä kūlin, što Īvan I.NOM hear:PST:1SG that Ivan.NOM come:COND.3SG if=SUBJ müö hänelle maksaižime. we.NOM s/he:ALL pay:COND :1PL ‘I heard that Ivan would come if we pay him.’ (C-L, AS, Pr) (246) Minä kūlin, što Īvan tulou jesli I.NOM hear:PST:1SG that Ivan.NOM come.IND. PRS .3SG if maksām häллə. pay.IND. PRS :1PL s/he:ALL ‘I heard that Ivan would come if we pay him.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) The substitution of the Conditional in counterfactual conditional sentences referring to non-existent situations (at any point of time) is exemplified in (247)‒ (248) from Ingrian. Conforming to expectation, counterfactuality is encoded in both clauses of (247) by the Conditional. In (248), on the other hand, the consultant produces the Indicative simple past tense form instead of the Conditional form in the protasis. Considering that the subjunctive clitic bi ̮ is present in the clause, this structure looks like a precise replica of the Russian Subjunctive construction ‘by + V:PST ’. (247) Još hän nī kovast ei ajaiz, müö if s/he.NOM so hard NEG .3SG drive:COND.CONNEG we.NOM olizima ettǟ vīl koišta. be:COND :1PL far still home:ELA ‘If he hadn’t driven so fast, we would still have been far from home.’ (Ing-S, AJ, Val)

278

MM in the receding varieties

(248) Jesli=bi ̮ isä ei ajand nī kīre if=SUBJ father.NOM NEG .3SG drive:IND. PST.CONNEG so fast mü vēl oleisim ettǟl koista. we. NOM still be:COND :1PL far home:ELA ‘If father hadn’t driven so fast, we would still have been far from home.’ (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) Note that in (248) Conditional marking in the apodosis clause is retained. The opposite situation – retainment in the protasis and substitution in the apodosis – is presented by the counterfactual sentence in (249) from Soikino Ingrian, where the consultant produces the Indicative simple past tense form of the copula verb instead of its Conditional form. Examples like (248) and (249) are valuable artefacts if we look at the coding of counterfactuality at a sentential level. Although the substitution of the original Conditional marking in these examples with Indicative marking can be relegated to the influence of the dominant language, it leads to inter-clausal asymmetry, which is defective not only from a Finnic and Russian perspective, but also in a larger typological context.170 In general, languages tend to encode protasis and apodosis clauses of counterfactual conditional sentences symmetrically. This means that protasis and apodosis clauses are preferably encoded by identical morphosyntactic structures171 (Haiman & Kuteva 2002). This symmetry knows no exceptions in Finnic and Russian, where the verbs in both clauses are in the morphological form of the Conditional, respectively Subjunctive. There are ten examples like (248) and (249) in the data, which violate the rule of counterfactual symmetry of the TFs of the varieties in which they occur. This offense of a basic structural constraint can be ascribed directly to LD, and in particular to loss of formal consistency in the coding of inter-clausal relations. rikkuhuis, miä olin jo (249) Jos mašina ei if car.NOM NEG .3SG break:COND.CONNEG I.NOM be:PST:1SG already aikā kois. long.ago at.home ‘If the car wouldn’t have broken down, I would already have been home a long time ago.’ (Ing-S, MV, Dub)

170 I am grateful to Helen Plado for drawing my attention to this type of defectiveness. 171 This is true of course only if we disregard the presence of protasis and apodosis markers, like if and then.

Mood

279

The frequencies of substitution of the Conditional by alternative non-Conditional structures in hypothetical and counterfactual sentences, whose equivalents in Finnish and Estonian exhibit the Conditional and whose Russian source sentences exhibit the Subjunctive, are presented in Table 46. The low figures in the table do not allow us to make generalizations about the relative disposition of protases (conditions) and apodoses (consequences) to substitution of the Conditional, but it seems that the likelihood of substitution in these types of clauses is similar; the two semantic types show equal share of substitution in protasis and apodosis (5/5 in the hypothetical and 3/3 in the counterfactual type). Table 46: Substitution of the Conditional in conditional sentences in C1

hypothetical counterfactual

N occurrences of substitution

N occurrences of the Conditional

proportion of substitutions from the total

10 6

36 83

27,8% 7,2%

This distribution in the table proves to be statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 5.172, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.0229), which indicates that the Conditional is more liable to substitution in hypothetical than in counterfactual conditional sentences. This can be also seen from the substitution rates in the rightmost column of Table 46. Let us now consider the substitution phenomenon in other types of sentences, which satisfy the condition applied so far: Finnish and Estonian use the Conditional in equivalent contexts and the Russian source structure contains b(y), chtoby or budto. The typology of functional types of sentences manifesting the Conditional was presented in Section 8.2.1.1.2. I will proceed as above and present the ‘substitution’ and ‘persistence’ in pairs of examples. (250) from Eastern Seto exemplifies the expected Conditional in counterfactual as.if-clauses. In (251) from Central Lude, the consultant produces the past participle of the verb, which from a historical point of view is nearly isomorphic with the Russian verb form used in the Subjunctive; a curious choice considering that in the most cases of substitution in this semantic type the speakers produce finite present or past tense forms of the Indicative; see example (175) above. (250) Tal oli sǟne nägo pǟh, ku mǟne s/he:ADE be:PST.3SG such face.NOM head:INE like some e̮nnetus oleisi juhtunu. misfortune.NOM be:COND.3SG happen:PST. PTCP ‘He had an expression on his face as if something bad had happened.’ (Se-E, HT, Pdl)

280

MM in the receding varieties

(251) Hänellä on moine roža vrod’e hänenker s/he:ADE be.PRS .3SG such face.NOM as.if s/he:COM midäto rodīhezen. something happen:PST. PTCP ‘He had an expression on his face as if something had happened to him.’ (C-L, EVM, Pr) As stipulated in the description of the functions of the Conditional, this Mood often occurs in agent-oriented modal and desiderative verbs; consider (252) and (253). The function of the Conditional here is to express politeness and to mitigate potential face-threat. In most of the responses, the consultants fail to produce the Conditional form present in (252), but use the plain Indicative, as in (253), thus showing weakened command of the mitigation-function of this Mood. This might be related to the retreat of the language from everyday communication, which requires continuous rehearsal of this command. It is remarkable that C2 does not contain a single form of the Conditional in such politeness contexts. tahasi tänbä vīl kokko saija Petjaga (252) Ma I.NOM want:COND.1SG today still together get.INF Petya:COM ja Mašaga. and Masha:COM ‘I would like to get together today still with Petya and Masha.’ (Se-E, LB, N-Izb) (253) Ma taha vīl tänbä kokko saija Petja I.NOM want.IND. PRS .1SG still today together get.INF Petya.GEN ja Mašaga. and Masha:COM ‘I would like to get together today still with Petya and Masha.’ (Se-E, VH, N-Izb) In (254) and (255) we have contexts of epistemic modals whose degree of probability is decreased by the Conditional. The epistemic necessity conveyed by the modal in (254) from Eastern Seto is degraded by the presence of the Conditional into a milder assumption. This function of the Conditional seems to be better preserved compared to those above, but see (255) from Ingrian, where the consultant fails to scale down the strength of the epistemic appraisal, as required by the source sentence, and uses the present tense Indicative of the modal verb.

Mood

281

(254) Sjō aoga peäsi ole̮ma kotoh. this.GEN time:COM must:COND.3SG be:INF at.home ‘He should be back home at this time.’ (Se-E, NK, Izb) (255) Hänen pittǟ olla jo kois . . . tähä aikā. s/he:GEN must.IND. PRS .3SG be.INF already at.home at.this.time ‘He should already be back home at this time.’ (Ing-S, MV, Dub) The examples in (256) and (257) from Central Lude present another context associated with the Conditional: purposive adjuncts. Instead of using this Mood in the final clause introduced by štobi ̮ ‘in order that’, as in (256), the author of (257) produces the Indicative past tense form of the verb. niken (256) Hän saлbaži silmät, štobi ei NEG .3SG nobody.NOM s/he.NOM close:PST.3SG eyes:NOM to nägiž kuin itkeu. see:COND.CONNEG as cry.IND. PRS .3SG ‘He closed his eyes, so that nobody could see him crying.’ (C-L, PIK, Sv) (257) Hän saлbas rožan kädeл, štob hända niken s/he.NOM close:PST.3SG face:GEN hands:ADE to s/he.PART nobody.NOM nähnü . . ., šta hän itki. NEG .3SG see:IND. PST. CONNEG that s/he.NOM cry:IND. PST.3SG ei

‘He covered his face with his hands, so that nobody could see that he was crying.’ (C-L, NIP, Vi) Another functional type are expressions of wishes and curses which can be analysed as semantic complements of covert desiderative predicates (such as ‘want’ or ‘hope’); consider the following examples from Ingrian. The Subjunctive in the Russian source sentence is rendered by the Conditional in (258). The function of the Conditional in this context is to make the wish/curse somewhat less resolute than if one used the Indicative. As can be seen, in (259) the consultant fails to convey this distinction. hänen koirat! (258) La söisivät let eat:COND :3PL s/he:GEN dogs.NOM ‘Let the dogs eat him! (Ing-S, AJ, Val)

282

MM in the receding varieties

(259) La händ koirat sǖvät! let s/he.PART dogs.NOM eat:IND. PRS . 3PL ‘Let the dogs eat him! (Ing-L, ZP, Izv) A reader familiar with minor Finnic varieties might object here that some of the ‘substitutions’ presented in these examples occur in structures which are grammatical in the TFs of the respective varieties, see (253), while others, like (257), are obviously non-grammatical. Note, however, that we are not after grammaticality errors here, but after frequency of deviation from a specific expectation. Table 47 compares the frequency of the cases in which this expectation is not borne out (‘substitution’) with the frequency of the cases in which it is borne out (‘persistence’); here too, the rightmost column in the table shows the proportion of the first set out of the total population. Table 47: Substitution and persistence of the Conditional in other semantic contexts in C1 N occurrences N occurrences proportion of of substitution of the Conditional substitutions from the total (adverbial or complement) as.if‑clauses

36

2

94,7%

non‑epistemic modal and desiderative verbs in main clauses (would, should, could)

31

14

68,9%

assumptions (guesses)

24

20

54,5%

complements of desiderative and manipulative predicates

29

65

30,9%

purposive (final) clauses

5

15

25,0%

wishes and curses (optative insubordinations)

3

29

9,4%

Based on the percentages in the table we could claim that similative contexts (encoded by as.if-clauses) are more likely to “desert” the Conditional than agentoriented modality contexts, which in turn are more likely to desert the Conditional than expressions of assumptions and guesses, and cetera, ending up with ‘wishes and curses’, where the Conditional seems to be best preserved. However, a significant problem here is that the populations from which these probabilities are extracted are relatively small. A simple way to increase the credibility of this probabilistic scale – at the expense of its specificity – is to disqualify small proportional distances. Opting for a difference of minimum 10% between the

Mood

283

proportions in Table 47, we arrive at the following hierarchy of susceptibility of semantic types to loss of the Conditional: as.if-clauses > agent-oriented modal & desiderative verbs > assumptions & guesses > complements of desiderative & manipulative predicates, purposive (final) clauses > wishes & curses We can now merge this scale with the statistical facts from Table 46 about the persistence and substitution of the Conditional in conditional sentences. Doing so we arrive at the following unified hierarchy of substitution of the Conditional according to type of contexts; the 10% distance restriction is preserved in the accumulation of this hierarchy: as.if-clauses > agent-oriented modal & desiderative verbs > assumptions & guesses > complements of desiderative & manipulative predicates, hypothetical conditionals, purposive (final) clauses > wishes & curses, counterfactual conditionals This hierarchy states that ‘as.if-clauses’ are most likely to give up Conditional marking and ‘wishes & curses’ and ‘counterfactual conditionals’ are least likely to give up their Conditional marking. In the middle there are three contexts, or groups of contexts, showing intermediate but sufficiently divergent degrees of likelihood for substitution of the Conditional. The inversion of this hierarchy constitutes a unified hierarchy of persistence of the Conditional. There is one caveat, however, which can imperil this hierarchy. Consider the correlation of this hierarchy with the optionality (resp. obligatoriness) of the Conditional coding in each semantic type in the TFs of the Finnic varieties. If we find out that the order on the hierarchy coincides with the relative freedom with which the speaker chooses whether to use the Conditional or an alternative marking, the hierarchy is no more than a trivial representation of the relative conventionalization of certain form-to-function correspondences. The relative optionality of the Conditional in different semantic contexts is a difficult issue which needs a separate study, but the following observation suffices as evidence that the hierarchy of loss (substitution) of the Conditional cannot be reduced to the optionality-factor. In Finnish and Estonian as.if-lexemes obligatorily trigger Conditional on the verb of the complement or adjunct they introduce; nevertheless, the speakers in the obsolescent varieties seem to substitute the Conditional in as.if-clauses more often than in any other context. At the same time, in addition to the Conditional the ‘wishes & curses’ type can be also expressed by one of the structures described in Section 8.2.1.1.1: the morphological third person Imperative or the jussive construction with verb in the Indicative; the only price

284

MM in the receding varieties

for selecting one of these options is the loss of the mitigating component associated with the Conditional. Despite the plenty of formal alternatives, the Conditional is strikingly persistent in the ‘wishes & curses’ type. I will refrain here from hypothesizing about the factors responsible for the relative order on the hierarchy and will return to this issue in Chapter 9. However, certain factors could be disregarded without further consideration. For instance, the hierarchy immediately shows that the feature ‘counterfactuality’ cannot be responsible for the relative degree of persistence of the Conditional; as.if-clauses and counterfactual conditionals refer both to counterfactual situations, but find themselves at the opposite ends of the scale. At the end of this section we will consider the correlation between the variable ‘substitution’ (or ‘loss’) and the variable ‘redundancy’, which intuitively could be expected to be negative. As the redundant coding described in Section 8.2.2.1.1.2.1 is caused by transfer of Russian irrealis elements into inherited structure with irrealis function, I will speak about ‘reinforcement’ of the latter by the former. Adding two co-occurrences of budto ‘as if’ (< Russ.) with the Conditional form of the verb to the co-occurrences of b(i ̮) with the Conditional discussed in the last section, there were a total of 24 instantiations of reinforcement of the Conditional by a function word with ‘irrealis’ meaning: nineteen in conditional sentences and five in the ‘wishes & curses’ type (i.e. in optative contexts). None of the other contexts present in Table 47 exhibited reinforcement. The reinforcement figures for the ‘hypothetical’ and ‘counterfactual’ conditionals are presented in Table 48. Just like in the case of substitution, the observed frequencies are too low to testify to differences between the likelihood of reinforcement in protasis and apodosis clauses: the hypothetical type shows three occurrences of reinforcement in protasis and five in apodosis clause and the counterfactual type eight occurrences in protasis and three in apodosis clause. Table 48: Reinforcement of the Conditional in conditional sentences in C1

hypothetical counterfactual

N occurrences of reinforcement of the Conditional

N occurrences of the Conditional without reinforcement

8 11

28 72

Checking the association between the groups ‘hypothetical’ and ‘counterfactual’ and the outcomes ‘occurrence of reinforcement’ and ‘lack of reinforcement’ in the table, we get a distribution which is not statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 0.911, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.3398). This suggests that hypothetical and counterfactual conditional sentences do not differ with respect to the reinforcement of

Mood

285

the Conditional with Russian irrealis markers. Note, however, that unlike in the case of ‘substitution’, the population of ‘reinforcement’ can be augmented by data from C2. While the population of substitutions was generated from differences between the sets of expected and occurring structures, the population of reinforcement is generated exclusively as a set of occurring structures. The respective frequencies in C2 suggest that the counterfactual type is more likely to attract reinforcement in non-controlled elicitation. All four occurrences of the Conditional in counterfactual sentences in this corpus are reinforced by Russian b(y), while only two of the fifteen occurrences of the Conditional in hypotheticals show such reinforcement.172 It follows that the only contribution of the ‘reinforcement’ feature to the discussion in this section is its negative correlation with the ‘substitution’ feature; a correlation which now can be empirically confirmed. Exactly those semantic types – the counterfactual conditionals, hypothetical conditionals and optatives (‘wishes & curses’) – which are most resistant to replacement of the Conditional by alternative forms are most likely to show reinforcement. This hints at a hidden functional divide between these three semantic types and the other types enlisted in Table 47, which motivates over-specification of whatever feature is associated with the Conditional in the former and under-specification of this feature in the latter. 8.2.2.1.1.3 The Potential The Potential is only of marginal interest to this study, as it occurs only in Central Lude. In the material in C1 and C2, the Potential is most commonly used in protases clauses of factual conditional sentences; recall example (214) from Section 8.2.1.1.3. Another context, where this mood is observed, concerns expressions of probability, where it can be paraphrased with an epistemic adverb (e.g. I will probably immediately fall asleep). While implication and epistemic modality are the typical contexts, where the TFs of Lude and its closest cognate varieties use the Potential mood, the available data contains only one candidate for deviation from the TF. In (260), the consultant uses the Potential in the protasis clause of a hypothetical conditional sentence. Conforming to the grammatical context of the source sentence, all other consultants produced the Conditional mood both in its protasis and apodosis clause. EVM, on the other hand, opted for the Conditional in the apodosis (the standard of the condition), and for the Potential in the protasis clause. 172 Adding these figures to the frequencies from C1 does not change, however, the association between the ‘reinforcement’ and the type of conditional sentence into statistically significant (Yates’ x2 = 0.014, df = 1, Yates’ p = 0.9049).

286

MM in the receding varieties

(260) Minä lähtižin pagō, jesli koira tulnō minun luo. dog.NOM come:POT.3SG I:GEN to I.NOM go:COND :1SG away if ‘I would run away if a dog would come to me.’ (C-L, EVM, Pr) Although this is a thought-provoking case of “joint effort” of the Conditional and Potential in hypothetical sentences, which seems to be unprecedented in the TF, one isolated example does not allow us to speak of extension of the Potential to a novel context. 8.2.2.1.2 Transcategorial comparison: Imperative vs. Conditional In this section, I submit an evaluation of the relative degree of susceptibility to loss, change and innovation of the Imperative and the Conditional.173 The empirical evidence presented in the preceding sections leaves little doubt that the Finnic Conditional is more liable to substitution, change and innovation than the Imperative proper174 and will be eventually lost first. This prediction can be substantiated by two sorts of evidence: a) changes in the token frequency of the two moods, b) changes in their relative contextual distribution. In relation to the first sort of evidence, the fact that we have 16 cases where the consultant opted for the Imperative proper in source context designed to elicit the Conditional and no instantiations of the opposite substitution (see the figures in Tables 44 and 45) is already suggestive for the relative sustainability of these two Moods. Table 49 has been generated from the figures in Tables 40, 44 and 45, and shows the frequencies of substitution and persistence of these two morphological moods in source contexts designed to elicit either of them. Table 49: Substitution among grammatical moods

Imperative Conditional

is substituted by a construction with another Mood

occurs as a substitute of a construction with another Mood

2 143

43 22

173 Due to its early loss and the ensuing lack of primary data, the Potential will not be dealt with here. 174 I will ignore the first and third person Imperative here, as these domains already show advanced erosion of dedicated marking in the TFs of the varieties studied.

Mood

287

The association between rows and columns in the table is statistically extremely significant (Yates’ x2 = 108.030, df = 1, Yates’ p < 0.0001), which suggests that the Imperative proper tends to feature as a ‘substitute’ for alternative structural patterns, whereas the Conditional tends to be ‘substituted’ by alternative structural patterns. These tendencies lead to a increase in the frequency of the Imperative proper and decrease of the frequency of the Conditional in the usage of the last speakers of the varieties studied. An important caveat here however is that the ceteris paribus condition is not satisfied in this count of grammatical mood substitution. The figures in the table do not say anything about the relative susceptibility of different moods to substitution, but as to the relative susceptibility of constructions with different moods to substitution. As already noted, in many cases the substitute does not differ from the substituted only in terms of Mood marking, but also in terms of other constructional properties. Regardless of intervening factors, there is causality between these two relations: decreasing frequency of constructions containing a certain grammatical feature necessarily implies decreasing frequency of this feature. The evidence about the contextual distribution of the Conditional and the Imperative in the material clearly showed contextual shrinkage of the first and contextual expansion of the latter. This means that while the Conditional is demotivated in certain contexts in which it is used in the TF, the Imperative is extended to new contexts. For instance, the Conditional seems to be partly abandoned in adverbial or complement as.if-clauses and on epistemic and desiderative verbs, whereas the Imperative proper often supersedes deontic modals and the Conditional in complements of manipulative predicates. The ultimate evidence that the Imperative proper is functionally better “stored” than the Conditional is that even counterfactual sentences – the domain in which the Conditional is best preserved – show more substitutions of this Mood than directive contexts show substitutions of the Imperative by alternative structures (compare the figures in Tables 39, 40 and 46).175

175 Another possible criterion for the relative susceptibility to loss and change of these two Moods is the magnitude of defective formation. The structural typology of defectiveness that can be attributed specifically to LD circumstances is, however, difficult to operationalize as a measure for loss, change and innovation, and requires a separate study (e.g. based on a string metric, such as Levenshtein distance). Clearly, both grammatical moods discussed here show a variety of defective formations; recall the defective Imperative forms discussed in Section 8.2.1.1.1.1 and the use of the simple past forms of the Indicative instead of the Conditional forms, or the generalization of the strong (Impersonal) consonantal grade in Conditional forms (discussed in Section 8.2.2.1.1.2).

288

MM in the receding varieties

8.2.2.2 Sentence mood (clause type) The issue of imperative clauses, which functionally correspond to directive speech acts and as a rule contain expressions of the Imperative mood, was explored in Section 8.2.2.1.1.1. Here I will discuss the replacement of indirect speech by direct speech; this substitution involves coercive (inter-clause) phenomena which influence the coding of clause type in general and the imperative clause type in particular. Before that, I will briefly discuss the marking of interrogative clauses. 8.2.2.2.1 Interrogatives Except for a small section of Q2, the questionnaires were not designed to elicit polar or content interrogatives in independent clauses, and therefore the occurrence of such questions in the material comes close to their occurrence in normal (uncontrolled) speech. The available data is, however, sufficient to show that the transfer of question markers from the dominant language is very rare. Of principal interest here are main clauses, as subordinate clauses which are formally encoded like questions lack the illocutionary force of questions (Lehmann 1988; Cristofaro 2003: 34). Only two out of the 32 feedbacks to direct polar questions show transfer of the interrogative marker from Russian, and none of the 33 feedbacks to direct content questions show such transfer. Consider example (261) with the Russian polar question clitic -li. According to its position in Russian (on the first word able to carry the prosodic stress), the clitic is attached to the connegative verb form. This position is not accepted in the TF of Ingrian which, just like the other Finnic varieties marking polar questions with enclitics, requires the enclitic to be hosted by the first element of the sentence, regardless of whether this element is able to carry the prosodic stress. šiult šoittā? sā=li get=Q (yes/no) you:ABL call.INF ‘Can’t I call from your place?’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm)

(261) Ei

NEG .3SG

It seems that in subordinated clauses the transfer of the interrogative polar clitic is slightly more common. As already shown in Table 32 on page 234, C1 contains four transfers of this clitic out of a population of 29 occurrences. One example of such transfer was provided in (188), another one is presented (262) from Central Lude. The evidence we have is nevertheless too meagre to claim that the transferability of the polar marker depends on its occurrence in independent or dependent (complement) clauses.

Mood

289

(262) Sinä nägid, ujeli=li Īvan? you.NOM see:PST. 2SG swim:PST.3SG =Q (yes/no) Ivan.NOM ‘Did you see whether Ivan was swimming (or not)?’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) Content question markers (such as who, where, when, how etc.), on the other hand, seem to be resistant to transfer regardless of whether they occur in independent or dependent clauses. Out of 40 occurrences of such interrogative elements in dependent clauses we have zero occurrences of transfer from Russian. This suggests that polar question markers are in general more susceptible to transfer than content question markers. If this holds true, we can conclude that whatever rationale is behind the relative susceptibility to transfer of these elements, it is stronger than the factor ‘bound vs. free’-morpheme. As is wellknown, typological evidence from language contact shows that bound morphemes are less likely to be borrowed than free elements. This predicts the opposite relative likelihood for transfer of content question words and the polar clitic than the one observed in my material. 8.2.2.2.2 Selection of indirect and direct speech In Sections 8.2.2.1.1.1.2 and 8.2.2.1.1.2.2 I elaborated on Mood substitution in the available material. The present section will shortly examine the retreat of structures marking indirect speech and their replacement by direct speech structures, which often involves Mood substitution. On first thought, it might appear that this retreat is explicable by the general retreat of subordinated clauses (encoding indirect speech, among other things) and the respective decay of clausal embedding mechanisms: a common phenomenon in language obsolescence. We will see, however, that the substitution of indirect speech for direct speech does not correlate with loss of the complementizers which are the major subordination marking device in Finnic. Direct speech and indirect speech differ in terms of reference point – the origo – and the switch from one origo to another causes change of the personal, spatial and temporal deixis of the speech act. Unlike spatial and temporal deixis, in Finnic personal deixis is an obligatory grammatically marked feature of each utterance containing a predicate, and therefore constitutes the most reliable diagnostic for switch of deictic centre. Using this diagnostic, I observed that the speakers of receding Finnic tend to replace indirect speech with direct speech. C1 contains fourteen occurrences of this substitution, the examples coming from Ingrian, Central Lude and Eastern Seto. Consider (263) from Central Lude, which is a feedback to source sentence referring to a speech act which is encoded as an infinitival complement (Vanya asked Masha to come with him). The

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MM in the receding varieties

consultant produces, however, direct speech with the second person Imperative form. (263) Vanja kutšui Mašua läkkä minun=keл. Vanya ask:PST.3SG Masha:PART come.IMP. 2SG I.GEN =COM ‘Vanya asked Masha: ‘Come with me!’’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) Examples like (263) exhibiting the typical direct speech structure, however, constitute the minority of substitutions of this type. In eleven out of the fourteen occurrences, the consultant replaces the finite complement clause of a manipulative, utterance or ‘think’ predicate with a structure identical with the structure used in direct speech, but preserves the complementizer ‘that’. Consider examples (264), (265) and (266), containing such hybrid structures that are not grammatical in the TFs of the respective varieties. In the first example, which presents a feedback to the source sentence ‘Ivan thinks that he would like to meet some friends tonight’, the actor arguments in the two clauses are co-referential and must be in the third person singular. The consultant, however, changes his deictic orientation and reproduces the internal monologue of the referent in first person singular, but without deleting the complementizer ‘that’. The resultant structure is an odd combination of a complementizer (expected to introduce indirect speech) and direct speech in first person singular. This structure is not grammatical in the TF of Soikino Ingrian, just as *Hej thinks that Ij would like to meet some friends is not grammatical in English. One of the manifestations of the conversion of indirect speech to direct speech in this clause is the use of the Indicative instead of the expected Conditional.176 In (265) from Central Lude, we have a similar switch from third person singular actor (the person whose speech is reported) to first person singular, where the complementizer što ‘that’ introducing complement clauses of utterance predicates is preserved (cf. the source sentence ‘He said that he has seen this man’). Just like in (264), this combination is ungrammatical in the TF (cf. Eng *Hej said that Ij saw this man). Finally, in (266) from Eastern Seto, the expected pronominal and verb agreement marking in the complement clause headed by et ‘that’ is third person plural; the source sentence is ‘The aunt insisted that they stay a little longer and have some tea’. Instead, the consultant takes the perspective of the aunt and produces direct speech in which the addressees of the invitation are in second person plural. 176 More precisely the consultant fails to produce the Conditional form of the verb ‘want’ (as implied by the optative context and the Subjunctive in the Russian source sentence), but produces the Indicative past tense form, which is a structural reflection of the verb form in the Russian Subjunctive (recall the discussion in Section 8.2.2.1.1.2.1).

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Given the presence of the complementizer, this is a hybrid structure – a mixture of direct and indirect speech, which is not grammatical in the TF (cf. Eng *Aunt told themj that youj should stay a little longer). (264) Vanja dūmae, što miä tahoin nähä Vanya.NOM think.PRS .3SG that I.NOM want:PST.1SG see.INF tovariššoin kera. friends:GEN with ‘Vanya thinks ‒ I would like to see some friends.’ (Ing-S, AIE, Sm) (265) Hän sanoi, što mina tädä mužikkoa s/he.NOM say:PST.3SG that I.NOM this:PART man:PART d’o nägin. already see:PST.1SG ‘He said – I already saw this man.’ (C-L, MVT, Pr) (266) No tädi ütles, et ti viäte vīl jǟmä. so aunt.NOM say:PST.3SG that you.NOM must:PRS . 2PL longer stay:INF ‘Aunt said – You must stay a little longer! (Se-E, LB, N-Izb) It is not clear what has motivated the structures exemplified in (264)‒(266). The direct speech constructions in these examples seem to be structurally less complex than the expected indirect speech constructions, but the presence of the complementizer suggests that reduction of structural complexity is not the decisive motivator we are looking for. Another argument against structural reduction as an explanatory factor is the effort required for the form transformation (change of person marking on the verb and its first argument) conditioned by the deictic shift from ‘speaker’ to ‘non-speaker’. The fact that these structures are in no way maintained by existing patterns in Russian makes them even more enigmatic. A possible account, which reconciles the switch of indirect speech to direct speech and the preservation of the complementizer, is to analyse ‘that’ in such examples as a quotative marker introducing another “voice” (see Keevallik 2008 on discussion of such functions of the Estonian et ‘that’). 8.2.2.3 A brief summary In this section on grammatical and sentence mood, I observed a number of deviations from the TF and correlated these with semantic values, such as ‘prohibitive’, ‘hortative’, ‘counterfactual’, ‘purposive’, ‘polar interrogative’, etc.. Just as in the case of modality, I observed that the degree of deviation from the

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TF in the domain of Mood is not random, but (at least partly) correlates with meaning.

8.3 Mood and modality in LD: recapitulation of the most noticeable findings In Chapter 8 I submitted several specific claims about the behaviour of MM in LD. These can be classified into ‘non-relational’ and ‘relational’ statements. The first type of statements are statements about properties (predicated on referents; recall the “processes” in Section 6.4.2), whereas the second are statements about relationships between properties (recall the “implicational/probabilistic hierarchies” in Section 6.4.2). This distinction corresponds to the distinction between ‘nonimplicational’ and ‘implicational’ universals in language typology (e.g. Comrie 1981: 17‒18), though here ‘relations’ are not postulated in terms of condition (‘if a is affected by the phenomenon P, then b is also [likely to be] affected by it’), but in terms of affectedness hierarchy (a > b, meaning a is more likely to be affected than b by P).177 In other words, relational statements are formulated as scales of affectedness to particular changes identified in the study.178 I have posited only four non-relational (i.e. non-hierarchical) statements in this chapter, three for modality, and one for sentence mood. Consider Table 50 in which these discoveries are supplied with abbreviations which will be used for short-cut reference in Chapter 9. Table 50: Non‑hierarchical statements description

abbreviation

The distinction between dynamic and circumstantial‑deontic possibility tends to be lost

MM‑1

The distinction between inherent and acquired ability tends to be lost.

MM‑2

The choice of possibility modals shows increasing idiolect divergence (the degree of divergence does not depend on polarity or simplex modal value)

MM‑3

Indirect speech structures tend to be replaced with hybrid structures consisting of the neutral complementizer and direct speech structure

MM‑4

177 Consider the following universal (from Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 257) formulated in two different ways: (implication) If non-pronominal subjects and agents are genitivized in action nominalizations, then pronominal ones are genitivized as well; (scale of likelihood) Pronominal subjects and agents are more likely to genitivize in ANCs than non-pronominal ones. (The Universals Archive, http://typo.uni-konstanz.de/archive/intro/index.php, Universal 135) 178 This type of hierarchies (or scales) resembles borrowing scales in the work of Yaron Matras (e.g. Matras 2009), with the difference that in the latter P is a constant (‘borrowing’), while in our case it is a nominal variable, whose values are the discovered phenomena.

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At the same time, I have posited a number of relational statements about the degree of affectedness of objects of scrutiny to processes identified in the study. These statements are more useful in a search for a common semantic rationale, as they are more specific than the ones in Table 50. In the next chapter, I will match individual terms on these hierarchies with units of different conceptual complexity. These hierarchies are consecutively listed in Table 51 for modality and Table 52 for Mood. As can be seen, some of these relational statements (hierarchies, scales) connect functional notions, other structural notions; this distortion will be repaired in the analysis in Chapter 9. Table 51: Affectedness hierarchies in the modality domain phenomenon

susceptibility hierarchy

abbreviation

Possibility–necessity blending

negative > affirmative

MM-5

Possibility–necessity blending

epistemic > deontic > dynamic/ circumstantial

MM-6

Particlization of modal verbs

modal verbs with narrow (epistemic) semantics > multifunctional modal verbs

MM-7

Infinitive ellipsis, which cannot be explained as a pattern replication from Russian

epistemic > agent-oriented

MM-8

Transfer of modals from Russian

epistemic > agent-oriented

MM-9

Transfer of modals from Russian

non-epistemic necessity > non-epistemic possibility

MM-10

Transfer of complement taking predicate types

mental perception & propositional attitude > other types of CTPs

MM-11

Transfer of complementizers

irrealis SoAs > polar

MM-12

Transfer of adverbializers

reason & purpose > condition > time

MM-13

Transfer of subordinators

complementizers & adverbializers > relativizers

MM-14

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Table 52: Affectedness hierarchies in the domain of (grammatical or sentence) mood phenomenon

susceptibility hierarchy

abbreviation

Defective formation of second person Imperative

negative (prohibitive) > positive

MM-15

Loss of dedicated marking (synthetic or analytic) of the Imperative

first person > third person > second person

MM-16

Loss of dedicated marking of the Imperative proper

second person plural > second person singular

MM-17

Loss of the tense forms of the Conditional

periphrastic > simple

MM-18

Substitution of the Conditional for (a construction with) another Mood according to context type

as.if-clauses > agent-oriented modal & desiderative verbs > assumptions & guesses > complements of desiderative & manipulative predicates & hypothetical conditionals, purposive (final) clauses > wishes & curses, counterfactual conditionals

MM-19

Reinforcement of the Conditional forms according to context type

wishes and curses & counterfactual conditionals & hypothetical conditionals > other contexts

MM-20

Substitution for (a construction with) another Mood

Conditional > Imperative

MM-21

Pattern and matter replication in mood marking

Conditional > Imperative

MM-22

Transfer of question markers

polar > content

MM-23

9 Toward a uniform account of the phenomena observed in the domain of MM The reader might be confused by the opportunistic explanations of the observed phenomena provided here and there in the exposition. This arbitrariness has been allowed for a reason: I was guessing the possible types of functional motivations of seemingly random phenomena. Having a general impression of the variety of possible motivating factors, one is almost ready to concede that what we observe in the MM-domain in LD circumstances is a “heterogeneous condition” with multiple causes. In this chapter, I focus on similarity rather than on heterogeneity, and pose the following question: What could be the factor capturing the widest possible range of discoveries (the statements in Tables 50‒52). This sort of theoretical reductionism will not be applied in a rigid way. A uniform explanation which accounts for many phenomena simultaneously does not automatically rule out the random explanations provided in Chapter 8, but could be in two types of relation to them: it could be either partly co-extensive with them (i.e. dependable on them) or could be not co-extensive, but participate with them in multiple causation. I will venture an account of the observed phenomena in terms of ‘conceptual complexity’. More specifically, I will examine the tendencies and hierarchies listed in Tables 50‒52 for correlations with the following two variables: a) conceptual complexity associated with the expressions occurring in the tables; b) relative semantic scope of the meanings (encoded by the expressions) occurring in the tables. The reference to linguistic expression is necessary here because some of the constituents in these tendencies/hierarchies refer to form, others to meaning, and yet others to semantic distinctions encoded by form-meaning pairs. During each of the test procedures, I will level out this inconsistency by reducing the argument to content. The chapter is organized as follows. First, I will shortly discuss the notion of ‘conceptual complexity’ within the theory of ‘markedness’ and will then identify those discoveries of the study (i.e. those tendencies/hierarchies) which can be immediately explained in terms of the conceptual complexity of the meaning units to which they pertain. The other statements in the tables above will be confronted with the second variable: ‘relative semantic scope over entities of different conceptual complexity’. This variable is more specific than the first, and unlike the first can be construed as a genuine ordinal variable with a definite number of values that can be combined with the constituents of the hierarchies DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-009

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in the tables. These definite values correspond to the ‘layers of (conceptual) structure’ stipulated in Functional Grammar (FG) and Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) whose models will be introduced before the test is conducted. Finally, I will reduce the ‘semantic scope’ to ‘conceptual complexity’ and in this way will arrive at a single factor which captures the vast majority of the discoveries about the behaviour of MM in LD.

9.1 Markedness as conceptual complexity Most of the explanations of structural phenomena in LD occurring in the literature draw on ‘markedness’; recall the examples discussed in Sections 2.2 and 2.3. As we will see below, ‘conceptual complexity’ and ‘markedness’ are partly co-extensive terms and therefore the most natural way to approach language obsolescence from the perspective of conceptual complexity is to do it with reference to markedness. In a powerful plea against ‘markedness’ as explanatory concept, Haspelmath (2006) presented twelve senses of this term in the linguistic literature, classified in four larger classes of senses. Accordingly, ‘markedness’ is conceptualized as complexity, difficulty, abnormality or multidimensional correlation (i.e. as a conjunction of different classes of markednesss). For instance, marked members of oppositions are (phonetically, morphologically or conceptually) more difficult for users and are respectively acquired later by children than unmarked members. Likewise, marked members of oppositions are often considered to be in one or several ways abnormal compared to unmarked members; for example, they are linguistically rarer and refer to rarer phenomena in the world, or show more restricted structural distribution than unmarked members. In many works this ‘rarity’-criterion encompasses typological rarity, and profiles ‘markedness’ as a typological implication: if x is found in a language, than y is also expected to occur. In our case, this conception of ‘markedness’ renders it entirely superfluous; it only provides another name for observed phenomena and therefore cannot be explanatory for them: saying that x is more susceptible to loss, change and innovation than y is another way of saying that x is marked in relation to y. Markedness understood as complexity usually refers to overt specification of phonetic or grammatical distinctions, giving rise to more complex strings of formal structure. Givón (1990: 947; 1991: 337) was one of the first to propagate ‘cognitive complexity’ as a defining characteristic of ‘markedness’ by relating complexity to difficulty. He argued that cognitive complexity boils down to attention, mental effort and/or processing time.

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In the following analysis I will regard ‘markedness’ as ‘conceptual complexity’. The latter refers to the degree of semantic specification and relative elaboration of meaning structure. Considering different senses of ‘markedness’ in the explanation of the hierarchies in Tables 51 and 52 we will end up in a many-to-many relationship. Hierarchies relating different types of entities can be confirmed and counter-evidenced by different classes (or dimensions) of ‘markedness’. Reconciling the different kinds of tendencies and hierarchies in the tables and the different dimensions of markedness into analytically comparable inferences is an arduous enterprise, which I renounce, preferring a more solid framework. From here on, I will avoid the dubious label of ‘markedness’ (which, as we saw, often refers to formal coding and frequency) and will concentrate on ‘meaning’ (lexical or grammatical), henceforth referring simply to ‘conceptual complexity of meaning’. Taking a superficial look at the discoveries in the tables above, in ten cases we can immediately identify covariance with ‘conceptual complexity’. Among the tendencies in Table 50 this is manifested as reduction of conceptual complexity. Among the hierarchies in Tables 51 and 52 this is manifested by the fact that units of higher conceptual complexity tend to be more susceptible to loss, change and innovation than units of lower conceptual complexity. These two manifestations are interrelated: being conceptually more complex means to be affected earlier by structural change associated with LD, which is conducted as structural reduction (including defectiveness as a rule reduction). In other words, the structural pattern and matter inherited from TF is applied to conceptual structure of lower and lower complexity. The statements in Tables 50‒ 52 do not seem to contain counter-examples to the correlation between ‘greater conceptual complexity’ and ‘higher affectedness’. MM-1 and MM-2 are non-hierarchical statements concerning micro-extensions of possibility modals that lead to loss of semantic distinctions. MM-1 states that the distinction between dynamic and circumstantial-deontic possibility tends to get lost and MM-2 that the distinction between inherent and acquired ability tends to get lost. Clearly, the loss of formal distinction between cognitively salient concepts is an instantiation of reduction of conceptual complexity. Certain structures cease to be marked for certain specification. MM-3 relates to a decrease of conceptual complexity in a less obvious way. This statement posits that the choice of possibility modals shows increasing idiolect divergence. The consultants tend to generalize different modals in certain semantic domains, but the possibility to generalize different modals presupposes the existence of alternatives (i.e. different modals) in the TF; alternatives which are not random, but mark subtle distinctions. The generalization of a certain modal

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and the concurrent suppression of alternatives lead to loss of x-specifications made in the antecedent variety (TF). MM-5, stating that ‘possibility–necessity blending’ is more likely to occur in negative than in affirmative context, can be easily explained in terms of conceptual complexity. Clearly, manipulating modals in affirmative context is a less challenging task than combining them with negation (internal or external). “Errors” are more likely to occur in contexts of greater conceptual complexity than in contexts of lesser complexity. In other words, the probability of a user’s failure to produce the “correct” form correlates positively with the conceptual complexity of the meaning unit. The same goes for MM-15 which states that defective formation of second person Imperative is more likely to occur in negative (prohibitive) contexts than in positive contexts. It is obvious that the probability of defectiveness correlates positively here with the relative conceptual complexity of the meaning string. Negation is the marked feature of the polarity opposition, which means that the prohibitive is reducible to the primitives ‘directive’ plus ‘marked value of the polarity opposition’, while the positive imperative is reducible to ‘directive’ plus ‘unmarked value of the polarity opposition’. Accordingly, the consultants have more problems to assign the correct form to the conceptually more complex semantic unit. MM-16 states that the loss of dedicated marking of the Imperative proceeds along the cline ‘first person’ > ‘third person’ > ‘second person’. Leaving aside ‘first person’ which tends to lose its dedicated marking already in the TF, it could be said that third person Imperatives are conceptually more complex than second person Imperatives. It was stipulated in Section 8.2.2.1.1.1.1 that second person Imperatives are genuine directives (commands) while third person Imperatives as basically descriptions of directives.179 Descriptions of directives presuppose directives (as performative acts) and therefore are more complex. Put in simple terms, descriptive uses are sophistications of performances.180 By claiming this I disagree with Jan Nuyts and associates, who claimed that ‘obligation’ (a 179 Although descriptions of commands can be secondarily used as proper commands; consider the following description of a directive, which is applied by the king as command to his soldiers: He should be executed! (Kasper Boye, p.c.) 180 This claim receives support from animal communication systems which are considered to precede human language. It has been suggested for instance that apes’ symbols are performative rather than referential; apes signal effectively rather than meaningfully (Wallmann 1992: 77). (I am grateful to Kasper Boye for drawing my attention to this fact). Recall also the acquisition hierarchy ‘deontic possibility > epistemic possibility’ in Section 4.3.2, which was explained by the fact that instrumental behaviour is a precursor to the descriptive function of the language, not vice versa.

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directive meaning) is a more complex notion than ‘moral necessity’, because it does not involve only an assessment of the degree of moral acceptability of a SoAs, but also an additional “translation” of this assessment into non-verbal terms of action (Nuyts 2005; see also Nuyts 2006 and Nuyts, Byloo & Diepeveen 2005). I assume the opposite: moral necessity presupposes the existence of the directive meaning of obligation; it is conceptually secondary to it and therefore more complex. MM-17, stating that second person plural Imperative forms are more susceptible to loss and change than second person singular Imperative forms, correlates with the factor of conceptual complexity in a trivial way. Plurality is conceptually marked in relation to singularity. Therefore second person plural Imperative forms are semantically more complex than second person singular Imperative forms. MM-18 claims that periphrastic forms of the Conditional are lost before simple forms. This could be directly explained in terms of relative conceptual complexity: periphrastic forms of the Conditional have past time reference, whereas simple forms of the Conditional have non-past reference.181 Given that ‘non-past’ is the default (unmarked) value of the temporal opposition, the periphrastic Conditional can be said to contain the additional specification ‘past’ and to correspond to a more complex meaning structure. MM-21 and MM-22 concern the relative exposure to ‘substitution’ and ‘transfer’ of the Conditional and Imperative mood, where the Conditional shows a higher degree of disposition to these phenomena than the Imperative. Just as in the preceding hierarchies, we are dealing here with form, but need to account for the ordering on the hierarchy in terms of meaning (function). This is not difficult: the Conditional could be said to express a more complex meaning than the Imperative. While the Imperative is an expression of an imperative illocution (see Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 71), we saw in Sections 3.2.2 and 8.2.1.1.2 that the function of the Conditional cannot be detected by a simple definition. The semantic correlate of the Conditional is either a very abstract concept, or constitutes a cluster of meanings. The tendencies/hierarchies enlisted in this section show positive covariance with ‘conceptual complexity’. In other words, MM structures corresponding to meaning units of higher conceptual complexity are more susceptible to loss, change and innovation in LD than structures corresponding to meaning units of lower conceptual complexity. 181 It could of course be debated whether tense forms of the Conditional have temporal reference or only simulate such. In conditional sentences for example, the periphrastic forms of the Conditional encode contrafactivity rather than tense.

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9.2 Semantic scope The semantic scope of expressions of modality and mood was dealt with in Sections 3.1.4 and 3.2.2. The discussion in these sections included occasional reference to units of meaning, such as ‘states-of-affairs’ and ‘propositions’. In this section, I will operationalize the factor ‘semantic scope of a meaning over another meaning unit’ as a proper variable. In the first subsection, I will provide an exhaustive list of the possible conceptual units, where each unit is supplied with a respective definition. In the second subsection, the behaviour of the MMelements in receding Finnic will be checked against the conceptual units (or entities) found in their immediate scope.

9.2.1 The notion of layered conceptual structure The scope hierarchies identified in Sections 3.1.4 and 3.2.2 reflect the layering of meaning structure, where layers are conceived of as representations of distinct conceptual entities like ‘states-of-affairs’, ‘propositions’, etc. This notion of ‘layered structure’ – one of the foundations of Functional Grammar (FG) (e.g. Hengeveld 1989; 1990) and its successor, Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008) – will be adopted here with one reservation. In order to ensure that the argument to be defended in the next section rests on purely semantic premises (i.e. to avoid any “contamination” by reference to form), I will follow Harder (1996: 228‒243), who argued that the layers are not direct representations of ‘clause structure’, as initially postulated by FG (e.g. Dik 1997: 49‒52), but of ‘content (or semantic) structure’ which consequently is mapped onto clause structure (see Boye 2012: 194 for discussion). Below I will provide a description of the notion of ‘layer of content (semantic, or conceptual) structure’ and a detailed list of the layers necessary for the analysis of the semantic scope of MM-elements in receding Finnic. But let me first outline the architecture of FDG (with occasional reference to its predecessor FG), in which these ‘layers’ are integrated. Such an outline is necessary, even though I am not going to apply this theory as an analytical tool in the following exposition182; neither am I seeking to make contribution to it. I will only use its unified approach to entities (layers) of conceptual structure, remaining somewhat agnostic as to other premises in its theoretical machinery. The distinction between ‘SoAs’ (‘events’, ‘actions’, ‘second order entities’) and ‘propositions’ (‘potential facts’, 182 I will entirely ignore its formalization accessory, for example.

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‘third order entities’) as units of analysis has its roots in philosophical metaphysics (see Boye 2012: 191‒193 for an overview), but only in the last decades, mainly due to FG and its successor FDG, has it been applied to the description of linguistic phenomena. FG and FDG integrate these conceptual units in a coherent system, including more complex entities, such as ‘speech acts’, and less complex entities, such as ‘properties’ (cf. Hengeveld 2005; Hengeveld & van Lier 2008) which, as we will see, are also relevant to the description of the scope of MM. FDG distinguishes between ‘levels’ of organization and ‘layers’ of structure. The model incorporates four interrelated levels of organization, occurring in a hierarchical top-down order: the Interpersonal Level, the Representational Level, the Morphosyntactic Level, and the Phonological Level (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 12‒18). The first two are levels for ‘formulation’ (the Interpersonal for pragmatic, and the Representational for semantic analysis of formulation), whereas the other two (the Morphosyntactic and the Phonological) are levels for ‘encoding’. Configurations generated at the Interpersonal and Representational Level are translated into morphosyntactic structure at the Morphosyntactic Level, which then is translated into phonological structure at the Phonological Level (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 12‒13). I will ignore the levels needed for the analysis of coding (the Morphosyntactic and the Phonological), as our primary concern here is the meaning, and because the analysis of formal structure was already carried out in theory-neutral terms in the preceding chapters. The Interpersonal Level represents a linguistic unit in terms of its communicative function (or intention), and the Representation Level in terms of its semantics (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 5‒6). Each level is layered; in other words, each layer has “a hierarchically ordered layered organization and is displayed as a layered structure” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 14). This is a conception, where the theory has substantially changed since its beginnings in the end of 1970s. Initially, the ‘layering’ was construed as a property of what became the Representational level (see e.g. Dik & Hengeveld 1991), and only with the development of FDG was promoted to a dimension pertinent to the other levels as well (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 14). The Interpersonal Level contains the following layers of analysis, each corresponding to a respective conceptual unit: the Move, which may contain one or more Discourse Acts, which contain an Illocution, which specifies the relation between the Participants in the speech situation and the Communicated Content. I will economize here and will not provide examples of these units, because most of them are irrelevant for the description of MM, which is a semantic (not pragmatic) meaning domain and as such is encoded by conventionalized structures; the reader is referred to Hengeveld & Mackenzie (2008: 46‒127) for

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examples. Two units – the Discourse Act (corresponding to the ‘speech act’ layer in FG; Hengeveld 1989; 1997) and the Illocution – are, however, partly relevant to the description of MM. As we saw in Section 3.2.1, ‘sentence mood’ is defined with direct reference to ‘speech act’. The Representational Level contains the following layers, each corresponding to a respective conceptual unit: Propositional Content (I will refer here simply to ‘proposition’), which contains one or more descriptions of States-of-Affairs (I will simply refer to ‘SoAs’), which are characterized by Properties or Relations, which may contain (descriptions of) Individuals and further Properties. The number of layers has grown with the elaboration of the theory (cf. e.g. Hengeveld 1989, Hengeveld 1997 and Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 15‒16), due to the pressure toward descriptive adequacy. The latest addition is the Episode – an intermediate layer between propositions and SoAs, which was established by the need to account for the congruity of tense across SoAs, and in particular, to accommodate the distinction between absolute and relative tense (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 157‒166). As this distinction is irrelevant to the present study, I will ignore it here. Essentially, any layer is conceptually more complex than any layer below it, because it is composed of this layer plus additional semantic (or pragmatic) content. Table 53 presents the meaning units (layers) with potential relevance to the analysis of the behaviour of MM observed in my data. While propositions and SoAs are of central relevance for MM, ‘speech acts’, ‘illocutions’ and ‘individuals’ are only of marginal relevance, but are included to illustrate the adjacent layers of conceptual structure. Each meaning unit is represented in FDG by a respective layer183 which is supplied in the table with definition and examples. The ‘layers of structure’ are made of several primitives in FDG, the most important of which are ‘head’, ‘modifier’ and ‘operator’. The variable of each layer (e.g. Illocution) is restricted by respective ‘head’. For example, in Let’s leave the club! the Illocution is characterized as Hortative by the particle let’s which functions as its ‘head’ (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 73). The resulting structure can be then modified by (lexical) ‘modifiers’ or specified by (grammatical) ‘operators’ (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 14). The distinction between ‘modifiers’ and ‘operators’ is irrelevant here and therefore I will ignore it, referring only to ‘meaning’, regardless of whether it is lexically or grammatically encoded. What is important here is that such modifying/specifying meanings have the unit (i.e. the layer) with which they are associated in their immediate 183 Layers are only representations of semantic entities of different complexity (see Boye 2012: 295‒296), and therefore are not strictly equal to them, but this distinction is irrelevant for the present analysis and I will ignore it.

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Table 53: Relevant layers of meaning structure Layer (meaning unit)

Definition

Example

Speech act (Discourse Act)

“the smallest identifiable unit of communicative behavior” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 60, based on Kroon 1995: 65).

Answer me dammit! I want to go home dammit. Did you do it or not dammit? The use of dammit with different Illocutions shows that it operates above the illocutionary layer, i.e. at the Discourse Act layer. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 64‒65)

Illocution

Proposition

State-of-Affairs

“captures the lexical and formal properties of that Discourse Act that can be attributed to its conventionalized interpersonal use in achieving a communicative intention.” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 68)

I promise you sincerely that this is not a trick!

a mental construct which can be located neither in space nor in time, but can be evaluated in terms of its truth. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 131)

Probably/hopefully/undoubtedly Sheila is ill.

“can be located in space and time and can be evaluated in terms of its existence” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 131). “States-of-Affairs can thus be said to ‘(not) occur’, ‘(not) happen’, or ‘(not) be the case’ at some point or interval in time.” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 166)

Sheila saw Peter leave.

The word sincerely modifies the illocutionary expression of promise. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 81)

The underlined modifiers are concerned with the specification of the attitude of the speaker toward the truth of the proposition ‘Sheila is ill’. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 151)

The immediate perception verb form saw specifies that the SoAs ‘Peter leave’ has been witnessed. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 177) They habitually go to bed at ten o’clock. The event quantification expression habitually specifies the frequency of occurrence of the SoAs ‘go to bed’. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 179)

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Table 53: Continued Layer (meaning unit)

Definition

Example

Property

“Properties have no independent existence and can only be evaluated in terms of their applicability, either to other types of entity or to the situation they describe in general.” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 131)

John walked slowly. The manner adverbial slowly modifies the Property of ‘walking’. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 208) extremely famous The adverb extremely modifies the lexical Property ‘famous’. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 230)

Individual

“can be located in space and can be evaluated in terms of its existence”. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 131); represents a concrete, tangible entity, which occupies a portion of space, and is inserted into an argument slot (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 236; Hengeveld 2005: 7‒8)

rich man The adjective rich modifies the Individual man. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 242) that woman The distal demonstrative that modifies the Individual woman. (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 245)

scope, or, as Boye puts it – they have it as their scope. Epistemic meanings, for example, have propositions as their scope, and given the fact that propositions contain SoAs, epistemic meanings have SoAs in their scope (but they do not have SoAs as their scope) (Boye 2012: 197). Consequently, meanings with lower layers as their scope fall within the scope of meanings with higher layers as their scope; this was amply illustrated in Section 3.1.4. The underlined elements in the rightmost column of Table 53 modify by virtue of their meaning the semantic or pragmatic units represented by the layers. Table 54 provides a non-complete list of the ‘meanings’ which apply to certain layers, or, in other words, which have certain types of conceptual units as their scope (see Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 64‒68, 81‒83, 151‒156, 171‒ 180, 208‒214, 230‒236, 241‒247 for further meanings, examples and discussion). As noted above, we do not need the amount of detail presented in Tables 53 and 54 if the ultimate goal of the study is to correlate the phenomena observed in the marking of MM-meanings of the Finnic varieties with the scope of these meanings over units of different conceptual complexity. Some layers of content structure can be collapsed, because their differentiation is irrelevant for the object of investigation. The distinction between categories below SoAs level

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Table 54: Cross-linguistically salient meanings according to the units in their immediate semantic scope Meanings with Speech acts as their scope

‘speech act mitigation’, ‘speech act emphasis’ (exclamation), ‘stylistic property’, ‘irony’ (e.g. How terribly interesting!)

Meanings with Illocutions as their scope

‘illocutionary mitigation’, ‘illocutionary emphasis’

Meanings with Propositions as their scope

‘doxastic modality’, ‘hypotheticals’, ‘boulomaic modality’, ‘dubitatives’, ‘inferentials’, ‘subjective epistemic modality’

Meanings with SoAs as their scope

‘relative time’, ‘frequency of occurrence’, ‘cause’, ‘reality status’ (realis/irrealis), ‘event perception’, ‘event-oriented modality’, ‘event quantification’

Meanings with Properties as their scope

‘aspect’ (perfective/imperfective), ‘phasal aspect’, ‘nominal aspect’, ‘participant-oriented modality’, ‘volitive modality’, ‘beneficiary’, ‘comitative’, ‘instrumental’, ‘duration’

Meanings with Individuals as their scope

‘nominal quantification’ (all, some, every), ‘restrictive relativization’ (restrictive relative clauses)

(‘Property’ and ‘Individual’) is not crucial to the explanation of the observed phenomena, and therefore one can collectively speak of conceptual entities ‘below SoAs’ level. In a similar vein, the distinction between ‘Speech acts’ and ‘Illocutions’ is not particularly important for the description of the scope properties of MM-elements, and therefore I could underspecify it and speak about entities at a ‘extra-propositional’ level. This reduces the categories presented in Table 53 to four: ‘extra-propositional’, ‘propositions’, ‘SoAs’ and ‘sub-SoAs’. In fact, the point can be made upon further reduction. MM is a semantic category and therefore my primary concern here is the semantic scope of linguistic expressions. Therefore, I will exclude from the following discussion the pragmatic scope of such expressions (i.e. their scope over pragmatic expressions). This means that I will ignore the pragmatic layers (the ones found at the Interpersonal Layer) in the discussion of scope.184 Accordingly, I will test the interdependency of the 184 Pragmatic markers are known to be heavily affected by language contact, and even the speakers of the best preserved minor Finnic languages rely mostly on “borrowed” pragmatic devices in their everyday communication. One could probably go further and claim that for a very large part of the speakers of minor Finnic languages Russian is the pragmatically dominant language. This is the language “that the speaker associates most closely at the moment of interaction with the routine implementation of communicative tasks that are similar to the ongoing task” (Matras 2009: 98). Another reason to ignore cases of modification of pragmatic units (layers) is that the corpora from which the data were excerpted were not assembled with pragmatics in mind.

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variables ‘observed scales of affectedness’ and ‘immediate semantic scope’ reducing the values of the latter to only three: ‘propositional scope’, ‘SoAs scope’ and ‘sub-SoAs scope’. Before we start testing these variables for correlation, let me mention two things which distort the matryoshka doll model presented so far; i.e. propositions are composed of SoAs which are composed of properties, etc. The reader may be confused by the fact that although ‘Speech acts’ and ‘Illocutions’ are layers of a different level (the Interpersonal Level) than the other layers in Table 53 (which belong to the Representational Level) they have been arranged in the same unidimensional scale of gradual inclusion and relative complexity. The problem was embedded in the distinction between ‘pragmatic’ and ‘semantic’ layers. Note, however, that in the initial version of FG, which did not postulate ‘Illocution’ as a separate layer, ‘Speech act’ was conceived of as a part of the same layered structure as the units of what is now the Representational Level (e.g. Dik & Hengeveld 1991). With its commitment to the layering of the Interpersonal Level, FDG assumed a more sophisticated relation between Discourse Acts (and Illocutions), on the one hand, and Propositional contents and SoAs, on the other. Although Discourse Acts and Illocutions tend to be specified before the layers at the Representational Level, their specification takes place in a different “dimension” – the Interpersonal Level. The theory acknowledged that the specification of the Interpersonal and Representational Level may partly overlap in time, and accommodated this through the so-called “depth-first” principle, which allows that the specification of the Interpersonal Level need not be completed before the specification of the Representational Level begins (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 23‒25). These theoretical intricacies are, however, irrelevant for the study of the immediate semantic scope of meanings affected by the changes attested in the previous chapters. In the exclusively semantic conception of ‘layered structure’ propagated by Harder (1996) and Boye (2012), speech acts represent a layer situated above propositions, which represent a layer above SoAs, which contains lower layers. As we saw in Sections 3.1.4 and 3.2.2, this layering is mapped onto a scope hierarchy of different qualificational meanings. The following discussion is concerned only with the semantic scope of different meanings. The second issue is also related to the interface of the Interpersonal and the Representational level. The rule of lower layers of structure being contained in higher layers does not hold across these levels. Speech acts may contain ‘propositions’ (in addition to ‘illocutions’), but need not do so: the Communicated Content of a speech act may consist exclusively of a SoAs. Using the words of Boye (2012: 194), “[a]ll propositions involve states-of-affairs, and speech acts may involve either propositions (and thus also states-of-affairs) or states-of-

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affairs (but not propositions).” He illustrated this with the following examples (Boye 2012: 194): (267)

Bob is ready.

(268) Is Bob ready? (269) Be ready, Bob! In the models of FG and FDG, both (267) and (268) involve ‘speech act’ (or ‘discourse act’), ‘proposition’ and ‘state-of-affairs’. (267) involves a direct speech act (in FDG, ‘Communicative-Contentive Act’) with the illocutionary force of ‘assertion’ which is marked by declarative clause structure. The Communicated Content consists of the proposition ‘Bob is ready’ (which can be true or false) which itself involves the state-of-affairs ‘Bob be ready’. The example in (268) articulates a direct speech act with the illocutionary force of ‘interrogative’, marked by polar interrogative clause structure. The Communicated Content is propositional, as it involves a question asking whether it is true or not that ‘Bob is ready’; like in (267), this proposition contains the SoAs ‘Bob be ready’. In contrast, in (269) we have a speech act with an imperative illocutionary force (marked by the Imperative mood), where the speaker requests the addressee to execute the action evoked by the Communicated Content (see also Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 71). This content lacks, however, truth value: the command encoded by the Imperative is meant to evoke an action in the world (SoAs) and not information about an action in the world (which can be true or not true). In other words, the speech act conveyed in (269) contains a SoAs but not a proposition. This concise overview of (certain parts of) the model of FG and its expansion FDG (with some functionalist editing by Harder 1996 and Boye 2012) should suffice to venture an analysis of the discoveries of the study in relation to the variable of ‘semantic scope’. The major contribution of this model is that it renders the ‘semantic scope relative to unit of conceptual complexity’ an ordinal variable with a definite number of values which can be correlated with the scales listed in Tables 51 and 52.

9.2.2 Explaining the discoveries in terms of semantic scope In this section, I test the following hypothesis against the observations from the MM domain:

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(i) Working hypothesis (first approximation) Linguistic expressions with higher semantic scope are more susceptible to loss, change and innovation in LD than expressions with lower semantic scope. Considering that ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ refer to the relative conceptual complexity of semantic entities, and that we are not concerned with the scope of forms, but with the scope of meanings (see Boye 2012: 183), the working hypothesis can be reformulated as follows: (ii) Working hypothesis (adjusted to the notion of conceptual complexity) Linguistic expressions of meanings which have entities of higher conceptual complexity in their immediate scope, are more susceptible to loss, change and innovation in LD than expressions of meanings which have entities of lower conceptual complexity in their immediate scope. This hypothesis can be easily tested if the degree of conceptual complexity is operationalized as an ordinal variable, with a definite number of values. Adjusting the notion of relative conceptual complexity to the discrete values of ‘layered structure’ assumed in FG and FDG, we arrive at the following version of the hypothesis. (iii) Working hypothesis (adjusted to ‘layer of content structure’ as an ordinal variable) Linguistic expressions of meanings which have higher layers of semantic structure in their immediate scope, are more susceptible to loss, change and innovation in LD than expressions of meanings which have lower layers of semantic structure in their immediate scope. Note that the statements in (ii) and (iii) are not fully co-extensive. The statement in (ii) has a broader extension, as there could be items that apply to units of different conceptual complexity, but this difference is not captured by the layering presented in Tables 53 and 54 above. In Section 3.1.4 above, we saw that ‘dynamic modality’ can occur in the immediate scope of ‘deontic modality’; consider now example (270). (270)

You must be able to wait. (cf. *You are able to have to wait.)

In this example, in which the parent demands that the child learns to wait, the ability (dynamic possibility) is in the scope of the expression of obligation

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(deontic necessity). The layered model of FDG does not capture the relative scope of ‘necessity’ vs. ‘possibility’ and ‘deontic’ vs. ‘dynamic’ modality in examples like (270). The modal expressions underlined in this example are both treated as operators at the layer of (Configurational) Properties under the label ‘participant-oriented modality’ (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 212‒214; see also Table 54 above). The expression of dynamic possibility in (270) takes the Configurational Property of ‘waiting’ in its scope, while the deontic expression of obligation takes the Configurational Property of ‘ability to wait’ in its scope. In other words, the ability over a property expressed by the core predication ‘wait’ features itself as a property that is subjected to deontic qualification. Clearly, the expression in the immediate scope of the deontic necessity expression is conceptually more complex than the expression in the immediate scope of the dynamic possibility expression. On the other hand, neither the distinction between ‘deontic’ and ‘dynamic’ modality expressed in (270) nor the distinction between ‘necessity’ and ‘possibility’ is reflected in the layering of conceptual structure assumed in FDG. This means that the notion of ‘relative conceptual complexity’ as applied in statement (ii) above involves differences that are not captured by the notion of ‘layered semantic structure’ in statement (iii), and consequently, has broader application. As (ii) is a broader statement, it is potentially more attractive as an explanation. However, due to the lack of an exact procedure, which would align the findings of this study with (ii), in what follows I will mainly rely on the more specific statement (iii), and will take recourse to (ii) only in cases that cannot be explained in terms of the FDG layers. This should not be a problem as both statements express in principle the same semantic scope hypothesis. Before we proceed with the examination of individual tendencies observed in the material, and recapitulated in Tables 50‒52, let me emphasize that neither of these statements nor any nearly co-extensive version of them has been posited in previous research.185 The semantic scope hypothesis is confirmed by eight statements, all in Tables 51 and 52: MM-6, MM-7, MM-8, MM-9, MM-10, MM-11, MM-14 and MM-23. Unlike the disposition to structural change, which proceeded from conceptually more to conceptually less complex units and never in the reversed order, in this case we seem to have two counter-examples to the directionality assumed by the relative semantic scope: MM-12 and MM-13. 185 This does not mean that previous studies do not provide positive evidence for these statements. Schmidt, for example, observed that in Young People’s Dyirbal the valency‑changing (e.g. reflexive and antipassive) affixes and aspectual affixes which in the terminology adopted here have Properties as their scope (see Table 54), are better preserved than modal particles which have wider scope (Schmidt 1985: 70, 72‒73, 75‒76, 100‒101, 138).

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MM-6 confirms the scope hypothesis by stating that the epistemic domain is more liable to possibility–necessity blending than the deontic domain, which in turn is more liable to possibility–necessity blending than the dynamic/ circumstantial domain. While epistemic modals modify (i.e. have as their scope) propositions, non-epistemic modals modify sub-propositional conceptual entities. According to FG and FDG, deontic modals have either SoAs as their scope, in which case they are treated under the label ‘event-oriented modality’, or have properties as scope, in which case they are treated under the label ‘participantoriented modality’. Dynamic modals, on the other hand, are exclusively participantoriented, and thus have only properties as their scope (Hengeveld 2004; Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 176; 213‒214); see Tables 53 and 54.186 As we saw in Section 3.1.4 and in example (270), the mutual scope of these modal values generally mirrors the relative conceptual complexity of the semantic entities which they modify: dynamic modals occur within the scope of deontic modals, which in turn occur within the scope of epistemic modals. According to MM-7, the hierarchy of affectedness by particlization is ‘modal verbs with narrow (epistemic) semantics > multifunctional modal verbs’. This hierarchy states that the greater the dedication of a modal verb to the epistemic domain, the earlier it is affected by certain structural change: ‘particlization’. Although it draws upon a different feature (the form-function dedication), this hierarchy corroborates the semantic scope hypothesis for the reasons just mentioned: epistemic modals have higher scope (i.e. have higher layers of content structure as their scope) than non-epistemic modals. Forms that are exclusively applied to higher layers of conceptual structure are affected earlier by the innovation (in this case the particlization) than forms with lower layers in their immediate scope. Further support for the hypothesis comes from the observation made in Section 8.1.2.1.2.1 and exemplified by (144). Particlized modals can be used as illocutionary mitigation markers; in other words, they show an expansion of their scope to the pragmatic domain. MM-8 states that ellipsis of the infinitive of a modal, which cannot be explained as pattern replication from Russian, is more likely if the modal has epistemic meaning than if it has non-epistemic (deontic, circumstantial or dynamic) meaning. This means that modals with propositional scope are more likely to omit their infinitival complement than modals with sub-propositional scope. The higher the layer in the immediate scope of the modal the greater is the likelihood of the observed change.

186 I exclude the circumstantial modals from the interpretation of MM-6 as they consitute only a small minority of the instantiations of the class ‘dynamic/circumstantial’.

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The hierarchy in MM-9 is identical to the hierarchy in MM-8 (‘epistemic > non-epistemic’), but concerns the susceptibility of transfer of modals from Russian. It is evident that this hierarchy is consistent with our hypothesis: inherited epistemic modals, which have propositional scope, are more likely to be replaced by Russian modals than non-epistemic modals, which have subpropositional scope. In other words, the probability of using a Russian modal instead of an inherited modal correlates positively with the immediate scope of the meaning encoded by the modal. Consider now MM-10 which states that modals expressing non-epistemic necessity are more prone to transfer than modals expressing non-epistemic possibility. As already noted above, the relative scope of ‘necessity’ and ‘possibility’ is not reflected in the layering of content structure postulated by FDG and therefore the observation in MM-10 cannot validate or invalidate statement (iii). However, non-epistemic necessity tends to outscope non-epistemic possibility not only in English, as illustrated by (270), but also cross-linguistically; cf. German Man muss es können (‘One must be able/allowed to do this’) and *Man kann es müssen (intended: ‘*One is able/allowed to be obliged to do this’).187 Given this relative semantic scope of non-epistemic necessity and possibility, MM-10 provides positive evidence for hypothesis (ii) which refers only to the relative conceptual complexity of semantic entities and not to specific layers of semantic structure. Everything else being equal, non-epistemic necessity modals allow an additional element of possibility in their scope, whereas non-epistemic possibility modals do not allow an additional element of necessity in their scope.188 187 Similar examples can be constructed in Finno‑Ugric, Slavic and other languages. 188 In addition to the relative scope, there is cross-linguistic evidence suggesting that necessity is “more marked” than possibility. Recall that in Section 9.1 I decided to reduce ‘markedness’ to ‘conceptual complexity’. The notion of ‘necessity’ does not seem to be conceptually more complex than the notion of ‘possibility’, at least not in an obvious way, but structurally and typologically necessity seems to be marked with respect to possibility. Evidence for this is provided by van der Auwera (2001: 32), who notes that there are languages which lexicalize necessity in terms of possibility, but there seem to be no languages lexicalizing possibility in terms of necessity. His argument goes as follows. Let ‘□’ stand for necessity, ‘◊’ for possibility and ‘¬’ for negation. There are languages which convey ‘□ p’ by means of a lexicalised expression of ‘¬ ◊ ¬ p’, but there do not seem to be languages conveying ‘◊ p’ in terms of a lexicalised expression corresponding to ‘¬ □ ¬ p’. In other words, while expressions of possibility can be recruited for the expression of positive necessity, expressions of necessity cannot be recruited for the expression of positive possibility. It follows that expressions of necessity are distributionally more restricted than expresions of possibility, and hence marked in relation to them. This means that if I had considered distributional markedness criteria as a valid type of evidence for relative complexity, MM-10 would have been in positive correlation with the complexity variable.

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MM-11, stating that mental perception and propositional attitude predicates are more susceptible to transfer from Russian than other types of CTPs, provides further support for the semantic scope hypothesis. Consider the most frequent CTPs in the data (presented in Table 30 on page 227). There is little doubt that propositional attitude and mental perception predicates are more susceptible to transfer than manipulative and immediate perception predicates. As indicated in Section 8.1.2.2.2, propositional attitude and mental perception predicates take propositions in their immediate scope, while manipulative and immediate perception predicates take SoAs in their immediate scope. This means that higher susceptibility to transfer correlates with higher semantic scope. MM-14 confirms the hypothesis in a straightforward way. This hierarchy states that complementizers and adverbializers are more susceptible to transfer than relativizers. While complementizers and adverbial subordinators (like because, if, in order that) introduce clauses which express propositions or SoAs (see the discussion below and Hengeveld 1998 about the status of adverbial clauses in relation to the layered structure), relative pronouns have argument status in the subordinate clause and thus correspond in the model of FDG to individuals and properties. Again, the elements with higher semantic scope are more liable to transfer. MM-23 states that polar question markers show a greater disposition to transfer from the dominant language than content question markers. It was mentioned in Section 8.2.2.2.1 that this is surprising, because in the case of polar questions we have transfer of a clitic (bound morpheme), whereas content questions are expressed (both in Finnic and Russian) by free morphemes, and, as we know from language contact research, bound morphemes are less likely to be borrowed than free morphemes. On the other hand, the hierarchy posited by MM-23 can be simply explained in terms of scope. Polar interrogatives ask information about the world and have entire propositions in their scope (see example [268] above and Boye 2010: 294), whereas content question markers (just like relative pronouns) correspond to individuals (e.g. Whom did you ask?) or properties (How did you ask?), and thus have narrow scope. Here too, the higher probability of transfer correlates with higher semantic scope. Consider now the counter-examples of the semantic scope hypothesis. MM12 states that a complementizer, which takes irrealis SoAs complements, is more susceptible to transfer from Russian than a polar complementizer. This implication was based on the transfer behaviour of two specific complementizers: Russian chtoby ‘to; so that; in order’ and the Russian polar enclitic -li. In the present data, chtoby transferred to Finnic introduces mostly SoAs complements of manipulative and desiderative predicates. The sub-propositional status of such complements is attested by the impossibility to insert in them propositional

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modifiers, such as epistemic adverbs; see e.g. I asked/wanted her to *perhaps/ *certainly come here. In the next section, I will discuss complements of manipulative and desiderative CTPs in relation to the distribution of the Conditional mood and will provide further evidence for their sub-propositional scope (see also Boye 2012: 188‒194; Kehayov & Boye 2016 about the SoAs status of such complements). The polar clitic, as we already know, presents alternative propositions. The propositional status of its complements is attested by the fact that they can be epistemically qualified; e.g. John knows if Mary is okperhaps/okcertainly pregnant. This means that the polar complementizer has higher scope than the irrealis complementizer, which means in turn that MM-12 is at odds with our expectation that expressions of meanings with higher semantic scope are more liable to loss, change and innovation than expressions of meanings with lower scope. MM-13 argues that the likelihood for transfer of adverbializers is ‘reason, purpose > condition > time’. Given the assumption that an adverbializer has the contents of the adverbial clause it introduces in its immediate scope, this hierarchy contradicts the expectation put forward by the semantic scope hypothesis. While reason and conditional clauses are propositional, purpose and temporal clauses (of simultaneity or anteriority) refer to SoAs (Hengeveld 1998: 357‒358). The epistemic insertion test can be applied here too; compare You don’t have to take the train, because there will okprobably be some place in John’s car. (reason); He okprobably wouldn’t get the position, if he is oklikely to move to Spain (conditional) and He started talking in order to *probably keep me awake (purpose); He was singing while he was *probably taking a shower (temporal). The semantic scope hypothesis predicts relative likelihood of transfer ‘condition > purpose’, but MM-13 claims ‘purpose > condition’. This implication in MM-13 means that an element with lower semantic scope shows stronger disposition to transfer than an element with higher scope.

9.3 Cases that cannot be solved in terms of conceptual complexity or semantic scope There are three tendencies/hierarchies in Tables 50‒52 which cannot be correlated with the variables ‘conceptual complexity’ and ‘semantic scope’. Consider MM-4. This tendency states that indirect speech structures tend to be replaced by hybrid structures consisting of the neutral complementizer and the direct speech structure. Here we seem to be dealing with phenomena that have opposite effects. On the one hand, the substitution of indirect speech with direct speech can be seen as a “promotion” of a meaning unit to a higher layer,

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situated at the Interpersonal Level. Cristofaro (2003: 18, 24) has argued that subordinate clauses do not have illocutionary force (see also Lehmann 1988), which means that indirect speech structures do not express independent Illocutions. Direct speech structures, on the other hand, represent independent Illocutions. In other words, direct speech displays an additional specification and could be said to be – pragmatically but not semantically – more complex than indirect speech. But the switch from indirect to direct speech requires a switch of the deictic centre, an operation which requires an additional cognitive effort. Furthermore, the preservation of the complementizer, a trace of the longdistance relationship between the meaning units contained in the main and (the former) subordinate clause, could neither be seen as a case of reduction of conceptual complexity nor related to the ‘semantic scope’ variable. MM-19 and MM-20, which concern the affectedness of the Conditional in different contexts, are among the most challenging observations of this study. Descriptive and theoretical accounts of different languages with Moods of the European subjunctive type often struggle with the question whether this grammatical mood or specific uses thereof apply to propositions (i.e. convey commitment to information about the world) or to SoAs (i.e. modify descriptions of situations as they occur in the world). The respective debates are rarely conducted in these terms, but use descriptive notions. A good example is the treatment of the Conditional in ISK (2008), the newest and largest grammar of Finnish,189 where several uses of this mood are explained in terms of ‘actualization, realizability’ and ‘correspondence to the truth’, often at the same time (e.g. ISK 2008: §1594‒§1596). While ‘actualization’ entails SoAs scope, ‘truth-functionality’ entails propositional scope. Theoretical research does not show more agreement. While Subjunctives and Conditionals are often associated with the notion ‘(ir)realis’ (recall the discussion in Section 3.2.2) which refers to the status of SoAs in the world, Nordström (2010: 127‒147) has argued that the main function of the Germanic Subjunctive is to mark propositional modality, which means that it takes propositions in its immediate scope; see also Beijering (2012: 15), who takes it for granted that the Germanic Subjunctives express epistemic modality. I assume that the Finnic Conditional mood has mostly, if not exclusively SoAs in its immediate scope. Note, however, that the irrealis status of these SoAs makes them compatible with non-factual propositions. Givón (1994) observed that there is a strong implication between the notions ‘irrealis’ and ‘non-factual’, on the one hand, and ‘realis’ and ‘factual’, on the other. The occurrence of a Conditional-marked irrealis SoAs within a non-factual proposition causes semantic coercion, which makes it difficult to distinguish the semantic scope of the Conditional from the semantic scope of propositional modifiers/operators. 189 And of a Finnic language in general.

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Let me examine the different uses of the Conditional captured in MM-19 (the hierarchy of loss of the Conditional according to semantic type) and MM-20 (the hierarchy of susceptibility of the Conditional to reinforcement), repeated below. MM-19: as.if-clauses > agent-oriented modal & desiderative verbs > assumptions & guesses > complements of desiderative & manipulative predicates, hypothetical conditionals, purposive (final) clauses > wishes & curses, counterfactual conditionals MM-20: wishes and curses, counterfactual conditionals, hypothetical conditionals > other contexts We will start with the easiest cases – the main clause uses of the Conditional, which all take SoAs and not propositions in their semantic scope. I will illustrate the points made with examples from Estonian, a language which uses the Conditional in all enlisted contexts. Consider the type ‘agent-oriented modal & desiderative verbs’ in main clauses, exemplified by (271) which is an Estonian translation of an example from Hengeveld (1988: 259). pea-ksid talle oma raamatukogu näitama. (271) Sa you.NOM must-COND :2SG s/he:ALL own.PART library.PART show:INF ‘You should show him your library.’ Here we have the Conditional on a deontic verb which has sub-propositional scope; recall Table 54 where all non-epistemic modalities have either SoAs or Properties as their scope. The Conditional itself can be analysed here as a ‘mitigation marker’, i.e. as a modifier of meaning specified at the (pragmatic) Interpersonal Level (see Tables 53 and 54). As we already know from the discussion of layering above, illocutionary markers need not take propositions in their scope, but can have SoAs as their scope at the Representational Level. Exactly this is the case here. Hengeveld (1988: 259) accounts for the Spanish equivalent of (271) with the Subjunctive mood as follows (where ‘S’ stands for ‘speaker’): “I interpret the use of the (past) subjunctive as the application of a grammatical means through which S further mitigates the force of the speech act, and not as a device to indicate a lesser degree of commitment with regard to the content of his speech act”. The lack of commitment component in this use of the Subjunctive indicates that it does not have a proposition in its scope. The function of the Subjunctive, fully coinciding with the one of the Conditional in our case, is according to Hengeveld to convey a higher degree of politeness and to leave space for refusal (Hengeveld 1988: 290).

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Consider now (272) with a desiderative predicate, which provides further evidence that the mitigating Conditional does not take the proposition, but only the SoAs in its scope. taha-ks, et sa tuled. (272) Ta ilmselt s/he.NOM apparently want-COND. 3SG that you.NOM come:PRS . 2SG ‘Apparently she wants you to come.’ The adverb ilmselt ‘apparently’ in this sentence is outside the scope of the illocutionary mitigation supplied by the Conditional. The Conditional has the SoAs of ‘wishing something’ in its immediate semantic scope, but not the apparent propositional content ‘x wishes p’. The sub-propositional scope of the Conditional in the types ‘purposive clauses’ and ‘wishes & curses’ is even more obvious. It was already shown above that purposive clauses express SoAs and not propositions (see also Hengeveld 1998); consider (273). The Conditional occurring in the dependent clause cannot have propositional scope, because the clause in which it occurs conveys a description of a possible event (i.e. SoAs). The sub-propositional status of the clausal content is easily diagnosed by the impossibility to add an epistemic (propositional) modifier to it. Whatever the meaning contribution of the Conditional in this sentence, its scope does not extend to the main clause, but is restricted to the expression of purpose. The Indicative form of the finite verb is not possible here, which suggests that the Conditional simply marks the SoAs ‘catch the train’ as irrealis. (273) Peame lahkuma vara, et (*tõenäoliselt) must:PRS .1PL leave:INF early so.that probably saa-ksi-me rongi peale. get-COND -1PL train.GEN on ‘We must leave early to catch the train.’ The type ‘wishes & curses’ is exemplified by (274), where the Conditional occurs in typical insubordination context (Evans 2007; see also Kehayov 2016 for discussion of such examples in Finnic). In terms of FDG, the Conditional functions here as a mitigator190 of an ‘optative illocution’ (see Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 71, 83). It is evident that the Conditional does not apply to a proposition, 190 The content of (274) can be also expressed by a structure with the Imperative mood, but in this case the wish expressed sounds more resolute and impatient.

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but to the SoAs ‘x come to visit me’, because (274) does not contain a proposition. The communicated content can neither be modified by epistemic adverb nor challenged by questions like Is that true? addressing propositional contents. mulle külla! (274) Kui ta ainult tule-ks if s/he.NOM only come- COND. 3SG I:ALL on.a.visit ‘If she only came to visit me!’ Moving on now to contexts where the event-orientation of the Conditional is somewhat less obvious, consider the usage type ‘complements of desiderative & manipulative predicates’. There is agreement in the literature that crosslinguistically manipulative and desiderative predicates tend to allow only SoAs and not propositional complements (see e.g. Dixon 2006: 23‒31; Boye 2012: 188‒ 194). It could be easily shown that complements of such predicates where the complement verb is in the Conditional express SoAs in Finnic; see (275) with a manipulative predicate and (276) with a desiderative predicate. (275) Ta palus, et me (*ilmselt/*vist) ei s/he.NOM beg:PST. 3SG that we.NOM apparently/maybe NEG räägi-ks kellelegi. speak-COND.CONNEG anybody:ALL ‘She asked that we don’t (wouldn’t) speak about this to anybody.’ (276) Ta tahtis, et sa (*ilmselt/*vist) s/he.NOM want:PST. 3SG that you.NOM apparently/maybe tule-ksid kaasa. come-COND : 2SG with ‘She wanted you to come along. / She wanted that you come along.’ In both cases the contents of the complement clauses cannot be challenged by an epistemic adverb, which suggests that they do not have propositional status, but are sub-propositional. A further test is provided by wide scope negation. Imagine that we continue the discourse constructed by these sentences with the statement That’s not true. This utterance only negates the contents of the matrix clause (‘x begged y’, ‘x wanted y’). As the complement clause is not truth-functional, it cannot be negated by negation reversing the truth-value of a proposition. Given that the semantic scope of the Conditional does not extend beyond the boundaries of the complement clause, I accept that it has SoAs and not proposition as its scope.

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Consider now the occurrence of the Conditional in protasis and apodosis clauses of hypothetical and counterfactual conditional sentences. It is generally accepted that protasis and apodosis clauses of conditional clauses, no matter whether real (Indicative-marked), hypothetical or counterfactual (both Subjunctive/Conditional-marked), are propositional191 (see e.g. Hengeveld 1998; Nordström 2010: 115‒124; Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 154). Their propositional status is confirmed, for example, by the fact that they can be modified by epistemic expressions. Consider the following generalization of a conditional sentence (where p1 and p2 stand for two propositions): ‘If p1 is/were/had been probable, than p2 is/would be/would have been unlikely’ (e.g. If you had perhaps asked me, I would probably have told you). This means that the protasis and apodosis markers have propositions as their scope. The Conditional, on the other hand, has in its immediate scope a SoAs which is part of this proposition. Consider (277), (278)192 and (279). (277) Kui ta tuleb, ma lähen minema. if s/he.NOM come.IND :3SG I.NOM go.IND :1SG go:INF ‘If he comes, I’ll leave.’ (278) Kui ta tule-ks, ma lähe-ksin minema. if s/he.NOM come-COND. 3SG I.NOM go-COND :1SG go:INF ‘If he came, I would leave.’ (279) Kui ta ole-ks tulnud, ma ole-ksin if s/he.NOM be-COND. 3SG come:PST. PTCP I.NOM be-COND :1SG läinud minema. go: PST. PTCP go:INF ‘If he had come, I would have left.’ Hengeveld and Mackenzie explain the difference between (277), here marked by the present tense Indicative, and (278), here marked by the present tense Conditional, as follows. “[The] distinction between realis and irrealis conditions [. . .] is not a subdivision that obtains at the layer of proposition-oriented modality, but at the layer of event-oriented modality. Thus, in [277 and 278]193 the Speaker 191 The only exception being imperative apodosis clauses (Give me a call, if you need me!) which contain SoAs and not propositions that could be epistemically qualified. Such clauses do not contain the Conditional mood and therefore are irrelevant to the present discussion. 192 (277) and (278) are Estonian translations of examples provided by Hengeveld and Mackenzie (2008: 154). 193 The numbers of examples have been changed to conform to the present enumeration.

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indicates absence of commitment to the Propositional Content introduced by if, and within that Propositional Content s/he characterizes a State-of-Affairs as real [277] or unreal [278] within the hypothesized world.” (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 154). This means that the Conditional in (278) categorizes the SoAs as irrealis. In (279) we have past tense forms of the Conditional. I assume that the Conditional has the same function in this sentence – to mark the SoAs in its immediate scope as irrealis – but the combination of ‘irrealis’ and ‘past time reference’ produces the counterfactual reading of the propositions in the protasis and the apodosis. Coming now to the more challenging nodes on the hierarchy in MM-19, we start with the scope of the Conditional in ‘as.if’-clauses; consider the following examples from Estonian. justkui ta ole-ks haige. (280) Ma kuulsin, s/he.NOM be-COND. 3SG sick.NOM I.NOM hear:IND. PST:1SG as.if ‘I heard (but do not quite believe) that she is sick. ≈ I heard she was sick.’ (281) Ma kuulsin justkui keegi koputa-ks uksele. somebody.NOM knock-COND. 3SG door:ALL I.NOM hear:IND. PST:1SG as.if ‘It’s as if I heard somebody knock on the door.’ The complement clause in (280) is propositional, because it conveys acquired knowledge about the world. In (281), on the other hand, the complement clause expresses a SoAs, i.e. a description of an event occurring in the world as perceived by the speaker (see Kehayov 2016 for further details about as.if-complements of perception verbs). Both sentences have the same grammatical structure, consisting of the matrix verb ‘hear’, the comparative-similative complementizer ‘as.if’ and a complement verb in the Conditional. What disambiguates the complement in (280) as propositional is that ‘be sick’ is not something that can be literally heard, and therefore we must be dealing with report of the propositional contents ‘she is sick’. How can we account for the fact that one and the same structure consisting of the complementizer ‘as.if’ and the Conditional form of the complement verb is used to encode both propositions and states-of-affairs? Does that mean that the Conditional can take both propositions and SoAs in its immediate scope? Given that propositions always contain SoAs, the most elegant analysis of the Conditional in these examples is to say that in both cases it has SoAs as its semantic scope, but in (280) this SoAs is a part of a proposition which is marked as counter-factual by justkui ‘as.if’. The strongest evidence in favour of this

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analysis comes from (281), where justkui could be interpreted as having basically propositional scope. See (282), which has meaning similar to (281), but justkui is raised above the CTP and qualifies the entire proposition ‘(x) heard somebody knocking on the door’ as counter-factual; the complement SoAs is encoded in this example by a converb (the Inessive form of the infinitive) expressing ‘being in a process of doing something’. I would like to claim that (281) and (282) convey basically the same message, which means that justkui ‘as.if’ is either a modifier of propositional contents, or it is ambiguous with respect to its scope in (281). Given this scope ambiguity of justkui ‘as.if’, the Conditional in (281) seem to be the only marker, which adjusting to the counter-factual meaning of the proposition marks harmonically the complement SoAs as non-real. That it is exclusively restricted to the complement SoAs could be easily demonstrated. Unlike justkui which is assigned to the matrix predicate ‘heard’ in (282), it is not possible to mark this matrix predicate with the Conditional without drastically changing the meaning of the sentence. This suggests that while justkui can have propositional scope, the Conditional has only SoAs scope. justkui kuulsin kedagi koputa-mas uksele. (282) Ma hear:IND.PST:1SG somebody.PART knock-INF:INE door:ALL I.NOM as.if ‘It’s as if I heard somebody knocking on the door.’ Another challenging case is the use of the Conditional in expressions of ‘assumptions & guesses’. Speaking about assumptions and guesses implies an epistemic evaluation of propositional contents. This is the context type which best explains the recurrent reference to ‘epistemic modality’ in accounts of the Finnic Conditionals (see e.g. Erelt 2013: 129 on Estonian). But FDG and its predecessor FG assume a type of epistemic modality which has sub-propositional scope; see (283). The propositional content of this sentence can be evaluated by adverbial modifiers expressing various degrees of probability and certainty. The Conditional is compatible with all of them and remains unchanged. Assuming for the time being that the Conditional conveys uncertainty (or non-factuality), we may ask for instance why is it compatible with kindlasti ‘certainly’ which conveys full epistemic support. A solution to this problem is to assume that the Conditional applies to another layer of content structure than epistemic adverbs. It seems that in (283) the epistemic adverbs convey ‘subjective epistemic modality’, whereas the Conditional conveys ‘objective epistemic modality’ (recall Section 3.1.1.2). Thus, we seem to be dealing with subjective evaluation (in the face of adverbs) of the objective likelihood (in the face of the Conditional) of ‘the renovation of the church turning out expensive’. The objective likelihood

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expressed by the Conditional is ‘relatively high’, but not ‘certain’, as we would have an Indicative form of the verb in case of full certainty. The difference between objective and subjective epistemic modality is tackled at different layers in FG (see Hengeveld 1988; 1989) and FDG (Hengeveld & Mackenzie 2008: 153‒ 154; 174‒175): the first is event-oriented and thus has SoAs in its immediate scope, the second applies to propositional contents and thus has the entire proposition ‘renovating the church will be expensive’ in its immediate scope. tule-ks (283) Kiriku renoveerimine church.GEN renovation.NOM come-COND. 3SG ilmselt/tõenäoliselt/vist/kindlasti kallis. apparently/probably/maybe/certainly expensive ‘Renovating the church would apparently/probably/maybe/certainly be expensive.’ Nonetheless, there is a sub-class of ‘assumptions & guesses’ for which we have to concede propositional scope of the Conditional. These are cases where the Conditional occurs on epistemic verbs. Depending on the context, the epistemic appraisal in example (284) may be either subjective or objective. Analysing the Conditional as having objective epistemic meaning within the subjective epistemic reading of the sentence leads however to contradiction. In this case, the only marker of the subjective modality could be the base of the epistemic ‘must’. But this would mean that the base and the inflectional affix mark opposite values (the first subjective and the second objective epistemic modality) where the morphotactically external element (the Conditional) is within the scope of the internal element (the base of the modal). It is more plausible to consider the Conditional as an illocutionary marker of mitigation of the epistemic appraisal over the propositional content ‘x is at home at this time’. In this case, we must concede, the Conditional has a proposition in its scope. pea-ks sellel ajal olema kodus. (284) Ta s/he.NOM must-COND. 3SG this:ADE time:ADE be:INF at.home ‘She should be at home at this time.’ Table 55 recapitulates the insights we gained with respect to the semantic scope of the Conditional in different context types.

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Table 55: The immediate semantic scope of the Conditional according to type of context194 Context type

Semantic entities in the immediate semantic scope of the Conditional

‘as.if-clauses’

state-of-affairs

‘agent-oriented modal & desiderative verbs’

state-of-affairs

‘assumptions & guesses’

state-of-affairs or proposition

‘complements of desiderative & manipulative predicates’

state-of-affairs

‘hypothetical conditionals’

state-of-affairs

‘purposive clauses’

state-of-affairs

‘wishes & curses’

state-of-affairs

‘counterfactual conditionals’

state-of-affairs

As the Conditional seems to have the same layer of conceptual structure in its immediate semantic scope in almost all its uses, the hierarchies in MM-19 and MM-20 cannot be said to correlate with the semantic scope variable. These hierarchies cannot be correlated with the variable ‘conceptual complexity’ either, because we lack a measure for the relative conceptual complexity of the individual meanings of this grammatical mood (such as ‘mitigation’, ‘irrealis’ and ‘objective possibility’).

9.4 Summary: major determinants of the observed phenomena Table 56 classifies the tendencies and hierarchies listed in Tables 50‒52 according to their covariance with the variables ‘conceptual complexity’ and ‘semantic scope’. The outcome ‘corroborated by’ subsumes cases of positive covariance of ‘conceptual complexity’ and/or ‘semantic scope’, on the one hand, and ‘susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in LD’, on the other: higher conceptual complexity or higher semantic scope corresponds to higher affectedness in LD. The outcome ‘counter-evidenced by’ subsumes cases of negative covariance: higher values of ‘conceptual complexity’ or ‘semantic scope’ correspond to lower values of ‘affectedness in LD’ or vice versa, lower values of ‘conceptual complexity’ or ‘semantic scope’ correspond to higher values of ‘affectedness in LD’.

194 The order of context types follows their order in MM‑19.

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Table 56: Covariance between ‘MM-1 . . . MM-23’ and the variables ‘conceptual complexity’ and ‘semantic scope’ Conceptual complexity

Semantic scope

corroborated by

MM-1, MM-2, MM-3, MM-5, MM15, MM-16, MM-17, MM-18, MM21, MM-22

MM-6, MM-7, MM-8, MM-9, MM-10, MM-11, MM-14, MM-23

counter-evidenced by

‒

MM-12, MM-13

In addition to the items in the table, we had three cases (MM-4, MM-19 and MM20) of ambivalent or irrelevant behaviour with respect to the variables ‘conceptual complexity’ and ‘semantic scope’. There is a pattern in the distribution in Table 56. Most of the hierarchies from the domain of modality show positive covariance with ‘semantic scope’, whereas only one from the domain of Mood (MM-23) shows such covariance; see Tables 51 and 52. This could be explained by the fact that all hierarchies (but MM-23) in Table 52 concern the Imperative and the Conditional: moods that have the same semantic scope (SoAs) in different contexts. Although the factor ‘conceptual complexity’ seems to capture a larger number of observed phenomena, the factor ‘semantic scope’ is superior in terms of explanatory power. The notion of ‘semantic scope’ applied here is much more specific than the notion of ‘conceptual complexity’. It basically concerns conceptual units situated at the Representational Level195, and it is one-dimensional, because these units can be arranged along a single degree-scale. Considering central measures of explanatory power, such as accuracy and precision of the description, predictive power (the amount of details about what one should expect to observe, and what one should not), and falsifiability (testability of the observations), an account in terms ‘semantic scope’ is explanatorily more potent than an account in terms of ‘conceptual complexity’. Thus, the relative scope over semantic entities (especially over propositions and SoAs) is a variable which deserves to be considered by future research on structural consequences of LD. In this study it turned to be the major rationale for the behaviour of modality systems in LD. As we saw in Table 56, it captures seven of the ten hierarchies in the modality domain. One could speculate that the ‘semantic scope’ is an operative factor also at pre-LD stages. For example, we observed in Section 8.1.2.2.3.1 that the semantically neutral complementizer 195 Note that the restriction to semantic scope (i.e. delimitating the layers explored to those at the Representational Level) is in accord with the commitment of the study to the idea of functional modularity.

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chto ‘that’, which takes propositional complements, was borrowed earlier (already in the TF) than the irrealis complementizer chtoby ‘to; so that’ which typically takes SoAs-complements. This order is consistent with the ‘semantic scope’ explanation provided above, but involves developments that took place already in the TF.

9.5 Reducing relative semantic scope to relative conceptual complexity In order to determine the mechanisms underlying the behaviour of linguistic structure in the MM-systems, we need to understand the exact relationship between the notions of ‘conceptual complexity of a unit of meaning’ and ‘scope of a meaning over a unit of meaning’. In fact, these two notions describe dependent variables. The inference relies on deduction and goes as follows. I have enough evidence for the following statements: a) the greater the conceptual complexity of a semantic unit, the greater its affectedness (i.e. susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in LD); b) the greater the conceptual complexity of a semantic unit in the scope of a MM meaning, the greater the affectedness of expressions of this MM meaning. Now note that, according to the models of FG and FDG, the higher the semantic scope of a MM meaning, the more complex conceptual unit is it part of. Therefore, higher semantic scope presupposes greater conceptual complexity. The loss, change and innovation of modifiers/ operators with entities of certain conceptual complexity in their immediate scope contribute to the loss, change and innovation of entities of higher conceptual complexity which the given modifiers/operators are part of. This is not to say that the elements with higher semantic scope are more susceptible to loss change and innovation than the elements with lower scope because they are conceptually more complex than them. I have no evidence to claim that might in the sentence she might be able to help you conveys a more complex notion than be able. But I do have evidence to claim that ‘probability’ (as expressed by might) is a semantic constituent of a meaning unit which is conceptually more complex than the meaning unit containing ‘ability’ as its constituent. In this way, the greater affectedness of elements with higher scope contributes to – and is reflected in – the greater affectedness of meaning units of higher conceptual complexity. The consequence of the loss, change and innovation of elements with higher semantic scope is that the original linguistic structure is increasingly associated with entities of lower conceptual complexity. This demotion could be regarded as peeling of layers from higher/outside layers of conceptual structure to lower/inside layers of conceptual structure.

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This means that we can single out ‘conceptual complexity’ as the crucial determinant of the changes observed in the MM domain in LD circumstances. As we could see in Table 56 above, this factor explains the great majority of the postulated tendencies and hierarchies. Of course, we must recall the maxim that correlation does not imply causation. In the present case, however, the correlation between the susceptibility of linguistic structure to loss, change and innovation in LD and the relative conceptual complexity associated with this structure is strongly suggestive of a causal relation.

10 Conclusions This study investigated the properties of mood‑and‑modality marking in four Finnic varieties (Central Lude, Ingrian, Votic and Eastern Seto) which are all on the verge of extinction. The exclusive focus on mood‑and‑modality and on language death was engendered by two premises: i) that structural change accompanying language death is not entirely identical to regular language change in healthy languages, and ii) that structural decay in language death is not a process of uniform diffusion through different domains of meaning, but is functionally modular: different meaning domains are affected in different ways and/or with different speed by this process. Within this focus, the specific goals of the study were: a) To make observations and submit statements about the relative susceptibility of expressions of different modal meanings to loss, change and innovation in LD; b) To propose explanations for the observed differences in the relative susceptibility of expressions of different modal values to loss, change and innovation in LD. The study was based on primary data, elicited specifically for its purposes. I applied three elicitation methods, all production oriented, but different in terms of degree of control and naturalness. The method producing least natural data – translation questionnaires – was supplemented by additional checking mechanisms to minimize its drawbacks. Hypotheses about the relative susceptibility of MM-elements to loss, change and innovation in LD were generated using the notion of ‘traditional form’ (TF): an idealization providing comparative basis for the study of contemporary language usage. The discovered deviation from the TF in contemporary usage suggested that all basic levels of linguistic expression – the (morpho)phonological, the morphological and the (morpho)syntactic – experience profound structural changes. At the morphosyntactic level, for instance, we observed a pervasive drift from head‑final to head‑initial phrase syntax. Considering that head‑directionality is a constitutional property of syntax, this shows that the syntactic structure of the varieties studied is undergoing a fundamental reorganization. Despite the focus on MM, I did not restrict the inquiry entirely to this functional domain, but provided some information about the behaviour of adjacent domains of predicate grammar in LD circumstances. The evidence from the domains of valency, tense, person/number agreement and polarity could not be DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-010

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quantified in the way the data from MM was, and therefore I refrained from statements about the relative propensity of components of these domains to loss, change and innovation. The insights gained suggest, however, that valency and tense are somewhat less “afflicted” than agreement and polarity. This observation is consistent with Bybee’s (1985: 13‒24) hierarchy of relevance to the meaning of the verb‑stem, and shows that morphologically (or morphosyntactically) external categories have been affected earlier than internal categories. In the domain of MM, I observed several structural changes and submitted implicational statements (hierarchies) about the relative susceptibility of MMelements to loss, change and innovation in language obsolescence. These hierarchies were attained by applying more or less the same procedure: I monitored coding structures (a), observed certain structural processes (b) and used various diagnostics (c) to translate observed distributions into functional terms (d); cf. some examples of the items considered at each step: a) Coding structures: modals (verbs, adverbs, particles), complement taking predicates, subordinators (complementizers, adverbializers, relativizers), grammatical mood markers, sentence mood markers. b) Structural processes: multifunctionalization, idiolect divergence, particlization, omission of the infinitive, de‑auxiliarization. c) Diagnostics: substitution, extension (generalization, system penetration), defectiveness, transfer from the donor language, preferences among available alternatives, reinforcement. d) Functional terms (MM‑values); epistemic modality, hypothetical conditional, directive, ability. I tried to explain the observed hierarchies of relative susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in LD in terms of two variables: ‘conceptual complexity of a unit of meaning’ and ‘immediate scope of a meaning over a unit of meaning’. The first variable produced more significant distribution among the observations, whereas the second turned to be applicable mainly to the subdomain of ‘modality’, where it showed positive covariance with most of the hierarchies. Nonetheless, the variable of ‘semantic scope’ (as applied in this study) is worth testing with independent data from other functional domains, languages, and acute conditions of linguistic development. Finally, I reduced the variable ‘semantic scope’ to ‘conceptual complexity’ and as a result obtained a single rationale capturing the great majority of the phenomena observed in the MM domain of the deceasing Finnic varieties. The evidence from mood and modality suggests that the process of language death can be conceived of as a reduction of the average conceptual complexity conveyed by inherited linguistic structure.

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While the two premises mentioned in (i) and (ii) provided the starting point for reasoning, and did not directly belong to my research agenda, they were generally supported by the data. Many changes observed in LD seem to differ from regular changes (in full-fledged languages) either in terms of speed or kind. An example of a quantitative difference from regular language change are innovations, which are attested in the respective TFs and in other Finnic languages, but which seem to go viral in the obsolescent varieties. The extension of impersonal morphology to personal forms of the verb is attested in most Finnic languages and in the TFs of the respective varieties, but it is paradigmatically more advanced in LD circumstances (especially in Ingrian and Central Lude). Likewise, the process of particlization of modal verbs was observed in the TFs of Ingrian and Votic, but it affected additional verbs and advanced further in the last-speaker varieties of these languages. Given the relatively short time dividing TFs from the period during which the data for the present study was collected, these examples suffice to illustrate how LD accelerates linguistic change. Examples of qualitative differences between regular language change and LD include phenomena which are not attested in the TFs of the respective varieties, or in other, better preserved Finnic languages. Such “genetically unpredictable” phenomena include the irregularities in the inflectional consonant gradation (which is very persistent in the major Finnic languages), the drift from head-final to head-initial phrase structure, the double marking of spatial relations with a case suffix and preposition, the rise of symmetric negation, the loss of the distinction between inherent and acquired ability, the unprecedented idiolect divergence in the selection of modals, and the use of exceptional Imperative forms. In addition to these examples, where the uniqueness of linguistic change is determined intragenetically, some observations of the study pose a challenge to typologically recurrent patterns of change. For example, the ‘possibility–necessity blending’ has been held cross-linguistically responsible for the grammaticalization of modals across the conceptual boundary between possibility and necessity. However, such grammaticalizations have been reported only within the participantexternal modality domain (van der Auwera & Plungian 1998; van der Auwera, Kehayov & Vittrant 2009). This study, on the other hand, documented cases of possibility–necessity blending all the way from dynamic to epistemic modality (recall the horizontal axis in Figure 1 on page 33). Another example concerns the transfer of question markers. In his major work on contact induced language change, Matras (2009: 199) provides a list of borrowed interrogative markers from different languages. While all items listed by Matras are content question markers, in the present study I actually documented more transfers of polar question markers than of content question markers.

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The evidence in support of the second premise – the functional modularity assumption – is even stronger. The hierarchies of susceptibility of MM-elements to loss, change and innovation in LD identified by the study explicitly or implicitly corroborate this premise. For example, several hierarchies stated that epistemic modality is more affected by processes observed in LD than non-epistemic modality. Another example is the relative susceptibility of the Imperative and the Conditional to substitution, which suggests that the coding of ‘imperative illocutions’ is more resistant to structural change than ‘irrealis’ marking in declarative sentences. Future research can test the particular discoveries of this study against data from obsolescent languages unrelated to Finnic. The identification of common patterns in unrelated languages in semantically but not formally restricted domains such as MM would suggest that LD is indeed dependent on linguistic meaning. Conversely, the lack of common patterns would suggest that LD is exclusively dependent on structural idiosyncrasies of the languages investigated.

Appendices: examples of elicited linguistic data Conventions —

the consultant fails to produce the equivalence of a meaning entity (expressed by a word, clause, or sentence) occurring in the questionnaire

/

(between two words) repair

expression

transfer (of a word form or phrase) from Russian, which manifests overt inflectional features of this language

expression

example of a word or phrase with mixed (Russian and Finnic) grammatical properties

•

pause of short duration

••

pause of medium or long duration

DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-011

Appendix I. Q5: materials from Eastern Seto The consultant VH (Novyĭ Izborsk) has been a fluent speaker, but due to the fact that she lives in exclusively Russian environment, and the respective lack of communication in her native language, she shows some traits of a forgetter. Each item in the questionnaire is represented in the following sample by four lines: i) Russian source sentence presenting the intended meaning, ii) English translation of the source sentence, iii) transcription of the output of the consultant, iv) glosses of consultant’s output. Q5 (Надя и дети / Nadya and the children) У Нади трое детей и она должна все равно отдавать распоряжения: Nadya has three children and she has to give orders all the time: koл лast nu t’ä Nadjaл ou Nadja:ADE be.PRS . 3SG three children.PART so she.NOM piät üt’śke̮ik andma ke̮igile̮ • narjad’. must:PRS . 3SG all.the.same give:INF everybody:ALL order.ACC «Уберитесь в своей комнате!», «Не беги так. Мне за тобой не успеть», – Clean your room!, – Don’t run like this! I can’t keep running after you! Korstage är uma tare̮. Jōs-ku=i nī. clean:IMP. 2PL up own.INE room.INE run-IMP = NEG so Ma je̮vva=i su takh nī ruttu. I.NOM manage.CONNEG = NEG you.GEN behind so fast «Пусть Леня не идет один в лес, он заблудится!», – Lenya should not go alone to the forest, he will get lost there! Las Ljonja läe=i üt’śindä me̮tsa – let Ljonja.NOM go.CONNEG = NEG alone forest.ILL «Пусть маленькие идут спать, пусть не ждут отца!», – Let the small children go to sleep, let them not wait for father to come! läevä’ magama, naka=i’ Las veikoke̮se̮ let small(NOUN ):PL . NOM go:PRS .3PL sleep:INF start(≈FUT ).CONNEG = NEG ūtma essä. wait:INF father.PART DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-012

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Appendix I

«Катя, тебе нельзя дразнить младшего брата!». – Katya, you should not tease your younger brother! Katja, suл tohi=ei’ •• väikǝp / väikoke̮ist vel’l’eä. Katja.NOM you:ADE can.CONNEG = NEG small:CMP. NOM small:PART brother:PART Старший сын Толик передает младшим детям: The older son Tolik delivers the orders of his mother to the younger children: Vane̮p poig Tolik •• ütles väikoge̮iste̮лe̮ laste̮лe̮: old:CMP son.NOM Tolik.NOM tell:PRS . 3SG small:PL : ALL child:PL : ALL «Мама приказала, чтобы мы убрались в своих комнатах», – Mummy said, we should clean our rooms. umah tare̮. Imä ütel’, et mī’ koristaś mother.NOM say.PST. 3SG that we. NOM clean:COND. 3PL our:INE room.INE «Мама сказала, чтобы Катя и Леня почистили зубы». – Mamma said that Katya and Lenya should brush their teeth. Imä ütel’, et Katja i Ljonja puhasti mother.NOM say.PST. 3SG that Katja.NOM and Ljonja.NOM clean:IND.PST. 3PL hamba’. teeth:NOM С Толиком просто. Стоит только повысить голос и он сразу слушается. It is easy with Tolik. One needs only to raise one’s voice, and he obeys at once. i ̮nne̮ kärähütä tǟ vōriga kulle̮s. – Stoit be.worth:PRS . 3SG only raise.voice.INF he.NOM at.once hear:PRS . 3SG Хотя бы и то, что в коридоре нужно всегда снимать обувь. For example, – that one has to take his shoes off in the corridor. No hot’š́ tū, ät koridorih vaja • ke̮ik jumalaig • INTERJ PTCL DEM

that corridor:INE necessary all

God.time

ve̮tta’ sāpa’ jalast. take.INF boots:NOM foot:ELA Когда он сделает домашнюю работу, мама говорит ему: Once he is ready with his homework, mummy tells him: Ku tǟ tege är kodose tǖ, imä when he.NOM do.PRS . 3SG ready home(ADJ ).GEN work.GEN mother.NOM ütles tälle: tell:PRS . 3SG he:ALL

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«Ты больше не должен сидеть дома, можешь идти играть». – You don’t have to stay at home anymore, you can go to play (on the street). Sa inäp ve̮it mitte istu’ kotoh, ve̮it you.NOM more can:PRS .2SG NEG sit.INF at.home can:PRS . 2SG minnä mänǵmä. go.INF play:INF А младшим детям нравится играть с мамой в прятки и пугать ее. But the younger children like to play hide-and-seek with mummy and frighten her. mīlüs mängi’ imäga – Väikoke̮isile̮ laste̮лe̮ small:PL : ALL child:PL . ALL like:PRS . 3SG play.INF mother:COM «Нельзя пугать маму! / Не надо пугать маму!», – You should not frighten mother! / You don’t have to frighten mother!, Tohi=i’ hirmuta’ immä! Oлe̮=i vaja can.CONNEG =NEG frighten.INF mother.PART be.CONNEG =NEG necessary hirmuta’ immä! frighten.INF mother.PART – говорит Толик младшим детям. – Tolik tells the younger children. – ke̮ne̮лe̮s Tolik väikoke̮isile̮ laste̮лe̮ speak:PRS . 3SG Tolik.NOM small:PL : ALL child:PL . ALL Если они не слушаются, то Наде приходится просить. If they don’t listen, then Nadya has to beg. Ku nǟ’ kulle=i’, Nadjaл •• tījä=äi’ • if they.NOM listen.CONNEG =NEG Nadja:ADE know.CONNEG =NEG piät küsümä must:PRS . 3SG ask:INF Она надевает очки, чтобы выглядеть старше, и говорит: She puts the glasses on to look older, and says: ütlel: Ta pand prilli’, e̮t •• vane̮p • ja ke̮ne̮л / she.NOM put.PRS . 3SG glass that old:CMP and speak.PRS . 3SG say.PRS . 3SG

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«Не могли бы вы мне немножко помочь?» Wouldn’t you help me a little? Taha=e̮i ti mulle̮ veid’öke̮se̮ avita’? help:INF want.CONNEG =NEG you.PL . NOM I:ALL a.little Надя должна признать, что ее мама справляется с дети лучше, чем она сама. Nadya must admit that her mother can cope with the children better than she herself. Nadja peät ütlemä, et imä •• latste̮ga Nadja.NOM must:PRS . 3SG say:INF that mother.NOM child:PL : COM parembahe ku timä eś. better(ADV ) than she.NOM herself.NOM Но мама не всегда может помочь, потому что у нее слабое здоровье. But mother cannot help each time, because her health is not very good. No imä e̮ga ke̮rd ei ve̮i avita’, but mother.NOM every.NOM time.NOM NEG can.CONNEG help.INF tal om halv tervüs. she:ADE be.PRS . 3SG bad.NOM health.NOM Мама может и не быть на месте, ей достаточно сказать детям пару слов по телефону. Her mother need not be there, she could just say few words to the kids over the phone. Nu imä kuna ole=ki – but mother.NOM sometime be.CONNEG =NEG . PTCL Она часто говорит с ними так, словно они ее дети. She often speaks with them as if they were her own children. Timä ke̮ne̮le̮s nī, e̮t nǟ’ omma’ timä latse̮’. she.NOM speak:PRS . 3SG so that they.NOM be:PRS .3PL s/he.GEN children.NOM И всегда вмешивается в Надины дела. «Иди посмотри за супом!». And she always inteferes in Nadya’s affairs. – Go and check if the soup is ready! Ja ke̮ik jumalaig – Min=ḱau and all God.time.NOM go.IMP. 2SG =watch.IMP. 2SG kae’ supi perrä / min kae’ supi perrä! go.IMP. 2SG watch.IMP. 2SG soup.GEN after watch.IMP. 2SG soup.GEN after

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Надя отвечает: «Дорогая мама, суп еще не может быть готов, он кипит всего полчаса». Nadya answers: – Dear mother, the soup cannot be ready yet, it has been boiling only for a half an hour. Nadja ütel’ • kallis • imä supp ole̮=i Nadja.NOM say.PST. 3SG dear.NOM mother.NOM soup.NOM be.CONNEG =NEG vīl gotov •• timä kīs vīl pōl tunni. yet ready.M it.NOM boil.PRS . 3SG yet half hour.PART Иногда Надя должна передавать желания бабушки: Sometimes Nadya has to deliver grandma’s requests (to the children): – «Бабушка сказала, чтобы дети съели свой суп». – Grandma said that the children should eat their soup. Vanaimä ütel’, et latse̮’ sssss śjeli • śȫ grandma.NOM say.PST. 3SG that children.NOM eat:PST:3PL eatuma supp e̮gaüts / vanaimä ütel’, et own soup.NOM each.one grandma.NOM say.PST. 3SG that latse̮’ śȫ • kuis om • sȫvä’ uma supp children.NOM eat- how be.PRS . 3SG eat:PRS . 3PL own soup.NOM «Если вы сейчас будете вести себя хорошо, то завтра бабушка придет в гости». – If you behave well now, grandma will come tomorrow to visit us. Ku nakat hinnäst höste •• höste, sis well then if start(≈FUT ):PRS . 2SG self:PART well humme̮n tule̮ vanaimä küllä. tomorrow come.PRS . 3SG grandma.NOM on.visit Ей это не нравится. Ей кажется, словно она чужая в собственном доме. She does not like this. She feels like a stranger in her own house. Tälle śō mēlü=ei. Tälle näütäs, et timä she:ALL DEM like.CONNEG =NEG she:ALL seem:PRS . 3SG that she.NOM om ve̮er̮ as umah majah. be.PRS . 3SG foreign.NOM own:INE house:INE

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При этом бабушка хочет приходить к ним почаще. Moreover, grandma wants to visit them more often. No üt’śke̮ik vanaimä taht tulla’ timä / but all.the.same grandma.NOM want.PRS . 3SG come:INF s/he.GEN neide pōлǝ. they:GEN to Но Надя старается ей вежливо сказать: «Мама, тебе не нужно завтра приходить». But Nadya tries to tell her kindly: – Mother, you don’t have to come tomorrow. Nu Nadja taht kulturna üldä’, et mama • but Nadja.NOM want.PRS . 3SG kindly tell:INF that mother.NOM imä sul ole̮=i vaja e̮ga pǟvä käu. mother.NOM you:ADE be.CONNEG =NEG necessary every.NOM day.NOM visit.INF А где же отец детей – Вася? But where is the father of the children – Vasya? A koh om esä latsil Vasja? but where be.PRS . 3SG father.NOM children:ADE Vasja.NOM В такое время он уже должен/ему уже следовало бы быть дома. He should / is supposed to already be back home at this time. jo. No’ piät tä ole̮ma kotoh now must:PRS . 3SG he.NOM be:INF at.home already Tä pidi ole̮ma jo kotoh. he.NOM must:PST. 3SG be:INF already at.home Он не может так поздно еще быть на работе. He cannot be that long at work. Tǟ piä=ei ole̮ma nī •• vīl tǖh. he.NOM must.CONNEG =NEG be:INF so still work:INE Надя звонит ему. Говорит, что сломалась машина. Nadya calls him. He says that the car has broken down. tälle. Tä ütel’, et slamalaś Nadja helistäs Nadja.NOM call:PRS . 3SG he:ALL he.NOM say.PST. 3SG that brake:PST. F. REFL . 3SG auto. car.NOM

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«Если бы машина была в исправности, уже бы давно был с вами», – говорит Вася. If the car were in order, I would already have been with you (long time ago), – Vasya says. Ku auto ole̮=s hukah, oln jo • ammu tīka’. / if car.NOM be.CONNEG =PST. NEG wasted be:COND.1SG already long.ago you:COM Ku auto lännü=s hukka, oln ammu jo tīka’. if car.NOM go:COND. 3SG = NEG wasted be:COND.1SG long.ago already you:COM Надя немножко сердится, почему он сам не позвонил. Nadya is slightly upset – why didn’t he call. Nadja t’š́ ut’ke̮ne •• selle et helistä=s Nadja.NOM a.little

because that call.CONNEG =PST. NEG

Ведь надо предупреждать, когда он задерживается. You see, he should give a notice, if he is going to be late. – Наде часто кажется, что Вася мог бы побольше времени проводить с детьми. Nadya often feels that Vasya could spend more time with the children. Nadjaл näütäs, e̮t Vasja • ve̮i’ • ve̮ip rohke̮p Nadja.ADE seem:PRS . 3SG that Vasja.NOM can- can:PRS . 3SG more vremeni lastega. time:GEN children:COM

Appendix II. Non-controlled elicitation: materials from Central Lude The consultant VS (Pryazha) is a rusty speaker whose wife is also a Lude, but they communicate with each other in Russian. (About the language and its dialects:) Karjalan kieli on • meil rajonas daže razlitšaet’śa Karelian:GEN language.NOM be.PRS . 3SG we:ADE district:INE even differ:PRS . REFL . 3SG toine toisest / üksistas vot • Oлontsas pagistah other.NOM other:ELA from.each.other PTCL Olonets:INE speak:PRS . IMPS üks • üksi naŕet’šie on •• Oлontsas, Svjatozeros on • one.NOM one.NOM dialect.NOM be.PRS . 3SG Ononets:INE Svyatozero:INE be.PRS . 3SG Priäža vot i Polovina Vīdani ̮ • primerno hǖ Pryazha.NOM PTCL and Polovina.NOM Vidany.NOM for.example they.NOM oлdā odno naŕet’šie kai oлda • odin be:ACT. PRS . 3PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) one.N dialect.NOM all be:ACT. PRS . 3PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) one.M dialect ili kui sanotah vot • a vot Vedlozero, Krošnozero, dialect.NOM or how say:PRS . IMPS PTCL but PTCL Vedlozero.NOM Kroshnozero.NOM Essoila, vot tam Veškelitsa, se on d’o toine Essoila.NOM PTCL there Veshkelitsa.NOM this.NOM be.PRS . 3SG already another.NOM naŕet’šie • nemnožka razlitšaet’śa •• a vot Koлatsel’ga, dialect.NOM slightly differ:PRS . REFL . 3SG but PTCL Kolatsel’ga.NOM Koivusel’ga, Kińelahta se on vobše sovsem drugoe • Koĭvusel’ga.NOM Kinelakhta.NOM this.NOM be.PRS . 3SG in.general completely other.NOM . N erhǟt / kui sanotā • karjalān kieli da some:PL . NOM how say:PRS . IMPS Karelian:GEN language.NOM PTCL unohtan / erhǟt sanad daže müö karjaлaized eivä forget:PRS .1SG some:PL . NOM word:PL . NOM even we:NOM Karelians.NOM NEG :3PL voidu po- • ponjat’ can:IMPS . PST. PTCP understand.INF ‘The Karelian language – well, it varies even within our district. In Olonets they speak one dialect. In Olonets, in Svyatozero, in Pryazha, also in Polovina and in Vidany – well, all these are roughly the same dialect; one dialect, or how do you call it. Then in DOI 10.1515/9783110524086-013

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Vedlozero, Kroshnozero, Éssoila, and also in Veshkelitsa – this is already another dialect – a slightly different one. And in Kolatsel’ga, Koĭvusel’ga, and Kinelakhta – this is a completely different dialect. Some . . . how to put it . . . I have forgotten Karelian . . . some words are such that even we Karelians can [could] not understand them.’ (Showing locations on the map:) Ol’ittego Koivusel’ga ili Koлatsel’ga •• vot Kińelahta, be:PST:2PL : Q (yes/no) Koĭvusel’ga.NOM or Kolatsel’ga.NOM PTCL Kinelakhta.NOM Koivusel’ga, Paлaлahta i Koлatsel’ga • vot śe on kakraz Koĭvusel’ga.NOM Palalakhta.NOM and Kolatsel’ga.NOM PTCL this.NOM be.PRS . 3SG exactly олdā • Ḱäsńäsel’ga vot śe ō be:ACT. PRS . 3PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) Kyasnyasel’kya.NOM PTCL this. NOM be.PRS . 3SG ühteл dorogaл hü oлdah kai • vernē one: ADE road:ADE they. NOM be:ACT. PRS . 3PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) all right:CMP ühteл ei oлda • Kolatsel’ga on ühteл dorogaл one: ADE NEG be:PRS . IMPS .CONNEG Kolatsel’ga.NOM be.PRS . 3SG one: ADE road:ADE t’äл kat’š́ o kudain menȫ täz • a tšerez Jurgel’itsu • PTCL here.on watch.IMP. 2SG REL . NOM go.PRS . 3SG herein but through Yurgilitsa.ACC vot

a tǟ on v storone täz voiv ajoa s herein can: PRS . 3SG drive: INF from but this.NOM be.PRS . 3SG aside Koлatsel’gi na Koivusel’gu i na Oлonets • Kolatsel’ga.GEN to Koĭvusel’ga.ACC and to Olonets.ACC Oлontsa voivi pūttū Olonets.GEN can:PRS . 3SG get.INF ‘Did you visit Koĭvusel’ga or Kolatsel’ga? Well, Kinelakhta, Koĭvusel’ga, Palalakhta, and Kolatsel’ga – well, these are exactly – and also Kyasnyasel’kya – these are all on the same road. Actually, not quite – Kolatsel’ga is on this road – you see, how it goes here [on the map] – and through Yurgilitsa – you see, from here one can drive from Kolatsel’ga to Koĭvusel’ga and then to Olonets. You can get in Olonets this way.’ (About the village Verkhnie Vazhiny:) Do voini ̮ pośolka moist küliä ei ńi until war.GEN settlement.GEN such:PART village.PART NEG . 3SG NEG . PTCL oлnu vobše • do otet’šestvennoi voini ̮ • ei be:PST.CONNEG at.all until fatherland(ADJ ).GEN war.GEN NEG . 3SG

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oлnu sousem • se oli külä Kaškani ̮ • v uot be:PST.CONNEG at.all this.NOM be:PST. 3SG village.NOM Kashkany PTCL nazi ̮valaś • a sei sīt konzku asuttīhä leso- / natšali call:PST: REFL . 3SG but then then when make:PST. IMPS : AFF.CL wood- start:PST:3PL zagatavlivat’ les / met’š́ä stali zagatavlivat’ • process:INF wood.ACC forest.PART start:PST. 3PL process:INF śinne ülen äijü rahvuasta tul’i śin • there.to very much people:PART come:PST. 3SG there.to s Belorusī, s Ukraini ̮ • i ūzi pośolku rodīheze • from Belarus:GEN , from Ukraine:GEN and new.NOM settlement.NOM arise:PST. 3SG Verhnie Važini ̮ sanoti h Verkhnie Vazhiny say:PST. IMPS ‘Until the war this settlement – this village – did not exist at all. There was no such village until World War II. There was a village called Kashkany – this was the name of the village. But then they started logging wood – they started wood-logging – and a lot of people came from Belarus and Ukraine. A new settlement was founded; they called it Verkhnie Vazhiny.’ (About the immigration to Svyatozero/Pühäjärvi:) da Verhnie Važeni ̮, Matrosi ̮ • a sīt kounsku lesopuntu and Verkhnie Vazhiny. NOM Matrosy.NOM and then when logging.depot.NOM śe • perestaл / ei ruoteta sitšas ńimidä • poлovina it.NOM stop:PST. 3SG . M NEG work:PRS . IMPS .CONNEG now nothing.PART half.NOM bol’še perejehali v Pühäjärvē • i vot śe oli more move:PST:3PL to Pühäjärvi.ILL and PTCL it.NOM be:PST. 3SG souvhosa silloi oli vie Pühäjärves • bogatij sovhos sovkhoz.NOM then be:PST. 3SG still Pühäjärvi:INE rich(ADJ ).NOM . М sovkhoz.NOM oli vot • i sīh ostaliś Pühäjärves elämäi • enämbi be:PST. 3SG PTCL and it:ILL stay:PST: REFL . 3PL Pühäjärvi:INE live:INF more on śie karjalast ondā Pühäjärven rahvaz kudamas be.PRS . 3SG there Karelian:PL . NOM be:PRS . 3PL Pühäjärvi:GEN people.NOM which:PL . NOM rodiliś Pühäjärves vähä on śie seitša Pühäjärves • be.born:PST: REFL . 3PL Pühäjärvi:INE little be.PRS . 3SG there now Pühäjärvi:INE enimmäd oлdā prijezžije most:PL . NOM be:ACT. PRS . 3PL (≈PRS . IMPS ) newcomer:PL . NOM

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‘. . . and Verkhnie Vazhiny and Matrosy – but when the logging depot was closed – nothing functions now – at least the half of them moved to Pühäjärvi. Well, at that time there was still a sovkhoz in Pühäjärvi; it was a rich sovkhoz. And so they stayed in Pühäjärvi. The most of them are Karelians. These folks born in Pühäjärvi – now there are only few of them in Pühäjärvi. The majority are newcomers.’ Biography episodes (About the work during the time spent in evacuation:) tak sebe kańešna da • vobšem • voinah müö olim PTCL NEG indifferent of.course yes in.general war:ILL we.NOM be:PST:1PL

Nu, ne

evakuatsias • minähǟ sanoin v Arhangelskoj evacuation:INE I.NOM : AFF.CL say:PST:1SG in Akhangelsk(ADJ ) oblasti a sīd • a d’edo miǝn oli evakuirovan oblast:PRP but then but oncle.NOM I:GEN be:PST. 3SG evacuate:PST. PTCP. M Kostromah • i hän tuli otti • minū ei oлnu • Kostroma:ILL and he.NOM come:PST. 3SG take:PST. 3SG I.PART NEG . 3SG be:PST.CONNEG minä ol’in d’o v Obozerske tože ruadoz ol’in na I.NOM be:PST:1SG already in Obozersk:PRP also work:INE be:PST:1SG on železnoi dorogez miä ruadoin okolo Obozerska • se iron(ADJ ).PRP road:INE I.NOM work:PST:1SG around Obozersk:GEN it.NOM oli vostonovitel’nij poezd oli • i vot müö kahtē be:PST. 3SG emergency(ADJ ).NOM . M train.NOM be:PST. 3SG and PTCL we.NOM two.INS tavarišānke läht’ime sorok vtorom godu primerno v friend:COM go:PST:1PL forty two:PRP year:PRP for.example in marte meśatsǝ • śeli na poezd i läht’imǝ March:PRP month:PRP sit:PST:1PL in train.ACC and start:PST:1PL aja • ajoimǝ Belamorskā • sieh sanotī otkrilaś travel:INF travel:PST:1PL Belomorsk:ILL there tell:PST. IMPS open:PST: REFL . 3SG remeslennoe utšiliš́a • a mei ol’ dvenadśat l’et industrial.NOM . N school.NOM but we:ADE be:PST. 3SG twelve years.GEN kaikkida oli vot • no müö tahtoime dumaitšeme pūtume all:PL : ADE be:PST. 3SG PTCL so we.NOM want:PST:1PL think:PST:1PL get:PRS .1PL remeslennoe utšiliš́a v Belomorskah tulimo sīh okolo industrial.NOM . N school.NOM / ILL in Belomorsk:ILL come:PST:1PL there.to around

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Obozerska elimǝ • tulimo sīh remeslennoe utšiliš́ a Obozersk:GEN live:PST:1PL come:PST:1PL there.to industrial.NOM . N school.NOM d’o perepoлneno • meid ei prīmittü • a sīd üks we:PART NEG accept:PST. IMPS .CONNEG and then one.NOM already full:N oli verbovt’šik śīžǝ na železnoi dorogu • vot davait’e • be:PST. 3SG recruiter.NOM there:also on iron(ADJ ).ACC road.ACC PTCL come.on nu i müö soglasiliś na železnoi dorogu • elime so and we.NOM agree:PST: REFL .1PL on iron(ADJ ).ACC road.ACC live:PST:1PL vagońkas tepluške • nu i na razgruske peska v carriage:INE heated.shelter.DAT so and on unloading.PRP sand.GEN in vagonah razgružali • meid oli brihat’š́ ui • naverno carriage:PL . PRP unload:PST:1PL we:PART be:PST. 3SG boy:PL . PART probably tšelovek okola vīstostu naverno oli heŋgiä • kai olit’š́i human.GEN around fifteen probably be:PST. 3SG human: PART all be:PST.3SG : also dvenadtśat, trinadśat, petnadśat l’et • vot ńiŋgumad oldih kai • twelve thirtheen fifteen years.GEN PTCL such:PL . NOM be:PST. IMPS all vot PTCL

i na ragruzke peska ruaduoin • vot eto sorok and on unloading.PRP sand:GEN work:PST:1SG PTCL that forty

vtoroi god • nu a sorok tret’eu • minä läht’in second.M year.NOM so and forty third:GEN I.NOM leave:PST:1SG ‘It was not easy, of course. In general, we were evacuated during the war. I already told you – in Akhangelsk Oblast. My oncle was evacuated in Kostroma and he came to take me with him. But I was not there anymore – I was already in Obozersk. I got a job on the railroad, nearby Obozersk – on emergency [reconstruction] train. And then, with two friends – we took the train to Belomorsk; this was in 1942, approximately in March. There, we were told, an industrial school has been opened. We were only twelve years old, but we wanted – thought that we will get a place in the industrial school. We came there – the industrial school was full – we were not accepted. But then there was one recruiter, there on the railroad: – Come on! [he said] – and we agreed. We lived in a heated shelter in the carriage, and we unloaded sand to the carriages. We were all boys, – probably about fifteen guys there. We were all twelve, thirtheen, fifteen years old. All were so young. In 1942 I was working there unloading sand. And in 1943 – I left.’

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(End of the war:) Minä ol’in utšenikom mehanitšeskoi mast’erskoi • I.NOM be:PST:1SG apprentice:INS mechanical:GEN workshop:GEN utšenikom sl’esarja ezmäe • sīt sl’esariл ruodoin apprentice:INS fitter:GEN at.first then fitter:ADE work:PST:1SG d’o pered okontšanie voini ̮ • konz osvob- / tämä karjaлan this.NOM Karelian:GEN already before ending:GEN war:GEN when freeteritorija osvobodili • eta bi ̮lo vo juni mesetsja territory.NOM /ACC liberate:PST:3PL this.NOM be:PST:3SG . N in June month:PRP kak raz • sorok tšetvjortovo goda • vot i minä silloi d’o precisely forty fourth:GEN year:GEN PTCL and I.NOM then already ruodoin sl’esarjem śieh v mast’erskoi work:PST:1SG fitter:INS there in workshop:GEN ‘I was an apprentice at the machine workshop – an apprentice of the fitter at the beginning. Then I worked as a fitter – already before the end of the war. As they liberated this Karelian territory – it was precisely in June 1944 – well, at that time I was already working as a fitter in the workshop.’ (Moving to Pryazha:) no kat’š́ o kazvoin minä Pühäjärves / Svjatozeros a sīt händ but see.IMP. 2SG grow:PST:1SG I.NOM Pühäjärvi:INE Svyatozero:INE and then he:PART otetti roadoh tänne Priäžǟ • tuatto • no i perejehali take:PST. IMPS work:ILL here.to Pryazha:ILL father.NOM but and move:PST:1PL i vot s t’eh por • armejas minä slūžin • d’ärille and PTCL from this.GEN time.GEN army:INE I.NOM serve.PST:1SG back opjat’ tänne tul’in • täz elän no vot again here.to come:PST:1SG herein live:PRS .1SG PTCL ‘You see, I grew up in Pühäjärvi – in Svyatozero, and then he was appointed to work here in Pryazha – my father – so we moved and since then we live here. I served in the army and after that I came back here. Well, I still live here.’

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Appendix II

(About school time:) Täh Priäžain školah minä käv üin da sīt • mü tul’ime vie • here.to Pryazha:ILL school.ILL I.NOM go:PST:1SG and then we.NOM come:PST:1PL yet oli pośolku śie • mehanizirovannaja traktornaja baza • be:PST. 3SG settlement.NOM there machine(ADJ ).NOM . F tractor(ADJ ).NOM . F station.NOM tāta ruodoi śie politrabotnikom • vot i minä śie käv üin father.NOM work:PST. 3SG there political.officer:INS PTCL and I.NOM there go:PST:1SG školā primerno do tšetvjortova klasa • do tret’evo • vot • school:ILL for.example until fourth:GEN grade:GEN until third:GEN PTCL a sīt Priäžäh perejehali • Priäžässǝ utšīmuos da sīt and then Pryazha:ILL move:PST:1PL Pryazha:INE study:PST: REFL .1PL and then ‘I went to school here in Pryazha. When we came, there was a settlement with a mechanized tractor station. My father worked there as a political officer. So, I went to school there – until the fourth grade, or until the third grade. And then we moved to Pryazha. After that I went to school in Pryazha.’

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Language index: Finnic varieties Names of individual languages and their dialects are given in regular; names of language families and subfamilies in italics. Estonian 40, 67–69, 71, 73, 77–79, 81, 86– 87, 93–94, 97, 117, 126–127, 129–131, 134, 136–139, 147, 151–152, 158, 163, 165, 172–174, 233, 245–246, 248, 250, 253, 274, 279, 283, 291, 315, 318–320 – Mulgi 71 – North(ern) Estonian 67–69, 71, 86, 97, 137, 141, 232, 243 – Northeastern Coastal Estonian 69 – (Eastern) Seto 1, 4, 67–69, 71–78, 81–82, 85–87, 89, 90, 92–95, 100, 103–104, 107–108, 114–119, 121, 123–125, 131– 134, 141–142, 146, 151–153, 160, 164– 167, 170, 175, 181–182, 184–186, 188, 192, 199, 215, 222, 230, 232–233, 236, 238, 240, 243–244, 248, 250, 252–254, 258, 264, 267, 270–271, 273–275, 279– 281, 289–291, 321, 326 – South(ern) Estonian 67–69, 71, 86, 97, 137, 141, 232, 243 – Tartu 71 – Võru 69, 71, 141, 167, 215, 243, 248, 250, 252, 258 Finnic 1, 3–4, 18, 20, 22, 44–45, 47–50, 54, 59, 66–71, 75–79, 82, 85, 87, 91– 92, 94, 97, 101, 103, 107–108, 111, 113– 115, 117–120, 122, 124–127, 129–130, 133–138, 142–145, 147, 151–152, 157– 158, 161, 163–164, 166–173, 175, 178, 182–183, 200, 202, 207, 209–210, 215– 216, 221, 223–224, 226, 229, 231–234, 239–242, 244–246, 248, 250–252, 259, 261–266, 269–270, 274, 276, 278, 283, 286, 288–289, 300, 304, 312, 314, 316–317, 320, 326–329 – Eastern Finnic 118, 130, 135, 173–174 – minor Finnic 2, 72–76, 79, 84, 92, 94, 97, 101, 115, 177, 211, 242–243, 270, 282, 305

– Northern Finnic 137, 246, 252 – Southern Finnic 69, 134, 147, 184, 251, 253 – Western Finnic 138, 172 Finnish 36–38, 41, 50–51, 64, 67, 69–70, 73, 76–78, 80–81, 84–85, 88, 90–91, 97, 115, 117, 120–123, 129, 134, 136–138, 148, 154, 159, 164, 170–176, 182–183, 196, 201, 203, 209, 240–243, 245–253, 257, 274, 279, 283, 314 – Colloquial Finnish 153 – Ingrian Finnish 16, 77, 196 – Old Finnish 164 – southeastern dialects of Finnish 69 – Western Finnish 68–69 Ingrian 1, 67–78, 80–82, 85–93, 95, 100, 103–104, 107–108, 112, 114–115, 121– 123, 125, 128, 134–135, 139, 146–148, 151–152, 166–167, 170, 173, 175, 177– 180, 182–183, 188, 199–201, 204, 206– 208, 211, 213–214, 229, 233–238, 240, 242–248, 250, 252–253, 257, 269, 271, 277, 280–281, 288–289, 326, 328 – Heva Ingrian 88 – Lower Luga Ingrian 104, 127–130, 142, 144, 146, 149, 153, 155–157, 166–167, 180, 194, 229–230, 233–234, 244, 256– 257, 263–264, 267–268, 278, 282 – Oredezh Ingrian 69 – Soikino Ingrian 104, 116, 119–122, 125, 127–129, 131–133, 138–139, 142–143, 146–149, 153, 155, 157, 164–168, 178– 182, 185, 188, 191, 193, 195–197, 199, 201–204, 206, 208–209, 211–213, 221– 223, 225, 230, 233–234, 236–237, 245, 256, 258, 260, 263, 266–267, 269, 277–278, 281, 288, 290–291

376

Language index: Finnic varieties

Karelian 49, 63–64, 67–70, 74, 77–80, 84– 85, 87, 108, 118, 130, 135, 152, 154, 167, 172–173, 223, 246, 250–252, 338–341, 343 – Old Karelian 68–69 – Olonets Karelian 70, 74, 76, 172, 174 – Proper Karelian 49, 69–70, 74, 77–78, 80, 152 – Tver Karelian 80, 172, 245 – Valdai Karelian 130, 158–159, 245 Kven 67, 69 Livonian 67–68, 130, 134, 137, 139, 147, 151, 164, 172–174, 246, 251, 253 Lude 67, 69–71, 74–76, 78, 80, 88–89, 92, 108, 115–116, 133, 135–136, 144, 159, 163, 229–230, 235, 244, 250–252, 269, 285, 338 – Central Lude 1, 4, 67–78, 80, 82, 85, 88– 91, 93–95, 100, 103–104, 107–108, 112, 114–116, 118–119, 123–124, 127–130, 132–136, 140–144, 146–149, 151–154, 156–160, 165–168, 170, 175, 177, 182– 185, 188–189, 192, 194, 199–200, 207– 209, 211, 214–215, 220–222, 224–225, 229–231, 233–234, 236, 238, 240,

243–245, 248, 252–253, 256–257, 267, 269, 271–273, 277, 279–281, 285–286, 289–291, 326, 328, 338 – Northern Lude 70, 89, 130, 135, 251 – Southern Lude 70, 89 Meänkieli 67, 69 Proto-Finnic 68, 126, 246 Veps 67, 70, 108, 118, 135–136, 152, 161, 164, 167, 173, 245–246, 251–252 – Central Veps 161 – Old Veps 68 Votic 1, 67–77, 81–82, 88–89, 95, 100, 103– 104, 107–108, 112, 114–117, 121, 123, 130, 134, 137, 139–140, 146–149, 151– 152, 156–157, 159, 164–168, 170, 173, 175, 177, 182–183, 185, 188, 195–197, 199–201, 206–208, 210–211, 213–215, 221, 229, 233–236, 238, 240, 242–248, 250–253, 255–256, 266–267, 269–271, 326, 328 – Eastern Votic 70 – Krevin 70, 265 – Kukkuzi Votic 70, 77 – Western Votic 70

Subject index abessive 163 ability 19, 21–22, 27, 29, 34, 36–37, 65–66, 171, 179–185, 292, 297, 308–309, 324 – acquired 22, 179–180, 182–185, 292, 297, 328 – emotional 21, 182 – inherent 21–22, 179–180, 182–185, 196– 198, 292, 297, 328 – mental 21, 41, 171, 179–180, 182–184 – physical 21, 36–37, 171, 179–184 ablative 123 accusative 120, 129, 132–133 achievement predicate 48, 162 acquisitive modal 180, 183, 214–215 adaptation (structural) 15, 117–118, 122–123, 125, 132–133, 135–136, 207, 216, 222– 223, 229–230, 269 adessive 117, 121, 123, 130, 172, 174 admirative mood 62–63 adverbial clause 48, 233, 236, 238, 248, 282, 287, 312–313 affirmation 162, 187, 195 affirmative 63–64, 98, 128–129, 136–137, 145, 153, 161–166, 170, 186–187, 190– 196, 199, 203–204, 242, 244, 247, 293, 298 agent-oriented modality 28, 33, 36, 51, 174, 216–219, 224, 280, 283, 293–294, 315, 322 agreement 13–14, 113, 115, 117, 119–120, 125, 134, 138, 145–146, 154–155, 157– 159, 168, 172, 215, 223, 246, 258, 268, 290 alethic modality 26 allative 130–131, 172, 229 allomorphy 12, 116–118, 246–247, 272 ambiguity 37–38, 123, 158–159, 166, 174, 319–320 analogy 11, 113, 115–118, 147, 155, 237, 246, 257, 268 analytic (vs. synthetic) 9, 14, 62, 124–125, 243–244, 248, 254–255, 259, 262, 265, 267, 294

anticausative 134–136, 229 aphasia 53, 59 apodosis 51, 266, 272, 274, 278–279, 284– 285, 318–319 aspect 42, 54, 65, 118–119, 126–127, 134, 305, 309 assertion 24–25, 45, 307 assumption (as a modal notion) 24–25, 248, 280, 282–283, 294, 315, 320–322 attitude (as a modal notion) 19, 27, 31, 39, 44, 303 attitudinal 30–32 auxiliary 32, 37–38, 44, 46, 136–137, 141, 143, 213–214, 246 belief (as a modal notion) 26, 39 bilingualism 57, 77 borrowability 2, 64, 111, 219, 231–235, 239 borrowed modal 64, 201, 216–224, 244 borrowing 2, 11, 15, 54, 57, 66, 115, 118–119, 122–124, 132, 148–149, 154, 215–216, 224, 226–228, 234–239, 244, 246, 272, 289, 305, 312, 324, 328 – negative 15, 63, 138 boulomaic modality 27, 29, 33–34, 36, 305 capacity see ability cause (as a semantic notion) 65, 134, 239, 305 certainty 19, 24–26, 28, 31, 35, 42, 44, 175, 188, 193, 201, 205, 211–212, 220, 250, 320–321 circumstantial modality 19, 21–23, 28–29, 32–34, 36, 41, 47, 51, 178–181, 184– 185, 188–199, 208–211, 222, 292–293, 297, 310 clause type see sentence mood code-mixing 9–10, 70–71, 77, 135, 156, 216, 220, 270, 272 code-switching 10, 66, 216, 223, 269 coercion 288, 314 cognitive 9, 35, 43, 55–61, 66, 296–297, 314 cohortative 63, 240, 259–262

378

Subject index

comitative 124, 131, 158, 305 command (as a modal notion) 2, 15, 32, 44– 48, 245–246, 259, 298, 307 commentative predicate 227–228 commitment (as a modal notion) 24, 26, 31, 314–315, 319 communicated content (a unit of analysis in Functional Discourse Grammar) 301, 306–307 comparative construction 121, 124–125 comparative marker 125, 221, 225, 319 comparison (as a grammatical notion) 54, 115, 121, 125 compensatory process 16, 179, 208 competence (vs. performance) 8, 58, 104– 106, 139, 164 complement clause 31, 48, 101–102, 176, 230, 232, 234, 248, 264, 266, 288, 290, 317, 319 complementation marking 101–102, 175– 176, 231–232, 234–235 complementizer 3, 54, 101, 170, 175–176, 230–235, 237, 239, 271, 289–293, 312, 314 – irrealis 232–235, 293, 312–313, 324 – polar 176, 232–235, 293, 312–313 – semantically neutral 175, 232–235, 290, 292, 313, 323 – similative 175, 319 complement-taking predicate 162–166, 168–169, 216, 226–230, 232, 235, 245, 293, 312–313, 320 complex systems 56 complexity (in language) 12, 17, 57–58, 187, 208, 261, 296, 299, 306, 311, 314 – increase of 16, 57–58, 208 – of modality notions 20–24, 28, 33, 299 – reduction 11–13, 16–17, 57, 144, 208, 265, 291, 297 – structural 12, 126, 137, 142, 258–259, 261–262, 265, 291, 296 – trade-offs 12, 208 – types of 58 – see also conceptual complexity comprehension (vs. production) 96, 104– 106

conceptual complexity 3, 58, 61, 175, 261, 293, 295–299, 302, 304, 307–310, 313– 314, 322–325, 327 concessive 48, 65, 224, 239, 245, 251 concomitance 122, 131, 158 conditional adverbializer 65, 176, 236–239, 293, 313 conditional clause (or sentence) 23, 51, 63, 222, 236, 238–239, 248, 251, 266–269, 272, 274, 277–279, 283–285, 294, 313, 315, 318, 322 conditional mood 46–49, 51, 60, 63, 65–66, 108, 137, 141–142, 145, 155–156, 161, 224, 232, 236, 240, 246–250, 252–254, 262–287, 290, 294, 299, 313–323, 329 connegative 63–64, 146, 150, 163–166, 168, 202, 241–243, 246, 256–258, 266, 288 copula 130, 133, 147, 157, 161, 171, 173–174, 206, 209–213, 250, 269, 278 core modal 19, 64, 171–173, 182–184, 200, 206–208, 215, 220 counterfactual conditional 48, 141, 248, 266–267, 277–279, 283–285, 287, 294, 315, 218–319, 322 counterfactual (a)symmetry 278 counterfactuality 266, 277–278, 284 creole 7, 9–10 creolization 8–10 dative 37–38, 172 de-acquisition see regression hypothesis de-auxiliarization 200, 208, 211 debitive mood 47, 51, 174, 251 declarative 18, 47, 50, 102, 194, 253, 329 – clause 45, 47, 161–162, 244, 264, 307 decreolization 10 defectiveness (of form) 117, 120, 123–124, 136, 143, 254–257, 260, 262, 278, 287, 294, 297–298, 327 degrammaticalization 213 deixis 42, 246, 265, 289–291, 314 deontic modal 23–24, 41–42, 178–181, 189– 192, 194, 198–199, 210, 263, 287, 309– 310, 315 deontic modality 20–21, 23–25, 27–29, 32– 33, 35–37, 39, 41–42, 47, 51, 58, 66,

Subject index

103, 144, 178–181, 188–199, 208–211, 222, 239, 265, 292–293, 297–298, 308–310 dependent clause 216, 225, 288–289, 316 descriptive (vs. performative) 24, 30–32, 66, 298 desemantization 9, 177 desiderative predicate 162–163, 227–228, 232, 248–249, 280–283, 287, 294, 312–313, 315–317, 322 desire (as a modal notion) 21, 24, 27, 36, 47–49, 65–66 dialect levelling 70, 77–78, 93, 156, 256 direct speech 264–265, 288–292, 307, 313– 314 directive 24, 29, 45, 211, 254, 261, 263–265, 287–289, 299, 327 discourse act (a unit of analysis in Functional Discourse Grammar) 45, 301–303, 306–307 dominant language 2, 6–7, 10, 15, 17, 58, 63, 97, 122, 159, 164, 214, 216, 228, 278, 288, 305, 312 donor language 3, 15, 17, 101, 115, 132, 143, 165, 215, 274, 327 doxastic modality 26, 305 dynamic modality 21–23, 25–27, 29, 32–33, 36, 38–39, 41–42, 47, 58, 66, 133, 177– 183, 188–192, 194–199, 207–210, 292– 293, 297, 308–310, 328 ecology of language 5, 82 elative 122–124 ellipsis see omission endogamy 84, 93, 95 entrenchment 61, 180, 202, 220 episodic (vs. generic) 25, 142, 144 epistemic devaluation 194 epistemic distancing 225 epistemic modal 39–41, 133, 144, 165, 188– 194, 197, 200–201, 203, 205–207, 209– 210, 213, 215–218, 220–221, 224, 280, 285, 287, 310–311, 313, 316–318, 320– 321 epistemic modality 20, 24–33, 35–42, 47, 49–51, 55, 58–59, 66, 111–112, 133, 174–179, 181, 188–197, 199–200, 207–

379

210, 212–214, 216–222, 225, 239, 250, 280, 285, 293, 298, 304–305, 310–311, 313–314, 318, 320–321, 327–329 epistemic scale 35, 50, 220 essive 130 Estonia 74–75, 77–79, 81, 86–87, 89–90, 93–95, 108 event 19, 22, 25, 29, 48, 50, 137, 158, 224, 228, 300, 305, 316–317, 319 – modality 28, 33 – oriented modality 29, 31–32, 36, 39, 181, 305, 310, 318, 321 – quantification 303, 305 – see also state of affairs eventive mood 251–252 evidentiality 25–29, 40–42, 47, 175, 205 – reported 51, 60, 63, 65, 251 factive 226 factivity 44, 216, 299 factual 19, 50, 235, 314 – conditional 251, 276–277, 285 factuality 19–20, 224–225, 231–232, 235, 266, 279, 284, 319–320 fearing, predicate of 27, 48, 227–228 finite clause 101, 127, 234, 290 finite verb form 3, 47, 54, 79, 112, 133, 137, 141–143, 162–163, 166, 168, 173–174, 201–203, 205–206, 210, 212, 215, 242, 279, 316 finiteness 136, 173, 201, 205, 208 Finland 75, 78, 85–86, 90–92 fluency 97, 104–107, 126, 133 fluent speaker 6, 105–107, 121, 127, 142, 181, 266, 331; see also full speaker folklorization 81 forgetter 82, 105–106, 118, 121, 124, 127, 155–156, 178, 183–184, 196–197, 202, 223, 236, 257, 231 formulaic knowledge 11, 59 full speaker 10, 59, 61, 104; see also fluent speaker Functional (Discourse) Grammar 3, 42–43, 205, 296, 300 future tense 14, 46, 62, 65, 136, 171, 206, 250, 260

380

Subject index

genitive 115, 117–118, 120–121, 125–130, 132, 172–173, 258 government (as a syntactic notion) 119, 122– 123, 126, 131, 160, 229 gradience (in conceptual space) 24–29, 31, 34–36, 43, 175, 188, 193, 219–220, 280, 299, 315, 320 grammaticalization 18, 44–45, 58, 109, 136, 151, 174, 177, 179, 181–184, 200, 214, 246, 251, 262, 328 head-directionality 121, 125–127, 326 head-final 115, 120–122, 125–126, 326, 328 head-initial 120–122, 125–126, 326, 328 hierarchy 42–43, 53, 134, 145, 158, 235, 261, 283, 327 – acquisition 58–59, 65–66, 109, 298 – borrowing (borrowability) 54, 64–66, 111, 219, 231–233 – implicational 65, 110–111, 185, 235, 259, 292, 296, 312–313, 327 – of susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in language death 53–54, 58, 61, 64–65, 111, 228, 235, 261, 283–284, 292–294, 298–299, 310–313, 315, 319 – probabilistic 48, 61, 64–65, 110–111, 195, 280, 282, 292, 311 – see also scale, scope hierarchy hortative 48–49, 154, 240, 244, 259, 302 hybrid structure 290–292; see also mixed structure hypothetical conditional 49, 51, 248, 267, 274, 276–277, 279, 283–286, 294, 315, 318, 322, 327 iconicity 13, 42, 116, 118, 169, 203–204, 261 idiolect divergence 90, 118, 172, 177–178, 180, 195–199, 239, 265, 292, 297, 327– 328 illative 122, 130–131 illocution 45, 200, 204–205, 299, 301–303, 305–306, 314, 316, 329 illocutionary 41–42, 51, 205, 258, 303, 305, 310, 315–316, 321 – force 40, 44–46, 51, 56, 288, 307, 314 immigrant community 7–8, 10, 88; see also migrant

imperative 66, 161, 245, 299, 307, 329 – clause 45–46, 162, 252, 264, 288, 318 – mood 2, 14, 29, 37, 44, 46–49, 60, 62–66, 111, 137, 145, 240–246, 252–265, 269, 273–276, 283, 286–288, 290, 298– 299, 307, 316, 323, 328–329 imperfect (tense) 136–144, 153, 155, 164, 166 imperfect speaker 17, 105 imperfective aspect 127, 305 impersonal (as a grammatical notion) 31, 145, 151–157, 159–161, 214, 242–243, 247, 250, 256–257, 265, 268, 287, 328 – modal pattern 172–173, 258 implicature 176, 187, 192–193, 228 impossibility 26, 35, 174, 185 improbability 25, 35 incomplete learner 17, 105–106 indicative 44–47, 49, 62–64, 127–129, 137– 138, 140–142, 155–156, 164, 206, 240, 243–244, 246–248, 254, 258–260, 262–263, 265–267, 269–271, 274–281, 283, 287, 290, 316, 318, 321 indigenization 79, 81, 87 indigenous community 7–10, 57, 85–90, 92 indigenous language 2, 7–8, 10, 15, 55, 61, 69, 74, 76, 85 indigenous linguistic area 71–72, 74–75, 88 indirect speech 246, 264–265, 288–292, 313–314 inessive 116–117, 124, 130–131, 320 inferential 25–26, 30, 226, 305 innovation 16, 57, 112, 115–119, 122, 126, 146–150, 165–166, 168, 179, 245, 248, 251, 254–255, 259, 268 innovativeness (of speakers) 16–17, 57, 179 instrumental 124, 130–131, 133, 305 insubordination 249, 282, 316 intentionality 24, 27, 241, 301, 303 intergenerational transmission 5, 7, 9–10, 73, 78, 81, 92, 105, 107, 113 internal need 21, 27, 29, 32, 34, 36 – emotional 21 – mental 19, 21 – physical 19, 21, 32 interrogative 46, 252, 288, 291, 312 – clause 45–46, 161, 205, 252, 288, 307

Subject index

– marker 232, 237, 252, 288–289, 307, 328 – speech act 18, 40, 50 – see also question intersubjectification 39 irrealis 47, 49–51, 63, 224, 231, 234–235, 248, 264, 270–274, 284–285, 293, 305, 312–314, 316, 318–319, 322, 324, 329 isomorphism 15, 46, 63, 97, 136, 138, 143, 150, 210–211, 213, 231, 279 jussive 29, 37–38, 48–49, 63, 240, 244– 246, 259–262, 283 knowledge (as a modal notion) 26, 30–32 knowledge predicate 226–228 language acquisition 2, 13, 55, 58–59, 65– 66, 78, 105–106, 109, 298 language attrition 6–8, 53, 106, 145 language brokering 10 language contact 2, 7–9, 11–12, 15, 17, 54, 57, 60–61, 65, 67, 69–70, 75–78, 109, 113–115, 129, 134, 139, 143–144, 155, 164, 173, 176, 212, 215–216, 220, 224, 233, 235, 289, 305, 328 language death 1–3, 5–14, 16–17, 52–67, 69, 72, 81–84, 93, 96–97, 103–104, 106, 108–111, 113–114, 116–117, 119, 126, 139, 144–145, 147, 149, 161, 170, 175– 176, 182–183, 195–196, 200, 215, 235, 245, 253, 255, 258, 261, 265–266, 276, 278, 287, 292, 295–297, 308, 322–329 language decay 1, 3, 6–7, 10–11, 13–14, 53, 57–59, 84, 106, 109, 114, 164, 166, 169, 273, 326 language endangerment 1–3, 5, 14, 56–57, 62, 73, 75, 125, 177, 223 language loss 5–7 language obsolescence 1, 6, 9–11, 17, 20, 52–53, 55–56, 58–59, 62, 67, 69, 78, 83–84, 86, 90, 93, 106, 118, 144, 187, 204, 207, 225, 250, 259, 262, 272–273, 289, 296, 327 language planning 75, 78–79 language revitalization 9, 75, 78–79, 82, 94 language shift 5–8, 58, 73, 76, 82, 86 lative 122–123, 130–131

381

layer of structure (a unit of analysis Functional Discourse Grammar) 43, 296, 300–306, 308–311, 313, 318, 320– 324 layered structure (a notion in Functional Discourse Grammar) 3, 43, 300–301, 306, 308–309, 311–312, 315 level of organization (a unit of analysis in Functional Discourse Grammar) 45, 301–302, 306, 314–315, 323 lexicalization 118, 205, 230, 252, 311 lexifier 9–10 linguistic vitality 57, 69, 73, 75, 83–86, 92– 93, 95 local case 123–124, 131, 172, 273 locative 123–124, 130–131 manipulative predicate 48, 162, 227–228, 230, 232, 245, 248, 264, 274, 282–283, 287, 290, 294, 312–313, 315, 317, 323 marginalization (of a modal) 177, 199 markedness 1, 3, 9, 12, 14, 17, 19, 44, 47, 60–62, 64, 121, 124, 143–147, 149, 193, 240–243, 247, 261–262, 276, 289, 295– 299, 311 matter replication 15, 64, 122–123, 125, 133, 215, 269–270, 294 migrant 8, 72, 80, 83, 88, 90–91; see also immigrant community migration 6, 69, 76, 83–84, 86, 90–93, 95 minority (ethnic) 7, 69, 79, 81, 83, 86, 97 mitigation (of an illocution or speech act) 47, 205, 276, 280, 284, 305, 310, 315–316, 321 mixed language 7–8, 10, 70–71, 77, 156, 220 mixed structure 135, 246, 269–270, 272, 291; see also hybrid structure modal adverb 40, 42, 54, 101–102, 111, 170, 175, 194, 200, 205, 207, 211, 216, 220, 222–224, 285, 313, 316–317, 320 modal logic 20, 26, 187 modal particle 39, 46, 54, 63, 102, 112, 170, 185, 200–204, 206–208, 212–213, 215– 216, 221, 244, 259–260, 269, 276, 302, 309–310 Modal Suppletion Strategy 162

382

Subject index

modal verb 36, 39, 41–42, 48, 64, 101, 111– 112, 133, 142, 144–145, 148–149, 170– 178, 180–183, 185, 196, 199–203, 207– 210, 213–216, 223, 226, 254, 258, 265, 276, 280, 293, 310, 328 modality distinctions 22–26, 28–36, 38, 111, 133, 171, 174, 182, 184–185, 188, 190, 218–219, 292, 297, 309, 328 modality scale 27, 29, 31, 34–36, 50, 219– 220 modality system 18, 20, 34–35, 49, 171, 177–178, 182, 323 modality’s semantic map 20, 32–36, 38–39, 195 modularity (functional, structural) 1–2, 52– 53, 55–56, 323, 326, 329 mood choice 101, 226, 231, 274 mood concord 231 moral (as a modal notion) 23–24, 35–36, 42, 179, 299 multifunctionality (of modals) 32, 36–38, 48, 145, 170–171, 174, 176–179, 182, 185, 199–200, 207–208, 224, 293, 310, 327 multilingualism 3, 76, 78, 85, 97

negative imperative 60, 63–65, 240–243, 254–259, 262, 298; see also prohibitive negator 63–64, 118, 149, 162–169, 192, 241, 243, 258 NICE properties 170 nominative 112, 116–118, 120, 123, 126, 133, 172–173, 258 non-deontic modality 23, 28, 33–34, 211 non-epistemic modality 28–31, 36, 38–39, 58–59, 111, 175, 180–181, 216–218, 222, 293, 315, 329 non-factive 226, 251 non-factual 50, 224–226, 235, 314 non-factuality 29, 320 non-finite verb form 138, 170, 173–175, 248 non-future 14, 62, 64–65 non-negatability 200, 203 non-past 146, 247, 250, 266, 299 normal language change 1, 11–12, 52, 105, 145, 181, 194–195, 224, 239; see also regular language change number (as a grammatical notion) 44, 137, 143, 145–150, 152–153, 157–160, 168, 170, 172, 201–203, 214, 223, 241–242, 245–246, 248, 254–257, 261–262, 326

nation building 79 nationality 80, 84–87, 94 – policy 80, 85, 87 – question 84, 86 natural language 20, 26, 44, 57, 187, 219 naturalistic data 99, 102–103, 148, 218, 274 necessity 19–23, 25–28, 30–39, 42, 44, 47, 51, 64–66, 144–145, 162, 171, 173–174, 178, 185–196, 199, 210–211, 216–222, 224, 235, 251, 258, 263–265, 280, 293, 298–299, 309–311, 328 negation 51, 64, 118, 136–137, 146–150, 154, 161–169, 186–188, 191–193, 195, 200, 202–204, 213, 239, 242–243, 246, 258, 298, 311, 317 – (a)symmetric 162–168, 328 negation particle 63, 146, 164, 166 Negation Placement Strategy 162 negation verb 145–151, 153–154, 163, 168, 204, 242, 246, 266

object 56, 120, 126–129, 132–133, 151–152, 210 – case 115, 120, 126–129, 133, 152 objective modality 23–26, 29–35, 42, 181, 184, 320–322 objectualized language 55–56 obligation (as a modal notion) 19, 21, 23– 24, 27, 34, 36–38, 65–66, 222, 298– 299, 308–309 obligatorification 177, 262 obligatoriness (of linguistic form) 60–61, 133, 177, 259, 261, 263, 283 omission 3, 54, 200, 205, 208–210, 212– 214, 236, 239, 293, 310, 327 optative 29, 44, 47–49, 62–63, 224, 245, 249, 269–270, 282, 284–285, 290, 316 optionality (of linguistic form) 60–61, 283 order see command othering 79

Subject index

paradigmatic levelling 1, 13, 153 participant-external modality 23, 28–29, 32–34, 38, 42, 111, 178–182, 184, 195, 200 participant-internal modality 22, 27, 29, 33– 34, 38, 111, 178–180, 182, 185 participle 129, 136–138, 141–143, 153–154, 173, 175, 246, 248, 266, 274, 279 partitive (case) 116–118, 120, 123, 126–129, 152, 157, 174 passive voice 142, 151–152, 173 past tense 46, 62, 136–144, 146, 153, 155– 156, 161, 194, 246–248, 250, 265–267, 269, 271, 274–279, 281, 287, 290, 299, 319 pattern replication 64, 113, 118, 120–121, 130–131, 140, 142, 144, 183, 211, 213, 215, 237, 256, 269–271, 276, 293–294, 310 perception predicate 48, 128–129, 136, 175, 183, 226–230, 294, 303, 312, 319 perfect (tense) 62, 136–140, 142–143 perfective aspect 119, 127, 140, 305 performative (vs. descriptive) 24, 30–32, 298 periphrastic verb form 141–142, 152, 265– 267, 294, 299 permission (as a modal notion) 19, 21, 23– 24, 27, 34, 38, 179, 185 person marking 13–14, 48, 63, 115, 138, 143, 145–157, 160–161, 164–165, 168, 170, 172, 200–203, 206, 214–215, 223, 229, 241–246, 248, 250, 254–257, 259–262, 268, 289–291, 294, 298–299, 328 personal modal pattern 172 phasal predicate 162, 227–228 pidgin 9, 57 pidginization 8–9 pluperfect 115, 136–140, 142, 248 polarity (as a grammatical notion) 114, 126, 134, 136–137, 161, 175, 190, 192, 194, 241, 254–255, 260, 292, 298, 326–327 – sensitivity 174, 183, 199, 204 politeness 48, 55, 248, 250, 280, 315 polyfunctionality (of modals) see multifuctionality possession 14, 121, 174

383

possibility 19–25, 27–28, 30, 32–39, 41, 44, 51, 64–66, 111–112, 145, 171–174, 178– 183, 185–200, 207–208, 211–212, 214– 221, 224, 235, 248, 263, 265, 292–293, 297–298, 308–311, 322, 328 possibility–necessity blending 178, 185– 191, 195, 293, 298, 310, 328 potential mood 49, 51, 65, 137, 240, 250– 253, 274–275, 285–286 potentiality see posibility pragmatic strengthening 193 predicative 3, 54, 121–122, 126, 129–130, 133, 170, 174, 185–186, 188, 207, 209, 211, 216, 221, 223, 276 pre-modal meaning 171 present tense 62, 64, 112, 136–138, 140, 142–147, 153, 156, 164–165, 201, 205– 207, 214–215, 221, 229, 246–247, 274– 277, 279–280, 318 prestige (of a language) 7, 82–83 preterite 136–137, 141, 143 probability 19, 25, 30–31, 35, 42, 44, 49, 176, 194, 202–203, 232, 277, 280, 285, 320, 324 production (vs. comprehension) 8, 96, 104, 106–107, 126, 142, 191, 212, 236, 326 productivity 16, 134–135, 170, 173, 250, 262, 272 prohibitive 29, 44, 48, 60, 63, 65, 111, 161, 240–242, 255–259, 291, 294, 298; see also negative imperative property (a unit of analysis in Functional Discourse Grammar) 301–302, 304– 306, 309–310, 312, 315 proposition 19–20, 24–26, 31, 39–40, 43, 50–51, 66, 175, 200, 203–205, 212, 224–225, 228, 231–232, 235, 300, 302– 307, 310, 312–324 propositional attitude predicate 48, 226– 230, 251, 293, 312 propositional content 39, 50, 55, 205, 302, 306, 316–321 propositional modality 28, 33, 314 protasis 176, 236, 238, 266, 272, 274, 277– 279, 284–285, 318–319 purpose adverbializer 16, 65, 231, 236–239, 271, 293, 312–313

384

Subject index

purpose clause 23, 48, 233, 248, 281–284, 294, 313, 315–316, 322 question 28, 45, 121, 205, 239, 251, 253, 288, 307, 317 – content 239, 252, 271, 288–289, 294, 312, 328 – direct 288 – indirect 176, 251 – marker 40, 51, 176, 232, 239, 252–253, 271, 288–289, 294, 312, 328 – polar 40, 51, 176, 232–233, 235, 252–253, 288–289, 291, 294, 307, 312–313, 328 – see also interrogative raising (as a syntactic notion) 172, 187, 192, 203, 320 realis 49–50, 224, 231, 305, 314, 318 reality status 19, 44, 231, 235, 238–239; see also irrealis and realis reason adverbializer 236–239, 293, 312–313 reason clause 144, 236, 238, 313 reduction 9, 12, 15–17, 52–53, 55, 57, 145– 146, 149, 200, 207, 214, 261–262, 265, 267 – rule 12, 164, 166, 169, 297 – structural 6, 9, 12, 15, 52–53, 145–146, 149, 208, 214, 261–262, 265, 291, 297 – tense 137, 140, 142, 144–145, 148, 265 – without compensation 1, 11–13, 16 – see also complexity reduction redundancy 14, 16, 123–125, 155–156, 194, 242–243, 246–247, 265, 270, 272–273, 284, 328 reflexive 134, 229–230, 309 register loss see stylistic shrinkage regression hypothesis 58–59, 66 regular language change 2, 11, 52, 113, 115– 116, 147, 326, 328; see also normal language change reinforcement 110, 124–125, 222, 271, 284– 285, 294, 315, 327 relative clause 13, 48, 115, 232, 239, 305 relativizer 15, 231–232, 236, 239, 293, 312, 327 rememberer 105–106, 118, 122–123, 142, 178, 202, 265

request (as a modal notion) 2, 45–48, 66, 241, 244–246, 250, 259, 263–264, 307 resultative 139–140, 142, 152 root modality 23, 28, 33, 36, 38, 174 rote (vs. rule) 11, 56, 269 Russia 69, 71, 73–75, 79, 81, 84, 86–88, 90, 92, 94–95, 152, 172, 224 rusty speaker 105–106, 338 scale 34–36, 73, 104–106, 109, 111, 123, 282, 292, 306, 323 – borrowing (borrowability) 15, 65, 109, 215, 235, 239, 293 – of susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in language death 3, 43, 65, 123, 195, 215, 228, 235, 239, 259, 282–284, 292–293, 306–307 – see also hierarchy, epistemic scale, modality scale scope 39–43, 47, 50–51, 162–164, 166–169, 187, 192, 195, 200, 202–205, 216, 226, 228, 258, 295–296, 300–301, 304–317, 319–324, 327 – explicit vs. implicit 40, 205 – hierarchy 41–43, 51, 300, 306 – immediate 40, 51, 205, 228, 300, 302, 304–306, 308–314, 316, 318–319, 321– 322, 324, 327 – of negation 162–163, 166–169, 187, 192, 195, 200, 202–204, 258, 298, 311, 317 – propositional 200, 203, 205, 225, 228, 304–306, 310–312, 314–316, 318–322 – sub-propositional 19, 55, 310, 313, 315– 316, 320 self-repair 223, 233, 269, 330 semantic contiguity 32–33, 171, 178 semi-speaker 10–12, 17, 63–64, 82, 105– 106, 164, 185 sensitivity to transfer 217–218, 226–228, 235, 269, 271 sentence mood 18, 29, 44–46, 50, 101–102, 252, 288, 291–292, 294, 302, 327 separative 122, 124–125 situational modality 23, 26, 28, 33, 36 Soviet Union 73–74, 79–81, 84–88, 90–95 speaker-oriented modality 29, 31–32, 36, 39

Subject index

speech act 18, 24, 40, 45–46, 51, 66, 261, 264, 288–289, 301–303, 305–307, 315 speech community 3, 5, 8, 55–56, 67, 73, 75–76, 83–84, 97, 177 standard language 69, 72, 76–82, 141, 153, 178, 181, 245, 264 standardization (of a language) 79–80, 82 state of affairs 19, 21, 24, 27, 29–30, 36, 40–41, 43, 47–48, 51, 63, 126, 235, 239, 269, 303, 307, 319, 322 status (of a language) 55, 68–69, 71, 73, 76– 86 style 9, 13, 16, 55, 64, 175, 254, 259, 305 stylistic shrinkage 7, 15–16, 55 subject 14, 112, 121, 132, 151–155, 158–160, 172, 202, 234, 244, 248, 253, 258, 272, 292 subjectification 39 subjective modality 23–26, 29–35, 39, 42, 305, 320–321 subjunctive marker 63, 232, 238, 269–272, 276–277 subjunctive mood 14, 46, 48–49, 60, 62– 63, 65–66, 248, 262, 264–265, 269– 271, 274, 276–279, 281, 190, 314–315, 318 subordinate clause 13, 79, 140, 161–162, 231, 251, 271, 288–289, 312, 314 subordination 12–13, 289 subordinator 13, 65, 216, 231–239, 271, 293, 312, 327 sub-propositional conceptual entity 310, 312, 316–317 substrate 52, 54, 76–77, 106 superlative 125 superstrate 76–77 suppletion 13, 118, 250 susceptibility to loss, change and innovation in language death 2–3, 53–54, 58–60, 63–66, 96, 109–111, 146, 150–151, 189– 191, 216, 218, 220, 226, 228, 234–235, 239, 253, 255, 258–261, 279, 283–284,

385

286–287, 289, 293–294, 296–297, 299, 308–309, 311–313, 315, 322, 324–327, 329 synthetic (vs. analytic) 9, 14, 114, 124–125, 137–138, 141–142, 243, 248, 254–255, 259, 294 temporal adverbializer 236, 238–239, 293, 313 temporal clause 48, 238, 313 temporal reference 137–138, 142, 158, 289, 299, 319 terminal speaker 16–17, 105–106, 273 transfer 10, 15, 54, 64, 120, 122–123, 125, 132, 136, 165, 176, 215–224, 226–239, 257, 265, 269–271, 284, 288–289, 293– 294, 299, 311–313, 327–328 translative 129–130 transparency 166, 230, 271 – morphotactic 1, 13, 57, 116 – semantic 13, 156, 160–161, 171, 235 truth 23–24, 26, 303, 314 – functionality 19, 25–26, 175, 307, 314, 317 – value 25, 47, 146, 307, 317 uncertainty 25, 35, 44, 201, 205, 211–212, 250, 320 underspecification 36, 149, 160, 174; see also vagueness utterance predicate 227–229, 290 vagueness 36–38; see also underspecification valency 115, 126, 134–136, 151, 154, 211, 309, 326–327 voice (as a grammatical notion) 16, 126, 137, 142, 145, 151–155, 170, 173, 242, 257 volition 20–21, 27, 33–34, 36, 65 volitive modality 27, 29, 36, 305 word order 9, 12, 40–43, 56–57, 79, 119– 121, 125–126, 166, 203, 253, 258