miconazole ([info]miconazole) wrote in [info]linguaphiles,
@ 2008-11-17 15:47:00
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Hey dudes, I have a question about Slavic verbs. Well, not really a question. It's like this: in some languages, like Russian, the most common ending for first person singular is -u, like govorju (I speak), but sometimes they end in -im or -am, like dam (I give). But in other languages im/am is the most common ending (e.g. in Croatian "I speak" would be "ja govorim") but -u is sometimes used like hocu (I want, there's an accent over the c but I'm lazy). Could I get a little historical background on this? I'd look for it myself but I have no idea where to find this kind of thing. Any info would make me very happy!

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[info]rauduskoivu
2008-11-17 07:19 am UTC (link)
This is a stab in the dark but I'd guess it had something to do with how Russian is East Slavic and Croatian is South Slavic. They're all in the broader Slavic family, but Croatian resembles its Balkan cousins a lot more heavily than it resembles Russian (disregarding the writing system, as that has more to do with which Slavic countries are Catholic vs. Orthodox).

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[info]sollersuk
2008-11-17 07:58 am UTC (link)
There's a somewhat analogous situation in Latin, with the first person in some circumstances endingin -o and in some ending in -m. I was taught that this was, far back in the development of Indo-European languages, the verb endings originally derived from the personal pronoun being tacked onto the end of the verb; sometimes the nominative, but sometimes, for obscure reasons, another case. In Latin it varies according to tense and conjugation; I can quite see that, as [info]rauduskoivu says, different areas might have seen development in different directions, even within the same basic language group.

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-17 09:01 am UTC (link)
The u-endings (у and ю according to the Russian spelling) used to be nasalized. They developed from im, em and such like, with the m eventually being dropped and the preceding vowel nasalized (cf. nom, en, rien in French).

The same phonetic process affected all clusters [vowel + m/n] which were followed by a consonant or a pause, e.g. dombe>doube>dub (oaktree). French is quite similar in this respect although it has retained nasal vowels (and also the m/n in spelling, unlike Slavic languages).

In most Slavic languages nasal vowels developed into non-nasal with the exception of Polish. You can see ę and ą (which stand for nasal vowels) being used as personal endings (1sg): chcę (= хочу, I want), mogą (= могу, I can). Funnily, when ę and ą occur in final position they are pronounced as non-nasal, unlike in other environment. The Polish for oaktree is dąb where the vowel is distinctly nasal (cf. Rus. dub).

For more information see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Slavic_language (see the paragraph on syllabic synharmony)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%98

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%84

However, I don't know why remnant verbal endings, such as ам/am, im do exist. With дам the explanation might be that its is a one syllable form so the am cluster is pronounced way more distinctly as in two-syllable and longer forms (even though we have жду, ждать has a fleeting vowel so formally it is a two syllable form). I don't speak Croatian so I can't explain why the m was not dropped in govorim. Are you sure it is 1sg and not 1pl (as is the case in Russian)? The Russian present tense 1pl for speak is говорим, and it used to be говоримъ. Ъ indicates a vowel (not to be confused with the modern use of ъ) which was dropped several centuries ago, so им was never nasalized because it used to be followed by a vowel and not by a consonant or pause.

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[info]miconazole
2008-11-17 09:27 am UTC (link)
Hey, thanks :D

And yeah, it's definitely singular. The plural ending is -amo/-imo/-emo etc, kinda like Ukrainian. So I guess the ending was dropped to different degrees in different languages?

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-17 09:44 am UTC (link)
Looks like it. The environment is also important (phonetic processes might have developed in a bit different way depending on the vowels involved). So even within one language there might be fluctuations.

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[info]edricson
2008-11-17 10:29 am UTC (link)
This is because the -mь goes back to the Indo-European athematic endings (in this case -mi), not to the thematic -m which gives the normal nasalized endings. By the Late Common Slavic period there were essentially only a handful of verbs which had these endings, such as byti (jesmь) `to be', dati `to give', jьmati `to have' and a few others. This is what we get in Old Church Slavic. In modern Eastern Slavic languages, this is more or less what we get now (e. g. in Russian we only have the 1SG -m ending in `to give' and `to eat'; in Ukrainian and Belarusian we do get forms like dasi in 2SG as well). In West and South Slavic, on the other hand, the athematic ending of the 1SG did spread again. There were a variety of factors involved, such as analogy with the 1PL ending which also has -m-. the reconstruction of the thenmatic vowel system etc.

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-17 03:39 pm UTC (link)
Yes, this is definitely one of the underlying reasons. However I find it rather confusing that all Russian verbs end in ть in the infinitive, and never end in palatalized consonants in personal forms (except the archaic есмь, etc forms). Does it mean there was confusion between palatalized personal endings and infinitives? On the other hand, palatalized personal endings survived in Ukrainian.

As for the Russian дам, I think it might as well be a future tense form with a 'missing' di component:

1pl - *дадимъ > дадим
3sg - *дадитъ > даст
1sg - *дадим > дам

If you consider ем (есть, present tense, 1sg), you can see that д is often weakened and disappears when surrounded by vowels.

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[info]edricson
2008-11-17 04:48 pm UTC (link)
> all Russian verbs end in ть in the infinitive

Huh? What about нести, скрести and all the other ones with a stressed -ти? (Old Russian of course had -ти, -чи everywhere)

>never end in palatalized consonants in personal forms (except the archaic есмь, etc forms)

More or less an accident: final soft [m] was depalatalized in most dialects, and the 3rd person -ть (in both sg an pl) was the norm in Old Russian, and is preserved (as you note) in Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as in pretty much all Southern Russian dialects. It is an accident that the Middle Russian dialects follow the Northern Russian -тъ, might as well have turned otherwise. The 2sg -шь was palatal until all [ш]'s got depalatalized, which is pretty late.

>Does it mean there was confusion between palatalized personal endings and infinitives?

No.

>*дадитъ > даст

This one is especially implausible, given that *dt > st is at least Common Slavic, and in fact probably older. Ockham's razor tells you that if you know (and we do) that the Old Russian was regular дасть, and Northern Old Russian was correspondingly дастъ, and Modern Russian follows Northern Russian on the -тъ/-ть issue, there is no need for an ad hoc alternative explanation.

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-17 05:20 pm UTC (link)
>> all Russian verbs end in ть in the infinitive

> Huh? What about нести, скрести and all the other ones with a stressed -ти? (Old Russian of course had -ти, -чи everywhere)

Well, this only proves my point, since чь has developed from *kti, and both ти and чь were not depalatalized. And be careful with чь, it is never spelt чи.

>>never end in palatalized consonants in personal forms (except the archaic есмь, etc forms)

>More or less an accident: final soft [m] was depalatalized in most dialects, and the 3rd person -ть (in both sg an pl) was the norm in Old Russian, and is preserved (as you note) in Ukrainian and Belarusian, as well as in pretty much all Southern Russian dialects. It is an accident that the Middle Russian dialects follow the Northern Russian -тъ, might as well have turned otherwise. The 2sg -шь was palatal until all [ш]'s got depalatalized, which is pretty late.

That's the point. I meant this very fact, a discrepancy between personal endings and the endings the infinitves have in terms of palatalization. Whether it is accidental or not is a big question. The 3rd person ending ть (in both sg an pl) is not present in western Slavic languages at all, not even т, while Slovak and Polish infinitives end in t'(ti) and с' respectively.

>>*дадитъ > даст

>This one is especially implausible, given that *dt > st is at least Common Slavic, and in fact probably older. Ockham's razor tells you that if you know (and we do) that the Old Russian was regular дасть, and Northern Old Russian was correspondingly дастъ, and Modern Russian follows Northern Russian on the -тъ/-ть issue, there is no need for an ad hoc alternative explanation.

So what? ) I meant дам is not a present tense form and there used to be some consonant preceding the ending, which is missing at present. And this consonant is д. OK?
The question is why the m ending survived and the preceding consonant did not, and the endings in the 3rd sg and pl are by contrast depalatalized, by the way.

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[info]edricson
2008-11-17 05:36 pm UTC (link)
>>Well, this only proves my point, since чь has developed from *kti, and both ти and чь were not depalatalized.

And? This is a fully general process (or lack thereof).

>>That's the point. I meant this very fact, a discrepancy between personal endings and the endings the infinitves have in terms of palatalization. Whether it is accidental or not is a big question. The 3rd person ending ть (in both sg an pl) is not present in western Slavic languages at all, not even т, while Slovak and Polish infinitives end in t'(ti) and с' respectively.

I do not think there is any connection. After all Southern Russian dialects have both -ти in the infinitive and -ть in the 3rd person; and Northern Old Russian seems to have had -тъ for as long as is possible to know, when the infinitive was -ти across the board and palatalization wasn't even contrastive. I concede there is a small possibility that some sort of contrast-preservation may have been forced the Modern Russian situation (it is anyway hard if not impossible to disprove conclusively), but given that all the developments that led to the present situation are widely attested otherwise, without the influence of the other factors, I find it highly unlikely indeed. Western Slavic languages lost the t-endings pretty early on, I think.

>The question is why the m ending survived and the preceding consonant did not, and the endings in the 3rd sg and pl are by contrast depalatalized, by the way.

The -m survived in a very general process: the antecedent of the athematic present was *dadmi, which violated the open syllable law (*dm was not a legit onset, so a da.dmi syllabification was impossible). Again, in a very general process coda consonants were lost, while -m-, being in the onset, had no reason to disappear. We can speculate on the reasons why Northern Old Russian had -тъ, but I don't think this is related to the infinitive in any way, since, as I noted, it had a different form and palatalization was not even contrastive. If anything, you might be more interested in the supine (-тъ).

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[info]madrumos
2008-11-17 10:09 pm UTC (link)
Just to be a nitpicker, I've gotta note that the situation with Polish is more complicated than just ę and ą being denasalized in final positions. The former is totally denasalized into e in most speech, whereas the latter isn't. Plus, neither are generally really nasal in a strict (or French) sense, although they certainly keep the nasal features that are in common with French. It is fascinating that only Polish stayed semi-nasal, but the issue with different environments and comparison with French is a bit tricky.

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-18 10:19 am UTC (link)
This is very interesting.

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[info]ithaka_girl
2008-11-17 11:38 am UTC (link)
In Russian dam means I will give, not I give. (and 'dadim' means "we'll give.") I hope this will help :)

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[info]miconazole
2008-11-17 04:20 pm UTC (link)
Heh, well I guess there aren't many practical situations where you'd say "ya dam" and mean "I give", but it's possible in theory, isn't it?* (Maybe in a book written in first person present tense...)

*No really, I'm curious.

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[info]ithaka_girl
2008-11-17 04:28 pm UTC (link)
Well, I can rather think of an opposite situation when, suppose, my son asks me for a candy and I say, "dayu-dayu," meaning "I'll give it to you in a second." But "dam" always means "I will." (Or maybe I simply lack imagination?)

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-17 05:27 pm UTC (link)
Your imagination is OK. ) Дам is never used for an action which is taking place at the moment of speaking.

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[info]caprinus
2008-11-17 05:18 pm UTC (link)
govorju (I speak), but sometimes they end in -im or -am, like dam (I give)

Yeah, like the poster above, I question whether these are parallels. Everybody else has jumped right into athematic endings and Old Church Slavonic and not corrected you, so maybe you are right in some way, but "dam" sounds to me like "I will give", not "I give". So-- hrrm. My Russian's lousy.

And where <lj user="daniil_ognok> wrote <i>In most Slavic languages nasal vowels developed into non-nasal with the exception of Polish. You can see ę and ą (which stand for nasal vowels) being used as personal endings (1sg): chcę (= хочу, I want), mogą (= могу, I can)</i>, I should point out <i>mogą</i> = <i>they</i> can, 1p pl, not sg. 9-ę is for sg)

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-17 05:29 pm UTC (link)
Right. I always mix up ę and ą...

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[info]edricson
2008-11-17 05:39 pm UTC (link)
It is still a essentially a present tense ending (of the same type as -u). Russian verbs with the exception of быть have basically two synthetic forms, past and non-past, where the temporal interpretation of non-past depends on the aspect of the verb.

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[info]daniil_ognok
2008-11-18 10:31 am UTC (link)
>It is still a essentially a present tense ending (of the same type as -u).

I guess it would be more accurate to refer to this type of endings as non-past. Labelling them as present tense endings is very misleading.

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