Jens Nørgård-Sørensen
1. Old Russian syntax
In the following I shall approach OR syntax with the purpose of overviewing its basic features in contrast to those of MR syntax. The focus will be on constructions, also when referring to their constituent elements: verbs, arguments and adjuncts. I would like to emphasise that the concept of argument – here as in the other chapters of this book – is used in a broad sense. In general, speaking of verbs and their arguments does not necessarily involve the close structural dependency relation referred to as verbal valency. The linguistic concept of valency is employed to refer to a kind of syntactic relationship where the verb determines both the number of arguments and their form.
In this sense valency is a feature of MR syntax, but obviously not of OR syntax. As will be shown, OR syntax was construction-based. Still, even in relation to OR con-structions, I shall refer to verbs and their arguments. The concept of a verb-argument relation is broad: it may and may not involve the much narrower concept of valency.
Arguments are coded in various ways, in European languages primarily by prepo-sitions or case – or by combinations of these. Since Russian like most other Slavic languages is a case language, I shall start by considering arguments coded by case. The
see Avanesov (ed) 1988, I: 28–68 ): GA = Xronika Georgija Amartola, Gr = Novgorod birch bark letter, LI = Ipat’evskaja letopis’, LL= Lavrentjevskaja letopis’, LN = Novgorodskaja xaratejnaja letopis’, NIL = Novgorodskaja pervaja letopis’, PBP = Pis’ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo, PR 1383 = Prolog martovskoj poloviny, 1383 g., PrL = Prolog “Lobkovskij”
sentjabrskoj poloviny, SbTr XII/XIII, 11ob. = Sbornik slov i poučenij, SbTr XIV/XV, 192 ob. = Čudesa sv. Nikolaja Čudotvorca, USb = Uspenskij sbornik, USt XII/XIII = Ustav studijskij cerkovnyj i monastyrskij.
50. I am indebted to Karin Larsen for making her electronic corpus of Old Russian chron-icles available to me.
Chapter 5. Patterns of connecting grammaticalisation in Russian 117
overall OR case system has been preserved in MR. Ignoring the vocative (which has been lost and revived in a new shape) and a few secondary forms in both OR and MR, we can state that the six cases, which mark syntactic functions, namely the nominative, the accusative, the genitive, the dative, the instrumental and the locative, have all been preserved. On the other hand, as appears from OR grammar descriptions51 as well as from specialised studies of case roles (Schelesniker 1964; Krys’ko 1997; Maier 1997;
Dubrovina 2002; Ferm 2005), case functions have undergone a number of remarkable changes in the history of Russian.
In OR, as well as in other case languages, a distinction can be made between adverbial case forms and argument-marking case forms. Some adverbial case func-tions were identical or close to identical to those of MR. The most striking differ-ence was the extensive use of the OR accusative in a number of adverbial functions, indicating different nuances of location, time, quantity, relation, etc. (Krys’ko 1997: 49–109), cf. (1–3):
(1) sta-ša ob-a pol-y
stop-off-aor.3pl both-acc.m side-acc.m.du rěk-i Vlen-y (LI)
river-gen.sg Vlena-gen
‘they stopped off at both banks of the river Vlena’
The accusative oba poly ‘at both banks’ indicates location.
(2) poid-e ko tĭst-ou svo-emou Kiev-ŭ (LL) go-aor.3sg to father-in-law-dat.sg his-dat Kiev-acc ‘he went to Kiev to his father-in-law’
The accusative Kievŭ ‘to Kiev’ indicates direction.
(3) …prišed-ŭ Vyšegorod-ou noč-ĭ (USb)
arrive.pst.ptcp.act-nom.sg.m Vyšegorod-dat night-acc.sg ‘… having arrived at Vyšegorod at night’
The accusative nočĭ ‘at night’ indicates time.
None of the constructions illustrated can be found in MR where the adverbial function of the accusative is remarkably narrower.
51. Changes in case functions have not been systematically described in traditional OR grammars but appear indirectly from the material presented in them. Most of these descrip-tions focus not on the function of the cases, but on the development of the case forms as the result of sound changes and analogical processes, e.g. Kuznecov (1953), Šachmatov (1957), Rusinov (1977), Gorškova & Chaburgaev (1981), Chaburgaev (1990). The same is basically true about the hitherto published volumes of the new co-authored historical grammar of OR (Krys’ko (ed.) 2000–2006).
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For arguments, especially A2, the picture was much more differentiated in OR than it is in MR. The accusative was widely used as A2 – for which it was the unmarked form – but it was not dominant in the way it is in MR. Many verbs were used in construc-tions with other oblique cases in the A2 slot, and a large number of verbs combined with two or even three different A2 cases.
The choice of case was not determined by the verb as a lexical unit – as would have been the case in a valency system – but by the construction. For instance, in connec-tion with verbs of physical effect and verbs of taking and transfer, the case distincconnec-tion could be interpreted as expressing a difference between a quantified (genitive) and a non-quantified (accusative) A2. Given this interpretation, the case opposition consti-tuted a construction paradigm, cf. (4).
(4) Domain: V [A2]
Frame: Quantification Expression Content accusative non-quantified
genitive quantified
This opposition, which presumably was inherited from PIE, can be illustrated by the parallel use of genitive and accusative in (5)–(6).
(5) Aleksandr-a i droužin-ou ego kazni
Alexander-gen and guard-acc his punish-aor.3sg ov-omou nos-a urěza-ša a in-omou one-dat.sg nose-gen.sg cut off-aor.3pl and other-dat.sg
oč-i vyima-ša (LN)
eyes-acc.du tear out-aor.3pl
‘He punished Alexander and his guard. They cut off (some of) the nose of some of them and tore out the eyes of others’
(6) urěza-ša emu nos-a i
cut off-aor.3pl he.dat nose-gen.sg and
ob-ě ruc-ě (nil)
both-acc.du hand-acc.du
‘they cut off (some of) his nose and both of his hands’
In (5) there is a distinction between the genitive A2 nosa ‘nose’ and the accusative A2 oči ‘eyes’ that is not motivated by the verbs. The context allows for the interpretation proposed by Krys’ko (1997: 160): that the genitive refers to an unspecified quantity of the item (‘they cut off some of the nose’) while the accusative refers to the items in their totality (‘they tore out the eyes (fully)’). As already emphasised, I take this as a reflection of a construction-based rather than a valency-based syntax.
Chapter 5. Patterns of connecting grammaticalisation in Russian 119
Example (6) can be interpreted along the same lines as (5): the nose was cut off in part, the hands in full, cf. the translation. Note that the construction distinction can be implemented for two paratactically ordered A2s of one and the same verb. This does not invalidate the technical presentation of the construction above in (4); rather it confirms that the verb does not determine the form of the A2.
Verbs of control, i.e. verbs with the meaning ‘govern’, ‘possess’, ‘be in control of’, do not appear to have changed much during the history of Russian. In MR they combine with an A2 in the instrumental, and this is also the case with the majority of the OR examples, cf. (7).
(7) […] oblada-xou sracin-i jegjupt-omǐ (PrL) control-iprf52 .3pl Saracen-nom.pl Egypt-ins.sg ‘The Saracens gained control of Egypt’
However, while this verb-case combination is obligatory in MR as an instance of verbal valency, the OR material also exhibits examples with the genitive and even the accusa-tive, cf. (8) and (9).
(8) Rodijan-e mor-e oblada-vš-e (GA)
Rhodian-pl sea-acc.sg control-ptcp.pst.act-nom.m.pl ‘The Rhodians having gained control of the sea…’
(9) oblast-i toj-a Ambrosij […] oblada-še (GA) district-gen.f.sg. this-gen.f.sg Ambrosij control-iprf.3sg ‘Ambrosij controlled this district’
Since (8) and (9) are taken from one and the same text source, we would expect them to express a semantic distinction. And indeed, as Krys’ko (1997: 167–68) suggests in relation to another example from the same source, the genitive can be interpreted as an instance of the construction with a quantified A2, in other words expressing that Ambrosij controlled a certain portion of the district, cf. the paradigm (4). The con-struction with the accusative, cf. (8), may have been triggered by the contrast to the genitive in examples like (9). The accusative expressed the unmarked, here the non-quantified A2. In sum, the material with verbs of control confirms that the choice of case was not determined by the verb but rather by the choice of construction.
However, not all OR data reflect the supposedly underlying constructions as transparently as the examples considered above. In connection with the verb poxvaliti
‘praise’, A2 appears in the accusative (10)–(11), the genitive (12) and the dative (13).
52. IPRF has no model in the Leipzig glosses. We use it for a past tense morpheme like German Imperfektum.
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(10) starec-ǐ […] poxvali vel’mi old man-nom.sg praise-aor.3sg much žen-ou svoj-u (SbTr XIV/XV 192 ob)
wife-acc.sg his-acc.sg
‘The old man highly praised his wife’
(11) […] no i poxvali i (Pr 1383) but also praise-aor.3sg he.acc.sg ‘… but he also praised him’
(12) […] i poxvali jego knę(z) (LL) and praise-aor.3sg he.gen53 prince-nom ‘… and the prince praised him’
(13) […] i vsi poxvali-ša emu (LI) and all praise-aor.3pl he.dat ‘… and all praised him’
Even though the data themselves, including their contexts (not cited), hardly provide sufficient evidence for an interpretation in terms of construction paradigms, these examples do not invalidate the view of OR as a language with construction-based syn-tax. First, the accusative-genitive distinction of examples (10)–(12) fits into the inter-pretation that is considered below (Section 2). Second, representing different periods and genres, the examples may reflect different structures. Third, the case distinctions may have expressed semantic oppositions which we are simply not able to detect on the basis of the data. Fourth, some forms, in particular the apparently fairly infrequent dative, may have been stylistically marked at a certain stage of an actualisation pro-cess, eventually ousting the use of the dative in this context, cf. Chapter 1, Section 9.2.
Variational markedness.
While the explanations applied to the examples above all appear plausible, there is, on the other hand, nothing to indicate that the verb as a lexeme determined the form of the arguments, as it would in a valency-based system. The data generally sup-port an interpretation in terms of constructions, even though they do not always allow for an exact understanding of the particular distinctions. This is also true for examples of A2s consisting of paratactically ordered nouns in different cases, cf. the clearly inter-pretable (6) above and the apparently more fuzzy (14).
53. In most treatments of OR pronominal forms like jego, which is the historical genitive form (masc-neut.sg.) of the demonstrative-personal pronoun jĭ, are interpreted as the accusa-tive, due to the fact that it spread in all accusative functions in OR and eventually replaced the historical accusative form jĭ (masc.sg.) and je (neut.sg.). However, for reasons that shall soon be clear I shall treat this form as a genitive.
Chapter 5. Patterns of connecting grammaticalisation in Russian 121
(14) bl(a)godar-imŭ o(tĭ)cj-a i s(y)n-a i thank-prs.1pl father-gen and son-gen and s(vę)t-oumou d(u)x-ou (USt XII/XIII)
holy-dat spirit-dat
‘we thank the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’
Below I shall return to the parallel employment of the accusative and the genitive which has a special impact on the further development of OR syntax.
Like all other varieties of early documented Slavic (i.e. from the middle of the 9th century and onwards), OR undoubtedly exhibits a relatively archaic Indo-European structure, especially in its nominal system. And indeed, the expression of one and the same argument by different case forms in OR is strikingly similar to the syntax recon-structed for PIE by Meillet (1964 [1937]). Meillet emphasises that Indo-European did not know any verb-argument government (in a later terminological tradition: valency) of the kind found in modern Indo-European case languages where, basically, a specific argument of one and the same verb is expressed by a specific case. He exemplifies the PIE syntax with the Greek verb klyō ‘hear’, which could be used with no further specifi-cation (simply to denote the hearing activity) or combined with different cases, coding different content, cf. (15a–e) (cited from Meillet 1964 [1937]: 358–59).
(15) a. é-kly-on audē-n hear-pst.ipfv.3pl voice-acc.f.sg ‘they heard a voice’
Accusative: what is heard b. é-kly-on aut-oú hear-pst.ipfv.3pl he-gen.m.sg ‘they listened to him’
Genitive: from where something is heard
c. euxo-mén-ō moi é-kly-on
pray-prs.ptcp-dat.m.sg me-dat hear-pst.ipfv.3pl ‘they listened to my prayers’
Dative: for whom/what something is heard
Meillet points out that the accusative, the genitive and the dative are no more depen-dent on the verb than cases which, from the point of view of modern syntactic theo-ries, fulfil an adverbial function, i.e. the role of an adjunct, cf. (15d–e):
d. oú-asi kly-ō ear-dat.n.pl hear-prs.1sg ‘I hear with my ears’
Dative (originally instrumental): what something is heard with
122 Connecting Grammaticalisation e. oíkoi kly-ō at home.adv hear-prs.1sg ‘I hear at home’
Adverb (originally locative): where something is heard.
Meillet did not make the distinction between argument and adjunct, but simply emphasised that the choice of case for the subordinate noun did not depend on the verb. He states that the ‘autonomy of the word’ was the governing principle of the structure of the PIE phrase. The verb had a general meaning and the different case forms added different specifications. In our framework this corresponds to a view of PIE syntax as construction-based. This is also reflected in subsystems of other ancient Indo-European languages, cf. the Latin constructions eo Romam ‘I go to Rome’, sum Roma ‘I am in Rome’ in Chapter 3, Section 2.5.
Meillet presents the autonomy of the word as a general syntactic principle for PIE, also applying to noun phrases. I shall return to this point below.
No traditional research on OR syntax has focused on the distinction between construction-based and valency-based syntax. Researchers have tacitly taken the verb to be the determining centre of the sentence and investigated what cases it combined with for the different argument slots. This approach inevitably leaves a picture of OR syntax as a fairly chaotic system, only gradually developing into the more “logical”
valency system of MR. It goes without saying that this understanding of the devel-opment of Russian, not articulated but nevertheless implied by much research, is inappropriate. On the other hand, there have been a few attempts to offer an overall interpretation of the development from the OR to the MR syntactic systems. I shall now consider two such contributions.
Inspired by Meillet, among others, Krys’ko (1997) interprets the history of case usage in Russian as a transition from a non-transitive system in OR to a transitive system in MR. Krys’ko sticks to the Russian tradition where a transitive system is perceived as involving a distinction between verbs combining with an A2 in the accusative54 and verbs not combining with an A2 accusative (i.e. verbs with no A2 or an A2 in a different form). Krys’ko shows how the accusative in the A2 slot has gained ground during the history and presents this as the result of two intercon-nected processes.
First, Krys’ko (1997: 48) assumes that adverbial accusatives through specification could develop into the MR ‘direct objects’, that is, in our terms, verb-governed A2s in a valency system. However attractive this statement may appear, it would not seem to be supported by the data. Adverbial accusatives of the kind exemplified in (1)–(3) did
54. Krys’ko follows the tradition in referring to the A2 accusative (in MR alternating with the genitive after negation and in constructions expressing quantification) as the direct object.
Chapter 5. Patterns of connecting grammaticalisation in Russian 123
not change into arguments; rather, they were replaced by other adverbial expressions, in particular, prepositional phrases.
Second, on the basis of a detailed empirical investigation Krys’ko (1997: 247–49) states that the accusative replaced other case forms or ousted them in constructions where originally both the accusative and some other case form could be used as A2, cf. in (16–17) (Krys’ko 1997: 151–52) the verb pozdravljati ‘greet’ which, until the 18th century at least, could combine with both the dative and the accusative.
(16) ja vaš-emu veličestv-u […] pozdravljaj-u (PBP) I your-dat.sg highness-dat.sg greet-prs.1sg ‘I greet your highness’
(17) my pozdravlja-em vaš-e veličestv-o […] (PBP) we greet-prs.1pl your-acc.sg highness-acc.sg ‘we greet your highness’
In MR only an A2 in the accusative is possible. The low frequency of the dative points to it being stylistically marked in this period; this presumption is confirmed by the later development with the dative disappearing.
Though operating within a framework not distinguishing construction-based and valency-based systems, Krys’ko’s investigations largely confirm the interpretation here proposed. The same is true for the series of monographs published by a group of Swed-ish linguists (Maier 1997; Dubrovina 2002; Ferm 2005) offering detailed investigations of the development of ‘verbal government’ in Russian from around 1600 until the first third of the 19th century. Details disregarded, these investigations describe different stages of the spread of the A2 accusative at the expense of other cases; in other words, they present the actualisation of the MR valency system with the accusative as the unmarked A2.
An interesting contrastive account of OR and MR syntax is offered by Durst-Andersen (2005, 2006), who interprets the difference between OR and MR as one between propositional syntax (OR), i.e. a syntactic structure reflecting the ide-ational, prototypicalised description of the given situation, and situational syntax (MR), where a sentence represents a model of the situation described. In other words, the MR sentence reflects the constituents of the situation directly. I shall not go into the details of the distinction between propositional and situational syntax, but restrict myself to emphasising that for OR the independence of the arguments in relation to the verbs is a crucial point in Durst-Andersen’s argument. He shows that this approach allows for an interpretation of apparently quite different uses – involving different sets of arguments – of one and the same OR verb as representing an invariant meaning. As a lexeme the OR verb denotes a broadly defined situation type open to different interpretations, reflected in varying sets of arguments. In (18) I provide a few examples, mostly drawn from Durst-Andersen (2005, 2006),
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and with the paraphrases based on the Old Russian Dictionary (Avanesov ed. 1988 and later).
(18) gostiti
– No complement: ‘to travel around and do business’
– acc: ‘to receive somebody as a guest’
doiti
– No complement: ‘to live as a (breast-fed) baby’
– acc: ‘to breast-feed’
– acc: ‘to milk’
blagosloviti
– No complement: ‘rejoice’
– acc or dat: ‘bless’
vrediti ‘harm’
– No complement: ‘do harm’
– acc or dat: ‘harm’
Though representing different theoretical backgrounds and empirical approaches, the investigations by Krys’ko and Durst-Andersen both leave a picture of OR syntax as a system with no strict government relation between verb and noun, i.e. a system where the verb does not have valency in the sense that the number and forms of the argu-ments are determined by the verb.
As already mentioned, there are clear similarities between OR syntax and the syn-tax of PIE as reconstructed by Meillet. The question whether there were constructions in OR could, in principle, also be asked in relation to PIE. However, Meillet’s Greek examples do not offer sufficient evidence to approach the question of constructions in this language. The five case form extensions of the verb klyō in (15a–e) look conspicu-ously like a construction paradigm, but all the case forms hardly excluded each other.
As already mentioned, there are clear similarities between OR syntax and the syn-tax of PIE as reconstructed by Meillet. The question whether there were constructions in OR could, in principle, also be asked in relation to PIE. However, Meillet’s Greek examples do not offer sufficient evidence to approach the question of constructions in this language. The five case form extensions of the verb klyō in (15a–e) look conspicu-ously like a construction paradigm, but all the case forms hardly excluded each other.