Parallel grammaticalisation as a type of connecting grammaticalisation

I shall now attempt to provide an overall interpretation of all the data discussed in this chapter in the light of the theory of connecting grammaticalisation.

As suggested in the conclusion of the previous section, the developments of aspect and animacy were roughly chronologically parallel. On this background it is relevant to enquire whether this parallelism has a semantic background. In other words, would it be possible to identify a common semantic distinction underlying both aspect and animacy?

As appears from the presentation above, the MR aspect system is based on a dis-tinction between action on the one hand and activity-state on the other. It is peculiar to the MR aspect category that the action is perceived as consisting of its two logically constituent parts, the activity and the state, and that, in reference to single events, the two aspect forms are used to assert not the action as a whole but one or the other of its constituent parts, cf. (53)–(54). As we have seen, the activity/state distinction is reflected grammatically at two levels:

a. in lexicalisation: activity verbs vs state verbs.

b. in the aspect meaning: in reference to a single action the imperfective verb asserts the activity, while the perfective verb asserts the state.

We should now think of what a nominal correspondent of an activity or a state would be like. The activity corresponds, on the nominal side, to an individual qualified to carry out an activity. I shall refer to an individual of this kind as a potential actor. A state basically corresponds to an item that is not capable of carrying out any activity.

These items make up the complement of the potential actors and can be referred to as not potential actors.

What has been grammaticalised in Russian as the category of animacy is exactly the distinction of potential actor/not potential-actor. There is thus a semantic parallel

168 Connecting Grammaticalisation

between aspect and animacy, and it is unlikely to be accidental. Rather the obvious connection between what is the most fundamental verbal and the most fundamental nominal category of MR should be seen as the result of a generalised semantic distinc-tion activity/potential actor vs. state/not potential-actor penetrating both the lexicon and the dominant grammatical categories of the two major parts of speech, verbs and nouns.

It appears that the two changes investigated, those of animacy and aspect, are interconnected and can be considered not as two separate changes, but as one complex change scenario. A change scenario of this kind is what I have referred to as parallel grammaticalisation (Nørgård-Sørensen 2006).

If we compare the history of the changes investigated we find further evidence in favour of this idea: the development of aspect and the development of animacy exhibit certain similarities. These will be described in the following historical outline which will also summarise the results of the above investigations.

Common Slavic (before 800): There are several productive verbal prefixes and suffixes. New action verbs may be derived by prefixation; non-action verbs, that is verbs denoting state, activity, iterativity, etc., are either simple or derived by suffixation (Nørgård-Sørensen 1997a). It is important to bear in mind that the universal cogni-tive split of the action into its constituent parts, activity and state (Durst-Andersen 1992: 59–63), was still not grammaticalised. The grammar treated the action as an indivisible whole. The aspectual opposition between perfective and imperfective verbs was, presumably already then, one of action vs. non-action.

As a result of regular sound changes the nominative and the accusative of mascu-line singular nouns (o-stems, ǔ-stems and i-stems) merge. This motivates an extended use of the genitive in the A2 slot and, for the domain of individual-denoting nouns, eventually a regrammation whereby the choice of A2 case, accusative or genitive, became an index of the animacy value of the noun, cf. paradigm (35).

Russian (11th c.): A new suffix: -iva-/-ivaj- appears as the result of a reinterpreta-tion of the border between root and suffix in suffixed verbs derived from verbs with an -i- as thematic vowel, for instance, poči-ti ‘rest’ > poči-va-ti, being resegmented into poč-iva-ti. In the beginning the -iva-/-ivaj- verbs seem to have been used exclusively as expressing iterativity, but later they obtained the broader function as a marker of non-action, at that time the meaning of the imperfective aspect. Being very productive, -iva-/-ivaj- began ousting other suffixes in this function.

In the same period and later, until about 1400, the genitive form spread as the A2 case of animate nouns. This was an adjustment of usage rules and apparently still not linked to the simultaneous development of the verbs.

Russian (14th c.): The formerly distinct plural declensions merged into one, and as a result the possibility of using the genitive in the A2 slot with animate nouns spread to all plural nouns. This was in itself also an adjustment of usage rules and did not involve any reanalysis, neither of case, nor of gender.

Chapter 5. Patterns of connecting grammaticalisation in Russian 169

We are here at a decisive turning point. The development described so far moti-vated the following two reanalyses which, from the point of view of parallel grammati-calisation, constituted one integral reanalysis.

First, aspect, which used to be a distinction of action vs. non-action, was reana-lysed as a marker of change-of-state vs. no change-of-state, cf. the reanalysis of para-digm (64) as parapara-digm (65). This involved a conceptual reinterpretation of the action from an indivisible whole to a complex concept with two constituents, the activity and the state, linked by telicity. In other words, it markedly added to the grammatical prominence of the activity/state distinction.

Second, the genitive form of animate nouns, which had been used along with the historical accusative in the A2 slot, was reanalysed as the accusative proper of nouns in the 1st declension singular (formerly, o-stems) and in all plurals. This involved a spread of the animate/inanimate opposition to all nouns, i.e. the establishment of animacy as a gender distinction.

Both of these reanalyses can have started to spread in the language community in the late 14th century. This is supported by the evidence presented above. In the 15th century, the historical accusative of animate nouns disappeared from informal registers where the new accusative (identical to the genitive) became the only option, and already by the end of the 14th century we see a rapid increase in the number and occurrences of -iva-/-ivaj- derivatives in all registers.

If there is a difference in time – so that the two changes were consecutive rather than simultaneous – the data indicate that aspect was first reanalysed. It makes sense that a reanalysed aspect system would serve as part of the motivation for the coinage of animacy as a gender – in addition to the motivation provided by the merging of the plural declensions. However, the chronological information available at this point is not sufficient to confirm this hypothesis.

The two changes were a reshaping of the grammatical system and not just of the usage rules. The fact that the changes were first actualised in unmarked contexts (informal registers) confirms that we are dealing with internally motivated reanalyses (Andersen 2001b: 33).

In view of the fact that the two reanalyses are motivated by a common semantic distinction (activity/potential actor vs. state/not potential-actor), it should not be con-sidered accidental that they either coincide in time or that the one provides the moti-vation for the other. In both cases they can be seen as one integral reanalysis of major parts of the grammar, that is, as a case of parallel grammaticalisation. The reason why it took place at this particular time in history is that this was the point when the previ-ous development of both verbal and nominal grammar had provided the motivating conditions: the reanalyses could be carried through without any drastic adjustment of usage. Only the more marked uses of verbal forms, e.g. the negated perfective forms considered above, were instantly modified. Further, the consequences of the reanalyses only became clear in the following actualisation process.

170 Connecting Grammaticalisation

This complex change scenario has even broader extensions, including also the shift of syntactic type from construction-based syntax in OR to a valency system in MR. I did not examine the syntactic data with a view to pinpoint the time of this change, but the chronology of the two other changes, in particular the reanalysis of aspect, gives a clue. With the conceptual split of the action in its logical constituents, activity and state, MR aspect implies that both the agent of the activity (p-theme in Durst-Andersen 1992) and the carrier of the state (q-theme) will be prominent. In an active sentence the p-theme will be realised as A1 (subject) while the q-theme will be realised as A2 (direct object) to form what is usually referred to as a transitive sentence. As a matter of fact, MR action verbs, i.e. the verbs that are realised as aspect pairs, are with very few exceptions transitive in this traditional sense. It appears that MR aspect and transitive syntax – which involves valency – are interdependent, and it should be assumed that the shift from OR construction-based syntax to MR valency-based syntax was also part of the complex change scenario together with the reanalysis of aspect and the establishment of animacy as a gender. The syntactic data considered support, though do not finally confirm this hypothesis.

In Chapter 4 the concept of connecting grammaticalisation was introduced with the purpose to capture the fact that two or more simple paradigms can be related in non-trivial ways, and that such relations are the result of historical formations.

Chapters 6 and 7 contain studies exemplifying complex paradigms as a type of con-necting grammaticalisation. In the present chapter the second type of concon-necting grammaticalisation, referred to as parallel grammaticalisation or parallel paradigms, has been investigated. I have shown that two clearly related distinctions of content, expressed by verbal aspect and nominal animacy, are not only complementary in the system of MR; they also exhibit clear parallels of historical development. Further, it appears that the shift from OR construction-based syntax to MR valency-based syntax was part of this complex development, offering yet another historical parallel to those of aspect and animacy.

The concluding theoretical point to be emphasised is that grammatical changes, be it grammations, regrammations or degrammations, do not proceed in closed envi-ronments separated from the rest of the structure. I have shown that fundamental changes in the noun, the verb and the syntax of Russian were closely interrelated, both logically and chronologically, in a pattern of parallel grammaticalisation and take this as an indication that language changes are generally connected to a much higher degree than has traditionally been acknowledged.

chapter 6