Origins of the Russian referential system Alternative scenarios

Origins of the Russian referential system: Alternative scenarios Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Lomonosov Moscow State University) aakibrik@gmail. com SLE 2012 Stockholm, August 31 1

Referential system § Reduced referential devices § free pronouns, bound pronouns, zero § Patterns of their discourse use § In this talk: § only subject reference 2

Relevance § Referential system is among the basic § grammatical properties of a language It has important bearing upon many other features: § § § § categories of person, number, gender use of finite and non-finite verb forms pronouns as a lexical class clause-internal syntax argumenthood syntax of complex sentence. . . . 3

WALS composer: Dryer and Siewierska § Consistent languages: free, bound, zero 4

Reduced referential Familiar facts: devices Zero Free pronoun ~ zero Inflection (bound pronoun) Bound pronoun Free pronoun plus inflection (agreement) ‘he plays/played’ Japanese English Mandarin Ø asonda he played tā~Ø zà wánshuă ne Latin lūd-it Spoken French i-žu (graphic il joue) German er spiel-t 5

The Germanic system § Found in German, and in a vestigial way in § § English Free pronouns plus less than referential person inflection Its rise is usually attributed to the spread of the V 2 principle Independent pronouns “came to be used obligatorily to avoid declarative sentences with initial verbs” (Siewierska 2004: 272) Borrowed into French and Rhaeto-Romance 6

Siewierska’s syntactic agreement § § § Person inflection, not occurring without a free referential form “Extremely well represented among the languages of Western Europe” (Siewierska 2004: 268) § many Germanic § French and Rhaeto-Romance § Russian (partially) Outside Europe, only among several languages of Oceania § 3 Austronesian § 4 non-Austronesian 7

In a first approximation § The Russian (and generally East Slavic) system is similar to Germanic § And very different from other Slavic § old Slavic • Old Church Slavic • Old Russian § West Slavic § South Slavic 8

From Andersen’s “The tinder box” English Polish “I should like very much to “Chciałbym ją zobaczyć” see her, ” thought the soldier <…> Russian “Ėx, kak by na nee pogljadet’ ”, – pomyślał-ø żołnierz <…> – dumal-ø soldat <…> However, he passed a very Tymczasem więc pędził-ø pleasant time; wesołe życie, Žil-ø on teper’ kuda kak veselo: Ø went to theatre, chadzał-ø do teatru, xodil-ø v teatry, Ø drove in the king's garden, zwiedzał-ø ogród królewski, vyezžal-ø na progulki v korolevskij sad and Ø gave a great deal of a biednym dawał-ø zawsze i mnogo deneg razdaval-ø money to the poor, dużo pieniędzy, bednjakam, which was very good of him; co było bardzo ładnie z jego strony: i xorošo delal-ø! he remembered what it had been in olden times to be without a shilling. pamiętał-ø bowiem z dawnych czasów, jak to niedobrze być bez grosza! Ved’ on po sebe znal-ø, kakovo sidet’ bez groša 9 v karmane.

From Andersen’s “The tinder box” German Polish Russian “Ich möchte sie wohl sehen!” “Chciałbym ją zobaczyć” “Ėx, kak by na nee pogljadet’ ”, dachte der Soldat <. . . > – pomyślał-ø żołnierz <…> – dumal-ø soldat <…> Nun lebte er recht lustig, Tymczasem więc pędził-ø wesołe życie, Žil-ø on teper’ kuda kak veselo: Ø besuchte das Theater, chadzał-ø do teatru, xodil-ø v teatry, Ø fuhr-ø in des Königs Garten zwiedzał-ø ogród królewski, vyezžal-ø na progulki v korolevskij sad und Ø gab-ø den Armen viel Geld, a biednym dawał-ø zawsze dużo pieniędzy, i mnogo deneg razdaval-ø bednjakam, und das war hübsch von ihm; co było bardzo ładnie z jego i xorošo delal-ø! strony: er wusste noch von früheren Zeiten her, wie schlimm es ist, nicht einen Groschen zu besitzen! pamiętał-ø bowiem z dawnych czasów, jak to niedobrze być bez grosza! Ved’ on po sebe znal-ø, kakovo sidet’ bez groša 10 v karmane.

The conundrum § § § The Germanic referential system is exotic But its roots are understood Its influence upon certain Romance languages is also clear The East Slavic system, unlike other Slavic, is quite similar Can it be that the Germanic system was borrowed into East Slavic § § If yes, through what specific sociolinguistic scenario? If not, why are the systems so similar? § failing to affect West and South Slavic, with which Germanic was in a more intense and direct contact? § specifically, leaping over Polish? 11

In this talk § Characterize the Russian referential system and its peculiarities § Suggest hypotheses on the rise of this rather convoluted system 12

The Russian (East Slavic) system of subject reference: further details § Variation: • On igra-et ~ he play-Pres. 3 Sg inflection = bound pronoun Igra-et ‘He plays’ play-Pres. 3 Sg • Ø Igra-et ? ? § Split inflection: § Non-past: person-number § Past: gender-number • On igra-l-ø ~ he play-Past-MSg Igra-l-ø ‘He played’ play-Past-MSg 13

Natural examples A on sejčas ët … But he now live-Pres. 3 Sg But he does not live at hers now… ne not Pattern 1: free pronoun + inflection u Pattern 2: neë inflection her at živ- NB: no person inflection in the past S”exa-l-ø … Dom snima-et move-Past-MSg house rent-Pres. 3 Sg He has moved… He is renting a house (Pavlova 2011) § § § The frequency difference (Kibrik 1996, Grenoble 2001, Seo 2001, Zdorenko 2009) : § pronoun + inflection (pattern 1): between 2/3 and 3/4 § just inflection (pattern 2): between 1/4 and 1/3 Pattern 1 (dominant) is very Germanic-like Pattern 2 (secondary but still strong) is traditional IE, shared by other Slavic Inflection is often the only overt bearer of the referential function 14 Inflectional markers, unlike Germanic, clearly deserve the status of ancillary

Flexibility of Russian Luke 19, 12 -15 OCS: referential inflection OCS <. . . > и быстъ егда сѧ възврати Russian Synodal И когда возвратился Russian Averintsev И вот когда он возвратился English When he was returned OCS <. . . > и рече а пригласѧтъ емоу рабы ты Russian Synodal велел призвать к себе рабов тех Russian Averintsev велел он вызвать к себе тех слуг English then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, OCS имъ же дастъ съребро Russian Synodal которым дал серебро Russian Averintsev которым дал деньги English to whom he had given the money. 15

Flexibility of Russian Luke 19, 12 -15 OCS: referential inflection OCS <. . . > и быстъ егда сѧ възврати Russian Synodal И когда возвратился English: pronoun Russian Averintsev И вот когда он возвратился English When he was returned OCS <. . . > и рече а пригласѧтъ емоу рабы ты Russian Synodal велел призвать к себе рабов тех Russian Averintsev велел он вызвать к себе тех слуг English then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, OCS имъ же дастъ съребро Russian Synodal которым дал серебро Russian Averintsev которым дал деньги English to whom he had given the money. 16

Flexibility of Russian Luke 19, 12 -15 OCS: referential inflection OCS <. . . > и быстъ егда сѧ възврати Russian Synodal И когда возвратился English: pronoun Russian Averintsev И вот когда он возвратился English When he was returned OCS <. . . > и рече а пригласѧтъ емоу рабы ты Russian Synodal велел призвать к себе рабов тех Russian Averintsev велел он вызвать к себе тех слуг “Synodal Russian” mimicking OCS English then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, OCS имъ же дастъ съребро Russian Synodal которым дал серебро Russian Averintsev которым дал деньги English to whom he had given the money. 17

Flexibility of Russian Luke 19, 12 -15 OCS: referential inflection OCS <. . . > и быстъ егда сѧ възврати Russian Synodal И когда возвратился English: pronoun Russian Averintsev И вот когда он возвратился English When he was returned OCS <. . . > и рече а пригласѧтъ емоу рабы ты Russian Synodal велел призвать к себе рабов тех Russian Averintsev велел он вызвать к себе тех слуг English “Synodal Russian” mimicking OCS then he commanded these servants to be called unto him, “Regular Russian”: free pronoun + referential которым дал серебро Russian Synodal inflection (pattern 1) Russian Averintsev которым дал деньги VS referential inflection (pattern 2) 18 English to whom he had given the money. OCS имъ же дастъ съребро

Germanic and Slavic: Typological assessment German Polish Russian Ref. device Free pronoun Inflection (=bound pronoun) (free pronoun +) referential inflection Peculiarities Non-referential inflection Typicality Exotic Split: nonpast: person-number past: gender-number Very common Highly unusual 19

Rise of the Russian (East Slavic) referential system § Old Russian: like other conservative IE § Gradual change to the modern system § Timing : § The quasi-Germanic pattern came to dominate around the 16 th century (Borkovskij and Kuznecov 1963, Ivanov 1982, Choo 2003, Madariaga 2008, Eckhoff and Meyer 2011) § Two possible sources § internal evolution § external influences 20

Scenario of internal evolution (Kibrik 2004, 2011) § In Old Russian (as well as in Old Polish) old synthetic past tenses (aorist, imperfect) were gradually replaced by the old analytic perfect: da-l-ъ jes-mь ‘I gave’ da-l-ъ [jes-tь ] be. Pres-3 Sg ‘he gave’ give-Pf-MSg § § be. Pres-1 Sg In the 3 rd person, the copula began disappearing very early, the resulting absence semiotically opposed to the 1 st and 2 nd persons Later on, in late Old Russian (unlike Polish), all person-marked copulae disappeared and subject person became indistinguishable in the past tense clauses This paved the way to the expansion of personal pronouns use First in the past, later in the non-past tense 21

This pattern, shared with Polish, is materially different from old synthetic past tenses, but systemically it is equivalent: This pattern is completely different: subject person is encoded in free pronouns Stages of Russian verb inflection distinguishes subject persons OCS, early Middle-late Old Russian (11 th – 15 th century) Perfect/past, 1 Sg. M ‘I gave’ dalъ jesmь 3 Sg. M ‘he gave’ dalъ jestь Perfect Present, 3 Sg § ‘he gives’ da-etь Modern Russian (from the 17 th century) dalъ jesmь (~ ja dalъ) ja dal-ø dalъ — (~ onъ dalъ) on dal-ø New past daetь Past (~ onъ daetь) on daët NB: The Middle-Late Old Russian column indicates the use outside of contrastive subject contexts (Zaliznjak 2008: 248 ff. ) 22

Alternative hypothesis § Widely held view on the causal relations between diachronic changes (Ivanov 1982: 100 ff. , Zaliznjak 1995: 153): § subject pronouns expanded the domain of their use, which made the person-marked copulae redundant and eventually led to their fall § But why would subject pronouns expand their use? This is typologically very unusual 23

Evidence of the Old Novgorod birchbark letters (www. gramoty. ru) § The first 50 letters (Zaliznjak 1995: 223 ff. ) – 11 th th § § and the first half of the 12 century Proportion of the patterns dalъ jesmь and ja dalъ – 18: 5 Proportion of the patterns daetь and onъ daetь – 23: 1 This probably supports the hypothesis that the expansion of subject pronouns started in the past tense and only later spread to the non-past tense And, therefore, it is likely that the fall of personmarked copulae led to the expansion of subject pronouns, rather then the other way around 24

Modern Russian § § Hypothesis: the quantitative difference can still be observed in modern Russian: significantly more clauses without a pronominal subject in the non-past tenses Pavlova 2011, a corpus study: results provide moderate support to this hypothesis With subject pronoun Without subject pronoun Non-past 56% 44% Past 67% 33% § § Levshina (2012) performed a statistical analysis (multiple statistic regression) on Pavlova’s (2010) data and concluded that the past tense does significantly increase the chance of using a subject pronoun (only in the main clauses) 25

Ge rm an F nn i –U o Potential external influences ric g ic B a l t i c vic a t Sl es F W n i n o – U g r ic c i k r u T © Yuri Koryakov 26

Closest candidates for external influence § Finno-Ugric § Sergej Esenin: “Rus got lost amidst the Mordva and Chud” § Turkic § “Grattez le russe et vous verrez le tartare” 27

Finno-Ugric § Kuznecova (ed. ) 2012 § § Mordvin-Erzya, Shoksha dialect Meadow Mari, Old Toryal variety Udmurt, Besermyan dialect Komi-Zyrian, Pechora dialect § Markus and Rozhanskij 2011, 2012 § Vod § Ingrian 28

Mordvin-Erzya § § er’e-st’ jon-sta <. . . > Pattern 2: live-PRT. 3 PL good-EL bound pronoun ‘They lived good’ l’ad-st syn’ er’a-ma t’et’e-t’ marhta remain-PRT. 3 PL they live-NZR father-DEF. GEN together ‘The remained to live with the father’ Pattern 1: i vot er’e-t’ free pronoun + and here live-PRS. 3 PL bound pronoun ‘And so they live’ i vaga syn’ vanu-sy-z’. . . and now they see-PRS-3 O. 3 PL. S ‘And now they see. . . ’ 29

Ingrian (1885) Pattern 1: free pronoun + bound pronoun § kuin kottī home. ILL § nüD veljä-n brother-GEN möˆ nüD mää-mmä how we now go-1 PL ‘How do we go home now? ’ taba-mma tämä-n now kill-1 PL this-GEN ‘Now we kill this brother’ Pattern 2: bound pronoun 30

Finno-Ugric § Wide attestation of the Russian-style system § § This might be the native F-U pattern More likely, this is a result of recent Russian influence (p. c. Finno-Ugric linguists: T. Agranat, F. Rozhanskij, massive code mixing) § § frequently: just inflection § (more) frequently: free pronouns + inflection § and/or Germanic influence in the Finnic languages More work is needed for clarification It would be useful to include the Samoyedic evidence into the picture And look for insight into Finno-Ugric/Uralic syntactic reconstruction 31

Turkic § Fully-fledged bound pronoun languages § Runic Turkic (8 th century), Kononov 1980: 228 § arqïš caravan ïd-maz-ø te jin sülä-di-m send-Fut. Neg-3 because campaign-Past-1 Sg ‘Since he would not send caravans (with tribute), I campaigned against him’ 32

Mishar Tatar (Lyutikova and Tatevosov eds. 2000 ms. ) “Letter to the daughter” § m. Inča-n. I steambath-ACC tübän lower Ičtag. I end k. Irmaj rinat-lar-I-n-da ker-ä-m, Nickname Rinat-PL-3 -OBL-LOC enter-ST. IPFV-1. SG ‘I go to the Rinat’s steambath at the lower end’ § niček jäš-i-sen? how live-ST-2. SG ‘How are you? ’ 33

Baltic § § § The original Baltic system is not known Prussian is represented by texts with massive syntactic influence of German (Toporov 2006: 83 -84) Among the modern languages, Lithuanian is closer to the conservative pattern, and Latvian to the Germanic/East Slavic pattern (cf. Dryer 2011) Balode and Holvoet (2001: 10): “pervasive” German syntactic influence upon Latvian Overall, it is unlikely that the modern Latvian system is inherited from old Baltic Immediate contribution of the Baltic factor in the formation of the Russian system must be judged low 34

Germanic § § § Structurally, Germanic is a possible influence Typologically, it is a likely influence because of the rarity of this system Historically, it is a plausible influence § Germanic was V 2 already in the 6 th century (Nielsen 2000) § Later attested forms of Germanic were all V 2 and used subject pronouns (Faarlund 2001, 2008) § Different timing for Old High German in Axel 2007, but anyway by the 11 th century the use of subject pronouns prevails This hypothesis does not contradict the first hypothesis of internal development; they could have operated in conjunction Is it also possible sociogeographically? 35

Analogy 1: Westernmost West Slavic § Sorbian and Kaszubian have developed the extensive use of subject pronouns § This is usually connected with German influence (Stone 1993 a, b) § In Kaszubian, similarity to Russian is enhanced due to the disappearance of copulae in the past 36

Kaszubian § jô jem chodzy-ł ~ I COP. 1 Sg walk-Pst ‘I walked’ jô I chodzy-ł walk-Pst literary, archaic form vernacular form (Dulichenko 2005: 392 -393) 37

Analogy 2: heritage Russian speakers in English environment § Hollett 2011: Russian in Toronto § heritage Russian speakers: the “just inflection” pattern of subject reference is used 24% of the time § first generation speakers: 38% § Hollett attributes this difference to the intensive English contact in the case of the heritage speakers 38

Which Germanic variety? § Old Norse § On the one hand, there was a strong cultural and political influence of the vikings upon Old Russia • A large share of the Old Novgorod elite in the 11 th-13 th centuries was of viking descent (Gippius 2006) § § On the other hand, the peak of the influence predates the time of the system shift by a few centuries § Not much Scandinavian linguistic influence is reported (cf. Dahl and Koptjevskaja-Tamm eds. 2001, Koivulehto 2002, Panzer 2002) Low German § Historically possible • Beginning from the 13 th century and onwards • Extensive German-Russian contact in the Hanseatic cities of Novgorod and Riga (cf. Squires and Ferdinand 2002, Semenova 1977, Čekmonas 2001) § Quite likely • Sociolinguistic variables (who was bilingual, majority vs. minority, age of acquisition, see Trudgill 2011), are yet to be specified 39

Sidorova 2012 § § § § Among the Old Russian documents, the earliest predominance of the subject pronoun pattern is attested in Polotsk letters in the 13 th and 14 th century followed by Tver and Pskov, Novgorod (15 th century) and finally Moscow (16 th century) Note that Polotsk is situated on the same river as Riga These letters attest to massive contact with Baltic Germans Some documents are even written in German Further analysis of Old Russian documents, with special attention to vernacular style 40

Integrated scenario § § § Restructuring of the past tense morphology created the prerequisites for the expansion of free subject pronouns Influence of contacting languages, using the free pronoun pattern, enhanced the use of free pronouns § Most likely, Germanic § Perhaps, propelled by the Old Norse contact around the 11 th century § Further propagated due to Hanseatic contacts in the Baltic (13 -17 th c) • Through the bilingualism of the Russian minority in Riga, copying the patterns of socially prestigious German? • Through the bilingualism of the German minority in Novgorod, whose modified version of Russian was further imitated by native Russians? Such combination of internal and external factors may have led to the modern Russian situation with its hybrid system Shift to the new system started in the western area (Novgorod – Riga), later spread to the rest of the East Slavic territory Direction for further study: Historical geography of the spread of the 41 quasi-Germanic pattern throughout East Slavic

Heine’s (2008: 40) narrowing § “Such examples appear to be fairly common in situations of language contact: Speakers of the replica language select among the structural options that are available in their language the one that corresponds most closely to a structure they find in their model language. What “selection” means is that the option is used more frequently and acquires a wider range of contexts. In the end – that is, in extreme cases – this may turn out the only structure used, eliminating all the other options that used to be available” 42

Siewierska 2004: 273 -274 § “It is not always easy to determine whether a particular change in person marking is due to the influence of another language or to language-internal factors. <. . . > Consequently, some of the instances attributed to language contact <. . . > are necessarily of a speculative nature. ” 43

Acknowledgements § § § Tatiana Agranat Aleksey Andronov Bernard Comrie Stephen Dickey Olga Fedorova Pavel Graschenkov Alex Holvoet Mikhail Kopotev Natalia Levshina Ekaterina Lyutikova Anna Pichxadze Fedor Rozhanskij 44