(Studies in Language Companion Series 55) Östen Dahl, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm-Circum-Baltic Languages - Typology and Contact, Volume 2 - Grammar and Typology-John Benjamins Publishing Company (2001)

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The Circum-Baltic Languages

Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS)
The SLCS series has been established as a companion series to Studies in Language,
International Journal, sponsored by the Foundation Foundations of language.
Series Editors
Werner Abraham Michael Noonan

Universities of Groningen, Berkeley University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
and Vienna USA
Editorial Board
Joan Bybee Christian Lehmann

University of New Mexvico University of Erfurt
Ulrike Claudi Robert Longacre
University of Cologne University of Texas, Arlington
Bernard Comrie Brian MacWhinney
Max Planck Institute, Leipzig Carnegie-Mellon University
William Croft Marianne Mithun
University Manchester University of California, Santa Barbara
sten Dahl Edith Moravcsik
University of Stockholm University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Gerrit Dimmendaal Masayoshi Shibatani
University of Leiden Kobe University
Martin Haspelmath Russell Tomlin
Max Planck Institute, Leipzig University of Oregon
Ekkehard Knig John Verhaar
Free University of Berlin The Hague
Volume 55
The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact; Volume 2.
Edited by sten Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
The Circum-Baltic Languages
Typology and Contact
Volume 2. Grammar and Typology
Edited by
sten Dahl
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
Stockholm University
John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam/Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
8
National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed

Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Circum-Baltic languages : Typology and contact / edited by sten Dahl and Maria
Koptjevskaja-Tamm.
p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 01657763 ; v. 5455)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. Past and present -- v. 2. Grammar and typology.
1. Baltic Sea Region--Languages. I. Dahl, sten. II. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria.
III. Series.
P381.B33 C57 2001

491.9--dc21 2001025046
isbn 90 272 3057 9 (Eur.) / 1 58811 020 6 (US) (Hb, v. 1; alk. paper)
isbn 90 272 3059 5 (Eur.) / 1 58811 042 7 (US) (Hb, v. 2; alk. paper)
2001 John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microlm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. P.O. Box 36224 1020 me Amsterdam The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America P.O. Box 27519 Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 usa
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Table of contents
List of abbreviations vii

List of contributors x
Introduction
The Circum-Baltic Languages: Introduction to the volume xv
sten Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
Part 4
Selected topics in the grammar of the Circum-Baltic languages
Impersonals and passives in Baltic and Finnic 363
Axel Holvoet
On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic 391
Vytautas Ambrazas
Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livo-
nian verb particles 413
Bernhard Wlchli
On the developments of the Estonian aspect: The verbal particle ra 443
Helle Metslang
Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian 481
Baiba Metuzale-Kangere and Kersti Boiko
Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages 499
Simon Christen
Part 5
Typological perspectives
A piece of the cake and a cup of tea: Partitive and pseudo-partitive
nominal constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages 523
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vi Table of contents
Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 569

Leon Stassen
On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives: To and fro coherence 591
Thomas Stolz
Part 6
Synthesis
The Circum-Baltic languages: An areal-typological approach 615
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wlchli
Appendix 1. Language contacts referred to in the volumes 751
Appendix 2. Linguistic phenomena mentioned in the volumes for
the origin of which contact-induced changes have been evoked 754
Name index i 1
Language index i 9
Subject index i 15
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List of abbreviations
Abbreviations used in glosses
abess abessive emph emphatic

abl ablative erg ergative
abs absolutive ess essive
acc accusative fem feminine
acnnr action nominalizer freq frequentative
act active fut future
adess adessive gen genitive
adj adjective ger gerund
adjr adjectiv(al)izer hab habitual
adv adverb hon honoric
advr adverbializer ill illative
all allative imp imperative
aux auxiliary impf imperfect
com comitative impr impersonal
comm common (gender) indef indenite
comp complementizer indir indirective
cond conditional iness inessive
conneg form of the verb used with inf innitive
negation inst instrumental
conv converb instruc instructive
cop copula int interrogative
dat dative intr intransitive
deb debitive ipfv imperfective
def denite (article) ips impersonal passive
dem demonstrative loc locative
det determiner masc masculine
dim diminutive minf Estonian ma-innitive
dir direct n noun
du dual neg negative
dur durative nfin nonnite
elat elative nom nominative
viii List of abbreviations
nonpast nonpast pref prex

nr nominalizer prep preposition
neut neuter pret preterite
obj object pres present
obl oblique prtv partitive
opt optative past past
part participle refl reexive
pass passive sub subject
pf perfect sg singular
pfv perfective subj subjunctive
pl plural suff sux
po partial object sup superlative
poss possessive term terminative
pot potential tinf Estonian ta-innitive
pp perfective particle to total object
ppa present participle active trnsl translative
ppp past/preterit passive zerik Basque zerik-case
participle
Additional abbreviations
Abx Abkhaz FSwd Finland Swedish

Arm Armenian Gal Galindian
Balt Baltic Grg Georgian
Blg Bulgarian Grk Greek
BY Baltic Yiddish Grm German
Bylr Belarusian HGrm High German
CourlY Curonian Yiddish Hng Hungarian
Cur Curonian Ice Icelandic
CY Central Yiddish Ing Ingrian
Cz Czech Ir Irish
Dal Dalecarlian It Italian
Dan Danish Jat Jatvingian
Dut Dutch Kar Karelian
Eng English Kom Komi
ErzaMrd Erza Mordvin Krm Karaim
Est Estonian: Ksh Kashubian
EY Eastern Yiddish Lat Latin
Fin Finnish LGrm Low German
Fr French Lith Lithuanian
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List of abbreviations ix
LivK Livonian in Curonia Pol Polish

LivSal Salis-Livonian, Livonian in PPC pseudo-partitive nominal
Vidzeme (near Salis). construction
LRmn Latvian Romani Rmn Romani
Ltg LatgalianLtv Latvian Rus Russian
Lud Ludian SAE Standard Average European
Mar Mari Sam Sami
MarEast Eastern Mari SCr Serbian/Croatian
Mrd Mordvin SEst South Estonian,
NEst Northern Estonian SEY Southeastern Yiddish
NEY Northeastern Yiddish Slve Slovenian
NRRD North Russian Romani Spn Spanish
dialects StY Standard Yiddish
Nsam North Sami Swd Swedish
OHGrm Old High German SY Southern Yiddish
OLith Old Lithuanian Ttr Tatar
Olo Olonetsian Udm Udmurt
ONrs Old Norse Ukr Ukrainian
OPrs Old Prussian Vot Votian
Oss Ossete Vps Veps
PC partitive nominal WY Western Yiddish
construction Yid Yiddish
Plb Polabian ZY zameter yidish, Samogitian
Yiddish
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List of contributors
sten Dahl, oesten@ling.su.se

Dept. of Linguistics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, tamm@ling.su.se

Laimute Balode, laimute.balode@helsinki.

Dept. of Slavic and Baltic Languages and Literatures, P. O.Box 4, Vuorikatu 5B,
FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland
Axel Holvoet, axel@ktl.mii.lt

Lietuviu kalbos institutas, Antakalnio 6, 2055 Vilnius, Lithuania
Valeriy Cekmonas, cekm@post.omnitel.net

Dept. of Slavic languages and literatures, Vilnius University, Krokuvos 124,
LT-2005 Vilnius 5; Lithuania
Anne-Charlotte Rendahl, rendahl@ling.su.se

Johanna Laakso, johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at

Institut fr Finno-Ugristik der Universitt Wien, Spitalgasse 24, Hof 7, A-1090
Wien, Austria
Lars-Gunnar Larsson, Lars-Gunnar.Larsson@nugr.uu.se

Dept. of Finno-Ugrian languages, University of Uppsala, Box 256, SE-751 05,
Uppsala, Sweden
Stefan Pugh, smp@st-andrews.ac.uk

Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Duke University, Durham, NC 27 706,
UK
va . Csat Johanson, eva.csato-johanson@afro.uu.se

Department of Asian and African Languages, Uppsala University, Box 527,
SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
</TARGET "adr">
List of contributors xi
Neil G. Jacobs, njacobs@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures. The Ohio State University,
314 Cunz Hall, 1841 Millikin Road, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Alexandr Rusakov, rusakov@AR2015.spb.edu

Dept. of General Linguistics, St. Petersburg University, Lenin str. 11, apt. 4,
197136, St.Petersburg Russia
Vytautas Ambrazas, vytamb@ktl.mii.lt

Kraziu g. 73, 2001 Vilnius, Lithuania
Bernhard Wlchli, bernhard@ling.su.se

Dept of Linguistics, Stockholm University; and Inst. fr Allgemeine
Sprachwissenschaft, Universitt Bern, Lnggassstr. 11, CH-3012 Bern
Helle Metslang, helle@eki.ee

Tallinn Pedagogical University, Chair of Estonian, Narva Road 29, 10120 Tallinn,
Estonia
Baiba Metuzale-Kangere, bka@balt.su.se

Dept. of Baltic Studies, Stockholm University, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
Simon Christen, simon.christen@isbs.unibe.ch

Stadtbachstr. 42a, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Leon Stassen, l.stassen@let.kun.nl

Instituut voor Algemene Taalwetenschap, Erasmusplein 1 (k. 912),
NL-6525 GG Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Thomas Stolz, stolz@uni-bremen.de

Universitt Bremen, Fachbereich 10: Linguistik Postfach 33 04 40, D-28334,
Bremen, Germany
Kersti Boiko, kersti@latnet.lv

Faculty of Modern Languages, Finno-Ugric Programme, University of Latvia,
Visvalza 4a, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia
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The Circum-Baltic Languages*

Introduction to the volume
sten Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
Areal linguistics and typology have multiple connections. The use of typology has
long been recognized in areal linguistics: typological considerations are an impor-
tant tool in evaluating suggested isoglosses, i.e. if typologically marked (cross-
linguistically infrequent, idiosyncratic) features are attested in several neighbouring
languages, this similarity can hardly be attributed to an accident.
Typologists, on the other hand, have shown an increasing interest in areal
generalizations: while some typologists try to minimize the risk for a potential areal
(and genetic) bias in a sample by various sophisticated sampling procedures, others
nd uneven areal distributions of features a fascinating object of study: the most
important recent contributions to areal typology include Dryers work on word
order (1989), Nichols work on correlations among marking type and various other
language parameters (1992), Dahls work on tense and aspect (1995), Stassens book
on intransitive predication (1997).
In practice, however, the contacts between areal linguistics and typology, as well
as communication between experts in these two elds, often are weak. One basic
problem is, of course, that both types of research require hard work with a huge
amount of data, but with completely dierent focuses. For areal linguists, the
desideratum is a complete documentation both synchronically and diachron-
ically of linguistic properties in a restricted area, including minimal variation
among closely related language varieties. Typologists, who sometimes nd this
preoccupation with details boring, dispense with a large portion of them much
to the irritation of areal linguists, who nd this attitude supercial and suspicious.
Practical diculties are also an obstacle in contacts between areal linguistics and
typology. Areal studies require enormous knowledge of the languages spoken in
the area and of the linguistic literature concerning their synchronic state and
history. One can hardly expect areal linguists to have a good orientation in linguistic
typology. On the other hand, one cannot expect that typologists will be able to have
a good orientation in descriptions of various phenomena which appear or have
appeared in small publications at various obscure places, are written in smaller
languages and are directed towards a narrow circle of specialists.
xvi The Circum-Baltic Languages
The area around the Baltic sea provides ample illustration of these diculties.
Not only are there many languages and many dialects spoken here, but there are
also several strong local linguistic traditions, some of them with fairly old roots.
Making the information accumulated within those traditions more easily accessible
to linguists outside them is a highly desirable but not an easily attainable goal.
Recent developments in linguistics have brought about more intensive contacts
with typologists and specialists in particular languages. Thus, the combined eorts
of numerous linguists of dierent denominations involved in the programme
EUROTYP resulted in many interesting generalizations about Europe as a
linguistic area. The end of the cold war and new media of scientic communication
paved a way for new fruitful dialogues among various specialists. There are still
seemingly unsurmountable diculties. General typologists and specialists in Baltic,
Finno-Ugric, Slavic and Germanic languages will all perceive the goals of the areal
study of CB-languages dierently. The present pair of volumes represents the rst
major attempt to reconcile those dierences.
Our topic, then, is Circum-Baltic languages the languages spoken around
the Baltic Sea. Obviously, the delimitation of this set of languages will have to
remain vague, for several reasons. The rst source of vagueness resides in the
Northern
Sami
Inari Skolt Sami
Sami
Lule Sami
Pite Sami
Ume Sami
Karelian
Southern
Sami Finnish
Ludian
Dalecarlian Olonetsian
Veps
Norwegian Swedish
Ingrian
Estonian Votian
Livonian
Russian
Latvian
Danish Lithuanian
Northern
Frisian Kashubian Karaim
Low Belarusian
German
Polish
High
German
Map 1.The Circum-Baltic languages. Non-territorial languages not shown: Romani

varieties, Yiddish, Tatar.
The Circum-Baltic Languages xvii
preposition around. If a language is spoken on the coast of the Baltic, the case is
clear, but how far from there should we go? Then, some languages may not have
native speakers in the area but are still important for the study of language contacts,
for instance, Latin and French. Should they be included? Finally, to make a list of
the Circum-Baltic languages we need to draw the borderline between languages and
dialects or varieties, a notoriously hopeless task. The list of Circum-Baltic languages
given below, and the map of the area (Map 1), are therefore somewhat arbitrary,
and should be taken only as a starting-point for the discussion.
Organization of the volumes
The rst of the two volumes Circum-Baltic Languages: Volume 1 Past and
Present surveys important sub-groups in the present-day Circum-Baltic languag-
es, placing them in their geographical, historical and societal setting and discussing
specic contact situations. The second volume Circum-Baltic Languages:
Volume 2 Grammar and typology focuses on grammatical phenomena in the
Circum-Baltic languages, relating them to the larger typological perspective. Each
of the volumes contains three sections.
The rst section of the rst volume contains overviews of four subsets of
Circum-Baltic languages and language varieties, representing all the major languag-
es families in the area. Latvian and Lithuanian and their dialects are presented in
two chapters by Laimute Halmode and Axel Holvoet. Johanna Laakso and Anne-
Charlotte Rendahl give surveys of the Finnic languages and the CB Swedish dialects,
respectively. Finally, Valeriy Cekmonas discusses Russian dialects in the CB area in
two chapters.
The second section is devoted to the early history of the CB languages. sten
Dahl discusses the origin of the Scandinavian languages and Lars-Gunnar Larsson
the inuence of the Baltic languages on the Baltic Finnic languages.
The third and last section of the rst volume treats contact phenomena in
some of the minor (in terms of number of speakers) CB languages and language
varieties. Karaim, a Turkic language spoken by a small group in Lithuania, is treated
by va gnes Csat. The formation of Karelian, a Finnic language spoken in the
Karelian Republic (Russia) is discussed by Stefan M. Pugh. Neil Jacobs surveys the
varieties of Yiddish in the CB region and Aleksandr Yu. Rusakov discusses interfer-
ence and code switching in the variety of Romani spoken in Northern Russia, and
Valeriy Cekmonas looks for contact-induced phenomena in the Pskov-Novgorod
dialect of Russian.
The rst and largest section of the second volume comprises six chapters, which
all treat grammatical phenomena in the languages east of the Baltic from the point
of view of diachronic development and areal inuence. Three of them focus on
xviii The Circum-Baltic Languages
nominal case: Simon Christen discusses dierent syntactic positions in which the
genitive case may appear in the Baltic and Finnic mentioned and Baiba Metuzale-
Kangere and Kersti Boiko compare the case systems of Latvian and Estonian.
Vytautas Ambrazas concentrates on a more specic diachronic development: how
the use of the nominative for object marking arose in the eastern CB area. The
contributions of Helle Metslang and Bernhard Wlchli both treat the historical
development of the use of verb particles for aspect or Aktionsart marking in Esto-
nian, Latvian and Livonian.
The three chapters in the following section also treat grammatical phenomena,
but from a more explicitly typological point of view. A shared focal point of the
chapters is the role of nominal case in various syntactic constructions: Leon
Stassens chapter with the role of cases such as the instrumental, essive and transla-
tive in nonverbal predication, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamms with partitive and
pseudo-partitive constructions, and the chapter by Thomas Stolz with the expres-
sion of comitative and instrumental roles.
In the concluding chapter of the second volume, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
and Bernhard Wlchli survey a number of important features of CB languages,
arguing that although the notion of a Sprachbund is not satisfactory for characteriz-
ing the linguistic situation in the CB area, the study of the CB languages from an
areal-typological point of view reveals a linguistic landscape with many interesting
properties of its own.
List of Circum-Baltic languages
Germanic
West
High German (HGrm)
Low German (LGrm)
Yiddish (Yid)
North
Danish (Dan)
Swedish (Swd)
Dalecarlian (Dal)
Norwegian (Nrw)
Baltic
West
Old Prussian (OPrs)
Curonian (Cur)
Jatvingian (Jat)
The Circum-Baltic Languages xix
Central
Lithuanian (Lith)
Latvian (Ltv)
East
Galindian (Gal)
Slavic
West
Polish (Pol)
Kashubian (Ksh)
Polabian (Plb)
East
Belarusian (Bylr)
Russian (Rus)
Ukrainian (Ukr)
Indo-Aryan
Romani (Rmn) with varieties/sub-languages:
Kelderash, Lovari, Kalo, Baltic, North Russian
Finno-Ugrian
Finnic
Veps (Vps)
Karelian (Kar)
Olonetsian (Olo)
Ludian (Lud)
Finnish (Fin)
Ingrian (Ing)
Votian (Vot)
Estonian (Est) with varieties/sub-languages: South Estonian, Northern
Estonian (NEst)
Sami (Sam) with varieties/sub-languages:
Southern Sami, Ume Sami, Pite Sami, Lule Sami, Northern Sami, Inari
Sami, Skolt Sami
Turkic
Karaim (Krm)
Tatar (Ttr)
= extinct;
= only onomastic sources and substratum
In addition, more or less isolated dialects under strong inuence of other languages,
e.g. *Leivu (a Hargla Estonian dialect between Aluksne and Gulbene/Latvia),
*Krevinian (Votian near Bauska/Latvia), Estonian Swedish, Nehrungskurisch,
Latgalian, Russian of the Old Believers in the Baltics, Urban Russian in the Baltics,
<DEST "intro-n*">
</TARGET "intro">
xx The Circum-Baltic Languages
Baltendeutsch, Halbdeutsch.
Note
* In 1991, a six-year research program called Language Typology around the Baltic Sea was
launched by the Faculty of Humanities at Stockholm University, with Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
as main researcher. A large part of the work behind these volumes was supported nancially
within this research program. We want to express our thanks here both to our sponsors and to all
the people who have contributed to the volumes.
References
Dahl, sten. 1995. Areal tendencies in tense-aspect systems. In: Bertinetto, Pier Marco, Bianchi,
Valentina, Dahl, sten & Squartini, Mario (eds.), Temporal Reference, Aspect and Actional-
ity. Vol. 2: Typological perspectives, 1128. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Dryer, Matthew. 1989. Large linguistic areas and language sampling. Studies in Language 62:
80845.
Nichols, Johanna. 1992. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. Chicago and London, The
University of Chicago Press.
Stassen, Leon. 1997. Intransitive predication. Oxford studies in typology and linguistic theory.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Part 4
Selected topics in the grammar

of the Circum-Baltic languages
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Impersonals and passives

in Baltic and Finnic*
Axel Holvoet
1. Introduction
1.1 Preliminary remarks

In this paper, the passive and impersonal constructions of Latvian and Lithuanian
will be considered against the background of similar constructions in Finnic, with
the aim of pointing out possible areal links. The reason for dealing jointly with both
above-mentioned categories (for which I will provide working denitions below) is
twofold. First, it has already been pointed out that passives, from the functional
point of view, are a device for backgrounding subjects/agents (cf. Keenan 1985). In
this sense they are similar to impersonal constructions, by which I mean construc-
tions serving to describe an action, state etc. ascribed to an indenite (referential or
non-referential) subject (the German term man-Stze would be more convenient
than the too vague impersonal). Secondly, the passive of the Finnic languages
seems to be particularly similar to an impersonal construction, and has in fact often
been called impersonal. It will be seen that the same may be said, at least to a certain
extent, about the passive of the Baltic languages.
The point of departure of my considerations will be the similarity (already
pointed out by Matthews 1955) between the Finnic passive or impersonal forms
and certain passive constructions of Lithuanian and Latvian. I will attempt to show
that the Latvian passive in particular shows striking similarities with the Finnic
passive/impersonal; both in Finnic and in Latvian, the passive is, in principle,
agentless, while special constructions are used to express the agent of an action by
means of an agent phrase rather than by making it the subject of the sentence (i.e.
in sentences of the type this was done by so-and-so). I will also argue that the
Lithuanian agented passive, which is specic in being frequently derived from
intransitive verbs and showing additional types of semantic marking, not connected
with the basic functions of voice, has developed from an initial stage still preserved
in Latvian. I will then proceed to a discussion of impersonal constructions with
active verb morphology. Here I will not be concerned with sentences containing
364 Axel Holvoet
special indenite personal pronouns like German man as their subjects, as such
pronouns do not exist either in Baltic or in Finnic. Instead, zero subjects are used,
i.e. an indenite human subject, whether referential or non-referential, which has
no representation in surface structure, though it is, of course, present in semantic
structure. In this domain as well, I will try to point out the striking similarity
between Latvian and Finnic constructions.
1.2 Impersonals and passives

Some introductory remarks are needed on the relationship between passives on the
one hand and impersonals on the other. The term impersonal is used in various
meanings. In one of its uses it refers to sentences describing ambient states or the
activity of some force of nature, e.g. Its raining, Its growing dark etc. These will not
be dealt with here. By the term impersonal I will be referring to specic construc-
tions (syntactic types) containing verbs capable of distinguishing person (build,
work, sit, think etc.) and ascribing the action or state denoted by these verbs to an
indenite human agent or (intransitive) subject. Apart from the use of indenite
pronouns (one understands, someone said, anyone knows) or personal pronouns
with indenite reference (they say) in subject position, syntactic means of several
kinds may be used to perform this function. One of them is the use of a zero subject
(not to be confused with PRO-drop) with the basic, unmarked active verb form,
which will be discussed in greater detail in the second part of this paper. Another
consists in the use of verb forms or constructions related to, or derived from,
passives. In fact, proper passives (i.e., constructions displaying all dening features
of a proper passive in a given language) are often used in a function corresponding
exactly to the above denition of an impersonal construction. There is the so-called
impersonal passive, attested, for example, in many Germanic languages. It is
subjectless, may be derived from intransitive verbs, and describes an action
performed by an indenite agent. By subjectless I mean that there is no patient
(object) promoted to subject.
(1) German
Hier wird getanzt.
here aux.pres.3sg dance:part.pass
People are dancing/Dances are going on.
This construction involves regular passive morphology, and if it is somehow singled

out as a special kind of impersonal passive, it is because several features distinguish
it from what is commonly felt to be the canonical passive in the average European
language. Such a canonical passive might involve, for example, the promotion of the
original object to subject, the shift of the original subject to the status of an optional
agent phrase, and a reversal of the pattern of topicalization, with the promotion of
the object reecting its topicalization. An example would be (2):
(2) German
Das Buch wurde von Hans gelesen.
def book aux.pret.3sg by Hans read:part.pass
None of these features of the passive can be found in (2). As none of the features
connected with the grammatical status of noun phrases and the pattern of topical-
ization seems to apply, the construction used in (2) is apparently reduced to a
device for ascribing an action to an indenite agent. Of course, this is not a
sucient foundation for setting it apart from other passives. A great deal of
research has been carried out in the last decades on the typology and universal
properties of passives (cf. Xolodovic [ed.] 1974; Siewierska 1984; Shibatani 1985
etc.), and our present knowledge of the diversity of passive constructions in the
languages of the world should make us cautious in our attempts to put forward a
universal set of dening features for the passive. There are promoting and non-
promoting passives, passives with optional agent phrases and those which do not
allow reference to the agent, etc. As to semantic and pragmatic properties, it may not
simply be posited that passivization must reect a reversal of the pattern of topical-
ization. Perhaps non-identication of the agent is an equally important function,
since agentless passives seem to be universally more common than agented ones? If
Frajzyngier (1982) argues that impersonal passives are, functionally, an indepen-
dent category distinct from the passive proper, then this results, perhaps, from a too
narrow view of the potential functional scope of proper passives.
In many languages, however, there are constructions which it seems legitimate
to call impersonal in the sense dened above, because they are distinct from what
is generally considered to be the basic passive construction in these languages. As an
example we may cite the Polish impersonal preterite as illustrated in (3), which is
distinct from the corresponding passive construction illustrated in (4). It should be
noted that this impersonal passive is historically derived from the passive (it was
originally a neuter form of the passive participle contained in the periphrastic
passive), but has become dissociated from it in the course of time:
(3) Polish
Zburzono sciane.
pull down:pret.impr wall:acc.sg
They pulled down the/a wall, The/a wall was pulled down.
(4) Polish
Sciana zostaa zburzona
wall:nom.sg aux.pret.3sg.fem pull down:part.pass.nom.sg.fem
(przez robotnikw).
(by workman:acc.pl
The/a wall was pulled down by (the) workmen.
The construction with the impersonal past tense shows no object promotion (it has
an object in the accusative). No agent phrase can be added, but the use of the
366 Axel Holvoet
impersonal past tense always implies that human agency is involved. In the
corresponding passive construction, the object of the active construction is
obligatorily promoted to subject, an agent phrase can be added (if this is not the
case, then human agency is not necessarily implied, though the semantics of the
verb may suggest it). The promotion of the original object to subject is usually
associated with its topicalization, which is not the case in the corresponding
constructions with the impersonal past tense.
If a language has no separate impersonal construction distinct from the passive,
as described above, but a single construction corresponding to both, then the
decision whether this construction is to be termed impersonal or passive will, to a
certain extent, be arbitrary. This is reected in the terminological controversy
concerning the Finnic constructions called passive by some scholars and imperso-
nal by others. As similar situations may present themselves in other languages as
well, more particularly in those I will be dealing with in this paper, it seems useful
to have prototypical denitions of both types of constructions. I am aware that,
even as prototypical denitions, the sets of features listed below can raise no claim
to universality; they are formulated for the purposes of this paper. Though it is
dicult to point out one universal invariant feature for all passives, demotion of the
agent is certainly a good candidate, but this does not set passives apart from
impersonals. The working denitions provided here will, therefore, concentrate on
the remaining features.
The passive: (a) promotes the original object of an active construction to
subject; the passive verb form must agree with this subject in number at least; if the
passive form is periphrastic and contains a participle, then this participle will agree
with the subject in case and gender as well (provided we are dealing with a language
where these forms of agreement exist); (b) must not necessarily contain an agent
phrase, but may do so if necessary; if no agent phrase occurs, the sentence conveys
no information about the kind of agent involved.
The impersonal: (a) does not promote the original object to subject (the
agreement features mentioned for passives will therefore not apply), and (b) does
not allow an agent phrase to be added, but always implies human agency.
We can now recapitulate. Three kinds of constructions will be referred to in this
paper: (a) passive constructions, where the agent or intransitive subject of the basic
active construction is demoted from the position of surface subject, but may be
optionally reintroduced as an agent phrase; (b) passive-like impersonals, where the
agent or intransitive subject is demoted from the position of surface subject and
may not be reintroduced, although an indenite human agent or intransitive
subject is implied; (c) impersonals with zero subjects, where the agent or intransi-
tive subject is not demoted from subject position, but the syntactic zero occurring
in subject position denotes an indenite agent or intransitive subject.
2. Passives in Finnic and Baltic
2.1 The Finnic passive

The Finnic forms traditionally called passive are sometimes also referred to as
impersonal, and even authors using the term passive often emphasize that this is
simply a traditional name for what is really an impersonal form. In some cases, how-
ever, this passive is not immediately distinguishable from a canonical passive, e.g.
(5) Finnish
Naapuri kutsuttiin illalliselle.
neighbour:nom.sg invite:pret.pass dinner:all
The neighbour was invited for dinner
The verb contains no agreement morphemes, and it actually never does in the
passive. Even though some forms of the passive are periphrastic and consist of a
participle, combined with the auxiliary olla be, there will be no agreement in those
cases either: the participle is not declined, and the auxiliary is always in the 3rd
person singular. On the other hand, naapuri in (5) is in the nominative, the case
also used for the subject. An agent phrase cannot be added. If, however, we replace
the noun naapuri with a 1st or 2nd person personal pronoun, or a 3rd person
pronoun denoting a person, then these will be in the accusative:
(6) Finnish
Minut kutsuttiin illalliselle.
me:acc invite:pret.pass dinner:all
I was invited for dinner.
Furthermore, if a negation is added, then the noun phrase corresponding to the

original object will not be in the nominative, but in the partitive. This is reminiscent
of object case marking, as the object of a negated verb is in the partitive. Note that
the negative form of the passive preterite is analytic: it consists of the negative verb
and a passive participle.
(7) Finnish
Naapuri ei kutsuttu
neighbour:prtv.sg neg.3sg invite:2nd.part.pass
illalliselle.
dinner:all
The neighbour was not invited for dinner.
If we add to this that the use of the Finnish passive always implies a human agent,
then we see that this construction is something intermediate between a canonical
passive and an impersonal construction described above. It diers from the latter by
the possibility of object-to-subject promotion in cases like (5), but the variety
368 Axel Holvoet
illustrated in (6) appears to be a pure impersonal. The interpretation of (7) is not

immediately obvious, as the partitive may alternate with the accusative (genitive) as
an object case, but also with the nominative as a subject case. It should be added that,
in Finnish, even the occurrence of a noun phrase in the nominative is not a sucient
reason to exclude its interpretation as an object. It is true that indicative forms of
the verb normally have an object in the accusative or partitive, but the nominative
as an object case occurs with the imperative and certain uses of the innitive. All
this being taken into account, the term impersonal would seem more appropriate
than passive as a description of the Finnish constructions discussed here.
In modern standard Estonian, the situation is basically similar to what we
observe in Finnish. It must be added here that in both languages there is a limited
possibility of adding an agent phrase by using postposition-like expressions like
Finnish taholta on the part of , Estonian poolt id. (Sulkala & Karjalainen 1992: 289;
Tauli 1983: 32). This is no doubt a recent development based on foreign models,
and there can be no doubt that the Finnish and Estonian passives were originally
agentless. Apart from such innovations clearly arising in recent times under the
inuence of the major European languages (German, Russian etc.), there does not
seem to be a tendency in Finnic to develop the agentless passive into a passive
proper.1 What we observe is rather a tendency to integrate passive forms into the
active paradigm, caused by the frequent use of an impersonal means of expression
to avoid direct reference to a 1st or 2nd person subject. In Finnish, for example, the
passive can now be combined with a 1st person plural subject in the nominative.
The Finnic passive is thus clearly turning into an active form.
2.2 The Latvian passive

The Latvian passive is always periphrastic. It consists of the past passive participle
(the term past is more or less conventional, as between the present and past
passive participles there is usually no dierence of tense or aspect, the former
usually being marked for additional meanings such as possibility or necessity), and
an auxiliary. As an auxiliary the verb tikt to get (somewhere) is commonly used;
less frequently one nds tapt to become and palikt to stay, to remain or to
become. This is used for the dynamic passive (German Vorgangspassiv), i.e. the
passive construction referring to the action itself rather than its result:
(8) Latvian
Maja tiek celta.
house:nom.sg aux.pres.3 build:ppp.nom.sg.fem
The/a house is being built.
An important fact to be noted in this example is that only the participle shows
agreement morphemes, not the auxiliary. It is a general feature of the Baltic
languages that nite verbs do not distinguish singular from plural in the 3rd person.
In order for the auxiliary to distinguish number, it would have to appear in a
compound tense form, consisting of a form of the auxiliary but to be and the active
past participle of the auxiliary in the number and gender form required by agree-
ment with the subject.
(9) Latvian
Maja ir tikusi
house:nom.sg be:pres.3 aux.ppa.nom.sg.fem
(uz)celta.
(build:ppp.nom.sg.fem
The house has been built
Usually, the active participle contained in the compound tense form of the auxiliary
is deleted, which leaves only the auxiliary but; and even this can often be deleted.
(10) Latvian
Maja ir (uz)celta.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3 (build:ppp.nom.sg.fem
The house has been built
This form is ambiguous, however. The combination of but with the passive past
participle can also be interpreted as a stative (resultative) passive, so that there are
two meanings for (11):
(11) Latvian
Durvis bija slegtas.
door:nom.pl be:pret.3 close:ppp.nom.pl.fem.
a. The door had been closed.
b. The door was closed.
With regard to the case marking of the original object, the Latvian passive behaves
rather consistently as a canonical passive, i.e. the object of the active construction
is always promoted to subject, and the participle always agrees with this subject. In
principle, the original object never retains its object case marking.2 An apparent
exception is the retention of the genitive of negation in the passive, attested in the
dialects (Endzelns 1951: 563). Note that the participle is in the masculine singular
form, as in the impersonal passive (this is the regular outcome of gender neutraliza-
tion, as neuter forms, used in similar circumstances in Slavic and Lithuanian, do not
exist in Latvian).
(12) Latvian
Nuo ta laika tur nav vair
from that:gen.sg time:gen.sg there be:pres.3.neg any more
neviena spuoka radzts
no:gen.sg ghost:gen.sg see:ppp.nom.sg.masc
From that time onward not a single ghost was seen there.
370 Axel Holvoet
Such constructions are rare, as the genitive of negation with transitive verbs is
becoming extinct in Latvian. Anyway, the exception is only apparent. The accusa-
tive/genitive alternation in transitive objects is echoed by the nominative/genitive
alternation in intransitive subjects, and the latter pattern also extends to passives.
We nd the same pattern in negative sentences in Russian, which otherwise has
only personal passives with obligatory object-to-subject promotion.
What is interesting to note is the high frequency of impersonal passives in
Latvian. Latvian shares with Finnic the possibility of deriving an impersonal passive
from virtually any intransitive verb (with a few restrictions). There is not even any
need for the verb to express any kind of activity, as the German verb in (1) does. In
(13) we have an impersonal passive derived from but be, a verb from which no
passive construction could possibly be derived in German:
(13) Latvian
Te ilgi nav buts.
here long be:pres.neg be:ppp.nom.sg.masc
One hasnt been here for a long time.
There is one restriction on the use of intransitive passives in Latvian: this construc-
tion does not comprise copular constructions. Perhaps this restriction is somehow
connected with the Latvian pattern of agreement. Latvian always requires agree-
ment with the subject in copular constructions, whereas the Finnic languages do
not. In Finnish, the predicate nominal may be in the partitive plural, selected as a
default case:
(14) Finnish
On oltu huolimattomia.
be:pres.3sg be:ppa careless:prtv.pl
One has been careless
In Latvian, predicate nominals are in the nominative with nite verb forms and in
the dative with innitives. In passive constructions there would be nothing for the
predicate nominal to agree with, as there can be no agent phrase, and there is no
default case for predicate nominals. The situation in Lithuanian is dierent: this
language also requires agreement with the subject, but as it has agent phrases in the
genitive, the predicate nominal can agree with them in passive constructions:
(15) Lithuanian
Jo buta gudraus.
he:gen be:ppp.nom.sg.neut clever:gen.sg.masc
He (apparently) has been clever
Otherwise there seem to be no lexical restrictions whatsoever on the derivation of

impersonal passives in either Finnic or Latvian. In modern standard Latvian, the only
restriction is of a formal nature: reexive verbs are not passivized, though impersonal
passives from reexive verbs are attested in the dialects, cf. Endzelns (1951: 949).
Structurally, the compound tense forms of the Latvian impersonal passive are
closest to the Finnic ones. In the non-compound tenses, the periphrastic passive of
Latvian is opposed to the synthetic forms of Finnic. It seems that it is also in the
compound tense forms that the functional similarity is most evident. The non-
compound tense forms of the Latvian impersonal passive are much less frequent
than the compound ones. The functional equivalent of the non-compound Finnic
passive is the 3rd person plural active form (see below) rather than the passive.
2.3 Agent phrases in Finnic and Latvian

In order to fully appreciate the correspondence between the Latvian passive and the
Finnic passive/impersonal as agentless constructions, we should here briey
consider the means used in both languages to express the agent in a non-active
construction. It is a well-known fact that the Latvian passive, unlike the Lithuanian
one, does not allow expression of the agent in what can be called a genuine dynamic
passive (German Vorgangspassiv).3
(16) Latvian
*Maja tiek (no) teva celta.
house aux.pres.3 (by father:gen.sg build:ppp.nom.sg.fem
The/A house is being built by father.
An agent phrase in the genitive may, however, be added to adnominal passive

participles:
(17) Latvian
teva celta maja
father:gen.sg built:ppp.nom.sg.fem house:nom.sg
a house built by father
If the agent is expressed by a 1st or 2nd person personal pronoun or a reexive

pronoun, there are two possibilities: either the genitive is used, or it is replaced with
the possessive pronoun (the latter construction is now archaic):
(18) Latvian
manis celta maja
me:gen build:ppp house
(19) Latvian
mana celta maja
my:nom.sg.fem build:ppp.nom.sg.fem house:nom.sg
a house built by me
Such constructions with agentive genitives added to adnominal passive participles

may be shifted to the position of nominal predicate, which yields sentences like
372 Axel Holvoet
(20) Latvian
Maja ir teva celta.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3 father:gen.sg built:ppp.nom.sg.fem
The house was built by father.
This construction is, of course, reminiscent of a passive. But it is important to note

that in (20) the verb but cannot be replaced by an auxiliary of the dynamic passive,
such as tikt. In other words, (21) is ungrammatical:
(21) Latvian
*Maja tiek teva celta.
house:nom.sg aux.pres.3 father:gen.sg built:ppp.nom.sg.fem
The house was built by father.
The occurrence of possessive pronouns suggests that the adnominal agentive

genitive occurring in such constructions was originally an ordinary possessive
genitive, i.e. mana celta maja originally meant my house, which I have built, and
subsequently came to mean the house built by me (the agent and the possessor not
being necessarily identical any more). This development is paralleled by that of
resultative possessive constructions of the mihi est type in both Latvian and
Estonian (see below).
It is interesting to note that the Finnic languages, whose passive does not allow
expression of the agent, have constructions reminiscent of the Latvian ones, used to
express the agent. They are described as special agentive constructions rather than
as passives (cf. Hakulinen 1955: 2677).
In Standard Finnish, constructions used to denote the agent do not contain the
passive participle, but a form which is identical to the so-called 3rd innitive in
-ma/-m a form which, in this particular use, is sometimes referred to by a
special term, the agentive participle, though other authors identify it as the 3rd
innitive in this construction as well. This form must originally have been a verbal
noun, so that comparison with English constructions like of ones own making
suggests itself. Let us note that Finnic, like Latvian, uses this construction primarily
to denote the agent adnominally, though it can also be transferred to the position
of nominal predicate. The agent is added in the genitive; but it can also be expressed
by a possessive sux added to the innitive, as in (24); and, with stronger emphasis,
a personal pronoun in the genitive may be added to an innitive which already has
a possessive sux, as in (25):
(22) Finnish
Pekan maalaama talo
Pekka:gen 3rd.inf house:nom.sg
the house painted by Pekka
(23) Finnish
Talo on Pekan maalaama.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3sg Pekka:gen 3rd.inf
The house was painted by Pekka.
(24) Finnish
Talo on maalaama- -si.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3sg 3rd.inf poss.2sg
(25) Finnish
Talo on sinun maalaama- -si.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3sg you:gen 3rd.inf poss.2sg
The house was painted by you.
In Estonian, the situation is similar to that which we observe in Finnish, the

dierence being that such constructions contain the passive participle in -tud, also
used in the compound forms of the passive, rather than a special agentive participle.
This may also be observed in Votic (Ariste 1968: 19, where this construction is
somewhat surprisingly called ergative), and in some Finnish dialects (Hakulinen
1955: 267). Of course, possessive suxes are not used here, as they have generally
fallen into disuse in Estonian.
(26) Estonian
Maja on isa ehitatud.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3 father:gen.sg build:part.pass
The house was built by father
The question arises whether the Latvian (and Estonian) construction with an
agentive genitive in the predicate noun phrase can be considered a passive at all. At
rst glance, one would be inclined to interpret (20) as a stative passive (Zustands-
passiv), as in (11) Durvis bija slegtas the door was closed (cf. German Die Tr war
geschlossen The door was closed as against Die Tr war geschlossen worden The
door had been closed). But the general tendency is for stative passives not to
contain agent phrases; in those European languages where the stative passive is
always distinct from the dynamic passive (i.e. where it is not homonymous with the
compound forms of the dynamic passive), the stative passive with an agent phrase
is usually deviant, cf. German and Polish:
(27) German
*Die Tr ist von Peter geschlossen.
def door be:pres.3 by Peter close:ppp
(28) Polish
*Drzwi sa przez Piotra zamkniete.
door:nom be:pres.3 by Peter close:ppp
As the stative passive describes a resulting state rather than the action, it is natural
that when it contains a temporal adverbial this will refer to the time of the resulting
374 Axel Holvoet
state rather than to the time of the action; if, in (11), we add the adverb vakar
yesterday, then this will not mean that the action of closing the door was per-
formed yesterday, but that the resulting state of aairs persisted at that time. And
when a sentence is meant to describe a resulting state rather than the action itself,
then it will usually make no reference to the agent, because even if the agents
identity can be established, it will often be irrelevant. It is therefore easy to under-
stand why stative passives as illustrated by (27) and (28) will normally contain no
agent phrase. There may be situations, however, where the identity of the agent is
relevant without the time of performance being relevant. This situation seems to be
illustrated by the Finnic sentences (2225) and the Latvian sentence (20). Only the
agent is identied, whereas the circumstances of the action are irrelevant. This
explains, at least partly, why the auxiliary of the dynamic passive cannot be
introduced in (20): the dynamic passive describes the circumstances of the perfor-
mance of the action itself. In this respect, (20) is similar to a stative passive, but, as
we have seen, the fact that it contains an agent phrase is not characteristic of a
stative passive. Furthermore, in sentences like (20) the agentive genitive (teva) can
never be moved away from the participle to be put, for instance, at the beginning of
the sentence, although word order is otherwise quite free in Latvian. The fact that
it must always be put immediately before the participle indicates that it has basically
retained the status of an adnominal genitive, comparable with the genitive accom-
panying the 3rd innitive in Finnish. And, if this is so, then constructions like (20)
should properly be regarded as copular constructions rather than as passives. In
order to render their structure correctly, one would have to compare them to
English constructions with incorporated agents such as man-made bres and these
bres are man-made. I would prefer to describe them as special agentive construc-
tions as well, rather than to classify them with stative passives.
It is worth noting here that both Latvian and Estonian regularly use a passive-
like construction which, though primarily possessive, renders possible oblique
reference to the agent. This construction (cf. Tauli 1983: 91 for Estonian, Holvoet
1994: 1367 for Latvian) could be compared to the compound tense forms with the
auxiliary have found in many European languages. The English construction I have
built a house must have originally meant I have (own) a house, built by myself ; this
follows from the fact that the verb have originally expressed possession. Later on,
this construction came to denote only agency, not possession. Similar constructions
occur in many languages, even in languages that do not possess the verb have. In
the Finnic languages as well as in Latvian, the possessive relation is expressed by the
verb be, to which the possessor is added in the adessive (in Finnic), or in the dative
(in Latvian), the object possessed being the subject of the sentence, occurring in the
nominative, e.g.
(29) Estonian
Minul on maja.
me:adess be:pres.3 house:nom.sg
(30) Latvian
Man ir maja.
me:dat be:pres.3 house:nom.sg
I have got a house.
As Latin had both constructions, with the verbs have (habeo) and be (occurring
with the dative, as in mihi est I have), both constructions can be referred to, for the
sake of briefness, as constructions of the habeo type and the mihi est type respective-
ly. Let us now consider (31) and (32):
(31) Latvian
Vinam viss jau bija izteikts.
him:dat all:nom.sg.masc already be:pret.3 say:ppp.sg.masc
(32) Estonian
Tal oli kik juba eltud.
him:adess be:pret.3sg all already say:part.pass
He had already said everything (he had to say)
These constructions are supercially reminiscent of passives, but in fact they are still
possessive constructions: the agent is not the possessor of the object, but, in a way,
he is the beneciary of the accomplishment of the action.
What is interesting about these constructions, which are probably not old (the
Latvian construction has no equivalent in Lithuanian, where the possessive
construction is of the habeo type), is that they echo, in a dierent way, the posses-
sive origin of the adnominal agentive genitive of Baltic and Finnic. Originally, such
constructions must have been restricted to cases of identity of agent and possessor
(as can still be frequently observed), but they now extend to verbs whose objects
exclude the notion of a possessor, as can be seen in (31), (32). The shift from
possessor to agent parallels that which we observe in adnominal genitives. It is not
a regular feature, however, and the whole construction has not yet completely
dissociated itself from the possessive construction to become purely resultative.
Possessive or at least benefactive meaning is usually retained, and this prevents us
from comparing this construction to an agented passive. One could, however,
conceive of a genuine passive evolving from it. A genuine passive has, in fact,
evolved from a construction with a possessive genitive in Lithuanian, but there it
must have arisen directly from the adnominal genitive. To this Lithuanian develop-
ment I will now turn.
376 Axel Holvoet
2.4 The Lithuanian passive

First, a few introductory remarks on the Lithuanian passive are needed here. It
diers form the Latvian passive in that only one auxiliary (buti to be) is used,
while, on the other hand, there is more diversity as to the choice of the participle: in
part of the dialects and in the literary language, not only the past passive participle,
but also the present passive participle may be used in passives, the opposition being
more or less aspectual in nature:
(33) Lithuanian
Namas buvo statomas.
house:nom.sg be:pret.3 build:part.pres.pass.nom.sg.masc
The house was being built
(34) Lithuanian
Namas buvo pastatytas.
house:nom.sg be:pret.3 build:ppp.nom.sg.masc
The house was (had been) built
There is also more variety as to case marking and agreement patterns. The Lithuani-
an passive shows at least two features reminiscent of impersonals. These are:
1. the original object may be promoted to subject with regard to case marking
only, the participle being in the neuter singular form instead of agreeing with this
nominative (Ambrazas 1990: 200.). In (35) the subject durys is feminine plural, but
the participles are neuter; the auxiliary be is deleted:
(35) Lithuanian
Durys atidaryta ir palikta.
door:nom.pl open:ppp.nom.sg.neut and leave:ppp.nom.sg.neut
The door was opened and left (open)
2. retention of the original object marking instead of promotion to subject. This

may not only be observed in negative sentences, where it is also observed in Latvian
and Russian, but in armative sentences as well:
(36) Lithuanian
Savo eme myleta.
ones own country:acc.sg love:ppp.nom.sg.neut
People used to love their native country
In this respect, the Lithuanian passive seems to be closer to the Finnic pattern than
that of Latvian.4 It should be noted, however, that lack of agreement of the predica-
tive adjective with the subject is not restricted to participles in passive construc-
tions, and could be an archaic Indo-European feature (as Ambrazas 1990: 200.
maintains). As to the retention of object case marking instead of promotion to
subject, this could reect a natural shift from a passive towards an impersonal
construction, as is attested in Polish (see above), though it is somewhat surprising

to nd this feature in Lithuanian rather than in Latvian, where the passive is
otherwise more similar to an impersonal, being consistently agentless.
Though clearly related to the Latvian passive genetically, the Lithuanian passive
diers from it in one important respect: while the Latvian passive is agentless, in
Lithuanian, agent phrases can be added to virtually any passive. As the scope of
passivization in Lithuanian is comparable to that which we observe in Latvian, i.e.
it extends, practically without restrictions, to intransitive verbs, this leads to a
practically unparalleled proliferation of agented passives in this language at least
by the standards of the average Indo-European language. It is true that languages
with impersonal passives derived from intransitive verbs sometimes reintroduce
agent phrases into them, cf.
(37) Latin
A militibus fortiter pugnatur.
by soldier:abl.pl bravely:adv ght:pres.pass.3sg
The soldiers are ghting bravely.
Such constructions are rare, however. Normally the form pugnatur ghting is going
on is used in order to leave the agent unexpressed; if the agent is to be expressed,
then this will more readily be achieved by simply using an active construction. The
frequent use of agented passives derived from intransitive verbs in Lithuanian is
therefore remarkable.
The historical relationship between the Latvian agentless passive and the
Lithuanian agented passive is a point of controversy. Schmalstieg (1988: 304)
argues that the Lithuanian genitive of agent (which has correspondences in other
IE languages) is from an IE ergative construction. If this were true, then the
Lithuanian clausal passive must ultimately be a continuation of some IE clause
type. This seems to be contradicted, however, by some internal evidence from
Lithuanian as well as by the evidence of Latvian. The Baltic agentive genitive shows
clear traces of having originally been adnominal:5 in Lithuanian passive construc-
tions, the 1st and 2nd person personal pronouns as well as the reexive pronoun
take the same genitive forms mano, tavo, savo, used adnominally, rather than the
adverbal manes, taves, saves:
(38) Lithuanian
Namas yra mano pastatytas.
house:nom.sg be:pres.3 me:gen build:ppp.nom.sg.masc
The house was built by me.
The genitive mano used here is the same as in mano tevas my father, but diers
from the genitive manes used in nuo manes from me and laukia manes is waiting
for me (where the verb laukti wait governs the genitive). This suggests that in
Lithuanian as well, the agentive genitive was originally an adnominal possessive
378 Axel Holvoet
genitive, and that its status in sentences like (38) was originally the same as in the
Latvian sentence (20). In (20), we have a passive construction in its embryonic
stage, and Lithuanian seems to have developed it into a proper passive construction.
At a certain stage, it became possible to move the adnominal agentive genitive away
from the participle, which yielded sentences like (39):
(39) Lithuanian
Tevo buvo pastatytas namas.
father:gen.sg be:pret.3 build:ppp.nom.sg.masc house:nom.sg
In (39), we already have a proper passive: the genitive is no longer adnominal, but
functions as an agent phrase with buvo pastatytas, which is no longer a copular
construction, but a periphrastic passive form. The passive itself can now have a
dynamic interpretation, and if in (39) we add an adverb like pernai last year, then
it will refer to the time of performance of the action, not of the existence of the
resulting state. However, the possessive forms of the personal pronouns continue to
be used even in the passive constructions proper.
It seems therefore that Latvian has retained the original Common Baltic state
of aairs, whereas Lithuanian has innovated. This innovation has led to some
further changes. Before the rise of agented passives, the Lithuanian passive must
have been similar to that of modern Latvian: it was probably similar to an imper-
sonal, and could be derived from virtually any intransitive verb. This peculiarity was
not lost when the agented passive was introduced. Lithuanian thereby acquired the
capability of deriving agented passives from any intransitive construction, including
copular constructions. The introduction of agent phrases into passive construc-
tions, the main function of which, at least with intransitive predicates, was to
eliminate the subject, certainly seems paradoxical. The productivity of agented
passives derived from intransitive verbs was functionally motivated only by the
additional semantic marking which predicative participles acquired in Baltic. It is
known that in modern Lithuanian the passives derived from intransitive verbs are
characterized by a number of additional meanings, such as inferential (40) or
admirative (41) (cf. Ambrazas 1990: 228):
(40) Latvian
Cia vagies buta.
here thief:gen.sg be:ppp.nom.sg.neut
There must have been a thief at work here.
(41) Latvian
Ir Petro cia esama.
also Peter:gen here be:part.pres.pass.nom.sg.neut
Peter turns out to be here as well.
Though this is an independent development in Lithuanian, the tendency underlying

it should probably also be considered in the context of areal links with Finnic. The
inferential or admirative marking connected with participial constructions in

general cannot be dissociated from the system of the indirect mood (modus
relativus) so well developed in Baltic, and generally associated with similar phenom-
ena in some Finnic dialects (Estonian, Livonian), cf. Pisani (1959). The close
association between imperceptive (indirect, evidential) mood and inferential or
admirative marking is clearly shown by the parallel of the Balkan languages, where
similar meanings are also associated with the use of participles primarily covering
the domain of the perfect. For Common Baltic we must certainly posit a well-
developed system of the indirect mood, comprising mainly constructions with
active participles. The tendency to introduce passive participles into this system,
with the aim of providing an impersonal pendant to the constructions with active
participles, can be observed in both Baltic languages (on the parallel development
of active and passive participles within the system of the modus relativus, as well as
on the areal links with Finnic, cf. Ambrazas 1990: 219235). The following Latvian
example illustrates this (note the correspondence of the active participle ielaidusi
and the passive participle varets):
(42) Latvian
Saimniece vinu ielaidusi
landlady him:acc let in:ppa.sg.fem
sava istaba, kur pa valejam
poss.refl.loc.sg room:loc.sg where through open:dat.pl
durvm varets redzet,
door:dat can:ppp.sg.masc see:inf
kad kundze iznaks
when lady come out:fut.3
The story goes that the landlady let him into her room, from where it was possi-
ble to watch through the open door when the lady would come out.
The availability of a new series of agented passives from intransitive verbs, which
had but a weak functional motivation of their own, led to their being assigned new
functions within this system of modal or evidential marking in Lithuanian. This is,
therefore, a separate Lithuanian development, the roots of which should be sought
in some Common Baltic tendencies strikingly reminiscent of similar phenomena
in Finnic.
3. Introductory remarks on zero subjects
I will now turn to a discussion of the Finnic and Latvian constructions with zero
subjects. First, some general remarks are needed. Deletion of the subject in the
active construction is subject to various restrictions, at least in accusative languages,
where it is usually easier to delete the object than the subject. No such operation is,
380 Axel Holvoet
of course, possible in languages requiring the subject position to be obligatorily

occupied. Languages without this requirement often have more or less consistent
PRO-drop, so that an indenite or generic zero subject may be inconvenient: the
language system must at least provide some mechanisms allowing to determine
whether, in a particular utterance, one is dealing with a case of PRO-drop or with
a syntactic zero, i.e. whether an obligatory zero in surface realization represents an
indenite or generic argument. The ideal conditions for the use of indenite zero
subjects seem, therefore, to be present in languages which do not have consistent
PRO-drop but do not require the subject position to be always occupied either. A
well-known instance of this is Russian, which makes extensive use of zero subjects.
Compare:
(43) Russian
Oni menja obokrali.
they me:acc rob:pret.3pl
They robbed me.
(44) Russian
Menja obokrali.
me:acc rob:pret.3pl
I was robbed.
As we see in these examples, the omission of the personal pronoun makes the
subject indenite. Actually (44) does not even imply that the action was performed
by more than one person. The number opposition is neutralized here, and this
neutralization seems to reduce the ambiguity between PRO-drop and indenite
subject. Indeed, this strategy is used even in languages without PRO-drop (cf.
English they re so clever nowadays). Keenan (1985:248) mentions only the construc-
tion with the 3rd person plural as an alternative means of subject elimination or
backgrounding alongside the passive. It appears that the 3rd person plural form,
with or without an unstressed personal pronoun, easily allows referential but
indenite interpretation.6 The construction with the 3rd person singular seems to
be much less frequent, being more subject to ambiguity. Apart from specic
contexts, a 3rd person personal pronoun will always be interpreted as referential
and denite, and a zero subject will be interpreted as an instance of PRO-drop.
Probably a zero subject with a 3rd person singular verb will be possible only if the
clause carries some special marking favouring non-referential interpretation, e.g.
generic time reference etc. (examples from Finnic will be cited further on).
3.1 Plural zero subjects in Latvian and Finnic

The use of the 3rd person plural to denote an indenite, but referential subject
seems to be a universal tendency. It is widespread among IE languages and can
apparently be activated at various times in various languages. One is not surprised

to nd this construction in both Baltic and Slavic. In both cases we have an
obligatory zero, and a personal pronoun may not be added. In Slavic, the verb is
always easy to identify as plural, as can be seen in (44). In Latvian, this is not always
the case, as nite verb forms do not distinguish number in the 3rd person. Howev-
er, the verb may be shown to be in the plural in sentences with compound tense
forms containing active participles. The compound tenses of the Baltic verb consist
of the auxiliary be and an active past participle, which agrees with the subject:
(45) Latvian
Janis ir atnacis.
John:nom be:pres.3 arrive:ppa.nom.sg.masc
John has arrived.
(46) Latvian
Viesi ir atnakui.
guest:nom.pl be:pres.3 arrive:ppa.nom.pl.masc
The guests have arrived.
The following example also contains forms of this kind, but the auxiliary is deleted,
whereby the form acquires the meaning of the indirect mood (the speaker indicates
that he is only reporting events which he has not witnessed). Note that the partici-
ples are in the plural, like the Russian past tense in (44):
(47) Latvian
Manu dzvokli kratjui, mani
my at:acc.sg ransack:ppa.nom.pl.masc me:acc
meklejui.
seek:ppa.nom.pl.masc
(I was told that) my at had been ransacked and that I had been looked for
However frequent this construction may be, it is not characteristic of Finnic, where
its rise seems to have been blocked by the existence of the impersonal, which covered
precisely the functional scope of the referential indenite subject. It is only in those
Finnic dialects which were exposed to a strong Slavic inuence that the 3rd person
plural came to be widely used (for Livonian, which was exposed to Latvian inuence,
see below). In Veps this has led to a reinterpretation of the original impersonal
(passive) forms as a variety of the 3rd person plural form, and the former 3rd person
plural and passive endings simply became competing allomorphs without function-
al dierentiation (cf. Ritter 1977: 89; cf. Ariste 1968: 68 on Votic). The impersonal
3rd person plural is attested in Finnish (Mullonen 1963: 34) and in Estonian (Erelt
et al. [eds.] 1993: 301). In both languages this usage is largely restricted to verba
dicendi, cf. Finnish sanovat they say, Estonian rgivad id. Mullonen describes the
scope of the construction with the 3rd pers. pl. in situational rather than lexical
terms, stating that it is used when reporting rumours etc. In view of the restrictions
382 Axel Holvoet
imposed upon this construction one would be inclined to assume a syntactic

borrowing, especially with Russian constructions of the type govorjat they say in
mind. However, on this assumption it would be hard to explain why the use of the
3rd person plural should have extended to an indenite subject raised from an
embedded participial clause in (48), cited by Mullonen (1963: 34):
(48) Finnish
Siell kuuluvat tienaavan hyvin.
there be-rumoured:pres.3pl earn:part.act well
It is said that one earns well there.
No foreign model suggests itself for this construction. Though it is hard to imagine
how this kind of communicative situation described by Mullonen could dene a
particular subtype of the indenite referential subject, the construction with the 3rd
person plural should probably be assumed to have arisen spontaneously, without
foreign inuence, in Finnic, especially in view of its overall typological commonness.
3.2 Singular zero subjects

The examples cited until now contain zero subjects with plural forms of the verb.
There are also sentences with zero subjects and the singular form of the verb.
Judging from Zubats (1907) article, not many examples of this can be found in
Indo-European, when compared to the quite frequent 3rd person plural. This
feature is, however, quite common in Finnic; it has been described for Finnish by
Hakulinen & Karttunen (1973). Compare:
(49) Finnish
Puheesta- -ni voi kuulla,
speech:elat.sg poss.1sg can:pres.3sg hear:inf
ett olen ulkomaalainen.
that be:pres.1sg foreigner:nom.sg
From my speech you can hear that I am a foreigner.
There is no surface subject, and the verb is in the 3rd person singular. The meaning
is you can here, one can hear, i.e., anyone can hear. In this case the subject is not
referential any more; it is non-referential, as it makes a statement about any
conceivable subject.
The existence of this clause type in Latvian has always gone unnoticed because
of the homonymy of the 3rd person singular and plural nite verb forms in Baltic.
In grammars it is usually stated that the equivalent of German man-Stze in Latvian
is the use of a 3rd person verb form without surface subject. It is not specied
whether this is a singular or a plural, as this cannot usually be seen. However, as
stated above, the dierence can be seen in the compound forms of the verb,
containing active participles. Apart from sentences with zero subjects like (47),
where the verb is in the masculine plural, there are also sentences where a com-
pound tense form containing a masculine singular participle occurs with a zero
subject (for further details cf. Holvoet 1995). The gender form clearly results from
the neutralization of the gender opposition, as in constructions with the plural form
of the participle. Consider (50):
(50) Latvian
Ja pavasar dzird dzeguzi kukojam un
if spring:loc hear:pres.3 cuckoo:acc cry:part.act and
ja nav edis un naudas
if be:pres.3.neg eat:ppa.nom.sg.masc and money:gen
nav klat, tad tai gada slikti klajas.
be:pres.3.neg present then that year:loc badly fare:pres.3.refl
If in the spring one hears a cuckoo crying and one hasnt eaten and one has no
money on ones person, then that year will be a bad one
Here the protasis of the conditional period contains a non-referential indenite

zero subject. The subject is generic (and could be described, in logical terms, by
means of the universal quantier): anyone who hears a cuckoo crying in the
circumstances described in the protasis, will have a bad year. The syntactic proper-
ties of this zero subject are shown by the form nav edis (if) one has not eaten: here
the singular masculine participle is associated with an indenite non-referential
(generic) zero subject, as opposed to the plural masculine participle with an
indenite referential zero subject in (47).
The zero subject with a singular verb form, used in a generic sense, as illustrated
above from Finnish and Latvian, can be found in part of the Slavic languages (West
Slavic and Slovenian). In the past tense and conditional, where the Slavic verb
shows gender oppositions, the verbs used with human non-referential zero subjects
are in the masculine form, which clearly distinguishes this construction from those
traditionally referred to as impersonal, i.e. those describing ambient states, physical
and mental states etc. The latter are characterized by the use of the neuter form of
the verb (or, alternatively, the predicative adjective). In Slavic, this construction can
be found either as a relic (in idiomatical phrases), or as a substandard feature
(substandard Polish, for example, frequently has this form in conditional clauses).
Such is its status, say, in Polish, where it is still attested in a considerable number of
idioms, usually comparative clauses such as:
(51) Polish
Cicho, jak makiem zasia.
silent:adv as if poppies:inst.sg sow:pret.3sg.masc
Everything is silent, as if someone had sown poppies
The subject is non-referential here as well: if anyone had sown everything around
with poppy seeds, the eect would be a silence like this.
384 Axel Holvoet
Other Slavic languages have lost this construction, if they ever had it. There is
no trace of it in modern Russian, and even the instances occasionally cited for Old
Russian (cf. Borkovskij, ed. 1978: 217221) are extremely doubtful, as they point to
ellipsis rather than to a zero subject. The West Slavic parallels do not seem to be
relevant to Baltic from the areal point of view, so that we are entitled to attach a
certain importance to parallels from Finnic. In fact, I think there must be an areal
link between the Finnic and Latvian constructions, and I will try to substantiate this
claim by showing that the conditions of their occurrence are similar.
There seem to be two cases clearly favouring the occurrence of zero subjects
with 3rd person singular verb forms. First, they often occur in conditional clauses,
as illustrated by (50). In Finnish as well, the use of generic zero subjects is least
subject to restrictions in conditional periods, as in (52) (cited from Hakulinen &
Karttunen 1973: 165). Here, as in (50), the subject is generic: anyone who wants to
lose weight gives up eating.
(52) Finnish
Jos aikoo laihtua, lopettaa symisen.
if intend:pres.3sg lose weight:1stinf nish:pres.3sg 4thinf.gen
If you want to lose weight, you give up eating.
Secondly, modal verbs will also occur in constructions of this type. An example is
(53), where the verb is in a simple tense form, but the zero subject can nonetheless
be identied as syntactically singular because the predicate nominal traks is in the
masculine singular:
(53) Latvian
Vareja traks palikt no dusmam.
can:pret.3 mad:nom.sg.masc become:inf with anger:dat
One could have got mad with anger.
(49) is a Finnish parallel to this.

Another group of verbs often used with a syntactically singular, non-referential
zero subject are verbs of perception. A modal predicate seems to be implicit in these
uses (e.g. one sees instead of one can see), cf. (54).
(54) Latvian
No ejienes redz juru.
from here see:pres.3 sea:acc
From here one can see the sea
Hakulinen and Karttunen cite no similar examples from Finnish, but Tauli cites one
from Estonian, containing the verb ngema see (Tauli 1983: 27):
(55) Estonian
Siin, jaama mbruses, neb
here station:gen.sg neighbourhood:iness.sg see:pres.3sg
htuti suuri lambakarju.
in the evenings great:pret.pl sheep ock:pret.pl
Here, around the railway station, one can see great ocks of sheep in the eve-
nings.
How are these conditions for the use of singular zero subjects to be explained? It
should be noted, rst of all, that the line of division between generic and specic
subjects is not as clear-cut as one might expect. Generalizing statements concerning
human actions or experience can be formulated as applying either to any conceiv-
able subject (the linguistic equivalent of the universal quantier) or to all members
of a certain community to which the speaker himself belongs and to which he might
be expected to conne his experience-based generalizations on human behaviour.
In the latter case, the subject is referential (the referential indenite subject denotes
a group of persons which may extend even to people in general), and the state-
ment is generic as to its temporal reference. Thus zero subjects of the non-generic
type can occur in generic statements, though zero subjects of the generic type will
not occur in non-generic statements. Which of the two interpretations of the
subject is selected will depend, to a large extent, on the sentence type. A sentence
type clearly favouring the generic singular subject is the conditional period, which
usually takes the shape of a statement applying to a hypothetical singular subject
(for any x). The event or situation on which the state of aairs described in the
main clause is conditional need not always be explicitly expressed: it may simply be
implicit in some adverbial modier denoting place, time or circumstances. Howev-
er, the presence of a conditional clause is always a clear indication for the generic
interpretation of the subject, so that the use of the indenite zero subject is least
subject to lexical restrictions in this context. In their discussion of the lexical
restrictions on generic zero subjects in Finnish, Hakulinen and Karttunen (1973)
conclude that all lexical restrictions are lifted in conditional periods. Among verb
classes capable of occurring with generic zero subjects, they cite modal verbs and
verbs denoting cognitive achievements (notice, learn, realize). Obviously the
generalization underlying this observation is that volitional verbs describe events
less likely to be conditional on external factors. At any rate, it is interesting to note
that three types of situations can be identied which clearly favour the use of
generic singular zero subjects in both Finnic and Latvian: conditional periods,
constructions with modal verbs and constructions with verbs of perception.
It seems quite possible that the Latvian constructions with singular zero
subjects have arisen under Finnic inuence. But whatever the relation between the
Latvian and Finnic constructions may be, it seems almost certain that Latvian, in its
turn, has exerted some inuence on Livonian in this domain. Kettunen (1938:lx, fn.)
386 Axel Holvoet
states that under the inuence of Latvian, Livonian has lost the impersonal passive
form and replaced it with the 3rd person active form. As an example he cites ktt6b
he says and they say, it is said. This usage is remarkable in that the Livonian
singular form renders a Latvian form which, though not immediately recognizable
as such, is really a 3rd person plural form, as the indenite subject is referential in
this case. The Latvian construction involved here is the one illustrated in (47). What
seems to have happened is that Livonian has consistently interpreted all Latvian 3rd
person verb forms with indenite zero subjects as singular forms, which was
rendered possible by the formal non-dierentiation of number in Latvian nite
verb forms. Of course, this identication was facilitated by the fact that Livonian,
just as the cognate West Finnic languages, certainly had the construction with the
singular indenite (non-referential) zero subject at the start. Thus this usage was
not an innovation, and it was only the widening of the scope of this construction
that was prompted by Latvian inuence.
4. Conclusions
When we consider the Latvian system of passive and impersonal constructions as a

whole, and compare it to that of neighbouring Finnic, we may observe the following
correspondences:
Latvian has sentences with non-referential indenite zero subjects (treated as
masculine singular syntactically), lacking in both Lithuanian and East Slavic, but
with an exact parallel in Finnic. It seems doubtful whether this construction can be
reconstructed for either Common Slavic or Common Baltic. In West Slavic, it seems
to be a dialectal innovation rather than a peripheral archaism; and within Baltic its
restriction to Latvian seems to point to a partial Latvian-Finnic convergence.
Latvian has a passive without any possibility of expressing the agent, similar in
this respect to the Finnic passive; it also has a special agentive construction, where
the agent is expressed by the genitive, and this also has a rather exact correspon-
dence in Finnic (though the Estonian variety is closer to Latvian than the Finnish
one). In neither Latvian nor Finnic is the agentive genitive, which is of possessive
origin, transferred to passives proper. The basic dierence between the Latvian and
the Finnic passives is that the former is always periphrastic.
functionally, Latvian has two constructions covering the scope of the Finnish
passive: the passive and the construction with a zero subject and a 3rd person plural
verb form. The latter has no equivalent in Finnic (though it occurs marginally,
perhaps as a result of Slavic inuence). It was probably inherited by Latvian from
Common Baltic and asserted itself even though it was not supported by the Finnic
system, where it plays but a marginal part.
<DEST "hol-n*">
The Lithuanian system diers rather markedly from the Latvian and Finnic ones; an
agented passive has arisen on the basic of the agentless impersonal passive of
Common Baltic, a development for which there seem to be no parallels in Finnic.
On the other hand, constructions with generic singular zero subjects are lacking.
A correct understanding of the development of passive and impersonal
constructions in Baltic can be arrived at only if the areal links with Finnic are taken
into consideration. The pattern of structural similarities is rather complex, and in
some respects the Lithuanian passive bears a closer resemblance to the Finnic one
(lack of agreement and/or object promotion). On the whole, however, it is Latvian
that seems to have adapted its system of impersonal and passive constructions to a
Finnic model.
Notes
* The writing of this article was rendered possible by a two months stay at the Institute of
Linguistics of Stockholm University in the framework of the research project on the Circum-Baltic
languages. I wish to thank Jan Anward, sten Dahl, Pivi Juvonen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm,
who were kind enough to read the preliminary draft of this paper. Their incisive and benevolent
criticism allowed me to avoid a lot of mistakes; of course, they are not responsible for those aws
and mistakes which I have not been able to avoid.
1. Actually the reverse development is usually assumed for Finnish, as Agricola seems to have used
a personal passive agreeing with its subject in all persons. This would be a natural development
(paralleled, for example, by Polish), but it is not quite certain whether Agricola was not simply
transferring a foreign model into Finnish.
2. The only instances of retention of an accusative object in a passive construction involve
participial constructions with verbs of perception. An accusative originally functioning as the
object of the matrix verb, but secondarily reinterpreted as the subject of the embedded clause,
may, but need not be promoted to matrix clause subject when the matrix verb is passivized, e.g.
Dzirdets jurniekus sakam, ka
hear:ppp.sg.masc sailor:acc.pl say:part.pres.act that
The sailors were heard saying that
Vanhalla-Aniszewski (1992: 92fn.) reports the same from Finnish, where the object of the passive/
impersonal is normally in the nominative, but is retained in the genitive when reinterpreted as the
subject of a participial clause.
3. The Latvian written language actually had an agented passive until quite recently, but it was
introduced by Germans writing Latvian, and based on the German model (with the preposition
no translating German von). If Mhlenbachs more tolerant attitude towards this construction had
prevailed instead of Endzelins rejection of it, modern standard Latvian would have had an
agented passive.
4. Passives without agreement with a nominative NP are reported from Latvian, but the only
instances seem to be bi-clausal passives. Endzelns (1951: 990) cites
388 Axel Holvoet
Man ir atlauts
me:dat be:pres.3 allow:part.pret.pass.nom.sg.masc
rieksti est.
nut:nom.pl. eat:inf
Im allowed to eat (the) nuts.
Such constructions, however, should be considered in connection with the nominative object of
the innitive in Baltic, on which cf. Ambrazas, this volume.
5. For the Lithuanian agentive genitive parallels from the archaic IE languages are often cited,
such as Skr. ptyuh krta vom Gatten gekauft. But to the extent that Lithuanian (and Latvian)
inherited an agentive genitive, they probably inherited it as an originally possessive adnominal
genitive. Delbrck (1893: 348) translates ptyuh krita as die Gekaufte des Gatten, i.e. die vom
Gatten gekaufte. Benveniste subsequently rearmed the possessive nature of the Indo-Iranian
agentive genitive, and though this point of view is not generally accepted, it seems quite plausible
as a point of departure for agentive genitives as it also provides a parallel for the Lithuanian
construction.
6. The 3rd pers. pl. pronoun they can often acquire non-referential value as well, cf. the use of this
pronoun in tag-questions in English (No one could have guessed this, could they?). The number
opposition seems to be neutralized here, as is shown by Slavic, where constructions of the type
Russ. Menja (me:acc) obokrali (rob:pret.3pl) They robbed me, I was robbed refer to an
indenite group of one or more individuals.
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s nskogo Ju. S. Eliseeva. Moskva: Izdatelstvo inostrannoj literatury.
Holvoet, Axel. 1994. Notes on the Latvian passive. Linguistica Baltica 3: 131140.
Holvoet, Axel. 1995. Indenite zero subjects in Latvian. Linguistica Baltica 4: 153161.
Keenan, Edward L. 1985. Passive in the worlds languages. In: Shopen, Timothy (ed.), Language
typology and syntactic description. 1. Clause structure, 243281. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge
University Press.
</TARGET "hol">
Kettunen, Lauri. 1938. Livisches Wrterbuch mit grammatischer Einleitung. Lexica Societatis
Fenno-Ugricae, 5. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seura.
Matthews, W. K. 1955. Lithuanian constructions with neuter passive participles. Slavic and East
European Review Vol. 33 No 81: 350371.
Mullonen, M. I. 1963. Neopredelenno-licnye i obobcenno-licnye predloenija v nskom jazyke.
In: Makarov, G. N. & Mullonen, M. I. (eds.), Pribaltijsko-nskoe jazykoznanie. Voprosy
grammatiki i leksikologii. Trudy Karelskogo liala Akademii Nauk SSSR Vol. 39, 3138.
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izdevniecba, 2157.
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des wepsischen Verbs. Sovetskoe nno-ugrovedenie 13: 8497.
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<LINK "amb-n*">
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AUTHOR "Vytautas Ambrazas"
TITLE "On the development of the nominative object in East Baltic"
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On the development
of the nominative object in East Baltic*
Vytautas Ambrazas
1. Introduction
1.1
A nominative object which depends on the innitive or gerund in impersonal
(subjectless) environments, is one of the syntactic features common to West Finnic
languages and contiguous East Baltic and North Russian dialects. The construction
can be exemplied by the following sentence of the East High Lithuanian dialect:
(1) Reikia ienas grebti
need:3.pres hay:nom rake:inf
It is necessary to rake the hay
In corresponding personal constructions the innitive governs the accusative
object, cf.:
(2) Turiu iena grebti
have:1.pres hay:acc.sg rake:inf
I must rake the hay
The nominative object with the impersonal innitive is quite frequent in Finnic, but
it is rather uncommon in the syntactic structure of Baltic, Slavic and other Indo-
European languages. Its origin has been widely discussed and dierent explanations
have been suggested.1 Two main trends in the diachronic treatment of the nomina-
tive with the innitive in East Baltic and Slavic deserve mention.
According to the rst (traditional) opinion maintained by Potebnja
(1958: 3233) and Stepanov (1984) et al., the construction is supposed to be of
Indo-European origin: the nominative is regarded as the former subject and the
innitive is treated as a reection of the purposive dative of the action nominal.
Kiparsky (1960, 1967, 1969) explained the retention of the nominative in Lithuani-
an, Latvian and North Russian by a conservative inuence of the contiguous West
Finnic language. Ambrazas (1987) and Holvoet (1993) have attempted to reveal the
origin of this construction in Lithuanian and Latvian.
392 Vytautas Ambrazas
The second interpretation was most consistently and comprehensively advanced

by Timberlake (1974). He elucidated the main features of this construction in
Russian historical texts of the 12th18th centuries as well as in contemporary North
Russian dialects. He compared them with those of the Finnish language and tested
them on the examples cited in Lithuanian and Latvian grammars or other works. He
came to the conclusion that the nominative used with the innitive in early North
Russian, Lithuanian and Latvian dialects always represents the grammatical object
and arose as a syntactic borrowing from some West Finnic language(s) (220).
These interpretations of the nominative with the innitive are usually consid-
ered to be controversial and mutually incompatible.2 Both interpretations treat the
construction as a unit of an invariant structure in which the nominative has the
function of the subject (according to the rst approach) or the object (according to
the second approach), irrespective of the context.
1.2
The aim of the present article is not only to draw scientists attention to dierent
types of this construction in Lithuanian and Latvian, but also to reveal diachronic
stages of its development. Due to the specic character of the syntactic change3 and
the conservatism of East Baltic (especially Lithuanian) dialects, a number of inni-
tive constructions retaining the earlier structure are found there, coexisting with
more recent ones. In contemporary dialects the constructions are related in various
ways to other constituents of the syntactic system. This enables us to explain the
original pattern of the nominative with the innitive and its change which created
conditions for the introduction of the nominative object into the syntactic structure
of Lithuanian and Latvian dialects.
The following stages of the development of the nominative with the innitive
in East Baltic can be distinguished:
the inherited usage of the nominative subject related to the main verb in
sentences with the purposive innitive;
the distribution of the nominative object as a result of reanalyzing the construc-
tion as an impersonal one.
Holvoet (1993) has recently pointed out a corresponding transition from the
nominative subject to the nominative object in Latvian constructions with the
debitive.
2. The nominative subject with the innitive

2.1
The original subject function of the nominative is represented by the constructions
in which the innitive has the meaning of purpose characteristic of Indo-European
action nominals.4
The East Baltic innitive ending in -ti/-tie < *-tei reects the dative singular of
the (t)i-stem verbal noun.5 In Old Prussian the rst innitive with -t corresponds to
the Lithuanian and Latvian innitive with -ti, while the second innitive with -twei
< *tu-ei used in the same meaning and functions (dat/datwei give, bout/boutwei
be etc.) is formed from the tu-stem. This dierence in the stem-form, along with
the identical dative ending indicates a parallel development of the innitive
following the split of the East and West Baltic languages. Due to its relatively recent
origin, the innitive in East Baltic, in particular in Lithuanian, has retained a close
relationship with the dative form of (t)i-stem action nominals. Some of them
coincide with the innitive completely, cf. O.Lith. dat.sg mirti (e.g. po mrti
Dauka Post. 57442 after death, prieg mrti 23042 by dying) and inf. mirti to die.
After its separation from the paradigm of action nominals, the innitive often
retained the meaning of purpose which is apparent in many constructions with the
nominative. Several types can be distinguished among them.
2.2
Constructions of the rst type are formed by statal verbs such as Lith. likti,
pa(si)likti remain, stay, be left. The innitive may sometimes be replaced by the
dative of the action nominal of a dierent form, e.g.:
(3) Rugiai (mums) liko seti/ sejai
rye:nom.pl (we:dat.pl remain:3.past sow:inf/ sowing:dat
The rye remained (for us) to sow/for sowing
Here the nominative has the semantic role of a Patient, whereas the optional
Beneciary can be expressed by the dative. The subject raising becomes evident by
comparing (3) with the following sentence containing the accusative object:
(4) Rugius (mes) palikom seti/ sejai
rye:acc.pl (we:nom.pl leave:1.pl.past sow:inf/ sowing:dat.sg
We left the rye to sow/for sowing
The statal verbs tekti fall to/on, kliuti ib., atsitikti happen, patikti please,
pavykti turn out well, rupeti, concern, igristi bother, pester, ikyreti ib., nusibosti
bore and the like form constructions with the nominative and the innitive of the
same syntactic structure, though the purposive meaning of the innitive is less
evident, e.g.:
(5) Jam teko/ patiko/ rupejo laukas arti

he:dat fall(to):3.past/ please:3.past/ concern:3.past eld:nom plough:inf
It fell to him/He was pleased/concerned to plough the eld
The subject function of the nominative manifests itself in its agreement with the
participle in periphrastic tense forms and the relative mood (modus relativus), cf.:
(6) a. Jam (buvo) likes/rupejes/tekes laukas arti
past.act.part.nom.sg nom.sg
The eld (evidently) remained /concerned/fell to him to plough
b. Jam (buvo) like/rupeje/teke laukai arti
past.act.part.nom.pl nom.pl
The elds (evidently) remained/concerned/fell to him to plough
The innitive may be omitted in such cases without a substantial change in the
function of the nominative, cf.:
(7) Jam liko/rupejo/teko laukas
The eld remained/concerned/fell to him6
Corresponding sentences containing a statal verb and the innitive expressing

purpose are attested in Latvian, e.g.:
(8) Pienin est/ eanai nedereja
milk:nom eat:inf eating:dat non-t:3.past
The milk didnt t for eating
(9) Man tik vel atliekas piezmet viens vards
me:dat only still remain:3.pres.refl note:inf one:nom word:nom
One word still remains for me to note (to be noted).7
2.3
Constructions of the second type are formed with the verb Lith. buti, Latv. but to
be which usually has the zero form in the present. Three subtypes can be distin-
guished here.
2.3.1
The innitive indicates the purpose of the thing denoted by the nominative subject
as the following examples from East High Lithuanian show:
(10) a. Tos bulves (yra) sodinti, o anos valgyti
these potato:nom.pl (be:3.pres plant:inf and those eat:inf
These potatoes are for planting and those ones for eating
b. O ta lazdele bus pasiremti
and this stick:nom be:3.fut lean:inf
And this stick will be to lean upon
2.3.2
The innitive of perception verbs (such as Lith. matyti see, girdeti hear, jausti
feel) indicates that the thing denoted by the nominative subject can be perceived
by some person (optionally expressed by the dative), e.g. in Lith.:
(11) a. (Man) (yra) / buvo / bus namai matyti
(me:dat (be:3.pres 3.past 3.fut house:nom.pl see:inf
(For me) is/was/will be possible to see the house
b. Vakar griaustinis buvo girdeti
yesterday thunder:nom be:3.past hear:inf
Yesterday it happened to hear the thunder
The nominative subject controls agreement with the participle as the form of the
relative mood, e.g.:
(12) Petriuko balsas buves girdeti
Peter:gen voice:nom.masc be:past.act.part.nom.masc hear:inf
Peters voice (evidently) was heard8
In some local dialects of Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) the innitive is used side by
side with the present passive participle. Their agreement is also controlled by the
nominative subject, cf.:
(13) a. Sodnas didelis yr
garden:nom.masc big:nom.masc be:3.pres
matoms / matyti
see:pres.pass.part.nom.masc see:inf
A big garden is to be seen (from Skuodas)
b. Karvides matomos / matyti
cowshed:nom.pl.fem see:pres.pass.part.nom.pl.fem see:inf
The cowsheds are to be seen
In East Lithuanian the innitive is widely supplanted by a reexive verb, cf.:

(14) I cia matos eeras
from here see:3.pres.refl lake:nom.sg
The lake is seen from here
The nominative with the innitive, however, is preserved in many isolated districts.
Its relic character is witnessed by the wide distribution of such set phrases as Lith. Kas
girdeti? What is to be heard?; Ltv. Kas jauns dzirdet? What news is to be heard?
The nominative in the constructions with the innitive of a perception verb has
the function of the subject and is never replaced by the accusative.
In Latvian dialects, the negated innitive is combined with the genitive, e.g.:
(15) Vilku ne redzet, ne dzirdet
wolf:gen.pl. non-see:inf non-hear:inf
no wolves are to be seen (or) to be heard
Here the genitive is used according to the general negation rule, as in Lithuanian, cf.:
(16) mogaus nematyti
man:gen non-see:inf
no man is to be seen
The nominative subject in combination with the verb be and the innitive of a
perception verb is also attested in various Slavonic dialects. According to the
prevailing opinion, it did not exist in Old Church Slavonic. However, Xodova
(1980: 223) cites the nominative placed at some distance from the innitive among
the innitive constructions in Codex Suprasliensis:
(17) i glasu umlce. i ne by slyati 570,18
and the voice (nom.sg) became silent, and was not to be heard (inf)
cf. in Old Russian (Borkovskij 1978: 404):

(18) be v to vremja videti.pecal gorkaja
in that time bitter grief (nom.sg) was to be seen (inf)
The construction is also found in contemporary South Russian and Belarusian

dialects, in such phrases as derevnja vidat a village is to be seen, in particular.9
The Indo-European character of the nominative with the innitive of a
perception verb, originally expressing the purpose, can be corroborated by corre-
spondences in Vedic cited by Sgall (1958: 221) and Disterheft (1980: 46), cf.:
(19) tva sparh
vrna a samdrsi sryah RV 2,1,12b
you:loc desired:loc colour:loc just see:inf beauty:nom
in your desired colour the beauty is just to be seen
2.3.3
The nominative with the innitive of various transitive verbs is used with the verb
be to express necessity. In Lithuanian the construction has the following pattern:
(20) (man) (yra) buvo / bus namai statyti
(me:dat (be:3.pres / 3.past / 3.fut house:nom build:inf
(for me) it is/was/will be necessary to build a house
cf. also:
(21) iandien bus ienas grebti, rytoj rugiai pjauti
today be:3.fut hay:nom rake:inf tomorrow rye:nom reap:inf
Today it will be necessary to rake the hay, tomorrow to reap the rye
The participle used as the relative mood form is in agreement with the nominative
subject, cf. examples (6a, 6b, and 12):
(22) Man vienai buves tas paras ert

me:dat alone:dat be:past.act.part.nom this pig:nom feed:inf
I alone had to feed that pig
The construction goes back to the rst writings in Lithuanian, e.g. in the Catechism
by Mavydas (1547: 76,5):
(23) Taip ir gierti wine krauias ia schwentas
so be:3.pres drink:inf wine:loc blood:nom he:gen sacred:nom
So his sacred blood must be drunk in wine
This pattern is similar to that discussed under 2.3.1 and diers only in the meaning
of necessity which, apparently, originated from the innitive denoting purpose or
designation (cf.: the hay is meant to rake, the blood is meant to drink, for
drinking).10
The kernel sentence man yra namai, in its turn, represents the Proto-Indo-
European possessive structure supplanted later by constructions with the verb
have (Lith. tureti), which also acquired the modal meaning of necessity in the
history of many parent languages.
The constructions with the verb buti expressing necessity and the nominative
subject are still widely used in the Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) dialect. In Latvian
they are very rare; only one example from Nereta is cited by Endzelns (1951: 783):
(24) Kungam est tei meizte!
gentlemen:dat.pl eat:inf this bread:nom
The gentlemen have to eat this bread!
In such cases the nominative is for the most part replaced by the accusative and the
newly formed debitive is extensively used to express necessity in Latvian. Recently
Holvoet (1993: 152) pointed out that the original pattern of a debitive phrase as
reconstructed by Prellwitz and Endzelns provides a striking parallel to the nomina-
tive subject with the innitive:
(25) *man ir maize ja est
me:dat be:3.pres bread:nom which eat:inf
I have bread for eating
According to Holvoet, the nominative used with the debitive in Latvian dialects some-
times retains the subject function which is clearly reected in the agreement, e.g.:
(26) Lini bijui jakalte
ax:nom.pl be:past.act.part.nom.pl dry:3.deb
The ax was in need of drying
Similar constructions in Old Russian have often been discussed, a popular example
from 1235, in particular:
(27) Takova pravda uzeti rusinu

such:nom right:nom take:inf Russian:dat.sg
Such right is for the Russian to take
The nominative in such cases is usually interpreted as the former subject, and the
innitive is treated as the descendent of the purposive dative of a verbal noun.11 On
the other hand, Larin (1963: 9399) and Timberlake (1974: 8395) consider the
nominative to be the object of an independent innitive in a subjectless sentence.
Unlike in East Baltic, the subject function of the nominative in Old Russian cannot
be corroborated by the agreement. Such an agreement is found in the Vedic corre-
spondences where the meaning of necessity is made more intense by the imperative
form of the verb bhu be as in the following example cited by Sgall (1958: 221):
(28) apo bhavantu ptye RV 10, 9, 4
water:nom.pl be:3pl.imp drink:inf
the waters must be for drinking
Cf. also the Hittite parallels adduced by Disterheft (1980: 165166).
2.4
The third type is represented by the constructions in which the innitive of purpose
is attached to the predicate consisting of an adjective and a link verb (usually absent
in the Present).12 The adjective appears in masculine and feminine (29ac) or
neuter forms (30):
(29) a. Lithuanian
(Man) medus (yra) / buvo / bus
(me:dat honey:nom.masc (be:3pres / past / fut
gardus valgyti
delicious:nom.masc eat:inf
Honey is/was/will be delicious (for me) to eat
b. eme buvo sunki arti
earth:nom.sg.fem be:3.past heavy:nom.sg.fem plough:inf
The earth was heavy /dicult to plough
c. Latvian
(Man) saulte silta sildties
(me:dat sunshine:nom.sg.fem warm:nom.sg.fem bask:inf
The sunshine is warm (for me) to bask
(30) Lithuanian
(Man) medus (yra) / buvo / bus
(me:dat honey:nom.masc (be:3.pres / past / fut
gardu valgyti
delicious:neut eat:inf
Honey is/was/will be delicious (for me) to eat
In the rst subtype exemplied by (29ac) the subject function of the nominative
manifests itself in its agreement with the adjective inected for the case, gender and
number. In the second subtype, exemplied by (30), agreement is impossible due
to the loss of neutral nouns in East Baltic and to the non-inected character of the
Lithuanian neutral adjectives. However, some constructions with neuter adjectives
have been used as variants of the subtype (a) in the same local dialects of East
Lithuania until the present time, cf. from Erikiai:
(31) altinio vanduo sveikas / sveka gerti
spring:gen.sg water:nom.sg.masc healthy nom.sg.masc/neut drink:inf
Spring water is healthy to drink
The innitive is optional in such cases and it can be omitted as in (7) without causing
any change in the relationship between the nominative subject and the predicative:
(32) a. Medus gardus/gard
honey is delicious
b. Vanduo sveikas/sveka
water is healthy
Kernel structures medus gard; vanduo sveka represent the pattern of an ancient
nominal sentence with the pure stem-form in the predicate.13 Corresponding
sentences with neuter adjectives are attested to in Old Prussian, cf.:
(33) Erains bousei poklusman III 8917
Jederman sey unterthan
Everyone (must) be obedient (neut)
In Latvian, neuter adjectives are already extinct and they are replaced by adverbs in
innitive constructions, cf. (44).
2.5
The syntactic features of innitive constructions discussed under 2.22.3 show the
original structure of the nominative with the innitive in East Baltic and the subject
function of the nominative in the constructions of a relic character. This function,
categorically denied by Timberlake for Lithuanian and Latvian,14 can be corroborat-
ed taking into account the agreement of participial copula with the nominative in
the constructions under (6a, b, 12, 22) and a parallel use of neuter predicatives with
masculine and feminine ones (31, 32a, b) in Lithuanian.
3. The spread of the nominative object
3.1
The second stage in the diachronic stratication of the nominative with the innitive
is represented by impersonal constructions in which the nominative performs the
function of the grammatical object. The origin and spread of these structures are
determined by grammaticalization properties of the East Baltic innitive.
After its separation from the case paradigm of verbal nouns, the innitive came
into a close relationship with the main verb and turned into a constituent of a
compound predicate in various sentence patterns (especially those containing
modal and phrasal verbs). This process aected many constructions of the afore-
mentioned type and brought about changes in their original structure. The
nominative in the semantic role of the Patient or Contentive of a statal verb was
reinterpreted as the object of the innitive and in many cases was supplanted by the
accusative currently prevailing in Standard Lithuanian, with the construction
acquiring an impersonal character.15
The types of innitive constructions discussed under 2.22.3 have been subject-
ed to varying degrees of reanalysis.
3.2
The change in the syntactic pattern of the rst type can be exemplied by the
following example:
(34) Jam teko laukas [arti] the eld fell on him to plough (= for ploughing)
Jam teko [laukas arti] it fell to him to plough the eld
The fact that subjectless clauses characteristically express the Beneciary or

Experiencer by the optional dative case apparently was favourable to the reanalysis.
Many constructions with other statal verbs (Lith. kliuti fall on, rupeti be
concerned about, sektis go well, be successful etc.) acquired an impersonal
character in a similar way. In such cases the object function of the nominative
manifests itself in it being used alongside the accusative and in the fact that the
innitive cannot be omitted without bringing about a cardinal change in the
meaning, e.g. in Lith.:
(35) Teko jam tie pinigai atiduot (from Druskininkai)
fall (to):3.past he:dat the money:nom.pl give-back:inf
He had to give back the money
cf.: Teko jam tie pinigai
The money fell to his lot.
(36) Cia sekas pagaut eerys

Here it is easy to catch a perch. (*Sekas eerys is quite impossible.)
Most Lithuanian constructions with the verb (pa)likti remain retain the subject
function of the nominative. Only in rare cases, when this verb has a shade of the
meaning of necessity, does the nominative appear in the function of the object of
the innitive and can be replaced by the accusative, e.g.:
(37) Tevui beliko pirkt tas sodas/ta soda
father:dat remain:past.3 buy:inf this garden:nom/acc
It remained for my father to buy this garden
A similar reanalysis is observed in the constructions termed dativus cum innitivo, cf.:
(38) Lithuanian
Ariau lauka linams seti
plough:3.past eld:acc ax:dat.pl sow:inf
I ploughed the eld to sow ax.
Here the innitive also represents the purposive dative of the action nominal
originally standing in an appositive relation to the rst dative, i.e. I ploughed the
eld for ax, for (its) sowing. After grammaticalization of the innitive, the rst
dative, initially related to the main verb, was reinterpreted as the object of the
innitive. In most Lithuanian dialects, the rst dative retained its case form,
however, in Latvian, it was replaced by the accusative object, e.g.:
(39) Dou kumelinu darzu noecet
give:1sg.fut foal:acc garden:acc harrow:inf
Ill give you a foal to harrow the garden16
3.3
The sentences with the verb buti be and the innitive of perception verbs (see
2.3.2) have best retained their original structure in Lithuanian and the accusative
object never replaces the nominative subject there.
The nominative subject has also been preserved in many Lithuanian sentences
containing the explicit verb buti be in the meaning of necessity (see 2.3.3).
Currently they are mostly supplanted by impersonal sentences with the verb reiketi
need. Sentences containing no present form of the verb be have a wider distribu-
tion, however, the nominative lls the function of the object in most of them and
is used in parallel with the accusative or is replaced by it, e.g. in set phrases, such as
Kas/Ka daryti? What is to do?. Corresponding impersonal constructions in Latvian
(so-called analytic debitives) are formed with the accusative object, e.g.:
(40) Tev bij nemt niedres meitu

you:dat be:3.past take:inf reed:gen daughter:acc
You had to marry the reeds daughter17
3.4
The generalized meaning characteristic of Lithuanian neuter adjectives encouraged
the reinterpretation of the innitive constructions discussed under 2.4. Their
structure was subject to a corresponding change towards impersonality, e.g.:
(41) Pienas saldu/saldus [gerti]
The milk (nom) is sweet (nom.neut/masc) to drink (= for drinking)
Saldu [gerti pienas/piena]
it is sweet (neut) to drink milk (nom/acc)
The change of the word order (i.e. a shift of the nominative from the rst place to
the position next to the innitive) is also conspicuous in such cases.
According to the reanalyzed impersonal pattern, many new constructions have
been formed in East Lithuanian with the nominative object depending directly on
the innitive. The innitive cannot be omitted in such cases, cf.:
(42) Linksma skint obuoliai
It is joyful (neut) to pick apples (nom.pl), but
*Linksma obuoliai.
Alongside neuter adjectives, adverbs denoting states (gerai good/well, anksti early,
gana enough, etc.) have been introduced into the pattern, cf.:
(43) Gerai/anksti/gana skint obuoliai
It is pleasant/early/enough to pick apples (nom.pl)
Neuter adjectives have completely vanished from Latvian, supplanted by adverbs of

state in constructions with the nominative object, e.g.:
(44) Aka/Aku nav viegli rakt
The well (nom/acc) is not easy (adv) to dig
3.5
Some neuter adjectives and adverbs used as predicatives in sentences with the
nominative or accusative object gave rise to new impersonal verbs. Paradigms of the
Lithuanian verbs gaileti regret, feel pity, verteti to be worth are based on the
neuter adjectives gaila (it is) a pity, verta (it is) worth reinterpreted as 3rd person
verb forms.
Similarly, the predicative Lith. reikia/reike need gave rise to the paradigm of
the verb reiketi (cf. Fraenkel 1925: 3538); this verb in combination with the
innitive became the main means of expressing necessity.18 In the innitive
constructions with reiketi, the nominative or accusative is used exclusively in the
function of an object, e.g.:
(45) Reikejo udegt iburys/iburi
need:3past put-on:inf light:nom/acc
It was necessary to put on the light (nom/acc)
In Latvian the predicative vajag(a) necessity19 borrowed from West Finnic also
gave rise to the impersonal verb vajadzet be necessary (pres. vajaga, past
vajadzeja) which is used in combination with the innitive and the nominative/
accusative object, cf.:
(46) Vajadzeja malka skaldt
It was necessary to chop wood (nom)20
4. The problem of West Finnic impact
4.1
The reanalysis of the nominative with the innitive in East Baltic dialects evidently
has native conditions. The main problem is the conservation and the subsequent
extension of the use of the nominative in its new function of the object.21
The nominative object dependent on the innitive is attested in many Latvian
dialects and has been in common usage in the East High Lithuanian dialect
(including its southern area) and the southern belt of West High Lithuanian until
now.22 Its use in impersonal contexts has been extended to include not only
constructions with the newly-formed impersonal verbs (as Lith. reiketi, Latv.
vajadzet) and adverbs of state but also the debitive in Latvian and transitive gerunds
(padalyviai) in Lithuanian. The innitive can be replaced by the past gerund in
some impersonal sentences containing (a) statal adverbs and (b) interrogative
pronouns, e.g.:
(47) a. Butu gerai altinis radus (from Prienai)
be:3subj nice:adv spring:nom nd:past.ger
It would be nice to nd out a spring
b. Kur cia man karve nusipirkus? (from Alytus)
where here me:dat cow:nom buy:past.ger
Where is here for me a cow to buy?
Such sentences are attested to only in those areas where the nominative object is
commonly combined with the innitive. The innovative use of the nominative
object with the present gerund in adverbial clauses is more obsolete, cf. the example
from Prienai (South Lithuania):

(48) Rugiai pjaunant didele talka reikalinga
rye:nom.pl reap:pres.ger big:nom help:nom necessary:nom
When reaping rye a lot of help is needed
4.2
The data from Lithuanian and Latvian dialects indicate that impersonal construc-
tions with the nominative object were productive during a certain period. This is in
accordance with the conclusion drawn by Timberlake (1974: 152) that dialects of
Lithuanian and Latvian possess the nominative object rule: a participant which
would otherwise be designated as the accusative is designated as the nominative in
a systematically impersonal environment, when there is no possibility of a gram-
matical subject in the nominative. This rule has no clear equivalents in other Indo-
European languages except for East Slavic dialects contiguous to the West Finnic
area. Taking into account the fact that the nominative object is extensively and
commonly used in West Finnic, its inuence upon East Baltic dialects, presumed by
Map 1.Nominative object of the innitive in Lithuanian and Latvian dialects.

Lithuanian Latvian
Reikia laukai arti it is necessary to ::: Vajag malka skaldt it is neces- ==

plough the elds (cf. 3.5, (45)) sary to chop wood (cf. 3.5, (46))
(Tau) buvo/bus namai statyti (for Jaiet paut siens it is necessary to || ||

you) it was/will necessary to build a go to cut hay (cf. 4.5, (49))
house (cf. 2.3.3, (20))
Namai statyti sunku the house is Akmin gruti kustinat the stone
dicult to build (cf. 2.4, (30)) is dicult to move (cf. 4.5)
Timberlake, seems to be a rational explanation of the spread of the nominative

object in the Lithuanian and Latvian impersonal constructions.
4.3
Since the West Finnic nominative object rule applies to the impersonal environ-
ment (Timberlake 1974: 191, 196) it could have been introduced into the syntactic
system of East Baltic dialects only after the innitive had already been separated
from the paradigm of verbal nouns and become a constituent of the impersonal
construction. The comparatively recent origin of the Lithuanian and Latvian
innitives ending in -ti/*-tei and their undeniable relation to the dative of purpose
in constructions with the nominative, speak against the supposition that the
nominative object rule was borrowed during the prehistoric period of early Baltic-
Finnic contacts or that it is a relic of the former ergative or active sentence struc-
ture.23 On the other hand, borrowing the syntactic rule from an unrelated language
presupposes large areas of bilingualism and intensive interaction between the
substratum and adstratum languages. Such conditions appear to have existed in
present-day Central and Northern Latvia during the 57th centuries AD, when East
Baltic tribes expanded to the North over the area which was previously inhabited by
the West Finnic population.24 At that time East Baltic dialects were still relatively
homogeneous and innovations could spread without much hindrance. So, the
nominative object rule might have been borrowed rst by Lettigallian, Semigallian
and Curonian dialects and then through these dialects introduced into the dialects
on the territory of what is now Eastern and Southern Lithuania. In Western
Lithuania, in the Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) dialect in particular, the nominative
in combination with the innitive mostly preserved the function of the grammatical
subject, whereas in the impersonal environment it is common for the innitive to
govern the accusative object.
4.4
Colonization of the former Finnic area between Pskov and Novgorodky Slavs,
which began in the middle of the rst millennium AD, created similar conditions
for the distribution of the nominative object in North Russian. The nominative
object with the innitive was used from the 13th till the end of the 17th century in
North Russian and Muscovite texts. According to Timberlake (1974), it is found
there in the impersonal environment and is regarded as a borrowing from West Finnic.
In North Russian dialects it has acquired more innovative features as a consequence of
the syncretism of nominative-accusative case forms (cf. uravlev 1984).
The subject function of the nominative in combination with the innitive as a
descendant of the purposive dative is reconstructed for Old Russian mainly on the
basis of comparative evidence (except the cases discussed under 2.3.2). The
Lithuanian data can be regarded as evidence in favour of the supposition that
corresponding structures existed in early Slavonic as well.
4.5
The distribution features of the nominative object in Lithuanian and Latvian
dialects indicate that the impact of West Finnic on the development of this con-
struction came to an end a long time ago, most likely some centuries before the rst
writings had been published. Unlike in the Lithuanian dialects, in which the
nominative object has been regularly used until now in a large and denite area, its
distribution in contemporary Latvian dialects has a more sporadic character.
According to the material collected for the Atlas of Latvian Dialects,25 the usage
of the nominative object of the innitive along the boundary between Latvian and
Estonian is indicated only at some points (Idus, Ipiki and Cirgali). Such construc-
tions as akmin gruti kustinat the stone (nom) is dicult (adv) to move are
attested to in some districts of the Middle Latvian dialect, viz. in Birzuli, Bauni,
Jaunburtnieci, Kusceni, Katari and Dunte, separated by the areas in which the
accusative predominates. The nominative object is distributed more widely in
Curonia (Kurzeme), especially in the western part. In addition to the types men-
tioned, constructions of other types are also attested there, e.g. vajag/gribas malka
skaldt it is necessary/one would like to chop wood (nom). In the Semigallian
subdialect of Middle Latvian as well as in large areas of High Latvian
(Augzemnieki) the nominative object is rare and found in isolated places only. It
is more commonly used in the constructions containing the debitive,26 e.g.:
(49) jaiet plaut siens
it is necessary to go to cut hay (nom).
Attention should be drawn to the fact that a number of places in which the use of
the nominative object is common are situated along the border between Latvian
and Lithuanian dialects (in Gramzda, Kaleti, Ezere, Bene, Islce, Aknste, Kaplava).27
This distribution of the construction over the Latvian dialect area is characteris-
tic of syntactic relics and reects the progressive substitution of the nominative
object by the accusative.
4.6
The fact that the nominative with the innitive is retained in Lithuanian dialects
better than in Latvian dialects can be accounted for by its relationship to construc-
tions containing neuter adjectives discussed under 2.3. The nominative is also
widely used in combination with neuter passive participles as their semantic
object (Patient or Contentive) in the same East and South areas of the High
Lithuanian dialect,28 cf.:
(50) a. Laukai riama
eld:nom.pl.masc plough:pres.pass.part.neut
The elds are being ploughed
b. Malkos kapta
wood:nom.pl.fem chop:past.pass.part.neut
Wood has been chopped
Here the nominative is the grammatical subject of a passive construction and plays
the same semantic role as the nominative used with the innitive, cf.:
(51) a. Laukai arti (jam) nusibodo
elds:nom.pl plough:inf (he:dat bore:3.past.refl
To plough the elds (to him) became boring
b. Malkos kapoti legva
wood:nom.pl chop:inf easy:neut
Wood is easy to chop
The loss of neuter adjectives and neuter passive participles in Latvian deprived the
nominative object of such structural support. After the interference of West Finnic
had decreased, it was gradually ousted by the accusative from most local dialects of
contemporary Latvian.
5. Conclusions
By means of the stratication of nominative and innitive constructions in East

Baltic dialects, their oldest layer in which the nominative was used as the grammati-
cal subject and the innitive represented the purposive dative of the action nominal
has been distinguished. The relics of such constructions reinforced by their
<DEST "amb-n*">
relationship to ancient structures containing neuter adjectives and passive partici-

ples have been preserved in Lithuanian dialects until the present day.
As a consequence of the grammaticalization of the innitive, the construction
with the nominative has been reanalyzed and acquired an impersonal character.
The nominative turned into the grammatical object of the innitive and spread in
its new function under the inuence of the West Finnic nominative object rule. The
nominative object was also introduced into constructions containing newly formed
impersonal verbs (as Lith. reiketi need), gerunds and Latvian debitive forms.
The impact of West Finnic was most likely conditioned by the spread of East
Baltic dialects over the West Finnic substratum area in 67th centuries AD. When
the Baltic-Finnic contacts became less intense, the nominative object was replaced
by the accusative in most local dialects of Latvian, however, it has been better
preserved in the conservative East High Lithuanian dialect.
In the light of East-Baltic evidence the traditional hypothesis about the Indo-
European origin of the nominative with the innitive (suggested by Potebnja,
Endzelns, Jablonskis, Kiparsky et al.) and Timberlakes hypothesis about borrowing
the nominative object rule from West Finnic apply to dierent periods of the
development of the construction. Thus, these explanations can be regarded as
complementary. The nominative object can be put in line with the relative mood
(modus relativus) and other syntactic phenomena based on the native structure of
East Baltic languages and inuenced by West Finnic in the course of their development.
Notes
* The draft of the present paper was written during my research stay at the University of
Stockholm in 1995 supported by the Swedish Institute. I am grateful to the scientic sta of the
Finnish, Baltic and Linguistics Departments, especially to Ingrid Almqvist, Baiba Kangere and
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm for their hospitality and fruitful discussion concerning the ideas and
material presented in the paper.
1. A survey of references is presented by Larin (1963), Kiparsky (1969), Timberlake (1974),
Ambrazas (1987).
2. This controversy can be exemplied by the following statements, cf.: In such sentences (i.e.
sentences containing the nominative with the innitive V. A.) the nominative always remains
the subject (Jablonskis 1935:32), and, on the other hand: The comparable use of the nominative
in Lith. and Latv. dialects is an instance of the nominative object; it undeniably does not represent
the grammatical subject. (Timberlake 1974: 220).
3. Unlike the change in phonological units, the reanalysis on the syntactic level and the subse-
quent extension of its results do not, as a rule, aect all former structures. Some of them, retaining
the initial pattern, have been used for a long time alongside the new ones and they are often
moved to the periphery of the syntactic system as marked archaisms, cf. Havrnek (1968a), Harris
& Campbell (1995: 97106).
4. On action nominals as a means of expressing purpose in Indo-European cf. Jeers & Pepicello
(1980).
5. The relationship of the East Baltic innitive to the dative singular of the (t)i-stem is discussed,
in particular, by Ambrazas (1995). Haspelmath (1989) treats the development of the innitive
from purposive action nominals in dierent language families (including Indo-European, Turkic,
Finno-Ugric, Semitic, Bantu, Nakho-Daghestanian, and Dravidian) as a universal process of
grammaticalization.
6. The identity of a nominative function in sentences with and without the innitive has been
pointed out by Jablonskis (1935: 32) in the following example: Man jau rupi avios pjauti I am
already concerned to reap oats/Man jau rupi avios I am already concerned with oats.
7. Cf. Endzelns & Mhlenbachs (1928: 193, 196); Endzelns (1951: 781); Gaters (1993: 72).
8. Specically about such agreement see Sirtautas (1971: 7274).
9. Cf. Sprincak (1960: 179); Dunn (1982). Corresponding constructions in Old Czech, such as
hora je videti the mountain is to be seen (Porak 1967: 82.) are treated dierently. The assump-
tion about their native origin (Kiparsky 1969: 164; Jacobsson 1964: 72) is incompatible with the
supposition that they have been formed under the inuence of German (Reiter 1953: 175) or as a
result of an innovative process taking place within Czech (Havrnek 1968b: 175176; Dunn
1982: 523524).
10. Cf. Brugmann (1916:925) on shifting the meaning of designation resp. suitableness (Geeignet-
sein) from the innitive to the verb be.
11. See Potebnja (1958: 403407), the survey of references in Kiparsky (1967, 1969), Larin
(1963: 8892), Timberlake (1974: 8386, 232) and exhaustive commentaries in Stepanov (1984).
12. Constructions containing the explicit link verb yr(a) (3.pres) are generally attested to in the
Low Lithuanian (Samogitian) dialect. In other dialects the predicative is used without a copula in
the Present.
13. For nominal sentences of this kind in Baltic with correspondences in other Indo-European
languages and the lit. see Ambrazas 1990: 202203.
14. Cf.: for the same reasons that the nominative object cannot be the grammatical subject in Old
Russian, it cannot be a grammatical subject in Lithuanian or Latvian. Nor is there any reason to
suppose that the nominative was historically once a subject (Timberlake 1974:153). Cf. also: The
comparable use of the nominative in Lith. and Latv. dialects is an instance of the nominative
object; it undeniably does not represent the grammatical subject (op.cit., 220).
15. Cf.: The natural tendency in the Indo-European languages at least is to reinterpret certain
personal constructions as impersonal constructions and concomitantly with this reinterpretation
to replace the nominative case with the accusative case (Schmalstieg 1990: 429).
16. Specically about the development of dativus cum innitivo in East Baltic with a survey of lit.
see Ambrazas (1987).
17. See Endzelns & Mhlenbachs (1928: 173174); Ozols (1961: 9667, 1967: 182183); Gaters
(1993: 325326).
18. At present the verb reiketi need is one of the most frequently used words in Standard
Lithuanian. According to the Frequency Dictionary compiled by ilinskiene (1990:10), it occupies
the fourth place among the verbs in a contemporary formal use.
19. The use of the predicative vajaga with the nominative subject had already been attested to in
the Glcks translation of the Bible (16851689), e.g.: Kas jums vajaga ir Matth. 6, 8 What (nom)
is necessary to you (= was jr bedret).
20. Cf. also Holvoet (1993: 158).

21. On the relation between reanalysis and extension see Harris & Campbell 1995: 5051, 59119.
The extension theory provides a rational explanation of a parallel use of constructions containing
the nominative subject and object and of the possibility for the speaker/hearer to apply both
analyses to ambiguous cases.
22. Reports about the distribution of the nominative object in Lithuanian dialects are generally
based on the data collected for the Atlas of Lithuanian Dialects and stored at the Institute of the
Lithuanian language.
23. Cf. the ascription of the nominative object to the prehistoric substratum of Baltic, West Finnic
and North Russian by Larin (1963: 105), categorically rejected by Jacobsson (1964) and Kiparsky
(1967, 1969). Cf. also considerations about the relation of the nominative object to the absolutive
in Proto-Indo-European by Palmaitis (1977: 116119).
24. Cf. Moora (1958:123124); Gimbutas (1963:141); Veenker (1967:18); Zinkevicius (1984:338).
25. Special use is made of the data concerning questions 270273, 276, 277, 280 of the question-
naire Latvieu valodas dialektologijas atlanta materialu vakanas programa, Rga, 1954. The
information stored at the Institute of the Latvian Language in Riga is also used to represent the
corresponding data in the scheme. I am grateful to the Director of the Institute and the Depart-
ment of Dialectology for the opportunity I was oered to examine those funds during my research
stay in 1988. I am not sure that the information concerning the distribution of the nominative
object in Latvian is quite complete as I had no possibility to check the data of local dialects in situ.
26. Specically about the nominative object with the debitive see Holvoet (1993).
27. In view of the data mentioned, the opinion that the nominative object is found in Lithuanian
to a lesser extent than in Latvian (cf. Thomason & Kaufman 1988: 242) should be corrected. Larin
(1963: 104) also noted that Latvian dialects have retained fewer traces of the nominative object
than have Lithuanian dialects.
28. Specically see Ambrazas (1990: 197214 and references).
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Disterheft, Dorothy. 1980. The Syntactic Development of the Innitive in Indo-European.
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Jablonskis, Jonas. 1935. In Balcikonis, J. (ed.), Jablonskio ratai 4. Kaunas; vietimo Ministerija.
Jacobsson, Gunnar. 1964. Zur Frage vom Nominativ als Kasus des direkten Objekts im
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<LINK "wal-n*">
<TARGET "wal" DOCINFO
AUTHOR "Bernhard Wlchli"
TITLE "Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles"
KEYWORDS ""
SIZE HEIGHT "220"
WIDTH "150"
VOFFSET "4">
Lexical evidence for the parallel

development of the Latvian and Livonian
verb particles*
Bernhard Wlchli
1. Introduction
It is most protable for an area study to focus on the central area of a language
contact. In our study of the structural eects of the contact between Baltic and
Finnic languages we thus focus on the languages most aected, i.e. Latvian (Baltic),
Livonian (Finnic) and to a lesser extent Estonian (Finnic). Languages closely related
to them (Baltic: Lithuanian; Finnic: Finnish, Veps) serve as a control which often
represents an earlier stage of development as the central languages happen to be
much more innovative in many respects.
The contemporary territory of Latvia was settled by dierent Baltic tribes (Letti/
Lettgalians, Selians, Zemgalians and Curonians) before the arrival of the German
crusaders. The most characteristic dierences between contemporary Latvian
dialects do not, however, coincide with the borders of earlier tribal areas but rather
reect language contact phenomena. The Low or Livonian dialect of Latvian is
spoken in Northern Curonia (Kurzeme) and NW-Livonia (Vidzeme),1 which is the
area where the Finnic (Livonian) population was most noticeable during several
periods of time. The Finnic population was, however, not restricted to this area as
the Finnic place names found throughout Latvia show. Even the names of the two
neighboring tribes in Vidzeme Letti and Lyvones which were later extended to
refer to the languages spoken in a wider area, might indicate a close relationship
between the Finnic and Baltic populations.2
Archeological, toponymical and historical investigations have shown that
Vidzeme and Kurzeme had mixed Baltic and Finnic populations during most of
the last four millennia (see Tnisson 1974, 1994; Johansen 1939). It is obvious that
a large area (a good part of the entire Latvian and Livonian territory) which has
had a mixed population for a long time provides good conditions for mutual
linguistic inuence.
Hirt (1927: 33) and Kettunen (1938: vii) oversimplied this point in holding
414 Bernhard Wlchli
that Latvian is wholly derivable from Lithuanian, being the Lithuanian language as
it developed in a colonized territory, and that the Latvian people is mixed Latvian-
Livonian, since its language is greatly inuenced by Livonian (see Endzelns 1927,
1939 and Rudzte 1994). With the help of verb particles, we will try to show that
there was no unidirectional transfer of language structure from Finnic to Latvian,
but rather a mutual partial transfer of structure in several diachronic steps leading
to a semantic continuum in the area of Finnic and Baltic dialects.
2. The Latvian and Southern Finnic verb particles
2.1 Verb determination in Baltic and Southern Finnic

Baltic and Slavic languages (like most of the earliest attested Indo-European
languages) have a strong tendency to express activities and states by means of the
verb stem and to render the notions of achievement and accomplishment by means
of an additional element (preverb in Baltic and Slavic), e.g. Ltv. redzet see, iet go
but sa-redzet see (catch sight of), at-rast nd, no-iet kilometru go for a kilometer.
This tendency is somewhat stronger in Latvian than in Lithuanian (e.g. Lith.
(su-)rasti nd).
Latvian, however, unlike Lithuanian, has an alternative way to determinate an
activity by means of a verb particle (which often is an adverbialized local case
form).3 In this respect Latvian is reminiscent of the Southern Finnic languages
Livonian and Estonian which also use verb particles in order to determinate
activities (e.g. Est. hrra oli kvasti ra keelanud the master had strongly forbid-
den away).4 The two Latvian verb determination procedures are said to
constitute an aspect opposition, the preverb type being perfective while the verb
particle type is imperfective (but cf. below).
In spite of their general similarities there are many dierences between the
Baltic preverb and the Southern Finnic verb particle type of verb determination. In
Baltic languages the preverbs are highly grammaticalized (there are only eleven of
them in Standard Latvian, they cannot be separated from the verb, they are not
longer than one syllable). As a rule, deictic relationships are expressed by means of
verb stems in Finnic languages (e.g. Est. tulema to come, tuoda bring), but by
means of preverbs in Baltic languages (Lith. at-, pri-eiti to come, eiti to go, but
Ltv. nakt to come which is a Finnic structure, see Wlchli 1996b). Consider also
the related notions open and closed in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 below.
We shall now discuss the question of to what extent the verb particles of
Latvian, which are almost lacking in most of the Lithuanian dialect area, are of
Finnic origin.
Lexical evidence for the parallel development of the Latvian and Livonian verb particles 415
2.2 Latvian verb particles

Endzelns (190506: 2, 136138) argued that what he called constructions with an
uncompounded verb and an adverb (i.e. verb particle) spread in Latvian under the
inuence of Livonian and Estonian.
Endzelns examples are as follows:
Ltv. projam (skriet) Est. ra (jooksma) Liv. jera (juok) run away
Ltv. cieti (taist) Est. kinni (panema) Liv. viz (panda) close (do closed)
Ltv. vala (taist) Est. lahti (tegema) open (do open)
Ltv. ieka (nakt) Est. sisse (tulema) Liv. sizl (tulda) come in
Ltv. lauka, ara (iet) Est. vlja (minema) Liv. ulz (ld) go out
Ltv. auga (celties) Est. les (tusma) Liv. lz (ast) go up
Ltv. virsu (likt) Est. peale (panema) Liv. pl (panda) put on top
Ltv. zeme (nakt) Est. maha (tulema) Liv. moz (vied) come down, Liv.
draw down
Ltv. pari (lekt) Est. le (kargama) Liv. l (ast) jump over, Liv. go
over
Ltv. puu (raut) Est. katki (kiskuma) Liv. katki (ed) tear to pieces, Liv.
cut to pieces
Ltv. klat (nakt) Est. juurde (tulema) Liv. jur (aj) come near, Liv.
drive near
Ltv. kopa (likt) Est. kokku (panema) Liv. kub (panda) put together
Ltv. kaja vilkt Est. jalga panema Liv. jalg vied put on (shoes) (put
in the foot)
Ltv. roka dabut Est. ktte saama get, catch (get in the
hand)
Endzelns also indicates some relationships between the semantic origins of the
particles in the three languages, but gives no details and does not even refer to the
Latvian semantic background (which was obvious to him): Ltv. ciet hard, Est. kinni
hard, tightly close to, Liv. viza hard (see Section 3.2); Ltv. ieka, Est. sisi inner
(part); Ltv. lauks, are, Est. vli (open) eld (see Section 3.7); Ltv. zeme, Est. maa
land, earth; Ltv. auga, Est. li upper (part); Ltv. kopa, Est. kogu, Liv. kub pile
(see Section 3.4).
In Latvian there are many verb particles (also used as adverbs or postpositions)
derived from relational nouns, many of them having no frequent Lithuanian
equivalent5 e.g. Ltv. pakala behind, going behind, going for, apkart around, virsu
on top. Their equivalents in Finnic are in some cases related to a noun in a similar
way, but the nominal character is as a rule not as evident in Finnic as in Latvian, e.g.
416 Bernhard Wlchli
Ltv. ieka inner part, iekas (pl) viscera (Lith. iscios id.). The corresponding Est.
sisi inner part occurs almost only as the rst part of a compound as in sisi-kond
viscera (Fin. kunta company), Liv. si-gn-d (the -d- being interpreted as a
plural; Fin. sisl-mykse-t [pl] id.). For the original meaning of the Latvian verb
particle ieka consider also (karpeli) neskrien ieka, Est. ei lhe sisse I cant get it (the
potatoes) down (Kagaine 1992: 215) and with the corresponding preverb Ltv. ie-est
eat (some little quantity, a certain quantity). Lithuanian has the expression vidun
(ill), viduje (loc) in(to) the middle meaning in(side) as in High Latvian
vidu(n), vida. The common development of Latvian and Finnic is, however, not
very distinctive; consider Rus. vnutri in(side), vnutrennost viscera. (The same
holds for e.g. Lith. emyn, Est. maha etc. down [to the earth], cf. Ger. zu Boden;
Ltv. leja, Liv. luok down [into the valley], cf. Blg. dol valley, dolu down and
Ltv. cauri through[out] [full of holes], Est. lbi through[out], Fin. lpi hole,
cf. Rus. skvoz through[out], skvaina aperture, hole.)
In contrast to the verb particles, the Latvian preverbs which are semantically
almost equivalent (but of a perfective aspectual value) correspond in most cases to
etymologically identical preverbs in Lithuanian (and even in Slavic). It is thus
evident that they are of Baltic origin:
Ltv. projam (skriet) aiz-skriet Lith. nu-begti (begti tolyn) run away
Ltv. cieti (taist) aiz-taist Lith. u-daryti close
Ltv. vala (taist) at-taist Lith. ati-daryti open
Ltv. ieka (nakt) ie-nakt Lith. i-eiti (eiti vidun) come in
Ltv. lauka, ara (iet) iz-iet Lith. i-eiti (eiti laukan) go out
Ltv. auga (celties) uz-iet Lith. pa-si-kelti (eiti auktyn) go up
Ltv. virsu (likt) uz-likt Lith. u-deti (deti virun) put on top
Ltv. zeme (nakt) no-nakt Lith. nu-si-leisti, (eiti emyn) come down
Ltv. pari (lekt) par-lekt Lith. per-okti jump over
Ltv. puu (raut) sa-raut, par-raut Lith. per-traukti, per-pleti tear to pieces
(pusiau)
Ltv. klat (nakt) pie-nakt Lith. pri-eiti come near
Ltv. kopa (likt) sa-likt Lith. su-deti put together
Ltv. kaja vilkt uz-vilkt, ap-aut Lith. ap-si-auti put on (shoes)
Ltv. roka dabut sa-dabut Lith. su-gauti get, catch
For Endzelns the class of adverbs (verb particles) is characterized by the fact that
there are corresponding Latvian preverbs. This delimitation of the group is not
unproblematic, e.g. in the case of the almost phraseological kaja in the foot and
roka in the hand. For our purpose it is best to adopt a less Latvian-centristic and
more open tentative denition: A verb particle expresses the result that (eventually)
is achieved by the activity expressed by the accompanying verb. To express a state

it is combined with the copular verb but.
Ver logu ciet! Shut the window!
Logs ir ciet The window is closed
Velk kurpes kaja! Put the shoes on!
Kurpes ir kaja The shoes are on the feet
The notion of the verb particle can thus be extended to some further units that do
not have characteristic equivalent preverbs in Latvian:
(Pa)nem suni ldzi! Take the dog with you!
Suns man ir ldzi The dog is with me
In this case the copula construction is not only true at the end of the activity, but
throughout the activity. In order to stress this dierence between preverbs and verb
particles Kazlauskas (cf. Girdenis/Kaciukiene 1986: 21, Note 1) claims that the
former are of a perfective, but the latter of a percient character.
The aspectual dierence between the two patterns in Latvian (the perfective one
being of old Baltic origin while the imperfective or percient one is inuenced
by Finnic) is especially developed in the Kurzeme part of the Low dialect as described
for the subdialect6 of Stende by Dravin/Ruke (1958: 4553, see also Hauzenberga-
turma 1971: 300302). Hauzenberga stresses that there is always some notion of
(distributive) plurality (i.e. non-punctuality) in the imperfective examples of the
following type, which is restricted to concrete, mostly local contexts:
(1) Latvian (Stende)
a. Dzerves jau laias projam.
crane:pl already let:3.refl away
The cranes are ying away (some of them are just leaving, others will leave
soon).
as opposed to the following perfective sentence:
b. Putnin aiz-laias.
bird:dim.nom.sg away-let:3.refl
The (little) bird ies away (and has gone).
The periphrastic imperfect has an expressive meaning in abstract contexts: Ltv.

(Stende) kadreiz tik ienesgais mactaja amats puteja lauka (instead of iz-puteja) the
once well paying job of a priest (heavily) declined, and Hauzenberga thus speaks of
an imperfect in statu nascendi.7 Anyway, a distinction of dierent forms only with
telic verbs (most of them of a local character) is not what we would expect in a
language with a perfective-imperfective opposition.
418 Bernhard Wlchli
2.3 Preverbs in Livonian

Hauzenberga holds that there is no direct Finnic inuence on the constitution of an
aspect relationship with a periphrastic imperfect, as there is no similar aspectual
opposition in any Finnic language, but she is wrong in asserting that there are no
preverbs in Finnic languages (loc. cit: 303).
The Latvian prexes also appear in Livonian in hybrid loanwords (Sivers 1971).
Their frequency, however, uctuates from speaker to speaker. Some of the prexed
verbs have the same specic meaning as their Latvian equivalents, e.g. Liv. sa-
muost understand (Ltv. sa-prast id.) in contrast to the unprexed muost be able
to (Ltv. prast id.). Most of them, however, do not carry any additional lexical
meaning, as can be seen in the following example (see also Rudzte 1996):
(2) Livonian
Se um seli kev, kis nei jen seb, ku mit-ik nei jen
it be:3sg such mare who so much eat:3sg that nobody so much
b nuo-nt an il pva, kui jen ta nuo-seb jera,
not down-mow grass over day how much it down-eat:3sg away
un ta situb nei jen, ku mit-ik b nuo-tie pudks.
and it shit:3sg so much that nobody not down-do clean
It is such a mare that eats as much grass as anybody can mow in one day, that
much it eats, and it shits as much as anybody can clean up. (Setl 1953: 323)
The most frequent Latvian preverb no- seems to function in Livonian as a default
preverb, as can be seen from (2). In Latvian, one would rather say ap-est eat (up)
than no-est, and pa-dart tru rather than *no-dart tru (no-trt clean up would be
better). Ltv. sa-plaut mow together would be more appropriate to express a large
quantity than no-plaut.8
There are three verbs in (2) with a preverb and/or a particle and its hardly
possible to see any dierence in their aspectual value. The only dierence is that the
telicity of the verb is semantically spelled out to a higher degree with particles
(away, clean) whereas the preverb is a pure marker of telicity.
Only rarely is a Livonian adverb used like a Latvian preverb:
(3) Livonian
Aga ku kenig um ilz-nuzn uondil.
but when king be:3sg up-rise.part.past in-the-morning
But when the king got up in the morning (Setl 1953: 354)
The Latvian preverbs also occur in the Leivu subdialect of Estonian (Leivu murrak,
also Koiva maarahvas, an old Estonian enclave in northeastern Latvia between
Aluksne and Gulbene now extinct) which is closely related to the southern Estonian
subdialect of Hargla, but has many traits in common with Livonian to which it is
not closely related in origin (consider also the common ethnonyms, Leivu > ei)
because of the parallel Latvian inuence (see Vaba 1977: 2129).9
2.4 An areal continuum

The Latvian verb particles are claimed to have an imperfective function while the
Estonian ones are claimed to be of a perfective character. So what do they have in
common?
As we saw the notion of perfective aspect is not very appropriate for the
description of the Latvian and the Estonian phenomena. It is rather the notion of
telicity that covers the semantics of Latvian, Livonian and Estonian verb particles
and preverbs. The higher degree of grammaticalization of the preverbs in Latvian
results in a very restricted opposition of two sets of markers of telicity where it
seems that the preverbs are more perfective than the verb particles. But the mere
fact that preverbs and verb particles can be combined in Latvian and Livonian,
mostly without any dierence in meaning, suggests that there is no fundamental
categorial dierence between preverbs and verb particles.
The Estonian, Livonian and Latvian verb particles and the Baltic preverbs can
be considered as dierent degrees of grammaticalization of bounders. The term
bounder is used by Bybee/Dahl (1989: 85f) for particles of mostly local origin (such
as English out, up etc.) often having the eect of making a verb more clearly
transitive and of implying a denite limit or end-state of the process (the total
consumption of the object). In Slavic languages (e.g. Russian) bounders (preverbs)
can be used as almost fully grammaticalized markers of perfective aspect in some
contexts. The derivational origin entails, however, a range of semantical dierences
in comparison to a purely inectional perfective aspect and a considerable amount
of morphological irregularity. According to Dahl (1985: 89) the Slavic-type aspect
categories are no proper inectional categories but rather derivational or maybe
even grammaticalized lexical categories. As the preverbs in the Baltic languages are
even less grammaticalized than in Russian it is very problematic to call the Baltic
preverbs aspect markers. What we have thus in Latvian could be described as two
dierent sets of bounders representing dierent stages of grammaticalization: a
more aspect-like and less aspect like Aktionsart.
Verb-particles and preverbs are thus doing basically the same job in Estonian,
Livonian, Latvian and Lithuanian though there are a lot of contexts where these
languages dier in their concrete usage. The main dierence between the four
languages is the frequency load of the two means of expression. In Estonian there
are no preverbs. In Livonian verb particles are still dominant, the use of preverbs
diers from speaker to speaker and does not contribute very much to the semantic
content of the sentence. In Latvian preverbs are more dominant than verb particles
and they are the more important means of expression for telicity. In Lithuanian
verb particles are almost lacking, except the NW-dialects. The dierent degree of
grammaticalization of verb particles and preverbs entails a dierent range of
concrete functions. The semantically emptier preverbs tend to be purer markers of
420 Bernhard Wlchli
telicity and are found partly in contexts which is expressed by the perfective aspect
in languages with a perfective-imperfective distinction. This can be summarized in
Figure 1 (simplied).
expression of accomplished activity / telicity

more imperfective- >>>>>>>>>>> more perfective-
like functions like functions
Estonian verb particles

Livonian verb particles preverbs
Latvian verb particles preverbs
Lithuanian v.-p. preverbs
Figure 1.Range of verb particles and preverbs
There is thus an areal continuum from Estonian to Lithuanian.
3. Semantic relationships of Latvian, Livonian and Estonian

verb particles
We will now discuss the corresponding Latvian and Livonian verb particles whose
lexical context is specic enough to supply us with further evidence for the spread of
verb particles in Southern Finnic and Latvian. The listing of lexical material might
appear tiresome, but it cannot be avoided, as only cumulative evidence can prove
a diachronic inuence in similar characteristic lexical structures.
3.1 Ltv. vala (loc) = Liv. valdin (instruc) in the power/will of > open
The Lithuanian expression for open is ati-darytas, the past participle of ati-daryti
to open (at[i]- open, daryti to do), also at-daras, at-viras and at-vertas (at-verti
to open). Other verbs can also be prexed by the particle at- to express the result
open, untied of the activity expressed by the verb stem, e.g. uo ati-truko nuo
grandines the dog broke away from the chain. Old Prussian is similar to Lithuanian
in this respect: tijt wrst ioumus et-wiriuns (part.past.act.nom.sg.masc) and so it
will be opened to you.
This preverb at- is also used in Latvian in similar contexts, e.g. at-verts10 open
(also at-taists), but it is more common to say vala to render the notions open;
untied, loose, free. Ltv. vala is the locative form of the noun vala freedom, leisure,
free time; arbitrariness; power; permission; will and it is related to Lith. valia
freedom, will (valioti subdue to ones power), Slav. volja will (voliti to prefer,
desire).
In Livonian there is a very similar expression meaning open: valdin (also
valdi < *-isin, vadl with metathesis, LivSal. vallis) open; untied, free is the
instructive (plural) form of the noun valda power, free will; permission, authori-
zation; arbitrariness; administrative district, which is related to Est. vald power;
administrative district and Fin. valta power; rule, authority; state, rule. The Finnic
word is a loan from Germanic, consider Old Norse vald power, rule, someones
territory (vera valdi e-s to be in somebodys power, depend on) (Thomsen, see
SKES s.v. valta).
Generally there are dierent particles of dierent semantic origin to express the
meaning open in Estonian and Finnish: Est. lahti open; untied; loose;11 Fin. auki
open (aukko aperture, gap, Liv. ouk hole), irti untied, loose (probably < Baltic,
see SKES s.v. irta). There are, however, peripheral sparsely used expressions of the
same semantic origin as Ltv. vala and Liv. valdin in Estonian, Finnish, Veps and
Lithuanian: Est. vallali free, untied, loose, not married, valla open, free, untied soo
sna valla the fen is completely open, not frozen, uks on vallal (EstS. vallan) the
door is open, vallale (all) tegema to open (make open); Fin. vallalleen, -llensa
(get) loose, free, sade, tyt on vallassa the rain/work is loose, in power; Veps koir
um vaudau (adess), pzui cepipi the dog is untied, free, he has got loose from the
chain. Lith. (dial.) palikti duris valioj (loc) let the door open, leisti kurtus i valia
let the greyhounds free (NSS: s.v. valia).12
Because of its spread in Baltic and Finnic languages the semantic development
in somebodys power, in freedom > untied, loose (> opened) must have taken
place in Baltic and Finnic independently. These expressions not very common
originally in either language group were favored in the language contact because of
their structural identity and therefore they became common expressions of Latvian
and Livonian. Finnic could not imitate the highly grammaticalized Baltic preverbs
and it was impossible for Baltic to express an accomplishment by means of an
unprexed single verb.13 As a rule Latvian and Livonian favored and generalized the
structures that already existed in both of them.
Besides the accidental phonetic similarity, there are some additional common
semantic features of the two nouns Ltv. vala and Liv. valda conrming the Latvian-
Livonian lexical relationship:
1. Ltv. savvala, Liv. um valdas on ones own (account): Ltv. berni palika sava
vala (loc) the children were left to themselves, Liv. lp um ent valdas (iness)
kazn the child grew up without supervision, Lith. vaikai palikti savo valiai (dat)
the children were left to themselves, Fin. el omin valloin (instruc) to live on
ones own account; Ltv. savvalas augi, dzvnieki wild plants, animals, Liv. volda
um valdas to be ones own master. Consider also the following example from
Loorits (1936: 294):
422 Bernhard Wlchli
(4) Livonian Latvian

vel min vol tm siuv vel man bija ovasar I could be still this summer
-ent valdas vuolda, paai sava vala but, on my own (unmarried),
vel min vol t tuoista vel man bij dau labu I had still the occasion
kila-puos ertl tautas delu kaitinat to tease some suitors
2. Ltv. valu dot, Liv. vald and to allow (give permission), Lith. ar valia vogti?
is stealing permitted?, savo vale (= valia) duoti i ka (= kam) consent to something
(Kuraitis: s.v. valia), Veps antta vauad to allow iile vauad it is not permitted (to).
3. Ltv. veja vala exposed to the wind, tas stav Jusu vala it is in your power, Liv.
loja um tul valdas the boat is exposed to the wind, in the power of the wind, Est.
ma olen haiguse vallas I am in the power of the illness, ta on oppimise vallas he is
learning very assiduously (in the power of learning).
Conclusion: The verb particles rendering the notion open, untied, free seem to
have developed independently in Baltic and Finnic from nouns with matching
semantic structures and phraseological uses (and even similar forms although they
are not etymologically related). The result of language contact was not to invent
new expressions, but to use similar already existing but peripheral expressions more
frequently. The older common Baltic (preverb at-) and Finnic expressions (achieve-
ment verb, other verb particles) could not be imitated in the other language group
and were not supported by language contact.14
3.2 Ltv. ciet = Liv. viz (ill), vizas (iness) hard > closed
The adverb and verb particle Ltv. ciet(i) closed; tied, xed corresponds to the
preverb aiz-, e.g. aiz-dart, aiz-taist to close, aiz-slegt lock (up), whose Lithuanian
equivalent is u-, e.g. u-daryti to close, u-rakinti to lock (up). There is no verb
particle or adverb with this meaning in Lithuanian. Ltv. ciet(i) is derived from the
adjective ciets hard, solid, xed (Lith. kietas id., adverb kietai id.).
In Livonian there is a similar situation: Liv. vizas (iness), viz (ill) closed uk
um vizas the door is closed, panub uks viz shuts the door is related to the
adjective viza hard; tough (wood) viz pud um llam uol tough (brous) wood
is hard to carve.
The Latvian and Livonian verb particles dier in their form, which is an adverb
in Latvian, but a local case in Livonian, both derived from an adjective hard.
Estonian has a similar structure as Latvian and Livonian: kinni closed, hard, rm,
tightly close to (pea pea klles kinni (corn) ear tightly close to ear). There is
however no adjective in Estonian or Finnish from which the verb particles Est. kinni
and Fin. kiinni id. are obviously derived as there is in Latvian and Livonian; note the
derived adjective Est. kinnine closed and the loosely related adjective kindel sure,
certain, reliable, xed.
There are many common phrases containing this verb particle or related words:
1. Est. kinnine j solid ice (without gaps), Ltv. plavas vel bij cieti it was still not
possible to graze on the meadows.
2. Est. lehm jb kinni, Liv. niem lb viz, Ltv. govs iet ciet the cow stops giving
milk, (aiz-)laist govi ciet stop milking the cow before the birth of the calf , but
also Lith. kietapiene karve cow that is not giving milk.
3. Est. kinni panema jalad, Ltv. (dabut) kajas ciet EIV II, 39 put on shoes (put
the feet closed) (see Kagaine 1992: 226228).
The following phraseological structure has produced nominal derivations in Latvian
and Livonian: Ltv. (sa-)nemt ciet to arrest (to take xed as Ger. fest-nehmen; the
corresponding preverb is not aiz- but sain these cases,15 compare Lith. su-laikyti,
su-imti to arrest), ap-ciet-inat to arrest, cietums prison; Liv. vt viz to arrest
tnda akzti viz he was arrested, caught, ta istab vizas he is (sits) in prison,
viza-kuoda prison; Est. ta on kinni/vangis he is in prison, kinni/vangi panema,
kinni vtma to arrest (but torn, puur, vangla prison).
This verb particle is used more frequently in Livonian than in Latvian to render
the notion of something xed.
(5) Livonian
Kuojg ailiz kuolka nana pl viz.
ship run:past.3sg Kolka cape on xed
The ship ran aground on the cape of Kolka.
(Ltv. uz-skriet run aground), but consider sei ciet to sunenu! EIV III, 314 tie up
this dog!, Liv. lang um viza sidamzt the thread must be tied.
Conclusion: The Latvian verb particle cieti hard > closed, xed is semantically of
Finnic origin (Est. kinni, Fin. kiinni). But there is a secondary development shared
only by Latvian and Livonian, concerning both the verb particle (which is derived
from an adjective) and the lexical semantics of Ltv. ciet(i) and Liv. vizas, viz (e.g.
the derived notion of prison).
3.3 Ltv. roka (loc) = Liv. kd (ill), kds (iness) in the hand of >
got (hold of)
Finnic tends to express meanings such as to catch by means of a verb of a general
character and a verb particle: Fin. ottaa kiinni to catch (take xed), for kiinni see
(3.2). In similar contexts, especially in Estonian, we have to add a verb particle
which is frequently used in Finnic, and whose Latvian equivalent is obviously of
Finnic origin: Ltv. roka (loc), Est. ktte (ill), kdess (iness); Liv. kd (ill),
kds (iness) gotten, caught, derived from Ltv. roka, Liv. kej, Est. ksi hand,
arm (see Endzelns 190506: 137 and Arumaa 1935: 128). There is no similar
structure in Lithuanian as can be seen in the following examples: Ltv. roka dabut
424 Bernhard Wlchli
catch, meklet roka (imperfective of sa-meklet) look for, kert, grabt roka catch,
grasp, roka but be at hand, be seized by somebody, jau roka (I have) already
found it. Liv. kd sod reach, get jen pind sabd kips piga kd many dogs
catch a rabbit soon; ro um minn kds I have the money (at hand). Est. ktte
saama get, reach; understand, ktte judma get close to, pikese ktte panema
expose to the sun; kes (olema) (be) present, at hand, minu aega on veel kes my
time is not yet over. But Lith. gaudyti catch (Ltv. kert roka), iekoti look for (Ltv.
meklet roka), rasti; nutverti, suciupti (Ltv. dabut roka) nd; get.
Kagaine/Bus 1985: 25f. observed that Ltv. roka is used in more contexts in
NW-Vidzeme (as in Estonian) than in Standard Latvian, e.g. also speaking of
animals (which do not have hands): nedo vis sunam roka, apest uzreiz do not give
everything to the dog at once, he eats up everything.16
Conclusion: In the case of roka in the hand Latvian seems to have almost
completely imitated the structure of a Finnic verb particle, diering only somewhat
in the range of its use in special contexts. As we will see it is unusual that Latvian
does not contribute any structural features in the genesis of its verb particles.
Latvian, however, does not agree with Livonian and Estonian in the use of elative-
like expressions of the same noun hand: Ltv. no rokas from the hand cannot be
used in elative contexts similar to those of the inessive-like and illative-like exam-
ples above, but this is common in Livonian, e.g. ala kiz min kdst (elat) sieda
dont ask me (from my hand) for this. Latvian changes this elative-like expres-
sion to a locative, but very sparsely as in NW-Vidzeme prasu roka to sietinu I will
ask for this sieve. The same is true of expressions with body parts which express
put on/take o (clothes). Latvian agrees with Estonian e.g. in Est. riideid selga (ill)
panema put on clothes (into the back) = Ltv. vilkt drebes mugura, but not in
riideid seljast (elat) vtma take o the clothes (from the back) Ltv. vilkt
drebes zeme/nost take o the clothes (to the ground/away). Thus Latvian agrees
with the Estonian alternative riideid maha panema take o the clothes (to the
ground) which is also generally used in Livonian: ornd moz vied id.
3.4 Ltv. kopa (loc) = Liv. kub (ill), kubs (iness) in(to) a pile >
together
Latvian, Livonian and Estonian have developed a verb particle meaning together
out of a local case of a noun meaning heap, pile:
Ltv. nakt kopa (loc), Liv. kub tulda, Est. kokku (ill) tulema come together,
Ltv. likt kopa, Liv. kub panda, Est. kokku panema put together (to a pile); Ltv.
kopa pile (of corn); sheaf; bundle, Liv. kub pile, bundle of bast, Est. kogu pile;
bulk; corpulence; whole.17
There is a similar structure in Lithuanian: kruvoj (loc), kruvon (ill), i kruva
together, su-rinkti i kruva gather (together), but it is not commonly used.
Lithuanian generally uses other expressions meaning together: kartu (inst) (kartas
a time, karta once) or drauge (loc) (draugas friend, cf. also Ltv. biedru together
[rare] to biedrs companion).
These peculiarities have already been noted by Arumaa (1935: 132). He also
observed that in all three languages (Ltv., Liv., Est.) there is an additional expression
to one pile of the same (sometimes emphatic) meaning together: Ltv.
vienkopu(s), -u, Liv. d(s) kub(s), Est. hte kokku (ill), hes koos (iness).
(6) Latvian
Nauda atkal bijuse visa vienkopu. (M-E 4, 660)
money again be:part.past.fem all:fem one pile:inst
All the money was again all together.
(7) Livonian
Siz ne zdd adt sa-kutsnd (Setl 1953:98)
then these Jews be:3pl together-invite:part.past.pl
pgin d kub.
many one pile:ill
Then these Jews had invited many people (together).
(Note the Latvian preverb sain the Livonian example.)

The structure to one pile seems to go back to Finnic (but cf. also Sw. ihop
together, hop pile, a lot). It is common also in other Finnic languages, see e.g.
Veps keratas hthe kogoho gather (intr). This is even more evident if we consider
Finnic local case forms of the word one meaning together: Fin. yhdess (iness),
yhteen (ill) etc., also Mrd. vejse (iness), vejs (ill) together.
As the equivalent to Est. koos (iness), kokku (ill) is also common in the
Northern Finnic languages, Ltv. kopa (loc) together is an evident structural trait
of Finnic in Latvian. Are Liv. kub(s) and Est. koos/kokku then equally good
equivalents to Ltv. kopa? The answer is no.
Fin. koko has slightly dierent semantics: whole (Adj. indecl.); size; (rarely)
pile. Estonian is similar in this respect (Est. kogu selle the whole night, but
hunnik, kuhi pile; hulk bulk, crowd, also hulgas [iness] together [rare]).
Conclusion: The parallel development in the area of contact began with Finnic
*koko whole; size; pile forming the case forms *kokoon (ill), *koossa (iness)
together. This was identied in Latvian with kopa pile > kopa (loc) together.
There was no exact equivalent in Latvian to the complex meaning of Finnic *koko.
As a secondary development in Livonian a new equivalent to Ltv. kopa pile, kopa
together emerged: Liv. kub pile, bundle of bast (Est. kubu bundle, kubu lge
bundle of straw, 3 1/2 sheaves) forming the case forms kub(s) meaning together.
This is perhaps originally a Baltic loan (Ltv. guba pile [of hay], bulk; guba [loc]
together [rare]). There is no etymological equivalent to Est. koos (iness), kokku
(ill) in Livonian.18
426 Bernhard Wlchli
3.5 Ltv. ldz(i) = Est. kaasa(s) (taking) with, along

The next particle to be discussed has much in common semantically with the
previous one. Consider the following examples from Baltic and Finnic languages:
(8) Latvian
Pamate no-sutja ar barenti ldzi
stepmother away-send:past.3 also orphan along
(9) Livonian
Vo rz jema sotiz ka n borin laps
foreign mother send:past.3sg also along orphan kid
(10) Lithuanian
Pamote nu-siunte ir nalaitele kartu
stepmother away-send.past.3 also orphan along
(11) Estonian
Vrasema saatis vaeslapse ka kaasa
stepmother send.past.3sg orphan also along
The stepmother also sent the orphan along.
Lithuanian diers in that it has the same expression meaning together and
(taking) along: kartu (alternatively drauge, see above):19
Lith. Ltv. Liv. Est. Fin. Veps Ger.
kartu ldz(i) n(z) kaasa(s) mukana/mukaan kerdau mit along

kopa kub(s) koos/kokku yhdess/yhteen htes zusammen together
Lithuanian diers also from Latvian, Finnic and German concerning the range of
the expression kartu: Lith. a neturiu su savimi (Rus. s soboj) Ltv. man nav ldzi
I havent (it) on me Lith. a jo nepaveju/nespeju su juo kartu, Ltv. netieku vinam
ldzi I cant follow him. In the Lithuanian reexive verb pa-si-imti take along
(with/for oneself) the notion of Ltv. ldzi is rendered by a preverb in combination
with a reexive marker.
Ltv. ldzi and Liv. n can be constructed with the preposition Ltv. ar with or
with the Liv. translative case respectively: Ltv. ldz ar manim (along) with me, Liv.
tul min-kks (trnsl) niz (Setl 1953: 319) come with me. They are, however,
generally constructed with a dative without any preposition:20
(12) Livonian
Siz um teg vtn entn d valda bz n.
then be:3sg again take:part.past self:dat one:acc white horse:acc along
Then (he) took again a white horse along with him (it is said).
Liv. n (< n) is related to Fin. ynn beside, and (ynn muuta and other
[things]), also along (rare) tule ynn minun kanssani come (along) with me. Fin.
ynn is the ancient essive form to yksi one, for its meaning compare also Fin. yhde-
ss (iness), yhte-en (ill) together etc, Mrd. vejs(e) (ill/iness) id. Mar. ikte,
ikvere id. deriving from the same stem. Liv. n seems thus to be completely Finnic
in character.
Ltv. ldz(i) is originally an adverb from the Baltic adjective (Lith) lygus equal
(adv lygiai), which has been lost in Latvian (Ltv. ldz-g-s equal). Ltv. ldz(i) was
thus originally equal (with) > along with. The dative construction is easily
understood because of this semantic origin, see e.g.:
(13) Latvian
lai es ar balta augu ldz citam
in-order-that I also white:fem grow:1sg equal other:dat.pl.fem
masinam
sister:dat.pl.fem
in order that I also grow pretty like the other sisters
The Baltic adverb (Lith.) lygiai also developed the meaning as far as (Preposition):
Lith. ligi ryto (gen) until morning. Latvian preserved the dative construction: ldz
rtam (dat) id., ldz pat ezeram as far as to the very lake.
We conclude that there is no common semantic origin of Ltv. ldzi and LivK.
n. But we have to consider Est. kaasa(s) and LivSal. kazu.
Est. kaasa (ill), kaasas (iness) Postpos. with, Adv along, which is also
considered to be the source of the Estonian comitative case -ga and the Livonian
comitative -ks (in Livonian merged with the translative), is related to Est. kaasa
companion; spouse, abi-kaasa spouse. Est. abi-kaasa is a synonym compound:
abi help, helper, handyman; spouse, abielu matrimony (elu life).
Consider the following derived Latvian nouns with similar meanings which are
not found in Lithuanian: Ltv. lgava bride; playfellow, companion (female) is
derived from the stem lg- equal by means of the Baltic sux -ava, which has a
collective sense place where there is much of, a troop of : Lith. bernava troop of
young men, velniava nest of devils (see Skardius 1941: 380).21 Ltv. lgava then
seems to have been originally a person of the same company, companion (com-
pare also Ger. Ge-fhrte id.). This ties in with other Baltic designations of young
women: Ltv. vedekla daughter-in-law (vest lead [along]) and Lith. su-tuoktine
bride (teketi run, ow; marry).
There is another interesting derivative of lg- in Latvian: pa-lgs helper, nakt
palga (loc), palgos (loc.pl) to come and help, help.22 Compare Est. api help,
helper; spouse (male or female) mentioned above, appi (ill) tulema come and
help. The Latvian verb paldzet to help and the noun paldzba help are derived.
Latvian diers very much from Lithuanian in this respect: Lith. pagelbeti to help
(pagalba help, gelbeti save, help) is related to galeti can as Rus. po-moc help to
moc can. See also Lith. pa-deti help (put under) and elpti support, help
(related to help).
428 Bernhard Wlchli
There is a straightforward correspondence between Latvian and Estonian if we

consider that Est. api and kaasa have almost the same meaning (abi, kaasa, abi-
kaasa companion, spouse):
Ltv. Est
ldz(i) kaasa(s) along (with)

lg-ava kaasa/abi bride/spouse; companion
pa-lgs abi helper
pa-ldz-et abi-ma to help
The Livonian of Vidzeme seems to have shared the Latvian-Estonian development,

as the form LivSal. kazu with attests. Additionally the etymon is found in Livonian
in the old compound kaz-gnd marriage (*kansa-kunta, Fin. kunta company).
The Livonian loanword in Latvian kazas (pl) marriage seems to originate from the
uncompounded *kaza. The lexical plural in Ltv. kazas is of Baltic origin (see Ltv.
vedbas [pl] marriage, Lith. vestuves [pl] id.) In Liv. kaz-gn-d the -d is reinter-
preted as a plural marker as in si-gn-d viscera because of Latvian inuence
(juod kozgini [prtv.pl] drink marriage i.e. celebrate marriage, also Ltv. kazas
dzert drink marriage, this phrase is of Finnic origin).
Conclusion: Latvian, Finnic and (some) Germanic languages share the property
of having two dierent particles to express (taking) with, along and together (cf.
3.4). Only in Latvian and Kurzeme Livonian is this particle commonly accompanied
by a dative (cf. 4). In Latvian, Estonian and probably Vidzeme Livonian, but not in
Kurzeme Livonian, the particles meaning along (with) share special semantic
relationships, including the concepts bride, spouse, companion and helper, help.
It is not clear whether this is an Estonian (or Vidzeme Livonian) feature in Latvian
or whether there was a common development.
3.6 Ltv. nost = Liv. jra, jara, jera separated, remote > away
Liv. jra, jara, jera (also jerandiz, LivSal. jra) away is the most common verb
particle in Livonian (as is the related Est. ra in Estonian). Its Latvian equivalent is
nost away, which often corresponds to the most common Latvian preverb no-.
E.g. Liv. jara kuoln (part.past) dead, Ltv. mirsti (imp.2.sg) nost!, no-miris
(part.past) dead Liv. jara sed eat (up), Ltv. ed (imp.2.sg) vien nost! eat
up!, but ap-est eat (up) is more common than no-est Liv. jara ld go away,
Ltv. pa-ej (imp.2.sg) nost! go away!.
We can distinguish two dierent sorts of away in Latvian and Livonian. Ltv.
nost, Liv. jara means away (out of contact) as opposed to Ltv. projam, Liv. jeds-
pedn away (to a completely dierent place), as in the following example:
(14) Livonian
Ma to mtsa-izandks rkand, aga ta vol
I want:past.1sg forest-ranger:com speak:inf but he be:past.3sg
jva jeds-pedn lnd.
already gone go.part.past
I wanted to talk to the forest ranger, but he was already gone.
On the other hand (take) away is usually translated as away (out of contact): Liv.
jara vt, Ltv. nemt nost, the Latvian preverb is at-: at-nemt, as Lith. at-imti, Rus. ot-
njat take away. In Estonian (but not in the Leivu dialect) there is only one
corresponding equivalent ra for the two Latvian and Livonian lexical items.
Let us now have a look at the semantic background of Liv. jra and Ltv. nost.
Liv. jra, Est. ra are related to the noun Est. ra something separate, special,
private, e.g. ra-t second job (of a farm-hand), Fin. ero dierence (see above)
and the particle is originally a lative form (*ra-k) of this noun, meaning originally
to the separation.
Ltv. nost and nostan (ancient illative), are etymologically related to the adjective
Lith. at-stus, Ltv. at-stats, remote, distant, a compound of the preverb at- and the
stem stoti to put (standing), also as an adverb Ltv. atstatu(s): nasis viena no otras
labi atstatus their noses are far away from each other. We can reconstruct an
adjective *nuo-stus, from which Ltv. nost is derived.
It is very interesting that Lithuanian does not have this Latvian particle; away
is expressed apart from the preverbs nu-, at- by means of lauk, laukan (ill)
away; out(doors) (laukas eld; see also Rus. von away; out[doors]; Old Prussian
vinna out[doors] with other semantic connotations); i ali, alin (ill), (into the
side) and tolyn (toli far, distant): eiti lauk, alin, i ali, tolyn go away (cf. 3.7).
Conclusion: It cannot be considered a coincidence that a new expression with
an illative or lative case marking meaning away was derived from a particle
meaning separated, remote in Latvian, Livonian and Estonian and that this particle
(or the corresponding preverb) became the most important marker of verb
determination in the three languages. This parallel development started out from
very dierent language-specic material (Ltv. adjective *nuo-stus remote, Liv.-Est.
noun ra dierence).
3.7 Ltv. ara = LivSal. velen in the free eld > out(doors)
Nilsson (1995) has recently discussed the parallel semantics of Lith. laukan (ill)
and Fin. pellolle (all), Veps pudole (similarly Karelian) to the eld > out(doors).
In Lithuanian laukan, lauk, i lauka is the general expression meaning out, but in
Finnish the older Finnic expressions ulos (lative), ulkona (ess) outdoors are much
more common (in Veps, irdau, vereil, vra are most common). Nilsson, however,
fails to mention Est. vlja (ill), vljas (iness) out to vli eld, plain and LivSal.
430 Bernhard Wlchli
vell, velle out, velen, velan, vlen (ess) outdoors to vell eld, place in the yard.
Although the semantic development to the eld > out may be not very distinctive
(see Nilsson 1995 and Nepokupnyj 1976: 7782 for further examples), it must be
stressed that to the eld became the general expression meaning out only in
Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Vidzeme Livonian.
In Latvian there is a second expression ara out, locative to ara, are, ars the free
eld, arable land, which became more common than Ltv. lauka. Ltv. ara and Est.
vli share the peculiarity of occurring as the rst components of compounds e.g. ara
(gen) plava beautiful meadow in the neighborhood of the farm, Est. vli-maa free
open land without trees. Now Est. vlismaa means the foreign countries as Ltv.
arzeme (compare Grm. Ausland). Vidzeme Livonian seems to be very similar to
Estonian (there is a lack of further evidence), but Kurzeme Livonian has not joined
this semantic development and retains the old Finnic expressions ul (< *ulkona
ess) outdoors and ulz out.
Conclusion: In this example a Latvian-Livonian-Estonian verb particle has
generalized Baltic semantics, the Finnic term (Fin.) ulkona could not be analyzed in
Latvian. As Fin. pellolle out shows, the development to the eld > out is nothing
special, but the generalization of such an expression is. As in Ltv. ldzi, LivSal. kazu
(see Section 3.5), Kurzeme Livonian is outside of the area of convergence in this
case. Ltv. ara and Est. vli have some additional semantic features in common, but
it is dicult to say whether there is a special common diachronic development in
favor of Ltv. ara.
4. The Latvian-Livonian dative
In contrast to the other Finnic languages, Kurzeme Livonian has a fully developed
dative case (-n) of its own and seems to be Baltic in this respect.23 The functions of
the Latvian and Livonian dative largely agree. A very characteristic function is the
use of a dative in combination with a verb particle or a postposition. It must be
stressed that Lithuanian does not use a dative in this context. It can therefore be
assumed that this function is an important feature of the convergence of the
Latvian-Livonian dative and we will try to outline the diachronic development
leading to this isomorphism.
Verb particles in Latvian and Kurzeme Livonian can be combined with datives
almost as postpositions or prepositions. The dierence is that the nominal phrase
with the dative case need not precede or follow the verb particle immediately. Verb
particles and datives seem to function as constituents and their word order is quite
free. A verb particle can be combined with a preposition with the same semantics so
that there are quite a lot of possible combinations. Consider the examples with the
verb particles (VPrt) Ltv. cauri, Liv. leb(l) and the corresponding prepositions
(Prp) Ltv. caur, Liv. leb. The gaps do not mean that the corresponding combina-
tions do not exist:
Prp + acc caur pilsetu leb pilst through the city

dat VPrt pilsetai cauri pilstn leb(l) throughout the city
VPrt dat cauri pilsetai leb(l) pilstn id.
Prp + acc VPrt / leb vied leb(l) through the water
VPrt Prp + acc cauri teku caur Jelgavu Through I passed
through J.
The noun in the dative case depends as much on the verb particle (as on a post- or
preposition) as on the verb:
(15) Latvian
Cel gaja cauri visu ciema septinu
way go:past.3 throughout all:gen.pl village:gen.sg seven:gen.pl
saimnieku pagalmiem. (LLVV: s.v. cauri)
peasant:gen.pl yard:dat.pl
The path led through the courtyards of all seven peasants in the village.24
The same holds for relational nouns such as body parts:
(16) Latvian
Vin (uz-) kapa zirgam mugura.
he (on mount:past.3 horse:dat back:loc
He got on horseback.
Sjgren wrote about this peculiarity in Livonian where the dative -n is closely
related to the genitive -:
Bisweilen noch kann es zweifelhaft erscheinen, ob man den auf n endigenden
Casus fr einen vom Verbum des Satzes abhngigen Genit. zu halten hat. So
knnte z.B. mit ta astz bzn (bzn) slg eben so gut gemeint sein er stieg
auf den Rcken des Pferdes wie er stieg dem Pferde auf den Rcken und so
sehr oft vor den als Postpositionen dienenden Kasus mancher Nomina, z.B.
radl bzn (bzn) pal (schlage auf das Pferd) pakan volt ka sie rms
butkn jurs (bald waren sie auch bei der gefrchteten Htte), mez magub
nazn kuoral (der Mann schlft neben dem Weibe) u.d.gl. (SjW II, 1 76).24
Sivers (1970) also observed that the dative and the genitive tend to appear in the
same functions in many contexts in Livonian, such as e.g. ma (gen) man (dat)
iza the father of the mother of the mother.26 From the fact that the Livonian dative
is not easily distinguished from the genitive in its position before a postposition or
a (relational) noun we can learn something about its origin.
The Livonian dative has developed from two sources, genitive (*-n) and essive
(*-na), the latter comprising only a few functions (e.g. temporal Liv. pivan-pavan
432 Bernhard Wlchli
on Sunday as Fin. sunnuntai-na id.). As nal -n is generally lost in Livonian, the

Finnic marker of the genitive -n was preserved only in sandhi-position before
vowels as in mier-n-ajgas on the beach of the sea. The split of the Finnic genitive in
dative (-n) and genitive (-) in Livonian thus started before postpositions beginning
with a vowel (as al under, imr around, n along with). So we can explain the
variation of genitive and dative before postpositions (Liv. loda[n] al under the
table).27 Perhaps the same development took place in front of the conjugated forms
of the verb to be (e.g. um I am, he is) as in minn um lemzt I must go
(*minun om lhtemista) (see Wlchli 1996a on the Latvian-Livonian debitive). The
Livonian dative was thus originally only a (more distinct) variant of the genitive.
With its fuller ending there was a tendency to use it in exposed (e.g. predicative)
positions where the ending -n should not be present according to the sound law).
The spread of the use of a dative with a postposition in Latvian has a very
dierent source. In Standard Lithuanian there are hardly any prepositions or
postpositions constructed with a dative, and in Lithuanian dialects this phenome-
non is never as common as in Latvian. The Latvian frequency of the dative with
prepositions or postpositions is partly due to the loss of the instrumental case which
merged with the dative in the plural. Thus, every plural noun dependent on a
preposition is constructed with a dative in Latvian (except in the High dialect).
There are however a considerable number of Latvian prepositions and postpositions
constructed with a dative that are not known in Lithuanian. Some of them have
developed out of adjectives, others out of local nouns. One of the rst group we met
already in our discussion of Ltv. ldzi (see 3.5). As with ldz(i) the dative construc-
tion of other examples is easily understood because of their semantical origin equal
to, along to. From this source the dative was extended into other contexts:
Ltv. blakus adv., prepos. and postpos. near, beside: apsesties blakus tevam (dat) sit
down beside the father, but Lith. atsisesti alia tevo (gen) id.
Ltv. garam adv., prepos. and postpos. (pass) along: Ltv. paiet garam stacijai (dat)
(stacijai garam) to pass along the station, but Lith. praeiti pro stoti (acc) id.
Ltv. cauri adv., prepos. and postpos. through(out): udens sucas cauri jumtam (dat)
(jumtam cauri) the water leaks through the roof , but Lith. vanduo teka kiaurai pro
stoga (acc) id.
As a consequence of language contact in Latvian there was a strong tendency to use
verb particles as prepositions or postpositions instead of the old Baltic prepositions.
A considerable number of them were derived from adjectives and originally had a
dative construction. As we saw above, Livonian also had a tendency to use the
dative in constructions with postpositions but for completely dierent reasons.
These separate tendencies had almost the same result and reinforced each other in
the language contact situation. The emergence of the dative with postpositions and
prepositions in Latvian and Kurzeme Livonian is thus a good example of how
language contact can make things look completely dierent than they were
originally in any of the languages involved.
5. Conclusions
5.1 The development of the Latvian-Livonian-Estonian verb particles

The Latvian-Livonian-Estonian verb particles described here have their origin in the
Southern Finnic area. Their lexical base contains many Germanic traits (e.g. the
loanwords Fin. valta power, rule, kansa people; companion < [Northern]
Germanic) and some Baltic traits (Fin. irti loose, untied). The development toward
a grammaticalization in the Southern Finnic area, beginning with a purely lexical
application (as in Finnish), is inuenced by the contact with the Baltic neighbors in
the South. Baltic shows a strong tendency to designate perfectivity by means of
prexes to the verb. It was probably Baltic inuence in the beginning, not Slavic
because of relative chronology or Germanic because of areal distribution
that acted upon Southern Finnic. The process must have started early; otherwise we
could not explain the Finnic inuence in the forming of the Latvian verb particles.28
The northernmost Baltic area joins the Southern Finnic development of using
adverbs and nouns in local cases as well as prexes in order to determinate verbs,
choosing whenever possible Baltic word material already at hand. For this reason
Latvian usually selected structures of unspectacular semantic origin; the main change
was not to invent or translate expressions, but to use peripheral expressions of
Baltic more frequently. It is clear that common expressions of equal semantic origin
in dierent languages, as e.g. Est. maha, Lith. emyn, Grm. zu Boden to the ground,
bottom > down, often are of general semantic character. There is however at least
one very distinctive parallel development Ltv. vala in the will/power of > free
(adv) > untied > open and Liv. valdin by power of > free (adv) > untied >
open (cf. 3.1) which seems to be old in both Baltic and Finnic, but was original-
ly sparsely used in its meaning open, untied in both Baltic and Finnic.
In some cases Baltic already had a certain special structure at its disposal, as e.g.
Ltv. puu to pieces, in two (Lith. pusiau id., puse half ) and thus there was no need
for any agreement with Livonian or Estonian (Liv. katki, Est. katki; consider Est.
katk Bruch, morastiges Gebsch, katke brittle). It can be stated as a rule that the
verb particles that already existed or that were easily derived in both Finnic and
Baltic were favored as soon as these languages came into contact. In this respect
Latvian is often inuenced in its development by Southern Finnic (Estonian and
Livonian) and so is Livonian by Latvian.
Kurzeme Livonian is in some cases outside the area of convergence (see Ltv.
ldzi, LivSal. kazu but LivK. n and Ltv. ara, LivSal. velen but LivK. ul). The verb
434 Bernhard Wlchli
particles thus provide important evidence that Vidzeme Livonian is more related to
the Finnic dialects that most inuenced early Latvian.
As a secondary development in Livonian some expressions emerged that t
better as equivalents to the Latvian correspondent verb particles than the older
Finnic expressions preserved in Estonian (see Liv. kub together Est. kokku id.;
valdin open Est. lahti id., Fin. auki id.; Est. vallali seems to be old but rare).
The development just sketched is represented in Figure 2.
Finnic verb- grammaticali- development preverbs

particles zation of verb- of equivalent loaned in
particles in Livonian Livonian
Southern verb-particles and Leivu
Fennic
Germanic (and influence of the development of

Baltic) loans Baltic preverbs Latvian verb-
in Southern particles
Fennic
Language Finnish Lithuanian Estonian Latvian Livonian
representing
this stage
Figure 2.The relative chronology of the verb particles in Baltic and Finnic.
The lexical material of the verb particles shows that it would be somewhat too
easy to conclude that the Latvian verb particles are loans from Finnic. The situation
is more complex and more thrilling than that. In our discussion of the Latvian and
Livonian material we stated that almost every verb particle under consideration
shows a slightly dierent area of distribution. This can be summarized in Table 3.
5.2 Some results concerning the Latvian-Livonian language contact

Jakobson (1931) based his Circum-Baltic Sprachbund on only a handful of phonetic
facts.29 It is clear that in a geographically open region one cannot expect to nd
sharp linguistic borders when areal investigations are based on fuller material
implying also the full weight of lexical structures. Lexical structure is richer and
more specic than grammatical structure, and can therefore make a greater
contribution to areal investigation. It is especially important to take into account
lexical structure that interferes with grammatical structure whenever the origin of
grammatical features of areal character is the object of the inquiry.
As we saw, there are dierent isoglosses for dierent verb particles, e.g.
Kurzeme Livonian is inside an isogloss in some cases whereas in other cases it is not.
vala ciet roka got kopa ldz along nost ara out
open closed (hold of) together (with) away
Fin / Vps ((x)) [x] (x) [[x]] [[x]]

Estonian (x) [x] xx [x] x [x] x
LivSal x x x x x x x
LivK x x x x x x/[x]
Latvian x x x x x x [x]
Lithuanian ((x)) (x)
type / / /
(simplied)
x: verb particle of similar semantic origin as in Latvian, common

y
xx: the same as x, but used in more contexts than in Latvian
(x): the same as x, but not common
((x)) the same as x, but very rare
[x]: verb-particle with slightly dierent semantic structure
[[x]]: the same as [x], but not common
: Fennic > Latvian
: Fennic > Latvian, with special development in Latvian (and Livonian)
: parallel development
: Baltic > Southern Fennic, with special development in Estonian (and Latvian).
LivSal Livonian in Vidzeme (near Salis)
LivKur Livonian in Curonia (Kurzeme)
Figure 3.Areal distribution of some verb particles in Baltic and Finnic.
It seems more appropriate to speak of an areal continuum instead of a Sprachbund,

in which Livonian frequently, but not in all cases is closer to Latvian than Estonian
is and in which the verb particles are more developed in the Low dialect of Latvian
than in the High-Latvian dialect of Latgale. Furthermore it would be wrong to say
that Lithuanian is completely outside of the area of convergence; there are some
tendencies toward the Latvian development especially in NW-emaitian and
Northern Auktaitian (esp. of the iauliai and Paneveys group) subdialects (cf.
Girdenis/Kaciukiene 1986).30
Convergence is to be expected rather in cases in which there are already similar
or identical but sparsely used structures at hand in both languages, or, to put it
dierently, a change due to language contact is more probable if there is less to
change.31 It is thus extremely dicult to identify the origin of an areal development,
because it is very rare that a completely new structure is taken over by translation
into the neighboring language. The notion of loan translation seems to be more
appropriate in the context of cultural interference. As a rule, it is not the whole
<DEST "wal-n*">
436 Bernhard Wlchli
lexical structure of a lexical item that is subject to transfer in language contact, as

the transfer of lexical structures takes place at the phrasal and syntagmatic levels.
Only those features that are not of a general character and that are infrequently
found in the languages of the world are specic enough to characterize a special
area. This holds despite of the fact that it is unspectacular features that transfer most
easily. It is thus essential to consider as many common features as possible and to
take into account their cumulative evidence, assessing the structural impact of a
language contact, taking into consideration lexical and phraseological items to the
same extent as grammatical and phonological structures.
Notes
* Thanks to Simon Christen, sten Dahl, Jan Peter Locher, Nicole Nau and Marta Rudzte for
their valuable comments. Special thanks go to my informants Pauline Klavina (Livonian), Lembit
Vaba (Estonian) and Jurgita Kaliasaite (Lithuanian).
Most of the examples cited are extracted from the following dictionaries: Latvian: Mlen-
bachs/Endzelns 19231932, LVV, Balkevicius/Kabelka 1977; Lithuanian: Balkevicius/Kabelka
1977, LK, Kuraitis 19681973 and NSS; Livonian: Kettunen 1938, SjW II, 2; Estonian: Wiede-
mann 1973; Veps: Zajceva/Mullonen 1972.
1. The Latvian names Kurzeme (Curonia), Vidzeme (the Latvian part of Livonia) and Latgale refer
to the main geographical parts of present Latvia. The term Finnic is used in the sense of Fin.
itmerensuomalaiset kielet, Est. lnemeresoome keelet and Ger. ostseennisch.
2. As Solmsen (1922: 106) stated in his monograph about Indo-European proper names it can be
repeatedly observed that the designations of neighboring tribes belong to the same semantic
category. It is tempting to apply this to Henricus Letticus Letti and Lyvones of Vidzeme. The
former name is related to OHG letto loam, loamy soil, Ir. latach mud (compare the hydronyms
in the region of Vilnius Leta, Lata, Letanka where they probably originated, see Fraenkel
196265: s.v. latvis), the latter to Est. liiv sand, gravel. The two ethnonyms seem to point to the
preferred places of settlement of the two neighboring tribes of dierent linguistic background, the
Letti being occupied mainly with agriculture, the Lyvones rather with shing. It is exactly this
situation that is found in the last remaining Livonian area in the northernmost part of Kurzeme.
These Livonian shermen from Curonia called themselves randalizt people of the beach, and the
Latvians were called mo-mied people of the land by them.
3. There is no generally established term for the category of Latvian items and their equivalents in
Estonian and Livonian which includes Ltv. vala open, apkart around etc. and whose special
properties will be described below, we will refer to them as verb particles (following Hasselblatt
1990). Endzelns called them adverbs; unfortunately this designation could be misinterpreted, and
furthermore, not all verb particles are adverbs. Girdenis and Kaciukiene (1986) call them
postverbs.
It must be stressed that the verb particles have nothing in common with what are called
particles in traditional Baltic linguistics (such as e.g. Lith. gi, ar).
4. This tendency is much weaker in Northern Finnic languages such as Finnish. In contrast, in
Mari, a Finnic-Volgaic language heavily inuenced by Turkic languages, especially Chuvash, verb
stems tend to express achievements and accomplishments and the notion of an activity is
expressed by a dependent participle, e.g. peren pua hit (give by hitting), ludyn lekta read (all)
(go out by reading) (MRSl: 486).
5. The situation is dierent in North-Eastern emaitian and Northern Auktaitian subdialects
(esp. of the iauliai and Paneveys group; cf. Girdenis/Kaciukiene 1986).
6. In Latvian dialectology it is common to distinguish between larger and smaller areas referring
to them by dierent expressions, i.e. dialects (dialekti) and subdialects (izloksnes). There are only
three dialects (Low [also called the Livonian dialect of Latvian], Middle and High) but more than
400 subdialects.
7. The verb particles also appear, however, in combination with preverbs. This is especially
frequent in the subdialects of NW-Vidzeme, e.g. karpeli sa-augui velena kopa the potatoes grew
together in the clod (see Kagaine 1992: 213; MLLVGr I, 571). The verb particle functions as a
strengthening or as a more narrow specication of the semantics. Cf. also Dravin/Ruke (1958:46,
Note 1) for Stende Latvian.
In some cases there is not only a change between preverb and verb particle, but also a change
of the verb, e.g. sa-plst, sa-trukt tear (to pieces), intr. iet puu go to pieces, aiz-verties to
close (intr.) (aiz-)iet ciet go close. The verbs combined with verb particles tend to be less
specic in their semantic structure (often local: iet go, nakt come; likt put).
8. In Latvian there is no typical default preverb as in Lith. pa- or Rus. po-. The preverb no- is
however generally used with foreign words in colloquial and publicist speech as no-citet, no-diriget,
no-risket (see Hauzenberga-turma 1971: 290).
9. The Latvian preverbs appear also in Latvian Romani, which shows a similar opposition of
preverbs and verb particles as Latvian: e.g. kerl pr (Ltv. taist vala), ot-kerl (Ltv. at-taist) to
open. But the Latvian Romany dialect seems not to share the Latvian-Livonian lexical coincidence
in this case. See Manu-Belugin (1973: 128).
10. The Baltic verb Ltv. vert, Lith. verti, varyti (frequentative) to open and/or to close is
dependent on the existence of preverbs meaning open and close. Consider also the similar
Rus. ot-kryt to open, za-kryt to close and Lat. aperre to open, operre to close. Livonian has
no word to express the notion of Ltv. vert to open and/or to close, as can be seen in the following
example from Loorits (1936: 168):
Livonian Latvian
mdi paindi kodaj vdlbd visus ganus majas gaida
amadn at vodlijizt visiem vartu vereji
all the shepherds are awaited at home/every one of them has somebody to open and close the gate
(Ltv.)/has somebody that waits for them (Liv.).
11. There are also some phraseological coincidences between Ltv. vala and Est. lahti: Ltv. zeme ir/iet
vala, Est. maa on/lheb lahti the ground has thawed (the land is, goes open) (see Kagaine 1992:215).
12. I am very grateful to Vytautas Ambrazas for his detailed communication about the data of the
card les of LK in Vilnius: Lith. valio(j) (loc) and more rarely valiai (adv) meaning open is
found in the northernmost strip of Lithuanian at the border to Latvia in dierent dialects (from
West to East: Klk., Pp.; Jn., Sb., Slm., Ant.; Lnkv., P.; Vk.; Skrb.; Br., Rd.; Ppl., Pnd., Svn.,
PnmR.; Ob. For the abbreviations see LK I, XVII) and in two subdialects of the Southern
emaitian dialect (Kr, Klm). The forms are used in general in combination with doors, windows
and gates and also with rooms that are not locked, as the house, the courtyard, the store. Consider
also Vk. kopustu daigiai buvo valioj the young cabbage plants were open (i.e. not covered), which
is semantically related to Ltv. veja vala exposed to the wind. The meaning free as in radau visus
gyvulius valio kn I found all animals free can be found in a wider area.
438 Bernhard Wlchli
13. The Finnic languages can express the notions of to open and to close by means of specic
verbs: Fin. avata, Est. avama to open, Fin. sulkea, Est. sulgema to close. In Livonian these
expressions have been lost entirely in favor of the combinations with verb particles valdin tied to
open, viz tied, viz panda to close which is originally only a Finnic alternative (cf. e.g. Fin.
panen oven kiinni I shut the door) besides the expressions consisting of a single verb.
14. It is interesting that in Middle Low German and in Baltendeutsch the particles for untied and
xed (see Section 3.2) are also used with the meaning open and closed respectively (Nicole
Nau, personal communication). It can thus not be excluded that the parallel Latvian-Livonian
development is due partly to inuence by Middle Low German.
15. In Stende ciet additionally corresponds to the preverb ie- in bers mieg ciet the child falls asleep
(cf. Dravin/Ruke 1958: 48).
16. Cf. also in Stende: jems tev suns roka! our dog will seize you (Dravin/Ruke 1958: 51).
17. LivSal. kub, kup, kubs, kups together.
18. It is true that there are many secondary German loan translations in Estonian containing the
verb particle kokku/koos (as well as in Latvian kopa, kop-). But Hasselblatt (1990: 80) is certainly
wrong in holding that e.g. Est. kokku kuhjama pile up, Ger. auf-, zusammenhufen and kokku
kutsuma call together, Ger. zusammenrufen are loan translations from German. See e.g. Fin.
kokoontua gather (intr) and kutsua kokoon call (together).
19. Only common expressions are listed in the table.
20. Auch die Deutschen in Kurland haben ihn [the dative] sich angeeignet, und man hrt sehr
hug Redensarten wie gehst du mir mit? statt gehst du mit mir? und hnliche (SjW II, 1:76).
21. Consider Ukr. druyna wife but Rus. druina (military) troop, Pol. druzyna meeting etc.
The forms are related to Rus. drug etc. friend.
The meaning female person of the sux -ava (as represented in Ltv. dailava beautiful
woman, jaunava) continues the female u-stems of PIE, cf. e.g. OInd. vadhuh , nom.pl vadhvah
bride, young woman virgin, but it is not common in Lithuanian.
22. As to the prex consider Old Prussian stesmu poligu desgleichen and prei prusnas poligun
zum Bilde.
23. Finnic languages often render dative functions by means of the allative (Fin. antaa lapselle
[all] leip give bread to the child) and rarely by means of the genitive (as in Fin. Jumalan [gen]
kiitos thanks to god).
24. For the sequence of genitives and quantiers in this example see Christen in this volume.
25. Although Vidzeme Livonian has no dative there is a similar situation, as there is an allative
instead of a dative and not a genitive: mil imi om tdl (dat) vail which man is between you, ku
sinnel (dat) sizal sie vald om pind when the light in you is dark (SjW I 76). Estonian is similar to
Vidzeme Livonian in some cases.
26. A cet endroit, on peut se demander, si le datif nest pas quelquefois destin remplacer la
forme gnitivale disparue dans la plupart des paradigmes comme nous lavons dj signal ci-
dessus (loc.cit: 497).
27. Consider SjW II, 1, 75: Aber auch vor dem regierenden Worte selbst hrt man noch fters
einen Genitiv mit n, besonders wenn dieses regierende Wort mit einem Vokal anfngt, aber auch
ohne diese Rcksicht auf den zu vermeidenden Hiatus, z.B. jogn ajg (an den Bach)lodan al
(unter dem Tisch)
28. The specic use of verb particles in Estonian and to a lesser degree in Latvian in many cases
is inuenced by Middle-Low-German or German as a secondary development (see e.g.
Hasselblatt 1990).
29. The expression Sprachbund in Jakobson (1931/1962: 137) is unnecessary. The argument
becomes clearer if we substitute it by areal isogloss, e.g. ()So bildet z.B. gewhnlich die Polytonie
weitgreifende areale Isoglossen Ebenso bilden die Sprachen des Baltikums eine areale Isoglosse,
die die Polytonie kennzeichnet ().
30. It is not a mere coincidence that the most common verb particle of Lithuanian eme(n)
(emyn, i eme) was shown to have a very Baltic lexical structure. Quite common is also Lith. lauk,
which is replaced by the Latvian-like ore in Northern subdialects of the iauliai group. In contrast
the verb particle kietai (=Ltv. cieti) occurs only along the Latvian border and the metatony of Lith.
l~ygiai Klk (cf. lgus) indicates that this form is also formally a loan from Latvian (Girdenis/
Kaciukiene 1986: 2224).
31. See Schuchardt (1884): Wir werden sehen dass sehr hug der Einuss der fremden Sprache
mit der in der eigenen Sprache herrschenden Tendenz zusammenwirkt (loc.cit: 11) and So
sehen wir dass die Bedrfnisse der einen Sprache und der Reichtum der anderen zusammen-
wirken, was vielleicht bis jetzt nicht hinlnglich betont worden ist (loc.cit: 37).
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<LINK "met-n*">
<TARGET "met" DOCINFO
AUTHOR "Helle Metslang"
TITLE "On the developments of the Estonian aspect"
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On the developments of the Estonian aspect

The verbal particle ra*
Helle Metslang
1. On the verbal particle as an aspect marker
Like in other Finnic languages, aspect in Estonian has not developed into a consis-
tent grammatical category. Still, it operates in a peripheral way, expressed by
resultative or progressive constructions, by so-called bounders, that is, particles
more or less tightly connected with the verb, and by alternative case markings of
direct objects (Metslang and Tommola 1995: 300301). The last-mentioned device
is an old feature common to the Finnic and the Baltic area (see e.g. Klaas
1996: 4043).1 Under certain conditions, so-called partial objects (po, marked by
partitive case) carry imperfective meaning whereas total objects (to, marked by
genitive or nominative) are interpreted as perfective.
(1) a. Raul ehitas suvila-t.
Raul:nom build:past cottage-prtv
Raul was building a cottage. (ipfv, po)
b. Raul ehitas suvila.
Raul:nom build:past cottage:gen
Raul built a cottage. (pfv, to)
However, testing the questionnaires on aspectual typology (e.g. the TMA question-
naire used in Dahl 1985) on the Estonian language, it appears that a typical
imperfective-perfective opposition in meaning is expressed in the opposition of the
forms of partial and total objects.2 Since the opposition partial : total also expresses
a number of characteristics of the referent of the object noun (mass-count, bound-
ed-unbounded, denite-indenite) and, in addition, partial objects are obligatory
in negated sentences, the number of sentences where the aspectual opposition can
unambiguously be expressed by means of object case marking is rather limited.
More specically, the following conditions must hold:
the sentence must be armative;
the predicate verb must belong to the class of verbs referred to as aspectual;
the object must be quantitatively bounded.
444 Helle Metslang
Moreover, due to extensive apocope processes in Estonian phonology, the opposi-

tion between the case forms is often neutralized, as in pesa (nom): pesa (gen): pesa
(prtv) nest (2a), (2b).
(2) a. Lind ehitas pesa.
bird:nom build:past nest:prtv
The bird was building the nest.
b. Lind ehita-s pesa.
bird:nom build-past nest:gen
The bird built the nest.
In Finnish which is closely related to and in the immediate neighbourhood of

Estonian and in which fewer historical changes have taken place, the forms of the
object can clearly be distinguished (3ab), along with a more consistent alternation
of the form of an object also in case of innite verb forms.
(3) Finnish
a. Lintu raken-si pes-.
bird:nom build-past nest-prtv
The bird was building the nest.
b. Lintu raken-si pes-n.
bird:nom build-past nest-gen
The bird built the nest.
However, in Estonian, perfectivity can also be explicitly expressed by bounders, viz.

the verbal particles ra o, away, and valmis ready. (4) and (5) are thus unambig-
uously perfective:
(4) Lind ehitas pesa valmis.
bird:nom build:past nest:gen pp
The bird (has) built the nest.
(5) Tuul lhkus pesa ra.
wind:nom destroy:past nest:gen pp
The wind destroyed the nest.
The expression of the aspectual meaning via verbal particles is gaining ground in
Estonian.3 (The perfective aspect which in Estonian is the marked member of the
opposition is primarily expressed.) Such a development seems quite natural against
the background of the following intralinguistic facts:
the possibilities for expressing an aspectual meaning in Estonian are rather limited;
the development of Estonian from agglutination in the direction of ectivity
has involved an increase of form homonymy and made the case alternation of
the object less clear;
the most natural way to restore transparency is to take into use a clear analyti-
cal marker;
On the developments of the Estonian aspect 445
aspect is a category, characterizing a situation; taking into account the iconicity

of a language, the most natural position of its marker is by the verb;
an aspectual marker which belongs to a verb enables one to express aspectual
meanings unambiguously in any sentence.
These intralinguistic factors conform to the extralinguistic ones: the German
separating verbal prexes and also verbal prexes and suxes in other contact
languages carry often aspectual meaning.4
In the work of J. Bybee, R. Perkins and W. Pagliuca on the historical develop-
ment of various grammatical categories several schemes have also been propounded
about the paths of grammaticalization of aspectual categories (Bybee et al. 1994:55).
The Estonian verbal particles take a position along the path of directionals
completive perfective: their aspectual meaning has developed on the basis of the
lative directional meaning5 (cf. also Heine, Claudi and Hnnemeyer 1991: 48). The
most extensively used Estonian particle ra expresses both perfectivity (lhkus pesa
ra destroyed the nest, lahendas lesande ra solved the problem) and the
direction (sitis ra drove away),6 also some other particles, expressing perfectivity
(maha down, lbi through, vlja out, les up) at the same time operate as
directionals. The earlier form of the word ra was erk, the lative form of the noun
er something standing apart, detached (Mgiste 199293: 4057). The original
meaning of the particle ra is thus away, o, to another/the other place. The
particle is frequent also in Estonian dialects, in Southern Estonia, in particular,
where the inuence of Latvian can be supposed (Aavik 1936: 90). Analogical
particles occur to a more moderate extent also in other Finnic languages: the
Finnish pois away, Ingrian pois away, Votic vll out(Seilenthal 1988: 58).
2. Functions and usage of the verbal particle ra in Modern Estonian
The dierent steps in the chain from directional to perfective are all still available in
Modern Estonian:
1. directional, deictic meaning: away from the area of the deictic centre. The
sentences with ra are primarily perfective (6a), but a combination with a partial
object inducing an imperfective interpretation is not excluded, as in (6b):
(6) a. Ta saatis klalise ra. (to, pfv)
he/she see:past guest:gen o
He/she saw the guest o.
b. Ta saatis klalis-t ra. (po, ipfv)
he/she see:past guest-prtv o
He/she was seeing the guest o.
446 Helle Metslang
2. perfective + deictic meaning o, from the area of the deictic centre, to the non-
existence (directional background meaning). The sentences with ra are perfective
and their objects can only have a total form (7), (8).
(7) Ta tappis klalise ra.
he/she kill:past guest:to pp
He killed the guest.
(8) Ta kaotas pileti taskust ra.
he/she lose:past ticket:to pocket:elat pp
He/she lost the ticket from his/her pocket.
3. pure perfective meaning. Occurs occasionally, e.g:

(9) Kas te ootate ikka veel oma beebit?
Ei, eile snnitas Mari
no yesterday give-birth:past Mari:nom
ta lpuks nnelikult ra.
he/she:to at-last luckily pp
Are you still expecting your baby? No, luckily, yesterday at last Mari
brought the child into the world.
To examine the aspectual and other functions of the most regular verbal particle
ra, we observed the use of this particle in the transitive sentences where the form
of the object indicates the aspect of the sentence (armative sentences with a
quantitatively bounded object). The transitive verbs divide according to their
relationship to the particle ra into ve groups (Metslang 1997a).
Group 1. Verbs constituting aspectual pairs consisting of a simple imperfective verb
(case A) and phrasal perfective verb (case B). Simple verbs can only be used
imperfectively, with partial objects. With the total object, the perfectivizing particle
is needed, yielding a perfective interpretation. In some cases there may be a lative
adverbial instead of the particle.
(10) a. Ma tundsin presidenti.
I knew the President.
b. Ma tundsin presidendi ra.
I recognized the President.
(11) a. Ta raiskas prandust.
He/she was misspending the inheritance.
b. Ta raiskas pranduse ra.
He/she misspent the inheritance.
(12) a. Ta luges raamatut.
he/she read:past book:po
He/she was reading a/the book.
Table 1.Transitive verb, verbal particle and object

A: partial object, imperfective sentence B: total object, perfective sentence
1 V+PO V+TO+PP
Ma tundsin presidenti Ma tundsin presidendi ra
I know:past president:PO I know:past president:TO PP
I knew the President I recognized the President
Ta raiskas prandust Ta raiskas pranduse ra
he/she misspend:PST inheritance:PO he/she misspend:past inheritance:TO PP
He/she was misspending the inheritance He/she misspent the inheritance
2a V + PO V + TO (+ PP)
Ta koristas tuba Ta koristas toa (ra)
he/she clean:past room:PO he/she clean:past room:TO PP
He/she was cleaning the room He/she tidied up the room
2b V + TO (+ PP)
Ta tappis oma kaaslase (ra)
he kill:past his companion:TO PP
He killed his companion
3a V + PO V + TO + lat / PP
Ta veeretas vaati Ta veeretas vaadi ue / ra
he/she roll:past barrel:PO he/she roll:past barrel:TO yard:ILLAT PP
He/she was rolling a/the barrel He/she rolled the barrel into the yard /
o, away
3b V + TO + lat / PP
Ta pani raamatu lauale / ra
he/she put:past book:TO table:ALLAT
PP
He/she put the book on the table / away
4a V + TO + ((PP))
Ta snnitas lapse ((ra))
he/she give-birth:past child:TO PP
She brought / (did bring) the child into
the world
4b V + PO (V + TO + PP / lat)
Ta suudles tdrukut Ta suudles tdruku ra / paiste
he/she kiss:past girl:PO he/she kiss:past girl:TO PP/swollen
He kissed the girl He did kiss the girl / He kissed the girl
swollen
5 V + PO
Ta vajas arvutit
he/she need:past computer:PO
He/she needed a computer
448 Helle Metslang
b. Ta luges raamatu lbi / ribadeks / lpuni.

he/she read:past book:to pp shred:trnsl end:term
He/she read the book through/to pieces/to the end.
The particle has the following characteristics in addition to its general function as
perfectivizer:
it takes often the last, stressed position in the sentence, participating in the
closed-in construction (a German feature of the Estonian word order)7 and
accentual structure;
it may function as a means of expressing the information structure of the
sentence: the penultimate unstressed position is the position to refer to known
referents. Cf (13a) and (13b):
(13) a. Pike sulatas suure jpurika ra.
sun melt:past big icicle:to pp
The sun melted the big icicle.
b. Pike sulatas ra suure jpurika.
sun melt:past pp big icicle:to
The sun melted a big icicle.
an iconic relationship can also be supposed between the situation and the form
of the sentence: the nality of the situation is expressed by a clear completion
by means of the perfectivity particle in a stressed position. The sentences where
the latter is lacking (e.g. Ta raiskas pranduse He misspent his inheritance, Ta
luges raamatu He read a book, but also the sentences with Group 2 verbs, e.g.
Ta koristas toa She tidied up the room, Ta tappis oma kaaslase He killed his
companion) seem incomplete with regard to their expression, particularly in
oral speech.
In the 1st Group of verbs, many perfective phrasal verbs are lexicalized. The
imperfective simple verb may have more general lexical meaning; its perfective
counterpart is based on one specic, contextually restricted use of the simple verb:
kasutama to use ra kasutama to take advantage of , arvama to think, to guess
ra arvama to guess, to puzzle out, kuulma hear ra kuulma to hear of, to
get to know. The phrasal verb usually denotes the completion or resultate of the
situation expressed by the simple verb, but it may denote also its beginning: tundma
know ra tundma recognize, cf. German kennen erkennen, Russian znat
uznat. Adding the particle to the verb is often analogous to the derivation via
axes. Nevertheless, the aspectual opposition is regular in these verb pairs.
The simple verbs of Group 1 are mostly atelic durative verbs. They express
activities and processes that are directed to an existing object; the object is preserved
in this activity/process:
1. cognitive verbs: tundma to know ( ra tundma to recognize); arvama to

think, to guess ( ra arvama to guess), seletama ( ra seletama) to explain;
kuulma ( ra kuulma) to hear;
2. verbs of treating and attitudes: hirmutama ( ra hirmutama) to frighten,
hoidma to hold ( ra hoidma to prevent), ootama to wait ( ra ootama to
wait till), needma ( ra needma) to damn, vsitama to tire ( ra
vsitama to wear out), hellitama to pamper ( ra hellitama to spoil), petma
( ra petma) to deceive; ttama ( ra ttama) to bore;
3. other: kasutama to use ( ra kasutama to take advantage of), mtma to
measure ( ra mtma to measure o), kulutama to spend ( ra kulutama
to run through), raiskama ( ra raiskama) to waste, muutma to change (
ra muutma to cancel), parandama ( ra parandama) to repair, sma to
eat ( ra sma to eat up).
Group 2. In this group, the particle is optional, it emphasizes and doubles the
perfective meaning of a sentence expressed already by the total object. ra displays
perfectivity (and lativity which concurs with it) and has the same other characteris-
tics as the verbs of the Group 1. They are more frequent in spoken language as a
more analytical way of expression is generally inherent to spoken language.
The simple verbs of Group 2 are divided into two: those in one part are used
both imperfectively and perfectively (2a), while the verbs of the other part normally
are used only with a perfective meaning (2b).
Group 2a. The simple verbs of this subgroup are the so-called aspectual verbs that
may be used both with partial objects (the sentence being imperfective) and total
objects (the sentence being perfective). ra doubles the perfective meaning ex-
pressed by the total object and is optional. This is the group of verbs where ra is
the only unambiguous perfectivity marker, if the case forms of the partial and total
object are homonymous. For instance, due to the homonymy of the forms of the
word kala sh: kala (nom.) kala (gen.) kala (part.), the phrase keetis kala may
have both imperfective and perfective readings was boiling/boiled the sh, but the
phrase keetis kala ra is unambiguously perfective boiled the sh see also
examples (3)(5) below.
(14) a. Ta koristas tuba.
He/she was cleaning the room.
b. Ta koristas toa (ra).
He/she tidied up the room.
To the simple verbs of this group belong telic durative verbs that denote an active
activity or process that is directed to an existing object: koristama to clean ( ra
koristama to tidy up), keetma to boil ( ra keetma), kuivatama to dry ( ra
kuivatama), titma to ll ( ra titma to ll in).
450 Helle Metslang
Group 2b. Simple verbs of this subgroup are telic punctual, inherently perfective
verbs that normally do not take a partial object: tapma to kill ( ra tapma),
kaotama to lose ( ra kaotama), murdma to break ( ra murdma), vahetama to
exchange ( ra vahetama), rvima to rie ( ra rvima), noppima to pick (
ra noppima), hukkama to execute ( ra hukkama), lpetama to complete ( ra
lpetama to put an end to), keelama to forbid ( ra keelama to ban), lahutama
to divorce ( ra lahutama), unustama to forget ( ra unustama), rikkuma to
spoil ( ra rikkuma), vitma to win ( ra vitma), pstma to save ( ra
pstma), kustutama to put out ( ra kustutama), varastama to steal ( ra
varastama), hvitama to destroy ( ra hvitama). As a result of the event the
object ceases to gure in the previous manner.
(15) Ta tappis oma kaaslase (ra).
He/she killed his/her companion.
The verbs that denote the appearing of the object into the area of the subject take
other particles, as ktte (original meaning into somebodys hands), les (original
meaning up(wards), cf. German auf): saama to get, ktte saama to receive,
leidma les leidma to nd.
Group 3. In this group, either a directional adverbial or perfective particle is
obligatory when a perfective interpretation is intended. ra has both aspectual and
directional meaning and the same characteristics as in the previous groups.
Group 3a. Here, the function of ra is to bound the situation. Simple verbs are
atelic, inherently imperfective verbs of transition: veeretama to roll (ra veeretama
to roll o, away), ajama to chase (ra ajama to chase o), lkkama to push
(ra lkkama to push away), trjuma (ra trjuma) to ward o, tooma to bring
(ra tooma to get), viima to take (ra viima to take away).
(16) a. Ta veeretas vaati.
He was rolling a/the barrel.
b. Ta veeretas vaadi ue/ra.
He rolled the barrel into the yard/o, away.
Optionally these verbs may take directional adverbials or sometimes even direction-
ally-minded particles, the object remaining in the partial form and the sentence
imperfective: ta veeretas vaati (po) ue he was rolling the barrel into the yard, ta
veeretas vaati (po) ra he was rolling the barrel away.
Group 3b. Inherently perfective transition verbs take only the total object and are
not used without an explicit marker of bound: a directional adverbial or a perfective
particle is needed.
panema to put ( ra panema to put o), andma to give (ra andma to give
up), peitma to hide ( ra peitma), heitma to throw ( ra heitma to throw
away), vtma to take ( ra vtma to take away), mma to sell ( ra mma
to sell out), maksma to pay ( ra maksma to pay o).
(17) Ta pani raamatu lauale / ra.

he/she put:past book:to table:all pp
He/she put the book on the table/away.
(18) Ta ms oma maja vennale / ra.
he/she sell:past his/her house:to brother:all pp
He/she sold his/her house to his/her brother/away.
Group 4. Verbs that usually are not compatible with the perfective particle may take
it occasionally. Here, ra has a pure perfective meaning.
Group 4a. Inherently perfective, punctual verbs that take only the total object:
saavutama to achieve, sooritama to accomplish, looma to create, leiutama to
invent, korraldama to organize, anastama to occupy, loovutama to yield,
pstitama to erect, tlgitsema to interpret. Many of these verbs express causation
of the existence of the object. To this group belong many verbs that are characteris-
tic of the literary language and relatively new, brought by language planners in the
20th century.
(9) Kas te ootate ikka veel oma beebit? Ei, eile snnitas Mari ta lpuks nnelikult ra.
Are you still expecting your baby? No, luckily, yesterday at last Mari brought
the child into the world.
The functions of the perfective particle in a sentence as Ta snnitas lapse ra She

brought/(did bring) the child into the world are as follows:
to emphasize perfectivity;
to express a special information structure, where all the semantic content (e.g.
the expected birth) of the sentence belongs to the theme and its realization (the
perfective meaning alone) to the rheme:
Theme Rheme
Ta snnitas lapse ra
she give-birth:past child:to pp
Group 4b. Atelic verbs denoting situations that have no typical or other imaginary
bound: suudlema to kiss, ksima to ask, kartma to be afraid of , austama to
respect, vihkama to hate, tunnustama to accept, varustama to supply.
(19) a. Ta suudles tdrukut.
He kissed the girl.
b. Ta suudles tdruku ra.
He did kiss the girl.
452 Helle Metslang
In the occasional use the functions of the perfective particle are (1) denoting
perfectivity, (2) expressing of the rheme of the sentence (a special information
structure as in (4a)).
For instance, the verb suudlema kiss is typically atelic. The sentence Ma
suudlesin ta ra (literally I kissed her o) could be said if one has made a bet to kiss
the girl.
Group 5. Verbs that are totally incompatible with perfective particle and are used
only with the partial object: atelic, mostly stative verbs denoting relations, for which
no bound may be thought out, e.g. vajama to need, thendama to mean, omama
to have, evima to have, sisaldama to contain, tahtma to want, kohtlema to treat,
vajama to need, sisaldama to contain. As in the previous group there are also a
number of new verbs, introduced into the literary language of the 20th century.
(20) Ta vajas arvutit.
He/she needed a computer.
The functions of ra which appeared in case of transitive verbs, operate the same
way as in case of intransitive verbs. If we omit rare usages of purely directional
meaning, ra may be considered as a perfectivity particle which is used in two main
functions: (1) for expressing or emphasizing the aspect of perfectivity; (2) for
expressing information structure. The fact that a language joins these two functions
together in verbal particles with one of them attempting to become a regular
grammatical means is an exclusive development of Estonian, uncommon to any of
its contact languages. Some of the combinations of ra and a verb have become part
and parcel of the language (ra tundma to recognize, ra arvama to guess, ra
jma to be cancelled), some verbs are used with ra regularly in spoken rather
than written usage (ra puhastama to clear away, ra suremato die, ra tapma to
kill, ra lppema to end, ra lpetama to nish), in some cases with ra the
directional meaning becomes predominant and is possibly expressed also by an
adverbial (ra minema/koju minema to go away/to go home, ra viima/koju viima
to take away/to take home). In all these cases older verbs operate as simple verbs
and here the meaning of ra has preserved a lative, directional component. ra is
the most extensive and general but not the only particle of perfectivity. The same
functions are fullled by the particles of perfectivity, combined with denite simple
verbs, such as lbi through (lbi lugema to read through), maha down (maha
mma to sell out), valmis ready (valmis kirjutama to write (to the end)), vlja
out (vlja kannatama to tolerate), minema away (minema minema to go away)
etc. (Rtsep 1978: 31). Occasionally in colloquial usage only a genuinely perfective
ra may be combined with any verb, as in the sentence (21) uttered by the daughter
of the author, but also with verbs expressing generation (19) and even with new
verbs which were introduced into the literary language in the 20th century in the
course of Finnish-induced language development (22).
(21) Mind kutsuti reklaamipevale klouni mngima.

I:po invite:impr.past advertising-day:all clown:po play:minf
Mngisin klouni ra ja sain sada krooni.
play:past clown:to pp and get:past a hundred kroons:to
I was invited to play a clown on the advertising day. So I played the clown and
got 100 kroons.
(22) Nd tuleb see thtis protsess ra sooritada ruttu
now come:pres this important process:to pp accomplish:tinf quickly
Now this important process has to be quickly accomplished.
(Estonian TV, 1994)
Let us recall, however, that there are no data in languages as yet about a complete
grammaticalization of bounders (Bybee et al. 1994: 8791). Where the grammatical-
ization of ra would lead is hard to tell. We still have a chance to glance at the
hitherto dynamics of ra in literary Estonian. Estonian has been recorded for a
relatively short time, the rst known texts originate from the 16th century. The
period of interest is the last hundred years of the Estonian national literary language
which involves the development of the literary language as well as the periods of
dierent social conditions. In the following we are going to attempt to take a glance
at the usage of ra in the literary language of dierent periods and to nd possible
associations with extralinguistic facts.8 To begin with, we will give a brief overview
about the periods under observation as well as about the earlier development of the
literary language (see more closely Kask 1970; Hasselblatt 1990: 2327).
3. On the history of the periods of literary Estonian under observation
3.1 The earlier development of literary Estonian

(the period of foreign-related literary language)
The native speakers of Estonian played no special role in the emergence and
formation of the Estonian literary language. The ancient independence of Estonians
was brought to an end by the German and Danish invasions in the 13th century.
Although several alien powers had ruled Estonia for centuries, Baltic Germans
remained as local authorities and inducers of culture up to the 19th century. The
prestige of Estonian was low in that society, the German language was dominant.
The rst texts and books in Estonian originate from the 16th century, the rst
grammar from the 17th century.The Estonian language was recorded in writing by
foreigners. On the one hand they could not speak the language as native speakers,
therefore they were inevitably looking for their own native features in Estonian. On
the other hand, it was the time when all the languages were subjected to an equable
description pattern. The prevailing attitude was that Estonians themselves did not
454 Helle Metslang
speak their own language correctly. Thus various foreign features were taken over,
primarily from German. This is the period, though, when both Estonians general
literacy and hitherto lasting prestige of written word among Estonians had its rise.
So, literary Estonian, formed by Germans (one of the reasons for this was their
imperfect learning of Estonian) became an authentic pattern for the Estonians. In
addition to Estonian-speaking Germans, the German inuence was also carried on
by German-speaking Estonian townspeople (cf. Labov 1971). Alongside with a
strong and alien German inuence it was the time of internal instability and great
changes in the Estonian language (Rtsep 1989). The role of agglutination de-
creased, ectivity increased and forms became less transparent. The cumulative
eect of internal and external factors (see Metslang 1997b) led the Estonian
language to adopting several German-related features, including the increase in the
role of analyticity, e.g. in the spread of verbal constructions and particles. As Jean
Aitchison (1993: 161162) asserts: if there is an internal predisposition for changes
in a language, they will occur under the inuence of sociolinguistic factors; at the
same time a language attempts to retain its patterns and to clear up its oppositions.
According to S.Thomason and T.Kaufman (1988: 84, 94) moderate grammatical
borrowing has taken place in Estonian; V. Veenker and C. Hasselblatt have indicat-
ed German syntactic perstratum in Estonian as a result of a long-time German
inuence (Veenker 1967; Hasselblatt 1990: 18). Estonian phrasal verbs are an
evidence of the phenomenon. Out of 2794 Estonian phrasal verbs, studied by
Hasselblatt, 60% could directly be traced back to German verbs (Hasselblatt
1990: 205), on the other hand, a wide spread of phrasal verbs has been contributed
to by the German pattern, one way or the other.
3.2 The period of national literary Estonian (beginning with the second
half of the 19th century)
The national awakening, the development of capitalism and the formation of
Estonian intelligentsia in the 19th century were concurrent with a new period in the
history of the Estonian literary language. We will observe the dynamics of the use of
the particle ra based on the materials from the following periods:
1. The end of the 19th century. The national literary language has emerged and is
undergoing standardization. The social group moulding it consisted of the Estonian
intellectuals who had received their education in the German cultural context. The
main attention is paid to the formation of the word stock, to the standardization of
morphology and spelling, whereas syntax is neglected. The pedantic attitude to the
literary language, starting at that time, has continued up to the present (Kasik 1997).
2. The 1930s the last decade of the period of the developing of the multi-
functional Standard Estonian as a literary and ocial language that lls all needs of
independent Estonia. Relationships with Finland and other European countries and
cultures are developed. According to the puristic attitudes Estonians own genuine
features are being searched for in Finnish and other Finnic languages. Johannes
Aaviks language reform, which favoured rather Finnish than German inuences
and argued for the same expression potential as in traditional literary languages in
Europe was very inuential. J. Aaviks principles included beauty, expediency,
historicism and nationality; in grammar he preferred synthetic (often
characteristically Finnish) ways of formation to analytical ones (often
characteristically German). Among other things, Aavik opposed characteristically
German word order and the overuse of verbal particles, especially of ra and argued
for a more extensive use of the total object (see Aavik 1936).
3. The 1980s the last decade of the Soviet period. Russian is used in various
spheres of life, many texts in Estonian newspapers, books etc. are translated from
Russian. Contacts with other languages are poor. Among Estonians the following
attitudes are predominating: low prestige of Russian, respect towards all aspects of
the Estonian national culture, including Standard Estonian as a means of retaining
national identity; rigid attitudes towards the literary standard.
4. The 1990s great changes in the society, a new period of independence.
Democratic processes are taking place in Estonia. Estonian has again close contacts
with Finnish, English and other European languages. Internationalist and cosmo-
politan attitudes gain ground. Public communication becomes more intensive and
extensive and less professional: many young people, often without special philologi-
cal education, are publishing newspapers and books, making TV-programmes and
WWW-sites etc. The attitudes towards language standard become more liberal.
4. The use of the verbal particle ra at various stages of

the development of the literary language
4.1 The old literary Estonian

It appears from the old literary language materials of the 16th18th centuries (see
also Toomsalu 1995, 1996; Hasselblatt 1990) that ra (in the then spelling erra or
rra) was more regularly than in the modern language used as a marker of perfect-
ivity. It is clear from German parallel texts and dictionary equivalents which
German verbs correspond to which Estonian ra-verbs. In various phrasal verbs the
Estonian ra corresponds to numerous German prexes such as ab-, aus-, be-,
davon-, ent-, er-, fort-, hinweg-, ver-, weg-, zer-. Literal directional equivalents in the
literary language of that period are weg- (wegsegeln ra purjetama, to sail away),
hinweg, davon-, partly also aus- (ra ajama ausstreiben, to chase o), in all other
cases the particle has primarily an aspectual meaning (ra kaduma verschwinden,
to disappear, ra kirjutama abschreiben, to take down, ra eksima verirren, to
456 Helle Metslang
be lost, ra valitsema auserwhlen, to single out, ra pstma erreten, to save,

ra unustama vergessen, to forget, ra keelama verbieten, to forbid. In the 17th
and 18th centuries grammarians indicate that ra is connected with the majority of
verbs, without essentially changing their meaning and corresponding to several
German prexes (Gseken 1660: 68 and .; Hupel 1780: 4).
(23) ninck sahp seperrast igkawest
and get:pres therefore for-ever
errahuckatut ninck errakaotut
pp.put-to-death:impr/pass.part and pp.do_away:impr/pass.part
(und wird deshalben ewig verdammt und verloren) Stahl, Leyen Spiegel (1641)
and therefore will be put to death and done away with.
The spread of ra was possibly given a push by the 16th18th century authors who
began to use it as a universal perfectivity marker.9 Thus there was no need to go into
looking for equivalents of German prexes or into the case alternation of the object
that could be so incomprehensible for Germans. On the other hand, it was safer to
add ra also in the case when in German occurred a simple verb with perfective
semantics (ra varastama stehlen, to steal, ra puhastama subern, to clean, ra
tahenema trocknen, to become dry, ra lahutama scheiden, to sever, separate).
(24) Kes tahap meid erralahutama sest Jummala Armust.
who want:pres we:po pp.sever:minf this Gods mercy:elat
(Wer wil vns scheiden von der Liebe des Gottes) Stahl, Leyen Spiegel (1641)
who wants to sever us from the Gods mercy
Among the ra-verbs of the old literary language not a single verb, which was out
of the modern usage, attracted attention. At the same time, the overuse of the
particle (especially in the verb group 2b, e.g. ra lahutama to sever, ra kaotama
to lose) struck the eye as too frequent for the modern usage.
Thus in the old literary language already two specic tendencies of the develop-
ment of Estonian could be observed: (1) following the German pattern more in the
system than in the text, i.e. the regular use of ra regardless of the real use of verbal
prexes in German equivalents of the Estonian expressions (cf. Aitchison
1993: 161162); (2) the generalization of ra into one universal particle, expressing
perfectivity. ra became a lexical equivalent to numerous German particles and
thus, resembling a means of grammar as to its function. Such grammaticalization
of ra was supported by internal factors like the necessity for a clearly formed
means of expression, the typological t (see Metslang 1996), the facts that ra was
a native word and that the opposition perfectivity imperfectivity was already
present in the language (was expressed by the case marking), On the other hand,
this development corresponds to general regularities of grammaticalization,
concerning both form and meaning shifts (see above).
4.2 The national literary language (the 19th20th centuries)

For the observation of the dynamics of the use of ra in the last-century literary
language I picked out 34 verbs which were frequent and combined with ra either
in the old literary language or in that of the 1890s and which are common also in
the modern language. These verbs belong to three rst groups. The fourth group,
i.e. the occasional usage is practically unobservable on the materials of the past. In
the corpuses the material compiled is based both on the language of press (P) and
ction (F) so that these two registers can be studied separately (Table 2). The scope
of the excerpt and the frequency of occurrence of ra at dierent times and in
dierent registers are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. The scope of the excerpt in words and the frequency of occurrence of the
particle ra
Decade Register Source Wordsa Frequency Number of % of ra
of ra words in
source per
one ra
1890s P T, 30 les 037588 178 0211 0.47

F T, 10 les 020160 085 0237 0.42
1930s P T, 70 les 017800 024 0742 0.13

F T, 20 les 041092 037 1111 0.09
1950s F SCLOMB, HAVU 038162 091 0419 0.23

(1 le)
1980s P T, 20 les 015483 008 1935 0.05
F T, 10 les 020813 073 0285 0.35
1990s P T, 1 le 252737 104 2430 0.04

F SCLOMB, ILU (1 058383 105 0561 0.17
le)
502218 705
a
A compound word containing the particle ra is regarded as two words.
4.2.1The 1890s
In the 1890s in the literary language ra occurs very frequently in all the verb groups
without any great dierence between the press language (0.47% of the words being
ra) and the language of ction (0.42%). In comparison with the modern language
Table 2.Use of some verbs with the particle ra in the various periods of the literary Estonian
Verb group Verbs 16th-18th 1890s 1930s 1950s 1980s 1990s
cent. P F P F F P F P F
458 Helle Metslang
1 ra arvama + + +/ +/
to guess
ra seletama + () () + +/ +
to explain
ra petma + () () () +
to deceive
ra tundma + + + + + + +
to recognize
ra ootama + () () + + + +
to wait till
ra sma + /+ /+ + + + +
to eat up
2a ra phkima + + +
to wipe away
ra pletama + + +
to burn up /
down
ra koristama + +
to clear away
ra valima +
to single out
ra puhastama +/ +/ +
to purge away
ra pidama +/ + /+ /+ +
to have/hold
(a party or
some other
activity)
2b ra tapma + +/ + /+ /+ +/
to kill
ra hukkama +
to put to
death
ra lpetama + /+ /+ +/
to nish
ra keelama + +/ +/ /+ +
to forbid
ra lahutama + +
to sever
ra unustama + + +/
to forget
ra kaotama + +/ +/ /+ +
to lose
ra rikkuma + +/ + +/
to spoil
ra vitma + + +
to win
ra pstma + + +
to save
ra kustutama + + /+ +/
to wipe away
ra varastama + + + /+
to steal
ra hvitama + + +/ +
to destroy
3a ra ajama + /+ + +/ +
to drive away
460 Helle Metslang
ra tooma + () () + + + +
to fetch
ra viima + + + /+ + +
to take away
3b ra peitma + + + +/ +
to hide away
ra heitma + +
to throw
away
ra andma + + + + + +
to give away
ra vtma + + + +/ + + + +
to take away
ra mma + + + +/ + + +
to sell (out)
ra maksma + + + + +
to pay o
The incidence in the excerpt:

+ with ra, perfective; without ra, perfective (not observed in the materials of the 16th-18th centuries); () without ra, the aspect is unclear or the perfective usage
avoided, a shift of the meaning or another particle
the overmarking of perfectivity attracts notice; in addition to the particle ra (26),

also perfect and past perfect tenses, typical of German, (27), (28) as well as result-
ative constructions (29), (30), (32) are frequent. The latter consist of the auxiliary
verb become and the past participle passive (saab tehtud will be done, sai tehtud
was done). The construction has spread thanks to the form correspondence of the
German passive (wird/wurde gemacht). In the older literary language the resultative
construction is used much more often than the morphological impersonal (or
passive) without aspectual nuances (tehakse is being done, tehti was done/was
being done).
On the other hand, in single cases the progressive, as in (25) oli seletamas (the
auxiliary olema to be and the inessive form of the innitive of the principal verb)
can be found. The Estonian progressive carries a kind of imperfective aspectual
meaning, has Finnic origin and is in the process of grammaticalization. Its source is
the same construction with locative meaning (see Metslang 1995). The locative use
of the progressive construction occurs in present-day Estonian alongside with its
progressive use; in the texts of the 1890s, the locative use is predominating.
(25) hel pewal lendas niisugune kuul just koolmeistrile otsekohe suhu,
kui see just seletamas oli,
when this just explain:minf.iness be:past
kuda tht a laulmise juures peab klama. (pro04.txt)10
how letter A singing during must sound:minf.
One day such a ball ew directly into the schoolmasters mouth when he was
explaining how the letter A must sound when sung.
(26) Kige enam oli suur Rio Grando do Sul maakond uue walitsuse wiisi wastu
ja tahtis ennast selle prast
and want:past itself:po therefore
koguni Brasiliast ra lahkuda ja ise riigiks
even Brazil:elat pp separate:tinf and itself state:trnsl
hakata. (sak03.txt)
become:tinf
The large county of Rio Grando do Sul was most of all against the ways of the
new government and therefore wanted even to separate from Brazil and become
a state in itself.
(27) nge-Tammiku krts, Jaagupi kihelk.,
nge-Tammiku tavern parish of Jaagupi
on Jaani htal maani maha plenud. (epo104.txt)
be:pres on the St. Johns eve to the ground pp burn:part
The nge-Tammiku tavern of the parish of Jaagupi burnt to the ground on the
St. Johns eve.
(28) Sdamerabandus oli teda tapnud. (pos1001.txt)
heart failure be:past she/he:po kill:part
His/her heart failure had killed him/her.
462 Helle Metslang
(29) Selle prast palun ma kiki ja iga ksikut inimest wastastikuliselt hoolt kanda,
et kik terwisele kahjulikud olud rakaotatud
that all health:all harmful conditions:nom pp.do-away:part
saaks, mis haigust wiksiwad edendada. (epo104.txt)
get:cond.pres
Therefore I implore all and sundry and every single person to see to it that all
conditions, harmful to the health and progressing illnesses, should be done
away with.
(30) Siin saiwad toredad pulmad ra peetud. (pro05.txt)
here get:past.3pl joyous wedding:pl.nom pp hold:part
A joyous wedding party was held here.
There is a denite inconsistency in marking the aspect by an object, e.g. in the

sentences (31) and (28) instead of the partitive mnda muidu ettejuhtuvat
koerustkki some otherwise occasional prank and teda him the genitive case
should be used according to the norms of the modern standard language.
(31) Johanna ei olnud mitte mngurikkuja,
tihti oli ta laste seas jooksnud ja mnginud,
often be:past she child:pl.gen with run:part and play:part
ja just sellelbi, mnda muidu ettejuhtuwat koerustkki rakeelanud.
and namely thus some otherwise occasional prank:po pp.forbid:part
Johanna was not a kill-joy, she had often been running and playing with the
children and doing this she could prevent some otherwise occasional prank.
Other verbal particles than ra very seldom occur as aspectual markers, e.g. vlja
o, from and maha down, to the ground (27) are mainly connected with the
verbs of motion, denoting direction, and only seldom can they be interpreted as
perfective (32).
(32) Sisemiste widulaenu piletite ple langenud vidud
saawad piletite omanikkudele 3 kuud ple wljaloosimist
get:pres owners of the tickets:all three months after rae
wlja makstud. (epo104.txt)
pp pay:impr/pass.part
The winning tickets of the internal premium bonds will be paid down in cash
to the owners three months after the rae.
The verbs of Groups 13 occur usually with ra, if the sentence is perfective. In
Group 1 where in case of perfectivity ra is regarded obligatory according to the
modern language sense, it is always present, e.g. (33).
(33) Nnda, mu ttar! tles Makarios, teda ra tundes. (pro80.txt)
so my daughter said Makarios he/she:po pp know:ger
So, my daughter! Makarios said, recognizing her.
In Group 2, where the total object is sucient for expressing perfectivity, ra is

generally used (cf. (34)(35)) although there are exceptions, as (28), (36).
(34) Kik nendest ehitatud ajutilised eluasemed kui ka materjal, millest need tehtud,
hwitatakse politsei ksul ra. (epo102.txt)
destroy:impr police order pp
All the temporary dwelling places built of them, including the material they
were made of, will be destroyed on the polices order.
(35) Lhemal lbikatsumisel leitud, et ta koleras olnud ja wiidud ruttu haigemajasse,
kuna ta korter rohtude abil tublisti ra puhastatud. (epo104.txt)
whereas his at:to by means of drugs well pp purge:impr.past
At a closer examination he had been found to have had cholera and was quickly
taken to the hospital whereas his at had been well cleansed by means of disin-
fectants.
(36) Laud oli walge linaga kaetud,
table:to/sub be:past white table-cloth:com cover:impr/pass.part
prand ja majariistad tolmust
oor:to/sub and household utensils:to/sub dust:elat
puhastud,
clean:impr/pass.part
ja mbliku wrkusi, mis nii mitme talupere nurkadest wlja paistawad,
ei olnud siin kuskilt nha. (pro02.txt)
The table was covered with a white table-cloth, the oor and household utensils
well dusted and cobwebs, usually showing in the corners of peasants house-
holds, were nowhere to be seen here.
In the case of the Group 3 verbs, instead of or beside a directional adverbial ra can
be observed, e.g. (37), (38).
(37) Wiis meele parandamata wana poisi
msiwad omad kohad ra
sell:past.3pl their steads:to pp
ja rndasiwad kaugele (pro11.txt)
and wander:past far
Five unrepentant bachelors sold their steads and wandered far away
(38) Need sedelid anti esimehele ra
these slips:to give:impr.past chairman:all pp
ja esimees pidi siis nendele teada andma, kes ks teist saada tahawad. (pro11.txt)
and the chairman then had to inform those who were interested in one another
These slips of paper were handed over to the chairman who then had to inform
those who were interested in one another.
The task and purpose of the particle is to indicate the aspect, in the rst place. The
second function of the Estonian verbal particle, apart from that of German, suggests
indicating information structure. In the 19th-century texts with the German-
464 Helle Metslang
inuenced syntax there are single examples in which the infostructural function is
eective, e.g. (39): kasvjas tumour in the penultimate position is the same as
referred to above.11
(39) Riia koolikonna kuratoril,
Riga school board:gen curator:adess
salanunikul Lawrowskil weti
privy counselor Lawrowski:adess take:impr.past
he kaswja prast mne aja eest pluu lahti
due to a tumour some time ago skull:to open
ja ligati siis kaswjas ra. (epo104.txt)
and cut:impr.past then tumour:to pp
Some time ago the curator of the Riga school board, privy counsellor Lawrowski
had his skull opened due to a tumour and the tumour was cut o.
4.2.2The 1930s
The literary language of the 1930s radically diers from the language of the 1890s
and when reading it now, it appears very much as the language of this day, with
some Finnish-related syntactical features. The use of phrasal verbs decreased the
role of the verbal particles in modifying lexical meaning, marking aspect and
information structure was often neglected (cf. Metslang 1997a). The particle ra
was not used much,12 in the press language 0.13 and in ction only 0.09%. Thus the
characters language in prose works sounds painstakingly literary. The number of
verbs used in the press language became limited. ra is retained in the literary
language of that period rst of all in lexicalised and xed word combinations such
as ra tundma (40) to recognize, ra sma to eat up. One rather tried to avoid
ra in several ways. The marking of the aspect was often left only for the object as
in Finnish (41). In the contexts where the case alternation of the object is less
systematic and predominantly or only partial object is used regardless of the
possible perfective interpretation of the situation e.g. with innitive (42) and
negative (43) verb forms , ra was not used although it could be allowed.
Sometimes a concrete directional adverbial (44) or other verbal particle (45) was
used, and even obligatory ra could be omitted (46). A common ra pidama to
carry out(an action) of the previous period (30) was replaced by a simple verb
pidama to keep, to hold (47). The example (48) with ra pidama belongs to special
cases of information structure described above in connection with Group 4.
(40) Aasta prast ei tunne sa enam iseennast ragi (lmg0039.txt)
year:gen after know:pres.neg you more oneself:po pp.even
In a year you would not recognize yourself.
(41) Lagedil tapeti wanapoiss. (paewa01.txt)
at Lagedi kill:impr.past old-bachelor:to
At Lagedi an old bachelor got killed.
(42) Oodaku Maie teda kas vi hommikuni

kllap saab seletada niigi pikka viivitust (nov0032.txt)
surely may:pres.3sg explain:tinf such-a long delay:po
Maie may be waiting for him as long as till morning such a long delay
can surely be explained
(43) Ega me lut joo?
prdus Saarde Pernambuki poole ja,
turn:past Saarde Pernambuk:gen to and
ootamata vastust ksis kelnerilt kaks punssi. (nov0035.txt)
wait:minf.abess answer:po ask:past waiter:abl two punches:to
We wont be having beer, shall we? Saarde turned to Pernambuk and, with-
out waiting for an answer, ordered the waiter to bring two punches.
(44) Ebajumalaid aga minu majas ei teenita
kin kogu perega alati kirikus,
go:pres.1sg all family:com always church:iness
maksan petajale oma klimitu ning
pay:pres.1sg pastor:all my peck:to and
igal smaajal pean Issanda tnupalve. (ram0041.txt)
every meal:adess hold:pres.1sg grace to my Lord:to
Idols are not worshipped in my house my family and I always go to church,
I pay the pastor my peck and say a grace to my Lord at every meal.
(45) Ehk kui on, siis on need samad rbalad,
or if be:pres.3pl then be:pres.3pl the same rags:nom
mis ma ise maha msin. (lmg0039.txt)
which:to I myself pp sell:past.1sg
And if, then they are the same rags I sold myself.
(46) Hwib miljonite hektaaride likus;
surewad nlga ning janusse wi tapetakse ja
die:pres.3pl hunger:ill and thirst:ill or slaughter:impr.pres and
makse hdaga miljonid loomad. (pae0005.txt)
sell:impr.pres in case of need millions domestic animals:to
The crop growing on millions of hectares will be ruined, people will die of
hunger and thirst and millions of domestic animals will be slaughtered and sold
due to this plight.
(47) Kaitseliidu kodus peeti
Defence-Union:gen house:iness hold:impr.past
pevakohane aktus. (paew1003.txt)
topical public ceremony:to
In the House of the Defence Union a topical public ceremony was held.
(48) Teised ettenhtud kned peeti kawa jrele ra.
other planned speeches:to hold:impr.past agenda:gen according pp
(pae0009.txt)
Other planned speeches were held according to the agenda.
466 Helle Metslang
In transitive verb groups the following could be observed. In Group 1 the obligatory
use of the verbal particle was often avoided in the ways illustrated above. In Group
2 the particle was optional. In 19 verbs out of 20, marking of perfectivity by a total
object without any particle was found. In four of these verbs (pidama to hold,
tapma to kill, keelama to forbid, hvitama to destroy) marking with ra also
occurred (cf. (48)(49)).
(49) Suurem osa metsa laastati ra ja
larger part of the forest:to clear:impr.past pp and
paljakspgatud raiesmikud jeti jumala hooleks
defrauded clearings:to leave:impr.past God:gen care:trnsl
wi tehti pllumaaks;
or make:impr.past arable-land:trnsl
biisonid tapeti ra; rohumaa knti les,
wild-oxen:to kill:impr.past pp meadow:to plough:impr.past up
hwitades seega eelmainitud niiskust hoidwa waiba. (pae0005.txt)
root-up:ger so abovementioned moisture holding carpet:to
The larger part of the forest was recklessly cut down and the defrauded clearings
were either commended to God or turned into arable lands; wild oxen were
killed, meadows were ploughed and so the abovementioned moisture-retaining
carpet was rooted up.
In Group 3 where the verb requires either a concrete directional adverbial (a place of
destination or benecient) or a particle of directional origin there are several ways of
performance: ra (50) or some other particle (45) can be used, a concrete adverbial
can be found (44), or the position may remain blank (46). (Respective Finnish verbs
allow the absence of the directional element in more cases, cf. e.g. in Finnish vei
tavarat took the things is possible but in Estonian the where-element cannot be
omitted viis asjad ra/kaasa/jaama took the things away, along, to the station.)
(50) Nitasid ette sinu orderi, nuuksus naine,
show:past.3pl before your order:to sob:past woman
ja viisid ta ra. (lmg004.txt)
and take:past.3pl he/she:to pp
(They) produced your order, sobbed the woman, and took him away.
The resultative construction as based on German was not used in the texts of the
1930s, the aspect being consistently marked by the the case form of the object. In
some texts the progressive can be found (51).
(51) Maasike oli tugeva rinnaga ema, kelle seelikust hoidis kinni kaks poissi,
ja paistis, et on tulemas kolmas (laps.ram0055.txt)
and seem:past.3sg that be:pres come:minf.iness third child:nom
Maasike was a mother with a high bosom, two boys clutching at her skirt and
the third child apparently on its way.
In sum, while the 1890s can be characterized by the overuse of the particle ra, the
1930s are marked for its underuse. However, the development of literary Estonian
towards more compact expression and syntheticity at the beginning of the 20th
century seems to be at variance with the redundancy of oral Estonian and its
analytical tendency; the variance has remained between the literary language and
oral usage.
4.2.3The 1950s
Before heading for the discussion of the language of the last decades we will make
an intermediate break in the 1950s. The subcorpus HAVU which is part of the
Turku University corpus SCLOMB contains the text and its translations of the
novel of idiomatic usage Havukka-ahon ajattelija by the Finnish author Veikko
Huovinen. Among other translations there is one into Estonian from the year of
1959 (translated by H.Lepik). The translator does not seem to have been inuenced
by the small number of particles in the original Finnish text but has attempted to
use idiomatic and naturally-sounding Estonian, typical of the usage in colloquial
speech. On the other hand, the language of the Soviet period was not very intolerant
of verbal particles. Estonians were constantly in contact with the Russian language,
numerous texts were translated from Russian, and Estonian verbal particles were
often used as counterparts of Russian verbal prexes, e.g. R. shodit Est. ra
kima, to go; R. provodit Est. lbi viima, to carry out; R. sremontirovat Est.
ra remontima, to repair. The consistent though varied aspectual expression in
Russian verbal lexemes amplied the use of bounders in Estonian, thus supporting
the tendency of analyticity in the common language. Therefore the usage of ra in
HAVU (0.23%) is considerably wider than in the language of ction (0.09%) in the
1930s. (In addition to this a somewhat reducing inuence of the original Finnish
text on the use of the particles should be taken into consideration.) The particle is
in use in all its functions: expressing perfectivity (52), (53), expressing both lativity
and perfectivity (54), emphasizing perfectivity (55), indicating given (52) and new
(53) information.
(52) Ta otsis vedrukaalu seljakotist vlja
he/she seek:past spring-scales:to rucksack:elat out
ja kaalus lhe ra. (HAVU 1818)
and weigh:past salmon:to pp
He sought spring-scales out of his rucksack and weighed the salmon.
(53) Kanakull si Huolainlampi rannal ra
goshawk eat:past Huolainlampi:gen coast:adess pp
viimase liharaasu piilpardi-rbakast
last bit of meat:to messy carcass of the teal
ja luhvatas siis lendu. (HAVU 3)
and lu:past then air:ill
468 Helle Metslang
On the coast of Huolainlampi the goshawk ate up the last bit of meat of the
messy carcass of the teal and then lued up into the air.
(54) Naabrimees, kes tuli kiriku juurest,
neighbour who come:past church:gen from
ti posti ra. (HAVU 3609)
bring:past mail:to pp
The neighbour who returned from the church, brought back the mail.
(55) See tapab tugud peas ra. (HAVU 2739)
it kill:pres larvae:to head:iness pp
It kills the larvae in the hair.
In the observed transitive verb groups ra occurs quite consistently in Groups 1 and
3 where it is the only or one of the possible obligatory elements, connected with the
verb (53), (54). The particle ra occurred also in Group 2 where the total object was
sucient to express perfectivity. The particle was less used with the verbs of
perfective semantics where, in addition to the verb itself and the case form of the
object, it is the third aspect marker in the sentence: tapma/ra tapma to kill, (55),
(56) but e.g. lpetama to nish, unustama to forget, keelama to forbid without
any particle (57). In Group 2a where the aspect is not expressed in the semantics of
a simple verb, the use of ra was more consistent (58).
(56) Nikke tappis haugi liigendnoaga. (HAVU 274)
Nikke kill:past pike:to clasp-knife:com
Nikke killed the pike with his clasp knife.
(57) Viimaks lpetas Ojasto-gi oma trhmamise. (HAVU 2484)
at-last nish:past Ojasto-even his drudge:to
At last Ojasto even nished his drudge.
(58) Suure tuhinaga asus ta kartuleid koorima
great eagerness:com begin:past he/she potatoes:po peel:minf
ja puhastas htlasi linnud ra. (HAVU 2804)
and gut:past also birds:to pp
Eagerly he began to peel potatoes, then also gutted the birds.
There are no resultative constructions in this text though cases of progressive do

occur (59).
(59) Ojasto ja Kronberg istusid kgaras pingil,
Ojasto and Kronberg sit:past.3pl crouching bench:adess
mirgasid naerda, hingeldasid nagu lmbumas olles
roar:past.3pl laugh:tinf pant:past.3pl as-if choke:minf.iness be:ger
ja hoidsid ktega khtu kinni. (HAVU 3423)
and hold:past.3pl hand:pl.com stomach:po fast
Ojasto and Kronberg were crouching on the bench, roaring with laughter,
panting as if choking and holding their sides.
4.2.4The 1980s
The frequency of ra in the language of ction of the 1980s rose to 0.35 per cent.
The overestimation of syntheticity has been preserved in the more ocial press
language where the frequency of ra has declined even lower (0.05%). In the
language of ction, however, the particle is used selectively, the general aspectual
overemphasis of the end of the 19th century does not take place. Generally speak-
ing, the picture is much the same as in the HAVU translation text, the obligatory
ra is consistently used (60), (61), (62), the optional ra is often not used either in
case of simple verbs with perfective semantics (63), cf. (64) or in aspectually neutral
single verbs (65).
(60) Tundsin ra Airi rohelise teekannu. (stkt0003.txt)
know:past.1sg pp Airis green teapot:to
I recognized Airis green teapot.
(61) Nagu ikka alati me sme ra salati
as always we eat:pres.1pl pp salad:to
ketras Kildu talle vastu. (stkt0010.txt)
purr:past Kildu he/she:all towards
As always we eat up the salad. Kildu purred, looking towards him.
(62) Nad istusid ilmatu aja kahekesi Silvia kabinetis
they sit:past.3pl long time:gen two-together Silvia:gen oce:iness
ja tavaliselt kinnine Eha Anderkop tahtis korraga kik ra
and usually taciturn Eha Anderkop want:past suddenly all:to pp
rkida. (stkt0005.txt)
talk:tinf
The two of them were sitting in Silvias oce for a long time and the usually
taciturn Eha Anderkop wanted suddenly to pour out everything.
(63) Ei, vaidlen vastu, minu tunded on ammu kustunud,
no object:pres.1sg against my feeling:pl.nom be:pres long die:part
olen ta unustanud. (stkt0005.txt)
be:pres.1sg he/she:to forget:part
No, I object, my feelings have long died away, I have forgotten him.
(64) Too lind suri ra. (stkt0010.txt)
that bird die:past pp
That bird died.
(65) Phkis linnapuru jalgelt ja tuli alatiseks tulema. (stkt0043.txt)
wipe:past town-dust:to feet:abl and come:past for-good away
He wiped the town dust away from his feet and came away for good.
The expression of information structure attracts attention in the sentences like (60),
(61) where the objects Airis green teapot and salad are placed after ra, in the end of
the sentence as expressing new information, something unmentioned before. On the
470 Helle Metslang
other hand, the sentence like (64) reminds one of a typical utterance of oral speech
where substantially redundant ra at the end of the sentence emphasizes perfectivity.
The language of the Estonian press in Soviet times became more and more
clichd, avoiding the features of oral speech. Here are concentrated the Russian
inuences which operate through translations and other materials, on the one hand,
and the overstandardization, on the other. The vocabulary and constructions used
are limited. The occurrence of ra is very scarce and if used at all, then in such word
combinations which are equal to translation loans of Russian prexal verbs (ra
kuulama vysluat to listen to, to hear, ra mrkima otmetit to mark out, ra
tooma privesti to fetch, ra tegema sdelat to do, cf. Hint 1990: 100101).
(66) A. Berkovich tles, et prast seda, kui faistid
A. Berkovich said that after that:prtv when fascist:pl.nom
tapsid tema isa ja vanema venna,
kill:past.3pl his father:to and older brother:to
saadeti ta koos ema ja kaksikega
send:impr.past he/she:to together mother and twin-sister:com
Tehhoslovakkiast Oswiecimi. (stat0013.txt)
from Czechoslovakia to Oswiecim
A. Berkovich said that after the fascists had killed his father and older brother,
he had been sent together with his mother and twin-sister from Czechoslovakia
to Oswiecim.
(67) Mrgiti ra Kingissepa ja Tartu rajooni hea t
mark:impr.past pp Kingissepa and Tartu rayon:gen good work:to
rajooni ettevtete, asutuste ja organisatsioonide poolt
rayon:gen enterprises, institutions and organisations:gen by
pllumajandusele osutatud eusabi
agriculture:all render:impr/pass.part patronage:gen
organiseerimisel. (stat0005.txt)
organising:adess
Good work done by the enterprises, institutions and organisations of the
Kingissepa and Tartu rayons for organising patronage in the agriculture was
marked out.
(68) EKP Keskkomitee broo kuulas oma korralisel istungil ra
Central Committee of the ECP hear:past its regular session:adess pp
Eesti NSV Agrotstuskoondise
Estonian SSR:gen Association of Agricultural Production and Industry:gen
esimehe H. Veldi informatsiooni kevadklviks
chairman:gen H. Veldi:gen information:to spring-sowing:trnsl
valmistumise kohta. (stat0004.txt)
preparation:gen about
At the regular session the Bureau of the Central Committee of the ECP heard the
information about the preparations for spring sowing given by the Chairman of the
Association of Agricultural Production and Industry of the Estonian SSR H. Veldi.
Resultative constructions were lacking in the excerpt of that decade, the progressive
occured only in ction (69).
(69) Mrganud, et senine pikesesra oli vahepeal
notice:part that former sunshine be:past meantime
taevasse tekkinud pilvedesse kadumas,
sky:ill appear:part cloud:pl.ill disappear:minf.iness
istus Kustas Lokk Willisesse ja
sit:past Kustas Lokk Willis:ill and
sitis aeglaselt Sotsialismi Vidu poole. (stkt0014.txt)
drive:past slowly Victory of Socialism:gen towards
Having noticed that the sunshine was disappearing into gradually developing
clouds, Kustas Lokk sat into the jeep and drove slowly towards the Victory of
Socialism.
4.2.5The 1990s
The choice of the materials of the 1990s is sadly one-sided. The press language
materials in the corpus consist of the news by the news agency BNS. The language
of ction is represented by the subcorpus ILU from SCLOMB, containing the novel
The Beauty of History by the Estonian authoress Viivi Luik which was published
in 1992. The novel was written in praesens historicum that the fact has reduced
the use of perfectivity as opposed to the use of common preterite tenses, is not
excluded. However, along with my personal observations it is possible to attain a
denite overview of this period.
The BNS news le is bulky. Although the role of ra is very insignicant, just as
in the previous period (0.04%), on the one hand, a number of ra-verbs, descend-
ing from the press language of the Soviet time are still in use, such as ra kuulama
to hear, ra mrkima to mark out, ra tooma to fetch, to bring forth, ra
muutma (cf. cf. Russian otmenit) to change, ra tasuma (cf. R. uplatit) to pay,
ra kasutama (cf. R. ispolzovat) to make use of (70); on the other hand there are
also common-language ra-verbs. Although ra is predominantly used in obligato-
ry cases (71), (73), there are also a few optional uses of ra (72). ra is also used if
the directional adverb which could have been made up by the authors of the 1930s,
were an alternative (71). In all the examples given below the position of ra in the
sentence operates also concerning information structure. All this brings the news
language closer to the common usage and thus is obviously one of the appearances
of the democratization of the press language.
(70) Opositsioonilise Keskerakonna esimees Edgar Savisaar on veendunud,
et mis tahes jrgmine valitsus muudab ra
that any next government change:pres pp
kultuuri-ja haridusminister Peeter Oleski kskkirja (bns1094.txt)
minister of culture and education Peeter Olesk:gen decree:to
472 Helle Metslang
The leader of the oppositional Central Party Edgar Savisaar is convinced that
any following government would change the decree by the Minister of Culture
and Education Peeter Olesk.
(71) Vlisministeeriumi teatel on
ministry-of-the-foreign-aairs:gen information:adess be:pres
tna Eestisse toodud hukkunud
today Estonia:ill bring:impr/pass.part shipwrecked:pl.nom
prit enamasti maakondadest ning seeprast viiakse
native mostly county:pl.elat and therefore bring:impr.pres
nad ilmselt juba laupeva htul
they:to probably already Saturday:gen evening:adess
Mustame haiglast ra. (bns1094.txt)
Mustame hospital:elat pp
Based on the Ministry of Foreign Aairs the shipwrecked, brought back to
Estonia today were from the counties and therefore they will probably be taken
away from the Mustame Hospital on Saturday evening already.
(72) Raudtee noorsoopolitsei pidas kolmapeval Tallinnas kinni
the railway juvenile police hold:past on Wednesday in Tallinn fast
kaks alaealist poissi, kes olid Pskla raudteejaamast
two adolescents:to who be:past Pskla railway station:elat
varastanud trafo, mis kindlustas signalisatsiooni
steal:part transformer:to which insure:past signalization:gen
korrasolekut raudteel. Tallinna politseiprefektuuri
functioning:po railway:adess Tallinn:gen Police Prefecture:gen
pressiteenistuse teatel varastasid 11-aastane Lauri
news service:gen information:adess steal:past 11-years-old Lauri
ja 12-aastane Riivo trafo esimest korda ra
and 12-years-old Riivo transformer:to rst time:prtv pp
teisipeval. (bns1094.txt)
Tuesday:adess
On Wednesday in Tallinn the Railway Juvenile Police detained two adolescents
who had stolen in the railway station Pskla a transformer which had been
insuring the functioning of the railway signalization. According to the news
service of the Tallinn Police Prefecture, Lauri, 11 years old and Riivo, 12, had
stolen the transformer for the rst time last Tuesday.
(73) Lepingu jrgi pidi USA rma tarnima
contract:gen according must:past US company supply:minf
kvaliteetset seemnekartulit, tehnikat ja kemikaale
high-quality seed potatoes:po technology:po and chemicals:po
ning ostma ra Lekto poolt 400 hektaril
and buy:minf pp Lekto:gen by 400 hectares:adess
kasvatatud kartuli. (bns1094.txt)
grow:impr/pass.part potato:to
Based on this contract, the US company was to supply high-quality seed

potatoes, technology and chemicals as well as buy up the potatoes grown by the
Lekto on 400 hectares.
The general usage of the written language has become rather informal in recent
years, and interviews appear colloquial altogether. The standard language is still
used in the news, cf. e.g. the sentence (74) on the radio and (75) in a newspaper.
(74) Lti siseminister keelas eile ra
Latvian minister of internal aairs:nom forbid:past yesterday pp
tehnika demonstratsioonid. (Radio Kuku, 30.6.97)
technology:gen demonstrations:to
Yesterday the Latvian Minister of Internal Aairs forbid the demonstrations of
the technology.
(75) Lti siseministeerium keelas eile
Latvian ministry of internal aairs forbid:past yesterday
varem kavandatud tehnikaesitlused. (htuleht, 1.7.97)
previously plan:impr/pass.part demonstrations-of-the-technology:to
Yesterday the Latvian Ministry of Internal Aairs forbid previously planned
demonstrations of the technology.
In the ILU text ra is style-consciously used with many verbs without producing
any impression about exaggeration. It is concerned with presenting thoughts and
memories with essentially colloquial features which create a natural eect. ra is
used in all the transitive verb groups under observation. No particle may be used
only in Group 2b (80) where the simple verb is semantically perfective. In the text
ra fulls all its functions.
(76) Vib-olla juba siis, kui neil veel koer Nosson oli,
kes si ra kik suitsukonid, mis ta maast leidis. (ILU 441)
who eat:past pp all the cigarette stubs:to which it found on the ground.
Perhaps then already when they had a dog called Nosson who ate up all the
cigarette stubs it found on the ground.
(77) Kui ta ei oska mundrimeestele Lioni kadumist
if he/she not can men in uniform:all Lion:gen disappearance:po
kuidagi ra seletada,
anyhow pp explain:tinf
siis olgu kuss ja rgu jtku ilmaasjata muljet, et korteris keegi sees on.
(ILU 872)
If he cannot explain Lions disappearance to the men in uniform he should
keep quiet and not leave an impression as if someone is in his at.
(78) Tdi Olgal pole enam raha, sest ta andis
aunt Olga:adess is-not more money:prtv since he/she give:past
kik oma raha Lioni ateljee ehitamiseks ra. (ILU 763)
all her money:to Lion:gen studio:gen building:trnsl pp
474 Helle Metslang
Aunt Olga has no more money since she gave up all her money for building
Lions studio.
(79) Vi veelgi krgelennulisemalt eldes
poeg on isa ttar, kellele isa
son is father:gen daughter:nom who:all father:nom
paks kinni kas vi tulilinnu ja kaevaks
catch:cond.pres fast even rebird:to and dig:cond.pres
koos juurtega les ning tooks hlma all ra ka
with root:pl.com up and bring:cond.pres skirt:gen under pp even
meretaguse tulipunase lillekese. (ILU 991)
oversea ery-red ower:to
Or, using even a more high-own expression the son is Fathers daughter
for whom Father would even catch a rebird and would dig up the ery-red
ower by its roots and bring it secretly back from the overseas.
(80) Isa tapeti NKVD poolt 1944. aastal. (ILU 1718)
father:to kill:impr.past NKVD:gen by in the year of 1944
Father was killed by the NKVD in the year of 1944.
(81) hel on isa ra tapetud ja
one:adess be:pres father:nom pp kill:impr/pass.part and
teisel on taskus Nukogude Liidu pass. (ILU 1735)
other:adess be:pres pocket:iness Soviet Union:gen passport
Ones father was killed and the other had the Soviet passport in his pocket.
(82) Sellejuures rikub ta ra
doing-this spoil:pres he/she pp
mitu head Faberi rmamrgiga pliiatsit. (ILU 1385)
Doing this, he spoils <a few good pencils of the Fabers trademark.>
(83) Liiv on kuiv ja variseb kokku,
sand be:pres dry and dribble:pres together
kuid Lion roomab mda randa, phib mned kriipsud ra
but Lion crawl:pres along shore:prtv wipe:pres some stripes:to pp
ning tmbab teisi juurde (ILU 461)
and draw:pres other:pl.po to
The sand is dry and begins to dribble but Lion is crawling along the shore,
wiping out some of the stripes and adding some more
Resultative constructions were not observed in either source, the progressive

occurred only in ILU (84). In addition to the progressive, resultative constructions
(85) can be found when observing the usage; along with those we also nd mistakes
in the use of the object as in the 19th century already, perfectivity is not marked
with the total object (86). In both cases the background inuence of Indo-European
language contacts can be supposed.
(84) Siin saarel on aga ks suvemaja just valmis

here island:adess be:pres but a summer-cottage just ready
saamas. (ILU 1232)
get:minf.iness
On this island a summer cottage is just getting ready.
(85) Homme saab ks suur vistlus ra peetud (Radio I, 1995)
tomorrow get:pres a big competition:nom pp held:impr/pass.part
Tomorrow a big competition will be held.
(86) Ta tles, et vene poisiga rgime ikka
he said that Russian boy:com talk:pres.1pl ever
eesti keeles, vene poiss peab neid kskusid ra
Estonian language:iness Russian boy must:pres these orders:po pp
ppima. (Radio I, 1994)
learn:minf
He said that with a Russian boy we keep talking in Estonian, a Russian boy has
to learn these orders.
5. Conclusion
In Estonian as a result of the cumulative eect of internal and external inuences

the use of the verbal particles has extended in recent centuries. A particularly
frequent verbal particle is ra which occurs in the directional meaning (ra minema
to go away) but especially as an aspectual exponent (ra parandama to repair). In
addition to the established phrasal verbs ra also occurs as an adherent perfectivity
particle, oering competition to the Finno-Ugric way of expressing aspect by means
of alternation of case forms of the object. In addition, ra contributes to the
information and rhythm structure of the sentence.
In the materials of literary Estonian we can observe the use of ra as a perfect-
ivity particle at the starting period of the literary language, thus in the language of
the 16th17th centuries. During the period 12001900, Estonia belonged to various
foreign powers, but the Baltic Germans made up the cultural and economic lite.
Estonian was under strong German inuence, one of the German-related syntacti-
cal features is phrasal verbs which conform to the pattern of German prexal verbs.
But the spread and the tendency of grammaticalization of one of the verbal particles
ra is a specic development of Estonian, which was given a major impetus by the
German speakers who formed literary Estonian in its earlier period. When the role
of Estonians and their language grew in the society of the mid-19th century and led
to the development of the national literary language, it still followed German-
related patterns. The use of both the particle and the German-like resultative
construction was very frequent. During the rst four decades of the 20th century a
standardized literary language which would satisfy all the needs of an independent
476 Helle Metslang
state (19181940) was developed. An attempt to get rid of everything German-

related and turning to Finnish examples brought along the decrease in using the
verbal particles and returning to the Finnic pattern governing the more conservative
Finnish where the case form of the direct object alone marked the aspect. The
analytical expression began to give way to the synthetic one (typical of Finnish). The
literary language of the period is characterized by a painstaking avoidance of ra,
even in cases where it would normally be obligatory. At the same time, analyticity
is inherent to Estonian and that is how the opposition, apparent in the modern
language started between the syntheticity of the literary language and the analyticity
of colloquial Estonian. The Russian inuence of the Soviet period again contributed
to the use of aspect markers with verbs, disseminating also the translation loans of
Russian prexal verbs in the clichs of the press language. The clichd press
language, standardized in the direction of syntheticity, is characterized by the
minimum use of ra; the ra-verbs used in the common language are rare while
Russian-induced phrasal verbs are frequent. The language of ction started again to
use ra moderately, alternating its use and disuse style-consciously, and did not
attempt to elude obligatory cases. The 1990s is the period of democratization and
restoring independence. In general, in formal texts the press language prefers
syntheticity, however, the choice of ra-verbs has become wider. In more informal
newspaper texts ra as a typically colloquial particle is used as a universal particle of
perfectivity. An analysis of the text of a novel indicates the use of ra in all its
functions, both obligatorily and optionally. (Only verbs with perfective semantics
may often omit ra.) An inuential factor to be considered in this case is colloquial
language in which the processes of grammaticalization are currently gaining
ground.
Abbreviations
F language of ction
minf the ma-innitive
P language of press
po partial object (in genitive or nominative case)
pp verbal particle with perfective meaning
T corpora of the Tartu University
tinf the da-innitive
to total object (in partitive case)
<DEST "met-n*">
Notes
* I wish to express my gratitude to sten Dahl for helpful comments on an earlier version of this
paper. This work was supported by the Research Support Scheme of the Higher Education
Support Programme, grant No.: 516/1995.
1. The alternation of cases of the same type is reported from Nepali (Indo-Aryan) as well as from
Yagua (a Peba-Yaguan language spoken mainly in Peru) (Larjavaara 1991: 373).
2. In addition to this, an interplay of temporal and aspectual meanings takes place in Estonian,
e.g. a perfective sentence in the present tense refers to the future, in a narrative text perfective
events follow one another.
3. The aspect is similarly expressed both by means of verbal particles and the alternation of the
case form of the object in Baltic languages. The marking of a modied aspect by means of verbal
prexes in Estonian is a step from the Baltic- Finnic pattern towards the Indo-European pattern
(Klaas 1996: 4043).
4. See about the cumulative eect of the factors forming the languages of the Baltics e.g. in Stolz
1991: 95.
5. Lative meaning is directional meaning where to. The local cases, postpositions, adverbials in
Estonian and related languages form triads: the lative member where to? (e.g the illative and the
allative case), the locative member where? (the inessive, the adessive), the separative member
wherefrom? (the elative, the ablative). There was a case in the Proto-Uralic and Proto-Finno-
Ugrian that is called lative by historical linguistics.
6. The predominating role of the particle ra in the modern literary language both among verbal
particles in general and as an aspectual particle is conrmed by C.Hasselblatts dissertation (1990)
based on lexicographical sources and by M. Nrvnens study (1992) based on texts of ction.
7. Closed-in construction a characteristical feature of the German word order, dissociating
tightly connected elements of the sentence, e.g. Wir haben uns wieder ein ganzes Jahr nicht gesehen,
Sie bereitete ihrem Sohn alles fr die Reise vor.
8. I have made use of the following sources: the corpus and the le of the old literary Estonian
which belongs to the Chair of the Estonian Language of Tartu University; the corpus of the
modern literary Estonian as well as the corpuses of the literary Estonian in the 1890s and 1930s,
belonging to the Chair of the Estonian Language of Tartu University (T); the corpus SCLOMB,
belonging to the Department of the Finnish and General Linguistics of Turku University, materials
of the Literary Museum of Tartu; personal observations based upon the usage in the newspapers,
on TV and the radio.
9. The founders of the Literary Estonian Germans, Lutheran pastors lived and worked in
Tallinn that was an international town. The Estonian townspeople in Tallinn in this time were
bilinguals and belonged to a lower social class. Their Estonian was inuented by German; probably
there was a German-mixed, pidgin-like Estonian used in Tallinn. The Catholic texts of the same
times written in South Estonian were much more Estonian than the texts and grammars
published in North Estonian in Tallinn. Nevertheless, the Lutheranism won, the capital dominated
in society, and the German-inuenced language became a norm.
Probably the case alternation of the object was not known in the dominating literary language
up to the end of the 17th century. The objects are usually in nominative or genitive often the
form may be treated in both ways , partitive forms are used only in pronouns as (24) and
in some declension types (Ross 1999). Maybe it reects the real usage and in the internationally
used Estonian in Tallinn the compensation of the complicated aspectual alternation of object cases
478 Helle Metslang
by ra was coined. On the other hand, the overuse of ra may be a kind of hypercorrection in
expression the perfectivity that is contained in the meanings of several German verbal prexes.
10. The references to the les in the respective corpus of Tartu University.
11. In German, deniteness-indeniteness is indicated by articles just as in English see (13).
12. That there are so few particles in Finnish to set an example can in its turn be regarded as a
result of the anti-Swedish purism (Nrvnen 1992: 45). So, there is a common inuence of the
Estonian anti-German purism and the Finnish anti-Swedish purism.
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Indiana University Publications. Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 82. Bloomington.
<TARGET "kan" DOCINFO
AUTHOR "Baiba Metuza le-Kangere and Kersti Boiko"
TITLE "Case systems and syntax in Latvian and Estonian"
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Case systems and syntax in Latvian

and Estonian
Baiba Metuzale-Kangere and Kersti Boiko
1. Introduction
The nominal category to be discussed at length in this paper is that of case. A

contrastive study of Estonian and Latvian was undertaken in order to provide the
basis for typological comparisons of the functioning of the various cases in both
languages. The reason for choosing Estonian and Latvian was that the genetically
related Baltic languages display many dierences that have to date eluded satisfacto-
ry explanation and so it seemed that a regional approach of two languages with
dierent case systems may throw light on general processes.
There seems to be a tendency in Latvian and Lithuanian to reduce the number
of morphologically marked cases and replace these by prepositional NPs. The
famous example of the instrumental in Latvian is an illustration of this, where the
form of the instrumental was lost and the case replaced by the preposition ar with
but which still is included in paradigms of inectionally marked cases even in
modern grammars. There is also evidence both in dialects and even remnants in
modern standard language of a former inessive, illative, adessive and allative in the
Baltic languages (Stang 175176); (Zinkevicius 1996: 112113, 115116). According
to Zinkevicius (1984: 196197), this occurred through merging of the accusative
with the postposition *en to form the inessive, *na to form the illative and the
postposition *pei with the locative to form the adessive and genitive to form the
allative, a process that he attributes to Finnish inuence. Similarly, according to late
nineteenth century works on which among others Endzelns based his ndings, the
the genitive has overtaken the functions of the ablative in the Baltic languages (as
well as in the Slavic languages and Greek). There is no formal evidence for this in
the Baltic languages and it is generally accepted that the process occurred already in
the proto-language stage.
An underlying hypothesis was that the thirteen Estonian cases would have
equivalents in any of the six, viz. ve (the vocative was not treated) morphologically
marked Latvian cases and the remainder would be catered for by prepositional NPs.
482 Baiba Metuzale-Kangere and Kersti Boiko
We were also interested in discovering the details of how economising of case

functions in connection with case reduction would involve not only replacement by
another structure (prepositional NPs instead of case) but also an added syntactic
load to already existing cases. Methodologically, however, we would not be inclined
to extrapolate an historical development or a process of grammaticalisation from a
study such as this since the material studied is insucient.
The study, naturally, involved working with the grammars written for both
languages. It became patently obvious in the process of evaluating the material that
grammatical tradition, dierences in terminology etc. actually aects the classica-
tion of language facts present in the languages, at times obscuring rather than laying
bare the basic similarities and creating dierences that are in no way basic in the
deep structure. Similarly, attitudes to language and its description are rooted in
tradition which does not always display the language situation as it exists, but rather
reects an ideal partly based on the belief that the diachronic facts as synchronically
perceived are more correct than the language of the day. The distinction between
spoken and written language is brought to bear, the attitude being that only formal
language (spoken or written) reects the norms of the language as such and that
conversational language falls short of these. Studies on the spoken language or even
slang are most limited to lexical or phraseological listings and give the impression
that the spoken language is a language (not a dialect) of its own.
Neither should one dismiss lightly the fact that, for half a century, both
Estonian and Latvian existed only in a bilingual situation as a local language. Even
if the number of speakers never reached a critical limit, language changed at a much
faster rate than it would have in a monolingual society by a monolingual society
is meant a language community that functions with one standard language to cover
all spheres of language use. Norms were held as a life-belt in the face of language
deterioration. In many instances language changed to the dismay of the speakers
themselves some of whom held in high regard a purisitic attitude towards language
norms dictated by linguists whilst others objected to these. Of interest to us is
whether the language description available is going to allow us to draw conclusions
in a methodologically acceptable way or not.
The methodology adopted was to illustrate the uses of each case in Estonian by
a structurally minimal sentence and translate this into natural Latvian. In instances
where translation into natural Latvian obscured case relations or involved non-
nominal categories, a more or less literal translation was included as an aid or by
way of explanation. The nal stage was to seek correspondences of case from
Estonian to Latvian and consider the total pattern emerging in the process. Thus
Estonian was the point of departure, since it has a larger spread of cases and the
opposite process with Latvian as the basis has not been tested. It was thought to be
necessary in time, but this would involve expanding both corpora to include all pre-
and postpostitional constructions in both languages.
2. A contrastive typology of Latvian and Estonian sentences
In order to create a frame of reference for the data studied, the discussion of case as
such in Latvian and Estonian will be related to a contrastive typology of Latvian and
Estonian syntax. For this, two relatively recent descriptions were used.
2.1 Raags typology of Estonian

Both languages could be said to have a basic sentence type. Raag (1997: 106) uses
the three notions of grammatical subject (S), logical subject or agent (A) and
words or syntagms that form a theme of the sentence (T).
a. The basic sentence type in Estonian (normalsatser in Swedish) is the one
where these three can be equated to each other. The example given is:
(1) Estonian
Tiit andis Piretile musi
Tiit gave Piret:all kiss
Tiit gave Piret a kiss
Here, Tiit corresponds to T, S, A. We will refer to this type as Type 1E.

b. Experiencer-possessor sentences where T, A correspond, but S is some other
word, e.g.
(2) Estonian
Piretile meeldib tantsida
Piret:all likes dance:tinf
Piret likes to dance
(3) Estonian
Arstil on prillid
doctor:all is glasses:nom.pl
The doctor has glasses
Here, Piretile, arstil correspond to T, A and tantsida, prillid to S. We will refer to

this type as Type 2E.
c. Existential sentences where A, S correspond, but another element in the
sentence functions as T, e.g.
(4) Estonian
Pningul on tonte
attic:adess is ghost:prtv.pl
There are ghosts in the attic
Here, pningul corresponds to T and tonte to A, S. We will refer to this as Type 3E.
2.2 Zepss typology of Latvian

Traditionally syntax in Latvian is treated in terms of subject and predicate as the
point of departure and further discussion is in the main based around typologising
the building blocks of which sentences are composed. Thus the role of case in
syntax is often left aside. For Lithuanian, Ambrazas adopts a similar traditional
approach, but goes one step further in actually making a typology where structure,
semantic role and grammatical realisation according to category and its constants
(e.g. case for nouns) is classied (Ambrazas 1997: 599689).
Zeps in an unpublished manuscript meant as teaching material of Latvian for
students of general linguistics distinguishes three basic types of sentences that he
describes as:
a. event (with nominative subject, objects in the accusative and/or dative
B.M-K.), e.g.:
(5) Latvian
Janis lasa.
John:nom reads
John is reading
(6) Latvian
Janis lasa gramatu.
John:nom reads book:acc
John is reading a book
(7) Latvian
Janis dod profesoram gramatu.
John:nom gives professor:dat book:acc
John gives the/a book to the professor.
(8) Latvian
Janis tic profesoram.
John:nom believes professor:dat
John believes the professor.
b. condition (with dative subject experiencer and nominative object).

(9) Latvian
Janim sap galva.
John:dat aches head:nom
John has a headache.
c. equational (nominative subject =nominative B.M-K), e.g.

(10) Latvian
Janis ir profesors.
John:nom is professor:nom
John is a professor.
(11) Latvian
Janis ir mulkis
John:nom is fool:nom
John is a fool.
In view of the nature of the work, the notions are only partly discussed as a coherent
typology. In fact, however, if the labels could be redened, all Latvian declarative
sentences may be included in the above classication. Henceforth event sentences
will be referred to as Type 1L, condition as Type 2 L (a notion that needs to be
expanded see later) and equational as Type 3L.
3. Case and syntax
3.1 Subjectobject relations Type 1

It is in terms of the grammatical functions of the nominal elements of Type 1L that
case is described in grammars of Latvian, i.e. the nominative is the subject case, the
accusative the direct object and the dative the indirect object case. To contrast this
with Estonian, the nominative is given as the basic form of the noun. This contrast
in description is well founded since formally Latvian has no basic form, but works
on a root+sux basis, all cases including the nominative having a sux and the
choice of the nominative as a base form is not related directly to form but rather to
the role of the nominative case in syntax. In Estonian, on the other hand, subject
object relations do not have a one-to-one correspondence with case as in Latvian,
but subjects and objects can be in the three so-called basic cases: formes de base
(de Sivers 1969: 149).
A pattern for relating case to subject and object in a manner similar to the
general pattern as in Latvian could be deduced for Estonian when two matters were
taken into account: rstly, the historical development involving the loss of the
direct object case due to syncretism with the genitive form in the singular and the
nominative form in the plural that had resulted in case loss of the accusative;
secondly, that case marking had a bearing on the aspect of the verb that aected
object marking.
The consequences of the loss of the direct object case are interesting with
respect to perception of case in both languages. In Latvian, case is not only de-
scribed but also perceived as a direct link to syntax in a deeper structure. In
Estonian, case is more a surface structure form for which several semantic roles
exist. It is true that case in Latvian also has several semantic roles, but there is a
central role that is seen as more or less denitive and the other functions of each
case are perceived as added roles. Now for Latvian, when the nominative and
accusative (subject and direct object cases) of plural feminine nouns register no
dierence: masas sisters, mates mothers, sirdis hearts they are still perceived as
one or the other in Latvian because the analogy of the masculine paradigm is ever
present and masculine plurals dier for the nominative and accusative case. In
Estonian, however, syncretism has occurred and the former accusative now is
perceived as the genitive case in the singular and the nominative case in the plural.
Such developments become relevant to typology in that they are directly related
to the organization of grammar in a language. The fact that the principles for
describing declension in Estonian and the Baltic languages are dierent is well
documented (e.g.Venkeer 1981). In Estonian: Es gibt keine strengen Deklinations-
klassen wie in einigen indogermanischen Sprachen (Hasselblatt 1992: 121) or, to
put it another way, Estonian has only one declension where the category of case
appears only in one paradigm. The declensions and conjugations quoted in
Estonian grammars are a result of historical phonological change in the stem/root
segment of each lexeme and the set of endings does not determine declensional
classes as distinct from languages where the dierent sets of paradigms in Latvian
do exactly this.
The complexity of rules for determining the case of the subject or the direct
object in Estonian led us to consult a native speaker on this matter. We report this
here not so much for the grammatical information that we obtained, but as an
illustration of the deeply rooted search for norms on the part of the informant that
mirrors attitude to language that we consider to be typical for the language commu-
nities under discussion. After subjecting the informant to a battery of sentences in
an eort to arrive at some conclusion, he embarked on quoting Estonian grammar
rules, in the course of which he explained that he had always used cases wrongly
until the disappearance of the accusative and the consequences thereof were made
clear to him. This raised the question as to which processes are operative in a
natural language situation for marking subjectdirect object relations in Estonian.
According to our informant, it seems that what has actually happened is that the
partitive in Estonian has now become the direct object case although grammar
books still reect the situation described above as being the correct usage. Whilst
realising that this question is far more complex (e.g. see Nemvalts 1996), it seems
that in broad, general terms, our informant is not so wrong: the choice of case for
the object as presented by Raag (1997: 205238), who also suggests that apart from
passives (viz. impersonals) and imperatives, the choice of a case for an object is the
partitive unless one has to mark what is very reminiscent of aspect marking for the
terminative aspect (Verkuyls terminology for the perfective aspect (1993)).
3.1.1Aspect marking in Latvian and Estonian

A signicant dierence in aspect marking in Latvian and Estonian at rst seem to
be that Latvian marks the entire paradigm of a verb for the terminative aspect
through prexation, i.e. aspect marking in Latvian is derivational whilst Estonian
also uses case to determine whether the action of a verb is terminative or not
through its marking of objects as total or partial. (Estonian also has verbs that
regularly take adverbs or adpositions that may be regarded as the equivalent of the
prexal aspect marking as in Latvian (cf. Metslang, this volume). Latvian, in turn,
also registers instances of adverbial particles together with or separate from prexed
verbs as forms of aspect marking.) In grammars of both languages, tense is by and
large omitted in descriptions of aspect. We are not pretending to present an
approach to the treatment of aspect here. We do consider, however, that there is a
dierence in the description of the phenomenom whereby in Estonian, the focus is
on the arguments of the verb and in Latvian on the form of the verb.
For the reason that case marking in Estonian is related to aspect marking, we
will consider the Latvian situation for which case and aspect are never related in
grammar description.
(12) Latvian
Vin eda maiztes divas stundas.
he ate:ipfv sandwich:acc.pl two:acc hour:acc.pl
He ate sandwiches for two hours.
(13) Latvian
Vin apeda maiztes divas stundas
he ate:pfv sandwich:acc.pl two:loc hour:loc.pl
He ate up the sandwiches in two hours.
On consideration of (10) and (11), the sandwiches in (10) imply an unspecied

quantity, cf. partial object whilst those in (11) refer to a specied quantity, cf. total
object. The relationship between between bounded activity implying delimitation
of the object has been noted for Russian (Dahl 1985: 75). In Verkuyls work on
aspectuality, the bounded-unbounded nature of the activity of the verb is formally
linked with the quantication feature (Specied Quantity) or lack thereof of the
arguments of the verb. Thus the above comes as no surprise in terms of general
theory. This contrastive study demonstrates, however, that focussing the grammati-
cal description of a language on features that are marked may lead to interpretations
of language facts that seem very dierent, but in fact are two sides of the same coin.
To put it another way, features interpreted in terms of universals lead us to consider
both marked and unmarked features whereas grammars written for a given
language often omit what is not marked.
3.1.2Total and partial objects

The data lead us to believe that considerations on quantication for both Latvian and
Estonian would need to pivot around the notions of totality and partiality rather
than deniteness and indeniteness, deniteness being a particular case of totality
as indeed is specied quantity. The notion of partiality has a bearing on direct
objects: in Lithuanian, this is a major consideration for case marking in that partial
objects are represented by the genitive case and total objects by the accusative.
Remnants of this are found in Latvian dialects as well as in modern Latvian in some
constructions often involving negation. In both Lithuanian and Latvian quanti-
cation is based on the opposition of total/partial where the notion of partiality
involves constructions using the genitive case and totality left unmarked.
A consequence of the fact that Lithuanian distinguishes between objects that
are total and represented by the accusative and objects that are a part of a total
entity being expressed in the genitive case is that the genitive in Lithuanian is
probably more frequent than the accusative. Similarly, negation is strongly linked
with concepts relating to the notion of partitivity and reected by the genitive case
for the Baltic languages and the partitive in Estonian.
Perhaps the main point to be made as a result of these observations is that the
issue implicit in partiality, namely that of totality, be regarded as explicit and in
opposition to that of partiality. If this opposition is regarded as dominant, then
such notions as quantication, countability, lack of quantity vs. non possession and
their relevance to nominal categories, negation and aspect may be regarded as a
phenomenon of boundedness as present in the notion of totality.
3.2 Subjectobject relations involving oblique case Type 2

The term oblique is used somewhat loosely here where the discussion will centre
around sentences that have the structure of the sentences of Type 2L and 2E.
In Latvian, there is a set of sentence types that have the logical subject in the
dative and the logical object in the nominative. The distinction between gram-
matical subject and logical subject was introduced for Latvian by Muhlenbachs in
1907 (Endselin & Muhlenbachs 1907: 212) and since then there have been numer-
ous discussions on whether nominative is synonymous with subject, whether
other cases can designate the subject of a sentence. The formula quoted above is the
current solution mainly applied to the problem of sentences in the debitive mood.
It seems, however, that it is not only debitive sentences that display the case
relationships as above with respect to subject /object relationships and it is not at all
so very clear that the nominative is an object at all nor is the dative an unequivocal
subject. Raag also makes the distinction between logical and grammatical subjects
and sentences belonging to Type 2E are virtually of the same structure as Type 2L.
We ourselves are considering whether it is not warranted to posit the notion of
direct and indirect or reference subjects in view of this terminology: logical as
opposed to grammatical implies that logic and grammar are at odds and this is
surely not in line with the objectives of grammatical description.We have not,
however, delved deeply enough into the literature on subjecthood to take this
suggestion further, thus we will proceed in the traditional manner.
a. Debitive sentences are the ones on which interest in subjecthood and object-
hood is focussed in Latvian grammars. Thus in the following sentence the logical
subject is said to be in the dative and the logical object in the nominative:
(14) Latvian
Man ir jalasa gramata
I:dat is read:deb book:nom
I have to read the book (N.B. Man ir corresponds to I have)
When the sentence is viewed from the point of view of semantics, then actually the
person is not the subject of the verb, but rather the subject of the obligation since it
is not known whether the action of the verb takes place or not. In languages with
periphrastic constructions involving modal verbs (e.g. German, English, Swedish)
or a separate verb for the semantics of the debitive (e.g. Estonian, French) the verb
following the obligation is not a nite form. In Latvian, the form of the debitive is
derived from a nite form marked for person, tense and mood. Otherwise Latvian
can be seen to correspond to those languages that have a verb for to have for the
debitive meaning (e.g. tureti in Lithuanian and to have to in English) since man ir
means I have (see below).The subjecthood or objecthood of the verb depends
upon the interpretation of the verb form: if it is interpreted as an active form, then
the nominative is in an object relationship with the verb, whereas if the verb is
interpreted as a passive form (cf. Latin Liber legendus est), then the nominative is the
subject form. This uncertainty obtains because of the form both of the phrasal
construction and of the debitive which is derived from the third person present
tense indicative active form of the verb including the inectional ending. This
means that it is easier to perceive the form marked for debitivity as a nite verb
form. It was Endzelns who rst described the debitive as a mood, an explanation
that is not free of problems since as a rule one mood may not be combined with
another. Debitive sentences in Latvian however, may be in the subjunctive mood:
(15) Latvian
Man esot jalasa gramata
I:dat is:subj read:deb book:nom
It seems that I have to read the/a book.
On the omission of the copula, a frequent occurrence, the debitive-subjunctive

sentence may become:
(16) Latvian
Man jalasot gramata
I:dat read:deb.subj book:nom
(= (15))
In spoken Latvian, more often than not, one hears:

(17) Latvian (spoken)

Man jalasa gramatu
I:dat read:deb book:acc
(= (15))
This actually indicates a shift in perception, i.e. that the logical object in the
nominative is becoming a regular object in the accusative as it has always been for
personal pronouns. How far this grammaticalisation has progressed and what its
limitations are is not being researched since the sentence is regarded as ungrammat-
ical, not as a sign of an ongoing process of grammaticalisation.
On comparing sentences of Type 2 in Estonian and Latvian, we may note their
structural and semantic similarity. However, this syntactic type in Latvian has a far
greater spread in Latvian than in Estonian.
b. intransitive, viz. reexive verbs expressing condition or involuntary action:
(18) Latvian
Man sap galva
I:dat hurts head:nom
I have a headache.
(19) Latvian
Man apedas visa kuka.
I:dat eaten up:refl entire cake:nom
I inadvertently ate the whole cake up.
(Incidentally, Zeps classies this last instance as an aspect (129) for reasons that
are not explained.)
c. possessive with regard to sentence subject indicating that the possessor is the
topic of text, not the subject in the nominative of the actual sentence:
(20) Latvian
Man nomira tevs (kad man bija pieci gadi).
I:dat died father:nom (when to me were ve years
My father died (when I was ve).
cf.:
(21) Latvian
Mans tevs nomira (ar vezi).
my:nom father:nom died (with cancer
My father died (of cancer).
In (21), the father is the topic, therefore the possessive pronoun is used in a regular
sentence type whereas in (20), the dying of the father is an event for which there is
a patient that is the real topic of the sentence and this is marked by the dative
subject sentence type. This distinction does not in Estonian where the possessive
pronoun sentence, viz. the equivalent of (21), is the only posssibility.
If we examine the gamut of sentences with the dative subject in Latvian, the
common denominator seems to be that the dative subject is non-agentive. These
sentences describe obligation to be fullled, conditions that aect the person, non-
responsibility, non-voluntary action etc. Thus the syntactic structure actually
represents a semantic focus that depends on a reorganizastion of the semantic roles
of case. One may of course discuss this as the semantics of the dative as done by
Wierzbicka (1986: 419) for Polish.
In Estonian, the allative case which in many respects corresponds to the the
Indo-European notion of the dative, there is similar usage, e.g.:
(22) Estonian
Mulle meeldib sa
I:all like eat:tinf
I enjoy eating.
cf.
(23) Latvian
Man patk est
I:dat like to eat
I enjoy eating.
The dierence seems to be that in Indo-European languages, the directionality of

the dative has been confounded with the notion of indirect object. This is not so in
Estonian and therefore the question of indirect object is not relevant to a general
description of syntax, but a particular instance of the use of the allative that is not
so dierent from other uses of the allative, e.g. Raag describes the analogue of an
indirect object in Estonian as an adverbial in the allative (Raag 1997:127). In fact, a
comparison of Latvian dative and Estonian allative constructions reveals a very close
similarity. According to Raag, Estonian has the equivalent of the condition sentences
for Latvian with the referent not only in the allative and adessive, but also in the
ablative, elative and the comitative or an adpositional group. these Estonian sentenc-
es also fall into the semantic category of condition sentences as positied by Zeps.
3.3 Existential and equational sentences Type 3

With respect to Type 3E, these Estonian sentences are catered for in Latvian by the
basic Type 1L in that through fronting of any of the post verb elements a shift of
emphasis is achieved, but the result can hardly be generalised as a syntactic type.
Undoubtedly, this process often results in sentences of the existential type, but
since this is not always so, this type does not gure as such in Latvian. It seems that
this phenomenon is related to two grammatical considerations, one characteristic
of both Latvian and Estonian and the other to an idiosyncrasy of Latvian present in
Estonian only for the verb to be.
Both Latvian and Estonian seem to contravene the predication theory that
states that a predicate must have a subject, for which reason dummy subjects such
as it in it is raining occur, in that neither language has an overt subject. This does
not mean that a subject may not be implied because the inectional ending of the
verb form should indicate the person and number of the subject. In Latvian,
however, there is a common form for the third person for both singular and plural,
thus Latvian does not mark number for the third person in verbs. This is so only for
the verb olema to be in Estonian. Otherwise Estonian, in this type of sentence,
marks verbs for the singular regardless of whether the noun is in the plural or the
singular and thus it is possible to distinguish a sentence type that has a plural
subject with a singular verb:
(24) Estonian
Peenral kasvab lilli
ower bed:adess grows owers:prtv
There are owers growing in the ower bed.
Of course, agreement in number between subject and verb also exists:

(25) Estonian
Peenral kasvavad lilled
ower bed:adess grow owers:nom
Flowers are growing in the ower bed.
Note also the dierence in case of lilli/lilled.Whatever the shade of the dierence in
meaning (if any) between the two sentences is perceived to be, they represent two
structural types. A similar dierentiation in structure is not viable for Latvian:
(26) Latvian
Dobe aug pukes
ower bed:loc grow/*grows owers:nom
There are owers growing in the ower bed.
This means that existential sentences as a semantic category is hinted at in Estonian

but not in Latvian. The problem of existential sentences in Estonian is that they
have weak marking in structure (see Nemvalts 1996), but Latvian has virtually none
that can be set apart. Thus one may safely say that existential sentences exist in
Latvian on the basis of comparison with other languages but it is doubtful whether
this conclusion would be arrived at on examination of Latvian data alone.
With regard to Type 3L, the verb, the copula to be, acts as the equality sign in
the equation which means that case correspondence on either side of the equation
is a logical development. This sentence type is set aside by Zeps mainly because it is
dicult to analyse within the framework of Types 1 and 2 (these sentences are more
like condition i.e. Type 2, sentences semantically, but not structurally) thus it is
placed into a separate category. It is virtually based on sentences containing one

verb but in Latvian:
(27) Latvian
Janis ir arsts
John:nom is doctor:nom
John is a doctor.
In Estonian, sentences of this type with the same structure are as frequent as in
Latvian, but they are not perceived as a separate type.
Sentences involving change of state or condition have a prepositional phrase
after the verb:
(28) Latvian
Janis kluva par arstu
John:nom became prep doctor:acc
John became a doctor.
The prepositional phrase in similar sentences in Estonian corresponds to the

translative case.
3.4 Conclusion
To summarise, Latvian and Estonian are quite alike with respect to sentence
structure, but sentence types are not placed into matching slots in their grammatical
description. The main dierences between the two languages in this respect are: (a)
in the spread of Type 2. Latvian has more subtypes in this group; and (b) the marking
of existential sentences, weak though it may be, in Estonian but not in Latvian.
The productivity of Latvian sentences of Type 2 may be explained as a general-
isation of the model of the possessive sentence in the absence of the verb to have.
The underlying semantic model is the statement of existence and then relating this
general statement to a being (animate, inanimate or abstract) for which Latvian uses
the dative case, but Estonian may choose from several (see above), the connection
resulting in a metaphor for possession with a possessor and an object of possession
connected by a copula: the subject of the existence becomes the object of posses-
sion. In Latvian, this metaphorisation may be used with all intransitive verbs, not
only to be. In Estonian, on the other hand, this is restricted to the examples
mentioned in Type 2E. Interestingly enough, the generalisation of the possessive
construction to other sentence types with an intransitive verb in Estonian is only
possible for the sentences that are marked as existential through partitive marking
of the subject and lack of agreement in number between verb and grammatical
subject. Thus, the sentences (2426) in Latvian and Estonian may be headed by a
dative, viz. adessive to result in:
(29) Latvian
Man dobe aug pukes
I:dat ower bed:loc grow owers
(30) Estonian
Mul peenral kasvab lilli
I:adess ower bed:adess grow ower:prtv.pl
I have owers growing in the ower bed.
Although (30) is considered somewhat unusual, it is perceived as grammatical in

contrast to (31) which is ungrammatical:
(31) Estonian
*Mul peenral kasvavad lilled
(cf. (25))
4. Case and the adpositional phrase
Besides subject/object and genitive/partitive relations discussed above, the question

of interest with regard to case is what types of categories are further expressed
formally by case and which are adpositional constructions. Formally, Latvian has
only one other case, the locative, whilst Estonian has a number of local cases
(allative, illative, adessive, inessive etc.) and the translative and comitative case. The
comitative in Estonian expresses both instrumental and comitative functions, as
does the prepositional construction with the preposition ar in Latvian. With regard
to terminology, if the prepositional construction is given the status of case in
grammars of Latvian, it is then referred to as the instrumental (see Stolz in this
volume). The translative and ablative in Estonian are mainly rendered by preposi-
tional constructions in Latvian.
If we were to summarize the other local cases in broad general terms, it
becomes evident that the lative (allative, illative) cases in Estonian correspond to the
dative (apart from the constructions as above) in Latvian whilst the essive (adessive,
inessive) cases are rendered by the locative. Interestingly enough, Estonian grammar
descriptions do not lump together as sets lative and essive cases, but sets named as
internal local cases (illative, inessive, elative) and external local cases (allative,
adessive, ablative) have evolved. The observation regarding the congruency of case
between Estonian and Latvian is a generalisation, thus by nature imprecise and
counter examples, e.g. where the illative corresponds to the locative etc., are not
hard to nd:
(32) a. Estonian
de torkas talle sstla tagumikku
nurse:nom injected him:all needle:gen bottom:ill
b. Latvian
Masina iedra vinam prici dibena
nurse:nom injected him:dat needle:acc bottom:loc
The nurse stuck a needle in his bottom.
Similarly, prepositional constructions in Latvian may be used to render the above

cases in Estonian. With respect to case and adpositional constructions, Estonian at
present has parallel constructions especially with the ablative case and a postposi-
tional construction e.g.:
(33) Estonian
a. Vtsin riiulilt krid
took:1sg shelf:abl scissors
b. Vtsin riiuli pealt krid
took:1sg shelf:gen from scissors
I took the scissors from the shelf.
This may be a sign of impending case loss, at least partially. One of our informants
judged that (33a) is more likely to be used in formal written language but (33b) in
spoken language.
5. Conclusion
Through examining case which is easy to isolate on the basis of form and contrast-
ing the typology of sentences in Estonian and Latvian, we found it necessary to
establish the semantic link between existence and possession and the formal
realisation of this link. It was here that the issue of sentence types in both languages
warranted attention. Contrastively, these were both similar and dierent: similar in
that both possession and existence works through the verbs olema, but to be with
an oblique case (cf. Russian here a prepositional phrase is used with the verb to be
instead of case despite the case system which otherwise is very much like the Latvian
case system); dierent in that existential sentences are weakly marked in Estonian,
but not perceivably in Latvian; dierent also in that the model of possession in
Latvian is extended to include a much more extensive subset of mainly intransitive
verb basic sentence types than in Estonian, but, interestingly enough, could be used
in Estonian for the sentences that are marked for existentialism, but not in other
semantically existential sentences.
Case binds formally the semantics and grammatical function of nominal
categories: Der Kasus eines Wortes bestimmt seine Stellung innerhalb des Satzes
und speziert seine Semantik (Hasselblatt 1992: 93). Now all of (a) case; (b)
adpositioning; (c) word order (juxtaposition or within the framework of the
sentence) may perform identical grammatical and semantic functions. Nor is it easy
to discuss these as discrete notions: adpositioning may be described as a form of

word order (juxtaposition); the distinction between inection and adpositioning is
not easily dened, e.g. de of, from and to in French grammars are generally not
treated together with avec with, par by, etc.
There is, however, a theoretical dimension to the dierence between bound
morphemes that are lexemes and ones that are fused with another category, in this
instance the dierence between usage of nominal case forms as distinct from
adpositional constructions. The fact that fused forms are of necessity discussed in
grammar as a feature of another category, not semantically as in a lexicon, means
that they are described in dierent contexts.Whilst adpositional constructions may
be used equivalently with case in a given set of instances, the phenomenon of case
itself is dierent from that of adpositional constructions, a dierence that is
addressed in contrastive studies, but not found explicitly in grammars of the
separate languages.
This study shows, however, that the phenomenon of case is of a dierent nature
for subject-object relations as opposed to adverbials. If we now consider the
question in quantitative terms relating the number of cases in a language to this
opposition, our data would seem to suggest that if a language has a complex system
of local cases, then the dative function is regarded as part of this system whereas if
the case system is reduced, then the dative is integrated into the one system of basic
sentence structure and their purely local functions are explained with reference to
subject-object relations. This seems to hold for the Indo-European languages
known to us. Latvian is interesting because it actually has an explicit local case
which would allow for a mini local case subsystem, but whether for reasons of
grammatical tradition or otherwise, the description follows the Indo-European
pattern.
References
Ambrazas, Vytautas (ed.). 1997. Lithuanian Grammar. Vilnius: Baltos lankos.

Comrie, Bernard. 1989. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Comrie, Bernard. 1986. On Delimiting Cases. In: Richard D. Brecht & James S. Levine, Case in
Slavic, 86106. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, Inc.
Dahl, sten. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford, New York: Basil Blackwell.
Endselin, J., Muhlenbachs, K. 1907. Latweeschu gramatika. Riga: A. J. Eichmana apgads.
Endzelin, J. 1922. Lettische Grammatik. Riga: Kommissionverlag A. Gulbis.
Endzelns, Janis. 1938. Latvieu valodas skanas un formas. Riga: Latvijas Universitate.
Endzelns, Janis. 1951. Latvieu valodas gramatika. Riga: Latvijas Valsts Izdevniecba.
Hasselblatt, Cornelius. 1992. Grammatisches Wrterbuch des Estnischen. Verentlichungen der
Societas Uralo-Altaica, Band 35. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
Holvoet, Axel. 1994. Notes on the Latvian Passive. Linguistica Baltica 3: 131140.
</TARGET "kan">
Lutkat, Florene-Silvia, Hasselblatt, Cornelius. 1993. Estnisch intensiv. Hamburg: Bibliotheca

Baltica.
Metslang, Helle, this volume. On the Developments of the Estonian Aspect: the Verbal Particle ra.
Nemvalts, Peep. 1996. Case Marking of subject Phrases in Modern Standard Estonian. Studia
Uralica Upsaliensa 25. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Oinas, Felix J. 1975. Basic Course in Estonian. 4th edition. Bloomington: Indiana University.
Raag, Raimo. 1997. Elementr estnisk satslra. Uppsala: Finsk-ugriska institutionen.
de Sivers, Fanny. 1969. Analyse grammaticale de lestonien parl. G. de Bussac, Clermont/Ferrand.
Sokols, E., Bergmane, A., Grabis, R., Lepika, M. (eds.). 1959. Musdienu latvieu literaras valodas
gramatika 1, Riga: Latvijas PSR Zinatnu Akademijas Izdevniecba.
Ulvydas, K. 1965. Lietuviu kalbos gramatika, 1 tomas. Vilnius: Mintis.
Veenker, Wolfgang. 1981. Nominale Kategorien in den ostseennischen und baltischen Sprachen.
Finnisch-Ungrische Mitteilungen 5: 123176.
Verkuyl, Henk J. 1993. A theory of aspectuality. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 64. Cambridge
University Press.
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1986. The Meaning of a Case: A Study of the Polish dative. In: Brecht, Richard
D. & Levine, James S. (eds.), Case in Slavic. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica. 386426.
Zeps, Valdis J. 1981. Ms. Speak You Latvian?
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AUTHOR "Simon Christen"
TITLE "Genitive positions in Baltic and Finnic languages"
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Genitive positions in Baltic

and Finnic languages*
Simon Christen
In the Baltic and Finnic languages, attributive genitives appear before the head noun
along with demonstrative pronouns, quantiers, numerals and adjectives. In
contrast to these other premodiers, whose order normally is fairly rigid,1 genitives
may be placed more freely. In this article the structural relevance of dierent
genitive positions will be examined. We will discuss material from both the Baltic
and Finnic languages (mainly Finnish and Estonian in the latter group), because
some important principles can be revealed only by their joint consideration.
1. Semantic range of genitive attributes
The expression of possession is probably the prototypical semantic relationship of

adnominal genitives. Beside this, there is a whole range of other relationships
genitives may express. Only some of them will be considered in the next few para-
graphs, insofar as they serve as cornerstones for detecting dierent syntactic genitive
positions.
1.1 Possessor
The basic possessive construction looks the same in the languages considered here,
with the possessor-nominal (the dependent) in the genitive preceding the possessee-
nominal (the head of the noun phrase). In the Slavic languages, which are closely
related to Baltic, the opposite word order is the norm.
(1) Estonian
tdruk-u koer
girl-gen dog
the girls dog
The same meaning is expressed in Finnish as tyt-n koira, in Lithuanian as mergait-

es uo, and in Latvian as meiten-es suns, but in Russian as sobaka devock-i.2
500 Simon Christen
1.2 Material
The material something is made of has a continuum of dierent expressions,
ranging from denominal adjectives (2a) over genitives (2b, c) and juxtaposition of
nouns (2d) to word-compounding (2e, f). It is not always easy to draw clear
distinctions between these cases, the dierent possibilities being highly language
code-dependent.
(2) a. Lithuanian
auks-in-is ied-as
gold-adjr-nom ring-nom
b. auks-o iedas
gold-gen ring
c. Latvian
zelt-a gredzens
gold-gen ring
d. Meadow-Eastern Mari
rtn erga
gold ring
e. Estonian
kuld-srmus
gold-ring
f. Finnish
kulta-sormus
gold-ring
ring of gold
In this particular case, modern Lithuanian usage slightly prefers the expression with
an adjective, the genitive being more archaic and occurring mainly in folklore
texts. Conversely, in the High Latvian dialect adjectives like in kucin lieika
wooden spoon are in decline now, being used only in a few subdialects (izloksnes),3
where they tend to be substantivized (Rudzte 1964: 324). In literary Latvian,
adjectives denoting materials are no longer used at all. Instead, the genitive con-
struction has the highest frequency, with compounds occurring only occasionally,
as in dzelzcel railway.4
The Finnic languages, on the other hand, prefer compounds, and alternative
constructions with an elative denoting the material often sound clumsy, as e.g. Fin
sormus kullasta, Est srmus kullast a ring from gold. Adjectives denoting materials
are more common in Livonian, although compounds and elative constructions do
also occur. This tendency can be seen in examples like the following:
(3) a. Livonian
piki-zt roudi-zt rat-d-ks
small-gen.pl ironadj-gen.pl wheel-pl-trnsl/com
(Loorits 1936: 8)
b. Latvian
ar maz-iem dzelz-s rat-in-iem
with small-dat/inst.pl iron-gen wheel-dim-dat/inst.pl
with a small iron car
Here Livonian uses an adjective, although neighboring Latvian has a genitive.5

Veps, on the other hand, prefers material adjectives, as does the neighboring
Russian:
(4) a. Veps
kudeine re]gheine
golden ringlet
b. Russian
zolotoe kolecko
golden ringlet
golden ringlet
(Zajceva/Mullonen 1972: 251)
1.3 Agent
There are two constructions where an agent is expressed as an adnominal genitive.
In the rst one it is used with verbal nouns:6
(5) Finnish
Petteri-n lukeminen
Peter-gen reading
Peters reading
In the Baltic languages, however, this type of construction is avoided. The accept-
ability largely depends on the meaning of the action nominal. If it is an abstract
noun as in Ltv celana the process of building, the determination of the action
nominal by a subject or object genitive seems almost impossible. On the other hand,
in more concrete cases such as Ltv iekaroana conquest (see 26 below), both agent
and patient may exceptionally be expressed.
The other type of agent genitive expresses the author of a work:
(6) Lithuanian
Ciurlion-io paveikslas
Ciurlionis-gen painting
a painting by Ciurlionis
The correct interpretation of this kind of agent genitive requires, however, the
knowledge that Ciurlionis was, among other things, a famous painter. Otherwise,
one would think of a possessive meaning, a painting belonging to Ciurlionis.
502 Simon Christen
1.4 Patient
Action nominals do not only combine with agents, but also with patients. In this case,
too, such constructions are more readily formed in Finnic than in Baltic languages.
(7) Finnish
kirja-n lukeminen
book-gen reading
the reading of the book
The coupling between patient and action nominal can be very tight, forming com-
pounds:
(8) Estonian
raamat-u-lugemine
book-gen-reading
reading books
(Saagpakk 1982: 712)
The close relationship between compounds and descriptive genitives (see Sec-
tion 3.1.2) suggests that raamatulugemine is used to denote the generic act of
reading (somehow connected with) books, not the reading of a specic book.
Also with picture nouns the person or thing depicted is easily rendered by a
patient genitive:
(9) Estonian
a. katedraal-i foto
cathedral-gen photograph
the photograph of the cathedral
b. foto katedraali-st
photograph cathedral-elat
a/the photograph of a cathedral
As the translations suggest, the choice of the genitive or the elative is inuenced by
communicative properties of the dependent: if it is denite or already known the
genitive is more common, otherwise the elative. In any case, the variant with the
elative is preferred when there is another genitive present, e.g. to express the
possessor or the agent.
In Finnish, too, both the genitive and elative constructions are possible, with no
dierence in meaning.
(10) Finnish
a. kirko-n kuva
church-gen picture
b. kuva kirko-sta
picture church-elat
a picture of the church
If the object denotes a class of pictures rather than a specic entity, a compound can
be used:
(11) a. Estonian
kirik-u-pilt
church-gen-picture
b. Finnish
kirkko-kuva
church-picture
a church picture
Such compounds refer to a kind or category of pictures, somehow related to a

church (M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, p.c.).
The Baltic languages almost exclusively use genitive constructions; the preposi-
tion Lith nuo Ltv no from, which is functionally equivalent to the Finnic elative,
cannot be used in this context.
2. Combination of attributes
Genitives can be combined with other attributes to form a complex attribute of the
head noun. In the following paragraphs I will show the dierent possible combina-
tions of attributive genitives in the languages under consideration.
2.1 Combination of genitives and adjectives

Adjectives can modify the genitive dependent, the head noun, or both. Let us
consider these possibilities in turn.
Constructions with an adjective qualifying the genitive dependent pattern the
same way in Finnic and in Baltic languages:
(12) a. Finnish
piene-n tyt-n tuoli
little-gen girl-gen chair
b. Lithuanian
ma-os mergait-es kede
little-gen girl-gen chair
the little girls chair
In both language groups, the genitive is immediately preceded by its adjectival

attribute, which agrees with it in case, number and (for the Baltic languages) gender.
There are positional dierences in unmarked word order when the adjective
qualies the head noun:
504 Simon Christen
(13) Lithuanian
a. maa mergait-es kede
little girl-gen chair
b. mergait-es maa kede
girl-gen little chair
the girls little chair
In Lithuanian standard word order (13a) the head noun and its adjectival attribute
bracket the genitive attribute. This word order corresponds to the general Baltic
pattern of presenting the most unspecic information rst. Depending on the
overall pragmatic structure of the sentence the reverse word order (13b) is also
possible. In this case the girls ownership may be stressed.
In Latvian the situation is almost the same, but complicated by the fact that the
possible word orders depend on the use of the denite or indenite form of the
adjective. Only denite adjectives allow both word orders, whereas with indenite
adjectives only the order with the adjective preceding the genitive is possible (see
example 39 below).
In Finnish, on the other hand, in standard word order, which is obligatory for
most cases, the genitive precedes the adjective:
(14) Finnish
a. nai-sen selv ksiala
woman-gen clear handwriting
the womans clear handwriting
Only descriptive genitives, which precede the head noun immediately (see Sec-
tion 3.1.1 below), show a dierent word order:
b. selv nai-sen ksiala
clear woman-gen handwriting
a/the clear womans handwriting
Descriptive genitives tend to form compounds in Finnish, as in:

(15) a. kirko-n kalteva torni
church-gen slanting tower
the slanting tower of the church
b. kalteva kirko-n-torni
slanting church-gen-tower
a/the slanting church-tower
It is evident that an adjective cannot be inserted between the two parts of a com-
pound. Multiple compounding is discouraged in Finnish, so in examples like (14b),
where ksiala already is a compound itself, naisen does not form a compound with
it, but is used as an uncompounded descriptive genitive instead. Estonian, on the
other hand, does not have such a restriction and generally allows compounds with
more than two parts. Otherwise, it shows the same standard word order as Finnish.
If the head noun is a genitive itself, there are two interpretations possible in
Lithuanian standard word order (16a), whereas the alternative word order (16b) is
unambiguous (and is thus preferred to express the corresponding meaning):
(16) Lithuanian
a. Iek-au ma-os mergait-es ked-es
look.for:pres-1sg little-gen.sg.fem girl-gen.sg.fem chair-gen.sg.fem
I am looking for the little girls chair
or I am looking for the girls little chair
b. Iek-au mergait-es ma-os ked-es
look.for:pres-1sg girl-gen.sg.fem little-gen.sg.fem chair-gen.sg.fem
I am looking for the girls little chair
When both the dependent and the head have their own adjectival attributes, each
language shows the same specic behavior as when there is only one adjective
modifying the head:
(17) a. Finnish
piene-n tyt-n uusi tuoli
little-gen girl-gen new:nom chair:nom
b. Estonian
vike-se tdruk-u uus tool
little-gen girl-gen new:nom chair:nom
c. Lithuanian
nauj-a ma-os mergait-es ked-e
new-nom little-gen girl-gen chair-nom
d. ma-os mergait-es nauj-a ked-e
little-gen girl-gen new-nom chair-nom
e. Latvian
jaun-ais maz-as meiten-es kresl-s
new-gen.def little-gen.def girl-gen chair-nom
f. maz-as meiten-es jaun-ais kresl-s
little-gen.def girl-gen new-gen.def chair-nom
the little girls new chair
The word order in Finnish and Estonian is xed. In Lithuanian it depends on the
communicative structure of the sentence, where the neutral word order is (17c) and
the alternative one (17d) often stresses the ownership. In Latvian, too, there are two
possible word orders, but unlike in Lithuanian, the neutral word order has the
genitive before the adjective (17f). (17e) requires that a heavy stress be put on the
adjective if it is to be grammatical. So Latvian shows intermediate behavior here,
using the same neutral word order as Finnish and Estonian, but allowing an
alternative (although much more restricted in use) like Lithuanian.
506 Simon Christen
2.2 Combination of genitives and demonstrative pronouns

Interestingly, all the languages considered here allow the use of genitives together
with demonstratives. There are, however, some dierences concerning possible
word orders and combinability with other elements.
In both Finnish and Lithuanian, word order can be used to mark contrastive
stress on the demonstrative. In unmarked word order the demonstrative pronoun
precedes the genitive, whereas to render the contrastive meaning this order is
reversed, cf. Jokinens (1991: 8) example (10):
(18) Finnish
a. nuo Aimo-n koirat ovat vihaisia
those Aimo-gen dogs are angry
those dogs of Aimos are angry
b. Aimo-n NUO koirat ovat vihaisia
Aimo-gen those dogs are angry
THOSE dogs of Aimos are angry
As Jokinen (1991: 8) explains:

In (18a), certain dogs are identied by pointing at a certain group of dogs
(those over there) and telling that they belong to Aimo, whereas in (18b), a
contrast is expressed between Aimos dogs: those dogs are contrasted to other
dogs of his. The order in (18a) is the neutral one, while (18b) requires a
particular stress pattern: the pronoun must bear a contrastive stress. In speech,
of course, both orders can be used to express a contrast, since a stress on the
demonstrative pronoun will unambiguously mark the contrast between those
and some other dogs, regardless of the specier order.
In a similar vein in Lithuanian (19a) is the unmarked word order, whereas (19b)
puts a contrastive stress on ie these:
(19) Lithuanian
a. ie tev-o od-iai
these father-gen word-pl
these words of [my] father
b. tev-o ie od-iai
father-gen these word-pl
THESE words of [my] father
Latvian, on the other hand, allows only the unmarked word order of Lithuanian
and Finnish, i.e. the demonstrative pronoun has to precede the genitive:
(20) Latvian
ie tev-a vard-i
these father-gen word-pl
Here ie these obligatorily gets a contrastive stress, so it is not necessary (and even
not possible) to use another word order to express this meaning. Similarly, mana
my is also only used with a contrastive stress. The combination of these two
contrastive elements is thus allowed only under very special circumstances, and is
generally considered bad style, if not ungrammatical. Lithuanian allows such
combinations without restrictions:
(21) a. Latvian
??ie mana tev-a vardi
these my father-gen words
b. Lithuanian
ie mano tev-o odiai
these my father-gen words
these words of my father
In other languages the opposite word order is unmarked. In Mordvin e.g., neigh-
boring the Circum-Baltic area, it is the rule to put the genitive rst, also before a
demonstrative pronoun, as in (22a), and consequently before an adjective modify-
ing the same head, as in (22b), where it is combined with a material genitive:
(22) Erzya-Mordvin
a. teta-nt net val-tne
father-gen.def these word-def.pl
(OM: 84)
b. cuvto-n kuvaka kardo-s
wood-gen long stable-def
the long wooden stable
(KPN: 6)
2.3 Genitive chains

Attribute genitives can themselves be further specied by other genitives.
(23) Estonian
pois-i koer-a jalg
boy-gen dog-gen leg
a/the leg of the boys dog
The same pattern can be observed in the other languages.

In Lithuanian a practically unlimited number of genitives can be stacked one
above the other. So, e.g., still in 1988 the newspaper Vakarines naujienos Evening
News had the following subtitle:
508 Simon Christen
(24) [[Lietuv-os [komunist-u partij-os]] [[Vilni-aus miest-o]

[[Lithuania-gen [communist-gen.pl party-gen [[Vilnius-gen city-gen
komitet-o]] ir [[Vilni-aus miest-o] [[liaud-ies
committee-gen and [[Vilnius-gen city-gen [[people-gen
deputat-u] taryb-os]] organ-as
deputy-gen.pl council-gen organ-nom
Organ of the Vilnius City Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party and
of the Vilnius City Peoples Deputies Council
Such recursive genitives are characteristic for Lithuanian, allowing highly con-
densed, succinct expressions.
Chains of attributes can be combined with adjectives modifying each one of the
genitives and the head noun itself:
(25) a. Estonian
uu-e petaja kena nai-se vana sber
new-gen teacher:gen pretty:gen wife-gen old:nom friend:nom
b. Lithuanian
sen-as nauj-o mokytoj-o gra-ios mon-os draug-as
old-nom new-gen teacher-gen pretty-gen wife-gen friend-nom
an old friend of the new teachers pretty wife
c. sen-as gra-ios mokytoj-o mon-os draug-as
old-nom pretty-gen.fem teacher-gen.masc wife-gen.fem friend-nom
an old friend of the teachers pretty wife
In this case, too, the Finnic languages and Latvian put the adjectives next to the
word they modify, whereas Lithuanian tends to bracket intermediate genitives. This
is, however, observed only where a relatively small number of adjectives are
involved, usually no more than two, only one of which should itself be in the
genitive (as in 25c). Otherwise intermediate adjectives in the genitive tend to be
placed next to their respective head (as in 25b).
2.4 Two genitive attributes to the same head

Dierent attributes to the same head pose special problems of identication, as one
could mistakenly be interpreted as determining the other. Several cases can be
observed in which two genitives refer to the same head and are recognized as such.
2.4.1Nominalizations
(26) Latvian
Aleksandr-a Egipt-es iekaro-ana sagrav-a zem-i.
Alexander-gen Egypt-gen conquer-acnnr destroy:past-3 country-acc
Alexanders conquest of Egypt destroyed the country.
(Koptjevskaja-Tamm 1993: 296)
Such constructions with action nominals are very unusual in the Baltic languages.
They tend to use verbal expressions, making relationships clearer by using partici-
ples where necessary. It is in fact possible to use the expression Aleksandra Egiptes
iekaroana, but constructions like Aleksandra karagajiens uz Egipti Alexanders
campaign to Egypt or Aleksandra iebrukums Egipte Alexanders raid into Egypt are
much easier to understand and would be strongly preferred.
Lithuanian, which allows almost unlimited recursive genitive specications, has
quite severe limitations for two or more genitives to the same head. In fact, the
expression of agent and patient in action nominalizations is not, as a rule, possible:
(27) *Aleksandr-o Egipt-o ukariavimas
Alexander-gen Egypt-gen conquest
Alexanders conquest of Egypt
In phrases like (27) the rst genitive is interpreted as denoting the possessor of the
second one, giving meanings like the conquest of Alexanders Egypt. There are,
however, some contexts where two genitives, one expressing the subject, the other
a plural object, can be used with action nominals, e.g.:
(28) tavo laik-u raymas vis-iems nusibodo7
your letter-gen.pl writing all-dat bored
everybody is bored with your writing letters
Sentence (28) has a habitual interpretation. If we change the object to singular

laiko, the sentence gets a concrete meaning everybody is bored waiting until you
have nished writing that letter.
Estonian has similar action nominalizations with two genitives:
(29) a. Peetr-i maja-de ehita-mine
Peter-gen house-gen.pl build-acnnr
Peters building (of) houses
This is however only one possibility, others being:

b. maja-de ehita-mine Peetr-i poolt
house-gen.pl build-acnnr Peter-gen by
the building of houses by Peter
c. maja-ehita-mine Peetr-i poolt
house-build-acnnr Peter-gen by
d. Peetr-i maja-ehita-mine
Peter-gen house-build-acnnr
Peters housebuilding
(ibid.: 188)
510 Simon Christen
Among the languages considered here, Finnish uses double genitives in action
nominalizations most freely, showing no recognizable structural restrictions.
Anyway, double genitives remain an unusual means of expression.
2.4.2Picture nouns
In contrast to nominalizations, Lithuanian does allow two genitives with picture
nouns, expressing the author and the person or thing depicted:
(30) Lithuanian
a. Rembrant-o Saskij-os portret-as
Rembrandt-gen Saskia-gen portrait-nom
Rembrandts portrait of Saskia
b. profesional-aus fotograf-o katedr-os
professional-gen.masc photographer-gen.masc cathedral-gen.fem
fotograj-a
photograph-nom.fem
a photograph of the cathedral by a professional photographer
Such constructions can only be used if the relationships the genitives express are
very clear; otherwise, in double genitives the rst one would be interpreted as
possessor of the second one. The same reservation applies to Estonian, where e.g. in
professionaalse fotograa katedraali foto the cathedral could be interpreted as
belonging to the photographer. In Latvian, then, *Rembranta Saskijas portrets is
completely impossible as it would be associated with noun phrases in which both a
rst name and a last name are expressed, like Andra Petersona portrets a portrait of
Andris Petersons.8
In both Baltic languages participles can be used to clarify the expressed
relationships:
(31) a. Latvian
Palukojieties vina gleznot-ajas Ann-as sej-as
look.at:imp.2pl his paint:ppp-loc.pl.def Ann-gen face-loc.pl
(LLVV s.v. gleznot)
Look at Anns portrait, painted by him
b. Lithuanian
visi tie penki Jon-o piet-i portretai,
all those ve John-gen paint:ppp-nom.pl portraits
kuri-uose pavaizduota Ona,
which-loc.pl depict:ppp Ann
priklausant-ys Ricard-ui
belong:part.pres.act-nom.pl Richard-dat
all those ve portraits painted by John, depicting Ann and belonging to
Richard
In Estonian and Finnish the preferred construction uses an elative to express the
person or thing depicted, as in Est Rembrandti portree Saskia-st, Fin Rembrandtin
muotokuva Saskia-sta Rembrandts portrait of Saskia (cf. 9b, 10b).
2.4.3Combinations with possessors

Finnish allows the simultaneous use of a possessor genitive and a genitive expressing
authorship, e.g.
(32) Finnish
Petteri-n Strindbergi-n kirjat
Peter-gen Strindberg-gen books
Peters books of Strindberg
In Lithuanian and Latvian such constructions do not have the intended meaning,
as the rst genitive would be interpreted as the possessor of the second one, not as
the possessor of the head noun, e.g. Lith Jono Simonaitytes knygos the books of/by
Johns Simonaityte, or as a sequence of rst name and last name of the same
person, e.g. Ltv Jana Raina gramatas the books of Janis Rainis.
On the other hand, a possessor genitive can easily be combined with another
genitive expressing the material something consists of:
(33) Latvian
tev-a kiegel-u maja
father-gen brick-gen.pl house
fathers house of bricks
In such constructions the genitive denoting the material is more tightly bound to
the head noun. In neutral word order it is therefore closer to it, forming an
intermediate step on the way to word compounding. This is also true for Lithuani-
an, where the dierent neutral word orders with a genitive or an adjective seem to
underline the above claim:
(34) a. motin-os auks-o ied-as
mother-gen gold-gen ring-nom
mothers ring of gold
b. auks-in-is motin-os ied-as
gold-adjr-nom mother-gen ring-nom
mothers golden ring
The second word order is the unmarked choice when an adjective and a genitive
modify the same head (cf. (13a)), whereas the rst one groups the material and the
thing consisting of it closer together, thereby also accentuating the ownership of
motina.9 The tendency for Lithuanian (unavailable in literary Latvian) is to use
denominal adjectives whenever there could be an interpretation with recursive
genitives, as in tevo plytu namas a house of fathers bricks instead of fathers house
512 Simon Christen
of bricks. In this case, to get the second interpretation it would be more appropri-
ate to use plytinis tevo namas.
Another possible combination is the one of species and possessor:
(35) a. Finnish
nuo muutamat Liisa-n ruskeat myrkoira-n pennut
those few Lisa-gen brown dachshund-gen puppies
b. Lithuanian
tie keli rudi taks-o veisl-es Liz-os unyciai
those few brown dachshund-gen race-gen Lisa-gen puppies
those few brown dachshund puppies of Lisas
The Finnish example shows the characteristic positions of the specier genitive
Liisan and the descriptive genitive myrkoiran very clearly (see Section 3.1.1). This
is not the case in Lithuanian.10 The opposite order of the genitives might be caused
by two factors strengthening each other. First, compared to Finnish there is an
additional element veisle race, giving this noun phrase more weight. Second, Lizos
takso unyciai would mean the puppies of Lisas dachshund; the addition of veisle
does not completely eliminate the possibility for this misinterpretation. To avoid
such ambiguities, the order in (35b) is thus used.
3. Two genitive positions
I do not have any acceptable example with three or more genitives to the same head.
Such examples are consistently rejected by the informants. For the languages under
consideration we may therefore suppose that there are at most two dierent
syntactic positions possible for genitives. Where both of them occur, they can be
identied with the specier and the descriptive genitive positions.
Semantically, they can be distinguished by their referentiality. A specier
genitive refers to a specic entity which modies the head word. On the other hand,
descriptive genitives are characterized by their generic nature: they do not pick up
specic entities in the universe, but refer to the class denoted by the noun as a
whole (Jokinen 1991: 12).
The following three criteria can help to make a formal distinction between
specier and descriptive genitives:
1. Word order. If there are two genitives to the same head, the specier genitive
generally precedes the descriptive genitive. There may also be word order dierenc-
es in relation to adjectival attributes to the same head.
2. Deniteness eect. In the Finnic languages and Latvian specier genitives cause
the noun phrase to be denite. Descriptive genitives do not make a phrase denite,
even in a language where specier genitives do. This characteristic of descriptive

genitives stems from their semantic content.
3. Combinability. Specier genitives can be freely modied themselves, e.g. by an
adjective of their own or another genitive. Grammatical combinations are much
more restricted for descriptive genitives. Most of them tend to be lexicalized, rather
than being used productively.
3.1 Finnish
The following description is largely based on Jokinen (1991), who discusses the
characteristics of the specier and the descriptive genitive in Finnish.
3.1.1Word order
In a two-level structure of the Finnish noun phrase (see Jokinen 1991: 6) the
descriptive genitive appears on the lower level, i.e. in the modier position, more
precisely after an adjective and directly before the noun, as a sister to both of them.
The specier genitive appears on the upper level, i.e. in the specier position. Thus,
the specier genitive always precedes all modiers (adjectives and descriptive
genitives), whereas its position among other speciers (demonstratives, quantiers)
is free. Dierent relative orders of genitive and adjective therefore reect structural
dierences of the noun phrase, as in the following (see also example 14 above):
(36) a. kaupungi-n aktiiviset asukkaat
town-gen active people
the active people in/of the town
b. aktiiviset kaupungi-n asukkaat
active town-gen people
active town people
In (36a) the genitive precedes the adjective and is thus occupying a specier
position. The genitive in (36b) follows the adjective and can therefore only be
interpreted as a modier, i.e. as a descriptive genitive.
3.1.2Deniteness eect
The specier genitive has a deniteness eect in Finnish:
(37) a. tuoli-n vihre jalka
chair-gen green leg
the green leg of a/the chair
b. vihre tuoli-n-jalka
green chair-gen-leg
a green chair leg
(Jokinen 1991: 12)
514 Simon Christen
Estonian behaves exactly the same, having tooli roheline jalg vs. roheline toolijalg.
This example shows that there is a close relationship between descriptive
genitives and compounds (see 14 and 36 above for examples with true descriptive
genitives). A criterion to distinguish between the two could be based on word stress:
compounds have only one primary stress, whereas modier constructions have
primary stress on both the descriptive genitive and the head noun (Jokinen
1991: 12).
As it occupies a specier position and thus induces a deniteness eect, the
Finnish specier genitive is a determiner genitive according to Lyons (1986: 139). It
does, however, deviate from the prototypical case, as shown in the next paragraph.
3.1.3Combinability
The main dierence between the Finnish specier genitive and a pure determiner
genitive is, that it can co-occur with demonstratives (see e.g. Example (18)).The
Finnish data thus support Planks (1992) position that there is a continuum between
the notions of determiner and adjectival genitive rather than a sharp dichotomy.
For a similar phenomenon in Swedish see Koptjevskaja-Tamm (to appear).
On the other hand, grammatical combinations are much more restricted for
descriptive genitives. Although e.g. combinations with an adjective do occur, in
general they are lexicalized, as in uusi Punaisen Ristin ambulanssi a new Red Cross
ambulance (Jokinen 1991: 12). As Jokinen (ibid.) points out, descriptive genitives
are actually picked from the lexicon as such, and they do not take part in syntactic
phrase formation. Nevertheless descriptive genitives retain a certain freedom in
combinability with dierent head nouns. Compound formation is then the next
step, even more lexicalized and restricted to certain combinations.
3.2 Latvian
Latvian shows only a slight deviation from the Finnic type. The same three criteria
can be used to distinguish specier and descriptive genitives.
3.2.1Word order
The position of a specier genitive in a chain of determinative elements is very free,
as shown in the next example:
(38) Cel gaja cauri vis-u ciem-a septin-u
road went through all-gen.pl village-gen.sg seven-gen.pl
saimniek-u pagalmiem.11
peasant-gen.pl courtyards
(LLVV s.v. cauri)
The road went through the courtyards of all seven peasants in the village.
In this example ciema village is referential, i.e. it is used as a specier genitive, not
as a descriptive one. The stress is on ciema here, with a pause after visu. A more
neutral word order would be Cel gaja cauri visu septinu ciema saimnieku
pagalmiem. This is also the most neutral word order in Lithuanian, namely Kelias
ejo per visu septyniu kaimo valstieciu kiemus. In the variant Cel gaja cauri ciema visu
septinu saimnieku pagalmiem the stress is on both visu septinu and ciema, with a
longer pause after ciema.
On the other hand, the position of the descriptive genitive is xed. It always
appears directly before the head noun (see examples 39c, d and 41a below) and thus
after a specier genitive, if they co-occur in the same noun phrase.
3.2.2Deniteness eect
In Latvian the deniteness eect of the specier genitive can be observed directly
where adjectives appear in the same phrase. Latvian adjectives have two forms, a
shorter, indenite one and a longer, denite one, the latter historically formed by
adding the personal pronoun of the 3rd person (originally a relative pronoun, see
Senn 1966: 163) to the short form.12 This way of building denite adjectives is a
Baltic-Slavic isogloss; the concrete meaning of the short and long form however is
dierent from language to language. In Latvian the use of the long form indicates
that the whole noun phrase is denite; e.g. after demonstrative or possessive
pronouns only the long form is possible, as in mana maza (*maza) masa my little
sister. Thus, after a determining specier genitive, only the long form should be
grammatical. This is in fact the case:
(39) a. zen-a jaun-ais kresls
boy-gen new-nom.def chair
the boys new chair
b. *zen-a jaun-s kresls
boy-gen new-nom.indef chair
c. jaun-ais zen-a kresls
new-nom.def boy-gen chair
the new boys chair
d. jaun-s zen-a kresls
new-nom.indef boy-gen chair
a new boys chair
In the opposite order adjective before genitive both adjective forms are
possible: (39c) marks jaunais more evidently than (39a); (39d) is only possible if
zena is interpreted as a descriptive genitive, not identifying a specic chair, but a
certain class of chairs. The descriptive genitive interpretation is also available for
(39c). Compared with (39d), a specic boys chair is identied here by the denite
adjective jaunais.13
There is a similar phenomenon in Swedish in connection with inserted
516 Simon Christen
genitives (see Koptjevskaja-Tamm to appear). In a noun phrase that is indenite by

itself (as indicated by the indenite article), an adjective that precedes the genitive
is indenite too (i.e. in accordance with the deniteness status of the whole phrase).
If it follows the genitive, however, it has to take the denite marker:
(40) Swedish
a. en vldig ktt-et-s man
a:comm huge:comm.indef esh-def.neut-gen man
a mighty man of esh
b. en hus-et-s olycklig-e kronprins
a:comm house-def.neut-gen unhappy-def.masc crown.prince
an unhappy crown prince of the house
(Koptjevskaja-Tamm to appear)
3.2.3Combinability
There are some combinability restrictions for specier genitives in Latvian as
compared to Finnish. As seen in (39) adjectives that modify the same head as a
specier genitive appear only in the denite form because of the deniteness eect
of the genitive. Then examples like (21a) are only barely acceptable because in
general they are overspecied: a specier genitive cannot be combined with two
contrasting elements like a demonstrative and a possessive pronoun at the same
time. Otherwise, the same distinction in possible combinations between specier
and descriptive genitives as in Finnish can be observed.
As expected, only the specier genitive, and not the descriptive genitive can
combine freely with adjectival attributes of its own in Latvian:
(41) a. uz galda skaista gald-a sega
on table beautiful table-gen cloth
b. uz galda skaista galdsega
on table beautiful tablecloth
there is a beautiful tablecloth on the table
c. skaist-a gald-a sega
beautiful-gen.def table-gen cloth
a cloth of the beautiful table
It is impossible to read (41c) with a descriptive genitive interpretation. Of course,

it has the irrelevant meaning the beautiful tablecloth, where skaista is taken as a
denite nominative form.
As in Finnish, a phrase with a descriptive genitive is often interpreted as a
compound. In fact, as shown in (41b) in certain cases Latvian forms true compounds
(the compound galdauts is, however, more current in modern Latvian) in parallel
to genitive constructions. In Latvian, too, it is possible to distinguish between the
two based on the stress pattern. But most often, there is also a formal distinction: in
compounds, the rst component usually appears in the bare stem form.
3.3 Lithuanian
The situation is quite dierent in Lithuanian. In this language, it is much more
dicult to make the distinction between specier genitive and descriptive genitive
based on the criteria discussed above. Nevertheless Lithuanian, too, uses genitives
everywhere the other languages had used a genitive. Although Lithuanian genitives
can be used both referentially i.e. to denote specic entities (as is characteristic
for specier genitives) and non-referentially i.e. to denote a class or category
of related entities denoted by the head noun (as is characteristic for descriptive
genitives) there is little evidence that Lithuanian distinguishes between two
syntactical genitive positions.
First, the relative position of the two genitives is not xed. The non-referential
genitive does not necessarily precede the head noun immediately, as seen in (35b),
where it is even followed by a referential genitive expressing possession. Lithuanian
word order is thus freer than that of the other languages. However, as Lithuanian
genitives have an unusually wide range of application, leading to a higher than
average frequency of genitives, there are some cases where one of the generally
possible word orders is disallowed (or at least discouraged), because its most natural
interpretation would not be the intended one. Then we have in eect a xed word
order, which may or may not be the same as in the other languages.
Second, as was pointed out by Payne (1993: 2), in Lithuanian, genitives do not
induce a deniteness eect, in contrast to the other languages. E.g., the dierence
between kedes alia koja and alia kedes koja a/the green leg of a/the chair or a/the
green chair leg is not one of deniteness, but depends on the information structure
of the sentence the phrase appears in. The form of the adjective does not reveal
whether the noun phrase is denite or not, since the long form of the adjective is
not automatically used whenever the noun phrase is denite, but only when the
characteristic quality expressed by the adjective can be used to identify a specic
object within a class of similar objects. So e.g. juodas gandras is just a black stork,
but juodasis gandras either means the species black stork (ciconia nigra), or it
might be used to identify the black one in a ock of dierently colored storks.
From the three criteria distinguishing specier and descriptive genitives there
remains only the much reduced combinability of non-referential genitives with
modiers of their own, i.e. valid combinations tend to be lexicalized, whereas refer-
ential genitives as a rule combine freely with another genitive, an adjective or another
kind of modier. This is, however, a semantic rather than a syntactic restriction.
Finally, in contrast to the other languages, there is no special relationship
between (non-referential) genitives and compounding. Rather, compounds are
lexicalized, and the individual parts do not necessarily convey the semantic content
of the isolated words. So genitives are almost exclusively preferred to compounding
for the uses considered in this paper.
<DEST "chr-n*">
518 Simon Christen
4. Conclusion
We conclude that Lithuanian does not clearly distinguish between two syntactic
positions for genitives. Nevertheless, phrases with two (or even more) genitives
occur quite frequently as Lithuanian genitives have a very wide range of adnominal
uses. The interpretation of the genitives in such phrases rests solely on their
semantic features, where the possessive relationship between the rst and the
second genitive has the strongest force. In this case the two genitives together are
taken as a complex attribute modifying the head. Only when a possessive interpreta-
tion is impossible does Lithuanian allow the combination of other semantic types
of genitives, and only then is it possible to have two genitives to one head.
This contrasts quite sharply with Finnish, where there are arguably two
dierent structural positions for genitives, namely the specier and the descriptive
genitive positions. On the other hand, the range of adnominal uses is more restrict-
ed (Estonian behaves almost the same, but has much more extensive compound-
ing). Two genitives to the same head are thus allowed if they can ll the two
structural slots. Other combinations, even if semantically unambiguous, are
ungrammatical.
Latvian occupies an intermediate position between these two extremes. On the
one hand, we have also detected two structural positions for genitives, but the
allowed combinations of specier and descriptive genitives are more restricted than
in Finnish. On the other hand, although the range of adnominal uses of individual
genitives is almost the same as in Lithuanian, grammatical combinations are mostly
sanctioned on structural, not on semantical grounds. The genitive is however not
as tightly bound into the case system as in Lithuanian; in fact the whole case system
is quite severely weakened, the oppositions in the system are much less clear than in
Lithuanian, as seen e.g. in the widespread loss of the accusative/genitive alterations
(see e.g. Endzelns 1951: 564) that are so characteristic for Lithuanian, and the shift
of semantic content from cases to prepositions (cf. Note 5). It remains to be seen
whether, under these circumstances, Latvian could have strengthened the syntactic
dichotomy of specier vs. descriptive genitive under the inuence of neighboring
Finnic languages.
Notes
* I would like to thank Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm for her generous help, providing me with
several papers I would not have gotten otherwise, and for her helpful comments to earlier versions
of this paper.
Very special thanks go to my informants Ramune Dainoriene, Egida Matulioniene and
Raimondas Matulionis (Lithuanian), Andris Petersons (Latvian), and Natalja Gluxova (Mari).
I am also grateful to Jan Peter Locher and Bernhard Wlchli for their valuable comments and
discussions.
Where nothing else is indicated, the examples are taken from the questionnaire on genitives
and nominal attribution by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (for Finnish and Estonian) or are provided
by the informants.
1. For Finnish see e.g. Jokinen (1991:5): Premodiers, except genitives, agree with the head noun
in case and number, and their order is xed: adjectives occur closest to the head noun, quantiers
precede determiners [i.e. adjectives], and determiners precede quantiers.
2. In all languages there are also alternatives available explicitly expressing belonging to with a
present active participle, e.g. Lith mergaitei priklausantis uo, Est tdrukule kuuluv koer the dog
belonging to the girl. Constructions with kuuluv are normally used only when the possessor is
human and the possessee non-human (Haldur im, answering the questionnaire of M.
Koptjevskaja-Tamm). In Estonian and Finnish they are less marked than corresponding construc-
tions in Lithuanian or Latvian.
3. Latvian has three larger dialects (low, middle, high) called dialekti, each one divided into a
considerable number of subdialects called izloksnes.
4. In Lith geleinkelis, the rst part is built from the adjective geleinis rather than from the noun
geleis iron.
5. In a regional isogloss the morphological plural of the word wheel is used to denote car, cf.
Ltv. rats/rati, Liv. rat/ratd, Est. ratas/rattad, Fin. ratas/rattaat.
In Livonian, the genitive of the adjective is used as a general oblique case with nouns in the
translative-comitative, i.e. there is only incomplete agreement between adjectives and nouns. In
Latvian, the instrumental is homophonous with the accusative in the singular and with the dative
in the plural. All prepositions are combined with the dative/instrumental in the plural, although
in the singular they select either the genitive, the dative, or the accusative/instrumental.
6. In some Finnic languages the verbal noun in *-minen (also called the IV innitive) is also used
predicatively, mainly in necessive constructions. In Finnish and apparently in Veps it has two case
forms, the nominative and the partitive (Fromm 1982: 115; Kettunen 1943: 41, 5012), whereas in
Livonian the partitive has been generalized (Kettunen 1938: lxviiviii). As Wlchli (1996: 53)
points out, there has been a further development in the Livonian construction (also called the
debitive), the ending -mzt with a reduced vowel being used much more often than the partitive
in -mizt. In Finnish alone the IV innitive may be combined with an agent genitive (in Livonian
the dative is used, in Veps the functionally equivalent adessive; the patient is expressed in the
nominative or partitive), as in Fin poikien on lukeminen kirja the boys must read the book
(Fromm 1982: 192), Liv minn um andamizt (or andamzt) I must give (Kettunen 1938: lxviii).
In Finnish, as opposed to Veps and Livonian, this construction is very rare. Necessive construc-
tions are never rendered by verbal nouns in the Baltic languages. Special means include the
debitive in Latvian and the necessive participle in Lithuanian, both combined with a dative agent.
7. Thanks to M. Koptjevskaja-Tamm for pointing this possibility out to me.
8. In a more archaic style the last name (rather in the genitive plural, but also in the genitive
singular) might be put before the rst name, giving an ever more precise parallel: Petersonu/
Petersona Andra portrets. The same principle is (stylistically neutrally) used in Petersona kunga
portrets a portrait of Mr. Petersons.
9. Aukso motinos iedas could only mean that mother is of gold, probably in a gurative sense.
10. A direct translation with two genitives is not possible in Latvian. An alternative is e.g. dai
bruni taka kirnes kuceni, kas pieder Lzei few brown dachshund puppies that belong to Lisa. In
</TARGET "chr">
520 Simon Christen
both Baltic languages one would probably rather use diminutives of dachshund to express
dachshund puppies, e.g. Ltv taksi and Lith taksiukai, thus eliminating one of the genitives.
11. For the verb-particle cauri see Wlchli (this volume).
12. Due to phonetic processes this principle of formation is not as easily recognizable as in
Lithuanian.
13. It should be pointed out that the same ambivalence as in (39c) is observed in noun phrases
without adjectives: depending on the context zena in zena kresls a/the boys chair can be
interpreted as a specier or a descriptive genitive.
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123143.
OM = Briinskij, Andrej Ivanovic. 1994. Ojmen moro: Povestt, jovtnemat. Saransk: Mordovskoj
kninoj izdatelstvas.
Payne, John R. 1993. Lithuanian NPs. Ms.
Plank, Frans. 1992. Possessives and the distinction between determiners and modiers (with
special reference to German). Journal of Linguistics 28: 453468.
Rudzte, Marta. 1964. Latvieu dialektologija. Rga: Latvijas Valsts izdevniecba.
Saagpakk, Paul Friidrih. 1982. Eesti-inglise snaraamat = Estonian-English dictionary. New
Haven/London: Yale University Press.
Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Band I: Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter.
Wlchli, Bernhard. 1996. Letto-livisches und Livo-lettisches: Eine Studie zur Bedeutungs-
konvergenz im nordosteuropischen Kontaktraum. Ms.
Wlchli, Bernhard. This volume. Lexical evidence for the parallel development of Latvian and
Livonian verb-particles.
Zajceva, Marija Ivanovna / Mullonen, Marija Ivanovna. 1972. Slovar vepsskogo jazyka. Leningrad:
Nauka.
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Typological perspectives
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A piece of the cake and a cup of tea:

Partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal
constructions in the Circum-Baltic languages*
Introduction
A piece of the cake and a cup of tea are both examples of what are traditionally
called partitive constructions in linguistics. On closer inspection, however, we see
that only in a piece of the cake are we really talking of a PART of something
rather than an AMOUNT of some substance, as we do in a cup of tea. In this
paper, a cup of tea will therefore be called a pseudo-partitive construction. The
paper is thus a cross-linguistic, or rather an areal typological study of constructions
such as those illustrated in (1) and (2) for Finnish, Russian, Swedish and English
(seen in the translations of the other examples).
(1) Partitive nominal constructions (PCs)
a. Finnish
pala tst hyvst kakusta
bit:nom this:elat good:elat cake:elat
a bit of this good cake
b. Russian
caka togo vkusnogo caja
cup:nom this:gen.sg.masc delicious:gen.sg.masc tea:gen
a cup of this good tea
c. Swedish
en kopp av detta goda te
a:sg.com cup of this:sg.neut good:def tea
a cup of this good tea
(2) Pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (PPCs)
a. Finnish
skki perunoita
sack:nom potato:prtv.pl
a sack of potatoes
524 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
b. Russian
caka caja/caju
cup:nom tea:gen/tea:prtv
a cup of tea
c. Swedish
en kopp te
a:sg.com cup tea
a cup of tea
Although examples like those above are often referred to as partitive constructions,
here I will follow the usage adopted in modern syntactic and semantic theories and
discriminate between partitive (such as in Example (1)) and pseudo-partitive (such
as in Example (2)) (nominal) constructions/NPs. The reasons for this terminologi-
cal distinction will be given in Sections 1 and 2.
As (1) and (2) illustrate, there is considerable variation among languages in the
grammatical marking of the substance-denoting expression in partitive and pseudo-
partitive constructions, ranging from case inections (as in (1a, b)) to prepositions
(as in (1c)) to zero marking (as in 2c). It is this variation that will be the topic of
this paper. Also, if we compare the two examples given for each of the languages, we
will see another interesting dierence: while Russian and English use more or less
the same structure in (1) and (2) (involving the genitive case and the preposition of
respectively), Finnish and Swedish distinguish between the two (by choosing
between the elative and the partitive case in the case of Finnish and by using or not
using the preposition av in Swedish). This kind of morphosyntactic variation will
constitute the main focus of the present paper, which will thus aim at answering the
following question:
What is the structure of partitive and pseudo-partitive constructions across
languages in general and in the Circum-Baltic languages in particular?
This question is discussed both synchronically and diachronically. The data from
a large number of European languages form the typological background for the
study, whereas the Circum-Baltic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian,
Latvian, Russian, Belarusian, Polish, German, Swedish and Danish) are analyzed in
a much more detailed way, in particular with respect to the changes in their
construction types.
Finally, the synchronic and diachronic facts are used to draw conclusions about
possible grammaticalization sources for partitive and pseudo-partitive construc-
tions in general. To my knowledge, no previous typological work has been carried
out for this domain.
The order of presentation will be as follows. Section 1 attempts to sort out the
terminological mess in connection with the term partitive, while Section 2 sets the
stage for the study itself, by dening the main terms used in it and formulating its
A piece of the cake and a cup of tea 525
main goals. Section 3 gives a fairly detailed account of the situation in two Finnic
languages, Finnish and Estonian, which is then used as the basis for more general
hypotheses about the structure and development of PCs and PPCs. These general-
izations are discussed in Section 6 in connection with the Indo-European Circum-
Baltic languages, the data on which are presented in Sections 4 (Balto-Slavic) and 5
(Germanic). Finally Section 7 places the Circum-Baltic languages in a broader
typological pan-European context.
1. Various traditional usages of the term partitive
The term partitive is one of those many traditional grammatical terms, which
have developed several, not necessarily related, meanings. Grammatical tradition
knows of partitive usages of cases (e.g. of genitive), partitive case, partitive
article and partitive construction/NP. In this section I will merely list these
usages of partitive mainly to avoid possible misunderstandings as to what the
paper actually looks at and what it leaves out. Partitives (usages, cases, articles or
constructions) have to do with reference to:
parts of physical objects;
subsets of denite (super)sets;
denite quantication; and
indenite quantity.
Thus, within the Indo-Europeanistic tradition, the term partitive is normally
associated with case semantics, primarily in relation to the genitive case. Discussions
and lists of meanings attributed to genitives frequently include partitive (mean-
ings/uses of) genitives. These terms, in their turn, are used quite inconsistently in
dierent works. Thus, partitive genitive may cover:
reference to body-parts and organic parts of objects: the roof of the house,
the middle of the street, the lions head (cf. Pitknen 1979: 220222;
Herslund 1997)
reference to a set from which a subset is selected by means of various non-
verbal words (cf. Brugmann & Delbrck 1909: 597599; Behaghel
1923: 485498; Smyth 1956: 315317; Wessn 1970: 25; another term for these
usages is genetivus totius), e.g.:
adjectives in the superlative degree: the best among the Troyans;
numerals: three of the boys;
quantier nouns: a section of the barbarians, an amphora of that good
wine;
denite quantication, i.e. indication of the kind of entity that is quantied by
a nominal quantier, a numeral, a quantifying adjective, etc. (e.g. Brugmann &
Delbrck 1909:597599; Behaghel 1923:485498; another term for these usages

is genetivus generis): an amphora of wine, dozens of soldiers;
indenite quantity, i.e. reference to partial objects of certain verbs (to eat,
to drink etc.), normally alternating with accusatives (cf. Behaghel
1923: 575578; Smyth 1956: 320325), e.g. in Classical Greek, Gothic and Old
High German, Sanskrit and Balto-Slavic.
Note that as we proceed along this list, the original idea of partiality is growing
more and more bleached. Thus, subsets of denite supersets may be considered as
their parts only at a certain level of abstraction. For the other two cases an
amphora of wine and to eat some bread the term partitive is in fact fairly
misleading. More specically, such constructions do not refer to a part in any
reasonable sense, since there is no well-dened whole to which it could relate.
In this paper we will mainly be interested in constructions expressing the
second and the third meanings. These two meanings and the corresponding
constructions are interrelated in various interesting ways, including grammatical-
ization, as will be shown in this paper. Such considerations motivate the relatively
recent term pseudo-partitive, launched by Selkirk (1977).
For Finno-Ugrists, partitive primarily refers to the partitive case which may
be distinguished in the nominal paradigm of Finnish, Estonian and a few other
mainly Finnic languages. As we will see, the partitive case can sometimes function
as the Finnic equivalent to the partitive genitive. The partitive article occurs
mainly in studies of French.
Partitive constructions have attracted much attention in modern syntactic and
semantic theories (cf. e.g. the papers in Hoeksema 1996), which also talk about the
semantic notion of partitivity (Barwise and Cooper 1981; de Hoop 1992) and
partitive as an Abstract Case in the sense of GB-theory (Belletti 1988).
Now, given this terminological confusion, I will try to dene the object of the
present study in more precise terms.
2. Pseudo-partitive vs. partitive nominal constructions (PPCs vs. PCs)
2.1 General: A tentative denition

Let us repeat here the English examples introduced above which illustrate partitive
and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (hence PCs and PPCs respectively):
(1) Partitive nominal constructions (PCs)
a. a cup of that good tea
b. a pile of Marys books
(2) Pseudo-partitive nominal constructions (PPCs)

a. a cup of tea
b. a pile of books
Both partitive and pseudo-partitive nominal constructions are noun phrases

consisting of two nominals, one of which is a quantier (cup, pile). Although the
same quantiers may appear in both types of NPs, their role is dierent:
partitive nominal constructions involve a presupposed set of items referred to
by one of the nominals (that good tea, Marys books); and the quantier
indicates a subset which is selected from it;
in a pseudo-partitive nominal construction the same word merely quanties
over the kind of entity (tea, books) indicated by the other nominal.
The two main parts of PCs and PPCs will be called Measure vs. Substance in the
rest of this paper. The two constructions dier thus primarily with respect to the
referentiality and, in particular, the specicity of their Substance component: in PCs
it receives a specic interpretation, while it is non-specic in PPCs. However, as we
will see below, there is no watertight borderline between PPCs and PCs, and I will
sometimes talk about the semantic space of nominal quantication to refer to the
meanings which are covered both by PCs and PPCs.
2.2 The main question of the study

The term a partitive construction, as it is most often used, actually covers all cases
which have to do with a selection of a subset from a superset, and thus includes also
NPs with numerals and other quantiers such as (3) and (4):
(3) a. some of that good tea
b. ve of Marys books
(4) a. some tea
b. ve books
What sets examples (1) and (2) apart from these latter is the nominal nature of the
quantier. Cup and pile are real nouns, which, at least outside their quantier
usages, share inectional and syntactic behaviour with other nouns. In this sense,
Examples (1) and (2) resemble other NPs consisting of two nominals, e.g. those in
Example (5):
(5) a. a map of England
b. a student of physics
For the purpose of this study, I have deliberately chosen to focus on constructions
with nominal quantiers. PCs as understood here are also close to constructions
expressing (organic) parts of objects and body-parts, such as a corner of the room,
the main dierence being the emphasis on quantication in the former case.1 In
fact, the examples in (1) and (2) look like typical cases of adnominal attribution: the
Measure nominal has an attribute introduced with the preposition of, which is thus
the construction marker in English PCs and PPCs.
The English situation is by no means universal, as is illustrated by the following
Armenian examples:
(6) Armenian (Natalja Kozinceva p.c.)
a. Partitive
mi gavath ayd hamov surtch-ic
one cup:nom that good coee-abl
one cup of that good coee
b. Pseudo-partitive
mi gavath surtch
one cup:nom coee:nom
one cup of coee
We can see that in Armenian

there is a signicant dierence between PCs and PPCs: the construction marker
in the former is the ablative case ending on the Substance, whereas the latter
involves juxtaposition (there is thus no overt construction marker);
both constructions dier from other NPs, in which nominal attributes preced-
ing the head are normally marked with the syncretic genitive/dative case
(Example (7)):
(7) Armenian: nominal attribution (Natalja Kozinceva p.c.)
surtch-i gavath
coee-gen/dat cup:nom
a coee cup
and, nally, the Substance in PCs is marked with the ablative case, which is
typically used to mark a point of departure and various types of sources in
expressions with the general meaning of movement and separation (Example
(8) below).
(8) Armenian: FROM (Fairbanks & Stevick 1975: 44)
im yehphayr-6 amerikha-ic e gal-is
my brother-def America-abl is come-part.impf
My brother comes from America
These observations lead us to the main question of the present study:

What means are used to express the relationship between the Measure and the
Substance in PCs and PPCs across languages in general and in the Circum-
Baltic languages in particular?
2.3 Nominal quantiers vs. nouns, numerals and numeral classiers

The expected cross-linguistic variation in the internal structure of PPCs and PCs
stems from the nature of nominal quantiers, or rather, from the conict between
their origin and functions:
they are nouns,
but
they are used in functions which are fairly atypical for nouns.
Thus, typically, nouns are used for reference, or, in slightly dierent terms, for
introducing and manipulating participants in a discourse (cf. e.g. Croft 1991;
Hopper & Thompson 1984). The primary function of nominal quantiers, on the
other hand, is to create a unit of measure which may further be counted (Croft
1994: 162, Bisang 1999). This intermediate character of nominal quantiers
accounts for their double similarity, both with typical nouns and with typical
quantiers, e.g. numerals.2 The semantic connection with numerals is especially
evident with count nouns, which can be quantied both by the process of counting
(ten boys, eighty stones) and by the process of measuring (a group of boys, a cartload
of stones). Pair is a good example of a word which is used both for counting and
measuring: on the one hand, a pair of shoes is a new unit of measure as compared
to shoes; on the other hand, pair has a precise numerical value a pair of shoes
consists of exactly two shoes. In the next sections we will see numerous examples of
nominal quantiers which show various degrees of association with or alienation
from nouns and numerals in their inectional and syntactic behaviour. Somewhat
schematically we can represent this double-sided nature of nominal quantiers in
the following way:
originate as function as
typical nouns nominal quantiers typical quantiers
It has been repeatedly stated that there is a semantic distinction between nominal
quantiers/measures and numeral classiers in such languages as Vietnamese,
Chinese and Japanese. Measures create units to be counted for those entities that
either do not come in natural units (like mass nouns), or come in dierent units
(cf. six bunches of carrots, two rows of trees and three fronds of a palm). Classiers, on
the other hand, actualize the semantic boundaries of a given count noun by
designating its natural unit, e.g. in Hmong ib tug neeg one classier person or ib
rab riam one classier knife (Bisang 1999: 115118; Croft 1994: 162163). In
practice there is no sharp border between the two. And although European
languages do not normally resort to numeral classiers, comparable examples do
occur in them. Thus, in Finnish the word kappale piece may be used in counting
individuals, as in kaksi kappaletta poikia two (pieces of) boys:prtv.pl (Alho 1992:7),
and the same concerns the word styck(e) piece in Swedish; such examples,
however, are very rare, in contrast to the case of genuine numeral classiers which
are more or less obligatory in numeral constructions. Pair is again a good example
of a measure word which has certain classier-like uses in combination with nouns
of the pluralia tantum kind: thus, even though scissors and trousers do come in
natural units and are countable, the corresponding nouns have to be accompanied
with pair when occurring in numeral constructions (three pairs of trousers).
Semantically, the class of measure nominals/quantier nouns is quite heteroge-
neous, and dierent classications have been suggested in linguistic works (e.g.
Eschenbach 1993). The following non-exhaustive list presents the major semantic
subtypes of measure nouns:
Conventionalized measures: a litre of milk, a kilo of apples
Abstract quantity nouns: a large amount of apples
Containers: a cup of tea, a pail of apples
Fractions/parts: a slice of bread, a quarter of an hour, a large section of students
Quantums (for mass nouns): a lump of sugar, a drop of milk
Collections (for count nouns): a group of students, a herd of sheep
Forms (both for mass and count nouns): a pile of sand/bricks, a bouquet of roses
We would thus expect that, even within one and the same language, there may be
a certain degree of variation in the structure of (P)PCs matching these semantic
dierences. (Pseudo-)Partitive meanings can also be occasionally attributed to some
expressions which normally lack this interpretation. Thus, correspondences to both
a coee cup and a cup with coee in language after language have been reported to be
sometimes used in the meaning of a cup of coee. In this paper, however, we will
restrict ourselves to major, standard patterns of (P)PCs across languages.
There are also very interesting connections between constructions with
nominal quantiers and quantifying constructions with words like many, as well
as between (P)PCs and verbal total vs. partial objects. These, however, will be more
or less left out in the present paper.
3. Finnic
3.1 General
In Finnish and Estonian the semantic space of nominal quantication is divided
between two main constructions, which dier in the case-marking of the Substance:
the partitive vs. elative case. The synchronic division of labour between the two in
Finnish is analyzed in Section 3.1; this analysis underlies the hypothesis about the
grammaticalization path from separative /ablative-like constructions to PCs to
PPCs suggested in Section 3.2. PPCs in Finnish and, especially, in Estonian also
share a number of peculiarities with numeral constructions, which, in turn, invites

further generalization about possible grammaticalization connections between the
two, as suggested in Section 3.3.
3.2 Finnish: Constructions with nominal quantiers

In Finnish, PPCs and PCs involve partitive case marking on the Substance (Example
(9ab)). In PCs the Substance can sometimes be marked with the elative case
(Example (9c)). In both instances, the Substance normally follows the Measure (but
cf. below, Example (12)):
(9) Finnish (Pivi Juvonen p.c.)
a. Osta skki perunoita!
buy:imp.2sg sack:nom potato:prtv.pl
Buy a sack of potatoes!
b. Anna minulle pala tt hyv kakkua /
give me:all bit:nom this:prtv good:prtv cake:prtv /
litra tuoretta maitoa-si.
litre:nom fresh:prtv milk:prtv-2sg.poss
Give me a bit of this good cake /a litre of your fresh milk.
c. Anna minulle pala tst hyvst
give me:all bit:nom this:elat good:elat
kakusta / litra tuoreesta maidosta-si
cake:elat / litre:nom fresh:elat milk:elat-2sg.poss
Give me a bit of this good cake/a litre of your fresh milk.
Such NPs dier considerably from typical instances of nominal attribution where
attributes precede their head and are marked in the genitive case, e.g. poja-n tuoli
boy-gen chair (a/the boys chair). Dependents to non-quantier nouns are never
marked with the partitive case and only occasionally with the elative case (cf.
Christen this volume). On the other hand, as we will see in Section 3.2, constructions
with nominal quantiers show signicant similarities with numeral constructions.
Even in the presence of denite determiners, partitive-marked NPs do not
necessarily refer to a specic set or a specic quantity, but often receive the kind-
interpretation (Alho 1992 and p.c.). Example (9b) above can be interpreted both as a
bit of this good cake and as a bit of this kind of cake and is thus ambiguous between
a PPC and a PC. The next example, however, allows only the set-interpretation (and
is, thus, clearly a PC due to the context from which it comes (Pivi Juvonen p.c.):
(10) sit se osti ison kasan
then (s)he bought:3sg big:gen.sg armful:gen.sg
niit ilmapalloja
this:prtv.pl balloon:prtv.pl
Then he bought a big armful of these balloons. (Pivi Juvonen p.c.)
Elative complements to quantier nominals allow only the set-interpretation:

thus, Example (9c) with your fresh milk is most appropriate when there is a
denite quantity of fresh milk as opposed to, say, yesterdays milk (Pivi Juvonen
p.c.). Leino (1993) suggests that whenever there is a choice between a partitive-
marked and an elative-marked complement to a quantier, the former seems to be
the neutral choice for simply mentioning a quantity of the substance, while the
latter somehow involves a part-of operation, treating the substance as a predened
entity in some way. Figure 1 shows the combinability of various quantier nominals
with elative-marked and/or partitive-marked complements in Finnish. Of these
words, the word osa part is particularly often used, both with a concrete meaning
and with a more general quantifying meaning (some) and shows the greatest
degree of alternation between elative-marked and partitive-marked complements:
(11) Osa poik-ia / poj-ista meni koti-in
part:nom.sg boy-prtv.pl / boy-elat.pl went:3sg home:ill
Some of the boys went home. (Johanna Laakso p.c.)
Fractions, Parts and quan- Measures Container Collections

percentages tums nouns
kolmasosa one osa part; pala, litra litre, pullo bottle, joukko crowd,
third, puolet palanen, kappale metri metre; kori basket ryhm group,
half piece viipale ful-derivatives:a parvi ock,
slice, pisara, pullollinen sarja series
tippa drop bottleful, koril-
linen basketful
Elative Partitive
only elative both elative and partitive partitive normal, elative only partitive
dubious
a
Ful-derivatives are adjectives derived from container nouns with the sux -llinen, e.g. lasillinen from
lasi glass; cf. lasi/lasi-llinen viini glass:nom/glass-ful wine:part.
Figure 1.Combinability of nominal quantiers with elative-marked and/or partitive-

marked Substance nominals (based on the description in Penttil 1957: 367368, 399400).
In other words,
elatives combine most naturally with words referring to parts of a whole (half ,
a third, part, slice, bit).
Apart from combinatorial restrictions, there are other restrictions on the use of
elatives in PCs which have to do with the overall meaning of the sentence, i.e.
the most natural contexts for elative-marked complements to nominal quanti-
ers are those providing a fairly concrete interpretation: a part comes /is taken
away or separated from the whole in a way which has a clear impact on the
whole.
Thus, while Example (9c) is quite acceptable, the elative counterpart to Example
(12) would be doubtful due to the meaning of the verb to cost which does not
readily convey any idea of separation:
(12) Kuinka paljon pala tt hyv kakkua /
how much bit:nom this:prtv good:prtv cake:prtv /
litra tuoretta maitoa-si maksaa?
litre:nom fresh:prtv milk:prtv-2sg.poss cost:3sg
How much does a bit of this cake /a litre of your fresh milk cost?
These restrictions follow from the general meaning of the elative case and its
relatively low degree of grammaticalization in PCs, which will be discussed in
Section 3.2.
The division of labour between the two constructions is schematically repre-
sented in Figure 2.
Partitive Pseudo-partitive
constructions constructions
Substance in the elative Substance in the partitive
Figure 2.Division of labour between nominal constructions involving partitive-

marked and elative-marked Substance nominals in Finnish.
An interesting property of PPCs and PCs in Finnish is the ease with which their
constituents are split o and permuted, as in Example (13). Contrasted with the
otherwise rigid order of constituents in Finnish NPs, this surprising looseness
suggests that parts of PPCs and PCs have originated as separate single NPs, each
having its own role in the clause, rather than together constituting one NP. In the
next section we will elaborate on this idea.
(13) a. Heill oli kokonainen pullo
they:adess be:pret.3sg whole:nom bottle:nom
ranskalaista viini.
French:prtv wine:prtv
b. Heill oli ranskalaista viini kokonainen pullo.
c. Ranskalaista viini heill oli kokonainen pullo.

d. Kokonainen pullo heill oli ranskalaista viini.
They had a whole bottle of French wine. (Seppnen 1983: 165)
3.3 Diachronic developments and synchronic results:

MOTION FROM (P)PC
Let us now discuss the facts presented above from the broader synchronic and
diachronic prospective, starting with the general properties of the elative and the
partitive cases.
The elative case in Finnish is primarily used in constructions referring to
MOTION FROM INSIDE. As such, it is a member of the INNER LOCAL case
series which, in Modern Finnish, is opposed to the OUTER LOCAL case series.
Each series involves three cases which express STATIC POSITION, MOTION TO
and MOTION FROM (see Figure 3 on p. 531). The usage of the elative case has been
extended from purely local/directional/separative to other contexts, including PCs.
The partitive case is one of the four central grammatical cases in the Finnic
languages. One of its main functions is to mark partial objects (and subjects) to
verbs, nite and non-nite, where partiality is determined by an interplay of at least
three conditions: aspect, scope of negation and quantity. Historically, however, the
partitive is, together with essive and lative, a member of the most archaic local case
series of Finno-Ugric and was originally used to refer to SEPARATION and
MOTION FROM (see Figure 3 below). In modern Finnish, the local usages of these
cases are restricted to certain postpositions and adverbs, e.g. partitive: ulko-a from
outside, kauka-a from far away; essive: ulko-na outside, kauka-na far away;
lative or translative:3 ulo-s out, kauka-ksi (towards) further away. Otherwise this
case series has lost its original local function and is mainly used in more abstract
senses, e.g. in nominal predication in the case of the essive and translative (Hn on
oppetaja-na She is a teacher, Mehu tuli vahva-ksi The juice became strong), cf.
Hakulinen 1957: 6365; Denison 1957: 2122, see also Stassen this volume.
Synchronically local cases Originally local cases
inner local outer local general local

case series case series case series
static position Inessive Adessive Essive
motion to Illative Allative Translative
motion from Elative Ablative Partitive
Figure 3.Local case series in Finnish.

The partitive case has become particularly grammaticalized in Finnic languages

whereas its Mordvin counterpart (called ablative: -do, -de) can still be used in a few
ablative-like functions (Larsson 1983: 121). An important factor in the development
of the Finnic partitive case into a grammatical case has probably been its identica-
tion and association with the genitive case of the neighbouring Indo-European,
especially Baltic languages, with which it shared some functions (Larsson
ibid.: 139147; Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wlchli this volume).
Thus, the two markers of PCs and PPCs in Finnish have actually very similar
sources some variant of a separative case. As we will see in Section 6.2, separative
constructions constitute the most popular source for PCs across languages, whereas
PPCs based on separative constructions occur less frequently. This suggests that
separative markers enter the semantic domain of nominal quantication via PCs,
to start with, and then in certain cases may gradually get extended into PPCs. The
data, both Finnic and cross-linguistic, suggest the following path of development/
grammaticalization for such constructions:
1. Starting point
Clauses referring to concrete separation of a part from the whole: predicates of
separation (such as take away, cut, remove etc.) combine with two dependents,
one referring to a part and the other referring to the whole from which it comes.
He cut [a slice] [from the cake]
2. Grammaticalization of PCs
Extension of part-expressions from concrete parts to a larger class of Measure
expressions.
Reanalysis of the original construction the part and the whole are being
reanalyzed as making up one constituent instead of being two dierent depen-
dents to the same predicate; the resulting constituent can, however, still retain
a certain degree of looseness and allow splitting.
He cut [a slice of the cake]
Extension of predicates from those referring to concrete separation to others.

With these changes accomplished, the former separative construction has been
grammaticalized into a well-behaved PC, which in fact has not yet happened to the
elative case in Finnish.
3. Grammaticalization of PPCs
PCs can further develop into PPCs. The bridge between the two is accom-
plished by cases like Example (9b), which are ambiguous between the set and
the kind interpretations. Similarly, a glass of this wine, as in I would like a

glass of this wine, easily receives dierent interpretations in dierent situa-
tions: uttered at a little party, it is most probably a PC this wine refers to
a denite quantity, e.g. to the wine in a bottle on the table; uttered at a restau-
rant, it is rather a PPC this wine stands for this kind of wine, as opposed
to the others listed in a menu.
This grammaticalization path is represented in Figure 4.
From/ Partitive Pseudo-partitive

Separation constructions constructions
Figure 4.The rise of PCs and PPCs in Finnish.
The history of PCs and PPCs in Finnish also show two other processes which are
often found in grammaticalization:
at some stage during the grammaticalization process, the original separative
meaning can gradually get lost.
recycling: a new marker with the separative meaning can start expanding to
partitive-like uses
Each of the stages in the development of Finnic PCs and PPCs nds parallels in a
number of other languages and the whole scenario, which accounts for the develop-
ment of separative case-marker into the marker of PCs and PPCs, looks like a
plausible grammaticalization process, entirely motivated by language-internal
factors. However, it is highly probable that external factors, i.e. contacts with the
Indo-European, primarily Baltic languages, have played a major role in this
development. This will be discussed in Section 7.
3.4 Nominal vs. numeral quantiers: Finnish and Estonian

Interestingly, constructions with nominal quantiers in Finnish nd close parallels
in constructions with numerals, including the word pari couple with a similar
distinction between indenite quantication (kind) and selecting a subset from a

larger denite set, cf. Example (13) below:
(14) a. Partitive complements
kaksi saksalaista poikaa
two German:prtv.sg boy:prtv.sg
two German boys (Seppnen 1983: 167)
b. Elative complements:
kaksi hnen veljistn
two:nom (s)he:gen brother:elat.pl.3poss
two of his/her brothers (ibid.: 162)
Now, Example (14b) is not surprising: it often happens that numerals and nominal
quantiers build their PCs in the same way, and this is also true for Finnish PCs
with elative-marked complements. Much more striking is the fact that numerals in
normal, non-PCs combine with partitive marked complements in a way reminis-
cent of PPCs4 (cf., however, Section 4.3 on the Slavic situation). However, there are
also important dierences between the two types of constructions (cf. Seppnen 1983):
complements to numerals are always marked as singular,5 whereas the number
of the Substance in nominal PPCs varies in accordance with its countability etc:
thus, German boys after the numeral two in (14a) are in the singular,
whereas potatoes in (9a) and boys in (11) are in the plural.
However, this dierence exists only in the unmarked situation, i.e., when numerals
immediately precede their complements and both, thus, occur in their usual
places. Numeral constructions can be moved around and split o, just like PPCs
(cf. Example (13bd)), but in such situations the number marking of their
complements has to be changed from the singular to the plural. Thus, Example
(15a) shows the normal, unmarked numeral construction; the word child follows
the numeral three and is in the singular (lasta), while the plural is ungrammatical.
In Example (15bd) the two words have moved around and now only the plural
form, lapsia, is allowed.
(15) Finnish (Seppnen 1983: 165169)
a. Heill on kolme lasta/*lapsia.
they:adess be:pres.3 three:nom child:prtv.sg/*child:prtv.pl
b. Heill on *lasta/lapsia kolme.
c. *Lasta/Lapsia heill on kolme.
d. Kolme heill on *lasta/lapsia.
They have three children.
In other words, combinations of numerals and their complements look much more
similar to combinations of nominal quantiers and their complements when they
do not occur in their most usual places.
Another dierence between constructions with numerals and those with
nominal quantiers has to do with the partitive case-marking of the complement:
whereas the Substance in nominal PPCs is always marked with the partitive
case, nominals in numeral constructions appear in the partitive case only when
the numeral itself is in the nominative or accusative, otherwise the nominal and
the numeral agree in case, cf. Example (16) with (14a):
(16) Hn kirjoittaa usein kahdelle saksakaiselle pojalle

he:nom writes often two:all.sg German:all.sg boy:all.sg
He often writes to two German boys. (Seppnen 1983: 167)
In other words, the internal syntax of numeral constructions is sensitive to the

syntactic function of the whole NP and alternates between government (numerals in
the nominative and accusative cases govern nominal complements in the partitive
case) and agreement.6 The marking of the Substance in nominal PPCs is not sensitive
to the marking of the Measure. Now, since most numeral constructions appear as
subjects and objects of clauses, this distinction between constructions with numer-
als and nominal quantiers gets neutralized in the unmarked situation.
Thus, Finnish numeral constructions with the word order numeral comple-
ment constitute a construction type of their own which is manifested in the
following properties:
a highly idiosyncratic internal syntax, and
xed number marking of complements, which is not determined by any
semantic considerations, but follows unambiguously from their syntactic status.
Both these properties can readily be interpreted as characteristic of highly gram-
maticalized constructions, i.e. constructions which have reached a very advanced
stage of grammaticalization. Permutations and splitting, as in (15), result in less
grammaticalized combinations which fall prey to semantic rather than purely
grammatical considerations and betray their kinship with nominal PCs and PPCs
in the choice of plural marking on the nominal. In other words, all these observa-
tions support the view that
markers of (P)PCs can spread further to numeral constructions, although the
exact details of this process remain unclear: either PPCs themselves give rise to
numeral constructions, or both develop from PCs. This is represented graphi-
cally in Figure 5. Again, as in Section 3.2, we do not take into account the high
probability of foreign inuence on the development of numeral constructions
(see Section 7 for discussion).
From/ Partitive Pseudo-partitive Numeral

Separation constructions constructions constructions
F i g u r e
5 .

The rise of numeral constructions in Finnish.
Now, in Estonian, numerals behave just like their Finnish counterparts. However,
part of what I said about numeral quantiers also holds for PPCs: the marking of
the Substance alternates between the partitive case and case agreement with the
Measure in the way that is characteristic of numeral constructions. Thus, in
Estonian, nominal quantiers share highly peculiar syntactic behaviour with typical
quantiers numerals.
(17) Estonian (Erelt 1993: 144145)
a. [Kott kartuleid] hakkas otsa saama
[sack:nom.sg potato:prtv.pl] begin:pret.3sg end:gen.sg get:minf
The sack of potatoes is coming to an end.
b. Kui palju sa [koti kartulite] eest maksid?
how much you:nom [sack:gen.sg potato:gen.pl] for pay:pret.2sg
How much did you pay for the sack of potatoes?
Thus, the Estonian facts show that nominal quantiers can themselves acquire the
morpho-syntactic properties of numerals, i.e. that numeral constructions in one or
another way can contribute to the development of PPCs. The dierent stages in the
development of PPCs in Estonian are seen in the following diagram:
From/ Partitive Pseudo-partitive Numeral

Separation constructions constructions constructions
Figure 6.The rise of PCs, PPCs and numeral constructions in Estonian.
Table 1 summarizes the data on the internal syntax of PPCs in Finnish and Estonian
as compared to that of typical noun phrases (such as Peters hat or the roof of a
house) and that of numeral constructions.
Table 1. Internal syntax of PPCs, noun phrases and numeral constructions in Finnish
and Estonian
Finnish:
PPCs noun phrases numeral constructions
word order: quantiercomplement dependenthead quantiercomplement
case-marking of complements/dependents: +/
partitive case
no impact on number-marking of +
complements/dependents
Estonian:
word order: quantiercomplement dependenthead quantierhead
case-marking of complements/dependents: +
partitive case alt. agreement
no impact on number-marking of +
complements/dependents
Thus, in Finnish, and even more so in Estonian, the syntax of nominal quantiers
distinguishes them sharply from normal nouns and can be interpreted as a
symptom of their gradual alienation from the class of nouns and association with
typical quantiers.
In the rest of this paper we will see more examples of similar processes.
4. Balto-Slavic Circum-Baltic languages
The Baltic and most of the Slavic languages (apart from Bulgarian and Macedo-
nian) have retained archaic constructions with nominal quantiers and use the
genitive case to mark Substance nominals both in PPCs and PCs, as illustrated in
Example (18):
(18) a. Russian
stakan sok-a/
glass:nom juice-gen/
stakan von to-go sok-a
glass:nom there that-gen.sg.masc juice-gen
a glass of juice/a glass of that juice
b. Latvian
glaze tejas /
glass:nom tea:gen /
glaze s gargas tejas
glass:nom that:gen good:gen tea:gen
a glass of tea/a glass of that good tea
The genitive case in these uses is, thus, the Slavo-Baltic counterpart to the Finnic
partitive and elative cases. On the one hand, the connection between the Balto-Slavic
genitive and the Finnic partitive does not come as a surprise: both share a number of
other functions. Thus, both Balto-Slavic genitives and Finnic partitives mark partial
objects and sometimes subjects (these uses are much more productive in the Baltic
languages than in Slavic) and also play a prominent role in the syntax of numeral
constructions. On the other hand, these numerous similarities between the Balto-
Slavic genitives and Finnic partitives betray language contacts as their plausible
cause: some of the functions shared by the two cases are typologically too infrequent
to be explained by a coincident parallel development (see Section 7). However,
there is also an important dierence between the two cases: the genitive, as opposed
to the partitive, is the normal case for attributive nominals. It should also be noted
that genitive-marked substance nominals have a broad distribution in other
quantifying constructions, e.g. after quantiers such as many, some, little etc.
Let us look at Slavic and Baltic separately (some more details can be found in
Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wlchli this volume, Section 8.3).
All Slavic languages have dierent morpho-syntactic rules for lower numerals
(14) and higher numerals (see Corbett 1978a, b, 1983 for an extensive discussion
of the syntax of numeral constructions in Slavic). The two extremes the numeral
one and the highest numerals, like thousand and million show cross-
linguistically well-attested patterns: one behaves more or less like an adjective,
agreeing in gender and case with the accompanying nominal, whereas the highest
numerals show fairly nominal behaviour, governing the accompanying nominal in
the genitive case. The rules for 24 spring from the extension of nominal dual forms
used after two to other contexts and the later reanalysis of the dual; the exact rules
dier considerably across Slavic languages.
For our purpose, the behaviour of higher numerals (starting with 5) is particu-
larly interesting in most of the Slavic languages (with the exception of South-
Slavic). Together with their Finnic counterparts they share the typologically unique
pattern of alternating between case-governing the accompanying nominal and
triggering its case agreement under exactly the same conditions (direct case vs.
oblique case of the whole NP). When governed, nominals in Slavic appear in the
genitive case. However, their number assignment is normally the genitive plural, in
contradistinction to Finnic, where the singular is found throughout.7 Russian is
alone in having genitive singular government for the numerals 24, but this is the
result of a reanalysis of dual and nominative plural forms. Thus, as the case was
with Finnic, numeral constructions in Slavic show an idiosyncratic behaviour
typical of highly grammaticalized constructions. Again it is reasonable to suggest
the diachronic link between PPCs and numeral constructions: the morpho-syntax
of the latter is modelled, at least partly, on that of the former. Genitives normally
follow their heads, and thus (P)PCs look both like typical combinations of two
nominals and like many numeral constructions, cf. Example (19) below.
(19) Russian
a. kilogramm jablok
kilogramm:nom apple:gen.pl
a kilogram of apples
b. pjat jablok
ve:nom apple:gen.pl
ve apples
c. komnata moix docerej
room:nom my:gen.pl daughter:gen.pl
my daughters room
Russian has a few masculine one-syllable mass nouns which may optionally use a
form (sometimes called partitive) dierent from their normal genitive form in
(P)PCs and as partial objects, e.g. vypit sok-u/-a to drink juice-gen/-prtv and
stakan sok-u/-a a glass of juice-gen/prtv vs. cena sok-*u/-a the price of juice-
*prtv/-gen. These words behave, thus, somewhat similarly to their Finnic
counterparts in distinguishing between the adnominal genitive case and the case
used to express partiality/indeniteness. In Modern Russian, however, the partitive
forms are used only sporadically (Paus 1994).
In Baltic, as in Slavic, higher and lower numerals follow dierent morpho-
syntactic rules.8 Lower numerals (19) behave like adjectives in agreeing with
quantied nominals in gender, case and number. In Lithuanian, higher numerals
(teens 1119 and tens, 10, 20 etc.) behave basically like nouns they inect for
case and always govern plural nominals in the genitive case. In Latvian, teens and
tens are themselves indeclinable, but the quantied nominal is either governed (in
the genitive plural) or appears in the case assigned to the function of the whole
numeral construction. This latter option seems to be gaining more and more
ground in Latvian at the cost of government. Thus, on the whole Baltic numerals
govern nominals to a much lesser degree than in Slavic. However, numeral con-
structions share another important characteristics with (P)PCs the word order
quantierquantied (Example (20ab)). The word order HeadGen is
otherwise highly marked among NPs, in which genitives normally precede their
heads (Example (20c), cf. Christen this volume). Lithuanian allows the same order
even with nominal quantiers, as a marked alternative. However, these word order
peculiarities show that nominals as quantiers alienate themselves from nominals
in other functions and associate themselves with numerals and other quantiers.
(20) Lithuanian (Ambrazas (ed). 1997: 587, 703)
a. pieno stikline
milk:gen glass:nom
a glass for milk/a glass (full) of milk
b. vienuolika vaiku
eleven child:gen.pl
eleven children
c. stikline pieno
glass:nom milk:gen
a glass (full) of milk
Thus, in Balto-Slavic we see the same tendencies for cross-pollination between

PPCs and numeral constructions as in Finnic, even though we cannot always
account for the actual historical processes behind these observable similarities.
How did genitives come to be involved in (P)PCs? For Balto-Slavic we could
hypothesize that these uses of the genitive case were inherited from the Proto-Indo-
European ablative case which, in these languages, had merged with the older
genitive case: according to this hypothesis, such constructions could have followed
the same grammaticalization path as Finnish and Estonian (P)PCs (see Figure 1).
This, however, cannot be the whole truth, since (P)PCs with genitive-marked
Substance are attested at least in some of the Indo-European languages in which the
ablative diered from the genitive (even though the ablative, on the whole, was
weakly dierentiated across Indo-European, cf. Brugmann & Delbrck 1909: 495):
(21) a. Sanskrit
gonam ardhm
cow:gen.pl half:acc
half of the cows
b. Latin
amphora vini
amphora wine:gen
an amphora of wine (Brugmann & Delbrck 1909: 598)
Thus, separative/from-constructions are not the only source from which PCs and
PPCs can develop. We will return to this problem in Section 6.
In Latvian, nouns which denote parts may take dependents marked with the
preposition no, from, o (cf. with what was said about most contexts for the
elative-marked Substance nominals in Finnish in Section 3.1):
(22) Latvian
ikviens vareja redzet [laukuminu no [matroa
everyone could see [small.patch:acc of [sailor:gen
Jura Varapogas krutm]] un uz tam
Jura Varapoga:gen chest:dat.pl and on they:fem.dat
[dalu no [tetoveta puka galvas vai astes]].
[part:acc of [tattooed:gen dragon:gen head:gen or tail:gen
everyone could see the small patch of the sailor Jura Varapogas chest and on
it a part of a tattooed head or tail of a dragon (EIV: 246)
It seems that no sometimes marks the Substance even to other Measure nouns, e.g.
viens piliens no mana alus one drop of my beer, but such examples are considered
substandard and are attributed to German inuence (see Section 5.2 on von-PCs
in German).9
Figure 7 and Table 2 summarize the discussion of (P)PCs for Russian and Latvian.
Substance in the genitive case

Figure 7.Nominal quantication in Baltic and Slavic.
Table 2. Internal syntax of PPCs, noun phrases and numeral constructions in Russian
and Latvian
Russian:
word order: quantier-complement head-dependent quantier-complement

case-marking of complements/dependents: + +/
genitive case
Latvian:
word order: quantier-complement dependent-head quantier-complement

(NQUANT-GEN) (GEN-N)
case-marking of complements/dependents: + /+
genitive case
5. Germanic Circum-Baltic languages
5.1 General
Nominal PCs and PPCs with genitive-marked Substance nominals are well attested
in older Germanic languages, which also used genitives in some other quantifying
constructions, e.g. those with higher numerals and words such as many. Modern
Germanic languages have developed new types of PCs and PPCs, which have
replaced these archaic constructions, either completely, as in Continental Scandina-
vian (Section 5.1), or partially, as in German (Section 5.2). Section 5.3 suggests
possible motivations for this development.
5.2 Scandinavian Circum-Baltic languages

Constructions with genitive-marked Substance nominals, such as those discussed
for Balto-Slavic, also existed in the old Scandinavian languages:
(23) Old Swedish
a. halfw-n span korn-s
half-acc.sg bushel barley-gen
half a bushel of barley
(Schwartz 1878: 125, from Upplandslagen Kk. 6:7, 1296)
b. attund lter attung-z
eighth part:nom.sg attung-gen
an eighth part of an attung (division of the country)
(Schwartz 1878: 129, from Vstgtalagen I. J. 7:3, 1220-ies)
Such constructions are completely absent from Modern Swedish and Danish.
Archaic PPCs with genitivus generis, such as in Example (23a) from the end of the
13th century, were replaced in Old Swedish and Danish at an early stage by
constructions involving juxtaposition of the Measure and the Substance or, more
rarely, introducing the Substance nominals with the preposition med/m, with in
PPCs: Example (24) contains instances of all three construction types.
(24) Old Swedish (Wessn 1970: 111, from stgtalagen Kr. 2: pr., end of the 13th
century)
[rea spn hueti-s] ok [en yn rugh] ok
[three bushel wheat-gen.sg] and [one barrel rye] and
[en yn biug] ok [ura yn-i hstakorn] ok r
[one barrel barley] and [four barrel-pl horse.barley] and there
m [tu las for] ok [ry pund m smr]
with [two load forage] and [three pound with butter]
ok [ughur pund m sk] ok [et halft pund m uax]
and [four pound with pork] and [one half pound with wax]
Three bushels of wheat and one barrel of rye and one barrel of barley and
four barrels of horse barley and therewith two loads of forage and three pounds
of butter and four pounds of pork and one half pound of wax
In PCs, the genitive sometimes alternated with the preposition av/af (which in its
turn governed the dative case on the accompanying nominal), as in Example (25a)
(cf. with (23b)). The details of the use of av-complements are not quite clear from
my sources, but it seems that in Old Swedish they could occur in PPCs as well
(Muriel Norde p.c. and 1997: 214), cf. Example (25b):
(25) a. attund lot af attung-i
eighth part of attung-dat.sg
an/the eighth part of an/the attung (division of the country)
(Schwartz 1878: 130, from Vstgtalagen I. J. 14: pr, 1220-ies)
b. en alin af goo kirsko

one ell of good:dat.sg woollen.cloth:dat.sg
one ell of good woollen cloth
(Norde 1997: 214, Example (14c) from Kopparbergsprivilegierna, 1347).
These usages are present in Modern Icelandic, in which the most frequent types of
PCs and PPCs both involve af-marked Measure nominals:
(26) Icelandic (Delsing 1993: 201)
a. eitt kil af smjri
a/one:neut.nom kilo:nom.sg of butter:dat.sg
a/one kilo (of) butter
b. eitt kil af essu smjri
a/one:neut.nom kilo:nom.sg of this:neut.sg.dat butter:dat.sg
a/one kilo of this butter
In older Scandinavian languages, the preposition av/af was originally used with
ablative functions, to refer to motion from/separation from, which gradually gave
rise to other usages. In Modern Scandinavian this concrete directional meaning
hardly exists.
Modern Swedish and Danish make a sharp distinction between PCs and PPCs:
PPCs are formed by juxtaposing the Measure and the Substance, whereas, in PCs,
the Substance is introduced by the preposition av/af of .10 A few Measure nominals
referring to collections, such as grupp group, mngder lots can take av/af-comple-
ments even in PPCs, but the exact details dier for the two languages.
(27) Swedish
a. ett glas vin
a:neut glass wine
a glass of wine
b. ett glas av det god-a vin-et
a:neut glass of the:neut.sg good-def wine-def.neut.sg
a glass of the good wine
There is also an alternative strategy for PPCs whereby the Measure noun is marked
with the preposition med with. Here it will suce to mention that
not all Measure nouns allow this strategy. Thus, for Swedish, Delsing
(1993: 204) suggests that Measure words fall into two categories: genuine
quantiers (including conventionalized measures and abstract quantity nouns)
and pseudoquantiers (e.g. container nominals, collections and forms), of
which only the latter can take med-phrases; cf. *ett antal/ertal med mnniskor
a number/majority of people, ??ett dussin/tjog med gg a dozen eggs/a score of
eggs, ??en liter/ett kilo med jordgubbar a liter/a kilo of strawberries vs. en grupp/
hop med ungdomar a group/crowd of youngsters, en bukett/ett fng med
blommor a bouquet/an armful of owers, en lda/aska med vin a case/bottle
of wine;11
while the two strategies are often in free variation, the Juxtapositional strategy
is not allowed under certain conditions. Thus, in Danish, nominal quantiers
with the suxed denite article require med-marked Substance nominals, e.g.
en spand (med) koldt vand a pail (with) cold water vs. spanden *(med) koldt
vand pail-the *(with) cold water (Heltoft 1996: 23).
The discussion of (P)PCs in Swedish and Danish is summarized in Figure 8 and
Table 3.
av/af preceding med preceding juxtaposition of Measure

Substance Substance and Substance
Figure 8.Stratication of the semantic space of nominal quantication in Swedish and
Danish.
Table 3.The structure of juxtapositional PPCs in Swedish/Danish

Swedish / Danish
word order: dependenthead quantiercomplement

quantiercomplement
marking of complements/dependents: +
juxtaposition
5.3 German
Compared to the languages presented so far, Modern German demonstrates a
striking diversity of PC and PPC types: archaic constructions with the genitive-
marked Substance nominals and two newer types, involving juxtaposition of the
Measure and the Substance nominals, and marking the Substance nominal with the
preposition von.
In Modern German, archaic constructions both PCs and PPCs with
genitive-marked Substance nominals are used to a very limited degree and clearly
belong to an elevated written style. Thus, in PPCs, only Substance nominals with
adjectival modiers can normally be genitive-marked (cf. Example (28)). This
option is particularly often chosen with Substance nominals in the plural
(Hentschel 1993).
(28) German
eine Flasche guten Weins /
one:fem.nom bottle good:masc.sg.gen wine:gen /
eine Flasche des besten Weins
one:fem.nom bottle the:masc.gen best:masc.sg.gen wine:gen
a bottle of good wine/a bottle of the best wine
Single nominals with the genitive ending are sometimes possible, but have a clearly
archaic and poetic avour, e.g. purpurn sind die dicken Tropfen Bluts crimson are
the thick drops (of) blood.gen (Eschenbach 1993: 71).
The most frequent type of PPC involves juxtaposition of the Measure and the
Substance, which is reminiscent of the Swedish-Danish situation. However, there is
a special problem here which neither Swedish nor Danish have to solve: how do
various syntactic positions which a whole PPC occupies inuence the morpho-
syntactic properties of its constituents? In other words, which of its constituents will
inect for case? This problem obviously does not arise in Continental Scandinavian
which has lost its cases, apart from the somewhat problematic genitive. In general,
PPCs occur very rarely in positions others than that of subject and direct object, and
are considered fairly marginal by native speakers of German, who also dier in their
intuitions about their acceptability. Here German has two main options.
First, both Measure and Substance can agree in case, as in Example (29) below.
(29) German:
a. eine Flasche gut-er Wein
one:fem.nom bottle good-masc.sg.nom wine
b. trotz ein-er Flasche gut-en Wein-s
in.spite.of one-fem.gen bottle good-masc.sg.gen wine-gen
c. mit ein-er Flasche gut-em Wein(e)
with one-fem.dat bottle good-masc.sg.dat wine(dat)
(in spite of/with) one bottle of good wine
(Eschenbach 1993: 71)
Second, German may inect the Measure part of PPCs which is seen in the
form of the article in Example (30) below.
(30) German
trotz / mit ein-er Flasche Wein
in.spite.of / with one-fem.gen/dat bottle wine
in spite of/with one bottle of wine
(Eschenbach 1993: 71)
The choice between these options is partly dependent on the presence or absence of
modifying adjectives to the Substance their absence favours exclusive inection
of the Measure.
In the most frequent type of PC in Modern German, the Substance nominal is
marked with the preposition von of, from, as in Example (31a). von-phrases occur
sometimes in PPCs when the Substance is accompanied by an adjective (as in
(31b)) and/or when the Measure is an abstract quantity noun or a collection noun,
e.g. eine Reihe von arabischen Staaten a group of Arabic countries, eine Unzahl von
Flchtlingen a number of refugees (Eschenbach 1993: 74). Interestingly, the class
of Measure words allowing von-complements in German PPCs overlaps signicant-
ly with those allowing av/af-complements in comparable Danish and Swedish
constructions (cf. Section 5.1).
(31) a. drei Liter von diesem Wein
three litre of this:dat.masc wine
three litres of this wine
b. ???drei Liter von gutem Wein
three litre of good:dat.masc wine
three litres of good wine
The discussion of German (P)PCs is summarized in Figure 9 and Table 4.
von preceding Substance in the juxtaposition of Measure

Substance genitive case and Substance
Figure 9.Stratication of the semantic space of nominal quantication in German.
5.4 PPCs in the Germanic Circum-Baltic languages:

Diachrony and synchrony
To summarize, the three modern Germanic languages under consideration have
developed two main types of new constructions as compared to the Balto-Slavic
Circum-Baltic languages, which came to replace, to various extents, combinations
with genitives:
analytic constructions, mainly restricted to PCs, and
juxtapositional PPCs.
Table 4.The structure of juxtapositional PPCs in German

German
word order: dependenthead/ quantiercomplement

quantiercomplement headdependenta
marking of complements/dependents: +
juxtaposition
a
NPs with preposed genitives (rare) vs. NPs with postposed genitives or von-dependents.
Analytic constructions come from two sources:

the markers av/af and von, involved in the major type of PPCs and, to a certain
degree in PCs have originated in separative/ablative contexts;
the marker med, involved in the minor type of PPCs and PCs in Swedish and
Danish, have originated in comitative/associative contexts.
The former grammaticalization source is by now well known: Germanic (P)PCs
with av/af/von and Finnish (P)PCs with the partitive/elative are in a way local
variations on the same theme, i.e. dierent language-specic versions of the same
grammaticalization path (see Section 3.2).
The semantic reasons for the use of comitative markers in (P)PCs are also fairly
clear in the case of container nouns. A glass of water is in fact a glass with water in it,
and a box of apples is a box with apples in it; the dierence, for English, consists in
how much content there is in the container and/or whether the quanticational
aspect is interesting for the speaker. Thus, when the glass or the box is half empty, the
corresponding of-expressions would denitely be out of place. On the other hand,
with-constructions do not necessarily imply that there is some space left in the
container: if I say Could you please help me to carry this box with apples in it? or Katti
put a glass with water in it on the table and started painting, both the box and the
glass may very well be full, but the exact quantity is not so relevant for me (it might
become so, when Katti starts washing her brush in the glass and the water runs over
the edge of the glass). So the development probably follows the following path:
containers containing some/indenite quantity
containers measuring a certain quantity other measures
Now, what about the origin of juxtapositional PPCs?
On rst sight, the emergence of juxtapositional PPCs appears to be well
motivated by the decay and collapse of the older case systems in the Germanic
languages. I will argue, however, that this explanation (at least on its own) is not
feasible. I suggest that the association of PPCs with other quantifying, primarily
numeral constructions has led to no other explicit markers having arisen in PPCs.
Let us look at how the existence of juxtapositional PPCs relates to the collapse
of the older case systems in Germanic. The Mainland Scandinavian languages have
witnessed a very peculiar development from an old morphological genitive case to
a phrase marking genitive marker -s. Also, in the older languages, the position of
the genitive diered for dierent uses from being free to being rigidly preposed
or postposed to the head, whereas s-marked genitive phrases in the modern
languages always precede their heads. Substance nominals always followed the
Measure in the older languages and do so in the modern languages too, which puts
them outside of the domain in which s-genitive markers operate. A straightforward
and somewhat simplistic explanation for this development would, thus, suggest
that, while nominals in other functions could replace their old morphological
genitive markers with -s, this option was not available for Substance nominals; the
old genitive case has simply been lost, and as a result PPCs have to manage without
any overt marker.
In German, the genitive case manifests itself as a morphological marker but
only for a subset of nouns (mostly masculine and neuter nouns in the singular).
However, case distinctions are eectively expressed by means of inecting articles,
demonstratives and adjectives which normally accompany German nouns, cf. der
Mann the:masc.nom man:nom vs. des Mannes the:masc.gen man:gen and die
Frau the:fem.nom woman vs. der Frau the:fem.gen/dat woman. In fact, in
Modern German, only proper names can regularly appear as single genitive-marked
nouns, as ein Glas Peters a glass Peter:gen (Peters glass), whereas all other genitive
noun phrases involve determiners and/or adjectives. Genitive marking of substance
nominals in PPCs and PCs seems to t in into this general system: single (bare)
Substance nominals are more or less avoided and the best examples are constituted by
Substance nominals in the plural accompanied by adjectives. However, even these
examples belong to an elevated and written style (cf. Section 5.2 for discussion).
The expos above seems, thus, to show that the loss of genitive marking in PPCs
(and PCs) in Scandinavian and, to a lesser degree, in German follows from the more
general decay of the morphological genitive and the subsequent reorganization of
the genitive domain in these languages. However, there are at least two additional
considerations that are not covered by this explanation, namely why no other
marker has immediately replaced the older genitive marker in PPCs, and why
juxtaposition in PPCs extended even to those contexts where genitive markers are
normally eectively used.
First, the allusion to the breakdown in the case systems provides only a partial
explanation for the emergence of juxtapositional PPCs in Swedish, Danish and
German. Thus, it explains why Substance nominals can never (in the case of
Swedish and Danish) or need not (in the case of German) attach the genitive
marker. What is does not explain, however, is why they do not take any other
explicit marker. That is, other NPs with old adnominal genitives, including PCs,
have been replaced with NPs involving prepositional phrases or compounding, e.g.
the following example of the older genitivus materiae, den Schlafrock echt
ostindischen Stos the gown of genuine east-Indian cloth (Behaghel 1923: 520) will
correspond to den Schlafrock aus echten ostindischen Sto in Modern German.
Juxtaposition of two nominals, one of which was previously marked with the
genitive, is thus unique for PPCs a fact which has to be explained.
Second, the general decay in the nominal case systems cannot explain why
words which still inect for case, such as adjectives in German, would appear in the
non-marked form in PPCs. Thus, in German, the frequent coalescence of genitive
and nominative forms led to zero-marked PPCs, starting in the 15th century, that
is, in eect, to juxtaposition. At rst juxtaposition applied to single Measure nouns
(eine Tonne Holz a ton of wood), whereas a combination of Measure nouns with
adjectives appear in the genitive (eine Tonne gespaltenen Holz a ton of
chopped:gen wood). Later, however, the pattern spread further to combinations
of nouns and adjectives resulting in examples like eine Tonne gespaltenes Holz a ton
of chopped:nom wood (Behaghel 1923: 532). Thus, the older construction with the
nominal attribute, the genitive case of which coincided with the nominative case,
came to be reanalyzed as juxtaposition of two nominals, that is as a construction
type of its own, specically employed for PPCs and dierent from normal
combinations of a nominal head and a nominal dependent.
The question thus arises why the internal structure of PPCs diers from that of
other combinations of two nominals. My suggestion is that the reason for this lies
in their semantically intermediate nature: nominal quantiers, although (originally)
nouns, are used in functions, which are atypical for nouns in general (cf. Sec-
tion 2.2). And, consequently, it is not surprising that nominal quantiers alienate
themselves from typical nouns.
A clear manifestation of this tendency is the loss of inectional distinctions for
some of the most usual nominal quantiers (number in Swedish and Danish;
number and case in German): e.g. in Swedish tv liter/*litrar mjlk two litre/
*litre.pl milk, tre kilo/*kilon smr three kilo/*kilo:pl butter, fyra meter/*metrar tyg
four metre/*metre.pl cloth (cf. Delsing 1993: 204) and in German drei Glas/Glser
Bier three glass/glass.pl beer and nach drei Glas/Glsern warmem Bier after three
glass/glass:dat.pl warm:dat. beer (cf. Plank 1981: 142148).
The fact that nominal quantiers take juxtaposed complements can be
interpreted as a loss of typical nominal syntactic properties and, thus, as another
manifestation of the same tendency.
While disassociating themselves from typical nominal-nominal combinations,
PPCs at the same time come closer to other quanticational expressions, e.g.
constructions with numerals. In a way, numeral constructions constitute a natural
focus of attraction for PPCs, as was demonstrated for Estonian (cf. Example (17))
and for Baltic (cf. Example (20)). In other words,

juxtapositional PPCs in Modern Germanic owe their existence partly to the
inuence from juxtapositional numeral constructions.
An interesting peculiarity of PPCs in Danish and Swedish is their prosody:12 the
nominal quantier loses its stress, whereas numerals do not, e.g. en skl ris a bowl
of rice, en gruppe brn a group of children (Da), tv tunnor sill two barrels of
herring (Sw). The same de-stressing pattern is, in fact, employed in both languages
for a number of various functions, among others, in verb-incorporating structures
like lse tegneserier to read cartoons (Da) and ka tg go by train (Sw) (cf.
Anward & Linell 1976; Herslund 1995). A detailed account of exactly how prosody
works in PPCs requires much more research.13 Here it will suce to say that this
particular pattern with a unitary stress to the right of the de-stressed unit is
generally used when the two formal units correspond to one conceptual unit (e.g.
when a verb and its object denote a special kind of activity) and/or when one (or
even both) of the units is not used in its literal meaning. Combinations of Measure
and Substance nominals seem to share both these properties, though to dierent
degrees for dierent combinations: the meaning of Measure nominals in PPCs is
often dierent from that in other contexts, and, even more importantly, the whole
combination refers to a new countable entity (cf. Section 2.3).
6. (P)PCs in the European languages
6.1 The major (P)PC types and their distribution across

the European languages
Let us now look at the structure of PCs and PPCs in a broader, pan-European
typological prospective. My database on PPCs covers most of the European
languages, whereas the information on PCs is, unfortunately, much more limited.
PCs across the European languages show the same dislike for juxtaposition
as the Circum-Baltic languages, i.e.:
PCs in the European languages tend to be formed with an overt marker
associated with the Substance, where overt markers are either inectional (case
endings) or analytical (prepositions).
PPCs across the European languages show the same two major types as in the
Circum-Baltic languages:
PPCs without overt markers (juxtapositional)
PPCs with an overt marker associated with the Substance, where overt markers
are either inectional (case endings) or analytical (prepositions);
This means that the following logically possible construction types are not attested
among PPCs:
constructions with an overt marker associated with the Measure;
constructions with overt markers associated both with the Measure and with
the Substance;
constructions with a linker an overt marker between the Measure and the
Substance.
Table 5 and Map 1 show the occurrence of these types in the European language
families and their geographic distribution.
As is clear from the table and the map, the juxtapositional PPC type represents
the unmarked option it occurs in all the European language families, especially
in two clear areas the southern and south-eastern parts of Europe, where
dierent families meet, and in the Germanic (but only marginally in its geographi-
cally most western members). In a few of these languages the juxtapositional type
is clearly new and came to replace the more archaic genitive construction in
addition to Germanic, also in Bulgarian, Macedonian and Greek whereas in
most other languages this type has obviously existed for a long time.
PPCs with prepositions have a very limited14 distribution and occur only
among the most western European Indo-European languages, Romance, Celtic and,
to a limited degree, Germanic. In all these cases the construction is of relatively
recent origin.
Finally, PPCs using case inection to mark Substance occur in three language
families, those with the genitive case in a few Indo-European and North-East
Caucasian (Daghestanian) languages, and those with the partitive case in several
Finno-Ugric languages. The Daghestanian genitive-marking PPCs constitute a clear
island among the otherwise juxtapositional PPCs in this south-eastern European
corner with some languages alternating between the two construction types and at
least one (Lezgian) exclusively resorting to juxtaposition.
Within Indo-European, PPCs with genitives represent an archaic construction,
which has a compact distribution among Balto-Slavic (apart from the southern
caseless languages Bulgarian and Macedonian) and also occurs in an island-like
fashion in Celtic (Irish and Scottish Gaelic) and in Germanic (German and
Icelandic, in both cases competing with more frequent and stylistically more neutral
innovative constructions). Among Finno-Ugrian languages, such PPCs occur
mainly among the Finnic languages and in Eastern Sami (e.g. in the Kildin dialect
on the Kola peninsula, Example (32)), i.e. among those languages which have had
the closest contacts with the most conservative genitive-markers among the Indo-
European languages. The other languages (including other varieties of Sami) resort
to the juxtapositional type, as illustrated by Example (33) below:
(32) Eastern Sami (Itkonen 1973: 298)
Table 5
Language families PPCs with overt markers Juxtapositional PPCs

Inection Prepositions
Indo-European baltic germanic: slavonic:
German (mrg.) Bulgarian, Macedo-
slavonic (except
nian
Bulgarian and Mace- English
donian) Icelandic germanic:
Faroese German
germanic:
Swedish (mrg.) Yiddish
German
Danish (mrg.) Dutch
Icelandic (mrg.) Norwegian (mrg.) English (mrg.)
Icelandic (mrg.)
celtic: celtic:
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic Swedish
Irish Irish Danish
Welsh Norwegian
romance: romance:
(exc. Romansch) Romansch
other:
Greek
Albanian
Armenian
Romani
Finno-Ugric finnic non-finnic:
N and W Sami
non-finnic:
Hungarian
Eastern Sami
Mari
Mordvin
Komi
Udmurt
NE daghestanian: daghestanian:
Caucasian Agul, Akhvakh, Avar, Budukh, Kryz;
Bezhta, Budukh, Lezgian
Chamalin, Godoberi,
Khinalug, Khvarshi,
Kryz, Lak, Rutul,
Tabassaran, Tzahur
NW Caucasian Abkhaz
Kartvelian Georgian
Mengrelian
Basque Basque
Semitic Assyrian
Maltese
Turkic Turkish
mrg = marginal use of a particular construction type in the language

Icea,c
W/NSam ESam
Far
Nor b Fin
ScGl Swdb Est
Ltv Mrd Udm

Ir Mri
Danb Lith
Wls Rus
Eng c
Dut Pol
Yid
b
Grm Ukr
Fr Cz Slva
Hng
Rmns Avr Bdh
Bsq Gdb Tbs
SCr Rum Abkh Lzg
Prt It Rmni Mgr Grg
Spn Ctl Rtl
Blg Trk Arm
Mcd
Alb Asr
PPCs with prepositions
PPCs with case inXection Grk
juxtapositional PPCs Mlt
a
Case inXection marginal in PPCs
b
Prepositions marginal in PPCs
c
Juxtaposition marginal in PPCs
Map 1. Geographic distribution of the main PPC types among the European languages
munn tonne andDa [verc javv7]

I:nom you(sg):dat give:1sg [sack:acc our:prtv]
I am giving you a sack of our
(33) a. Northern Sami (Inari dialect; Itkonen 1973: 303)
stuorra joavkku aalmug ja kaalguh
big number people:prtv.sg and woman:prtv.pl
a big number of people and women
b. Udmurt (Pirrko Suihkonen p.c.)
kyk sumyk tsaj

two cup:nom tea:nom
two cups of tea
c. Meadow-Mari (Zorina et al. 1990: 93)
kok kilo ere olma
two kilogram:nom sweet apple:nom
two kilograms of apples
d. Erzya-Mordvin (Paasonen MW 2033))
kanst tenin [stopka vinine]
hand:past.3pl I:dat [glass wine:nom]
they handed me a glass of wine
e. Hungarian
hrom liter piros l
three litre red juice:nom
three litres of red juice
6.2 The origin of (P)PCs in the European languages

As for the origin of the overt markers in PCs and PPCs, the following generaliza-
tion holds:
overt markers in PCs and PPCs in the European languages very often originate
as markers of direction FROM/separation (Ablative and the like).
Section 3.2 suggested dierent steps on the grammaticalization path SEPARA-
TION FROM PCs for Finnic languages, summarized in Figure 1, which can
possibly apply to the other languages as well. One of the important suppositions
was that the two main components of such constructions, the Measure and the
Substance, originate as two separate dependents to a verb and only gradually come
to be related directly to each other and build a single noun phrase via the process
of syntactic reanalysis. We can thus talk about a clausal source for (P)PCs. In
addition to the numerous circum-Baltic examples discussed in the previous
sections, Armenian examples (6a) and (8) were just such a case, and the same
point is made for PCs by the Hungarian and Turkish examples, and for PPCs by
the Welsh examples below:
(34) Hungarian (Edith Moravcsik & Beata Megyesi p.c.)
a. PC
egy liter ab-bl a piros l-bol
one litre that-abl the red juice-abl
a litre of that red juice
b. Direction FROM
Pter Stockholm-bl rkeze-tt tegnap.
Peter Stockholm-abl come-pret.3 yesterday
Peter came from Stockholm yesterday.
(35) Turkish (Kornlt 1996: 114)

a. PC
Ahmet [pasta-dan iki dilim] ye-di
Ahmet [cake-abl two slice eat-past
Ahmet ate two slices of the cake.
b. Direction FROM
Ahmet bakkal-dan iki s, i,se s, arap al-di
Ahmet grocer-abl two bottle wine steal-past
Ahmet stole two bottles of wine from the grocery store.
(35) Welsh
a. PPC
cwpanad o go du
cup of coee black
a cup of black coee (Susan Clack, Alan Thomas and Robert Borsley p.c.).
b. Direction FROM
Dw in dod o Fangor yn wreiddiol.
be.pres.1sg-in come:vn from Bangor in beginning
I come originally from Bangor. (King 1993: 284)
In the same way as we have seen in the Circum-Baltic languages (cf. the discussion
of the partitive case in Section 3.2 and of the prepositions av/af and von in Sections
5.1 and 5.2), the derivational relationship between PCs and ablative constructions
is often obscured by various other grammaticalization processes which frequently
apply to the latter. More specically,
from constructions serve as a popular grammaticalization source, e.g. for
possessive NPs; and
the original from meaning may gradually get bleached and even lost in the
course of time.
As a result of these processes, PPCs with the prepositions de in most of the
Romance15 languages, of in English and, marginally, von in German look like
possessive NPs, but in all these cases the similarities are indirect and have to do with
the ablative origin of both constructions.
It seems, however, that overt markers in PCs and PPCs do not necessarily
originate as ablative-like markers on the clause level. One example of a dierent
grammaticalization source is the Scandinavian with-constructions (cf. Example
(23) and the discussion in Section 5.1). In this case, PPCs develop from noun phrases
with a clear noun-attribute structure: with tea is an attribute to cup in a cup with tea,
which later came to be re-interpreted as PPCs (a cup of tea), and we can talk about
phrasal sources for (P)PCs. In such cases, the semantic changes leading to the
development of PPCs do not presuppose the same degree of syntactic reanalysis as
was the case with formerly separational clauses which give rise to (P)PCs.
Also, as mentioned above, there is no historical evidence whatsoever for a

separative/directional origin of the genitive in a number of Indo-European languag-
es where it has partitive and pseudo-partitive uses. A similar problem is presented
by genitive-marking PPCs in Daghestanian: to my knowledge, too little is known
about the origin of their genitive case (unfortunately, I lack information on PCs in
Daghestanian). In the absence of relevant data, we should not reject the possibility
that PPCs and possessive structures can be related in other ways which do not
necessarily have to do with directional/separative meanings. Possessive structures,
in a very broad sense of the word possessive, would constitute another phrasal
source for (P)PCs.
As is well known, possessive NPs across languages show a considerable degree
of polysemy and are frequently used to express part-whole and material
relations, just to name a couple. The PPC a pile of stones, where pile is a
nominal quantier, is semantically quite close to a tower of stone both are
made up of stones (and thus evoke the relation of material), while the PC a slice
of the cake is fairly close to a corner of the room (where the relation of part-
whole is evoked). Preliminary data show that these local similarities may result
in dierent structures for the dierent nominal quantiers in one and the same
language, but the details remain to be investigated.
The examples below show that possessive-like structures may sometimes be
used as (P)PCs even in those languages which normally resort to other types (cf.
(37a) with (35a), and (37b) with (12)):
(37) a. Turkish (Kornlt 1996: 121)
Ahmet [,sarab-in yari-sin-i] i-ti
Ahmet [wine-gen half-3sg.poss-acc drink-past
Ahmet drank half of the wine
b. Finnish (Leino 1993: 289)
tuotanno-n valta-osa
production-gen dominating-part
the bulk of production
Figure 10 summarizes the discussion of grammaticalization sources for (P)PCs

involving overt markers in the European languages.
Partitive constructions Pseudo-partitive constructions
Separation / FROM Possessive-NPs Nouns + With-attribute
Clausal sources Phrasal sources

Figure 10.The rise of PCs and PPCs with overt markers in the European languages.
In a still broader typological prospective, European PPCs with overt markers,

in particular with genitive/possessive markers, appear as very rare, if not unique.
Thus, even in the Sino-Tibetan languages, notorious for their multifunctional
possessive/attributive markers, which accompany almost any type of dependents to
a nominal, PPCs involve juxtaposition.
There are, as previously mentioned, at least two kinds of juxtapositional PPCs
in the European languages: those that have arisen in connection with the loss of
former case inections and those for which no such development has been attested.
I would suggest that the juxtapositional strategy on the whole may be accounted
for by the tendency to develop a unied treatment of nominal and other quantiers,
in particular as cardinal numerals. At least for the European languages, nominals
are normally juxtaposed to numerals (Hurford forthc): numerals govern their
nominal complements, as in Balto-Slavic and Finnic languages, and especially the
complicated alternation between government and agreement (in Slavic and Finnic
languages) is a unique areal feature (Skld 1990, who, however, explains the Finnic
pattern by earlier contacts with Germanic languages).
Interestingly, the morpho-syntactic behaviour of Measure words in juxta-
positional PPCs and the mechanisms that shape it manifest a great deal of parallel-
ism with numeral constructions in classier languages: classiers start o as full-
edged nominals, but gradually lose characteristic nominal features (cf. Bisang
1993, forthc.). However, it has been suggested that numeral classier constructions
normally go through syntactic reanalysis and end up with the constituency struc-
ture [[Numeral Classier] [N]] which is not normally found in European languages
(Croft 1996: 64). The problem is that usual constituency tests work very poorly
when applied to PPCs, especially to juxtapositional ones (David Gil p.c.), and more
comparative research is needed for generalizations on how the development of
juxtapositional PPCs bears on their headedness and constituency structure.
7. Conclusions: Circum-Baltic (P)PCs as an areal phenomenon

Finally, to what degree are (P)PCs in the Circum-Baltic languages interesting as an
areal phenomenon? The data on the PPC-types in the Circum-Baltic languages is
presented in Figure 11.
For the Indo-European languages, PPCs with case-marked Substance nominals
are archaic constructions which had a much wider distribution in the older
languages, including the older stages of Germanic (see Section 5). Thus, to judge
from our data, a few centuries ago the Circum-Baltic languages were more similar
in this respect, as shown in Figure 12.
However, cross-linguistically, PPCs with case-marked Substance nominals
constitute a fairly unusual option, both in a world-wide perspective and, to a lesser
degree, among the European languages. Also among the Finno-Ugric languages
W & N Saami E Saami
Fin
Swd
Est
Ltv
Rus
Dan Lith BRus
Pol
Grm
Juxtapositional PPCS PPCs with case-marked Substance

Figure 11.The distribution of the PPC types in the modern circum-Baltic languages.
W & N Saami
E Saami
Fin
Swd
Est
Ltv
Rus
Dan Lith BRus
Pol
Grm
PPCs with case-marking on Substance
Figure 12.PPCs with case-marking on the Substance nominals in the circum-Baltic

languages of the 13th century.
such constructions occur only in the Circum-Baltic languages and in Eastern Sami.
Thus, the Finnic languages, in their PPCs, are much more similar to their Indo-
European neighbours than to their Finno-Ugric relatives, most probably, as a result
of contacts with the former.
The cross-linguistic data provided in this article conrm the earlier suggestions
made by Kont (1963), Larsson (1983) that some of the functions of the partitive case
in Finnic were modelled on those of the Baltic genitive. According to this hypothe-
sis, the two cases had been similar enough for bilingual Finnic-Baltic speakers to
apply the same rules when speaking each of the languages. This hypothesis, thus,
rests on an assumption that the Finnic partitive and the Baltic genitive case shared
some function(s), to start with, and these functions were taken as a basis for
identication of the two cases by bilingual speakers. The question is which func-
tions the Finnic partitive could have shared with the Baltic genitive before the two
were partly identied.
Typological considerations may be of great help in this matter. That is, if cross-
linguistically highly marked (unusual) phenomena occur in a number of genetically
non-related neighbouring languages, the obvious explanation for this coincidence
would be linguistic contacts, whereas development of cross-linguistically frequent
phenomena in a language or several languages can normally be explained by
language-internal forces. Let us now have another look at the shared functions of
the Finnic partitive case, on the one hand, and those of the Baltic (and Slavic)
genitive case and consider them from the point of view of their cross-linguistic
usualness (frequency), as well as their occurrence within the larger families (Finno-
Uralic and Indo-European respectively).
Case-marking of Substance in PCs: the use of a separative case (or a separative
marker in general) to mark Substance nominals is well attested cross-linguistically.
In this respect Finnic languages seem to behave like their other relatives (cf.
Example (33a) from Hungarian). The origin of the genitive-marking in Indo-
European PCs is not quite clear a separative source cannot be excluded, but can
hardly be proven either.
Case-marking of Substance in PPCs: see the discussion above.
Case alternation for marking total and partial objects/subjects: although
the details of this alternation diers considerably between Finnic, Baltic and Slavic,
there is a considerable overlap here. Cross-linguistically the phenomena are
extremely unusual (especially in case-marking of subjects), even though they have
partial parallels in other languages. The distinction between total and partial objects
by means of case alternation (accusative vs. genitive) is attested in a number of
older Indo-European languages; partial subjects are attested too, but to a very
limited extent. Within Finno-Ugric, outside Finnic, a certain parallel is provided by
Eastern Sami (both for subjects and objects); in Mordvin, indenite objects to verbs
of eating and drinking and a few others are marked by the ablative genetically the
same case as the Finnic partitive.16
Case-government of nouns by numerals: higher numerals govern their
complements (determining either their case or adposition) in a number of languag-
es, even though this is still a relatively infrequent phenomenon. It is also known
from several older Indo-European languages, at least marginally. However, within

the Balto-Slavic languages, including the Slavic languages outside the circum-Baltic
region, these phenomena came to be much more prominent: even lower numerals
case-govern, in particular their complements, which is extremely unusual cross-
linguistically. Nothing of this kind occurs anywhere in Uralic outside Finnic and
Eastern Sami, which, in all probability, were inuenced by the neighbouring Indo-
European languages. It should also be noted that the rules governing alternation
between government and agreement within numeral constructions are much more
similar in Finnic and Slavic than in any of these languages and Baltic. Given the
degree of complexity of these rules and their typological uniqueness a plausible
hypothesis is that the Finnic system is in a certain sense borrowed. However, as
far as we know, there were no historical preconditions for such an extensive
inuence on Finnic from Slavic, as opposed to that from Baltic. The only plausible
conclusion is, thus, that at an earlier stage, the Baltic and Slavic rules for numeral
constructions were much more similar, but were later simplied in Baltic.
To summarize: of all the above-listed functions of the partitive (formerly
separative) case in Finnic, case-marking of Substance nominals in PCs is the one
which has almost certainly arisen due to the internal Finnic (Uralic) development.
Since the Baltic genitive could also be used in PCs, this function could be taken as
a basis for the identication of the two cases by bilingual speakers who would later
extend the Finnic partitive case to the other functions of the Baltic genitive.
However, even though I wish to make a case for the importance of Substance-
marking in PCs as an original shared function of the Finnic partitive and the Baltic
genitive case, I would not like to exclude the possibility of others.17
Now, if the general conclusion is that (most of) the grammaticalized functions
of the partitive case in Finnic are modelled on those of the Baltic genitive case, what
is the purpose of the grammaticalization stories and diagrams (Figures 46)
presented in Sections 3.2 and 3.3? It would have been sucient to state that the use
of the partitive case was extended both to PPCs and numeral constructions under
the Baltic inuence, without any further motivation. There is, however, an impor-
tant methodological point here related to the issue of internal reconstruction, areal
linguistics and typology.
More specically, each of the following grammaticalization steps suggested in
Sections 3.2 and 3.3 represents a development which nds numerous parallels in
other languages:
development of separative constructions into PCs;
extension of PCs into PPCs/structural similarity between PCs and PPCs in a
language;
modelling of numeral constructions on the basis of PPCs, or
development of partitive numeral constructions into non-partitive ones
<DEST "kop1-n*">
In other words, the developments sketched in 3.2 and 3.3 represent reasonable
grammaticalization paths which do not need to be externally motivated. In the eyes
of traditional historical linguists this could have been a sucient plausible explana-
tion for the Finnic situation: very often in historical linguistics the methodological
inclination has been to consider the possibility of external causation only when all
eorts to nd an internal motivation for some change have failed (Thomason &
Kaufmann 1988: 57). And even the fact that the Finnic partitive and the Baltic
genitive case share numerous similarities could have received internal explanation
each of the two cases followed more or less the same grammaticalization path. In this
situation, only broader cross-linguistic evidence provides necessary arguments for
the importance of external factors in the grammaticalization of the partitive case.
Although each of the steps on its grammaticalization path nds cross-linguistic
parallels, their cumulative eect is unique and is only shared by Baltic (and Slavic).
Interestingly, while the same Finno-Ugric languages use the partitive case to
mark the Substance in PPCs and partial objects, Swedish, Danish and German lost
a similar distinction between whole objects and partial objects, which were marked
with the genitive case, just as they lost their PPCs with genitive-marked Substance
nominals. Thus, there exists a complicated relationship between the existence in a
language of an opposition between whole and partial objects by means of case
alternation, on the one hand, and the existence of PPCs with case-marked Sub-
stance nominals on the other. This relationship, however, deserves a special study
of its own (for some discussion see Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wlchli this volume).
Notes
* I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who, in one or another way, have
helped me in writing the paper. First of all, to those who have provided me with the data on the
various languages used in the paper:
Armenian Natalja Kozinceva; Estonian Diana Krull and Peep Nemvalds; Finnish Irja
Alho, Pivi Juvonen, Johanna Laakso, Riitta Korhonen and Maria Vilkuna; Hungarian Beata
Megyesi and Edith Moravcsik; Irish Dnall P. Baoill; Latvian Laimute Balode, Axel
Holvoet and Baiba Kangere; Mari Simon Christen; Mordvin Bernhard Wlchli; Old Swedish
John Swedenmark and Muriel Norde, Scottish Gaelic Robert Mullally, Udmurt Pirkko
Suihkonen; Welsh Susan Clack, Alan Thomas and Robert Borsley.
The discussion in Section 3.1 is, to a signicant degree, based on generous assistance from Irja
Alho, Riitta Korhonen and Maria Vilkuna. At various stages in the preparation of this paper I have
beneted a lot from discussions with Vytautas Ambrazas, Jan Anward, Brita Bergman, Bill Croft,
sten Dahl, Kari Fraurud, Michael Herslund, Axel Holvoet, Baiba Kangere, Edith Moravcsik,
Muriel Norde, Tomas Stolz and Bernhard Wlchli. None of these kind people bears any responsi-
bility for the possible errors (Pierluigi Cuzzolin and Elisa Roma deserve a special thank for
pointing out an error in my analysis of Irish and Scottish Gaelic).
1. To understand the connection between (organic) part of the whole and partitives consider the
function of the word part in the following examples, from merely indicating a part of the body-part
to quantifying a subset separated from the whole set: The upper part of his face is painted green
A part of his face is painted green Part of my books have completely disappeared from my shelves.
2. Numerals, from the linguistic point of view, are a mystical category per se, but here I will
refrain from any deep discussion of their nature and part-of-speech properties.
3. The translative, a case marker of younger origin attested for Mordvin and Finnic, has assumed
the place of the former lative (-s, -k) in Finnic.
4. Greenberg (1989: 111) quotes interesting anthropological observations on actual methods of
counting which provide evidence and an explanation for the close connection between between
nominal quantiers and, at least, higher numerals. Thus, when Basque shephards count sheep,
they put pebbles in heaps of ten. When there are ten such heaps, a pebble is put aside to stand for
one hundred. In this fashion, higher units become conceived of as objects which are themselves
counted.
5. The assignment of the singular number to nouns by numerals is a widely spread phenomenon
(Hurford forthc.), also among the Finno-Ugric languages, where it is considered to be an archaic
feature (Skld 1993).
6. With numerals in the partitive case, the distinction between government and agreement is of
course blurred.
7. The origin of number assignment in Finnic numeral constructions is not quite clear. According
to one hypothesis it may be accounted for by the earlier neutralization of number in the Finnic
oblique cases. When the distinction between singular and plural was later introduced into the
paradign of oblique cases, it did not hit highly grammaticalized numeral constructions (similar
resistance to younger morpho-syntactic rules is typical of old, highly grammaticalized construc-
tions in general). Another explanation motivates the singular number by considerations of
economy (a numeral by itself signals that the noun it combines with refers to plural objects), as
well as by genetic factors: nouns in the singular appear in numeral constructions in most of the
other Uralic languages, even though the construction itself is dierent.
8. Note that the terms higher and lower are slightly misleading. Only the last digit in a numeral
counts for morpho-syntactic rules in Slavic and Baltic, thus, 322 is a lower numeral, whereas
20 is higher numeral. Teens are always higher numerals.
9. I am grateful to Baiba Kangere for drawing my attention to this construction in Latvian and
providing me with relevant examples.
10. In Northern Swedish local vernaculars, prepositions are sometimes found also in PPCs. Cf.
Dalecarlian (lvdalen) An tsjypt tau tsijlo v mjli He bought two kilos of our.
11. Cf. this with Example (22) from Old Swedish where m occurs after pund pound.
12. I am grateful to Michael Herslund for drawing my attention to this fact.
13. Pragmatic considerations and, in particular, a degree of lexicalization/novelty play a consider-
able role here. Thus, even very lexicalized numeral expressions may be pronounced with the same
unitary stress pattern, e.g. tio Guds bud the ten commandments. On the other hand, less usual
PPCs of the type en hink vin a pail of wine, though perfectly well-formed in theory, are hardly
ever used in reality, which makes it dicult to nd a natural context for testing to what degree the
intonational pattern in PPCs is sensitive to their usualness/novelty.
14. Of course, in terms of the number of speakers using this type and the geographic region
covered by it, the distribution of the prepositional PPC type is far from limited!
15. In Rumanian, PPCs with the preposition de are opposed to possessive NPs in which the
possessor attaches the genitive case, cf. un pahar de vin a:masc glass of wine vs. casa fete-i
house:det girl-gen.det (the house of the girl). De is however used as a marker of general
attribution, as in o comoara de gospodina a:fem treasure of (a) housewife.
16. A striking parallel to the partitive/genitive case in the three above-listed uses of is, of course,
provided by the French partitive preposition/article de, which also started o as a separative
marker and later, via PCs, came to be used both with Substance nominals in PPCs and with partial
objects and (existential) subjects.
17. Larsson (1983:139147), on the basis of Mordvin data, suggests that the partitive case was used
for marking objects to verbs of drinking and eating already at the Proto-Finnic stage, and that this
could have been a shared function of the Finnic partitive and the Baltic genitive case. However, the
Mordvin ablative case is on the whole a relic case in the sense that most of its modern functions
are obviously derived from the older more concrete ones which are by now lost. This relic
character of the Mordvin ablative case makes it a bad candidate for giving a fair picture of the
Proto-FinnoVolgaic situation.
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<TARGET "sta" DOCINFO
AUTHOR "Leon Stassen"
TITLE "Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages"
KEYWORDS ""
SIZE HEIGHT "220"
WIDTH "150"
VOFFSET "4">
Nonverbal predication
in the Circum-Baltic languages
Leon Stassen
1. Introduction
In this paper, I want to draw attention to a peculiar feature of the encoding of

nonverbal (i.e., adjectival and nominal) predicates in the languages of the Circum-
Baltic area. With the exception of the Germanic languages, all language families
present in the area can be shown to display a double option in their encoding of
predicate adjectives and nominals. More specically, predicate adjectives and
nominals in the languages at issue may vary between an encoding in the nominative
case and an encoding in some oblique case. This variance in formal encoding can be
seen to correlate with a semantic distinction, which can be phrased in terms of the
notion of Relative Time Stability (see Givn 1984). As a general rule, encoding of
predicate adjectives and nominals in the nominative case indicates a high degree of
time stability. For predicate adjectives, the nominative encoding points to the
permanent or inherent character of the property predicated by the adjective.
Likewise, use of the nominative for predicate nominals indicates class-membership
which is, in some way, essential to the subject. In contrast, encoding of the
nonverbal predicate by means of some oblique (and therefore, essentially, adverbi-
al) expression designates a temporary, contingent, or non-essential property or
class-membership. In short, encoding in the nominative is used to refer to situa-
tions which are relatively time-stable and thus unlikely to change over time,
whereas the oblique encoding emphasizes the eeting or temporary nature of the
situation. Hence, it is not surprising that one of the prominent uses of this oblique
encoding is in contexts where the copular item is not stative (as it is in the case of
the copula to be), but dynamic (as it is with copulas like to become, to grow, or
to turn into).
In the following sections, I will rst illustrate the double encoding of nonverbal
predicates in some detail in dierent language families of the Circum-Baltic area.
Next, I will demonstrate that this double encoding, while undoubtedly an areal
Circum-Baltic feature,1 is not unique in the world: there are several other linguistic
570 Leon Stassen
areas which display similar double encoding. As a general conclusion, I advance the
hypothesis that double encoding of nonverbal predicates must be seen as a fringe
phenomenon in the Indo-European mega-area.
2. Double encoding in Balto-Finnic

Perhaps the most transparent example of the double encoding of nonverbal predi-
cates in the Circum-Baltic area can be found in the Balto-Finnic languages. I will
illustrate the phenomenon on the basis of data from Finnish, Votic, and Estonian.
All three languages employ the verb olla to be as the stative copula for both
predicate adjectives and nominals. In Finnish and Estonian, predicate adjectives in
constructions with olla take the nominative case if the predicate is rated as time-
stable. The contingent reading of adjectival predicates is expressed by putting the
predicate adjective in an adverbial case. In Finnish, the so-called essive case is used
to this eect, while Estonian employs a special derived adverbial case form (Lehiste
1972; see (2b)). In addition, Estonian may also use the essive case for predicative
adjectives when there is a specication of place in the sentence (Diana Krull, p.c.;
see (3b)).
(1) Finnish
a. Tytt on pieni
girl:nom.sg is small:nom.sg
The girl is small (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 116)
b. Hn on sairaa-na
3sg.masc is sick-ess
He is sick (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 139)
(2) Estonian
a. Asjad on halvad
things is/are bad:nom.sg
Things are bad (in general) (Lehiste 1972: 224)
b. Asjad on halvasti
things is/are bad:advr
Things are badly (i.e., are going badly, are in a bad state) (Lehiste 1972:224)
(3) Estonian
a. Ta oli noor
3sg was young:nom.sg
S/he was young (Diana Krull, p.c.)
b. Ta oli seal noore-na
3sg was there young-ess
S/he was there (as/when) young (Diana Krull, p.c.)
Interestingly, both Finnish and Estonian, as well as Votic, exhibit a second instance
of this double encoding of predicate adjectives. As we saw above, predicate adjectives
in Finnish (can) take the nominative case when they are constructed with the stative
support verb olla to be. However, in constructions with the dynamic copula tulla
to come, to become predicative adjectives require the translative case, an adverbial
form which is employed, among other things, to refer to points in time. A com-
pletely parallel situation can be encountered in Votic and Estonian.
(4) Finnish
a. Vanhus oli sokea
old man was blind:nom.sg
The old man was blind (Kristina Jokinen p.c.)
b. Vanhus tuli sokea-ksi
old man became blind-trnsl.sg
The old man went blind (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 143)
(5) Votic
a. Tm eli enneva
3sg was happy:nom.sg
He was happy (Ariste 1963: 35)
b. Hullu-s meni
crazy-trnsl.sg go:3sg.past
He went crazy (Ariste 1963: 35)
(6) Estonian
Peeter saab vana-ks
P. becomes old-trnsl.sg
Peeter is getting old (Diana Krull, p.c.)
In the encoding of predicate nominals in Balto-Finnic similar double options can

be attested. Thus, in Finnish, a predicate nominal may appear either in the nomina-
tive case (which is the morphologically unmarked case form), or in the essive case
(marked by the sux -na). According to Lehtinen (1963: 373), the essive in Finnish
is used with nouns of profession or particular stages in life; it indicates temporary,
or accidental functions or occupations. Exactly the same situation as in Finnish can
be documented for Votic.
(7) Finnish
a. Ystv-ni on pappi
friend-my is vicar:nom
My friend is a vicar (Fromm and Sadeniemi 1956: 115)
b. Hn oli siell opettaja-na
3sg was there teacher-ess
He was a teacher there/he worked there as a teacher (Lehtinen 1963: 373)
(8) Votic
a. Tm on hakka
3sg is old woman
She is an old woman (Ariste 1968: 31)
572 Leon Stassen
b. Elin sematehe-nn Tallina-za

be:1sg.past soldier-ess T.-loc
I was a soldier in Tallin (Ariste 1968: 32)
For Estonian, Lehiste (1972) notes no fewer than three case-marking options for
predicate nominals. Apart from the nominative, predicate nominals may select two
oblique cases, viz. the essive and the translative. Examples are:
(9) Estonian
a. NN on meie saadik London-is
NN is our ambassador:nom L.-iness
NN is our ambassador in London (Lehiste 1972: 216)
b. NN on meie saadiku-na London-is
NN is our ambassador-ess L.-iness
c. NN on meie saadiku-ks London-is
NN is our ambassador-trnsl L.-iness
As to the semantic status of these encoding options, the author remarks: The
semantic dierences involved are subtle, but clear: [9a] implies that being ambassa-
dor is a permanent (inalienable) characteristic of NN, [9b] implies that NN is
(temporarily) in London in his capacity as ambassador (he need not be the perma-
nent or regular ambassador in London, or he may be in London occasionally in
other capacities), and [9c] implies that NN is fullling the role of ambassador (in an
ocial capacity, but it is not a permanent characteristic of NN) (Lehiste 1972:216).
In conclusion, we can state that the Balto-Finnic languages present a clear
instance of double encoding for both predicate adjectives and nominals, and that
this switch in formal encoding appears to be correlated with a dierence in degree
of time stability. It must be added that double encoding has been attested for some
languages from other Uralic sub-families as well. According to Sebrennikov (quoted
in Veenker 1967: 252, fn. 685), Sami has an alteration between the nominative and
the essive. Furthermore, some members of the Volgaic and Permic sub-families
exhibit an encoding switch for nominal predicates: Mordvin (Volgaic) has double
encoding between the nominative and the translative, while Komi (Permic) appears
to allow a switch between the nominative and the instrumental.2 Opposed to this,
double encoding seems to be absent in Ugric (Hungarian, Vogul), and in
Samoyedic, be it Northern (Nenets) or Southern (Selkup). All in all, it seems safe to
conclude that, within Uralic, double encoding of nonverbal predicates manifests
itself most clearly and consistently in those languages that are spoken in the
Circum-Baltic area.
3. Double encoding in Baltic and Slavonic
In addition to Balto-Finnic, the Circum-Baltic area comprises languages from three

other genetic language groupings. In one of these, viz. Germanic, double encoding
of predicate adjectives and nominals is absent: Swedish, Danish and German
invariably encode these items in their morphologically unmarked form. For the
other two language groupings, however, at least some form of double encoding can
be documented, although, in particular for Slavonic, the situation is decidedly less
straightforward than for Balto-Finnic.
According to Fraenkel (1926: 85), a nominative-instrumental switch for
nonverbal predicates is attestable even for the older forms of the Baltic languages,
although it must be noted that this switch appears to be more extended in Lithuani-
an than in Latvian. In Modern Lithuanian, the double encoding of predicate
adjectives appears to be monitored by the distinction between stative and dynamic
predication of properties. Thus, the stative be-verb generally selects the nomina-
tive form of predicate adjectives, while the dynamic become-reading is usually
encoded by the instrumental case.
(10) Lithuanian
a. Arklys yra geras
horse:nom.sg is good:nom.sg
The horse is good (Senn 1974: 18)
b. Norejo turtingu tapti
want:3past rich:inst.sg become:inf
He wanted to get rich (Senn 1966: 429)
Double encoding between the nominative and the instrumental cases is also allowed
for predicate nominals in Lithuanian. For this predicate category, the stative-
dynamic opposition does not seem to play a crucial role: both case encodings are
possible with the stative copula buti to be. There is, however, a clear distinction in
terms of relative time stability between the two encoding options. Buti to be has
its predicate in the instrumental, when this predicate does not belong to the essence
of the subject, but merely indicates that the subject somehow acts as that which is
expressed by the instrumental. Buti then means usually to perform the function of
(Senn 1966: 430; my translation, L. S.).
(11) Lithuanian
a. Jis yra mokytojas
he is teacher:nom.sg
He is a teacher (Senn 1974: 118)
b. Jis buvo mokytoju
he was teacher:inst.sg
He was (working as) a teacher (Senn 1974: 118)
574 Leon Stassen
In short, we can conclude that, among the Baltic languages, at least Lithuanian
parallels the Balto-Finnic languages in essential respects: both predicate adjectives
and nominals exhibit a nominative-instrumental switch, and this switch is governed
by either the stative-dynamic distinction or the permanent-contingent distinction.
With respect to the Slavonic languages of the Circum-Baltic area, however, matters
are considerably less clear. The two Slavonic languages which I have considered,
viz., Polish and Russian, do feature a nominative-instrumental switch for nonverbal
predicates, but the conditions under which this switch may occur are rather opaque,
and cannot be dened exclusively in terms of relative time stability.
In Polish, predicative adjectives and nominals can always be constructed with
the multi-rooted support verb byc to be (with the form jest for 3sg.pres). There is,
however, an optional zero copula construction in the third person singular of the
present tense. Now, with regard to the encoding of predicative adjectives in Polish,
the following rules appear to hold. When they are encoded by the zero copula,
predicative adjectives invariably take the nominative case. However, when predica-
tive adjectives occur in constructions with the copular verb byc, they may select
either the nominative case or the instrumental case. Selection of this latter option
is particularly common when the adjective indicates a temporary state or an
accidental property (Meckelein 1926: 125).
(12) Polish
a. Ona modsza
3sg.fem.nom younger:fem.sg.nom
She is younger (Meckelein 1926: 49)
b. Dom jest nowy
house:sg.nom is new:masc.sg.nom
The house is new (Meckelein 1926: 45)
c. Mj brat jest chorym
my brother:sg.nom is ill:masc.sg.inst
My brother is ill (Meckelein 1926: 125)
With predicate nominals, the same formal conditions hold. That is, the use of a zero
copula always leads to nominative encoding, while with the lexical copula a switch
between nominative and instrumental case is possible:
(13) Polish
a. On jest zoRnierz
he is soldier:nom.sg
He is a soldier (Grappin 1963: 127)
b. On jest zoRnierz-em
he is soldier-inst.sg
He is a soldier (Grappin 1963: 127)
With regard to the conditions which govern the selection of either (10a) or (10b),
the sources which I have consulted on Polish present a somewhat fragmentated,
fuzzy, picture. Some grammars and textbooks indicate that the by now familiar
semantic distinction between permanency and contingency is at least part of the
story. A relevant quotation is the following: The predicate is in the nominative
when it identies an object, that is, designates an individual quality, and it is in the
instrumental when it classies the object, that is, when it marks a characteristic
quality of a category [] The instrumental indicates group membership, titles,
professions, nationalities (Grappin 1963: 1267; my translation, L. S.). Also, Brooks
(1975: 368) states that The predicate noun may occur in the nominative case when
the permanent quality of the object in question is emphasized (Brooks 1975: 368).
Notwithstanding this, however, it is also clear that the choice between a nominative
or instrumental encoding is inuenced by other, probably not semantic, factors.
Thus, there appears to be a marked dierence in frequency: Grappin (1963: 126)
notes that the instrumental is the most frequent option in modern Polish. Further-
more, there are formal contexts in which one of the options is explicitly forbidden.
Meckelein (1926: 125) states that the instrumental is obligatory in the imperative,
future, and conditional. Grappin (1963: 126) and Brooks (1975: 368) describe a
context in which the nominative is obligatory; this is the case when the predicate
nominal is a proper name, or when the sentence is identicational, featuring the
pro-copula to.
(14) Polish
a. Ja jestem Piotr
1sg am P.:nom
I am Piotr (Grappin 1963: 126)
b. Warszawa to stolica Polski
W. cop capital Poland.gen
Warsaw is the capital of Poland (Stone 1980: 22)
All in all, then, it must be concluded that the nominative-instrumental switch for
predicate nominals in Polish is (or has become) sensitive to a cluster of formal,
semantic, and stylistic parameters, in which the semantic permanency-contingency
distinction plays only a moderate, and probably not decisive, part.
Even more opaque and complex conditions surround the options of nonverbal
predicate encoding in Russian. Like Polish, this language distinguishes between
encoding with a zero copula and a lexical copula, but zero-copula encoding in Russian
is more extended than in Polish: it covers all persons in the present tense, and it is
obligatory in that context. Russian shares with Polish the stipulation that predicate
items which are constructed with the zero copula invariably select the nominative
case. This, in eect, ensures that nominative-instrumental switches in Russian will
be restricted to non-present contexts. An example of such a switch for predicate
adjectives is given in (15b). The conditions governing this switch are very diuse.
576 Leon Stassen
According to Nichols (1981: 183) the selection of the instrumental is governed by

the interplay of various formal, semantic, and stylistic factors, but time stability
does not seem to play a major role in it.
(15) Russian
a. On molod-oj / *molod-ym
he young-masc.sg.nom / young-masc.sg.inst
He is young (Nichols 1981: 292)
b. On byl molod-oj / molod-ym
he was young-masc.sg.nom / young-masc.sg.inst
He was young (Nichols 1981: 292)
It should be noted that the encoding of predicate adjectives in Russian is complicat-

ed further by an additional feature which is unique to the language. Apart from the
instrumental option, there are two nominative options for predicate adjectives,
called the Short Form and the Long Form. The Short Form, which is illustrated in
(16) Russian
On molod
he young:masc.sg
is invariable as to case. A few groups of adjectives have only a Short Form, but most
adjectives have an additional Long Form, which is illustrated in (17), and which
shows number-gender agreement with the subject.
(17) Russian
On molod-oj
he young-masc.sg.nom
Like the selection of the instrumental, the selection of the Short Form versus the
Long Form is sensitive to a set of interacting parameters. Some of these parameters
are stylistic: the Short Form is technical, while the Long Form is colloquial. The
standard claim that the Short Form indicates temporal or time-limited predication
is dismissed by Nichols (1981: 3012) as too categorical, although some of the
features of the contrast may be interpreted in terms of relative time stability. Thus,
short forms are used in broad generalizations, categorical statements, and general
truths (Nichols 1981: 307), while the following two sentences show the Short-Long
Form contrast to be related to the distinction between Description (18a) and Class
Membership (18b):
(18) Russian
a. to vino vkusno
this wine good:short form.neut.sg
This wine is good (Nichols 1981: 302)
b. to vino vkusnoe
this wine good:long form.neut.sg.nom
This wine is a good one (Nichols 1981: 302)
It must be said, however, that other factors such as modality also play their role in
the selection of long vs. short forms (the imperative always requires the Short
Form), and that, in general, dialectical and sociolectical factors heavily inuence the
actual choice made by individual speakers.
A similar diusion of conditioning factors can be encountered in the double
encoding of Russian predicate nominals. The nominative-instrumental switch for
these items (which, as we have seen above, is restricted to non-present contexts) is
illustrated in the sentences in
(19) Russian
a. On byl durak
he was fool:nom.sg
He was a fool (Nichols 1981: 152)
b. On byl rebenk-om
he was child-inst.sg
He was a child (Nichols 1981: 183)
It is true that some authors identify the permanency-contingency distinction as the

prime mover of this switch. For example, Fennell (1961: 110) states: The comple-
ment of the verb to be in the past, future, or imperative (but very rarely in the
present) is frequently in the instrumental, especially when a temporary state is
implied [] The nominative can be used with past tenses, but tends to indicate a
permanent rather than a temporary state. However, in her classic study on the
predicate nominal in Russian, Nichols (1981: Ch.3) concludes that this nominative-
instrumental switch must be seen as resulting from the interaction of a set of
independent parameters, and that no single determinant factor can be identied.
These parameters hail from dierent domains and levels of grammar, such as lexical
semantics, style, and contextual circumstances. All in all, one can say that a
predicate nominal in the complement of byt to be preferably takes the instrumen-
tal; under negation this is even obligatory. Stylistically, the instrumental is more
prestigious than the nominative. With respect to lexical semantics, there is a
dierentiation between descriptive or characterizing nominals such as fool
(which prefer the nominative) and nominals which indicate function, role or
occupation, such as teacher (which prefer the instrumental). Finally, the switch
may encode an aspectual dierence, in that the instrumental may indicate habitual
aspect, pluperfect, used to be, was but no longer is (Nichols 1981: 155, 192). For
this last parameter see the minimal pair in (20):
578 Leon Stassen
(20) Russian
a. On byl aman
he was shaman:nom.sg
He was a shaman (Nichols 1981: 189)
b. On byl aman-om
he was shaman-inst.sg
He had been a shaman (Nichols 1981: 189)
In sum we can say that the double encoding of nonverbal predicates in Russian
(and, to a somewhat lesser degree, also in Polish) contrasts with the Baltic and
Balto-Finnic manifestations of the phenomenon, in terms of its relative lack of
semantic transparancy. While in other Circum-Baltic languages the double
encoding is rmly tied up with distinctions of relative time-stability, the Slavonic
languages of the area tend to blur these distinctions, to the point that double
encoding tends to serve mainly as the expression of modal-aspectual, as well as
sociolinguistic and stylistic, nuances. It is tempting to interpret this special status of
Circum-Baltic Slavonic as an argument in favour of the independent, internal
development of the double encoding phenomenon in these languages. However, in
the next section I will demonstrate that the blurring of double encoding, which
was once semantically motivated, into a vague, stylistic encoding opposition is a
general and presumably natural phenomenon, which can be observed in widely
divergent language areas.
4. Double encoding in other language areas
From the exposition in the foregoing sections I think it can be concluded that
double encoding of nonverbal predicates is an areal feature of the languages around
the Baltic Sea. The languages in this area belong to four major linguistic families,
and, with the exception of Germanic, they all exhibit this double encoding at least
to some degree. Moreover, those Circum-Baltic languages which have relatives
outside the area distinguish themselves by this feature. As we have noted above, the
Balto-Finnic languages are the only Uralic languages with double encoding.
Likewise, within Slavonic this double encoding appears to occur as a systematic
option only in Polish and Russian; it is encountered only sporadically in Czech (see
Fraenkel 1926), and in South Slavonic it does not seem to occur at all.
This said, however, it should not be thought that double encoding of nonverbal
predicates is a feature which makes the Circum-Baltic languages unique among the
languages of the world. Stassen (1997: Ch. 5 and 6) demonstrates extensively that
some form of this double encoding can be encountered in various parts of the world,
among language families which are widely dierent as to genetic aliation; thus, for
example, the phenomenon can be observed in the Chadic languages of West Africa,
and in the Carib languages of Amazonia. For the purpose of this paper, I want to
pay special attention to four such areas, and show that they exhibit a type of formal
encoding of nonverbal predicates which, if not completely similar, is certainly
functionally equivalent to the options allowed in the Circum-Baltic languages.
First, we encounter double encoding in what may be called the Ibero-Celtic
area, which comprises the languages of the Iberian peninsula (Spanish, Basque) and
the Celtic languages of Ireland and Britain (Irish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic).3 A direct
parallel to the situation in Balto-Finnic can be found in Northern Basque. Predicate
adjectives in this language allow for two case forms, one of which is the morpholog-
ically unmarked absolutive, while the other is the partitive case form marked by the
sux -ik. Completely in accordance with the tendency we have noted in Balto-
Finnic and Lithuanian, this latter oblique case form indicates non-inherent quality
or temporary state (Schuchardt 1923: 13).
(21) Northern Basque
a. Zakurr-a beltz-a d-a
dog-abs.sg black-abs.sg is
The dog is black (Saltarelli 1988: 62)
b. Gizon-a d-a on-ik
man-abs.sg is good-prtv.sg
The man is good (Schuchardt 1923: 13)
The other Ibero-Celtic languages, however, manifest double encoding of nonverbal

predicates in a formally dierent, but functionally equivalent manner. In Circum-
Baltic, as well as in Northern Basque, double encoding takes the form of an
opposition between two dierent case forms, one of which can be rated as oblique,
or adverbial. A dierent way to construe this opposition is by using two dierent
copular items, one of which has a locational function. That is, in this case the
opposition is not marked on the predicate item itself, but on the supporting verb:
while one of these verbs is a real copula, the other verb is an item whose primary
function is the expression of adverbial (usually, locational) predication. Functional-
ly, however, the two variants of double encoding are equivalent, in that the lexical
variant typically implies the same semantic opposition as the case marking variant
does. Thus, the construction with the real copula usually designates states of aairs
which are permanent, inherent, or essential, while the construction with the
locational support verb typically refers to states of aairs that have relatively low
time stability.
While Northern Basque presents an example of the case-marking variant of
double encoding, the southern dialects of this language can be used to illustrate the
lexical variant. In Southern Basque, predicate adjectives and nominals invariably
appear in the absolutive case. Double encoding is eected here by means of a switch
between the support verbs izan (third person singular present: d-a) and egon (third
person singular present: d-ago). As the example in (22) shows, this latter verb is
580 Leon Stassen
obligatory in the predication of locational adverbs. In constructions with predicate

adjectives, the izan-variant indicates permanency of property assignment, as
opposed to the temporary reading of the egon-variant.
(22) Northern Basque
Gizon-a kale-an d-ago
man-abs.sg street-loc 3sg.abs-be:pres
The man is in the street (Saltarelli 1988: ii)
(23) Southern Basque
a. Gela hau hotz-a d-a
room this:abs.sg hot-abs.sg 3sg.abs-cop.pres
This room is hot (permanently) (Saltarelli 1988: 248)
b. Gela hau hotz-a d-ago
room this:abs.sg hot-abs.sg 3sg.abs-be:pres
This room is hot (for now) (Saltarelli 1988: 248)
A well-known and frequently discussed case of the lexical variant of double encoding
is the ser/estar switch in Spanish. Both predicate adjectives and nominals allow these
two support verbs, but there is a marked semantic dierence between the options.
Use of the copula ser with predicate adjectives has to be interpreted as describing a
permanent characteristic of the subject. If, on the other hand, the supportive verb
estar (which is typically used in constructions with predicate locationals) is em-
ployed, the semantic implication is that the subject has this property only tempo-
rarily, and the property assignment may be subject to change over time (see
(24ab)). While predicative adjectives occur in the same form under both strategies,
predicate nominals show formal dierentiation. When constructed with the copula
ser, predicate nominals are unmarked. A construction with estar requires that the
predicate nominal be adverbialized; it occurs as the complement of the preposition
de. Semantically, there is a clear distinction between the two options. The estar
de-construction indicates role, temporary state, or profession, against the inherent
class membership which is signaled by the ser-construction (see (25ab)).
(24) Spanish
a. Juan es enfermo
J. cop.3sg.pres ill
Juan is ill (i.e., he is an invalid) (Comrie 1976: 105)
b. Juan est enfermo
J. be:3sg.pres ill
Juan is ill (i.e., is now ill, but can be expected to recover, or was until re-
cently in good health) (Comrie 1976: 105)
(25) Spanish
a. Julia es enfermera
J. cop.3sg.pres nurse
Julia is a nurse (Bouzet 1945: 246)
b. Julia est de enfermera

J. be:3sg.pres of/from nurse
Julia works as a nurse (Max Kerkhof p.c.)
Nonverbal predicate encoding in Irish and Scottish Gaelic closely resembles the
situation in Spanish. For both predicate adjectives and nominals these languages
allow a switch between the copula is and the locational support verb ta/tha. These
items go back to the same Proto-Indo-European roots as Spanish ser and estar. As
in Spanish, predicate nominals must appear in an adverbial form, as the comple-
ment of a preposition, when they are constructed with the locational support verb.
(26) Modern Irish
a. Is breoite
cop.pres ill he
He is ill (permanently) (Greene 1966: 43)
b. T s breoite
be:pres he ill
He is ill (now) (Greene 1966: 43)
(27) Modern Irish
a. Is minteoir
cop.pres teacher he
He is a teacher (Greene 1966: 40)
b. T s ina mminteoir anois
be:pres he in-his teacher now
He is a teacher now (Greene 1966: 43)
(28) Scottish Gaelic
a. Is lidir e
cop.pres strong he
He is strong (permanently) (Anderson 1910: 236)
b. Tha e lidir
be:pres he strong
He is strong (now) (Anderson 1910: 236)
(29) Scottish Gaelic
a. Is duine lidir e
cop.pres man strong he
He is a strong man (Anderson 1910: 236)
b. Tha e na thuathanach
be:pres he in-his farmer
He is a farmer (Mackinnon 1977: 263)
As the translations to the sentences in (26) and (28) indicate, the encoding switch
for predicate adjectives follows the Spanish pattern: the locational option is reserved
for the contingentor accidental reading. With predicate nominals, however,
conditions are less clear. It is probable that in the copula construction for predicate
nominals Old Irish designated permanent or inherent class membership, whereas the
582 Leon Stassen
adverbial construction was used to express occupation, profession, or a temporary

state (Dottin 1913: 170; my translation, L. S.) However, in the Celtic languages, the
semantic dierentiation between nominal and locational encoding of predicate
nominals seems to be on the wane in general. On the subject of this encoding switch
in Modern Irish, ODochartaigh (1992: 41) notes: Traditionally, it has been
suggested that the dierence between the copula and the substantive [i.e., locat-
ional, L. S.] constructions here lies in the fact that the former indicates a permanent
state, while the latter has a more temporary attribute . However, it is very
doubtful if this distinction would be maintained in the current language, particular-
ly in spoken forms, and it would appear that both may be used interchangeably .
Similarly, MacAulay (1992: 180) remarks that copula constructions in Scottish
Gaelic commonly denote inalienable class membership, but this does not always
hold. Thus, it seems that, in a way which is somewhat reminiscent of Polish and
Russian, the once semantically transparent double encoding of predicate nominals
in Irish and Gaelic has started to fade and has gradually moved into the realm of
stylistics and sociolinguistics. In this connection, we can point to the situation in
Modern Welsh. This language does not (now at least) have double encoding for
predicate adjectives. In the case of predicate nominals, there is a contrast between
the copula yw, which takes unmarked predicate nominals, and the existential item
mae there is, which requires an adverbial form for its predicate nominal. In these
constructions, there is no longer any trace of an opposition in terms of time
stability: use of the copula with predicate nominals indicates emphasis.
(30) Welsh
a. Bachgen yw Tom
boy cop T.
A boy is what Tom is (Rhys Jones 1985: 87)
b. Mae Tom yn fachgen
be:pres T. in boy
Tom is a boy (Rhys Jones 1985: 73)
It may be somewhat surprising to nd that the Dravidian languages of southern

India show a form of double encoding of nonverbal predicates which matches the
options in Circum-Baltic and Ibero-Celtic in almost every respect. Tamil, Telugu,
and Kannada all exhibit an encoding switch for predicate adjectives and nominals
between a zero copula construction and a construction with a lexical verb: this
lexical verb is the unmarked option in the encoding of predicate locationals.4 When
constructed with the zero copula, predicate adjectives are obligatorily nominalized
by means of a sux; predicate nominals in the zero construction appear in their root
form. The construction with the locational support verb requires adverbial marking
for both predicate adjectives and nominals, which may be a sux (in Tamil and
Kannada) or a postposition (in Telugu). In other words, in this latter construction
nonverbal predicate items are morphosyntactically treated as adverbials.
(31) Tamil
a. Raaman nalla-van
R. good-sg.masc.nr
Raaman is good (Asher 1982: 50)
b. Pa,tam nall-aa iruntatu
lm good-advr be:3sg.neut.past
The lm was good (Asher 1982: 50)
(32) Tamil
a. Avaru (oru) dak,tar
he (one doctor
He is a doctor (Asher 1982: 49)
b. Ippo oru dak,tar-aa taan irukkaraaru
now one doctor-advr emph be:3sg.hon.pres
Now he is a doctor (Asher 1982: 50)
(33) Kannada
a. Naan doDDoonu
1sg big:1sg.nr
I am big (Schiman 1983: 47)
b. Ad hos-d-aag-ide
that.neut.sg new-3sg.neut-advr-be:3sg.neut.pres
That is new (Schiman 1983: 106)
(34) Kannada
a. Naan DaakTaru
1sg doctor
I am a doctor (Schiman 1983: 106)
b. Naan DaakTar-aag-iDDiini
1sg doctor-advr-be:1sg.pres
I am a doctor (Schiman 1983: 106)
(35) Telugu
a. I:-pau pulla-di
this-fruit sour-fem.sg.nr
This fruit is sour (Bhaskararao 1972: 1945)
b. Si:ta andam ga: undi
S. beautiful advr be:3sg.fem.pres
Sita looks pretty (Bhaskararao 1972: 167)
(36) Telugu
a. Ra:ma:ra:v podugu-va:du
R. tall-man
Ramarao is a tall man (Bhaskararao 1972: 194)
b. Ra:ma:ra:v me:ne:ja:ru ga: unna:du
R. manager adv be:3sg.masc.pres
Ramarao is a manager (Bhaskararao 1972: 172)
584 Leon Stassen
Coupled with this formal variation there is a familiar dierence in semantic

interpretation between the two construction options. The sources report that zero-
encoded adjectives are interpreted as permanent, whereas the locational-adverbial
encoding of these items points to a contingent, or at least less time-stable, interpre-
tation. The encoding switch for predicate nominals is also readily statable in terms
of relative time stability. In all three languages, it is the adverbial option which
indicates contingency, nonhabitualness, a temporary state (Schiman 1983: 106)
or role of the subject (Bhaskararao 1972: 172), against the permanency or
inherent class membership designated by the zero strategy. There are, however,
some signs that the semantic transparency of this double encoding has started to get
blurred in at least some members of the Dravidian family. While South Dravidian
languages like Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu keep the permanent-temporary
distinction largely intact, hardly any such semantic match seems to be observable in
North Dravidian languages like Parji and Kurukh. Parji shows double encoding for
predicate adjectives and nominals alike: the choice is between the copular item ay
(which is invariable and probably has a demonstrative-pronominal origin) and the
locational verb m.n- to be, to stay, to remain. However, this switch does not seem
to have any detectable semantic eect; as far as I can make out, the two options
represent stylistic variants. In Kurukh, predicate nominals5 vary in their encoding
between the copular verb talna and the locative support verb rana to remain.
Again, it is uncertain whether any semantics is involved in this switch. Older
literature on the language suggests a distinction in terms of permanency, but Vesper
(1968: 1301) is sceptical.
(37) Parji
a. An vilen ay
1sg white cop
I am white (Burrow & Bhattacharya 1953: 32)
b. An eden medan
1sg good be:1sg.pres
I am good (Burrow & Bhattacharya 1953: 32)
(38) Kurukh
a. As xaluiyus taldas
he farmer cop.3sg.masc.pres
He is a farmer (Vesper 1968: 135)
b. As tejgar kukfs radas
he bright boy be:3sg.masc.pres
He is a bright boy (Vesper 1968: 135)
To conclude this discussion of linguistic areas where double encoding of nonverbal

predicates can be found, I want to mention briey the situation in the Dagestanian
languages of the Caucasus and in a number of languages from Nepal and Tibet. In
this latter area, we nd that several genetically unrelated languages allow switching
for predicate adjectives between the copula, which is the unmarked choice for
predicate nominals, and a support verb which is the unmarked option for predica-
tive locational adverbs. Thus, for example, in the Northern Indic language Nepali,
predicative adjectives may select either the nominal copula ho- or the locative verb
cha-. This adjectival switch is matched by an encoding opposition in several Tibetic
languages, such as Tibetan, Ladakhi, Lepcha, and Dumi. The functional and
semantic demarcation of the various support verbs in these languages is rather
vague, but it seems that some of these items (Ladakhi and Tibetan yin, Lepcha g,
zero in Dumi) predominantly function as nominal copulas, while others (Ladakhi
and Tibetan yod/yot and duk, Lepcha nyi, Dumi mo) are mainly used as support
items for locational predicates. The semantic impact of the switch is equally vague.
Clark (1966: 133) states that, in Nepali, there is a semantic distinction between the
two options, but the dierence is so subtle that native speakers do not seem to be
able to make it explicit. For Dumi, the double encoding does not seem to have any
semantic consequences at all. In the other Tibetic languages, the encoding options
appear to be sensitive to dierent shades of evidentiality. Thus, a Ladakhi sentence
like (40b), which features the locative support verb duk, indicates that the speaker
has direct evidence for the truth of his statement (Koshal 1979: 185). Nowhere in
these Himalayan cases does permanency seem to constitute a major motivation for
the switch.
(39) Nepali
a. Hamro ghar sanu ho
our house small cop.3sg.pres
Our house is small (Clark 1966: 133)
b. Ram-ko pasal t, hulo cha
R.-gen shop big be:3sg.pres
Rams shop is big (Clark 1966: 81)
(40) Ladakhi
a. Ng khang-pa rgyalla yot
my house good be
My house is good (Grierson 1909: 55)
b. Pu-mo rde-mo duk
girl pretty be
The girl is pretty (Koshal 1979: 185)
(41) Classical Tibetan
a. Khyi chu-ba yin
dog small cop
The dog is small (Lalou 1950: 27)
b. Na phyug-po yod
1sg rich be
I am rich (Bacot 1981: 102)
586 Leon Stassen
(42) Lepcha
a. On are gan-bo g
horse this old cop
This horse is old (Grierson 1909: 271)
b. Go ry nyi
1sg good be
I was good (Mainwaring 1876: 58)
(43) Dumi
a. Thom khi:bi golpi
that dog big
That dog is big (van Driem 1993: 78)
b. Khi:bi khenikpa mo:-t-a
dog good be:an-nonpast-3sg
The dog is good (van Driem 1993: 172)
Finally, we encounter at least the remnants of a double encoding system for

predicate adjectives in the North Central Caucasian language Chechen, and in the
Dagestanian languages Avar and Archi. In Avar, predicate adjectives usually occur
in their unmarked form. However, they may take the adverbializing sux -go if the
speaker expresses a subjective evaluation (Kalinina 1993: 94). In older literature on
Chechen mention is made of similar optional marking of predicative adjectives by
means of derivational suxes; an example is given in (45b). The function of these
suxes remains unclear. In Archi, nonverbally encoded predicate adjectives6 can
take two forms. First, they can take the form of a converb, which, in this case, must
be seen as a sort of adverbial marking. Alternatively, predicative adjectives may
appear as a participial complement of the verb to be, that is, in the form of a
nominalization marked by the sux -tu. We may interpret this participial construc-
tion as a case of nominal encoding. This would lead us to expect that this participial
construction will emphasize the permanency of the property, and this is indeed
what seems to be the case (Aleksandr Kibrik p.c.).
(44) Avar
a. Hida-j jas bercina-j j-ugo
that-fem girl beautiful-fem II-be:pres
That girl is beautiful (Kalinina 1993: 93)
b. Mun jaka bercina-go j-ugo
2sg.fem today beautiful-advr II-be.pres
You look (lit. are) beautiful today (Kalinina 1993: 94)
(45) Chechen
a. Iza dika v-u
he good I-be:pres
He is good (Nichols 1994: 30)
b. Sfvosa dika-var v-6

my brother good-suff I-be:pres
My brother is good (Dirr 1928: 145)
(46) Archi
a. Boor hiba-i w-i
man good-conv.dur I-be:pres
The man is (being) good (Aleksandr Kibrik p.c.)
b. Boor hiba-tu w-i
man good-prtv I-be:pres
The man is good (Aleksandr Kibrik p.c.)
In my opinion, the comparison of Circum-Baltic with other areas that feature

double encoding of nonverbal predicates is revealing for at least two reasons. First,
this comparison makes it clear that this double encoding, while possibly having an
initial motivation in a semantic permanent-contingent opposition, generally shows
a tendency to move into the realm of aspect and modality, and may even turn out
to be used mainly as the expression of stylistic preferences. In this respect, there is
no need to ascribe special status to Polish and Russian within the Circum-Baltic
language area: in their blurring of the semantic basis of double encoding these
languages follow a trend which can be documented independently in other
linguistic areas.
As a second point, I think it is interesting to note that all linguistic areas
discussed in this paper are situated at some fringe of the Indo-European mega-
area. In particular, the phenomenon of double encoding is encountered at those
places where Indo-European meets some other language phylum. This is, of
course, obvious for the Circum-Baltic area, which can naturally be viewed as a
meeting place between Uralic and Baltic/Slavonic, but the generalization also holds
in the case of the Dravidian languages (Dravidian vs. Indic), the languages of the
Himalayas (Tibetic vs. Indic), the Dagestanian languages (Dagestanian vs. Slavon-
ic), and perhaps also even the Ibero-Celtic languages, which are situated at the very
west of the Indo-European area, and which might show a pre-Indo-European
substrate in their double encoding of nonverbal predicates. In short, the impression
one gets is that double encoding is essentially a non-Indo-European (or perhaps
pre-Indo-European) phenomenon, which has been pushed to the fringe by the
Indo-European expansion. In some of these fringe areas (such as southern India,
or the Caucasus) the bordering Indo-European languages do not seem to have been
aected by the double encoding option which their neighbours exhibit. But in
other cases, such as the Himalayas, Circum-Baltic, and perhaps also Ibero-Celtic,
mixed Sprachbunds have been formed, in which Indo-European and non-Indo-
European languages alike show double encoding of nonverbal predicates.
If this general hypothesis on the areal status of the double encoding phenome-
non is accepted, one may proceed to apply the analysis to a specic problem which
588 Leon Stassen
has a long tradition in the literature, namely, the question of the origin of the
nominative-instrumental switch in Russian and Polish. Suggestions that the Russian
and Polish predicative instrumental might have a Uralic origin were already put
forward by Meillet (19061908), but Fraenkel (1926), as well as a number of Soviet
authors (see Veenker 1967: 1301) have argued strongly in favour of an indepen-
dent, internal development at least for Russian. Whatever position one takes on
this issue, it seems indisputable that the predicative instrumental constitutes a
relatively late encoding option in the history of Slavonic. According to Fraenkel
(1926), the option could not (or only very sporadically) be encountered in Old
Church Slavonic, and it does not seem to have taken root in the South Slavonic
languages at all. In my opinion, the general areal developments sketched earlier in
this section lend a certain renewed credibility to the Uralic substrate theory for the
predicative instrumental in Russian and Polish. It is clear, however, that this matter
deserves further, and hopefully non-dogmatic, exploration.
5. Conclusion
In this paper I have tried to demonstrate that the double encoding of nonverbal
predicates, which takes the form of a nominative-oblique case opposition, is an
areal feature of the languages of the Circum-Baltic area. In most cases, this double
encoding mirrors a semantic distinction which is statable in terms of relative time
stability. For the Slavonic languages of the area, this semantic distinction tends to
be blurred to the point of stylistics. However, it can be demonstrated that this does
not have to constitute an internal development within these languages; a similar
shift can be demonstrated for quite a few other language areas in which double
encoding of nonverbal predicates occurs.
A second suggestion put forward in this paper is that the Circum-Baltic area, by
way of its double encoding option for nonverbal predicates, can be counted among
a number of fringe areas of the Indo-European area. It can be observed that this
double encoding typically occurs in areas which are situated at the border between
Indo-European and non-Indo-European language groups. From this, one might
venture the hypothesis that this double encoding is in essence a non-Indo-European
characteristic, which has been pushed aside by Indo-European expansion, but
which may, in some border areas, continue to exert its inuence on Indo-European
languages as well.
Notes
1. See also Mathiassen (1985), who argues that double encoding in nominal sentences should be
considered as a Circum-Baltic characteristic. (I am grateful to Bernhard Wlchli for bringing
Mathiassens paper to my attention.)
2. Other members of these families, such as Mari (Volgaic) and Udmurt (Permic) lack double
encoding; the syntax of these languages is heavily inuenced by Turkish.
3. With some stretching of the imagination, Maltese might also be counted among this grouping.
As is demonstrated extensively in Stassen (1996), Maltese is a language in which the encoding of
nonverbal predicates exhibits a bewildering variety of options.
4. It must be noted that this zero-locational switch in these Dravidian languages holds only for the
present tense. In other tenses, nonverbal predicates are invariably encoded by the locational
support verb, and, as a result, they invariably show adverbial marking in those tenses.
5. Predicate adjectives in Kurukh are always encoded by means of the locative support verb taldas.
6. In addition to this, at least some adjectival predicates in Archi also have the possibility of being
encoded in the same way as verbs (Aleksandr Kibrik, p.c.)
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<TARGET "sto" DOCINFO
AUTHOR "Thomas Stolz"
TITLE "On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives"
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On Circum-Baltic instrumentals
and comitatives
To and fro coherence
Thomas Stolz
1. The European predilection for coherence
Recent investigations by our comitative Typology Research Group1 (Stolz 1996,

1997) have revealed that syncretism of comitative and instrumental categories is not
as common among the languages of the world as formerly postulated (Lako/
Johnson 1980: 135). In the present paper, we will adhere to the following working
denition of comitatives and instrumentals which is more or less identical to the
one Lako/Johnson (1980: 135) seem to have had in mind, cf. (1)(2).
(1) Comitative
A relationship between two participants of a verbal predication is labelled
comitative if the two participants have the feature [+animate] and share the same
macrorle, while their degree of involvement in the situation described by the
verbal predicate is not absolutely symmetrical. The relationship is one of accom-
paniment: one of the participants is the accompanee, the other the companion.
(2) Instrumental
A relationship between two participants of a verbal predication is labelled
instrumental if one of the participants has the feature [+animate] and is assigned
the macrorle actor, whereas the other has the feature [animate] and is assigned
the macrorle undergoer. Their involvement in the situation is asymmetrical in
such a way that the inanimate participant serves as an instrument for the animate
participant to carry out the action described by the verbal predicate. The
relationship is one of instrumentality: one of the participants is the agent, the other
the instrument.
On closer inspection, however, it turns out that there are many problems when it
comes to delimiting the categories we are concerned with in this study. The history
of case grammar amply documents how dicult it is to dene the boundaries of
case categories and related phenomena. In order to avoid getting lost in the
intricacies of the particulars of case distinctions, we will content ourselves with
592 Thomas Stolz
discussing uncontroversial instantiations of (1)(2), i.e. relations of accompaniment

involving two human participants and relations of instrumentality involving a
human agent and a concrete tool as instrument. As for instrumental relations, there
is considerable variation across languages as to which types of instruments form
part of the same grammatical category. Owing to this crosslinguistic variation, we
disregard expressions of, e.g., means of conveyance and make do with prototypical
instruments, viz. tools. In addition, we will simplify matters by concentrating on
dominant strategies of encoding, cf. (3).
(3) Dominant Strategy of Encoding
The dominant strategy of encoding is the most frequent morpheme/construction
used to express (the majority of) the relations corresponding to (1) and (2),
respectively. Subdominant strategies restricted to a special subset of, e.g., tools or
functioning as less frequent (stylistic) alternatives of the dominant strategies are not
taken into consideration here.
Basically, comitative-instrumental syncretism requires expressions of accompani-

ment and instrumentality to be identical. The German preposition mit in (4)(5) is
a typical example of this syncretistic pattern.2
(4) German [tool]
Fritz it die Suppe [mit einem Lel]inst
Fritz eat:3sg.pres def soup [with indef.dat spoon
Fritz is eating the soup with a spoon.
(5) German [company]
Fritz it die Suppe [mit einem Freund]com
Fritz eat:3sg.pres def soup [with indef.dat friend
Fritz is eating the soup (together) with a friend.
Having looked only at the syncretistic behaviour of English with, Lako/Johnson

(1980: 135) assumed that syncretistic patterns of the type represented by (4)(5)
had to be universal simply because they viewed the syncretism as a kind of cognitiv-
ely rooted natural metaphorical transfer from a more concrete meaning
comitative to a more abstract one instrumental. To their minds, there is a
universally valid conceptual metaphor AN INSTRUMENT IS A COMPANION
which requires expressions of instrumentality to be derived from expressions of
accompaniment. Thus, the change from comitative to instrumental is, in a manner
of speaking, an instance of grammaticalization. Since the present paper is concerned
only with comitatives and instrumentals corresponding closely to the denitions
(1)(2), we cannot discuss in detail which categories serve as bridges between
prototypical comitatives and prototypical instrumentals. Suce it to say that there
is some evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the conceptual space between the
two prototypical cases contains categories all of which have something to do with
possession. Anyway, this topic still needs to be investigated in more detail and,
On Circum-Baltic instrumentals and comitatives 593
therefore, has to be reserved for a separate study.

However, the large-scale comparison of 323 languages has yielded a completely
dierent result. Contrary to the supposed universal status of the above mentioned
syncretistic pattern, two thirds of the languages in our sample distinguish between
comitative and instrumental by formal i.e. morphological means (Stolz 1997: 127).
Thus, the vast majority of the languages organize comitatives and instrumentals
along the lines of the Vietnamese solution: Vietnamese uses bang to mark instru-
mental relations and vi to mark comitative relations, cf. (7)(8). These free
morphemes cannot be interchanged.
(7) Vietnamese [tool] (Hong Thi Chu 1982: 92)
Ti vit [bang bt ch]inst
I write [with pencil
I am writing with a pencil.
(8) Vietnamese [company] (Hong Thi Chu 1982: 83)
Hng hoc [vi ban]com
Hung learn [with friend
Hung is learning (together) with a friend.
Only a minority of slightly less than 25% of our sample languages behave like
German i.e. are characterized by comitative-instrumental syncretism, while the
remaining 10% allow for co-existing syncretistic and non-syncretistic morphemes
(Stolz 1997: 127). The latter group is exemplied by the bound morphemes -wan
and -ntin in Quechua: -wan covers both comitative and instrumental functions, but
-ntin is exclusively restricted to comitatives, cf. (9)(11).
(9) Quechua [tool] (Hartmann 1987: 64)
[Chakitaklla-wan]inst llamka-nku
[Chakitaklla_spade-inst work-3pl.pres
They are working with the Chakitaklla-type spade.
(10) Quechua [company] (Hartmann 1987: 64)
[Paulina-wan]com ri-chka-n
[Paulina-inst go-dur-3sg.pres
He is going with Paulina.
(11) Quechua [company] (Hartmann 1987: 130)
[wasiyoq-ni-ntin]com ri-n
[landlord-lig-com go-3sg.pres
He is going with the landlord.
For those languages which actually display comitative-instrumental syncretism we

have suggested the label coherent languages. Languages which morphologically dis-
tinguish comitatives from instrumentals represent the incoherent type. Languages
in which coherent and incoherent morphemes co-occur are classied as mixed
languages (Stolz 1997: 123125).
594 Thomas Stolz
As a matter of fact, coherent languages cluster in Europe whereas incoherent

languages are by far more frequent outside Europe (Stolz 1997: 130). Therefore, it
seems legitimate to consider coherence as one more areal feature of European
languages (Stolz 1997: 143). In order to verify this hypothesis, we are presently
looking more closely at comitatives and instrumentals in the European languages of
our sample. Accordingly, the present paper focuses on comitatives and instru-
mentals in the Circum-Baltic languages with a view to answering the question of
whether or not the treatment of comitatives and instrumentals could pass as a
distinctive trait of perhaps only certain Circum-Baltic languages. Matthiassen
(1985a: 143, 1985b: 278) especially complains that comitatives have never really
been taken into account for comparative Circum-Baltic linguistics. However, we do
not take up the issue of Berglands (1947) seminal paper on comitative-like 1st
person plural expressions (as, e.g., Lithuanian mudu/mes su broliu (lit.) we (two)
with brother = my brother and I [Senn 1966: 425]). Instead, we are going to look
a little bit closer at the distribution of coherence, mixing and incoherence across
Circum-Baltic languages.
2. The Circum-Baltic split
There are several strategies employed by the Circum-Baltic languages in order to

encode comitatives and instrumentals, cf. (12).3
(12) Dominant strategies in modern Circum-Baltic languages
Adpositional phrases Inection
Swedish med + n
Danish med + n
German mit + n.dat
Latvian ar + n.acc.sg/dat.pl
Polish z+ n.inst n.inst
Russian s+ n.inst n.inst
Lithuanian su + n.inst n.inst
Finnish n.gen + kanssa n.com
n.adess
Estonian n.com
Sami neut.com
The Germanic languages, viz. Swedish, Danish, and German, make use of cognate
prepositions med, med, mit , cf. (13a), (13d), (13j) for comitatives and (14a),
(14d), (14j) for instrumentals. Latvian has some highly lexicalized relics of a purely
inectional instrumental. In modern usage, the preposition ar is the uncontested
marker of both comitative and instrumental, cf. (13e) and (14e). Lithuanian, Polish,
and Russian display a bipartite system made up of an inectional instrumental, on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, cognate prepositions su, z, s used
together with the morphological instrumental to encode the comitative, cf. (13f),
(13g), (13h) and (14f), (14g), (14h), respectively. For Lithuanian as a mixed
language, cf. (16)(17). Skipping the morphological instructive for the moment,
Finnish has an inectional instrumental the so-called adessive -lla/-ll and an
inectional comitative -ine-. However, the latter is beginning to disappear from
current spoken Finnish. In its place, a postpositional construction with kanssa has
become extremely popular, cf. (13c) and (14c). In Sami and Estonian, there is only
one inectional case for both functions, viz. Sami -(gu)in and Estonian -ga, cf.
(13b), (13i) and (14b), (14i).
(13) Circum-Baltic comitatives4
a. Danish
Hver torsdag danser de [med landsbyens unge piger]com
every Thursday dance:pres they [with village:def.gen young:pl girl:pl
b. Estonian
Neljapeviti nad tantsivad [klatdrukute-ga]com
on_Thursdays they dance:3pl [village_girl:pl-com
c. Finnish
He tanssivat joka torstai [kyln tyttjen kanssa]com
they dance:3pl every Thursday [village:gen girl:pl.gen with
d. German
Sie tanzen am Donnerstag [mit den Mdchen des
they dance:pl on Thursday [with def.dat.pl girl:dat.pl def.gen
Dorfes]com
village:gen
e. Latvian
Ceturtdienas vini iet dejot [ar ciema meitenem]com
thursday:loc.pl they go:3 dance:inf [with village:gen girl:dat.pl
f. Lithuanian
Ketvirtadieniais jie oka [su kaimo mergino-mis]com
thursday:inst.pl they dance:3 [with village:gen girl-inst.pl
g. Polish
W czwartek tancza [z wioskowy-mi dziewczeta-mi]com
in Thursday:acc dance:3pl [with village-inst.pl girl-inst.pl
h. Russian
Po cetvergam oni tancujut [s derevenski-mi devuka-mi]com
on Thursday:dat they dance:pl [with village-inst.pl girl-inst.pl
i. Sami
Ahte sii lvejit dnsut [nieiddai-guin]com duorastaga.
that they use_to:3pl.pres dance:inf [girl:pl-com Thursday
596 Thomas Stolz
j. Swedish
P torsdagarna brukar de dansa [med ickorna]com
on Thursday:pl.def use_to:pres they dance:inf [with girl:pl.def
i byn.
in village:def
Every Thursday they would dance with the village girls.
(14) Circum-Baltic instrumentals5
a. Danish
Frst nedskriver man de opdagelsesrejsendes beretning [med
rst write-down:pres man def explorer:gen report [with
blyant]inst
pencil
b. Estonian
Esialgu mrgitakse maadeuurijate jutustused [pliaatsi-ga]inst les.
rst write:impr explorer:gen.pl report:acc.pl [pencil-com up
c. Finnish
Sill tutkimusmatkailijoiden kertomukset kirjoitetaan ensin muistiin
for explorer:pl.gen reports:pl.acc write:ips rst memory:ill
[lyijykyn-ll]ins
[pencil-adess
d. German
Zuerst notiert man die Erzhlungen der Forscher
rst take_notes:3sg man def.acc.pl report:pl def.gen.pl explorer:pl
[mit Bleistift]inst
[with pencil
e. Latvian
Petnieku stastus vispirms pieraksta [ar zmuli]inst
explorer:gen.pl report:acc.pl rst write_down:3(sg) [with pencil:acc
f. Lithuanian
Tyrinetoju pasakojimai i pradiu
explorer:gen.pl report:nom.pl from beginning:gen.pl
uraomi [pietuk-u]inst
write_down:part.pass.pres.nom.pl.masc [pencil-inst
g. Polish
Raport badacza zapisuje sie najpierw [owki-em]inst
report explorer:gen write_down:3sg refl rst [pencil-inst
h. Russian
Rasskazy puteestvennikov snacala zapisyvajut
report:acc.pl explorer:gen.pl at-the-start write_down:3pl
[karanda-om]inst
[pencil-inst
i. Sami
Oainnatgo sin muitalusat cllojit muitui vuos
because:then they:gen report:nom.pl write:pass.3pl memory:ill rst
[linta-in]inst
[pencil-com
j. Swedish
Man antecknar nmligen frst upptcktsresandenas berttelser [med
man note:pres namely rst explorer:def.pl.gen report:pl [with
blyerts]inst
pencil
First the reports of the explorers are written down with a pencil.
This shows that Circum-Baltic languages do not belong to a single language type.
All three types of treatment of comitatives and instrumentals identied in the
introduction can be found. The coherent type, the incoherent type, and the mixed
type, cf. (15) are all represented.
(15) Present distribution of language types in the Circum-Baltic area
Coherent Mixed Incoherent
Swedish Lithuanian Finnish

Danish Polish
German Russian
Latvian
Estonian
Sami
The reason why Lithuanian belongs to the mixed type should become clear if we
compare examples (13f) and (14f) with (16) and (17):
(16) Lithuanian
*Ketvirtadieniais jie oka [kaimo mergino-mis]com
thursday:inst.pl they dance:3(pl) [village:gen girl-inst.pl
(17) Lithuanian
Tyrinetoju pasakojimai i pradiu
explorer:gen.pl report:nom.pl from beginning:gen.pl
uraomi [su piestuk-u]inst
write_down:part.pass.pres.nom.pl.masc [with pencil-inst
The deletion of the preposition su from the comitative sentence (13f) yields a
grammatically unacceptable sentence (16), i.e. the morphological instrumental
alone cannot express accompaniment. However, one may add the preposition su to
the morphological instrumental in (14f). The resulting sentence (17) is grammati-
cally correct and stylistically acceptable, i.e. it makes no dierence whether a
relationship of instrumentality is expressed by the simple instrumental case or by
the reinforced prepositional construction. In other words, the same construction
viz. the prepositional phrase may be used not only as an expression of comita-
tives but also of instrumentals. On the other hand, the morphological instrumental
598 Thomas Stolz
alone is conned to expressing relations of instrumentality. This scenario including

one general or syncretistic expression and one functionally restricted expression is
typical for languages of the mixed type.
As is the case with the bulk of European languages, the majority of the Circum-
Baltic languages are presently of the coherent type. However, this preference for
coherence cuts across genetic boundaries. This fact gives us reason to believe that
the synchronic state of aairs may not always have existed in the Circum-Baltic
area. As will be made clear in the subsequent chapters, coherence seems to be an
innovation, at least in the eastern part of the region under scrutiny.
3. On the inroads of coherence
3.1 Coherent languages

The Germanic languages of our Circum-Baltic sample are all of the coherent type.
With the notable exception of Icelandic, coherence is common to all Germanic
languages including Afrikaans. Prototypical instrumentals such as tools are encoded in
the same way as prototypical comitatives such as companions. In order to keep things
as short as possible, we will make do with two examples from Swedish, cf. (18)(19).
(18) Swedish [tool] (HH 46)
Vrdinnan torkade av bordet
land_lady:def dry:pret o table:def.neut
[med ett handklde]inst
[with indef.neut towel
The land-lady wiped the table with a towel.
(19) Swedish [company] (HH 71)
Ty i hans slkt hade det frekommit giften
for in his family have:pret it happen:part marriage:pl
[med ickor] nerifrn kustlandet
[with girl:pl down_from coast_land:def.neut
men inte i moderns.
but not in mother:def.gen
For in his family there had been marriages with girls from the coastal region, but
not in the family of the mother.
Besides Swedish, Danish, and German, there are two Uralic languages and one
Baltic language which qualify as coherent, viz. Estonian, Sami, and Latvian,
respectively. Interestingly, their closest relatives are found outside the class of
coherent languages, i.e. in contradistinction to the Germanic languages, coherence
is not a dominant feature in the members of other language families in the Circum-
Baltic region.
Consider examples (20)(21) from Sami. Functionally, the morphological

comitative represents the instrumental as well as the comitative proper.
(20) Sami [tool] (adapted from: Bartens 1989: 95)
Son cuohpa [aku-in]com
he chop:3sg [axe-com
He is chopping wood with an axe.
(21) Sami [company] (Nickel 1990: 500)
Son orui doppe oktan [[etni-in-is]
he live:3sg.pret there together [[mother-com-3sg.poss
ja [mnid-is-guin]]com
and [child:pl-3sg.poss-com.pl
He lived there together with his mother and his children.
There is however a remarkable dierence between the comitative singular and the
comitative plural: the former as in etni-in-is with his mother is treated like
any other case ax in Sami i.e. there is a morphological slot for the possessor mor-
phemes to the right of the case ax. The morpheme of the comitative plural -guin
does not obey this morphotactic rule. Rather, it comes last in the chain of grammat-
ical morphemes: mn-id-is-guin with his children. Beronka (1937) and Oinas
(1961) have explained this dierence as follows. The inherited Uralic comitative
most probably an erstwhile instructive (= a general adverbial case with a wide range
of meanings) was transnumeral. The phonological shape of the original form was
identical with that of the locative plural. It seems likely then that the subsequent
grammaticalization of a noun etymologically identical to modern Sami guoibmi
comrade as the new case marker of the comitative plural was partly motivated by
analogy and a homonymy conict. Owing to its relatively recent coming into being,
the new case marker has not yet been fully integrated into the morphological system
(Nevis 1988b).
Moreover, Tauli (1966: 3334 and 112114) demonstrates that, in the Uralic
language family, the comitative is one of the most instable categories. There is
ample evidence that quite a few Uralic languages have lost formerly well-established
and distinct comitatives, whereas just as many others have developed new comita-
tives via the morphologization of postpositions into bound case markers. All this
seems to happen time and again, especially in the Baltic branch of the Uralic
phylum (Laanest 1982: 172173). Estonian -ga is another case in point: in modern
Estonian, the morphological comitative has much the same functional range as its
equivalent -(gu)in in Sami, cf. (22)(23).
(22) Estonian [tool] (Lavotha 1973: 96)
ma kirjutan [sule-ga]inst
I write:1sg [pen-com
I am writing with a pen.
600 Thomas Stolz
(23) Estonian [company] (Tauli 1983: 106)

Isa lks [ttre-ga]com jalutama.
father go:3sg.pret [daughter-com walk:inf
The father went for a walk with his daughter.
Not only does Estonian -ga cover much of what counts among the principal
functions of Sami -(gu)in, but it also has another feature in common with the Sami
morpheme: both are relatively recent products of grammaticalization and morpho-
logization processes. Nevis (1987, 1988a) has discussed the most important
morphological aspects of Estonian -ga. Historically, it originated from a denominal
postposition kaas (< kansa(ssa) (in the) people/ethnos, cf. the end of Section 3.2)
which remained prevalent until the 17th century and is still in use as a postposition
with the ga-comitative. Admittedly, there are some dierences which prevent us
from claiming that Sami and Estonian have experienced identical grammatical-
ization processes. Nevertheless, it strikes the eye that both languages have drawn on
the same grammaticalization channel: Sami -guin and Estonian -ga go back to
nouns which designate (societal institutions of) human beings, viz. comrade and
people/ethnos. In spite of their etymological link to high animacy, neither -guin nor
-ga is restricted to constructions in which two animate participants are involved,
although, guessing from the semantics of the etyma, we may assume that, in the
early stages of grammaticalization before morphologization, both grammemes were
used exclusively to express the comitative proper i.e. an accompaniment relation-
ship between two human participants. If the future bound morphemes were indeed
restricted to the comitative function in preliterate times, there must have been
another morpheme which expressed instrumental relations. Owing to the lack of
reliable diachronic data from Estonian and Sami, we can only speculate that the
inherited instructive fullled such functions in proto-Estonian and proto-Sami. The
instrumental functions have been acquired by -ga and -guin later on in the gram-
maticalization process. We will come back to this issue below.
It is much easier to come to grips with the situation in Latvian. Again, comitat-
ive and instrumental functions are expressed by a single morpheme: cf. the preposi-
tion ar governing the accusative singular/dative plural in (24)(25).
(24) Latvian [tool] (B 44)
Ja cilveks nebus uzsperis sevi gaisa
if man:nom neg:be:3fut blow_up:part self:acc air:loc
[ar atombumbu]inst
[with atom_bomb:acc
If man wont have blown himself up with the atom-bomb
(25) Latvian [company] (B 40)
Vins [ar zeniem]com kartgi iesvikoja
he [with boy:dat.pl orderly drink-alcohol:3pret
He had a proper carousal with the boys.
Gaters (1993: 427428) reviews the uses made of ar in the Dainas and notes that
even in the older sources of Latvian, there are only a few cases in which a comitative
could be expressed by the pure instrumental case. The vast majority of cases require
the use of the preposition ar. At the same time, instrumental relations such as, e.g.,
tool, are only rarely expressed by a prepositional phrase with ar. The old inectional
instrumental clearly dominates when it comes to expressing instrumental relations
proper. This is tantamount to saying that, in old Latvian, there obtained a formal
distinction between comitative and instrumental (Gaters 1993: 161183). Partly
owing to the generalization of the use of ar, the formerly distinct morphological
instrumental was marginalized in the Latvian case system, so that it no longer
makes sense to include an instrumental case in the paradigm of Latvian nouns (and
pronouns) (Ltzsch 1978). Some vestiges of the prepositionless instrumental
morphologically identical with the accusative singular/dative plural survive in
the modern literary language (Ntina 1978: 6667). What makes the Latvian case
especially interesting for our present purpose is the fact that by the introduction of
the preposition ar, the inherited Indo-European morphological instrumental which
covered both comitative and instrumental functions rst was split up in two distinct
categories, viz. a prepositional comitative and an inectional instrumental, before
the new comitative took over the entire functional domain of the original instru-
mental. The prepositional phrase with ar started as a reinforced construction of the
morphological instrumental. Eventually, the prepositional construction ousted the
simple morphological instrumental. The development has now reached a stage
which is functionally almost identical to the initial sitution. Nonetheless, the
diachrony of Latvian ar lends support to the hypothesis that Sami and Estonian
could have experienced a quasi-circular development (cf. above).
3.2 Incoherent languages

None of the Slavonic languages of the Circum-Baltic area are strictly speaking
coherent, though other members of the same family have become coherent, some
of them, e.g. Slovene and Sorbian, most probably because of German inuence
(Ltzsch 1996: 56). Russian6 and Polish observe the formal distinction between
instrumentality and accompaniment quite strictly, cf. (26)(27).
(26) Polish [tool] (Kotyczka 1976: 123)
Pisze [dlugopis-em]inst
write:1sg [ballpen-inst
Im writing with a ballpen.
(27) Polish [company] (Kotyczka 1976: 123)
Janek jedzie [z siostr-a]com do Poznania.
Janek go:3sg [with sister-inst to Poznan
Janek goes to Poznan with his sister.
602 Thomas Stolz
In Polish, the purely morphological instrumental is used exclusively in contexts

where concrete material instruments such as tools are used, though there is some
competition with prepositional phrases with na + acc (Laskowski 1972: 72). The
pure instrumental is excluded from expressions of comitativity such as accompani-
ment. In order to express an accompaniment relationship the prepositional phrase
z + inst has to be used, which in turn is excluded from prototypical instrumental
relations. Thus, Polish is nowadays a proper incoherent language.
The synchronic state of aairs in Polish, however, is itself an innovation,
though one of rather long standing. Indeed, it is commonly accepted in Indo-
European studies that the proto-language had only one morphological case
usually called instrumental which covered the functions of both instrumental
and comitative (Brugmann/Delbrck 1911: 520523). Many of the older Indo-
European languages, however, sometimes only optionally also make use of a
prepositional phrase mostly, as in Polish, to distinguish the comitative from the
instrumental with the preposition being reserved for the comitative (Brugmann/
Delbrck 1911: 545547). Indo-European appears to have started out as a coherent
language but after the proto-language split up into separate branches, a trend
towards keeping comitative and instrumental formally distinct developed in various
places. So, quite a few Indo-European languages, among them those of the Slavonic
branch, became incoherent. As was stated above, those Slavonic languages which
experienced long periods of Germanic inuence have already lost this formerly
common feature by reintroducing coherence.
In the (pre-)history of Finnish, there appears to have been a strikingly similar
development which eventually led from an erstwhile coherent state to the present
incoherent one. Consider (28)(29) from modern Finnish.
(28) Finnish [tool] (Tarvainen 1985: 220)
Halon puita [kirvee-ll]inst
cut:1sg wood:prtv [axe-adess
I am cutting wood with an axe.
(29) Finnish [company] (Tarvainen 1985: 221)
a. Hn menee [vaimonsa kanssa]com kvelylle
he go:3sg [wife:poss:3 with walk:all
He goes for a walk with his wife.
b. Hn menee [vaimo-ine-en] kvelylle
he go:3sg [wife-com-3 walk:all
He goes for a walk with his wife.
Prototypical instrumental relations are presently encoded by the polyfunctional

adessive which besides instrumentality encodes also possession and local relations
such as, e.g., the superessive. While the locative functions of the adessive are clearly
old functions, possessive and instrumental functions are secondary innovations i.e.
they have been acquired in more recent times. Before the morphological adessive
became the major (or next to exclusive) means for expressing instrumental
relations, there was the old instructive -(i)n which fullled these functions. Nowa-
days, only a handful of idiomatic expressions such as omin silmin with ones own
eyes and kaksin ksin with both hands (Karlsson 1978: 133) point to the former
use of the instructive as an instrumental case. Historically, the Finnish instructive
is cognate to the comitative singular -in in Sami (cf. above).
Furthermore, Finnish has two7 competing ways to express a prototypical
comitative: either you use the more literary inectional comitative -ine- as in (29b)
or you resort to the postpositional phrase with kanssa as in (29a). The choice
between the two means, however, is not merely a question of style. Owing to its
morphological peculiarities, the inectional comitative is excluded from a number
of potential constructions. As a matter of fact, the inectional comitative is derived
from the old instructive -in. The comitative -ine- is obligatorily followed by a
possessive sux.
Collinder (1968: 46) considers the variation of inectional and postpositional
comitative more or less as a dialectal variation with the comitative -ine- being
typical for the more conservative eastern dialects close to the Karelian border. The
postposition kanssa, according to Collinder, is probably the reduced inessive
kansassa of a Germanic loanword kansa (< Gothic hansa troop, band). In addition,
Nau (1995: 135) convincingly demonstrates how the use of Finnish kanssa has been
inuenced by Swedish med. The most interesting fact about the Finnish case,
however, is the persistence of incoherence. Just as with Indo-European languages,
the predecessors of present-day Finnish, Estonian, and Sami must have been
coherent languages. Very likely, the old instructive would have had much the same
distribution as the old Indo-European instrumental. Almost exactly as in many
Indo-European languages, the dierentiation of comitative and instrumental
functions was introduced and formally expressed by adpositional or similar
structures in the Uralic languages of the Circum-Baltic region. In spite of the
marginalization of the old instructive, Finnish continues to uphold the formal
distinction by new means, whereas Estonian has given it up without any attempt at
renovation. The so-called inectional comitative -ga in Estonian is etymologically
identical with the Finnish postposition kanssa; unlike the latter it is in general use
for both comitative and instrumental functions. We agree with Nau
(1995: 136137) who claims that the semantics of the Estonian comitative have been
largely inuenced by Germanic languages, mostly Low German, German, and
Swedish. The higher degree of Germanicization in Estonian in contrast to
Finnish is of course most convincingly explained by the long presence of a
German upper class in former Livland and the language contact between German
and Estonian during the period of German dominance.
Admittedly, there is no watertight proof that contact-induced restructuring has
also occurred in the history of Sami. Nevertheless, it cannot completely be ruled out
604 Thomas Stolz
that the coherent pattern of Norwegian and Swedish has inuenced the develop-
ment of the Sami comitative. We are also positive that the Germanicization of the
comitative-instrumental distinction goes beyond the language boundaries of
Estonian. Latvian sharing the same Germanic superstrate with Estonian for
several centuries has also remodelled its formerly incoherent system in terms of
coherence. During the process of remodelling Latvian must, of course, have passed
through a stage of mixing.
3.3 Mixed language(s)

The only uncontroversial case of a mixed language in our present sample is
Lithuanian (Schmalstieg 1988: 244). Contrary to the common practice in the
standard varieties of Russian and Polish, Lithuanian does allow the use of the
prepositional phrase su + inst to express prototypical instrumental relations,
though the purely morphological instrumental may still be considered better or
higher style, cf. (30)(32) and (16)(17) above.
(30) Lithuanian [tool] (LKG III 90)
Seniau rugius [piautuv-ais]inst piaudavom
formerly rye:acc.pl [sickle-inst.pl cut:freq.1pl
Formerly, we used to harvest rye with sickles.
(31) Lithuanian [tool] (LKG III 246)
Nuejo arti Jonelis smilciu
go_away:3:pret plough:inf Jonelis:nom sand:gen.pl
[su savo agrel-e]inst
[with his plough-inst
Jonelis went to plough sandy ground with his plough.
(32) Lithuanian [company] (LKG III 243)
Tevas atejo [su ab-iem vaik-ais]com
father:nom come:3:pret [with both-inst.pl child-inst.pl
The father came (together) with both children.
Fraenkel (1929:187203) and Senn (1966:426) briey discuss the functional overlap
of the two constructions. Obviously, making use of su + inst for instrumental
relations proper is an innovation in Lithuanian which seems to be gradually gaining
ground to the detriment of the pure instrumental. There can be no doubt that su +
inst spread from prototypical comitative relations such as, e.g., in (32) to neigh-
bouring functions. Therefore, it is a fair guess to say that Lithuanian was once an
incoherent language just like present-day Polish, Russian, and Finnish are. Unlike
these three, however, Lithuanian is slowly moving towards coherence. Latvian always
seems to be at least one step ahead of Lithuanian when it comes to reductive change.
The idea suggests itself that the increasing frequency of the prepositional phrase in
Lithuanian reects more or less the same pattern as in Latvian. Latvian has long
passed through the stage of mixing in which Lithuanian is presently to be found.
Of course, the same is true of all the other languages which have changed from
coherence to incoherence and back. If we disregard the Germanic languages, the
predecessors of which lost the inherited morphological instrumental quite early on,
Latvian, Estonian, and Sami must have been mixed languages not too long ago.
Before that they most probably were incoherent languages for an unknown span of
time. If we take proto-languages and the like into account, it is legitimate to
hypothesize that Latvian, Estonian, and Sami as well as the Germanic languages
have run a full circle from coherence to coherence. Since this is also a widespread
phenomenon outside the Circum-Baltic area, comitatives and instrumentals have
become the paradigm-case for the exemplication of grammaticalization processes
(Heine/Claudi/Hnnemeyer 1991). From the point of view of grammaticalization
research, there is nothing special about the processes observed in the Circum-Baltic
region because changing from coherence to incoherence or vice versa seemingly
happens to languages all over the place. However, the universalists way of seeing
things is not the end of the story.
4. Grammaticalization universals and contact-induced change
In their lexicon of grammaticalization processes, Heine et al. (1993: 272) observe

that it is quite common for comitative relators to acquire instrumental functions in
the normal course of semantic change. What is somewhat blurred however by this
statement is the fact that many of the so-called instrumentals which are said to be
derived from erstwhile comitatives, at least for some time, continue to be used for
instrumental as well as comitative functions. Thus, the change does not directly lead
from comitative proper to instrumental proper, rather it passes through a stage of
functional ambiguity, i.e. through a stage of a comitative-instrumental case. This
process on the morphosemantic level is in line with what has been observed above
with regard to the typological change of languages from coherence to incoherence
and vice versa. Languages of the mixed type obligatorily have one relator which is
ambiguous as to the functional distinction of comitative and instrumental, whereas,
in coherent languages, there are only ambiguous relators, which are, in turn,
absolutely excluded from incoherent languages. Consequently, a morphosemantic
change from comitative to comitative-instrumental always implies a typological
change either from incoherence to mixing or from mixing to coherence.
Heine/Claudi/Hnnemeyer (1991) and Heine et al. (1993) suggest that
comitatives are prone to become instrumentals no matter where on the globe a
language is spoken or to which macrophylum it belongs. If this is really true then
the implication that incoherent languages tend to become mixed ones and mixed
606 Thomas Stolz
ones tend to become coherent ones must also be valid. However, there remains one
great mystery: viz. the answer to the question how incoherence usually comes into
being. For obvious reasons, we cannot solve this problem right here. Suce to say
that our glimpse back to the pre-history of the Circum-Baltic languages (cf. above)
lends plausibility to the assumption that coherence is not the terminus of morpho-
semantic change be it grammaticalization or something else rather, it may
turn into incoherence via mixing at any time.
It could therefore be claimed that the morphosemantic and typological changes
in the languages of the Circum-Baltic region are in no way historically interrelated.
One might think that they rather reect universally possible tendencies i.e. gram-
maticalization universals. Viewed from this angle, the typological parallels between
Latvian, Estonian, and Sami (cf. 3.1) would be mere coincidence, for any language
may experience such typological changes. Much the same could be said for instance
with regard to the grammaticalization of denominal postpositions in Latvian and
Estonian (Stolz 1990). Many of the common traits among the Circum-Baltic
languages are, indeed, anything but restricted to the area under inspection. Similar
structural solutions exist in languages from a variety of places around the word.
Nevertheless, there is something that makes such common features among (a
selection of) Circum-Baltic languages stand out: the accumulation of isoglosses
which distinguish certain languages from their linguistic next of kin while tying
them more closely to their geographical neighbours. Thus, irrespective of the
potential universality of any single common feature of Circum-Baltic languages, it
is the high number and combination of shared features that promote prima facie
trivialities to distinctive Circum-Balticisms. In sum, these Circum-Balticisms or any
other areally more restricted bundle of isoglosses have not come about by chance
because the same grammaticalization universals, incidentally, were activated in
dierent languages at roughly the same time. Rather, there was a special reason why
the grammaticalization universals were triggered in the rst place: viz. intensive
language contact.
Admittedly, neither coherence nor incoherence or even mixing qualies for the
status of a fully-blown Circum-Baltic isogloss. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify
a sub-area in which two genetically unrelated languages converge unexpectedly.
These languages are Latvian and Estonian for which we have postulated a parallel
development from incoherence in pre-literary times to todays coherence (cf.
above). Their closest relatives, Lithuanian and Finnish, have remained incoherent
or mixed, respectively. This is tantamount to saying that Latvian and Estonian have
a feature in common which is absent from their sister languages, viz. coherence.
Therefore, it is not too far-fetched to count coherence among the features which
taken together distinguish Latvian and Estonian from the rest of the Circum-
Baltic languages (Stolz 1991). However, because of their former option for incoher-
ence, it cannot be claimed that coherence has spread from Latvian to Estonian or
the other way round. Rather, coherence was introduced into Latvian and Estonian
via the Germanic languages which served as a common superstrate since the early
days of the German Knights. Latvian and Estonian have not become similar in
structure because of direct contact between them. Their similarity has been brought
about more indirectly by way of being exposed to the pressure of exactly the same
coherent prestige languages, viz. (Middle) Low German, German, and Swedish.
The funny thing with grammaticalization processes is that a language may or
may not experience them. If there happens to be a morphosemantic change then it
will follow one of the pathways identied by grammaticalization research. However,
one cannot, as yet, predict exactly when such changes will take place. Language
contact is a strong factor when it comes to triggering o certain grammaticalization
processes though its role should not be overemphasized. As to the Circum-Baltic
case, however, we need not hesitate to ascribe the diusion of coherence into the
territory of formerly incoherent languages to language contact. Via the contact-
induced changes Latvian and Estonian as well as Sami have become more similar to
the Germanic languages among which one, viz. German, is also responsible for
coherence in a number of neighbouring Slavonic languages outside the Circum-
Baltic region. Viewed from a pan-European perspective, coherence seems to have
spread from SAE languages of southern and western Europe. At the time when
Germanic languages began to pass over the acquired typological feature of coher-
ence to their neighbours, the predominant language type in the Circum-Baltic
region must have been incoherent, cf. (33)(35).8
(33) Stage I: Circum-Baltic languages in pre-conquest times
Fin
Sam
Swd
Est
Dan
Lat
Rus
Grm Lith
Pol
coherent
incoherent
608 Thomas Stolz
(34) Stage II: Circum-Baltic languages in the early literary period

mixed
Fin
Sam
Swd
Est
Dan
Lat Rus
Grm Lith
coherent Pol
incoherent
(35) Stage III: Circum-Baltic languages in the 20th century
Fin
Sam
Swd
Est
Dan
Lat
Rus
Grm Lith
mixed
coherent Pol
incoherent
The very similar processes that led from an original coherent to an incoherent stage
in the proto-languages of the Indo-European and Uralic members of the Circum-
Baltic languages are, most probably, historically independent of each other. The
more recent changes, however, are likely to be explained by language contact
between Germanic and non-Germanic Circum-Baltic languages.
5. Conclusion
At present, a lot of what has been said in the previous chapters is based on conjec-
ture owing to the scarcity of historical evidence. Despite such uncertainties, it seems
safe to assume that the progress of coherence in the Circum-Baltic region was
enhanced principally by the partial Germanicization in northern Scandinavia
(Sami) and in the former state of the German Knights (Latvian and Estonian).
Coherence is an innovation in the eastern part of the Circum-Baltic region which
prior to the intrusion of typological features from western Europe was dominated
by incoherence. The advances of coherence have contributed to a typological
diversication among the Circum-Baltic languages. This diversication or threefold
typological split does not allow us to include coherence, mixing or incoherence
among the Circum-Balticisms. However, the largely parallel introduction of
coherence to formerly incoherent Latvian and Estonian demonstrates how impor-
tant the common superstrate has been for the development of common features at
least among a subset of the Circum-Baltic languages.
The interesting aspects of comitatives and instrumentals are not restricted to
the subject we have chosen for the present paper. Besides features such as, e.g.,
coherence, there are many more phenomena worthwhile studying in detail. Some
of these phenomena are more closely related to the competition between coherent
and incoherent features. Therefore, in future studies, we will investigate inter alia
the dierential boundaries that separate the functional domains of comitatives and
instrumentals in mixed and incoherent languages of the Circum-Baltic region. In
addition, we will look at the systematicity of disambiguating constructions of the
together with type in coherent and mixed languages of the same region. Hopefully,
such additional studies will reveal more Circum-Baltic isoglosses which allow us to
determine more precisely to what extent the Circum-Baltic area actually is a
Sprachbund.
Notes
1. The present study forms part of a typological research project entitled Komitativ-Typologie kindly
nanced by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Thanks are due to all members of the Bremen
research group, especially to Sabine Gorsemann, Traude Gugeler, Oxana Jarovaia, Cornelia Stroh,
and Aina Urdze. Cornelius Hasselblatt, Armin Hetzer, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Terje Mathias-
sen, Nicole Nau, Raimo Raag, and Christel Stolz have also contributed their share although they
may not know it. In addition, I have to express my gratitude to the discussants of a protoversion
of the present paper presented at the University of Mainz during the summer term of 1994. The
responsibility for the contents of the present paper, however, is exclusively mine. For further
information on the project itself the reader is referred to the publications cited in the bibliography.
610 Thomas Stolz
2. Except where otherwise stated, German examples are based on my native-speaker competence.
Throughout the text, comitative and instrumental NPs are identied by bracketing and indexing.
The grammatical morphemes used to express comitatives and instrumentals are in italics not only
in the original sentence but also in the transmorphemization and the English translation. For a
number of examples from Swedish and Latvian, I have drawn on the prose of modern writers: HH
is short for Stina Aronson. 1983. Hitom Himlen, Malm: Frfattarfrlaget, B identies Visvaldis
Lams. 1987. Balelini. Rga: Liesma. In addition, LKG III refers to Lietuviu Kalbos Gramatika, III
tomas: Sintakse. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1976. As for sentences (13)(14), cf. endnotes 45.
3. For practical reasons, only the ten languages listed in table (12) are taken into consideration in
the present paper. It almost goes without saying that as soon as reliable data on comitatives and
instrumentals in Low German, Ingrian, Livonian, Votian, Veps, Karelian, Old Prussian, and
sundry Circum-Baltic languages are available, our hypotheses will have to be checked against this
fresh evidence.
4. To facilitate comparison, examples (13a)(13j) have been drawn on the following Circum-
Baltic translations of Antoine de Saint-Exuprys Le petit prince: Danish Den Lille Prins,
Kbenhavn: Lindhardt & Ringhof, 1991, Estonian Vike Prints, Tallinn: Tiritamm, 1993, Finnish
Pikku Prinssi, Helsinki: Werner Sderstrm, 1992, German Der Kleine Prinz, Dsseldorf: Karl Rauch,
1995, Latvian Mazais Princis, Rga: Spriditis, 1995, Lithuanian Maasis Princas, Vilnius: Diugas,
1995, Polish May Ksiaze, Warszaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Pax, 1996, Russian Malenkij princ.
Moscow: Mezdunarodnye otnuenija, 1992, Sami Bs Prinssa. Helsinki: Werner Sderstrm, 1981,
Swedish Lille Prinsen, Stockholm: Rabn & Sjgren, 1995. The present sentence is number 103 in
Chapter XXI.
5. Again, examples (14a)(14j) are from The Little Prince. This time, sentence 58 of chapter XV
has been chosen.
6. In the present paper, we are concerned exclusively with the standard languages. If one takes
non-standard varieties into account, Russian may just as easily be classied as tending towards
mixing. That is why we treated Russian as a mixed language in Stolz (1997).
7. Actually, there are even more alternatives on the postpositional side, as e.g. mukaan together
with (Sulkala/Karjalainen 1992: 224225), but the way such additional morphemes interact with
kanssa and the inectional comitative (Stolz 1994: 60) remains to be investigated. Anyway, there
can be no doubt that kanssa is the preferred option when it comes to expressing comitative
relations in Finnish nowadays (Nau 1995: 133).
8. Needless to say, the maps in (33)(34) depend to some extent on conjecture.
References
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Gaters, Alfreds. 1993. Lettische Syntax. Die Dainas. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang.
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Heine, Bernd, Claudi, Ulrike, Hnnemeyer, Friederike. 1991. Grammaticalization. A Conceptual
Framework. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Heine, Bernd et alii. 1993. Conceptual Shift. A Lexicon of Grammaticalization Processes in African
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Hong Thi Ch. 1982. Grundkurs Vietnamesisch. Leipzig: Enzyklopdie.
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Laanest, Arvo. 1982. Einfhrung in die ostseennischen Sprachen. Hamburg: Buske.
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Press.
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Ltzsch, Ronald. 1978. Zur Frage des sog. instrumentals im Lettischen. Zeitschrift fr Slavistik 23:
667671.
Ltzsch, Ronald. 1996. Interferenzbedingte grammatische Konvergenzen und Divergenzen
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Mathiassen, Terje. 1985a. Slavisk Baltisk stersjnske syntaktiske isoglosser og sprsmlet
om et sprachbund i den stlige del av stersjomrdet. Meddelanden frn Stiftelsens fr bo
Akademi forskningsinstitut 102: 123149.
Mathiassen, Terje. 1985b. A discussion of the notion sprachbund and its application in the case
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besonderer Bercksichtigung des Finnischen. Mnchen: LINCOM Europa.
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Nevis, Joel A. 1988b. A morphotactic paradox in Northern Sami: comitative -guim. Ural-Altaische
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</TARGET "sto">
612 Thomas Stolz
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Synthesis
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The Circum-Baltic languages

An areal-typological approach*
Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wlchli
Introduction
Most of the papers in this volume focus on particular phenomena found in various
subsets of the Circum-Baltic languages. The goal of this concluding paper is to show
that the Circum-Baltic languages as a whole form an interesting linguistic landscape
of their own among the languages of the world, in general, and the European
languages, in particular. As the Circum-Baltic languages are spoken on the periph-
ery of Europe, they dier in a number of aspects from Standard Average European
languages (the term explained in Section 3.2), such as German or French.
The paper will be organized as follows. We start with a sketch of the historical
background of the area (Section 1) and the earlier approaches to the contacts
among the CB languages, especially the various attempts to nd a Sprachbund or
Sprachbnde in this area (Section 2). In Section 3, we argue that the notion of a
Sprachbund is hardly satisfactory when applied to the CB languages. We focus
instead on a few features of the CB languages by combining macro- and micro-
perspectives: macroperspective refers to a panoramic view of certain phenomena
against a general global typological background, whereas by microperspective we
mean a much more nuanced and detailed analysis of the same phenomena across
the CB varieties, much in the spirit of dialectology, linguistic geography and
traditional areal linguistics. We discuss the following phenomena: pluralia tantum
(Section 4), suprasegmental phonology (Section 5), morphological cases and
subject and object relations (Section 6), various clause-level syntactic phenomena,
such as nonverbal predication (7.1), predicative possession (7.2), comitative/
instrumental (7.3), comparatives (7.4), passives, desubjectives and zero-subject
constructions (7.5), various phenomena within noun phrases, such as adjective
agreement (8.1), gender loss (8.2) and syntax of numeral constructions (8.3); word
order phenomena (Section 9) and, nally, evidentiality (Section 10). Section 11
draws conclusions about the CB area in its geographic, historical, political, cultural
and last but not least linguistic context.
616 Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm and Bernhard Wlchli
1. Historical background of the area
In this section, we shall give a summary overview of the historical preconditions for
common developments and mutual inuences among the Circum-Baltic languages.
As will be clear from the discussion, the CB area has been an arena for intensive
linguistic contacts, migrations, colonizations, expansions, etc., constantly divided
and redivided among dierent spheres of inuence since time immemorial. At the
same time, the CB area shows a strikingly high degree of continuity in its areal
contacts for the last three or four millennia the region has been inhabited by
people speaking languages of only four language groups Baltic, Slavic and
Germanic (within Indo-European) and Finnic (within Uralic).
1.1 Why Baltic?

The very name of the Baltic Sea testies to the complex linguistic relationships of
the area.
In the History of the Archbishops of Hamburg of Adam von Bremen (11th
century) we read the following: that gulf is called Baltic (Balticus) by the inhabit-
ants because it is extended in the manner of a long belt (in modum baltei longo)
through Scythic regions until Greece1 (emphasis ours, MKT & BW). In the
Mecklenburgian Chronicle by Ernst von Kirchberg, mare Balticum is translated as
Gortelmeer. It is, thus, most probable that the name Baltic is originally Germanic
(cf. Dan. blt strait, blte belt) (cf. Endzelns 1982: 353355, for an extensive
discussion see Dini 1997: 18).
The use of the term Baltic is relatively recent in most of the languages around
the Baltic Sea. In Russian, the Baltijskoe More was previously called More Varjaskoe
the Sea of the Varyags, where Varyag referred to the Scandinavian Vikings. From
the Russian perspective, the Baltic Sea was obviously the Sea of the Scandinavians
in earlier times. In Latvian, Baltijas jura has been used only since the middle of the
19th century; earlier the Baltic Sea was called Liela jura Big Sea in contrast to the
Gulf of Riga which was called Maza jura Little Sea.2
In German and Scandinavian languages, as well as in Finnish and Sami, the
Baltic Sea is known as the Eastern Sea (Grm. Ostsee, Swd. stersj, Fin. Itmeri,
Sam. Nuortamearra). In Estonian, due to the dierent geographic relations, the
same sea is known as the Western Sea Lnemeri. In Livonian the Baltic Sea is
called valda mer. Liv. valda is the merger of two etymons power (Fin. valta) and
white (Fin. valkea).3
As a common name for Latvian, Lithuanian and Old Prussian, the term Baltic
was rst introduced by Nesselmann (1845: xxviii). Earlier Indo-Europeanists
referred to the Baltic subgroup of the Indo-European stock by using either Latvian
or Lithuanian in a collective sense. Historically, the term Baltic was used to refer to
The Circum-Baltic languages 617
the territories of the Teutonic Order in present-day Estonia and Latvia, therefore,
the German-speaking population of these regions were called Balten Balts.
1.2 Genetic relations among the CB languages

In historical times (which only go back to the 11th century A.D. in the Eastern CB
area), and during preceding epochs as far as we can tell by reconstruction, the
region around the Baltic Sea has been mainly a meeting place of languages from two
linguistic stocks: Indo-European and Uralic, namely Baltic, Germanic and Slavic
languages deriving from the NW part of the Indo-European dialect continuum and
Finnic and Sami deriving from the western branch of Finno-Ugric.
Archeologists, geneticists and linguists claim to trace back the two language
stocks in the CB area at least to the 2nd millennium B.C. According to the Finnish
phonetician Wiik, who further develops the ideas of the archeologists Doluxanov
and Nuez, Northern Europe was originally Uralic whereas the Lithuanian-born
American archeologist, Gimbutas, holds that the Balts arrived in the Baltikum4
before the Finno-Ugrians, to mention only two of several competing models.
We do not know anything about the languages spoken in the area before this
time (the CB area was inhabited by man at least since the end of the last glacial
epoch), but there is reason to believe that the linguistic situation was not less
complex than in any other place with a low density of population.
There have been various suggestions about a common origin for the major
language stocks of Eurasia, the most notable of which is known as the Nostratic
hypothesis. However, this hypothesis, according to which all the Circum-Baltic
languages would belong to the same super-stock, cannot be proven by the methods
of classical historical linguistics. Genetic aliation implies the continuation of
systems. It is, for example, very dicult to imagine how the Indo-European sound
system with three manners of articulation for stops but perhaps only one vowel can
be brought into harmony with the Uralic system with its rich variety of vowels but
only one manner of articulation for stops. On the other hand, recent typological
investigation (e.g. Nichols 1992) has pointed to an unexpected accumulation of
common features in several Eurasian stocks. It is not known whether these should
be interpreted as pointing towards very old genetic relationships or to areal
language contacts over a long period of time. Although Indo-European and Uralic
have had large dierences, especially in their phonological, morphonological and
morphological structures, as far as we can go back, they probably had a number of
common features, such as unmarked word order SOV, several cases, case marked
converbs etc.
By combining hydronymical and archeological data it is possible to show that
large parts of northeastern Europe, approximately from Moscow to Berlin, includ-
ing the northern part of the Dnepr system, was Baltic-speaking during the 1st
millennia B.C. and A.D. (cf. e.g. Toporov & Trubacev 1962; Tretjakov 1966). The
age of Germanic is much more open for discussion (cf. Dahl this volume; Elert
1995). Eastern and Western Slavic languages entered the CB area more recently.
Slavic started expanding in the second part of the 1st millennium A.D. over large
parts of Eastern Europe, at the expense of the Baltic and Finno-Ugric ethnic groups;
the place of its origin has not, however, yet been determined accurately.
The development of Western Finno-Ugric languages can be described more
easily in terms of a family tree model. According to this model, the Permic group
(Komi, Udmurt) was separated from Finnic-Volgaic which lost rst Mari then
Mordvin until the remaining Proto-Finnic broke up into Finnic and Sami. But this
simpler image is perhaps due merely to the extinction of intermediary Finno-Ugric
groups such as Merja and Muroma, which seem to have shared properties from
Mari, Mordvin and Finnic (cf. Laakso this volume).
1.3 Prehistoric contacts

Linguistic contacts are, almost by denition, unattestable for pre-historic periods,
but we can at least postulate two peculiarities of that period, both of which facilitat-
ed language contacts. One was the apparent great mobility of at least some ethnic
groups as an example, consider the assumed migration of the Goths in the
Roman period from Southern Scandinavia via the mouth of the Vistula across the
continent down to the Crimea. The other was the existence of extensive bilingual
areas otherwise it is hardly possible to explain the huge amount of Baltic and
Germanic loanwords in Finnic, including even kinship terms and names for body
parts (cf. the papers by Laakso and Larsson in this volume).
It is more dicult to trace loanwords in phonologically very similar dialects. In
particular, the similarities between the cognate Baltic and Slavic languages have
given rise to various theories, ranging from postulating a common Balto-Slavic
stage in the development from Common Indo-European to the modern languages
to viewing the similarities as a result of convergence. Stang (1972) suggests an
earlier Sprachbund situation to account for at least some of the lexical isoglosses of
Baltic, Slavic and Germanic. Common Slavic has a number of Gothic loanwords.
1.4 Viking Age

The Viking age is a primarily Scandinavian historical period (approximately
8001000 A.D.). But the Viking culture spread across the Baltic Sea, especially
inuencing the people of the coastal region (e.g. Estonians on the Island Saaremaa
and Curonians).
The Swedish Vikings controlled the fur and slave trade between the Eastern
Slavic and the Arabian and Byzantine areas from the 8th century. The expansive
activities of the Scandinavians were an important factor in the development of the

political centres Novgorod (862) and Kiev (882) in Rus (originally the name of the
Vikings in Rus, cf. Fin. Ruotsi Sweden, Swedish).
Scandinavian expansion was less successful in the Baltic, although it left some
linguistic traces, even in Lithuanian (Lith. pinigai money < OSwd. pnninger). As
a result of the Scandinavian assault, the peoples of the coastal region (especially the
Livonians, the Estonians of the Island Saaremaa and the Curonians) took over
Viking culture and continued to infest the Baltic Sea up to a time (12th century)
when Scandinavia was already Christianized and quiet. As an eect of this
development, the numerically inferior Livonian population became dominant in
most parts of present Latvia (Tnisson 1974). According to the report of Henricus
Letticus, the Livonians controlled the lower part of the Daugava River and the River
Gauja at the time when the German Knights of the Cross entered Livonia (cf.
Heinrici Chronicon 1993).
1.5 The Middle Ages

If the beginning of the Middle Ages is marked by Christianization, the Middle Ages
started at dierent times in the Circum-Baltic area (Denmark 89th centuries,
Poland 10th century, Rus 1011th centuries, Sweden 11th century, Finland
1213th centuries, Livonia, Estonia and Curonia 1213th centuries, Lithuania 13th
century). As can be seen from loanwords, the Finnic and Baltic peoples had contacts
with the Orthodox Church rst (Fin. risti, Ltv. krusts cross < Eastern Slavic). The
Orthodox Church was, however, on the whole, less expansive than the Catholic
Church. Especially in Lithuania and Latvia, the pre-Christian beliefs persisted for a
long time. Latvian folk songs still preserve a pre-feudalistic conception of the world;
at some places Christian and pre-Christian concepts syncretisized (Ltv. Mara
Goddess of fertility) (Biezais 1955).
During the 12th and the 13th centuries the most expansive power (up to the
Gulf of Finland) in the Baltic region was Denmark. A brief Danish dominance was
followed by a Low German inuence (especially Lbeck and Bremen) from the 13th
century onwards. It relied on the economic (the Hanseatic League), religious (the
Christianization of Livonia, Estonia and Curonia) and political (the Teutonic
Order) control of the region; the economic control was the most successful. During
this period, Middle Low German was (apart from Latin) the dominant language in
large parts of the CB area except for Lithuania. In Sweden, the Hanseatic inuence
was mostly restricted to the cities. The intensive impact of Middle Low German,
especially on the Scandinavian languages (to a lesser degree on the Swedish dialects
of Norrland and Dalecarlia) is well known and amply documented (cf., e.g.
Schndorf & Westergaard 1987; Hyldgaard-Jensen 1989). The focus in earlier
research has been on the vocabulary, and that goes even for recent works (e.g.,
Ureland 1987; for Latvian see Sehwers 1953; for Estonian Hinderling 1981a). The
breakdown of the old case system in the continental Scandinavian languages has
been ascribed to inuence from Low German where a similar process took place at
the same time, but the assumed language situation in the Hanseatic cities with
extensive language mixing may also have been an important factor (Wessn
1929). The possible existence of creolized variants of dierent languages in the
region is a fascinating hypothesis that is regrettably dicult to verify (for dierent
views on this issue see Haugen 1976; Braunmller 1995).
It was Lithuania (united under Mindaugas (123663)) that stopped the
German assault in the Baltikum. The absence of a land connection between Prussia
and Livonia limited the German colonization of Livonia, Curonia and Estonia
whereas Prussia, the homeland of dierent Western Baltic tribes, was completely
Germanized during the following centuries.
Only through the union with Poland 1386 did Catholicism become the
dominant religious force in Lithuania for Mindaugas and its followers the
vacillation between Orthodox, Catholic and pre-Christian religions was an instru-
ment of politics. As a consequence of this development Lithuania was one of the
religiously most tolerant countries in Europe of that time. This favoured the
immigration of other religious groups such as Jews (Yiddish), Karaims, and Islamic
Tatars (see the papers by Jacobs and Csat in this volume). The chancellory
language of Lithuania was based on an Eastern Slavic language which can be
considered as the predecessor of Belarusian.
1.6 The 1620th centuries

The role of Low German was gradually taken over by High German. After the
Teutonic Order had vanished, Sweden and Poland became the most important
political powers in the region around the Baltic Sea during the epochs of the
Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The use of Swedish outside Sweden proper
seems to have been restricted, except for Finland, which had already been under
Swedish domination in the Middle Ages (on Swedish dialects in Finland and
Estonia, see Rendahl this volume). The Polish inuence was strongest in Lithuania,
Belarussia, Ukraine and the Eastern part of present Latvia (Latgale) where there are
still Polish minorities in many areas.
The Reformation played a crucial role in the development of written languages
even for the smaller peoples of the region. (Old Prussian and Lithuanian catechisms
began to be printed in the duchy of Prussia at the end of the 15th century, and in
1548, Michael Agricolas Finnish translation of the New Testament appeared.) In
spite of the loss of political power (with the exception of a short intermezzo
16511690 when the duchy of Curonia even had colonies in Africa and America),
German remained the dominant language in Livonia, Curonia and Estonia, even
after Russia under Peter the Great became the dominant power of the Baltic Sea
after the Nordic War (170021).
The foundation of St. Petersburg (1703, capital of Russia 1709) had a disastrous
eect on the development of the Eastern Finnic languages, especially Ingrian and
Votic which are almost extinct now. The Russication in the Baltikum in the 19th
century had dierent eects. In Latvia and Estonia Russication was directed
against German and the local languages Latvian and Estonian even got some
support against German dominance. In the Catholic regions, Russication was very
strong. After the Polish-Lithuanian rebellion, 186364, all publication using Latin
letters in Polish, Lithuanian and Latgalian (the Eastern Latvian literary tradition)
was forbidden. This encountered massive resistance on the part of native speakers
in the form of various subversive countermeasures (smuggling of books, nonocial
schools known in Lithuanian as vargo mokykla a school of trial, for some details see
Cekmonas this volume, a).
The second half of the 19th century saw the national awakening in the Baltic
countries and Finland and, in particular, activities directed towards the reformation
and standardization of the national languages in these countries. This was not an
altogether easy task given the considerable diversity of the dialects in each case and
the high degree of foreign inuence on them. In all these languages, language
planners one of the most extreme being the Estonian, Aavik, who even invented
completely new word roots had a great inuence in the shaping of the literary
languages; they often favoured or, in Estonian, even reintroduced archaic features.
Towards the end of the 19th century and especially after World War I, the national
languages of these countries established themselves and the role of Russian,
German, Swedish and Polish was accordingly reduced.
As a disastrous eect of World War II holocaust, deportation and escape
some languages, such as Yiddish, the Swedish dialects in Estonia, Karelian and
Baltendeutsch were completely or nearly completely extinguished or removed from
their original territories. After World War II and up to 1991, there has been
considerable pressure from Russian on the languages of the Baltic republics. This
tendency was most marked in the cities and towns of Latvia and Estonia, some of
which still have a Russian-speaking majority. Russian, being the lingua franca of
Eastern Europe, had a great inuence on all local languages with the formation of
numerous expressions in the daily life of the communist society. English played a
similar role in the Western part of the CB area and has now, after the fall of the
Soviet Empire, begun to be the lingua franca even in the Eastern part of the CB area,
especially among young people.
Our short historical survey simplies things by neglecting the continuous
mixed ethnic and linguistic situation that has characterized parts of the Baltic
countries, and also the role of non-indigeneous languages, such as Latin, French
and Hebrew. Some examples and discussion of these issues can be found in the
papers by Cekmonas, Csat, Pugh, Jacobs and Rusakov.
However, it should be clear for the reader that the Circum-Baltic area has been
an arena for intensive language contacts since time immemorial, which must have
left traces in the languages involved. The important point is that it has never been
united, but has always been an extremely dynamic area, constantly redivided among
spheres of dominance economical, political, religious and cultural. Given this
historical background, we might expect to nd various layers of similarities among
the languages as a reection of the various language constellations in which they
have participated. And we can hardly expect that there will be a signicant number
of isoglosses (if any!), covering the whole area.
2. Earlier studies of language contacts in the CB area

There has been a tradition of studying contacts among the languages around the
Baltic Sea which mostly concentrated on loanwords. The literature is vast, and can
also be complemented by etymological dictionaries and standard books on the
history of particular languages. A considerable number of older and more recent
studies focus on structural interferences between two languages at a time. Without
wishing to deny the great value of these studies, for the sake of space we have to
refrain from even a brief listing of the most important studies. In contrast to the
vast literature on contact phenomena between particular languages in the CB area,
attempts to elaborate a comprehensive areal-typological prole of the languages of
the region have been few and sketchy. What we will discuss here are some
including the most important approaches that describe the CB area or any
subpart of it as a linguistic area or Sprachbund.
It was Jakobson (1931a, b) who rst applied the term Sprachbund to the
languages of the CB area. The criterion for a language or dialect to belong to
Jakobsons Baltic phonetic (more specically polytonal) Sprachbund is whether
there is a tonal suprasegmental phonologic opposition. The languages included are,
according to Jakobson, Norwegian (except the North-Western dialects), most
Danish dialects, Swedish, some Low German dialects, Northern Cashubian,
Lithuanian, Latvian, Livonian and Estonian. Jakobsons ideas have been further
developed in numerous papers e.g. by Lehiste (1978, 1983, 1997) and Wiik (1995,
1997); the latter uses the term The Baltic Sea Prosodic Area as an alternative to
Jakobsons phonetic Sprachbund. We will come back to polytonicity in Section 5.2.
The interest in Sprachbund-phenomena in the area was relatively low during
the following decades. In a little known paper, Falkenhahn (1963) suggested that
dierences and similarities in verbal government i.e., the requirements on the
form (case- and preposition marking) of verbal arguments might support
evidence for at least two small Sprachbnde on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea:
the Latvian-Estonian-German Sprachbund, and the Polish-Lithuanian(-Belarusian)

Sprachbund.5 It was not until the seventies that Dcsy (1973) and Haarmann (1974,
1976) made a new proposal of a Sprachbund in the CB area. They concluded that
Latvian, Livonian, Estonian and Votic share many isoglosses which justies
speaking of a Peipus-Bund (Dcsy) or a Baltischer Sprachbund (Haarmann).
Two other of Dcsys Sprachbnde the Wikinger-Bund (including the Scandina-
vian, Celtic, Northern Finnic languages and Sami) and the Rokytno-Bund (includ-
ing Polish, Kashubian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian) are at least
partially situated in the CB area.
Departing from earlier areal linguistic work, Mathiassen (1985a, b) discusses
whether there is an Eastern Baltic Sprachbund which would include Finnic, Baltic
and Eastern Slavic languages (especially Russian and its Northern dialects). He
considers seven morpho-syntactic isoglosses and concludes that they could, by their
cumulative evidence, constitute an argument for the existence of a Sprachbund,
even though a less intensive one than the Balkan Sprachbund (1984: 145).
Stolz monograph (1991) though it concentrates mainly on the standard
languages, and particularly on Latvian and Estonian is an important step in the
study of areal phenomena in the Baltic area, i.e. especially its south-eastern part
the Baltikum. Stolz main conclusion is that the whole Baltikum is a linguistic
convergence zone whose core is made up of Latvian and Estonian. All the other
languages in the Baltikum constitute the periphery of the convergence zone. Stolz
suggests that the most reasonable understanding of the term Sprachbund is to
equate it to the core of a convergence zone, which means that Latvian and Estonian
form a Sprachbund of their own. In a similar way, Sarhimaas (1992) Karelian
Sprachbund (including Northern Russian dialects, Karelian and perhaps Veps and
Ingrian) is the centre of a Finnic-Russian convergence zone.
The brief listing above demonstrates a fairly intensive hunt for Sprachbnde in
the CB area, especially in its eastern part, which has resulted in a number of largely
overlapping proposed Sprachbnde. There is an extensive discussion in the
literature on matters concerning areal linguistics, questions of Sprachbund and
linguistic areas which we will not consider here (some of the references can be
found in Campbell et al. 1986 and Thomason & Kaufmann 1988). Here it will
suce to point out that the dierent approaches to areal linguistics and to Sprach-
bund research in the CB area to a high degree reect the general situation in areal
linguistics, as it is summarized in Campbell et al. (1986) and Campbell (1996).
One point of disagreement concerns the number of isoglosses required to
dene a Sprachbund (or a linguistic area), in particular, whether a single trait is
sucient. Jakobsons proposal is the only one where a Sprachbund is established on
the basis of a single isogloss polytonicity. Even in this case, as we will see in
Section 5.2, it might be reasonable to talk about several prosodic features, interrelat-
ed, but still not necessarily implied by each other.6
The number of languages which potentially underlie a Sprachbund varies

considerably for dierent researchers. The question of feature bundling i.e., to
what degree the proposed isoglosses should cluster at the same boundaries has
not been discussed at length, but our impression is that a sucient degree of
bundling has been taken as an important criterion for each of the postulated
Sprachbnde in the CB area. However, as we have seen above, the dierent
Sprachbnde cover dierent sets of languages with the result that all the isoglosses,
when put together, hardly can be said to bundle. Actually, there is very little
discussion in general of which material should be considered in order to delimitate
a Sprachbund. Most authors intuitively select isoglosses that include genetically
unrelated languages. In the CB area such a procedure automatically leads to a
Sprachbund with Latvian, Estonian and Livonian as the centre of a convergence
zone, because it is there the most intensive contacts between Finno-Ugric languages
and Indo-European languages took place.
An obsession with Sprachbnde is, however, not a necessary precondition for
nding the linguistic situation in the CB area a thrilling object of inquiry. Both
Dahl & Koptjevskaja-Tamm (1992), who coined the term Circum-Baltic languag-
es, and Raukko & stman (1994), who talk about Baltic Europe, suggest new
perspectives for such studies: an areal-typological approach vs. a process-oriented,
pragmatic approach to areal linguistics. Christen et al. (1996) consider a slightly
dierent area, that is largely overlapping with the CB area North-Eastern
Europe. All the three publications are research programs: they present a number of
interesting cases of language convergence and demonstrate their methodology, but
the real work is still left to be done. Nau (1996) shows, by means of several exam-
ples, that the notion Sprachbund does not cover the whole complex of contact
phenomena in the convergence zone formed by the CB languages. We will turn to
Naus methodology and her main conclusions, which are quite akin to ours, in the
next Section.
3. CB languages as a Contact Superposition Zone
3.1 Sprachbund vs. Contact Superposition Zone

In general, we doubt whether the notion of Sprachbund in any of its less trivial
interpretations does justice to an area of such historical and linguistic complexity as
the one found around the Baltic Sea. Moreover, we even share Dahls (forthcoming)
general scepticism towards the notion of Sprachbund: In the end we are led to the
following more far-going question about the notion of area: to what extent do areas
in typology have a reality of their own and to what extent are they just convenient
ways of summarizing certain phenomena?
This does not mean that hunting for a heavy clustering of features in a region
is an altogether uninteresting or unreasonable enterprise. From a typological
perspective, repeated clusterings of properties in dierent areas are of course
interpreted as implicational connections among these features this is how
typologists arrive at many of their generalizations. Conversely, a region where
typological features cluster in a highly idiosyncratic way can bear witness to a
historically, sociolinguistically etc. very special situation. But even typologically less
spectacular properties, when clustering heavily, can be useful, e.g. for reconstructing
the prehistory of the languages involved. They could, for example, be interpreted as
pointing to a substrate area. In fact, very special extralinguistic conditions are
needed for a linguistic situation when a signicant number of postulated isoglosses
cluster within one and the same region, and there are no, or very few isoglosses,
which partly overlap with them. Such a linguistic situation arises primarily in
geographic and/or historical isolation. A frequent prerequisite for such a situation
is the existence of a dominant cultural centre from which various cultural, including
linguistic, innovations, are diused. In other words, a heavy predomination of
isoglosses which cluster within an area rather than overlap with it, often has
extralinguistic correlates a culturally more or less homogeneous area.
These issues have been discussed by Nau (1996) in connection with the CB
area. Her point is that complex phenomena may demonstrate multiple language
connections on dierent levels and in dierent ways which she shows by a few
examples. A particularly elegant case concerns verbal prexes and particles which
in various ways modify the meaning expressed by a verb bounders, in Bybee &
Dahls (1989: 85f.) terminology. Bounders make the process denoted by a verb telic,
i.e. by implying a denite limit or end-state of the process this is, for instance,
the primary function of the bounder up in the English sentence He ate up the apple.
These phenomena have been prominent in various discussions of contact induced
changes in the CB area: prepositional verbs are quoted in Campbell (1996) as one
of the ve major isoglosses for the variously dened Baltic Sprachbnde; Metslang
(this volume) is devoted to related issues for Estonian, Pugh (this volume) to
Karelian and Rusakov (this volume) to Northern Russian Romani varieties.
Nau analyzes the similarities among CB bounders at three dierent levels:7
With respect to material similarities among bounders, the CB languages fall
into the following groups (bold and italics respectively indicate the giver and
borrower of bounders):
a. Low German, German and Swedish; b. Lithuanian, Latvian, Livonian and
Estonian dialects); c. Russian, Veps and Karelian.
Semantic, functional and lexical convergence is particularly frequent in the
Baltikum, among Estonian, Latvian, Livonian (for multiple examples cf.
Wlchli this volume), Low German and German.
With respect to syntactic similarities, bounders in the languages fall into the
following groups:
clear prexes Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian, Veps, Karelian, German, Low
German and Swedish;
prexes in non-nite verbs vs. postpositional particles with nite verbs
German, Low German, Swedish, Estonian, Livonian and, restricted, in Latvian.
Naus main conclusion is that the CB area is linguistically very complex, both syn-
chronically and diachronically, with many layers of micro- and macro-contacts and
mutual inuences superimposed on each other over a long period of time. Our guess
is that intensive micro-contacts superimposed on each other sometimes create an
impression of an overall macro-contact among the languages in an area, which has
not necessarily been there. We believe that the notion of Sprachbund tends to over-
emphasize the overall macro-contact, which might, of course, be justied in certain
specic areas. For the CB area (and others comparable to it in the actual complexity
of linguistic contacts), we suggest the term Contact Superposition Zone.
3.2 In quest of areal convergence

By abandoning the question of whether or not the CB languages constitute a
Sprachbund, we can instead emphasize the most essential point in all areal linguistic
studies, i.e. what kinds of areal convergence are found among the languages under
consideration. Campbell et al. (1986: 533) distinguish two groups of areal studies:
those that simply catalogue observed similarities among neighbouring languag-
es: the circumstantialist approach (Campbell et al. 1986: 533);
and those that attempt to nd arguments for accounting for these similarities;
thus, while some of them have arisen due to borrowing or convergence, others
may be simply accidental and/or typologically frequent, or even inherited.
Most of the areal studies in the CB area do attempt to nd justication for the
isoglosses they propose, which is of course a dicult enterprise. In assessing the
explanative value of a synchronic similarity, various well-known problems may
arise. We will discuss here only two types of cases with restricted explanatory power
for areal contacts. The rst concerns what we would like to term generalization of
latent constructions; the second concerns the loss of a marked inherited structure
what Stolz (1991: 25) calls evidence [i.e. for areal contacts] ex negativo.
In Latvian, Estonian, and Livonian (and to some extent in Russian) there is an
analytic superlative of the type better than all.8 This was noted by Endzelns
(1951: 479f.), while Stolz (1991: 5054), who considers only Latvian and Estonian,
suggests that this could be a shared innovation in these languages as a result of
language contacts. The problem is, however, that none of these languages is a
complete innovator both build on models that have been in use in their families.
Endzelns (1951: 479f ) quotes such Lithuanian parallels as visu-geriusis

all:gen.pl-better. Nau (1992/93) looks at a wider range of Finnic language varieties
and nds ve dierent constructions for the superlative degree, often co-occurring
within one and the same language. While the synthetic superlative is attested only
in Finnish, Karelian, and Ludian,9 the by far most widespread superlative construc-
tion across Finnic languages is an analytic construction of the type better than all.
It occurs in all varieties of Finnic, even in Finnish and Karelian, where it is fairly
infrequent. We would thus say that the model better than all exists in all the
Finnic and Baltic languages at least as a latent construction.
Now, what distinguishes Latvian, Estonian and Livonian from their closest
relatives is, primarily, the frequency and, as a consequence, a higher degree of
grammaticalization of such constructions. In other words, in these languages the
latent construction has become generalized. Language contacts could possibly have
played a role in this development. It seems, however, that the generalization and the
higher degree of grammaticalization of a formerly latent construction are related to
the loss of earlier dominant constructions. If there is any areal inuence at all, it
would probably be better to search for it in the loss of the synthetic superlative
constructions.
We believe that the frequency at which a feature occurs throughout an area is
an important and often under-estimated factor in areal linguistics. In this connec-
tion, we will quote a little-known work by Tkacenko (1979). He studies an interest-
ing lexical parallel of Finno-Ugric and Eastern Slavic languages the use of a
verbal compound Rus. ili-byli, MrdE. erast-atest etc. they lived and were in the
beginnings of fairy tales (comparable to Once upon a time there were). The fact
that this compound verb is spread over the whole East Slavic area makes it dicult
to postulate a Finno-Ugric substrate as a reason for its development in Russian.
However, as has been shown by Tkacenko, the relative frequency of these construc-
tions in his huge material of beginnings of fairy tales, shows dramatic dierences
ranging from 56% for Russian, 8% for Belarusian and 0.5% for Ukrainian. The low
percentages for Ukrainian and Belarusian make it possible to postulate areal
inuences, given the expansive status of Russian in the last centuries, especially
given that this type decreases in Ukrainian from the East to the West. But live-be
is not equally distributed in Russian dialects either. It reaches a peak in Central
Russia in areas that were at least partly Finno-Ugric (Merjan, Mordvin and Komi
substrate) formerly (Moskva 74%, Rjazan 74%, Jaroslavl 71%, Tver 70%, Penza
67%, Komi 67%). In some cases the distribution of the three dierent types
counted by Tkacenko shows a surprising degree of matching between Russian
dialects and neighbouring Finno-Ugric languages. We nd this method of studying
possible areal similarities in terms of relative frequency very promising.10
The loss of a marked inherited structure (Stolz [1991: 25] evidence ex negativo)
like the generalization of latent constructions is another very problematic case of
evidence for areal contacts. There are two circumstances that make it particularly
dicult to ascribe the loss of a marked inherited structure to a specic language
contact. First, the loss of a typologically marked structure is a natural process which
is not necessarily dependent on language contacts. Second, if the language where
the loss took place had contacts with several other languages, there are no structural
arguments for which of these language contacts might be responsible for the loss.
Take the absence of vowel harmony in Standard Estonian and Livonian, as opposed
to all the other Finnic languages. Stolz (1991: 3839) suggests that this could be due
to their contacts with Latvian. Now, curiously, Southern Estonian, which was
confronted with a stronger Baltic inuence than Northern Estonian, still has vowel
harmony (e.g. Vru klst from the village, sbrast from the friend). Why should
Southern Estonian still have vowel harmony if this feature is areally determined?
It has been suggested that the loss of inection of the negative marker in
Estonian (cf. Fin. en tule, et tule, ei tule I, you, s/he go[es] >< Est. ei tule I, you,
s/he go[es]) was at least partially induced by contacts with Indo-European languag-
es primarily Latvian (Mikkola 1930: 436, Stolz 1991: 73). Again some Southern
Estonian dialects retain the inection of the negation and the past tense form of
negation that has been lost in almost all Finnic languages is retained in Southern
Estonian and in Livonian.
Now, whereas Estonian has simplied its negation, the system in Livonian has
become more complex. Not only does the negative verb inect for person, but the
main verb inects as well when the subject is in the plural (cf. Laakso this volume
for a discussion of negation in Finnic). Curiously, contacts with Latvian have been
held responsible for this complication of the original system, just as they are
believed to have induced simplication in Estonian negation (Ariste 1954: 296f
quoted in Rudzte 1994: 310f). It is true that both the simplied Northern Estonian
negation and the complicated Livonian negation deviate from the Finnish negation
pattern. If, however, one takes into account that there is a considerable variation
in the negation patterns throughout the Uralian languages, the arguments in
favour of the areal explanation for Estonian and Livonian lose still more in their
explanatory power.
3.3 CB languages: The European and the global perspectives

An important characteristic of the CB languages is their relationship to what has
become known as the Standard Average European (SAE)11 linguistic area. Recent
typological studies, primarily carried out within the EUROTYP programme have
shown a number of structural similarities among the typical European languages,
not only such as French, German, English and Italian, but also Czech, Norwegian
and Modern Greek. On closer inspection, some of these properties turn out to be
fairly unique among the languages of the world and constitute, thus, typical
Europeanisms (see Dahl 1990; van der Auwera (ed.) 1998; Siewierska (ed.) 1998;
and, most important for our purposes, Haspelmath 1998). According to van der
Auwera (1998) and Haspelmath (1998), the nucleus of the SAE linguistic area is
made up of Dutch, German, French and Italian; its core contains the other Ger-
manic and Romance languages, as well as the Western and Southern Slavic and
Balkan languages, whereas the periphery consists of Eastern Slavic, Baltic, Balto-
Finnic and Hungarian, plus, perhaps, Basque, Maltese, Armenian and Georgian.
Thus, the CB languages appear both at the core and on the periphery of SAE, which
guarantees them a number of peculiarities, compared both to SAE languages and to
other Eurasian languages.
In the rest of this paper we have chosen to concentrate on some of the typolog-
ically interesting features of the CB languages that have been discussed in connec-
tion with areal studies. In doing so, we hope to combine the achievements of areal
linguistics in the CB area and general linguistic typology. As will become clear, in
many cases it is dicult to nd a level of analysis, at which the comparison among
languages will make sense for both points of view the typological point of view
and that of areal linguistics. We start by a detailed analysis of a pluralia tantum, a
phenomenon which clearly shows multiple linguistic contacts in the CB area.
4. Pluralia tantum: A case study
4.1 Introduction
It was noted by Vraciu (1965, 1976), that Baltic, Slavic and Finnic languages have a
large number of pluralia tantum (PLT, plural nouns that lack or have only a very
unusual secondary singular form) in comparison with other European languages.
He suggested that this isogloss could be explained by linguistic contacts. To check
this hypothesis systematically we have compiled a list of words which have been
translated into 41 European languages.12 Since both Baltic and Slavic languages are
notorious for their high number of semantically dierent PLT, we have selected two
(partially overlapping) 30-word lists representing typical plural words either in
Baltic (the Baltic sample) or in Russian (the Russian sample).13 We assumed that
these lists, translated into various European languages, could serve, rst, for
estimating the general frequency of PLT throughout the languages of Europe and,
second, for measuring the degree of cross-linguistic anity of this category to the
idiosyncratic microstructure of PLT in the Baltic languages and Russian.
Traditionally a plurale tantum as its Latin name reects is dened as a
noun that in a certain language occurs only in the plural, like scissors. This deni-
tion, however, misses out nouns which in various respects behave like prototypical
pluralia tantum, but happen to have a singular form as well (often a secondary or
derived singular). Thus, in Latvian, besides rudzi rye (pl) there is a rare singular
rudzs a grain of rye; a blade of rye a relatively frequent situation in Baltic
languages. What is interesting, however, is the fact that Latvian normally resorts to
a plural noun, rudzi, in those situations where many other languages, including
SAE, would use a noun in the singular. To include such cases, we have chosen a
more functional approach: what we are interested in is whether a certain meaning
is regularly expressed in a language by a word (or by words) in the plural, in the
singular or by both. For the sake of simplicity we will retain the traditional label
pluralia tantum (PLT) for the phenomenon we have been studying a more
appropriate term would be lexical plurals.
PLT as a category have so far received relatively little attention in linguistic
literature. They are most often simply listed in grammars of particular languages,
sometimes subdivided into semantic groups (the latter is the usual praxis for Baltic
and Slavic, where PLT are frequent). Notable exceptions are Braun (1930), Wierz-
bicka (1988) and, inspired by the latter study, Kibrik (1992). PLT, however, provide
an interesting object for cross-linguistic studies in that they shed additional light on
the semantics and grammatical properties of nominal number in general.
A few domains in which pluralia tantum and lexicalized plurals occur include
various heterogeneous substances (with many subdivisions): Lith. putos foam,
Swd. sopor slops, articial objects which are clearly internally complex (with
several discernible and more or less symmetrically arranged similar parts): trousers,
Rus. casy clock, watch; places (with various sub-divisions): Rus. dungli jungle,
woods (in English); diseases (these are spread over several body-parts and manifest
themselves as multiple visible symptoms/spots): measles; periods of time: Rus. sutki
day-and-night, twenty hour hours; various festivities/festivals/rituals: Grm.
Weihnachten Christmas, Fin. ht/Lith. vestuves wedding; activities involving
multiple actions/multiple participants: Rus. prjatki hide-and-seek.
The concrete situation with PLT in any particular language is highly specic.
However, there are clear tendencies in the European languages as to which concepts
favour expressions in the plural. The following table shows the frequency of PLT for
specic concepts in selected languages of Europe.14
The membership of a word in a certain semantic group only rarely actually
decides over its being a plural or a singular. A case in point may be names of plants in
Baltic languages, where the collectivity of plants (on a eld) or their (collective) fruits
are plurals and single blades or single fruits are singulars. A semantic group with high
inconsistency in the assigning of plural or singular is e.g. musical instruments. Thus,
in Polish the word for a violin, but not for a cello, is plurale tantum (skrzypce).
To sum up, general considerations show that the distribution of pluralia (or
dualia) tantum is a good measure of the idiosyncratic structure of a language. This
holds, however, only for languages with a highly grammaticalized plural (or dual)
category. Since PLT are parasitic on the category of plurality, languages with a low
Table 1.Frequency count of pluralia tantum in 41 languages of Europe

Meaning Number of languages with
pluralia tantum
glasses 24.0
trousers 22.5
tongs 20.0
scissors 19.5
rewood 14.5
measles, Christmas 14.0
horse-race 13.5
money, slops 13.0
chicken-pox 11.5
gate, (major) place names 11.0
christening 10.5
wedding, hide-and-seek 10.0
bran, sleigh, brain, door 9.5
organ 9.0
yeast, troubles 8.5
car(t), sorcery 8.0
balance/scales, funeral, rake, childbirth 7.5
debate, jungle 6.5
mane, thickets 6.0
ashes, straw 5.5
our, oat(s) 5.0
twilight, clock /watch 4.5
salad, twenty-four hours, ceiling 4.0
lunch 3.5
smoke, foam, wheat, ink 3.0
rye, saliva, cream 2.5
dung / manure, fat, shirt, south, laughter 2.0
anger, wrath 1.5
year 1.0
grammaticalization of their plural are not expected to show any interesting eects
with PLT.
4.2 Genetic and areal properties of PLT

The investigation of the diachronic development of pluralia tantum reveals several
important facts about the general nature of the phenomenon and about its
behaviour in language contact.
First of all, comparing the languages of a language family allows us to make some
claims about the distribution of the phenomena at undocumented earlier stages.
Though in many cases it is hardly possible to reconstruct a lexical plural for a specic
meaning for a proto-language, it is clear e.g. from the comparison of older Indo-
European languages that Indo-European, at least in its latest stage, had a lot of
pluralia (and dualia) tantum.15 Such early attested stages of Indo-European languag-
es as Vedic, Classical Greek, Latin and Old Norse all have a considerable number of
pluralia tantum. While, for a specic meaning, number may dier in closely related
languages, it seems that the frequency of pluralia (and dualia) tantum as a whole is
diachronically fairly stable (at least in Old Indo-European languages).
On the other hand, comparative evidence suggests that, in Finno-Ugric, the
category of plurality was much less developed than in Indo-European languages. In
some Finno-Ugric languages even pairs of body parts can be singulars, one member
of a pair being expressed by its half as in Mari inca sg eyes, a pair of eyes and pel
inca one eye (half eye)16 (cf. Honti 1997 for more details). The only Finno-
Ugric languages with pluralia tantum for some of the meanings in our samples are
Finnic, Sami and Mordvin. It seems thus that pluralia tantum are an innovation in
Finno-Ugric languages where they occur.
Lexical plurals for the expression of a certain meaning can be more constant
diachronically than the lexical item (etymon) used to express it. Among the 30
words in the Baltic sample 25 are plurals in both Latvian and Lithuanian, but only
13 words (if we include loanwords) are etymologically related. This suggests that the
plurality for the expression of a certain meaning has a certain degree of indepen-
dence from its concrete lexical realization.
The plural may be motivated etymologically in some cases:17 OCS. kola cart is
the plural of kolo wheel; Lith. kapai churchyard the plural of kapas grave and
Lith. metai pl year the plural of metas season, period of time. In other cases a
motivation can be detected in the etymology of the root of a word, thus Ltv. ragavas
sledge belongs etymologically to Ltv. rags horn, thus suggesting that the sledge is
a plural because of the two runners at the front of it that look like horns.
PLT can easily be transferred in language contact, provided the language that
borrows a lexical plural has a highly grammaticalized plural category. Lexical plurals
may be borrowed without the borrowing of the corresponding etymon. Thus
among the pluralia tantum of Latvian Romani (Manu et al. 1997) many words are
genuine Romani words or in any case words that are not related with corresponding
Baltic or Slavic forms, e.g. 1 thuv smoke, 2 rj foam, 29 opral ceiling, other
PLT in Latvian Romani are loans from Latvian, e.g. meli dung, brilli glasses, or
from Slavic, e.g. mhilki, poxrni funeral, ncistumi slops. In some cases the plural
is somewhat more restricted if it is borrowed or there are coexisting singular and
plural forms of the same word, e.g. Latvian Romani phus sg/phus straw occurs
both in singular and in plural. At least for some speakers of Livonian, cereals are
plurals only as plants on a eld, but not as an accumulation of grains, whereas
Latvian has plural for both.
Loanwords which are singulars in the original language may become plurals in
borrowing languages, e.g. Ltv. ziepes pl soap < MLGrm. se(e)pe, Ltv. kaposti pl
cabbage < ORus. kapusta.
PLT may however also be borrowed along with their etyma, sometimes some of
Brauns originally logical plurals are borrowed along with their corresponding
singulars: Fin. rattaat, Liv. rattd cart < Balt. > Lith. ratai, Ltv. rati id. Cart is the
plural of wheel: Fin. ratas, Liv. rattz < Balt. > Lith. ratas, Ltv. rats wheel. From
this word, plurality spread to other words denoting carts in Finnish such as vaunut
and krryt.
For two contact languages, one may borrow plurality and the other the etymon:
Liv. kozgnd wedding originally derives from a compound *kansa-kunta (Est.
kaasa companion, mate, spouse, Fin. kunta company), the -t- (> -d) in the
second member was reinterpreted as the nominative plural marker in Livonian. Ltv.
kazas pl wedding is a loan from the rst component of the Livonian word. Its
plural (cf. Lith. vestuves pl wedding, Ltv.dial. vedbas pl id.) is however Baltic.
PLT are a dynamic category. Their concrete distribution changes diachron-
ically.18 This can be partly explained by the expressive character of PLT. In some
languages there are extremely many PLT denoting some sort of garbage, waste,
clippings etc., e.g. Rus. sgrbki, otbrosy, loxmotja, snimki, penki, otgonki, myxi,
otimki. To this group belongs even slivki cream (originally what has been poured
away from above).
To sum up, the general tendency for or against pluralia tantum is inherited, but
it may change in the development of languages. The concrete distribution of PLT is
however much less stable than the general preference. Comparative investigation
reveals that formal plurality of a concept is to a certain degree independent from the
etymologic word. Thus a singular etymon may become a plural when borrowed into
another language and vice versa and the continuity of plurality may be higher than
the continuity of the lexical/etymological realization of a concept.
4.3 Results for the evaluation of a linguistic area in the CB region

4.3.1The Baltic based sample
Map 1 shows the values for a number of European languages based on the 30 items
of the Baltic sample. According to the number of items with plurals we may
distinguish four groups of languages.19
The four groups include the following languages:
24 or more: Central Baltic;
12 or more: the contact languages to Latvian (Livonian and Latvian Romani);
6 or more: most Slavic languages, Icelandic, (formerly) Latin; and among the
Finno-Ugric languages Finnic, Sami and Mordvin. This isogloss contains thus
languages of the North-Eastern European area plus some conservative Indo-
Ice 8 Sam 7
Fin 9 Vps 6
Udm 0
Swd 4 Est 7 Mar 0
Liv 14
Ir 1
Ltv 28
LRmn 12 Rus 8 Tat 0
Eng 5 Lith 27 Bylr 10 Mrd 6
Dut 2 Pol 8 Krm 0
Cz 10 Yid 3 Ukr 8
Grm 2 Hng 0
Fr 4
Slve 10 Oss 1
It 3 SCr 9 Abx 1 Grg 2
(Lat 8)
Spn 2 Blg 3 Arm 0
Grk 4
Map 1.Baltic based sample.
European languages;
less than 6: all other languages.
What we see on the map is not a Sprachbund but more or less the degree of genetic
and/or areal anity of the languages of Europe to the Baltic languages. Areally close
but unrelated languages such as Finnish and areally distant languages but
genetically related languages such as the conservative Germanic language
Icelandic20 have similar values on Map 1.
The map is clearly selective: it does not show the areal inuence of other
languages on the Baltic languages (such as German on Latvian) but only the
inuence of Baltic or closely related languages on other languages. Thus, the
diusion of PLT from Latvian to the two small languages in Latvia, Livonian and
Latvian Romani is quite salient, if we take into account that other varieties of
Romani and Finnic do not have a comparable amount of PLT.
Map 1 reects a great many dierent language contact situations on the micro-
level that are also known from other investigations. Combining all these facts we
can reconstruct the following picture: Indo-European had a high frequency of
pluralia tantum. The Baltic languages, and especially the Central Baltic languages
Latvian and Lithuanian, increased this frequency21 and acquired a pattern for
pluralia tantum that in some respects deviates from the late Indo-European one.
Most Indo-European languages, however, continually diminished their frequency
of pluralia tantum. Some more conservative languages, such as the Slavic languages
and Icelandic retained a value about of the range of an older Indo-European
language such as Latin. On the other hand, some Finno-Ugric languages that were
situated close to Baltic (and Slavic) languages increased their frequency for pluralia
tantum from zero to a value that corresponds to the average level of a conservative
Indo-European language.
We assumed that the Baltic-based sample would not only show the anity of
European languages to the specic Baltic microstructure of lexical plurals, but
would also serve as an indicator for the general frequency of pluralia tantum in the
languages of Europe as the Baltic languages have the highest frequency of pluralia
tantum in Europe. There is some evidence that this actually might be the case.
All of the languages inside the isogloss 6 or more (except Romani) have an
additional property in common: they dispose of a special set of numerals to count
pluralia tantum, e.g. Lat. trinae aedes three houses, OIce. tvennar dyrr two doors,
tvenn skri a pair of scissors, Rus. dvoje casov two clocks, SCr. troja vrata three
doors, Lith. dveji markiniai two shirts, Mrd. ombonst usat a second moustache,
Fin. kahdet ht two weddings, SamN. guovtek hjk id.22 The fact that there is a
special set of pluralia tantum numerals has to do with the general frequency of
pluralia tantum rather than with the specic Baltic conditioning of the sample. The
correlation with pluralia tantum numerals is thus an argument that the Baltic based
sample has a certain degree of representativity for the frequency of pluralia tantum
in Europe in general.
Besides of reecting many language contacts, Map 1 also conceals a lot of
relevant facts. It does, e.g., not tell us anything about the relationship between
Livonian and Latvian Romani, i.e. it suggests that these two languages behave
similarly. This is only true as to the similar weight of Latvian inuence, but not as
to the concrete distribution of pluralia tantum. For the 47 meanings in both
samples Livonian (25) and Latvian (45) share 24 and Latvian Romani (23) and
Latvian share 21 items. Livonian and Latvian Romani, however, share only 13 items,
i.e. the two smaller languages share nearly all their PLT with Latvian, whereas they
share only about half of the items with each other. This suggests that the language
contact between Latvian Romani and Livonian was not very intensive. Actually,
there is no evidence for such a contact from other sources.
The European map of the Russian-based sample shows the areal and genetic
relationships of Russian and, more generally, Eastern Slavic. Thus, Lithuanian has
considerably higher numbers than Latvian, and Veps and Mordvin have higher
numbers than the other Western Finno-Ugric languages with a much less intensive
contact to Russian. Remarkable is also the relative high number of Ossetic 5if
we take into account that this language otherwise has very few PLT.
Ice 8 Sam 6
Fin 8 Vps 14
Udm 0
Swd 4 Est 10 Mar 0
Liv 11
Ir 2
Ltv 19
LRmn 13 Rus 30 Ttr 0
Eng 6 Lith 24 Bylr 28 Mrd 13
Dut 1 Pol 17 Krm 0
Cz 13 Yid 6 Ukr 29
Grm 4
Hng 0
Fr 3
Slve 14 Oss 5
It 5 SCr 13 Abx 2 Grg 0
(Lat 3)
Spn 3 Blg 6 Arm 0
Grk 4 (OGrk 6)
Map 2.The Russian sample.
4.4 PLT and areal contacts in the CB region

The areal contacts among the CB languages that are reected in the two maps are
about the following:
The genetic relationship among Indo-European languages, inasmuch as they did
not lose their tendency for many PLT, is clearly visible. The data further suggest
that there is a specic areal and/or genetic aliation between Baltic and Slavic.
It follows from the material that there was a considerable inuence of some
Indo-European languages on Finnic, Sami and Mordvin. This inuence seems
to have been very strong if we take into account that Finno-Ugric languages
generally have no PLT (at least for our sample meanings). Our data suggest that
Baltic inuence in particular is responsible for PLT in Finnic (cf. also Ingo
1978). Baltic inuence in the constitution of PLT in Finnic is obvious in the
case of loanwords such as Fin. rattaat cart. Our data further suggest that Slavic
inuence, except for Veps and Mordvin, was not very strong. The degree of
Germanic inuence on Finnic, however, cannot be seen properly, because
Germanic languages are showing a tendency to lose their PLT. As for Mordvin
it seems that Russian was not the only Indo-European language involved. Baltic
inuence on Mordvin, however, cannot be established by our material.
Our data suggest that there was a strong Finnish inuence on Sami (i.e.
Standard Sami). All PLT in our samples in Sami are found in Finnish as well.
There is a continuity of contact between Baltic and Finnic up to the contact

between Latvian and Livonian. A considerable part of the PLT of Livonian are
found also in Finnish. Between Finnish and Livonian, Estonian probably has
lost many PLT. This could, at least partly, be due to German inuence.
The contacts of Eastern Slavic languages (our data do not allow us to distin-
guish Old Russian, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian) were more intensive
with Lithuanian than with Latvian, and the Eastern Slavic inuence was
stronger on Veps and Mordvin than on Livonian and Finnish.
Latvian Romani had some contact to Slavic languages, but there were no
noteworthy contacts with Livonian.
Yiddish has a higher frequency of PLT than other Western Germanic languages,
especially because of Slavic inuence, e.g. pamoyes (< Slav.) slops. But cf. also
the plurals klayen bran, heyvn yeast, bahelterlekh hide-and-seek.
However, many contacts are not reected in our material on PLT. We cannot see
e.g. from our data the areal contacts of Karaim (Turkic languages do not have
highly grammaticalized plurals). As a rule the inuence of languages with a high
degree of PLT is overemphasized in the results. The inuence of languages with a
low degree of PLT is hardly recognizable. Thus, our material on PLT does not, for
example, reect the inuence of Finnic and Germanic languages on Latvian.
On the one hand, PLT are a very good test for areal contacts in the CB area, as
they represent an ordered and homogenous set of equally strong but mutually
unrelated properties. The selection of a single ordered set of unrelated (or almost
unrelated) equipollent properties all belonging to a single category makes it
possible to see areal contacts in a diachronic perspective. This reveals the complex-
ity of dierent waves across a linguistic area that cannot be seen in a traditional
Sprachbund analysis. A high number of matching properties here does not,
however, mean a high degree of belonging to a linguistic area but a high degree of
areal and/or genetic anity to some of the genetic strata in the area (here: Baltic,
Slavic, Indo-European).
Although PLT reect a great many areal contacts in the CB area, they show us
the CB region through a lter, in a distorting mirror where almost only the Baltic,
Slavic and Indo-European elements are recognizable.
5. Suprasegmental phonology
Suprasegmental features have been a major topic of areal research in the CB area
since Jakobson (1931a, b). In this section we would like to present some of the most
relevant phenomena, especially stressing the synchronic and diachronic similarities
and dierences in the languages and dialects of the CB area.
5.1 Initial stress

Most of the CB languages have basically initial stress: the Germanic languages of the
area, all the Finnic language, Latvian and emaitian (Northern) dialects of Lithua-
nian. In addition, certain Northern Russian dialects bordering on Karelian-Olonec
and Veps-speaking areas show a tendency towards xed initial stress (Veenker
1967: 74, Kiparsky 1970: 178). The details of the initial stress assignment, as well as
the relative weight of these patterns show a considerable cross-linguistic variation.
Thus, in Finnish, the stress appears on the rst syllable of the word almost without
exception, in Latvian there are only few exceptions, and Estonian widely allows
other stress patterns in recent borrowings. In Germanic, the stress is normally xed
on initial root syllables; some prexes are stressed, some not, and there is a relatively
tolerant treatment of internationalisms, including words with borrowed suxes. In
Yiddish, the xed Germanic stress on initial root syllables is mainly restricted to the
Germanic component of its vocabulary, whereas the Hebrew and Slavic (and Baltic)
components have their own stress rules. Actually the same could, mutatis mutandis,
apply to the modern Scandinavian languages, where the numerous Romance loans
have a stress system of their own.23
From the theoretical point of view, xed stress is an unmarked option com-
pared to mobile stress patterns (in the former case, word stress follows a simple
algorithm, which is not possible in the latter) the two most common solutions
are xed initial and penultimate stress patterns.24 However, in the European
context, the Circum-Baltic languages do in fact show a high concentration of
languages with initial stress. This is otherwise attested only in Celtic, the other
Germanic languages, most (although not all) of the Finno-Ugric languages and the
two Slavic languages Czech and Slovak (both spoken in areas contiguous to those
of the initially stressed Hungarian and German). The question of whether initial
stress in the Circum-Baltic languages can be attributed to language contacts has
been vividly discussed in the literature.
There is by now much evidence that stress patterns can easily diuse across
dialectal and language borders. At least for some of the cases in our area, there are
no doubts about the contact origin of the stress pattern. This applies primarily to
the tendency towards xed initial accent in the above-mentioned Northern
Russian dialects, spoken on the border to the initially stressed Finnic varieties
(Veenker 1967: 74, Kiparsky 1970: 178 who both agree on the adstratal rather than
substratal inuence).
There is also a generally accepted view that the initial stress in Latvian is due to
Finnic inuence (in this case, primarily substratal, see Balode & Holvoet this
volume, a). This would be the obvious explanation for the striking dierence
between Latvian and its close relative Lithuanian, which though with some
innovations still retains the free stress pattern of Indo-European. On closer
inspection, the situation turns out to be less straightforward than assumed. Even
within Lithuanian there are north-western dialects (the emaitian dialects and
some Auktaitian dialects) which show dierent degrees of partial stress retraction
and even initial stress (Cekmonas this volume c, Section 5; Laimute & Holvoet this
volume b, Section 1.3), and there is some evidence that points to a continuous
change, involving subsequent stages of partial stress retraction in Latvian too. The
evidence is as follows:
As a result of the accent shift, the tone system in Latvian was changed. Latvian
acquired a third distinctive suprasegmental tone on long syllable cores. The new
broken tone developed where the stress was retracted to a syllable that had acute
tone in the original Baltic system. Stang (1966: 142f) points out that as the broken
tone, originating according to the traditional view from the accent shift, is not
restricted to initial syllables, it is a logical consequence of the traditional view on the
development of the broken tone that there must have been several subsequent
accent shifts in the history of Latvian. What matters most in a traditional diachronic
reconstruction of a language development in contact is whether there is a continu-
ous organic development or a radical sudden change (substitution). The latter
variant may directly testify to strong impact of a contact language, whereas in the
former case, one can never prove strictly that a change is due only to language
contact. Now, whereas a radical change in Latvian from the free stress pattern to the
initial stress pattern would be better accounted for by external factors, such as
language contacts, continuous change does not, in principle, call for such an
explanation and may be fully attributed to language-internal factors, in accordance
with the traditional method of reconstruction. The two groups of factors and the
two explanations do not, of course, need to exclude each other: the Finnish
inuence could still have played an important role in strengthening the tendency to
repeat the process of stress retraction, which might have arisen due to language-
internal mechanisms.
In Latvian, accent shift towards the initial syllable led to the loss of nal short
vowels and the shortening of nal long vowels and diphthongs, which, in turn, had
further important consequences for morphology. The weakening of non-initial
syllables was even stronger in Low Latvian25 (the area with the strongest Livonian
and Estonian inuence). Initial stress per se does not automatically entail reduction
of non-initial syllables, as Finnish shows. There are however also Finnic languages
with a strong reduction of non-initial syllables (Livonian, Estonian dialects of
Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, to a lesser extent Estonian). Interestingly, these dialects
form a contiguous area with Low Latvian.
In both Finnic and Germanic initial stress is much older than in Latvian. Initial
stress in Germanic is an innovation in comparison to Indo-European. Salmons
(1992) suggests a shared Germanic-Celtic accent shift taking place in prehistoric
northwestern Europe, most notably in the context of early and profound contacts
with Finno-Ugric languages. He analyzes several competing hypotheses about the

origin of the accentual shift and arrives at a conclusion that a Finno-Ugric language
would be the most plausible source given the generally believed view that Proto-
Finno-Ugric and, more broadly, Proto-Uralic had initial stress (Salmons ideas are
further developed by Wiik 1995, 1997). However, although the majority of the
Finno-Ugric languages have initial stress, it is not clear whether this pattern can be
reconstructed for their common ancestor.26 There is a considerable number of
Uralic languages that have dierent stress patterns, some of which have not yet
received sucient scientic treatment for discussion see Viitso (1997: 22425).
Given that the accent shift to the initial syllable of the Western Indo-European
languages included also the Italic languages (Latin underwent a stage of initial stress
before changing to penultimate stress) and the sparse evidence of Finno-Ugric
substrate in Germanic and Celtic, Salmons hypothesis about the Finno-Ugric
source of the Germanic-Celtic accent shift is not very plausible.
On the basis of the evidence presented so far, it is dicult to judge to what
degree language contacts have been instrumental in the emergence of initial stress
as the dominating stress pattern in the CB languages.
5.2 Polytonicity
Besides the dominance of initial stress, polytonicity is perhaps an even more striking
and typologically more relevant common suprasegmental property of many CB
languages (with Finnish as an important exception). Jakobson (1931a, b) consid-
ered polytonicity to be the most important property of the languages around the
Baltic Sea. In this section we would like to brievly present some of the basic features
of the polytonal phonology of the CB languages, stressing especially the dierences
in origin across the dierent languages. There are at least three dierent layers of
polytonicity in the CB languages: tones on long syllable cores in the Baltic languages
that go back to Late Indo-European polytonicity (5.2.1), overlength in Southern
Finnic and some Latvian dialects that does not seem to be much older than a
thousand years (5.2.2) and phonologization of secondary stress in Continental
Scandinavian (5.2.3). But this does not mean that there was no mutual inuence in
the development of the suprasegmental phonology of neighbouring languages.
5.2.1Tones on long syllable cores (especially on diphthongs) in the Baltic

languages
The general principle of polytonicity in the Baltic languages is that long syllable
cores (i.e. long vowels and long diphthongs, the latter including combinations of
vowels and tautosyllabic nasals or liquids, e.g. a, ei, am, il) have an opposition of
tone contours. The phonetic realization and the contexts of occurrence of this
opposition dier across the Baltic languages and dialects.
In Standard Lithuanian there is an opposition of Acute and Circumex27 only in

traditionally long stressed syllables. In the original Latvian system that is still retained
in some dialects in Vidzeme and Kurzeme there are three tones (the third, broken
tone resulting from a retraction of stress to an acute syllable). As stress generally
falls on the initial syllable in Latvian, the tonal opposition is most salient in long
initial syllables, but dierent tone contours exist even in unstressed long syllables.
The polytonal opposition is functionally more noticeable in diphthongs
(including vowels with tautosyllabic nasals and liquids) where it is also usually more
salient phonetically. In Standard Lithuanian there is a tendency to retain poly-
tonicity only in diphthongs.
Baltic polytonicity is genetically related to polytonicity in Slavic languages, as
still exists in dialects of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian in a very transformed manner,
and more distantly to polytonicity in Classical Greek. Acute is generally explained as
having been caused by Indo-European laryngeals, either directly or indirectly by an
intermediate step of lengthening. Anyway, in the Baltic languages, polytonicity is
much older than in any other part of the CB area. It is a relict of a wider phenomenon
once including large parts of the Indo-European dialect area, at least the predeces-
sors of Baltic, Slavic and Greek. Polytonicity in the Baltic languages is also specic
among the CB languages in that it is not bound to initial stress. For more informa-
tion on tones in Lithuanian and Latvian cf. Balode & Holvoet (this volume, a, b).
5.2.2Overlength
The second complex of suprasegmental phenomena is directly correlated to initial
stress and the concomitant reduction of non-initial syllables. In some languages and
dialects of the CB area (especially Estonian, Livonian and Low Latvian) the
reduction of a non-initial syllable was compensated by a secondary lengthening of
the initial syllable. Whether this suprasegmental feature is realized phonetically and
should be classied phonologically as a feature of length or of tone contour is of
secondary importance.
Traditional Estonian grammar distinguishes three quantities quantity 1 (short),
quantity 2 (long) and quantity 3 (overlong) in both vowels and consonants. In
most cases, quantities 2 and 3 are not distinguished in Estonian orthography.
Quantity 3 is, however, not a quantity on a par with quantities 1 and 2. It
occurs only in one specic position in a word (initial syllable for vowels, between
the rst and second syllable for consonants) unlike the two other quantities, its
function is mainly grammatical.
Quantity 3 is often (however, not always, cf. Krull 1997) accompanied by a
characteristic falling contour (for the latest developments and the summary of
previous research see Lehiste and Roos (eds.) 1997). As suggested in these and other
studies, the quantity system of Estonian might be in the process of transition and
Estonian might thus be developing tonal oppositions.
Table 2.Quantity in Estonian

quantity distinctions in: Quantity 1 Quantity 2 Quantity 3
consonants (/n/) lina linna linna

line:nom.sg town:gen.sg town:ill.sg
vowels (/a/) sada saada saada
hundred send:imp get:inf2
The original system was based on the opposition between short and long vowels
in both initial and non-initial syllables, as in Finnish. This system was brought out of
balance about 500 years ago. As a result of apocope (reduction or loss of non-initial
syllables) non-initial syllables were now all short and overlength (quantity 3) arose
as a compensatory lengthening when the following syllable had been lost or reduced.
The overlong syllable thus retained approximately the duration of the original
disyllabic sequence. Lehiste (1978, 1983, 1997) suggests that the rise of phonetically
dierent pitch patterns might be connected directly with the process of apocope.
Disyllablic sequences with quantities 1 or 2 have a step-down pitch contour distrib-
uted over the two syllables. However, if the second syllable had lost its vowel, this
same tonal contour could now be transferred to the lengthened rst syllable, which
thus acquired a falling contour. Overlong syllables, though still treated as disyllabic
sequences in certain respects, are gradually losing their characteristics of disyllabi-
city, as can be seen in the placement of secondary stress in long words and in the
assignment of words to inectional paradigms. For example, since the rst syllable
of the word endine former is overlong, it should count like the rst two short
syllables of the word inimene person. More specically, secondary stress in some
inected forms of endine (e.g. comitative) should fall on the second syllable, cf.
en.disega former:com and ini.mega person:com (. in these examples indicates
secondary stress on the following syllable). Endine and inimene should also be
assigned to the same inectional paradigm. However, the new development in
Estonian places secondary stress in endisega on the third syllable, endi.sega; the
preferred partitive plural of the word is now endi.seid like puna.seid from the three-
syllable punane red, rather then the expected en.disi, cf. with ini.mesi
person:pl.prtv. Thus, as Lehiste (1997: 27) summarizes, there are two types of
changes in the suprasegmental system of Estonian: the change directed at eliminat-
ing the special status of overlength, and the change directed at reinterpreting the
signicance of the phonetic features accompanying overlength from a manifesta-
tion primarily by quantity to a manifestation involving contrastive pitch.
Lehistes conclusion is also that the whole process leads to spontaneous
tonogenesis in Estonian for which no areal explanation is needed. However, as she
adds, some facts suggest that we are still dealing with linguistic convergence.
Secondary lengthening is a more extended phenomenon in Livonian (of

Curonia) where it can only partly be explained diachronically by the reduction of
a non-initial syllable. The Livonian facts are very complex and therefore we have to
present them in a slightly simplied manner here.
In every stressed Livonian word, there is one secondary-lengthened element.
Not all segments can be secondary-lengthened: short vowels in the rst syllable
(including short diphthongs) and voiced consonants between the rst and second
syllables (and initial consonants, of course) are excluded from secondary lengthen-
ing. If there is no segment that can bear a secondary lengthening, a broken tone
(std, written: ) is inserted (e.g. mer sea). In Livonian, as opposed to Estonian,
there is thus no suprasegmental opposition depending on whether there is second-
ary lengthening or not (because there always is one), but rather an opposition
depending on where the secondary lengthening is placed, i.e. the opposition
between degree 1 and degree 2. Broken tone (std) can be considered as a further
possibility of suprasegmental lengthening (degree 3) as it contrasts with degrees 1
and 2 in some contexts. As already mentioned, the opposition between secondary
lengthening proper and std can be neutralized if there is no segment available that
can be lengthened. Interestingly, all three degrees can be distinguished only in long
diphthongs. (As in the Baltic languages, combinations of a vowel and a tautosyllabic
nasal or liquid may also be counted as diphthongs.) Both Livonian and the Baltic
languages (see above) have the highest dierentiation of suprasegmental
oppositions in diphthongs.
Table 3.Suprasegmental lengthening in Livonian

degree 1 lengthening of degree 2 lengthening of
vana (nom) short vowel of the 2nd van (prtv) (std)

old syllable old
mtsa (nom) short vowel of the 2nd mts (prtv) rst voiceless consonant
forest syllable forest between the 1st and the
2nd syllable
a ndab (3sg) rst component of the and (1.inf) second component of
he takes diphthong in the 1st to take the diphthong in the 1st
syllable syllable
sur (nom) segmentally long vowel sur (prtv) segmentally long vowel
big (secondary lengthening big (secondary lengthening
not perceptible) not perceptible)
In the forms with std () there is no segment available that could be lengthened at the position aorded
according to the requirements of degree 1 and 2.
In degree 2, (due partly to apocope) the second part of a long segment (long
vowel or long diphthong) or a voiceless consonant (the rst if there are several)
between the rst and the second syllables is lengthened. In degree 1, the rst part of
a long segment or the vowel of the second syllable (which is never segmentally long)
is lengthened. The distinction between degrees 1 and 2 is neutralized with long
vowels (lengthening of either part of a vowel has the same eect). The opposition
between degrees 1 and 2 is often used to distinguish grammatical forms. Some
examples are listed in table 3.
The Livonian system of secondary lengthening is reminiscent of many German-
ic dialects (e.g. Standard Swedish) where, in a stressed syllable, either the vowel is
long and the following consonant short or vice versa, the vowel is short and the
following consonant is long (this type of suprasegmental opposition was called
Silbenschnittkorrelation by Trubetzkoy 1967).
Secondary lengthening due to the reduction or loss of non-initial syllables
occurs also in Low Latvian dialects. It consists of two aspects that are not considered
to be connected in Latvian dialectology, although they actually make up a single
suprasegmental phoneme. Before voiced consonants there is one of three secondary
tones (according to the length of the syllable core and if it is long according to
which primary tone it has):
1. rising-falling (or falling) tone (kapjoi krtoa/krtoa intonacija): lab well
(< labi); i.e. secondary lengthening of an originally short syllable core.
2. drawn-falling tone (stiepti krtoa intonacija) bals pale acc.pl (< balus); i.e.
secondary lengthening of an originally long syllable core with stretched tone.
3. broken-falling tone (lauzti krtoa intonacija): snig snow acc (< snigu); i.e.
secondary lengthening of an originally long syllable core with broken tone (cf.
Rudzte 1964: 157f).
If the rst syllable is short and the following vowel is voiceless, the consonant, not
the vowel is lengthened: las s/he is reading (< lasa) (cf. Rudzte 1964: 179).
Low Latvian dialects have, thus, a similar system of secondary lengthening as
Estonian. A further parallel is that overlength is described as having a phonetically
falling tone contour. The main dierence between Low Latvian and Estonian is that
the new suprasegmental opposition is combined with the original Baltic supra-
segmental system (opposition of tone contour in long syllable cores; cf. 5.2.1).
There is a completely dierent type of overlength in Sami, not restricted to the
rst syllable, whose genesis is dependent on whether a syllable originally ended in
a vowel (lengthening) or a consonant (no lengthening).
5.2.3Phonologization of secondary stress

Most dialects of Norwegian, Swedish (except the dialects in contacts with Finnish
and Estonian, cf. Rendahl this volume, Section 5) and Danish have a suprasegmental
opposition in which words that did not originally have a secondary stress (most of
them originally consisting of a single syllable) now have accent 1 (or std in Danish)
and words that did originally have a secondary stress (most of them originally
consisting of more than one syllable) now have accent 2 (or no std in Danish).28
Originally means before the cliticization of the postposed denite article (*and
hinn > Swd. anden the mallard) and before epenthesis in words ending in a syllabic
sonorant (segl > Swd. segel sail).
Table 4.Quantity in Swedish

now one syllable now two syllables
(article not counted) (article not counted)
1 1
orig. one syllable and-en the mallard segel sail
2
orig. two syllables ande-n the spirit
A very similar development holds for various dialects of Scottish Gaelic accord-
ing to Ternes (1980).
5.2.4Conclusion
Regarding polytonicity, there are at least three dierent areas in the languages of the
CB region:
opposition of tone contours in long syllable cores restricted to the Baltic
languages;
overlength found in Estonian, Livonian, Low Latvian and perhaps in some
Low German dialects (cf. Ternes 1980);
word tone whose genesis is in some way associated with the original number of
syllables of a word and is due to the presence or absence of an originally
secondary stress found in most Swedish, Norwegian and Danish dialects and
in some variants of Scottish Gaelic.
Of these three phenomena the rst one is is a clear archaism, a relic of the Late
Indo-European polytonicity, while the other two phenomena are relatively recent
innovations.
There is no evidence that the emergence of any of these three areas was caused
by the inuence of another area. This means that polytonicity in the CB area has at
least three dierent origins.
This does not mean, however, that there was no mutual inuence between the
three polytonal areas. A clear example of overlapping is Low Latvian, which
combines Baltic polytonicity in long syllable cores with the Estonian-type over-
length caused by apocope. Phonetic realizations of suprasegmental phonemes vary
greatly in the three areas and the same or very similar phonetic realizations (e.g.
std) may be found in all three areas. It is not unlikely that there was some mutual
inuence involved, e.g. in the development of a phonetically very similar broken
tone (std) both in Latvian and in Livonian (though broken tone has very dierent
functions in the suprasegmental systems of these two languages). There is a
considerable convergence between the suprasegmental systems of Latvian and
Livonian (cf. e.g. the role of tautosyllabic nasals and liquids in Livonian), yet the
suprasegemental systems of Latvian and Livonian are completely dierent in origin.
It seems that the two characteristic features of suprasegmental phonology in the
CB area initial stress (5.1) and polytonicity (5.2) are not unrelated. Two of the
three layers of polytonicity in the CB region developed only in languages with initial
stress. This does not mean, however, that a language with initial stress necessarily
develops polytonicity (in Finnish, e.g. this was not the case).
It has not been possible to exhaustively treat the suprasegmental features found
in CB languages in this section. Another typologically very marked feature is
preaspiration (in conservative Scandinavian variants like Icelandic and Northern
Swedish dialects and in Sami) whose core is, however, not located in the CB area.
6. Morphological cases, subject and object relationships in the CB area
6.1 Introduction
The CB area belongs to the intermediate zone between the Western European
languages, which have lost most of their morphological case distinctions, and the
languages of the huge Eurasian area which exhibit more or less elaborate case
systems for signalling grammatical relations. Both these extremes are represented in
our area, stretching from the fairly caseless Standard Continental Scandinavian
languages, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish and most of their dialects (although not
all, cf. below Section 6.8), to Estonian with a system of 14 cases. In this section we
will be mainly interested in the case marking of subjects and objects in the Circum-
Baltic languages (Sections 6.36.4), but will also discuss the case systems themselves
(Sections 6.2, 6.7 and 6.8) and touch upon case marking of temporal adverbials
(6.6). Section 6 will mainly focus on the languages to the East of the Baltic Sea, since
they show more interesting dierences from Standard Average European.
The semantically and syntactically determined alternation in the case marking
of subjects and objects is one of the more widely discussed common features in the
Baltic, Finnic and Russian (cf. Larsson this volume, Section 5.1). Thus, in example
(1) from Finnish, the object apple to the same verbal lexeme eat appears in three
dierent cases. In the Fennicistic tradition, the alternation between the accusative
in (1a) and the partitive in (1b) is said to signal the dierence between total and
partial objects: (1a), in contrast to (1b), implies that the whole apple was eaten.
Total objects to imperatives appear in the nominative case (1c) presents an

example of such a nominative object.
(1) Finnish
a. Si-n omena-n.
eat:past-1sg apple-acc
I ate an/the apple.
b. Si-n omena-a.
eat:past-1sg apple-prtv
I was eating an/the apple.
c. Sy omena!
eat:imp apple:nom
Eat up an/the apple!
In addition, although prototypical subjects in Finnish normally take the nominative

case, some subjects appear in the partitive, as in (2) these will be called partial
subjects.
(2) Finnish
Vallankumous-ta ei tapahtunut.
revolution-prtv not happen:nfin.past
The/a revolution did not take place. (Maria Vilkuna p.c.)
The terms total and partial are misleading in that they suggest that the distinc-
tion is semantically dened. However, as we shall see in Sections 6.3.1 and 6.3.2, we
are dealing here with syntactic categories. To emphasize this fact, we shall call them
Total vs. Partial objects/subjects, with the initial capitals.
Thus, (direct) objects and subjects in Finnish can show alternative case marking
according to Figure 1.
Alternations in object marking
ACCUSATIVE PARTITIVE NOMINATIVE
Alternations in subject marking
Figure 1.Alternations in case marking of objects and subjects in Finnish.

The Finnish case alternation nds parallels in other Finnic, Baltic and Slavic
languages. However, a direct comparison among the languages meets at least two
kinds of problems:
alternations involve dierent cases;
and alternations are governed by dierent conditions.
Here we will discuss the rst, much less serious problem. Somewhat confusingly, in
Baltic and Slavic, the genitive takes the place of the Finnish partitive, as shown in
Table 5. (To make the cross-linguistic comparison easier, we will consistently apply
the terms Total and Partial subjects and objects to all these languages, even
though this is not a general praxis.)
Table 5.Total and Partial subject and object marking

Total Partial Total Partial Total Partial
subj nom prtv subj nom gen subj nom (gen)

obj acc prtv obj acc gen obj acc
Finnish Lithuanian/Russian/Polish Standard Latvian
The whole issue is further complicated by the dubious status of the accusative
as a separate case in at least some of the languages involved this will be discussed
in Section 6.2. Section 6.36.5 will be devoted to the following questions:
What are the factors governing case alternations for subjects and objects in each
of the Finnic, Baltic and Slavic language varieties where such alternations are
attested?
How can these phenomena be accounted for historically?
What are the common denominators underlying these alternations across the
language varieties involved?
What is the typological status of the phenomena under consideration?
The two latter questions are particularly intriguing. Dierentiated case marking for
subjects and especially objects is a cross-linguistically rather common phenomenon,
as will be discussed in Section 6.5. The factors underlying such alternations in the
CB languages (e.g., totality, polarity, animacy, aspect etc.) are prominent in Hopper
& Thompsons (1980) list of factors, which, in many languages, contribute to
dierent degrees of transitivity in a clause and, thus, are operative in triggering
dierent types of object marking. While it is dicult to nd exact parallels to the
CB systems in other parts of the world, many of the tendencies are shared. The
problem is that it is actually almost impossible to nd a common denominator for
all of the CB languages showing such phenomena.
6.2 Subject and object cases in Slavic, Baltic and Finnic:

Nominative, accusative, genitive, partitive
Only in Baltic (apart from Low Latvian), are the three cases nominative, accusa-
tive and genitive clearly distinguished from each other: each of the cases
within the same number has its own sets of forms, dierent from those of the
other two cases.29 Only in Lithuanian and High Latvian may a subject be in the
nominative or the genitive and an object in the accusative or the genitive
Standard Latvian usually has only accusative for objects and tends to lose the
genitive as an option for the subject as well. Moreover, Low Latvian is on the verge
of losing the genitive case altogether the genitive tends to be substituted for by
the nominative (in the subject function or in combination with nominal quanti-
ers), the accusative (in the object function) or the dative (in the function of
adnominal possessors and other adnominal modiers, especially if high on the
animacy scale).
In Eastern and Western Slavic, only some of the existing paradigms clearly hold
apart the three cases, which will here be illustrated by Russian. Thus, in Russian,
only singular nouns with the ending -a in the nominative (i.e. mostly feminine
a-stems, which is, however, one of the most important declensions) and feminine
singular adjectives consistently distinguish among the three cases. In all the other
instances, the form of the so-called accusative case is identical either to that of the
nominative case or to that of the accusative case, mainly depending on the animacy
of the noun in question. Also, due to its importance for various syntactic rules in
the language, the status of the accusative as a separate case in Russian is never
questioned. Table 6 shows the situation in the two most productive nominal
paradigms in Russian.
Table 6.Most productive nominal paradigms in Russian

I declension II declension
sg pl sg pl
Inanimate Animate Inanimate Animate Inanimate Animate
nom -a -i -i -i -i
acc -u -i -a -i -ov
gen -i -a -a -ov -ov
In Finnic, the accusative is much more controversial as a consequence of the

merger of the former accusative ending *-m with the genitive *-n. Finnish is slightly
reminiscent of Russian: some words distinguish among three dierent forms, while
for the others, the accusative is identical to the genitive (in the singular) or to the
nominative (in the plural). All nominals have also a special partitive case which has
grammaticalized from a separative case (see below). However, the only words which
distinguish among the nominative, genitive, accusative and partitive are personal
pronouns and the interrogative pronoun kuka who, as illustrated in Table 7.
Table 7.Grammatical case markers in Finnish

Nouns sg Nouns pl Personal pronounsa
nom -t
acc -n -t -t
gen -n -n/-(C)en -n
prtv -(t)a/ -(t)a/ -(t)a/
a
The table disregards some further complications in the inection of pronouns.
In Estonian, even pronouns lack a special accusative form. This minimal linguistic
dierence leads to dierences in the Finnish and Estonian linguistic traditions. For
case marking of objects Finnish grammatical rules make reference to the accusative,
partitive and nominative cases, whereas Estonian rules operate with the genitive
singular/nominative plural, partitive and nominative in our opinion, a fairly
clumsy solution. However, rst and second person singular pronouns in Estonian
dier from other nominals: their partitive form covers, so to speak, both the
partitive and the accusative uses. The other Finnic languages are further variations
of the Finnish (e.g., Karelian and Votic) or the Estonian (e.g. Veps) systems. In
Livonian, nally, the genitive has merged for the majority of nouns with the
nominative even in the singular (and the partitive case shows a tendency to be
generalized as the object case, cf. Section 6.3.1).
Occasional instances of identity between partitive case forms and other case
forms across Finnic can hardly shake its status as a separate case. In Sami, on the
other hand, the partitive case exists only in the Eastern branch and only in the
singular. The older partitive plural forms across Sami have been reinterpreted as the
accusative forms: in all Sami varieties, nominals in the plural distinguish among the
nominative, genitive and accusative, whereas in the singular, the two latter coincide
against the patterns of markedness.
6.3 Alternations in subject and object marking:

Partitive/genitive vs. accusative/nominative
6.3.1Alternations in object marking
A suitable starting-point for the discussion may be the Finnish system, which is
probably the one that has received most attention in the literature. Finnish grammars
traditionally make a distinction between Total and Partial objects which in nite
clauses corresponds to accusative-marked and partitive-marked objects, respective-
ly. In non-nite clauses Total objects take the nominative case (see 6.4). In Finnish,
a direct object Total only if the following conditions are met:
1. the verb is not negated
2. the referent of the direct object undergoes a well-dened change as a result of
the verbal action, e.g. he built a house (hn rakensi talon), and/or the direct
object measures out the verbal action, as in he read two letters (hn luki kaksi
kirjeett);30 this is a subset of the contexts in which other languages typically use
the perfective aspect of the verb
3. the referent of the direct object is quantitatively delimited, i.e. is an individual
or a denite quantity of something (e.g., a glass of milk rather than just milk).
Particularly condition 2 is given in a deliberately simplied form here, and there are
also lexical idiosyncrasies: some verbs, for instance, only take partitive and not
accusative objects. There are also certain exceptions to rule 1 (cf. Almqvist 1987).
If any of the conditions (13) is not met, the partitive is used: in such cases we
have Partial objects, as in Example (4). The conditions are visualized in the ow-
chart (Figure 2) from Dahl & Karlsson (1975, slightly modied; lexical idiosyncra-
sies not included).
Negated sentence?
+
Partial Perfective aspect?
object
+
IndeWnite Partial
quantity? object
+
Partial Total
object object
Figure 2.Case assignment to objects in Finnish.
Note that any semantic type of entity may turn up as Partial objects, not only mass
nouns and plural nouns (typically referring to indenite quantities), but also
concrete nouns in the singular referring to discrete objects, as the word apple in
example (4b).
(3) Total object = (1a)

Si-n omena-n.
eat:impf-1sg apple-acc
I ate an/the apple.
(4) Partial object
a. En synyt omena-a.
neg.1sg eat:part2 apple-prtv
I did not eat/was not eating an/the apple. (condition 1)
b. Si-n omena-a. = (1b)
eat:impf-1sg apple-prtv
I was eating an/the apple. (Sulkala & Karjalainen 1992: 115) (condition 2)
c. Matti osti olu-tta.
Matti buy:impf.3sg beer-prtv
Matti bought (some) beer. (Alho 1992: 3) (condition 3)
d. Fred ihailee lingviste-j/*lingvist-it
Fred admire:3sg linguist-prtv.pl/*linguist-acc.pl
Fred admires linguists (ibid.: 5) (lexically determined)
Note that the traditional denition of Partial objects as being used when the
object is only partially aected is misleading in that if a part of a denite object is
aected by the verbal action, the elative rather than the partitive is often used, e.g.
sin omena-sta (apple-elat) I ate (a piece from) the apple (cf. Koptjevskaja-
Tamm this volume on similar terminological problems with the term partitive).
Most other Finnic languages represent variations on the same theme (if we
ignore the partly terminological confusion relating to the status of the accusative as
a case). Where, in Finnish, the case alternation of the object may express aspectual
dierences on its own, in other languages, aspect is expressed by the presence or
absence of a verbal bounder. Thus, Metslang (this volume) argues that the verbal
particle ra in Estonian is systematically used together with Total objects to ensure
perfectivity of the clause. Modern Livonian, in which the nominative and the
genitive-accusative have merged for most paradigms, shows a tendency to general-
ize the use of the partitive case to all objects (especially in contexts where the
genitive-accusative is not distinct from the nominative) thus, probably, replicat-
ing what once happened in Sami (cf. above).
In Baltic and Slavic, the genitive takes the place of the Finnish partitive. In
Lithuanian, the genitive is used for direct objects
if the verb is negated;
or if the NP is not quantitatively delimited (i.e. refers to an indenite quantity)
The Lithuanian system, thus, diers from Finnic systems in that aspectual consider-
ations (cond. 2 for Finnish objects) are not relevant. There are, thus, fewer contexts
which trigger the use of Partial objects, and the genitive case is undoubtedly the
marked option for objects in positive clauses. Where aspectual dierences are
connected to the alternation in the object case marking in Finnic, similar distinc-
tions in Lithuanian are often expressed by the choice of verbal bounders, primarily
prexes. Those verbs that always govern genitives can be characterized as imper-
fective or even stative, e.g. laukti wait for, bijoti be afraid of .31 The ow-chart in
Figure 3 summarizes the factors determining the choice between Total and Partial
objects in Lithuanian (again, lexical idiocyncrasies are not accounted for).
Negated sentence?
+
Partial IndeWnite
object quantity?
+
Partial Total
object object
Figure 3.Case assignment to objects in Lithuanian.
In Latvian, genitive objects mainly occur in negated clauses and with certain verbs
such as e.g. trukt lack,32 but on the whole, the use of the genitive for objects is
considerably reduced as compared to Lithuanian, except for the High Latvian
dialect (cf. Berg-Olsen 1999 for a detailed study of the genitive in Latvian; Balode &
Holvoet this volume, a, Section 5.1.12 attribute a higher degree of retention of the
genitive uses in High Latvian to Slavic inuence. Cf. also Kangere & Boiko this
volume on the comparison between the Estonian and Latvian object marking).
The Polish system is to a certain degree reminiscent of the Lithuanian one, but
Partial objects are still less frequent. Again, direct objects are obligatorily put in the
genitive
if the verb is negated.
In non-negated clauses, genitive objects occur more rarely than in Lithuanian since
they refer to quantitatively undelimited entities almost exclusively in the
context of perfective verbs.
Thus, the Polish system which seems to be representative for a number of Slavic
languages signicantly diers from the Finnic system. Both the partitive in
Finnish and the genitive marking in Polish are sensitive to aspect, but in opposite
directions: the former is favoured by imperfective, the latter by perfective contexts.
The major dierence is, however, in the relative impact of aspectual characteristics
in a clause on the possible occurrence of a Partial object in it. Thus, in Finnish, the
imperfective context per se leads to the marking of the object as Partial the two
conditions, imperfectivity and indenite quantity operate in disjunction, each

of them being sucient for triggering the partitive marking on objects. In Polish,
on the contrary, aspectual characteristics provide an additional restriction on the
occurrence of Partial objects.
The Finnish ban on Total objects in imperfective contexts (condition 2), absent
from Baltic and Polish, leads, consequently, to considerable dierences in the types
of entities that can turn up as Partial objects in non-negated clauses. Thus, in both
Polish and Lithuanian this does not hold for Finnish however (cf. the partitive
marking on the word apple in example (4b)) discrete entities in positive clauses
are not normally marked by the genitive. (For an insightful analysis of the semantics
of the objective genitive in Polish vs. partitive in Finnish cf. Holvoet 1991: 99102.)
However, even in Polish and Lithuanian, discrete entities can be marked in the
genitive, when used as direct objects to verbs such as to give, to lend and to
borrow with the meaning of temporarily restricted usage. That is, the genitive
marking on objects to such verbs is used to emphasize that the corresponding
referents are given, lent, borrowed etc. for a little while, whereas the accusative
marking lacks this implication. A similar distinction is known also in Finnish.
(5) a. Polish
Daj mi owk-a.
give:imp me pencil-gen
Hand me a pencil (for a while). (Holvoet 1991: 110)
b. Lithuanian
Duok man peilio (neilgam, tuoj sugrainsiu).
give:imp I:dat knife:gen (not:long:dat immediately give_back:fut.1sg
Give me the knife for a while, I will shortly give it back to you.
(Larsson 1983: 135)
c. Finnish
Anna-han tnne kirves-t-ni.
give:imp-part here:ill ax-prtv-poss.1sg
Give here my axe (for a while) (Larsson 1983: 87)
Russian basically follows the Polish rules, but in a much more optional fashion. The
genitive can be used for objects after negation, although much more optionally than
in Finnic, Lithuanian and Polish. The choice between the nominative or accusative,
on the one hand, and the genitive, on the other, is sensitive to various factors,
including deniteness (e.g., Timberlake 1975), and on the whole, the genitive has
been steadily losing its terrain to these other cases for a long time. The genitive is
also used somewhat marginally with quantitatively unlimited objects, but again,
only if the verb is in the perfective aspect. In these contexts, a special partitive
form in -u may be used with some masculine nouns instead of the usual genitive in
-a (this form is sometimes attributed to Finnic inuence, Veenker 1967).33
Most of the Russian dialects show the same system as Standard Russian and Polish.
However, in Northern Russian dialects, genitive objects occur in other contexts as

well. Thus,
imperfective verbs combine fairly freely with genitive objects (kuajte strjapni-to
moej, kuajte lepeek Eat my cooking (gen), eat (some of the) cakes (gen), the
dialect of Tipinicy, Medveegorsk, Karelia).
In contrast to Standard Russian, but similarly to Polish, discrete entities in
Northern Russian can turn up as genitive objects in clauses with the meaning
of temporarily restricted usage: the typical verbs here are take, get, send,
ask for etc. (vozmu topora u vas I will take the axe (gen) from you,
Kostjanka Kotlass, Arxangelsk).
In addition, there is a large group of verbs (perception, cognition, emotion)
which regularly combine with the genitive. In older Russian, these verbs could
also take genitive objects, but in the modern Standard language, the accusative
is the only option (Kuzmina 1993: 2839).
The discussion in this section is summarized in Table 8.
Table 8.Contexts triggering the use of Partial objects in some CB languages

Finnish Lithuanian Polish Russian Northern
Russian
Clausal negation + + + (+) (+)

a
Aspect impf (perf)a a
(perf)a
a a a a
Indeterminate quantity + + + + +
Look for, wait for + + + + +
Perception verbs + (+) +
Temporarily restricted usage + + + +
a
The two conditions (perfective and indeterminate quantity) operate in conjunction, i.e. Partial
objects may occur only when both conditions are met.
As is clear from the table, the only cases where all the languages would more or less
refer to the use of Partial objects are provided by perfective contexts and
quantitatively indenite objects. Or, put slightly dierently, the opposition between
Total and Partial objects in Finnish, Polish and Russian is relevant only for non-
negated perfective contexts, whereas it is neutralized in imperfective ones. This
makes actually sense: as Dahl (1978: 23) writes, if you are in the process of drinking
a bottle of beer, the quantity that you have consumed at the moment in question is
likely to be indenite, although the nal quantity might be well-dened. When an
action is bounded (in perfective contexts), you are in a much better position to
judge whether it has aected a quantitatively indenite object or not. The languages
under consideration dier as to how much and in what direction they generalize the
object marking rules in cases where the opposition is less relevant. In Finnish, only
quantitavely denite objects that are aected in their entirety by verbal actions are
treated as Total objects although being prototypical in many respects, these are
not extremely frequent. Russian chooses the other extreme position the Total
object marking (the accusative case) is the default option, and the genitive is chosen
only when there are good reasons for opposing it to the Accusative. Lithuanian,
Northern Russian and Polish provide cases in-between.
6.3.2Alternations in subject marking

Normal subjects in Circum-Baltic languages look more or less like the prototypical
subjects of numerous other languages, including Standard Average European:
they occur in preverbal position;
they are in the nominative case (for standard Scandinavian languages and a
large portion of other SAE languages this is true only for pronouns); and
they trigger predicate agreement (again, restricted in the Scandinavian case).
Existential clauses are, of course, not a good place to look for normal subjects
and this is more than true for Finnic, Baltic and Eastern Slavic. Existential subjects
often occur after the verb and alternate between the nominative and the partitive/
genitive case marking the latter choice leads automatically to non-agreement of
the predicate.
The most grammaticalized case alternation is provided by Finnic again
illustrated here by Finnish. An existential subject receives partitive marking (i.e.
turns up as a Partial subject), no longer triggers verb agreement (the verb is always
marked for the third person singular) and typically appears in the non-initial
position in a clause, if
it refers to a quantitatively non-delimited entity (indenite quantity) (condi-
tion 1) and/or
the clause is negated (condition 2)
(6) Total subjects
Kirj-at o-vat pyd-lla.
book-nom.pl be.pres-3pl table-adess
The books were on the table.
(7) Partial subjects
a. Pyd-ll o-n kirj-oja.
table-adess be.pres-3sg book-prtv.pl
There are (some) books on the table. (Alho ibid.) (condition 1)
b. Vallankumous-ta ei tapahtu-nut. = (2)
revolution-prtv not:3sg happen-nfin.past
A/The revolution did not take place. (condition 2)
c. Sinu-a ei ollut siell.

you-prtv not:3sg be:nfin.past there
You were not there (Maria Vilkuna) (condition 2)
Whereas both these conditions on the use of the partitive case unite existential
subjects with objects, there is also a crucial dierence between the two entities:
aspectual dierences have no bearing on the marking of existential subjects, in
contrast to objects.
Now, the notion existential clause is used here in an extremely broad sense.
The nominative/partitive alternation is a big issue in Fennistics (cf. e.g. Hakulinen
& Karlsson 1979 and Vhmki 1987 for Finnish, Nemvalts 1996 for Estonian, to
mention just a few publications). Typical verbs which appear in such sentences
express being, existence (at some place and/or time), coming into existence (event
or action), ceasing to exist (event or action), secretion, movement and gathering.
However, even typically actional verbs, such as work may occasionally turn up in
existential clauses, when the existential part of its meaning is foregrounded:
(8) Finnish (Hakulinen & Karlsson 1979: 105)
Tehtaassa tyskentelee jopa 10-vuotiaita lapsia.
factory:iness work:pres.3sg even 10-year.old:pl.prtv child:pl.prtv
There are even ten-year-old children working in the factory.
Finally, such verbs as cough/sneeze/snore or shout/yell/scream/bark, have lunch,

dance, do gymnastics are very unlikely in existential clauses, as in example (9b).
However, even here, the restriction is not absolute: with most verbs it is possible to
imagine a situation where the partitive under negation is marginally interpretable,
if you take the whole statement as an existential claim and add a suitable locative
phrase, as in (9c) (Maria Vilkuna p.c.):
(9) Finnish
a. Koira haukkuu.
dog:nom bark:pres.3sg
The dog is barking.
b. Koira / *Koira-a ei hauku.
dog:nom / *dog-prtv not:3sg bark:nfin.pres
The/A dog is not barking.
c. Kyl-ss ei en hauku yh-t-n koira-a.
village-iness not:3sg any-more bark:nfin.pres one-prtv-part dog-prtv
Theres no dog barking in the village anymore. (Maria Vilkuna, p.c.)
Actually, contexts allowing partitive-marked subjects under negation consist of two

layers, or the core and the periphery. With the most frequently used, prototypically
existential verbs, the partitive marking can apply to bare singular nominals (Exam-
ple (7b)) and even denite ones (Example (7c)). Such verbs often take partitive-
marked subjects even in positive clauses. A larger group of verbs allow partitive-
marked subjects only with negative quantiers such as not a single, no one and the
like, as in Example (9c). This is visualized in Figure 4.
Verbs allowing
Partial subjects more
rarely
Most frequent/
prototypical verbs
allowing Partial subjects
Partitive marking
applies only to
subjects with
negative
Partitive marking can quantiWers
apply to bare singular
nominals and even
deWnite ones.
Partitive subjects
possible in non-
negated clauses
Figure 4.Verbs taking genitive subjects in Finnish.
There are also considerable dierences across Finnic: thus, whereas in Finnish every
verb that combines with a partitive subject may, under other conditions, take a
normal nominative subject, in Estonian at least four verbs only take partitive to the
exclusion of nominative subjects jaguma and piisama to be enough, suce,
jtkuma to last and tunduma to be felt (Nemvalts 1996: 77). Also, even though
existential verbs are normally intransitive, transitive verbs combining with Partitive
subjects have been attested in Veps, e.g. ende kikat pidelbad morsmd earlier
(many) married women (prtv) used to wear caps (Osnovy 1975: 108) (the verb
pidelbad agrees in number with the subject).
Roughly, the same two conditions negation and indenite quantity
govern the alternation between the genitive and nominative case marking on Baltic
and Russian existential subjects, but on a signicantly more restricted scale. In
Latvian the genitive for subjects is used optionally and relatively seldom in the
colloquial language (recall that the object genitive is also very restricted in Latvian).
Berg-Olsen (1999) shows that e.g. in subjects with the verb but to be in its
existential usage the percentage of genitives diers considerably between written
language (newspapers) and oral language (interviews) (94% vs. 49%). This points
also to a rather great dierence between the Latvian written norm and the colloqui-
al language in general. As with the object genitive, the subject genitive is found
more often in High Latvian and is almost non-existent in Low Latvian.
In both Russian and Lithuanian, the clearest instances of predicates requiring
obligatory genitives is the negative existential copula (for Lithuanian nera, for
Russian, net with its various tense-mood counterparts and its close synonym ne
imetsja < not have-refl). Genitive subjects with a meaning of indenite quantity
may occur in positive clauses, but only with a semantically restricted set of intransi-
tive verbs. These verbs normally express a process implying quantication and
measure and typically include (Leinonen 1985: 95, Ambrazas 1997: 504):
perfective verbs with prexes which explicitly signal accumulation in great
quantity, thoroughness of the action, exhaustiveness, involvement of many
entities (e.g. prexes na- and pere- in Russian, pri- in Lithuanian);
verbs denoting a change of quantity, such as pribyvat/pribavljatsja (Rus.),
(pa)daugeti (Lith) increase and ubyvat/ubavljatsja (Rus.), (su)maeti (Lith.)
decrease;
the verbs dostavat, xvatat to be enough, sucient in Russian they always
require genitive subjects, cf. with Estonian above;
the verbs rastis/atsirasti be found, pasitaikyti be found, likti remain, buti
be, utekti, pakakti suce, be enough etc. in Lithuanian.
Signicantly, Standard Russian does not allow genitive subjects with the verbs in the
last group the most existential ones in the whole list, but having in fact nothing
to do with quantication per se! Once again, as was the case with objects, the notion
of indenite quantity is more typical of Lithuanian genitives and is less dependent
on the context of the predicate than is the case with Russian.
These restrictions are successfully eliminated in some of the Northern Russian
dialects, where two main subtypes of such sentences are attested (Kuzmina
1993: 116):
those which denote the existence of a large quantity/amount of entities, e.g.
komarov-to u nas byvaet mosquitoes:gen at we:gen be:hab.pres.3sg = we
usually have a lot of mosquitoes (celejki, Leningrad region), and
those which lack the quanticational aspect altogether and merely state the
occurrence/existence of entities, e.g. tam bylo i staryx monaxov there
be:past.3sg.neut also old:gen.pl monk:gen.pl = there were old monks too
(Pedaselga, Karelia).
These latter examples are particularly prominent in the dialects spoken in the
vicinity of Lake Onega, where the Russian population has a heavy ethnic admixture
of Karelian, Veps and Ludian elements. Even statistically, more than 35% of all the
1350 examples with genitive subjects gathered for the Atlas of Russian dialects come
from that relatively small area. The semantics and frequency of these instances leave
no doubts about the role of the Finnic inuence on their development.
In Polish, genitive subjects (found in existential contexts and with negation) are
much more restricted than genitive objects (cf. Holvoet 1991: 129135). In existen-
tial contexts there may be a dierence of meaning between nominative and genitive.
Thus Ojca (gen) nie byo w domu Father was not at home in contrast to Ojciec
(nom) nie by w domu would be adequate when the father was not found at home
at a given moment whereas the latter could be used if the father was seen at another
place at the relevant moment (Holvoet 1991: 131, referring to Klebanowska).
In Czech, the genitive subject is even more restricted, to about three verbs and
some idioms (cf. Short 1993: 512). In Lower Sorbian, the genitive is rarely found as
a facultative variant of the nominative. In Upper Sorbian it can occur only with the
particle ani (Stone 1993: 668).
To summarize, genitive subjects are most common in Finnish, Estonian and
Northern Russian dialects. While Lithuanian makes frequent use of them, they
become more and more rare in Modern Latvian. In Polish and Russian they are
more common than in other Slavic languages such as Czech and Sorbian. There
seems to be a general parallelism to the frequency of genitive objects in all languages
of the region.
6.4 Nominative object

Ambrazas (this volume) sheds new light on the old and intensive debate about the
phenomenon of nominative objects in the eastern Baltic area. In Finnic, as well as
Baltic and Northern Russian dialects, there are several constructions in which the
object appears in the nominative case and not in the accusative, which would
otherwise be the natural choice. Such cases are also amply attested in Old Russian
legal and ocial documents from the 12th to the 16th centuries written in the
Northern Russian area:
(10) a. Old Northern Russian (Domostroj, 16th c. quoted in Timberlake 1974:15)
ino dostoiti muu [ena svoja
part t:pres.sg husband:dat [wife:nom refl.poss.nom.fem.sg
nakazyvati]
punish:inf
It is tting for a man to punish his wife.
b. Lithuanian (Southern Lithuania, Prienai: Ambrazas this volume)
Butu gerai [altinis radus]
be:3.opt nice:adv [spring:nom nd:past.ger
It would be nice to nd a spring.
c. Estonian
Vta raamat!
take:imp book:nom
Take the book!
Constructions in which nominative objects occur throughout the dierent languag-

es are listed in Table 9.
Table 9. Contexts for nominative objects in Old and Modern Northern Russian, Baltic and
Finnic (based on the descriptions in Timberlake 1974 and Kuzmina 1993)
Old Northern Russian, Baltic, Finnic
modern NR dialects
objects of the innitive is: the innitive is:

innitives either independent, or the subject of
the subject of the matrix predicate, both impersonal predi-
verbal and non-verbal, or cates (necessitive
the subject of a past passive participle gov- constructions), or
erned by an INF of the above listed types. governed by a
noun in special
contexts, or
governed by such
an innitive, an
impersonal passive
or an imperative
objects of gerunds Lith: gerunds impersonal
impersonals (converbs) gov- Ltv: debitives passives
incl. impera- erned by an INF of (necessitive con- imperatives
tives the above listed structions)
types (rarely)
All these environments in the languages under consideration share one

common feature: they systematically lack an overt personal subject (cf. Timberlake
1974). The exact inventory of verbal categories and syntactic contexts which are
systematically impersonal depends on the structure of the given language. Another
common feature of these constructions is the selective application of the nomina-
tive marking rule to dierent lexical classes: Table 10 shows which types of nom-
inals are not hit by the nominative-object rules.
In Timberlakes (1974) analysis, the set of nominals which appear in the
nominative may be dened as those which are not grammatically animate.
There is an extensive literature on Northern Russian nominative object
constructions, which have been one of the central issues of Russian dialectology and
historical syntax. The problems arising around the nominative object in Baltic
Table 10.Animacy hierarchy as manifested in nominative-object constructions

Old Northern Russiana Balticb Finnic
personal pronouns, adjecti- personal pronouns 12, personal pronouns 13, the
val pronouns, animate mas- reexive pronoun animate interrogative pro-
culine nouns noun
a
For non-masculine nouns, the dierence between the nominative and the accusative cases is seen only
in singular nouns with the ending -a. Timberlake argues at length that the nominative object rule aects
other feminine nouns too, even though this is not always visible. The modern Northern Russian
situation is dierent.
b
The marking as described in the table holds especially for the object in the debitive construction in
Latvian in those Latvian dialects that do not use the accusative case in the debitive construction (cf. (15)
for examples). In the High Latvian dialect of Aknste, even the pronouns of the rst and second person
are found with nominative marking in object position (Anctis 1977).
languages have also been known at least since Jablonskis work in the 1930s. The
central issue in areal studies is whether these constructions are the result of parallel
development in Finnic, Northern Russian and Baltic or whether they witness of
contact-induced changes, primarily in North Russian and Baltic. For Northern
Russian, it has been alternatively argued that constructions innitive + nomina-
tive are either a relict from common Slavic (e.g. Kiparsky 1946, 1960; Vahros
1959), the result of grammatical neutralization, parallel to but independent from
Finnic (Dunn 1986), or the result of Finnic inuence (Timberlake 1974).
Ambrazas (this volume) argues that both hypotheses the one claiming that
impersonals with nominative objects in Baltic were the further development of an
old Indo-European construction and the one appealing to contacts with Finnic
hold for Baltic. The inherited Indo-European construction, in which the nomina-
tive was used as the subject of the matrix verb which combined with an action
nominal in the purposive dative, was later reanalyzed and acquired its impersonal
character under Finnic inuence. As shown by Holvoet (1993), a somewhat similar
reanalysis from the nominative subject to the nominative object accompanied the
grammaticalization of debitive constructions in Latvian.
Nominative object constructions in modern Russian dialects have been subject
to several important changes as compared to the Old Northern Russian situation,
already noted by Timberlake (1974: 104114). First of all, nominative objects are no
longer restricted to systematically impersonal contexts, but appear even as objects
to nite verbs: this is undoubtedly a further extension of the original contexts
triggering the nominative-object rule. In Russian, such constructions are, at least
occasionally, attested in dierent geographical regions, including Southern Russia,
where any Finno-Ugric interference is excluded. However, their distribution is
strikingly uneven (Kuzmina 1993: 721). First, a regular, frequent occurrence of
nominative object constructions34 is characteristic for a relatively well-dened
geographic region in the north-western part of Russia (the dialects of Arxangelsk,

Olonets and the Western, i.e. Novgorod, and Eastern, i.e. Vologda-Vjatka groups of
Northern Russian). Second, in these dialects, the absolute majority (= 70%) of
nominative objects occur in impersonal necessitative constructions of the type
nado/pora topit pecka it.is.necessary/it.is.time to.heat (the) oven:nom, as opposed
to personal constructions like Ja topila pecka I heated (the) oven:nom. In the other
dialects, where nominative objects are used more sporadically, impersonal contexts
constitute no more than 25% of all the occurrences.
Thus, dialects with a high frequency of nominative object constructions tend to
restrict them to those contexts which served as a starting point for their further
development. Whatever their initial origin may be, their geographically distributed
peculiarities are highly symptomatic and must be taken as a result of prolonged
linguistic contacts between the Russian and Finnic (Karelian and Ludian) popula-
tions (see especially Sahrimaa 1992).
6.5 Alternations in subject and object marking: Genetic and typological

connections
6.5.1Total vs. Partial subjects/objects
The alternation between accusative-marked Total and genitive-marked Partial
objects is well-known from some of the older Indo-European languages e.g.
Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Gothic, Old High German and Middle Low German
(Brugmann & Delbrck 18971990: 575). Such alternation is restricted to a few
semantic groups of verbs (e.g. to eat, desire, touch upon), where total aected-
ness/quanticational delimitation and/or negation, but hardly aspectual consider-
ations inuence the choice between the two cases. Occasional cases of genitive
subjects are also attested in Classical Greek, Avesta, Umbrian and Gothic
(ibid.: 567), but nowhere on a scale even slightly comparable with the modern
situation in Baltic and Russian.
Uralic on the whole makes frequent use of two case forms to distinguish
between indenite, mass or otherwise non-individuated objects these normally
appear in the non-marked form (the same as the nominative case) and others,
which take the accusative or genitive (e.g., in Mordvin, Permic, Samoyed). This
system is, of course, fairly familiar from numerous other languages. Another
typically Uralic way of doing things is to have two verbal conjugations of which one
is reserved for verbs that take denite or individuated objects (e.g. in Hungarian,
Mordvin, across Samoyedic, etc.). The object conjugation in Mordvin is used to
mark perfective aspect for transitive verbs; it is, however, not sensitive to negation.
Sami and Mordvin are those Finno-Ugric languages which show most anities
with the Finnic object marking system, although on a much lesser scale. In Sami, as
mentioned in Section 6.2, the accusative plural originated as the partitive plural,
which points to earlier usages of the partitive case to mark objects. In Mordvin, the
so-called ablative case (genetically the same as the Finnic partitive) can be used to
mark objects to a few verbs, most notably quantitatively unlimited objects to such
verbs as to eat (jarsams) and to drink (simems), an object to the verb pealems to
be afraid of and a few others. Aspectual considerations seem to play some role here,
but not negation. Note that this is also combined with the Uralic system of oppos-
ing non-marked to case-marked (genitive) objects and having two conjugations,
not to mention the use of denite suxed articles on nouns.
Larsson (1983; also this volume, Section 5.1) suggests that these uses of the
Mordvin ablative reect the general Proto-Finnic-Volgaic stage, which further
developed in Finnic under Baltic inuence. Although we hardly question the latter
part of the hypothesis (i.e., the plausibility of the assumption that Baltic could have
played an important role in the grammaticalization of the partitive case in Finnic),
we doubt its rst part. Most of the uses of the ablative case in Mordvin look like
relicts of an older system it has, for instance, no concrete locative uses left and
it is dicult to imagine that this system can present a fair picture of the Proto-
Finnic-Volgaic situation.
It should be noted that the alternation between accusative- and ablative-
marked objects is attested in many other languages, as the following Hungarian
examples show:
(11) Hungarian (Edith Moravcsik p.c.)
a. Ettem a kenyer-et.
eat:pret.1sg the bread-acc
I was eating/I ate the bread
b. Ettem a kenyer-bol
eat:pret.1sg the bread-abl
I was eating/ate some of the bread
The use of the ablative case in (11b) is, however, comparable not to the partitive,
but rather to the elative case in Finnish (cf. the discussion following Example (3) in
Section 6.3.1). The ablative marking in Example (11b) implies partitivity with
respect to a denite set (some of the bread) and not indenite quantity of a certain
kind per se. Such examples probably originate as sentences involving partitive
nominal constructions with nominal quantiers like to eat a slice/part etc. of the
bread from which the quantier itself is dropped (cf. Kornlts 1996 analysis of
similar cases in Turkish). Although typical partitive-marked objects crucially dier
from that in sentences like (11b) in their semantics, it is possible that partitive and
pseudo-partitive nominal constructions served as a basis for the grammaticalization
for the partitive case in Finnish. As shown in Koptjevskaja-Tamm (this volume)
markers used for referring to subsets of denite and/or presupposed sets, may be
further extended to refer to quantity in general. There is an additional parallel
between the Hungarian and Finnic constructions, namely aspectual factors:
Hungarian verbs with perfectivizing prexes do not allow ablative objects. Two
possible diachronic scenarios for the grammaticalization of partitive (= ablative)
marked Partitive objects in Finnic are visualized in Figure 5: in principle, each of the
two processes (dropping of nominal quantiers and semantic extension from
denite sets to kinds of entities) may both precede or follow the other one.
Starting point:
Verbs taking objects built as
nominal constructions
with nominal quantifiers
indicating a subset of
a deWnite set (partitive adnominal constructions)
Nominal quantiWer No nominal quantiWer
DeWnite set to eat a slice of the bread to eat of the bread

presupposed
No deWnite set to eat a slice of bread to eat of bread

presupposed
Figure 5.Possible developments of Partial object marking in Finnish from partitive

adnominal constructions.
From the typological point of view, it is somewhat dicult to nd exact

counterparts to the phenomena we are talking about here, even though dierentia-
tion of subject and object marking depending on such factors as deniteness,
animacy, totality etc. are quite widespread. (See e.g. Hopper & Thompson 1980 on
the dierent degrees of transitivity as reected in object marking.) The implementa-
tion of these factors in the systems found in the Baltic area seems fairly rare, to say
the least a careful investigation of how these systems have developed and
inuenced each other is likely to further our understanding of these phenomena.
The highly grammaticalized Finnic way of dealing with aspectual distinctions
through case alternations is particularly rare among the worlds languages (sten
Dahl p.c.). However, as we have seen in the preceding sections, the systems in the
CB languages considerably dier as to the exact factors governing case alternations,
which makes it dicult to contrast these languages as a group to others in which
subjects and objects may choose among several marking options.
It is also interesting that the case alternations cover both objects and at least
some subjects normally less subject-like subjects. The Unaccusative Hypothesis,
according to which intransitive verbs are split among those that take good
subjects and those that actually take objects (even though the latter may disguise
themselves as subjects under certain conditions), is an obvious alternative to
account for these rules (for Finnish this analysis is more or less assumed in Vainikka
& Maling 1996). We, however, tend to agree with Laitinen and Vilkuna (1993) in
that there is a grey zone between typical objects and typical subjects which can be
divided dierently by dierent rules, thus threatening the idea of unaccusativity.
We conclude this section with the Basque parallel to the Finnic-Baltic-Russian
situation described in the preceding two sections the alternation between the
absolutive and the partitive case (which is sometimes called zerik-case). The
partitive case is assigned for presenting a quantity the exact size of which is not
known or is irrelevant (de Rijk 1972: 139), mainly in negative sentences, indirect
yes-no questions, conditionals. The case alternation again applies both to objects
and intransitive subjects:
(12) Basque (Levin 1989 quoted in Van Valin, Jr. & LaPolla 1997: 303304)
a. Ez d-u. gizon-ak ikusi ikaslea-.
neg 3sg.abs-aux-3sg.erg man-erg see student-abs
The man didnt see a/the student.
b. Ez d-u- gizon-ak ikusi ikasle-rik
ikasle-zerik
The man didnt see any students/a (single) student.
c. *Ez d-u- gizon-ik ikusi liburua-.
book-abs
*Not a man saw the book.
d. Ez d-a gizona- etorri.
neg 3sg.abs-aux man-abs come
A/the man didnt come.
e. Ez d-a gizon-ik etorri.
neg 3sg.abs-aux man-zerik come
No men came.
The correspondence between Basque and Finnish is, however, not as complete as the
examples presented so far suggest. In contrast to Finnish (and to the other relevant
CB languages), the absolutive-partitive alternation in Basque operates on a true
ergative basis and applies to all intransitive subjects.35 Thus, the Finnish transla-
tion of example (13) with the partitive-marked subject would be ungrammatical:
(13) Basque
Ez da ikasle-rik loditu (or: Ikasle-rik ez da loditu)
neg 3sg.abs-aux student-zerik gain.weight
No student(s) gained weight. (Alan King, p.c.)
Interestingly, the partitive sux -rik shows certain similarities with the ablative
sux tik; it has also a number of uses that typically develop from earlier separative
meanings. It would be tempting to see here a historical parallel to the development
of the partitive case in Finnic from a general separative case. The question of
possible diachronic connections between the partitive and the ablative in Basque is,
however, not settled (Alan King, p.c.).
6.5.2Nominative objects
The alternation between the accusative and the nominative cases for object marking
is widely attested in Uralic, but, as mentioned in 6.5.2, it is normally used for
semantic reasons. In some Uralic languages other than Finnic, however, objects to
imperatives appear in the nominative case (non-marked form). Timberlake (1974:
210215) quotes two Samoyedic languages, Nenets and Kamassian as examples of
languages with such a syntactically conditioned alternation between the two cases.
There are at least two dierent explanations for the use of a nominative object
in all these constructions that are both well in line with the two dierent explanato-
ry approaches to the functions of case marking. According to Timberlake (the
characterizing approach), languages with the nominative object assign case for at
least the primary participants according to relative centrality the nominative is
used to designate the most central participant, and the accusative to designate the
less central participants. In languages without the nominative object, the case of
primary participants is assigned according to syntactic function the nominative
designates the absolutely central participant, and the accusative a participant to
whom the action is directed (pp. 98f). In other words, the function of the nomina-
tive case according to Timberlake is to characterize the argument as central (either
relatively to other overt arguments or absolutely). According to Comrie (1975),
who considered primarily Finnish imperative constructions with the nominative
object, the explanation for the nominative is even more straightforward: the
nominative case (the unmarked case) is used when there is no need to oppose two
relatively central arguments to each other (the distinctive theory of case marking).
In other words, the primary function of the privative opposition nominative vs.
Accusative, is to distinguish two central arguments. Since there is no opposition
between object and subject in systematically impersonal constructions, there is no
need to use the accusative case, which is the marked member of the opposition.
Comrie calls constructions which use dierent case marking strategies for the full
and reduced argument loads anti-ergative. Typologically, they are more frequent
in the realm of nominal constructions (as, e.g. nominalizations, Koptjevskaja-
Tamm 1993: 203210). There are, however, in addition to Nenets and Kamassian,
some even more exotic direct parallels to the situation in the Baltic region, as
shown by the following Yindjibarndi example:36
(14) Yindjibarndi (Pama-Nuyngan, Australia: Wordick 1982: 174, 169)
a. ngaarta yungku-nha ngayu murla-yi
man:nom give-past me:obj meat-obj
The man gave me the meat.
b. karlima-nma Warrunha
hold.back-imp Blackie:nom
Hold Blackie back.
All these explanations notwithstanding, there is or has been a certain tension

between the nominative case marking of a noun phrase and its object status in
Finnic, Baltic and Northern Russian. Consider the debitive construction in Latvian,
in which the nominative still betrays its former subject status by occasionally
triggering agreement in the participle form of the auxiliary, as in example (15a).
Such constructions are rare. As Nau (1998) implies by her comments, agreement
may be favoured by the initial position of the nominative NP and the absence of the
necessive agent (debitor). On the other hand, younger speakers show a tendency to
mark the object with the accusative (cf. Kangere & Boiko this volume), as illustrated
in (15b).37 The situation is, however, further complicated by the dierent behaviour
of dierent Latvian dialects regarding nominative or accusative marking of the
object in debitive constructions.
(15) Latvian
a. Lin-i bij-u-i ja-kalte
ax-nom.pl be-nom-pl deb-dry
One had to dry the ax/the ax had to be dried (MLLVG I: 618)
b. Un tie nav noziedzniek-i,
and dem.nom.pl neg:be.3 criminal-nom.pl
[tos ja-lai] majas.
[dem.acc.pl deb-let.go home
And these arent criminals, one had to let them go home. (Nau 1998)
On the whole, Latvian seems to show a tendency to extend the normal object
marking to the domain of nominative object constructions in line with the gen-
eral tendency that has been instrumental in Baltic and Russian for a long time. Thus,
as shown by Ambrazas, nominative objects after innitives have been gradually
disappearing in Baltic. In Northern Russian, even in those dialects where nominative
objects appear regularly, the nominative marking is optional in all these con-
texts, nominative objects alternate with accusative objects, can even be co-ordinated
with them and can combine with adjectival attributes in the accusative case.
Finnish impersonals show the opposite tendency to treat nominative objects
as subjects.38 On the one hand, they show typical object behaviour sensitivity to
aspectual factors in alternating with the partitive: recall from Sections 6.3.1 and
6.3.2 that, although both subjects and objects in Finnish may receive partitive case
marking, they dier in conditions triggering this alternation. On the other hand,
they can be freely co-ordinated with clear subjects:39
(16) Finnish (Maria Vilkuna p.c.)
Anna pyrtyi ja vietiin ulos.
Anna faint:past.3sg and take:past.pass out
Anna fainted and was taken out
Also, there is fairly common and persistent hypercorrect number agreement in

passive compound tenses, an error committed by some speakers/writers: this
phenomenon is certainly supported by the possibility of passive participles as
predicate complements, cf. (17a) and (17b):
(17) Finnish (Laitinen and Vilkuna 1993: 35; Maria Vilkuna p.c.)
a. Naiset ovat luotu(-ja) palvelemaan.
woman:pl be:pres.3pl create:pass.part.(pl.prtv)40 serve:3inf.ill
Women were created to serve.
b. Naiset ovat vahvo-ja.
woman:nom.pl be:pres.pl strong-pl.prtv
Women are strong.
These tendencies are most pronounced in nominals, which has a natural explana-
tion since what seems to count here is the nominative case form of the nominal.
First and second personal pronominal objects normally retain their accusative and,
when co-ordinated with subjects, neither of these can be deleted (the normal
pronominal correspondence to (17) would thus be She:nom fainted and she:acc
was taken away). However, Maria Vilkunas Finnish corpus even contains some
rare instances of pronominal deletion in similar syntactic environments.
It is peculiar that impersonals in Finnish, and more broadly in Finnic, also
show another line of re-analysis as active forms that even can combine with
normal subjects, rst person plural in colloquial Finnish and some of the Finnish
dialects (me sydn omena we:nom eat:pres.pass apple:nom = we eat an apple)
and third person plural in Karelian, Veps, Votic and Ingiran (see Holvoet Sec-
tion 2.1 and Laakso Section 1.2.3.2 this volume).
6.6 Temporal adverbials as objects

The case alternations described in Sections 6.3 and 6.4 are not restricted to direct
objects stricto sensu, but also extend to adverbs specifying the duration of an atelic
situation. Haspelmath (1997) shows that such atelic-extent adverbials often
behave similarly to direct objects cross-linguistically. Given the complex encoding
of objects, atelic-extent adverbials are an interesting object of study in the CB
languages. As a rule, the same principles for the choice of case marking are
operative for objects and temporal adverbials, though to a somewhat lesser degree
for the latter.
(18) Lithuanian (Haspelmath 1997: 125)
a. itie paskutiniai te-dirbo viena valanda
these last still-work:past.3 one:acc hour:acc
These last ones worked just one hour.
b. Taip jus ne-istengete ne vienos valandos pabudeti su

so you neg-manage:2pl not.even one:gen hour:gen wake:inf with
manimi?
me:inst
So you cannot stay with me even for an hour?
This phenomenon is found also in Polish, Russian and Finnish (and, most proba-
bly, in other Eastern Slavic and Finnic languages). In Finnish, such adverbials (and
some others) also behave like objects in nominative object constructions (see
Maling 1993 for a treatment of this phenomenon within the Case-Tier model). Also
in Latvian, atelic extent adverbials may turn up as nominatives in debitive construc-
tions and, sporadically, in constructions with passive participles (Holvoet 1992):
(19) Latvian (Holvoet 1992: 105)
Bekas abi pratui izklut no
Beka:nom.pl both:nom.pl.masc be.able:ppa.nom.pl.masc out-get:inf from
fermas, kur tiem bija jakalpo
farm:gen.sg, where dem.dat.pl.masc be:past deb:serve
lguma gads.
contract:gen.sg.masc year:nom.sg.masc
Both Bekas managed to escape from the farm, where they had to serve a year on
agreement (I. Grebzde)
Timberlake (1974: 77,150) also quotes examples from Old Northern Russian and
Lithuanian dialects in which temporal adverbials and cognate objects are subject to
the nominative object rule. In a number of Modern Russian dialects, atelic extent
adverbials appear in the nominative case, but it is not quite clear how these relate to
constructions with normal nominative object constructions. Thus, they do occur in
all nominative-object dialects, but the highest concentration of nominative-
adverbial constructions is found in two regions outside the Northern Russian zone
(in the vicinity of Tver and in the region between Moscow and Rjazan, Kuzmina
1993: 915).
The Finnic-Baltic-Slavic similarities in the treatment of objects and atelic extent
adverbials (already noted in Timberlake 1974 and Holvoet 1992) are well in line
with the general cross-linguistic tendency observed by Haspelmath (1997: 120126).
Whereas other temporal adverbials often have a special marker which more or less
explicitly shows their function (e.g. after/before/during), atelic extent adverbials are
either not marked at all or are marked with a minimal case. Haspelmath suggests
a tentative explanation that this has to do with a common semantic denominator of
extent phrases and objects: both may constitute bound events. The connection can
be seen particularly clearly in Polish, Russian and Latvian, where temporal extent
modiers become even more object-like when modifying verbs with the perfecti-
vizing prexes prze-, pro- and no-. In Slavic, such verbs obligatorily occur with
accusative objects, including temporal extent phrases (cf. in Russian *pro-cital
pfv-read:past vs. pro-cital knigu pfv-read:past book:acc and *pro-rabotal

pfv-work:past vs. pro-rabotal vsju noc pfv-work:past whole:acc night:acc). In
Latvian extent phrases to no-verbs occur regularly as nominatives in debitive and
passive constructions.
The parallelism between temporal adverbials and direct objects is, however, not
complete in all of the languages involved. Thus, in Polish, temporal adverbials tend
to retain their accusative marking even under negation (at least in the written
languages), whereas direct objects have to be marked with the genitive in similar
contexts (Bjrn Wiemer p.c.). Similarly, in Finnish, temporal adverbials sometimes
prefer the accusative (n-form) in contexts where normal objects always take the
nominative, e.g. in impersonal passives (Maria Vilkuna p.c.).
6.7 Other cases in Slavic, Baltic and Finnic

The discussion so far has concentrated on the central grammatical cases in Slavic,
Baltic and Finnic nominative, genitive, accusative and partitive.
The two other non-local cases in Slavic and Baltic are the dative and the
instrumental both with a wide range of functions partly inherited from Indo-
European, but also eectively extended. The instrumental has been lost as a
morphological case in Latvian (see the papers by Stolz and Kangere & Boiko, this
volume), which has contributed to a certain extension of the functions of the dative
case with which it had merged in the plural. Since both cases were governed by
prepositions, the dative came gradually to mark plural nominals after all preposi-
tions. There are also other pronounced dierences between Latvian and Lithuanian
datives: in Latvian, but not in Standard Lithuanian, datives often appear with
postpositions, as well as with some prepositions derived from adjectives (e.g. ldz
until (< like), blakus besides); in Low Latvian the dative is gradually taking over
part of the functions of the adnominal genitive (cf. Section 6.2). On the other hand,
both Lithuanian and Latvian have such common (and inherited) dative functions
as marking the indirect object, benefactives, purpose, modal actors in necessitive
constructions, dativus absolutus (converbs with dierent subjects) etc.
Interestingly, the dative in Curonian Livonian the only Finnic language that has
developed a distinct dative case has almost the same range of functions as the
dative in Latvian (see Wlchli this volume).
From the point of view of Indo-European languages, the complex local case
systems of Finnic are very aberrant. Eastern Baltic, however, developed a partly
similar system of secondary local cases which is retained by now only in some
Eastern Lithuanian dialects (cf. Tables 11 and 12).
It has been claimed repeatedly that the emergence of a complex local case
system in Eastern Baltic could be due to Finnic inuence (e.g., Thomason &
Table 11.Secondary local cases in Lithuanian

Lithuanian where from? where? where to?
intern local series {prep. i} locative (< loc +*en) illative (< acc + na)
extern local series {prep. nu} adessive (< loc + pi) allative (< gen + pi)
Table 12.Local cases in Finnish

Finnish: where from? where? where to?
intern local series elative -stA inessive -ssA illative -hVn

extern local series ablative -ltA adessive -llA allative -lle
Kaufman 1988: 24243, Balode & Holvoet this volume, b, Section 1.3). This
proposal is problematic, however, for several reasons:
The secondary local cases of Eastern Baltic represent grammaticalizations of
nouns with their postpositions. Similar developments are found also in
Umbrian, Tokharian and Ossete in Indo-European languages.
The functions of the cases do only match to a certain degree. To mention only
two examples, in Finnic (Fin.) jd stay is constructed with illative (where
to?) whereas in Lithuanian pasilikti is constructed with the locative (where?)
(Serebrennikov 1959). Body parts on which clothes are put are marked with
internal local cases in Finnic (thus, you put your hat IN your head and your
gloves IN your hands).
Latvian has taken over (or remodelled, imitated) phraseological constructions
from Finnic consisting of the verb to put and body parts in a locative case, and
of to stay and a noun in a local case. The incompatibility of the Finnic and
Baltic local case systems was removed by syncretism in Latvian. In Latvian,
there is only one locative case left for the functions of inessive, illative, adessive,
and allative. There is, thus, reason to believe that the phraseological incompati-
bility of macro-structurally identical local case systems played a major part in
the breakdown of the local case systems in the core zone of the Finnic-Baltic
contact area.
In Livonian, there is the same kind of syncretism of the local cases as in
Latvian, as seen in Table 13. Only the elative and the inessive are clearly
distinguished (Rudzte & Karma 1980). The old cases are however still used in
some contexts; the illative alternates with the inessive in where to-functions
and the old external series is still used in phraseologically xed expressions (see
Wlchli 1998/99).
Table 13.Local cases in Livonian and Latvian

where from? where? / where to?
Modern Livonian:
intern and extern local series elative -st inessive -s
Latvian:
intern and extern local series {prep. no} locative
6.8 Cases in Swedish and Norwegian dialects

The highly elaborated case systems described in the previous sections nd a striking
contrast in the modern Germanic languages: apart from Icelandic and Faroese, all
of them have been going through a gradual restructuring, reduction and collapse of
their morphological case systems. The Continental Scandinavian languages, as well
as English, have gone particularly far in this development, having eectively lost
case as a morphological category.
However, a number of Northern Swedish and Norwegian dialects (or vernacu-
lars) have preserved certain case distinctions and have, thus, been only partly struck
by the general deectional wave sweeping across the Scandinavian peninsula (see
Rendahl this volume, Section 4). The best survivor among the older cases is the
dative case, and in particular, the dative case of denite nouns (both singular and
plural), which is frequently employed in the Swedish vernaculars of Dalecarlia,
Hrjedalen, Jmtland, Vsterbotten and Norrbotten, and in the Norwegian
vernaculars stretching from Hedmark fylke in the east to Bergen and further to the
north as far as Trndelagen and Helgeland, as well as in the south-western part of
Upper Setesdal (Reinhammar 1973: 1626). The dative case of indenite nouns is
attested mainly in the Orsa, Mora and lvdalian vernaculars to the north of the
Lake Siljan in Dalecarlia (Ovansiljan) the same vernaculars which have retained
the accusative case, which is otherwise very rarely found in the Swedish and
Norwegian vernaculars.
The dative case has been best preserved in the function of the indirect object to
ditransitive verbs such as to give and in the other functions of the old Indo-
European dative, primarily to mark human arguments; datives are also frequently
found with terms for body parts in constructions of the type to blink with ones
eyes, to clap ones hands (ibid.: 242244). The frequency of dative governing
verbs diers signicantly across dialects in some, such as lvdalian, the list of such
verbs contains at least 150 items (cf. Reinhammar 1973: 76212 for the complete
overview of dative-governing verbs in the Swedish and Norwegian dialects).
Interestingly, the use of the dative in some of the modern dialects shows a
greater consistency than in literary Old Swedish, which was strongly inuenced by
Low German and Danish. According to Reinhammar (ibid.: 24748), the dative
with verbs is not attested in those Swedish and Norwegian dialects that have been
spoken in the Finnish-speaking surrounding area.
7. Clause-level syntactic phenomena in the CB area
7.1 Nonverbal predication

Stassen (this volume) discusses an interesting areal property of the CB languages in
the encoding of nonverbal (nominal and adjectival) predicates, such as Peter is a
teacher and Peter is young. With the exception of Germanic languages, Karaim and
Romani, all the languages in the area display double (or even multiple) options in
the case marking of predicate adjectives and nominals, which, thus, choose between
the nominative case and some oblique case. Dierent cases of nonverbal predicates
are used for dierent purposes. The areally most relevant opposition is the one
between time-stable, constant situations (expressed by the nominative case) and
temporary, less stable situations (expressed by the oblique case, such as essive and
translative in Finnic, translative in Mordvin, instrumental in the East-Slavic
languages, Polish and Lithuanian). The choice between the dierent options seems,
thus, to correlate with the dierent positions of the predicates on the Relative Time
Stability Scale, launched by Givn in a number of his works. The notion of time
stability is, however, not equally important for the opposition in all the languages:
thus, in Russian (and Mordvin), the primary factor determining the choice of the
oblique vs. nominative case is the presence or absence of an overt verbal copula. In
addition to time stability, Finnic (and, most extremely, Finnish) uses the partitive
case to mark unboundedness of the subject on predicative nouns, adjectives and
participles (Larsson 1983: 5668), as in example (20):
(20) Finnish (Larsson 1983: 56)
Varpus-et o-vat lintuja
sparrow-pl.nom be-pres.3pl bird:pl.prtv
Sparrows are birds.
Latvian and Lithuanian found other ways to extend case marking on predicative
adjectives and participles. Nonverbal predicates agree with the agent assuming the
dative or the genitive as well, e.g. Lith. Jo (he:gen) buta (be:part.pret.pass.nom.
sg.neut) gudraus (clever:gen) He (apparently) has been clever (Holvoet this
volume, Section 2.2) In Lithuanian double passives, the predicative participle (of
the rst passive) is in the genitive case (cf. example (30a)). In constructions with a
dative subject (e.g. debitive, innitive) the predicative adjective or participle stands
in the dative in Latvian. In Curonian Livonian, it is dicult to say whether the case
marking in non-verbal predication is the traditional Finnic one or the above
mentioned Latvian one because of the merger of the essive and the dative.
Within Uralic, the double encoding of nonverbal predicates depending on time

stability is not only restricted to Finnic, but is also found in Sami, Mordvin and
Komi. This distribution has been used for arguing that the Russian and Polish double
encoding have a Uralic origin. In Indo-European the predicative instrumental is
restricted to Baltic and Slavic; within the latter group its frequency is considerably
higher in the northern languages (East-Slavic, Polish) than in the southern ones.
The Circum-Baltic (or the North-Eastern European) double encoding has
previously been quoted as an example of an areal phenomenon (cf. Matthiassen
1985a,b), without, however, any larger cross-linguistic comparison. Stassen is the
rst to discuss this phenomenon in a broad typological perspective his sample
includes more than 400 languages of the world. It turns out that double encoding,
although fairly infrequent, is by no means unique among the languages of the
world. Stassen provides examples from four other areas which show some form of
similar double encoding. Interestingly, all of them are situated at the fringe of the
Indo-European mega-area, paralleling the Circum-Baltic area. Stassen concludes
with the hypothesis that this double encoding is in essence a non-Indo-European
characteristic, which has been pushed aside by Indo-European expansion, but
which may, in some border areas, continues to exert its inuence on Indo-Europe-
an languages as well.
7.2 Predicative (sentential) possession

Predicative possession in the Circum-Baltic languages, more specically, the absence
of have-verbs in some of them, has also long been considered in the context of areal
inuences (among others, Mathiassen 1985a,b; Stolz 1991: 7376; Nau 1996: 55).
The CB languages display two main strategies for building possessive sentences:
by involving have-verbs (e.g. Swd. Jag har en bok I have a book), and
by involving existential verbs (be) and expressing possessors as locative
phrases (e.g. Rus. U menja est kniga At-me is (a) book, I have a book).
Have-verbs occur in Germanic, Lithuanian, Old Prussian and most of Slavic,
whereas locative-like possessives are mainly attested in Finnic. However, Latvian
and Russian, the two Indo-European languages that have been subject to the
strongest language contacts with Finno-Ugric languages, also employ the locative
type of predicative possession as their dominant strategy. This has been attributed
to Finno-Ugric inuence, although opinions dier as to the relative weight of this
inuence in relation to Indo-European heritage.
Actually, qualifying the absence of a verb to have as an areally relevant
isogloss of Finnic, Russian and Latvian reects a very SAE-centristic viewpoint. On
the basis of a sample of about 400 languages, Stassen (in prep.) shows that the
have-possessive happens to be a cross-linguistically much more marked choice

than the locative-possessive in Finnic, Russian and Latvian.
Even though have-possessives can be found in small islands all over the
world, Europe has the highest concentration of have-verbs in the world. It is
the only basic option for possessive sentences in Germanic, Romance, Alba-
nian, Modern Greek, and Slavic except the Eastern branch.
The locative type41 is very much the Eurasian Way To Do Things. It is
almost unchallenged for Uralic (except for Khanty and Mansi which have a
have-possessive), many Altaic languages, Ket, Daghestanian, Dravidian,
Tibeto-Burman, Munda, Semitic, and Above-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, it
is the option that is invariably chosen for those Indo-European languages that
lack have-verbs (e.g. Celtic, Indic, Anatolian). In short, the Central-Europe-
an, Ob-Ugric and Iranian habeos are islands in an otherwise consistent
Eurasian locative possessive macro-area.
Comparative investigation suggests that in Indo-European languages, have-verbs
are a recent innovation. Have-verbs in dierent IE-branches derive from dierent
etyma (sharing however the original semantics to hold, to grasp).42 Indo-European
most likely had a locative-possessive with a dative possessor, like the Latin
mihi est-construction (cf. Watkins 1967). The only remaining question is, thus,
whether Finnic inuence was a relevant factor for Russian and Latvian to retain or
reintroduce the locative possessive.
The Latvian and the Russian constructions are principally dierent. In Latvian,
the possessor is put in the dative case and might thus reect the original Indo-
European construction which has probably been retained and expanded under
Finnic inuence. In Russian, the possessor is encoded by a prepositional phrase
headed by the preposition u at with the nominal in the genitive case, which looks
like a perfect correspondence to the Finnic adessive case. This indicates that the
Russian sentential possession construction itself is, most probably, a Finnic
borrowing (see Mathiassen 1985a: 128130 for the dierent arguments for and
against this position).
Anyway, the locative strategy in Latvian and Russian is employed much less
exclusively than in Finnic, since the verb have does exist in both languages. Thus,
in Latvian turet (to hold) is used for predicative possession in the High Latvian
dialect and sometimes also in older texts, very much as its cognate verb in Lithuani-
an. In Old Russian, imeti could be used in more contexts in predicative possession
than in Modern Standard Russian. In the modern language it is primarily employed
in sentences referring to more abstract instances of possession, but is also a useful
alternative to locative possessives under special syntactic conditions where the latter
option is impossible, e.g. imperative sentences and innitives embedded under
volitional and modal verbs:
(21) Russian (proverb)

Ne imej sta rublej, a imej
neg have:imp hundred:gen rouble:gen.pl but have:imp
sto druzej.
hundred:nom/acc friend:gen.pl
Dont have a hundred roubles, but have a hundred friends (i.e. It is better to
have a hundred friends than a hundred roubles)
The two other Eastern Slavic languages make much more restricted use of the
locative possessives than Russian.43 There is, thus, some evidence that, at least in
Russian, but probably also in Latvian, Finnic inuence was an important factor in
retaining or reintroducing a locative possessive.
If we look more closely at Stassens locative-possessive type, the picture turns
out to be more complicated. The locative (mega-)type is made up of several
distinct subtypes, each of which receives the status of a separate possession type in
Heines (1997a, b) classication. All of them are found among the Circum-Baltic
and the neighbouring Finno-Ugric languages:44
(True) Locative (Heines Location schema): In Finnic, except Curonian
Livonian the possessed is marked by the adessive case (at/on). Some other
Uralic languages (Sami, Permic) also use some true local cases for the encoding
of the possessor. Russian with its possessor u at + gen may be put in this
group, too.
Dative (Heines Goal schema): Dative case is restricted to Latvian and
Curonian Livonian. In the latter language the dative emerged in a split of the
Finnic genitive under Latvian inuence (cf. Wlchli this volume). Dative case
also occurs in Baltic Russian dialects, where it might be attributed to either
direct or mediated Baltic inuence (Cekmonas this volume, b, Sections 4.3 and
5).
Genitive with possessive suxes (Heines Genitive schema): In Mordvin and
Mari the possessor is in the genitive and there is a possessive sux coreferent
with the possessor on the possessed. This construction found also in Turkic
is most likely to be the original Finno-Ugric construction.
Figure 6 visualizes the situation in the CB languages.
If we now look at dierent functions of the predicative possessive construc-
tions, this subclassication of the locative possessive seems to be relevant. Here
we shall mention only one interesting case the opposition between permanent
and temporal possession, which is illustrated by the sentence I have a violin, but I
don t have it with me. The languages with the Genitive schema (Mordvin, Mari,
Chuvash) tend to make a distinction between permanent and temporary posses-
sion, using the genitive construction predominantly for permanent possession. In
temporary possession we nd mainly the location schema with the possessor in
Possessive sentences in the CB languages
BE + locative phrases
HAVE-possessives
(Locative possession strategy)
Possessor in the dative: Possessor in a locative case:

Goal schema (Heine) Location schema (Heine)
Germanic
Lithuanian, Curonian Most
Old Prussian, Livonian
Latvian Russian Finnic
Most Slavic
main pattern
marginal pattern
Figure 6.Types of sentential possession in the CB languages.
a local case and without any possessive suxes. A similar tendency, though to a
lesser degree is found in Latvian. For some native speakers the goal schema (22b)
can not be used in contexts as Do you have Peters book? If Peter is the possessor
of the book, the location schema is used instead (22a):
(22) Latvian
a. Vai Petera gramata pie tevis?45
int Peter:gen book at you:gen
Do you have Peters book?
b. Man ir gramata
I:dat be.3 book
I have a book
Finnic and Russian and the have-languages of Europe make no distinction in the
encoding of permanent and temporal possession. Another way of classifying the
languages of Northern Europe according to their encoding of predicative possession
would, thus, distinguish languages with the same means of expressions for perma-
nent and temporary possession (the Western languages, Lithuanian, Slavic, Finnic)
as opposed to the languages in which these domains are kept apart (Mordvin, Mari,
Chuvash and partly Latvian).
There is some further evidence that have-possessive and locative-possessive

are not as distinct as they look at rst glance. Givn (1984: 104), discussing data
from Modern Hebrew, observes that in languages with a locative possessive there
may be a tendency towards reanalysis as a transitive construction (as with have-
verbs). Oblique possessors may thus acquire subject properties and possessees may
acquire object properties. Stassen (in prep.) calls this phenomenon the have-drift.
Initial position (i.e. topicalization) of the possessor in all locative-type CB-lan-
guages in unmarked word order (as opposed to e.g. Irish and Welsh where the
locative possessor is sentence nal) is one manifestation of the have-drift in
CB-languages. In Latvian and Russian, possessors acquire further subject properties:
they can control reexivization (examples 23 and 24) and, at least in colloquial
Russian, converbs (example 24):46
(23) Latvian (Nau 1998: Section 3.2.1.4)
Tur loti daudz visad-as taut-in-as dzvo
there very much various-pl.nom nation-dim-pl.nom live:pres.3
katr-ai sav-a valod-a.
each-dat.fem refl.poss-nom.fem language-nom
Very many dierent peoples are living there, each has its own language.
(24) Russian
Pereexav v gorod, u menja dolgo ne
move:conv.pfv in town:acc at me:gen long.time neg
byl-o svo-ej kvartiry.
be:past-neut.sg refl.poss-gen.sg.fem at-gen
Having moved to town, I did not have my own at for a long time.
In a dierent manifestation, the have-drift is operative in Finnish. In a sentence

like
(25) Minulla on sinut.
I:adess be:pres.3sg you:acc
I have you.
the possessed has accusative case marking. It thus behaves similarly to an object in
impersonal constructions (i.e. usually nominative, but accusative when located high
on the animacy hierarchy, see Section 6.4).
7.3 Comitative and instrumental

In Standard Average European languages, the same preposition is normally em-
ployed in the expression of both comitative and instrumental functions, as in Peter
is eating soup with his friend and Peter is eating soup with a spoon. On the basis of
this observation Lako & Johnson (1980: 135) formulate the generalisation, With
few exceptions, the following principle holds in all the languages of the world: The
word or grammatical device that indicates accompaniment also indicates instru-

mentality. The conceptual explanation for the principle, according to Lako and
Johnson, lies in the metaphor an instrument is a companion.
However, Stolz (this volume) states that syncretism of comitative and instru-
mental categories among the languages of the world is not as frequent as Lako and
Johnson imply. In a sample of 323 languages, only slightly less than 25% have a
complete merger of their markers for comitative and instrumental functions
(another 10% allow both for co-existing syncretic and non-syncretic markers). The
European languages, however, manifest a high predilection for coherence in the
expression of instruments and comitatives. Figure 7 shows the proportions of all the
three types in Stolz global sample as a whole and, separately, for the European
languages in the sample (the gures underlying the staples come from Stolz 1997).
250
200
150
100
50
1 Languages of the world

S2
Coherent lges 2
Mixed lges 3 S1
European languages
Incoherent lges
Figure 7.Proportions of languages showing coherent, mixed and incoherent types in

expression of instruments and comitatives (based on Stolz 1997).
In this respect, the CB languages show interesting diversity:

in some of the languages, the two categories merger both are expressed by
the same case in Estonian, Livonian (not in Stolz sample) and Sami, and by the
same preposition in Latvian and the Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish,
German);
in some of the languages the two are strictly separated and the comitative is
encoded in a less grammaticalized way than the instrumental in Finnish, the
instrumental function is expressed by the adessive (local) case marker, whereas
the comitative is expressed by a postpositional phrase (e.g. gen + kanssa); in
the Slavic languages (Russian and Polish) the instrumental relationship is

encoded by the instrumental case, as opposed to the comitative relationship,
where the same case is now combined with the preposition s, z with;
nally, Lithuanian is a mixture of the two types it uses basically the same
two strategies for comitative and instrumental relationships as the Slavic
languages above, thus separating the two, but the prepositional phrase with the
preposition su can optionally be used to encode instrumental relationships as
well. Also Russian and Polish dialects in Lithuania often use the same type of
prepositional phrases (with the preposition s, z with) for reference to instru-
ments, in addition to the comitative relationship. This is explained by Lithuani-
an inuence (Cekmonas this volume, b, Sections 4.3 and 5).
In Slavic and Baltic, as in many other Indo-European languages, the two categories
have always been related historically both involved the same case, the instrumen-
tal, which sometimes was reinforced with a comitative preposition. The Latvian
merger is a relatively new development in the Latvian folk songs (Dainas)
instrumental relationships are primarily encoded by the pure instrumental case,
which, in turn, is morphologically identical with the accusative singular and dative
plural. In spite of this syncretism, the instrumental existed as a case as long as it had
its own semantic and syntactic functions. However, it gradually became more
marginalized and was, nally, lost due to the later extension of the uses of the
erstwhile comitative preposition ar to instrumental and other relationships.
In Finno-Ugric languages the markers for comitative and instrumental
functions do not normally have anything in common in this respect Finnish is
quite typical (cf. with the use of the inessive case for instrumental relations and
nom/gen + postposition marto in Mordvin). Estonian and Sami thus behave in a
very non-Finno-Ugric way.
Stolz conclusion is that the complete merger of instrumental and comitative
functions in Estonian, (Livonian), Sami and Latvian is likely to be the result of the
Germanic inuence on these languages, even though the Latvian situation could in
principle be accounted for by internal factors (the weak morphological distinctive-
ness of the instrumental case). Interestingly, the Latvian merger nds parallels in
the Slavic languages Slovene and Sorbian, where it has most probably arisen because
of German inuence.
Furthermore, there are some interesting lexical parallels of the comitative
markers in Estonian and Livonian. The comitative case used in both comitative and
instrumental functions by now in the Southern Finnic languages Estonian and
Livonian47 Est. -ga/ka, Liv. -[k]ks is originally a lative form *kansa-k of the noun
kansa (Fin. people, Est. spouse) which is an early Germanic loanword. Alvre
(1983 and 1997) argues that *kansak was also the source of the particle Est., Liv. ka
also and of the Estonian interrogative particle kas. Interestingly, Latvian and
Estonian have similar clusterings of these meanings: Ltv. ar with, ar also and ar,
the old Baltic interrogative particle (substituted in Standard Latvian by vai, a loan
from Livonian). Endzelns (1905/6) claims that the three Latvian elements are
etymologically connected.48 If Alvre and Endzelns are right there is a convergent
development in Estonian and Latvian resulting in an lexical isomorphism between
Old Estonian and Old Latvian. Anyway, some dierences remain: Latvian ar is a
preposition and -ga/ka is a case marker deriving from a postposition.
Table 14.Interrogative particles in Estonian and Latvian

interrogative particle also comitative
(Old) Estonian kas (*/kaas/) ka (*/kaas/) -ga/ka (*/-kaas/)

(Old and High) Latvian ar arH ar _
There is, thus, some evidence for a strong areal relationship between the
Latvian and Estonian markers for comitatives that were generalized afterwards also
to include instrumental functions. (For the distribution of interrogative particles see
also Map 3.)
7.4 Comparative
In the English comparative sentence, Peter is older than Paul, the standard of
comparison (Paul) is marked with the particle than. The whole construction
represents the so-called Particle type one of the four major types of constructions
used to encode comparison, suggested in Stassens (1985) cross-linguistic study of
comparative constructions. The study is based on a more or less representative
sample of 109 languages and focuses primarily on the marker associated with the
standard of comparison, leaving aside the question whether or not the adjective
itself has a special comparative degree, as is normally the case in European languag-
es. Heine (1997b) further modies Stassens typology and suggests that the dierent
types represent in fact dierent cognitive schemas relatively simple concepts
which are used by human beings for understanding and dealing with the cognitively
relatively complex concept of comparison. The dierent cognitive schemas thus
provide dierent sources for the grammaticalization of comparative constructions.
The Particle type is found almost exclusively in Europe of the 18 languages
with these constructions in Stassens sample, 13 are found in Europe. Conversely,
only one European language of the 14 in Stassens sample (Breton) does not show
this type.49 Haspelmath (1998) interprets the particle type as a typical SAE-feature,
a common innovation the dominant strategy in older Indo-European languages
was to mark the standard of comparison with an ablative case or other cases with
original separative or ablative meanings. Such constructions represent Stassens

other major type, the Separative type, which has a very wide distribution, but is
especially favoured by Asian languages (of the 24 Asian languages in Stassens
sample, 16 represent this type. The total number of Separative-type-languages is
32; the gures refer to languages which have such constructions as their primary,
major choice). Both types are amply represented in the CB area.
The Particle type is the most heterogeneous type in Stassens typology: it is
primarily dened in a negative way, as the type involving a marker whose morpho-
syntactic status and whose semantics are fairly obscure. Particle comparative
constructions arise as bi-clausal sentences (Peter is cleverer than Paul is) which are
gradually reanalysed as simplex clauses, thereof the cross-linguistically frequent
oscillation in the form of the standard of comparison (He is cleverer than me/I). The
Particle type in the CB languages is likewise represented by several subtypes which
are not mutually exclusive:
Some of these comparative particles are etymologically of a correlative origin
interrogative or demonstrative stem, as in Russian Peter umnee, cem ego brat
Peter (is) cleverer than (< what:inst) his brother. Similarly, Fin. kuin, Est. kui
are derived from an interrogative stem (instructive case).
Finnish and Estonian use the same marker (kui, kuin) both in comparative and
in equality constructions (cf. Estonian Peeter on targ-em kui Paul Peter is
clever-comp than Paul vs. Peeter on sama tark kui Paul Peter is as clever as
Paul). This subtype, involving what Heine calls Similarity Schema is also
found in Colloquial German (Klaus ist so gro/grer wie ich): the marker in all
these three languages is actually an interrogative adverb and a marker of
manner clauses, how.
In the Baltic languages, Polish and, occasionally, Russian interrogative and
other particles are often used in combination with the marker for negation
(Pol. niz, Rus. neeli, Ltv. neka, (ne) and Lit. negu, (ne)) Peter is cleverer not
than Paul. This strategy is found also in other languages, e.g. Gaelic, Scottish
English and partly in Romance (Stassen 1985: 217). The negation marker can
even stand alone with the standard of comparison. This type has spread from
Latvian to Livonian and Leivu Estonian50 (Vaba 1997).
The Separative type among the CB languages is particularly well represented in
Finnic, where the standard of comparison is marked with the elative, ablative or
partitive (originally ablative) case. Constructions involving the genitive case in
Russian and some other Slavic languages could probably also be said to belong here:
the Slavic genitive shares a number of functions with highly grammaticalized separ-
ative cases in some other languages and diachronically represents a merger of geni-
tive and ablative. However, this classication is far too straightforward, given that
Slavic genitive-marked comparison constructions have reached such an advanced
stage of grammaticalization when their connection to their grammaticalization

source has become suciently opaque. There is, thus, no synchronic evidence left
for ascribing Slavic genitive-marked comparative constructions to the Separative
type, not to mention any attempts to assign them meaningful cognitive operations
or schemas, apart from comparison itself. Such classicatory problems are inevita-
ble in typologies that take into consideration the dierent grammaticalization age
of constructions and, hence, the dierences in their connection to their grammatic-
alization sources. Clearer instances of the Separative type can still be found in some
dialects of Belarusian and Ukrainian, where the standard of comparison can be
marked with the preposition ot, at, vid from and genitive (Valeriy Cekmonas, p.c.).51
Typologically, the most interesting cases are, probably, represented by the Baltic
prepositions, which are most frequently used to mark the standard of comparison.
These prepositions have a clear spatial origin their original meaning is either
behind (Lith. u, Ltv. rarely aiz) or above, about < before (Ltv. par). The standard
of comparison is put in the accusative case, which is more typical for directional
than for spatial relations; in Stassens typology these constructions should probably
be assigned to the fairly unusual Goal type, rather than to the somewhat more
frequent Location type. However, these prepositions show a considerable range of
meanings, and it is, in fact, not quite clear to what extent their comparative
functions can be derived directly from the directional ones; at least behind has not
been reported for any of Stassens languages as a source for comparative markers.
According to Cekmonas (p.c.) the behind type is found in the following
Slavic dialects:
Belarusian (geographical distribution not known);
Polish: in the Prussian dialects of Mazowsze, i.e. in the North-Eastern dialects
close to Lithuania;
Ukrainian: some Western dialects;
Russian: in the North-Western periphery, especially the Pskov dialect (see
Cekmonas this volume, b, Section 4.3 for examples of the latter).
Cekmonas suggests that, on the basis of this distribution, the behind-type cannot
be considered original in Slavic languages and could be due to a Baltic substrate.
The dierent markers with the standard of comparison for some CB languages are
listed in Table 15.
To summarize: the Particle comparative is the typical SAE way of encoding the
standard of comparison, whereas the Separative comparative is preferred in Eurasia
on the whole. Since the CB region is located between these areas, many CB languag-
es have both options. According to Stassen (1985: 217) the negation particle type is
characteristic of some Indo-European languages (Gaelic, Scottish English, Latvian,
and perhaps Classical Greek), its appearance in Livonian and Leivu is, thus, obvious-
ly a result of language contact. The behind-type is clearly a Baltic encoding
strategy, which has been transferred to some Slavic dialects by Baltic substrate.
Table 15.Comparative constructions in the CB languages

Particle Goal/Locative Separative
not involving involving behind/for over/for separative

negation negation
Fi kuin partitive case

Est kui, nagu elative case
Mrd ablative case
Leivu ? ei, iz le
Liv (ku) bku
Ltv (ka) neka, (ne) aiz par
Lith negu, (ne) u
Ru cem neeli Dial: za genitive
Dial: ot
Swd n
7.5 Passives, desubjectives and zero-subject constructions

Holvoet (this volume) considers several constructions whose primary function is
backgrounding and syntactic demotion of the agent or of the normal subject. In
the rst category, the verb looks like a normal agreeing verb, but the subject is
systematically absent (zero-subject constructions). The second category covers cases
when the verb has an explicit marker showing that the erstwhile subject is demoted
(passives and desubjectives/impersonals). These topics have been the focus of
modern morphosyntactic theories for several decades, and there is a huge literature
containing a battery of radically dierent views both on their denitions and on their
properties.52 In what follows we have chosen to concentrate on a few issues, where
the CB languages show interesting areal connections and/or typological features.
7.5.1Zero-subject constructions
In zero-subject constructions, the verb looks like a normal agreeing verb marked for
the singular or plural (cf. examples (26a) and (26b) below from Holvoet this
volume), but the subject is systematically absent:53
(26) a. Finnish
Puheesta-ni voi kuulla,
speech:elat.sg-poss.1sg can:pres.3sg hear:inf
ett olen ulkomaalainen.
that be:pres.1sg foreigner:nom.sg
From my speech you can hear that I am a foreigner.
b. Russian
Menja obokrali.
me:acc rob:pret.3pl
I was robbed.
Such constructions refer to generic (example (26a)) or indenite (example (26b))

subjects. Holvoet observes important distributional dierences in the two construc-
tions illustrated above:
Sentences with non-referential, indenite zero subjects (with the verb marked
for the singular) are found in Finnic, Latvian and Western Slavic, but are lacking in
both Lithuanian and Eastern Slavic. It seems doubtful whether this construction can
be reconstructed for either Common Baltic or Common Slavic. Its occurrence in
Western Slavic is, in all probability, a dialectal innovation, whereas its restriction to
Latvian within Baltic seems to point to a partial Latvian-Finnic convergence.
Sentences with generic zero subjects (with the verb marked for the plural) are
found across Baltic and Slavic, but are not characteristic of Finnic, apart from those
varieties that have been exposed to a strong Slavic inuence (Veps, Votic).
Finally, where Slavic, Baltic and Finnic have zero-subject constructions, more
typical SAE languages have to resort to sentences with generic pronouns like man
(Grm. or Swd.) or on (in French)54 to ll in the obligatory subject position.
7.5.2Passives and desubjectives (impersonals)

Let us now turn to cases when the verb has an explicit marker showing that the
erstwhile subject is demoted. The CB languages show a great variation in regard to:
what happens with the erstwhile direct object;
what happens with the erstwhile subject; and
what restrictions there are on verbs that can undergo such processes.
We will now look at these aspects separately.
7.5.2.1 Promotion vs. non-promotion of erstwhile direct objects. In the clearest case of
more or less canonical passives, the object is promoted to the subject position and
acquires all or most of the subject properties, among others, case marking and the
ability to trigger verb agreement in those languages where subjects have these prop-
erties. Such passives are found in all the CB languages with the exception of Finnic.55
In addition to canonical passives, there are also various desubjective56
constructions (in Haspelmaths 1990 terminology) in the CB area, which lack
grammatical subjects: the erstwhile subject is demoted, but the erstwhile object does
not show up as a subject either (for a detailed and insightful overview of passives
and desubjectives in Slavic see Siewierska 1988). Holvoet (this volume) considers
the Polish impersonal verb forms ending in -no/-to they combine with accusative/
genitive marked objects in exactly the same way as the verbs they are derived from
and do not have any subject NP to agree with (see example (27a)). Originally these
forms are petried neutral forms of passive participles; similar constructions are
found in Ukrainian, Lithuanian dialects (where they are used in evidential mean-
ings, cf. the end of Section 10.2) and Russian dialects where they are primarily
involved in the expression of possessive perfects. All these cases seem to originate in
impersonal passives (see below on impersonal passives).
Polish has another desubjective construction, reexive desubjectives, in which
the erstwhile direct object retains its marking sentences with the reexive particle
sie and the verb in the third person singular (neuter) used for generalized subjects
and sometimes for avoiding reference to the speaker or to the hearer (example
(27b)). Both desubjective constructions imply that the unexpressed subject is a
human being:
(27) Polish (Fici Giusti 1998: 356, 354)
a. No-/to-desubjectives:
Na wieczorze Jana tanczo-no, mia-no sie
at party:loc Jan:gen dance-impr laugh-impr refl
i pi-to wdke.
and drink-impr vodka:acc
At Jans party there was dancing and vodka drinking.
b. Reexive desubjectives:
W kawiarni Praga co tydzien pi--o sie herbate
in caf:loc Praga each week drink-past-3sg.neut refl tea-acc
i rozmawia--o sie.
and chat-pret-3sg.neut refl
Every week at the caf Praga one drank tea and chatted.
For such constructions, there is no evidence whatsoever that the erstwhile direct
object has been promoted to the subject position. Now, interestingly, as shown in
Siewierska (1988: 26364), these constructions behave as if the implied agent were
the surface subject and the Polish linguistic tradition treats them as active and
not passive constructions. Thus, the inherent human subject can control swj-re-
exivization (example (28a)) and Equi-NP-deletion into converbial clauses
(example (28b)) properties which are otherwise restricted to surface subjects:
(28) a. Swoich przyjaci tak sie ne traktuje
ones(refl) friends:gen/acc thus refl not treat:3sg
One doesnt treat ones friends like that.
b. Analizujac szczegowo zdjecia satelitarne
analyzing in.detail pictures:acc satellite
otkry-to maa wyspe.
discover-impr small:fem.sg.acc island:acc
When one was analyzing satellite pictures, one discovered a small island.
(Siewierska 1988: 26364).
Now, whereas the objects in the examples (27) and (28) remain intact as compared
to the corresponding normal active sentences, there are also desubjective
constructions in which the erstwhile direct object looks and behaves like something
between an object and a subject. Finnic impersonals/passives belong here: as was
shown in Section 6.4 on nominative object constructions, the erstwhile object has
both object and subject properties.57 The same applies to some Lithuanian dialectal
constructions, in which the erstwhile direct object appears in the nominative, but
does not trigger any agreement in the passive participle.
Desubjective constructions discussed in this section pose certain problems for
theories that state that the demotion of subjects has to be motivated by promotion
of another argument to the subject position. The data force us either to abandon
this hypothesis, or to look for subject properties in those arguments that are left in
desubjective constructions, which more or less boils down to saying that there are
no really desubjective constructions at all (cf. Siewierska 1988: Ch. 3).58
7.5.2.2 Demotion of subjects (agents). Demotion of subjects (agents) can also vary as
to its extent; Table 16 shows how this parameter is combined with promotion vs.
non-promotion of objects in various constructions across the CB languages.
Table 16.Passives and desubjectives in the CB languages

Canonical passives Desubjectives (impersonals)
Object promoted to Object partly Object intact

subject position promoted
Agent disallowed Ltv. Fin. impersonals no-/to-impersonals

in Pol., Ukr., Lith. &
Rus. dialects; refl-
impersonals in Pol.
Agent allowed Lith.; Slavic; (Est. impersonals) [normal active

Germanic sentences]
There are diachronic connections among the various constructions discussed

above: thus, desubjectives can arise from passives and agented passives can arise
from agentless ones (see Holvoet this volume).
7.5.2.3 Restrictions on verbs. Finally, there is an interesting cross-linguistic variation

in which verbs all these passive and desubjective forms can be derived from. Thus,
passives in Standard Russian and Polish are mainly restricted to transitive verbs,
with a few notable exceptions (such as veleno ordered, xoeno gone, walked,
poito lived). Polish -no/-to-impersonals, although lexically restricted, can be
derived from verbs that otherwise lack passive participles, such as most intransitive
and reexive verbs, whereas reexive based impersonals cannot be derived from
reexive verbs. This restriction is not universal: Italian, in which reexives also can
build generalized sentences, avoids repetition of two identical reexive markers by
using ci instead of one of the two sis (e.g. Qui ci si diverte tutto il giorno Here one
(refl1) enjoys oneself (refl2) the whole day.
Germanic allows passivization of intransitive verbs, which results in a rich range
of impersonal passives the process is, however, severely restricted to verbs of
certain lexical classes. At least some speakers of German allow also passivization of
reexive verbs, cf. (29b) and (29a); this is a cross-linguistically rare option, found
much more regularly in Latvian and Lithuanian (see Plank 1993).
(29) German (Plank 1993: 135)
a. Man wscht sich hier tglich! Das ist ein Befehl.
One washes oneself here daily! This is an order.
b. Hier wird sich tglich gewaschen! Das ist ein Befehl.
Here is oneself daily washed! This is an order.
Latvian and Finnic are very tolerant in this respect: passives/impersonals can be
derived from almost any verb. The only restriction in Finnish is that the underlying
verb has to be personal in the sense that it can take a normal subject in the
nominative; Latvian cannot passivize copular constructions. Rendahl (this volume)
shows the inuence of Estonian on Estonian Swedish passives which can be derived
from the most unpassivizable, from the Swedish perspective, intransitive verbs.
But Lithuanian passives are really amazing in their non-conformity to most of the
cross-linguistic restrictions on passives that have been suggested, e.g. within
Relational Grammar (cf. Postal 1986; Christen 1995). Thus,
Lithuanian allows double passives (i.e. passives can be built from passives,
example (30a));
Lithuanian allows passives from typical unaccusatives (of which verbs of
existence are instances par excellence; example (30b));
Lithuanian allows passives from constructions with verbs like to belong (in
Relational Grammar these are described as involving inversion, i.e. a marked
construction in which the nominal that normally would be the subject looks
like an indirect object, example (30c)); and
Lithuanian allows passives from sentences with verbs which systematically lack
subjects (impersonal verbs, example (30d)).
(30) Lithuanian (Christen 1995: 123)59
a. Niekas nebuvo senos moteries buciuojamas
a. Niekieno nebuta senos moteries buciuojamo.
(Apparently) No one was kissed by the old woman.
b. Gorilos dar egzistuoja Afrikoje.
b. Gorilu dar egzistuojama Afrikoje.

There still exist gorillas in Africa.
c. Ta verge priklauso Silvijai.
c. Tos verges priklausyta Silvijai.
This slave belongs to Sylvie.
d. Jiems reikejo to aspirino.
d. Jiems reiketa to aspirino.
They need this aspirin.
Passive participles in Northern Russian dialects are fascinating in many respects (see
Timberlake 1974), but strictly speaking, do not belong to the discussion here: they
are used not for passivization, but form the basis of possessive perfect sentences.
Therefore the agent, or the subject is not in the nominative case, but looks like a
possessor in a possessive sentence, i.e. is expressed by the prepositional phrase of the
form u at + gen. In a way, it is demoted, but it functions syntactically more or less
like normal subjects, apart from its abnormal marking and inability to trigger verbal
agreement (however, in some dialects passive participles agree with such subjects).
Most signicantly, in the overwhelming majority of examples, the subject is present
and can trigger deletion of co-referential nominative marked subjects under
coordination. (This occurs regularly when the coordinated clauses have dierent
tense reference, i.e. Anna has picked a lot of mushrooms and is cooking them see
also Cekmonas this volume.) There is an important dialectal dierence between
some of the Northern Russian dialects (primarily Onega dialects) and others, in that
the former can build passive forms of intransitive and even reexive verbs (Markova
1987; Kuzmina 1993). This fact has been discussed in connection with a possible
inuence from the local Finnic population (Karelians and Ludians), but the
parallels in the use of impersonal/passive forms in these varieties are too weak to
postulate anything more than a conservative eect on the part of these contacts.
7.5.3Reexive postxes
Passive constructions across the CB area involve either auxiliary verbs combined
with passive participles or verbs which are, at least historically, reexive. Since the
worlds greatest concentration of both of these techniques is found in Europe
(Haspelmath 1990, 1998), this makes most of the CB languages good SAE-lan-
guages. The form of reexive-based passives in North Germanic and Eastern Slavic
is, however, very peculiar, as will be discussed below. Table 17 summarizes the data
on the use of various auxiliary verbs in participle-based passives and on the factors
governing the choice between reexive-based and participle-based passives in those
languages that have both options.
Many of the Circum-Baltic languages Northern Germanic, Baltic and Eastern
Slavic are characterized by the expression of certain verbal voice functions such
as reexive, reciprocal, anti-causative, passive, by means of verbal postxes (post-
Table 17.Expression types of passive constructions across CB languages

Grm Ltva Lith Pol Swd/Dan Rus/Bylr
Participles:
+ BE (Stative) (Stative) + (Stative) (Stative) +
+ BECOME werden tikt, tapt etc. zostac, byc bli
Reexive- only agent- free varia- sensitive to
based: restric- less tion aspect
tions
a
Livonian behaves exactly like Latvian.
inectional axes), i.e. axes in the last position of a word following, for example,
tense/aspect and agreement markers (we will touch on the peculiarities of Lithuani-
an reexive markers below). These postxes have developed in the course of
grammaticalization due to Univerbierung, i.e. the process of coalescence between
the main verb and permutable reexive and reciprocal pronouns. The correspond-
ing postxes (-s and -st < sik and sr in the Scandinavian languages, -s < si in the
Baltic languages, and -s/-sja in Eastern Slavic) manifest an extensive polysemy and
provide beautiful illustrations of the dierent stages in grammaticalization of
reexive markers to markers of middle voice and, later possibly, to passives
(Geniuiene 1987; Haspelmath 1987; Kemmer 1993), as shown in Table 18.
Table 18. Expression formats used for passives, reexives, reciprocals and related voice
functions in Baltic, Eastern Slavic and Northern Germanic (simplied)
Typical reexives (I Grooming (I wash), Passive
see / hit / scold various other middle
myself ) meanings, reciprocity
etc.
Baltic postxes participle-based

Eastern Slavic independent pron.a postxes
Northern Ger- independent pron.
manic postxes: fossilized postxes: regular
a
The development in Northern Germanic and Eastern Slavic shows repartition and recycling of reexive
markers: the new independent reexive pronouns are cognates to the postxes.
Cross-linguistically, reexivity/anticausativity and other related meanings

characterizing valence recession are most often expressed by stem axes, as in the
majority of the Finno-Ugric languages. Clitization of reexive markers is also
relatively wide-spread. However, as shown by Haspelmath (1987), postxes as
markers of reexivity and related meanings are typologically fairly unusual and are
limited to the languages of the Baltic Sea region. Thus, in this respect, Baltic,
Eastern Slavic and Northern Germanic manifest a transition from the (cross-
linguistically second most frequent) pattern of many other Indo-European languag-
es, including German, Dutch, the Western and Southern Slavic languages, in which
marking is accomplished by means of a reexive pronoun (pronominal clitic), to
the cross-linguistically most frequent pattern of the Finno-Ugric languages, which
use suxation for similar purposes. Lithuanian (including some Latvian dialects)
is particularly interesting here, since the position of the reexive element, which is
bound to the verb, is variable: if a verb has a prex (preverb), the reexive marker
is placed between the prex and the stem, otherwise it is attached word-nally, e.g.
moky-ti-s teach-inf-refl (= to learn) vs. ne-si-moky-ti neg-refl-teach-inf
(= not to learn).60
The common Northern Germanic, Baltic and Eastern Slavic development of
postxes has sometimes been attributed to contact-linguistic relationships among
these lanaguages and even, possibly, by the existence of Finno-Ugric languages in
the same region (Ureland 1980, 1986). Finno-Ugric inuence seems, however, very
doubtful as there are no comparable structures in Finno-Ugric languages. Whatever
the proportion between the universal grammaticalization and possible contact-
induced changes may be in this case, the use of postxes for reexivity, anti-
causativity and passivization is a peculiarly Circum-Baltic phenomenon.
8. Nouns and noun phrases
8.1 Adjective agreement

In all the CB languages, with the exception of Karaim and Sami, attributive
adjectives agree with their head nouns
in gender, number and case (in Baltic, Slavic and in some of the Germanic
languages, such as German, Yiddish and some Northern Swedish and Norwe-
gian dialects);
in gender and number (in Standard Continental Scandinavian, where case
distinctions have been lost); and
in number and case (in Finnic).
Since adjective agreement clearly distinguishes Finnic from all the other Finno-
Ugric languages, it has been suggested that it might be a result of areal contacts of
Finnic with Indo-European languages, where similar phenomena are widely attested
(Schlachter 1958; Laakso this volume, Section 2.2).
Adjective agreement in Finnic is a very regular phenomenon: in Finnish, all
adjectives, except for a closed group of adjectives including ensi next, viime last
and pikku little show complete adjective agreement in case and number. Another
apparent exception to the rule is the partial case agreement, found with nouns in
some oblique cases of the Southern Finnic languages: thus, in Estonian, nouns with
a case sux of the structure -CV (comitative -ga, terminative -ni, essive -na) take
attributive adjectives in the genitive. This inconsistency is the result of a secondary
development due to the on-going grammaticalization of new cases from post-
positions (and analogy, in the case of the essive). The uniformity with which
adjective agreement is implemented in all Finnic languages bears witness to the
relatively great age of this phenomenon, but also leaves no indications as to its
possible source. Even though the Indo-European origin of adjective agreement in
Finnic is a plausible hypothesis, it is hardly possible to point to a specic language
group (Baltic or Germanic) within Indo-European which could have provided the
ultimate impetus for the spreading of adjective agreement in Finnic.
However, the situation in Finno-Ugric and Uralic on the whole is more
complicated than is often assumed. Agreement of attributive words with nouns is
not completely absent from Uralic outside Finnic. For example, Udmurt and
Nenets show optional number agreement of attributive adjectives (cf. Vilkuna
1998), whereas in Hungarian, the demonstrative agrees. In both Sami and Mordvin
attributive agreement with nouns is found
in demonstrative pronouns;
in the adjective good (though not always), and occasionally some other
adjectives.
The actual rules in Sami and Mordvin dier, however, to a considerable extent.
Whereas in Mordvin, demonstrative elements show only number agreement, in
Sami, they agree both in number and case, even though the latter is often partial
(reminiscent of the partial agreement in Southern Finnic mentioned above; case
agreement of demonstrative pronouns in Sami follows very complex rules). The
Sami, Mordvin and Finnic evidence seems to suggest the following progression in
the development of adjectival agreement, shown in Figure 8.
agreement in number: agreement in case/number:

demonstratives > demonstratives > all adjectives
Mordvin Sami Finnic
Figure 8.Agreement in Mordvin, Sami and Finnic.
At present we still lack detailed data on agreement in the languages of the

world, in particular about the relative propensity of dierent attributive words to
agree with the head.61
In Sami cardinal numerals also show partial agreement with nouns (for details
see Section 8.3). This strikes us as a very peculiar behaviour our general impres-
sion is that the presence of agreement in numerals normally implies the presence of
adjectival agreement in the same language.
To conclude from what has been said above: the development of complete
adjectival agreement in Finnic was, most probably, based on the already existing
agreement of demonstrative pronouns in noun phrases, which was further extended
into the realm of other attributive words under the Indo-European inuence in a
step-by-step fashion rather than all of a sudden. A concomitant eect of this
development is the crystallisation of a new part of speech in Finnic, that of adjec-
tives, as opposed to most of Uralic where adjectives cannot be formally distin-
guished from nouns. Adjectives as a clear-cut word class are also found in Sami,
which distinguishes between unmarked predicative and special attributive forms.
Finally, it should be emphasized that adjectival agreement in Finnic, although
reminiscent of agreement found in its Indo-European neighbours, diers from it at
least in two important respects. First, Baltic, Slavic and Germanic have developed
an opposition between denite vs. indenite or weak vs. strong adjectives, which is
employed dierently across languages and which we will not consider here62 (for
some data on Baltic and Slavic see the papers by Christen and Stassen in this
volume). Finnic does not have anything similar. Second, while adjectives in the Indo-
European CB languages (and not only these) normally show gender agreement,
gender as a grammatical category is not found in Finnic. This leads us to the topic of
the next section gender reduction and loss in the Indo-European CB languages.
8.2 Loss of gender63

In the CB area, gender proper is a feature that is restricted to Indo-European
languages: no Finno-Ugric (but see the end of this section) or Turkic language has
acquired it.
The old Indo-European three gender system is most clearly preserved in Slavic
languages, German and most varieties of Yiddish (apart from North-eastern Yid-
dish), in the two standard Norwegian varieties Bokml64 and Nynorsk and in a
number of Continental Scandinavian dialects. Both the Baltic languages and
Standard Danish and Swedish, including many dialects, have reduced the former
three-gender system. The Baltic languages lost neuter gender, still present in the
oldest Old Prussian documents and to the present day in Lithuanian in impersonal
constructions. In Standard Danish and Swedish, a new genus commune absorbed,
in the general case, both feminine and masculine genders, but the resulting system
is far from simple (see below on gender in Swedish). Some Scandinavian varieties
have gone even further and diminished or even neutralized all NP-internal gender
distinctions thus, in the Danish dialects of Western Jytland, articles, attributive
adjectives and other attributes do not show any gender agreement; anaphoric
pronouns, however, retain certain gender distinctions (Nielsen 1959: 4546). In the
Swedish dialects of Karleby-Nedervetil (Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland),
NP-internal agreement is restricted to demonstratives and optional preposed
denite articles (Huldn 1972; Rendahl this volume, Section 4). Finally, most
Romani varieties distinguish between masculine and feminine nouns.
In certain instances gender reduction has been attributed, at least partly, to
language contacts, e.g. the transition from three to two genders in North-eastern
Yiddish, spoken in the Baltic surrounding. Jacobs (this volume: Section 4.2.1)
argues that this process is to a high degree motivated by language internal mecha-
nisms, but that the inuence of Lithuanian is not to be ruled out as a contributory
factor. Basically the same can be said about the Swedish dialect of Karleby-
Nedervetil (Northern Ostrobothnia), spoken in Finnish surroundings (Huldn
ibid.). Finnish inuence is most probably responsible for the gradual loss of gender
distinctions in Finnish Romani (see below).
There is one obvious instance of areally conditioned loss of gender the
gradual gender loss in Low Latvian dialects as an eect of Finnic (Livonian and
Estonian) substrates. Most varieties of Latvian have a masculine-feminine distinc-
tion in nouns, visible in dierent agreement patterns of adjectives, demonstratives,
numerals and pronouns. This is an example of a well-behaved gender distinction,
according to the currently most accepted view which denes gender as classes of
nouns reected in the behaviour of associated words (the formulation comes from
Hockett 1958 and is adopted in Corbetts inuential book 1991). In addition, there
is a close association between declensional paradigms in Latvian and gender: two of
them involve mainly masculine nouns (e.g. o-stems are always masculine), while
two others are mainly reserved for feminine nouns (e.g. a-stems are almost always
feminine with the notable exception of puika boy, borrowed from Livonian). In
most Latvian varieties, there will thus be a substantial correspondence in the rules
governing the inectional form of the noun itself and the form of agreeing adjec-
tives. In fact Dahl (1998), discussing the relationship of declensional types to
gender, suggests including at least some inectional distinctions as gender by
substituting morphemes for words in Hocketts denition a point to which
we will return below.
Rudzte (1964: 204f) distinguishes four subsequent stages in the loss of gender
in dierent Low Latvian subdialects, where the rst stage occurs more often and in
more subdialects than the second stage etc.
1st stage: loss of agreement with personal and demonstrative pronouns:
(31) a. Vinam i laps vFrs. (Aloja)
she:dat be:pres good:nom husband:nom
She has a good husband
In other dialects, vinam is masculine the corresponding feminine form being

vinai.
2nd stage: loss of agreement with predicative adjectives and predicative
participles:
(31) b. Jur i glum ka glaz (Svetciems)
sea:nom.sg be:pres even:nom.sg like glass:nom.sg
un spdik-s ka spiegels.
and bright:nom.sg like mirror-nom.sg
The sea is even like glass and bright as a mirror
The word sea is feminine; in those subdialects which retain agreement, the corre-
sponding adjective would be spdig, whereas spdik-s is masculine.65
3rd stage: loss of agreement with attributive adjectives:
(31) c. ar gatavim uogam (Lielupe)
with ripe:dat.pl berry.dat.pl
with ripe berries
The word for berry is feminine in the other Low Latvian subdialects and the
corresponding adjective would be gatavam (Standard gatavam), rather than the
masculine gatavim (Standard gataviem).
Having reached stage 3, the Low Latvian subdialects have no associated
words, which would distinguish between masculine and feminine according to
Hockett & Corbett, the masculine-feminine distinction has been lost. On the other
hand, the partly semantically motivated declensional distinctions sometimes survive
after agreement distinctions have been lost in Dahls extended understanding of
the notion gender, this would mean that these Low Latvian subdialects still have a
masculine-feminine distinction. However, even this distinction is further neutral-
ized, at least partly, in some Low Latvian subdialects: masculine declensional
patterns extend to the former feminine stems as well.
4th stage: loss of feminine noun class endings:
(31) d. Vienam tevam un matam nebi (Limbai)
one:dat.sg father:dat.sg and mother:dat.sg not:be.past
nevins brs
no:nom.sg child:nom.sg
A father and a mother did not have a single child
Note the identical endings for father and mother in Standard Latvian the form
would be matei.
The situation in Finnish Romani is highly reminiscent of Low Latvian.66
Finnish Romani exists in a continuum of varieties, ranging from the more conserva-
tive higher styles (older, more original forms of the language) to the grammatical-
ly simplied, recent lower varieties, displaying a strong inuence from Finnish. In
the lower varieties, gender seems to be completely lost as an agreement category,

both within NPs and in anaphoric (personal) pronouns, thus corresponding to
Stage 3 above (Vuorela & Borin 1998). In the higher varieties, personal pronouns
have neutralized gender distinctions (only the former masculine pronoun is used),
whereas adjectives still distinguish masculine and feminine forms this corre-
sponds to Stage 1 for Low Latvian (Aalto 1977). The older inectional distinction
between the masculine and the feminine nominal declensional paradigms, however,
still survives, although originally feminine nouns sometimes take originally
masculine inections; we can see here the incipient Stage 4 (Vuorela & Borin ibid.).
One of the most interesting facts about the gradual gender loss in Low Latvian
is the loss of masculine-feminine gender distinctions in pronouns (stage 1) long
before they are lost in nominals (stage 3 or 4), in contradiction to Greenbergs
Universal 43: If a language has gender categories in the noun, it has gender
categories in the pronoun.
However, in Low Latvian pronouns have a gender-like distinction of their own,
based on animacy. The tendency to show animacy distinctions in pronominal
systems manifests itself in a number of CB languages, both Indo-European and
Finnic. Thus, in Scandinavian languages, most Finnic languages and dialects (apart
from colloquial Finnish) and Standard and Low Latvian there is a strong tendency
to refer to things and animals by demonstrative pronouns and to humans by
personal pronouns. For instance, although the three words chair, girl and boy
belong to the same common gender in Standard Swedish and trigger the same
agreement in articles and attributive adjectives (cf. e-n lite-n stol/icka/pojke
a:comm little-comm chair/girl/boy), they are referred to by dierent anaphoric
pronouns den this:com/hon she/han he; words of the neuter gender are
normally referred to by det this:neut.67 In German, Russian, Lithuanian and High
Latvian, on the other hand, one can refer indiscriminately to human beings and
things (such as a table) by personal pronouns. Interestingly, this isogloss goes across
the Latvian dialect area, separating Central (Standard) and Low Latvian from High
Latvian. The situation is actually much more complex than presented here (Nicole
Nau is presently carrying out research on this topic).
A consistent application of Hockett-Corbetts gender denition would imply
that animacy distinctions in Finnic, Standard and Low Latvian are nominal genders
(they are regularly seen in the behaviour of associated words pronouns). Finnic
turns out to have gender after all!
Finally, still on the topic of animacy: the Baltic languages Lithuanian and
Latvian have only one interrogative pronoun corresponding both to who and what.
As shown in Lindstrm (1995), cross-linguistically this is very unusual: Lithuanian
and Latvian are the only languages in her sample of 48 genetically and areally fairly
dierent languages which lack animacy distinctions in interrogative pronouns.
Lithuanian and Latvian are, however, not completely unique in this respect: thus,
Majtinskaja (1969: 221) quotes similar cases from Narrinyeri (Australian: Pama-
Njungan), Algonquin (Algonquian) and Ewe (Niger-Congo).68
8.3 The syntax of numeral constructions

Koptjevskaja-Tamm (this volume) discusses a striking parallelism in the morpho-
syntax of Finnic and Slavic numeral constructions. In Finnic and most Slavic, most
cardinal numerals higher than one alternate between case-governing and agreeing
with their complements, as in the Russian examples (3233) below:
(32) Russian
Government: the complement of the numeral is in the genitive case
Ja viu [pjat stakan-ov]
I:nom see.pres.1sg [ve:nom/acc glass-gen.pl
I see ve glasses.
(33) Russian
Agreement: both the numeral and its complement are in the same case
Ja prila s [pjat-ju stakan-ami]
I:nom come:past.fem.sg with [ve-inst glass-inst.pl
I came with ve glasses.
The choice between the two options is determined by the syntactic function of the
whole numeral construction in a larger context, which is in turn reected in the
case of the numeral. Thus, since in (32) the whole numeral construction functions
as the direct object of the verb to see, the numeral ve is marked with the
nominative-accusative case; (33) illustrates a typical context for the instrumental
case (noun phrases after the preposition s with), which is again seen in the case of
the numeral. When the numeral appears in one of the direct cases (the nomina-
tive and the accusative) it governs its complements, as in example (32); otherwise
(in the oblique cases) it agrees with them, as in (33). Although the main syntactic
rule is the same both for Finnic and most Slavic, some of its details dier for the two
language families (for examples see Koptjevskaja-Tamm this volume):
Thus, the case of a governed nominal is the partitive in Finnic and the genitive
in Slavic and exactly the same case is assigned by Measure nominals (such as a
cup, a pound or a slice) to their complements in pseudo-partitive constructions
(such as a cup of tea, a pound of sugar or a slice of bread). In other words, Slavic
and Finnic numerals behave like nouns in the direct cases69 and like adjectives in
the other ones.
The languages also dier in the generality of the rule: whereas in Finnic all
cardinal numerals70 higher than one behave identically, in Slavic the set 24 can
be singled out by its special behaviour.
Finally, while, in Slavic, nominals after numerals appear generally in the plural,
numerals in Finnic assign singular number to their complements. Within Slavic,

Russian is alone in having genitive singular government for the numerals 24, but
this is the result of a reanalysis of dual and nominative plural forms.71
Among the Indo-European languages, the Slavic situation, with one and the
same set of numerals alternating between agreeing with and case-governing their
complements under well-dened syntactic conditions is almost unique (however,
cf. below on Latvian). Numerals agreeing with complements and those governing
them are widely attested within Indo-European, but normally these two properties
are associated with dierent sets of numerals agreement with lower and case-
government with higher numerals (such as 100, 1,000 and 1,000,000, see
Corbett 1978). Lithuanian carries out this principle in a very consistent way,
distinguishing lower numerals (19 and all the other whose last digit is 19 with
the exception of teens) and higher numerals (teens 1119 and tens, 10, 20 etc.)
which have dierent syntactic patterns. Lower numerals behave like adjectives in
agreeing with quantied nominals in case (and, occasionally, gender). Higher
numerals either inect for case or remain uninected, but always govern plural
nominals in the genitive case; the inected forms are relatively rare (the word for
10 inects more often than 20, 30 etc.).
Latvian behaves basically like Lithuanian in its treatment of lower numerals as
adjectives.72 With higher numerals, however, it shows however a dierent and more
uid situation: quantied nominals are either governed (in the genitive plural) or
appear in the case assigned to the function of the whole numeral construction.
Crucially, in Latvian, teens and tens are themselves indeclinable. Government by
numerals is only possible when the whole construction should be assigned the
nominative or the accusative case, i.e. under the same syntactic conditions as in
Finnic and most of the Slavic languages. Even here, however, it is possible for the
nominal to appear in the case of the whole phrase, and it is unclear what factors
might possibly determine the choice between the two options. The latter option,
well-known from various languages of the world and also found both in older Indo-
European and in numerous non-Finnic Uralic languages (see below), seems to be
gaining more and more ground in Latvian at the cost of government. In Low
Latvian, the genitive is losing even more ground (Endzelns 1951).
Finnic numeral constructions are even more unusual in the larger Finno-Ugric
and Uralic context, where the basic numeral construction involves a non-inected
numeral preceding its nominal complement, which carries case inection of the
whole construction. That is, Uralic numerals normally neither govern their
complements, nor agree with them the latter is hardly surprising given the
general scarcity of attributive agreement across Uralic (see Section 8.1). What varies
is the number assigned by a numeral to its complement thus, in Mari, Permian
and Hungarian it is always singular, while in Mordvin it is plural after 210 and
either singular or plural after higher numerals. The actual plural marker is, however,
seen fairly infrequently, since indenite nonpossessed nouns in Mordvin distin-

guish number only in the nominative case. In Ob-Ugric and Samoyedic, nouns after
numerals may be both singular, plural and dual (Honti 1997; Bergsland 1953),73
which has caused disagreement among Uralists about the original Proto-Uralic
numeral construction.
The only non-Finnic Uralic varieties which show similarities to Finnic in their
numeral constructions are the Sami languages. Sami also distinguishes between
direct cases (nominative-accusative, which coincide for numerals, but not
necessarily for nouns) and oblique cases. In oblique cases numerals show
complete or partial case agreement74 with the nominal in the singular. In direct
cases, the dierent Sami varieties choose dierent options:
nominative plural (Southern Sami) or nominative and accusative plural (in the
by now almost extinct Ume Sami and Pite Sami);
genitive singular after most numerals in (Pite Sami, Lule Sami and Northern
Sami), or after 26 (in Eastern Sami, Skolt Sami and Kildin Sami);
partitive singular after 7 and higher numerals in Eastern Sami (Bergsland
1953: 43).
Bergsland (ibid.) suggests that what looks like government in Sami numerals has
originated in a system similar to the Mordvin one at the time when number distinc-
tions were only realized in the direct cases. This would explain the distinction
between the singular oblique cases and the nominative plural (the rst option in the
list above). The genitive singular form, used in some varieties, stems, most
probably, from a structural reanalysis of the more archaic nominative plural forms
(in these varieties, the genitive singular form and the nominative plural are
generally dicult to distinguish from each other). The origin of the partitive
assignment after numerals higher than 6 in Eastern Sami is not quite clear: they
look like their Finnish counterparts (as well as some of the other instances in which
the partitive case is used), which is suspicious given the strong Finnish inuence on
these varieties, which does not, however, exclude the possibility of an archaic origin.
Whatever the explanation for the government by Sami numerals may be, their
agreement remains remarkable, given the fact that attributive agreement in Sami is
highly restricted and does not apply to adjectives (cf. above with the reverse
situation in Latvian).
Looking at matters in an even broader cross-linguistic context, we do nd both
agreement of numerals with their complements, and government of complements
by higher numerals in a number of languages, even though these are relatively
infrequent phenomena (Corbett 1978; Greenberg 1978, 1989; Hurford forthc.).
However, the Finnic and Slavic systems, with their complex rules governing
alternation between government and agreement within numeral constructions,
seem to lack any counterpart elsewhere. Given the degree of complexity of these
rules and their typological uniqueness it is highly probable that the Finnic system
is borrowed.75 Surprisingly, in this respect, Finnic and Slavic are much more
similar to each other than any of these languages and Baltic. However, as far as we
know, there were no historical preconditions for such an extensive inuence on
Finnic from Slavic, as opposed to that from Baltic. The only plausible conclusion is,
thus, that at an earlier stage, the Baltic and Slavic rules for numeral constructions
were much more similar, but were later simplied in Baltic.
As mentioned above, Finnic diers from Baltic and Slavic in assigning singular
to nominals after numerals. Interestingly, some Swedish dialects in close contact
with Finnic also apply similar rules. Thus, in Estonian Swedish, masculine and
neutral nouns are normally assigned singular after numerals: tri mann (sg) three
men (cf. tre mn in Standard Swedish), whereas feminine nouns are normally
assigned plural: fem brkiar (pl) ve birches. In the more peripheral dialects, i.e.
those where the Estonian inuence is signicantly higher (e.g.Vippal), even
feminine nouns are also put in the singular (Lagman 1971: 215; Rendahl this
volume). Similar phenomena are found in the Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia in
Finland and in Westbothnia in Sweden. Although there are no doubts about the
strong Finnic impact on the generalization of the singular to nouns after all
numerals, the degree of this impact is not quite clear. The model of assigning
singular to nouns expressing measure and weight after numerals (such as vier Meter
four meters (sg) in German and sex fot six feet (sg) in Swedish) is found across
Germanic, and the Finnic inuence might have consisted in generalizing this model
to other cases as well (Lagman ibid., Seppnen & Seppnen 1984: 5558). Seppnen
& Seppnen also argue that there is an interesting dierence between the Germanic
and the Finnic cases in that the formally singular nouns in Germanic numeral
constructions are treated syntactically as plurals, taking e.g. plural adjectives,
whereas in Finnic, adjectives are in the singular: Swd. trettio tyska mark thirty
German(pl) mark(sg). Similarly in the Karleby dialect (Osthrobothnia), all nouns
after numerals are in the singular; however, any adjective modifying them is put in
the indenite plural form. However, further research is needed for checking to what
extent Seppnen & Seppnens observation holds across Swedish dialects: thus, in
Estonian Swedish, uninected nouns after numerals trigger singular forms in
accompanying adjectives, cf. tr svatt aike three black (sg) horses (sg).76
Another shared feature of numerals in Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Sami, Mordvin
and Icelandic is the existence of special numerals used for counting pluralia tantum
(cf. Section 4).
Table 19 summarizes the data on the internal syntax of numeral constructions
in Finnic, Baltic and Slavic.77
Table 19.Internal syntax of numeral constructions in Finnic, Baltic and Slavic (one
not included)
Government (G)-strategy: case on Agreement (A)-strategy:
the nominal governed by numerals case on the nominal
determined by the func-
tion of the whole phrase
Language Numerals When is G What case is What is the When is A What is the
included used? governed by number of used? number of
the numer- the nomi- the nomi-
al? nal? nal?
Finnic All Direct cases Partitive SG Oblique SG
cases
Ume Sami All Always PL in
dir.cases; SG
in obl. cases
Pite, Lule, All Direct cases Genitive SG Oblique SG
N. Sami cases
Eastern 26 Direct cases Genitive SG Oblique SG
Sami cases
7 and higher Direct cases Partitive SG Oblique SG
cases
Lithuanian 29, 2229 Always PL
etc
10, 1219, Alwaysa1 Genitive PL
20, 110, 120
etc.
Latvian 29, 2229 Always PL
10, 1219, Direct cases Genitive PL Oblique PL
20, 110, 120 (partly) a2,b cases (direct
etc. cases partly)
a2,b
Russian 24, 2224 Direct cases Genitive SG Oblique PL

etc. cases
Others Direct cases Genitive PL Oblique PL
cases
Belarusan, 24, 2224 Always PLc
Ukrainian etc. Oblique
Others Direct cases Genitive PL cases PL
Government (G)-strategy: case on Agreement (A)-strategy:

the nominal governed by numerals case on the nominal
determined by the func-
tion of the whole phrase
Language Numerals When is G What case is What is the When is A What is the
included used? governed by number of used? number of
the numer- the nomi- the nomi-
al? nal? nal?
Polish 24, 2224 Lexically PL
etc. determinedd
cases (part-
ly) + lexical-
ly deter-
minedd
Slovak 24, 2224 Always PL
etc.
(partly) + cases +
lexically partly lexi-
determinede cally
determineda
3,e
Czech 24, 2224 Always PL

etc.
cases
Serbo-Croat 24 Almost Genitive rests of dual Extremely PL?
alwaysf (paucal seldomf
form)
Others Alwaysf Genitive PL
Slovene 24, also Always DU (for 2,
2224 etc. Direct cases Genitive PL Oblique 22 etc.), PL
cases otherwise
Others PL
Old Church 2, 22, 32 etc. Alwaysa4 DU
Slavonic 34, 1314, Alwaysa4 PL
2324 etc.
12 Uncleara4,g Genitive PL Uncleara4,g DU/PL
20 Uncleara4,g Genitive PL
Others Uncleara4,g Genitive PL Uncleara4,g Unclear
a1
In Lithuanian, of the tens only 10 regularly, but not necessarily, declines. For 20, 30 etc. the
indeclinable forms are preferred to the declinable ones.
a2
In Latvian, teens and tens are themselves indeclinable.
a3
In Slovak, higher numerals normally, but not necessarily, decline.
a4
In Old Church Slavonic, lower numerals decline, higher numerals are indeclinable.
b
Alternation between G-strategy and A-strategy is only possible when the whole phrase functions as a
subject or an object (i.e. in functions when NPs are assigned the nominative or the accusative case).
Factors inuencing the choice between the two strategies are unclear. In other functions, only the
A-strategy is used.
c
Full plural agreement, but stress pattern like genitive SG for feminine and neutral nouns in the
nominative.
d
Special construction for masculine personal nouns (obligatory with lower nominals, optional with
higher ones).
e
With masculine animate nouns A-strategy is always possible.
f
In Serbo-Croat, numerals do not decline with G-strategy, but do so with A-strategy.
g
Data insucient for dening variation (G-strategy is gradually losing ground).
9. Basic word order properties
9.1 Highly exible word order at the sentence level with

predominant SVO
Compared to the world on the whole, Europe seems to have a much higher percent-
age of languages with a relatively exible word order on the clause level, i.e. those
having four or ve word order variants in addition to the basic one. Thus, nearly
half (48%) of the languages in Siewierskas (1998) European 48 language-sample
show exible word order, as opposed to 14% of languages in her world-wide 171
language-sample. Still more striking are the dierences in the distribution of
dierent word order combinations in Europe and in the world. Nearly half of the
highly exible European languages have SVO as their basic word order and SOV as
one of the other variants these constitute 21% of Siewierskas European sample,
whereas their proportion in Siewierskas global sample is much lower (4% of all the
languages, i.e. less than a third of all the highly exible languages). Even given the
restricted availability of data for many non-European languages (some of the
variants in highly exible word order occur very rarely), the dierences in these
gures are too great to be ignored.
Interestingly, a large portion of the European exible SVO languages is found
in the CB area. These include Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, as well as Northern and Eastern
(at least Inari) Sami. Word order in Southern Sami is also fairly exible, but its
basic order is SOV. Finally, the Germanic CB languages are V-second. The isogloss
of exible SVO-order covers, however, also genetically related languages outside
the region all Slavic languages,78 and also Mordvin and Komi within Finno-
Ugric. Among the Finno-Ugrian languages with highly exible word order,
Vilkuna (1998: 178) distinguishes the Eastern SVO (Komi, Mordvin, Karelian,
Veps) with extensive ordering variation and spontaneous verb object focusing SOV
and the Western SVO (Finnish, Estonian, Northern and Inari Sami) with
discourse-congurational nodes, V2 tendencies (especially Estonian) and where the
occurrence of OV is restricted to specic constructions. It seems, that the Baltic and
the Eastern Slavic languages and probably even Livonian can be classied as
Eastern SVO. In Europe, the only other exible SVO languages are found in the
Balkans, and include Greek, Rumanian and Romani (in addition to the neigh-
bouring Southern Slavic languages). Highly exible SVO languages form, thus, a
more or less continuous zone in Europe, stretching from North-eastern Europe
(including the CB area) across the Slavic languages to the Balkans, showing both a
strong genetic (Baltic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric) and areal bias.
The other highly exible languages in Siewierskas European sample (i.e. exible
SOV or split SOV/SVO languages) include 7 languages of the Caucasus (Abkhaz,
Armenian, Avar, Dargwa, Chechen, Kabardian, Georgian), Basque, 2 Finno-Ugric
languages (Hungarian, Udmurt), 2 Old Indo-European languages (Gothic, Latin)
and Upper Sorbian. It seems that highly exible word order was originally associat-
ed with the Indo-European stock (not Hittite, however), the Caucasus, and perhaps
the Uralic stock (not Nenets, however). Thus, highly exible word order with
dominant SOV vs. SVO could probably be interpreted as dierent stages in the
general cline from SOV to SVO in Indo-European and Uralic (Table 20).
Table 20.From SOV to SVO in Europe

SOV highly exible split highly exible exible SVO V2 SVO
SOV SOV/SVO SVO
Hittite Latin, Old Hungarian Russian, Finnish, Swedish, English

Nenets Greek Lithuanian etc. Estonian German
Komi, Veps etc.
9.2 Rigid possessor-possessed (GN) word order in noun phrases

Most of the CB languages combine the (exible) SVO basic order on clause level with
GN as the only possible or by far most frequent word order in noun phrases. This
is true for Baltic and Finnic (Christen this volume), Standard Swedish, Danish and
to a certain degree Norwegian. Slavic dialects in the Baltikum (Russian, Belarusian
and Polish, cf. Cekmonas this volume, b) frequently prepose their genitives, as
opposed to the more frequent NG order across Slavic.79 The Germanic languages
outside the CB-area either have both GN/NG orders, or simply prefer NG order.
In a global perspective, GN tends to correlate with OV orders, whereas verb-

initial languages tend to be NG both tendencies nd strong support among the
European languages (SOV/GN languages include Altaic, Basque, most Caucasian,
including the Indo-European Armenian and Ossetic, and Uralic, while Celtic is
both V-initial and NG). Again in the global perspective there is nothing strange in
the SVO/GN combination: both GN and NG are equally common among SVO
languages of the world (Dryer 1992, 1997). Here, however, Europe diers from the
rest of the world in that the consistent GN order in combination with SVO is found
only in the CB languages and the two Finno-Ugric languages Komi and Mordvin.
There is, thus, a clear geographic clustering of SVO/GN languages in Europe. This,
however, seems to be a general tendency: as Dryer shows in a later study (1999),
SVO/GN languages in his global sample always turn up in clusters in geographically
contiguous areas. Dryer argues that geography is the best predictor for whether a
SVO language will show the GN word order or not. If a SVO language is spoken in
the geographic proximity to SVO/GN languages, there is a high chance that it also
shows the GN word order; the unmarked option otherwise is SVO/NG. This
suggests, thus, that whenever several languages in one and the same area manifest
the SVO/GN word order (more or less to the exception of the NG order), we can
suspect language contacts at work. Let us now have a look at what is known about
the history of the SVO/GN word order in the CB languages.
The GN order in itself is unremarkable for Uralic languages where it is found all
over the place. In this respect, the Uralic stock is very stable, and its GN order might
ultimately be explained as a reection of the previous SOV characteristics. It seems
thus that for Finnic, Komi and Mordvin, the simplest explanation would be that the
GN order reects their recent change from OV to or towards VO order. This
explanation seems to nd additional support in the fact that all nominal modiers,
except for relative clauses and adpositional phrases, precede the head, in accordance
with one of the best known and most often quoted cross-linguistic generalizations:
in OV languages (most typically SOV languages) nominal modiers tend to precede
nouns, while in VO languages nominal modiers tend to follow nouns.
However, Dryer (1997) suggests an alternative and, in fact, more exciting
explanation. The famous correlation quoted above turns out to be a myth, as has
been proven by Dryers recent ndings, based on a huge sample of more than 700
languages. First of all, in a worldwide perspective neither the order of adjectives
with respect to nouns, nor the order of demonstratives correlate signicantly with
the basic word order: adjectives normally FOLLOW nouns, while demonstratives
and numerals normally PRECEDE nouns. Second, correlations like the one quoted
above result from the genetically and areally biased samples used in previous
studies, with a signicant overrepresentation of Eurasian languages. It appears that
a very large area of central Eurasia is inhabited by peoples who speak OV languages
with a number of similarities which are not normally shared by OV languages in
other places. Thus, the SOV/NumN/DemN/AdjN/GN /RelN type is actually the

most frequent Eurasian language type. It is still unclear how old this area is and
how areal forces have operated during the last two thousand years or even more.
Against this typological background, the characterization of word order in
Baltic and Finnic as compared to the rest of the European languages can be
modied: with the order GN, Baltic and Finnic80 appear to be the only VO-lan-
guage families in Europe in which all nominal modiers, except for relative clauses
and prepositional phrases, precede the head. The European VO languages them-
selves form the following hierarchy from mostly heavily Noun + Modier to
mostly heavily Modier + Noun:
Celtic < Albanian, Romance < Greek, Slavic < Baltic, Finnic
Dryers point is that the extreme positions of Celtic vs. Finnic/Baltic cannot be
explained by appealing to any world-wide cross-linguistic correlations, as might
have been hypothesised on the basis of the earlier, erroneous generalizations.
Rather, it could be explained in terms of the geographical and chronological
distance to the dominant Eurasian OV type.
Depending on the age of the dominant Eurasian OV type, there are two
dierent scenarios for the development of VO languages in Europe. According to
the rst one, many of these languages descended from the Eurasian OV type and
have gradually changed both their clause level order from OV to VO and the order
of various nominal modiers from the prenominal to postnominal position.
According to the second one, the spread of the Eurasian OV type postdated the
early European languages.
Finnic languages (together with Komi, Mordvin and Northern and Eastern
Sami) are apparently recent members of the VO area in Europe. Most of their
eastern relatives conform to the Eurasian OV type and this is done by Finnic too,
apart from VO order. In addition, they are geographically close to the area of the
dominant Eurasian OV type. The Celtic languages, on the other hand, are both
geographically farthest away from the area of the dominant Eurasian OV languages
and have been separated from them for a considerable period of time: the other
Indo-European groups in Europe are either later migrations from the east and/or
migrations that have not gone that far.
Dryers explanation stops here: ne for Finnic, but what about the other
OV/GN languages in the CB area?
Starting with Baltic, which shares with Finnic the same place in Dryers hierar-
chy, it is denitely dicult to justify the dierence between its the predominate GN
and the Slavic NG in terms of geographic and chronological distance from the
Eurasian OV type: chronologically, they are probably the same, while geograph-
ically, Slavic, in particular Eastern Slavic, is probably closer. A hypothesis compati-
ble with Dryers account would thus have to seek at least some reasons for the Baltic
GN in Finnic inuence (Matthew Dryer, p.c.). The role of this inuence is, howev-
er, not clear. Old Indo-European languages like Latin, Greek and Vedic had both
order types GN and NG. GN was however the rule in Hittite. Lehmann (1974: 74),
therefore, concludes that Proto-Indo-European had GN. It is dicult to say how far
the Eastern Baltic languages retain this original state of aairs (in which case they
would be more archaic than Classical Greek and Latin in this respect) or whether the
preservation of GN is due to Finnic inuence. The few texts from Old Prussian (only
translations) do not allow conclusions about the word order in Western Baltic.
Lithuanian and Latvian also dier in whether GN order is mandatory. Not
surprisingly, Latvian is closer to Finnic than Lithuanian: in Latvian, GN is as xed
as in Finnic, while Lithuanian allows NG, even though GN is the normal case in
Standard Lithuanian (cf. Christen this volume). This relative mobility of genitive
attributes in Lithuanian seems to be an old feature. In an investigation on word order
in selected Old Lithuanian texts, Vasiliauskiene (1996) shows that the frequency of
GN word order varies considerably from text to text, according to whether the
genitive is a noun or a pronoun. Thus, the low frequency of GN (13% for nominal
genitives vs. 16% for pronominal ones) in Daukas Postile can be partly account-
ed for by the NG word order in the Polish original from which it was translated
(Wuyek Postilla Cotholyczna mnieysza). Bretkunas Postile from Western
Lithuania seems to show less foreign inuence in general: GN occurs in 32% (for
nominal genitives) vs. 69% (for pronominal genitives) of all instances. Interestingly,
the latter gures (in the Old Lithuanian from Western Lithuania) are similar to
those in dialectal texts from Eastern Lithuania collected in the 19th century (41%
vs. 86%). Vasiliauskiene (ibid.: 12) suggests also that dierent word order may
entail a dierence in the information structure: thus when a genitive pronoun is
postposed, its head noun is stressed. Vasiliauskiene concludes that the examples of
postposed genitive, though evidently inuenced by Polish, Latvian and German to
a certain extent, in other cases reect a characteristic feature of Old Lithuanian,
that of allowing some freedom of word order in the noun phrase (ibid.).
Vasiliauskienes statistics are problematic for areal comparative purposes since
we do not know which percentage is covered by genitives in (pseudo-) partitive
functions, such as a pound of apples (these always follow their heads). A short look
at folktales collected in the 19th century reveals, however, a great many NG
sequences besides the more common NG even in non-partitive (possessive)
functions. There seems to be no dierence in context: in a tale from Garliava
(SW-Lithuania) collected by Brugmann (Basanavicius 1996: 281284) the sequence
kupciaus dukte the daughter of the merchant occurs eleven times with preposed
and two times with postposed genitives: (ta) dukte kupciaus.
Old Lithuanian and some Lithuanian dialects thus reect a similar state of
aairs as other old Indo-European languages, with both GN and NG. The much
more rigid GN order in Latvian can, in all probability, be attributed to contacts with
Finnic (Latvian and Finnic prenominal attributes show also other similarities, see
Christen this volume).
Finally, it is dicult to see any clear connection between the GN in Continental
Scandinavian and that in Baltic/Finnic. The rigid GN word order in Standard
Continental Scandinavian is a relatively recent phenomenon, in Swedish dating
from 12501350; before that genitives could both precede and follow their head.
Stabilization of GN order in Continental Scandinavian went hand in hand with the
transition from the morphological genitive case to the phrase-nal clitical s-genitive
(see Norde 1997 for a detailed account of this process in terms of degrammatical-
ization); most importantly, this development seems to have started earlier in
Danish, where there are no reasons at all to suspect any Baltic or Finnic presence,
than in Swedish. Continental Scandinavian dialects on the whole show an impres-
sive diversity in their possessive NPs, a large portion of which, including some of
the dialects spoken in the Finnish surroundung (e.g., the dialect of verkalix in
Vsterbotten) manifest NG word order (see Delsing 1996; Koptjevskaja-Tamm
forthc.; Rendahl this volume, Section 4).
The properties discussed in 9.19.2 are summarized in Table 21.
Table 21.Flexible SVO order and GN in the CB area and in a few Uralic languages
Grm, Yid Standard Slavic Finnic, Eastern Mordvin, Mari, Nenets,
Swd, Nor, Northern/ Baltic Komi Udmurt Southern
Dan Eastern Saami
Saami
exible x x x x (x)[SOV]a
SVO
GN (x)b x b
(x)b x x x x x
a
Predominant SOV word order in Mari and Udmurt is obviously due to the strong inuence of Turkic
languages (Chuvash, Tatar).
b
Refers to morphologically restricted possessive forms preposed s-forms in German and possessive
adjectives in Slavic. Preposed genitives are attested in some Russian dialects, including those in Baltikum
(Cekmonas this volume, c, Section 4.3).
Thus, concerning word order, the CB area seems to be (very much like the
Caucasus), a residual or a transitional area in the general European development
from the Eurasian SOV and GN language type to SVO and NG. And even though
there is no evidence for relating the development of preposed genitives in many
varieties of Continental Scandinavian, including the Standard ones, to contacts with
other SVO/GN languages (most probably, with Finnic. Dryers (1999) global data
suggest that further research could throw a new light on this phenomenon.
9.3 The word order of adpositions

The most salient dierence in word order between the Indo-European and the
Uralic languages of the CB area is the predominant use of prepositions in Baltic,
Germanic and Slavic and of postpositions in Finnic (cf. also Csat this volume on
adpositions in Karaim).
There is, however, a tendency to level out this dierence. Thus, both Finnic and
Latvian are known as languages with mixed adpositional systems: Finnic has a
restricted set of prepositions, Latvian has many more postpositions than Lithuanian
and Slavic, and both Finnic and Latvian have adpositions that can appear both
before and after the noun they govern.81 Language contacts have mainly been
discussed in literature in connection with at least two phenomena: rst, the
development of postpositions and mixed pre/postpositions in Latvian, and second,
the seeming expansion of prepositions at the cost of postpositions in Estonian.
Laakso (this volume, Section 2.2) ascribes the initial development of prepositions
in Finnic to Indo-European inuence, but this problem on the whole seems to have
received much less attention than the other two mentioned above.
While there are no prepositions at all in more continental Uralic languages such
as Mordvin and Mari, Finnic (and Sami) has a restricted set of prepositions (such
as Fin. ilma without) or adpositions that can appear both before and after the
noun they govern (Fin. lpi through, ympri around). The percentage of
prepositions is probably somewhat higher in Livonian and Estonian than in
Finnish. Prepositions and postpositions in Finnic dier in their governing proper-
ties. While the vast majority of postpositions assign genitive to their complements
(e.g. 98% of all postpositional usages in Estonian, Ehala 1994: 180), the case
assigned by prepositions shows considerable variation (e.g. in Estonian genitive in
38.4%, partitive in 29.3%, otherwise comitative, abessive, terminative and nomina-
tive, Ehala ibid.) again a surprising variation in the Uralic context.
On the other hand, in Latvian there are many more postpositions than in
Lithuanian and Slavic and especially adpositions that can appear both before and
after the noun they govern (caur[i] through, ap[kart] around).82 Many of these
originate as nouns in various forms. Some of these apparently new adpositions
(they are less grammaticalized, often phonetically longer) in Latvian are formally
identical to verb particles (see Wlchli this volume). All dialects of Latvian are,
however, still predominantly prepositional.
A plausible hypothesis discussed in the literature attributes the development of
postpositions in Latvian to Finnic inuence (cf. Stolz (1991: 818). However, as
Holvoet (1993: 14445) points out, the importance of this inuence should not be
overestimated. Thus, the pattern of developing adpositions out of case forms of
nouns with a spatial meaning is not specically Latvian, but must have been
common for both Eastern Baltic languages, as can be seen in a few noun-based
prepositions in Lithuanian. Given the rigid GN order in Latvian noun phrases, the
postpositional character of its noun-based adpositions comes out as quite natural
(cf. Section 9.2). On the contrary, as Holvoet suggests, Lithuanian noun-based
prepositions are much more surprising given the predominate GN order. Thus, the
dierence between Latvian and Lithuanian in this particular case can be attributed
either to a possible Finnic inuence in Latvian, a possible Slavic adstratal inuence
in Lithuanian, or both (if areal inuence is a major factor at all).
Changes in word order with adpositions have been studied extensively for
written Estonian in the last century. The discussion shows how complex word order
change can be in a micro-perspective. During the 20th century, Estonian has been
witnessing a signicant expansion in the use of its prepositions at the expense of
postpositions (as discussed in Hint 1990; Ehala 1994, 1995). This is primarily
noticeable in those adpositions which have both prepositional and postpositional
uses. Thus, some of them, used as prepositions, have acquired meanings which
earlier only characterized their postpositional occurrences. A good illustration is
provided by lbi which as a postposition means by, by means of, with the help of,
by the use of . As a preposition, it used to mean through, but in contemporary
Estonian, it is rapidly acquiring the erstwhile postpositional meaning as well. Also,
where there are two parallel constructions of which one is prepositional and the
other is postpositional, the prepositional construction is preferred: thus, of the two
following expressions with the adposition mber, mber laua and laua mber
around the table, the former is preferred.
Hint (1990) attributes this development to the heavy Russian inuence on
Estonian during the last fty years. To check and partly reject this hypothesis, Ehala
(1994, 1995) has collected a data sample containing occurrences of adpositions in
newspaper text corpora from three dierent time periods 1905, 1972 and 1992
(approximately 6,000 items for each period). The study conrms the rise in the
relative frequency of the prepositional occurrences only among all the adpositional
occurrences between 1905 (8.9%) and 1972 (16.5%), whereas the period 19721992
witnesses a reversing of this tendency. As the comparable data are restricted to three
years, it is, however, dicult to be sure about the reasons for the changes in the
adposition rate. In particular, the data do not show us what happened during the
intensive process of purication during the 1920s and 30s when Estonian became
a national language.83
Finally, in a global perspective, mixed pre-/postpositional systems appear to be
fairly infrequent. In Dryers 700-language sample (Matthew Dryer, p.c.) there are
only 54 languages (7.7%) with mixed adpositional systems. Among them there is also
an additional asymmetry: whereas 20 languages with prepositions as their primary
option have postpositions as well, only 8 predominately postpositional languages
show prepositions, which is more or less in line with the higher frequency of
postpositions in the languages of the world. In other words, the question of whether
the initial emergence of prepositions in Finnic should be accounted for by internal

development, by contacts with the Indo-European or both still remains a problem.
9.4 Particle initial yes/no-questions

One of the characteristic innovations of Standard Average European languages is
the strategy of verb fronting as the marker of direct questions (Dahl 1990; Haspel-
math 1998). Only some of the CB languages share this innovation. In Germanic,
and, to a lesser degree, Estonian, verb fronting occurs as an interrogative marker on
its own, whereas in Nothern Sami, Finnish (and some of its closest relatives) and
Russian this strategy is combined with a second-position clitical interrogative
particle (-go, -ko/-k and li respectively). In addition, a considerable number of the
CB languages construct yes/no-questions by simply adding a sentence-initial
particle to the armative sentence, without other changes (except sometimes a
rising intonation pattern). This shared feature, noted in Raukko & stman
(1994: 48), is attested in Baltic, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Southern Finnic
(Estonian and Livonian) and Southern Sami. While verb fronting alone is normally
restricted to direct questions (which leads to structural dierences between direct
and indirect questions in the languages concerned), interrogative particles are
normally used in both direct and indirect questions, which, thus, turn out to be
structurally isomorphic, cf. examples (3436):
(34) Initial interrogative particles: isomorphism of direct and indirect questions
a. Lithuanian
Ar jis ateis? / Neinau, ar jis ateis.
int he:nom come:fut.3 / neg:know:fut.1sg
b. Ukrainian
Cy vin pryjde / Ne-znaju, cy vin pryjde.
int he:nom come:pres.3.sg / neg-know:pres.1sg
c. Livonian
Voi ta tulab? / Ma b ted, voi ta tulab.
int (s)he:nom come:pres.3sg / I neg know:pres.1sg
(35) Second-place interrogative particles: isomorphism of direct and indirect questions
Finnish
Tulee-ko hn? / En tied, tulee-ko hn.
come:pres.3sg-int (s)he? / neg.pres.1sg know:nfin
(36) Verb fronting alone in direct questions vs. complementizers in indirect questions
Swedish
Kommer han? / Jag vet inte om han kommer.
come:pres he:dir / I:dir know:pres neg if he:dir come:pres
Does he come?/I dont know whether he comes.
Standard Russian and most of its dialects use other strategies for yes/no-questions
(a rising intonation alone or the second-position interrogative clitic li, often

combined with the predicate-subject inversion). However, in Russian dialects of the
upper Dniepr and the upper Western Dvina regions (thus the areas neighbouring
Belarusian and the Baltic languages), an initial question particle ti (and variants) is
used. The particle ci (and variants) is used in South-western Russian dialects almost
up to Vorone, e.g. ti (int) blizko (close.by) vy jagody sobirali? Vel. Did you
gather berries close by? (Kuzmina 1993: 187). The verb is sometimes placed before
the subject: ti (int) xodil (went) Kolja v griby? Did Kolja go out to collect mush-
rooms? (Smolensk district, ibid.). The initial particle can sometimes be combined
with the general Russian question particle li in second position: ti pojde li ty? Do
you come? (Smolensk district, ibid.: 188), or ti, ci can be used in second position
like li, though this is not common: a korovy ti prili? Did the cows arrive? (Velikie
Luki district, ibid.). The examples from Western Russian dialects show that this is
a border region of the particle initial type.
Yes/no-questions in the CB area provide several beautiful examples of language
contacts:
Yiddish is interesting in that combines SAE verb-fronting with an optional
initial question particle tsi, borrowed from Slavic: (tsi) (int) zogst
(tell:pres.2sg) du mir ersht itst? Are you telling me now for the rst time?
(Jacobs et al. 1994: 413).
The Finland Swedish dialect of Solf has extended the Swedish conjunction om
whether (cf. example (36b)) from indirect to direct yes/no-questions: m d
taar engelsk? Do you speak English?. Raukko and stmann (1994: 4850)
explain this development by the Finnish model, in which the enclitic particle
-ko/k is used in both types of clauses.
A particularly good example to show the complexity of contacts in the Circum
Baltic area is the following. As noted in Stolz (1991: 6568), the Southern
Finnic languages developed an initial question particle following the Baltic
example (step 2). The grammaticalization source for this particle in Estonian is,
according to Alvre (1983; see also Section 7.3) originally a Germanic loanword
in Finnic (step 1). Livonian went even further in taking over Baltic stuctures: as
in Baltic (and Slavic) languages the Livonian question particle is also the
disjunctive conjunction (step 3). Later Latvian substituted its own particle and
disjunctive conjunction by borrowing this Livonian word (step 4). This
complex relative chronology (at least four subsequent steps) reects the long
duration of dierent overlapping language contacts.
Finally, a few words about the two strategies of building yes/no-questions, verb-
fronting and inital particle-strategy, in the global perspective. Cross-linguistically,
the verb-fronting strategy is fairly infrequent in Ultans (1978) 79-language
sample it is found in only seven languages (8.9%), of which six are European.
Yes/no-questions involving initial particles are more frequent they occur in 100
languages in Matthew Dryers 700-language sample (14%); in Europe, however,
they are mainly attested on the periphery (apart from the CB area, in the Celtic
languages, in Sardinian and in the Balkan languages Greek, Albanian and Serbo-
Croat; Matthew Dryer, p.c.).
Map 3 shows some properties of yes/no-question in the CB-languages.
Sam
FSw d Fin V ps
Sw d
Est
Liv
Ltg
Ltv Rus
Lith Bylr
Pol
Yid
U kr
G rm
INT = particle whether Direct and indirect (subordinate)

yes/no question can be identical
particle-initial type The yes/no question has (mostly)
an initial particle
INT = or The question particle is identical
or almost identical with or
INT = also = with The question particle is (almost)
homonymic to the elements also
and with. The three elements are
perhaps etymologally identical.
INT = vai/voi The question particle is vai/voi/u
Areal features of the yes/no-question.
Map 3.
10. Evidentiality
10.1 Introduction
One of the most important areal features for the Baltic Sprachbund suggested by
Haarmann (1976) is the existence of an evidential mood84 (called modus relativus
and modus obliquus in the Baltic and Finnic traditions respectively). Evidential
markers indicate something about the source of information in the speakers
assertion (Willet 1988; Bybee et al. 1994: 95). The basic distinction, according to
Willets cross-linguistic study, is between direct, or attested evidence versus indirect
evidence for a speakers factual claims, i.e. whether the source of his/her informa-
tion is primary (based on his/her own visual, auditory and/or other sensory senses)
or secondary. Within indirect evidence, there are two main types reported
evidence, based on verbal reports, and inferring evidence, i.e. evidence upon which
an inference is based and which involves either observable results or only reasoning.
As we will see, the evidential mood in Finnic and Baltic mainly expresses reported
evidence the primary function of Dahls (1985: 149153) category quotative.
A special type of reported evidence narrated evidence is provided by oral
ction (fairy-tales, stories).
In his earlier work, Haarman (1970) suggested that indirect evidentiality
(indirekte Erlebnisform) constitutes an Eurasian isogloss. The four languages,
Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Livonian form, however, a special area, locally
separated and diering from other Eurasian languages in having an evidential mood
for dierent tenses.
Ambrazas (1990: 219234) gives a thorough synchronic and diachronic analysis
of the Baltic modus relativus. He argues that the distribution and frequency of the
evidential mood in the Baltic languages and dialects, having its centre in Latvian
and in Northern and North-eastern dialects of Lithuanian,85 correlates positively
with the degree of contacts with Finnic languages. These contacts are either by
direct Finnic substrate (Livonian and Southern Estonian for Latvian) or indirectly
by substrate of the now extinct Baltic languages Curonian (for the NW-dialects of
Lithuanian and Western Latvian) and Selonian (NE-Lithuanian and SE-Latvian).
As the immediate relatives of the languages of the Baltic area86 do not show any
comparable category, Ambrazas holds that the evidential mood emerged in situ (in
the Baltic area) and that the primary impetus for its development probably came
from the Southern Finnic languages. The argument for this, according to Ambrazas,
would be the widely attested tendency to mark indirect evidence by special tenses
and/or moods across Finno-Ugric: by the perfect in Permic, by the Past durative II
tense in Mari, by the so-called absentive mood in Mansi etc. (Haarmann 1970). The
formation of the evidential mood in the Baltic area must have occurred after the
dissolution of the Finnic languages (since it is lacking in several of the Finnic
languages and since Estonian and Livonian use dierent formants in their oblique
moods), but at the time when the Baltic varieties still formed a tight unity in which
innovations could easily spread. Combining these considerations with the archeo-
logical evidence, Ambrazas dates the emergence of the relative mood in Baltic to the
56th centuries A.D.
In spite of a long tradition of treating evidentiality as an areal Baltic phenome-
non (cf. also Arumaa (1935), Stolz (1991) and Klaas (1997)), the whole picture
remains unclear. The phenomena covered by modus relativus and modus
obliquus are highly dependent on particular pragmatic conditions and discourse
types, whereas most of the examples quoted in the literature are given without any
context. To quote just one, particularly irritating, example: the examples ta lugiji
and ta vol lugiji are handed down from one publication to the other (Vri
1966: 148, Haarmann 1970: 63, Ambrazas 1990: 231) as if their translations he is
said to read vs. he is said to have read or the labels (nastojacee-buducee present-
future vs. slonoe-proedcee compound past) were self-explanatory.
Willets words (1988: 52) that our understanding of evidentiality as a gram-
matical phenomenon is still in its infancy are still true. There is little consensus on
the terminology in this domain and, more important, there is very little systematic
and detailed work on evidentiality (some exceptions, apart from Willet 1988 being
Chafe & Nichols 1986; Guntcheva 1997; Matras 1995). This complicates any
attempt to evaluate the Finnic-Baltic situation from a typological point of view. The
following exposition will, thus, necessarily have a fairly preliminary and sketchy
character. Our starting point will be the forms and functions of the relative mood
in Lithuanian (mainly drawing on Ambrazas 1990) which will then be compared to
evidential forms in the other Baltic and Finnic varieties.
10.2 Oblique mood (modus relativus) in Lithuanian

In Lithuanian, what is traditionally known as the oblique or relative mood (cf.
Ambrazas 1997: 262266) is expressed by short forms of active participles in the
nominative case which agree with the subject in gender and number. The paradigm
of the oblique mood is in complete correspondence to that of the indicative mood.
For each of the simple tenses in Lithuanian (present, past, frequentative past and
future) there is a special active (and passive) participle; for the compound tenses
(perfects and continuatives) this dierence is manifested in the distinction
between nite vs. participial forms of the copula verb buti to be. In the same vein,
the distinction between active and passive indicative forms is paralleled in the
oblique mood: passives involve the same copula, again distinguishing between
nite and participial forms, combined with various passive participles.87 Table 22
presents a fragment of the paradigms of the oblique vs. indicative moods for the
verb mesti throw. Only the active voice is shown here, the oblique mood is given
only in the masculine singular forms.
Table 22.Some forms of the modus relativus in Lithuanian
Tense Simple forms Compound active forms: Perfect
ind.sg.3 obl.masc.sg ind.masc.sg.3 obl.masc.sg.3
Present meta metas (yra) metes esas metes
Past mete metes buvo metes buves metes
Past frequent. mesdavo mesdaves budavo metes budaves metes
Future mes mesias bus metes busias metes
The oblique mood in Lithuanian is mainly used in the following functions:

a. for indirect reported evidence (Ambrazas 1997: 263265), either
as reported (indirect) speech after verbs of saying, perception and the like, a
fact learned from report, hearsay or other sources of information
(37) Lithuanian (Ambrazas 1997: 264)
Girdejau, jis gyvenas mieste.
heard:1sg he:nom live:part.pres.act.nom.sg.masc town:loc
I heard he lives in town
or independently referring to a doubtful action, the information on which

is not quite reliable:
(38) Ukastieji pinigai dega.
buried.nom.pl.masc.det money:nom.pl burn:part.pres.act.nom.pl.masc
Buried money burns, as they say (ibid.)
b. for inferring evidence to indicate an action implied by its results (rarely).88

(39) Jau tie vaikai pupo-se
already that:pl.nom.masc kid:pl.nom bean-loc.pl
buve: didiausios brydes
be:part.past.act.nom.pl.masc biggest:nom.pl.fem.def track:pl.nom
paliktos.
leave:part.past.pass.nom.pl.fem
Those children must have been in the beans again, wide tracks were left.
(ibid.)
c. for admirative functions to refer to an unexpected or surprising action (not

very frequently, mainly restricted to present participles)
(40) Jis atsigrees iuri
he:nom turn.around:part.past.act.nom.sg.masc look:pres.3
stovis velnias
stand:part.pres.act.nom.masc.sg devil:nom.sg
He looked back and there a devil was standing. (ibid.)
d. for narrated evidence in special kinds of (oral) narrative texts, primarily

tales and legends (usage restricted to past participles, which are, thus, typical
narrative forms)
(41) Vieno pono miru-si pati
one:gen lord:gen die-part.past.act.nom.sg.fem wife:nom
ir paliku-si dvylika sunu ir
and leave-part.past.act.nom.sg.fem twelve:acc son:gen.pl and
dar viena dukterele. Po kiek laiko
still one:acc.fem.sg daughter:dim.acc.sg after some time:gen
tevas pamil-es kita
father:nom fall.in.love-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc some:acc.fem.sg
mergina, ragana.
woman:acc.sg witch:acc.sg
The wife of a lord died and left twelve sons and a little daughter. After some time
the father fell in love with another young woman, a witch. (Ambrazas 1997: 265)
The oblique mood in Lithuanian, in contrast to the indicative, conditional and

imperative, does not have morphological markers of its own (cf. Klaas 1997 for a survey
of the dierent opinions on whether oblique forms should be treated as a separate
mood or not). The forms involved in the oblique mood have also other functions.
There is a potential and actually not so infrequent ambiguity between past
forms of the oblique mood, including narrative forms, and present perfect forms
of the indicative mood, which both involve the short form of the past participle.
Perfect tenses of the indicative mood combine these forms with the copula verb to
be, the present form of which, yra, is, however, often omitted, leading to a frequent
blurring of the distinction between the indicative and the oblique mood, as in
example (42).89 We will return to this issue in the next section:
(42) Jonas atejes.
Jonas:nom come-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc
Ind. pres.perf: Jonas has (yra) come.
Obl. past: Jonas is said to have come or Narrative: Jonas came.
Clauses with the oblique mood share striking similarities with clauses involving
constructions nominativus cum participio (the nominative case with participles).
These constructions
normally depend on verbs of saying, cognition, perception and the like;
are used for logophoric contexts, i.e. the subject of the matrix verb (S1) is
coreferential with the implicit subject of the embedded predication (S2), and
the embedded predicate is expressed by the short participle in the nominative
case;
in the most frequent cases, the matrix verb attaches the reexive marker as a
marker of logophoricity:
(43) Tevas sake-si iandien dirb-as/
Father:nom say:3.past-refl today work-part.pres.act.nom.sg.masc/
dirb-es.
work-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc
Father said that he was working/had worked today.
In non-logophoric contexts, complements to the same matrix predicates (this time

without reexive markers) appear as gerunds non-inected non-nite forms
with the subject in the accusative case, as in (44). These constructions have histori-
cally developed from constructions accusativus cum participio (the accusative case
with participles), which would be the exact parallel to the nominativus cum
participio in non-logophoric contexts; such forms are mainly attested in Lithuani-
an and Latvian writings of the 1617th centuries and occur as relicts in dialects, as
exemplied by (45):
(44) Gerunds as embedded predicates:
Sakiau teva iandien dirb-ant/
say:past.1sg father:acc today work-ger.pres.act/
dirb-us.
work-ger.past.act
I said that father was working/had worked today
(45) Accusativus cum participio (Lithuanian dialects, Ambrazas 1990: 142)
Girdi pna mrusi
hear:pres.1sg lord:acc die-part.pres.act.acc.sg.masc
I hear that the lord has died.
Thus, in the prototypical case, the dierence between clauses with nominativus
cum participio and the oblique mood is as shown in Table 23 (overleaf).
Interestingly, the geographic distribution of the oblique mood in Lithuanian
dialects almost coincides with that of nominativus cum participio constructions.
Also, in some dialects of North-eastern Lithuania, verbs of saying, perception and
cognition in logophoric contexts do not attach reexive markers, and the two
constructions cannot be distinguished:
Table 23.Oblique mood and nominativus cum participio

Oblique mood Nominativus cum
participio
Syntactic type of predication: embedded Not necessarily Yes

S1 is coreferential with S2 Not necessarily Yes
S2 deleted Not necessarily Yes
Reexive marker on the matrix verb No Yes (normally)
Intonation unity of the matrix and em- Not necessarily Yes
bedded predications
(46) Sako iandien dirb-as/

say:3.pres today work-part.pres.act.nom.sg.masc/
dirb-es.
work-part.past.act.nom.sg.masc
He says that he is working/has worked today (Ambrazas 1990: 225)
These obvious diachronic and synchronic connections between the oblique mood
and the nominative-with-participle constructions in Lithuanian have been at the
centre of numerous theories aimed at explaining their origin (cf. Ambrazas
1990: 132141, 222230). Thus, it has been suggested that the oblique mood
originated in nominative-with-participle constructions, i.e. that the oblique mood
itself developed from participles as dependent (embedded) predicates, but later
came to be extended to independent, non-embedded contexts as well. Ambrazas
argues, however, that the use of participles as independent predicates is an old
Indo-European feature, which predates both nominativus com participio and the
oblique mood. His hypothesis is that the oblique mood developed from the earlier
uses of participles as independent predicates via grammaticalization of some of the
modal meanings frequently associated with them.
The forms and uses of the oblique mood presented so far are characteristic of
Standard Lithuanian. In dialects, they are mainly attested in two regions: in
emaitian and some Western Auktaitian dialects (primarily on the territory of
former Eastern Prussia), as well as in the North-eastern corner of Lithuanian. These
two regions are connected by a narrow strip along the border to Latvia; to the south
of this strip the oblique mood is either not attested at all or occurs only sporadically.
Lithuanian dialects have also another non-nite form which partly has the same
functions as the oblique mood the neuter form of passive (past?) participles.
That form is primarily used for inferring evidence, as in cia kikio guleta, cia lapes
kasta a viska regiu here a hare has been lying (lie: part.past.pass.neut), here a
fox has been digging (dig: part.past.pass.neut) I see everything (Ambrazas
1990: 227), but can also be used for reported evidence and admirative meanings.
These forms occur mainly in those dialects where the relative mood is not devel-
oped, the only exception being the northern and, in particular, north-eastern
dialects where both constructions co-occur and tend to be associated with dierent
uses. (For a more detailed description cf. Ambrazas 1977 and Christen 1995: 35f.)
10.3 Evidentials in Latvian and Southern Finnic

The oblique mood of the Lithuanian type, primarily the agreeing present and future
participles, occur also in an island-like fashion in some of the Latvian dialects (both
in High Latvian and western Latvian dialects) and are attested in the earlier writings
in Latvian.
However, in the majority of Latvian dialects, as well as in Standard Latvian, the
paradigm of the oblique mood shows an interesting split between the past forms,
which basically follow the Lithuanian pattern, and the present (and future) forms:
the past participle is in the nominative and agrees with the subject in gender
and number, it may also be accompanied by the copula esot the present oblique
form of the copula verb but to be. Again, as in the Lithuanian case, the past
participle in combination with the verb but is involved in the formation of perfect
tenses of the indicative mood. The absence and presence of the copula in the
oblique mood do not seem to follow any systematic rule (except for the tendency to
be omitted in the 3rd person). A single form of the oblique mood, therefore,
corresponds to two tenses of the indicative mood the present perfect, which has
similar patterning, and the simple past;
the present and future participles appear in the non-agreeing forms with the
endings -ot /-ot (originally the accusative masculine/neuter singular form of
participles) these correspond to the simple present and future tenses.
Now, the present and future forms of the Latvian evidential mood show a striking
similarity, already noted by Arumaa (1935), to the present form of the evidential
mood in most Southern Estonian dialects (but not Vru), as well as in Standard
Estonian. This is also an invariable form of the present participle with the ending
-vat, again historically an object case form (partitive).90 Judging from the object
case, these forms most probably originated as dependent predications governed by
verba dicendi, sentiendi etc., as in example (46) from Lithuanian dialects and
example (47) from Finnish:
(47) Finnish
Hn sanoi vanhempien tnn teke-v-n
he say.3sg.past parents:gen.pl today do-part.pres.act-acc.sg
tyt.
work:prtv.sg
He said that the parents were working/had worked today.
The development of invariable participles is generally interpreted as a case of

convergence between Latvian and Estonian (Ambrazas 1990: 230231; Stolz
1991: 4550).
Now, whereas the oblique mood in Standard Estonian is formed of frozen
and/or non-inected forms (actually Standard Estonian reects Southern Estonian
in this case)91 and, thus, does not show any traces of agreement with the subject, the
South-eastern Vru dialect (Vru keel, lit. Vru language) diers from it in two
respects:
the present participle (in -va) is in the nominative case;
both the present and the perfect participles inect for number and, thus, agree,
with the subject. This is consistent with the behaviour of the perfect participle
in other functions where it also inects for number.
Livonian behaves basically in the same way as Southern Estonian: its correspondence
to the present participle is, however, the form in -iji (pl -ijid), which originally
marks the nomen agentis, but now functions basically as the present participle.
The forms considered in this section up to now are mainly used for reported
evidence, in usages comparable to examples (37) and (38). Reference to inferring
evidence and admirative contexts, as in examples (39)(40) is not typical for the
oblique mood in either Latvian or Finnic. For narratives in folk tales and legends,
both Northern and Southern Estonian, as well as Livonian, prefer bare perfect
participles, even though the oblique mood in Northern Estonian can appear in
narrative contexts too. In Estonian dialects present participles can also be used as a
sort of a praesens historicum for narrated evidence. In Latvian, as in Lithuanian, past
participles occur frequently as forms for narrated evidence in folk tales and legends.
In these cases, the copula seems to be preferably omitted, as opposed to reported
evidence, where it may be present.
One of the common traits in all languages is the striking similarity between
typically narrative forms and perfects: the two dier only in the absence/presence
of the copula (and the copula is facultative with the perfect at least in the Baltic
languages). The extension of perfects and resultatives to various evidential uses and
similar splits between normal perfects and copulaless perfects are well known
from a number of languages, the textbook examples being Bulgarian and Macedo-
nian, Turkish and Georgian (cf. Dahl 1985: 152; Willet 1988: 79; Bybee et al.
1994: 957) and, joining this group of the Black-Sea-languages, also Romani
(Matras 1995). The evidential forms in these languages are primarily used for
reported and inferring evidence, however, and only rarely for narrated evidence.
The peculiar fact about the Baltic region is that the perfect-based narrative forms in
some of the languages (Estonian and Livonian) cannot be used in any other
evidential functions.
It seems, thus, that there were two dierent domains that played a crucial role
in the development of the evidential mood in the Baltic region: perfect and partici-
ple constructions depending on verba dicendi.
Actually, we still know too little about the functional relations between various
verbal forms in real discourse. The following text in the Leivu dialect of Estonian
provides an instructive piece of evidence for the (at least apparently) messy usage of
ve dierent verb forms perfect [4] and present [3] indicative, a present
participle [5], a past participle [2] (the narrative form) and a sequence of a present
and a past participle [1]:
(48) Leivu Estonian (Niilus 1937: 53)
jenemustu uoew uonu [1] (be:part.pres + part.past) tark kierik-jezand ma
vaan: jengli tuude [2] (part.past) p ble, ku tu kanslide kuppas [3]
(pres.3sg) un uom paenu [4] (be:3sg + part.past) bet tte riei ikkuv [5]
(part.pres)
in ancient times there was a wise priest in Estonia: the angels came (down) on
his palm, when he mounted to the pulpit and prayed but once he called
Although past participles (part.past) are probably the most widespread form,
perfect (copula + part.past) and participle perfect (be-part.pres + part.past)
can be used in basically the same contexts, the latter especially at the beginning of
a tale. Present participles are the historic present of reporting narratives, their
function is to actualize, to foreground a special event. Last but not least, the present,
which has two synonymic form series in Leivu (and Vru), as the unmarked form
par excellence, can be used with narrative evidence text internally.
In the absence of systematic large-scale cross-linguistic studies of evidentiality,
it is impossible to say anything denite about the typological status of the Baltic and
Finnic evidentials. At least the following features are characteristic for these, but not
necessarily for other languages with evidential distinctions:
evidential forms are central for the expression of reported evidence and appear
both as complements to higher predicates (indirect speech) and as independent
predicates;
evidential forms are basically non-nite verb forms, primarily participles;
evidential forms distinguish several tenses which either correspond to all the
indicative tenses (Lithuanian) or neutralize only some of the distinctions found
in the indicative (Latvian, Estonian, Livonian);
typical narrative forms are basically perfects without a copula
11. Conclusions: The CB area as a contact superposition zone
We can now conclude this paper by giving a general characterization of the CB area
in its geographic, historic, cultural and linguistic context.
A good starting point here will be Johanna Nichols (1992: 1323) approach to
the concept of an area, where an area has to do with groups of contiguous languages
as dened by a geographic, cultural/historical and linguistic context. Nichols book
has a rather dierent focus than our paper. Yet, in writing this paper, we have been
inuenced very much by it and we think we should summarize some basic ideas in
it for those readers that are not familiar with the book.
Nichols makes the distinction between two types of language areas residual
zones (RZ) and spread zones (SZ). The two prototypical examples illustrating the
distinction are the Caucasus, as opposed to the adjacent Western Eurasian steppe.
Taking into consideration the most important features, a residual zone can be
dened as a dense grouping of genetically diverse languages in a sizeable area with
ongoing accumulation of languages, increasing diversity (both genetic and
structural), and no centre of innovation, whereas a spread zone can be dened as
the combination of language spread, language succession, and low genetic density
over some sizeable area. There are obvious geographic correlates for this distinc-
tion: at least, in the Old World, residual zones are often found in mountainous
regions, where contacts, both peaceful and military, among the dierent settlements
and groups of people are severely restricted by the natural preconditions. The
steppe, on the other hand, puts no obstacles on movements of large groups of
people in any direction.
The following is a detailed list over the properties distinguishing RZs from SZs
(ibid.: 1321).
Genetic diversity, which can be quantied as genetic density (the ratio of genetic
stocks to million square miles of area):
RZ: high. E.g. six linguistic stocks in the Caucasus the same number of
stocks as in the whole of Europe, the Caucasus excluded.
SZ: low (at least since the Eneolithic, at any one time all or most of the steppe
has been dominated by a single language family, and often a single language has
covered most of it, ibid.: 15)
Structural diversity, i.e. to what extent the languages in the zone dier from each
other in their structure
RZ: high
SZ: low: the structural type of the steppe languages has been fairly consistent
and standardly central and western Eurasian throughout (ibid.: 15)
Time depth of the language families in the zone

RZ: deep. E.g. Southern Caucasian and North-eastern Caucasian are roughly as
old as Indo-European)
SZ: shallow. E.g. the rst identiable language spreading over the steppe, Indo-
European, attained an age of only two millennia on the steppe before it was
replaced by its daughter and successor Iranian; Iranian in turn also dominated
the steppe for two thousand years; the next successor, the Turkic family, is now
almost two millennia old, and Mongolian, starting to replace Turkic in the early
Middle Ages, is still younger.
Spread of languages or language families; language succession
RZ: No appreciable spread, no language succession. The languages in the
Caucasus tend to remain in one location for as long as they can be traced.
SZ: Rapid spread, consequent language succession. The dynamic of linguistic
and ethnic interaction on the steppe may be spoken of as language (or
ethnic) succession: approximately every two millennia a new linguistic group
sweeps westward from the vicinity of Mongolia, rapidly attains military and
cultural hegemony on the steppe and replaces the previous language or
language family. The previous linguistic group is obliterated unless it has
extended into refugia such as the Caucasus, the mountains of Central Asia,
or the Danube plain and surrounding central Europe (ibid.: 1516).
Centre vs. periphery
RZ: no clear centre of innovation. However, strong areal properties are often
present. Thus, in the Caucasus, as in other mountain areas, innovations often
arise in the periphery (in the lowlands), whereas the interior (the highlands) is
much more conservative and retain archaisms. Although there is no standard
centre of innovations, there are several clearly pan-Caucasian features, such as
ergativity and glottalized consonants. In the same fashion, there are clearly pan-
Caucasian cultural traits, even in the absence of any centre of political, eco-
nomic or cultural inuence.
SZ: classic dialect-geographic area with innovating centre and conservative
periphery. The centre is a centre of cultural, political, and/or economic
inuence. The centre may shift as political and economic fortunes shift (ibid.:
16). Thus, for the steppe the vicinity of the Volga seems to have been a standard
centre of economic and cultural inuence, a site of trading centres and military
headquarters.
Long-term net increase in diversity
RZ: accretion of languages and long-term net increase in diversity; language
isolates are often found here. E.g. Ossetic (Iranian) and Karachay-Balkar
(Turkic) have intruded into the Caucasus, pushed away from the lowlands by
other expanding languages. The newcomers in the Caucasus are added to the
older languages and the overall genetic and structural diversity in the Caucasus
increases over time.
SZ: no net long-term increase in diversity. A spread zone is a long-lasting
phenomenon, but it preserves little linguistic evidence of its history (ibid.: 16).
In the steppe each new language sweeping westward replaces the older one.
Lingua franca
RZ: no lingua franca for the whole area; inter-ethnic communication is mainly
achieved thanks to local bilingualism or multilingualism.
SZ: the spreading language serves as a lingua franca for the entire area or a large
part thereof.
The CB area ts somewhere between Johanna Nichols two types of zones in various
respects. First, it has dierent geographic preconditions, as compared to the
prototypical examples the Caucasus and the Russian steppe. The sea does not
restrict contacts in the same way as mountains. Thus, in the case of the Baltic Sea,
contacts, both peaceful and military, have been achieved both across the sea and by
land, as opposed to prototypical residual zones where contacts among groups of
people in most directions are inhibited. However, movements across the sea dier
from those on land in that they normally involve less people, either tradesmen,
missionary, warriors or colonizers. There is, thus, a smaller chance that the
newcomers will sweep through the area in the way characteristic of spread zones.
Also, coastlines and numerous islands often serve as refugia for the languages
pushed from the inland by expanding ones.
The following properties characterize the CB region: The CB area shows
moderate genetic diversity: although it comprises mainly two stocks (or, if we
count Karaim, three), the core of languages consists only of four families and three
of them Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic are rather closely related within Indo-
European. In this respect the CB area is slightly more exciting than or comparable
to the Balkans (which, for Nichols, constitute a part of a larger residual zone) and
the Standard Average European area, but denitely loses in comparison with the
Caucasus and New Guinea.
Connected to this is the relatively low or moderate structural diversity in the
area, i.e. the CB languages are suciently similar to each other in various respects.
There is another factor that characterizes the CB area most signicantly:
continuity of contacts over a long period of time. Indo-European and Finno-Ugric
languages that were the predecessors of Baltic, Germanic and Finnic have been
present in the area over four or almost four milennia, and as far as we can see
these three families (plus Slavic which entered later into the area) were the only
relevant factors for language contact over the last three, perhaps four milennia in
the CB-area. This means that the CB-area has a rather high degree of areal continuity
and a high time depth (at least compared with other regions of Europe). In this
respect, the CB area is reminiscent of Southern Asia, which has, however, a much
higher number of languages (Ebert forthc.). We do not nd language spread and
language succession over the whole area or a large portion thereof, which is typical
of spread zones, except for the initial spread of Uralic and Indo-European.
On the other hand, the ethnic groups and the languages in the CB area have
been constantly involved in various kinds of contacts diering, thus, from typical
residual zones. Neither do they always remain in the same location.
The following list summarizes some of the most important linguistic contacts
in the CB area, whereas Appendix 1 lists all the language contexts referred to
throughout the papers in the whole volume.
More or less local contacts among particular languages and language groups during
dierent historical periods:
prehistoric contacts among Finno-Ugrians and Indo-Europeans, both outside
and within the CB area;
migrations, among others, the northward expansion of groups of Indo-Europe-
ans, or much later the Slavic northward expansion to the former Baltic and
Finnic-speaking regions;
mixed bilingual or multilingual areas over long periods of time entailing local
contacts leading to assimilation, acculturation, language convergence and/or
language shifts (so-called adstrate or substrate situations) are an ever-present
component in various places in the area (for example, Northern Russian and
Karelian, Livonian and Latvian, Romani and the surrounding dominant
languages).
More global contacts having to do with dominance over larger portions of the area
(the list is not exhaustive):
8001000: expansive activities of the Scandinavian Vikings and the emergence
of the Scandinavian, Polish and Russian states, each with its own sphere of
dominance;
11001500: Denmarks expansion; the crusades and the establishment of the
Teutonic Order states in Northern Baltikum; dominance of the Hanseatic
leagues; expansion of the Polish and the Lithuanian states, later the Polish-
Lithuanian state;
divisions and redivisions of the area among powers such as Sweden, Prussia
(later Germany), Russia (later the Soviet Union) and the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth.
Each of the dominant powers brought with it a new prestige language (Danish, Low
German, the Eastern Slavic variety used in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Polish,
Russian, Swedish and German) that expanded over a large area and inuenced the
local languages. Indirectly this development entailed convergence among the local
vernaculars themselves. Again, notably, the prestige languages came from the CB
area itself. The centres of inuence and the borders of their sphere of dominance
shifted constantly, which makes it impossible to talk of any long-lasting centres of
linguistic innovations and peripheries even for subparts of the CB area, not to
mention the whole area.
The CB zone has also been divided and redivided among the three main
religions in the area Catholicism, Lutheranism and Greek Orthodoxy, each of
which eciently promotes cultural, including linguistic, inuence within its own
sphere of dominance and inhibits communication and inuences across the borders
(cf. Csto, Jacobs and Cekmonas this volume on the role of the deviating
religions, Judaism and the Old Faith in the preservation of Karaim, Jewish and
Russian dialects in the CB area).
To summarize, the CB area constantly divided and redivided among
dierent spheres of inuence has been an arena for intensive linguistic contacts,
migrations, colonizations, expansions, etc. However, the whole area has never been
economically, politically, culturally or linguistically united. In the CB area, conver-
gence works primarily on a micro-level. It reects language contacts of groups of
people and maximally, of two or three languages. Convergence that comprises more
than two or three languages, it seems, is always the result of the overlapping and
superposition of dierent language contacts.
On the basis of these considerations we suggest the concept of contact superpo-
sition zone (or Kontaktberlagerungsareal for those readers preferring German
terminology) which, in our opinion, better reects the relations among the CB
languages than the traditional term Sprachbund. We nd that the consideration
of dialects and minor languages in the CB area is very important for the under-
standing of the language contacts. It is in border dialects and minor languages that
language contact has been most intensive and where we nd the most exciting
structural changes.
Throughout the present paper we have been discussing a number of potential
areal features in the CB area both at the micro-level by giving a nuanced and
detailed analysis of these phenomena, much in the spirit of dialectology, linguistic
geography, historical linguistics and traditional areal linguistics and at the
macro-level by plotting the same phenomena against a general cross-linguistic
background. Also, since the CB languages are spoken on the periphery of Europe,
we have chosen to distinguish between the global and the European perspectives.
Table 24 summarizes the main areal phenomena in the CB area discussed in this
paper. Appendix 2 lists all the other linguistic phenomena mentioned in the present
volume for the origin of which contacts have been evoked.
Signicantly, as is clear from Table 24, there are no isoglosses covering all the
CB languages; moreover, the isoglosses pick up dierent subsets of the languages, in
Table 24.Areal properties in the CB area (gures in the rst column refer to the sections in the paper where the phenomenon is discussed)
Phenomenon Languages primar
primarily
ily inv
involv
olved Possible sourc
source(s) Typological
pological status
Globally Europe
Pluralia tantum (4) Slavic, Baltic, Finnic, Latvian Extension of Indo-European prop- Relatively unusuala Relatively unusuala
Romani, Icelandic erties in Baltic and Slavic and their
inuence on the other languages of
the region (each with its own sphere
of inuence)
Initial stress (5.1) Finnic, Latvian, Germanic, (North- Probably Finnic for Latvian; Uralic Frequent A relatively high concentration in
ern Russian dialects) source for Germanic highly disput- the CB area
able
Polytonicity: Probably relatively unusual.a Unclear whether the three phenomena are
a. Tones on long syllables (5.2.1) Baltic Relict of a more wide-spread phe- related to each other.
nomenon in Indo-European dia-
lects (also Slavic, Old Greek)
b. Overlength (5.2.2) Estonian, Livonian, Low Latvian, Common innovation as a conse-
some Low German dialects? quence of initial stress and reduc-
tion of non-initial syllables
c. Phonologization of secondary Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Scot- Innovation
stress (5.2.3) tish Gaelic
Case alternation for marking Total Finnic, Baltic, Eastern and Western In embryo attested in Indo-Europe- Probably unusual, but not unique (cf. Basque)a
vs. Partial objects/subjects (6.3, 6.5) Slavic an; common innovation in the CB
area with several layers of inuence
(Baltic -> Finnic -> Russian)
Nominative object (6.4, 6.5) Finnic, Baltic, Northern Russian Various hypotheses; in Baltic and Probably unusual, but not unique (cf. Nenets, Kamassian, Southern
Northern Russian; probably a com- Paiute, Yindjibarndi)a
bination of inherited Indo-Europe-
an models reinforced by contacts
with Finnic
Case alternation in nonverbal pred- Finnic, Sami, Mordvin, Komi, Various hypotheses Fairly infrequent, but far from unique. Occurs mainly at the fringe of
ication (7.1) Baltic, Eastern Slavic, Polish Indo-European and is most probably a non-Indo-European characteris-
tics
Predicative possession not based on Finnic (and most of Uralic), Latvi- For Latvian and Eastern Slavic, Very frequent, in particular in Eur- Outside of the SAE area, where
have-verbs (7.2) an, Eastern Slavic most probably, a combination of asia. have-verbs are a common innova-
the inherited Indo-European model tion
reinforced by contacts with Finnic
Syncretism of instrumental/comit- Estonian, Livonian, Sami, Latvian, Germanic inuence (in Latvian, In 25% of languages A high concentration in the SAE
ative (7.3) Germanic probably combined with language- area (a common innovation?)
internal factors)
Comparatives: Finnic, Slavic, Baltic Retention of old Indo-European Separative and Goal compara- The SAE area shows the cross-lin-
Separative and Goal and Uralic models; various local tives frequent, particularly in Eur- guistically highest concentration of
inuences (Baltic -> Eastern Slavic asia; Particle comparatives rela- Particle comparatives
Comparatives involving particles Finnic, Slavic, Baltic, Germanic dialects, etc.) tively infrequent
(7.4)
Zero-subject constructions: No data available SAE allows no zero-subjects, but
non-referential indenite zero Finnic, Latvian, Western Slavic Finnic inuence on Latvian; an resorts to generic pronouns like
subjects; innovation in Western Slavic man/on
generic zero subjects (7.5.1) Baltic, Slavic; Veps, Votic Slavic inuence on Veps and Votic
reexive postxes as markers of Northern Germanic, Baltic, Eastern Various hypotheses Fairly unusual Only in the CB languages
valence recession (7.5.3) Slavic
adjective agreement (8.1) Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Finnic Indo-European inuence on Finnic Fairly usual, but areally and genetically unevenly distributed
alternation between case-govern- Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Sami Expansion of the Indo-European Very unusual, probably not unique (cf. Arabic)a
ment and agreement within numer- model in Baltic and Slavic. Indo-
al constructions (8.3) European (most probably Baltic)
inuence on Finnic and Sami.
exible SVO (9.1) Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Komi, North- Word order exibility is, probably, Rare 4% 21%, with a high concentration in
ern and Eastern Sami a retention of older Indo-European the CB (and North-eastern Europe-
and Uralic properties in transition an) area
from SOV to SVO
SVO/GN (9.2) Baltic, Finnic, Komi, Mordvin, Retention of the older Eurasian Frequent Only in the CB (and North-eastern
Continental Scandinavian order within NPs in Uralic; proba- European) area
bly a combination of inherited
structures and Finnic inuence in
Baltic. Independent innovation in
Continental Scandinavian
Mixed adpositional systems (9.3) Finnic, Latvian Probably a combination of internal- Infrequent 7.7% Infrequent
ly motivated factors and Finnic
inuence for Latvian. Unclear for
Finnic
Yes/no-questions:
Particle-initial yes/no-questions Baltic, Estonian, Livonian, Southern Particle-initial questions: common Particle-initial questions 14%; Particle-initial questions mainly on
Sami, Yiddish, Polish, Ukrainian, innovation of Baltic and some of the periphery; SAE area shows the
Belarusian, Russian dialects; Swed- the Slavic; Baltic inuence on Esto- cross-linguistically highest concen-
ish dialects in Finland nian and Livonian; Slavic inuence tration of languages with verb-
on Yiddish; indirect Finnish inu- fronting in questions
ence on Swedish. Various local
lexical connections.
Verb-fronting (9.4) Germanic, Estonian, Finnish, Rus- A shared SAE innovation verb fronting 8.9%
sian
Evidential mood (10.2) Baltic, Southern Finnic (Estonian, A shared innovation, probably Dicult to estimate to what extent Certain parallels in the Balkans
Livonian) starting from Finnic. However, also the Baltic/Finnic phenomena have
some Indo-European precondi- parallels elsewherea
tions.
a
no large scale cross-linguistic comparisons available
The Circum-Baltic languages
731
many cases also extending outside of the CB area proper. Furthermore, there are only
few common innovations in the area. It is rather the languages outside the CB-area,
especially those to the south-west (SAE) that innovated structural properties.
In Sections 2 and 3, we have suggested that one of the principal shortcomings
in most of areal studies is the disregard of the typological naturalness or marked-
ness of features. In our discussion of areal features in the CB region we therefore
emphasized the global perspective wherever possible, i.e. to what extent the
property under consideration is cross-linguistically common. From this point of
view, most of the features that exist both in Indo-European and Finno-Ugric
languages of the CB region cannot be said to be highly marked typologically. Even
in the case of a typologically highly marked feature such as the system for object
marking in Finnic, Baltic and Slavic it is rather the combination of several features
that make it unique, whereas most of its components nd cross-linguistic correlates
(Section 6.5). Thus, complex properties (multiple feature properties) supply us
with cumulative evidence for convergence. This is especially true for complex
properties involving lexical idiosyncrasy such as e.g. pluralia tantum (Section 4).
Complex properties may reect a complicated situation of contact superpositions
much better than simple properties as e.g. initial stress (Section 5.1). Here, of
course, there is an additional tension between the methods and goals of typology,
on the one hand, and areal studies, on the other. Whereas areal studies tend to
emphasize details, typology traditionally aims at establishing fairly rough types of
linguistic phenomena, neglecting details (the more details taken into consideration,
the greater will be the number of types, ultimately leading to the conclusion that
each language presents its own type of the phenomenon in question), and a
reasonable balance between the two approaches may be hard to achieve.
Besides the global perspective, the continental perspective turned out to be
equally important for the evaluation of the CB-area. From this point of view the
CB-region was found to form a border zone between the Central Eurasian languag-
es in the East (prototypically represented by Turkish, Mongolian, Dravidian, Uralic
and others) and the SAE-languages in the West (prototypically represented by
Central European Germanic and Romance languages). We found that Western
CB-languages often behave like SAE-languages, whereas Eastern CB-languages often
follow the Central Eurasian pattern. There is however no bundle of isoglosses
cutting the CB-areas neatly in two parts. Thus, for example, concerning predicative
possession Latvian is Central Eurasian and Lithuanian is SAE, whereas concerning
case inection Lithuanian is much more Central Eurasian than Latvian (Sec-
tion 6.7). We found that the CB-languages for some features such as word-order
behave similarly to the languages of the Balkans and the Caucasus which similarly
form part of the border zone of the Central Eurasian area.
Finally, areal linguistics like typology and other types of comparative
linguistics is a way out of particularism in linguistics. Particularism has been
<DEST "kop2-n*">
especially strong in Baltic and Finnic philology and one of the basic aims of this
volume has been to contribute to the building of a bridge between Finno-Ugric and
Indo-European philologies. Even if this bridge is still very weak, it is up now to the
specialists in each of the philologies to make this bridge hold for the future.
Notes
* We would like to express our gratitude towards the many colleagues and friends who have, in
one or another way, assisted us in the writing of this paper Vytautas Ambrazas, Umberto
Ansaldo, Harald Bethelsson, Vladan Boskovic, Simon Christen, Greville Corbett, Valeriy
Cekmonas, sten Dahl, Matthew Dryer, Hkan Edgren, Elisabet Eir Cortes, Soa Gustafsson-
Capkov, Ptur Hldursson, Martin Haspelmath, Axel Holvoet, Neil Jacobs, Pivi Juvonen, Alan
R. King, Jurga Kaliasaite, Diana Krull, Jan Peter Locher, Elena Maslova, Yaron Matras, Beata
Megyesi, Everita Milconoka, Edith Moravcsik, Damra Muminovic, Nicole Nau, Andreas Nord,
Vladimir Plungian, Thomas Riad, Anna Siewierska, Leon Stassen, Thomas Stolz, Niklas Tamm,
Lembit Vaba, Peteris Vanags, Ljuba Veselinova, Marilyn Vihman, Maria Vilkuna, Bjrn Wiemer.
Our paper has also beneted greatly from all the other papers in the present volume, and we
would therefore like to thank their authors. The responsibility for the paper rests, of course, with
us. Parts of the paper have been presented at seminars at the Departments of Linguistics in
Stockholm and Konstanz and at the Sprachbund Workshop in Halle (March 1998).
1. Sinus ille ab incolis appellatur Balticus, eo quod in modum baltei longo tractu per Scithicas regiones
tendatur usque in Greciam (IV, 10).
2. The term Baltic has a very good association in the Baltic languages. Lith. baltas, Ltv. balts white
has the connotation of pure, good, morally blameless in the Baltic folklore. Several scholars have
tried to explain the term Baltic by this Baltic etymon which is also recognizable in semantically
slightly dierent words such as Rus. bolto swamp and several Latvian, Lithuanian and Old
Prussian place names for swamps and lakes with the element balt-.
3. It is not clear whether the Livonian name is a calque of the recent Latvian name Baltijas jura
with the interpretation of Baltic as white (Ltv. balts white) or whether it should be associated
with the term valtameri ocean (mighty sea) of Finnish folklore.
4. Following German and Swedish usage we use the term Baltikum for the region of the three
Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
5. This issue was further pursued in Matthiassen (1985a, b) and Nilsson (1991).
6. Actually Sahrimaa also denes her Karelian Sprachbund by only one isogloss in only two
languages, since she has particularly looked at only one type of construction necessitive
sentences of the types I need a needle or I need to heat the sauna in Northern Russian and
Karelian. These constructions are, however, chosen as an example to illustrate the complex
linguistic relationships between Northern Russian dialects and Eastern Finnic languages. Sahri-
maas research goal is much more programmatic and ambitious and is intended as a challenge to
numerous previous studies of Russian-Finnic contacts in substrate- and superstrate terms.
7. The point of departure for the present situation is as follows: In Baltic and Slavic, verbal
prexes are the most usual means of expressing various semantic and grammatical modications
of verbs. High German, Low German and Gothic make frequent use of non-separable and
separable verbal prexes; the latter have arisen from prepositions or adverbs. Northern Germanic
(Scandinavian) languages lost their verbal prexes at an early stage in their development;
prepositions and adverbs were frequently used in Old Norse as verbal modiers. As such, they
followed the verb, their preposition and compounding to the stem occurred only in the formation
of perfect participles. In Finnic, modication of verbal meanings is historically carried out by
suxes. Adverbs, which build a rich system, have concrete local uses and do not normally build
any compounds with verbs.
8. Both Baltic and Finnic had synthetic superlatives that are still found in Lithuanian and Finnish.
In Russian, the construction better than all is very common and, in fact, the only way of forming
superlative constructions for adverbs, e.g. Ona prygaet vye vsex She jumps higher than all.
Latvian expresses the superlative degree of an adjective by prexing vis- all (< gen.pl) to its
denite comparative form (vis-vec-ak-ai-s all-old-cmpr-def-nom.sg.masc) while Estonian
combines the adjective in the comparative degree with the standard all in the genitive singular
(kige van-em all:gen good-comp). (Curonian) Livonian, which, like Latvian dialects in Curonia,
does not have any separate comparative degree (Liv. ama vana all:gen/nom old), uses the
genitive singular like Estonian. An important structural dierence is the singular number of the
genitive in the word for all in Finnic languages and the plural in Latvian and Russian.
9. In Standard Estonian it is partly reintroduced by purists, cf. Laakso this volume.
10. Frequency analysis has oered important evidence for areal contacts in other linguistic areas.
Cf. e.g. for Southern Asia, Kuiper (1967), Hook (1993) and Ebert (forthcoming).
11. The term Standard Average European originates from Whorf (1956).
12. The data came from dictionaries and grammars, from ourselves and from numerous kind
people whom we would like to thank here. The sample includes the following languages: Abkhaz,
Armenian (Vladimir Plungian), Bulgarian (Ljuba Veselinova), Belarusian (Valeriy Cekmonas),
Czech (Soa Gustafsson-Capkov), Dalecarlian (sten Dahl), Dutch (Leon Stassen), English,
Estonian (Diana Krull), Finnish (Pivi Juvonen), French, Romani, Georgian, German, Hungarian
(Beata Megyesi), Irish (Harald Bethelsson), Icelandic (Ptur Hldursson), Italian (Umberto
Ansaldo), Karaim, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Livonian, Latvian Romani, Mari (Simon Christen),
Modern Greek (Hkan Edgren), Mordvin-Erzya, Classical Greek, Ossetic, Polish (Axel Holvoet),
Russian, Romanian, Sami, Slovenian (Simon Christen), Spanish, Serbo-Croatian (Vladan
Boskovic and Damra Muminovic), Swedish, Tatar, Ukrainian (Valeriy Cekmonas), Veps and
Yiddish (Neil Jacobs).
13. The Baltic sample contains the following nouns (Lith./Ltv., if not marked as sg, all words are
plurals):
1 dumai/dumi smoke 2 putos/putas foam 3 pelenai/pelni ashe(s) 4 melas sg/mesli dung 5
taukai/tauki fat 6 miltai/milti our 7 iaudai/salmi straw 8 rugiai/rudzi rye 9 smegenys/
smadzenes brain 10 plauciai/plauas lungs 11 solotos/salati salad (dish) 12 kelnes/bikses trousers
13 markiniai/svarki shirt 14 akiniai/brilles glasses 15 irkles/keres scissors 16 ratai/rati car 17
durys/durvis door 18 vargonai/ergeles organ 19 vestuves/kazas wedding 20 pietus/pusdienas
lunch 21 pietus/dienvidi South 22 tymai/masalas measles 23 pyktis sg/dusmas anger 24 juokas
sg/smiekli laughter 25 iauliai/Cesis (major place names) 26 metai/gads sg year 27 pinigai/nauda
sg money 28 kaledos/ziemassvetki Christmas 29 lubos/griesti ceiling 30 karciai/krepes mane.
The Russian sample contains the following nouns: pomoi slops, slivki cream, otrubi bran, droi
yeast, brjuki trousers, ocki glasses, nonicy scissors, cipcy tongs, vesy balance, scales, san(k)i
sleigh, vorota gate, poxorony funeral, krestiny christening, sutki twenty-four hours, sumerki
twilight, dengi money, svjatki Christmas Eve, prjatki hide-and-seek, salki a game, grabli
rake, casy clock, watch, prenija/debaty debate, rody childbirth, labour, xlopoty trouble, cares,
drova rewood, debri thickets, dungli jungle, cernila ink, skacki/bega horse-race, the races,
cary sorcery
6 items are found both in the Baltic and in Russian samples, there is thus an overlap of 20%.
14. Fractional numbers here and elsewhere in this section reect cases where there are dierent
words for a concept in a certain language, some of them being plurals and some singulars, or
where a concept is expressed by the same word either in the plural or in the singular.
15. There are also non-Indo-European languages with a high number of pluralia tantum words,
e.g. Bantu languages, Kiowa, Zuni, Burushaski and some of the Semitic languages.
16. Even Finnish has retained some lexical reexes of this Finno-Ugric tendency, e.g. silmpuoli
one-eyed (eye-half).
17. Braun (1930: 4) calls this type erstarrter ursprnglich logischer Plural (stiened originally
logic plural). He holds that this type is important in the development of pluralia tantum in a
language.
18. This can be seen e.g. from the comparison of Russian singulars with etymologically related
plurals in related Slavic and Baltic languages:
Rus. sg OCS pl Czech pl Scr pl Latv pl
door dver dveri durvis

cart telega kola rati
mill melnica rnovi dzirnavas
foam pena pny putas
harrow borona brany eceas
mouth rot ustena rty
stairs lestnica schody ljestve kapnes
19. The delimitation into four groups should not be taken too seriously. We draw lines where it
gives the best areal results. Consider e.g. that the dierence in number between Latvian Romani
(12.5) and Belarusian (10.5) is certainly not signicant.
20. Dalecarlian as spoken in lvdalen, Sweden, behaves similarly to Icelandic, cf. e.g. the plurals Swd
drr door, ter cream, orgur organ where Standard Swedish has singulars (sten Dahl, p.c.).
21. There is some evidence that the Western Baltic language, Old Prussian, had less PLT than the
Central Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian. Thus, unlike Lithuanian and Latvian, Old
Prussian had a singular dumis for smoke as OCSl dym.
22. Numerals for pluralia tantum in Indo-European languages are originally collective numerals
(cf. Brugmann 1907), the same is true for Mordvin. Finnic and Sami use the plural of cardinal
numbers in the same function. This structurally simpler option cannot be realized in Baltic except
for the numeral for one, because, unlike Finnic and Sami, numerals generally appear as plural
forms in Baltic. In Finnish and Icelandic the specic set of numerals for pluralia tantum is also
used to express dierent sorts of a kind (Hurford forthc.).
23. We are grateful to Tomas Riad for this observation.
24. According to Salmons (1992: 5051), from a broader cross-linguistic perspective, the initial
stress pattern does not constitute the most frequent option, although it is by no means rare. In
Ruhlens (1987) sample, of 312 languages with stress, 58 (18.6%) have initial stress, as against 72
(23.1%) with nal stress and 94 (30.1%) with phonemic stress (the last category includes
languages which have minimal pairs based on stress).
25. Traditional Latvian dialectology distinguishes three dialects (the Livonian, the Central and
the High dialect) and more than 400 subdialects (cf. Rudzte 1964). Standard Latvian is based on
the Central dialect.
To avoid confusion we do not use the term Livonian when applied to a Latvian dialect. In
this paper we use the term Low Latvian for the dialect called traditionally the Livonian dialect
as this seems to be the most natural solution in contrast to High and Central Latvian. Balode &
Holvoet (this volume, a) use the term Tamian dialect instead.
26. According to Salmons (1992: 5052), Uralic shows an unusually high frequency of initially
stressed languages 16 of 23, which is only comparable to Australian languages, for which
Ruhlen (1987) gives 14 of 24 as initially stressed.
27. The labels Acute and Circumex are used to refer to diacronically corresponding and not to
phonetically identical tones. Acute is falling in Standard Lithuanian, but a high level tone in
Latvian and was probably rising in Old Prussian and Classical Greek. Circumex is rising in
Standard Lithuanian, but falling in Latvian, Old Prussian and Classical Greek.
28. This is a strong simplication, for a survey of various theories about the development of
accent 1 and accent 2 see Riad (1998). The phonetic realization of accent 1 and accent 2 varies in
the Norwegian and Swedish dialects. One common feature seems to be that an extreme (high or
low) pitch falls on the initial part of the word in accent 1 and on a non-initial part (second syllable
or second part of the rst syllable) in accent 2.
29. However, across numbers there is a certain amount of syncretism of case/number endings,
especially in Latvian, which can be seen in the following table for two of the four most important
declension paradigms (masculine o-stems/feminine a-stems) in Lithuanian, Latvian and Low
Latvian bold refers to syncretic case endings. The loss of distinctiveness of case endings in
Latvian, and even more radically, in Low Latvian follows from the reduction of endings due to the
initial accent. The Low Latvian case system comes very close to a complete breakdown. The
feminine declension classes tend to follow the masculine paradigms (possibly under inuence
from Livonian which lacks gender), as indicated by the brackets around the feminine forms, and
even the masculine paradigm shows minimal distinctions. For Low Latvian the brackets mean that
though there are still forms for the genitive and for the feminine paradigms, there is a tendency to
avoid these forms, i.e. to use other cases and the masculine paradigm instead:
Standard Lithuanian Standard Latvian Low Latvian
Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine

o-stems: a-stems: o-stems: a-stems: o-stems: a-stems:
sg/pl sg/pl sg/pl sg/pl sg/pl sg/pl
nom -as/-ai -a/-os -s/-i -a/-as -s/ () (/-s)

gen -o/-u -os/-u -a/-u -as/-u (/ s/)
acc -a/-us -a/-as -u/-us -u/-as /-s () (/-s)
The genitive singular and the nominative plural of the a-stems in Lithuanian often dier in
accentuation.
30. In this example, we may observe a further complication. Numerals other than one do not
distinguish nominative and accusative, i.e. the nominative form (kaksi) is used here. The partitive
singular form kirjeett is due to the numeral (cf. Section 8.3).
31. As pointed out to us by Ambrazas, perfective derivations of these verbs, however, as sulaukti
wait until arrival, pabijoti fear etc. also govern the accusative.
32. In this respect, Latvian is similar to conservative styles of German where a genitive object is
found with some few verbs.
33. In Slavic languages -u is originally a u-stem ending and -a an o-stem ending. In other Slavic
languages -u is even more frequent as a genitive ending for masculine nouns in the singular, but
there is no functional dierentiation of the two forms.
34. Only constructions with singular feminine a-nouns are considered here; constructions with
animate objects in the nominative case represent a dierent problem uneven development of
animacy distinctions among the Russian dialects.
35. One problem is that some Basque verbs, which lack a direct object and are, thus, syntactically-
semantically intransitive, are morphologically transitive, i.e. they take a subject in the ergative, not
absolutive, and combine with the conjugation markers and auxiliaries selection which are
normally associated with transitive verbs. Partitive-absolutive alternation applies only to
morphologically intransitive subjects. On the other hand, in the progressive aspect periphrasis, the
subject is absolutive even if the main verb is transitive and may then, in principle, also be made
partitive. It is, however, unclear to what degree such examples occur in natural speech. We are
grateful to Alan King for an insightful discussion of the Basque partitive.
36. We are grateful to Matthew Dryer for providing us with this example. In declarative sentences,
third person objects may optionally appear in the nominative, but we do not know the details of
this alternation.
37. Nicole Nau (p.c.) comments that examples like (15b) are relatively rare the absolute
majority of the examples with debitives in her sample involve nominative-marked objects.
38. We are grateful to Maria Vilkuna for the information on Finnish impersonals and other
constructions with subject-like objects and object-like subjects.
39. The same is actually true also for Latvian debitive constructions: Indra nogba un bija janes ara
Indra:nom faint:past.3 and deb-carry out = Indra fainted and had to be carried out (Everita
Milconoka, p.c.).
40. About the partitive marking of the participle cf. Section 7.1.
41. Stassens locative possessives include any construction consisting of a possessor with an
oblique marking (local case, dative, genitive, local pre/postposition, comitative), a non-oblique
possessed and an existential verb or copula (that may be zero).
42. Thus, e.g. Lith. tureti and Old Prussian turrtwei to have is a formation found in this form only
in Baltic languages (Ltv. turet to hold. Originally a stative verb related to Lith. tverti to grasp).
43. In Ukrainian, the negative nemaje not-has is opposed to the armative je (there) is (both
forms may be constructed with u+gen).
44. Although rare, have-verbs are attested in Uralic as well, primarily in the Ob-Ugric languages
Khanty and Mansi. The Sami aednt is a loan from Old Norse (Norwegian ge), and the Finnish
omata to possess has a very limited, literary use (Kangasmaa-Minn 1984).
45. Notice that the local possessor phrase is not sentence initial (i.e. not topicalized) as it usually
is in Finnic and Russian.
46. The Russian language norm disapproves of sentences like (24), but they are frequently attested
in the speech of virtually all Russian speakers, from least educated to most educated, like Leo
Tolstoy. We are grateful to Elena Maslova for bringing this point to our attention.
47. In Livonian there is a secondary merger of comitative and translative.
48. The Latvian preposition ar with is an anomaly among the Baltic and Slavic languages. All
other Baltic and Slavic languages use forms etymologically related to su with, OPrs sa(n) with,
together, Rus. s(o) in this function. It is true that the older languages often used a mere instru-
mental without a preposition, but the Latvian preverb sa- shows that this etymon was the original
Baltic expression for with, together in nominal (besides mere instrumental) and verbal contexts.
The comitative function of case forms of *kansa- is amply documented in Finnic. The
meaning also is found likewise sporadically in Finnish. The interrogative function is not attested,
however, in any Northern Finnic language.
49. The gures about the distribution of types across area come from Heine (1997). He obviously
counts the two Caucasian languages Laz and Ubykh, as well as Turkish, which all have Separative
comparatives, among the Asian languages.
50. Leivu is an Estonian dialect once spoken in a small area in Northern Latvia that is closely
related to the Southern Estonian Vru dialect.
51. The genitive plural (or singular) of all used in the superlative constructions in Slavic, Baltic
and Finnic languages discussed in Section 3 is not a prototypical standard of comparison.
52. Thus, in some opinions, zero-subject constructions are viewed as a subtype of impersonal
passives (cf. Siewierska 1984: Chapter 3 for an overview).
53. Finite verbs in Baltic do not distinguish between singular and plural in the third person.
Participles that are used in complex tenses, however, manifest the singular-plural distinction.
54. Haspelmath (1990) suggests the term generalized-subject construction to cover zero-subject
constructions, man-sentences and other semantically similar sentence types.
55. We do not consider stative passives here.
56. Since the term impersonal is highly polysemantic, we prefer the term desubjective as a
cover term for the various constructions discussed in this section.
57. It is generally assumed that proto-Uralic had a canonical passive (Laakso this volume:
Section 1.2.3.6), but the evidence is fairly shaky and this view has been debated (Maria Vilkuna
personal communication).
58. Finnish impersonals are reminiscent of the so-called impersonal passives in Welsh widely
discussed in the literature on grammatical relations (Comrie 1977; Perlmutter and Postal 1984).
In Welsh, the subject is demoted with the object retaining the same form as in normal active
sentences. The marking of objects is, however, minimal: only pronouns distinguish between
subject and object forms.
59. The examples with passives have been elicited and have been accepted at least by some native
speakers of Lithuanian. Passive sentences in contrast to active sentences have evidential meaning.
60. Actually this reects the original state when the reexive element, being an enclitic particle, was
always located in the second position (Wackernagel position). In some Latvian dialects in Curonia
and Latgale, the reexive element -s(a)- appears two times: after the prex and as a postx.
61. Nichols (1992) provides useful information about the occurrence of attributive agreement in
a large cross-linguistic sample; however, she does not distinguish between demonstratives and
other attributes, nor among the dierent subtypes of agreement number, gender, case and
combinations thereof.
62. In Slavic and Baltic, denite adjectives derive from suxation of an inected relative pronoun
with the stem *yo- to the inected form of the adjective. The German strong adjective is formed
with an n-sux that is also found in Latin proper names.
63. In writing this section, we have proted a lot from discussions with Grev Corbett and
Andreas Nord.
64. Bokml shows a certain oscillation between the two-gender system, which it had inherited
from Dano-Norwegian, and the three-gender system, which was reintroduced into Bokml
through the language reforms in the twentieth century.
65. For glum even the dierence between masculine and feminine is neutralized across Low
Latvian for phonetic reasons.
66. We are grateful to Nicole Nau for drawing our attention to Finnish Romani.
67. The Swedish gender system is further complicated by the optional masculine agreement in
weak (denite) attributive adjectives and could best be characterized as consisting of several layers/
subsystems. See Dahl (1998) for further details.
68. We are grateful to Nicole Nau for drawing out attention to Majtinskaja (1969).
69. Numerals higher than one in the Finnic languages neutralize the distinction between
nominative and accusative the same nominative case is used in those contexts where other
nominals have the nominative or the accusative marking. A similar tendency is found in
Colloquial Latvian: nouns with the numerals 29 can stand in the nominative when accusative
or even another oblique case is otherwise required (cf. Nau 1998). As there are no numerals
belonging to the rst (a-)declension in Slavic, Slavic numerals higher than one do not
distinguish nominative and accusative.
70. Here we are not talking about plural cardinal numerals, i.e. those that pertain to pluralia
tantum and nouns referring to pairs and other well-established sets. Cf. Section 4.
71. The integration of the Slavic dual into the nominal agreement system is a fascinating story,
which would deserve to be treated in more detail than is possible here. In the Southern Slavic
languages (except Slovenian) the old dual has fossiziled into a form used exclusively after the
numeral 2 (Macedonian), 24 (Serbo-Croat) or 26 (Bulgarian; only masculine nouns). In
Russian, the dual in the context of the numerals 24 has been reinterpreted as a genitive
singular, but the identication is not perfect. Thus, when nominals after 24 have adjectival
attributes, these latter appear in the plural and show thus that the nominal itself is hardly
interpreted as singular for further syntactic rules. Also, some nouns follow deviant stress patterns
when used after 24, e.g. dva cas two hours (rather than the regular gen.sg. csa).
72. A further complication is that constructions with numerals 29 sometimes stand in the
nominative case in syntactic functions which normally require other cases. This frequently occurs
in temporal (atelic-extent) and locational adverbials, e.g. cetr-i (four-nom) gad-i (year-nom.pl)
mes tikai no tiem desmit nodzvoj-am tur we lived there only four of the ten years, the adverbial
four years in the nominative, instead of the accusative case (Nau 1998: 3.2.1.3, Example (6)).
Numerals 29 show, thus, a tendency to neutralize the accusative-nominative distinction; cf.
with the similar case neutralization in Finnic and Sami.
73. Bergsland (1953: 65) points out that the most consistent singular assignment by numerals to
nouns is found in precisely those Finno-Ugric languages which have been strongly inuenced by
the Turkic languages (which use precisely this model) and where the nominal plural suxes are
of recent origin.
74. Partial agreement takes place primarily when the nominal head is in the illative, inessive and
elative singular the attribute appears in the genitive, essive and partitive respectively. Complete
agreement covers the genitive and comitative singular, the essive and, with minor exceptions, the
plural cases.
75. Skld (1990) suggests too that the Finnish system is borrowed from Indo-European, either
from Germanic (which we nd rather implausible) or from Baltic.
76. When complements to numerals have long attributes, both can appear in the plural, e.g. par
sticke smer, nn-aikes va]ar a couple of little (pl) one-horse wagons (pl) (Lagman 1971: 21).
77. The numeral 1 is not included; direct, i.e. nominative and accusative, vs. oblique cases
refer to the cases which would normally be assigned to NPs in the syntactic functions, identical to
those of numeral constructions under consideration.
78. For the lack of statistical data on Upper Sorbian, it is classied by Siewierska (1998: 513) as
being a split SOV/SVO language, more or less in reaction to conicting claims in the literature on
either SVO or SOV as its basic word order.
79. The use of the alternative strategy of expressing possessors, by means of the so called
possessive adjectives, which precede their heads, has considerably declined through the ages in
most varieties of Slavic, and Slavic on the whole seems to have been steadily on the move towards
postposition of possessors.
80. Komi and Mordvin are not in Dryers sample; note also that Dryer argues in terms of
language families, which might be a reason for not mentioning Northern/Eastern Sami in the
hierarchy (SVO is not a feature of Sami on the whole, see Section 5.10.1).
81. The notions pre-, post- and adpositions are used in here in a comparative sense, i.e. our
discussion disregards that one might class these items in dierent word classes in the description
of single languages. E.g. Latvian would then have three classes of relational words: prepositions
(that all govern the dative in the plural), postpositions (that govern the genitive) and half-
prepositions that may appear before and after the noun and that may be even separated from it
and that always govern the dative.
82. In traditional Latvian grammatical terminology the term postposition is restricted to a few
items; other postposition-like markers are referred to as semi-prepositions (pusprievardi) (cf.
Holvoet 1993: 131).
83. What is still more interesting, and even unexpected, is the overall decrease in the frequency of
adpositions in present-day Estonian compared to the beginning of the century. In the 1905
sample, adpositions formed 4.4 per cent of all the words in the texts in the text corpus, as
compared to 2.43 per cent for the 1972 sample. Estonian, thus, uses synthetic constructions (case-
inected nominals) to a higher degree now than at the beginning of the century. Note that we are
not talking here about the usual grammaticalization pattern from postpositions to case endings;
rather, there is a tendency to skip relatively young periphrastic constructions in favour of the older
synthetic ones. To quote one example, the frequency of peale on, nearly synonymous with the
adessive case (cf. laua-l table-adess = laua peale table-gen on) has decreased almost 6 times
between 1905 and 1972. Ehala suggests that this tendency might have been an indirect conse-
quence of the language renewal campaign, which explicitly encouraged a replacement of analytic
comparative constructions by synthetic ones.
Interestingly, the absolute frequency of prepositions in Estonian has hardly changed during
the last century, so the rise in the preposition-postposition ratio is mainly due to the overall
decrease in the use of postpositions. In the light of this, the suggested role of foreign inuence
seems to lose its ground even more.
84. There are various opinions as to whether these forms do constitute a special mood, we cannot
enter this terminological question and use the term evidential mood here merely as a matter of
convenience.
85. In Lithuanian dialects, evidential mood is mainly attested in two regions: In emaitian and a
part of western Auktaitian dialects (primarily on the territory of former eastern Prussia) and in
the northeastern corner of Lithuania. These two regions are connected by a narrow strip along the
border to Latvia; to the south of this strip the oblique mood is either not attested at all or occurs
only sporadically.
86. It is not known whether there was an evidential mood in Old Prussian.
87. There is also an evidential correspondence to the optative and in certain Auktaitian dialects
even to the conjunctive mood (cf. Ambrazas 1977: 8 and Christen 1995: 35f).
88. This function is mainly expressed by passive participles in Lithuanian, cf. below.
89. Interestingly, negation disambiguates these forms:
Jonas ne atej-es.
Jonas is said not to have come/Jonas did not come
Jonas nera (< ne + yra) atej-es.
Jonas has not come. (Wiemer 1998/1999)
90. In Standard Estonian, the oblique mood distinguishes between two tenses: present, expressed
by non-inected participles in -vat, and perfect/past, in which the -vat-participle of the copula
verb olla be combines with the perfect participle (with the ending -tud/-nud) of the lexical verb.
In this latter case, the oblique mood again patterns as the present perfect of the indicative mood,
which also involves the copula olla and the perfect participle.
91. Northern Estonian dialects use mainly the innitives in -da and -ma for the oblique mood in
the present. For a thorough description of the dierent forms of the oblique mood in Estonian
dialects cf. Kask (1984).
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Appendix
Appendix 1. Language contacts referred to in the book
Languages involved Reference
FINNIC FINNIC Laakso 2.4

Estonian Finnish Laakso 1.2.4.3, 2.3
Estonian Livonian Laakso 1.2.4.3
Finnish Karelian Laakso 1.2.4.3; Pugh 6; 7
Finnish, Ingrian Votian Laakso 1.2.4.3
SAMI Finnish Larsson 1; Laakso 1.2.4.3, 2.1
FINNIC, EAST (Karelian, Komi Laakso 1.2.4.3
Vepsian, Votic, Ingrian) Udmurt
URALIC INDO-EUROPEAN Stassen 4, 5
FINNO-UGRIC (FINNIC, INDO-EUROPEAN Larsson 1; Laakso 1.2.4.2;
SAMI, Mordvin) (BALTIC, GERMANIC, MKT&BW: 1.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4
EAST SLAVIC)
SAMI Baltic Larsson 3
Mordvin Baltic Larsson 1
FINNIC BALTIC, EAST SLAVIC MKT&BW 2
FINNIC BALTIC Larsson; Pskov-Novg.; Ambrazas;
Laakso 1.2.1, 1.2.3.3, 1.2.4.2, 2.2;
MKT 3.2, 7; MKT&BW 1.2
FINNIC Lithuanian Lith 1.3
FINNIC, (SOUTHERN) Latvian Pskov-Novg., 2); Christen 4;
Wlchli; Holvoet; Latv. 1.3;
MKT&BW 3.2
Estonian Latvian Larsson 6; MKT & BW 2
Livonian Latvian Larsson 6; Wlchli, Holvoet (3),
Latv. 4.1.24.1.4, 4.1.6, 4.1.7, 4.2,
Laakso 1.2.4.1, 1.2.4.3, 1.2.4.3, 2.5
752 Appendix
FINNIC Russian Laakso 1.2.1.1, 1.2.3.9, 1.2.4.2

Russian dialects: Pskov/ Pskov-Novg.
Novgorod dialects,
NWCentral; North Rus- Ambrazas 1
sian OB. 5
Baltic Russian dialects
FINNIC, EAST (Karelian, Russian Laakso 1.2.3.6, 1.2.3.9.3, 1.2.4.1,
Vepsian, Votic, Ingrian) 1.2.4.3, 2.5; MKT&BW 2
Estonian Russian; Old Believers Metslang (in particular, 3.1.2; 4.2.3
Russian and 5); Urb. Rus; OB 3, 5
Karelian Russian Pugh
Votian (-ic?) Russian (in the Jizaku OB. 5
area, Estonia)
FINNIC GERMANIC Dahl 4; Larsson 1, 7; Laakso 1.2.1.2,
1.2.3.3, 1.2.4.1, 1.2.4.2, 2.2; Stolz 3.2;
MKT&BW 1.2
FINNIC Swedish Rendahl 4
Estonian Low German MKT&BW 1.4; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5;
Estonian German Metslang (in particular, 3; 4.1 and
5); Urb. Rus. 1; Laakso 1.2.4.3;
MKT&BW 1.5; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5
Estonian Swedish Rendahl 3.2; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5
Finnish Swedish Larsson 6; Laakso 1.2.4.3; Stolz 3.2
Finnish Swedish Rendahl 3.1.
SAMI Swedish; Norwegian Larsson 1; Stolz; Rendahl 4
GERMANIC GERMANIC
German, Low Swedish MKT&BW 1.4
Yiddish Low German, High Ger- Jacobs (for CourlY 4.5)
man
GERMANIC SLAVIC; BALTIC and Dahl 5; MKT&BW 1.2
SLAVIC
German Latvian Latv. 1.2, 1.4; Urb. Rus. 1; Stolz 3.2,
4, 5; MKT&BW 1.5, 2
German, Low Latvian Latv. 1.4; Stolz 3.2, 4, 5; MKT&BW
1.4
Yiddish Latvian Jacobs (for CourlY 4.5; 5)
Yiddish Lithuanian Jacobs 4.1, 4.2.2, 4.4.
Yiddish Slavic Jacobs 3, 4.2.1; 4.3
Yiddish Belarusian Jacobs 4.2.2.
Appendix 753
Yiddish Polish Jacobs 4.3.

Yiddish Russian Jacobs (for Y. in Estonia 4.5)
SLAVIC Latvian (Latgalian) OB. 5.1
SLAVIC Lithuanian OB. 5.1
SLAVIC, EAST Lithuanian Lith. 1.4
Byelorussian Lithuanian Lith. 1.4; MKT&BW 2
Byelorussian Latvian Latv. 1.4
Polish Lithuanian Lith. 1.4; MKT&BW 1.5, 2
Polish Latvian Latv. 1.4, MKT&BW 1.5
Russian Lithuanian Lith. 1.4; Urb. Rus. 1; OB 3, 4.3, 5;
MKT&BW 1.5
Russian Latvian Latv. 1.4; Urb. Russ. 1; OB 3, 4.3, 5;
MKT&BW 1.5
SLAVIC SLAVIC
Polish Belarusian MKT&BW 1.5
Polish Ukrainian MKT&BW 1.5
Polish, Belarusian Russian (in Lithuania), Urb.Russ. 1; OB 3, 5 (Polish)
Old Believers
Karaim Slavic Csat
Karaim Polish Csat
Karaim Russian Csat
Romani Russian Rusakov
Romani Turkish Rusakov 3
Romani Finnish Rusakov 3
Explanations of references in the above table to chapters in the volumes:

Latv. = Laimute & Holvoet, The Latvian Language and its Dialects
Lith. = Laimute & Holvoet, The Lithuanian Language and its Dialects
Urb.Russ. = Cekmonas, Russian varieties in the southeastern Baltic area: Urban Russian of
the 19th century
OB= Cekmonas, Russian varieties in the southeastern Baltic area: Rural dialects
Pskov-Novg. = Cekmonas, On some Circum-Baltic Features in the Pskov-Novgorod
(Northwestern Central Russian) dialect
MKT&BW = Koptjevskaja-Tamm & Wlchli, The Circum-Baltic Languages: An Areal-
Typological Approach
All other chapters are referred to by the name of their author(s).
754 Appendix
Appendix 2. Linguistic phenomena mentioned in the book, for the origin

of which contact-induced changes have been evoked
1. Lexical loans/borrowings etc.
Comments Target language(s) Source language(s) Reference
Massive penetration in Estonian German Laakso 1.2.4.3

the lexicon (incl. words Estonian Finnish
for body parts, kinterms,
etc.) Finnic Baltic Larsson 2
Borrowed conjunctions Finnic Germanic, Russian, Laakso 1.2.4.1.
Latvian
Loan noun-derivational Finnic Russian Laakso 1.2.3.9
agent sux nik Finnic, Eastern Russian Laakso 1.2.4.3
Finnish Swedish Laakso 1.2.4.3
Massive borrowing, Karaim Russian and Polish Csat (in particular,
including prepositions. 3)
Code-copying: adapta-
tion to the structure of
the recipient language
Borrowed items are used Karelian Finnish Pugh 6; Laakso
to replace earlier Vepsian 1.2.4.3
borrowings from Rus-
sian
Massive penetration in Karelian Russian Pugh 2
all semantic spheres
(incl. Numerals, con-
junctions, prepositions);
deep integration
Restricted borrowing Komi, Udmurt Vepsian, Karelian Laakso 1.2.4.3
Latvian (Old) Russian, Latv. 1.4; Urb. Russ.
German 1
Massive borrowings Latvian, Latgalian Slavic OB. 5.1
Borrowed words with Lithuanian Slavic (Russian, Lith. 1.4
regular sound substitu- Belarusian, Polish)
tion; phraseologisms Livonian Estonian Laakso 1.2.4.3
Appendix 755
Comments Target language(s) Source language(s) Reference
Massive penetration of Livonian; southern Latvian Larsson 6; Laakso

borrowed words into Estonian 1.2.4.3
many spheres
Barbarisms for new Polish and Lithua- Russian Urb. Rus. 1
social and political reali- nian dialects in
ties rather than proper Lithuania
loan-words
Heavy borrowing: adapt- Romani (North Russian Rusakov 3
ed vs. unadapted loans Russian) Turkish
(primarily verbs inect-Romani dialects of
ed according to foreign Kabudzhi in Alba-
models) nia and the Agia
Barbara dialect in
Greece
Abundance of loan Russian dialects in Estonian OB. 5
words (also inuence on the Jizaku and
all levels) Mexikorma (Esto-
nia)
Russian of Old Mainly Polish, some OB. 5
Believers in the Lithuanian and
Baltic Latvian
Sami Baltic Larsson 3; 5
Dierently in dierent Swedish in Estonia Estonian Rendahl 3.2
varieties
Noticeable, but not Swedish in Finland Finnish Rendahl 3.1
overwhelming loans
Massive borrowings Votic Finnish and Ingrian
Deeply integrated into Yiddish Lithuanian Jacobs 4.1.; 4.3; 4.4;
the recepient language 46
Yiddish Polish Jacobs 4.3
Yiddish Slavic Jacobs 4.4.23
Highly restricted Yiddish (CourlY) Latvian Jacobs 4.5
Adaptation to the struc- Yiddish (CourlY; Y. German Jacobs 4.5; 4.6
ture of the recipient in Estonia)
language
Yiddish (in Estonia) Russian Jacobs 4.6
Lexical isoglosses Slavic, Baltic, Ger- An earlier Sprach- MKT&BW 1.2
manic bund has been sug-
gested
756 Appendix
2. Phonetics/Phonology/Prosody
Phenomenon Languages involved Explanation Reference
Consonant clusters al- Karelian Russian inuence Pugh 3

lowed
Consonant gradation Finnic Somehow connect- Laakso 1.2.1.2.
ed to Verners Law
in Germanic (?)
Consonant palatalization Karelian, Vepsian Russian Pugh 3; Laakso
1.2.1.2.
Consonant palatalization Finnic Earlier attempts to Larsson 4
(*ti > si) attribute the process
to Baltic inuence
have been rejected
Consonants: Russian Finnic inuence Pskov-Novg., 3
okane = confusion of (NWCentral and (substrate)
soft sibilants s, z and other central dia-
hushing sounds , ; lects, Northern);
S/-cases = mixing to- Lithuanian (small
gether of the hard s, z area in Northern L.,
with , lekiavimas);
historically in Latvi-
an
Consonants: Yiddish (NEY) Slavic inuence Jacobs 4.2.1
voicing sandhi (progres-
sive assimilation of con-
sonants
Consonants: new conso- Karelian, Vepsian, Russian and Latvian Laakso 1.2.1.2
nants voiced stops Votian, Livonian inuences
and sibilants, and
word-initial aricates
Consonants: palatali- Tamian (Low Latvi- Livonian substra- Latv. 4.1.6
zation of dentals and an) dialects tum
alveolars before vowels
stem-nally
Consonants: reduction Finnic (compared Early Germanic or Laakso 1.2.1.
of the consonant system to Proto-Uralic) Baltic inuence
Consonants: replace- Some Tamian (Low Livonian substra- Latv. 4.2.2.
ment of word-nal un- Latvian) dialects tum
voiced stops fortes with
unvoiced lenes
Appendix 757
Glottal stop (Stoton) Livonian Possible (but not Larsson 6

necessary) inuence
from Latvian
Glottal stop (Stoton) Lithuanian, ? A shared feature Pskov-Novg., 5;
emaitian (North- with Livonian, Lith.1.3,
ern) Latvian and Esto-
nian dialects. Curo-
nian (shared Baltic
substratum)?
Vowel harmony process- Karelian Russian (as a result Pugh 3
es, restructuring (prex- of the penetration of
es and not only roots Russian prexes
dictate the front-back into the Karelian
colouring of suxes) verbal system)
Vowel harmony, loss Northern Estonian, Contacts with Baltic MKT&BW 3.2
Livonian suggested as an
explanation; hardly
plausible (Southern
Estonian still has
vowel harmony)
Vowels: Yiddish (ZY) A possible (weak) Jacobs 4.3.
retention of the distinc- role of Baltic, Esto-
tion between long and nian and Baltic
short monophtongs German in the
maintenance of the
distinction
Vowels: a new higher Dialects of Karelian, Introduced or at Laakso 1.2.1.1.
mid vowel (H) Vepsian, Ingrian, least enforced by the
Votian and Estonian inuence of Russian
loan words
Vowels: apocope Lithuanian, ? A shared feature Pskov-Novg., 5
emaitian (North- with Latvian,
ern) Livonian, Votian
and Estonian dia-
lects
Vowels: loss or shorten- Tamian (Low Latvi- Livonian substra- Latv. 4.1.2, 4.1.3
ing of unstressed vowels an) dialects tum
Almost identical phono- North Russian Russian Rusakov 1
logical systems Romani
758 Appendix
3. Word-formation, grammar
3.1 Verb bounders (particles, prexes and preverbs functioning as mark-

ers of aspect and/or Aktionsart)
Languages involved Explanation Reference
Livonian, Estonian, Veps, Kare- Complex relationships on dierent MKT&BW 3.2

lian, Low German, German, Swe- levels (material similarities;
dish, Baltic, Russian semantic and functional similarities;
syntactic similarities)
Latvian, Livonian, Estonian, Mutual inuences; preverbs in Livonian Wlchli (in
Leivu and Leivu borrowed from Latvian particular 2.3;
2.4)
Estonian A cumulative eect of internal devel- Metslang
opments and German and Russian
inuences during dierent time periods
Karelian Borrowed Russian prexes can be Pugh 4
attached to indigeneus stems
North Russian Romani Russian Rusakov 2
3.2 Case (case systems, case uses etc.)
Case: breakdown in Continental Scandinavian Inuence from Low German MKT&B

the case system (standard varieties and most in one or another form has W 1.4
of the dialects) been suggested
Case: emergence of a Livonian (in Kurzeme) Latvian inuence; mutual Larsson 6;
dative case convergence in uses (e.g., in Wlchli 4;
combination with verb Laakso
particles or postpositions) 1.2.3.7.3
Case: dierences in Two groups Polish/ Possible areal inuences MKT&B
verbal government Lithuanian(/Belarusian) vs. W2
Latvian-German-Estonian
Case: experiencer Russian of Old Believers in Possible syntactic loans from OB. 4.3
datives in possessive the Baltics the Baltic languages or Polish (10), 5
(in extended sense)
constructions
Case: local cases Eastern Baltic Possible inuence from Lith.1.3;
Finnic (problematic) MKT&B
W 6.7
Appendix 759
3.3 Gender
Gender system reduction Yiddish (NEY) Possible (but not Jacobs 4.2.2
(three genders: masc, necessary) Lithuani-
fem, neut two gen- an inuence
ders: masc, fem)
Gender: changes from Russian of Old Be- Weak Baltic inu- OB. 5
neuter to feminine and lievers in the Baltic ence not excluded
the expansion of the
feminine paradigm
Gender: Reduction Tamian (Low Latvi- Finnic inuence: Latv. 4.1.7;
and/or loss of gender an) dialects; Romani Livonian substratum MKT&BW 8.2
distinctions in Finland; (for Latvian), Finn-
Swedish dialect of ish superstratum (for
Karleby-Nedervetil Romani).
(Northern Ostro- Finnish inuence
bothnia, Finland) possible as a contrib-
uting factor
3.4 Verbal categories
Tense: compound tenses Finnic Modelled on the Laakso 1.2.3.3.

based on copular con- Baltic and/or Ger-
structions manic constructions
Occasional number neu- Russian of Old Be- May be a result of OB. 5
tralization of the 3d per- lievers in East Lithu- Lithuanian inuence
son of verbs ania
Existence of agent partici- Finnic (except for Possible Baltic inu- Larsson 5.2
ples Estonian) ence
Extensive uses of reexive Easter Finnish Russian inuence Laakso 1.2.3.6,
suxes (-te, -tte) (Karelian, Vepsian, has at least partially 1.2.3.9.3
reexive conjugation Ingrian, Votian) contributed to the
development
Structure of present parti-Yiddish Possible (but not Jacobs 4.2.2
ciples combined with necessary) Lithuani-
reexive pronouns an inuence
760 Appendix
Negation: loss of inec- Northern Estonian In both cases con- MKT&BW 3.2
tion in negative verbs; Livonian tacts with Latvian
Further elaboration of have been suggested
inection in negative as a possible inu-
verbs encing factor
Negation: the form net Russian of Old Be- Possibly a calque OB. 4.3 (14), 5
(negation of the existen- lievers in the Baltic from Latvian (via
tial copula) in clauses Polish)
with nominal predicates
3.5 Other structural phenomena
Availability of two struc- Finnish, Latvian (to Possible Finnic inu- Christen (especially
tural positions for geni- a lesser degree) ence on Latvian 4)
tives within a noun
phrase
Copular sentences Karaim Polish Csat (2)
Correlative constructions Karaim Polish?, Russian? Csat (5.3)
Essive constructions (case Karaim Polish?, Russian? Csat (5.3)
assignment)
Highly grammaticalized Livonian, Estonian, Convergence possi- MKT & BW 3.2
analytic superlatives Latvian ble, but not neces-
(better than all) sary
Reexive constructions Southern Finnic vs. Possible inuence Larsson 6
Finnish from Latvian vs.
Swedish
Formulaic expressions East Slavic varieties, Finno-Ugric sub- MKT&BW 3.2
they lived-were in the Finno-Ugric strate inuence pro-
beginning of fairy tales bable
</TARGET "app">
Appendix 761
4. Code switching/shifting
Karelian Russian Pugh 2.6

Romani Russian Rusakov 3
Karaim Russian, Polish, Lithuanian Csat (2)
North Russian Romani

moderate to high structural interference from Russian on all levels:
identity of phonological structure;
heavy lexical borrowing (adapted and unadapted, code-mixing);
borrowing of morphological markers;
inuence on morphological categories: (a) meaning changes of the elements of already
existing morphological categories; (b) the structural reshaping according to the Russian
models of the forms of already existing morphological categories;
identity of syntactic structures;
code-switching.
<TARGET "ni" DOCINFO
AUTHOR ""
TITLE "Name index"
KEYWORDS ""
SIZE HEIGHT "220"
WIDTH "150"
VOFFSET "4">
Name index
Note: page numbers 1359 refer to Volume 1.
A Berg-Olsen, Sturla 657, 662

Aalto, Pentti 701 Bergman, Gsta 162, 164
Aavik, Johannes 202, 445, 455, 625 Bergsland, Knut 704
Abondolo, Daniel 179 Beskrovnyj, V. M. 316
gren, Per-Uno 164, 165 Bhaskararao, P. 587, 588
Ahlbck, Olav 143, 148151, 163, 166 Bhatt, Rakesh M. 322
Aitchison, Jean 454, 456 Bhattacharya S. 588
Aleksandravicius, Egidijus 82, 87 Bielenstein, A. 16
Alho, Irja H. 531, 533, 656, 660 Biezais, Haralds 623
Almqvist, Ingrid 408, 655 Bisang, Walter 531, 562
Alvre, Paul 685, 686, 717 Bjrnaten, Jan Ivar 339
Ambrazas, Vytautas 376, 378, 379, 391, Boiko, Kersti 675
408410, 484, 544, 663, 664, 666, Bokamba, Eyamba G. 325
672, 719726 Boretzky, Norbert 315, 316, 323, 332
Anderson, A. O. 585 Borin, Lars 331, 701
Antonsen, Elmer H. 222, 223, 225 Borkovskij, Viktor I. 384, 396
Anward, Jan 555 Bouzet, J. 584
Ariste, Paul 201, 203, 302, 304, 305, 373, Braun, Maximilian 634, 637
381, 575, 576, 632 Braunmller, Kurt 624
Arndt, W. W. 220, 222 Brooks, M. Z. 579
Arumaa, P. 423, 425, 720, 725 Brugmann, Karl 409, 527, 545, 606, 667,
Asher, R. E. 587 712
Auer, Peter 322 Bubrix, D. V. 344, 345, 350
Avanesov, R. I. 342, 348 Burrow, T. 588
Bus, Ojars 424
B Bybee, Joan 419, 445, 453, 629, 719, 726
Bacot, J. 589
Bakker, Peter 313, 332 C
Balinski, M. 82 Campbell, Lyle 408, 410, 627, 629, 630
Balode, Laimute 642, 645, 657, 676 Cekmonas, Valeriy 341, 348, 625, 626,
Barannikov, A. P. 316, 331 643, 681, 685, 688, 694, 709, 732
Barotov, M. A. 331 Chafe, Wallace 720
Barwise, Jon 528 Christen, Simon 533, 544, 628, 693, 698,
Basanavicius, Jonas 712 709, 712, 713, 725
Behaghel, Otto 527, 528, 554 Claudi, Ulrike 445, 609
i 2 Name index
Collinder, Bjrn 238, 241, 244, 607 F

Comrie, Bernard 193, 584, 671 Fairbanks, Gordon H. 530
Cooper, Robin 528 Falkenhahn, V. 626
Corbett, Greville 543, 699701, 703, 704 Fennell, J. 581
Courthiade, Marcel 313, 331 Fici Giusti, Francesca 691
Croft, William 531, 562 Filin, F. F. 347, 348
Csat, Eva 276, 624, 626, 714 Forsberg, Hannele 193
Fraenkel, Ernst 403, 577, 582, 592, 608
D Frajzyngier, Zygmunt 365
Dahl, sten 340, 419, 443, 487, 622, 628, Friedman, Viktor A. 315
629, 633, 655, 659, 669, 699, 700, Fries, Sigurd 147
716, 719, 726 Fromm, Hans 201, 574, 575
Dahlstedt, Karl-Hampus 164, 165
Danell, Gideon 147, 153158, 160, 164 G
de Rijk, R. P. G. 670 Grding, Eva 166, 167
de Sivers, Fanny 485 Gaters, Alfreds 409, 605
Dcsy, Gyula 192, 355, 356, 627 Geniuiene, Emma 695
Delbrck, Berthold 527, 528, 545, 606, 667 Gimbutas, Marija 410, 621
Delsing, Lars-Olof 137, 144, 159, 163, 548, Girdenis, Aleksas 52, 350, 417, 435
554, 713 Givn, Talmy 573, 678, 683
Denison, Norman 536 Gluskina, S. M. 113, 340, 342, 343, 348,
Dini, Pietro U. 620 349, 351, 353
Dirr, A. 591 Goldberg, B. A. 84
Disterheft, Dorothy 396, 398 Gomonov, I. T. 120
Dottin, G. 586 Gorkova, K. V. 347
Dressler, Wolfgang 333, 334 Gseken, Heinrich 456
Driem, G. van 590 Grappin, H. 578, 579
Dryer, Matthew 710713, 715, 718 Greenberg, Joseph H. 276, 701, 704
Dunn, J. A. 409, 666 Greene, D. 585
Grierson, G. A. 589, 590
E Grnthal, Riho 179
Ebert, Karen H. 731 Gun, Otton 91, 229
Ehala, Martin 714, 715 Gustavson, Herbert 158, 159, 162, 164, 165
Ejskaer, Inger 145
Elsberg, I.Ja. 111, 114 H
Elert, Claes-Christian 166, 168, 220, 232, Haarmann, Harald 627, 719, 720
622 Hahmo, Sirkka-Liisa 198
Eloeva, Fatima A. 313, 332 Hkkinen, Kaisa 179
Endzelns (Endselin), Janis 345, 352, 369, Hakulinen, Auli 661
371, 397, 408, 409, 414416, 423, Hakulinen, Lauri 372, 373, 382, 384, 385,
481, 488, 489, 518, 620, 630, 631, 536
686, 703 Hallberg, Gran 142
Erelt, Mati 381, 541 Halling, Tiina 198
Ericsson, Torsten 168 Hansegrd, Nils Erik 238
Eschenbach, Carola 532, 550, 551 Harris, Alice C. 408, 410
Name index i 3
Haspelmath, Martin 409, 633, 673, 674, Ivars, Ann-Marie 148, 166
686, 690, 694, 695, 716 Iwaniec, E. 102, 103
Hasselblatt, Cornelius 453455, 486, 495,
613 J
Hausenberg, Anu-Reet 202 Jablonskis, Jonas 408, 409, 666
Hauzenberga-turma, E. 417 Jacobs, Neil G. 624, 626, 699, 717, 732
Havrnek, Bohuslav 408, 409 Jacobsson, Gunnar 409, 410
Heine, Bernd 445, 609, 681, 686, 687 Jakobson, Roman 355, 434, 626, 627, 641,
Heinrici Chronicon 7, 623 644
Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa 196 Janhunen, Juha 180, 182, 184, 186
Helimski, Eugene 184 Jansson, Valter 143, 148
Heltoft, Lars 549 Jaunius, Kazimieras 251
Hentschel, Elke 550 Jeers, Robert J. 409
Herslund, Michael 527, 555 Johansen, Paul 413
Hertzen, Erik von 240 Johanson Lars 272, 277, 278
Hesselman, Bengt 139, 141, 143, 147, 159, Johnson, Mark 595, 596, 683, 684
228, 229 Jokinen, Kristiina 506, 512514, 575
Hinderling, Robert 624 Jonaityte, Aldona 350
Hint, Mati 187, 195, 470, 715 Jrgensen, Nils 144147, 155, 159, 161,
Hirt, H. 413 162165
Hock, Hans H. 322 Jurginis, J. 82
Hockett, Charles F. 699701
Hoeksema, Jacob 528 K
Holm, Gsta 148, 155, 156 Kaciukiene, Genovaite 417, 435
Holvoet, Axel 374, 383, 391, 392, 397, 410, Kagaine, Elga 416, 423, 424
642, 643, 645, 657, 658, 664, 666, Kalima, Jalo 237239, 250
673, 674, 676, 678, 689, 690, 692, Kalinina, Elena 590
714, 715 Kandaurova, T. N. 348
Honti, Lszl 188, 636, 704 Kangasmaa-Minn, Eeva 195
Hoop, Helen de 528 Kangere, Baiba 408, 657, 672, 675
Hopper, Paul J. 531, 652, 669 Kapterev, N. F. 101
Huldn, Lars 162, 699 Karinskij, Nikolaj Mixajlovic 341, 342,
Hummelstedt, Eskil 159 346, 348
Hnnemeyer, Frederike 445, 609 Karjalainen, Merja 368, 614, 656
Hupel, August Wilhelm 456 Karlsson, Fred 248, 607, 655, 661
Hurford, James 562, 704 Karma, Tnu 676
Huss, Leena 238 Karsten, Torsten Evert 238
Hyenstrand, ke 218, 219, 232 Karttunen, Lauri 382, 384, 385
Hyldgaard-Jensen, Karl 623 Kasatkin, L. L. 354
Kasatkina, R. F. 354
I Kasik, Reet 198, 454
Igla, Birgit 315, 323, 332 Kask, Arnold 453
Ingo, Rune 640 Kaufman, Terrence 87, 305, 313, 320, 332,
Itkonen, Erkki 558, 559 334, 410, 454, 676
Itkonen, Terho 184, 202204, 242 Kauppinen, Anneli 192
i 4 Name index
Keenan, Edward L. 363, 380 Lalou, M. 589

Kemmer, Susanne 695 LaPolla, Randy J. 670
Kenrick, Donald 332 Larin, Boris A. 398, 408410
Kettunen, Lauri 21, 249, 250, 344, 385, 413 Larsson, Lars-Gunnar 160
Kibrik, Aleksandr 590, 591, 634 Larsson, Seth 237, 239, 240, 242, 246, 247,
King, Gareth 229, 286, 560, 670 536, 564, 622, 650, 658, 668, 678
Kiparsky, Valentin 304, 341, 352, 391, Lehiste, Ilse 187, 574, 576, 626, 645, 646
408410, 642, 666 Lehmann, Winfried P. 712
Klaas, Birute 443, 720, 722 Lehtinen, M. 192, 194, 199, 575
Koivisto, Vesa 195, 200 Leino, Pentti 534, 561
Koivulehto, Jorma 201, 203, 238 Leinonen, Maria 663
Kolesov, V. V. 351, 353 Lnngren, Tamara 106, 108, 109, 114, 115,
Kont, Karl 443, 564 116, 118, 120123, 125
Koponen, Eino 201 Levanda, L. O. 84, 85
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria 340, 408, 503, Levander, Lars 137, 143, 159
508, 509, 512, 514, 516, 613 Levin, Beth 670
Koreckij, P. I. 102 Levinson, Stephen 164
Koreva, A. 83 Lindqvist, Natan 141, 146
Korhonen, Mikko 180, 183, 191, 194, 195, Lindstrm, Eva 701
241 Linell, Per 555
Kornlt, Jaklin 560, 561, 668 Loman, Bengt 148
Koshal, S. 589 Loorits, Oskar 421, 500
Krause, Wolfgang 223225 Lyons, Christopher 514
Krull, Diana 574, 575, 645 Lytkin, V. I. 341
Kruuse, E. 168
Kuhn, Hans 222 M
Kulakauskas, Antanas 82, 87, 88 Mackinnon, R. 585
Kulonen, Ulla-Maija 195 Mgiste, Julius 237, 445
Kuraitis, Aleksandras 422 Makaev, nver A. 222, 223
Kuzmina, Irina Borisovna 117, 119, 120, Maling, Joan 670, 674
122, 125, 659, 663, 666, 674, 694, Manu, Leksa 325, 636
717 Markelov, G. V. 105
Kytmki, Leena 199 Markianova, L. F. 198
Markova, N. V. 694
L Marold, Edith 222
Laakso, Johanna 534, 622, 632, 673, 696, Mathiassen, Terje 247, 291, 294, 295, 613,
714 627, 679, 680
Laalo, Klaus 186 Matras, Yaron 322, 720, 726
Laanest, Arvo 179, 184, 185, 187, 192, 198, Matthews, W. K. 363
250, 603 Meckelein, R. 578, 579
Labov, William 332, 333, 454 Meillet, A. 592
Lagman, Edvin 705 Merkys, V. 88
Lagman, Herbert 153, 155, 156, 163 Messing, Gordon M. 331
Laitinen, Lea 670, 673 Metslang, Helle 179, 487, 629, 656
Lako, George 595, 596, 683, 684 Mikkola, Joz 632
Name index i 5
Milovidov, V. 104 Pamp, Bengt 161, 162, 165, 166

Misius, Kazys 87 Paunonen, Heikki 189, 205
Mhlenbachs, Karlis 409, 488 Paus, Charles 544
Mullonen, Marija Ivanovna 381, 382, 501 Payne, John R. 517
Muravev, Mixail 82 Pepicello, William J. 409
Murkxejn, Vera 125, 129 Perkins, Revere 445
Murnikova, T. F. 103, 105, 106, 108, 124, Pisani, V. 379
129 Pitknen, Antti J. 527
Plank, Frans 514, 554, 693
N Plger, Angela 238
Nau, Nicole 607, 613, 614, 628, 629, 630, Poplack, Shana 325
631, 672, 679, 683, 701 Postal, Paul 693
Nemceva, L. I. 111, 114, 128 Posti, Lauri 182, 184, 204, 238, 243
Nemvalts, Peep 486, 492, 661, 662 Potebnja, Aleksandr A. 391, 408, 409
Nepokupnyj, A. P. 430 Pozdeeva I. 104
Nesselmann, G. H. F. 620 Prince, Ellen F. 614
Nesser, Anne 238 Proxorova, S. M. 120122
Nichols, Johanna 580582, 590, 621, 720, Prozorov, I. 101, 102
728, 730 Prugavin, S. 104
Nielsen, Niels ge 699 Pugh, Stephan 626, 629
Niilus, V. 727 Pyli, Raija 208, 261
Nikiforovskij, N.Ja. 123
Nikkil, Osmo 201 Q
Nikula, Kristina 160 Qvigstad, Just Knud 238
Nilsson, Torbjrn K. 250, 429, 430
Norde, Muriel 548, 713 R
Noreen, Adolf 138, 215 Raag, Raimo and Virve 195, 205, 483, 486,
Novgorodov, M. A. 108, 112114, 488, 491, 613
113117, 120122, 125 Rtsep, Huno 452, 454
Nystrm, Staan 168 Raukko, Jarno 628, 716, 717
Ravila, P. 345, 352
O Reinhammar, Maj 161, 677
Oinas, Felix J. 603 Reiter, Norbert 409
Ojanen, Muusa 238 Rendahl, Anne-Charlotte. 624, 648, 677,
Ojutkangas, Krista 198 693, 699, 705, 713
Orlova, A. I. 341, 342, 345, 347, 348 Rhys Jones, T. J. 586
stman, Jan-Ola 628, 716 Ritter, Ralf-Peter 381
Ozols, Arturs 409 Rixter, E. V. 123
Robinson, Orrin W. 216, 220
P Roos, Jaan 645
Paasonen, Heikki 559 Rothstein, Robert A. 274
Pabrea, Juozas 350 Rudzte, Marta 414, 418, 500, 632, 648,
Pagliuca, William 445 676, 699
Pajusalu, Karl 207 Rusakov, Aleksandr 626, 629
Palmaitis, Letas 410
i 6 Name index
S Sjberg, ke G. 158
Saagpakk, Paul Friidrih 502 Skardius, Pranas 427
Sajantila, Antti et al. 241 Skld, Tryggve 238, 562
Salminen, Tapani 179, 205 Smyth, Herbert Weir 527, 528
Salmons, Joe 643, 644 Sderman, Tiina 202, 207
Saltarelli, M. 583, 584 Solovev, S. M. 101
Salys, A. 52 Sprincak, Jakov A. 409
Sammallahti, Pekka 180, 182, 203 Stang, Christian S. 243, 481, 622, 643
Sanko, Gillian 325 Stassen, Leon 536, 678, 679, 681, 683,
Sarhimaa, Anneli 208, 627 686688, 698
Savijrvi, Ilkka 193 Stepanov, Jurij S. 391, 409
Sawyer, Peter 228 Stolz, Thomas 355, 356, 494, 627, 630,
axmatov, A. A. 341, 342, 346348, 350 631, 632, 675, 679, 684, 685, 714,
Schagerstrm, August 142 717, 720, 726
Schiman, H. F. 587, 588 Stone, Gerald 579, 664
Schlachter, Wolfgang 696 Stroganova, T.Ju 340
Schmalstieg, William R. 377, 409, 608 Suhonen, Seppo 179, 238, 250
Schndorf, K. E. 623 Sulkala, Helena 368, 614, 656
Schuchardt, Hugo 583 Svonni, Mikael 238
Schwartz, Eugne 547, 548 Swenning, Julius 162
Sedov, Valentin Vasilevic 339, 340 Szemernyi, Oswald 249
Sehwers, Johannes 624
Seilenthal, Tnu 200, 445 T
Selicev, A. M. 341, 342 Tauli, Valter 368, 374, 384, 603, 604
Selkirk, E. 528 Ternes, Elmar 649
Semenova, M. F. 81, 85, 9095, 106, Thomas, G. 560
111113, 122, 124, 131 Thomason, Sarah G. 305, 313, 320, 332,
Senn, Alfred 515, 577, 598, 608 334, 410, 454, 566, 627, 675
Seppnen, Aimo 705 Thompson, Sandra A. 531, 652, 669
Seppnen, Ruth 536, 539, 540 Thomsen, Vilhelm 238, 241, 242, 421
Serebrennikov, B. A. 676 Tiberg, Nils 154158, 161, 163
Setl, E. N. 418, 425, 426 Tikka, Toivo 197
Sgall, Peter 396, 398 Timberlake, Allan 392, 398, 399, 404, 405,
Shibatani, Masayoshi 365 406, 408, 409, 658, 664, 665, 666,
Shore, Susanna 194 671, 674, 694
Short, David 26, 31, 46, 47, 154, 580, 581, Tiselius, G. A. 145, 159
664 Tkacenko, Orest Borisovic 631
Siewierska, Anna 365, 633, 690, 691, 692, Tommola, Hannu 194, 443
708, 709 Tnisson, Evald 413, 623
Sinica, A. I. 106, 108, 114, 122, 123, 128, Toomsalu, Epp 455
129 Toporov, V. N. 622
Sinor, Denis 179 Tretjakov, P. N. 622
Sirtautas, Vytautas 409 Trosterud, Trond 191, 194
Sivers, Fanny de 418, 431 Trubacev, O. N. 622
Sivickene, M. 109, 114, 125, 126 Tyla, Antanas 87
</TARGET "ni">
Name index i 7
U Watkins, Calvert 680

Udolph, Jrgen 220, 221 Wessn, Elias 139141, 143, 144, 146, 147,
Ultan, Russel 717 158, 162, 163, 165, 166, 223, 226,
Ureland, P. Sture 624, 696 230, 231, 527, 547, 624
Westergaard, K-E. 623
V Widmark, Gun 229, 230
Vri, E. 720 Wiemer, Bjrn 675
Vaba, Lembit 238, 250, 418, 687 Wierzbicka, Anna 491, 634
Vhmki, Brje K. 661 Wiik, Kalevi 621, 626, 644
Vahros, I. 666 Wiklund, Karl Bernhard 238
Vainikka, Anne 669 Willet, Thomas 719, 720, 726
Valtonen, P. 331 Winkler, Eberhard 206
van der Voort, Hein 332 Woolford, E. 325
Van Valin, Jr Robert D. 670 Wordick, F. J. F. 671
Vare, Silvi 200
Vasiliauskienc, Virginija 712 X
Vasmer, Max 344 Xejter, X. 108, 113, 124, 125, 129
Vaxtin, Nikolaj B. 334 Xodova, K. J. 396
Veenker, Wolfgang 340, 341, 410, 454, Xolodovic, A. A. 365
576, 592, 642, 658
Ventzel, Tatiana V. 321 Z
Verecagin, E. M. 331 Zajceva, Marija Ivanovna 501
Verkuyl, Henk J. 486, 487 Zaliznjak, A. A. 341, 347, 348
Vesper, D. R. 588 Zavarina, A. A. 102104, 123
Viitso, Tiit-Rein 204, 644 Zenkovskij, Sergej 101
Vilkuna, Maria 651, 661, 670, 672, 673, Zeps, Valdis J. 484, 490492
675, 697, 709 ilinskiene, Vida 409
Vraciu, Ariton 633 Zimmermann, Christiane 222
Vuorela, Katri 331, 701 Zinkevicius, Zigmas 52, 86, 88, 243, 356,
Vysotskij, S. S. 126 410, 481
Zorina, Zoja Georgievna 559
W uravlev, V. K. 406
Wlchli, Bernhard 414, 432, 536, 543, 567 Zverkovskaja, N. P. 114, 116
<TARGET "li" DOCINFO
AUTHOR ""
TITLE "Language index"
KEYWORDS ""
SIZE HEIGHT "220"
WIDTH "150"
VOFFSET "4">
Language index
A Celtic 556, 583, 586, 591, 627, 642, 643,

Abkhaz 709 644, 680, 710, 711, 718
Albanian 331, 680, 711, 718 Chechen 590, 709
Archi 590, 591 Cheremis (= Mari) 180, 203, 248, 446,
Armenian 530, 559, 633, 709, 710 451, 500, 559, 622, 636, 681, 682,
Avar 590, 709 703, 714, 719
Avesta 667 Chuvash 681, 682
Crimean Tatar 271
B Curonian 7, 9, 16, 2125, 31, 32, 37, 45,
Baltic 8, 43, 122, 126, 129131, 238, 243, 405, 675, 678, 681, 719
244, 247, 248, 291, 293, 352, 363, Czech 409, 582, 632, 642, 664
368, 379, 387, 393, 414, 419, 481,
486, 488, 501, 502, 503, 509, 510, D
519, 520, 536, 538, 543, 577, 578, Dag(h)estanian 409, 556, 561, 588, 590,
582, 583, 591, 602, 631, 633, 634, 591, 680
638, 639, 644, 645, 647, 649, 665, Dalecarlian 137, 161
687, 695, 698, 701, 712, 714, 717, Dalecarlian, lvdalen 677
719, 726, 739, 741 Danish 15, 139, 158, 453, 526, 547, 548,
Baltic, Common 8, 9, 18, 20, 21, 24, 43, 549552, 554, 555, 567, 577,
47, 65, 68, 69, 71, 378, 379, 386, 387, 598602, 614, 623, 626, 648, 649,
690 650, 677, 684, 698, 709, 713, 731
Baltic, Common East 43 Dravidian 586, 588, 591
Baltic, East 243 Dumi 589, 590
Balto-Slavonic (Balto-Slavic) 20 Dutch 304, 633, 696
Belarusian 9, 10, 36, 42, 45, 65, 81, 84, 85,
91, 92, 109, 110, 112, 121, 122, 123, E
126, 128, 291, 302, 350, 396, 526, Estonian 27, 28, 81, 96, 97, 103, 105, 107,
624, 627, 631, 641, 688, 709, 716, 109, 110, 113, 124, 125, 129, 153,
717 154, 156, 276, 293, 297, 304, 305,
Bulgarian 542, 556, 726 340, 344, 345, 353, 355, 356, 368,
372, 373, 374, 375, 379, 381, 384,
C 385, 386, 406, 413415, 418, 419,
Caucasian, North Central 556, 590, 710, 420430, 433435, 526528, 532,
729 533, 538, 540, 541, 545, 555,
i 10 Language index
574576, 598, 599, 600605, G

607611, 613, 614, 620, 624632, Georgian 633, 709, 726
641643, 645, 646650, 654, 656, German 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 26, 38, 78, 85,
657, 661, 662665, 684687, 693, 9092, 9497, 120, 153, 158, 192,
697, 699, 705, 709, 714717, 719, 201, 206, 222, 229, 238, 286,
720, 725727 303305, 315, 331, 363, 364, 365,
Estonian, Leivu 418, 429, 687, 688, 727 368, 370, 371, 373, 382, 409, 413,
Estonian, Setu 124, 340 426, 445, 448, 450, 453456, 461,
463, 466, 475, 476, 489, 526, 539,
F 540, 546, 547, 549551, 553, 554,
Faroese 677 556, 560, 567, 577, 596602, 607,
Finnic 3, 6, 7, 9, 17, 19, 21, 27, 29, 31, 32, 611, 613, 614, 619, 620, 621,
38, 43, 44, 221, 391, 404406, 408, 623625, 627, 629, 630, 632, 633,
443, 445, 455, 461, 476, 527, 528, 638, 642, 684, 687, 693, 696, 698,
532, 536, 537, 538, 543545, 556, 701, 705, 712, 731, 732
559, 562, 564566, 574578, 582, German, Baltic 297, 300, 302, 304, 306,
583, 620623, 625, 627, 631, 632, 453, 475
633, 636638, 640, 641, 642644, German, High 222, 303, 528, 624
650, 652654, 656, 657, 658, 660, German, Low 10, 303, 304, 607, 611, 614,
662, 664, 666, 667676, 678682, 624, 626, 629, 630, 649, 677, 731
685, 687, 690, 692694, 696699, German, Middle High 42, 304
701, 702705, 708717, 719, 720, German, Middle Low 623, 667
725727, 730, 731, 736, 737 German, Old High 667
Finnic, West 386, 391, 392, 403, 404, Germanic 38, 182, 184, 191, 200, 201, 203,
405408, 410 204, 237239, 243, 249, 251, 286,
Finnish 38, 103, 124, 148150, 163, 166, 297, 300, 364, 421, 428, 433, 527,
267269, 304, 331, 341, 355, 367, 546, 547, 551, 552, 553, 555, 556,
368, 370, 372374, 381386, 392, 562, 573, 577, 582, 598, 602, 606,
408, 413, 421, 422, 429, 433, 444, 607, 608, 609, 611, 612, 620, 621,
445, 452, 455, 464, 466, 467, 476, 622, 633, 638, 640644, 648,
525528, 531541, 545, 552, 561, 677680, 684, 685, 693, 694,
574, 575, 598601, 606608, 610, 696698, 705, 708, 709, 714, 716,
614, 620, 621, 624, 631, 632, 637, 717, 730, 736
638, 640644, 646, 648, 650, 651, Gothic 222, 225, 226, 528, 607, 622, 667,
652662, 664, 668675, 678, 709
683685, 687, 689, 693, 696, Gotlandic 139, 144, 147, 158, 159, 163
699701, 704, 709, 713, 714, 716, Gotlandic, Old 158
717, 725 Greek 331, 481, 556, 632, 645, 680, 709,
Finno-Ugric 409, 475, 536, 556, 564, 565, 711, 712, 718, 732
567, 621, 622, 628, 631, 636, 637, Greek, Classical 528, 636, 645, 667, 688,
639, 640, 642, 644, 666, 667, 679, 712
681, 685, 695, 696698, 703,
708710, 719, 730, 736, 737
Language index i 11
H L
Hebrew 272, 626, 642, 683 Latgalian (Letgalian) 810, 15, 17, 20, 103,
Hungarian 192, 195, 198, 242, 248, 276, 108, 113116, 123, 128, 129131,
325, 559, 565, 576, 633, 642, 625
667669, 697, 703, 709 Latin 6, 82, 87, 201, 228, 375, 377, 489,
545, 623, 625, 633, 636, 637, 639,
I 644, 680, 709, 712
Icelandic 226, 548, 556, 602, 637, 638, Latvian 4345, 60, 70, 74, 75, 77, 81, 91,
639, 650, 677, 705 92, 95, 97, 105, 109, 110, 120, 122,
Indic (Northern) 589 125, 126, 128131, 185, 187, 193,
Indo-European 7, 8, 14, 43, 44, 201, 203, 198, 201, 202, 207, 208, 238, 239,
204, 216, 350, 353, 376, 377, 382, 249, 250, 291, 293, 297, 303, 304,
391, 393, 396, 397, 404, 408410, 306, 345, 350, 352, 353, 355, 356,
414, 474, 491, 496, 527, 536, 538, 445, 473, 526, 542, 544, 545, 546,
545, 556, 558, 561, 562, 564, 565, 577, 598602, 604, 605, 608611,
574, 585, 591, 592, 605607, 612, 613, 614, 620, 623632, 634, 636,
620622, 628, 632, 636645, 649, 637639, 641645, 648, 650, 653,
666, 667, 675, 676, 677, 679, 680, 657, 662664, 666, 672, 674676,
685, 686, 688, 696698, 701, 703, 678688, 690, 693, 696, 699701,
709, 710712, 714, 716, 724, 729, 703, 704, 712, 713715, 717, 719,
730, 731, 736, 737 723, 725, 726, 727, 731, 736
Ingrian 179, 180, 182, 184186, 189192, Latvian, High dialect 8, 9, 15, 17, 18,
195, 198, 200, 202, 204, 206208, 1923, 28, 31, 3339, 406, 416, 500,
340, 344, 353, 445, 614, 625, 627 653, 657, 663, 680, 701, 725
Iranian 680, 729 Latvian, Livonian/Tamian dialects 17, 18,
Irish 556, 583, 585, 586, 683 19, 21, 2532, 38
Izhorian, see Ingrian Latvian, Low dialect 17, 1921, 34, 37, 38,
643, 645, 648, 649, 653, 663, 675,
J 699701, 703
Judeo-Slavic 286 Lepcha 589, 590
Letgalian, see Latgalian
K Lezgian 556
Kamassian 671 Lithuanian 81, 82, 8491, 95, 97, 101, 102,
Kannada 586588 103, 105, 108110, 113, 115, 122,
Karachay 271, 729 125, 126, 127132, 193, 238, 243,
Karaim 641, 678, 696, 714, 730, 732 244, 245251, 288, 289, 291, 293,
Karelian 344, 352, 429, 607, 614, 625, 627, 294302, 304306, 345, 350, 352,
629631, 642, 654, 663, 667, 673, 353, 355, 356, 413, 414, 415, 416,
709, 731 419427, 429, 430, 432, 435, 481,
Kashubian 627 484, 488, 489, 526, 544, 577, 578,
Ket 680 583, 598, 599601, 608610, 614,
Kumyk 271 620, 621, 623627, 629631, 636,
Kurukh 588 638, 639, 641643, 645, 653,
656658, 660, 663, 664, 673,
674676, 678680, 682, 685,
i 12 Language index
690693, 695, 696, 698, 699, 701, N

703, 712, 714716, 719727, 731, Nenets 576, 671, 697, 709
736 Nepali 589
Lithuanian, East 59, 62, 395, 402 Nordic (Scandinavian) 15, 137, 138, 201,
Lithuanian, East High 391, 394, 403, 408 237, 238, 355, 547, 548, 550, 553,
Lithuanian, High (Auktaitian) 51, 52, 53, 560, 620, 622625, 627, 642, 644,
54, 56, 5861, 63, 6976, 289, 300, 650, 660, 677, 695, 696, 698, 701,
356, 403, 407, 435, 643, 724 713, 731
Lithuanian, High East (East Auktaitian) Nordic, East 226, 227, 230
45, 53, 58, 62, 63, 69, 75 Nordic, West 226, 230
Lithuanian, High West (West Auktaitian) Norwegian 143, 165, 226, 238, 608, 626,
44, 53, 58, 62, 63 632, 648650, 677, 678, 696, 698,
Lithuanian, Low (Samogitian, emaitian) 709
42, 43, 45, 51, 52, 56, 6978, 296, Norwegian, Bokml 698
300, 350, 356, 395, 397, 405, 409, Norwegian, Nynorsk 698
435, 642, 643, 724
Lithuanian, South 45, 58 O
Livonian 179, 182189, 191193, Ob-Ugrian (-ic) 188, 195, 680, 704
196198, 201, 202, 204, 207, 208, Old Church Slavonic 129, 396, 592
238, 249, 250, 352, 353, 355, 356, Old Prussian 9, 43, 393, 399, 420, 429,
379, 381, 385, 386, 614, 620, 623, 614, 620, 624, 679, 698, 712
626, 627, 628632, 636639, 641, Olonetsian 181, 192, 206
643, 645, 647650, 654, 656, 675, Ossetic 639, 676, 710, 729
676, 678, 681, 684688, 699, 709,
714, 716, 717, 719, 720, 726, 727, P
731 Parji 588
Ludian 182, 192, 205, 206, 631, 663, 667 Permic 576, 622, 667, 681, 719
Polish 3, 710, 20, 34, 36, 38, 41, 42, 45, 47,
M 54, 8192, 94, 95, 101, 102, 103, 109,
Macedonian 542, 556, 726 110, 112, 122, 125132, 291, 293,
Maltese 633 296, 297, 301, 302, 304, 350, 365,
Mansi 680, 719 373, 377, 383, 491, 526, 578, 579,
Mari, see Cheremis 582, 586, 591, 592, 598, 599, 600,
Merya 180 601, 605, 606, 608, 614, 624, 625,
Mordvin 180, 188, 196, 197, 201, 203, 237, 627, 634, 657, 658, 659, 660, 664,
246248, 345, 352, 507, 536, 559, 674, 675, 678, 679, 685, 687, 688,
565, 576, 622, 631, 636, 637, 690, 691, 692, 709, 712, 716, 731
639641, 667, 668, 678, 679, 681, Proto-Baltic 5759, 71, 243
682, 685, 697, 703705, 708711, Proto-Finnic 27, 180, 182188, 190, 191,
714 197, 200, 204, 205, 622, 668
Mordvin, Erza 237 Proto-Lithuanian 69
Mordvin, Moksha 180, 237 Proto-Nordic 215, 216, 222, 226
Munda 680 Proto-Sami 180, 241, 242
Muroma 180, 344, 622 Proto-Uralic 182, 187, 190, 200, 201, 644,
704
Language index i 13
R 607611, 613, 614, 620622, 627,

Romance 556, 560, 633, 642, 680, 687, 636, 637, 640, 648, 650, 654, 656,
711, 736 667, 679, 681, 684, 685, 696698,
Romani 207, 313, 629, 636, 638, 639, 678, 704, 705, 708, 709, 711, 714, 716
699, 709, 726, 731 Sami, North 242
Romani, Agia Barbara 331 Samoyed(ic) 179, 182, 184, 188, 350, 576,
Romani, British 332 667, 671, 704
Romani, Finnish 332, 699, 700 Sanskrit 528, 545, 667
Romani, Kabudzhi 331 Scandinavian, see Nordic
Romani, Latvian 636639, 641 Scandinavian, Mainland 553
Runic 223 Scottish Gaelic 556, 583, 585, 586, 649
Runic, Early 222, 223, 225, 226 Selonian 7, 9, 38, 39, 719
Runic, Late 226, 227 Semigalian 79, 23, 25, 45
Russian 6, 9, 10, 13, 20, 34, 36, 41, 45, 60, Semitic 289, 300304, 409, 680
70, 8197, 101111, 113, 114, Serbo-Croat 645, 718
115117, 119132, 153, 180, 181, Sino-Tibetan 561
182, 184186, 189, 191, 192, 195, Slavic (Slavonic) 43, 45, 46, 69, 107, 109,
199202, 206, 207, 208, 222, 238, 110, 122, 124, 131, 180, 201, 222,
239, 249, 286, 288, 303, 305, 368, 229, 230, 237, 238, 243, 275, 281,
370, 376, 380382, 384, 419, 448, 286, 293, 297, 300, 302, 303, 304,
455, 467, 470, 471, 475, 476, 487, 305, 315, 317, 319, 339, 340343,
495, 499, 501, 525, 526, 542, 543, 346348, 352, 354, 369, 381, 383,
544, 546, 578582, 586, 591, 592, 384, 386, 391, 414, 416, 419, 433,
598, 599, 600, 601, 608, 614, 620, 481, 499, 515, 527, 528, 539, 542,
625, 627, 629631, 633, 639, 640, 543, 544, 545, 547, 551, 556, 562,
641, 650, 653, 658660, 662667, 565567, 620624, 627, 631, 633,
670, 672, 674, 678683, 685, 687, 634, 636, 637, 639, 640, 641, 642,
688, 690, 691, 692, 701703, 709, 645, 652, 653, 656, 657, 660, 664,
715, 716, 717, 730732 666, 674, 675, 678682, 685, 687,
Russian as variety of an Old Church 688, 690, 694696, 698, 702705,
Slavonic (Ducal Chancery style) 45 708, 709, 711, 714, 715, 717, 730,
Russian, Northern 627, 629, 642, 659, 660, 731, 736
663667, 672, 674, 694, 731 Slavic, East 45, 65, 81, 91, 120122, 238,
Russian, Northwestern Central/Pskov- 339, 340, 342, 345, 347, 350, 386,
Novgorod dialect 103, 123, 341348, 404, 631
350, 354, 356 Slovak 642
Russian, Old 10, 42, 45, 201, 341, 346, Slovene 339, 342, 605, 645, 685
384, 396398, 406, 409, 641, 664, Sorbian 605, 664, 685, 709
680 Spanish 583585
Standard Average European 619, 632, 650,
S 660, 683, 716, 730
Sami 166, 180, 184, 188, 197, 198, 201, Swedish 3, 10, 90, 180, 192, 201, 207, 215,
202, 203, 207, 237, 238, 240, 241, 216, 218, 219, 221, 223, 224226,
242, 247, 350, 355, 556, 558, 559, 228, 229, 238, 239, 248, 251, 295,
564, 565, 576, 598, 599605, 301, 302, 304, 408, 483, 489,
</TARGET "li">
i 14 Language index
514516, 525, 526, 532, 547, 548, V

549552, 554, 555, 567, 577, 598, Veps(-ian) 238, 249, 265, 266, 344, 352, 353,
600602, 607, 608, 611, 614, 381, 413, 421, 422, 425, 426, 429, 501,
622626, 629, 630, 648, 649, 650, 614, 627, 629, 630, 639642, 654, 662,
677, 678, 684, 693, 696, 698, 699, 663, 673, 690, 709
701, 705, 709, 713, 716, 717, 731 Volgaic 180, 203, 576, 622, 668
Swedish, Birka/Hedeby 228, 230 Votic(/-an) 340, 344, 353, 355, 373, 381,
Swedish, Estonian 144, 149, 152, 153, 445, 574, 575, 614, 625, 627, 654,
154157, 160, 162164, 693, 705 673, 690
Swedish, Finland 148, 151, 157, 159, 163,
165 W
Swedish, Old 139, 141, 142, 144, 151, 153, Welsh 559, 560, 583, 586, 683
154, 158, 165, 166, 547, 677
Swedish, trans-Baltic 138, 139, 142, 143, Y
144, 147, 148, 158, 161, 162, 163, Yiddish 641, 696, 698, 717
166, 169 Yiddish, Baltic 285, 295
Yiddish, Belarusian 296
T Yiddish, Central 286
Tamil 586588 Yiddish, Courland 285, 296, 302
Telugu 586588 Yiddish, Eastern 286
Tibetan 589 Yiddish, Estonian 285, 305
Tibetic 589, 591 Yiddish, Northeastern 286
Tokharian 676 Yiddish, Polish 296
Turkic 409, 641, 681, 698, 729 Yiddish, Samogitian 295
Turkish 277, 278, 280, 331, 559, 560, 561, Yiddish, Southeastern 286
668, 726, 736 Yiddish, Southern 287
Yiddish, Standard 288, 292
U Yiddish, Suvalker 295, 296
Udmurt 202, 248, 259, 559, 622, 697, 709 Yiddish, Western 286
Ukrainian 92, 331, 627, 631, 641, 688, 691, Yindjibarndi 671
716
Umbrian 667, 676
Uralic 241, 565, 566, 576, 582, 591, 592,
602, 603, 607, 612, 620, 621, 644,
667, 668, 671, 679, 680, 681, 697,
698, 703, 704, 709, 710, 714, 731,
736
<TARGET "si" DOCINFO
AUTHOR ""
TITLE "Subject index"
KEYWORDS ""
SIZE HEIGHT "220"
WIDTH "150"
VOFFSET "4">
Subject index
A 543, 562, 565, 580, 660, 672674,

accent 13, 49, 51, 142, 165168, 356, 642, 690, 692, 695, 697, 698704, 726
649 agreement, adjective 146, 162, 291, 619,
accent shift 643, 644 696, 697
accent, acute 144, 154, 166168 agreement, verbal 694
accent, grave 51, 54, 154, 166168 Aktionsart 187, 199, 419
accusativus cum participio 723 animacy distinctions 701
action nominal/verbal animacy hierarchy 683
noun/nominalization 193, 199, 200, anti-ergative 671
391, 393, 401, 405, 407, 409, 501, apocope 57, 154, 156, 162, 186, 187, 207,
502, 508510, 590, 666, 671 356, 444, 646, 648, 649
adjective 5, 29, 74, 115, 142, 144, 146, 150, aspect 313
152, 154, 156, 160, 161, 162, 165, aspect marker/particle 419
187, 199, 200, 228, 244, 276, 291, attribute 156, 159, 182, 195, 294, 481, 499,
292, 301, 302, 323, 324, 328330, 503, 505, 508, 512, 516, 533, 672,
376, 383, 398, 399, 422, 423, 427, 698, 712, 714, 715
429, 432, 499501, 503505, 507,
508, 511, 513, 514, 515517, 527, B
543, 544, 551, 553, 554, 573575, b/p-cases = unmotivated changes of
578, 580, 584, 588590, 653, 675, voiceless to voiced and vic 351, 352,
678, 686, 696705, 710 354
adjective incorporation 143, 146, 154, 160 bilingualism 10, 45, 94, 97, 125, 126, 153,
adjectives, comparative form 115 187, 202, 204, 217, 239, 240, 268,
adjectives, neuter 399, 402, 407, 408 313, 321, 332, 342, 405, 730
adjectives, superlative form 13, 198, 205, bilingualism, Estonian-Russian 97
527, 630, 631 bilingualism, German-Russian 94, 96
admirative 378, 379, 722, 724, 726 borrowing 8, 9, 1113, 24, 36, 86, 95, 129,
adstratum, adstrata 9, 17, 18, 20, 43, 44, 130, 238, 239, 241, 242, 257, 261,
45, 124, 405, 731 262, 265, 267, 272, 300, 313315,
arication 45, 58, 59, 71 317, 320, 321, 323, 330333, 343,
agglutinative, agglutination 6, 187, 188, 344, 382, 392, 405, 406, 408, 454,
195, 324, 444, 454 630, 636, 637, 642, 680, 717
agreement 93, 162, 366370, 376, 387, borrowing, lexical 85, 130, 334
394399, 409, 433, 492, 493, 540, bounder 419, 443, 444, 453, 467, 629, 630,
656, 657
i 16 Subject index
C 462, 476, 481, 485, 486, 488, 494,

case reduction 482 526, 527, 530, 533, 536, 542547,
case system 150, 161, 195, 197, 264, 292, 549, 550, 553, 554, 556, 558, 561,
518, 553, 554, 605, 624, 650, 564567, 652654, 656660, 662,
675677 663, 664, 667, 668, 675, 678, 680,
case, abessive 194, 197, 199, 714 681, 687, 688, 690, 697, 702704,
case, ablative 197, 277, 481, 491, 494, 495, 712714
530, 532, 536, 545, 548, 552, 559, case, genitive chain (stacking/recursive)
560, 565, 668, 669, 670, 686, 687 507
case, accusative 6, 30, 31, 38, 61, 93, 119, case, genitive, adnominal 374, 375, 499,
121, 143, 156, 161, 163, 194, 196, 501, 544, 554, 675
244, 246, 273, 281, 292, 365, 367, case, genitive, agentive 371375, 377, 378,
368, 370, 379, 391, 393, 395, 397, 386
400409, 518, 528, 540, 565, 604, case, genitive, partitive 31, 38, 527, 528
605, 650, 652656, 658, 659, 660, case, genitive-adjective combinations 503
664, 667, 668, 671, 672, 673675, case, grammatical 125, 195, 536, 675
677, 683, 685, 688, 690, 702704, case, illative 44, 60, 61, 63, 187, 197, 424,
723, 725 429, 481, 494, 676
case, adessive 44, 61, 197, 374, 481, 491, case, inessive 60, 61, 197, 199, 207, 424,
493, 494, 599, 606, 676, 680, 681, 461, 481, 494, 607, 676, 685
684 case, instructive 197199, 421, 599, 603,
case, allative 44, 61, 197, 481, 491, 494, 604, 607, 687, 727
676 case, instrumental 5, 6, 30, 43, 93, 114,
case, comitative 197, 427, 491, 494, 552, 120, 197, 274, 281, 432, 481, 494,
619, 646, 683685, 697, 714 619, 644, 672, 675, 678, 679,
case, dative 6, 30, 32, 38, 70, 92, 93, 113, 683686, 702
114, 121, 125, 129, 130, 143, 145, case, local 44, 60, 195197, 200, 414, 422,
146, 161, 163, 198, 225, 250, 277, 424, 425, 433, 494, 496, 536, 675,
279, 292, 370, 374, 375, 391, 393, 676, 681, 682
395, 398, 400, 401, 405407, 409, case, locative 37, 60, 61, 70, 121, 197, 277,
426, 427, 428, 430432, 530, 547, 279, 420, 424, 430, 461, 481, 494,
604, 605, 653, 666, 675, 677, 678, 588, 589, 603, 606, 661, 668, 676,
680, 681, 685 679681, 683
case, elative 197, 424, 491, 494, 500, 502, case, nominative 6, 31, 69, 75, 115, 121,
503, 511, 526, 532536, 538, 539, 125, 150, 156, 161, 186, 194, 195,
543, 545, 552, 656, 668, 676, 687 196, 244, 246, 304, 323, 367, 368,
case, essive 197, 274, 281, 427, 431, 494, 370, 374, 376, 391, 392410, 443,
536, 574576, 678, 697 476, 516, 540, 543, 554, 637, 651,
case, exessive 197 653, 654, 655, 656, 658, 660662,
case, genitive 6, 30, 31, 38, 43, 61, 66, 71, 664667, 671675, 678, 683,
92, 115, 118, 120, 122, 155, 156, 160, 692694, 702704, 714, 720,
161, 188, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 722726
204, 244, 245, 246, 248, 275280, case, nominative with the innitive 391,
368, 369, 370372, 374, 375, 377, 392, 395, 396, 399, 400, 403, 407,
378, 386, 395, 396, 431, 432, 443, 408
Subject index i 17
case, nominative with a participle copula 191, 204, 399, 409, 417, 489, 492,
(nominativus cum participio) 722, 493, 573, 589, 663, 678, 720, 722,
723 725727
case, partitive 159, 183, 187, 188, 193, 194, corded ware culture 44
196, 197, 200, 244, 245, 246, 248, correlative construction 280
367, 368, 370, 443, 462, 476, 527,
543, 583, 646, 650658, 660662, D
667670, 672, 675, 678, 687, 702, debitive 6, 392, 397, 401, 403, 408, 410,
704, 712, 714, 725 432, 488, 489, 666, 672, 674, 675,
case, prolative 198 678
case, terminative 197, 316, 317, 486, 487, declension 5, 43, 49, 61, 68, 70, 74, 486,
697, 714 653
case, translative 197, 426, 427, 493, 494, denite adjective 504, 515
536, 575, 576, 678 denite article 151, 156, 160162, 226,
causative 194, 199, 694 291293, 516, 549, 649, 699
Central Russian dialect area 339 denite quantity 246, 527, 528, 534, 538,
classier, numeral 531, 532, 562 552, 655, 656, 658, 660, 662, 663,
clause/sentence, equational 484, 485, 491 668
clause/sentence, existential 31, 145, 244, denite sux (+extended uses) 145, 146,
483, 491493, 495, 586, 660, 149, 152, 154156, 159, 160, 161,
661664, 679 668
clause/sentence, subordinate 43, 192, 244, denite(-ness) 139, 151, 154, 159, 160,
295, 334 161, 162, 189, 223, 224, 230, 244,
code-mixing 313, 328, 330 347, 380, 419, 443, 452, 462, 471,
code-shifting 272 487, 502, 504, 512, 515517, 527,
code-switching 313, 328, 329 528, 533, 539, 629, 656, 658, 660,
comitative (relation, context) 684, 686 661, 667, 668, 669, 677, 698, 727
common Nordic hypothesis 215, 216, 222 deniteness eect 512517
comparative construction 119, 686, 687, desubjective 690692
688 diphthongization 18, 23, 32, 36, 159, 184
comparative marker 688 direct calque 321
compound 13, 38, 143, 154, 155, 186, 190, disyllabicity 168, 186, 646
191, 195, 202, 225, 277, 369, 371, double encoding (of nonverbal
373, 374, 381, 382, 383, 400, 416, predicates) 679
427430, 500, 502505, 514, 516, dual 56, 78, 188, 543, 634, 703, 704
517, 631, 637, 673, 720
conjunction 156, 158, 200, 244, 264, 717 E
consonant cluster 22, 141, 142, 151, 154, evidential(-ity) 43, 379, 589, 619, 691,
158, 168, 186, 187, 251, 261 719, 720, 725727
contacts, prehistoric 240, 622, 731
convergence 264, 271, 281, 333, 386, 430, F
433, 435, 622, 628630, 646, 650, fennicization 203
690, 726, 731, 732, 736 ective 188
future 25, 75, 121, 316, 320, 725
i 18 Subject index
G impersonal 189, 190, 194, 248, 249, 391,

gender 28, 29, 118, 125, 126, 150, 159, 392, 400, 402, 403, 408, 461, 486,
162, 188, 291293, 301, 303, 323, 665667, 672, 673, 689, 690,
328, 366, 369, 383, 399, 503, 543, 692694
544, 580, 619, 696, 698701, 703, impersonal construction 291, 363, 364,
720, 725 366, 367, 376, 400, 401, 404, 405,
gender, feminine 5, 29, 93, 125, 139, 142, 409, 671, 683, 698
144, 150, 151, 156, 162, 291, 292, impersonal environment 404406
293, 301, 323, 324, 328, 376, 398, impersonal pattern 402
399, 485, 653, 698, 699701, 705 impersonal sentence 401, 403
gender, masculine 5, 29, 68, 93, 125, 142, incoherent languages 606, 608
144, 149, 150, 156, 162, 291, 292, inferential 378, 379
293, 301, 323, 324, 369, 383, 384, innitive 22, 25, 66, 75, 145, 155, 159,
386, 398, 399, 486, 544, 553, 658, 163, 193, 199, 294, 302, 325, 368,
698701, 705, 721, 725 370, 372, 374, 391, 392, 393403,
gender, neuter 125, 291, 303, 698, 701 405409, 461, 464, 476, 666, 672,
genitive, see case, genitive 678, 680
geocentric space 164 innitive, negated 395
Germanism, germanized, germanicization inuence, Baltic 433, 566, 632, 640, 668,
231, 303, 607, 608, 613,624 681
gerund 294, 295, 391, 403, 408, 723 inuence, Danish 230, 231
gerundive 199 inuence, Finnish 241, 247, 481, 640, 643,
gradation (consonant alternation) 184, 699, 704
185, 188, 204, 206 inuence, German 8, 10, 78, 95, 303, 454,
gradation, suxal 185 455, 475, 546, 605, 623, 641, 685
grammaticalization 191, 193, 281, 321, inuence, Latvian 95, 250, 304, 350, 381,
331, 400, 401, 408, 409, 419, 433, 386, 418, 428, 639, 681
445, 453, 456, 461, 475, 476, 482, inuence, Lithuanian 126, 289, 298, 299,
490, 526, 528, 532, 533, 535, 537, 685
538, 540, 545, 552, 559561, 566, inuence, Slavic 45, 46, 69, 287, 291, 297,
596, 603, 604, 609611, 631, 635, 381, 386, 640, 641, 690
666, 668, 669, 686, 688, 695, 696, inuence, Swedish 238, 249, 250
697, 717, 724 inuence, Yiddish 304
instrumental (relation) 596, 597, 604,
H 605608, 685
Hanseatic league 158, 231, 623, 624, 731 isogloss; heterogloss (-phone) 8, 59, 70,
hatched pottery culture, 9, 44 149, 204, 217, 289, 290, 348, 353,
heterogloss see isogloss 355, 434, 610, 613, 622, 626,
heterophone 355 627630, 633, 637, 639, 679, 701,
708, 732, 736
I
imperative 43, 70, 163, 191196, 368, 398, J
579, 581, 671, 680, 722 juxtaposition 495, 496, 500, 530, 547, 550,
imperfect 189192, 314, 316, 318, 319, 553556, 561
320, 417, 418, 454
Subject index i 19
L negation, double 145, 163

language change 216, 217, 247, 333, 343, negative verb 193, 194, 367, 632
344, 482 nominal attribute 530, 554, 713
language death 192, 333 nominativus cum participio 722, 723
language shift 241, 731 non-nite construction 194
length, see quantity, vowel quantity nonverbal predication 619, 678
linguistic change 149, 216, 220, 343 noun, relational 415, 431
linguistic innovation 217, 226, 732 numeral 156, 161, 328, 499, 619, 639,
Lithuanianism 299, 302, 305 697699, 702705, 710
loan translation 316, 318, 330, 435
loanword, hybrid 418 O
object 6, 31, 38, 61, 66, 88, 122, 155, 164,
M 194196, 223, 238, 240, 244,
man-Stze 363, 382 245247, 294, 322, 370, 375,
measure 19, 268, 449, 529533, 537, 540, 391393, 398, 400403, 405, 407,
541, 546548, 550, 551, 553, 408, 410, 419, 434, 443, 444, 446,
554556, 559, 562, 634, 663, 702, 448451, 456, 462, 464, 466, 468,
705 469, 474, 475, 501, 503, 509, 517,
middle voice 695 527, 528, 529, 540, 555, 565, 567,
mixed languages 597, 609, 613 579, 619, 628, 634, 650675, 683,
monophthong 46, 231 690, 692, 709, 725, 736
monophthong, long 46, 51, 296, 298 object, direct 305, 443, 476, 550, 655, 656,
monophthong, short 297 657, 658, 673, 675, 677, 690,
monophthongization 19, 36, 39, 76, 78, 691693, 702
165, 229, 230 object, nominative 484, 651, 664, 665,
mood 43, 117, 119, 163, 189191, 193, 666, 667, 671, 672, 674, 692
379, 381, 394, 395, 396, 408, 488, object, partial 196, 487, 528, 532, 536, 543,
489, 663, 719, 720727 544, 565, 567, 650, 651, 655659,
mood, conditional 189192 667
mood, imperative 70, 193, 486, 651, 671 object, total 487, 651, 655, 656, 658, 660
mood, indicative 190, 191, 193, 368, 489, Old Believers (raskolniki) 9193, 101,
720, 722, 725, 727 102, 103107, 109114, 113, 116,
mood, oblique (modus obliquus) 191, 119, 120, 122126, 129, 130, 131,
719, 720 132
mood, potential 193 Older Futhark 222225, 224, 226
mood, relative (modus relativus) 379, 394, optative 70, 192
408, 719, 720 overlength 644646, 648, 649
multilingualism 305, 730
P
N participle 119, 121, 132, 157, 162, 191,
narew culture 44 44 192, 194, 247249, 294, 321,
negation 31, 38, 43, 122, 157, 193, 194, 394396, 672, 678, 694, 720, 723,
367, 369, 370, 396, 488, 536, 581, 724, 726, 727
632, 658, 661, 662, 664, 667, 668, participle, active 369, 379, 381, 382, 720
675, 687, 688 participle, agentive 372, 373
i 20 Subject index
participle, passive 118, 119, 249, 365, 367, possessive construction 6, 277, 372, 375,
368, 371373, 376, 379, 395, 407, 493, 499, 681
408, 673, 674, 691, 692, 693, 694, possessive pronoun 146, 250, 372, 515
720 possessive sentence 493, 679, 680, 694
participle, passive perfect 194 possessive sux 188190, 277, 372, 373,
participle, past (preterite) 118, 163, 199, 607, 681, 682
295, 369, 381, 420, 461, 722, postpositions 194, 195, 197, 200, 204,
725727 274281, 368, 415, 430, 431, 432,
participle, predicative 378, 678, 700 481, 536, 586, 603, 604, 607, 610,
participle, present 152, 155, 193, 194, 199, 675, 676, 685, 686, 697, 714, 715
247, 248, 294, 295, 722, 725727 potential marker 192
particle 70, 274, 276, 278280, 294, 321, predicate adjectives/adjectival predicates
445, 446, 448452, 454, 455, 456, 678
461, 463, 464, 466, 467, 468, 469, predicate nominal 370, 384
473, 475, 476, 664, 685688, 691, prepositions 5, 6, 30, 38, 60, 61, 120, 121,
716, 717 130, 146, 157, 158, 161, 165, 200,
partitive article 159, 527, 528 204, 225, 275, 276, 279, 280, 281,
partitive construction 702 292, 293, 321, 426, 427, 430432,
passive 43, 118, 119, 126, 155, 159, 189, 481, 494, 503, 518, 526, 530, 545,
190, 191, 194196, 199, 247, 248, 547, 548, 550, 551, 555, 556, 560,
249, 321, 407, 461, 486, 489, 619, 584, 585, 596, 598, 599, 601, 604,
673, 675, 678, 689, 690695, 720, 605, 606, 626, 675, 680, 683,
724 684686, 688, 702, 714, 715, 716
passive, agented 43, 363, 375, 377, 378, preverb 696
379, 387, 692 pronoun 5, 13, 29, 37, 69, 75, 93, 115, 118,
passive, agentless 43, 365, 368, 377 151, 158, 161163, 189, 194, 196,
passive, dynamic 371374 200, 204, 226, 292, 328, 364, 367,
passive, impersonal 156, 248, 364, 365, 371, 372, 377, 378, 380, 381, 490,
369371, 377, 386, 387, 675, 691, 506, 515, 605, 654, 660, 690, 695,
693 699, 701, 712
passive, Indo-European passive 194 pronoun, demonstrative 69, 75, 141, 145,
passive, stative 373, 374 151, 156, 160, 499, 506, 507,
perfect, periphrastic 163 697699, 701
perfective 116, 117, 314, 316, 317, 414, pronoun, interrogative 403, 654, 701
416, 417, 419, 420, 486, 655, pronoun, possessive 156, 160, 163, 250,
657659, 663, 667 371, 490, 516
person marker 189191 pronoun, reexive 22, 294, 371, 377, 696
picture noun 502, 510 pronoun, relative 6, 145, 515
pluralia tantum 291, 293, 532, 619, 633, prosody, prosodic features 13, 17, 18, 49,
634639, 705, 736 52, 54, 55, 168, 186, 555, 627
polytonicity 626, 627, 644, 645, 649, 650
possessive 122, 152, 189, 277, 279, 372, Q
374, 375, 377, 378, 386, 397, 490, quantier 31, 383, 385, 499, 513, 662, 668
501, 518, 560, 561, 606, 679681,
683, 691, 694, 712, 713
Subject index i 21
quantier, nominal 527, 529, 531, 532, 158, 164, 165, 185, 188, 195, 196,
533, 535, 538542, 544, 549, 554, 203, 232, 239, 241, 244247, 251,
555, 561, 653, 668, 669 258, 266, 294, 305, 318, 363, 364,
quantier, numeral 538, 540 370, 385, 391399, 401, 402,
quantity (length) 11, 13, 21, 27, 49, 54, 56, 404410, 436, 450, 501, 509, 536,
63, 65, 66, 165, 183, 187, 416, 418, 540, 543, 550, 565, 573, 577, 580,
487, 488, 532, 533, 534, 536, 548, 584, 586, 588, 613, 619, 632,
551, 552, 645, 646, 659, 663, 668, 650654, 660667, 669675, 678,
670 (see also vowel quantity) 679, 683, 689694, 717, 720, 723,
725, 726
R subject, dative 484, 490, 491, 678
reanalysis 185, 400, 401, 403, 408, 410, subject, indenite 380382, 385, 386
537, 543, 559, 561, 562, 666, 683, subject, partial 565, 651, 660, 667
703, 704 subject, total 660
reexive 18, 22, 23, 37, 119, 195, 198, 199, subject, zero 364, 366, 379, 380, 382, 383,
200, 204, 250, 294, 321, 370, 371, 384387, 690
395, 426, 490, 691, 693696, 723 substance 525, 526, 529, 530, 532, 533,
reexive postx 694 534, 539, 540, 542, 543, 545,
resultative construction 461, 466, 468, 546551, 553556, 559, 562,
471, 474, 475 564567
Runic koin 222 substratum 79, 18, 24, 2729, 31, 44, 45,
Russian-Lithuanian bilingualism 109 97, 124, 129, 203, 340, 341, 342344,
russication 10, 45, 46, 82, 83, 8588, 90, 346, 347, 350, 352, 354, 356, 405,
96, 97, 102, 105, 110, 113, 204, 208, 408, 410, 591, 592, 629, 631, 644,
342, 625 688, 699, 719, 731
substratum, Finno-Ugric 340
S superlatives 13, 198, 205, 527, 630, 631
secondary lengthening 645, 647, 648 superstratum 124, 201, 207, 608, 611, 613
shadow paradigm 119 supine 66, 68, 142, 150, 154, 157, 163, 168
singularia tantum 291 SVO, see word order, SVO
SOV, see word order, SOV syllable length 165
speech community 216, 217, 219, 220, syllable lengthening 166
222, 304 syncope 186, 207, 226
Sprachbund 202, 208, 247, 285, 355, 434,
435, 591, 613 T
std (glottal stop, Stoton) 15, 647, 649, temporal adverbial 373, 650, 673, 674, 675
650 tense 6, 51, 75, 119, 143, 162, 168, 190,
stone battle-axe culture 44, 204, 216 191194, 196, 314, 316, 320, 321,
stress retraction 45, 52, 54, 57, 63, 66, 69, 354, 368, 369, 371, 374, 381, 383,
73, 643 384, 394, 487, 489, 578, 579, 663,
stress, free 642, 643 694, 695, 719
stress, initial 9, 642645, 650, 736 tense, imperfect/preterite 6, 18, 21, 22, 25,
stress, mobile 4, 9, 13, 642 37, 190192, 194, 248, 318, 320, 365,
subject 6, 31, 77, 78, 87, 95, 96, 106, 107, 367, 471
108, 115, 119, 122, 124, 145, 151,
In the STUDIES IN LANGUAGE COMPANION SERIES (SLCS) the following volumes
have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication:
1. ABRAHAM, Werner (ed.): Valence, Semantic Case, and Grammatical Relations. Work-
shop studies prepared for the 12th Conference of Linguistics, Vienna, August 29th to
September 3rd, 1977. Amsterdam, 1978.
2. ANWAR, Mohamed Sami: BE and Equational Sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic.
Amsterdam, 1979.
3. MALKIEL, Yakov: From Particular to General Linguistics. Selected Essays 1965-1978.
With an introd. by the author + indices. Amsterdam, 1983.
4. LLOYD, Albert L.: Anatomy of the Verb: The Gothic Verb as a Model for a Unified Theory
of Aspect, Actional Types, and Verbal Velocity. Amsterdam, 1979.
5. HAIMAN, John: Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea.
Amsterdam, 1980.
6. VAGO, Robert (ed.): Issues in Vowel Harmony. Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistics
Conference on Vowel Harmony (May 14, 1977). Amsterdam, 1980.
7. PARRET, H., J. VERSCHUEREN, M. SBIS (eds): Possibilities and Limitations of
Pragmatics. Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8-14, 1979. Am-
sterdam, 1981.
8. BARTH, E.M. & J.L. MARTENS (eds): Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation.
Containing the Contributions to the Groningen Conference on the Theory of Argumenta-
tion, Groningen, October 1978. Amsterdam, 1982.
9. LANG, Ewald: The Semantics of Coordination. Amsterdam, 1984.(English transl. by John
Pheby from the German orig. edition Semantik der koordinativen Verknpfung, Berlin,
1977.)
10. DRESSLER, Wolfgang U., Willi MAYERTHALER, Oswald PANAGL & Wolfgang U.
WURZEL: Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. Amsterdam, 1987.
11. PANHUIS, Dirk G.J.: The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence: A Study of Latin
Word Order. Amsterdam, 1982.
12. PINKSTER, Harm (ed.): Latin Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Proceedings of the 1st
Intern. Coll. on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, April 1981. Amsterdam, 1983.
13. REESINK, G.: Structures and their Functions in Usan. Amsterdam, 1987.
14. BENSON, Morton, Evelyn BENSON & Robert ILSON: Lexicographic Description of
English. Amsterdam, 1986.
15. JUSTICE, David: The Semantics of Form in Arabic, in the mirror of European languages.
Amsterdam, 1987.
16. CONTE, M.E., J.S. PETFI, and E. SZER (eds): Text and Discourse Connectedness.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989.
17. CALBOLI, Gualtiero (ed.): Subordination and other Topics in Latin. Proceedings of the
Third Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Bologna, 1-5 April 1985. Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
1989.
18. WIERZBICKA, Anna: The Semantics of Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1988.
19. BLUST, Robert A.: Austronesian Root Theory. An Essay on the Limits of Morphology.
20. VERHAAR, John W.M. (ed.): Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Proceedings of the First
International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles on Melanesia. Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
1990.
21. COLEMAN, Robert (ed.): New Studies in Latin Linguistics. Proceedings of the 4th
International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Cambridge, April 1987. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia, 1991.
22. McGREGOR, William: A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi. Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
1990.
23. COMRIE, Bernard and Maria POLINSKY (eds): Causatives and Transitivity. Amster-
dam/Philadelphia, 1993.
24. BHAT, D.N.S. The Adjectival Category. Criteria for differentiation and identification.
25. GODDARD, Cliff and Anna WIERZBICKA (eds): Semantics and Lexical Universals.
Theory and empirical findings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994.
26. LIMA, Susan D., Roberta L. CORRIGAN and Gregory K. IVERSON (eds): The Reality of
Linguistic Rules. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994.
27. ABRAHAM, Werner, T. GIVN and Sandra A. THOMPSON (eds): Discourse Grammar
and Typology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995.
28. HERMAN, Jzsef: Linguistic Studies on Latin: Selected papers from the 6th international
colloquium on Latin linguistics, Budapest, 2-27 March, 1991. Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
1994.
29. ENGBERG-PEDERSEN, Elisabeth et al. (eds): Content, Expression and Structure. Studies
in Danish functional grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996.
30. HUFFMAN, Alan: The Categories of Grammar. French lui and le. Amsterdam/Philadel-
phia, 1997.
31. WANNER, Leo (ed.): Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing.
32. FRAJZYNGIER, Zygmunt: Grammaticalization of the Complex Sentence. A case study in
Chadic. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996.
33. VELAZQUEZ-CASTILLO, Maura: The Grammar of Possession. Inalienability, incorpora-
tion and possessor ascension in Guaran. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996.
34. HATAV, Galia: The Semantics of Aspect and Modality. Evidence from English and Biblical
Hebrew. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997.
35. MATSUMOTO, Yoshiko: Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese. A frame semantic
approach. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997.
36. KAMIO, Akio (ed.): Directions in Functional Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997.
37. HARVEY, Mark and Nicholas REID (eds): Nominal Classification in Aboriginal Australia.
38. HACKING, Jane F.: Coding the Hypothetical. A Comparative Typology of Conditionals in
Russian and Macedonian. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998.
39. WANNER, Leo (ed.): Recent Trends in Meaning-Text Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia,
1997.
40. BIRNER, Betty and Gregory WARD: Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in
English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998.
41. DARNELL, Michael, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER
and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I:
General papers. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999.
42. DARNELL, Michael, Edith MORAVSCIK, Michael NOONAN, Frederick NEWMEYER
and Kathleen WHEATLY (eds): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II:
Case studies. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999.
43. OLBERTZ, Hella, Kees HENGEVELD and Jess Snchez GARCA (eds): The Structure of
the Lexicon in Functional Grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998.
44. HANNAY, Mike and A. Machtelt BOLKESTEIN (eds): Functional Grammar and Verbal
Interaction. 1998.
45. COLLINS, Peter and David LEE (eds): The Clause in English. In honour of Rodney
Huddleston. 1999.
46. YAMAMOTO, Mutsumi: Animacy and Reference. A cognitive approach to corpus linguis-
tics. 1999.
47. BRINTON, Laurel J. and Minoji AKIMOTO (eds): ollocational and Idiomatic Aspects of
Composite Predicates in the History of English. 1999.
48. MANNEY, Linda Joyce: Middle Voice in Modern Greek. Meaning and function of an
inflectional category. 2000.
49. BHAT, D.N.S.: The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. 1999.
50. ABRAHAM, Werner and Leonid KULIKOV (eds): Transitivity, Causativity, and TAM.
In honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. 1999.
51. ZIEGELER, Debra: Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 dialect. 2000.
52. TORRES CACOULLOS, Rena: Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language
Contact.A study of Spanish progressive -ndo constructions. 2000.
53. FISCHER, Olga, Anette ROSENBACH and Dieter STEIN (eds.): Pathways of Change.
Grammaticalization in English. 2000.
54. DAHL, sten and Maria KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages.
Volume 1: Past and Present. 2001.
55. DAHL, sten and Maria KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages.
Volume 2: Grammar and Typology. 2001.
56. FAARLUND, Jan Terje (ed.): Grammatical Relations in Change. 2001.
57. MELC UK, Igor: Communicative Organization in Natural Language. The semantic-
communicative structure of sentences. 2001.
58. MAYLOR, Brian Roger: Lexical Template Morphology. Change of state and the verbal
prefixes in German. n.y.p.

(Studies in Language Companion Series 55) Östen Dahl, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm-Circum-Baltic Languages - Typology and Contact, Volume 2 - Grammar and Typology-John Benjamins Publishing Company (2001)

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<DOCINFO

TITLE "The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact"

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"

The Circum-Baltic Languages

Werner Abraham Michael Noonan

Joan Bybee Christian Lehmann

John Benjamins Publishing Company

National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

P381.B33 C57 2001

TITLE "Table of contents"

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"

List of abbreviations vii

Nonverbal predication in the Circum-Baltic languages 569

TITLE "List of abbreviations"

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"

Abbreviations used in glosses

abess abessive emph emphatic

nonpast nonpast pref prex

Abx Abkhaz FSwd Finland Swedish

LivK Livonian in Curonia Pol Polish

TITLE "List of contributors"

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"

sten Dahl, oesten@ling.su.se

Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, tamm@ling.su.se

Laimute Balode, laimute.balode@helsinki.

Axel Holvoet, axel@ktl.mii.lt

Valeriy Cekmonas, cekm@post.omnitel.net

Anne-Charlotte Rendahl, rendahl@ling.su.se

Johanna Laakso, johanna.laakso@univie.ac.at

Lars-Gunnar Larsson, Lars-Gunnar.Larsson@nugr.uu.se

Stefan Pugh, smp@st-andrews.ac.uk

va . Csat Johanson, eva.csato-johanson@afro.uu.se

Neil G. Jacobs, njacobs@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

Alexandr Rusakov, rusakov@AR2015.spb.edu

Vytautas Ambrazas, vytamb@ktl.mii.lt

Bernhard Wlchli, bernhard@ling.su.se

Helle Metslang, helle@eki.ee

Baiba Metuzale-Kangere, bka@balt.su.se

Simon Christen, simon.christen@isbs.unibe.ch

Leon Stassen, l.stassen@let.kun.nl

Thomas Stolz, stolz@uni-bremen.de

Kersti Boiko, kersti@latnet.lv

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"

<TARGET "intro" DOCINFO

AUTHOR "sten Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm"

TITLE "The Circum-Baltic Languages"

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"

The Circum-Baltic Languages*

sten Dahl and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm

Map 1.The Circum-Baltic languages. Non-territorial languages not shown: Romani

Organization of the volumes

List of Circum-Baltic languages

xx The Circum-Baltic Languages

TITLE "Selected topics in the grammar of the Circum-Baltic languages"

SUBJECT "Studies in Language Companion Series, Volume 54"

SIZE HEIGHT "220"