Kortlandt, F.H.H.

NARCIS 

Slavic imam`i

Leiden University Scholary Publications

SLAVIC imamiFrederik Kortlandt0. The only athematic present with a vocalic stem in Old Church Slavic isimami 'have'. Since it does not represent a Proto-Indo-European forma-tion, it must be of analogical origin. The question to be answered in thispaper is: which verb provided the model for the analogy?1. Stang compares the flexion of Gothic salbo and Latin amö and suggeststhat the ending -mi can be attributed "dem Einfluss später verschollenerathem. Verba auf langen Vokal" (1942:23). Cowgill has shown that theGermanic paradigms must be derived from the thematic flexion of Gr.tlmaö and OCS delaJQ (1959), and the same holds for the Latin inflexion.Since this type is distinct in Slavic, the comparison is spurious and does notcontribute to a clarification of imami. The lost "athem. Verba auf langenVokal" remain to be specified.2. Another comparison which suggests itself is with the Hittite factitiveö/iA-stems, e.g. newahmi 'renew', Latin noväre. This is also a blind alley, notonly because imami does not fit semantically, but especially because thetype belongs to the /»'-flexion in Old Hittite (Oettinger 1979:455) and musttherefore be derived from the PIE. thematic inflexion, like the causativesand iteratives in ~hi.3. Vaillant derives the present stem of imami from the preterit of imati'take', "mais on ne voit plus comment le slave aurait tire du preterit *imätun present athematique v.sl. imatü pour le joindre au theme du preterit en-e- ou du parfait *ime-, ou quel present athematique anterieur le presentathematique secondaire et isole en -ami aurait remplace" (1966:453). TheProblem can hardly be formulated more clearly. Neither the model nor themotivation for the creation of the analogical present imami are specified.4. Aitzetmüller also Starts from the preterit stem ima- but does not seemto be aware of the difficulties involved. He translates the verb imati äs"ergriffen halten," which is clearly wrong, and submits that "aus dem zeit-lich begrenzten Aorist *imäm" arose "das zeitlich unbegrenzte Präsens*imami 'habe' als echtes Perfekt und zugleich Bedeutungsvariante zujemljp"IJSLP, Vol. XXXI-XXXII (1985) 235236 FREDERIK KORTLANDT(1978 230) This is muddled thmking The verb jemljg 'take', aor ima~ issimply the imperfective correlate of img, jg- Its formation is "d'un typed'iteratif anteneur au type productif des imperfectifs derives ä allongementde la voyelle radicale" (Vaillant 1966 310) and has nothing to do with theperfect stem ime-5. There is a clear reason why the present stem ima- 'have' cannot beidentified with the pretent stem ima- 'took', a reason which has evidentlyescaped both Vaillant and Aitzetmuller The paradigm of imami had mobileaccentuation (cf Stang 1957 128), äs is clear from SCr (Dubrovmk) imäm,imamo (Resetar 1900 189), the correspondmg Cakavian forms (Junsic197370), Sin imäm, Bulg imam, ORu (Cud NT) imate On the otherhand, the aonst of imati had undoubtedly fixed stress on the second sylla-ble, first because this holds for all verbs which combme a/e-present withan ß-aorist, and second because the present tense imo does not belong tothe accentuation class which has original mobile stress (cf Stang 1957 115f,Dybo 1981 203) It follows that the two formations were distinct from theoutset It is clearly impossible to reconstruct Proto-Slavic without takingthe accentual evidence into account6. The accentuation of imanü shows that the verb reflects an extremelyarchaic formation Unlike darni 'give', jami 'eat', and jesmi 'am', whichgenerahzed final stress, imaml agrees with the accentual mobility of Vedicdadhämi '(I) put', dadhmas '(we) put' Since the present stem ends in -ä-,the obvious companson is with the nmth class of the Sanskrit grammar-lans Von Fierlmger proposed to denve imami from *imnämi (1885) Thisproposal meets with several formal and semantic difficulties, which canlargely be removed by special assumptions (cf Pedersen 1905 348-353) Themain point is that there is no nasal present with a similar meaning in otherIndo-European languages, so that there is no obvious analogical source forimaml7. Where do we find the model for the creation of imamP I claim thatthere was a second Proto-Slavic verb of the same type, viz *zlnami 'know',which is reflected in SCr (Dubrovmk) ne znäm, ne znamo, poznäm, poznamo(Resetar 1900 189), also (Sarajevo) da znäs, ne znäs (Surmm 1895 197),Posavian ne znäm, poznäm (Ivsic 1913 83), Sin poznäm This accentuationmust be old The verb can be identified with Lith zlno and Vedic jänäti'knows', which is ancient in view of Toch A knänat 'you know', and musthave provided the model for imaml The accentual mobility is still pre-SLAVIC ima/ηΐ 237served in OLith. (Dauksa) zinome, zinote, from where it spread to turime'have' (cf. Stang 1966:45 Ifn). The archaic character of the accentual mobil-ity in zinoti is supported by the accentuation of the participle (cf. Skardzius1935:199). Thus, I reconstruct a Balto-Slavic present tense *zinaHmi,*zintfmes.8. The existence of a present tense *zinami accounts for the initial frica-tive of znati. Apart from Lith. zenklas 'sign', all Indo-European forms ofthis root must be derived from *gnH- or *gnoH- (cf. Vendryes 1936:66),and we expect depalatalization of the initial stop in the Balto-Slavic reflexof the latter variant (cf. Kortlandt 1978). The fricative of znati must there-fore be due to an analogical development.9. When the aspectual System evolved, the paradigms of dami, *zinaml,and stanQ were ousted in their primary function by the secondary y'e-pres-ents daJQ, znajg, and stajp, which were built upon the aorist stems da-,zna-, and sta-, I submit that the distinction between SCr. pf. pöznä 'recog-nizes' and ipf. poznäje 'knows' is just äs ancient äs between pf. da, stäneand ipf. daje, stäje.10. It is remarkable that OCS. vede Ί know' was evidently preserved inEast Bulgaria and replaced by veml in Macedonia, in spite of the fact thatthe texts from the western area are generally more archaic. I think that thereplacement took place under the influence of *zmami, which had appar-ently been replaced by znajg in the eastern dialects at an early stage. Mod-ern Bulgarian has both znam and znaja: This is undoubtedly a relic becausethe athematic ending is not found with other monosyllabic stems exceptdam 'give', jam 'eat', and süm 'am'.11. One may wonder why *zmarm, unlike dami and stang, did not becomethe perfective correlate of znajg. The reason is that the verb is not termina-tive, but belongs to Proeme's type IVa (1983:395): it can be compared withRu. ponimaju and Bulg. razbiram, which do not denote the process ofreaching a state of understanding, äs their formal make-up suggests, butthe state of understanding which is reached äs a result of the process.Imperfective presents of this type can be viewed äs perfects in relation totheir perfective correlates.12. The semantics of *zmaml actually provides the motivation for thecreation of imami. Since *zmaml supplied a perfect to the aorist stem zna-,238 FREDERIK KORTLANDTit could serve äs a model for the creation of imaml on the basis of the aoriststem j%- by the addition of *-ämi to the zero grade of the root. The analog-ical development can probably, though not necessarily, be dated before thense of the preterit ima-, which was created äs an imperfect to the presentimp (cf. Vaillant 1966:499) and subsequently developed into the imperfec-tive aorist when the aspectual system took shape. The present jemljg mustbe the youngest formation: it relates to the aorist stem jg- äs dajg, znajg,staJQ to da-, zna-, sla-. Thus, the derived present jemljg and the derivedpreterit ima- became the imperfective correlates of the simple present imQand the root aorist jg- through the grammaticalization of the aspectualOpposition. The preterit ime- is much older: it can be compared with Lith.tureti, Latin habere, and the Greek passive aorist. I think that it representsan original PIE. nominal formation which was incorporated into the verbalsystem at an early stage in order to supply a perfect. From a diachronicpoint of view, it differs from imami in the same way äs Ru. ponjal '(has)understood' differs from ponimaju 'understand': both of these forms can beviewed semantically äs perfects in relation to the simple form pojmu, butgrammatically the former is a preterit and the latter a present tense.University of LeidenREFERENCESAitzetmuller, R.1978 Altbulgarische Grammatik (Freiburg Weiher).Cogwill, W.1959 "The inflection of the Germanic ö-presents," Language 35, 1-15Dybo, V. A1981 Slavjanskaja akcentologija (Moscow Nauka).Fierlmger, J von1885 "Abulg. imaml" Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 27, 559-560.Mic, S1913 "Danaänji posavski govor," Rad JAZU 197, 9-138.Junäic, B1973 Rjecmk govora otoka Vrgade II Rjecmk (Zagreb. JAZU).Kortlandt, F.1978 "I -E palatovelars before resonants in Balto-Slavic," Recent developments m histoncalphonology (The Hague Mouton), 237-243.Oettmger, N.1979 Die Stammbüdung des hethitischen Verbums (Nürnberg. Hans Carl).Pedersen, H1905 "Die nasalprasentia und der slavische akzent," Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachfor-schung 38, 297-421SLAVIC imarm 239Proeme, H1983 "On termmativeness and aspect in Russian,' Dutch Contnbutions to the 9th Inleina-ttonal Congress of Slavtsts Linguistics (Amsterdam Rodopi), 385-404ReSetar, M1900 Die serbokroatische Betonung südwestlicher Mundarten (Wien Kaiserliche Akademieder Wissenschaften)Skardzius, P1935 Dauksos akcentologija (Kaunas VDU Humanitannii! Mokslij Fakulteto Leidinys)Stang, C S1942 Das slavische und höllische Verbum (Oslo Umversitetsforlaget)1957 Slavomc accentuation (Oslo Umversitetsforlaget)1966 Vergleichende Grammatik der baltischen Sprachen (Oslo Umversitetsforlaget)Surmin, D1895 Osobme danasnjega sarajevskog govora," RadJAZU 121, 186-209Vaillant, A1966 Grammaire comparee des langues slaves, III Le verbe (Paris Khncksieck)Vendryes, J1936 "A propos du htuamen imau 'je sais'," Studi Baltici 5, 62-68

https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2727827/download

Slavic imam`i

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

NARCIS

Leiden University Scholary Publications