2006 future and future perf-libre

8/11/2019 2006 Future and Future Perf-libre

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FUTURE AND FUTURE PERFECT IN THE OLD NOVGOROD DIALECTHenning Andersen

0. Preamble

In his admirable Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt (2004) Zaliznjak presents a

grammatical sketch of the Old Novgorod dialect which in many respects is bound to

prove definitive, that is, will be corroborated as future text discoveries provide new

evidence.1But on some points it is so to say of a preliminary character. One of these is

the description of the dialects verbal categories.

In Zaliznjaks account, the textual record of the Novgorod dialect shows the loss of

the simple preterite tenses of Late Common Slavic, Imperfect and Aorist, and theestablishment of a system with just three tenses, Present, Past, and Pluperfect. In the

following pages I will discuss the evidence in the birchbark texts for two additional

tenses, the periphrastic Future and the Future Perfect. They will be the subjects of

sections 1 and 2. In section 3, I will consider these tenses in larger perspectives,

structural, typological, and diachronic. The conclusion, section 4, offers a brief summary.

1. The Old Novgorod Future

In the survey of the verbal categories in Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt (hereafter

DD), there is no mention of a periphrastic Future. But since all other descriptions of Old

Russian recognize constructions with future-time reference in Old Russian texts, it is

reasonable to wonder if these would not be present in the Old Novgorod text corpus.Historical grammars record the use of four types of periphrastic Future in Old

Russian.

Two of them are based on modal expressions, for volition (ORxocuwill + inf.) and

necessity (OR j "mam " have to, must + inf.).2 These are extensively attested in Old

Church Slavonic (Birnbaum 1958) and can be considered part of the (Church Slavonic)

high code in Old Russian diglossic usage.

The other two types can be considered part of the (East Slavic vernacular) low code.

They are both based on phasal verbs. One is OR j "mu take + inf., which occasionally

takes the place of the Church Slavonicj "mam "+ inf. in Old Russian (copies of) high-code

texts.3The other, the fourth type, is represented by prefixal derivatives of LCS -ce#ti-c "no#

begin, ORnac "nu, poc "nu, vu"c "nu (uc "nu)+ inf. There are a few examples of this type inOld Church Slavonic texts (Birnbaum 1958, 179191). But whereas the modal periphrases

of Old Church Slavonic are well known from the history of the South Slavic languages

and their modern varieties, the -c "no#+ inf. type, despite the few examples in Old Church

Slavonic, is clearly characteristic of East Slavic.

It may be useful to draw attention to the most fundamental difference between the

modal and phasal periphrases. The modal verbsxoteti andj "metiare statives and hence

basically Imperfective.4A modal expression refers to a situation that is logically (and by


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Andersen, Future and Future Perfect in Old Novgorod 2

implication temporally) antecedent to another situation described by a governed(infinitive) clause. This consequent (or subsequent) situation may be a state, an activity, or

an action, and hencexocu and j "mam " combine with both Imperfective and Perfective

infinitive clauses. Phasal verbs, by contrast, are (telic) action verbs. When they serve as

auxiliaries for the Future tense, they are Perfective and thus have future-time reference.

They relate to states, activities and just the process part of actions; hence their dependent

infinitive clauses are Imperfective.5

Let us look at these periphrastic constructions in the Novgorod birchbark corpus.6

1.1 Modal expressions

There are no occurrences ofxocu+ inf. in the birchbark corpus that are primarily

expressions of future time.Present-tense forms ofxotetioccur as expressions of desire; intent with accusative

objects; see (1), (2) (and 227/B68, 731/B83, 8/B112, 311/D18, 301/D18). These we can

put aside.7

(1) poidi za mene jazu" t "be xocju a ty mene marry me, I want you and you me

(377/V23; 1270s1230); Zaliznjak (2004, 495): ja tebja xocu, a ty menja.

(2) a se ti xocu : kone koupivu": i ku"njazu"mouzu" vu"sadivu": ta na su"vodythis is what

I intend [to do]: buy a horse, get an official on it, and [then on] to a [formal]

confrontation (109/A14; 12001220); Zaliznjak (2004, 257): a ja vot xocu, konej

kupiv i posadiv [na konja] knjazeskogo muza, [idti] na ocnye stavki.

They also occur governing infinitive clauses as expressions of desire; intent;

planning. The infinitives are Imperfective (3) (and 723/B48, 804/B81, St.R. 10/D28,

314/G33) and Perfective (4) (and 531/B98, 332/B109, Tv. 1/B136, 310/D21) and include

two Imperfective Determinative verbs of locomotion (5), (6) (and 107/B132). In a few

examples, Present-tense forms ofxotetiare used absolutely or elliptically, (7) (and Smol.

12/B41, 232/B37). A few tokens in fragmentary texts are unclear: 118/B105, 296/B110,

622/G51.

(3) a xocju ti vyruti vu"tja luc "sago novu"gorozaninaI will garnishee a top Novgorod

citizen for you[r debt] (246/A29; 1020s1090s);DD, 280: sobirajus za tvoju vinukonfiskovat tovar u znatnejsego novgorodca.

(4) eli ne prisolesi a ro#ti tja xocju if you do not send it, I will put you through

garnishment (776/B20; 1130s1150s);DD, 307: esli ze ne prisles, to ucinju tebe

rubez(konfiskaciju).


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(5) a pristave ino zdeso filistu"jexat xoce as for a pristav, Filist here is planning togo (19/D1; 1420s);DD , 644: a [cto kasaetsja] pristava, to zdes xocet exat

Filist.

(6) oz[ "] xoc "si poit(i)if you want to go (107/B132; 11751200); not glossed in

Zaliznjak (2004, 452).

(7) aze xoc "si opolosdvorjanu" please [lit.: if you will], give the princes men a scare

(St.R. 10/B125);DD, 447: Pozalujsta, pripugni dvorjan, .

The modern Russian glosses inDDrender thexocu+ inf. constructions mostly with

Present-tense forms of CSRxotetwant. In a couple of instances it uses sobiratsjaplanand once only, in (4), a Perfective Present-tense form. This gloss neatly renders the future-

time implicature of the modal, but there is no evidence that this modal has lost its sense of

volition, on the contrary; contrast (4) with the lexical parallels in (3) and 332/B109. There

are no examples in the corpus that exclude a volitional reading like those cited in

historical grammars, e.g., the high-code (Church Slavonic) to vesi li cto utro xoscetubyti. i

cto li do vecerado you know what will happen tomorrow or before evening? (Lavr 61,

s.a. 1071) (cf. Kuznecov 1959, 234).

There are four Present-tense forms ofj "meti in the corpus. None of them can be

construed as a Future auxiliary. Three have direct objects and manifest the meaning have;

see the two tokens in (8) and the one in 503/B12. The fourth example is in a text fragment

and unclear: 886/A25.

(8) c "tu"do m "n "zu"la imeesi a jazu"tja esm[ "im]ela aky bratu"what ill will do you

harbor against me and I have treated you as a brother (752/A11, 1080s1100);

DD, 249: cto za zlo ty protiv menja imees A ja k tebe otnosilas kak k bratu!.

1.2 Phasal verbs

Unlike the examples of xoc u + inf., the phasal-verb periphrases found in the

Novgorod corpus call for straight future readings. The phasal verbs are all Perfective, and

they govern Imperfective infinitive clauses. There are several examples of ORpoc "nu+

inf. and one of ORj "mu+ inf.8

Example (9) is the only one withpoc "nu+ inf. in a main clause. It is clear from thecontext that the disposition proposed for the letters addressee involves a place to live in

the future and not the beginning of a stay. This is captured by Zaliznjaks gloss.

(9) a torogo rinev "tamo pocenesi tirovatibut if we (two) give up trading (?), you will

lodge there (227/B68, 1160s1190s); DD , 376: a esli brosim (?) my dvoe

torgovlju, to ty tam budeszit.


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Most of the remaining examples have thepoc "nu+ inf. construction in conditionalclauses. In every one of these, the apodosis situation depends on the future situation

described in the protasis and not on the beginning of that situation; hence the use of

nacnuin the glosses ofDD is uncalled for. Note that every one of these conditionals

conforms to the rule of Russian grammar to express future tense in protases with future-

time reference, a requirement that is alien to English usage. In the glosses, I mark its

absence with (fut.). It is important to note that the future time referred to is in each

instance the time at which the letter will be read.

(10) aze mi sja poc "n "s " nasmixati a suditu" b(o)g(u") [i] moja xudost "if you are (fut.)

laughing at me, God is your judge and [I, in] my insignificance (752/A11,

1080s1100);DD, 250: esli ty nacnes nado mnoju nasmexatsja, to sudit [tebja]Bog i moja xudost [= ja].

(11) ci ti pocenete (c)etu" lesti(ti) a ne mu"zi cetu"(m)u"lu"vitiif he is (fut.) cheating,

dont say anything (Smol. 12/B41, ca. 11001150);DD , 344: Esli ze on nacnet

kak-libo xitrit (?) to ne vzdumaj (bukv.: ne mogi) nicego skazat.9

(12) aci to ti poc "ne p[ "]nati nesmi vere su[l]i[le] if he is (fut.) stalling, I have not

committed myself by oath (820/B61, 1160s1170s); DD , 370: Esli ze nacnet

tjanut [vremja], to ved ja ne daval kljatvennogo obescanija.

(13) tol "ko poc "ne prodavat " tobe i tu"u jei kupiif she is (fut.) offering to sell to you,then buy from her (129/D1, 1380s1390s);DD, 643: esli budet prodavat tebe, to

ty u nee kupi. Cf. footnote 10.

(14) a pocne prosati zeni ili sinovi zeni g beli a sinu belka if he is (fut.) asking for

anything for his wife or the son, then [give him] 3 belkas for the wife and one for

the son (406/G54, 1360s1370s);DD, 593: a esli on nacnet prosit dlja zeny ili dlja

syna, to zene 2 belki a synu belka.

(15) ci ti pu"c[ "]ne knjaz "kup "cenadelovati a ci ti prisu"le k tu"bea ty emy mu"lu"viif the

prince is (fut.) assigning traders, and if he sends (fut.) for you, then (you) tell him

(794/B22, 1160s1180s);DD, 320: Esli stanet knjaz nadeljat kupcov i prislet ktebe, to ty emu skazi .

Note that only in (10) is there a substantive condition; the other conditionals present

possible presupposed states of affairs. Note also the two conditions in (15), one with

pocnu + Imperfective infinitive clause, the other with a Perfective Present, both with

future-time reference. In every one of these examples, the future situation described in

thepoc "nu + inf. clause is a state (in (12)) or an activity (the others) that forms the


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background for the situation of the following clause (in (15)) or the matrix clause (theothers).

This is true too of the temporal clause in (16), the only example ofj "mu+ inf. in the

corpus, which, to boot, haspoc "nu + inf. in the subsequent subordinate clause. Here,

unlike the conditional clauses in the examples above, the future time referred to is

perhaps subsequent to the time the letter would be received, and a gloss with kogda

nacnes prodavat might be appropriate (see below).

(16) kaku" imes " prodavat " i ty dai namu"rzi na poltinu kak ljudomu" pocnes " davat "

when you have (fut.) [rye] for sale, sell us a poltinas worth (of rye) at the going

rate (lit.: as you sell (fut.) to the public) (364/G57, 1380s1400);DD, 606: Kogda

budes prodavat, daj nam rzi na poltinukak ljudjam stanesdavat (t.e. na tex zeuslovijax).

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1.3 Discussion

It is not surprising to findpoc "nu+ inf. Futures in the Novgorod birchbark corpus.

This periphrasis is well known from other Old Russian texts, e.g., daze kotoryi knjaz "po

mojem " knjazenii poc "net_xoteti otjati u s(vja)t(o)go georgija a b(og)u"budi za temeif

any ruler after me wants (fut.) to remove [it] from St. George[s monastery], may God

punish him (Mstislav gramota, ca. 1130); a kto pocnet " na sju zemlju postupat " if

anyone trespasses (fut.) on this land (Dvina gramota no. 107). It is recognized as one

of several presumably regional variants in use in the Middle Ages, functionally

equivalent to vu"c "nu(uc "nu) + inf. and the more common nac "nu+ inf. (Kuznecov 1959,234; Borkovskij, Kuznecov 1965, 276; Ivanov 1982, 11415; Silina 1995, 4079).

Old Russian texts contain indications that these auxiliaries were both semantically

and stilistically equivalent. They are attested in grammatical parallelism, e.g., toli ne

budet "mezju nami mira. eliko kamen " nacnet "plavati. a xmel "pocnet tonutithere will

not be peace between us until stones float and hops sink (Lavr 27, s.a. XXX). And they

are attested as textual variants, e.g., asce ty poznaesi i radovatisja pocnes "if you get to

know him, you will be happy (Lavr 18 v., s.a. 955); here the Radzivi and Academy

copies have nacnesi(cf. Kuznecov 1959, 235).

They appear to have been functionally equivalent toj "mu+ inf. as well. This is

suggested by the frequent use ofj "mu+ inf. for the Future in Old Russian texts. Perhaps

this is illustrated as well by (16) (as suggested by Zaliznjaks gloss); but one might alsoimagine there was some difference between them here.

Be this as it may, there is no doubt that in early East Slavic dialects a periphrastic

Future was in use for which different areas had grammaticalized different phasal verbs,

the Old Novgorod dialect, apparently,poc "nu+ inf.

After their grammaticalization as Future auxiliaries, the phasal verbs continued to

serve as phasal verbs. This is the phenomenon Hopper (1991, 2425) has dubbed

layering. One can imagine that in speech, some phonetic difference in phrasing was made


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between auxiliary and phasalpoc "nu+ inf. But in the textual record there is no visibledifference between reference to a future situation and reference to the future beginning of

a situation. Hence one has to rely on the context to decide whether, for instance,pocnet "

na sju zemlju postupat "(Dvina gramota no. 107; Kuznecov 1959, 234) means trespasses

(fut.) on this land or begins (fut.) to trespass on this land. It is notable that in negative

contexts this difference is not signaled by the position of the negation; thus asce li

pocnet "ne upravljati daniis, in isolation, ambiguous between if he is (fut.) not paying

tribute and if he begins (fut.) not to [i.e. ceases to] pay tribute (Lavr 22, s.a. 971 calls

for the latter reading); cf. (25) below.

2. The Future Perfect

2.0 budu+ l-form.In the description of the verb in DD (177), there is a remarkable proposal to

recognize in the Novgorod dialect a new verbal category, apredpolozitelnoe naklonenie,

that is, a suppositive or hypothetical mood.

Here I will argue that there is no need for this supposed mood. It appears to be a

product of modern Russian glosses of straight-forward examples of the Future Perfect,

which is well known from other varieties of Old Russian.

InDD,the inherited, Common Slavic compound tense budu + l-form is mentioned

chiefly in two places, briefly in 3.29 (DD, 134) and more fully in 4.17 (DD, 177) under

the heading Predpolozitelnoe naklonenie. Here Zaliznjak makes two points.

First, he states that there is no standard term for the Future Perfect, as this

construction is traditionally called; in the history of Russian grammar it has beenvariously called buduscee soversennoe, buduscee predsestvujuscee, prezdebuduscee, and

predbuduscee.

Secondly, he states that it is extremely rare that this constructionin the birchbark

corpusrefers to the future. Normally, it has a purely modal sense that can

approximately be rendered by okazetsja, cto [necto uze proizoslo], that is,it will turn

out, that [something has already happened]. He presents several examples from the

corpus, each of them glossed with the verb okazetsja. Despite the authors stipulation, this

Perfective Present-tense form (some would call it a Perfective Future) appears in every

single gloss to have future-time reference, which is not surprising. Its mood appears to be

strictly indicative. Only in one of its attestations does Zaliznjak grant that the budu + l-

form construction actually refers to future time.

2.1. Terminology

As for the terminological matter, it is odd to see the diversity of Russian terms for

the Future Perfect made into an issue. All a person really needs to do in the face of

terminological variety is select the most appropriate or most common variant term and

perhaps acknowledge the rest in a footnote. One gets the impression from Zaliznjaks


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exposition that the terminological diversity is brought up as support for the new name heintroduces for this construction.

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Still, by drawing attention to the question of terminology Zaliznjak highlights the

fact that the new name that is being proposed for this construction is not just one more

arbitrary term. What is proposed is an interpretation of the data by which a form class

that has long been regarded as a tense, is now to be considered a mood. This is a

substantive matter with implications on several levels.

2.2. What is in a word?

The substantive issue concerns first and foremost the interpretation of individual

texts: does the proposed new category give us a better handle on understanding them? We

will look at this, textual issue in section 2.3.In a somewhat wider perspective the substantive issue involves the system of verbal

categories of this Old Russian dialect. It is not entirely unimportant how we conceive of

this dialect and its systems of tenses and moods.

Some may first of all see this grammatical issue in synchronic or typological terms,

where it is clearly of some interest whether a given form class is defined as one of the

tenses or one of the moods of a language.

Others may adopt a diachronic point of view and try to place the budu + l-form

construction in the context of the historical development of the Old Russian system of

verbal categories. Very simply put, here it is a question whether the inherited Future

Perfect tense turned into a mood before it became defunct.

Whichever way one looks at it, the most important thing is how best to understandthe half dozen examples of the construction in our corpus.

2.3 The suppositive mood, alias Future Perfect

I suggested above that the new-fangled suppositive mood is a product of the

modern Russian glosses of the examples. This point is most simply illustrated by

confronting a set of fresh glosses of the examples in the birchbark corpus with Zaliznjaks

glosses.

Let us first look at the examples and then the glosses.

In the Novgorod birchbark corpus (so far) all examples of the budu + l-form

construction occur in subordinate clauses. All but one of these are conditionals, the

exception (22) being an interrogative (noun) clause.12 I present the examples below inchronological order. For some of the examples Zaliznjak provides one gloss in his

chronological presentation and a slightly different gloss atDD, 177. In those instances I

enclose the alternative part of the gloss fromDD, 177 in parentheses.

(17) ci ti budu zadela svoimu" b "zum "emu"aze mi sja poc "n "si nasmixati a suditu"b(o)g(u")

[i] moja xudost "In case I have (fut.) offended you with my craziness, if you are

(fut.) laughing at me, then God is your judge and [I, in] my insignificance


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(752/A11, 1100s1140s); DD , 250: Bude daze (esli okazetsja, cto) ja tebja posvoemu nerazumiju zadela, esli ty nacnes nado mnoj nasmexatsja, to sudit [tebja]

Bog i moja xudost.13

(18) aci ti ne budet " solili susc[a] In case you have (fut.) not salted the dried smelt

(893/B7, 1130s1140s);DD, 290: Esli okazetsja, cto vy ne solili susca.

(19) oze budu ljudi pri komo budu dala ruku za zjate to te ja vo vine If there is (fut.)

anyone in whose presence I have (fut.) pledged myself to my brother-in-law then I

am at fault (531/B98, ca. 1220s);DD , 417: Esli budut svideteli, pri kom [kak

vyjasnitsja] ja porucilas za zjatja, to vina na mne.

(20) oz " jalu"bud "matf "eca dobr " skuet " If he has (fut.) caught Mattie, give him a good

beating (411/V34, ca. 1280s1290s);DD, 506: Esli okazetsja, cto [on] uze pojmal

Matfejca, xorosenko ego zakujte.

(21) az[e] budes "ne pominala ino u tebe solodu bylo a solodu"rzanyi v potkleteIn case

you have (fut.) not thought of it, you did have malt and there is rye malt in the

cellar (363/G57, 1320s);DD, 606: Esli, mozet byt, ty ne pomnis, (esli okazetsja,

cto ty ne upomnila [zabyla],) to [imej v vidu:] u tebja solod byl. Solod rzanoj v

podklete.

(22) a ty nestere pro cicjaku!prisli ko mni gramotu s kimu" budesu" poslalu" And youNester, send me a note regarding the helmet, [telling me] who you have (fut.) sent it

with (358/G25, 13401360s);DD, 550: A ty, Nester, pro sisak prisli mne gramotu,

s kem [ego] posles.

(23) azibudes "gramotu vzjala dai ontanuIf you have (fut.) gotten the letter, give it to

Ontan (578/G43, 1340s1360s); DD , 571: Esli okazetsja, cto ty gramotu uze

vzjala, otdaj ee Ontanu.

(24) o$ze bu[de]se poimala se[If you have (fut.) gotten (277/G52, 1340s1380s);

DD, 250: Esli okazetsja, cto ty [uze vzjala].

Six of these examples contain Perfective lexical verbs (l-forms), that is, verbs which

can be used to assert the result of an action: zadela, dala, jalu, poslalu, vzjala, poimala.

The two remaining examples have Imperfective lexical verbs, (18), in which the auxiliary

is negated, and (21), in which the lexical verb is negated (without any apparent difference

in scope).

Each of the examples is compatible with an English gloss in the Present Perfect or

Simple Past tense, depending on style and on the context, which is not always known;


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here I have chosen the Present Perfect. The English Future Perfect will have+ PPPwouldconflict with the fact that English normally does not use the Future tense in conditional

and temporal clauses with future-time reference; in such clauses, the future auxiliary will

tends to retain its volitional value.

In each and every example, the Old Russian Future Perfect can be taken to encode

the letter writers reference to the future time at which the addressee will be reading the

letter. If one wanted to make this explicit, one could expand each English gloss with

[when you read this] or [by the time you read this].

Note the tense agreement in the two conditional clauses in (17) between the

Perfective Future Perfect budu zadelaand the Imperfective Futurepoc "n "si nasmixati sja,

and in (19) between the Future-tense existential buduand the Future Perfect budu dala.

None of the budu + l-form constructions in these examples expresses anythingespecially modal; they are plain indicatives. In the conditional clausess, in particular, no

irrealis or counterfactual suppositionis made. Instead, each clause with the budu + l-form

construction can be read as a simple factual description of a state of affairs at the

addressees place and time which provides the rationale for the matrix (main) clause in

which it is embedded. This evidently cannot be seen in the examples where the matrix

clause is missing, (18) and (24), but the remaining examples are clear enough. In (22),

there is no conditional, but a straightforward factual question.

This example (22) is the one that Zaliznjak grants a future-time reference. But this

ignores the Future Perfect tense meaning. His gloss puts into the indefinite future time

( s kem ty [ego]posles) what its Old Russian original puts in the addressees past time.

A modern Russian translation that respects the tense in the original would be s kem ty[ego] poslal. This example suggests how all the budu + l-form constructions in these

texts can be rendered in Russian.

Zaliznjaks reading of this example is as wrong as the readings with okazetsjaor

vyjasnitsja. In the gloss of (19), in particular, the use of vyjasnitsja misrepresents the

sense of the writers conditional clause. She is not supposing that it will turn out she

made a promise to her brother-in-law. She uses the conditional (if anyone can be found

, then I am at fault) to claim by implication that no-one can be found who witnessed

her doing any such thing, and that she is not at fault.

The usage of the budu+ l-form construction in the birchbark corpus conforms

entirely to what we find in other Old Russian texts. It illustrates the most characteristic

feature of this tense, as it is employed in writing: it is employed to encode the writerstime perspective. This is the way it is used in laws, in treaties, and in wills, types of text

specifically designed for future reading; for examples, see especially Kuznecov (1959,

148151), Borkovskij, Kuznecov (1965, 277), Ivanov (1982, 111113). It is not

surprising to find it used this way in the personal correspondence of the Novgorod

birchbark corpus.


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3.0. Future and Future PerfectWe should not leave these tenses without considering them in the larger

perspectives, structural (sections 3.13.2) and diachronictypological (section 3.3).

3.1. The Imperfective Future

As mentioned above, it is clear that in early East Slavic dialects a periphrastic

Future was in use, for which different dialects had grammaticalized different phasal

verbs. The data presented in section 1 permits us to conclude that in the Old Novgorod

dialect, this Future was expressed bypoc "nu+ inf.; it is best to defer interpretation of the

single example ofj "mu+ inf. in (16).

The material basis for this conclusion is not large, but its coherence with what we

know about the rest of East Slavic gives it weight. So does the fact that the use of thisFuture coheres with that of the Future Perfectas seen in examples (17) and (19).

Add the fact that this periphrastic Future tense, perhaps most importantly, coheres

with the category of aspect. Nrgard-Srensen (1997), inspired by the few examples ofderived Imperfective verbs in the birchbark data, has argued that a Perfective vs.

Imperfective aspect opposition was not established in the Old Novgorod dialect, indeed

did not become fully established in Russian until the 1700s. The general consensus has

long been that a clear-cut distinction between Perfective and Imperfective aspect existed

from before our first attestations through the Old Russian period (cf. footnote 4 above). It

can be argued that the textual record documents not so much the gradual emergence of

the aspect opposition as the development of consistent means of expression for it and a

consistent use of these means. Indeed, both the gradual decline and loss of the OldRussian Imperfect and Aorist and the lexical diffusion of productive means of aspect

derivation, which burgeons from the 1300s on, presuppose the existence of the Perfective

vs. Imperfective opposition. Cf. Maslov (1954, 1964), Borkovskij, Kuznecov (1965, 279,

290), Silina (1982, 162163, 190198, 277279), Silina (1995, 375377, 461464). The

discussion in Bermel (1997, 459476) considers the conditioning of this development in

both the lexical and discourse-syntactic perspectives.

From the very beginning of the East Slavic attestation, phasal verbs were in use as

Future auxiliaries. Many of our texts, of course, reflect the (Church Slavonic) high code

with its South Slavicxoscju+ inf. andj "mam "+ inf. periphrases. But the (vernacular) low

code Futures with nac "nu, poc "nu, v "c "nu (uc "nu)o r j "mu+ inf. show through often

enough, and they are well attested in native texts including, not surprisingly, theNovgorod birchbark letters, as we saw above. Wherever we find them, from the 1000s

on, the East Slavic periphrastic Future variants are consistently used with infinitives of

verbs we recognize as Imperfective (cf. Kuznecov 1959, 247), and which denote states,

activities, and the process part of actions. The Novgorod Future forms are no exception to

this generalization. Although they are few, they are evidence, then, (pace Nrgard-Srensen) that speakers of this dialect in the 1000s1300s had as clear a sense of aspect

as speakers of other Old Russian dialects.


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3.2. The Future PerfectLike the periphrastic Future, the Old Russian Future Perfect is attested in theNovgorod corpus in a small number of examples, dating from the 1100s to the 1300s. Itsuse is the same here as in other Old Russian texts, with the important difference that inthe birchbark letters it is exemplified in a text type that presumably reflects the livingnorms of epistolary usage of this period, and which illustrates the anterior-to-future-timereference of this tense as clearly as one could want.

There has been some confusion about the meaning of the Future Perfect amongstudents of Old Russian. Kuznecov (1959, 250) understood it simply as a kind of Futuretense and was disturbed to find that in some examples its time of reference is anterior tothe moment of writing. But there is nothing alarming in this. Just as the Future can refer

to any time later than the speakers or writers present moment, so the Future Perfect canrefer to any time earlier than some future moment. In letters, this future moment isnaturally when the letter is being read. Thus, in the interrogative clause in (22), s kimu"budesu" poslalu" who you have sent it with (or who you sent it with), the Futureauxiliary refers to the time the letter will be read, and the lform, to an indefinite past,anterior to that moment. Maybe the helmet referred to was sent before the writer wrotehis inquiry, maybe not. This is not for the grammatical category to specify.

Xaburgaev (1978; Gorskova and Xaburgaev 1981), too, viewed the Future Perfectas a kind of Future and applied to its interpretation the convoluted meaning he ascribed tothe Future tense. Without argument, he stated that its Future auxiliary buduhas a modal,rather than tense meaning, a kind of potential-conditional meaning, vozmoznost

vyjavlenija, obnaruzenija dejstvija (pricastie na -l) kak uslovie dlja posledujusc`ixdejstvij (v budusc`em) (1981, 295). In this interpretation, he failed to separate thesemantic contribution of the tense forms from the conditional sense of the clauses inwhich many, but not all examples of the Future Perfect occur (cf. (22)); this error ofanalysis has been made before, see Kuznecov (1959, 238) and, more fully, Ivanov (1982,112). Xaburgaev missed the point that in the Old Russian text types in which it is bestdocumented, the Future Perfect simply expresses the writers anticipation of the readerstime. And, in part as a consequence of this, in part in consequence of an apparentpreconception of his, he arrived at the muddled, supposedly modal construal adopted in

DD(p. 177) instead of the simple one of relations in linear time.In some instances, the esli okazetsja, cto included in Xaburgaevs glosses

seems merely a clumsy attempt to be precise, and the interpretation it imposes, merehairsplitting. Thus in his discussion of (25), he claims that the given text segment is notabout the purchase of stolen goods, but about the discovery that purchased goods arestolen (statja govorit ne ob akte kupli, a ob obnaruzenii vorovannogo), at first blush, asmall point. However, notice that in this interpretation, the text actually makes no sense:The producing of witnesses is obviously called for not to certify that the goods werestolen, but that they were purchased, that is, that the person who has them did not stealthem. The text is indeed ob akte kupli, about the act of purchase. In plain Russian, it


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means Esli [kto-nibud] vorovannoe kupil na torgu, to emu predstavit [svidetelej]. As ithappens, the text in (25) (Russkaja Pravda, st. 37, Zimin 1999, 369) continues: azenacnet "ne znati u kogo kupilu" if he does (fut.) not know who he bought them from,leaving no doubt that the text is indeed about acts of purchase. Incidentally, theperiphrastic Future here shows the same tense agreement with the Future Perfect that wesaw in section 2.3, examples (17), (19).

(25) Paky li budet "cto tatebno kupilu" vu"tu"rgu to vyvedet " svobod "na muza dva ilimytnika if [someone] has bought stolen goods in the market then he mustproduce [as witnesses] two freemen or a customs officer; Gorskova and Xaburgaev(1981, 296): esli okazetsja, cto kupleno vorovannoe, to nado predstavit svidetelej

[their emphasis; HA].

In other instances, round-about translation along the lines Xaburgaev advocatedproduces directly misleading glosses. In (26), another example of his, the textpresupposes that property has been taken and demands its return. Instead of thepresupposition that booty has been taken, Xaburgaevs gloss offers a future possibility (ifit turns out (in the future) that you have taken anything (in the past)).

(26) Tako i nyneca, sto budete vzjali na Moskve nynesnim_prixodom u menja i vamto ot_dati Thus also now, what you have taken in Muscovy during the currentcampaign you must return (Gr. 1434); Gorskova and Xaburgaev (1981, 297):

esli obnaruzitsja (v buduscem), cto vy vzjali (v proslom)

In these as in other examples from non-narrative text types, the Future Perfectserves one and the same function. It enables the writer to anchor text segments in thereaders time, the reader being a correspondent, a co-signer of a treaty, the executor of awill, or a member of society needing future guidance from a law code.

In the examples in the birchbark corpus, the affirmative Future Perfects arePerfective, the negated ones, Imperfective (cf. 2.3). This apparent regularity is surely acoincidence. A larger data set, such as that in Kuznecov (1959, 248251) shows that inthe Old Russian Future Perfect, budu combined freely withl-forms of both aspects inboth affirmative and negative clauses. This is what one would expect, for the Future

auxiliary in this tense merely selects an anchoring point for a past-time perspective, andthe situations in the past described by l-forms can naturally be of all kinds. An analysis ofsuch a larger body of examples is instructive with regard to the use of aspects in OldRussian, but is not called for within the scope of this paper.

3.3. Diachrony and typologyIn the historical development of the East Slavic tense system, the periphrastic

Future and the Future Perfect have different fates.


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3.3.1. The Future. The periphrastic Future with its several variant expressions arosein prehistoric Late Common Slavic. This was an innovation motivated by, and from thevery first intimately connected with, the formation of the Perfective vs. Imperfectiveaspect opposition. Specifically, as (i) the Present tense of action verbs was specialized toassert the (implicitly future) state produced by actions, and (ii) the Present tense oforiginally derived iterative action verbs was extended to assert present-time processes,(iii) the Perfective ingressive verbs nac "nu, poc "nu, vu"c "nu (uc "nu) andj "muwere calledinto service to assert the future initiated process part of single actions and of future statesand activities and, (iv) presumably secondarily, actions repeated in the future; for a fulleraccount, see Bermel (1997, 470474).

In the past, the lexical variation in the East Slavic Future auxiliary has been taken as

evidence simply that there was no established expression for the Imperfective Future inOld Russian (Kuznecov 1959, 233). This is undoubtedly true, but it is true for a period inwhich there were no established East Slavic national languages, and so this is not a veryexciting observation. It is surely more useful to recognize this diversity as an indicationthat the Imperfective Future auxiliaries were grammaticalized independently in differentLate Common Slavic dialects in Eastern Europe. The investigation of this polygenesis isa task for the future.

3.3.2. The Future Perfect. The Future Perfect was established in prehistory as part of thesystem of compound tenses of Late Common Slavic which utilized the resultativeparticiple with the auxiliary byti be in all its simple tense forms to form the Perfect,

Pluperfect I, Pluperfect II, and Future Perfect tenses; see table 1.14As the functions of thesimple preterites (Imperfect, Aorist) were taken over by the former Perfect (incombination with the Perfective vs. Imperfective distinction), the functions of the twoPluperfects passed to the new Pluperfect (the double perfect of van Schooneveld 1959,134140); see table 2. The resulting, simpler systemPresent, Future, Past, Pluperfect,and Future Perfect, with auxiliation in three of the five tenses, is the one that we findattested in the Novgorod birchbark corpus.

Table 1. Old Russian tenses

Simple: Present

nesu

Aorist

nesoxu"

Imperfect

nesaxu"

Future

poc "nu nesti

Compound: Perfectjesm "neslu"

Pluperfect Ibexu"neslu"

Pluperfect IIbaxu"neslu"

Future Perfectbudu neslu"

Table 2. Middle Russian tenses

Simple: Present

nesu

Future

nacnu nesti

Compound: Past

jesm nesl

Pluperfect

jesm byl nesl

Future Perfect

budu nesl


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The Future Perfect was lost in central parts of Russia, apparently, by the mid 1500s; cf.Nikiforov (1952, 181), Ivanov (1982, 130). In this paper we have seen that there is noneed for the hypothesis that it turned into a special suppositive mood before it went outof use. All indications are that as long as it was in use, it remained a tense. The modalhypothesis which has been considered in historical grammars of Russian (andoccasionally gently rejected; see Silina 1995, 401) was based on modern Russian glossesthat misconstrue the temporal relations expressed by the combination of Future auxiliaryand l-form. The Future Perfect was a relative past tense; it referred to events that werepast relative to a future point in time. One of its best documented uses was in written texttypes explicitly addressed to a future reader, where it informed the reader of the writerstime perspectivejust as the periphrastic Future did. This is the use that is attested in the

Novgorod birchbark corpus.

4. Conclusion

If the analyses that have been presented in the preceding pages are correct, thesimple tense system posited for the Old Novgorod dialect in Zaliznjak (2004) is anoversimplification. After the loss of the Imperfect and the Aorist, this dialect did indeedhave the Present, Past, and Pluperfect tenses described by Zaliznjak. But in addition,there is evidence to show that the Old Novgorod dialect, like other East Slavic dialectswe know of, inherited a Future Perfect tense from Common Slavic, and that this tensewas in use throughout the period so far documented by the birchbark letters. There issimilarly good evidence that the Novgorod dialect shared in the early East Slavic

development of a periphrastic Imperfective Future and, by implication, the earlydevelopment of a clear-cut Perfective vs. Imperfective aspect opposition.

These circumstances justify the conclusion that the Old Novgorod tense system, asit is reflected in the birchbark letter corpus, was not different from that of other OldRussian dialects.15

University of California, Los Angeles

References

Avanesov, R. I. i V. V. Ivanov (eds.).: 1982,Istoriceskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka.Morfologija. Glagol. Moskva.

Bermel, N. 1997. Context and the Lexicon in the Development of Russian Aspect.(University of California Publications. Linguistics, 129.) BerkeleyLosAngelesLondon.

Birnbaum, H. 1958. Untersuchungen zu den Zukunftumschreibungen mit dem Infinitiv imAltkirchenslavischen. Ein Beitrag zur historischen Verbalsyntax des Slavischen.(Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Etudes de philologie slave, 6.) Stockholm.


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Borkovskij, V. I. i P. S. Kuznecov. 1965.Istoriceskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka.Izdanie vtoroe, dopolnennoe. Moskva.Durst-Andersen, P. 1992. Mental Grammar. Russian Aspect and Related Issues.

Columbus, Ohio.Gorskova, K. V. i G. A. Xaburgaev. 1981.Istoriceskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka.

Moskva.Hopper, P. J. 1991. On some principles of grammaticaliation. Approaches to

Grammaticalization. Volume 1 ed. by E. C. Traugott and B. Heine, 1735.Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ivanov, V. V. 1982. Istorija vremennyx form glagola. In Avanesov i Ivanov 1982,25131.

Ivanov, V. V., S. I. Iordanidi, L. V. Vjalkina, T. A. Sumnikova, V. B. Silina i V. B.Krysko. 1995.Drevnerusskaja grammatika XIIXIII vv. Moskva.Kuznecov, P. S. 1959. Ocerki istoriceskoj morfologii russkogo jazyka.Moskva.Kuzmina, I. B. i E. V. Nemcenko. 1971. Sintaksis pricastnyx form v russkix govorax.

Moskva.Maslov, J. S. 1954. Imperfect glagolov soversennogo vida v slavjanskix jazykax.

Voprosy slavjanskogo jazykoznanija, 1, 68138. Extract reprinted as Perfektivnyjimperfekt v drevnerusskom literaturnom jazyke. In Maslov 1984, 111143.

Maslov, J. S. 1964. K utrate prostyx form preterita v germanskix, romanskix islavjanskix jazykax.Problemy sravnitelnoj filologii. Sbornik statej k 70-letiju V.

M. Zirmunskogo, 192201. MoskvaLeningrad. Reprinted in Maslov 1984,

248258.Maslov, J. S. 1984. Ocerki po aspektologii. Leningrad.Nikiforov, S. D. 1952. Glagol. Ego kategorii i formy v russkoj pismennosti vtoroj

poloviny XVI veka.Moskva.Nrga rd-Srensen, J. 1997. Tense, aspect and verbal derivation in the language of the

Novgorod birchbark letters.Russian Linguistics21, 121.Schooneveld, C. H. van. 1959.A Semantic Analysis of the Old Russian Finite Preterite

System.(Slavistic Printings and Reprintings, 7.) s-Gravenhage.Silina, V. B. 1982. Istorija kategorii glagolnogo vida. In Avanesov i Ivanov 1982,

158279.Silina, V. B. 1995. Glagol. In Ivanov et al. 1995, 374506.

Slovar drevnerusskogo jazyka (XIXIV vv.), vyp. 1. 1988.Uspenskij, B. A. 1987.Istorija russkogo literaturnogo jazyka (XIXVII vv.). (Sagners

slavistische Sammlung, 12.) Munich.Xaburgaev, G. A. 1978. Sudba vspomogatelnogo glagola drevnix slavjanskix

analiticeskix form v russkom jazyke. Vestnik Moskovskogo GosudarstvennogoUniversiteta. Serija 9. Filologija, no. 4, 4253.


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Zaliznjak, A. A.Drevnenovgorodskij dialekt.(Vtoroe izdanie, pererabotannoe s ucetommateriala naxodok 19952003 gg.) (Rossijskaja Akademija Nauk. InstitutSlavjanovedenija. Jazyk. Semiotika. Kultura.) Moskva.

Zimin, A. A. 1999.Pravda russkaja. (Ed. by V. G. Zimina, A. L. Xoroskevic, A. S.Oresnikova.) Moskva.

1The research reported in this paper was conducted with the support of the Center forAdvanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in Oslo, Norway.2Notational conventions. (i) The following abbreviations are used: CSR (ContemporaryStandard Russian),DD(Zaliznjak 2004), dial. (dialectal), Eng. (English), inf. (infinitive),LCS (Late Common Slavic), OCS (Old Church Slavonic), OR (Old Russian), R

(Russian). (ii) Apart from text citations, Old Russian verbal lexemes will be cited innormalized phonological form, first person singular representing the Present tense. (iii)The names of tenses and aspects are capitalized (e.g. Present, Future, Perfective); typicalreference times are not (present, future). (iv) Text segments fromDDare identified bynumber and chronological grouping, e.g., 370/G53. See further footnote 7.3The fluctuation of periphrases withj "mam "andj "muin Old Russian texts is traditionallyinterpreted as a morphological confusion of these two verbs or a simplification of thepresent-tense paradigm ofj "metij "mam "(cf. Kuznecov 1959, 236). These interpretationsare not the only ones possible. East Slavic dialects typically modified the paradigm of

j "ma-m "either on the basis of its present-tense stemhence the modern Ukrainian andBelorussian reflexes of j "ma-j-uor on the basis of its (aorist and) infinitive

stemhence the Russian reflexes ofj "me-j-u, etc. There was no historical basis, and verylittle functional basis, for a morphological confusion of the Imperfective state verb

j "metij "ma-m "with the Perfective action verbja-tij "m-u(or the latters Imperfectivecounterpartj "matijeml u). It was only in their function as Future-tense auxiliary verbsthatj "ma-m "andj "m-ucould be taken to be variants. This fact suggests that one factormotivating this variation was interference of the low codej "muwith the high code

j "mam ".4The termsPerfective andImperfective, perhaps needless to say, may have differentextensions in descriptions of different Slavic languages and in relation to differentperiods of development of these languages. Once this has been acknowledged, they cansafely be used with reference to the different periods touched on in these pages. For a

recent discussion of the development of the Russian aspect categories, see Bermel (1997),who offers a survey of earlier literature on the topic.5I adopt the cognitive theory of aspect of Durst-Andersen (1992).6The modern periphrases CSR budu+ inf. and stanu+ inf. do not come into use in EastSlavic until after the period considered here and so will not be discussed. Also Future-tense infinitive clauses with dative subject must be considered irrelevant here, e.g., aze

jemu . bud "t ". sidit " . nam{am}u" . sili : nitu . siditiif he is to stay, we do not have thestrength to stay (370/G53).


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7In the examples, superscript letters are on the line, and marked omissions are suppliedin parentheses (), reconstructed letters are in square brackets [], and surplusletters in braces {}. In the English glosses, text elements that are not translated are inparentheses, and supplied words are in square brackets.8There is one additional example ofpoc "nu,which is irrelevant here: ati bude voina a namja poc "nu a molitesja gostjatoju ku" ku"njazju if war breaks out and they attack me,appeal to the prince through Gostjata (527/A2, 1030s1060s); cf.DD, 240.9The two occurrences of cetu"here are read as c "to; as the direct object of a negated verbthe second occurrence is odd; one expects nic "to (cf.DD , 159160). The negativeimperative with ne mozi(LCS ne moi) here contrasts with four tokens of ne mogi in the

birchbark corpus. Cf.DD, s.v. moci.10Note the omission of the prefixpro-in the second and third tokens of the verb sell;these tokens may be rendered R daj and davat, but not Eng. give. The dictionarymeaning ofprodavati is sell, but when the imperfective verb is used to refer to theprocess, its English equivalent is have for sale, offer for sale, have a sale.11Zaliznjak here follows Xaburgaev (1978; Gorskova and Xaburgaev 1981, 295299), towhom he refers. In both publications Xaburgaev speaks of the Future Perfect as if it werea totally alien phenomenon. He states it is known as the compound future in Europeangrammatical traditions, but may be called predbuduscee or prezdebuduscee (p. 295),suggesting by his choice of words that he is the first to consider using these old terms.Later he notes that the Old Russian Future Perfect functions in full conformity with the

vtoroe budusee sloznoe [second compound future] of Latin, German, and otherEuropean languages (p. 297)introducing one more term, which is not current amonggrammarians concerned with these languages. The purpose of these terminologicalexcursions is not clear.12The only sign that this clause is a noun clause is the fact that it is in apposition to anoun, gramotu.13OR bezum "jeis perhaps best rendered CSR bezumie, sumasbrodstvo(Eng. insanity,craziness); Zaliznjaks nerazumie(Eng. irrationality, foolishness) seems less precise.The sense of nasmixati + dat. is hardly literally laugh at, more likely considerridiculous (perhaps with an implication of contempt). Cf. Slovar drevnerusskogo jazyka(XIXIV vv.)s.vv.14 Historical grammars cite isolated examples of a high-code Past Future (futurum in

praeterito) such as d "javolu"rad(o)vase sja semu. ne vedyi jako bliz "pogibel "xotjase bytiemu the devil rejoiced at this, not knowing how close to him was (fut.) his perdition(Lavr 26 v., s.a. XXX) with the high-code Imperfect auxiliaryxotjaxu"+ inf.; Kuznecov(1959, 236), Borkovskij i Kuznecov (1964, 262). This construction has moderncounterparts in Bulgarian and other South Slavic dialects. I do not know of comparablelow-code examples from East Slavic texts.


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15At the same time, there is a hint in one of the birchbark letters of the emergence of anew tense. As is well known, the Old Novgorod dialect was spoken in part of the areawhere, in historical times, constructions of the type ona uexavsioccur (see Kuzmina,Nemcenko 1971). Besides several examples of past active participles clearly serving asadverbial clauses, there is one possible example of a predicative participle in -siin anobject clause: ceto esi prislale dova celoveka te pobegli a kone ne vedaju g[d]e

poimavosi a timonja meretveTe dva celoveka, cto ty prislal, bezali, a konej gde vzjali neznaju. A Timonja umer; 582/V38 DD , 514515. Evidently it takes more than oneexample to document the existence of a tense. But one example is enough to provide ahint of what future finds may bring.

2006 future and future perf-libre

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