К происхождению эвиденциальности в нахско-дагестанских языках: структурные и ареальные перспективы

Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета. Серия 3: Филология. 2018. № 57. С. 110–123.

Verhees S.

The paper considers the grammatical expression of information source with past tense forms of the verb in the Nakh-Daghestanian languages. These languages are spoken on a relatively compact territory in the North Caucasus and, partly, in the Transcaucasian area. The area is part of a larger area ranging from the Balkan Peninsula to Central Asia, which includes the Caucasus, and where similar verb forms used to express information source are found. It is considered plausible that these forms arose as the result of language contact with Turkic, and for some languages (e.g. Armenian, Georgian), this is confirmed. The paper compares the characteristics of these forms in the Nakh-Daghestanian language family based on descriptive grammars, and illustrates their genetic and areal distribution on a map. I will show that the areal vs. genetic distribution is not trivial. There are three distinct zones within the territory of the Nakh-Daghestanian languages: more grammaticalized forms are attested in the nortwestern region, partly grammaticalized forms are dominant in the central region, and in the southern area the feature is absent. It is currently impossible to establish how these forms appeared in the Nakh-Daghestanian languages, through contact with which Turkic language exactly, and how this process took place. However, the distribution outlined in this article indicates that language contact played a role in their dissemination.

Keywords: морфология, morphology, грамматикализация, perfect, перфект, эвиденциальность, verbal morphology, глагольная морфология, языковой контакт, нахско-дагестанские языки, кавказские языки, Turkic languages, тюркские языки, grammaticalization, East Caucasian languages, Caucasian languages, evidentiality, Nakh-Daghestanian languages, language contact, areal typology, ареальная типология