О некоторых типологических характеристиках андийских глагольных систем

Вопросы языкознания. 2024. № 6. С. 32–57.

Filatov K.

Despite the fact that Andic languages (Avar-Andic < East-Caucasian) are widely recognised as agglutinating, their verbal systems barely demonstrate any agglutinating properties. The most important characteristic of these systems is the incomplete orthogonality of grammatical categories, and the related property of semantic non-additivity or morphological idiomaticity. In terms of morphotactic structure, different Andic systems can be either morphotactically complex or simplex. The difference is related to the intensity of fusional processes in the system. The relationship between the structures of semantic and formal oppositions in such systems is opaque. Many formatives in formally additive systems exhibit morphomic properties, and their decreased combinatorial properties are manifested in the hierarchical structure of the paradigm. From typological perspective, such properties for systems expressing predominantly TAM meanings are not unexpected. The paper proposes a number of diachronic considerations to explain the observed properties of the systems. Non-orthogonality and semantic non-additivity can be explained by asynchronous grammaticalization, preventing the formation of orthogonal categories with additive means of expression, which, in turn, is related to different stability of meanings in the system and different rates of their diachronic renovation. Morphomic and hierarchical structures in the paradigm arise due to layering and due to grammatical drift leading to polysemic and heterosemic meaning structures of markers.

Keywords: Fusion, Andic languages, diachronic typology, диахроническая типология, грамматические категории, inflectional features, verbal grammatical systems, андийские языки, фузия, глагольные системы

Publication based on the results of: Computational methods in linguistic convergence study (2024)