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FUTURE REFERENCE FORMS IN ENETS // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2019. Issue 1 (23). P. 83-96

The paper deals with the system of future reference forms in both Enets dialects: Future and Debitive attested both in Forest Enets and Tundra Enets, Hypothetical attested only in Forest Enest and Analytical Debitive attested only in Tundra Enets. The paper provides brief information on morphological structure of these forms, numerical data on their frequency in texts and a comparison of the contexts where these forms are used. Debitive expresses modal meanings of deontic and epistemic obligation and epistemic possibility. Forest Enets Hypothetical is used for weak intentional future and for weak epistemic possibility. Tundra Enets Analytical Debitive is limited by contexts of weak epistemic possibility. The most frequent Future form is used for sure predictive future and sure intentional future, but also is attested in modal contexts mentioned above. This can be summarized as a privative opposition between the Future form that has an unrestricted general future meaning and modal forms that are used for more particular modal meanings. This feature of the Enets verbal system contrasts it with a known cross-linguistic distinction of future certainty vs. future possibility and therefore Enets data are of interest for linguistic typology.

Keywords: Enets, Samoyedic, future, modality, verbal forms competition