CARITIVE IN NANAI
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2020-1-32-43
The paper deals with the expression of caritive in Nanai. The research is based on the author’s elicitation materials collected during the fieldwork as well as oral texts recorded from the Nanai speakers by various scholars. The study leads to a conclusion that the expression of caritive in Nanai varies greatly from one dialect to another: while varieties of the lower Amur (Naikhin, Dzhuen, Gorin) obtain a determined marker ana, Sikachi-Aljan dialect uses a negative existential aba to express caritive. The paper describes grammatical and semantic properties of ana in detail. Thus, in modern Nanai, ana almost does not combine with morphological markers, although combination of ana with possessive markers is attested in earlier texts of mid-20th century. Absentee (dependent from caritive marker) can be expressed by any nominal phrase including pronouns, nouns with dependents and even adjectives. When an absentee is expressed by an adjective, ana marks for privative deriving an antonym of the adjective. Absentee cannot be expressed by a verbal form, even by a participle form, although it is close to a nominal phrase. The use of inflectional markers with absentees is acceptable, however, the use of a bare stem is preferable. As for the semantic properties, absentee can have different potential semantic roles such as a companion, instrument, possessum, relative, etc. Absentee cannot refer to an action. Besides, the use of clitics’ variants is described. Variants anaǯi and abaǯi (with an instrumental marker) appear mostly in the case when the situation of absence/non-involvement modifies another situation. They correlate with co-predicate and adverbial syntactic position of the caritive phrase. The variant ana bi is usually attested in the case when the situation of the absence modifies a target participant. Caritive phrases with ana bi tend to have an attributive syntactic position.
Keywords: The Nanai language, caritive, abessive, dialectal variety, syntactic positions, grammatical semantics, parts of speech
References:
Avrorin V. A. Grammatika nanaiskogo iazyka [Grammar of Nanai]. – T. 1. – M.; L.: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1959. (in Russian)
Avrorin V. A. Grammatika nanaiskogo iazyka [Grammar of Nanai]. – T. 2. – M.; L.: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1961. (in Russian)
Avrorin V. A. Materialy po nanaiskomu iazyku i fol’kloru [Materials on the Nanai language and folklore]. – L.: Nauka, 1986. (in Russian)
Bel’dy R. A., Bulgakova T. D. Nanaiskie skazki [Nanai folktales]. Norderstedt: Verlag der Kulturstiftung Sibirien / SEC Publ., 2012.
Himmelmann N. P., Schultze-Berndt E. (eds.). Secondary Predication and Adverbial Modification. The Typology of Depictives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
SSTMIa 1975 V. I. Tsintsius (otv. red.). Sravnitel’nyi slovar’ tunguso-man’chzhurskikh iazykov [Comparative dictionary of the Tungus-Manchu languages]. – T. 1. – L.: Nauka, 1975. (in Russian)
Sunik O. P. Kur-urmiiskii dialekt. Materialy i issledovaniia po nanaiskomu iazyku [Kur-Urmi dialect. Materials and studies of the Nanai language]. L.: Gosudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogicheskoe izdatel’stvo Ministerstva prosveshcheniia RSFSR, Leningradskoe otdelenie, 1958. (in Russian)
( 1.16 MB ) 
( 1.13 MB )
Issue: 1, 2020
Series of issue: Issue 1
Rubric: LINGUISTICS
Pages: 32 — 43
Downloads: 620