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Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran
Toimituksia 233
Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne
233
László Keresztes
Development of Mordvin Definite
Conjugation
In this monograph a brief historical
overview is given with results of research on the Mordvin
definite conjugation. My primary purpose is to present various
diachronic layers of synthetic verbal forms in the context of
my previous historical-phonetical studies. My argumentation is
rooted in a historical point of view and is mainly based on
empirical material. During field trips to the Mordvin Republic
I was able to supplement the earlier collections with
contemporary language material.
There is a more comprehensive and
complex definite verbal conjugation in Mordvin than in any
other Uralic language. Both the person and number of the
object can in principle be expressed as verbal suffixes.
Mordvin has paradigms referring to first person, second person
and third person direct objects.
A fundamental question is whether this
extremely complicated form of definite conjugation is a
remnant of a formerly widespread feature in western
Finno-Ugrian languages or whether it is an innovation that
arose during the independent existence of Mordvin.
The monograph contains a sampling of the
Mordvin definite verbal paradigms as well as schematic maps
presenting the dialect variants of the definite suffixes along
with the main isoglosses in the Mordvin dialect area, from the
perspective of definite conjugation.
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