A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar

Andra Kalnaca

• Publisher: De Gruyter Poland
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9783110426984
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Theoretical studies of Latvian grammar have a great deal to offer to contemporary linguistics. Although traditionally Lithuanian has been the most widely studied Baltic language in diachronic and synchronic linguistics alike, Latvian has a number of distinctive features that can prove valuable both for historical, and perhaps even more so, for synchronic language research. Therefore, at the very least, contemporary typological, areal, and language contact studies involving Baltic languages should account for data from Latvian. Typologically, Latvian grammar is a classic Indo-European (Baltic) system with well-developed inflection and derivation. However, it also bears certain similarities to the Finno-Ugric languages, which can be reasonably explained by its areal and historical background. This applies, for example, to the mood system and its connections with modality and evidentiality in Latvian, also to the correlation between aspect and quantity as manifested in verbal and nominal (case) forms. The relations between debitive mood, certain constructions with reflexive verbs, and voice in Latvian are intriguing examples of unusual morphosyntactic features.
Accordingly, the book focuses on the following topics: case system and declension (with emphasis on the polyfunctionality of case forms), gender, conjugation, tense and personal forms, aspect, mood, modality and evidentiality, reflexive verbs, and voice. The examples included in this book have been taken from the Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian (Lidzsvarots musdienu latviešu valodas tekstu korpuss, available at www.korpuss.lv ), www.google.lv, mass media, and fiction texts (see the List of language sources) without regard to relative frequency ratios.

1 Paradigmatics and the Declension of Nouns

The main focus in this noun description is the paradigm of the noun as well as its case and gender. These issues have been selected first and foremost because the paradigm of the declinable parts of speech of the Latvian language has been insufficiently revealed in theoretical overviews that refer in particular to the structure of parts of speech and the range of the means used to express the grammatical meaning in their paradigms. The noun paradigm is directly connected with the number of cases and the interpretation of their functions in Latvian. Secondly, these issues also have been selected because the Latvian system of noun cases is markedly polyfunctional which means that, alongside the syncretism of endings, noun cases also display curious tendencies of syntactical use and semantic structure that accordingly deserves a more detailed analysis. Thirdly, the use of noun genders is also polyfunctional in Latvian, so they can display various asymmetric uses of noun form and content. In order to make the noun paradigm as well as the case and gender function analysis more explicit, the paradigm of all six declensions is presented in Section 1.2.

1.1 Introductory Remarks on Paradigmatics

The basis of any morphological paradigm is a set of forms linked through formal and semantic opposition, for example, the paradigm of the seven, grammatically distinct noun cases in Latvian (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative, see in detail Section 1.2) and the paradigm of the six grammatically marked verb tense forms (present indefinite, past indefinite, future indefinite, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect – in detail see Chapter 2), etc.

It is considered that the aforementioned paradigms are the centre of the morphological paradigm structure. The periphery of the morphological paradigm structure is formed by various deviations from the aforementioned principle, i.e., syncretism, merging, or the lack of paradigm elements.

Thus, it can be considered that there are two basic morphological paradigm types:

1. full or complete paradigms;
2. incomplete or defective paradigms.

Both the full and the incomplete paradigms display the following two variations:

1. as mixed or heteroclitic paradigms;
2. as homonymic or syncretic paradigms.

These two types of paradigms tend to combine with other features, such as, for instance, they can be mixed and syncretic. Also, the incomplete paradigms can be mixed and syncretic, etc.

For example, the full paradigm of the noun that simultaneously is also syncretic, cf. endings -as, -u, and -ām:

Table 1.1: The paradigm of the noun māsa ‘sister’ (F) (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 54–55)

	SG	PL
NOM	mās-a	mās-as
GEN	mās-as	mās-u
DAT	mās-ai	mās-ām
ACC	mās-u	mās-as
INS	(ar) mās-u	(ar) mās-ām
LOC	mās-ā	mās-ās
VOC	mās-ø!	mās-as!

In Latvian, incomplete and simultaneously syncretic paradigms are, for example, displayed by reflexive nouns that display only two morphologically different forms with the endings -ās or -os (see Section 1.4 for reflexive nouns in detail), see Table 1.2:

Table 1.2: The paradigm of the reflexive noun atgriešanās ‘returning’ (F) (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 56)

	SG	PL
NOM	atgriešan-ās	atgriešan-ās
GEN	atgriešan-ās	atgriešan-os
DAT	-	-
ACC	atgriešan-os	atgriešan-ās
INS	(ar) atgriešan-os	-
LOC	-	-
VOC	atgriešan-ās!	atgriešan-ās!

Adjectives in Latvian are the only example of the mixed and simultaneously syncretic paradigm. This paradigm is formed with the help of the suffix -ēj-. In the dative and locative cases it is used with the definite endings in both numbers as well as in the plural instrumental case, thereby resulting in definite forms that are identical to the indefinite adjectival forms:

Table 1.3: The paradigm of the definite adjective pēdējais ‘last’ (M) (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 63)

	SG	PL
NOM	pēdēj-ais	pēdēj-ie
GEN	pēdēj-ā	pēdēj-o
DAT	pēdēj-am (*pēdēj-ajam)	pēdēj-iem (*pēdēj-ajiem)
ACC	pēdēj-o	pēdēj-os
INS	(ar) pēdēj-o	(ar) pēdēj-iem (*pēdēj-ajiem)
LOC	pēdēj-ā (*pēdēj-ajā)	pēdēj-os (*pēdēj-ajos)
VOC	pēdēj-ais! / pēdēj-o!	pēdēj-ie!

The mixed paradigms in this case might be considered as an alternative for the incomplete paradigms in order to avoid difficult to pronounce sound clusters in the combinations of morphemes: the forms marked with the asterisk in Table 1.3 are not considered euphonic in the Latvian literary language and are replaced by the forms of indefinite adjectives (see also Blinkena 2002, 158–159).

As can be seen in the examples, both paradigm types as well as their variants are found in Latvian. Certainly, full paradigms are the most frequent: the noun (also adjective, numeral, and declinable participle) system of seven cases, the system of finite verb forms with three singular and three plural persons in all forms, etc. The language system is based on the full paradigms. In addition, they serve as a departure point for the incomplete and other paradigm type recording. However, in Standard Latvian due to the phonetic and morphological changes of the endings as well as due to the different processes of analogy and other historical processes, morphological paradigms of nominals (also pronominals and verbs) display syncretism, i.e., homoforms of grammatical forms (see Sections 1.2 and 1.3 for noun forms in detail).

Haspelmath (2002, 143–144) considers that the combination of various grammatical forms into one paradigm belongs to the periphery of morphological structure, for example the combination of synthetic and analytical forms in the verb tense category in German, English, and other languages, in which the indefinite tense forms are synthetic, whereas perfect ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Half Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Paradigmatics and Declension of Nouns
• 2 The Paradigmatics and Conjugation of Verbs
• 3 Aspect
• 4 Mood
• 5 Modality and Evidentiality
• 6 Voice
• 7 Reflexive Verbs
• References
• Sources
• Index
• Back Cover