Article

Name: Prospective and proximative: results and perspectives of their research in Turkic languages

Authors: I. A. Nevskaya

Institute of Philology SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract:

This paper describes the category of proximative (also called prospective), which is supposed to express the prototypical semantics be going / about to do something and refer to a preliminary stage of action. Proximative means are extremely diverse and numerous in Turkic languages. All Turkic languages use various intentional forms and constructions to render proximative semantics under certain conditions, mostly with inanimate subjects or involuntary actions.

Oghuz Turkic seems to be the only branch that does not use proximative forms based on the infinitive or purpose converb of the lexical verb in combination with existential and positional auxiliary verbs. Only Oghuz Turkic seems to have a proximative form with the postposition üzere ‘on’.

Both Azeri varieties show convergence with Persian (and other Iranian languages spoken in the Caucasus, and also with Aramaic). Kipchak Turkic languages spoken in Central Asia have an array of isoglosses in common with South Eastern Turkic in their proximative morphology. We can probably speak of a Central Asian linguistic area representing a Turkic dialect continuum that had existed there long before the formation of modern national states.

Within South Siberian Turkic, a very heterogeneous branch of Turkic, the North Altai varieties are closer to Shor and Khakas than to Southern Altai Turkic in many features, also including Proximative language encoding. Southern Altai Turkic, in its turn, shows a certain close- ness to Tuvan in some proximative isoglosses, but also Kipchak languages of Central Asia in others. Tuvan is characterized by numerous Mongolian loans, also in the proximative sphere.

It appears that only the category of avertive employs materially identical language means (with minor variations) in all branches of Turkic. It is the specialized actional form “converb -A + verb yaz- / žas- / čas- / d’asta- / žazda-, etc.” with the lexical semantics “err, fail, miss the target, lose one’s way, sin, etc.”

Keywords: proximative, prospective, future tense, Turkic languages, grammaticalization, linguistic area

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