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Year: 2012

Verb serialization in North East Europe: the case of Russian

and its Finno-Ugric neighbours

Daniel Weiss

Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich

http://dx.doi.org/10.5167/uzh-72092

Originally published at:

Weiss, Daniel (2012). Verb serialization in North East Europe: the case of Russian and its Finno-Ugric
neighbours. In: Wiemer, Björn; Wälchli, Bernhard; Hansen, Björn. Grammatical replication and grammatical
borrowing in language contact. Berlin/Boston, 611-646. ISBN 978-3-11-027009-9.
Verb serialization in northeast Europe:
the case of Russian and its Finno-Ugric neighbours

Daniel Weiss

The topic of the present paper needs a special justification since the
existence of the Serial Verb Construction (SVC) in Finno-Ugric has simply
escaped the attention of SVC typologists up to now, while the SVC status
of the Russian double verb construction of the type sidit-pla3et ‘s/he sits-is
crying’, sjadem-podumaem ‘We’ll sit down-think’ or pridi-poznakom’sja
‘come-introduce yourself’ was even explicitly rejected by Aikhenvald 2006
(see section 1.1 below). This unfortunate omission of the North East
European area is clearly due the conviction that there “appear to be none
(SVCs) in Europe or north or central Asia” (Dixon 2006: 338). Therefore,
the whole first section of my paper will be devoted to the illustration of the
claim that the constructions to be examined in Russian and its Finno-Ugric
neighboursi illustrate rather nicely all the major properties that have been
described as typical of SVCs. If the “scalar, or continuum approach to
SVC” proposed by Aikhenvald (2006: 3) is to be taken seriously, the said
languages are sure to occupy a position closer to prototypical SVCs on this
scale, even if their frequency is very low (in this connection it may be
mentioned that according to Dixon (2006: 338) in Khwe SVCs constitute
less than 1 per cent of all clauses).
Second, it will be argued that Russian SVCs originated from contact
with Finno-Ugric languages. This is plausible since, as will be shown in
section 2, they share a large number of common properties with today’s
Komi counterparts, the latter representing on the whole a more advanced
stage of serialization. This convergence offers, however, only indirect
evidence for my claim, since the most important Finno-Ugric languages
located in Central Russia that may have provided the source of the Russian
innovation have been extinct since the late middle ages; all our parallels are
based on data from still existing Permian and Volga Finnic languages
located in the North and East of European Russia, where the influx of
Russian immigrants started later and did not reach the same levels as in the
Podmoskov’e. All this implies that the very assumption that the Russian-
Finno-Ugric parallels are contact-induced requires a separate justification,
all the more so since in recent time, the direction was reversed, i.e. Russian
exerted a strong influence on the structure and the lexical stock of the
surviving Finno-Ugric languages.
To make things even more complicated, we are unable to determine the
exact age of Russian SVC: since in earlier times written sources represent
almost exclusively formal registers, a colloquial construction such as SVC
may well have existed for centuries without being attested in written
documents. The problem is aggravated by the unreliable punctuation of
that time which does not allow us to unequivocally distinguish SVC from
asyndetic verb coordination (see, section 1.4 below): thus, the lack of a
comma between two grammatically identical verb forms in a manuscript is
not conclusive; moreover, sometimes the comma was added later by the
editor. All we can state for the time being is that the first examples are to
be found in the epistolary genre and in the so-called merchant stories of the
17th century, with further evidence being provided by foreigners’ notes and
grammatical descriptions. On the other hand, to my knowledge the famous
Novgorod birch-bark letters (11-15th centuries) do not contain one single
instance of SVC; this does not, however, come as a surprise since, in the
Fennic (Balto-Finnic) languages spoken in the Novgorod-Pskov, this type
of construction is no longer productive, either.
1. Russian double verbs

1.1. A first approximation

The present study continues a series of previous papers devoted to the

analysis of double verbs (DV) in Russian: in Weiss (1993) the main accent
was laid on the description of the different subtypes and their conditions of
use in modern colloquial speech and the language of traditional folklore; in
Weiss (2000) I tackled the question of how this construction should be
modelled in the framework of a dependency syntax; Weiss (2003)
examined new corpus data from the language of the contemporary press
and fiction and established a parallel to similar constructions in Finno-
Ugric languages; and Weiss (2008) focuses on the interpretation of DVs
with perfective aspect. The present study will add but a few new
observations on these topics; it mainly aims at a more systematic overview
of what are already well-established facts by highlighting those features
that invite a comparison with the general picture of verb serialization.
Early modern Russian has developed a type of verbal juxtaposition that
represents much more than the germs of verb serialization: it meets not
only the minimal definition of SVC established by Bisang (1995: 137) but
fits fairly well into the overall picture of SVC drawn by Aikhenvald
(2006), notwithstanding the author’s own objections.ii In addition, it has to
satisfy the following language-specific requirements formulated in Weiss
(2000):

a) the morphological outfit of both verbs should be identical; hence,

person, number, gender, mode, voice and representation (the
opposition finite : nonfinite) of both verbs have to coincide. As for
tense and aspect, the exceptions to the identity requirement are
predictable and well-defined, cf. Weiss (2008);
b) both verbs share the same subject and optionally a second or third
argument or an adjunct, cf. Pojdem k sponsoru sxodim lit. ‘Let’s go
to the sponsor drop by = Let’s go and visit the sponsor’;
 c) auxiliary morphemes such as the conditional marker by and the
auxiliary of ipf. future forms (budu, bude9’, etc.) cannot be
repeated, cf. Po9el by proveril ‘You should go [and] find out’;
d) the two verbs may be reversed, cf. Sadis’ rasskázyvaj >
Rasskázyvaj sadis’ ‘tell [us the story] sit down!’ The main stress
shifts together with the component it falls on, cf. XY > YX.

From a typological point of view, the last-mentioned feature is most

striking: in the overwhelming majority of languages, the verb order within
a SVC cannot be reversed; even in such exceptional cases as Mandarin,
inversion is only possible with symmetric predicates, hence without
infringing on the principle of iconic ordering (Matthews 2006: 78).
Russian, however, allows anti-iconic sequences as in the example quoted
under d) or in ty by spala legla ‘You should sleep-lie down’, where the
natural chronology of the sub-events involved does not coincide with
syntactic order.
Contrary to what is stated in Aikhenvald (2006: 47), Russian DVs are
not “restricted in their mood, polarity, tense, and aspect choices”, but may
take all values of the grammatical categories listed under a) above. The
same holds for the aspectual meanings traditionally distinguished in
Russian grammars: with the doubtful exception of the so-called general
factive meaning of the imperfective aspect, all possible semantic values of
both aspects are represented in my corpus. It should be added, though, that
some types occur only with general or habitual time reference. Moreover,
DVs may take inanimate subjects and may occur even in ‘impersonal’
sentences without overt subjects. As for the double (‘concordant’)
inflection of both verbs, it is not uncommon in SVC languages; for
morphological analysis this means that we are dealing with two separate
words forming a syntactic entity, which is, at any rate, indicated by the
term ‘construction’.
As the term ‘juxtaposition’ suggests, the two verbs usually are
immediately conjoined without a prosodic break. If the latter condition is
not satisfied, we obtain a biclausal construction that is not subject to any of
the restrictions a)-d) formulated above, viz. asyndetic linking. Nominal or
adverbial elements may, however, be inserted into the DV construction
(see above, Pojdem k sponsoru sxodim), but the more elements that divide
the two verbs, the more the unity of the whole is endangered. The
overwhelming majority of examples in my corpus have contiguous
structure, i.e. no other constituents go between the verbs; exceptions occur
only within prototypical uses (see below). As a consequence of the
syntactic merger of the two verbs, a complement of the second verb may be
located before the first verb, cf. Ona na nas stoit smotrit lit. ‘She at us
stands-looks = She is standing there and looking at us’.
The term ‘double verb’ is somewhat misleading since we also find verb
‘triplets’ and even ‘quadruplets’. Such examples mainly belong to two
types: either their first component is semantically redundant (most often
the verb in question is ‘go’ and / or the form is an imperative, see section
1.6), or they are the result of spontaneous, but ephemeral creation. The
impact of the latter factor should not be underestimated: such data
constitute a considerable part of my own corpus, which contains several
hundred different Russian DVs (406 were already cited in my articles),iii
and Internet blogs, discussion forums, etc. simply abound in new material;
one single story of four pages may contain 45 examples (cf. footnote 15
below). On the whole, DVs are, however, not frequent (the percentage of
textual clauses that include an SVC is certainly less than 1 per cent, which,
however, is also characteristic of other SVC languages, cf. Dixon 2006:
338), and their colloquial flavour prevents their use in more formal text
genres, such as scientific or bureaucratic discourse, press agency inform-
ation and the like. The distribution among the remaining genres (colloquial
speech, Internet communication, fiction, press reports and comments,
folklore, etc.) depends partly on the distinction between prototypical and
other uses to be discussed in the next section.
The majority of DVs are based on a common semantic denominator,
viz. the logical conjunction. Therefore the conclusion seems tempting that
DVs represent a specific kind of coordinative structure where the syndetic
link (the conjunction ‘and’) or the asyndetic prosodic break is omitted.
There are, however, several objections against this reductionist analysis;
above all, not all DVs can be replaced by ‘and’-linking (see section 1.4).
Therefore, corresponding ‘and’-links are treated as mere paraphrases of
DVs in this study. The main communicative feature that distinguishes DVs
from coordinative clause linking is an iconic effect: the two events denoted
undergo a specific kind of merger or even a morphing process, which
eventually leads to the rise of one single complex event; this holds true at
least for prototypical DVs, see below.

1.2. Prosody and meaning: prototypes and twins

The features listed so far are shared by all occurrences of the DV

construction. The picture changes, however, when we turn to prosody and
meaning: here we must, as was pointed out in Weiss (2000), distinguish
prototypical and non-prototypical uses. The former constitute a prosodic
unity, i.e. they are not only pronounced without a pause between the two
verbal components, but also with one single main stress (usually on the
second verb, in the case of inversion on the first one); the latter are
characterized by two equal peaks (prosodic twins, so to speak). In the same
vein, the semantic prototype of a DV denotes one single event (process,
activity, action) with the second verb modifying the first one, whereas non-
prototypical DVs denote two separate, though closely interrelated events
(semantic twins). In other words, the above mentioned iconic fusing effect
is stronger with the prototype than the twin structures. Note that the
prosodic and the semantic distinction may, but need not necessarily,
coincide: in particular, synonymous pairs represent a semantic but not a
prosodic unity. In terms of descriptive analysis, a DV may constitute one
single phonological and / or semantic word, but never one single
morphological word. From a typological point of view, the conjunction of
prosodic and semantic prototype of DVs meets the general definition of
SVC, formulated by Aikhenvald (2006:1), cf.: “Serial verb constructions
describe what is conceptualized as a single event. They are monoclausal;
their intonational properties are the same as those of a monoverbal
clause…”.
It should be emphasized that the prosodic merger does not lead to
phonetic attrition of either of the verbal components of a Russian DV.
Similarly, the semantic fusion does not produce notable effects of semantic
bleaching; when desemantization occurs, it affects the first component
exclusively. One exception is constituted by certain imperatives as first
members conveying additional pragmatic meanings (section 1.6.1), but this
is not a property of DV constructions, but reflects a general tendency
typical of the Russian imperative.
Prototypical uses prevail in colloquial Russian, while folklore and
dialects admit both types. The same holds for contemporary poetic and
journalistic language and especially for Internet communication; in all
these varieties, however, a more creative, playful approach makes itself felt
that produces a host of freshly coined combinations, as will be shown
below (section 1.7). On the other hand, colloquial and folkloristic uses tend
to be stereotyped, if not phraseologized (see section 1.5.). For instance, the
first component usually is a verb of position (sit, stand, lie, hang), motion
(go, walk, run, etc.) or a combination of both (sit down, lie down, but
rarely: stand up)iv , and less often a verb of intentional perception (watch,
listen), whereas the second component may be chosen more or less freely if
it is compatible with one of the above-mentioned verbs, cf. sidit-mol"it
‘s/he sits [and] is silent’, begi i9"i ‘run [and] look for it’, xodit #aluetsja
‘s/he goes around [and] complains’, pri9li poznakomilis’ ‘they came [and]
introduced themselves’, slu9aju o#idaju ‘I am listening [and] waiting’, etc.
Because of these semantic restrictions of the first verb, such DVs belong to
the asymmetrical type of serialization, singled out in Aikhenvald (2006).
Besides this, there are two important subtypes that need not satisfy the
said scale of preferences. The first consists of verb pairs whose second
component expresses the lack of any obstacle or interference that could
affect the process described by the first component. It may be illustrated by
examples such as bit’ ne #alet’ lit. ‘beat up [and] not have pity’,
radovat’sja ne naradovat’sja ‘be glad and not have enough joy’, #it’ ne
ssorit’sja ‘live [and] not quarrel’, etc. The crucial role of negation in such
pairs is obvious (see next section). Note that the DV construction is not the
only technique that can express the concept of an easy, smooth and
untroubled process in colloquial Russian: in particular, the same idea may
be rendered by the particle sebe as in #ivet / spit / sidit / rabotaet / xodit
sebe ‘lives / sleeps / sits / works / walks around without trouble’. Both
devices may combine, e.g. #ivu sebe ne tu#u ‘I live [and] do not mourn’.
The temporal equivalent of the lacking obstacle is uninterrupted
duration; its markers are the first verbs sidet’, stojat’ and xodit’ (section
1.6), moreover, the reduplication of one verb as in idem-idem ‘we go and
go’ iconically serves the same purpose. The idea of an undisturbed process
is further developed by the second subtype, in which the second component
serves as an intensifier of the first one, cf. kri"at’-razdirat’sja ‘shout very
loudly’. Such pairs are often phraseologically bound (section 1.5) and / or
based on synonymous variation (section 1. 7)
In non-prototypical DVs neither of the components (the semantic
‘twins’) is subject to specific lexical restrictions; according to the
terminology proposed by Aikhenvald (2006), these are symmetrical SVCs.
What is salient here are certain fundamental semantic relations between
them, viz. cohyponymy, antonymy, conversion or a semantic script (see
section 1.7). In a certain way, even non-prototypical DVs may be said to
constitute a kind of (higher order) semantic unity, which becomes
particularly palpable in the case of a common script or frame. On the other
hand, such DVs maintain their semantically composite structure, i.e. they
do not manifest the same tendency to develop new lexicalized meanings, as
is the case in Finno-Ugric (see section 2 below).
As for time reference, the semantic prototype may be said to refer to
one single event in time (the time intervals denoted by both verbs are
identical). There is, however, one exception not to be neglected: with verbs
of motion as first members, the DV may require a sequential reading with
the first verb referring to the initial stage or sub-event of the process
denoted by the second verb. Most of these cases are trivial in that the first
verb is redundant and could as well be omitted, cf. pojdu proverju ‘I’ll go
[and] verify’, sjadem podumaem ‘we’ll sit down and think of it’, ty by legla
spala ‘You should lie down [and] sleep’. Non-prototypical uses refer to
two still distinguishable, though not entirely separate events; yet, they tend
to cover the same time span, or else time reference becomes irrelevant, as
is often the case with habitual or generic readings. The progressive
meaning of the imperfective aspect is found almost exclusively with the
semantic prototype.

1.3. Negation

The position of negation may vary: it can be placed before either the
second or (due to inversion) the first verb, cf. e9’ ne bespokojsja! ‘Eat,
don’t worry!’ and ne polenis’ pro"itaj ‘don’t be lazy, read it through’ or
even before both of them, cf. ne peli ne pljasali ‘they neither sang nor
danced’, ne projti ne proexat’ ‘one can neither pass by walking nor by
driving’ (note that the normal double negation ‘neither…nor’ would be ni
projti, ni proexat’, which is also possible). In the latter case the second
occurrence can be omitted as well, cf. ne peli pljasali.v Thus, location
before the first component has two sources: either it may be interpreted as
the result of permutation, or it has wide scope and comprises both verbs.
On the other hand, initial position never marks negation of the first verb
alone.
In view of the definition of the semantic prototype (only one situation is
referred to), one would not expect there to be any partial negation (with
narrow scope). The same prediction is made by Aikhenvald (2006: 1):
according to her, SVC should have the same polarity value. This
assumption, however, turns out to be incorrect: my corpus contains
numerous examples where only the second verb is negated.vi Obviously,
this is due to the above-mentioned semantic constant: what is negated is the
presence of an obstacle that could somehow affect (slow down, inhibit,
impair or even prevent) the process denoted by the first verb. Besides the
imperatives ne polenis’ ‘don’t be lazy’ and ne bespokojsja ‘don’t worry’
quoted above, this pattern is represented by such collocations as idet ne
spe9it ‘is walking without hurry’, slu9aet ne perebivaet ‘is listening without
interrupting’, le#it ne 9evelitsja / ne podnimetsja, ‘lies without moving /
will not stand up’, #ivut ne ssorjatsja ‘they live without quarelling’, #ivet ne
tu#it ‘lives without mourning’, vypil ne pomor9"ilsja ‘he drank [it] out
without frowning’, bili ne #aleli ‘they hit mercilessly’, l’et ne perestaet
‘it’s raining incessantly’, radujus’ ne naradujus’ ‘I am glad without end’,
etc. This peculiarity helps to explain why partial negation of the first
component is not attested in non-inverted double verbs: the lack of the
obstacle is always expressed by the second component.

1.4. The closest paraphrases

Russian offers several finite and non-finite constructions that can compete
with verb serialization. Above all, the following three types of paraphrases
should be distinguished: instead of choosing a DV, the second component
can be linked with the first by a) syndetic coordination, b) adjoined as a
converb (adverbial participle), or c) transformed into an infinitive. These
are the different options:

sidit mol"it 1 sidit i mol"it syndetic coordination

‘sits is silent’ ‘sits and is silent’
sidit mol"it 1 sidit mol"a converb
‘sits is silent’ ‘sits being silent’
pridi poznakom’sja! 1 pridi poznakomit’sja! infinitive
‘come introduce yourself’ ‘come to introduce yourself’

None of these variants is a full equivalent of serialization, nor do their

conditions of use coincide. To begin with, syndetic linking is by far the
closest variant, and one might even conjecture that the DV construction
goes back to a simple omission of the conjunction ‘and’. This is, however,
not very probable: as will be shown in section 2, the roots of Russian
verbal serialization should not be traced backed to Russian itself, but to
contact with Finno-Ugric languages. Besides this, contrary to Aikhenvald
(2006: 46), there is a whole range of DVs that block the insertion of ‘and’:
first, set phrases of the intensifying type kri"at’-nadryvat’sja to be
discussed in the next section; second, half-synonymous pairs describing
one single event of the type poxlopal-pogladil moju ruku (see section 1.7);
third, DVs with perfective aspect that do not denote a sequence of actions,
cf. Weiss (2008); and, fourth, DVs in the imperative whose first component
is pragmatically specialized and functions much like a particle, cf. davaj
pej ‘go on [lit. give] drink’, smotri ne prostudis’ ‘watch [out] don’t catch
cold’, podi pover’ ‘go believe’, etc. On the whole, one would expect that
prototypical DVs in general constitute an obstacle to syndetic paraphrasing
since they denote only one single event, while coordination typically
combines two more or less autonomous events; in view of the numerous
“exceptions” where ‘and’ combines not two separate propositions, but
rather two different aspects of the same situation (Weiss 2008), one has,
however, to abandon such a simplistic hypothesis.
The converb paraphrase is neutral as to the opposition <one event: two
events>, but changes the equal status of both components into an internal
hierarchy: the aspect rendered by the converb is either backgrounded, or
else the converse phrase is prosodically focused. Besides the complications
arising with such natural pairs as ‘eat and drink’ (cf. *Pil edja ‘he drank
[while] eating’), this triggers a host of semantic complications, e.g. with
regard to modality and time reference (see Weiss 2000: 374). For instance,
the time span denoted by the converb typically includes that of the main
verb, whereas in a prototypical DV both intervals coincide. Besides this,
there are several obstacles hampering the transformation of a DV into a
converbial construction; among them one notes morphology (whole classes
of verbs do not form converbs at all) and different stylistic values (DVs
belong to colloquial language, converbs to the formal register, therefore
they usually do not occur in the same text).vii
The infinitive differs from DV with respect to modality, since the
proposition denoted is not conceived of as real. Thus, in the example
quoted above, DV and infinitival variants are synonymous since the action
denoted by the second component is located in the future. However, if we
transfer this example into the past, the DV pri9el poznakomilsja ‘came
introduced himself’ refers to two events that really took place, whereas in
pri9el poznakomit’sja ‘came to introduce himself’ the truth value of the
proposition poznakomilsja ‘he introduced himself’ remains open.
Moreover, imperatives with pragmatically specialized first components
(see section 1.6.1) do not allow for the infinitive transformation, cf. Podi
pover’ / *poverit ‘Go believe / *to believe’, Smotri ne proboltajsja / *ne
proboltat’sja ‘Watch [out] don’t let out [the secret] / *not to let out’.
To sum up, syndetic coordination shares the equal status of both
conjuncts with the DV construction, whereas converb and infinitive
constructions are based on hierarchical relations. The latter two types of
constructions share with the DV construction the requirement of a common
subject for both verbal components, whereas coordination admits different
subjects.

1.5. Phraseological boundness

DVs with an intensifying second component tend to become

phraseologized. Such is the case of kri"at’-nadryvat’sja ‘scream with all
one’s strength’, xoxotat’-zalivat’sja ‘laugh uproariously’, l’et-ne perestaet
‘it rains incessantly’: on the basis of the second verb we are able to predict
the first one with high probability. For instance, the second verb
nadryvat’sja “forecasts” a first verb denoting a sound activitiy, cf. Ona
oret-nadryvaetsja ‘she is shouting with all her strength’, mladenec kri"al-
nadryvalsja ‘the child was screaming very loudly’, but also sobaka laet-
nadryvaetsja ‘the dog is barking very loudely’, telefon zvonil-nadryvalsja
‘the phone was ringing very loudely’ etc. It should be noted that
nadryvat’sja alone can already mean ‘to shout with all one’s strength’;
thus, in the case of a human agent the second verb of the DV becomes
redundant, whereas with animals and inanimate sources such as phones we
observe a metaphorical transfer. A similar situation obtains with xoxotat’-
zalivat’sja, since zalivat’sja alone may also mean ‘laugh loudly’. In this
way, the examples mentioned belong to the same semantic subtype as the
series with identical roots of the kind #dat’-o#idat’ or zvonit-nazvanivat’,
which also serve the purpose of intensifying (Weiss 2003: 42); moreover,
as we will see in the next section, the same meaning is also expressed by a
host of “free” DV combinations. Note that the concept of intensity
reinforces the semantic invariant described in the previous section, where
the DV construction denoted an uninterrupted and unhindered process.
This semantic type also shows a certain tendency towards frozenness: for
instance, one finds #it’ ne ssorit’sja ‘live without quarrelling’, but rather
not ?brigada rabotaet ne ssoritsja ‘the brigade works without quarrelling’,
?deti igrajut ne ssorjatsja ‘the children are playing without quarrelling’.
The frozenness of the examples from this series is best illustrated by the
following restrictions: (i) they do not allow for inversion, cf.
*nadryvaetsja-oret, and (ii) they cannot be transformed into a coordinative
string with syndetic linking, cf. *zvonit i nadryvaetsja, nor into a converb,
cf. *oret nadryvajas’. In both respects, they differ from regular (“free”) DV
constructions.
The following examples represent the highest degree of lexicalization in
that they do not allow for any grammatical variation besides that triggered
by subject agreement, i.e. number (last four examples) and gender in the
preterite (last two examples):

po9lo-poexalo lit. ‘went off-drove off = And this was it!’, podaj-prinesi lit.
‘hand over-bring = a servant for the most inferior services’, (ego) ne
razberi-pojme9’ ‘you won’t understand (him)’, #il-byl lit. ‘lived-was’ =
there once was’, Po#ivem-uvidim lit. ‘We’ll live-see = We’ll wait and
see’,viii Uvidim-posmotrim lit. ‘We’ll see-watch = We’ll wait and see’, Kak
#ivete-mo#ete? lit. ‘How do you live-be able = How is life?’

Besides their fixed morphological arrangement, these set phrases share the
above-mentioned restrictions with the examples discussed earlier, viz. they
lend themselves neither to inversion nor to syndetic linking, cf. *byl-#il
‘was-lived’, *po9lo da poexalo‘went off and drove off’, etc. On the other
hand, their frozen character often provokes playful modifications. For
example, Internet bloggers and forum discussants may merge two double
verbs into triples, cf. Po#ivem-uvidim, posmotrim ‘we’ll live-see, watch’, or
enlarge a given DV by adding “free” pairs, cf. uvidim posmotrim, glazkami
pogljadim ‘we‘ll see-watch, we’ll watch with our little eyes’ or Po#ivu
uvi#u, do#ivu uznaju, vy#ivu u"tu.
1.6. Grammaticalization phenomena

As is predicted by Aikhenvald (2006: 30), grammaticalization phenomena

exclusively affect the asymmetrical subtype of SVC, i.e. prototypical DVs
with restricted first verbs in my terminology. However, first components of
Russian double verbs do not change into real grammatical markers such as
TAM morphemes or new prepositions. The possible candidates for such a
transformation may be counted on one hand: the verbs sidet’ ‘sit’, xodit’
‘go around’, pojti / idti ‘go’, vzjat’ ‘take’. The last case is, however, not
primarily related to the DV construction, but to coordination: strings of the
type ‘he took and died’ in the meaning of ‘all of a sudden, he up and died’
illustrate a widespread semantic evolution, which according to Coseriu
(1966) is attested in not less than 24 European languages, covering whole
compact areas in north, southeast and especially east Europe.ix As for
Russian, the construction vzjal i umer / vzjal da umer ‘took and died’ has
been focused upon in several studies, see Fortuin (2000: 149-161), Kor
Chahine (2007) and Weiss (2008). Although it allows for a serialized
variant of the type vzjal umer instead of syndetic linking vzjal i umer, the
former is subject to far more restrictions than the latter (Weiss 2007).
Sidet’ ‘sit’ as first verb of a DV emphasizes the uninterrupted
performance of the activity or the ongoing duration of the process in
question and occurs most often with progressive meaning. Such uses attest
to a slight semantic bleaching since the sitting position itself is not
conceived of as uninterrupted, but the selectional restrictions imposed on
the full verb remain valid: only animate subjects are acceptable, and the
action denoted by the second verb should in principle be compatible with
the sitting position of the agent. Xodit’ ‘to walk’ is the dynamic counterpart
of sidet’ ‘to sit’: the activity denoted by the second verb is performed at
different places, but not necessarily by going around, cf. xodit #aluetsja
‘keeps complaining’. Thus, xodit’ takes the adverbial meaning
‘everywhere’, and the whole DV has habitual or iterative meaning. In this
way, both sidet’ and xodit’ convey the idea of uninterrupted duration; we
are back to the semantic invariant evoked in section 1.3, viz. the
undisturbed process.
Contrary to this, the verbs idti and pojti as first components of a DV are
associated with the idea of beginning, which does not come as a surprise in
view of the fact that in combination with event nouns as in Po9la novaja
#izn’ ‘a new life began’ and infinitives as in Kak po9el rugat’sja! ‘And then
did he ever start cursing!’ the verb pojti also denotes a starting point. This
does not mean, however, that idti or pojti function as real ingressive
markers in the DV construction, because, as is shown in Weiss (2007b),
they are subject to too many aspectual and selectional restrictions. Instead
of this, they tend to become simply redundant, since the activity in question
implies a physical movement anyway, cf. Po9la vymylas’ ‘She went-
washed herself’ or po9li sobralis’ ‘they went-gathered’; this type of
redundancy most often occurs in the imperative and hortative where it
gives rise to numerous triplets as in idi begaj (zanimaj) ‘go run (borrow
some money)’, pojdem sxodim posmotrim ‘Let’s go-go there-have a look’.
As is shown by the latter examples, idti or pojti may be followed by
another verb of motion.
On the whole, our Russian list does not look very impressive, since
basic verbs of motion such as ‘go’ and of posture such as ‘sit’, ‘stand’ or
even ‘lie’ are not only the most liable to take grammatical meanings in
SVC (Aikhenvald 2006: 47 f.), but belong generally to the most often
grammaticalized verbs in the languages of the world (cf. Majsak 2005).
Therefore, we do not even have to search for parallels in such exotic
languages as creoles. For instance, the verb ‘sit’, as first component of a
coordinative construction, has become a durative marker in a whole range
of European languages (Hungarian, Bulgarian, Swedish, and Dutch, cf.
Kuteva 1999, Ebert 2000, Csató 2001, and Raxilina 2003). Unlike these
languages, Russian admits the verb ‘sit’ not only in the coordinative, but
also in the serialized model, but the degree of grammaticalization of both
variants is lower than in the other languages (Weiss 2003: 50 f.). As for the
verb ‘go’ as component of coordinative structures, it is subject to
multifarious types of semantic bleaching, including the surprise meaning
noted for Russian ‘take’ above, cf. English And then he went and died or
German Und da geht er doch hin und stirbt. As we have seen, in the
Russian serialized examples with ‘go’ we find no similar semantic
bleaching, but rather redundancy.
Against the background of data from other languages, the almost
complete lack of grammaticalization in Russian serialization is, of course,
striking. It finds its natural explanation in the fact that unlike in many
SVCs (e.g. creoles), serialization is not a construction Russian simply
cannot do without, but rather a kind of syntactical toy designed for special
effects such as increasing iconicity, morphing meanings (see below) and
the like. Why should such a marginal device come to mark such
grammatically basic relations as case, aspect, modality and the like?
Russian has plenty of morphological and lexical means that are more
appropriate for this purpose.

1.6.1. Pragmatic effects related to the imperative

There is, however, one instance of the DV construction that requires

special treatment: with some imperatives, we observe a peculiar kind of
desemanticization whose function is pragmatic rather than grammatical. In
particular, this holds true for po(j)di ‘go!’ In its literal reading, it simply
serves as an additional marker of the directive illocution expressed by the
imperative of the second verb, which is, by the way, a very widespread
function among the languages of the world (Majsak 2005: 178). But when
combined with a second imperative denoting a mental activity, it can no
longer be interpreted literally. Such is the case of podi pover’ (takomu
alibi)! lit. ‘go believe such an alibi’, podite razberites’ ‘go find out’ and the
like. Their derived meaning (obviously based on a frozen Gricean
implicature) is a negative statement, cf. podi pover’ = ‘one cannot believe’
or podi razberis’ = ‘you can’t find out’. When the second verb denotes a
physical activity that may be preceded by moving, the DV construction
may become ambiguous between literal and rhetorical meaning, cf. Podi
pojmaj vora! ‘Go catch the thief!’ or ‘You won’t be able to catch the thief.’
Interestingly enough, the grammatically hybrid set phrase (ego) ne razberi-
pojme9’ quoted in the previous section contains both the derived (ne
pojme9’ ‘you won’t understand’) and the literal meaning (razberi
‘understand!’). Inversion remains still possible, cf. podi razberi = razberi
podi ‘understand go’, whereas syndetic linking with ‘and’ works freely in
the strings podi i razberi, podi da razberi ‘go and understand’, but rarely
occurs in other combinations, cf. podi da pojmi-ka ‘go and catch’, ?podi i
pover’! ‘go and believe!’
In this way, podi(te) has become a marker of rhetorical requests, whose
derived (ultimate) meaning is the corresponding negative statement, much
as the derived meaning of a rhetorical question is the corresponding
negative statement. In this use, it functions as a synonym of the imperative
poprobuj(te) ‘try!’, being also used as a marker of rhetoricity, cf. Takogo
poprobuj ugrob’ lit. ‘Try kill such a guy!’ > ‘You can’t kill such a guy’.
Not surprisingly, both imperatives may combine in triplets of the type Podi
poprobuj pojmi ix ‘You can’t understand them’. Podi and poprobuj differ,
however, with respect to their syntactical distribution: the former combines
only with a second imperative in the DV construction, while the latter
admits also infinitives, cf. podi *ponjat’ / *razobrat’ ‘go *to understand’,
but: poprobuj poverit’ / ponjat’ / razobrat’ ‘try to belive / understand’. In
other words, the desemanticization of podi is limited to serialization and (to
a much lesser extent) coordination.
All this said, it should be emphasized that the pragmatic specialization
discussed is not due to any structural properties of the DV construction; it
rather reflects an overall tendency to develop imperatives of the type go!
and come! into particles with specific pragmatic load, cf. for example
German (ach) geh! or Polish Id$ ty! which function as dissent markers.x In
Russian, the rhetorical interpretation of the imperative holds as well for
replies such as On skoro vernetsja. – Do#idajsja vernetsja! ‘He’ll come
soon. – (lit.) Just wait he’ll come! = he won’t come at all!’, where there is
no trace of any DV. Moreover, the tendency to pragmatically mark off
particular imperatives also affects other verbs, cf. smotri ‘watch out!’,
davaj and valjaj as hortative or suggestion markers. Although all these
forms can appear as part of a DV of the type davaj pej! ‘have a drink!’,
they are much more frequent in other syntactic contexts; moreover, they all
distinguish number (i.e. besides davaj (sg.) we have davajte (pl.)) and
therefore cannot be considered real particles.

1.7. Non-prototypical DVs in contemporary press and fiction

Traditional Russian folklore and dialects manifest a marked tendency to

exploit both prosodic and semantic non-prototypical DVs combining
accentual twins with such fundamental semantic relations as synonymy,
antonymy, cohyponymy, etc. In the contemporary press (e.g. Literaturnaja
Gazeta, Argumenty i fakty) as well as in modern fiction (e.g. with such
diverse writers as Sol3enicyn, Ale9kovskij, Sorokin, Petru9evskaja,
Makanin or Ratu9inskaja) and in the Internet (blogs, forums), we witness a
remarkable revival of this tendency, which has lead to the rise of numerous
spontaneous, fresh creations. The lack of lexical restrictions characteristic
of these “symmetrical” uses favours the rise of new formations. Of course,
mere quotation of an already existing DV formula also remains possible; in
such cases, the tension between the popular idiom and the modern content
will evoke a humorous or ironic effect, cf.:

(1) ...blagopolu"no ["inovni"estvo] pere#ilo v takom

successfully survive-PST-3PL in such-LOC.SG
ka"estve sovetskie gody i vot #ivet-
quality-LOC.SG Sovet-ACC.PL year-ACC.PL and live-PRS.3SG
zdravstvuet nyne.
-is healthy-PRS.3SG now
‘[the officials] successfully survived the Soviet period and are now
healthy and sprightly.’ (LG 42/02)

But more often than not, the lexical filling of the pairs is far beyond the
scope of traditional folklore or dialect speech. To begin with, let me
illustrate this by pairs whose first and second components are more or less
synonymous. They constitute a hybrid case in that prosodically they belong
to the non-prototypical subtype (both verbs have equal stress), whereas
semantically they behave like prototypical DVs (they denote one single
event). Besides traditional examples such as

dumat’-gadat’ ‘think-speculate’, grustit’-pe"alit’sja ‘be sad-mourn’,

rydat‘-gorevat’‘weep-be sad’, spat’-po"ivat’ ‘sleep-rest’, xodit’-brodit’
‘walk-stroll around’, ne znat’-ne vedat’ ‘not know-not be acquainted with’

we find the following pairs (all cited in the infinitive; the aspect of these
pairs varies):

prosit’-umoljat’ ‘beg-beseech’, perexitrit’-pereigrat’ ‘deceive-cheat’,

propadat’-pogibat’ ‘be lost-die’, oskorbil-oklevetal ‘offend-slander’,
odolet’-peresilit’ ‘overcome-defeat’, iskat'-vyiskivat' ‘look for-search’,
ezdit’-katat’sja ‘drive-drive around (e.g., for fun)’, zagolosit’-
zaskandirovat’ ‘strike up-begin to scan’, nabrosat’-narisovat’ ‘sketch-
draw’, poguljat’-poveselit’sja ‘have a good time-have a party’, ruku
po#at’-potiskat’ ‘shake-press hands’, etc.

This type is especially productive with perfective verb pairs, cf. Weiss
(2008). Often the second verb serves as an intensifier of the first one. This
seems to be a widespread feature: it is also attested in French-based
Creoles and may even be characteristic of serialization in general (cf.
Bisang 1995: 148 on “narrow serialization” in Khmer).
In other cases, the verbal pair is built up with a kind of cohyponym that
attests rather the author’s search for the appropriate formulation; such is
the case in probe#al-prokatilsja po trave poryv vetra ‘a gust of wind ran-
drove over the grass’ or poxlopal-pogladil moju ruku ‘he tapped on my
hand-gave it a stroke’. In the latter example, the movement in question
might be something in between these two activities. Consequently, the DV
construction functions as a kind of semantic merger or a morphing device,
and it still represents the semantic prototype by referring to one single
event. It should be noted that Russian has two specialized conjunctions at
its disposal that convey the same meaning: instead of the bare logical
connector ‘or’, the speaker may choose ne to (p), ne to (q) ‘may be (p),
may be (q)’ or to li (p), to li (q) ‘the same’, if he is unable or unwilling to
commit himself to either of two mutually exclusive descriptions. Thus, the
DV poxlopal-pogladil ‘tapped-gave a stroke’ is roughly equivalent to ne to
poxlopal, ne to pogladil ‘maybe, he tapped, maybe, he gave a stroke’, the
closest English equivalent being a combination of ‘or’ and an explicit
marker of uncertainty such as ‘may be p, or may be q’ (this paraphrase
does not, however, always work).
An especially productive subtype of this approximative device is
constituted by descriptions of sounds that cannot be defined unequivocally;
in the press we find for instance such formations as voju-siplju ‘I howl-
croak’, gudit-pyxtit ‘throbs-puffs’, 9umit-zvenit ‘makes noise-rings’, noet-
zavyvaet ‘weeps-starts howling’, and the writer Ale9kovskij creates
raskudaxtalas’-raskukarekalas’ ‘she went cackling-cook-a-doodle-dooing’
and #akae9’-kvakae9’ ‘you quack’ (the first verb is meaningless). The ludic
effect caused by such onomatopoetic pairs is evident.
My corpus of spontaneous DV creations contains still more candidates
for another type of cohyponymous pair: instead of being fused into one
single meaning, the two meanings remain separate but are added up into a
new, complex whole. Folkloristic language mainly offers examples related
to the most fundamental human needs:

Odet’sja-obut’sja ‘get dressed-put on shoes’, odet’-obut’ ‘dress-put shoes

on’, razut’-razdet’ ‘take off shoes-undress’ est’-pit’ ‘eat-drink’, kormit’-
poit’ ‘feed-water’, pet’-pljasat’ ‘sing-dance’

Since we are dealing with two distinct activities, these examples no longer
represent the semantic prototype of DV: they are twins with respect both
to their prosody and meaning. The same holds for similar examples to be
found in the modern press, which, however, look somewhat more up-to-
date:

stri"’-brit’ ‘cut hair-shave’, ubit’-ranit’ ‘kill-wound’, pisat’-lepit’ ‘paint-

sculpture’, "itat’-pisat’ ‘read-write’, pooxotit’sja-poryba"it’ ‘hunt-fish’,
posolit'-popere"it’‘salt-pepper’
But are these real cohyponyms? If so, what would be the corresponding
hypernyms? More often than not, they do not exist or are at least doubtful
(for instance, ‘consume’ is too large and ‘nourish’ too restricted temporally
to serve as hypernyms of ‘eat’ / ‘drink’ and ‘feed / water’, respectively)
and stylistically inadequate. Thus, it becomes evident that the DV
construction in such cases replaces non-existing or inappropriate
hypernyms by enumerating at least two of their potential cohyponyms.
Whether these are meant to denote the whole supercategory or just give an
exhaustive list is open to interpretation, cf. ‘read + write’ = ‘be literate’ on
the one hand, ‘to salt + to pepper’ =? to spice’ on the other hand. Some of
the verbal pairs have nominal dvandva correlates, cf. ode#da-obuv’ ‘dress-
shoes’, sol’-perec ‘salt and pepper’. Moreover, the missing hypernym may
even be represented by verbal triplets, cf. Smo#ete takuju nevestu
prokormit’, odet’-obut’? AiF 42/02 ‘Will you be able to feed, dress-
provide shoes for the bride = to support the bride?’, Xotite vse %to usly9at’-
uvidet’-po"uvstvovat’? LG 43/02 ‘Do you want to hear-see-feel all this?’,
tam duri skol’ko vlezet, e9’-pej-no"uj (S.Sokolov) ‘How many crazy things
will enter there, eat-drink-spend (imper.) a night!’.
For some of the DVs given above, there exist, however, exact
monolexical synonyms. For instance, ljudi, umeju9"ie "itat’-pisat’ ‘people
who can write and read’ are simply gramotnye ljudi ‘literate people’. Note
that the DV is subject to the same temporal restriction as its equivalent in
that it denotes only a permanent property (a generic state in Vendlerian
terms) and cannot be transformed into a predication with specific object as
in *Deti v 9kole "itajut-pi9ut o Putine ‘At school, children read and write
about Putin’.xi On the whole, most (if not all) cohyponymical DVs do not
allow for all types of temporal reference: in particular, the progressive use
of the imperfective aspect seems to be blocked.
My next example is rather exceptional in that it illustrates the
metaphorical use of a DV composed of two participles:

(2) Vy znaete, srazu priexali

2PL.NOM know-PRS.2PL at once arrive-PST-3PL
 razuty- razdety, odelis’-
unshoed-PTCP-NOM.PL undress-PTCP-NOM.PL dress-PST-3PL-REFL
obulis’ i den’#onok skopili.
got shoed-PST-3PL-REFL and money-GEN.PL save-PST-3PL
‘You know, they arrived without suitable shoes and clothes and got
dressed and shoed immediately and saved some money.’
(Russkaja razgovornaja re"’ evropejskogo severo-vostoka Rossii)

In this case, the semantic bleaching of both participles is already

lexicalized, the verb pair razut’-razdet’ itself being of considerable age.
Note that on the continuum between the two poles <one event’ – ‘two
events>, we have moved closer to the prototypical one-event reading. An
even more evident case of lexicalization is constituted by the pair kormit’-
poit’ ‘feed-water > to provide sb. with sufficient financial means’. Let us
add that there are also cohyponymous DVs whose components allow only
for an alternative reading, for example Klintona pisali-lepili ‘They painted
Clinton or made sculptures of him’.
In view of the lack of lexical hypernyms, it is sometimes hard to
determine if a given pair represents the type discussed so far or the next
one: we often find pairs whose members are linked by some common
frame or script (Weiss 2003: 46-48). They may then denote either two
subsequent phases or two more or less simultaneously ongoing processes,
cf.:

vypit’-zakusit’ ‘drink [vodka]-have a bite’, provo#at’-plakat’ ‘escort-

lament’, ispovedat’-pri"astit’ ‘confess-receive Communion’, stirat’-
gladit’‘wash-iron’, ryt’-iskat’‘dig-search’, pet’-pljasat’ ‘sing-dance’,
xodit‘-guljat’ ‘walk-have a good time’, pit’-prazdnovat’ ‘drink-have a
party’, nalit’-popit’ ‘pour-drink’, ponyrjat’-poplavat’ ‘dive-swim’,
prosve"ivat’-osmatrivat’ ‘X-ray-examine’, xranit’sja-pylit’sja ‘be stored-
become dusty’, ponosit’-privyknut’ ‘wear for some time-get used to’

Note again the selective character of such pairs: there may be “missing
links”, i.e. activities belonging to the same script, but not indicated in the
given case, cf. su9it’ ‘dry’. On the other hand, an Internet search provides
sufficient evidence for the existence of the variant stirat’- su9it’ ‘wash –
dry’ (for instance when referring to diapers, which need not be ironed).
The first three of the cited pairs denote culturally specific concepts:
vodka consumption is obligatorily accompanied by eating gherkins, fish
and the like to get rid of the bitter taste; young men leaving to join the
army (or the dead at a funeral) were escorted by the whole village with
public laments (the so called provody); and finally, in Orthodox rite
Confession obligatorily precedes Communion. Such examples confirm
Aikhenvald’s statement that “a function of verb serialization is then to
represent complex events, which are – at least partly – a cultural construct”
(2006: 11). Not surprisingly, verb order does not allow for inversion in
such cases. In the remaining cases, inversion is possible even if it leads to
anti-iconic order, cf. gladit’-stirat’ ‘iron-wash’. Moreover, such pairs may
be enlarged, yielding triples of the type gladit’-stirat’-"istit’ ‘iron-wash-
clean’ or stirat’-su9it’-gladit’ ‘wash-dry-iron’. On the whole, however, one
has to admit that the same content is much more often expressed by means
of asyndetic coordination, cf. stirat’, gladit’, ubirat’ etc.
Other cases rather call for an analysis in terms of hypernymy vs.
hyponymy, e.g. spasite-pomogite ‘save-help!’ (Gri9kovec), stali pit’-kutit’
(folklore) ‘they began to drink-tipple’, dvi#etsja-krutitsja ‘is moving-
rotating’, or pe"’-gotovit’ ‘bake-cook’. According to this analysis, such
examples belong to the semantic prototype of DVs since they refer to one
single event. The meaning of the whole may be the same as that of the
hypernym alone; for example, the hyponym ‘bake’ in the last-mentioned
pair could just as well be omitted. But in general, clear instances of
hypernyms as first or second components are rare and at least in colloquial
language mainly restricted to specifications of somebody’s way of walking
(cf. idet-prixramyvaet ‘walks limping’, xodit-podprygivaet ‘walks
hopping’) or talking (cf. govorit-zaikaetsja ‘speaks stuttering’). Note that
in these pairs it is the hypernym that is omissible.
Antonymous pairs may also be found in modern Russian DVs, cf.:
gruzit’-razgru#at’ ‘load-unload’, uexat’-priexat’‘depart-arrive’, otvezti-
privezti ‘drive away-drive back’,xii vklju"at’sja-vyklju"at’sja ‘be switched
on-switched off’, zapirat’sja-otpirat’sja ‘be locked-unlocked’, promerzat’-
ottaivat’‘freeze-thaw’, sognut’-razognut’ ‘bend-unbend’, razdevat’-odevat’
‘undress-dress’, pripodnjat’-opustit’ ‘lift-lower’, #it’-umirat ‘live-die’
These are not typical for folkloristic use: all examples cited represent
contemporary poetic or journalistic language.
As for converse verb pairs (a relation that should strictly be kept apart
from antonymy!), they occur rarely, the only two clear instances being
pokupat’-prodavat’ ‘buy-sell’ and podat’-prinjat ‘serve-receive’. Note that
he first one is backed by the corresponding binominal construction kuplja-
proda#a.
The following examples shed some light on the creative potential
provided by the DV construction; the first two denote particular subscripts
of the mating season from a dog’s perspective and the Western approach to
the adoption procedure, respectively:

(3) Pora vysmatrivat’- vynjuxivat’ svoju

Time look out-IMPF-INF sniff out- MPF-INF REFL.ADJ-ACC.SG.F
vtoruju polovinu.
Second-ACC.SG.F half-ACC.SG
‘It is time to seek (lit. ‘to look out-sniff out’) for one’s second half.’
(AiF 12, 2001)

(4) kak inostrancy usynovljajut- pokupajut rossijskix

how foreigner-NOM.PL adopt-PRS.3PL buy-PRS.3PL Russian-
detej- sirot.
ACC.PL.ANIM child-ACC.PL orphan-ACC.PL
‘…how foreigners adopt (lit.: adopt-buy) Russian orphans.’
(AiF 24/03)

(5) My – dvadcat' pi9u9"ix- snimaju9"ix

1PL.NOM twenty write-PTC-IPF-GEN.PL photograph-
iz raznyx stran
PTC-IPF-GEN.PL from different-GEN.PL country-GEN.PL
i primknuv9ij k nim
 and join-PTCP.PRF-NOM.SG to 3PL.DAT
korrespondent MN – tol'ko "to podkatili k
correspondent[NOM.SG] MN just arrive.-PST-3PL to
Mozdoku
Mozdok-DAT.SG
‘We – twenty reporters (lit. persons) writing-taking pictures) from
different countries and an embedded MN correspondent – had just
arrived at Mozdok.’
(Moskovskie novosti 49/02)

Interestingly enough, even alternative subscripts are not excluded, as is

shown by the next example, where three different methods of how to
punish vandals are discussed:

(6) Ka#dyj desjatyj (11,5%) predlagaet «zapretit’-

Every-NOM.SG.M tenth-NOM.SG.M suggest-PRS.3SG forbid-INF
udu9it’- arestovat’».
suffocate-INF arrest-INF
‘But it should be borne in mind that for some, vandalism is just a
form of leisure time. Every tenth suggests to “forbid-suffocate-
arrest”’ (AiF 44/2002)

The last example from this series playfully alludes to a set phrase, viz. the
DV imperative podaj-prinesi:

(7) Sama Nata9a sostojala v dol#nosti «podaj-

Self-NOM.SG.F Natasha exist-PST-SG.F in job-LOC.SG serve-
primi- vymoj tarelki».
2SG.IMP receive-2SG.IMP wash-2SG.IMP dish-ACC.PL
‘Natasha herself was employed as a servant (lit.: ‘serve-receive-wash
dishes’).’ (Ju. Daniel’)

On the whole, we may conclude that the non-canonical subtype of the DV

construction provides a convenient tool for spontaneous descriptions of
complex activities, since it combines composite semantic structure with the
idea of a higher-order unity conditioned by such relations as antonymy,
cohyponymy, etc., and by strict syntactic contiguity. At least three
pragmatic motivations for this technique can be singled out: first, either the
author is unable to find an appropriate one-word description, or, second, he
is too lazy (or else too reluctant) to bother with such a description. The
latter situation often leads to the use of isolated imperatives or infinitives as
ready-made quasi-nominal blocks as in ex. 32 or in den’gi na uexat’-
priexat’ ‘money for leave-come back’ that are simply quoted without being
syntactically integrated into the remaining sentence. The following
example taken from an Internet discussion under the title “Our tears” may
illustrate this kind of use:

(8) $ena %to takoj pribor gladit’-

Wife-NOM.SG COP such-NOM.SG.M device[nom.sg] iron-INF
stirat’, umeet #rat’ gotovit’ i vse
wash-INF know-PRS.3SG eat-INF cook-INF and all-ACC.SG.N
takoe!
such-ACC.SG.N
‘A wife is a device [for] ironing-washing, she knows how to cook
and all the rest of it!’
(another participant’s reply:)
&to domrabotica, mal’"ik.
‘This is a maid, my boy’
(forum.antidate.org/lofiversion/index.php/t4461-150.html)

Finally, according to the third explanation, we are, in contrast, dealing

with a conscious aesthetic device exploited by writers and journalists.xiii In
all three cases this subtype of DV construction has moved far away from
its formulaic origins in folkloristic language. On the other hand, the latter
are still present in texts that systematically aim at imitating the folkloristic
genre, as is often the case with modern religious legends.xiv
2. Equivalent constructions in Finno-Ugric languages

As previously mentioned, the Permic and Volga Finnic languages possess

the same type of verbal juxtaposition as the one represented in Russian
DVs:xv with the exception of the last criterion (reversibility of word order),
almost all requirements stated above in the definition of Russian DV (see
section II.1) are also met by analogous constructions to be found in Komi
(Zyryan), Udmurt (Votyak), Mari (Cheremis) and Mordvinian, in
particular the double inflection.xvi There is only one exception: reversibility
of word order is only given in Mordvinian, cf. andoms-s’imd’ems ‘feed-
water; entertain (treat as a guest)’ = s’imd’ems-andoms (Honti 2005: 37).
Moreover, the Finno-Ugric pairs are in general less marked stylistically
than their Russian counterparts. Triple verbs also seem to occur frequently,
cf. the Komi example kurgyny-dzurtny-ovny ‘breathe heavily-crack-live =
live for a long time despite one’s sickness’. Some of them arise
spontaneously in poetic language as they do in Russian; some others seem
to be lexicalized already. Since the pertinent details were already presented
in Weiss (2003: 52-57), I will here restrict myself to summarizing the main
parallels and divergences and complement them with fresh material from
Komi presented in Fedina (2005) and with some Mordvin parallels.xvii
The distinction of prototypical and non-prototypical uses turns out to
hold as well for the Finno-Ugric languages studied here as for Russian. As
for double verbs referring to one single event (the prototype), we again
find the subtype with intensifying meaning realized by quasi-synonymous
pairs, reduplication or frozen combinations, which are reminiscent of the
Russian situation; for examples from Komi folklore and fiction, see
Ludykova (1995: 50 ff.). The hypernymous subtype offers a richer choice
than in Russian. Above all, we find a multitude of combinations depicting
a person’s manner of walking with very specific first verbs that add more
lively colours to the visual or auditory perception evoked by the second
verb; semantically, such pairs are vividly reminiscent of the so-called
colourative construction in Finnish, see below. To quote just two
particularly striking examples from Komi: tapikas’ö-munö ‘is going,
clumsily stamping with his/her large feet (usually about bears)’ and
bad“#al’ö-vetledlö ‘is walking-waddling with heavy steps (usually about a
hen)’. Note that the hypernym always occupies the second position. The
same tendency to make the description as colourful as possible is
manifested in spontaneous metaphorical uses of SVC, cf. the following
quotation from Fedina (2005: 207; it contains a triple verb):

(9) Menam dzurtö-or “jas’ö-ojzö byd ly i byd kusyn, byd sön

‘At me are creaking-tearing-moaning every small bone every joint
every vein.’

As for auditory perception, cf. rapiimunny-"egny ‘to break off with a

crack’ or opöstny-gorödny ‘to begin to howl with a wild voice’ (both
examples from Fedina 2005: 207). The hypernymic subtype allows also
for other combinations that are not characteristic of Russian DVs, for
example those that contain ‘make’ as its second component: kerny-vö"ny
lit. ‘make-prepare = process, work on’. Similar pairs containing the verb
‘do, make’ are attested in Mordvinian, where the latter verb is
desemantized, serving only to intensify the other component, cf. ojms’ems-
t’ejems ‘rest-do’; interestingly, in such cases inversion is blocked (Honti
2005: 38 f.). According to Wälchli (2003: 148), such combinations express
rather a delimitative meaning; the verb ‘do’ would thus function as an
equivalent of the Russian verbal prefix po-.
The remaining semantic relations that link the two verbs are identical to
those to be found in Russian: besides synonymy, which characterizes
prototypical DVs, we find antonymy, cohyponymy and / or common
scripts or frames; besides Weiss (2003), see also Wälchli (2003: 116-128).
Lexical equations with Russian are easy to find; to mention but a few:
‘plough-sow’, ‘eat-drink’, ‘feed-water’, ‘dress-put on shoes’, ‘cook-bake’,
‘live-be’, etc. The last-mentioned example clearly indicates the link to
Russian folklore, cf. the opening formula of fairy tales #il-byl ‘there once
was’ (see next section). On the other hand, it should be emphasized that
unlike in Russian (but much as in many prototypical SVCs), semantic
bleaching and blurring of composite meanings are frequent here and often
give birth to new abstract meanings. They range from fairly predictable
results, for example ‘sing-dance > be merry, enjoy’, ‘plough-sow > work
on the field’, ‘catch-kill > hunt’, ‘dry out-bare > eradicate’ to less expected
ones, cf. ‘go in-go out > be restless / agitated’ (Mordvin) or ‘ask-pick >
beg’ (Komi), and end up with totally unexpected new meanings, cf. ‘knit-
sew > take care of sb.’, ‘go in-go out > be friends with sb.’ (both from
Komi). Since the composite reading usually remains also available, these
are cases of polysemy;xviii they illustrate, at the same time, the transition
from non-prototypical (composite interpretation) to prototypical (one
event) meaning of SVC.
Moreover, all four Finno-Ugric languages under discussion have verb
pairs where one component is redundant and could be omitted, as was the
case with Russian xoxotat’-zalivat’sja ‘laugh loudly’ etc.; it was, however,
impossible to find exact semantic coincidences with Russian. In addition,
there exist pairs, one of whose members does not occur as an autonomous
single verb apart from the given combination; this feature is not typical of
SVC since “each verb in an SVC may also occur as the sole verb in a
clause” (Dixon 2006: 339). Such DVs often serve to intensify the meaning
expressed by the other verb, which again is reminscent of Russian; the
latter does not, however, have verbs that are bound exclusively to the DV
construction. The following particularity is also alien to Russian: some
Finno-Ugric DVs consist of linguistically mixed material, i.e. they may
contain one Russian root as in Komi durytny-pör”jas’ny ‘cheat’, two verbs
stemming from different dialects or from a dialect and the standard
language (Fedina 2005: 207).xix Interestingly, Udmurt combines Russian
first verbs with the vernacular verb ‘make’, cf. issledovat’ karyny
‘research-make’.
A last difference concerns the rise of TAM markers. As might be
recalled, grammaticalization of first components of DVs is at its initial
stage and restricted to the meaning of uninterrupted duration in Russian;
this language cannot be said to have already developed TAM markers
within a SVC. This process seems to be more advanced in Komi, where
we find munnö ‘go’ as second verb with ingressive and kerny ‘make’ with
attenuative meaning. Besides this, Komi has transformed some verbal
roots into grammatical suffixes (Sidorov 1992: 28). Some pairs are
restricted as to their time reference: in Mordvin for instance, synonymous
pairs such as mus’kems-lovpatn’ems ‘wash’ appear only in generalizations
or with negation (Wälchli 2003: 151). This is reminiscent of the behaviour
of several Russian subtypes discussed in section 1.7.
Grammaticalization is more salient in Mari and Udmurt, where it
affects, however, a different type of verbal construction: in groups
composed of a finite verb such as ‘go’, ‘come’, ‘take’ or ‘end’ and a
converb the former undergoes auxiliarization. This development is clearly
due to borrowing from the adjacent Turkish languages (Chuvash and
Tatar), where this phenomenon is widespread (Tatar is reported to admit
not less than 30 such auxiliaries in the said construction). The development
of specific pragmatic meanings manifested by Russian imperatives in DVs
is not attested in Finno-Ugric languages according to my sources.
A few words may be added about the situation in the Balto-Finnic
group. In Finnish, SVC is attested as a dialectal relic, competing with the
so-called colourative infinitive construction (Jarva and Kytölä 2007).xx The
two variants are considered synonymous, the serial variant being even
acceptable in the standard language; it is, however, much less frequent
than its infinitival counterpart. The following pair of sentences both
meaning ‘I fell into the snow’ may illustrate this use:

(10a) Minä sinne lumeen koatuat tupsahdin

I there snow-ILL fall-INF COL-PAST-1SG

(10b) Minä sinne lumeen kaaduin tupsahdin

I there snow-ILL fall- PAST-1SG COL-PAST-1SG

The two-finite variant is also reported to exist in Sami languages. Since

Ojutkangas (1998), this construction has been related to SVC. The same
holds for Standard Estonian (cf. Tragel 2003). In this language, the set of
first verbs is very restricted: apart from minema ‘go’, tulema ‘come’,
käima ‘walk’ and võtma ‘take’ only a few other motion verbs such as
jooksma and lippama are mentioned; this differs sharply from Russian,
where many other initial components are allowed. Triplets do occur, but
usually only with minema and käima as the first two verbs (recall that in
Russian, triplets also usually contain pojti/idti ‘go’ as first verbs).
Grammaticalization is said to take place with minema ‘go’ and tulema
‘come’ marking a new immediate future-like meaning, which is not
surprising, given the general tendency of these verbs to develop into future
markers (Majsak 2005). On the whole, one gets the strong impression that
these instances of SVC in modern Balto-Finnic are but the meagre relics of
a construction type which has long been in decline.
In conclusion, my little survey has shown a striking amount of
structural and lexical convergence between Russian and Permic or Volga
Finnic languages. Against this background, most divergences found are of
minor importance, e.g. the existence of DVs with components that cannot
function autonomously or the salience of the ‘colourative’ subtype. What
deserves our attention, however, is the fixed word order within the DVs
and the extensive grammaticalization and lexicalization, since these
features bring the Finno-Ugric languages closer to the general
characteristics of SVC. In this way, the not too numerous divergences
between Russian and Finno-Ugric DVs all point to the same direction:
SVCs were at the beginning (and still are nowadays in Permic and Volga
groups) more deeply rooted and better integrated in the lexicon and
grammar of Finno-Ugric than in East Slavic, where they play only a
peripheral role.

2.1. Who borrowed from whom?

On the basis of the descriptions given above, we can now attempt to

determine whether the parallels detected may be contact-induced and, if
so, which language was the target and which one(s) the source of the
morphosyntactic calques. To begin with, SVC is by no means a common
Slavic phenomenon: West and South Slavic languages either do not have it
at all, or they allow only for lexically restricted serialization in the
imperative and (like Polish) in the 1st person present (for details, see Weiss
2003: 49-51). Nor does our construction represent a relic from ancient
Indo-European times, since there is no other IE. language that would
manifest such a construction (note that this lack contrasts sharply with
double nouns, or else dvandva compounds,xxi which are not only common
Slavic features, but represent a venerable Indo-European heritage).
Consequently, we are dealing with an East Slavic innovation whose
origins are still to be determined: when did it emerge? Was the decisive
impulse triggered by contact with other languages, or should we assume
that the DV construction originated on purely Slavic soil? The latter
assumption seems by far less plausible since there simply was no need for
such an innovation, given that Russian already had the full inventory of
clause linking techniques mentioned at the beginning of the present paper.
Therefore, we are forced to seek the impulse outside the Slavic medium.
Among the possible sources of the borrowing there is still another
group left, namely the Turkic languages, which indeed possess a
structurally analogous construction (Csató 2001). Turkic influence must,
however, be excluded for different reasons (Weiss 2003, 51-52): first,
these languages prefer the structural model consisting of an auxiliarized
finite verb and a converb (see previous section); second, among the
remaining cases of finite SVC, there are no striking parallels with Russian
DVs; and third, the temporally and locally restricted contact of Russian
with, say, Tatar or Chuvash led to numerous lexical borrowings, but
certainly did not favour the adoption of a whole syntactical construction.
There remains, however, an isolated DV that has probably been borrowed
from Turkic, namely the pair pokupat’-prodavat’ ‘buy-sell’ together with
its nominalization kuplja-proda#a; this designation of trade seems to be
known all over Eurasia.xxii In addition, Turkic provided the pattern for
nominal twin formations whose second member is semantically empty and
a mere phonological replica of the first with substitution of the initial
consonant by an m-, cf. Russian xuxry-muxry ‘trifle’;xxiii this device may
also be employed in creating new DV combinations, cf. 9irnu-myrnu, s
"em vynyrnu‘ (Ju. Dani%l’).xxiv
Thus, the most plausible explanation for Russian DVs is to trace them
back to Finno-Ugric. This would be perfectly in line with the view that
“languages with SVCs tend to form areal clusters” (Aikhenvald 2006: 52).
The main problem connected with this solution has already been indicated:
the examples discussed in the previous section all stem from languages
that entered into contact with Russian in a relatively late period and could
exert but marginal adstratal influence on the dialects of Slavic settlers in
the northeast and east of European Russia.xxv On the other hand, in view of
its numerous loanwords borrowed from Russian in recent times one could
even argue that Komi might have borrowed if not the whole DV
construction, at least some subtypes from Russian.
The scenario required by our innovation is quite different: we are
talking of widespread and long-lasting Slavic-Finnic bilingualism which
eventually led to language death, the former speakers of Finnic switching
to Russian, but preserving some substratal relics of their ancient language.
Such a scenario can only be met by languages that have long been extinct.
The most reliable candidates for the role of source are the idioms spoken
by two tribes mentioned already in the first Russian chronicles as tribute
payers of the Kievan Empire, viz. Merja and Murom. Toponymy and
historical sources indicate that they inhabited Central Russia including the
Podmoskov’e area. This is exactly where Tka"enko in his carefully
documented 1979 monograph locates the origin of the Russian fairy-tale
formula #il-byl; dialectological and historical data suggest such a
conclusion, and the author convincingly argues that no other source
(vernacular evolution or borrowing from a third language) can be found
that would explain the unique career of this formula than the Finno-Ugric
double root *elä-wole- ‘be-live’ (for a more sceptical look at this pair, see
Petruxin 2007). This combination is still attested in almost all Finno-Ugric
languages including representatives of the Baltic group (Estonian,
Karelian), most often not only as a frozen initial formula, but also in the
middle or at the end of the tale, as politeness formula,xxvi and in whole
finite and non-finite paradigms. Thus, we have detected a plausible
pattern: the item in question is by far better developed (more productive,
less restricted) in the Finno-Ugric source than in the Russian target
language. The same pattern now obtains when we turn to the SVC model
as a whole: as we have seen in the previous section, in Permic and Volga
Finnic this type of construction is more differentiated and less restricted in
every respect than in Russian.
The assumption that the SVC device already existed in Common
Finno-Ugric is already shared by virtually all specialists in this field. It
seems all the more plausible as there was no other paratactic linking
mechanism: Finno-Ugric languages simply abounded in hypotactic
constructions with converbs and infinitives, but they did not have
paratactic conjunctions from the beginning; in particular, a word such as
‘and’ was lacking and had to be borrowed later by the individual branches
either from Germanic or from East Slavic (cf. for example Bátori 1980).
Thus, we may conclude that unlike in Russian, in Finno-Ugric verb
serialization was by no means a syntactically superfluous phenomenon, but
played a crucial role as a multiverb construction. Moreover, the cumulative
semantics of the asymmetrical DV subtype fits perfectly in the picture of
Finno-Ugric nominal derivation: as is well known, such a notion as ‘face’
is often composed by two designations of its most salient parts, such as
‘eyes-mouth’, ‘eyes-nose’ or ‘nose-mouth’ in these languages. On the
other hand, if our assumption is correct, what results is a peculiar kind of
cross-borrowing: Finno-Ugric owes its syndetic linking to East Slavic,
whereas the latter developed SVC due to the substrate influence of the
former. As a result, however, SVC is marginalized on both contacting
sides: in Finno-Ugric it seems to be in decline (probably also under the
pressure of the new conjunction ‘and’), and its introduction into Russian
remains at the functional periphery of the clause-linking system.
The common Finno-Ugric origin of the DV construction is
corroborated by Hungarian folklore texts.xxvii In this language, DV are only
attested in fairy tales and child lyrics (songs and verses); otherwise, they
have practically ceased to exist, the last relics surviving in peripheral
dialects in Transylvania and the Eastern Carpathians.xxviii The different
types represented in Hungarian data are, however, very reminiscent of
those discussed in the previous section. For instance, we find synonymous,
antonymous and cohyponymous pairs, and their semantic fillings are often
identical with Russian and Komi, to mention but a few: eszik-iszik ‘eat-
drink’, etet-itat ‘feed-water’, ével3dik-vúcsálkodik ‘mourn-be sad’, sír-b3g
‘cry-weep’, jön-megy ‘come-go’, ad-vesz ‘buy-sell’, süt-f3z ‘bake-cook’,
ír-olvas ‘write-read’, etc. New, non-composite meanings are not very
frequent, but do occur, e.g. ás-kapál ‘dig-hack > nit-pick, intrigue, be
jealous’. Besides this, as in Komi, there are verb pairs where one of the
components is phraseologically bound to the DV construction (often it
provides a paronymous replica of the other verb, cf. irul-pirul ‘blush’; irul
does not occur apart from this DV). Other DVs are composed of the basic
verb and its derivative, cf. megy-mendegél ‘go without haste’, which, as
may be recalled, is a widespread type in Russian. Finally, Hungarian DVs
simply abound in onomatopoetic pairs: the corpus analysed in Valko
(2006) contains not less than 58 different pairs denoting sounds (to these
one may add another 40 DVs describing different distorted modes of
speech), practically all of which have a paronymic structure, cf. csereg-
bereg, hipeg-hupog, ripeg-ropog, etc. This preference is obviously due to
the youthful audience. But, additionally, it constitutes the phonetic
counterpart of semantically similar, i.e. more or less synonymous, verb
pairs.
On the whole, one may state that, notwithstanding its intense and long
lasting contact with German and Slavic neighbours in Central Europe,
Hungarian still preserves an astonishing number of parallels with DV
constructions in the Finno-Ugric languages in the northeast of Russia. This
archaic feature is all the more striking as Proto-Hungarian must have lost
contact with the Finnic branch already at the beginning of our era. In the
long run, however, Hungarian may be expected to join the languages with
contact-induced SVC loss.
My argumentation would be incomplete if no mention was made of
another and more important syntactic calque that points to the same
direction: although this issue is more controversial than the borrowing of
the DV construction, the partial functional replacement of Common Slavic
im&ti ‘have’ by existential sentences with byt’ ‘be’ and the adessive
preposition u ‘at’ in Russian can hardly be explained otherwise than by
Finno-Ugric substratal influence. The same holds true for the development
of this preposition into a marker of “external” (raised) possessors,xxix which
in other Slavic languages are expressed by the dative. This is, however,
another story, which cannot be discussed here.

Notes

1. For the sake of convenience, I will focus the discussion on Komi, a language
spoken in the northeast of European Russia to the west of the Urals. This
language has the advantage, unlike its southern neighbours such as Udmurt or
Mari, of not having been subject to significant Turkic influence.
2. In her otherwise inspiring paper, Aikhenvald (2006: 45-46) claims that
Russian DVs behave the same way as similar phenomena in other “familiar
European languages” (Swedish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, American English,
Brazilian Portuguese) and “cannot be considered on a par with SVC”. This
assumption is clearly based on insufficient Russian data. Counterevidence to
Aikhenvald’s particular claims will be presented throughout this paper.
3. In view of these figures, the claim that Russian DVs “are limited to just a few
verbs” (Aikhenvald 2006: 46) sounds somewhat bizarre. The results of a
search of the Russian National Corpus (ruscorpora.ru), which already provided
several thousand instances of DV imperatives, will be published in a separate
paper.
4. A search for such examples with the Google search machine provided several
instances of vstal vyprjamilsja (vo ves’ rost) ‘he stood up and stretched his
body to full length’.
5. However, with ne pojme9’ ne razbere9’ ‘you don’t understand’, which consists
of two synonymous verbs, neither the substitution of ni nor the omission of the
second negation is possible.
6. Similarly, Aikhenvald (2006: 8 f.) quotes examples where only part of the
whole SVC is in the scope of negation.
7. This does not mean that double converb forms are not attested in my corpus; in
particular, one may find such examples in hybrid texts of the kind described in
footnote 15.
8. To illustrate the grammatical frozenness of this example, using a large data
collection, I quote the following figures provided by the Google search
machine (04/12/2011): 1st pers.pl. 899,000 instances, 1st pers.sg. 284,000, 2nd
pers.sg. 9820, 3rd pers.sg. 544 instances. The corresponding figure for uvidim-
posmotrim amounts to only 6140 instances.
9. Diachronically, this could well be a frozen instance of the former perfect with
the auxiliary ‘be’.
10. Unfortunately, Coseriu does not sufficiently distinguish between the surprise
meaning discussed here and the simple ingressive meaning, which seems to
prevail, for instance, in Swedish, cf. Ekberg (1993).
11. It may be added that Russian podi (#e) functions also as a true particle
expressing surprise.
12. On the other hand, Sol#enicyn has Lenin ina"e pisal-govoril! ‘Lenin wrote and
spoke otherwise’, where a specific object (‘about this’) is at least presupposed.
13. In view of these examples, the claim that “unpredictable derivational
restrictions may arise within each particular semantic group: for instance, in
Russian, motion verbs containing the preverbs u- and ot(o)- cannot occur in
double verb constructions, while verbs with other preverbs can” (Aikhenvald
2006: 46 ) turns out to be erroneous.
14. In modern fiction, the last two motivations may well overlap if the author
seeks to imitate his character’s speech or way of thinking.
15. In a text entitled 'udotvornaja ikona i Anikitina Repnin’ (“The miraculous
icon and A. Repnin”) comprising 1181 words, I found not less than 45
different DVs. Some of them sound rather artificial and add a kind of pseudo-
folkloristic flavour.[Fascninating evidence that this represents a folkloristic
sound]
16. The term ‘double verb’ is not used in the Finno-Ugristic literature; the usual
term there is ‘paired verb’, which, in view of the existence of triplet verbs (see
below), is not more convenient than ‘double verb’. Curiously enough, the
languages to be discussed here are not even mentioned in the chapter on
double verbs in Aikhenvald (2006).
17. The term ‘Volga Finnic’ is used here as a mere geographic label because Mari
and Mordvinian are no longer conceived as a separate genetic branch of Finno-
Ugric, cf. Abondolo (1998: 3). Due to the lack of space, the two main varieties
of both Mari and Mordvinian will not be taken into account here, since they
are irrelevant for our purpose; the same holds for the difference between the
two standard languages of Komi (Zyryan vs. Permyak). For all pertinent
details see Abondolo (1998).
18. For obvious reasons (lack of informants and corpora), information on Finno-
Ugric data is often too scarce for a direct comparison with Russian.
19. Contrary to this, their Russian counterparts usually have only compositional
meaning.
20. For similarly mixed nominal constructions in Finno-Ugric and Turkic
languages see Pacsai (1995: 90-91).
21. I owe this reference to Jussi Ylikoski (p.c.). The same holds for the reference
to Tragel (2003) about Estonian (see below), an English paraphrase of which
was kindly sent to me by the author.
22. For a full description of nominal pairs in modern Russian see Bergmann
(2006). As for structural parallels and divergences between double nouns and
double verbs, cf. Weiss (2000: 361-363). The Eurasian dimension of such
binominal constructions is best described in Wälchli (2003); the author’s term
‘co-compounds’ also includes double verbs.
23. Verb pairs with this meaning are attested even in Vietnamese and Thai (Bisang
1992: 295, 334). Note that the main trade centre at the Chinese border located
in front of the Russian town Kjaxta was named Maimachen ‘buy-sell-city’.
24. For the Turkic origins of this formation and its traces in modern Russian see
Plähn (1987).
25. Komi seems to have the same type of formation, cf. 9arny-marny ‘slave away’
(Fedina 2005: 206).
26. That north Russian dialects were indeed affected by influence of neighbouring
Komi dialects in recent times is shown by Leinonen (1998).
27. Note that the set expression Kak #ivete-mo#ete? ‘How is life?’, lit. ‘How do
you live-be able?’ quoted in section i.5 also has an exact counterpart in many
Finnic languages. As for Circumbaltic convergences in general, see Dahl and
Koptjevskaja (2001).
28. The following observations are based on Pacsai (1995) and an MA thesis
(Valko 2006) devoted to a systematic comparison of Hungarian and Russian
double verbs that was defended at the Slavic Department of the University of
Zurich.
29. For Hungarian, Aikhenvald’s (2006: 46) remark that “double verbs are often
restricted to certain registers” is justified. However, to list Hungarian in the
same row as Russian is highly misleading.
30. This case is illustrated by the example 9 from Komi. It should be emphasized
that, unlike double verbs, the spatial model of possessive meaning is not
restricted to Permian and Volga Finnic, but is also characteristic of Baltic
Finnic including Finnish.
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