On reflexes of ti- and t-forms of verbs in Ancient Russian

Abstract

The origin of the forms of the present without inflectional consonant (or zero forms) and their functioning in the old Slavic languages is one of the most complex and intriguing questions in diachronic morphology. Differences in the forms present in the Slavic languages are considered in the light of a proliferation of different models of generalization of the original system, in which there was a variation of forms for the 3rd person singular and the plural in *-ti vs. *-t and *-nti vs. *-nt. This requires evidence of t-forms in the Proto-Slavic period and, in addition, the identification of the mechanism of the penetration of t-forms in the present tense forms and their motivations. Typically, zero forms are related in Old Russian to the so-called general present tense or future tense and have the meaning of potential or non-referential action. They are found almost exclusively in polypredicative groups with strong coupling predicates. Forms of *-t in the present tense or future tense inherit functional characteristics of the Indo-European injunktive mood and its historical substitute-conjunctive mood. Historical corpus linguistics should open up new horizons for studying the evolution of the Slavic verb. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.