Tatar language non-derivative verbs in historical perspective

Abstract

The article deals with structure of modern non-derivative verbs of Tatar language and describes reasons of historically derivative words conversion into non-derivative ones. The authors have highlighted the fact that it is a historical tradition that in Turkic languages only monosyllabic verbs are really root, and disyllabic and trisyllabic verbs are the result of complication of monosyllabic ones. The article involves using of methods of external and internal reconstruction, comparative and relative comparative methods, and also etymological, word-formative and morphemic analysis. In the course of language evolution derived stems components lost their initial meaning and combined into an integral whole. In some cases the first or the second component lost its meaning, and in other cases both ones lost their meanings. Tatar language has lots of affixes which are an integral part of a stem, and nowadays these morphemes do not exist individually. Analysis of Tatar active lexicon has allowed to draw the conclusion that derivative words conversion into non-derivative ones is explained by such changes as de-etymologization and substitution. Despite the fact that de-etymologization is characteristic of inflectional languages, in agglutinative Tatar language de-etymologization affects etymologically composite words. The authors found several reasons of de-etymologization: archaization of a word and complete death of a root; death of an affix, phonetic changes connected with it, and also cases of semantic de-etymologization. Upon analysis the authors found that in the course of substitution morphemic structure of words was preserved. Tatar language distinguishes itself due to some morphogenetic affixes transition into word-formative affixes composition. Owing to etymologic analysis, the authors has drawn the conclusion that monosyllableness of verb roots in Turkic languages is confirmed by Tatar language too. Nonderivative disyllabic and trisyllabic verbs are historically derivative words composed with affixes and independent roots. Nowadays they are considered to be indecomposable lexical units. System analysis of Tatar language indecomposable verbs allowed to reveal historical and modern word structure, and also to demonstrate evolution of individual affixal elements in the language. It has been found that studied phenomena date back to different chronological stages of structural grammatical changes of the language. Full de-etymologization is older. The research results will be useful for relative comparative study of languages, for finding of initial roots of Turkic languages.