The evolution of the slavic be(come) type compound future

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SLAVIC ÔBE(COME)Õ-

TYPE COMPOUND FUTURE

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

Marika Lynn Whaley, M.A.

* * * * *

The Ohio State University

2000

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Daniel E. Collins, Adviser

Professor Charles E. Gribble

Professor Brian D. Joseph

Approved by

ÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐ

Adviser

Department of Slavic and East European

Languages and Literatures

Marika Lynn Whaley

2000

ABSTRACT

Among the Slavic languages, the standard languages of Russian, Ukrainian,

Belarusan, Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Czech, Slovak, and Slovene, as well as some

Serbo-Croatian dialects, can all express futurity with a construction comprised of an

auxiliary derived from the nonpast of *byti Ôbe(come)Õ in combination with either the

infinitive or the l-participle. In addition, the standard language and many dialects of

Serbo-Croatian use this type of construction to express future-perfect meaningÑa usage

also known from Old Church Slavonic and RusÕian. Despite the wide distribution of this

type of construction in Slavic, a Ôbe(come)Õ-type future cannot be reconstructed for the

proto-language Common Slavic.

The question of how a Ôbe(come)Õ-type future developed in Slavic is difficult to

answer with certainty. Previous scholarship has sought the source of this future in either

non-Slavic material or as a development internal to Slavic. Problems with previous

theories are encountered with synchronic issues concerning the morphosyntactic

constraints on be-future constructions and the semantics of tense and aspect, as well as

diachronic issues concerning textual evidence and plausible paths of grammaticalization.

Thus the subject, though much studied, is still unresolved.

This study draws on recent general-linguistic work on the development of

grammatical categories to provide a fresh perspective on this problem. It reevaluates the

commonly known hypotheses on the development of the Slavic be-future and presents a

new, comprehensive analysis of the evolution of the construction. Its approach is based

on the idea that semantics and semantic change motivate syntactic change. By

systematically analyzing the semantics of the change-of-state verb *byti using reductive

paraphrases, this study shows that the verb most likely grammaticalized into a future

auxiliary autochthonously. Moreover, a comparison of the reductive paraphrases of

change-of-state and inceptive verbs shows that the colligability constraints on many

Ôbe(come)Õ-type futures can be explained by positing that the change-of-state verb

underwent a semantic shift into an inceptive. This new perspective provides a more

satisfactory synchronic and diachronic description of this type of future than has been

presented previously.

iii

To Steve, ljubimyj

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge my husband Steve Fridella, my

sine qua non.

I also express my sincerest thanks to my adviser Daniel Collins for all the time,

energy, and ink he has devoted to my endeavor. He has always challenged me to become

a better scholar and I have benefited greatly from his guidance. All uses of intercalated

ÒhoweverÓ in this work, however, are entirely my responsibility.

I am also grateful to those who found the time to discuss and evaluate my work:

Wayles Browne, Joan Bybee, Bernard Comrie, and the other members of my committee,

Charles Gribble and Brian Joseph.

Finally, I wish to thank the many people who lent their support and

encouragement to me while I was in the process of writing this dissertation: my family,

my peers in the Slavic Department graduate program, and all my friends who knew better

than to ask me for a detailed explanation of my subject matter.

VITA

March 11, 1973 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Born - Stow, Ohio, USA

1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B.A. History, College of William and Mary

1994 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M.A. Slavic and East European Languages and

Literatures, The Ohio State University

1993Ð2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The

Ohio State University

PUBLICATIONS

Marika Whaley. 1999. Tracing the origins of the Slavic imperfective be-future.

Ohio State University Working Papers in Linguistics 52, 159Ð71.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Vita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Chapters:

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Overview of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The be-future in Slavic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2.1 Future-tense marking in Slavic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.2 The status of the imperfective future tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

1.3 Outline of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.3.1 Analysis of the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.2 Evaluation of previous scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.3 Theoretical framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.3.4 A new theory of the Slavic be-future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

2. The Slavic Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.0 The Proto-Indo-European future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1 The etymology and meaning of *boöd- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

vii

2.2 The origins of the Slavic be-future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

2.2.1 Old Church Slavonic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2.2 Placing the be-future within the context of chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2.3 Slovene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.3.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.4 Serbo-Croatian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

2.4.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.5 Czech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2.5.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.5.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.6 Slovak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.6.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2.7 Sorbian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

2.7.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.7.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

2.8 Polish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

2.8.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.8.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

2.9 Kashubian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

2.9.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
2.9.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

2.10 Belarusan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

2.10.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
2.10.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

2.11 Ukrainian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

2.11.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.11.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

2.12 Russian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

2.12.1 Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.12.2 Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

2.13 Concluding remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

3. Previous Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

viii

3.2 External-source theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

3.2.1 The putative unusualness of a ÔbecomeÕ-type future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.2.2 Chronology and the emergence of the be-future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

3.2.2.1 Reliability of the textual evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.2.2.2 The chronology in Russian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
3.2.2.3 Ukrainian evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
3.2.2.4 The chronology of German werden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

3.2.3 Infinitival versus participial complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.2.4 The Slavic be-future and aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
3.2.5 Considerations of language contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.2.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

3.3 Internal-source theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

3.3.1 The role of the impersonal obligative construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
3.3.2 The role of the future perfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

3.3.2.1 Textual evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.3.2.2 The semantics of the future perfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
3.3.2.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

3.3.3 The role of phase verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.3.4 The role of lexical nuances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

3.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

4. The Grammaticalization of *boöd-: From Change-of-State to Future . . . . . . . . . . 127

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
4.2 The nature of syntactic change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

4.2.1 Grammaticalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.2.2 Mechanisms of syntactic change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4.2.3 Syntactic and semantic change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

4.3 The development of the Slavic be-future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

4.3.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.3.2 Change-of-state and inceptive meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
4.3.3 Supporting evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

4.4 The Slavic be-future as a manifestation of drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
4.5 The participial complement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
4.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

LIST OF TABLES

Table

Page

1.1

The expression ÒI (masc. sg.) will writeÓ in the Slavic languages
which have a ÔbecomeÕ-type future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2

The nonpast tenses of Russian as demonstrated by the verbs

pisatÕ / napisatÕ ÔwriteÕ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.1

Polish future complements through the fifteenth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

2.2

Polish future complements through the sixteenth century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

2.3

Kashubian future complements in the twentieth century: written data . . . . . . . . 52

2.4

Kashubian future complements in the twentieth century: spoken data . . . . . . . . 52

4.1

Correspondence of languages with the be-future to those with pluperfects . . . 147

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

Page

2.1

Schematic map of the be-future in the Slavic languages:
Earliest dates of attestation / earliest dates of extant texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

2.2

Schematic map of the be-future in the Slavic languages:
Treatment of complement and aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Overview of the problem

For over one hundred years, scholars have debated the origin and development of

the Slavic compound future constructions formed with reflexes of the nonpast form of the

Common Slavic verb *byti Ôbe(come)Õ. Whereas the earliest attested Slavic languages

show future constructions formed with verbs such as ÔwantÕ, ÔhaveÕ, and ÔbeginÕ in

combination with an infinitive, many modern Slavic languages express futurity through

an auxiliary derived from the future of *byti Ôbe(come)Õ in combination with either the

infinitive or the resultative participle (also called the l-participle).

The question of how these previously used future expressions were replaced by a

Ôbe(come)Õ-type future (hereafter shortened to Òbe-futureÓ) is difficult to answer with

certainty. Problems are encountered with synchronic issues such as the morphosyntactic

constraints on be-future constructions and the semantics of tense and aspect, as well as

diachronic issues concerning textual evidence and plausible paths of grammaticalization.

Thus the subject, though much-studied, is still ultimately unresolved. Although there is

merit in many of the arguments that have been presented in the literature, none is

completely satisfactory. Moreover, previous studies have not been able to take advantage

of recent general linguistic research on cross-linguistic historical syntax and on

grammaticalization, the development of words into markers of grammatical categories like

tense.

The current study has two main goals: to reevaluate the commonly known

hypotheses on the development of the Slavic be-future in light of new general theories on

the development of grammatical categories, and to present a new, comprehensive analysis

of the evolution of the construction. The fresh perspective on language change provided

by recent studies in general linguistics serves as a foundation upon which previous work

on the be-future can be criticized and a new hypothesis presented. Given its general

linguistic theoretical background, this work will be relevant not only to Slavists, but also

to linguists who seek to study the development of future-tense constructions from a

cross-linguistic perspective.

1.2 The be-future in Slavic

A majority of the Slavic languages have a future-tense expression that is formed

with an auxiliary whose origins can be traced back to the Common Slavic verb *byti

(present stem *boöd-) Ôbe(come)Õ.

These languages include Slovene, dialectal Serbo-

Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian, Polish, Kashubian, Belarusan, Ukrainian, and Russian.

Additionally, literary and dialectal Serbo-Croatian employ a construction, structurally

identical to the be-future, to express futurum exactum (future perfect) meaning. Only the

For the purposes of this study, the form *boödoö should be understood as a cover term for its reflexes in

the individual Slavic languages. Where the reconstructed form is specifically referenced, the form will be

explicitly identified as such.

extinct West Slavic language Polabian and the East South Slavic languages Macedonian

and Bulgarian do not have any kind of be-future.

In addition to variations among the Slavic languages as to the meaning of

constructions with the Ôbe(come)Õ-type auxiliary, there is also variation with regard to the

type of complement used with the auxiliary. Table 1.1 illustrates the types of complement

allowed in each language.

+ infinitive

+ l-participle

South Slavic

Slovene

bom p’sal

Serbo-Croatian

budem pisati

budem pisao

West Slavic

Czech

budu ps‡tÕ

Slovak

budem p’satÕ

budem p’sal

Sorbian

budu pisa¦ /
budu pisa¥

Polish

beödeö pisa¦

beödeö pisaÂ

Kashubian

beödeö pisac

beödeö pisaÂ

East Slavic

Belarusan

budu pisacÕ

Ukrainian

budu pysaty

budu pysav

Russian

budu pisatÕ

*only in nonliterary language

Table 1.1. The expression ÒI (masc. sg.) will writeÓ in the

Slavic languages which have a ÔbecomeÕ-type future.

Although infinitival complements are more prevalent in literary languages, the use of

participial complements in dialects is not insignificant; the importance of the complement

has often been overlooked in the previous literature.

Table 1.1 also illustrates the wide range of Slavic languages which use a

ÔbecomeÕ-type future. It is important also to note that the distribution of the construction

is not restricted to any of the three traditional branches of Slavic; this suggests that an

explanation for its presence cannot be attributed solely to an innovation specific to a single

area of the Slavic linguistic territory. As such, any study of the be-future must examine

the problem from a broad, pan-Slavic perspective.

1.2.1 Future-tense marking in Slavic

While a comprehensive description of Slavic tense and aspect is beyond the scope

of this study, a brief description of the Slavic verb is an essential preliminary to this work.

As such, this section will present a summary of the Slavic verbal system as it is relevant

to an analysis of the be-future.

As is well known, the verbal system in Slavic languages distinguishes aspect as

well as tense; these categories are independent of each other. The majority of Slavic verbs

can be considered part of an aspectual pair, both members of which share the same lexical

meaning but different aspect. Each verb is considered to be of either imperfective or

perfective aspect, depending on its semantics; this assignation is often reflected

morphologically by the presence or absence of certain prefixes or suffixes.

The difference between perfective and imperfective verbs has been succinctly

described by Comrie (1976: 16): Òperfectivity indicates the view of a situation as a single

whole, without distinction of the various separate phases that make up that situation;

while the imperfective pays essential attention to the internal structure of the situation.Ó

This means that the present tense cannot be described by perfective aspect, whose

semantics is more compatible with describing punctual, completed, or otherwise total

actions. In many Slavic languages, this has led to a situation where the present-tense

forms of perfective verbs convey primarily future-tense marking. As such, the present

tense in Slavic is often termed the ÒnonpastÓ, as a reflection of the ambiguity these forms

can have with regard to tense reference.

This treatment of tense and aspect was inherited into all Slavic languages from

Common Slavic, and has continued with minimal refinement in all North Slavic

languages. In the South Slavic languages (Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, and

Bulgarian), however, the future-tense marking of nonpast perfectives is particularly weak.

As a reflection of this, verbs of both aspects form the same periphrastic future in these

languages and nonpast forms typically express present-tense meaning.

The matter of aspect is significant for the current study because of the close

interplay of aspect and tense on one hand, and of aspect and verbal semantics on the

other. For example, in the North Slavic languages, use of the be-future is restricted to

imperfective verbs. This is in contrast to some of the future-tense constructions used

earlier in Slavic, as well as other constructions in early Slavic that have employed reflexes

of *boöd- in some capacity; such a disparity must be explained. Moreover, scholars such

as Ršsler (1952) propose that the be-future was borrowed into Slavic; a comparison of

For more detailed discussion of aspect in general, see also Forsyth (1970) and Chung and Timberlake

(1985); regarding aspect in Slavic, see Thelin (1978) and Galton (1976).

Slovene appears to be somewhat transitional between these aspectual systems; this is discussed in

detail in 2.3 below.

the role of aspect in the putative donor language and in the Slavic languages helps to

evaluate such claims.

1.2.2 The status of the imperfective future tense

The nature of the Slavic aspectual system has led to a tense system in many North

Slavic languages that appears asymmetrical. For example, imperfective verbs have both

present and future-tense forms, while perfective verbs have one form that

morphologically resembles a present-tense form. The only exception to this paradigm is

for the verb ÔbeÕ, whose future is formed with a simple nonpast form and whose present,

at least in the East Slavic languages, is deficient. The nonpast-tense forms of Russian and

their usual tense reference, given in Table 1.2, are typical of North Slavic.

ÒpresentÓ

ÒfutureÓ

Imperfective

pi£u

budu pisatÕ

Perfective

(napi£u)

napi£u

Table 1.2. The nonpast tenses of Russian as demonstrated

by the verbs pisatÕ / napisatÕ ÔwriteÕ.

The typical system found in South Slavic languages is quite different. The

nonpast forms of perfective verbs more typically express present tense (a possibility that

in North Slavic exists only in a few marked contexts), and the future tense of both aspects

is expressed with the same periphrastic construction. In this way, the nonpast tenses of

the two aspects appear more ÒsymmetricalÓ than the North Slavic system shown in Table

1.2.

The apparent isolation of the North Slavic imperfective future as a periphrastic

formation has led some scholars to question the very existence of a future tense in Slavic,

or at least the status of the imperfective future as a necessary formal and conceptual

component of the verb tense system. For example, in his influential description of the

Russian verbal system, Jakobson (1932/1984: 6) presents the system as one of binary

opposition, between the past and nonpast tenses. Of the imperfective future tense,

Jakobson says only that such ÒÔcompoundedÕ forms . . . stand outside the morphological

verb systemÓ (ibid.: 4) and does not discuss it further. In keeping with this idea, both

Ferrell (1953) and Pettersson (1970) present arguments against the idea that the

imperfective future is a tense at all.

From a more general perspective, the conception of the Russian type of verbal

system as a binary structure is well-grounded. In UltanÕs (1978: 88Ð9) description of the

universals of the future tense, he finds that the verbal systems of many languages can be

viewed as a binary tense opposition, with the present and future often falling together in

opposition to the past tense (as in the Russian system aboveÑso-called ÒprospectiveÓ

languages), or the past and present falling together in opposition to the future (termed

ÒretrospectiveÓ languages by Ultan). The question remains, however, as to the role of the

North Slavic imperfective future within such a system.

There is also more complexity to be found in South Slavic with regard to the expression of past tense;

this is irrelevant for the current study.

As was mentioned above, one possible solution to the problem is to eliminate the

imperfective future from the tense system. Both Ferrell (1953) and Pettersson (1970)

argue that the Russian construction is simply a combination of a perfective verb (budu)

plus an infinitive, much like the phase verb construction naªatÕ ÔbeginÕ plus the infinitive.

It remains to explain the future of bytÕ itself, which is not formed by a periphrase.

Pettersson (ibid.: 102) concludes that one would expect the future tense of bytÕ to be budu

bytÕ, but acknowledges that the form is ungrammatical and the matter unresolved. On the

other hand, Ferrell (1953: 375) proposes that the underlying future tense of bytÕ ÔbeÕ is

budu bytÕ, and resolves the ungrammaticality of the construction by proposing a surface

deletion of the infinitive.

FerrellÕs (1953) and PetterssonÕs (1970) approach allows one to eliminate the

category of the imperfective future from Russian entirely. However, there is significant

evidence that the imperfective future cannot be excluded from the tense system, and that

the construction budu bytÕ cannot be posited as existing even in deep structure. For

example, Grenoble (1995) demonstrates that the imperfective future differs from other

verbs that combine with infinitives in that it cannot form double negatives (1aÐb) or be

split by the negative particle ne (2aÐb):

(1a)

Ja ne mogu ne kuritÕ
ÔI cannot not smokeÕ (Grenoble ibid.: 188)

(1b)

*Ja ne budu ne kuritÕ
ÔI will not not smokeÕ (ibid.: 191)

(2a)

Ty mo¢e£Õ ne plakatÕ?
ÔCan you not cryÕ (ibid.: 188)?

(2b)

*Ja budu ne kurit
ÔI will not smokeÕ (ibid.: 189)

The proscription on double negation and on negation of the infinitive component of the

imperfective future construction shows that it should be viewed as a monoclausal

combination of auxiliary plus complement, rather than a biclausal combination of finite

verb plus dependent infinitive. The monoclausal behavior of the imperfective future leads

Grenoble to conclude that the imperfective future must be considered a full-fledged tense

construction, separate from other constructions of finite verb plus infinitive, on both

syntactic and semantic grounds.

What then to make of the analytic expression of the imperfective future? Grenoble

(1995: 184) concedes that the Russian tense system as presented in Table 1.2, with its

inclusion of the imperfective future, is not particularly ÒneatÓ compared with JakobsonÕs

efficient binary oppositions, but it is nevertheless more accurate as a model of the system.

The larger issue here is in fact the perceptual distinction between grammar as expressed

through morphology and grammar expressed through syntax. Judging from what is

found among the worldÕs languages, verbal systems need not conform to a pattern of

marking tense exclusively by morphological or syntactic means. While the category of

tense is often marked synthetically, through inflectional morphemes (Bybee 1985: 13), the

future tense is expressed analytically in over half of the languages surveyed by Bybee and

Dahl (1989: 56). This may in part be due to the fact that the future overlaps with

modal/irrealis categories in ways that the past and present tenses do not (cf. the discussion

For further criticism of PetterssonÕs views, see Thelin (1978: 57Ð65).

in 1.3.3 below). Moreover, as Bybee argues, given that past and future tense forms tend

to evolve from very different sources, it is not unusual for the expressions to differ

formally (1985: 162). In sum, the periphrastic structure of the imperfective future is not a

particularly distinctive or unusual feature with regard to future-tense constructions in

general.

Although the Russian be-future has not undergone morphologization and is not

even fixed with regards to the order of auxiliary and complement, GrenobleÕs

demonstration of the inadmissibility of double negation on the construction strongly

suggests that the combination of budu plus the infinitive is at least partly grammaticalized.

For other languages, evidence of grammaticalization can be found by different means.

For example, in nonstandard Lower Sorbian, the future tense of ÔbeÕ itself can be formed

with the auxiliary budu; e.g. ja budu by¥ ÔI will beÕ (Mucke 1891/1965: 605).

This

usage suggests that the auxiliary budu is merely a future marker, conveying no lexical

meaning. In other languages, such as Ukrainian, scholars consider the be-future a

grammaticalized construction because the finite component of the construction conveys no

meaning other than future-tense marking (RusanivsÕkyj 1971: 249). Finally, in

Kashubian, the auxiliary has in fact undergone phonological reduction; alongside the full

forms like beödeö or baödeö, one also finds mdeö or bdeö (Stone 1993b: 777; see also Lorentz

1925: 172).

Cf. section 2.7.1 below.

1.3 Outline of the study

Analyzing the development of the be-future in Slavic is a task of considerable

complexity, and although many studies have sought to describe its path, none is entirely

satisfactory. The task of the current study is to address the problems that have hindered a

clear understanding of this issue, and then to present a more convincing description of the

be-futureÕs evolution. The following subsections present a detailed description of how

this study will accomplish its goals.

1.3.1 Analysis of the data (Chapter 2)

The core of this work is a collection of data from various historical periods of the

ten Slavic languages which utilize some form of the be-future, some of which have been

only poorly studied. It is important for the data to be as complete as possible so that an

accurate chronology for the be-future can be established and the path of its development

revealed. This is especially crucial given the lack in many previous works of fine-grained

analysis of the data.

There are some inherent problems in gathering the data necessary for this study.

For example, the number of future-tense constructions attested in premodern texts is by

nature very limited. Many of the best attested genres of early Slavic literature, such as

chronicles and hagiographies, rarely have contexts where the future tense is expected.

Moreover, many of the languages lack extant texts early and numerous enough to provide

sufficient data. These facts have hindered previous attempts to study this problem in

detail. Nevertheless, by examining data from a wide array of texts in as many of the

languages as possible, a satisfactory level of analysis can be reached.

Where possible, this study draws on secondary literature; other scholars have

produced careful analyses of early texts in languages such as Polish and Russian, and

their work need not be repeated. Such studies can take the form of an analysis of a

specific text or author, such as ÛernyxÕs (1953) analysis of the Russian Ulo¢enie of 1649

or GršschelÕs (1972) study of the writings of the Ukrainian author Ivan Vy£ensÕkyj (b.

1550), or surveys of texts in a particular period, such as WandasÕ (1966) examination of

Polish texts written during the reign of Kazimierz the Great (1447Ð92) or StieberÕs

(1954) analysis of Polish texts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Where such secondary sources are not available, I have performed my own

surveys of collections of early literature. This was necessary for some of the lesser-

studied languages, such as Slovak and Slovene. The earliest stages of other languages

remain largely or completely unexplored due to a lack of textual evidence; this is the case

for Kashubian as well as Sorbian. For these languages, the absence of data renders it

nearly impossible to explore the early history of their be-future constructions.

As the earliest attested Slavic language and the literary model for many of the

Slavic languages, Old Church Slavonic (OCS) is an essential source of information. In

light of the relationship between OCS and the Church Slavonic used in RusÕ and in other

areas of Slavic, it is important to consider the usage of various future constructions in

OCS texts. With this in mind, H. BirnbaumÕs (1958) work on OCS infinitival

constructions is an important source, as are works on the verbal systems of OCS (Dost‡l

1954; Bunina 1959; Havr‡nek 1939) and the reconstructed protolanguage, Common

Slavic (Stang 1942).

A particularly rich source of data on this problem is premodern grammars of

individual languages. Although linguistically na•ve in comparison to modern grammars,

these works provide valuable insight into earlier stages of many of the Slavic languages.

Some, such as the grammar of Polish by Statorius (1568/1980) and the grammar of

Slovene by Bohoriª (1584/1970), were published as early as the sixteenth century. These

grammars are a useful addition to the data and provide additional perspective on the issues

that concern the be-futureÕs development.

Careful attention also is paid to the state of the be-future in the modern languages,

especially in dialects. There is often disparity between what is found in literary

languages and in spoken dialects. With their adherence to prescriptive norms and their

propensity for conservatism, standard languages often do not reflect the linguistic

variation that one sees in dialects. As such, dialect data is crucial for a complete

understanding of the use and distribution of be-futures in Slavic.

Generally, data on the modern standard languages are readily available through

synchronic grammars and other descriptive works, e.g. Fa§keÕs (1981) grammar of

Upper Sorbian or Ûerny£evÕs (1970) analysis of analytic constructions in modern

Russian. As for dialects, most of the work focuses on phonological and lexical

description. However, dialect atlases and other surveys often report variations among

future constructions in dialects. For example, the Ukrainian dialect atlas (Zakrevska et al.

1984) contains maps illustrating the distribution of the three different future-tense

constructions that are attested for the languageÕs dialects. The modern state of the be-

future provides the known endpoint to the evolution of the be-future from which the

historical path of the construction can be traced backwards.

1.3.2 Evaluation of previous scholarship (Chapter 3)

As is mentioned above, there is an extensive body of literature in Slavistics on the

evolution of the be-future and future-tense constructions in general. This study devotes

considerable space to a discussion of this literature.

Historical grammars of individual Slavic languages, such as Rospond (1971),

Durnovo (1924/1962), Lehr-SpÂawi¼ski (1957), or BezpalÕko et al. (1957), include

historical data regarding the development of future-tense constructions in those languages

and can serve as a useful starting-point to an analysis of the be-future. By nature,

however, such works are designed to describe all facets of the language, and thus do not

usually provide more than a brief description of future-tense forms.

Of primary importance to this study are those works which are specifically

concerned with examining the development of the be-future in Slavic as a whole; such

works include those of Bonfante (1950), Ršsler (1952), K¤’¢kov‡ (1960), and Kravar

(1978). These works focus on analyzing the data and positing a path of development for

the be-future that conforms to that data.

Much of the third chapter is devoted to the evaluation of the theories presented by

previous scholarship. This analysis is facilitated by the recent contributions of general

linguistic works towards a more systematic description of syntactic and semantic change.

Through this lens, the shortcomings of previous works become significantly clearer and

the validity of their reasoning more easily assessed.

Although this study concludes that previous studies of the development of the

Slavic be-future are unsatisfactory, they are not without merit. Rather, they provide an

essential foundation to the current study by exploring different possible origins for the be-

future and how it came to be used in so many different languages. As such, this work is

not a refutation of previous literature but rather a refinement and improvement upon it.

1.3.3 Theoretical framework (Chapter 4)

This study is distinguished from previous literature in that it examines the

evolution of the be-future from a broader, more general linguistic perspective. This

perspective allows for a rigorous evaluation of previous scholarship, as well as a more

convincing description of the be-futureÕs path of development.

This work shall proceed from a few basic assumptions concerning time and the

future tense. A number of works provide important perspectives on time and tense in

general (e.g. Jesperson 1924/1992; Fleischman 1982; Comrie 1985) and the future tense

in particular (Ultan 1978; Bybee et al. 1987, 1991).

Of particular importance to any study of future-tense constructions is what is

meant by future tense. Within the traditional model of tense, events are characterized

relative to three absolute tenses: past, present, and future.

Despite the implication that

The term ÒabsoluteÓ here refers to those verb tenses which require only two points of reference, the

moment of speech and the moment of the described event. This is in contrast to the so-called ÒrelativeÓ

tenses, where the temporal reference of the event is regarded from the perspective of a third point in time

(cf. Comrie 1985: 56).

these three tenses are conceptually equivalent, dividing the timeline into two areas on

either side of a designated moment of speech, the timeline cannot be described as a

construct where the past is a conceptually symmetrical counterpart to the future. Due to

the existential fact that time progresses for us in a single direction, the description of a

future event can be only a guess or prediction of what will occur; one can, after all, never

be entirely certain what will occur.

The uncertainty that is inherent to the future precludes an entirely objective

description of reality that takes place within its scope. This inherent uncertainty results in

a linguistic expression that in many ways is as much modal as it is temporal. In other

words, a speakerÕs description of a future event must be colored by that personÕs

perspective; there can be no true statement of fact, only a prediction. The subjectivity of

our perspective of the future implies that linguistic expressions involving the future tense

cannot be said to describe a truly factual reality. Thus, the semantics of future-tense

constructions often contains components of modality and/or irrealis.

The modal/irrealis nature of the future tense as a grammatical category and the

concomitant reflection of such modality in linguistic forms is well described in the

literature. With regard to the Romance languages in particular, Fleischman (1982: 133)

uses this conceptual link to explain the affinity between future-tense expressions and

linguistic forms which express the modalities of obligation, volition, and intention. From

a broader perspective, general studies on the development of future-tense auxiliaries

reveal that verbs expressing such modalities often grammaticalize into such forms.

Indeed, one finds evidence of this path of grammaticalization in the history of the Slavic

languages.

Scholars who have concerned themselves with the historical development of

future-tense expressions, both in general and in the Slavic languages, have approached the

problem from many different theoretical perspectives. Rather than utilizing a single

theoretical approach, this study strives to take advantage of the diversity of the

scholarship. Proponents of grammaticalization theory, for example, have produced

valuable research. Works such as Bybee and Dahl (1989) and Fleischman (1982) make

important claims about the nature of future tenses that can be applied to the Slavic

question. Of perhaps the most value are the efforts of scholars like Bybee to explore the

potential lexical sources for future tense constructions in a broad, cross-linguistic

framework.

It would be inadequate, however, to rely solely on the works of proponents of

grammaticalization theory. Harris and Campbell (1995) and Joseph (2000), for example,

approach historical syntax from a different perspective, and explicitly argue that there is

no need for a separate theory of grammaticalization. Rather than choosing sides in what

is often a philosophical debate, this study will make use of the best scholarship from all

sides.

In this work, the term ÒgrammaticalizationÓ is used in the most general sense; see section 4.2.1 for

more detailed discussion.

Through the analysis of random samples of languages, studies dealing with the

development of future-tense constructions have drawn several general conclusions that

allow for the establishment of a typology. For example, it is clear that future-tense

auxiliaries typically evolve from only a small number of lexical sources, which share

certain common semantic features that lead to grammaticalization. The most frequently

used lexical sources are verbs denoting desire, obligation, or movement (Bybee and Dahl

1989: 58; Bybee et al. 1994). Another common lexical source identified by Bybee et al.

(1994) is ÔbeÕ or ÔbecomeÕ, with languages as diverse as Classical Latin, Modern

Icelandic, and Yessan-Mayo (an Asian-Pacific language) employing futures that

developed from these verbs.

Despite the discussion of ÔbecomeÕ-type futures in the general literature, Slavic is

rarely mentioned as a source of data. For this reason it is all the more important for this

study to make the data available in as comprehensive a collection as possible. The

richness of the data collected in this study, both of the modern languages and from earlier

stages of their development, allow for a fine-grained analysis of the path of development

for ÔbecomeÕ-type verbs into future auxiliaries.

1.3.4 A new theory of the Slavic be-future (Chapter 4)

In the same way that recent general linguistic scholarship on language change can

be used to reveal the flaws of previous hypotheses about the be-future, such work can

also provide a solid framework for a new hypothesis. Thus, this study culminates in the

presentation of a new, more convincing description of the development of the Slavic be-

future. In many respects, this hypothesis is very different from those which have been

presented before; it has been shaped by the consideration of a wide array of types and

sources of data, and omits no Slavic language from its scope.

This theory rests on the fundamental idea advanced by Wierzbicka (1978, 1988)

that the semantics of lexical items dictates how those items interact on the syntactic level.

From this starting-point, one can then argue that syntactic change is motivated by

semantic change. The theory presented in this study addresses the problem of the Slavic

be-futureÕs development from this perspective, analyzing the semantics of the Common

Slavic verb *boödoö and demonstrating how it underwent a shift. This semantic shift then

triggered a change in the verbÕs government, or colligability, as well as the verbÕs

grammaticalization into a future auxiliary.

The new theory presented in this study makes a valuable contribution to both

Slavistics and general linguistics; it accounts more fully for the available data and

examines the development of the be-future from a broader perspective than has been

previously attempted. In this way, the development of the be-future becomes a better-

understood phenomenon, and the grammaticalization of ÔbecomeÕ-type verbs into future

markers is more clearly described.

CHAPTER 2

THE SLAVIC DATA

2.0 The Proto-Indo-European future

Before beginning an examination of the data regarding the future tense in the

Slavic languages, we must determine whether the source for the be-future can be found in

Proto-Indo-European (PIE).

Some IE languages or language groups, such as Greek, Old Latin, Baltic, and

Indo-Iranian, have evidence of a formant *-s- that can be associated with future marking.

In some of these languages, forms that appear to contain this *-s- convey meanings that

can be linked closely to futurity, such as a desiderative form found in Indo-Iranian.

However, it is difficult to confirm that such forms all correspond to the same formant in

PIE, although the similarities of the forms are striking (cf. SzemerŽnyi 1990: 307Ð10).

An s-future is the standard future formation in Baltic, including both Latvian and

Lithuanian (Endzelõ-ns 1971: 231Ð32; Stang 1942: 202Ð04). This is notable, as Baltic is

often thought to have formed a subgroup of PIE with Slavic. It has been claimed that

evidence of this *-s- future can be found in Slavic as well, although only as an isolated,

lexicalized remnant. There is a rarely-attested participial form found in some Russian

Church Slavonic texts that appears to be formed by adding the Indo-European *-s- future

formant onto the stem of the verb byti: by£oö£t-/by£eö£t- (with £ < *sj). Due to the presence

of the *-s- and an analogous future form in Baltic, these forms are often termed a Òfuture

participleÓ.

The original meaning of the form, however, could more easily be described

as resultative, or change-of-state, in keeping with the original semantics of the stem boöd-

and the presence of an s-formant with aorist meaning in Slavic (see AitzetmŸller 1968 and

the discussion in section 2.1 below).

In summary, there is no evidence that the Slavic language group inherited a

specific morpheme from PIE that can be associated with marking futurity, nor is there

evidence that a Ôbe(come)Õ-type future can be reconstructed for PIE. Thus the formation

of future-tense forms and constructions in the Slavic languages must be explored within a

purely Slavic context.

2.1 The etymology and meaning of *boöd-

An integral part of the Slavic be-future is, of course, the auxiliary. This section

will discuss the etymology and semantics of the verb that developed into this future-tense

auxiliary.

Scholars generally agree that the reconstructed Common Slavic verb with the

present stem *boöd- is descended from the Late PIE stem *bhu--n-d. The nasal consonant

(which in syllable-auslaut combined with the preceding vowel to form a nasal vowel) is

an infix inherited from PIE. In Slavic, this infix is found in a small class of verbs

marking ingressivity or inchoativity; other members of this class are represented by the

See, for example, H. Birnbaum 1958: 15Ð16; D. Birnbaum 1995.

OCS verbs seödoö Ôsit (down)Õ, leögoö Ôlie (down)Õ, stanoö Ôstand (up); becomeÕ and prefixed

verbs based on -reö£toö: sÓreö£toö ÔmeetÕ and obreö£toö ÔfindÕ (Stang 1942: 53Ð54; see also

SzemerŽnyi 1990: 290Ð93). The nasal infix is restricted to the nonpast form of these

verbs; hence the infinitive counterpart to *boöd- is *byti (derived from *bhu--tei).

The presence of the nasal infix and the aspectuality of other (Slavic) verbs in the

same class suggest that the verb is perfective. If this is the case, one can interpret the

meaning as change-of-state, i.e. ÔbecomeÕ. The existence of suppletive present tense

forms like *jesmÕ, however, complicates the issue. Dost‡l (1954: 146) proposes a

solution to this problem, arguing that byti is biaspectual, with a stative imperfective

present *jesmÕ and a change-of-state perfective present *boödoö. This pairing is reflected in

past-tense forms as well, e.g. the imperfective aorist *b« versus the perfective aorist stem

*by-. A similar solution is proposed by Schooneveld (1951: 103); the Slovn’k jazyka

staroslov«nskŽho also indicates that there is evidence from Old Church Slavonic

(hereafter ÒOCSÓ) texts supporting the idea that a change-of-state meaning existed for byti

(SJaS 1961: s.v. ÒbytiÓ).

The change-of-state meaning for this verb is not restricted to the nonpast form.

AitzetmŸller (1968: 12Ð13) finds this meaning in many uses of the so-called Òfuture

participleÓ *by£oö£t-/by£eö£t-, and according to Stang (1942: 53), it was present in the

perfective aorist *byxÓ as well. These forms do not show the nasal infix because aorists

and participles of this class were formed from the root (see also Schenker 1993: 98). The

change-of-state meaning of the aorist is documented for OCS by Dost‡l (1954: 149Ð50);

moreover, it is found in RusÕian (Old East Slavic).

The original change-of-state meaning of the stem *boöd- is often overlooked by

Slavists. Nevertheless, the original semantics must be considered when studying the

development of *boödoö into a future-tense auxiliary. As is discussed in 3.3.4, knowing

the lexical origins of the auxiliary allows for a clearer definition of the path of

grammaticalization.

2.2 The origins of the Slavic be-future

Since Proto-Indo-European cannot be claimed as the source of the Slavic be-

future, one must then move forward in time to consider the Slavic proto-language,

Common Slavic. The oldest attested Slavic language, Old Church Slavonic, closely

resembles the reconstructed protolanguage, although it does show dialectal variants of

some features. This section will examine the evidence from OCS and comparative

evidence to determine whether the be-future can be reconstructed as an innovation that

developed during the Common Slavic period.

2.2.1 Old Church Slavonic

H. Birnbaum (1958: 7Ð8) describes several analytic constructions in OCS that are

used to express future tense. In this context, the nonpast forms of several verbs are

See 3.3.4 for further discussion of the situation in RusÕian.

attested in combination with infinitives: imamÕ Ôhave (to)Õ or Ôis (destined) toÕ, xo£tjoö

ÔwantÕ, and prefixed forms of -ªÕnoö ÔbeginÕ.

The nonpast perfective of byti Ôbe(come)Õ is found in combination with predicate

nouns and adjectives, as well as various participles: the present active, the present passive,

the past passive, and the l-participle. In the earliest period of Slavic, Birnbaum (ibid.:

21Ð22) finds no evidence that these constructions were grammaticalized, but considers

them to be constructions of copula plus predicate.

The construction with boödoö plus the l-participle is a futurum exactum or future

perfect that is rarely attested in OCS, occuring only seven times. It is generally

considered to be part of a system of perfect tenses inherited from Common Slavic that are

formed with an auxiliary based on different tense-forms of byti plus the l-participle. The

l-participle is often referred to as a resultative participle; thus the future perfect describes a

situation that is or has been in effect prior to a future reference point. For a more detailed

discussion of the relation between the future perfect and the be-future, see sections 3.3.2

and 4.5 below.

In OCS one also finds examples of the perfective nonpast third person singular

form boödetÓ in combination with an infinitive and a dative object (the understood agent)

as part of an impersonal construction (ibid.: 23Ð24). Infinitives can be either im-

perfective (1a) or perfective (1b).

(1a)

i mÕn« boödetÕ stradati podru¢ija i voleö svojejeö
Ô...and I will have to be deprived of marriage and my [own]
freedomÕ (Supr. 237, 1Ð2)

(1b)

...ty bo emu¢e ne xo£te£i boödetÕ

ti prijeöti...

Ô...[As for] you, that which you do not want [to endure] you will
have to endure...Õ (Supr. 131, 18Ð19).

Although this expression resembles the be-future superficially, infinitives may be of

either aspect, and the meaning is one of obligation imposed on the dative object. The lack

of a nominative subject in these constructions suggests that they should be seen as a

future-tense impersonal expression of obligation rather than an indicative future.

Given the data, it appears that OCS did not have a Ôbe(come)Õ-type future of any

kind, except for the nonpast perfective boödoö itself. This suggests that the development of

the be-future should be placed at a point after the breakup of Common Slavic, after the

differentiation of the individual Slavic languages.

2.2.2 Placing the be-future within the context of chronology

As was shown in Table 1.1, the be-future is found in a broad and diverse group

of Slavic languages, with its distribution cutting across the traditional divisions of East,

West, and South Slavic. The wide distribution of this construction has motivated some

scholars to suggest that the expression can be reconstructed for the protolanguage,

Common Slavic. This is proposed by Townsend and Janda (1996), for example, in their

description of Common Slavic. The aforementioned lack of any attestations of the be-

future in OCS, however, suggests that the construction cannot be easily placed in the

Common Slavic period.

See 3.3.1 below for more discussion of this construction.

This conclusion is supported by the situation in RusÕian, another language of early attestation (see

2.10Ð2.12 below).

With these issues in mind, it becomes important to examine the data from the

individual languages. Analysis of the earliest evidence of the be-future in these languages

lends further support to the argument that the be-future cannot be considered part of

Common Slavic, and moreover that the path of development of the construction is quite

varied across languages. The following sections present what is known about the

development and attestation of the be-future in the languages that employ this type of

construction, including information about the chronology of the be-future in each

language. All Slavic languages except Bulgarian, Macedonian, and PolabianÑthe

languages in which no be-futures are attestedÑwill be discussed. The data not only

prove useful for the question of whether the be-future can be reconstructed for Common

Slavic, but also are essential for evaluating existing theories and formulating new theories

regarding the development of the construction.

2.3 Slovene

2.3.1 Usage

In literary Slovene the standard future is formed with a shortened reflex of *boöd-,

e.g. 1 sg. bom, 2 sg. bo£, plus the l-participle (Priestly 1993: 417), a construction that is

identical in form to the Common Slavic future perfect (see 2.2.1 above). This is the

means of forming the future tense for verbs of either aspect, although Lenªek (1982: 192)

indicates that the nonpast of perfective verbs may also convey future-tense reference, as is

typical in North Slavic languages. Among dialects, Lenªek (ibid.) reports that the Upper

Carniola dialects of central Slovenia prefer nonpast forms for perfective future, while the

northeast Styria dialects, which border the Kajkavian dialect region of Croatia, favor the

use of the be-future construction.

2.3.2 Chronology

The be-future is absent in the earliest text of Slovene recension, the Freising

fragments, which is dated around the late tenth century. Future tense is expressed most

frequently in the text with nonpast perfective verbs; there is also one example of the

auxiliary ÔbeginÕ with an imperfective infinitive (FD 1968). Other than this early piece of

negative evidence, no data are available until the sixteenth century. The earliest attestation

of a be-future is a catechism dated 1551, which has bod- plus the l-participle (Ršsler

1952: 120). By the latter part of the sixteenth century, the form must have been fairly

widespread; it is found in an early grammar by Bohoriª (1584/1970), who describes the

future as formed with the shortened forms of the auxiliaryÑe.g. bom, bo£, bo (1, 2, 3 sg.,

respectively). According to Bohoriª, a so-called ÒconjunctiveÓ future used in conditional

clauses is formed in the same way; the Latin equivalents he has supplied are future

perfects. Bohoriª makes no comment on the relationship of aspect to the formation of the

future, and his sample verbs are all imperfective. However, his lack of distinction

between the behavior of imperfective and perfective verbs suggests that aspect did not

affect the formation of the future. The early nineteenth-century grammar by Kopitar

(1808/1971: 311) states more clearly that the be-future construction was possible with

verbs of either aspect.

In general, there appears to be no evidence for a be-future with infinitival

complement in Slovene (Ršsler 1952: 120Ð21).

2.4 Serbo-Croatian

Although there are political arguments for considering Serbian, Croatian,

Bosnian, and Montenegrin as separate languages, the main dialect divisions of the Slavic

language territory of former Yugoslavia cut across political boundaries.

Thus,

discussion of the languages in this territory has been combined into a single section under

the rubric ÒSerbo-CroatianÓ, and organized by major dialect group.

2.4.1 Usage

The modern literary languages have a ÔwantÕ-type future, while ÔbecomeÕ-type

futures are found only in dialects. Both of these future constructions are used with verbs

of either aspect. There is also a Òfuture IIÓ or futurum exactum in the literary language,

used in dependent clauses (1):

(1)

Kad budemo govorili s Marijom, sve ¦e biti jasno.
ÔWhen/if we speak with Marija, everything will be clearÕ (Browne
1993: 331).

This participial construction is used typically with imperfective verbs; in the same context,

perfective verbs typically appear in the nonpast (ibid.). Note that in the main clause of

For a discussion of the major dialect groupings of Serbian and Croatian, see Browne 1993: 382Ðff.

this example, the future tense is expressed with the literary standard ¦e biti, with the

ÔwantÕ-auxiliary.

In Ütokavian dialects, which comprise the eastern and central area of former

Yugoslavia, including Serbia, Bosnia, and much of Croatia, a monolectic construction

with infinitive plus the be-auxiliary is found as a futurum exactum, e.g. imadbudem ÔI

will have hadÕ. According to Beli¦ (1965: 81, 152), this form is found only rarely, but he

gives no specific information regarding its distribution. In addition, according to Ršsler

(1952: 109), budem plus the infinitive is found in southern areas of Ütokavian as

remnants found in folk songs and tales; he does not specify whether these expressions

convey pure future or futurum exactum. In her description of the dialect in the region of

Imotska Krajina and Bekija, Üimundi¦ (1971: 198) reports constructions with budem in

combination with either the infinitive or the l-participle being used as a futurum exactum,

but she gives no details regarding possible contextualizations for the usage. She also

reports that either aspect is possible for both types of complement.

Ršsler (1952: 119) also reports that in Ûakavian dialects, spoken in Western

Dalmatia and Istria, budem plus the l-participle is commonly found as a future

construction; he makes no mention of aspect with regard to the complement. In general,

Ršsler argues that budem plus the infinitive is more widespread in main clauses in

Ûakavian than in other dialect groups. In response to this, Kravar (1978: 261) argues that

budem plus the infinitive of either aspect is actually widespread in modern dialects,

including not only Dalmatia and the coastal areas of Croatia, but also in islands in

(Ütokavian) Bosnia and Slavonia. In usage it is typically less an expression of pure

futurity than a relative future used in dependent clauses (2):

(2)

Dat ¦u ti kad budem imati.
ÔI will give [it] to you when I have [it]Õ (Kravar 1978: 262).

As in the example from the literary language found above, future-tense reference in the

main clause here is indicated with the standard literary ÔwantÕ-auxiliary.

Studies of specific Ûakavian dialect areas reveal some evidence of the main-clause

attestations of budem plus the infinitive that Ršsler mentions. For example, in the Istrian

dialect spoken around Orbani¦i, Kalsbeek (1998: 298) reports that although the

construction is used primarily in dependent clauses, main-clause examples do exist. In

her corpus, all examples are negated, have non-personal 3 sg. subjects, and are formed

with the same verb, ªut Ôhear; be heardÕ (ibid.: 284). For example, the following

statement (3) was surrounded by a discussion of the quantity of sound material her tape

was thought to contain.

(3)

Niª ne b

ode tako ªut. Svi so muªali.

ÔThere wonÕt be anything to hear this way. Everybody was silentÕ
(ibid.).

The modern Kajkavian dialects, located in Northwest Croatia, do not use budu/

budem plus the infinitive at all; rather, constructions with budem/bodem (or bum/bom)

plus l-participles of either aspect are used as futures or futura exacta, in alternation with a

ÔwantÕ-type future (Ršsler 1952: 118; see also Magner 1966: 40). This mix of features is

not surprising in an area that is transitional between Croatian and Slovene.

2.4.2 Chronology

The earliest Serbo-Croatian texts, dated from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries,

are heavily influenced by OCS and show no evidence of a be-future (Kravar 1978: 260).

Rather, future tense is expressed either with nonpast forms of perfective verbs, or

constructions with ÔwantÕ or ÔhaveÕ in combination with the infinitive (Beli¦ 1965: 81Ð82;

Mali¦ 1972: 175Ð76).

The only date mentioned by Beli¦ (1965: 81) is that from very early on, i.e. the

thirteenth century, budem plus the l-participle could replace the infinitival construction in

the meaning of the futurum exactum. This statement is confusing in light of what we

know about the history of these forms; moreover, Beli¦ gives no textual evidence of

budem plus the infinitive existing at all in early texts and thus gives no justification for his

statement. The issue remains unresolved without a more careful analysis of early Serbo-

Croatian texts, and this analysis has yet to be done.

A search of available sources does reveal a small amount of data: two examples of

budem plus imperfective infinitives (1) can be found in an Old Croatian text, Pisan

svetogo Jurja, poj ljudem razumno (Mali¦ 1972). It is a religious poem about St.

GeorgeÕs encounter with the dragon, and the text is dated circa 1380.

(1)

KralÕ s vlasteli poªe tako ve¦ati:
ÒUªinemo drakunu po dÕvoe dobit(Ô)ka dati,
da budetÕ dobitakÕ pri ezere stati.
Po¢rv ga, drakunÕ budetÕ se vra¦ati.Ó
ÔThe king began to speak to his subjects: ÒLet us give the dragon
two sacrifices each, so that the sacrifice will be standing by the

lake. Having eaten it, the dragon will return [to the lake]ÓÕ (ibid.:
34).

Although both constructions with budem plus the infinitive are in a dependent clause in

(1), they appear to be pure futures and not future perfects. In light of this evidence,

Beli¦Õs claim that infinitival constructions predated participial constructions in early

Serbo-Croatian appears even less credible.

In Ragusan, or Old Dubrovnik, a mixed Ûakavian-Ütokavian dialect whose texts

are from the fifteenthÐsixteenth centuries, examples of budem plus the infinitive are

found. They occur both in main and dependent clauses, sometimes with perfective verbs

(Ršsler 1952: 112). Examples of budem plus the l-participle are also found. In the

works of the Ragusan author Dominko Zlatari¦ (late sixteenth century), Vaillant (1979:

44Ð45) finds cases where budem plus the infinitive is replaced by the ÔwantÕ-future in

later revisions of the same text. Constructions with budem can be formed with

complements of either aspect, although Vaillant (ibid.) also finds nonpast perfectives used

to express future meaning.

In eighteenth-century Dalmatian texts, budem plus the infinitive is found

alongside the ÔwantÕ future, the former being attested especially in dependent clauses

(Ršsler 1952: 113). The concentration of these constructions in dependent clauses

suggests that they were used as a relative future or futurum exactum. A similar usage is

found in nineteenth-century texts from Kosovo-Metohija and a text from Prizren dated to

Although it might appear that the verb stati in this example is the perfective verb meaning Ôstand upÕ,

context suggests that it is in fact a contracted form of imperfective stajati Ôbe standingÕ. Such

contraction is attested for this verb in Croatian (Ivekovi¦ and Broz 1901: s.v. Òst‰tiÓ).

1871, with infinitival or participial complements attested in combination with budem to

form a futurum exactum (Vuki¦evi¦ 1978: 87Ð88, 150).

For Ûakavian, Kravar (1978: 259Ð60) reports that budem plus the infinitive is

well-attested from the second half of the fourteenth century. This suggests that it

appeared even earlier in the spoken language, but was not reflected in the conservative,

Slavonic-influenced texts of the earlier period. Texts from the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries attest either (ho)¦u ÔwantÕ or budu plus the infinitive as a pure future. Re£etarÕs

(1898: 193Ð94) fifteenth-century texts attest both nonpast perfective verbs and

imperfective infinitives combining with budu to express futurity; he notes that later copies

often show both types of construction replaced with ÔwantÕ-type futures. This situation is

described by Popovi¦ (1960: 517) as well, who reports that the future in premodern

Ûakavian dialects was expressed by either nonpast perfectives or budu plus imperfective

infinitives. For the same period, Ršsler (1952: 114Ð15) finds the occasional use of budu

plus the l-participle, which he says is more frequently attested than the infinitival

complement. According to Ršsler, both types of complement can occur with verbs of

either aspect (ibid.); this is contradictory to what is reported by Re£etar and Popovi¦.

In support of what is attested, a grammar written by Cassius (1604/1977) at the

turn of the seventeenth century describes only a ÔwantÕ-type indicative future (ibid.: 99),

but he also describes a Òconjunctive futureÓ that is formed with budu plus the l-participle

(ibid.: 95). Judging from the terminology employed by Cassius, this latter form is most

likely being described as a futurum exactum; examples are given with the Latin future

perfect as equivalent (ibid.: 108).

Based on his own data, Kravar (1978: 257Ð58) concludes that budem plus the

infinitive should not be considered a Ûakavian-Ragusan dialect feature but should be seen

as a construction that is found in dialects across a large part of the Serbo-Croatian

linguistic territory. This appears to be supported by the other data presented in this

section.

Kajkavian seems to have budem (or bum) plus the l-participle as a possible future

construction since at least the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, alongside a ÔwantÕ-type

construction (Aleksi¦ 1937: 49). Ršsler notes that this expression could be formed with

verbs of either aspect (1952: 118); this contrasts with Popovi¦ (1960: 365), who

describes the dialect as having an aspectual opposition in the future tense between nonpast

perfective verbs and bom/bum plus imperfective l-participles.

As was the case for Slovene (see 2.3.2 above), there appears to be no evidence

that a be-future with infinitival complement ever existed in Kajkavian.

2.5 Czech

2.5.1 Usage

A be-future with infinitival complement is used in the literary language for

imperfective verbs only (Short 1993a: 481). Most dialects reflect the same usage as the

literary language, although in the northeastern areas bordering Poland, use of an l-

participle complement is also possible (B«liª 1972: 198). For example, Kellner (1946:

174) reports that in the Eastern Lach dialects, masculine singular subjects typically form

the future with participial complements, while other persons tend to use infinitives.

2.5.2 Chronology

The earliest examples of the be-future in written Czech are found in a text dated

circa 1300, which is the period of the earliest Czech texts (Flaj£ans 1903: 118Ð20; see

also Gebauer 1909: 425). They are among some marginalia found within the MnichovskŽ

zlomky, a codex in Latin (also called Tœlec sv. Bonaventury):

(1)

Nemochi bude

∫

b’t’ wchi

∫

le mez’ dywcam’ ydcheram’ x-pi

ÔYou will not be able to be in the number among the young
women and daughters of ChristÕ (Flaj£ans 1903: 118, ln. 24b)

This example is one of the earliest be-futures to be attested in Slavic as a whole.

Five be-futures are the only imperfective future constructions found in another

text from circa 1300, the Ýalt‡¤ Musejn’ (Flaj£ans 1903: 129Ð42). For example, one

finds the following (2), from Psalm 145:

(2)

chv‡liti budu ho

∫

podina. . .

ÔI will praise the Lord. . .Õ (Flaj£ans 1903: 130)

Be-futures are also found in the Hradeck´ manuscript from the mid-fourteenth

century, the Legenda o sv. Kate¤in« of the later fourteenth century, as well as other texts

dated to the fourteenth century (K¤’¢kov‡ 1960: 93). Based on these examples and given

the later attestation of be-futures in South Slavic and East Slavic, Czech appears to have

developed a be-future within an extremely early time-frame for Slavic.

Alongside these be-futures are somewhat rarer uses of ÔwantÕ or ÔhaveÕ plus

infinitives (Gebauer 1909: 425Ð26). K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 94) argues that these constructions

had a primarily modal, not temporal usage. However, given the fact that such

constructions were used as future expressions in other early Slavic texts, one cannot

assume that constructions with ÔwantÕ or ÔhaveÕ did not convey future-tense meaning, nor

can one rule out the possibility that the be-future was in alternation with these expressions

as future-tense constructions in the earliest Czech texts. Gebauer (ibid.) considers some

of these constructions to have conveyed future-tense meaning; the evidence appears to

support his view. For example, consider this example from the mid-fourteenth-century

Hradeck´ manuscript (3), from O £evc’ch, a satirical piece on tailors. The example is

quoting a wife who is fed up with her husbandÕs behavior:

(3)

Czo mi uczynyti

∫

tobu?

Racz

∫

∫∫

ieti, moy mily muzy,

∫

ak widi

∫

mu i

∫

wu nuzy!

Ze chczes wzdy w krrczmye lezieti!
Dietky chtie hladem zemrzieti.
ÔÒWhat am I to do with you?
So you listen, my dear husband,
but you see my and your needs!
You always want to hasten to taverns!
The children will die of hungerÓÕ (Por‡k 1979: 89).

While one can argue that the first use of ÔwantÕ in this example conveys primarily

desiderative meaning, the second use clearly has no such nuance.

Raw data from texts after the fourteenth century are not provided in the secondary

literature. Lehr-SpÂawi¼ski (1957: 141), for example, merely mentions that the be-future

became more widespread after the fourteenth century; this does not illuminate whether

other future constructions became rarer or whether be-futures became better attested.

Without more data, one cannot determine the exact path of development for the be-future

in Czech.

In sum, as K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 93Ð94) points out, the early data indicate that Czech

has textual attestations of the be-future circa 1300, before any other Slavic language.

Moreover, the time-frame for development of the be-future extends prior to this point if

one considers that the appearance of the be-future in the written language most likely

reflects an earlier development in the spoken language. The rarity of attestation for the

future constructions inherited from Common Slavic also suggests that the be-future

developed and spread quite early in Czech.

2.6 Slovak

2.6.1 Usage

A be-future is standard for imperfective verbs in the literary language. Dialects in

extreme Eastern Slovakia, which in other features show strong East Slavic influence, also

attest futures with ÔwantÕ or ÔhaveÕ. There is also a future formed with ÔgoÕ that has been

termed an ÒimmediateÓ future, found especially in Central and Eastern Slovak (Stanislav

1958: 418). Also in the East, the be-future with an l-participle complement is found

(Stanislav ibid.; see also Ütolc 1994: 109). These areas are adjacent to regions in Poland

and Ukraine where the l-participle complement is also used (see 2.8.1 and 2.11.1 below,

respectively). For example, the Üari£ area in northeast Slovakia (which borders Poland to

the north) has both the infinitival and the participial be-futures (Buffa 1995: 158).

2.6.2 Chronology

In the case of Slovak there are scarcely any historical data available. Ršsler

(1952), for example, devotes a section to the be-future in Czech and Slovak but makes no

specific mention of Slovak. K¤’¢kov‡ (1960), on the other hand, has compiled data

relevant to both Czech and Slovak but labels the data ÒCzechÓ. Neither approach is

entirely satisfactory, although they reflect the close affinity of these languages and the

predominance of Czech as the literary language in the earliest period.

An additional hindrance to collecting data is the fact that there are no extant Slovak

texts prior to the end of the fourteenth century. There are, however, earlier Old Czech

texts that contain Slovak linguistic features; these have been identified by Stanislav (1957:

11).

An examination of the early texts found in Stanislav (ibid.) reveals relatively

frequent use of be-futures. One example (1) is found in the earliest text, Dialogi

Bohemarii, dated 1379:

(1)

yako¢ czlowyek syege, takez bude zyeczi
ÔAs a man reaps, so he shall sowÕ (Stanislav 1957: 124Ð26)

According to Stanislav (ibid.: 126), this text contains features of Moravian Slovak, a

West Slovak dialect, and can be considered one of the earliest texts with Slovak features.

Be-futures with infinitival complements continue to appear relatively frequently

throughout texts of the fifteenth century, with attestations increasing towards the turn of

A more detailed description of the relationship between Czech and Slovak in the earliest period can be

found in DÕuroviª (1980).

the sixteenth century. Constructions with ÔhaveÕ are also found in many texts, although

primarily in combination with perfective verbs. By the seventeenth century, the be-future

appears to be quite widespread, and other future constructions are not attested. In the

eighteenth century, Bernol‡kÕs (1790/1964) grammar, the first Slovak grammar and one

based on West Slovak dialect, confirms the use of the be-future and gives no alternative

constructions (ibid.: 207). This is also the case in the grammar by Ütœr (1846/1943),

which favors the Central Slovak dialect and provides the model for the modern Slovak

literary language.

In contrast to the data found for the infinitival be-future, there is no historical

evidence for the participial type. This may be due to the lack of historical sources for East

Slovak dialects, which are not represented by the early grammars of Slovak.

2.7 Sorbian

2.7.1 Usage

A be-future with infinitive complement is standard for imperfective verbs in the

literary language. In some dialects of both Upper and Lower Sorbian, the be-future can

also be formed with perfective verbs (Fa§ke 1981: 253; Mucke 1891/1965: 604). The

spread of the be-future into the realm of perfective verbs is a situation which has been

gradually making inroads into the literary language (Fa§ke 1981: 253).

In Lower Sorbian, one can even find the future tense of ÔbeÕ expressed

analytically, e.g., ja budu by¥ ÔI will beÕ (Mucke 1891/1965: 605). In criticizing this

usage, Mucke (ibid.) erroneously translates this example as the nonsensical ich werden

sein zu sein ÔI will be to beÕ; it is more likely that this is in fact evidence of the further

grammaticalization of budu into a tense-marker that no longer conveys any lexical

meaning.

2.7.2 Chronology

According to K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 103), the earliest attestations of a be-future are

from the sixteenth century. Examples can be found in texts as early as Miklawu£

JakubicaÕs 1548 translation of the New Testament into Lower Sorbian. For example, this

excerpt from John 16:13 (1):

(1)

... P

∫

cheto a

∫

ch won wot

∫

oebe

∫

amego nebucze molwitz, krome to

∫

och

∫

chatcz bucze, to won molwitcz bucze. ...

Ô... For he will not speak of himself, but whatever he will hear he
will speakÕ (Schuster-Üewc 1967: 174).

The earliest attested texts also date from the sixteenth century, so there is no way of

determining exactly when the be-future came into use, or if other future forms were ever

in use.

The use of perfective verbs with the be-future is clearly an unusual development

for North Slavic. One can speculate that this relaxing of the aspectual constraint on the

construction is due to the almost universal bilingualism in the area between Sorbian and

German.

German has no aspectual constraint on its own future construction with

werden.

Cf. Stone (1993a); see also 3.2.4 and 4.3.2 below for more discussion of perfective complements in

Sorbian.

2.8 Polish

2.8.1 Usage

A be-future is standard for imperfective verbs in the literary language, and an

infinitival complement is in alternation with beödeö plus the l-participle. Much literature has

been produced exploring the distribution of these forms in modern Polish, as well as the

motivating factors behind the choice of form.

The choice between the participial and infinitival complements is typically seen by

scholars as a conflict between economy and expressiveness. The participle conveys

gender and numberÑby concord, although if the pronoun is omitted then the participle is

the sole form marking these categoriesÑwhereas the infinitive is one syllable shorter than

all participial forms besides the masculine singular and thus more ÒeconomicalÓ in its

expression.

Nitsch (1956: 195) argues that the forces of economy versus expressiveness

explain the distribution found in modern-day dialects. He reports that generally there

seems to be complementary distribution, so that masculine singular forms have the

participial complement, while other forms have the infinitival. His use of the term

ÒeconomyÓ refers to the fact that the use of participial forms with nonmasculine subjects

would add another syllable to the expression. However, the use of alternating

complements to express the same meaning can hardly be called economical with regard to

the larger system, even if the utterance itself is shorter by one syllable. Moreover, the

relative frequency of the participial construction with masculine singular subjects can only

be viewed as a correlation rather than a cause-and-effect relationship.

NitschÕs use of the term ÒexpressivenessÓ is also suspect; ostensibly, he is

arguing that the gender marking of the participle, absent on the infinitive, adds to the

expressiveness of the participial construction. However, this gender marking merely

reflects the gender of the subject, and no categories are expressed by the participial form

that are lacking in the infinitival construction.

Regarding the tendency for nonmasculine subjects to appear with infinitive

complements in be-future constructions, Miko¥ (1985: 454) has found results that

support this view in his study of speakers of the standard language. According to his

data, the most important factor that triggers use of the infinitive is a plural subject,

followed by non-masculine gender and nonpersonal subjects. Again, one cannot assume

a cause-and-effect relationship here, merely the presence of a correlation between gender

and type of complement.

Both Nitsch and Miko¥ appear to support the idea that the choice of form is

motivated by stylistic considerations. This view implies that there is no semantic

difference between the two types of complement, a position that is criticized by Proeme

(1991). Proeme argues that the main motivating factor is semantic. According to his

theory, the construction with the infinitival complement conveys a nuance of expectation

that is absent from the participial future; his examples, however, do not convincingly

support this assertion.

Proeme rightly excludes the modal verbs chie¦ ÔwantÕ, m—c Ôable (to)Õ, musie¦

Ôobliged (to)Õ, and mie¦ Ôhave (to)Õ from his argument, because these verbs always appear

in participial form in future constructions (ibid.: 195). These verbs all can take infinitival

complements of their own, so one presumes that there is a syntactic constraint present in

the language that discourages constructions with two infinitives. Historical evidence

supporting the presence of this constraint is discussed below.

The scope of this study does not allow for a detailed evaluation of ProemeÕs

theory, although the data presented by Miko¥ (1985) call into question his conclusion that

choice of complement is motivated by semantic factors. Based on the historical data

discussed below, however, it appears that the differing usage of the two forms might be

linked to the different age of the constructions.

2.8.2 Chronology

The earliest extant texts in Polish date from the fourteenth century. According to

some scholars, both forms of the be-future were used Òfrom the earliest periodÓ

(Klemensiewicz et al. 1964: 374; see also Rospond 1971: 308). Until midway through

the fifteenth century, however, constructions with the infinitival complement predominate

(Cyran 1961: 223), while forms with the (imperfective) participial complement are very

rare in the earliest texts (G—recka and ¡miech 1972: 13). Unfortunately, there appears to

be no data regarding the existence of constructions with a perfective l-participle in any

Polish texts, which would lend insight into the fate of the future perfect construction

inherited from Common Slavic.

The infinitival complement was preferred overwhelmingly until the late fifteenth

century. In terms of dialect distribution, Mazovian, which comprises the northeast area of

Poland, shows the most frequent use of the participle at this earliest stage (G—recka and

¡miech 1972: 14).

In Table 2.1 below, data taken from Stieber (1954: 231Ð32) show the distribution

of the types of be-future in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts, while data from

Kowalska (1976: 127) show percentage distributions of the possible complements.

Although Stieber and Kowalska both separate the data for the infinitival be-future

according to the order of the constructionÕs components, variation in word order is more

relevant to stylistic studies and will be ignored in the current analysis.

l-participle

infinitive

Kazania ¥wieötokrzyskie

Kazania gnie»nie¼skie

PsaÂterz floria¼ski

443

PsaÂterz puÂawski

443

Biblia Zofii

579

Kodeks ¡wieötosÂawa

total (%) for singular

total (%) for plural

Table 2.1. Polish future complements through the fifteenth century.

Based on this data, Stieber concludes that secular texts like the Kodeks ¡wieötosÂawa were

more likely to use the participial complement (ibid.: 233), but regardless of register, the

participial complement was clearly used much less often than the infinitive.

It is possible that at least some of the early participial constructions can be

identified as future perfects. For example, the one attested participial form in the PsaÂterz

floria¼ski is as follows (1):

(1)

Goni¦ b¿d¿ nieprzyjaciele moje, i poÂapi¿ je;
ani sie obroc¿, ali½ zgin¿.
ZÂami¿ je, ni b¿d¿ mogli sta¦;
padn¿ pod nogi moje.
ÔI will pursue my enemies and overtake them;
I will not turn back until they are consumed.
I will break them so that they will not be able to stand;
They will fall beneath my feetÕ (Ps. 17, 41Ð42).

It is not clear from context whether the Polish b¿d¿ mogli sta¦ should be interpreted as a

future or a future perfect here. However, the equivalent passage from the Vulgate Bible

(2), which is the likely source for the Polish translation, has a future perfect.

(2)

Persequar inimicos meos, et comprehendam illos;
Et non convertar donec deficiant.
Confringam illos nec poterunt stare;
Cadent subtus pedes meos (BS 1965: Ps. 17, 38Ð39).

The form poterunt is truncated from potuerunt, an unequivocal future perfect. One

should also note that in this context, the English translation is not an accurate indicator of

the tense in Latin or, indeed, in Polish; in the Vulgate, there are many cases where a Latin

future perfect is used that is best translated with an English present (Plater and White

1926: 106). Clearly, there is a great deal of ambiguity surrounding this example, and it is

possible that Old Polish constructions with beödeö plus the l-participle may indicate future-

perfect tense rather than pure future.

A more detailed study of the earliest examples is

needed.

According to Kowalska (1976: 127), the participial complement continued to be

found more in secular texts than church writings through the sixteenth century; Kowalska

argues that the more influence of the spoken language, the more likely the use of the

participle (ibid.: 128). Whereas earlier use of the participial future occurred primarily with

masculine singular subjects, in the sixteenth century the participial complement began to

appear more frequently with other genders in the singular (ibid.: 129; see also G—recka

and ¡miech 1972: 29).

We can see evidence of these trends in the grammar of Statorius (1568/1980). At

various points in his work, he describes the future as either with the participle, e.g. beödeö

pisaÂ (ibid.: 108), or with the infinitive (ibid.: 136). In an example of conjugation (using

robi¦ Ômake, doÕ), he uses only the l-participle for masculine and plural forms, but gives

both the participle and the infinitive as variants for the feminine and neuter singular (ibid.:

138).

Table 2.2 shows data from sixteenth-century texts (Stieber 1954: 232Ð33), as well

as percentage totals for the various constructions from Kowalska (1976: 127). When

compared with the data from Table 2.1, these data clearly reflect an increase in the use of

the participial complement, especially in the singular.

See section 3.3.2.1 for more discussion of this example.

l-participle

infinitive

Kodeks DziaÂy¼ski

Modlitwy WacÂawa

Kodeks Stradomskiego

Kodeks dzikowski

Historia Aleksandra
Wielkiego

Kazania Paterka

Modlitewnik dla kobiet

Åywot ¥w. Eufraksji

total (%) for singular

total (%) for plural

Table 2.2. Polish future complements through the sixteenth century.

In the seventeenth century, use of the participial complement was increasing,

especially in the Eastern dialects of Mazovia and Little Polish (G—recka and ¡miech 1972:

27). It is for this period that scholars begin to mention that the participle was favored in

contexts where the entire construction took an infinitival complement (Kowalska 1976:

132; see also Nitsch 1956: 196), a syntactic constraint on the construction (see 2.8.1

above).

This situation continued through the eighteenth century (G—recka and ¡miech

1972: 18Ð19). By the end of the Middle Polish period, use of the participle was

beginning to increase significantly; the earlier stylistic distribution of the two

complements, whereby the infinitive was preferred in higher-style religious texts and the

participle was preferred in secular texts, appears to be no longer in effect.

There appears to be a further increase in the frequency of the participle and a

decrease in the infinitive in the nineteenth century (Bajerowa 1992: 182), a process that

had already begun in the eighteenth century (ibid.: 185). Especially notable is the advance

of the participial form into the plural. The modal verb mie¦ Ôhave (to)Õ continued to

appear in the participial form as a complement (Bajerowa 1992: 183), in keeping with the

syntactic constraint on double infinitives mentioned above. Gender also continued to

influence the choice of form: the masculine singular had the greatest increase in use of the

participle, while the plural consistently favored the infinitive (ibid.: 184).

Grammars of the nineteenth century generally mention both types of future

construction; e.g. beödeö robiÂ and robi¦ beödeö ÔI will workÕ. The construction with the

participle preceding the auxiliary is referred to dismissively as a dialect form, and beödeö

robi¦ is often referred to as a Germanism (and thus frowned upon by grammarians

throughout the nineteenth century (Proeme 1991: 182)). An 1897 grammar by MaÂecki

mentions both participial and infinitival types as possible (ibid.: 185).

One reason for the shift from the infinitival to the participial complement is

suggested by Nitsch (1956: 194). He argues that it was due to analogy to the concomitant

development of the past tense into a synthetic form of the l-participle with suffixed

personal endings formed from the present tense of ÔbeÕ.

However, there are problems

with this argument. For example, there is little evidence that the participial future

expression with the l-participle preceding beödeö was a viable form. Without such a form in

use, then, there is no direct formal correspondence to be found between the past and

See also the discussion in Andersen (1987: 26Ð27).

future tense formations. Moreover, beödeö functions as a clitic in the past-tense

construction, but not in the future tense; thus the two constructions do not appear to be

analogous. Finally, given the inherent semantic differences between the past and future

tenses in languages in general, there is no reason to assume that past- and future-tense

forms would resemble each other or develop in tandem.

Cyran (1961: 223) offers another explanation for the increasing use of the

participial complement, arguing that the greater ÒexpressivenessÓ of the participial form,

with its marking of gender, made it a more desirable form. He adds, moreover, that there

might have been a perception among speakers that the infinitival complement too closely

resembled Russian (ibid.: 224). However, it cannot be argued that gender marking on the

participle adds to the expressiveness of the construction, since the participle merely agrees

with the gender of the subject. As for CyranÕs claim regarding the perception of

speakers, this is an entirely speculative conclusion.

The trend of the spread of the participle and the retreat of the infinitive continues

into the twentieth century (Cyran 1961). Again, masculine singular forms are most likely

to use the participle (ibid.: 223).

In summary, the Polish data reveal many interesting developments, although gaps

in the data leave the situation in the earliest period unknown. Without earlier data, one

cannot gain a complete picture of the relationship between the infinitival and participial

For discussion of this point from a synchronic perspective, see Bybee (1985: 162). For a diachronic

perspective, see Pappas (1999).

constructions. The exact nature of the relationship between these forms in the modern

language also remains a contested issue.

Textual evidence does indicate that the participial construction was attested only

rarely in the earliest extant texts, then spread in use and now appears to be the favored

construction. It also appears that the spread of the participial future has taken place

hierarchically, from the least-marked masculine singular into more marked forms such as

plurals and feminine and neuter singulars. This pattern of diffusion might suggest that the

participial construction to be innovative; for more detailed analysis of this point, see 3.3.2

below.

2.9 Kashubian

Some comments should be made regarding the status of Kashubian with regard to

Polish. According to Topoli¼ska (1974: 17Ðff.), Kashubian is most properly considered

a dialect of Polish, but one whose geographic location led to its developing many unique

features that appear in writings of the area. However, spoken Kashubian is considered

difficult, if not impossible, to understand by many Poles (Stone 1993b: 759Ð60). With

these factors in mind, this study will consider the Kashubian data separate from Polish.

2.9.1 Usage

Generally speaking, Kashubian resembles Polish in its expression of the future

tense. The be-future in Kashubian can be formed with either an infinitival or participial

complement. The infinitival complement is more widespread in the south, in areas closer

to Polish (Lorentz 1925: 172).

In his grammar, Lorentz (1919/1971: 44) reports that the be-future is formed with

imperfective complements only. Ršsler (1952: 127) presents one example, removed from

context, of a perfective complement, po¢oödac baödze£ Ôyou (sg.) will desireÕ. However,

K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 107) questions RšslerÕs example and suggests that the verb in question

is actually biaspectual. Indeed, in modern Polish, the verb po½aöda¦ is considered

imperfective (SPP 1994: 561). A dictionary of Kashubian contains only a nonprefixed

form of the verb, considered to be equivalent of the Polish po½aöda¦ (Sychta 1973: s.v.

Ò¢aödacÓ). There is no entry for po¢aödac or po¢oödac; this opens up the possibility that

RšslerÕs example is more Polish than Kashubian. Without more definitive examples,

there is no reason to assume that Kashubian allows the be-future to combine with

perfective complements.

Regarding the frequency of use of the respective complements, G—recka and

¡miech (1972: 23Ð26) examine samples of both written and spoken Kashubian. The data

from their study are reproduced in Tables 2.3 and 2.4.

l-participle infinitive

masc. sg.

fem. sg.

33.3

66.7

neut. sg.

41.7

58.2

masc. pers. pl.

22.8

79.2

other pl.

62.5

37.5

Totals

56.7

43.3

Table 2.3. Kashubian future complements in the twentieth century:

written data. (Numbers are percentages)

l-participle

infinitive

masc. sg.

96.3

3.7

fem. sg.

88.6

11.4

neut. sg.

100

masc. pers. pl.

other pl.

not enough data

Totals

94.4

5.6

Table 2.4. Kashubian future complements in the twentieth century:

spoken data. (Numbers are percentages)

The data from these tables demonstrate the striking dominance of the participial

complement in spoken Kashubian. It is even more widespread than in spoken Polish,

where data from G—recka and ¡miech (1972) indicate that the participial complement is

used in an average of 52.4% of cases overall.

2.9.2 Chronology

Written works showing uniquely Kashubian features can be found from the

sixteenth century, but only in the nineteenth century is there a literature that can be

considered ÒundilutedÓ Kashubian (Stone 1993b: 761). For this reason, there is little

opportunity for a historical analysis of the be-future. Within the Polish dialect data

collected by G—recka and ¡miech (1972) there is Kashubian data (given above), but it is

restricted to the twentieth century and thus insufficient for a diachronic analysis.

2.10 Belarusan

2.10.1 Usage

A be-future is standard for imperfective verbs in the literary language.

Southwestern dialects also have a synthetic future with the suffix -mu Ôhave/takeÕ

added

onto the infinitive (DABM 1963: map 166; Jankou``ski 1983: 200). This form is also

found in neighboring Ukrainian (see section 2.11 below); southwest Belarusan dialects

show many affinities with Ukrainian, including shared phonological and morphological

innovations (Mayo 1993: 943Ð44).

There is some uncertainty regarding the semantics of this form. At a very early period, the verbs

imam

Ôhave (to)Õ and imu ÔtakeÕ were confused in texts (Kuznecov 1959: 236; Kiparsky 1967: 234),

most likely due to the fact that they are formed from the same stem (cf. Townsend and Janda 1996:

215Ð16). It is unclear which verb developed into the synthetic future found in Belarusan and Ukrainian.

For the purposes of this study, the question is not particularly relevant, and these forms shall be

described as Ôhave/takeÕ-futures for the sake of expediency.

2.10.2 Chronology

According to Jankou`ski (1983: 200), the fourteenthÐsixteenth centuries show

widespread use of maju plus the infinitive, a Ôhave/takeÕ-type future similar to that found

in Old Church Slavonic as well as RusÕian Church Slavonic. A be-future is attested as

early as the fourteenth century, although only sporadically in the earliest texts.

The earliest known attestation of a be-future identified by scholars is from a 1375

donation charter by Aleksandr Korijatoviª, a Lithuanian prince, who is donating a mill

and the surrounding property to the Smotrickij monastery (1). In the charter, Korijatoviª

states that despite the change in ownership for the property, the townspeople will not be

exempt from providing defensive support to the donated land:

(1)

Ale to £to ¢Õ koli vsi bojare i zemljane budutÕ gorodÓ tverditi,
togdy tii ljudi tako ¢e im«jutÕ tverditi gorodÓ smotriªÕ.
ÔBut if all boyars and inhabitants will fortify the city, then these
people also will [have to] fortify the city SmotriªÕ (Pe£ªak 1974:
49Ð53, no. 24).

It is interesting to note the contrast in this example between the be-future and the

expression with Ôhave/takeÕ in the following clause; the latter clearly conveys a modal

nuance of obligation. Later on in the document, a Ôhave/takeÕ expression is found in a

similar construction to the one with the be-future above (2):

(2)

i¢e to £to ¢Õ koli vsi zemljane imutÕ davati danÕ u tatary, to serebro
im«jutÕ tako ¢e tii ljudi dati.
ÔAnd if all inhabitants will give tribute to the Tatars, those people
will also [have to] give that silverÕ (ibid.).

Note that imutÕ (etymologically from ÔtakeÕ) in the first clause of this example is more

fully grammaticalized than im«jutÕ (from ÔhaveÕ) in the second clause; the latter conveys a

stronger nuance of obligation. These early examples show that with these verbs, there

was a fine line between pure future-tense reference and a modal sense of obligation.

A be-future is also found in a gramota from 1388, an oath of fealty written by

Dmitrij Koribut, a prince of Novhorod-SiversÕkyj, to King WÂadisÂaw of Poland-

Lithuania (3):

(3)

...ob«ªujemy na£a prisjaga i na£a v«ra i ª(es)tÕju i¢e o(t) ty(x)
m«stÕ s na£imi d«tmi ªistaja v«rnostÕ. i polna budemÓ der¢a(t)
tomu istomu korolevi i jego korolici i ixÓ detemÓ i korun« polÕskoi
a nikoli ni v odno veremja ne o(t)stavati a ni o(t)stupiti i na v«ki i
kÓ ixÓ dobromu radi(t) a lixogo v«rn« osteregati.
Ô...we promise our oath and our faith and honor that from this time
forward, with our children, we will hold pure and full faith to that
same king and his queen and their children and the Polish crown,
and at no time [will we] leave it or violate it for all time, and [we
will] look after their good and faithfully defend [them] against illÕ
(Pe£ªak 1974: 84, no. 44).

In this example, the auxiliary has several infinitival complements (underlined above) that

follow in a long passage of text.

These early texts are also considered by scholars of Ukrainian to be indicative of

the earliest Ukrainian examples of the be-future, although Shevelov (1980: 146Ð47)

considers the language of these texts to be primarily Belarusan. At any rate, the labeling

of these early texts as ÒBelarusanÓ, ÒRussianÓ, or ÒUkrainianÓ is anachronistic; the time

period was early enough that differentiation of the East Slavic languages was minimal. It

is with this in mind that some scholars refer to the language of this early period simply as

Rusian (or RusÕian), a term that contains no anachronistic overtones of nationality.

for distinguishing between Belarusan and Ukrainian, the problem is more difficult; the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania spanned both of these linguistic territories as well as parts of

Poland, and prior to that period there is other evidence linking southern Belarusan with

northern Ukrainian. Thus, until approximately the sixteenth century, it is perhaps best to

employ a term such as Western RusÕian when describing these linguistic areas.

Stang (1935, 1939) provides additional data from Polack (northeast Belarusan)

and the chancery language of Lithuania. In texts from Polack, Ôhave/takeÕ futures are

found in the fourteenth century (1939: 35), while be-futures are found consistently

throughout the fifteenth century (ibid.: 83, 124). In chancery texts of the Old Belarusan

period, be-futures are attested from the reign of Kazimierz Jagieöllo¼czyk (1447Ð92)

through the sixteenth century (Stang 1935: 49, 112). StangÕs data confirms that one also

finds Ôhave/takeÕ (imu as well as (i)maju) as auxiliaries in the earlier period (ibid.).

Additional sixteenth-century evidence comes from the works of Francysk

Skaryna, including his Psalter of 1517 and Apostol of 1525. In his works, be-futures as

well as futures with Ôhave/takeÕ are attested (Bulyka et al. 1990: 114). Bulyka et al. (ibid.:

115) argue that instances of Ôhave/takeÕ in Skaryna express modal meaning, and that in

general the use of Ôhave/takeÕ in this period is rare. Nevertheless, the modal nuance of

Ôhave/takeÕ would certainly not preclude its conveying future meaning, and this evidence

does not speak to the issue of the be-future.

Cf. the discussion on this subject in Wexler (1977: 58) and Lunt (1992: 466).

Cf. the detailed discussions on this subject by Shevelov (1953: §1, 17, 22, 50, §8).

The Lithuanian Statute of 1529 also has examples of the be-future. In a previous

study, I have demonstrated that the be-future is semantically differentiated in the text from

the construction with Ôhave/takeÕ. This can be shown in the following example (4):

(4)

a xto budetÕ iska[t]i zemli ... ne maetÕ inoho niª[o]ho...
Ôand who[ever] solicits lands [in the future] may not [hold]
anything else...Õ (XIX.52)

Here, the construction with Ôhave (to)Õ clearly has obligative meaning, whereas the

preceding be-future is used to express pure futurity (Whaley 1995: 34). Additional

evidence that the Ôhave/takeÕ-type future in the 1529 Statute contains a lexical nuance of

obligation can be seen in the apparently free alternation of the Ôhave/takeÕ auxiliary with

the adjective povinen ÔobligedÕ (ibid.).

It is clear that in the period of Old Belarusan, examples of the be-future are

attested consistently, intermixed with the Ôhave/takeÕ construction. Jankou`ski (1983:

200Ð1) argues that the be-future and the Ôhave/takeÕ-type future were in complementary

distribution within the Belarusan linguistic area throughout the Middle Ages, with

individual dialects employing one expression or the other. Only with the modern-day

codification of the literary language was the Ôhave/takeÕ future officially relegated to

substandard status.

Textual evidence from Old Belarusan presented above indicates that

a complementary distribution of the two constructions was not necessarily in effect at the

time; both are found in the same text. The brief analysis presented above suggests,

moreover, that in some contexts, Ôhave/takeÕ plus the infinitive conveyed an obligative

The context surrounding this example suggests that the complement of maetÕ, which should be the

infinitive der¢ati, is missing.

See also the discussion in 1.2.1 above.

Many more scholars who subscribe to this view are cited by Hopper and Traugott (1993: 18Ð30).

3.2.2 Chronology and the emergence of the be-future

According to Ršsler (1952), when the dates of the constructionÕs emergence in

each Slavic language are compared, a geographical and chronological pattern of

development becomes evident, revealing a progression from twelfth-century Czech in the

west to sixteenth-century Russian in the east. Kravar (1986) subscribes to a similar view,

with Latin as the source language rather than German.

Both Ršsler and Kravar are making an assumption that the synchronic evidence of

the earliest date of attestation in each language can be correlated to a diachronic pattern of

the be-future constructionÕs dispersal throughout Slavic. There are, however, problems

with this understanding of the relationship between chronology and the modern-day

distribution of the be-future; moreover, additional data for some languages do not fit in

with the theory proposed by Ršsler. These problems and data will be discussed in the

following subsections.

3.2.2.1 Reliability of the textual evidence

The main supporting evidence employed by Ršsler to back his claims is textual

evidence, a source which I argue is problematic at best. Whaley (1999) presents ways in

which textual evidence falls short in providing explanations of the path of development of

the be-future; these arguments are reproduced here. For example, when considering a

particular linguistic feature in the earliest extant text, there is no way of knowing whether

an earlier, non-extant text would contain the same feature. It is unlikely that all texts that

have ever existed have survived until the present day, and thus there must be gaps in the

written record. In Polish, for example, the earliest extant texts are dated especially late,

and early data are unavailable.

The copying and recopying of texts over time also opens the possibility of later

contamination of the language of earlier worksÑwe have seen examples of such textual

variation in the early Russian evidence, for example (see section 2.12.2 above). A gap

also exists between the more normalized and conservative language of written texts and

the contemporaneous spoken language. It takes time for a innovation that originates in

spoken language to manifest itself in written texts.

At the same time, it is possible for ÒoldÓ words to be attested relatively late,

further weakening the notion that earliest date of attestation can be considered a reliable

indicator of a formÕs age. This can happen even in languages with a well-represented

textual history; e.g., Janda and Joseph (forthcoming: §1.2.1.2) report that the Greek word

Žor Ôdaughter; relative; kinfolkÕ is attested only in the fifth century A.D., but appears to be

descended from the PIE *swŽs(o)r ÔsisterÕ. Thus, in some cases, textual evidence

provides little insight into the chronology of a form.

RšslerÕs description of the spread of the be-future across North Slavic territory

becomes unfeasible in light of the problems associated with relying on written evidence.

In order for the construction to become available to each consecutive language in his

proposed chain of borrowings, it would have to become established in each language at a

speed that seems unusually rapid. Moreover, RšslerÕs chronology does not perfectly fit

the data; the earliest written attestations of the be-future in Belarusan and Ukrainian, for

example, are found in fourteenth-century textsÑroughly contemporaneous with the

earliest examples in Polish (see 2.10.2 and 2.11.2, respectively). Outside the scope of

RšslerÕs theory, such data are not problematic. Within the confines of his argumentation,

where written attestations are paramount, the data do not support his conclusions.

3.2.2.2 The chronology in Russian

In general, the Russian data are not compatible with RšslerÕs theory. As shown

in 2.12.2, examples of the be-future are attested sporadically beginning in the fifteenth

century, but the construction does not become widely attested until the seventeenth

century. It is this later date that Ršsler uses for his chronology.

In establishing a chronology for the be-future in Russian, one cannot discount the

few examples that do exist from an earlier period. It is true that many early examples of

be-futures in Russian are from texts whose language shows features of Western RusÕian,

where the be-future was attested more consistently an an earlier period. However,

examples such as those from the correspondence of Metropolitan Iona are surrounded by

unequivocally Muscovite Russian and are not significantly later than the earliest examples

found in Western RusÕian texts. One should also note that the purpose of IonaÕs

correspondence was to conduct official business, and the language of his letters is

correspondingly full of the more conservative Slavonicisms characteristic of high style.

Considering the narrow window of time between the first examples of the be-future in

Western RusÕ and the appearance of the be-future in the official writings of Metropolitan

Iona, it appears unlikely that the appearance of the be-future in Russian could be attributed

solely to borrowing from Western RusÕ.

3.2.2.3 Ukrainian evidence

RšslerÕs theory also fails to find supporting evidence in the data regarding

Ukrainian, a problem that is discussed in previous work (Whaley 1999: 165). Ršsler

(1952: 144Ð45) argues that the borrowing of the be-future from Polish into Ukrainian

was a manifestation of the linguistic dominance that Polish had over Ukrainian in the

medieval period. However, the relationship between Polish and Ukrainian is far more

complex than Ršsler suggests. As Shevelov (1952: 348Ð49) argues, Polish influence

over Ukrainian was not dominant until after the sixteenth century. During the earliest

period of contact between Polish and Ukrainian peoples, from the tenth to the fourteenth

centuries, this prestige relationship was not yet in effect, and Ukrainian influence on

Polish also can be identified.

The earliest data regarding the be-future in Western RusÕ also do not appear to

support RšslerÕs hypothesis. For example, the be-future is attested in this area as early as

the late fourteenth century, although RšslerÕs earliest examples from Ukrainian date from

the sixteenth century.

As was mentioned in 2.10.2 above, it is anachronistic to assign

language from the fourteenth century a label such as ÒUkrainianÓ or ÒBelarusanÓ.

Nonetheless, given that the earliest Polish examples date from the same period, it is

premature to assume that the be-future appeared first in Polish and then was borrowed

into Western RusÕ.

Data from modern Ukrainian dialects (presented in 2.11.1 above) also suggest that

RšslerÕs characterization of events is inaccurate. There are islands where budu plus the l-

This error is also pointed out by Gršschel (1972: 232).

participle is the sole future formation, and these are in areas contiguous to Poland. This

suggests that if any future construction was borrowed from Polish into Ukrainian, the

more likely construction to have been involved appears to be budu plus the l-participle.

Given the nature of the relationship between Polish and Ukrainian described by

Shevelov (1952), as well as the evidence for the early attestation of the be-future in

Ukrainian, it appears highly unlikely that Ukrainian borrowed the construction of budu

plus the infinitive from Polish, especially considering the narrow window of opportunity

upon which RšslerÕs theory depends.

3.2.2.4 The chronology of German werden

The problems of the borrowing hypothesis with regard to chronology are not

restricted to the Slavic side of the equation. In his review of RšslerÕs article, Kurz (1952:

154) is the first to point out the error regarding the development of future in German with

werden; he argues that the be-future was already attested in Czech prior to the first

occurrence of the German construction.

Leiss (1985) corroborates KurzÕs statements regarding the chronology of the

werden-future, arguing that Ršsler is incorrect when he states that the werden-future was

available for borrowing into Slavic as early as the thirteenth century. In reality, Leiss

argues, examples of werden plus the infinitive are almost nonexistent before the thirteenth

century, and the scattered examples from earlier texts have been characterized by some

scholars as scribal errors (ibid.: 257). With the earliest Czech examples dating from the

end of the thirteenth century, it is impossible to argue that the construction of werden plus

the infinitive was available for borrowing at a sufficiently early point.

3.2.3 Infinitival versus participial complements

Another problematic aspect of the theory proposed by Ršsler is that it overlooks

the significance of the nonfinite constituent of the future periphrase. In order to begin the

chain of borrowing with German and end with the correct result for Russian, one must

assume that Ršsler is concerned with the future construction of *boödoö plus the infinitive.

This poses no problems for the proposed transmission from German into Czech, or

indeed the proposed borrowing of the construction into East Slavic (notwithstanding

Ukrainian dialect evidence presented above). Polish, however, employs a participial

complement as well, and RšslerÕs argument does not consider this factor.

The data for Slovene are similarly problematic for RšslerÕs hypothesis, yet he

makes no attempt to reconcile them. If one supposes that the German future with werden

plus the infinitive was calqued into Slovene, one would assume that the resulting

construction would be an infinitival be-future. However, as the data in section 2.3.2

indicate, there is no evidence that Slovene ever had a be-future construction with the

infinitive.

Kravar (1986) errs on this same point in his argument that the Slavic be-future

with infinitival complement is a calque of the later Latin future perfect construction. As is

mentioned above, the Latin future perfect is formed with the perfect stem plus an

inflectional ending derived from the future of ÔbeÕ. Kravar argues that by the time of the

borrowing into Slavic, the perfect stem had been reinterpreted as a nonfinite form

analogous to the Slavic infinitive (ibid.: 279Ð80).

KravarÕs argument is not supported by the data. These show that, in contexts

where Latin future perfects were translated into Slavic, the Slavic future perfect, i.e. the

construction with *boödoö plus the l-participle, is the form that is attested.

In other words,

it appears that the Slavic equivalent of the Latin future perfect was a construction with the

l-participle, not the infinitive. Evidence of this can be found in Polish (cf. 2.8.2 above).

In sum, the issue of the participial be-future is not addressed satisfactorily by either

Kravar or Ršsler.

3.2.4 The Slavic be-future and aspect

In proposing a connection between Slavic and non-Slavic futures, one must also

consider the ramifications of aspectuality with regard to the behavior of the constructions.

Any discussion of aspect is absent from the arguments of most scholars, including Ršsler

(1952) and Kravar (1986), except to specify that the be-future is used with only

imperfective verbs in North Slavic.

Leiss (1985) does consider the role of aspect in the formation of be-futures in

German and Slavic, although some of her argumentation is incorrect. She argues that

werden could not have developed independently into a future marker because of its

aspectuality, whereas Czech budu, an imperfective verb, is a perfect candidate for

A more detailed description of the relationship between the Common Slavic future perfect and the

participial be-future can be found in section 3.3.2 below.

grammaticalization into a future auxiliary. Leiss concludes her argument by positing that

German in fact borrowed its future construction from Czech (ibid.: 264Ð65).

Leiss is incorrect when she argues that perfective verbs are less suitable future

auxiliaries; recall, for example, the prefixed ÔbeginÕ-type future auxiliaries in many Slavic

languages, as well as stanu in RussianÑall perfective verbs that have developed into

auxiliaries. Leiss also misconstrues the aspect of budu, which is generally understood to

be perfective in early Slavic (see section 2.1 above). These considerations do not,

however, contradict her assertion that the be-future was likely not borrowed from German

into Czech.

Although Leiss discusses only the aspect of the auxiliary in her analysis, the

aspect of the complement plays an important role in the evaluation of external-source

theories, including those of both Ršsler (1952) and Kravar (1986). One must remember

that, for most of the Slavic languages, the be-future can be combined with only

imperfective verbs, whereas aspect of the complement is not an issue for German werden

or the Latin future perfect. The aspectual constraint on the Slavic construction is an

important factor that must be explained by any theory that seeks to describe its origins. In

fact, the existence of the aspectual constraint in Slavic suggests that the only possible

direction of borrowing regarding the be-future is from Slavic into another language.

The importance of the role of Slavic aspect on verbal borrowings can be illustrated

by comparing hypothetical scenarios of borrowing. If one were to speculate, for example,

that Czech calqued the German future construction using the native equivalent of werden,

one would have to propose that the borrowing and assimilation was a two-step process:

1) calque of werden-type future construction using native budu
2) imposition of aspectual restriction on complement so that only im-

perfective infinitives can be used

Evidence of this process would likely include the attestation of perfective futures in Slavic

both with *boödoö plus the infinitive and with nonpast forms. Such a situation is not

reflected in textual evidence, even in languages with extant texts from a very early period.

On the other hand, the following scenario describes the necessary steps that

would occur if German borrowed the construction from Czech:

1) calque of budu-type future construction using native werden
2) generalization of werden-type future so that any verb may be used as

complement, regardless of aspectuality (i.e., Aktionsart)

German verbs do not have the same type of aspectual distinction as do Slavic verbs.

Indeed, it is most likely that a German speaker with an imperfect knowledge of Czech

who hears the Czech future construction would not recognize or adopt the aspectual

constraint on its use. Thus, the constraint would go unnoticed and would not be

borrowed into German. The latter scenario eliminates the entire problem of explaining

why Czech would create a special restraint constraining the colligability of a

newly-borrowed construction from either German or Latin.

The above analysis does not support LeissÕ ultimate conclusion that the

construction of werden plus the infinitive could not have developed independently and

was borrowed from Czech. For the purpose of this study, however, the importance of the

conclusion is clear: the proposal that Slavic borrowed its future construction from

German or Latin is an unlikely possibility.

It might appear that the situation in Sorbian, Slovene, and Serbo-Croatian is

incompatible with this argument; in these languages, verbs with either aspect can serve as

complement to the be-future. The history of aspect in Slavic, however, suggests that the

treatment of aspect in these languages reflects innovative development. It is hypothesized

that the individual Slavic languages each inherited an aspectual system from Common

Slavic where nonpast perfective verbs tended to convey future-tense reference; such a

situation is already seen in OCS (Lunt 1974: 135; H. Birnbaum 1958: 17; Schenker 1993:

94Ð95). Thus, although Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and Sorbian all inherited the same

treatment of aspect from Common Slavic, they have innovated in their use of the category.

This is well-documented for Serbo-Croatian; Beli¦ (1969: 133), for example, confirms

that in earlier stages of Serbo-Croatian, nonpast perfective verbs often conveyed future

meaning. Only later, possibly due to the influence of neighboring languages and/or the

generalization of a ÔwantÕ-type future, did the aspectual system undergo revision.

Slovene, a language heavily influenced by German, appears to reflect a transitional

state of affairs. As was mentioned in 2.3.1, both types of aspectual system are found

among dialects and, to some extent, in the literary language: either nonpast perfective

verbs convey future-tense reference, or a be-future is combined with complements of

either aspect. Thus, by preserving the usage of nonpast perfectives, Slovene patterns like

the North Slavic languages, but its generalization of the be-future to all aspects is more

typically South Slavic (cf. Galton 1979, 1981).

Sorbian lacks the historical data that would give evidence for an older situation

where the aspectual constraint on the be-future was still intact. The Germanization of

Sorbian speakers has been ongoing since the eleventh century (Pola¼ski 1980), and the

modern state of the aspectual system has certainly been affected by the interference

between the two languages due to the nearly universal bilingualism of Sorbs (cf. 2.7.2

above). An earlier situation with a more typically North Slavic aspectual system can be

assumed, however, based on the comparative Slavic evidence, the fact that perfective be-

futures are not found in all Sorbian dialects, and the fact that normative grammars of

Sorbian proscribe the use of perfective infinitives with the be-future (Stone 1993a: 637;

Fa§ke 1981: 253). Such a treatment suggests that the use of the be-future with both

aspects is acceptable in the more innovative spoken language of some dialects, while the

conservative norms of the literary language continue to resist the development.

Given the innovative nature of the treatment of aspect and the future tense in these

languages, one can argue that nonpast perfective verbs conveyed future-tense meaning in

the earliest stages of all Slavic languages; thus, the issue of the be-future complementÕs

aspectual constraint is relevant to North and South Slavic languages alike.

3.2.5 Considerations of language contact

When arguing that Slavic borrowed or calqued the be-future construction from

German, Ršsler assumes that a language contact situation between (West) Slavic and

German existed such that a borrowing could feasibly take place. There is clear evidence

that German exercised some level of influence on Slavic, especially on Czech and Polish.

A more detailed analysis of the nature of this contact situation, however, reveals that the

relationships between the languages were more complex than is immediately apparent.

Thus, it becomes more difficult to argue that the appearance in Slavic of a syntactic

construction such as the be-future could be the result of borrowing.

As reinforcement for his idea that the Czech be-future was borrowed from

German, Ršsler (1952: 142, fn. 58) cites evidence of the prestige held by the German

language over Czech in Bohemia. This evidence includes the borrowing of numerous

loanwords from German into Czech and the renaming of Bohemian properties with

German names. Leiss (1985: 259Ð61), however, presents another view. She argues that

the situation in Bohemia is best characterized not by RšslerÕs description of German

prestige and Czech imitation, but by mixed ethnic groups living intermingled. Indeed, one

can imagine that Czech must have enjoyed a prestige status at least in the fourteenth

century, since the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV, was himself Czech and actively

promoted the Czech language (cf. Auty 1980: 165Ðff.). In these circumstances, it is

highly likely that linguistic influence flowed in both directions. Moreover, Leiss points

out that the lack of evidence for such mutual influence, e.g. evidence of Czech influence

over the local dialect of German, is not unexpected; such local-level linguistic interaction

would hardly be reflected in literary German of the time (ibid.: 262).

Leiss supports her characterization of the German-Czech contact situation by

presenting evidence that the werden-future first appears in the spoken language of eastern

Middle German (ibid.: 265Ðff.), the area that she describes as populated with a mix of

German and Czech peoples. This fact, coupled with the fact that the spread of the

werden-future in German travels from east to west (ibid.: 265Ð66), suggests to her that

the be-future actually originated in Czech and was in fact borrowed into German.

The goal of the present study is not to determine whether the German werden-

future was borrowed from Czech, and thus a detailed analysis of LeissÕ arguments on this

point will not be presented. However, LeissÕ description of the Czech-German linguistic

contact situation, combined with the evidence presented in other parts of 3.2, adds further

weight to counterarguments to the external-source hypothesis.

3.2.6 Conclusions

The data in Chapter 2 reveal that the be-future construction in Slavic is in fact a

type of construction that has a multitude of different expressions. In fact, in many ways

the auxiliary *boödoö is the only element of the construction that can be considered

universal; differences abound in the use and distribution of the construction in the various

languages, and there is variation not only in synchronic factors like type of complement

and treatment of aspect, but also in diachronic issues like the date of appearance and the

presence or absence of other future-tense constructions at earlier periods in the history of

the languages.

The external-source theories that have been proposed do not satisfactorily explain

the diversity of the be-future constructions in Slavic, but rather tend to view it as a single,

monolithic construction with the same type of manifestation across all Slavic languages.

A more detailed analysis of the data leads to a greater understanding of the nature of the

Slavic be-future, and shortcomings of the theories discussed above are revealed. Issues

of chronology, the constraints of Slavic aspect, and general linguistic knowledge about

the typicalities of future-tense constructions and their origins all contribute to weaken the

plausibility of these theories.

External-source theories cannot describe the evolution of the be-future satis-

factorily; it thus becomes necessary to seek a source or sources for the be-future that are

native to Slavic. A theory that proposes an internal source for the be-future avoids, or

explains, many of the issues that external-source theories cannot. Many scholars have

analyzed early data and the reconstructed protolanguage for linguistic material that would

prove a likely source. The following section presents the description and evaluation of

the most important of the internal-source theories that have been proposed.

3.3 Internal-source theories

3.3.1 The role of the impersonal obligative construction

As in OCS (see 2.2.1 above), RusÕian attests examples of an impersonal

obligative construction using a 3 sg. copula plus infinitive and a dative object. The copula

could appear in any tense, including the future, and the infinitive could be of either

aspect.

Thus, with an imperfective infinitive, the future-tense obligative construction

appears superficially similar to the be-future, e.g. this example from a Muscovite

immunity charter of 1546 (1):

(1)

A komu budetÓ ªego iskati na Gri£« ili na ego prikaz£ªik«, ino ixÓ
su¢u jazÓ knjazÕ velikij ili moj bojarinÓ vvedenoj.
ÔAnd if anyone has to seek any [legal redress] from Grisha or his
agent, I, the grand prince, will judge them [i.e., the parties in the
suit], or my boyar-delegate [will]Õ (cit. in Borkovskij 1968: 157).

For additional description of the construction and examples, see Borkovskij (1968: 152Ð58).

This similarity has led some scholars to propose that the modern Russian be-

future developed out of this impersonal construction. For example, Vaillant (1966: 108)

argues that it is a small jump for boödetÓ vid«ti Ôwill have to seeÕ to develop into boödoö

vid«ti ÔI will seeÕ (although he does not specifically describe the path for such a

development). The same argument is found in Gršschel (1972: 233) and Vlasto (1988:

165).

H. Birnbaum (1958: 270) argues against this hypothesis by emphasizing the

modal meaning of this impersonal obligative. In his view, it was the temporal, not modal,

meaning of *boödoö that conditioned its adoption in Slavic as a future auxiliary. However,

his conclusion is faulty; far from precluding a meaning-shift into a future auxiliary, some

types of modal verbs are frequently grammaticalized into future auxiliaries (Bybee et al.

1989: 22Ð25). Moreover, there are reasons why it should be assumed that *boödoö retained

its lexical meaning in order to develop into a future auxiliary; this will be discussed in

3.3.4 below.

BirnbaumÕs arguments notwithstanding, several factors cast doubt on VaillantÕs

proposal. First, the obligative construction could be formed with infinitives of either

aspect; e.g. this example with perfective verbs (2) from a 1350Ð51 treaty by the

Muscovite Grand Prince Semen Ivanoviª.

(2)

A gd« mi budet vÓs«sti na konÕ, vs«sti vy so mnoju.
ÔAnd wherever I am to ride [lit. Òget on a horseÓ], you are to ride
with meÕ (DDG 1950/1970: 13, no. 2).

100

Like the hypothesis that posits the borrowing of German werden plus the infinitive into

Slavic (see 3.2.4 above), VaillantÕs proposal supplies no motivation to explain why the

be-future developed only out of the obligative construction with imperfective infinitives.

VaillantÕs proposal also appears unlikely given the structure of the impersonal

obligative construction. First, the phrase is biclausal; the future copula fills the verb slot,

and the infinitive is part of a dependent clause. This view of the structure is corroborated

by the fact that when the impersonal obligative construction is used in the present tense,

the infinitive remains while the present-tense copula (esmÕ in RusÕian, null in modern

Russian) occupies the verb slot. In contrast to this, in the be-future construction *boödoö is

an auxiliary and occupies the verb slot only in combination with the infinitive.

In her work on the Russian be-future, Grenoble (1995: 189Ð91) demonstrates con-

vincingly both the biclausal structure of the impersonal obligative and the monoclausal

structure of the be-future. Using the acceptability of negation and double negation as a

diagnostic, she shows that only impersonal obligatives allow negation of the infinitive and

negation of both the auxiliary and the infinitive, while the be-future allows only single

negation of the auxiliary. For example, compare (3a) (also (2b) in 1.2.2 above) and (3b):

(3a)

*Ja budu ne kuritÕ
ÔI will not smokeÕ (ibid.: 189)

(3b)

Nekotorym budet sovsem ne vyjti iz tramvaja
ÔSome will be completely obliged to not exit off the tramÕ (ibid.:
191)

The different treatment of negation is a clear indication that the be-future and the

impersonal obligative are different types of construction.

101

Moreover, this obligative construction is syntactically related to other impersonal

obligative constructions with a dative object plus infinitive, such as those with nado(b«)

and nu¢no, and is still found in modern Russian (see (3b) above as well as 2.12.1). In

general, these impersonal constructions have remained quite stable in Slavic; there is no

independent evidence of a dative object acquiring nominative (i.e., grammatical-subject)

case marking in Slavic. There is thus a lack of evidence that VaillantÕs proposed change

was likely to have taken place.

3.3.2 The role of the future perfect

As was mentioned in 2.2.1 above, Common Slavic had a future perfect

construction that was formed with *boödoö plus the l-participle. The ostensible similarity

between the Common Slavic future perfect construction and the later future constructions

with the same auxiliary in several Slavic languages has led some scholars to propose a

direct link between the constructions. In his discussion of the Russian future, for

example, Durnovo (1962: 325) argues that the Russian infinitival be-future developed

from the future perfect, presumably with an intermediate stage where both infinitival and

participial complements could combine with budu. He sees the Polish situation as

representative of this intermediate stage, citing the similarity between the Polish future

with beödeö plus the l-participle and the Common Slavic future perfect. The same

conclusion is presented by other scholars of Russian, including Potebnja (1899/1958:

290), and is an assumption also made by some historical grammars of Ukrainian as an

102

explanation of the origins of the participial be-future found in dialects (cf. BezpalÕko et al.

1957: 344; Bevzenko et al. 1978: 293Ð94).

A more detailed theory which subscribes to this view is found in Lomtev (1952).

In his analysis, he argues that there are two possible sources of the Russian be-future.

The first possible source is the future perfect construction, with the be-future developing

via a replacement of the l-participle by an infinitive. The second possible source is the

future constructions which were in use in Old Russian with Ôhave/takeÕ, ÔwantÕ, or

ÔbeginÕ-type auxiliaries plus the infinitive. The required change would be a replacement

of these auxiliaries by the auxiliary budu (ibid.: 251Ð52).

According to Lomtev (ibid.), only the first proposed path of development

produces, or can produce, the proper outcome for modern Russian. In his analysis, the

second proposed path is not possible. His argument states that, whereas the earlier

auxiliaries could combine with infinitives of either aspect, the be-auxiliary is attested with

only imperfective infinitives. If the second path were the correct one, an intermediate

stage is predicted where the be-auxiliary is attested with infinitives of both aspects. Since

this intermediate stage is not found, Lomtev argues that the source for the modern

Russian be-future must be the future perfect construction.

LomtevÕs hypothesis has several shortcomings.

For example, Lomtev rejects

the second possible path of development for the be-future on the basis that it fails to

account for the modern constructionÕs restriction to imperfective infinitives, yet this is

Interestingly, scholars concerned with Polish do not subscribe to this view; this is discussed in

3.3.2.1 below.

These arguments were first presented in Whaley (1999: 166Ð67).

103

also a problem for the path of development that he prefers. In contrast to modern North

Slavic be-futures, the Common Slavic future perfect could be formed with verbs of either

aspect. In order to explain the presence of the aspectual constraint on the modern be-

future, Lomtev adds a stipulation to his hypothesis that only imperfective l-participles

were replaced by infinitives to form the modern be-future (ibid.: 252). He presents no

evidence, however, to justify this position, save the outcome that can be observed. This a

priori reasoning is not convincing.

Moreover, when describing the behavior of Old Russian future constructions that

existed prior to the be-future, Lomtev fails to consider the fact that phasal verbs, including

the future auxiliary based on the verb ÔbeginÕ, combine with perfective infinitives only in

extremely limited contexts and are semantically incompatible with colligated perfectivity.

The proposed path of development that Lomtev rejects on aspectual grounds, that budu

replaced other future auxiliaries and combined with an infinitive, is not subject to his

counterargument if one argues that budu replaced a ÔbeginÕ-type auxiliary. Lomtev argues

that the lack of any intermediate stage where budu combined with perfective infinitives

indicates that this path of development is unfeasible. However, if budu can be seen as

patterning with phase verbs with regard to colligability, such an intermediate stage would

not be expected or required.

GRJa (1960: II, 215Ð16), Kuznecov (1959: 235), and H. Birnbaum (1958: 192, fn. 93) all report that

phase verbs combine with imperfective verbs only. There appears to be one rare context where dati

ÔgiveÕ, a perfective, appears in combination with phase verbs under negation; this usage remains

unexplored. However, the restriction on the colligability of phase verbs holds true for the vast majority

of cases.

A similar criticism is presented by K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 172).

104

From a more general perspective, Lomtev has not presented a mechanism to

explain the path of his proposed development. By arguing that the l-participle of the

future perfect was replaced by the infinitive to form a be-future, Lomtev merely describes

what appears to have happened. He does not identify a factor that would have motivated

the kind of analogous change he is proposing, and thus he does not explain how or why

such a replacement of the complement would take place.

A careful analysis of the evidence demonstrates that, for most languages, it is in

fact unlikely that the modern infinitival be-future is directly descended from the Common

Slavic future perfect. Of particular importance to this question are the textual evidence

and the semantics of the future perfect construction, including the latterÕs role in

determining the aspect of the complement. These issues will be discussed in the

subsections below.

3.3.2.1 Textual evidence

Evidence from early Slavic texts provides evidence that the infinitival be-future

cannot be linked to the Common Slavic future perfect. Early texts which lend insight into

the use of future perfects can be found in Old Polish and RusÕian.

The construction of beödeö plus the l-participle (with imperfective verbs) is rarely

attested in the earliest Polish texts. This observation is made by G—recka and ¡miech

(1972: 13), who also argue that if the participial be-future in Polish were really a

continuation of the Common Slavic future perfect, then one would expect more

attestations of beödeö in combination with the l-participle to appear in the earliest Polish

105

texts. However, the use of future perfects was typical of only a limited number of

contexts, and thus the rarity of participial forms in early texts does not provide any insight

into the origins of the participial be-future.

The distribution of participial and infinitival futures in the earliest Polish texts

heavily favors the latter, although Stieber (1954: 233) notes that participial forms, when

attested, are found more frequently in secular texts. This could indicate that such forms

were actually future perfects rather than futures; secular legal or administrative texts are

more likely to describe situations that require future-perfect tense marking. However,

Stieber (ibid.: 234) also points out that written secular texts tend to reflect

contemporaneous spoken language more closely than do religious texts. In this case, the

significantly higher frequency of the participial future in secular texts might suggest that

the participial construction that conveyed pure futurity was innovative and had not yet

found its way into the more conservative language of religious texts. Such conclusions

are, however, speculative.

In order to determine whether the Old Polish constructions with beödeö plus the l-

participle are future perfects or innovative futures, the semantics of the earliest examples

must be analyzed more carefully. One such example (1), also discussed as (1) in 2.8.2

above, can be interpreted with either future or future perfect meaning.

(1)

106

They will fall beneath my feetÕ (Ps. 17, 41Ð42).

In the same context, the Latin source has a future perfect form, although the semantics of

the Latin future perfect in this period are in question. Plater and White (1926: 105)

indicate that future perfects in the Vulgate convey a meaning not far removed from the

constructionÕs original semantics, but Fleischman (1982: 34) indicates that this form

could convey pure future (see also below).

In general, in the literature there is a lack of analysis regarding combinations of

beödeö plus the l-participle in Old Polish. On one hand, we cannot assume that

combinations of beödeö plus perfective l-participles did not exist; it might be that scholars

simply have not mentioned them in their discussions of the Polish be-futureÕs

development because such forms do not resemble the modern construction. On the other

hand, it might be the case that many or all of the earliest attestations of beödeö plus the l-

participle are in fact future perfects, but have been misinterpreted as pure futures by

scholars who assume that the semantics of the modern construction can be applied to the

Old Polish. Without more data, such ambiguities cannot be resolved; the collection of

such data is beyond the scope of this study.

K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 106) supports the idea that the participial be-future in Polish was

innovative. Using Biblical texts from different centuries, she demonstrates that early texts

often utilize infinitival complements where later texts have participial forms in the same

passages. This evidence might suggest that the infinitival be-future is the older form, or it

107

might simply illustrate that the usage of the participial form became less restricted, or

more normative, over time.

Perhaps more supportive of the argument that the participial construction in Polish

is innovative is the apparent pattern of the spread of the construction from primarily

masculine singular subjects into other singular and plural subjects. This type of

hierarchichal pattern, from the least-marked gender to the most-marked, would not be

expected if the future perfect were the source for the construction, because the future

perfect was certainly capable of combining with subjects of any gender.

In sum, the Polish data indicate that combinations of beödeö plus either the l-

participle or infinitive are both found in the earliest extant texts. Without data from earlier

texts, it is not possible to determine whether the sparse attestation of the participial

construction is the result of its being a recently innovated construction or simply a form

with restricted usage.

In Old Russian, and in fact throughout RusÕian, the future perfect is attested fairly

often, especially in legal texts where it appears frequently in conditional clauses

(Kuznecov 1959: 248; see also Karskij 1956: 288Ð89). There are also several examples

from Novgorodian birchbark texts (Zaliznjak 1995: 159); Zaliznjak (ibid.) argues that one

of the examples conveys pure future meaning, but a careful semantic analysis suggests

that this is not necessarily the case (cf. the discussion of (1) in 2.12.2 above, also (4)

below). The construction falls out of use in texts by the end of the sixteenth century

(Kuznecov 1959: 251).

108

Since the be-future is attested consistently in Russian only in the latter part of the

seventeenth century, Nikiforov (1952: 182Ð83) argues that this is further evidence that

there is no direct connection between the future perfect and the be-future in Russian.

However, his conclusion relies too heavily on textual evidence, and assumes that one can

establish a firm terminus post quem for the be-future that postdates the disappearance of

the future perfect. Such a date cannot be established, given the earlier attestations of be-

futures that are found as early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (see 2.12.2 above).

The problems encountered with textual evidence in Polish and Russian indicate

that such data alone cannot tell us if the Slavic be-future developed from the future

perfect. However, other evidence, such as the semantics of the constructions themselves,

lends more insight into the matter.

3.3.2.2 The semantics of the future perfect

It is not impossible for future perfect constructions to develop into constructions

that indicate pure futurity; such a change took place in later Latin/early Romance dialects,

for example (cf. Fleischman 1982: 34). However, the semantics of the Slavic future

perfect construction is also amenable to reinterpretation into past-tense or irrealis meaning.

Kuznecov (1959: 252), for example, argues that in Old Russian as early as the fourteenth

century, the so-called future perfect construction often expressed past, rather than future,

meaning. Thus, a shift into pure future-tense meaning is not the only possible outcome

for the expression.

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Indeed, a brief analysis of instances of the future perfect from early Slavic texts

reveals that many examples of so-called future perfects do not express future-tense

reference per se; they express, rather, a displaced perception of state, the realization of

which occurs at a moment posterior to the moment of speech. The event for which the

realization is relevant, however, most often takes place anterior to the moment of speech.

What is meant by displaced perception of state can be illustrated by the following

examples.

The first example (2) is taken from Codex Suprasliensis, a reading menaion in

OCS. The context is that Mary has recently been informed by an angel that she will give

birth to Jesus, and is unsure whether to tell Joseph.

(2)

I Marija vÕ seb« si razmy£lja£e pov«d« li se Iosifu ili paªe sÓkryjoö
tainoje se jeda boödetÓ sÓlÓgalÓ prixodivyi
ÔAnd Mary pondered to herself, ÒShall I tell this to Joseph, or hide
this secret, in case the one who had come [i.e., the angel] will have
liedÓÕ (Suprasliensis fol. 239, ll. 23Ð25)

The future tense marked by boödetÓ can only refer to the posterior moment where Mary

would realize that the angel has lied; in other words, the speech-act of lying is actually

prior to the moment of MaryÕs represented thought, whereas her realization of that lie will

take place in the future. Moreover, the entire clause is entirely within the realm of irrealis

(marked by jeda Ôin caseÕ), since the statement about the angel lying is merely supposition

from MaryÕs perspective; we know, after all, that within the context of the story the angel

did not in fact lie. The Greek original for this text uses an aorist indicative in the same

context.

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Another example (3) comes from a Novgorodian birchbark document. In this

gramota, the author Anna is asking her brother to help convince a third party that she did

not give surety for her son-in-law at an earlier time. She tells her brother what to say

(referring to herself in the first person):

(3)

o¢e budu ljudi pri komo budu dala ruku za zjate to te ja vo vine
ÔIf there are people before whom I gave surety for [my] son-in-
law, then I am at faultÕ (Zaliznjak 1995: 344, no. 531)

Once again, the future perfect in this example describes a future perception of a past state,

rather than an actual future event. The people of which Anna speaks, if they exist, will be

discovered in the future, but the act of giving surety of which Anna has been accused is

already in the past. As in (2), the entire scenario is located within irrealis, since Anna is

in fact claiming that she did not give any surety.

Another example (4), also discussed as (1) in 2.12.2 above, is also from a

birchbark gramota.

(4)

Zaliznjak (1995: 159) claims that the underlined construction unequivocally conveys

future-tense reference. In fact, the tense reference is ambiguous, since we do not know

whether the helmet has already been sent at the time of the noteÕs writing; the lack of

context makes the issue one of principled uncertainty.

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The above examples and discussion are certainly not adequate if the semantics of

the future perfect is to be fully understood; a more thorough analysis is needed, which is

beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, even these few examples show how the

semantics of future perfects overlaps with both past-tense and irrealis meaning. The only

tense reference implied by such constructions is that which places the state described and

the perception of that state in a chronological order. The actual time-frame of the state,

with regard to the moment of speech, is not indicated; for this reason, these states can be

in the past or even exist only as irreal potentialities. Thus, future-perfect constructions

often convey future-tense reference only as a secondary meaning, and there appears to be

significant evidence that many uses of the future perfect at an older stage of Slavic are

altogether incompatible with pure future-tense reference. This conclusion weakens the

idea that future perfects typically develop only into future-tense constructions.

Analysis of the semantics of the future perfect also reveals that future-perfect

meaning is more compatible with perfectivity than imperfectivity. The l-participle was

originally resultative; in other words, the l-participle focused on a past, present, or future

state resulting from an earlier action. As such, the meaning of the participle was more

compatible with perfective verbs, which emphasize the result of an action or view the

action as a totality. The affinity between future perfects and perfectivity is demonstrated

by the OCS evidence, where out of seven examples of the future perfect, only one l-

participle is imperfective (cf. Vyskoªil 1956). A review of the examples given by

Kuznecov (1959: 152Ð55) and statistical data provided by K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 158) also

show a greater proportion of perfectives than imperfectives.

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The strong tendency for future-perfect constructions to be formed with perfective

l-participles is in sharp contrast to the modern North Slavic be-future constructions,

including the participial be-future found in modern Polish, Kashubian, Slovak, and

Ukrainian. These constructions combine with imperfective participles only.

scholars, such as Lomtev (1952), have overlooked this disparity between the future

perfect and later be-futures.

By not accounting for the aspect of the be-future complement, these scholars make

the same mistake that proponents of external-source hypotheses do (see 3.2.4 above). To

propose that the future perfect developed into the be-future, one must find a way to justify

the latterÕs restriction in colligability to imperfective complements where the source

construction did not have one. Without an explanation for this restriction, the hypothesis

cannot be validated.

It appears that the data for Serbo-Croatian and Slovene indicate that the issue of

the aspectual constraint does not apply to South Slavic; we have seen in Chapter 2 that the

be-future in these languages can be formed with verbs of either aspect. Without the

problem of aspectual restrictions, the future perfect construction appears to be a more

plausible source for the Serbo-Croatian and Slovene be-futures and futura exacta formed

with the auxiliary in question.

Nevertheless, for Serbo-Croatian, at least, the historical evidence suggests that the

colligability of budu/budem with infinitival complements might have been restricted

The situations in modern Slovene and Serbo-Croatian differ; they are discussed below.

A rare exception is K¤’¢kov‡ (1960: 105Ð106), although her ultimate conclusion is unsatisfactory (see

3.3.3 below).

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originally to imperfectives. For example, the earliest Croatian examples of budu plus the

infinitive are with imperfective infinitives, and the earliest evidence of a be-future with

perfective infinitives is attested only in the fifteenthÐsixteenth centuries (see 2.4.2 above).

It should be noted, however, that early textual evidence is scarce.

As for the Serbo-Croatian construction of budu/budem plus the l-participle, it

appears reasonable to propose that the participial be-future is indeed a continuation of the

Common Slavic future perfect. The construction can be formed with l-participles of

either aspect, conveys futurum exactum meaning in the modern literary language and in

many modern dialects, and historical evidence documents the existence of similar

colligability in earlier stages of the language (see 2.4.2 above). Thus, while one might

propose on good grounds that the infinitival construction is innovative, the participial

construction does not necessarily demand such an argument.

However, one must account for the tendency in the modern literary language for

the futurum exactum to be formed with imperfective verbs. This is entirely opposite the

situation in OCS and early Slavic in general, where the semantics of the future perfect

seems to have favored the use of perfective l-participles. If the modern construction of

budu/budem plus the l-participle evolved out of the Common Slavic future perfect, it is

unclear how to explain the modern preference for imperfective verbs.

A possible solution to this problem is to propose that an intermediate stage existed

where l-participles of both aspects could combine with budem in dependent clauses, and

that perfective futura exacta were later replaced by nonpast perfectives in some contexts.

After all, grammars and descriptions of Serbo-Croatian characterize the use of budem

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plus imperfective l-participles as a tendency, not a prescribed norm. If this intermediate

stage existed, then one could argue that the participial be-future in Serbo-Croatian

followed a path similar to the construction in Slovene (see below). However, evidence to

support this hypothesis must be found.

In sum, the Serbo-Croatian evidence does not refute the arguments against the

future perfect as a source for the modern infinitival be-future that have been proposed in

this study. However, more detailed textual evidence is needed to clarify the situation as it

applies to Serbo-Croatian specifically.

The be-future in Slovene is more easily reconciled with an argument like that

proposed by Lomtev (1952) for Russian. No infinitival complements are ever attested

with the verb bo(de)m, and so it is not necessary to propose that the Slovene be-future

ever underwent some kind of replacement of an infinitival complement by the l-participle.

Moreover, there is no evidence that the be-future was restricted to imperfective l-

participles at any stage of the language. Thus, there is no reason to assume an aspectual

constraint ever existed for the construction in Slovene, and the Common Slavic future

perfect is a plausible source for the construction.

Evidence that supports this argument can be found in the grammar by Bohoriª

(1584/1970). In his work, he describes the construction bod- plus the l-participle not

only as an indicative future, but also a ÒconjunctiveÓ future. In other words, the

construction was used both in main clauses, expressing pure futurity, and in dependent

clauses like conditionals, expressing relative futurity. This usage might indicate that the

future perfect inherited from Common Slavic did generalize in Slovene to become a pure

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future. The examples in Bohoriª could be considered representative of a transitional

period in the development of the be-future.

The Kajkavian dialects of Serbo-Croatian share features with both Serbo-Croatian

and Slovene. In them, as in Slovene, there is no evidence of an infinitival be-future ever

having existed, nor is there any historical evidence of a constraint on the aspect of the

participial complement. As such, one may assume a development of the be-future along

the same path as Slovene.

3.3.2.3 Conclusions

Based on the discussion in this section, one concludes that the future perfect is an

unlikely source for the modern infinitival be-future, at least in North Slavic. The chief

stumbling-block for many of the arguments presented in the sections above is the

aspectual constraint on the be-future. Most scholars cannot or do not explain its presence,

or else their theories fail to consider its significance. In fact, the aspectual constraint on

the be-future is an important factor, which must be understood in order for the path of

development for the construction to become clear. This idea is explored more fully in

Chapter 4.

It is also clear that the development of infinitival and participial be-future must be

considered separately. Despite scholarsÕ attempts to link the constructions to a single

source, their arguments are difficult to justify in light of a more careful analysis of the data

and a more sophisticated understanding of language change. For example, one cannot

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explain that the infinitival be-future was formed by the replacement of the l-participle by

the infinitive without identifying a plausible motivation for such a change.

Another issue that this section brings to light is the fact that future-perfect

constructions have more than one possible path of development. Besides the more

familiar path of development into a future-tense construction, as in Latin, the evidence

from OCS and Old Russian presented above indicates that irrealis is also a possible

outcome for these forms. The semantics of the future perfect is complex, so it is not

surprising that multiple paths of grammaticalization lead out from its source.

This conclusion alone certainly does not rule out the possibility that the Slavic

future perfect developed into a be-future; indeed, the data for Slovene and Serbo-Croatian

suggest that this hypothesis is plausible. However, for the other Slavic languages, the

aspectual constraint on the be-future complicates the issue considerably.

3.3.3 The role of phase verbs

As was mentioned in 3.3.2 above, future-tense constructions with auxiliaries

derived from inceptive phase verbs were formed with only imperfective verbs. This

constraint on the colligability of phase verbs is not considered by scholars such as

Lomtev (1952) in their description of the development of the be-future, despite the fact

that, in many of the languages that employ it, the be-future has the same constraint.

K¤’¢kov‡ (1960) was the first to point out that one can see an analogous

relationship between phase verb constructions and the be-future. She uses the identical

colligability patterns of the two constructions to argue against RšslerÕs external-source

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hypothesis, pointing out that the aspectual constraint on the Slavic be-future has no

analogue in the German future with werden. With regard to LomtevÕs assertion that

earlier future-tense constructions in Russian combined with infinitives of either aspect,

she points out that the ÔbeginÕ-type future was constrained for aspect (ibid.: 172).

Given the similar colligability of phase verbs and the modern (North Slavic) be-

future, K¤’¢kov‡ argues that the following sequence of events led to the genesis of the

be-future. First, the present tense forms of ÔbeginÕ-type verbs came to be used as future

auxiliaries. Such verbs retained their lexical meaning in other tenses and in some nonpast

contexts, however, and thus K¤’¢kov‡ argues that this made them unsuitable for use as

purely grammatical markers. She claims that the be-auxiliary then came to be used

because it made a more suitable future auxiliary, already free of other nuances (ibid.: 101).

K¤’¢kov‡Õs insight in finding a connection between phase verbs and the

be-auxiliary is essential to formulating a satisfactory theory, and is an important

component in the hypothesis presented in the following chapter of this study. However,

her argument presumes that *boödoö was free of lexical nuances by the time it came to be

used as a future auxiliary. As is discussed in detail in 3.3.4 below, textual evidence

contradicts this presumption.

There are other problems with K¤’¢kov‡Õs hypothesis. In light of more recent

scholarship regarding the development of future markers, one particular error in her

reasoning stands out: her argument regarding the suitability of the future auxiliaries used

in Slavic. According to K¤’¢kov‡, *boödoö came to be the regular future auxiliary because

The current study presents similar arguments; see 3.2.4 and 3.3.2, respectively.

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it was a more suitable auxiliary in that it carried no lexical nuances. K¤’¢kov‡Õs error on

this point is one that is shared by many scholars who favor an internal-source hypothesis

for the be-future. In the following section, this idea is discussed in more detail.

3.3.4 The role of lexical nuances

For K¤’¢kov‡, as well as for many other scholars, the relevant question regarding

the be-future is not only how the construction developed, but also why it ultimately

replaced other analytic future constructions. This issue has been of special interest to

scholars of Russian, a language in which many different future auxiliaries are attested in

premodern texts, and in which the be-future emerges as the norm in the language

relatively late. From this perspective, many scholars have attempted to identify a

motivation for the shift from other possible future constructions to the be-future.

In order to explain the replacement by the be-auxiliary of other future auxiliaries,

scholars have attempted to isolate the factors which cause the former to appear more

suitable than the latter. One idea posed quite frequently in the scholarship is that, in

contrast to other future auxiliaries, the be-auxiliary conveyed no lexical nuances. It is

clear, for example, that many future auxiliaries found in languages are in a state of

polysemy with their fully lexicalized counterparts. For example, constructions with statÕ

ÔbecomeÕ in modern Russian can convey pure future meaning in some contexts, but

lexical meaning in many others (SSRJa 1963: s.v. ÒstatÕÓ). However, many scholars

have assumed that the be-auxiliary had no such lexicalized counterpart but rather

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expressed only pure futurity, and thus it was favored by speakers over auxiliaries that

could be used in other contexts.

For example, K¤’¢kov‡ (1957; 1960: 179) and Lomtev (1952: 252) express this

view regarding Russian budu. Also, Kiparsky (1967: 235) says that Russian budu was

Òcompletely grammaticalizedÓ and thus more suitable as a future auxiliary, and Nikiforov

(1952: 179) says that unlike other auxiliaries, budu had Òno modal or aspectual nuancesÓ.

Both Ûernyx (1957: 229) and Kuznecov (1959: 254) identify budu as the Òmost abstractÓ

future auxiliary found in Old Russian. Wytrzens (1953: 27) argues that one can conclude

that it had already lost its Òlexical functionÓ, based on the fact that budu was found in Old

Russian in impersonal constructions and the future perfect.

This reasoning is erroneous. From the most general perspective, it is marred by

the underlying notion that the innovation of a be-future construction arose out of a

replacement by *boödoö of other future auxiliaries such as those based on Ôhave/takeÕ or

ÔbeginÕ. In reality, however, these constructions no doubt coexisted, and their functions

most likely overlapped to some extent. As is clear from the evidence presented in Chapter

2, even in the modern Slavic languages there are often multiple future-tense constructions

in use contemporaneously. Moreover, from a broader point of view, Bybee et al. (1994:

243) point out that such a situation is quite frequent among the worldÕs languages, with

different future-tense strategies evolving along different paths of development. It may be

the case that diachrony reveals one construction to be in decline while another is

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increasing in use, but the idea of one auxiliary ÒreplacingÓ another is often an overly

simplistic description of the changes taking place.

More specifically, the idea that *boödoö prevailed as future-tense auxiliary because

of its lack of nuances is flawed because it is based on the a priori assumption that

because *boödoö is the auxiliary that is found most often in the modern Slavic languages, it

must have been the best suited for the task from the outset. This implies that *boödoö

existed at some abstract level as a future-tense auxiliary prior to its actual use in that

function. This viewpoint also assumes that previously used auxiliaries, like stanu, or

those based on Ôhave/takeÕ or ÔbeginÕ, were perceived as flawed by speakers at the time,

whereas *boödoö was notÑthe flaw being their polysemy; they had retained lexical

meaning in non-future contexts, and were not fully grammaticalized future markers.

In fact, general linguistic scholarship on syntactic change and grammaticalization

demonstrates that it is precisely the lexical content of a verb that determines the possibility

of its development into a grammatical marker. As Bybee et al. (1994: 255Ðff.) show, the

lexical (i.e., semantic) content of certain verbs contains features which imply a temporal

orientation towards the future via nuances of intention or prediction. It is the implicature

of futurity in such verbs that can then be foregrounded in the semantics of the verbs, and

thus enables them to be grammaticalized into future auxiliaries.

This characterization of grammaticalization has certain implications which further

weaken the argument that the be-future developed because *boödoö was the most suitable

auxiliary. First, it implies that grammaticalization does not, and in fact cannot, occur

Cf. the discussion of ÒlayeringÓ in Hopper and Traugott (1993: 124Ðff.).

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without a semantically motivated impetus to do so. This view invalidates the notion that

Ôhave/takeÕ or ÔbeginÕ-futures in Old Russian did not continue as future auxiliaries in

Modern Russian because their continuing use as fully lexical verbs precluded it. Indeed,

these verbs existed in a state of polysemy for centuries, serving to some degree as both

future auxiliaries and lexical items, and similar situations are attested in many of the

worldÕs languages; e.g. the English construction Ôbe going toÕ. Such examples are further

evidence that arguments such as K¤’¢kov‡Õs are incorrect.

An example of this can be seen in the Old Russian Ulo¢enie of 1649, in which

uªnu ÔbeginÕ plus the infinitive functions as the primary expression of imperfective

futurity in the text (Ûernyx 1953: 347Ð48). Although uªnu is one of the verbs considered

ultimately unsuitable for grammaticalization because it could still convey lexical meaning,

its lexical nuances clearly did not interfere with its use as a future auxiliary.

Another implication of the grammaticalization perspective is that *boödoö must have

retained a lexical nuance compatible with future implicature up to and beyond the point at

which it came to be used in be-future constructions. In other words, a major issue to be

understood with regard to the development of the be-future is that it in fact retained lexical

meaning, despite its evident use as a future copula and as a component of other

constructions. This issue is especially important for Russian, where the be-future is

attested only at a relatively late date.

There is a great deal of evidence that *boödoö retained lexical nuances well into the

period during which the be-future was evolving. As was shown in section 2.1 above, the

verb *byti was polysemous in the oldest stages of Slavic, with a imperfective stem

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meaning ÔbeÕ and a perfective stem meaning ÔbecomeÕ. This meaning can be shown to

extend to the individual Slavic languages; the best explication of this can be found in the

rich textual evidence of RusÕian.

According to both Sreznevskij (1893Ð1912: s.v. ÒbytiÓ) and the SRJa (1975: s.v.

ÒbytiÓ), forms of byti continued to express change-of-state meaning in some contexts in

RusÕian, with examples attested as late as the seventeenth century. This change-of-state

meaning can be seen in some uses of the nonpast budu, such as in the following excerpt

(1) from Xo¢denie Zosimy kÓ RaxmanamÓ, a seventeenth-century copy of an earlier text

translated from Greek.

(1)

...ni estÕ vÓ nasÓ nikogo¢e, i¢e poimaetÓ ¢enu seb«, donel«¢e
budetÓ u nego [neju] dvoe ªadÓ, i potomÓ razluªitasja drugÓ otÓ

druga i prebyvajutÓ oba vÓ ªistot«....
Ò...nor is there anyone among us who takes a woman to himself,
until there will be two children by them (i.e., they will have two
children), and then they divorce from each other and both remain
in purity...Ó (Tixonravov 1863: 87).

In this example, the perfectivity of budetÓ is indisputable, given that perfective verbs are

obligatory with donel«¢e ÔuntilÕ, a word with an inherent meaning of telicity.

Change-of-state meaning was present not only in nonpast forms, but also in aorist

forms such as byxÓ. This is revealed by several examples found by Schooneveld (1959),

who rejects the possibility of polysemy for this form but ultimately demonstrates it with

copious textual evidence. For example, the following entry (2) from the Old Russian

chronicle PovestÕ vremmenyxÓ l«tÓ (s.a. 1026) illustrates the change-of-state meaning

expressed by the aorist:

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(2)

I razd«lista po Dn«prÓ RusÕskuju zemlju: JaroslavÓ prija sju
storonu, a MÕstislavÓ onu. I naªasta ¢iti mirno i v bratoljubÕstv«,
i usta usobica i mjate¢Õ, i bystÕ ti£ina velika v zemli.
ÒAnd they divided the Russian land along the Dnepr: Jaroslav took
this side and MÕstislav the other. And they began to live in peace
and brotherly love, and quarrel and upheaval subsided, and there
was great peace in the landÓ (Cited in Schooneveld ibid.: 74; his
translation).

Schooneveld explains the use of the perfective aorists such as razd«lista, naªasta, and

bystÕ in this entry as expressing Òactions . . . all reaching the limit of their developmentÓ

(ibid.). Nonetheless, a more effective interpretation of the function of bystÕ in this

example is as an expression of a change of state, from the Òquarrel and upheavalÓ that had

existed to the peace that reigned from that point on. In addition, this change-of-state

meaning is corroborated in the earlier phrase naªasta ¢iti mirno Ô[they] began to live in

peaceÕ.

Based on the textual evidence, it appears that claims that *boödoö was purely

grammatical prior to the development of a be-future are incorrect. Such anachronistic

explanations are, moreover, based on a priori reasoning that cannot be justified within a

more rigorous conception of language change. Ultimately, they misconstrue the real

issues that must be resolved in an analysis of the development of the be-futureÑthat of

the polysemy of the auxiliary and the presence of the aspectual constraint on the

complement. It is not necessarily possible to answer the question of why the be-future

developed, replacing other future constructions; it is only possible to suggest how the

development occurred.

See also the discussion of a similar example by Collins (no date).

124

3.4 Conclusions

Based on several issues, including chronology and aspect as well as larger issues

regarding the development of future-tense constructions, it appears that the development

of the Slavic be-future cannot be attributed to the influence of a non-Slavic source. Only

an internal-source hypothesis can explain many of the factors involved in the development

of the construction.

However, the internal-source theories that have been proposed in the literature

also fall short in their descriptions. They fail to account for the presence of the aspectual

constraint on the be-future or the fact that *boödoö must have retained lexical meaning in

order for it to become grammaticalized. Moreover, the status of the participial be-future

has been poorly understood; based on the arguments presented in 3.3.2 above, one

concludes that the construction is in fact innovative, rather than a continuation of the

Common Slavic future perfect. This idea has been addressed briefly by K¤’¢kov‡ (1960),

although her study does not state this conclusion outright.

K¤’¢kov‡Õs study does address the central problem of aspect with regard to the be-

futureÕs development; she was the first to suggest a conceptual link between the

colligability of phase verbs and that of the be-future. Moreover, Lomtev (1952) is aware

of the importance of explaining the aspectual constraints on the be-future, although his

solution does not succeed in doing this. It is clear that an understanding of the aspectual

constraint and the relationship between phase verbs and the be-futureÕs auxiliary both

prove essential to understanding the development of the be-future. In the following

chapter, a new hypothesis is proposed regarding this development that seeks to refine the

125

idea first proposed by K¤’¢kov‡ and to ground it within a broader, more general linguistic

framework.

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CHAPTER 4

THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF *BOöD-:

FROM CHANGE-OF-STATE TO FUTURE

4.1 Introduction

It is clear from the discussion presented in the previous chapter that the origins of

the ÔbeÕ-type future in Slavic have not been satisfactorily investigated. Although many

theories have been put forth, each has shortcomings that are revealed by rigorous

examination of both the empirical data and the argumentation behind each conclusion.

For example, it has been determined that external-source hypotheses do not present a

viable description of the development of the be-future. On the other hand, internal-source

hypotheses that have been presented up to now are inadequate as well.

One of the chief problems with previous theories regarding the development of

the be-future is that of aspect. For the North Slavic languages, the be-future is formed

with only imperfective verbs,

whereas all of the sources proposed for the construction,

e.g. the impersonal obligative, the future perfect, or a non-Slavic source such as the

German future with werden, can be formed with verbs of either aspect or are unmarked

with regard to aspectuality. The discussion in the previous chapter demonstrated that the

The situation in Sorbian diverges from the rest of North Slavic (see section 2.7.1); it is given special

attention in 4.3.1 below.

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presence of this kind of aspectual constraint is a critical factor in the study of the Slavic

be-future.

A more endemic problem with previous scholarship on the be-future is the lack of

connection that exists between discussions specific to Slavic and more general linguistic

scholarship concerned with language change. This problem surfaced repeatedly in the

discussions in Chapter 3. Conversely, it is rare to find Slavic data included in general

linguistic discussions of future-tense constructions and their evolution.

In this chapter, a new hypothesis is presented that describes more accurately the

mechanisms and changes behind the development of the be-future. This hypothesis is

centered around understanding the presence of the aspectual constraint on the North

Slavic be-future, as well as the heterogeneity of the constructionÕs use and development

across all the languages which use the construction. In short, I argue here that it is

possible for the change-of-state verb *boödoö, inherited from Common Slavic into all Slavic

languages, to grammaticalize into a future-tense auxiliary independently and at different

times in multiple areas; this argument has been rejected by previous scholars. In order to

demonstrate the feasibility of this hypothesis, I show how a semantic analysis of *boödoö,

combined with a more modern understanding of syntactic change, leads directly to this

conclusion. Moreover, this semantic analysis also demonstrates how it is possible for

*boödoö to combine in many languages with only imperfective verbal complements.

To this end, the following sections present a summary of the theoretical

framework upon which this hypothesis is based. By proceeding from a solid theoretical

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background, this study can be more easily incorporated into the larger body of

scholarship on syntactic and semantic change.

4.2 The nature of syntactic change

In recent years, much work has been done to formulate a systematic theory of

syntactic change. Such a theory is essential to this study, a primary goal of which is to

create a description of the development of the Slavic be-future that is consistent with more

general principles of change. Such an approach allows not only for the formulation of a

hypothesis that is valid within a broad, cross-linguistic context, but also allows scholars

interested in the development of future tenses in other languages to utilize the Slavic data

for comparative purposes.

In seeking to define basic mechanisms of change, as well as what kinds of change

are likely to happen, recent studies of diachronic syntax have achieved a new level of

insight into this area of linguistics. The following sections describe different approaches

to the study of syntactic change that are of particular relevance to the current study.

4.2.1 Grammaticalization

Of special interest to this work is the growing body of research on grammatical-

ization, or the process by which lexical items become used as purely grammatical

markers. The study of this process has been inspired by the fact that many grammatical

morphemes can be analyzed as developing historically from words that originally served a

purpose other than conveying grammatical meaning.

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Future-tense auxiliaries have attracted special attention from scholars interested in

grammaticalization, because their lexical origins are often relatively transparent and thus

more easily analyzed. Specific and detailed analyses of future-tense constructions have

been produced, such as FleischmanÕs (1982) study of the future in Romance. Scholars

like Bybee and her colleagues (1987, 1989, 1991, 1994) have presented cross-linguistic

studies that address the typology of future-tense expressions and their regular paths of

grammaticalization.

The grammaticalization of change-of-state verbs into future markers has been

discussed to a small extent in the literature. For example, Bybee et al. (1994) describe

Ôbe(come)Õ as one of the more frequently encountered lexical items to undergo such

development. Heine (1993: 35) also identifies change-of-state verbs as candidates for

grammaticalization into tense markers, although he says that such a path of development

is rare.

In discussing examples of change-of-state verbs grammaticalizing into future

markers, Bybee et al. (ibid.) list German werden, Danish blive, and Modern Icelandic

verda; they do not mention any Slavic evidence. Thus, there is comparative support for

the idea that the semantics of *boödoö is amenable to grammaticalization. Their proposed

path of development for this type of verb, however, does not appear to be supported by

the Slavic situation. For Ôbe(come)Õ they propose that the semantic catalyst for

grammaticalization is a nuance of either obligation or predestination (ibid.: 262Ð63); cf.

the construction in English with Ôbe (to)Õ, e.g. He is to present his paper tomorrow. As I

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show below, Slavic *boödoö follows a different path of developmentÑa path that has not

been mentioned in previous scholarship on grammaticalization.

The term ÒgrammaticalizationÓ has become closely associated with the theory of

the same name that argues for the universality of principles like the unidirectionality of

change. There is substantial debate, however, about whether the theory is viable,

effective, or even necessary in larger efforts to define and understand language change.

Harris and Campbell (1995), for example, argue that the types of language change that

grammaticalization theory seeks to describe can be subsumed a larger, more general

theory of the mechanisms of language change.

Thus, a specific theory of grammatical-

ization is considered by Harris and Campbell, among others, to be unnecessary (ibid.:

20).

It is not the intention of this work to take a stand for or against the validity of

grammaticalization as a separate and single process adhering to specific principles; rather,

this work recognizes that scholars working within grammaticalization theory have made

valuable strides in understanding some aspects of syntactic and morphological change,

and that their efforts can be applied to the problem at hand. Indeed, since one of the major

areas of study of scholars operating within the framework of grammaticalization theory is

the origins and evolution of future tense constructions, such works provide an important

cross-linguistic perspective on the Slavic data, which have been largely ignored in past

scholarship in Slavistics.