Andra Kalnača

A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar

Andra Kalnača

A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar

Managing Editor: Anna Borowska

Associate Editor: Helle Metslang

Language Editor: Uldis Balodis

Published by De Gruyter Open Ltd, Warsaw/Berlin
Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license, which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

Copyright © 2014 Andra Kalnača

ISBN 978-3-11-041130-0
e- ISBN 978-3-11-041131-7

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de.

Managing Editor: Anna Borowska
Associate Editor: Helle Metslang
Language Editor: Uldis Balodis

www.degruyteropen.com

Cover illustration: © Ieva Kalnača

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction

1 The Paradigmatics and Declension of Nouns

1.1 Introductory Remarks on Paradigmatics

1.2 Declension

1.2.1 Noun Forms and Palatalization

1.2.2 Nondeclinable Nouns

1.3 Case Syncretism

1.3.1 Instrumental

1.3.2 Vocative

1.4 Reflexive Nouns

1.5 Case Polyfunctionality and Case Alternation

1.6 Gender

2 The Paradigmatics and Conjugation of Verbs

2.1 Introductory Remarks

2.2 Conjugation

2.3 Tense

2.4 Person

3 Aspect

3.1 Introductory Remarks

3.2 Imperfective/Perfective Aspect

3.2.1 Unprefixed/Prefixed Verbs

3.2.2 Aspect and the Unprefixed Verb + Adverb Construction

3.2.3 Biaspectual Verbs

3.3 Semelfactive/Iterative Aspect

3.4 Connection Between Aspect and Tense Meanings

3.4.1 Imperfective/Perfective Aspect and Indefinite Tense Forms

3.4.2 Imperfective/Perfective Aspect and Perfect Tense Forms

3.4.3 The Alternation of Indefinite and Perfect Tense Forms and Aspect

4 Mood

4.1 Introductory Remarks

4.2 Indicative Mood

4.3 Oblique mood

4.4 Conditional mood

4.5.1 Oblique Submood

4.5.2 Conditional Submood

4.6 Imperative Mood

5 Modality and Evidentiality

5.1 Introductory Remarks

5.2 Deontic Modality

5.3 Epistemic Modality

5.4 Evidentiality

5.5 Combination of Modality and Evidentiality

6 Voice

6.1 Introductory Remarks

6.2 Types of Passive in Latvian

6.3 Voice Form Construction

6.4 Voice and Lexico-Grammatical Groups of the Verb

6.4.1 Intransitive/Transitive Verbs

6.4.2 Causative Verbs

7 Reflexive Verbs

7.1 Introductory Remarks

7.2 Reflexive Markers in Latvian

7.3 Conclusions

7.4 Semantic Groups of Reflexive Verbs

7.4.1 Subject Reflexive Verbs

7.4.2 Object Reflexive Verbs

7.4.3 Impersonal Reflexive Verbs

References

Sources

Index

For Ieva and Benedikts

Abbreviations

1, 2, 3

Person

A

Agent

ACC

Accusative

ACT

Active

Adj

Adjective

AUX

Auxiliary

COND

Conditional mood

COP

Copula

DAT

Dative

DEB

Debitive

FUT

Future

GEN

Genitive

F

Feminine

IMP

Imperative

Imperf

Imperfective verb / aspect

INF

Infinitive

INS

Instrumental

Lith

Lithuanian

LNT

TV channel Latvijas Neatkarīgā Televīzija

LOC

Locative

M

Masculine

NOM

Nominative

NRA

newspaper Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze

NREFL

Non-reflexive

O

Object

OBL

Oblique mood

P

Patient

PART

Partitive

Perf

Perfective verb / aspect

PL

Plural

PRS

Present

PREP

Preposition

PRF

Perfect

Pron

Pronoun

PTCP

Participle

PST

Past

REFL

Reflexive

S

Subject

SG

Singular

VOC

Vocative

Introduction

Theoretical studies of Latvian grammar have a great deal to offer to current linguistics. Although traditionally Lithuanian has been the most widely studied Baltic language in diachronic and synchronic linguistics alike, Latvian has a number of distinctive features that can prove valuable both for historical and perhaps even more so for synchronic language research. Therefore, at the very least, contemporary typological, areal, and language contact studies involving Baltic languages should account for data from Latvian. Typologically, Latvian grammar is a classic Indo-European (Baltic) system with well-developed inflection and derivation. However, it also bears certain similarities to the Finno-Ugric languages, which can be reasonably explained by its areal and historical background. This applies, for example, to the mood system and its connections with modality and evidentiality in Latvian, also to the correlation between aspect and quantity as manifested in verbal and nominal (case) forms. The relations between debitive mood, certain constructions with reflexive verbs, and voice in Latvian are intriguing examples of unusual morphosyntactic features.

Accordingly, the book focuses on the following topics: case system and declension (with emphasis on the polyfunctionality of case forms), gender, conjugation, tense and personal forms, aspect, mood, modality and evidentiality, reflexive verbs, and voice. The examples included in this book have been taken from the Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian (Līdzsvarots mūsdienu latviešu valodas tekstu korpuss, available at www.korpuss.lv), www.google.lv, mass media, and fiction texts (see the List of language sources) without regard to relative frequency ratios. These examples are glossed in accordance with The Leipzig Glossing Rules with the exception of larger text fragments where only forms under analysis have been glossed.

This book is structured to reflect the thematic focus outlined above – the first chapter describes forms of nouns and their uses, the second chapter deals with verb conjugation, tense, and personal forms, the third chapter discusses verbal aspect, the fourth – the mood system, the fifth – modality and evidentiality, the sixth – voice, while the final seventh chapter addresses reflexive verbs. The main emphasis is placed on describing and analysing the types of facts that at least in the author’s experience never fail to arouse scientific curiosity amongst scholars both in Latvia and abroad and that require concentrated yet comprehensive coverage if further contrastive or indeed any other research is to be attempted based on them. Thus, this book is not designed as a systematic grammar or a contrastive study. These are the tasks that future studies and monographs can choose to undertake hopefully using this book as a good starting point.

The tradition of scientific description of grammar in Latvian linguistics was originally deeply rooted in neogrammarianism (for example, Bielenstein 1864; Endzelīns 1922, 1951; Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1934 [1907], 1939 [1907]) and since the middle of the 20th century also in the ideas of the Prague structuralist school. While the Grammar of Standard Latvian (Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika) (1959–1962) was still largely consistent with the neogrammarian view, the linguists Arturs Ozols, Emīlija Soida, and Jūlijs Kārkliņš working at the University of Latvia at the time had already started bringing about a radical shift in the study of morphology, word-formation, and syntax from the empirical and in many respects out-dated approach of neogrammarians to the principles of the Prague school. This meant a fundamental change of perspective in the analysis of language systems from diachronic to synchronic, which required both adjusting the traditional long-established linguistic terminology and concepts and introducing entirely new research methods and terminology. Although structuralism was one of the most modern methodologies of its time it was also one of the very few that were available to linguists behind the Iron Curtain up until the end of the 20th century. This perhaps explains why having borrowed certain isolated principles from diachronic linguistics along the way structuralism has survived in Latvian linguistics alongside empirical descriptivism into the 21st century. Only since the 1990s as a result of changes in the geopolitical situation has it become possible for researchers, linguists included, to become acquainted with the methods that had been around for a long time elsewhere in the world and to put them to use. In the field of linguistics this is true for typological, functionalist, sociolinguistic, cognitive, and pragmatic methodologies that have since been applied to the studies of Latvian, for example, by Fennell (1995a), Nau (1998), Holvoet (2001, 2007), Berg-Olsen (1999, 2005). Nevertheless these ideas have been relatively slow to penetrate the descriptions of the grammatical system of Latvian and a number of studies dealing with the morphology of Latvian published in the 21st century (for example, Kalme & Smiltniece 2001; Nītiņa 2001; Paegle 2003) are still very much in the tradition of earlier decades in that they are mainly confined to cataloguing language facts.

A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar is an attempt to place these facts in a broader perspective with the help of, among other things, certain functionalist and typological principles. This book is based on the author’s extensive research into Latvian morphology and morphosyntax, as well as on observations and conclusions made while teaching the morphology and morphophonology of Latvian and general linguistics at the University of Latvia.

Probably everyone who has had a chance to teach linguistics at the university level has experienced the genuine surprise students often express when they realise that their native language is very similar to numerous other languages in many respects while being at the same time so profoundly different. Perhaps it was this surprise that became the keynote for the tone of this book – to show that Latvian has much in common with other languages (both genetically related and unrelated) and that it also has a number of peculiarities or distinctive features that make it special and extremely interesting to study.

I would like to thank all those who have provided me with help during the writing of this book, in particular, Ilze Lokmane, a colleague of mine at the Department of Latvian and General Linguistics of the University of Latvia, for contributing valuable ideas to this book. The fruitful discussions we have often had when working on conference talks, research papers, and courses have given rise to many ideas about the ways in which the description of the Latvian language can be approached. I would also like to thank Karl Pajusalu, a colleague from the University of Tartu, who invited me to deliver a series of lectures on the grammar of Latvian from a typological perspective at the doctoral school of the University of Tartu in 2011. This useful experience has helped me pinpoint the features and characteristics of Latvian that are of special interest to linguists who while not being native speakers of the language would like to use it in their typological research.

I am very grateful to the translators of the book who are also colleagues of mine at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Latvia – Vita Kalnbērziņa (chapters on verbs) and Zigrīda Vinčela (chapters on nouns, reflexive markers) – and my doctoral student Tatjana Kuzņecova.

I would also like to thank Helle Metslang (University of Tartu, De Gruyter Open), Anna Borowska (University of Warsaw, De Gruyter Open), Ilze Rūmniece (University of Latvia), and Laimute Balode (University of Latvia, University of Helsinki) for making the publishing of this book possible.

Finally, my thanks go to Uldis Balodis (University of Helsinki) for his help in improving the English text of the manuscript and for valuable feedback and useful suggestions.

1 Paradigmatics and the Declension of Nouns

The main focus in this noun description is the paradigm of the noun as well as its case and gender. These issues have been selected first and foremost because the paradigm of the declinable parts of speech of the Latvian language has been insufficiently revealed in theoretical overviews that refer in particular to the structure of parts of speech and the range of the means used to express the grammatical meaning in their paradigms. The noun paradigm is directly connected with the number of cases and the interpretation of their functions in Latvian. Secondly, these issues also have been selected because the Latvian system of noun cases is markedly polyfunctional which means that, alongside the syncretism of endings, noun cases also display curious tendencies of syntactical use and semantic structure that accordingly deserves a more detailed analysis. Thirdly, the use of noun genders is also polyfunctional in Latvian, so they can display various asymmetric uses of noun form and content. In order to make the noun paradigm as well as the case and gender function analysis more explicit, the paradigm of all six declensions is presented in Section 1.2.

1.1 Introductory Remarks on Paradigmatics

The basis of any morphological paradigm is a set of forms linked through formal and semantic opposition, for example, the paradigm of the seven, grammatically distinct noun cases in Latvian (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative, see in detail Section 1.2) and the paradigm of the six grammatically marked verb tense forms (present indefinite, past indefinite, future indefinite, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect – in detail see Chapter 2), etc.

It is considered that the aforementioned paradigms are the centre of the morphological paradigm structure. The periphery of the morphological paradigm structure is formed by various deviations from the aforementioned principle, i.e., syncretism, merging, or the lack of paradigm elements.

Thus, it can be considered that there are two basic morphological paradigm types:

1. full or complete paradigms;

2. incomplete or defective paradigms.

Both the full and the incomplete paradigms display the following two variations:

1. as mixed or heteroclitic paradigms;

2. as homonymic or syncretic paradigms.

These two types of paradigms tend to combine with other features, such as, for instance, they can be mixed and syncretic. Also, the incomplete paradigms can be mixed and syncretic, etc.

For example, the full paradigm of the noun that simultaneously is also syncretic, cf. endings -as, -u, and -ām:

Table 1.1: The paradigm of the noun māsa ‘sister’ (F) (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 54–55)

SG

PL

NOM

mās-a

mās-as

GEN

mās-as

mās-u

DAT

mās-ai

mās-ām

ACC

mās-u

mās-as

INS

(ar) mās-u

(ar) mās-ām

LOC

mās-ā

mās-ās

VOC

mās-ø!

mās-as!

In Latvian, incomplete and simultaneously syncretic paradigms are, for example, displayed by reflexive nouns that display only two morphologically different forms with the endings -ās or -os (see Section 1.4 for reflexive nouns in detail), see Table 1.2:

Table 1.2: The paradigm of the reflexive noun atgriešanās ‘returning’ (F) (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 56)

SG

PL

NOM

atgriešan-ās

atgriešan-ās

GEN

atgriešan-ās

atgriešan-os

DAT

-

-

ACC

atgriešan-os

atgriešan-ās

INS

(ar) atgriešan-os

-

LOC

-

-

VOC

atgriešan-ās!

atgriešan-ās!

Adjectives in Latvian are the only example of the mixed and simultaneously syncretic paradigm. This paradigm is formed with the help of the suffix -ēj-. In the dative and locative cases it is used with the definite endings in both numbers as well as in the plural instrumental case, thereby resulting in definite forms that are identical to the indefinite adjectival forms:

Table 1.3: The paradigm of the definite adjective pēdējais ‘last’ (M) (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 63)

SG

PL

NOM

pēdēj-ais

pēdēj-ie

GEN

pēdēj-ā

pēdēj-o

DAT

pēdēj-am
(*pēdēj-ajam)

pēdēj-iem
(*pēdēj-ajiem)

ACC

pēdēj-o

pēdēj-os

INS

(ar) pēdēj-o

(ar) pēdēj-iem
(*pēdēj-ajiem)

LOC

pēdēj-ā
(*pēdēj-ajā)

pēdēj-os
(*pēdēj-ajos)

VOC

pēdēj-ais! / pēdēj-o!

pēdēj-ie!

The mixed paradigms in this case might be considered as an alternative for the incomplete paradigms in order to avoid difficult to pronounce sound clusters in the combinations of morphemes: the forms marked with the asterisk in Table 1.3 are not considered euphonic in the Latvian literary language and are replaced by the forms of indefinite adjectives (see also Blinkena 2002, 158–159).

As can be seen in the examples, both paradigm types as well as their variants are found in Latvian. Certainly, full paradigms are the most frequent: the noun (also adjective, numeral, and declinable participle) system of seven cases, the system of finite verb forms with three singular and three plural persons in all forms, etc. The language system is based on the full paradigms. In addition, they serve as a departure point for the incomplete and other paradigm type recording. However, in Standard Latvian due to the phonetic and morphological changes of the endings as well as due to the different processes of analogy and other historical processes, morphological paradigms of nominals (also pronominals and verbs) display syncretism, i.e., homoforms of grammatical forms (see Sections 1.2 and 1.3 for noun forms in detail).

Haspelmath (2002, 143–144) considers that the combination of various grammatical forms into one paradigm belongs to the periphery of morphological structure, for example the combination of synthetic and analytical forms in the verb tense category in German, English, and other languages, in which the indefinite tense forms are synthetic, whereas perfect tense forms are analytic. The same refers to the Latvian tense paradigm that combines synthetic and analytic forms:

Table 1.4: The paradigm of verb (indicative mood) lasīt ‘to read’

Indefinite tense form

Perfect tense form

PRS

lasu ‘I read’

esmu lasījis (M), -usi (F) ‘I have read’

PST

lasīju ‘I read’

biju lasījis, -usi ‘I had read’

FUT

lasīšu ‘I will read’

būšu lasījis, -usi
‘I will have read’

In this regard, it is also relevant to view the instrumental as the only analytic noun form included in the Latvian case paradigm. There are historical reasons for this phenomenon: the historical development of case endings towards homonymy that has required the use of the preposition ar ‘with’ for the comprehensive formal distinction of the singular instrumental and accusative or the plural instrumental and dative. For example, see Table 1.1, which shows the declensional paradigm of māsa ‘sister’ declension (see Kalnača 1999; Grīsle 2007, and Section 1.3.1 for more detail).

Morphological paradigm typology also reveals a close link on the boundary between morphology and syntax. First of all, it refers to the merging of synthetic and analytic forms into one paradigm. The structure of an analytic form usually is periphrastic; it is the combination of several word groups that are of different syntactic status, i.e., the combination of an independent word and an auxiliary word (see also Matthews 1997, 17). In the system of verb forms, periphrasis is the combination of an auxiliary verb and a declinable past participle combination, whereas in the noun system it is a combination of a preposition and a noun. In relation to verbs, historically the dominance of the Latin language tradition has determined the embedding of periphrastic word forms into the morphological paradigm of tenses, whereas this is less evident in similar noun forms (see in detail Kalnača 2000b).

Interaction of morphology and syntax in the paradigmatics of grammatical forms is observable if there is unification of incomplete and syncretic paradigms due to syntactic use. In Latvian, reflexive nouns are vivid examples of this phenomenon (see Section 1.4 for a detailed discussion).

1.2 Declension

The Latvian noun declension system represents a typical Indo-European seven case system (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, vocative) with six declensions, two numbers, and two genders (see for example Endzelīns 1951; Ahero et al. 1959; Paegle 2003).

As was mentioned in Section 1.1, full or complete paradigms dominate the declension system for nouns containing some syncretic forms; however, there are also incomplete syncretic paradigms of reflexive nouns, which have been considered in detail in Section 1.4. Beyond the declension system there are nondeclinable nouns as well as nouns used only in one form – the genitive in singular or plural (see further in the present chapter).

The noun declensions are distinguished on the basis of the different endings in the case and number paradigms and partly on the basis of gender (Kalme, Smiltniece 2001, 101; Paegle 2003, 45; Nau 2011). The traditional system for distinguishing declensions in Latvian is as follows (Kalme, Smiltniece 2001, 101–112, regarding the development and changes of the declension system see Smiltniece 2002, 44–53; Paegle 2003, 45–47):

The six declension paradigm system of the Latvian language is as follows Table 1.5.

In the declensions comprising both genders, the difference between the genders is seen in the singular dative form, for example in the singular dative form of the 4th declension (Paegle 2003, 32, 50):

Table 1.5: The paradigms of the Latvian noun declensions (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 54–55)

This method also works in the masculine singular dative form of the 5th declension, as seen in the following surnames:

In Latvian there are also different masculine and feminine singular dative forms of common gender nouns in the 4th and 5th declension (see Section 1.6 for a detailed discussion), for example:

Thus, it is possible to propose the following system of case and number endings for nouns. Note that the endings preceded by palatalization have been displayed as separate exponents (read below in the present chapter about this morphological process; see also Haspelmath 2002, 242):

Singular

The 2nd declension is divided into two subgroups – 2b (consonantal stem nouns), 2a (all other nouns).

The 5th declension also includes the ending -em for masculine surnames and common gender nouns such as bende ‘executioner’, if they are used in the masculine gender, see examples (1.2)-(1.4)).

With respect to the analysis of the interrelation of grammatical form frequency and the differentiation of exponents (i.e., different endings), Haspelmath (2002, 238–239) points out that inflecting languages generally display the following grammatical form frequency (only the characteristics referring to nouns are mentioned): for number: singular > plural > dual, for case: nominative > accusative > dative (> represents ‘is used more frequently than’). The interrelation of frequency and exponent differentiation fully works in Latvian, if the number of endings in singular and plural is compared. Singular, obviously as a more frequently used grammatical form, displays a greater variety of case endings, which is confirmed by the number of exponents, and a smaller number of syncretic forms than in plural (see also Nau 2011). Plural, in relation to case endings, is considerably more unified: the number of syncretic forms is greater; for example, the forms of plural nominative, accusative, and vocative fully coincide in the 4th, 5th, and 6th declensions. Moreover, in Latvian there is only one ending -u in all declensions for plural genitive with only one variant – -‘u in the 2nd declension.

However, the second regularity mentioned by Haspelmath referring to the interrelation of the number of exponents and the frequency of case use is not confirmed in Latvian. According to Haspelmath, the greatest number of exponents should be in nominative, then fewer in accusative, and least of all in dative. Latvian displays a different sequence: dative, vocative > nominative > accusative. The overview of the Latvian declension system presented in Tables 1.6 and 1.7 shows that generally the greatest number of exponents (i.e., different endings) are in the dative and also the vocative: seven in singular and five in plural, which means twelve in total (for a discussion regarding the number of exponents in singular dative see also Nau 2011, 146). The variety of endings in the dative has encouraged some linguists to accept the dative as the basis for distinguishing the Latvian noun declension from each other (for example, Bērziņa 1942, 62; Nītiņa 2001, 15–19; Holst 2001; also, Nau 2011, 152).

Nominative, which traditionally has been considered the case distinguisher across declensions in Latvian, displays a smaller number of exponents: eleven different endings (six in singular, five in plural). In addition, the 1st and 6th declensions have the syncretic ending -s in singular nominative (see Table 1.5: tēvs-s ‘father’ and ziv-s

Table 1.6: Singular case endings

Table 1.7: Plural case endings

‘fish’ and Table 1.6). The plural nominative endings are also the same in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions (see Table 5: tēv-i ‘fathers’, brāļ-i ‘brothers’, liet-i ‘rains’).

However, the accusative (like the instrumental) displays the smallest number of exponents: seven different endings (only two in singular and five in plural), which, however, does not mean that the accusative is infrequently used in Latvian. On the contrary, as the opposition of transitive/intransitive verbs is well developed in Latvian (see Chapter 6 about this opposition), the accusative, therefore, is one of the most important cases for sentence structure.

Surprisingly, the vocative displays a comparatively large number of exponents, twelve, and as many different endings as the dative. The vocative, which is generally considered a peripheral case, in theory would not require the same large number of exponents as seen in, for example, the nominative or accusative cases used as the so-called central cases of a sentence. However, in Latvian alongside morphologically vocative forms, it is possible to use nominative forms (see Section 1.3.2) in the function of vocative. This use of nominative forms has enriched the number of vocative exponents.

As is pointed out by Nau (2011, 152), there is no doubt that the dative is a very frequently used form, at least for the nouns denoting human beings. This is determined by the specific functions of the dative in Latvian: to express indirect object as well as the so-called dative subjects, in possessive constructions, in debitive, and other cases (see Section 1.5 regarding the functions of the dative as well as Lokmane, Kalnača 2014). It has to be noted that the vocative is also frequently used in Latvian. It is the most frequent case in spoken language as well as in business texts. The vocative is widely used, for example, in various business letters, invitations, and similar business texts (Skujiņa 1999, 51–55).

1.2.1 Noun Forms and Palatalization

As shown in Tables 1.5–1.7, palatalization occurs in Latvian noun formation where it marks either the singular or plural genitive (as in the 2nd, 5th, and 6th declensions) or the contrast between the plural paradigm and the singular paradigm (as in the 2nd declension) (Kalnača 2004a, 71–75). Historically j was a suffix which phonetically has blended with the preceeding morpheme (the stem or the lexeme-forming suffix) (Endzelīns 1981, 416–431, 488–494).

Palatalization occurs according to the following morphophonological system. The examples contrast GEN SG or GEN PL forms containing palatalization with NOM SG which they follow.

If a word stems ends in consonants v, m, p, b blending occurs:

The palatalization found in the contrast of NOM SG and GEN SG or GEN PL can also extend to the palatalization of entire consonant clusters:

Even if palatalization (see Table 1.5) is observed in the grammatical forms of the 2nd, 5th, and 6th declensions, there are some exceptions that do not display the expected alternation.

1. 2nd declension

2. some 5th declension common nouns -ste, -te, -se:

3. 6th declension:

In general it can be concluded that the paradigms of the Latvian noun declension system are unified in terms of stress, syllable tone, and vocalism, and therefore endings are the main indicators of a particular case and the morphological marking of cases in the Latvian language in general occurs only in relation with consonant palatalization (Nau 2011, 173). In the Latvian noun paradigm there is no typical morphophonological marking of the nominative and the dependent cases (see also Nau 2011).

1.2.2 Nondeclinable nouns

In Modern Latvian there are also nondeclinable nouns. These nouns are all borrowings (Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 113; Kalnača 2013a, 56), for example:

Nondeclinable common nouns are normally in the masculine gender in Latvian, whereas the gender of nondeclinable proper nouns depends on the gender of the named item and the context in which it is used. Rivers, towns/cities, countries, and islands are in the feminine gender:

Lakes, mountains, and villages are in the masculine gender:

The gender of nondeclinable personal names depends on the sex of that particular person:

The category of case and number of these nouns can be determined only in context (Paegle 2002, 53):

In colloquial speech the nondeclinable lexemes often get changed to declinable nouns by adding endings and diminutive suffixes:

There is also a range of nondeclinable nouns in Standard Latvian that during recent years have changed to declinable nouns through the addition of endings or suffixes (Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 113), for example:

This group of nondeclinable nouns is composed of genitives – nouns which only have a singular or plural genitive form and are usually used as a modifier (Soida 1976; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 113–114; Paegle 2003, 53–54), for example:

The following two types are distinguished:

1. compound genitives

2. prepositional genitives

1.3 Case Syncretism

As is mentioned above in 1.1, a typical feature of Latvian is paradigm syncretism. This syncretism is especially characteristic for noun forms (see noun declension examples in Table 1.5 as well as Table 1.6 for the classification of case endings). The main instances of noun case syncretism in Latvian are as follows:

1. All declensions display syncretism in the accusative and instrumental in singular and in the dative and instrumental in plural:

Table 1.8: Syncretism in the accusative and instrumental

2. In the 1st, 3rd, and 4th declensions there is syncretism in the singular accusative and instrumental as well as in the plural genitive:

Table 1.9: Syncretism in the accusative, instrumental, and genitive

3. In the 4th and 5th declensions there is syncretism in the singular genitive as well as in the plural nominative and accusative. In the 6th declension syncretism is found in the plural nominative and accusative:

Table 1.10: Syncretism in the genitive, nominative, and accusative

4. The 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th declensions as well as the 2nd declension subgroup of consonantal stems partly coincide in the singular nominative and vocative. All declensions fully coincide in the plural nominative and vocative.

Table 1.11: Syncretism in the nominative and vocative

5. The singular accusative and vocative forms of the 2nd declension (with the exception of the subgroup of consonantal nouns) and 3rd declension are syncretic. In addition, the 2nd declension nominative singular is syncretic (note that the end of the noun stem is marked by palatalization), while the 3rd declension genitive plural is also syncretic.

Table 1.12: Syncretism in the accusative, vocative, nominative, and genitive

SG

2 (M)

3 (M)

ACC

brāl-i

liet-u

VOC

brāl-i!

liet-u!

PL

NOM

brāļ-i

GEN

liet-u

6. The 2nd declension subgroup of consonantal stem nouns and 3rd and 6th declension nouns have syncretic forms in the singular nominative, genitive, and vocative (excluding the 3rd declension).

Table 1.13: Syncretism in the nominative, genitive, and vocative

The widely represented syncretism of noun cases in Latvian prompts several conclusions. First of all, the following four cases are involved in this syncretism: the nominative, genitive, accusative, and vocative. The nominative, accusative, and genitive represent the so-called central or grammatical cases that are connected with the grammatical structure of a sentence (see in detail the grammatical and semantic functions of cases in Blake 1997, 36–47; Plungian 2011, 165–184). Even if the typical case of the subject is the nominative case and the accusative typically is the object case, in Latvian both functions can also be performed by the genitive (see for details Section 1.5). This variety of syntactic structure is indirectly revealed also by the fact that case syncretism is most widely found in the nominative, accusative, and genitive (see Tables 1.9, 1.11, 1.12). The presence of the vocative, which belongs neither to the core nor peripheral cases, in Latvian noun case syncretism is not surprising, because the existence of this syncretism is determined by the common functions of the nominative and vocative cases (in detail see Section 1.3.2).

Second of all, peripheral cases (the dative, instrumental, and locative) are minimally involved in syncretism. The dative is involved only in one instance: the dative and instrumental syncretism of nouns in all declensions in the plural (see Table 1.8). The instrumental is connected with two instances of syncretism. The first instance is the syncretism of nouns of all declensions in the singular accusative and instrumental. The second instance is the syncretism of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th declension nouns in the singular accusative and instrumental and the plural genitive (see Table 1.9). The locative is not connected with syncretism.

Third of all, case syncretism in Latvian is not connected with gender or animacy, because it is realised irrespective of the lexical meaning of the noun. This feature of syncretism distinguishes Latvian from other Indo-European languages where similar instances of syncretism can be found (regarding this see Blake 1997, 41–47).

Case syncretism in Latvian is caused by:

1. historical homonymy of forms due to reduction in final syllables;

2. original forms, due to analogy, have been replaced by other forms;

3. alternation of the syntactic usage of these case forms.

This noun case syncretism has also resulted in different approaches for describing the Latvian noun case system. It seems that the most prominent discussions are connected with the syncretism of the accusative and instrumental (in singular) and the dative and instrumental (in plural) found in all declensions as well as the syncretism of the nominative and vocative. These instances of syncretism are also connected with the fundamental approach to the entire case paradigm, in particular, the question of how many noun cases Latvian possesses – six or seven (NOM, GEN, DAT, ACC, LOC, VOC or NOM, GEN, DAT, ACC, INS, LOC) or only five (NOM, GEN, DAT, ACC, LOC). For this reason the instrumental and vocative have become problematic. The trend to decrease the number of the cases in Latvian is observable not only in scientific descriptions of Latvian (see for example Eckert, Bukevičiutė, Hinze 1994; Nītiņa 2001) but also in various bilingual textbooks and other sources devoted to Latvian (for example Andronov 2002; Klēvere-Velhli, Naua 2012). For this reason there are two topical issues. First of all, have the instrumental and vocative really ceased to exist in the grammatical system of Standard Latvian? Second of all, what has happened with the grammatical and semantic functions of these two cases? Have these functions all been overtaken by other cases thereby entirely subsuming the instrumental and vocative?

The instances of ACC-INS SG / DAT-INS PL and NOM-VOC syncretism are also closely connected with the evolution and development of Latvian and the previously mentioned causes of case syncretism. Therefore, the next two sections are devoted to the issues connected with the instrumental and vocative. Case alternation in relation to case syncretism will be further discussed in the context of the functions of case forms (see Section 1.5).

1.3.1 Instrumental

The problem of the instrumental had already been brought up by Endzelīns (1971a [1897]; 1971b [1901]) and by Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs (1934 [1907]) in their analysis of the noun declension paradigm as well as various instances of preposition use in Latvian. The controversial considerations regarding the instrumental are also included in Standard Latvian grammatical system descriptions (for example Mathiassen 1997, 41–42; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 99; Nītiņa 2001, 14; Paegle 2003, 37–38). A range of articles have been devoted to the arguments for or against the instrumental. Among these the following articles are the most prominent: Fennells (1995a), Nītiņa (1997), Kalnača (1999), Grīsle (2007).

The main arguments for the exclusion of the instrumental from the Latvian declension paradigm, as has already been mentioned in Section 1.1, are connected with case forms. Namely, the syncretism of case forms across all declensions with the accusative in the singular and with the dative in the plural as well as the use of the preposition ar ‘with’. As a result, the instrumental is the only analytical noun case and as such is in opposition to the all other case forms. These case forms are all synthetic, and therefore the inclusion of the instrumental is thought to contradict the formation of case forms (Nītiņa 2001, 14; Smiltniece 2013, 352).

Paradoxically, none of the research arguing for the the exclusion of the instrumental from the Latvian noun case paradigm has pointed out or offered a solution regarding how to view the semantics and functions of the instrumental in morphology and syntax that obviously does not correlate with the usage of the accusative and dative in Latvian. In addition, the fact has been often ignored that the instrumental in Latvian also is used as a synthetic form without the preposition ar ‘with’. Here are some examples:

It should be noted that the synthetic instrumental is the primary form in the noun case paradigm. It is still used in Latvian, although considerably less frequently than the prepositional instrumental (in detail see Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1939, 136 –138; Paegle 2003, 43; Grīsle 2007, 148–149). However, it is not correct to assert that the instrumental is always used with the preposition ar ‘with’ (see for example Mathiassen 1997, 41).

Eliminating the instrumental from the noun case paradigm would result in an unclear analysis of the parts of a sentence referring to the direct object and transitive verbs in Latvian. It would also prove problematic in contrasting Latvian with Lithuanian and other related languages. In this regard Grīsle (2007, 149) points out:

“In what way will we analyse corresponding sentences in Latvian and Lithuanian such as „iet pliku galvu, pliku kaklu, plikām kājām”: lith. „eina plika galva, pliku kaklu ir nuogomis kojomis” ‘to walk bareheaded, barenecked, barefoot’. Wouldn’t it be too strange and confusing to consider galvu ‘head’ and kaklu ‘neck’ to be accusatives, but kājām ‘foot’ to be a dative, even if all of them perform the same function in the same sentence? The faultiness of this approach is self evident when the number is changed. And, in the Lithuanian sentence, which fully corresponds to the Latvian sentence, the same forms of the same words have to be labelled as instrumentals!”

If the examples of the non-prepositional instrumental given by Grīsle iet pliku galvu, pliku kaklu, plikām kājām ‘to walk bareheaded, barenecked, barefoot’ due to form syncretism are considered to be accusative and dative, then ignoring word combination semantics, the following question emerges: can transitivity be connected with only the accusative or also with the dative? In that case, there is a curious situation in Latvian where the same word-group is transitive in singular, but intransitive in plural:

This situation contradicts the essence of transitivity: the ability of a verb to attract the direct object and realise agent-patient relations (Matthews 1997, 383; Crystal 2000, 397). If the previously exemplified word-groups are viewed from the angle of semantics, it is obvious that pliku galvu, plikām galvām ‘bareheaded’ irrespective of the number expresses a comitative meaning, i.e., the meaning of an instrument, not the meaning of the patient in singular (i.e., direct object) that is a characteristic feature of the accusative, but in the plural that of a beneficiary or experiencer characteristic of the dative (see for example Plungian 2011, 162–165 regarding semantic roles and their functions; see also Holvoet 2012, 93–94 regarding the structural and semantic differences of the accusative and instrumental).

As is known, the syncretism of the accusative and instrumental in singular and the dative and instrumental in plural has been caused by the reduction of final syllable vocalism and various analogous paths of formation (see in detail Endzelīns 1951):

In dialect texts, Latvian folk songs, and texts from the 16th–17th centuries one can find plural instrumental forms containing the ending -is in the masculine gender and -mis in the feminine gender, for example:

Zinkevičius has noted that in the Lithuanian plural dative and instrumental there is similar syncretism to that found in Latvian (Zinkevičius, 1980, 195–196):

In the High Lithuanian subdialects of Lithuanian, dative and instrumental forms can be used without the intonation distinction and even without an -s ending. For example, rankom ‘for hands / with hands’ can be both the dative (Standard Lithuanian rankoms ‘for hands’) and also the plural instrumental (Standard Lithuanian rankomis ‘with hands’) (Zinkevičus op. cit.). Such forms in these Lithuanian subdialects are analogous to the plural dative and instrumental forms of Standard Latvian and most of its subdialects (see the case paradigm of the Latvian language in Section 1.2).

Nevertheless the syncretism of the forms given by Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs (1934 [1907], 1939 [1907]), as well as Endzelīns (1951) for the instrumental without the preposition ar ‘with’ are included in the case paradigm. Phrases containing the preposition ar ‘with’ have been analysed as forms of the instrumental, not the accusative or dative. This approach for describing the instrumental has been also been employed in Ahero et al. (1959), as well as in scientific grammars and those used in schools beginning in the second half of the 20th century up to the present day. Therefore, the question emerges if this has been done for historical reasons grounded in considerations that the Latvian case system is Baltic and hence a descendant of the system present in Proto-Indo-European, which also included the instrumental case (see Beekes 1995, 172–173). It should be noted that this reasoning was pointed out by Fennell (1995a, 54–61) as the only reliable argument in favour of the inclusion of the instrumental.

The answer to this question could be as follows. Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs, and other authors were of course aware of the fact that form syncretism is an insufficient reason for the complete exclusion of a case from the case system, because each case is defined not only by its unique morphology but also by the specific function it has in the language system. The instrumental cannot be combined with the direct object function of the accusative in singular or the functions of the dative in plural (see Section 1.5 regarding the semantics of the accusative and dative). However, the syncretism of ACC-INS SG and DAT-INS PL as well as the loss of the original plural forms of the instrumental may be the main reasons for the preposition ar ‘with’ appearing in the synthetic cases of the singular and plural paradigm of Standard Latvian. The purpose for using ar ‘with’ in these contexts was to distinguish syncretic cases with the help of the preposition as well as to strengthen the instrumental semantically (Endzelīns 1971b [1901]; see also Paegle 2003, 43).

The most significant reason for the inclusion of the instrumental in the case paradigm is its polyfunctionality with respect to verb arguments – the nouns and adjectives within a sentence. For example, an object in the instrumental normally collocates with a range of verbs that frequently are reflexive verbs expressing reciprocal action (Kalnača 1999):

Nouns derived from such reflexive verbs also are connected with the instrumental:

The use of the instrumental, with and without the preposition ar ‘with’, is versatile in Latvian and can be used with verbs, nouns, or adjectives (see for example Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1934 [1907], 136–138; Endzelīns 1951, 580–586; Ahero et al. 1959, 400– 404, Gāters 1993, 162–183; Paegle 2003, 42–44; Grīsle 2007, 148–149; see also Section 1.5 in the present book), for example:

Nevertheless, Fennell (1995a) considers the polyfunctionality of the instrumental to be one of the arguments against its inclusion into the Latvian case paradigm. However, this argument seems unconvincing because polyfunctionality is a characteristic feature of all cases in Latvian except the vocative and partially also the nominative (see also Section 1.5 of the present book). In addition, case polyfunctionality is a characteristic feature of other languages, for example, Lithuanian (see Ambrazas 1996, 1997). However, in none of these has this phenomenon been proposed as a reason for unifying cases within the case paradigm. If the function of a case is versatile, then certainly there may be instances of case alternation covering situations with similar semantics. However, taking into account all meanings of these cases, it still is possible to postulate the main meaning of the case or the semantic invariant that has served for the contextual derivation of the other meanings. For this reason the existence of case polyfunctionality cannot serve as a reason for the exclusion of cases from a language.

As mentioned in Section 1.1, in Latvian linguistics (much as in the study of other languages) there is an observable inconsistency in the formal understanding of grammatical forms, i.e., in the paradigmatics of verbs both synthetic and analytic forms have been respected, whereas in the paradigmatics of nouns normally only synthetic forms have been respected. Thus, if the versatility of form formation strategies has been acknowledged in the system of verbs, the same approach should be applied to the form formation of nouns. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the entrance of an analytical case form into the paradigm of synthetic forms is a comparatively new phenomenon in Latvian. All the same, the use of the prepositional instrumental form has not resulted in the elimination of the non-prepositional form of the instrumental (regarding this phenomenon see Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1939 [1907], 136–138; Paegle 2003, 42–44). Similar though less developed, non-prepositional and prepositional case alternation is also observable in Lithuanian. Paulauskienė (1994) points out that the noun case forms as well as the prepositional word-group can both be used synonymously to express a particular grammatical meaning (i.e. instrumental meaning) (examples are from Paulauskienė 1994, 104, 132):

In this connection it could be noted that Fillmore and Bach also agree that in the deep structure, case forms and prepositional word-groups perform the same function (Fillmore 1968, 1–88; Bach 1968, 90–122). Anderson (2006, 22–24, 48–51), however, has mentioned that the same syntactic relations can be shown with case endings as well as with adpositions. This point has also been noted by Plungian (2011, 184–185) referring to the instances where a locative meaning is expressed.

However, in Latvian, unlike in Lithuanian where this is not the case, syncretism of forms has resulted in the borderline of grammatical synonymity being violated between the synthetic case forms and the prepositional word-group. This is especially true for a range of instances where only the instrumental form with the preposition ar ‘with’ is grammatically correct, such as in a range of instances where the instrumental is used to refer to the act of enabling. This fact should be taken into account because the instrumental with the preposition ar ‘with’ helps avoid form syncretism thereby distinguishing the use of the instrumental from the accusative and dative. This, however, does not mean that grammatically and especially semantically the instrumental has disappeared from Latvian. The existence of the instrumental is proved by its polyfunctionality and the syntactic relation of many verbs and nominals (nouns and adjectives) as well as by the current use of the non-prepositional instrumental in Latvian.

1.3.2 Vocative

There are two reasons for the exclusion of the vocative from the noun case paradigm:

1. the vocative is without its own ending, because it is either identical with the nominative or accusative, or lacking any ending at all (Nītiņa 1997, 203);

2. the vocative does not have a meaning like other cases and therefore it is not connected with the other parts of the sentence (Ahero et al. 1959, 389; see also Plungian (2011, 178–179) for the historical analysis of these considerations).

Nevertheless, the form and function of the vocative allow for this case to be considered an integral part of the noun case paradigm, instead of just a word formation phenomenon (for this viewpoint see Nau 2011, 146).

First of all, it should be emphasised that morphologically the vocative is not a form that would exist outside the paradigm (see Paulauskienė 1994; Kalnača 1999; Holvoet 2012, 47). The vocative is connected with the rest of the cases by the common stem of the noun as well as the specific grammatical form whose main function is the naming of the message addressee (Plungian 2011, 178). The vocative is the case used for calling someone or getting their attention (Matthews 1997, 397) and its function in a language system is to attract the attention of a message addressee to specific information.

A range of the vocative forms inherited from the Baltic and Indo-European proto-languages remain in use in Standard Latvian (1st, 4th, and 5th declensions). The vocative ending of these forms has been phonetically reduced due to the shortening of final syllables (Rudzīte 1993, 181–184), i.e., the ending is a zero morpheme, for example (see also Table 1.5, Section 1.2):

The inherited vocative forms of the 2nd and 3rd declension nouns are syncretic with the singular accusative forms, due to the transformation of the final syllables (Rudzīte 1993, 189; Endzelīns 1981, 432):

Some 2nd declension nouns may possess a parallel form ending in a zero morpheme alongside forms ending in -i due to the shortening of the inherited ending (Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 104–105; see paradigm Paegle 2003, 48; also Holvoet 2012, 50), for example:

In colloquial speech accusative forms are widely used with a vocative function for 1st and 4th declension personal names (normally these are not mentioned in grammars):

Therefore it would not be reasonable to consider the vocative as a case without its own ending. However, it is correct to say that there is a range of feminine personal names and common nouns of both genders that use nominative case forms functioning as vocatives:

However, diminutives with the terminations (the last suffix + ending) -iņš (M), -iņa (F), -uks (M), -ēns (M), -ītis (M), -īte (F), -ulis (M), -elis (M) always have a vocative form (see about this also Holvoet, 2012, 50) and these terminations are also added to feminine personal names:

The vocative is also used with masculine gender nouns (nomina actionis, i.e., agent nouns) with the terminations -ājs (M), -ējs (M), -tājs (M), (see also Holvoet 2012, 50), whereas feminine gender nouns with the terminations -āja (F), -ēja (F), -tāja (F) have both unique vocative forms as well as nominative forms functioning as vocatives:

The vocative does not perform the same syntactic functions as the other cases, because it cannot be, like other cases, a subject, predicate, object, adverbial modifier, or apposition in a sentence. This, however, is not an argument for excluding the vocative from the case paradigm. A noun in the vocative case can attract an attribute as well as distinguish the finite forms of a verb, i.e., the number of the predicate in a particular context. As Holvoet (2012, 55) points out,

“The vocative is distinct from other cases because of this syntactic isolation, but it could be viewed as being at the end of a certain continuum: grammatical cases > semantic cases > dis-course-oriented cases. Vocative noun phrases may have some specific features (actually some vocatives cannot occur in phrases), but basically they are similar to other noun phrases.”

This fully refers to Latvian. First of all, the vocative is the dialogue case, and therefore closely connected with sentence modality and intonation in the spoken language. Therefore, the vocative normally collocates with the 2nd person verb in singular and plural, and in addition the number form of the verb agrees with the number of the addressed people:

If a person is addressed with whom the message sender intends to do something collaboratively, then the vocative collocates with the predicate in the 1st person PL imperative:

So, the vocative, like the nominative, can determine the number of the predicate in a particular context. This phenomenon shows the ability of the vocative to collocate with other words in a sentence, i.e., to determine the finite forms (number and person) of a predicate, which is a verb.

As is seen in these examples, the place of the vocative in a sentence is not fixed – normally it stands at the beginning of a sentence (see examples (1.38b-c), (1.39a), but it can also stand at the end of a sentence (examples (1.38a), (1.39b), (1.40a) or in the middle (1.40b-c):

Second of all, a noun in the vocative can agree with an attribute. Holvoet (2012, 52–62) explained the ability of the vocative to agree with an attribute not only in the nominative but also in the accusative. This agreement can be seen in the following examples:

As adjectives, declinable participles, and pronouns do not have vocative forms in Latvian, nominative forms functioning as vocatives are typically used instead. This phenomenon is clearly seen if any word in the aforementioned parts of speech collocates with a noun in the vocative. This would mean that in theory one would expect an attribute that agrees in gender, number, and case. The agreement is realised in the same way as that of an adjective in the nominative (or any other declinable part of speech) agreeing with a noun in the vocative (see examples (1.41)).

It is curious to also see accusative forms with this function. The accusative attribute forms are explainable for adjectives that collocate with nouns of the 2nd and 3rd declensions, as the vocative form of these is syncretic with the accusative form. However, the accusative that collocates with the nouns of the 1st, 4th, and 5th declensions is surprising (see examples (1.42)). Accusative noun forms functioning as vocatives in colloquial speech (see (1.34) examples Ojāru!, Klāvu!, Aiju!, Aiju!) are normally used as isolated vocative forms without collocating with their respective attributes. Therefore, such vocatives should not be regarded as the determiners of accusative attribute forms. It appears that exactly the syncretic vocative and accusative forms of 2nd declension nouns have determined the agreement of the accusative form of the adjective with the attribute. Perhaps, this has favoured the spreading of the collocation of the accusative form of the attribute to the nouns of the 1st, 4th, and 5th declensions.

However, irrespective of the vocative agreement with other words in the given context, this fact has been ignored in descriptions of the Standard Latvian case paradigm (for example, Smiltniece 2013, 355–366). There are several reasons for this tendency. One of the most important reasons is the alternation of NOM-VOC, i.e., the syncretism of the nominative and vocative. Both cases are linked by a common function (naming), and therefore they are in semantic opposition to the rest of the cases that (in a broad sense) express the relationship among constituents (Blake 1997, 45):

Therefore the nominative and vocative, which are considered to be independent cases, tend to contrast with the dependent cases – the genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and locative. The semantic difference of the nominative and vocative in relation to the rest of the cases is also observed grammatically, as historically the nominative and vocative are partially marked or completely unmarked forms (Blake 1997, 32; see Endzelīns 1951, 1981, 1982; Rosinas 2005 regarding the history of the Latvian nominative and vocative cases).

Due to the naming function, the nominative and accusative are not polyfunctional, which is their essential distinguishing feature from the rest of the cases that have become widely polysemantic and acquired versatile syntactic use (see the description of case polyfunctionality in Section 1.5).

The nominative and vocative also create interrelated semantic opposition:

In this opposition the unmarked part is the nominative, which only serves to name an item (Blake 1997, 44). The vocative, however, specifies and brings out the named item, i.e., the addressee, as it only can be a living being (or a personified thing). As Plungian (2011, 178) points out, the vocative differs from other cases in that it expresses the semantic role of the speech act participant. The required function of the vocative is for the speaker to atttract the attention of the addressee or recipient of that speaker’s message.

As the nominative and vocative have a common function, i.e., naming, the nominative as an unmarked part of that opposition can take on the role of the vocative. In such instances, nouns are used with the specific intonation and syntactic context of the vocative thereby causing the competition of these grammatical forms. This phenomenon is observed not only in Latvian but also in Lithuanian (Lithuanian examples from Paulauskienė 1994, 103):

A similar phenomenon is found also in Latin, Greek, and the Slavonic languages (Coleman 1976; Jakobson 1971a; Rāta 1983). In the competition of the nominative and vocative forms, the nominative has won in most Indo-European languages. Therefore, in these languages, unlike in Baltic, some Slavonic languages, and Ancient Greek, the vocative has not been distinguished as a case with its own ending (Jakobson 1971a, 115–116, 1971b: 179; Rāta 1983, 111–130). In Latin and Modern Greek only the masculine gender o-stem words (that correspond to the 1st declension in Latvian) possess the specific inherited forms of the vocative (examples from Adams 1978; Blake 1997):

In all other cases the nominative is used, accusative forms functioning as vocatives are used less frequently (Adams 1978, 16; Blake 1997, 5).

So far it still cannot be stated that the vocative has been completely displaced by the nominative in Latvian. This can be shown by the existence of vocative forms in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th declensions that are still widely used in spoken and written language. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the nominative of particular common and proper nouns in Standard Latvian is used with a vocative function. For example, the aforementioned words: kungs ‘gentleman’, kundze ‘lady’, Ieva, Ilze. However, the alternation of the nominative and vocative is proof that the vocative is a unique case and is not an isolated form of address existing outside of the Latvian noun case paradigm.

Taking into account the problems discussed regarding the paradigmatics of the instrumental and vocative, it can be concluded that the dominant view among specialists is that in the Latvian grammatical system is that grammatical meaning can be expressed only by the particular morphemes that are involved in the formation of particular grammatical forms, i.e., the endings (for detail see Kalnača 2000b). However, the formation of the instrumental and partly also the vocative in Standard Latvian differs from the system used for forming the other cases. This fact has been proposed as one of the main arguments against the inclusion of these cases in the case paradigm. Thus the semantics and functions of the instrumental and vocative which cannot be “moved” to other cases within the language system have been completely ignored.

1.4 Reflexive Nouns

Reflexive nouns, due to their semantics and case paradigms, have been traditionally considered as one of the marginal elements of noun system. The existence of these nouns in Latvian is mentioned in Latvian grammars and other descriptions of the grammatical system. It is also often stated that they lack case forms and descriptions of their semantics and semantic functions are rather concise (see for example, Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1939, 43; Ahero et al. 1959, 423; Paegle 2003, 53; Smiltniece 2013, 366–367). It must be noted that the description of reflexive nouns in Latvian linguistics has not noticeably changed since the publication of the Latvian grammars of Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs (1934 [1907] and 1939 [1907]). Information regarding reflexive nouns is also not found in the most recent study by Rosinas (2005) of the Latvian case system. Meanwhile, reflexive nouns are widely used across a range of Latvian registers such as business communication, fiction, mass media, and conversation. All registers in Latvian reveal a curious grammatical phenomenon regarding reflexive nouns: the missing case forms are compensated through the use of other grammatical forms or the joining of case forms in the reflexive noun paradigm. However, so far there have not been any in depth studies shedding light on these issues in Latvian linguistics. This gap reveals the topicality of reflexive noun research.

Reflexive nouns are formed from reflexive verbs with various terminations (Nītiņa 2001, 20; Barbare 2002, 78; Kalnača 2011, 72):

With regard to meaning, these nouns retain the reflexive verb meaning alongside the nominal meaning assigned by a word formation suffix -šan- and reflexive ending -ās:

Meanings connected to unexpected actions are also possible:

Some reflexive nouns have retained the meaning of the passive reflexive verb:

The merging of non-reflexive and reflexive noun semantics can be observed in Standard Latvian, because, for language users, the distinction of reflexive semantics in the derived nouns has lost its topicality. This is evident as a portion of reflexive nouns commonly used in fiction and other texts have become infrequent. As a result the functions of nouns with the terminations such as -umies, -ējies, -tājies are performed by the relevant non-reflexive nouns:

As is noted by Kalme & Smiltniece (2001, 112): “Nowadays these derivatives are not productive in the language, even if, in contrast to non-reflexive nouns, their usage would be motivated and even preferable.“

Currently, the most frequent reflexive noun termination is -šanās that can be used to form nouns from all reflexive verbs (Ahero et al. 1959, 423; Nītiņa 2001, 20; Barbare 2002, 78; Paegle 2004, 53). In addition, the difference in meaning between non-reflexive and reflexive nouns normally is the same as the difference in meaning of the words from which the noun forms were derived; for example, the difference in meaning of non-reflexive and reflexive verb pairs where the agent and patient fully or partly coincide (see Section 7.2):

Irrespective of the close interrelation of reflexive noun and verb systems, they each possess distinctive features. The most noticeable difference refers to the paradigmatics of the grammatical forms. The system of finite and non-finite forms of non-reflexive and reflexive verbs is symmetrical (see in detail Kalnača 2004a, 54–57, see also Kalnača & Lokmane 2012), whereas the system of noun forms is not symmetrical.

Case paradigms of reflexive nouns are defective, as they lack several cases in singular and plural: dative and locative in singular and plural and instrumental in plural (for examples see case paradigms of reflexive nouns in Nītiņa 2001, 21; Paegle 2004, 53; Smiltniece 2013, 366–367). Examples of this phenomenon can be seen in the case paradigm comparison of the non-reflexive noun mazgāšana ‘washing’ and reflexive noun mazgāšanās ‘washing [oneself]’ (Tables 1.14 and 1.15):

Table 1.14: The paradigm of the non-reflexive noun mazgāšana ‘washing’ (F) (Kalnača 2011, 74)

SG

PL

NOM

mazgāšan-a

mazgāšan-as

GEN

mazgāšan-as

mazgāšan-u

DAT

mazgāšan-ai

mazgāšan-ām

ACC

mazgāšan-u

mazgāšan-as

INS

(ar) mazgāšan-u

(ar) mazgāšan-ām

LOC

mazgāšan-ā

mazgāšan-ās

VOC

mazgāšan-a!

mazgāšan-as!

Table 1.15: The paradigm of the reflexive noun mazgāšanās ‘washing [oneself ]’ (F) (Kalnača 2011, 74)

SG

PL

NOM

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

GEN

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

DAT

-

-

ACC

mazgāšan-os

mazgāšan-ās

INS

(ar) mazgāšan-os

-

LOC

-

-

VOC

mazgāšan-ās!

mazgāšan-ās!

The difference between the non-reflexive and reflexive noun paradigms is obvious. In addition, the paradigm of the reflexive noun mazgāšanās ‘washing [oneself]’ shows that, apart from the lack of dative and locative cases, there is also case syncretism. Reflexive nouns, in contrast to non-reflexive nouns, possess only two distinct endings -ās and -os, which means that in each particular case their semantics depend on contextual use and syntactic function in a sentence.

Some reflexive nouns are also considered defective because they are predominantly used in singular, for example, apsēšanās ‘sitting down’, smiešanās ‘laughing’, skatīšanās ‘watching’. For this reason, Paegle (2003, 53) has presented the reflexive noun paradigm only in singular and explained that normally they are not used in plural. However, there are a number of reflexive nouns that are used in singular and also plural.

Therefore reflexive nouns should not be viewed as singularia tantum – nouns used only in singular.

The reasons for the paradigms of reflexive nouns being incomplete or defective have not been investigated and so far have been analysed only by Kalnača & Lokmane (2010) and Kalnača (2011). Defective paradigms are a curious phenomenon in Latvian grammar, as neither colloquial speech nor subdialects display any dative, locative, or instrumental case variants of reflexive nouns that might give any clue to the reasons for this deficiency in determination. This issue is the distinct from that concerning the unclear origin of the dative case forms of paradigmatically similar reflexive declinable participles that Endzelīns (1980, 14–15), already during the first half of the 20th century, had pointed out as irrelevant in Standard Latvian. However, he did not provide any further explanation for their possible origin:

Thus far in their study Kalnača & Lokmane (2010) have established that along with the deficiency of the dative, locative, and instrumental cases, deficiency also appears in the genitive and nominative cases.

At this point there is no explanation for the reflexive noun paradigm lacking exactly the dative and locative cases as well as instrumental in plural, despite the fact that these cases, especially the dative, have always been and remain vital in the syntactic system of Latvian sentences. Even if it is acknowledged that reflexive noun cases have originated through the fusion of more ancient unabbreviated endings with the reflexive noun *si (Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1939 [1907], 43), currently there are no arguments explaining the absence of development of reflexive forms for the dative and locative cases. It seems that there are no phonological or semantic causes for defectiveness of noun paradigms and that the lack of particular case forms might be due to systemic changes in Latvian. It can be assumed only hypothetically that reflexive noun forms have developed simultaneously with the inherited forms of the dative and instrumental in plural, as well as with the transformation processes of the locative (see Endzelīns 1981, 416–435 for the history of Latvian noun form development).

However, reflexive nouns have been and remain vital in everyday communication. Reflexive nouns used in colloquial speech, formal texts (for example, legal, business, and academic texts), mass media, and fiction are formed from both inherited (1.54a) and borrowed (1.54b) reflexive verbs, for example:

All three cases – the dative, locative, and plural instrumental – are vital in reflexive noun involvement in a sentence. As these case forms do not exist in the noun paradigm in the literary language or in subdialects. A curious process has been observed in Standard Latvian: the formation of mixed or heteroclitic paradigms in which non-reflexive noun forms have been used to compensate for the missing reflexive noun case forms (see Table 1.16):

Table 1.16: The heteroclitic paradigm of reflexive nouns (adapted from Kalnača & Lokmane 2010, 60)

mazgāšanās ‘washing [oneself ]’

(mazgāšanās ‘washing [oneself ]’+ mazgāšana ‘washing’)

SG

PL

NOM

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

GEN

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

DAT

mazgāšan-ai

mazgāšan-ām

ACC

mazgāšan-os

mazgāšan-ās

INS

(ar) mazgāšan-os

(ar) mazgāšan-ām

LOC

mazgāšan-ā

mazgāšan-ās

VOC

mazgāšan-ās!

mazgāšan-ās!

This tendency is shown by various examples in Standard Latvian. For example, in a text published in a tourist booklet the lack of a dative singular reflexive noun form has been compensated for by the dative of non-reflexive noun mazgāšana ‘washing’:

The same compensation tendency can be seen in the use of the singular dative noun forms atvainošanās ‘apologizing’ and vienošanās ‘agreeing’:

There is also a similar compensation strategy for the plural locative. Thus, for example, the missing singular locative form of the reflexive nouns tikšanās ‘meeting’ and vienošanās ‘agreeing’, has been compensated for with the locative of the corresponding non-reflexive nouns:

This same tendency pertains to the plural reflexive nouns in the dative and locative iepazīšanās ‘getting acquainted’, vienošanās ‘agreement’, tikšanās ‘meeting’:

There are also reflexive nouns in Latvian that do not have a corresponding non-reflexive noun. Even in these cases, the missing reflexive noun forms are compensated for with the forms of non-reflexive nouns, albeit ones that do not exist in the language at all, by merging the non-reflexive and reflexive dative and locative case forms into a single paradigm, or heteroclisis, for example, the nouns piesavināšanās ‘appropriatiation’ and piesavināšana ‘appropriating’:

However, it should be acknowledged that it is complicated to record the use of the full heteroclitic paradigm of any one particular reflexive noun. Certainly there are several nouns that, due to their semantics, are widely applicable both in informal and formal communications, especially in business texts, for example, tikšanās ‘meeting’, vienošanās ‘agreement’, sazināšanās ‘communicating’. Thus, the full heteroclitic paradigms, i.e., all cases in singular and plural, of the aforementioned example words could be recorded.

The use of the dative and accusative non-reflexive noun forms to compensate for the missing reflexive noun forms should be considered erroneous in the Latvian literary language. It would be advisable to compose a sentence so that the dative and accusative of a reflexive noun is avoided by using several separate clauses, participle clauses, or by changing the word order (see Endzelīns 1980, 15 regarding reflexive participle clauses).

As these suggestions tend to complicate the syntactic structure of a sentence, the language users, for the sake of conciseness, still occasionally prefer non-reflexive noun forms in order to compensate for the missing reflexive noun forms.

The existence of heteroclitic noun paradigms indirectly proves the current semantic merging process of non-reflexive and reflexive nouns. Due to this semantic unification some of the previously mentioned reflexive terminations may have become less common. Thus in Standard Latvian, non-reflexive nouns are normally used instead of reflexive nouns with the terminations -umies, -ējies/-ējās, -tājies/-tājās, for example:

This trend perhaps is also caused by the fact that reflexive nouns are semantically overloaded derived words and that the action result or the doer have become redundant in relation to reflexivity, gender, number, and case. Therefore, over time through the combination of word formation suffixes and reflexive meaning, the meaning of suffixes -um-, -ēj-, -tāj- has become dominant instead of the nominalised reflexive meaning embedded in it.

However, in relation to reflexive nouns, there is still a tendency to preserve the defective paradigm in Standard Latvian by employing syntactic means to compensate for the missing cases. But alongside this tendency there is also a morphological compensation mechanism: a heteroclitic paradigm in which non-reflexive noun forms are used to fill in the ‘gaps’ created by the missing case forms. Perhaps this is due to Latvian being a synthetic language where expression of grammatical meaning is based on synthetic grammatical forms, whereas analytical forms, i.e. syntactic capacities, are viewed as peripheral to its grammatical system.

It should be acknowledged that this phenomenon is not new to Latvian. Already in the novel by Māteru Juris (1879) the locative of a non-reflexive noun in singular cīnīšanā ‘fighting’ is used in place of a non-existent locative case form of the reflexive noun cīnīšanās ‘fighting’, see example (1.61):

‘The Turks started withdrawing when Felzenberg had also started feeling himself too weak to continue fighting. But he still managed to keep himself upright and ... encouraged the officers and soldiers to continue fighting.’

Or, for example, in the novel by Jānis Veselis (1931), the missing dative and instrumental case forms of the noun iepazīšanās ‘making acquaintance’ in plural have been filled by the non-reflexive noun form iepazīšanām ‘making acquaintance’, see example (1.62):

Along with the heteroclitic noun paradigm there is one other compensation strategy used to deal with the missing cases: paradigm unification. In other words, this means that only one form with the ending -ās is used for all cases including the missing dative and locative cases. For example, the dative and locative in singular:

An example of an instrumental case form has also been recorded where the reflexive noun iestāšanās ‘joining’ is used instead of (ar) iestāšan-os, the instrumental form according to the paradigm:

These examples show unification in the reflexive noun case paradigm and demonstrate that the tendency towards the use of only one ending -ās is an extreme example of case form syncretism:

Table 1.17: The unified paradigm of the reflexive noun mazgāšanās ‘washing’ (adapted from Kalnača 2011, 80)

SG

PL

NOM

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

GEN

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

DAT

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

ACC

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

INS

(ar) mazgāšan-ās

(ar) mazgāšan-ās

LOC

mazgāšan-ās

mazgāšan-ās

VOC

mazgāšan-ās!

mazgāšan-ās!

Syntactically it is possible to identify the case function that has been realised in each particular context, but from the angle of morphology the use of one termination for the meanings of all cases points to paradigm disappearance. This type of reflexive noun use resembles the use of indeclinable nouns that are not typical in Latvian. The small number of indeclinable nouns in use, for example, kino ‘cinema’, metro ‘underground’, depo ‘depot’, ragū ‘ragout’ are borrowings (in detail see 1.2.2).

The unification of the reflexive noun paradigm, like the previously described paradigm heteroclisis, is not acceptable in literary Latvian. Nevertheless both case form compensation strategies are used rather frequently in Standard Latvian alongside syntactic compensation for the missing cases present in the literary language.

Reflexive nouns and their case system lacking dative, locative, and plural instrumental forms is at the periphery of the Latvian noun system. However, in all registers of Standard Latvian there are widely used reflexive nouns that are formed from inherited as well as borrowed verbs. This is the reason why the missing dative, locative, and instrumental case forms are indispensible to the semantic and grammatical structure of Latvian sentences. There are three types of techniques compensating for reflexive noun defectiveness in Standard Latvian:

1. syntactic constructions (subordinate clauses, participle clauses, etc.);

2. merging of reflexive and non-reflexive noun paradigms resulting in mixed or heteroclitic paradigms;

3. unification of reflexive noun paradigms – the use of one case form for all the other case forms.

Syntactic structures have been considered more relevant in Standard Latvian, even if language users both in written and spoken texts often prefer the morphological compensation mechanism for defective paradigms, which includes the mixed paradigms of reflexive and non-reflexive nouns or, less frequently, paradigm unification.

The paradigmatics of reflexive nouns should be further researched and our understanding of it enriched by analysis of defective, heteroclitic, and unified paradigms of the reflexive participles. This would lead to more precise conclusions concerning the surface-level and deep structure of Latvian sentences as well as the syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of their structure.

1.5 Case Polyfunctionality and Case Alternation

The grammatical and semantic systems of noun categories are currently undergoing some change in Standard Latvian. The most vivid example of such change is found in the category of case and its semantic structure. There we can observe alternation and even concurrence between case forms for different syntactic functions.

The most common are various alternation instances of the genitive and other cases (nominative, dative, accusative) that have been treated differently from the perspective of accepted Standard Latvian. For example, the alternation of the accusative and the genitive is treated as acceptable (Ahero et al. 1959, 394, 398–399; Paegle 2003, 41), while the alternation of the negative forms of the nominative and genitive are considered a divergence from the norm in Standard Latvian (Ahero et al. 1959, 393–395, 482; Skujiņa 1999, 43; Paegle 2003, 40). Irrespective of the accepted norm, it must be acknowledged that stylistic nuances have emerged in the alternation of the genitive and other cases in the present stage of the development of Standard Latvian. These nuances refer to particular text types and styles as well as the authors’ choice of case forms depending on the context or the situation of spoken communication.

The alternation of the genitive and other cases and the reasons for alternation have been analysed by Kalnača (2002a, 2002b, 2007) and also by Novikova (2009). The functions of the dative and the genitive and the alternation with other cases have been described by Berg-Olsen (2005), Holvoet (2011), the alternation observed in the dative and other cases (including the genitive) has been described by Lokmane (2014). Rozenbergs (1983, 20–22) and Kalnača (2011, 60–71) have written about case alternation from the perspective of morphostylistics.

The following discussion analyses the reasons for the alternation of case forms and attempts to explain the reasons for ambiguous grammatical descriptions in Latvian.

Every case form (excluding the vocative) has wide polyfunctionality, which is closely associated with the semantic and grammatical structure of the utterance. The case system, therefore, can be classified as morphologically syntactic (Paulauskienė 1994, 105).

In order to present a comprehensive description of the case alternation instances occurring in Latvian, it is vital to begin the description with a concise overview of the polyfunctionality of all cases (see in detail, for example, Paegle 2003, 38–44; Kalnača 2013, 60–61).

NOMINATIVE

1. Subject meaning – the agent of the action (Es lasu grāmatu ‘I read a book’) or experiencer (Es esmu nosalis ‘I am cold’) functioning as the subject; statement of a fact in nominal predication (Es esmu dzejnieks ‘I am a poet’; Tā ir mana grāmata ‘This is my book’; Svētdiena parasti ir brīvdiena ‘Sundays usually are days off’).

2. Object meaning – perceiver of an action or patient (nams tiek celts ‘the building is being built’, nams ir uzcelts ‘the building has been built’, man jālasa grāmata ‘I must read a book’, man sāp galva ‘I have a headache’).

3. Vocative function (more on this function later, see also Section 1.3.2) – Aija, vai tu iedosi man šo grāmatu? ‘Aija, will you give me this book?’ Draugi, kas te notiek? ‘Friends, what is happening?’

GENITIVE

I. Adnominal

1. Possession – mājas lievenis ‘doorstep of the house’, tēva grāmata ‘father’s book’, bērza pumpuri ‘birch buds’, rudens lietus ‘autumn rain’.

2. Property – sirds cilvēks ‘a person with a big heart’, vasaras kvieši ‘summer wheat’, liela auguma zēns ‘a tall boy’, rupja maluma milti ‘wholegrain flour’; slavas kārs ‘ambitious for fame’, prieka pilns ‘full of joy’, ledus auksts ‘ice cold’.

3. Material – māla trauki ‘pottery’, kviešu maize ‘wheat bread’, stikla vāze ‘glass vase’, sudraba rota ‘silver jewelry’.

4. Content – puķu vāze ‘a vase of flowers’, tējas krūze ‘a cup of tea’, futbola bumba ‘a football’.

5. Subject genitive – vēja šalkas ‘howls of wind’, kaķa ņaudiens ‘cry of a kitten’, bērna prieks ‘joy of a child’.

6. Object genitive – siena vākšana ‘gathering of hay’, dārza ravēšana ‘weeding of the garden’, dzintara meklētājs ‘one who searches for amber’.

7. Adjunct genitive – Liepiņu ģimene ‘the Liepiņi family’, Liepkalnu mājas ‘the house of the Liepkalni [family]’, Liepiņa kungs ‘Mr. Liepiņš’.

8. Partitive genitive that is normally placed immediately after the word it modifies – tase kafijas ‘a cup of coffee’, maiss kartupeļu ‘a sack of potatoes’, desmit gadu ‘ten years’, simt dienu ‘hundred days’, daudz naudas ‘much money’, maz prieka ‘little happiness’.

II. Adverbal

1. Negated subject – nav naudas ‘no money’, nav laika ‘no time’, nepietiek vietu ‘insufficient places’.

2. The direct object with a negated verb – nepazīt cilvēka ‘not to know a person’, nerakstīt vēstuļu ‘not to write letters’, nezināt vārda ‘not to know a word’; in Modern Latvian the accusative is typically used instead (discussed later in this section).

3. Meaning of aim with the verbs lūgt ‘to ask’, alkt ‘to aspire’, gribēt ‘to want’, kārot ‘to desire’ – kārot svaigu zivju ‘to want fresh fish’, lūgt padoma ‘to ask for advice’, ilgoties vasaras ‘to long for summer’; in Standard Latvian a prepositional phrase with pēc ‘for’ or accusative is used instead (Novikova 2009; Kalnača 2011, 70–71):

1. Ablative meaning (moving away from something) with the verbs bēgt ‘to run away’, bīties ‘to be afraid’, baidīties ‘to be afraid’, sargāties ‘to watch out’:

In Modern Latvian a prepositional phrase with no ‘from’ usually is used (Novikova 2009; Kalnača 2011, 70–71):

2. Partitive meaning denoting part of the whole with the verbs, gribēt ‘to want’, dzert ‘to drink’, ēst ‘to eat’; in Standard Latvian usually accusative is used instead (more on this later in this section):

DATIVE (usually adverbal)

1. Object meaning – addressee of an action; the indirect object in relation to the accusative marking the direct object, for example, jautāt mātei ‘to ask mother’, palīdzēt vecākiem ‘to help [one’s] parents’, kalpot tēvzemei ‘to serve the fatherland’; aim of purpose of an action – dot ābolu brālim ‘to give an apple to brother’, rakstīt vēstuli tēvam ‘to write a letter to father’.

2. Subject meaning – usually in the debitive mood, man ir jālasa grāmata ‘I must read a book’, aktieriem ir jāmācās skatuves runa ‘the actors have to learn speaking on the stage’.

3. Possessive meaning – man ir nauda ‘I have money’, man nav naudas ‘I don’t have money’, mūsu ģimenei ir jauns dzīvoklis ‘our family has a new flat’.

4. Experiencer meaning – man ir auksti ‘I am cold’, man salst ‘I am freezing’, man sāp galva ‘I have a headache’.

Adnominal dative – līdzīgs mātei ‘similar to mother’, jautājums tēvam ‘a question for father’, ticība ģimenei ‘trust in family’.

ACCUSATIVE (usually adverbal)

1. Object meaning – the direct object next to the verb, lasīt grāmatu ‘to read a book’, ēst pusdienas ‘to have lunch’, rakstīt vēstuli ‘to write a letter’.

2. Meaning connected with time – strādāt visu nedēļu ‘to work for a whole week’, negulēt nakti ‘not to sleep at night’, lidot divas stundas ‘to fly for two hours’.

3. Meaning connected with place (direction) – nākt tālu ceļu ‘to come a long distance’, staigāt zināmus ceļus ‘to walk on familiar roads’.

Adnominal accusative – metru augsta sēta ‘a fence one meter tall’, gadu ilgs pārtraukums ‘a one-year break’.

INSTRUMENTAL (usually adverbal; nowadays the original synthetic form is often replaced by a prepositional phrase – see Section 1.3.1 for detail)

iet cepuri galvā ‘to walk with a hat on’, cimdiem rokā ‘gloves on the hands’; šķīvis zilu malu ‘a plate with a blue edge’; meitene gariem matiem ‘a girl with long hair’

1. Instrumental or comitative meaning – griezt maizi ar nazi ‘to cut bread with a knife’, mazgāt rokas ar ziepēm ‘to wash hands with soap’; iet pastaigā ar suni ‘to go for a walk with a dog’, sarunāties ar draugiem ‘to speak with friends’.

2. Meaning connected with time – ar gadiem grāmatu mājās kļuva vairāk ‘with years there were more and more books at home’, dienām ilgi līst ‘it has been raining for days’.

3. Meaning describing manner – ar prieku gaidīt ciemos draugus ‘to welcome friends with great joy’, ar spēku atraut vaļā logu ‘to pull open the window with force’.

4. Meaning connected with quantity – pirkt audumu metriem ‘to buy many metres of fabric’, maisiem ābolu ‘many sacks of apples’, gadiem ilgi krāt pastmarkas ‘to collect stamps for years’.

Adnominal instrumental – slavens ar labu virtuvi ‘famous for excellent cuisine’, pacietīgs ar bērnu ‘patient with a child’, kurls ar vienu ausi ‘deaf in one ear’.

LOCATIVE (usually adverbal)

1. Meaning connected with place – ielās daudz mašīnu ‘there are many cars on the street’, teātrī daudz skatītāju ‘the theatre house is full of people’.

2. Meaning connected with time – naktīs bieži līst ‘it often rains at night’, dienā spīd saule ‘the sun shines during the day’.

3. Meaning describing manner – visa diena pagāja darbos ‘the entire day passed doing hard work’, virsdrēbēs neienākt ‘do not enter with outdoor clothes on’.

4. Meaning describing purpose – iet viesos ‘to pay a visit’, iet raudzībās ‘to see a new-born child’

Adnominal locative – debesu zilumā ‘in the blue of the sky’, visā ezera platumā ‘across the entire width of the lake’, jūras dziļumā ‘in the depth of the sea’.

VOCATIVE – the only case which is monosemantic

The case used for addressing someone – tēvs! ‘father!’, brāli! ‘brother!’, māt! ‘mother!’

Grammatical polyfunctionality causes an alternation of grammatical forms. The alternation of case forms stems from their syntactic usage – in formal representation of a subject, an object, an address form, or apposition. Thus in Latvian the subject of the utterance can be either nominative or genitive and the direct object can be accusative, genitive, or nominative, etc. Such alternation causes concurrence of case forms. One case form replaces another or both forms function in parallel.

The alternation of case forms had already been attested in Latvian folklore texts, especially in the dainas (Gāters 1993). Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs had discussed this topic in (1934 [1907], 1939 [1907]). Very similar manifestations of alternation have been found in Lithuanian (for example, Paulauskienė 1994, 2000; Šukys 1998; Valiulytė 1998), Russian (Jakobson 1971; Beloshapkova 1999, 491 etc.), and Latin (Coleman 1976; Blake 1994, 22–23). This is an indication that the alternation of case forms is an old process, which is associated with the unification of functions and specialisation of semantic, grammatical, and morphonological systems of language. Manifestation of this process can differ across languages, but the main principles are the same.

The most typical occurrences of alternation of case forms in Latvian are as follows:

4. VOC-NOM in the function of address (discussed in Section 1.3.2)

5. NOM-ACC in the debitive construction (in detail see Lokmane & Kalnača 2014)

6. GEN-NOM

7. GEN-DAT for meaning indicating purpose or content

8. GEN-ACC as a direct object

9. GEN-LOC in possessive meaning

The above mentioned examples (1.68)-(1.73) suggest that the alternation of case forms and the development of their polysemic and synonymic systems are closely associated with the transformation of the polyfunctionality of the genitive and nominative. The alternation of case forms declines as some of the primary meanings of the genitive are substituted, or sometimes functions in parallel with other cases or prepositional constructions. There are also observable changes in the polyfunctionality of the nominative that, however, are less prominent because in Latvian the nominative has partly taken up the functions of the vocative (in detail see 1.3.2), whereas in the debitive construction the accusative tends to displace the nominative in the function of an object (see example (1.74)). Nevertheless it must be noted that all changes are primarily linked to the peripheral meaning and not to semantic invariance.

10. NOM-ACC in the debitive construction (in detail see Lokmane & Kalnača 2014)

Replacement of the genitive by other cases is usually explained as a departure from formal syncretism in order to function as a direct object. Thus, in Latvian (in detail see Lepika 1967, 107–115; Berg-Olsen 1999, 175–178; Kalnača 2002a):

However, this homonymy is not the only reason for case alternation in Latvian. Other reasons are related to case functions within sentence structure.

Every case form has its representative function or semantic invariant (Lyons 1968, 295). The semantic invariant of the subject is nominative; the accusative is the invariant of the direct object, but the semantic invariant of the attribute is the genitive. The genitive in Latvian has also been used in the function of subject and object, as possibly it historically had both of these functions. Thus, the genitive in Latvian has always been polyfunctional, because in contrast to other cases it can be used in a sentence in the following three functions: subject, object, and attribute:

However, over the course of a longer period of time it has become obvious that in Latvian the genitive in the function of subject and object is being gradually substituted with the nominative and accusative, thereby introducing formal homonymy. With respect to the attributive function, apart from the genitive, the dative and locative are also used in the function of attribute. Nonetheless, an analysis of Latvian language material shows that the alternation of case forms is associated with several interlinked processes in the language: the separation of the subject and object domains in the utterance. Specifically, the clear tendency to establish the subject and object domains each with a unique case is the norm in Latvian. The subject of the utterance is typically marked by nominative, while the direct object is accusative, but the genitive tends to preserve only its attributive function. This principle, however, does not refer to the attribute, because in Latvian the attributive function is performed not only by the genitive, but also by the dative and locative. So, the opposite process is observable, i.e., in parallel to the genitive, which functions as the semantic invariant of the attribute, the dative and locative are also used even if they both primarily function as the indirect object and adverbial modifier.

The following sections will outline this schema of semantic invariance and case alternation.

SUBJECT

NOMINATIVE (semantic invariant)

GENITIVE (subject function)

Case alternation:

GEN-NOM for a partitive meaning (makā ir desmit latu // lati ‘there are ten lats in the wallet’)

GEN-NOM in negation (mājās nav cukura // cukurs ‘there is no sugar in the house’)

The alternation of GEN-NOM for partitive meaning and also for negation have been topical questions since the beginning of the normativization and creation of Standard Latvian in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and remain so today (Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1934 [1907], 122; Ahero et al. 1959, 393–395, 482; Lagzdiņa 1980, 137–143; Lagzdiņa 1997, 165–200; Skujiņa 1999, 43; Paegle 2003, 40). It seems that the answer must be sought in the development of the syntactic structure of the utterance and in the syntactic functions of case forms. All the aforementioned examples of GEN-NOM concurrence are linked to the function of the subject. The semantic and syntactic invariant of the nominative case is the subject of the utterance which is the basic function of the nominative in the language. The genitive can be the subject of an utterance if the predicate is the verb nebūt ‘not to be’ or trūkt ‘to lack’, or if the subject is linked with the numerals desmit ‘ten’, simt ‘hundred’, tūkstoš ‘thousand’, or vienpadsmit–deviņpadsmit ‘eleven-nineteen’. Perhaps this is the principal reason why the nominative tends to challenge the genitive for the position of subject. This process has been continuing irrespective of the standardization of Latvian.

A noun in the vocative case cannot be the subject of an utterance, but it points to a significant link: the vocative always denotes the subject of the text pertaining to the addressee (in detail see Section 1.3.2). It is possible, therefore, to include the vocative in the subject domain, even though the vocative case cannot be the subject, object, or an attribute in an utterance (Kalnača 1999, 87–93). In addition, the alternation of the nominative and the vocative for the address function also applies to the subject domain. The nominative as an unmarked member of the case paradigm is used in Latvian to function as a vocative with a unique intonation and within a particular syntactic context. This alternation causes concurrence of two grammatical forms: vocative and nominative (Kalnača 2002a, 2002b and Section 1.3.2). This process is not a specific feature of Latvian, but is found in other Indo-European languages with different consequences (Kuriłowicz 1964, 197–199; Jakobson 1971, 179; Coleman 1976, 50; see also Section 1.3.2).

OBJECT

ACCUSATIVE (semantic invariant)

GENITIVE (object function)

NOMINATIVE (object function)

Case alternation:

GEN-ACC in negation – neteikšu neviena vārda // nevienu vārdu ‘I won’t say a word’

GEN-ACC for a partitive meaning – bērns grib siera // sieru ‘the child wants cheese’

GEN-ACC for indicating purpose – iesim zivju // zivis zvejot ‘let’s go fishing’

NOM-ACC in the debitive construction – man ir jālasa grāmata // grāmatu ‘I must read a book’

Currently, the genitive and accusative function in Latvian as grammatical synonyms for the function of object in all possible instances, which creates a rivalry between both cases (Kalnača 2002a, 142–144; Kalnača 2011, 67–70). Taking into account that the meanings of the genitive and accusative are so similar in the aforementioned function, Standard Latvian accepts the use of both cases, depending on the choice of the text author (Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs 1934 [1907], 171–173; Ahero et al. 1959, 394, 398–399; Paegle 2003, 41).

Even if the alternation GEN-ACC in negation with transitive verbs is currently an active grammatical process in Latvian, it seems the dominance of the accusative case would be premature. It must be acknowledged that in Standard Latvian the accusative is more relevant; in addition, as Rozenbergs (1983, 21) has pointed out, the use of the genitive has the connotation of an archaic old usage. Nonetheless, variations in use may be found already in the fiction of the 19th century and the first half of 20th century, Latvian literary works written in exile (since the 1940s), and contemporary fiction. As a direct object in negation, the genitive predominates in older texts, subdialects, and in the spoken language of those who belong to the older generation. For example, the genitive is used for direct objects of negated verbs in the literary works of Jānis Ezeriņš, those of Ādolfs Erss written in the first half of the 20th century, and also the works of Anšlavs Eglītis written in exile during the second half of the 20th century:

Analysing parallel instances of case alternation in Lithuanian, Paulauskienė points out a tendency to use the uniform construction of the accusative for affirmation and negation in Lithuanian (Paulauskienė 1994, 114; Paulauskienė 2000, 176), for example:

There is no semantic difference between the genitive and the accusative in this syntactic position. Hence we must conclude that the genitive has been gradually excluded from the expression of negation in Latvian. This pertains to both a negated subject and a negated object, for example:

The only retained expressions of negation in Latvian are the negative prefix ne- placed before verbs and also the verb nebūt ‘not to be’. However, a negated object in the form of the genitive of the pronoun nekas ‘nothing’ (i.e., the so-called double negation) is frequently used in Standard Latvian:

As already mentioned in this chapter, partial inconsistencies can be found in the situation where the alternation GEN-NOM for a negated subject is classified as unacceptable in Standard Latvian, yet the alternation GEN-ACC for a negated object is considered acceptable.

The alternation GEN-ACC for a partitive meaning is presumably associated with the fact that the primary semantic opposition specific/general has lost its grammatical topicality in Latvian (Kalnača 2002a, 2002b). In the partitive construction, the genitive indicates a part, whereas the accusative denotes the object as a totality, for example:

The grammatical expression of this partitive opposition has become lexical. In Modern Latvian, specificity is indicated by the use of adverbs of measure drusku ‘some’, nedaudz ‘a little bit’, mazliet ‘somewhat’, etc.:

The genitive and the accusative currently coexist as grammatical synonyms functioning as objects. This process can be observed in all possible instances, causing alternation of both cases.

The accusative in Latvian dynamically competes with the nominative in debitive constructions, although it contradicts the norms of the standard language (Freimane 1993, 249; Skujiņa 1999, 41 and 47), for example:

Lokmane & Kalnača (2014) point out:

“Currently, what can be observed is a tendency to replace the Nominative by the Accusative. The Accusative argument in the debitive is particularly widespread in spoken language (both in formal and colloquial style). Lately, such a pattern of usage has also been observed in mass-media texts, particularly in the readers’ comments thus pointing again to characteristics of the spoken language. The choice between the Nominative and Accusative argument in debitive constructions does not directly depend on the word sequence and on discourse topicalization.”

NOM-ACC alternations are therefore explainable by the language users’ desire to keep the object of transitive verbs in the accusative also for the debitive, i.e., irrespective of Standard Latvian norms equalising the debitive and indicative constructions with respect to their objects:

Inconsistency in standardisation is also evidenced in debitive constructions using the infinitive, for example, Skujiņa accepts only the accusative if a finite verb in the debitive is followed by an infinitive (Skujiņa 1999, 47).

Freimane and Paegle allow both the nominative and the accusative in this position, i.e., they are synonymous (Freimane 1993, 249; Paegle 1998, 207).

ATTRIBUTE

GENITIVE (semantic invariant)

DATIVE (attribute function)

LOCATIVE (attribute function)

Case alternation

GEN-DAT for the meaning indicating possession, purpose, or content (puķu vāze // vāze puķēm ‘vase of flowers // for flowers’)

GEN-LOC for the meaning indicating possession (pasaules basketbola čempionāts // pasaules čempionāts basketbolā ‘World Basketball Championship’)

The basic function of the dative serves as an indirect object in the utterance:

The overview of the dative functions in Latvian presented below (see examples (1.87)) sheds light on the details of GEN-DAT alternation:

As can be seen in these examples, the dative functions as an indirect subject and denotes the role of an experiencer (1.87a-b) or beneficiary (1.87c). Richardson (2007, 39), who has focused on similar examples of dative use in the Slavonic languages, labels these dative ‘subject’ experience constructions, which can be fully referred to Latvian as well. It should be noted that the idea of the dative as subject has a considerably long history in Latvian linguistics. Ozols (1957) proposed this idea by mentioning the term netiešais teikuma priekšmets ‘indirect subject’ and Freimane (1985), Kārkliņš (1968, 1976, 1985), and Lokmane (2002, 2007) have perpetuated this idea. For the analysis of Ozols’ ideas see also Freimane (2013), Lokmane (2013), and Vogina (2013). The relation of the dative to the subject function in Latvian is also pointed out in recent research, for example, Seržants (2013a, 2013b) and Holvoet (2013).

Blake also argues that the dative also has a number of functions: i.e. as a direct object, indirect subject as well as an indicator of possession in different languages (Blake 1997, 144–151). This argument supports the inclusion of the dative in the group of central cases (Kuriłowicz 1964: 190–194; see also the analysis of the dative functions found in French (Boneh & Nash 2013)). The given Latvian dative constructions tend to support the arguments of Blake, Kuriłowicz, and Boneh & Nash, demonstrating semantic and syntactic asymmetry of the dative compared to other cases. Thus, possession is expressed by both the genitive and the dative in different constructions. This is the semantic background of the alternation of the genitive and the dative in Latvian. A historic link between the meaning of the genitive indicating possession or content and the meaning of the dative indicating purpose or the addressee (i.e. datīvus commodi / incommodi) has been established.

In recent decades the concurrence GEN-DAT for meanings indicating possession has been observed in colloquial speech as well as in newspapers, in advertisements, on various signs used in offices and shops, etc. (Kalnača 2011, 64–66), for example:

However, the GEN-DAT alternation with a possessive meaning is not a new phenomenon in Latvian, as this phenomenon had already been noted and described in the beginning of the 20th century by Endzelīns & Mīlenbachs (1934 [1907], 178):

“The word boundaries for datives, genitives of possession, and possessive pronouns often end up being close together in the context of a sentence. Compare: Galdam nolūzusi kāja; galda kāja nolūzusi ‘The leg of the table has broken off’. Es mātei pirmā meita; es mātes pirmā meita ‘I am the first daughter for my mother; I am my mother’s first daughter’. For this reason it is no wonder that in western Vidzeme and northern Courland the dative has developed a possessive meaning. [Thus,] throughout all of Courland the dative kam ‘to/for whom’ has replaced the genitive kā ‘whose’: Kam dēls tu esi? ‘Whose son are you? (in Vidzeme, for example in Lubāne, kā ‘whose’ [would be used in place of kam]).”

The alternation of the genitive and dative in the meaning of object is also possible in Lithuanian (Šukys 1998, 156-157; see also example (1.89) from Paulauskienė 2000, 172):

Holvoet (2011, 79–85), regarding the GEN-DAT alternation in the meaning of possession, points out that in Latvian in contrast to, for example, Lithuanian or Russian, there is no link to the opposition inanimate/animate or static/dynamic in the predicate of a verb. Lokmane (2014), however, points out that static verbs in the predicate are those taking dative arguments, i.e., the verb būt ‘to be’ is distinguished as one that might tend to have a dative argument. Nevertheless, examples from Latvian, as emphasised by Holvoet in the previously cited pages, do not confirm the aforementioned relation of static/dynamic characteristics of the predicate; see this example containing a dynamic verb in the predicate and a dative instead of the predicted genitive:

Kalnača (2007 and 2011, 66) points out that ‘the dative is a conscious choice of the authors in order to emphasise the contents and aim of the information: what and for what reason has been brought out’. Holvoet (2011, 84–85) also considers that, perhaps, the main reason for alternation is the information, i.e., subordinate rheme emphasis that is done by changing the noun phrase structure: the placing of the attribute after the noun in the dative instead of in the genitive as would be expected.

The GEN-LOC alternation is similar to the previously described alternation and also occurs with a possessive meaning, for example:

This use of the locative has been observed in the mass media during recent years: in the language used in spoken texts on TV and radio, in the texts of newspapers, magazines and online news sites (Kalnača 2011, 66–67). The GEN-LOC alternation is most widely used in mass media devoted to sports and current events:

Alternation normally occurs in hierarchically related attributive collocations in which several dependent words are subordinated to one independent noun thus creating attributive groups. The attribute expressed by the genitive, whose possessive meaning in these collocations is also connected with meanings of place and time, in the locative is placed not before, but after the word it modifies. This placement is not characteristic for Latvian. It seems that the reason for this alternation, similarly to the previously described alternation of the dative and genitive, is the intention of the author of a given text to bring out a particular piece of information. However, it must be noted that a sentence with the genitive (instead of the locative) in the meaning of possession is more explicit. The locative possesses other functions: it, adnominally or adverbially, expresses the meaning of location, time, manner, or intention, so the expression of the meaning of possession is not a characteristic feature of the locative (Paegle 2003, 44; Kalnača, 2013, 61). However it is possible that there are morphosyntactic processes in Latvian directed at emphasising the embedded meaning within a sentence by the possessor in the dative or locative in this way partly diminishing the role of the genitive.

In contrast to Lithuanian and other languages, alternation of the accusative and instrumental or the instrumental and dative has not been observed in Latvian (regarding ACC-INS alternation see, for example, Anderson 2011). This demonstrates that there is no basis for omitting the instrumental case from the paradigm of the Latvian case system or assigning its functions to the accusative and dative.

All the above-analysed grammatical processes depend on the syntactic usage of the case form. The nominative assumes the primary genitive function as a subject in the same way as the accusative substitutes for the genitive or the nominative functions as an object. Hence the polyfunctional structure of every case undergoes certain changes. Almost all changes in Latvian are closely associated with different constructions for the genitive. An adnominal genitive continues to function as an attribute, whereas an adverbal genitive is replaced by the accusative in order to function as an object and by the nominative to function as a subject. Examination of case structure points to unification of functions for the surface structure of the utterance, although the core structure remains unchanged. It appears that the assumption of German influence on polyfunctionality and alternation of case forms is not valid (Lepika 1967, 107–115).

Analogous processes have been established in other languages such as Lithuanian (Šukys 1998, 92–118; Švambarytė 1999, 72–82) and Russian (Blake 1997, 47; Jakobson 1971, 180; Beloshapkova 1999, 491–496; generally about the Slavonic languages see Richardson 2007). The process of unification of functions has perhaps developed further in Latvian than in other languages. Nonetheless it can be objectively verified and it operates relatively independently from the norms of Standard Latvian. A number of regulations have been written trying to stop this process while at the same time, however, treating some instances of alternation as acceptable. This inconsistency in standardisation implicitly points to the objective nature of the changes. The most significant conclusion is: the alternation of case forms is neither a norm nor deviance in Standard Latvian – it is the continuous process of semantic and syntactic evolution.

1.6 Gender

Gender is one of the lexico-grammatical categories of the noun. This category is closely connected with the notions of biological gender and animacy (Corbett 2005). An interesting feature of noun gender in Latvian is that it shows semantic and formal asymmetry. On one hand, almost all nouns which are related to human beings, domestic animals, fowl, and some wild animals encode gender deixis. The distinction of feminine and masculine genders is expressed through the use of different markers (Ahero et al. 1959, 379–381; Veisbergs 1999, 49–50; Paegle 2003, 31–32; Kalnača 2008, 28–29):

1. roots in kinship terms

2. endings of terms describing professions or other names of individuals

3. suffixes, i.e., endings in terms for ladies of the house, wives, and mothers

4. the terms mother, father, lady, he, or she for ladies of the house, mothers, farmers, owners, fathers, and male as well as female animals and birds:

On the other hand, the grammatical gender of other nouns representing inanimate entities or many types of animals, birds, or bugs is a formal feature. The ending or suffix indicates only the declension type (Kalnača 2000, 179–180; Kalnača 2008, 29), for example:

In contrast to the nouns mentioned earlier, these nouns lack gender deixis.

Hence, the gender markers and their functions in language are in part a formal feature and in part directly depend on the animacy and the social position of the respective male or female. This duality of gender is described widely in grammar books, as this phenomenon holds for the majority of languages (for example Ahero et al. 1959, 379–381; Paegle 2003, 31–33; Corbett 2005).

Also, the stylistic functions of gender depend on animacy and gender deixis. Usually nouns related to human beings demonstrate specific stylistic usage which does not reflect the biological or grammatical manifestations of gender. It is common to distinguish among three types of stylistic functions for gender in Latvian:

1. words of common gender (substantiva communia);

2. masculine nouns applied to females;

3. feminine nouns with masculine endings.

These three distinctive types are very characteristic of colloquial Latvian where the use of gender directly depends on the particular speech situation and context. Other stylistic functions of gender, such as poetic usage of gender in fiction as well as gender in advertisements, mass media texts, and formal business correspondence, to name a few, will not be investigated in this book.

The aforementioned examples of gender usage in colloquial Latvian demonstrate several transpositions of gender markers:

1. neutralization and transposition from grammatical to contextual markers in words of common gender;

2. semantic transposition when masculine nouns and adjectives are related to female human beings;

3. grammatical transposition when nouns with female gender deixis are used with masculine endings or suffixes.

Words of common gender such as auša ‘feather brain’, tiepša ‘mule’, plukata ‘trash’, nejēga ‘dummy’, bezkauņa ‘shameless person’ show neutralization of the ending as the marker of gender when used in colloquial Latvian. All these words have feminine endings in Latvian, although they can designate either a female or male person’s qualities or activities. Sometimes gender of the respective noun can be decoded from context (Paegle 2003, 31):

Thus the real gender marker is the context not the ending of a noun, as context shows whether a female or a male person has been described (all examples in (1.99) from Zālīte (1987)):

Here the gender marker is transposed from the grammatical level to the discourse level as results from gender deixis and the speech situation:

Figure 1.1: Neutralization and transposition from grammatical to contextual gender markers.

It must be pointed out that common gender words usually express derogatory meanings in Latvian. Some are expletives (Ahero et al. 1959, 381; Rozenbergs 1983, 17), for example:

Only several nouns marked with common gender are completely neutral:

Similar functions of common gender are observed in Lithuanian, Russian, and Polish (Wierzbicka 1996, 398–399; Golub 2001, 225–226; Gudzinevičiūtė 2006, 266–272).

The particular stylistic functions can arise from semantic transposition of gender. As Brandes argues, in German poetry nouns in masculine gender can acquire particular poetic nuance if they refer to a female person (cited from Brandes 2004, 365):

However, according to Gak (1999, 141), in French, grammatical masculine gender in colloquial speech expresses affinity if a masculine noun is used in addressing a woman (mon petit, mon chat). Semantic transposition of gender in Latvian is similar to French. There are a number of very popular pet names in colloquial Latvian which are formally masculine nouns or adjectives, but can be used to refer to female persons:

Often such nouns have the diminutive suffixes -iņ- and -īt- with masculine endings:

These masculine words are usually used by men to refer to women:

Masculine nouns are used in colloquial style by mothers and daughters, or sometimes also by girlfriends or female friends, to refer to another female person. These masculine words function like words of the common gender in Latvian:

Figure 1.2: Semantic transposition when masculine nouns and adjectives are related to female human beings.

Grammatical transposition of gender markers is an interesting stylistic peculiarity of Latvian. We find several widely-used feminine nouns in colloquial Latvian which function with masculine endings alongside the feminine forms (Ahero et al. 1959, 380; Smiltniece 2002, 39–40):

The words sievišķ-is ‘woman’ and meitiet-is ‘girl’ which are used only with a masculine ending in Modern Latvian can be added to this group of transposed gender markers. As Wierzbicka (1996, 398) notes, the replacement of basic ‘natural’ gender by the other gender signals the speaker’s expressive attitude. Usually, feminine nouns with masculine endings are used to indicate a negative or pejorative attitude. It is important to note that the ‘speaker’ most often is a man:

However, classical Latvian fiction shows that such words as sievietis ‘woman’, meitenis

‘girl’, skuķis ‘girl’ can be used also for expressing positive or sometimes a completely neutral attitude. In this case it is important to note that the author of the text may not necessarily be a man; it can be a woman.

The word meitenis expresses a positive attitude in the following example:

The word sievietis used in this description of an everyday occurrence does not show a negative attitude:

Expressing the social hierarchy of a household, the word sievietis does not have a derogatory meaning:

Another case of grammatical transposition of gender markers is connected with the usage of the diminutive suffixes -uk- and -ēn-, which normally combine with masculine endings:

-uk-s / -uc-is, -ēn-s: meit-a ‘daughter’ (F) → meit-uk-s (F)

In colloquial Latvian, diminutives derived from feminine nouns with masculine endings are frequent, for example:

In contrast to the example mentioned above, these diminutives express only a positive and friendly attitude:

It should be pointed out that such diminutives are related mainly to close family relatives and other rather intimate persons. Wierzbicka (1996, 398) points out in her analysis of a similar case in Polish with masculine derivations Marusik, Klarusik from the feminine nouns Maria, Klara, points out that ‘the masculine gender signals an attitude of affectionate jocularity’. Still in standard Latvian diminutives with suffixes -iņ- and -īt- are preferred:

The feminine or masculine endings added to these suffixes normally agree with the gender of the head noun.

Colloquial Latvian shows a certain dominance of the masculine gender which results from semantic and grammatical transposition of gender markers from feminine to masculine. In both cases words with masculine endings referring to female persons can express a positive, negative, or neutral attitude. Stylistic character of such words is restricted within colloquial speech, because the norms of Standard Latvian require the marking of gender deixis. Almost all terms referring to professions and different nomina agentis have parallel functions in the feminine and masculine gender demonstrating the so-called political correctness of sex (for details see Strelēvica 2004):

However, the transpositions of gender markers, according to Foley (2001, 286–287), reflect the asymmetrical perception of gender in society where a greater prestige is granted to masculine entities. Colloquial Latvian approves of this opinion, because every change of gender markers is one-way: from feminine to masculine where female persons are described with words encoding masculine gender. Moreover, words of common gender which take feminine endings in Latvian have pejorative or negative meaning and thus they implicitly point to a lower prestige of feminine gender. However, it seems that in Modern Latvian there is no prestige attached to masculine gender nor is there discrimination encoded against female persons. The stylistic functions of gender in colloquial speech have been established historically but in present-day society they are used in this way by convention.

2 The Paradigmatics and Conjugation of Verbs

2.1 Introductory Remarks

This chapter examines different issues connected with verb form systems, which are important also for the discussion of other verb categories (mood and voice). We will discuss the main principles of conjugation (without going into a more detailed discussion of conjugation groups), the category of tense (without going into the construction and use of tense forms), and the person category. There is no additional discussion of the Latvian system of participles here, as these are already discussed in the description of verb forms (for a discussion of Latvian participles, see, for example, Mathiassen 1997, 146–158).

Like the noun, in terms of its grammatical features, the Latvian verb presents a typical Indo-European verb system with a wide variety of forms. The Latvian verb possesses the categories of person, tense, mood, and voice; in a sentence it usually takes the function of the predicate (see, for example, Paegle 2003, 89; Kalnača 2013b, 456):

The verb can be the principal part of a one-part sentence, if it forms the syntactic centre in the one-part sentence:

The grammatical categories of the verb – the tense, mood, voice, and person – are interconnected in Latvian both paradigmatically and functionally. Thus, the categories of tense, mood, and voice form a unified gramatical form system – all moods, except the imperative mood have tense forms both in the active and passive voice. The indicative mood and the imperative mood in both active and passive voices have morphologically expressed personal forms, which are lacking in the oblique, conditional, and debitive moods (see Chapter 4). The Latvian verb form system can be interconnected also functionally, for example, indicative mood verb forms can be used in oblique, conditional, or imperative mood functions in particular contexts (see Chapter 4). The use of verb tense forms can depend on perfective/imperfective aspect, for example, when expressing a continuous action or an action which is taking place in the moment of speaking, it is usually not used in the perfective aspect (i.e., a prefixed verb form; in more detail see Section 3.3).

The verb in Latvian has several lexico-grammatical groups, which are closely connected with both lexical meaning and verb formation as well as some of the verb grammatical categories. The meaning of aspect is expressed with the semelfactive and iterative aspect lexico-grammatical groups, which are partially connected with the category of tense (see Chapter 3). The transitive and intransitive verb groups as well as causative and reflexive lexico-grammatical verb groups are connected with the category of the voice of the verb (see Section 6.3 and Chapter 7).

The transitivity and intransitivity, reflexivity, and aspect of the verb are considered lexico-grammatical verb categories in Latvian linguistics (for example, Paegle 2003, 125–130). However, it is preferable to use the lexico-grammatical group as the classification principle. This is because the transitivity, reflexivity, and aspect do not possess sufficient grammatical features in Latvian that would be expressed in the unity of the form and contents, the existence of the form constructing affixes, and the regularity of the use (for a similar approach in grammatical problem solution in lexico-grammatical group postulation in Lithuanian linguistics see, for example, Ambrazas 1996, 283–290; Ambrazas 1997, 223–237). The transitivity results from the lexical meaning of the verb, while reflexive verbs, being formally connected with reflexive endings, lack semantic and syntactic unity. Aspect is also connected with the lexical meaning of the verb, its contextual use, and its prefixal and suffixal formation.

2.2 Conjugation

In contrast to the relatively simple grammatical form construction of nouns (see Chapter 1), Latvian verb formation is complex and also is supplemented by different morphophonological means as well as zero morphs.

The forms of the verb are constructed (Paegle 2003, 90; Kalnača 2013a, 74–75):

1. synthetically – with the help of endings (2.3a), suffixes (2.3b), as well as prefixes (2.3c)

2. analytically – wth the help of an auxiliary verb and a declinable participle (2.4a-b), or with an auxiliary verb and a particular verb form (2.4c)

There are several suppletive verbs in Latvian:

1. būt ‘to be’ which has the present tense 1st and 2nd person forms esmu ‘I am’, esi ‘you (SG) are’, esam ‘we are’, esat ‘you (PL) are’ and the 3rd person form ir ‘he/she is, they are’;

2. iet ‘to go’ with the past tense forms gāju ‘I went’, gāji ‘you went’, gāja ‘he/she went’, gājām ‘we went’, gājāt ‘you went’, gāja ‘they went’

The construction of the grammatical forms of the verb (these are typically synthetic and formed through affixation) can usually be accompanied by a sound shift, which is customarily connected with the construction of the present tense, more seldomly the past tense or the imperative (see more about historical sound shifts in Auziņa 2013, 89–95, and Kalnača 2004), for example:

1. apophony in the construction of the present indefinite and past indefinite

2. palatalisation in the construction of the present indefinite forms

3. fronting (of velar consonants) determined by the following front vowels i, ī, e, ē, ie, ei

4. deletion of the stem final t, d, s, z determined by the suffix initial s in the form of the present indefinite

5. vowel change determined by the following consonant n in the forms of the present indefinite

The basis of the grammatical verb forms is the stem of the infinitive (Kalnača 2013b, 458–459). All the indefinite tense forms – present, past, future – are constructed on the basis of the infinitive stem with the help of different morphonological and morphological means:

Table 2.1: Verb stems in Latvian

Latvian linguists hold different views on which of the verb stems form the basis for the construction of the indefinite tense forms. Namely, whether these forms are based only on the infinitive stem or also the stem of the present and past tense forms (see, for example, Ahero et al. 1959, 665–667; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 197–198).

The view that verb forms can be deduced from some kind of abstract stem, which can be considered as the basic paradigmatic stem (in the Baltic languages it is the stem of the infinitive form; see also Paegle 2003, 98; Kalnača 2013, 458–459) agrees with general morphological theory (see, for example, Spencer 2000, 226–227; Haspelmath 2002, 130–133) and has been applied also in Lithuanian linguistics (see, for example, Paulauskienė 1994: 281). In a similar way, Fennell (1995, 80–87), when describing the Latvian verb form construction system and depicting its traditions as they have appeared in Latvian grammar books since the 17th century, mentions the infinitive as the basic form for the construction of other forms (present, past, future) (see also Mathiassen 1997, 84). However, Ahero et al. (1959, 583), Kalme & Smiltniece (2001, 197–198) and Nītiņa (2001, 66–67, 71) claim that indefinite tense forms are based on three stems: the infinitive stem as well as the present and past tense stems. This viewpoint agrees with the so-called Priscianic formation principles, which have been known in grammar since the sixth century CE when they were formulated by the Latin grammarian Priscian, but which have lost their popularity in more recent times (see Haspelmath 2002, 132).

In Latvian, as in Lithuanian, the infinitive is considered as the point of departure for the verb paradigm because the infinitive does not possess any of the basic categories of the verb; it does not express the person, tense, mood, or voice. Nevertheless, the majority of the basic forms of different moods as well as the participle forms are constructed from the infinitive forms.

The distinction of the three verb conjugations in Latvian are based on the properties of the present tense stem construction as opposed to the infinitive stem (i.e., the morphemic structure of the infinitive) (Paegle 2003, 104–111; see also Kalnača 2013b, 545; and short, long, and mixed conjugations by Mathiassen 1997, 84). Thus, the construction of the present tense stem serves as the basis for the distinction between the conjugations and the basis for the distinction of the simple verb conjugation groups, as different morphological and morphonological means have been systematically used in the construction of the present stem (i.e., suffixes and sound changes). Unlike with the present tense stem, the construction of the future tense stem is the same for all verbs with the exception of the verbs of the first conjugation, whose root ends with t, d, s, z and whose forms of the future contain an infix -ī- next to the future suffix (nes-ī-š-u, lauz-ī-š-u, met-ī-š-u, ved-ī-š-u ‘I will bring, I will break, I will throw, I will drive’). The construction of the past tense stem has also been mostly unified, therefore these tense forms cannot serve as the basis for identifying the conjugation (see more on verb conjugations in Kalnača 2013a, 2013b).

Due to the suppletive stem forms, and partially also the archaic (athematic) personal forms, the three verbs iet ‘to go’, dot ‘to give’, būt ‘to be’ and their derivatives (for example, neiet ‘not to go’, nedot ‘not to give’, nebūt ‘not to be’, aiziet ‘to walk along’, iedot ‘to give’, pārdot ‘to sell’) do not fit into any of the conjugations. Therefore, these are considered to be irregular verbs from the point of view of conjugation.

1st conjugation

This conjugation contains verbs whose infinitive stem does not have a suffix: augt ‘to grow’, nest ‘to bring’, ēst ‘to eat’, mest ‘to throw’, krist ‘to fall’, just ‘to feel’, snigt ‘to snow’, and others.

2nd conjugation

This conjugation contains verbs whose infinitive can have suffixes - ā-, -ē-, -ī-, -o- and whose present stem is constructed by adding the present tense suffix to the infinitive stem -j-:

The singular verb forms of the 2nd conjugation and both singular and plural 3rd person verb forms have lost their personal endings and the present suffix in Latvian as a result of the reduction of the final syllables (see Table 2.2).

3rd conjugation

This conjugation contains verbs with the suffixes -ī-, -inā-, -ā-, -ē-, and the verbs whose present stem is built by reducing the stem of the infinitive, for example:

3rd conjugation verbs are divided into two groups depending on the suffix in the infinitive and the paradigm of the personal ending in the present (see Table 2.2):

The 3rd conjugation 1st group contains verbs with the following suffixes in their infinitive forms: -ī- and -inā- – lasīt ‘to read’, rakstīt ‘to write’, mācīties ‘to learn’, audzināt ‘to educate’, sasveicināties ‘to greet’, vingrināties ‘to practice’, and others.

The 3rd conjugation 2nd group contains verbs with the following suffixes in their infinitive forms: -ā- un -ē- – dziedāt ‘to sing’, mīlēt ‘to love’, turēt ‘to hold’, gulēt ‘to sleep’, and others.

2.3 Tense

The category of tense in Latvian is based on a system of three tenses: the present, past, and future. Every tense has three indefinite and three perfect tense forms. Thus, the paradigm of the verb tense category is formed by six tense forms: the present indefinite, past indefinite, future indefinite, present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect (Ahero et al. 1959, 583–584; Paegle 2003, 97; Kalnača 2013b, 470).

Table 2.2: Latvian indefinite and perfect tense forms (active voice) (adapted from Kalnača 2013b, 551–553)

Latvian perfect tense forms are constructed from two components: finite forms in the present, past, or future tenses of the auxiliary verb būt ‘to be’ together with the past active participle (see Table 2.2):

The perfect tense participle is also marked for grammatical gender by showing agreement with the subject in the syntactic centre of the sentence; see examples (2.11).

Since the subject of the sentence in Latvian is mostly in the nominative, the finite participle in the active voice in its perfect tense form has only singular and plural nominative forms.

The present perfect singular and plural 3rd person forms in Latvian may omit the auxiliary verb ir ‘has, have’ or, in other words, we can see the so-called zero form of the auxiliary verb, for example:

In other person or tense forms the zero form of the auxiliary verb can be seen less often as in, for example, the singular past perfect 3rd person form:

Attitudes towards tense in the grammatical system can be best seen in the active voice indicative mood verb forms. In these there is a symmetrical set of three indefinite and three perfect tense forms in the present, past, and future, in addition to a varied contextual use of the tense forms (Paegle 2003, 97; Kalnača 2013b, 471). Therefore, the whole set of these forms can be considered as the centre of the functional system of the verb tense forms (Paulauskienė 1994, 326). The non-indicative mood (oblique, conditional, and debitive moods) tense forms, passive voice forms, and participle forms of the verb can be considered as peripheral. Expression of attitudes towards tense is not the main function of these verb tense forms, it is rather the expression of modality, voice, or the sequence of actions. For example, the tense meaning of the verb forms expressed in the oblique, debitive, or conditional moods usually match the contextual indicative mood forms, expressing simultaneity, predecession, or sequentiality with regard to them.

In the passive voice, just like the active voice, the indicative mood has six tense forms; the oblique and conditional moods are similar in both voices. The passive voice tense form meaning and use usually agree with the respective tense form in the active voice in the indicative mood. Since the main function of the passive voice form is to express actions where the agent is not important, the meaning of the tense can also be considered as peripheral for these forms, too.

2.4 Person

The person category of the Latvian verb contains three persons in the singular and three persons in the plural (see Table 2.2).

There are three kinds of means to express the person in Latvian (Paegle 2003, 92–93, see also Siewierska 2004; Cysouw 2008 from the point of view of grammar typology):

1. personal endings for synthetic verb forms;

2. auxiliary verbs in the finite form for analytic verb forms;

3. personal pronouns, nouns, or words used in the function of the noun, if the verb does not have a personal ending.

The indefinite tense forms in the indicative mood are usually expressed with the help of a non-reflexive or reflexive ending, for example, Tables 2.3, 2.4:

Table 2.3: The paradigm of personal forms, indicative mood for lasīt ‘to read’, smieties ‘to laugh’ (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 75–77)

Person

Singular

Plural

1

las-u, smej-os

las-ām, smej-amies

2

las-i, smej-ies

las-āt, smej-aties

3

las-a, smej-as

In a similar way the person is expressed with the help of a reflexive or non-reflexive ending in the imperative mood (except for the non-existent 1st person singular form), for example:

Table 2.4: The paradigm of personal forms, imperative mood for lasīt ‘to read’, smieties ‘to laugh’ (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 75–77)

Person

Singular

Plural

1

-

lasīs-im!, smies-imies!

2

las-i!, smej-ies!

las-iet!, smej-ieties!

3

lai las-a!, lai smej-as!

There is a common feature in both Latvian and Lithuanian which makes these languages different from other Indo-European languages. Namely, the 3rd person form is unmarked and identical in singular and plural in both non-reflexive and reflexive verbs (see Table 2.2–2.4).

Historically, the 3rd person verb does not have an ending and the form ends in an athematic vowel or is reduced to a zero morpheme. Neither in dialects nor in old texts can there be found traces of a 3rd person ending in singular or plural (Endzelīns 1981, 478–480). The causes for this peculiarity still remain unclear.

All the analytic verb forms have a morphologically expressed 3rd person singular and plural feature (together with gender characteristics), signaled by the finite present and past participle form, as in, for example, the perfect tenses in the indicative mood (see Table 2.2).

Depending on the function of person, all Latvian moods can be divided into two groups:

1. moods where verbs have morphologically expressed personal forms: the indicative and imperative moods;

2. moods where verbs do not have morphologically expressed personal forms: the oblique, conditional, and debitive moods.

This distinction is based on the semantics and functions of the moods in the language system. The indicative mood is the most important, as it ensures the process of communication in its main form: the dialogue, which demands a specific grammar form set in three persons in the singular and plural. The essence of the imperative mood is to use a direct or indirect order, request, or suggestion to make the addressee of the utterance accomplish some kind of an action, which dictates the necessity for the morphological form of the person. The absence of personal endings in the oblique, conditional, and debitive moods necessitates the expression of the person contextually with the help of a personal pronoun, noun, or word used in the function of a noun (see Table 4.1, Chapter 4).

The synthetic forms of the Latvian verb have two main types of personal endings:

1. non-reflexive endings;

2. reflexive endings.

Although historically Latvian and, in general Baltic, personal endings have not been connected with tense forms (Rudzīte 1960, 177–181), the partial or full reduction of the final syllable and the fusion of the verb ending in Latvian have caused the development of independent personal ending paradigms in different tense forms with variants in the present tense.

It is possible to propose the following system of person and number endings of a verb in Tables 2.5–2.6 (non-reflexive verbs) and Tables 2.7–2.8 (reflexive verbs) (endings preceded by palatalisation have been displayed as separate exponents).

Tables 2.5–2.8 contain personal endings in all conjugations, except for the irregular verbs būt ‘to be’, iet ‘to go’, dot ‘to give’, which have preserved partially athematic and therefore irregular personal forms in the modern language system. The markers are as follows:

1 – 1st conjugation, divided in two groups:

1a – all 1st conjugation verbs, excluding 1b – verbs whose 2nd person singular ending is -i, singular and plural in the common form -ø,

2 – 2nd conjugation

3 – 3rd conjugation, divided into two groups:

3a – verbs whose personal endings are -u, -i, -a (SG), -ām(ies), -āt(ies), -a (PL), 3b – all other 3rd conjugation verbs.

In the Latvian literary language, 2nd person future indefinite plural forms can have two kinds of endings -it un -iet (for reflexive verbs these are: -ities and -ieties). Historically, the more ancient ending common with Lithuanian is -it (resp. -ities) and it has had a parallel version in Latvian since the 17th century -iet (resp. -ieties). Out of respect for the more ancient form, the literary language accepts both versions (see for example, Veidemane 2002, 414–415; Paegle 2003, 93; Kalnača 2013b, 520). Ozola (2005) points out that in the second half of the 20th century, school grammars were promoting the use of the forms -iet, -ieties, therefore in modern day speech these are more frequent. The personal ending paradigm discussed below does not distinguish -it/-iet or -ities/- ieties as separate exponents.

Tables 2.5–2.8 do not reflect the syncretism of 3rd person SG/PL; however, in the later analysis this has been taken into account.

Non-reflexive

Table 2.5: The personal endings of the singular non-reflexive paradigm

Table 2.6: The personal endings of the plural non-reflexive paradigm

The Latvian non-reflexive verb personal endings point not only to the abovementioned 3rd person SG/PL syncretism, but also to the syncretism of the singular 2nd and 3rd person in 1a and the 2nd conjugation verbs in the present tense. In addition, 2nd conjugation verbs in their present tense 2nd and 3rd person forms have zero morphs not only in their endings but also in the present tense suffix -j-. This results in the 1SG, 1PL, 2PL forms domāju ‘I think’, domājam ‘we think’, domājat ‘you think’, and the 2SG, 3SG/PL syncretic form domā ‘he/she thinks, they think’. Reflexive verbs have not only a syncretic SG/PL 3rd person in all tenses, but also in their future tense 2SG un 3SG/PL forms ending in -ies.

Reflexive

Table 2.7: The personal endings of the singular reflexive paradigm

Table 2.8: The personal endings of the plural reflexive paradigm

In regard to the personal forms of the verb, it is interesting to examine the idea proposed by Haspelmath (2002, 241) that “frequent categories are more differentiated than rare categories”. As pointed out by Haspelmath, inflectional languages generally display the following grammatical form frequency (2002, 238), for number: singular > plural > dual, for person: 3rd > non-3rd (1st/2nd), for tense: present > future. Thus, the respective verb personal ending exponents should be arranged in the following way: the most frequent use in the present tense singular 3rd person. In Latvian, this suggestion is validated with regard to present tense non-reflexive and reflexive verbs. As can be seen in Tables 2.5–2.6, there is more variety in the personal endings in connection with the conjugations than in the present or the past. In the situations where the personal form paradigms are the same for all verbs and where there is no difference between the conjugations.

However, the principles relating to the frequency of person and number categories in Latvian cannot be validated. That is, the 3rd person verb, as the most frequently used form in Latvian, should have also had the most exponents. Taking into account the 3rd person SG/PL syncretism in Latvian, the number of both non-reflexive and reflexive exponents is the smallest. There are only four exponents for each verb group, as morphologically they are the same in both singular and plural. However, non-reflexive verbs have five exponents in the 1st person SG+PL and seven exponents in the 2nd person SG+PL, while reflexive verbs have six exponents in the 1st person SG+PL and five exponents in the 2nd person SG+PL. According to the number of exponents, the most frequently used verb forms would be those of the 2nd person, which have a total of twelve exponents in Latvian, and those of the 1st person, which have a total of eleven exponents. This is opposed to the eight exponents of the 3rd person. This, of course, does not agree with the frequency of use of the particular personal forms in the language. Therefore, we can consider that due to the syncretism of the 3rd person SG/PL, the asymmetry between the 3rd and non-3rd person (1st/2nd) usage and their respective number of the exponents are features that have already been “programmed” into the Latvian verb system.

In the same way, Latvian does not validate the frequency difference principle, which suggests that there should be more personal ending exponents in the singular, since the singular forms are used more frequntly. However, in the analysis of the exponents, we should take into account that the 3rd person cannot be included in the analysis, as it does not have a morphological distinction for the singular and plural, and therefore we can examine only the cases of the 1st and 2nd person. Latvian has a particular bias for the exponents in the plural as both non-reflexive and reflexive verbs have eight exponents each (1st + 2nd PL). In the singular (1st + 2nd SG), however, non-reflexive verbs have five exponents, while reflexive verbs have only three. This case, however, does not support the prediction that the singular is used less frequently than the plural and that the 1st and 2nd person plural forms in Latvian are used more frequently than the 1st and 2nd person singular forms. The most plausible cause for this kind of asymmetry of frequency and number of exponents would be historical changes taking place during the development process of the verb endings as a result of the syncretism of the personal and number forms.

3 Aspect

3.1 Introductory Remarks

The meaning of the aspect of the verb in Latvian depends on the lexical meaning of the verb, the affixes added (prefixes and suffixes), and the semantics of the context. Different meanings also can be expressed by verb tense forms. Thus, the aspect of the verb is simultaneously a word formation and a contextual phenomenon; the expression of the form is connected with different linguistic features: derivative, lexical, morphological, morphonological, and syntactic.

Taking into account the variety of the means of expression of the aspect of the verb, its postulation in Latvian as well as in other languages has always been considered problematic. Aspect, unlike tense, mode, person, and voice, is not a homogeneously formalised category (Zaliznjak, Shmelev 2000, 14–16; Soida 2009, 223–227; Plungian 2011, 377). Therefore, we have to admit that the manifestation and semantics of aspect have been treated differently both by synchronic and diachronic approaches (for example, Dahl 2000, 3–25; Zaliznjak, Shmelev 2000, 10–17). The theoretical literature devoted to these problems is extremely wide and sometimes contradictory.

In the past, the understanding of the meaning of aspect in Latvian was oriented towards an analysis of perfective/imperfective without connecting it to grammatical categories. Thus Endzelīns (1971, 307–655 (original publication: 1905–1906)) described the perfective and imperfective aspects in Latvian as a part of semantics. In her monograph Word formation (Vārddarināšana), Soida (published in 2009 though written in approximately the 1970s), while describing the derivative system of verbs, also analysed the meaning of verbal aspect, its expression and place in the grammatical and semantic structure of the verb (Soida 2009, 219–265). The interaction between the tense and aspect is discussed in Lokmane (1988, 1990), Kalnača (1997, 1998). Various opinions and problems connected with verbal aspect in Latvian are analysed by Holvoet (2001, 132–158) and Kalnača (1998, 2004b). Admittedly, the same questions are important for Lithuanian linguistics (Paulauskienė 1994, 291–296; Ambrazas 1996, 288–290).

Aspect (i.e., perfective/imperfective aspect), as a verbal grammatical category, has been analysed in several Latvian grammars, most thoroughly in Ahero et al. (1959, 564–582). A similar grammatical category interpretation can be found also in Nītiņa (2001, 90–93), as well as Kalme & Smiltniece (2001, 218–221). Aspect as a lexico- grammatical category has beed studied by Paegle (2003, 130–138). Nevertheless, the most profound research devoted specifically to aspect as a perfective/imperfective grammatical category up to now can be found in Staltmane’s doctoral thesis (1958a) and articles (1958b, c, d, 1961).

The interpretation of aspect in Latvian linguistics allows us to distinguish between two different viewpoints in describing aspect, which indirectly reflect two different approaches in the understanding of the study of aspect in general. Namely, verbal aspect is concerned either with the sphere of word-formation or form building and thus can be treated as a question relating to the derivation of the verb or alternatively can be analysed as one of the grammatical categories of the verb. Endzelīns and Soida consider verbal aspect as a specific derivational phenomenon and because of its lack of grammatical abstraction do not propose a specific grammatical category of verbal aspect (the same kind of viewpoint can be found also in Mathiassen 1997 and Holvoet 2001). However Staltmane and the Latvian grammars mentioned above present aspect as a grammatical category, keeping the link with word-formation (cf. Paulauskienė 1979, 1994; Kalnača 2004b).

This study treats verbal aspect in connection with different means of expression of aspect – grammatical, derivational, and morphophonological – while also examining both imperfective/perfective and semelfactive/iterative aspect meanings, thereby refraining from describing aspect as a grammatical category. The main reasons are the lack of abstraction of the grammatical meanings, the interdependence of the meaning of verbal aspect and its lexical meaning, the semantics of the prefixes and suffixes and the implications of aspect in contextual meaning. The centre of the meaning of aspect is found in the contrast between the imperfective/perfective and semelfactive/iterative aspects of the action. The periphery of the meanings of aspect is the link between the tense and aspect and the contextual means of expression of aspect, the construction of an unprefixed verb + adverb, etc. Aspect, just like the basic categories of the verb (tense, mood, voice, and person) are all connected with the predicate, as the meanings of aspect in a sentence are mostly concentrated in the predicate. The expression of the meanings of aspect can be connected also with other parts of a sentence: subject, object, attribute, adverbial modifier (Bondarko 1987, 44; Mustajoki 1999; Plungian 2011, 377–422). If the meaning of aspect depends on the syntactic structure of the sentence, it can also function as an element of the means for expressing aspect.

To make the classification of semantics and functions of aspect more transparent, traditionally since the beginning of the 20th century, the terms aspect and Aktionsart, as used in the Slavic languages and especially in Russian language material, have been used in linguistic descriptions (Plungian 2011, 378–380; the term Aktionsart (Latvian akcionsarts, also aktionsarts). These terms also have been used in Latvian linguistics since the 1950s (see Staltmane 1958a, 1958b, 1958c, 1958d, 1961; Ahero et al. 1959, 565; Paegle 2003, 131–132). The distinction of perfective and imperfective aspect from the other characteristics of the situation can be explained by the fact that aspect was grammaticalised in Slavic languages as one of the basic categories of the verb. The terms aspect and Aktionsart thus were applied to distinguish between the grammatical and lexical meanings of the expression of aspect. However, in reality aspect and Aktionsart are not easily distinguished, as their meanings are closely related. Such a distinction has also not been achieved in the Slavic languages. Up to the present day, the question of whether the different aspects of the same word are forms of the same word or different words entirely (i.e., if this is a word-formation or inflectional phenomenon) has not been answered as proponents for both sides have persuasive arguments (see, for example, Zaliznjak, Shmelev 2000, 14–16). Literature devoted to the study of aspect has a marked tendency of refraining from making a distinction between aspect and Aktionsart (Comrie 1976; Tommola 1990; Klein 1994; Paducheva 1996; Zaliznjak, Shmelev 2000; Plungian 2011, 378–422). In modern linguistics, the term aspect is used in a broader sense of denoting any expression of aspect (Dahl 1985; Klein 1994; Smith 1997; Mel’chuk 1998; see also Skujiņa et al. 2007, 440). Smith considers aspect to be a language universal, as aspectual systems, regardless of the linguistic means they use, are surprisingly similar across languages (Smith 1997, 13). Therefore the term aspect is used in this study in its broadest sense. Thus internal opposition of the meanings of aspect exists in two cases:

1. imperfective/perfective characterisation of actions, i.e., the contrast between complete and incomplete actions expressed using verb prefixes:

2. semelfactive/iterative characterisation of actions, i.e., the opposition of the semelfactive and iterative aspects expressed using verb suffixes:

The opposition between the perfective and imperfective aspects covers the largest part of Latvian verbs and characterises actions as either incomplete and continuous or as complete. In a similar way the semelfactive/iterative aspect opposition is connected with a large group of verbs, as it is possible to derive verb forms with an interative meaning from nearly all verbs with a semelfactive.

Prefixes and suffixes of verbs, contrary to other verb building means, can be affixed already to the infinitive and are then preserved in all derived grammatical forms. This reveals the lack of the full grammatical abstraction of the meaning of aspect as well as its link to the formation and functioning of the verb as a lexical unit (Soida 2009, 227).

3.2 Imperfective/Perfective Aspect

Imperfective/perfective aspect is implemented in Latvian:

1. morphologically (i.e. morphemically) – the opposition between these aspects is shown through the presence or absence of a prefix on the verb

2. syntactically

a. the opposition of the construction unprefixed verb + adverb and prefixed verbs

b. biaspectual verbs in contextual use (see Section 3.1.3).

In the imperfective/perfective aspect opposition it is the imperfective verb that is considered as unmarked. Imperfective aspect depicts the action as a process, but the perfective aspect as an event that has already been implemented or is at the end of that process (Matthews 1997, 171, 271). Procedural activity is never homogeneous. It can express continuity, generalisability, iterativeness, etc. Thus, imperfective aspect in language has a much wider and more diverse use. However, distinguishing the many processes comprising individual events and stressing the beginning and endpoint of these processes is depicted in the language with the help of the perfective aspect.

3.2.1 Unprefixed/Prefixed Verbs

Usually, unprefixed verbs in Latvian describe an imperfective activity, for example, lasīt ‘to read’, kāpt ‘to climb’, iet ‘to go’, while prefixed verbs express perfective aspect, iz-lasīt ‘to finish reading’, uz-kāpt ‘to finish climbing’, ie-iet ‘to go in’ (Ahero et al. 1959, 565–566; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 219–221; Paegle 2003, 130–131).

A perfective meaning is characteristic of all verbs with the prefixes aiz- ‘behind’, ap‘around’, at- ‘at’, ie- ‘in’, iz- ‘out’, no- ‘of ’, pa- ‘on’, pār- ‘over’, pie- ‘at’, sa- ‘together’, uz- ‘on’ (Ahero et al. 1959, 567; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 220; Soida 2009, 236), for example:

Thus, perfectiveness is expressed with all of these prefixes. The only exception is the negative prefix ne-, which does not have a direct link with the semantics of aspect. The prefix ne- negates activity without changing its expressed aspect, for example,

It should be noted that there are few verb pairs in Latvian, where the addition of a prefix adds only a perfective meaning. (Ahero et al. 1959, 567; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 220), for example:

Usually, the prefix connected to a verb simultaneously with perfectiveness adds spatial, temporal, or quantitative variation to the lexical meaning of the verb (Soida 2009, 228), for example:

The same prefix can be polysemic and add other meanings to a verb in addition to a perfective aspectual meaning. For example, the verb pa-līst ‘to crawl under’ can have a spatial perfective meaning (to have moved under something) for example palīst zem galda ‘to crawl under the table’, and also a quantitatively perfective meaning. For example in suns palīda zem galda un apgūlās ‘the dog crawled a bit [to get] under the table and laid down’ palīst has the quantitative meaning of ‘to crawl a tiny bit’ (explanation of the meaning from Guļevska et al. 1987, 568).

In order to describe temporary activities, partially successful activities focusing on the activity’s beginning, or mostly finished activities, the prefix can be combined with the reflexive suffix, i.e., by using a circumfix (for more see Kalnača 2004a, 24–25; Soida 2009, 243–257; Kalnača & Lokmane 2012), for example:

Although the lexical meaning of the verb depends on the semantics of the prefix, the basic meaning of the verb usually remains intact (Soida 2009, 232). For example, the verb braukt ‘to drive’ in combination with various prefixes (at-braukt ‘to arrive’, ie-braukt ‘to drive in’, uz-braukt ‘to drive up’, no-braukt ‘to drive off / to drive [a certain distance] / to travel [a certain distance]’, pār-braukt ‘to drive over’) results in a combination of an aspectual (Perf) and a temporal, local, and quantitative meaning (A, B, C … n):

Nevertheless, there are also prefixed verbs in Latvian, which formally comply with the source verb, although its meaning is individualized, i.e., these verbs do not form reciprocal perfective/imperfective verb pairs, for example, Soida’s (2009, 230) list of verbs, which demonstrate a formal but not semantic connection:

Some of the verbs derived with the help of prefixes are polysemic. Not all the meanings of these verbs contain the perfective/imperfective aspect opposition in relation to the source word, for example, the verb pamest ‘to throw under, to leave’ (meaning interpretation from Guļevska et al. 1987, 569):

1. ‘to throw forward (under something, beneath something, under the wardrobe) (pamest zem skapja ‘to throw under a wardrobe’)

2. ‘to thrust forward, sloppily give something’ (pamest kaulu sunim ‘to throw a bone to a dog’)

Both these meanings of pamest (example (3.13)) could be considered perfective, local, and quantity expressions with respect to the verb mest ‘to throw’. However, the meanings in (3.14) do not contain the opposition of the imperfective/perfective aspect:

1. ‘to leave going away, forgetting, not paying attention’ (pamest dzimto pusi ‘to forsake one’s native land/home region’)

2. to stop, not finishing, not completing’ (pamest mācības ‘to abandon one’s studies’)

3. ‘to nod with one’s head’ (pamāt ar galvu)

3.2.2 Aspect and the unprefixed verb + adverb construction

The syntactic implementation of aspect is possible in Latvian constructions, which contain an unprefixed imperfective aspect verb and a spatial adverb, for example, iet iekšā ‘to enter’, nākt šurp ‘to come here’, kāpt pāri ‘to step over’, skriet prom ‘to run away’. This type of construction has a concrete meaning of an action oriented in space towards a known target (Staltmane 1958d, 17–21; Ahero et al. 1959, 571; Endzelīns 1971, 624). These constructions can fit into the verb aspect opposition framework, as they express imperfective (i.e., continuous action) in contrast to their unprefixed verb counterparts.

The opinions about the functions of the unprefixed verb constructions in Latvian differ. For example, the Ahero et al. (1959, 571–572) and Kalme & Smiltniece (2001, 221) consider that they express a perfective meaning and function as the grammatical synonyms of the prefixed verbs. This is due to the fact that the meaning of the adverb is similar to the meaning of the prefix, for example:

Soida (2009, 236) and Paegle (2003, 133–134), however, consider these constructions as one of the means for expressing the imperfective aspect with these constructions containing a local adverb in order to make the unprefixed verb more exact by revealing the target of the action:

Holvoet (2001, 146) points out that this kind of construction does not refer to the aspect and should not be included in the decriptions of the aspectual categories as they are in fact a combination of two optional lexemes. Nevertheless, usually in Latvian linguistics the abovementioned unprefixed verb constructions are discussed as one of the aspectual category elements. In addition, Paegle and Soida are correct in their view that this construction expresses imperfective aspect, that is, the constructions express the particular imperfective action taking place in the particular situation in contrast to its counterpart prefixed verb, which depicts the particular action as already having been implemented (see also Kalnača 2004b).

The opposition of the aspect construction and prefixed verb alignment expresses imperfective aspect syntactically (celt pāri ‘to take over’, nākt iekšā ‘to come in’, vērt vaļā ‘to open up’, iet prom ‘to go away’) and perfective aspect morphologically (pārcelt ‘to have taken over’, ienākt ‘to have entered’, atvērt ‘to have opened’, aiziet ‘to have gone’), it can be found in the infinitive form as well as different tense and mood forms:

The verb and adverb in these constructions do not form a monolithic lexical, morphological, and syntactic unit, as the adverb has not grammaticalised and has preserved its adverbial modifier function in the sentence, its independent word stress, and its adverbial meaning. The combinations of the verb and adverb can be variable depending on the information to be expressed, for example :

Therefore it is impossible to agree with Staltmane (1958d, 17–21) and the Ahero et al. (1959, 571) that verb-adverb combinations are analytical constructions or imperfective forms. Using this construction we would admit the grammaticalisation of the adverb with its syntactic and semantic dependence showing it functioning as an auxiliary word.

The verb with an adverb does not form an imperfective syntactic construction if the adverb joins a prefixed verb, for example:

Here the adverb specifies the local meaning of the prefix, thus doubling the action target reference (Staltmane 1958d, 23; Comrie 1976, 91; Holvoet 2001, 134–135). These kinds of word groups do not have a direct connection with verbal aspect. They always describe perfective actions and this perfective meaning can be attributed to the prefix. The adverb is not compulsory, compare the sentences:

It should be noted that among Latvian verbal aspect categories, the construction unprefixed verb + adverb is not the most important element. It is at the periphery of the means for expressing aspect allowing us to substitute the perfective verb with an imperfective form, that is, denoting a continuous action meaning. This is particularly important in present indefinite forms with an actual present tense meaning where the prefix or the perfective verb use can contradict the meaning of the present tense, while at the same time there is still a need to stress the target of the action or its result (Ahero et al. 1959, 576–577; Paegle 2003, 135), for example:

The imperfective aspect or an unprefixed verb together with an adverb allows us to avoid the semantically perfective meaning of the prefix. The meaning of the adverb in these constructions partly agrees with the respective verb prefix meaning, see examples (3.17).

The construction containing unprefixed verb + adverb can be found not only in the present indefinite but also in other tense and mood forms, if it is necessary to express a continuous imperfective action with a specific spatial target. Nevertheless, the use of this construction is limited, because only verbs expressing movement and local meaning adverbs can be used in this construction. These criteria agree only with some Latvian prefixes or their meanings.

The constructions of an unprefixed verb + adverb are often used in conversation, where they have become phraseologisms and have taken on a positive or negative assessment meaning (see also Ahero et al. 1959, 577), for example:

Traditionally, it was considered that the construction verb + adverb in Latvian is a borrowing from the Finno-Ugric languages (Endzelīns 1951, 961; Kagaine & Bušs 1985, 35–44), which hypothetically also could have been aided and promoted by German. This question, however, deserves more discussion and also research, as analysis of typological parallels across Baltic, Finno-Ugric, and other langauges could offer us other opinions on this question. It is interesting to note that the construction verb + adverb for expressing verbal aspect has been considered by Finno-Ugric linguists as having been borrowed from the Indo-European languages into the Finno-Ugric languages (Kangasmaa-Minn 1984, 77–79; Larsson 1984, 105–107). The source of influence for verbal aspect in the Baltic Finno-Ugric languages are the Baltic langauges, possible already during the Proto-Finno-Ugric period. As Larsson (1984, 105) points out, ‘There is, however, at least a theoretical possibility that the Baltic system was taken over more or less directly’.

As there are no prefixes (that is, prepositions) in the Finno-Ugric languages (the exception being the Vepsian and Livonian languages where prefixes were borrowed from the Russian and Latvian languages; see Larsson 1984, 102–103) like those used for expressing aspect in the Baltic (Indo-European) languages, it can be said therefore that the morphological expression has changed into a lexically syntactic expression. This can be of two kinds:

1. partitive/accusative alternation denoting imperfective/perfective aspect expres- sion, for example (examples from Tommola 1990, 359):

2. the use of different postpositive particles and adverbs, making the perfective action target more precise, for example (examples from Larsson 1984, 103):

Therefore the question about the Finno-Ugric origin of Latvian aspect constructions can be interpreted in different ways. Inasmuch as similar constructions to verb + adverb (particle) are found (but very rare) in Lithuanian (eiti : eiti iš ‘to go : to go out’), Russian (idti : idti proch’ ‘to go : to go away’), English (to eat : to eat up), and other Indo-European languages (Comrie 1976, 93; Holvoet 2001, 135), it must be concluded that these constructions can be the result of the natural development of any of the aforementioned languages. More frequent use in Latvian, naturally, can be the result of interference from other languages.

3.2.3 Biaspectual verbs

In Latvian, biaspectual verbs are the second example showing how aspect is expressed syntactically. Biaspectual verbs can express both perfective as well as imprefective action regardless of the presence or absence of a prefix. These can be:

1. unprefixed verbs, for example:

2. prefixed verbs, for example:

Some of the unprefixed verbs (iet ‘to go’, dot ‘to give’, pirkt ‘to buy’) can be connected in Latvian with perfective as well as imperfective aspect morphological derivatives of the prefixes:

These kinds of unprefixed verbs can function as biaspectual verbs, that is, they can have a contextual perfective expression, for example:

The existence of biaspectual verbs is normally considered a neutralisation of the opposition of aspect in aspectual research in Latvian linguistics, stressing that the derivatives of the verbs are not connected with the perfective or imperfective aspect of the action. For example, Endzelīns (1971, 651) classifies these verbs as verbs without an aspectual meaning. Staltmane (1958d, 22–23), in her turn, considers them to be a verb aspect group without counterparts, as they do not have the morphological opposition between perfective and imperfective aspect. Nevertheless, biaspectual verb analysis shows that this fact should be treated differently. Biaspectual verbs do not neutralise the opposition. The imperfective/perfective opposition is preserved, what is changed is its expression: it has turned from being morphological to syntactic instead.

The formal expression of the imperfective/perfective aspect opposition (i.e., the presence or absence of the prefix) is not important, as the context has taken over the expression of perfectiveness. It is the contents of the sentence which have become important instead of the word prefix (Lokmane 1990, 202, see also Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 221; Paegle 2003, 134; Horiguchi 2011, 103):

As Soida (2009, 233) has pointed out, “the action named by itself is aspectless, immaterial. It reflects the process, the attitudes, realised in time and space filled by objects”. Language users depending on the particular situation will specify the verb in the immediate or further context of the sentence. Therefore, we can have verbs, which can be perfective or imperfective depending on the situation we are describing. Horiguchi (2011, 103) has classified this kind of verb as aspectless, as out of context they do not possess a perfective/imperfective aspect meaning, regardless of the presence or absence of the prefix. Therefore the term aspectless verbs is more precise than the term biaspectual verb used in Latvian linguistics.

In context, biaspectual verbs do not demonstrate so much the perfective/ imperfective opposition as the opposition between general versus particular action. This is also one of the basic aspect oppositions where the action is characterised from the point of view of the speaker in general and usually in opposition to a particular action. Plungian (2011, 398–400) considers this kind of opposition as secondary, because here under the influence of the context we can observe imperfective aspect transforming into a general action, and perfective aspect into a particular action, regardless of the presence or absence of the prefix (see also Horiguchi 2011, 102):

Comparing the examples of general and particular action we can see that the meaning of the aspect is connected with the context. The general or particular meaning can be expressed via adverbial modifiers of time or compound adverbs (cf. katru dienu ‘every day’ and kādu dienu ‘one day’) and grammatical object or compund object (cf. pārlasīju laikrakstus ‘reread the newspapers’ and pārlasīju visus jaunākos laikrakstus ‘reread all the latest newspapers’). Meanings denoting general or particular action can also depend on attributes. In the examples above these are the pronouns katrs ‘every’, kāds ‘one’, viss ‘all’, but there are other possibilities that point to the particular object in relation to other objects. Thus, different subordinate parts of sentence or their compounds act as elements of the meanings of the aspect, which connects the aspectual opposition with the semantic opposition of general/particular. Therefore, the function of a biaspectual verb depends on the communicative goal of the author of a particular text.

However, the role of the adverbial modifiers and objects in the expression of the perfective/imperfective aspect is not to be connected with only the biaspectual verbs. The opposition general/particular can influence the content of the sentence in general. When a sentence contains a repetitive activity or a general phenomenon, then the verb is usually unprefixed and it has an imperfective aspect, for example:

Prefixed verbs, i.e., the use of the perfective aspect is connected with a semelfactive action and thus the particularisation of the situation, for example:

3.3 Semelfactive / Iterative Aspect

Semelfactive/itarative aspect in Latvian is implemented only in the morphological opposition between suffixed/unsuffixed verbs. Verbs with the suffixes -ī-, -ā-, -ē-, -o-, -inā-, -aļā-, -avā-, -alē-, -elē-, -uļo-, are derived from simple stem verbs, and express repeated or iterative action in opposition to semelfactive action, for example:

The suffixes -aļā-, -avā-, -alē-, -elē-, -uļo- add an iterative, partly perjorative nuance of meaning to the verb (Soida 2009, 196), for example,

Iterative verbs are additionally distinguished from semelfactive verbs by several morphophonological features (Kalnača 2004a, 83; Kalnača 2004b; Soida 2009, 193):

1. apophony (ablaut)

metatony – falling (ˋ), broken ( ), or stretched ( ) intonation alternation

2. interfix

Morphophonological means can also be combined:

1. ablaut and interfix

2. metatony and interfix

3. metatony, apophony, and interfix

Thus, different morphophonological means in interaction with an iterative action suffix can be used as a discriminator of iterative verbs from semelfactive verbs. Therefore we can say that Latvian iterative/semelfactive verb aspect has more formal markers and these are semantically more homogeneous than those used for perfective/ imperfective aspect.

Iterative verb suffixes do not change, but they do modify the lexical meaning of the verb (Soida 2009, 193). Thus, for example, iterative verbs braukāt ‘to drive’ and braukalēt ‘to keep driving without a purpose’ differ from the semelfactive verb braukt ‘to drive’ in the amount of the action. However, the basic meaning is the same:

Iterative/semelfactive aspect is connected with imperfective/perfective aspect. It is possible to derive perfective iterative verbs from iterative verbs with the help of prefixes:

By adding the prefix the iterative action becomes limited. The prefix points out that the action is perfective and has been iterative only for a limited time. The most frequently added prefix to the iterative verbs in the perfective aspect is pa-, which adds the meaning of slightly, unsubstantially carried out action, but it is possible to use also other prefixes. Verbs with suffixes -aļā-, -alē-, -elē-, -uļo-, and others are less frequently used with prefixes, as multiple, chaotic, and pointless use of suffixes is not always compatible with perfectiveness of the action, for example:

The relationship in Latvian between imperfective/perfective aspect and semelfactive/iterative aspect is as follows:

Both oppositions in Latvian are expressed with the help of wordbuilding morphemes (i.e., prefixes and suffixes) though there is no perfect symmetry in the derivational system. There are no perfective aspect suffixes, which would allow us to form perfective aspect verbs (Zaliznjak & Shmelev 2000, 77), cf.:

Similarly in Latvian there are no imperfective action suffixes which would allow us to form imperfective iterative verbs from perfective aspect verbs, for example ‘to break’ (examples from Zaliznjak & Shmelev 2000, 15; Paulauskienė 1979, 68):

This lack of derivational types of the verbal aspect signals the lexico-grammatical specialisation of the derivatives in Latvian. Prefixed derivatives provide the opposition of perfective/imperfective aspect, while suffixed derivatives are connected with the opposition of semelfactive/iterative action. Thus, affixes have different aspectual word-formation applications.

3.4 Connection between Aspect and Tense Meanings

The implementation of Latvian verbal aspect meanings is connected with the semantics of the tenses (Ahero et al. 1959, 576–580). Aspect is depicting internal processes of the situation, while the tense is depicting external processes or their position in the flow of time (Dahl 1985, 23–25). On one hand, admit it should be noted that Latvian perfective/ imperfective and iterative/semelfactive aspect meanings function independently of tense, as they can be detected already in the infinitive, the non-finite form which contrasts with the finite tense forms. The aspect does not directly affect the paradigm of the tense form. The presence of the verb in a particular aspect and as a finite tense form within the sentence along with the particular meaning of the verb result in the localisation of an action in time (Kalnača 1998). Therefore, on the other hand, the interaction of the meanings of the aspect and tense, can be seen both in the paradigm of tense forms as well as in the contextual use of the tense forms; see more on this in the sections below. However, the link between the aspect and the tense comes into being only in the opposition of perfective and imperfective action. This interaction differs in the simple and perfect tenses. Latvian iterative/semelfactive aspect does not have a direct connection with the tense form paradigm or contextual use.

3.4.1 Imperfective/Perfective Aspect and Indefinite Tense Forms

In the simple tense form system (present indefinite, past indefinite, future indefinite) the opposition between perfective/imperfective aspect, the formal and contextual or morphological and syntactic expression has an important role. The morphological expression (the presence or absence of the prefix) can be observed in the meaning of the tense form of the verb, with present indefinite dominating. The opposition between the perfective/imperfective aspect is neutralised in the derivational meanings, which occur regardless of the verbal aspect. For example, the essential meaning of the present indefinite, which is to express an action that takes place at the same time as the speaker is speaking:

In this meaning we would normally use prefixed verbs as they do not have a present tense meaning and the action cannot be at the same time continuous and perfective (Ahero et al. 1959, 576; Lokmane 1988; Paegle 2003, 135; Kalnača 2004b). If it is necessary to specify locally the aim of the action, then we use the construction of unprefixed verb + adverbial modifier in the basic meaning of the present (Ahero et al. 1959, 576), for example:

Nevertheless, in several cases prefixed verbs can be found with the basic meaning of the present indefinite. This is determined by:

1. the difference of the lexical meanings of the prefixed and unprefixed verbs

2. the absence of an unprefixed verb form in Latvian (i.e., the verb can be used only with a prefix)

This type of prefixed verb in the actual present usually has an imperfective aspect:

In other tense forms prefixed verbs function as biaspectual verbs. We can detect the opposition of general/particular action in their links with the semantics of the subordinate parts of sentence, for example in the past indefinite:

3.4.2 Imperfective/Perfective Aspect and Perfect Tense Forms

The perfect tense system demonstrates an incremental connection between the tense form paradigm and the aspect. All the perfect tense forms (present perfect, past perfect, future perfect) are united by one feature: resultativeness. The resultativeness is the present, past, or future evaluation of a perfective action that had taken place before. Thus, the system of tense forms in the perfective depicts in a single form the attitude of two tenses, the precedence and its evaluation at present, past, or future. The system of the perfect tenses is symmetrical with the indefinite tense form triad, as we can evaluate the consequences of a former action at present, in the past, and in the future. Thus the perfect tense forms always expresses perfective action, regardless of the presence or absence of a prefix on the verb.

The prefix gives the perfect tense forms the meaning of a completely finished action, but it does not affect the perfective aspect and its resultativeness, for example:

In the first example the unprefixed verb suggests a partially completed action, while in the second example the prefixed verb describes a completely finished action.

The perfective meaning of the action in the present tense forms is achieved by combining two consecutive tense planes though not as much with the help of adding a particular morpheme to the word stem as is done in the simple tense form system.

3.4.3 The Alternation of Indefinite and Perfect Tense Forms and Aspect

There are two ways for expressing the perfective aspect: verb prefixes (lasīt ‘to read’ : iz-lasīt ‘to have read’) and perfect tense forms (lasu ‘I read’ : esmu lasījis,-usi ‘I have read’). Each of these have a separate function and sphere of use. However, both forms alternate, as we can use the indefinite and the perfect tense forms in parallel: present indefinite and present perfect, past indefinite and present perfect, past indefinite and past perfect, future indefinite and future perfect. The parallel use of the indefinite and perfect tense forms can be observed most often in Latvian when describing an action, which has ended prior to another action in the present, past, or future (Kalnača 2011). This can be observed in complex sentences where finite verb forms demonstrate inner subordination attitudes; the perfect tense form always expresses an action that has taken place before the indefinite tense form action, for example:

The cause for this kind of alternation between the indefinite and perfect tense forms in Latvian is the verbal aspect. The present and perfect tense forms express the same information: a completed, perfective action (Paulauskienė 1979, 192; Paulauskienė 1994, 338–339; Kalnača 2011, 25–27). The possibility of parallel use is provided by the syntactic structure of the text: a complex sentence where the clauses demonstrate sequential time relationships. Nevertheless, we cannot state that the indefinite tense forms would necessarily replace the perfect tense forms just because they are shorter and more convenient.

The alternation of the indefinite and perfect tense forms for describing a completed action point to the opposition of aspect in these forms. However, the opposition of perfective/imperfective aspect alone cannot explain this contrast, as the indefinite tense forms can express both perfective and imperfective aspect, but the perfect tense forms can express only perfective aspect. Both tense form groups do not share common ground in the formal expression of aspect. The aspect of indefinite tense forms is mostly expressed morphologically by the presence or absence of the prefix, but in perfect tense forms a perfective aspect meaning is expressed with the semantics of grammatical forms. Therefore, the aspectual meaning opposition between the indefinite and perfect tense forms is connected with their resultativeness, which has the broadest meaning as it contains the assessment of perfective action. Since resultativeness is a crucial feature of the present tense, which is missing in indefinite tense forms, the aspect of indefinite and perfect tense forms is expressed in the opposition:

Figure 3.1: The aspectual opposition of indefinite and perfect tense forms.

Indefinite tense forms are the unmarked part of a sentence of the opposition between resultativeness and non-resultativeness opposition due to the fact that they can be used instead of the perfect tense forms in this particular syntactic context. The opposite process, the use of perfect tense forms in the function of indefinite tense forms, is not seen in Latvian. Indefinite tense forms depending on the presence or absence of a prefix as well as their use in the context, can express the perfective/ imperfective aspect opposition. As perfect tense forms always express a perfective, resultative action, then prefixed verbs can be used in complex sentences in a perfect tense function.

4 Mood

4.1 Introductory Remarks

Mood is a grammatical category of the verb, which expresses modality as well as the author’s attitude towards the contents of the utterance and the reality of an action (Crystal 2000, 274). Traditionally, the Latvian verb mood category is said to contain five moods: the indicative mood (lasu ‘I read’, smejos ‘I laugh’), oblique mood (lasot ‘they say, I read’, smejoties ‘they say, I laugh’), conditional mood (lasītu ‘would read’, smietos ‘would laugh’), debitive mood (ir jālasa ‘must read’, ir jāsmejas ‘must laugh’), and imperative mood (lasi! ‘read!’, smejies! ‘laugh!’) (Ahero et al. 1959, 600; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 226; Nītiņa 2001, 74–75; Paegle 2003, 113).

This five mood system has been criticised many times. Critics of this system point out that the debitive and oblique moods cannot be considered mood categories for both semantic and syntactic reasons (see for example, Marvans 1967, Andronovs 1998, Nau 1998, Holvoet 2001 and 2007) and propose instead a three mood system composed of the indicative, conditional, and imperative moods. Thus, for example, Holvoet (2007) states that the oblique mood should be considered a specific evidentiality verb form group. A similar solution – a debitive verb form group – has been offered as a substitute for the debitive mood, which has a functional similarity with the Germanic language modal verb group (English must or German müssen) as well as an uncharacteristic syntactic transformation, a wide variety of tense forms, and the existence of two submoods. At the same time Holvoet rejects Andronov’s idea of the debitive as a gerund as well as Nau’s offer to consider the debitive as a type of passive (a similar criticism on considering the debitive as a verb form group closely related to the passive was expressed also by Marvans in (1967); although the debitive passive has been discussed even earlier – already by Bielenstein in 1864). Nevertheless, as it was pointed out by Fennells (1995b, 95–109), the debitive mood together with the indicative and imperative moods has been recorded already in the first Latvian grammars in the 17th century and the existence of this system has not been questioned in the grammars from the centuries that followed. However, since the publication of the first part of Ahero et al. in 1959, the five mood system is to be found in all Latvian grammars and textbooks, and also will be preserved in this study (see also Lokmane & Kalnača 2014).

The most ancient mood distinction, which has been used since Aristotle, is based on the semantic opposition of indicative/non-indicative or realis/irrealis, which indicates the contents of the utterance as corresponding or not corresponding to real actions (Plungian 2000, 312; Palmer 2001, 1–7; Plungian 2011, 427–428). Thus, Latvian allows us to distinguish between indicative mood as an expression of real action, versus the so-called non-indicative moods (oblique, debitive, imperative mood) which express irrealis actions or actions which have not occurred:

The marked member of this opposition is the irreality modality, as its criterial feature is connected with the author’s attitude towards reality, which has been grammaticalised in various ways (Paulauskienė 1994, 310; Plungian 2011, 435). The existence of this opposition has been objectively supported by the distinction of grammatical forms. The indicative mood usually does not possess any specific grammatical formants, these are usually simple or complex tense forms of the verb, while the other moods have specific formatives (see, for example, Paegle 2003, 113–114):

Mood is usually constructed by combining specific tense and gender forms. Much as in the tense category, some of the mood forms have both simple synthetic indefinite tense or analytic perfect tense forms (indicative, oblique, conditional mood). The debitive mood stands out from all the other non-indicative moods, as it has only an analytic form.

Expressing tense is not the primary function of the oblique, conditional, and debitive moods, therefore the non-indicative moods as well as the oblique and conditional submoods of the debitive mood do not possess the typical Latvian indicative mood symmetry formed by the three indefinite and three perfect tenses (present indefinite, past indefinite, future indefinite, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect). In addition, the imperative mood does not have any tense forms at all (see also Section 2.2).

Regardless of the existence or non-existence of tense forms, the non-indicative moods usually express a relative time meaning, as their forms adjust by synchronising, preceeding, or following the contextual tense forms of the indicative mood, for example:

Although all the forms of mood in the clause are used as predicates and they carry the feature of finiteness, the category of person does not relate to the mood in the same way for all types of mood. Only the indicative and imperative moods have true finite forms with endings indicating the category of person (see Tables 2.3–2.4).

The oblique, conditional, and debitive mood forms are non-finite or impersonal according to their source form (participles, infinitives, etc.) and the grammatical formant. They do not have the morphological paradigm of person. Therefore the oblique, conditional, and debitive mood forms are identical in all persons in the singular and plural (Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 254). However, in actual usage the meaning of person in these moods is expressed syntactically by a personal pronoun or noun, or a noun functioning as the subject of the clause (see Table 4.1):

Table 4.1: The paradigm of personal and number forms of the Latvian oblique, conditional, and debitive (indefinite forms, active voice) for lasīt ‘to read’ (adapted from Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 243–252)

Oblique mood

Singular

Plural

1st person

es lasot ‘they say, I read’

mēs lasot ‘they say, we read’

2nd person

tu lasot ‘they say, you read’

jūs lasot ‘they say, you read’

3rd person

viņš,-a lasot ‘they say, (s)he reads’

viņi,-as lasot ‘they say, they read’

Conditional mood

1st person

es lasītu ‘I would read’

mēs lasītu ‘we would read’

2nd person

tu lasītu ‘you would read’

jūs lasītu ‘you would read’

3rd person

viņš,-a lasītu ‘(s)he would read’

viņi,-as lasītu ‘they would read’

Debitive mood

1st person

man ir jālasa ‘I must read’

mums ir jālasa ‘we must read’

2nd person

tev ir jālasa ‘you must read’

jums ir jālasa ‘you must read’

3rd person

viņam,-ai ir jālasa ‘(s)he must read’

viņiem,-ām ir jālasa ‘they must read’

The mood category of the verb is morphologically syntactic from the point of view of meaning as well as use, because the semantics of the mood are expressed contextually.

From the point of view of contextual polyfunctionality the non-indicative mood use is limited. These moods express both their primary meaning as well as the so-called oblique mood. Namely, if the whole text or its part is in the conditional, oblique, debitive, or imperative mood, then such a text with the analogy of the oblique mood tense forms (using the same tense throughout the text) can be called the reported mood. The oblique and conditional moods can have other uses apart from their primary meaning in direct or reported speech or politeness formulas. Polyfunctionality is not characteristic, however, of debitive mood and imperative mood, because of its specific semantics, except in the oblique mood.

4.2 Indicative Mood

The indicative mood as the indicator of a real action is in semantic and grammatical opposition to other moods, which express an irrealis action and which has specific grammatical formants. Since the indicative mood does not have specific grammatical formants (Paegle 2003, 114), the grammatical meaning of the the tense in the indicative mood expresses the real action in the verb forms syncretically. Thus the indicative mood can be used in the function of non-indicative moods, expressing different modalities of meaning.

The indicative mood tense forms are characterised by very rich polyfunctionality, which is implemented in two types of modalities (Kalnača 2011a, 30–31):

1. The use of tense forms in the meaning of modality, for example the use of future indefinite and future perfect instead of present indefinite and present perfect, to reduce the directness of the utterence or express the doubts of the author:

In this kind of tense use in the indicative mood, the meaning of the tense is more important, while the modality is supplementary. Both examples of indicative mood tense form polyfunctionality have a common feature: although they are derived from the tense forms, they have kept their link with the time of utterance. The future indefinite form būs contains the meaning of present, which is simultaneous with the time of utterance; just like the present perfect form būsi izsalkusi as it is the present assessment of the results of previously carried out action.

2. The polyfunctionality of the indicative mood tense forms in the non-indicative mood function.

The indicative mood as the unmarked member of the real/unreal action opposition, can take up the functions of the marked members (the other moods), therefore there is a variety of the indicative mood tense form use cases in the meaning of the oblique, conditional, and imperative moods. The opposite process – the use of non-indicative mood in the function of the indicative mood – is not observed in Latvian and is hindered by the grammatical formants which are typical of these moods as well as the absence of personal endings in the conditional and imperative moods. The non-indicative moods do not alternate among themselves, as they all are the marked members of mood oppositions.

It is possible to observe the following types of polyfunctionality for the indicative mood:

1. the indicative mood in the function of the conditional mood – usually in composite sentences or in rich context. The principle clause or the contents of the previous context point to an expression of a wish, a planned action, or an assessment of a phenomenon, for example:

A categorical prohibition to do something can be expressed in a simple sentence:

The indicative mood future indefinite can be used in polite requests:

2. the indicative mood in the function of the oblique mood – usually in a composite sentence or rich context. The principle clause or the previous context contains a verb with a meaning of speaking or retelling a text: verbum dicendi (teikt ‘to say’, sacīt ‘to tell’, baumot ‘to rumour’, and others) followed by the indicative mood in the meaning of the oblique mood, for example:

3. the indicative mood in the function of the imperative mood:

a. the future indefinite 2nd person forms in particularly official situations, but they can be also used in conversational style in the function of the imperative mood in the 2nd person plural form:

b. The present indefinite 1st person plural form in the imperative function 1st person plural in conversational style:

4.3 Oblique Mood

The oblique mood is used when retelling what another person has told without the conviction of its credibility, that is, without taking the responsibility of the reality of the action mentioned (Mathiassen 1997, 131–132; Kalnača 2013b, 495), for example:

The oblique mood is also often used when transforming direct speech in a subordinate clause without quotation marks and depicting the real action without any doubt about the truthfulness of the contents (mostly in mass media texts):

The oblique mood can be also be used to express ironic or negative assessment of some event, action, or phenomenon (usually in spoken language):

Although the verbum dicendi in the principle clause or in the previous sentence is considered a criterial feature of the oblique mood when expressing doubt about the contents of the text (see examples (4.13), (4.14)), the oblique mood can also be used without the verbum dicendi in context, for example:

In a variety of recollections and relations of more ancient events in fairy tales and legends, the use of oblique mood is not always introduced by a verbum dicendi; the oblique meaning and simultaneous reference to a certain doubt about the credibility of that which is said can be deduced from the context (see example (4.20)).

The Latvian verb in the oblique mood has two indefinite and two perfect tense forms: present indefinite, future indefinite, present perfect, and future perfect (Ahero et al. 1959, 624; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 245; Nītiņa 2001, 78–79; Paegle 2003, 115). The indefinite tense forms are synthetic, the perfect forms are analytic, which constitutes the formal opposition of the indefinite versus perfect tense form construction in the oblique mood.

Referring to the contextual indicative tense forms in the oblique mood, the present indefinite expresses simultaneity, the future indefinite – sequentiality, the present perfect – an assessment of the results of the previous action, which had taken place simultaneously with the main clause action, the future perfect – an assessment of the result of an action which had taken place before another future oriented action.

The oblique mood present perfect form is often used with the auxiliary verb zero form. The auxiliary verb esot is omitted especially in longer text genres in conversational style, fiction, as well as in Latvian fairy tales and legends. In these cases it is the context that is signaling the reported speech (Ahero et al. 1959, 625; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 246; Nītiņa 2001, 79; Paegle 2003, 116), for example:

Holvoet (2001, 117; 2007, 82–83) and Andronov (2002, 362) consider the oblique mood forms used without the auxiliary verb esot as the oblique mood past indefinite forms, thus proposing an analysis different from oblique mood tense paradigm traditional to Latvian linguistics; see, for example, the six tense form oblique mood paradigm:

It should be noted, however, that the inclusion of the past indefinite and past perfect tense forms into the tense paradigm is artificial as it is not supported by the reality observed within Latvian. The oblique mood forms containing the participle -is, -usi have a typical perfect meaning, as they always point to the present assessment of the consequences of a reported action that has taken place earlier. In the text that is unfolding as a retelling of previous events, the present perfect forms with the auxiliary verb esot and its zero form are semantically the same; see in the example the coordinated predicates – one with the auxiliary esot, the other without it:

The meaning of the result is contained in both forms, esot dzirdējis ‘have heard’ and dziedājuši ‘sung’, therefore they can be considered as belonging to the same type, i.e., the oblique mood present perfect forms (esot dzirdējis ‘have heard’, [esot] dziedājuši ‘[have] sung’).

In a similar manner, the forms bijis gājis ‘had gone’ vai bijis devis ‘had given’ can be considered to be the present perfect esot zero form of the oblique mood, but not the past perfect forms, as they are seldom used in Latvian. Past perfect forms are used mostly in older fiction or folklore texts, but not in modern mass media, fiction, or spoken language; the example found in www.korpuss.lv is also clearly a fragment of a Latvian fairy-tale or legend:

If the oblique mood present perfect tense forms express negation, then the conversational style, mass media texts, and also fiction use the contracted form of the auxiliary verb neesot together with the indicative mood past participle verb form:

Ahero et al. (1959, 626) oblique mood description proposes that this mood has a specific imperative submood:

“When retelling the utterances which have been expressed with the help of imperative mood forms, the imperative submood of the oblique mood is formed. The oblique mood imperative submood is constructed on the basis of the particular verb in the present indefinite tense form preceeded by the particle lai ‘let’, for example, lai kaļot ‘let them forge’, lai strādājot ‘let them work’, lai klausoties ‘let them listen’. Krustiņš saka, lai mēs ejot rugaini art ‘Krustiņš tells us to go plow the stubble-field’. Bl[aumanis]. 27.”

Marvans (1967) has criticised this Ahero et al. approach (cf. A. Ozols publication already in 1960, also see Ozols 1967), rightly pointing out the lack of either semantic or grammatical basis for distinguishing some kind of a specific oblique mood imperative submood. In addition, lai in this case has the function of a conjunction and not a particle (Marvans 1967, 130–132, see also Holvoet 2001, 63–81). Nevertheless, the oblique mood imperative submood also has been recorded in two descriptions of Latvian morphology published in 2001: Kalme & Smiltniece (2001, 247) and Nītiņa (2001, 79). However, neither Veidemane’s Latvian language mood development (2002, 449–452) nor Paegle’s (2003, 114–116) descriptions contain the oblique mood imperative submood. It should be noted that Ahero et al. and the sources based on Ahero et al. have not respected the real use of the imperative submood in Latvian. We can see the imperative submood only in an objective clause introduced by the conjunction lai with the syntactic function of a conjunction in a subordinate clause, but no cases where lai functions as a particle. Thus, we cannot have any oblique mood imperative submood outside the subordinate clause. Therefore, there is not enough morphological basis to postulate the existence of the imperative submood within the oblique mood. This has probably caused the omission of this submood in the research of Veidemane, Paegle, and others (see also Kalnača 2011b).

4.4 Conditional Mood

The conditional mood points to a desirable, and in particular circumstances, a possible or impossible action (Kalnača 2013b, 496), for example:

The conditional mood is often used in Latvian in politeness formulas, expressing an indirect request, invitation, reproach, prohibition, and so on, in the form of an affirmative or negative question:

Sentences containing verbs in the conditional mood often start with the particles kaut ‘if’ and lai ‘ibid.’, which enhance the meaning of possibility (Paegle 2003, 117), for example:

The Latvian conditional mood has two tense forms: the synthetic present indefinite and the analytic present perfect (Ahero et al. 1959, 610; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 243; Nītiņa 2001, 78–79; Paegle 2003, 117). The present indefinite of the conditional mood expresses simultaneity or sequence in relation to the indicative mood used in context; the present perfect expresses the assessment of the consequences of the foregoing action.

The present perfect of the conditional mood, just like the present perfect of the oblique mood is sometimes used with the zero form of the auxiliary verb būtu. This occurs mostly in conditional sentences (Ahero et al. 1959, 611), for example:

If the present perfect of the conditional mood expresses a negative action, it is expressed using the contracted form of the auxiliary verb nebūtu and the declinable past participle in the indicative mood:

4.5 Debitive Mood

The debitive mood points to a necessary, mandatorily implementable action (Kalnača 2013b, 497; Lokmane, Kalnača 2014), for example:

The Latvian debitive mood has an analytic form constructed by adding the prefix jā- to the 3rd person present tense verb form, which is used with the auxiliary verb būt ‘be’ in the appropriate 3rd person tense form (Ahero et al. 1959, 615; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 249; Nītiņa 2001, 78–79; Paegle 2003, 118):

The verb būt ‘be’ is an exception with the debitive mood the prefix jā- added to the infinitive form:

The debitive mood tense form system is the same as the indicative mood tense system and is composed of three indefinite and three perfect tense forms (Ahero et al. 1959, 615–617; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 249; Paegle 2003, 118). The perfect tense forms in the debitive mood have two auxiliary verbs, whose interaction expresses the assessment of the result of the action:

In relation to indicative mood forms describing the context, the debitive mood tense forms can express predecession, simultaneity, or sequentiality.

The present indefinite of the debitive mood is often used without the auxiliary verb ir ‘is/are’, that is with the zero form of the auxiliary verb (Ahero et al. 1959, 615–616; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 249–250; Nītiņa 2001, 77; Paegle 2003, 118). Since the debitive mood does not have morphologically marked personal forms, the omission of ir is possible in all personal verb forms, for example:

In contrast to the oblique mood and conditional mood where the subject is marked syntactically in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person nominative, the debitive mood subject is in the dative:

Transforming the sentence from the indicative mood into the debitive mood, we need to change not only the mood form of the verb, but also the morphological form of the subject and the object. The subject of the sentence in the debitive mood is in the dative, but the object is usually in the nominative:

The personal pronouns es ‘I’, tu ‘you (SG)’, mēs ‘we’, jūs ‘you (PL)’, and the reflexive pronoun sevi ‘oneself’ in the function of the object are an exception, because they are used in the accusative in the debitive mood:

If the verb in the debitive mood takes on the infinitive, the object in Latvian can be both in the nominative or the accusative (Ahero et al. 1959, 619–620; Paegle 2003, 119):

The Latvian debitive mood differs from the other moods with the existence of specific submoods: the oblique and conditional submoods (Ahero et al. 1959, 617–618; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 249–250; Nītiņa 2001, 77). Both submoods of the debitive mood, just like the debitive mood itself, form a system of analytic forms.

Paegle has taken a different approach from traditional Latvian grammars as she has not singled out any debitive mood submoods. The difference in the forms has been interpreted as the oblique mood and the conditional mood, treating the auxiliary verbs esot, būšot, un būtu as the main modality and thus also mood markers, while considering the jā- form of secondary meaning (Paegle 2003, 116, 117). This study does not use Paegle’s approach, because we consider the full meaning of the predicate with the prefix jā- as the criterial marker of the debitive mood in all cases. The debitive mood form can vary semantically depending on the form of the auxiliary verb būt – esot, būšot point to a reported/oblique need, būtu points to a desirable and possible need or necessity.

4.5.1 Debitive Mood Oblique Submood

The debitive mood oblique submood expresses the meaning of both the debitive mood and the oblique mood and points to another person’s reported need to accomplish some action (Skujiņa et al. 2007, 416-417), for example:

The debitive mood oblique submood forms are constructed by adding the auxiliary verb in the oblique mood to the debitive mood form of the verb, for example: esot jāaug ‘should grow’, būšot jālasa ‘should read’, in addition the tense forms are those of the oblique mood (present indefinite, future indefinite, present perfect, future perfect).

4.5.2 Debitive Mood Conditional Submood

The debitive mood conditional submood expresses both the debitive and the conditional mood meaning and points to a possible and desirable action, which should certainly take place (Skujiņa et al. 2007, 417), for example:

The debitive mood oblique submood forms are constructed by adding the auxiliary verb in the conditional mood to the debitive mood verb form, for example, būtu jāaug, būtu jālasa ‘should have to grow, should have to read’. The debitive mood oblique submood tense system agrees with the oblique mood tense system (present indefinite, present perfect).

4.6 Imperative Mood

The imperative mood expresses the will of the author of the text – encouragement, order, request, or prohibition – to accomplish some action (see Matthews 1997, 170; Skujiņa et al. 2007, 292), for example:

The Latvian imperative mood is syncretic with the indicative mood present and future forms, with the exception of the plural 2nd person form, which is developed by adding the endings -iet, -ieties to the indicative mood present indefinite 2nd person stem (Paegle 2003, 120; Skujiņa et al. 2007, 292). The particle lai is often used next to the imperative mood 3rd person verb, for example:

Since the majority of the imperative mood forms correspond to the indicative mood forms, then the criterial feature for the imperative mood in spoken text is the intonation as well as the stress in the speech flow. The verb in the imperative mood is usually not preceeded by the pronoun tu ‘you (SG)’, jūs ‘you (PL)’, mēs ‘we’ (Ahero et al. 1959, 606; Nītiņa 2001, 75), for example:

The 2nd person personal pronoun can be used, however, only in extremely emotional exclamations, expressing the anger of the author of the text or the particularly negative assessment or contempt of the addressee, for example:

In contrast to other Latvian moods, the imperative mood does not have any tense forms (Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 240); the paradigm includes only personal forms, except the 1st person singular (see Table 2.4, Section 2.3). With regard to tense forms of the indicative mood describing the context, the imperative mood forms express sequentiality, that is, an action, which has to take place after the moment of utterance.

The imperative mood paradigm with the 3rd person and the plural 1st person imperative forms described in Ahero et al. (1959, 605) was questioned already in 1960 by Ozols (1967, 580) who pointed out that such paradigm did not observe the form and meaning of the system (see also Marvans 1967, 130–132). Indicative mood forms obtain encouragement modality in a particular context in syntactic use. The forms themselves, however, do not possess this meaning. Similar views about the imperative mood 3rd person form and the particle lai were articulated also by Holvoet (2001, 63–81; 2007, 219–232). Nevertheless, the paradigm described above has been preserved in all Latvian grammars since the publication of Ahero et al. (for example, Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 240–241; Nītiņa 2001, 75–76; Paegle 2003, 120–121).

5 Modality and Evidentiality

5.1 Introductory Remarks

Modality is a semantic category, which expresses the attitude of the author of the text, as well as their assessment of the contents of the utterance or the course of action (Matthews 1997, 228; Palmer 2001, 1).

Depending on the text author’s attitude to the contents of the utterance and the course of action, we can distinguish two subtypes of modality (Palmer 2001, 4–7):

1. deontic modality;

2. epistemic modality.

Evidentiality is a particular semantic category, which unites the language means that contain a reference to the source of information and the assessment of the contents of the utterance (Wiemer 2007; Wiemer 2010, 198; see also Holvoet 2001, 111).

In Latvian, the mood of the verb can express both deontic and epistemic modality as well as an evidential meaning.

It must be noted that the combination of several modal meanings, as is done in Latvian, is not an exception; it is widely attested in the languages of the world (see Kalnača 2011, 2012). For instance, van der Auwera et al. (2005, 252–258) describe the so-called combination of situational and epistemic modalities to express the meaning of necessity and possibility where the situational modality is non-epistemic, i.e., deontic and dynamic modality. In the same spirit, Bybee and Fleischman (1995, 5–6) claim that one and the same linguistic form can express both epistemic and deontic modalities (see also Nuyts 2005, 16–17).

5.2 Deontic Modality

Deontic modality points to the text author’s attitude towards the proceedings of the situation, in the form of an order, prohibition, or suggestion (Palmer 2001, 9–10). Deontic modality in Latvian is mostly connected with the imperative mood, which paradigmatically expresses an assessment of the action proceedings, aimed at influencing the addressee of the text to achieve the purpose of the author of the text in the particular action, for example:

Traditionally, deontic modality is related to the imperative mood in cases where the speaker wants to influence the addressee using a certain degree of power (Palmer 2001, 80). However, the imperative mood is not the only Latvian form encoding the meaning of root modality. In specific contexts or communicative situations root modal reading can be expressed by other moods, modal verbs, and other expressive means (for more on these modal meanings and the means of conveying such meanings see Bybee, Fleischmann 1995, 5; Nuyts 2005, 14–15; Nuyts, Byloo, Diepeveen 2005, 11–12; De Haan 2006, 32–41).

Thus next to the imperative mood, in particular circumstances in Latvian, deontic modality can also be expressed using the debitive mood, for example:

Comparing the deontic modality expressed by the debitive and imperative moods, the difference in meaning is marked in that the imperative always denotes some request or an order said directly to the addressee. The debitive, on the other hand, denotes an action to which the speaker or somebody else is committed, as Portner argues, something we have to do because it is an obligation (Portner 2007, 380–381, see also Lokmane & Kalnača 2014).

Deontic modality in a particular contextual use can be observed also in the indicative mood, if it is used in the function of the imperative mood:

1. indicative mood present indefinite, expressing an invitation:

2. indicative mood future indefinite

a) expressing a polite request, for example:

b) expressing a categorical demand; the sentence usually contains the ethical dative – the personal pronoun in the dative marking the author of the text, for example:

5.3 Epistemic Modality

The epistemic modality points out the text author’s attitude towards the contents of the utterance (judgement, assertion), expressing a need, possibility, or probability (Palmer 2001, 8–9).

In Latvian, epistemic modality is usually connected with the conditional mood, as the semantics of the mood already involve a reference to a possible future oriented action, for example:

In Latvian, epistemic modality can be expressed also by the indicative, oblique, or debitive moods, for example:

The epistemic modality is not typical of the debitive mood, but it possible usually with the stative verbs būt ‘to be’, sēdēt ‘to sit’, gulēt ‘to sleep’, stāvēt ‘to stand’ (in more detail see Lokmane & Kalnača 2014).

5.4 Evidentiality

Evidentiality is a semantic category, which unites the means of language that include a reference to the source of information as well as an assessment of the contents of the utterance (Wiemer 2007; Wiemer 2010, 198; see also Holvoet 2001, 111).

Latvian linguistics also has recorded another popular opinion in which evidentiality is part of the modality (Skujiņa et al. 2007, 112; see also Palmer 2001, 8; Usonienė 2004).

Regardless of whether evidentiality is considered to be a subtype of modality or a specific semantic category, the means of its expression – either grammatical or non-grammatical (i.e., lexical) – can be found in every language (Usonienė 2004; Kozinceva 2007, 13–36; Chojnicka 2009, 41, see also Kalnača 2007, 2010). In addition, Plungian (2000, 325) rejects the existence of evidential modality as such, because the semantics of quotations cannot be considered a modality (see also Matthews 1997, 120).

Latvian (alongside Lithuanian, Estonian, Livonian, and other languages) is one of relatively few world languages, which has developed a particular mood – the oblique mood – for the expression of evidentiality (Plungian 2001; Aikhenvald 2004; Krautmane 2006). Therefore, when the text author is not the author of the information, Latvian mostly uses the oblique mood (Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 245; Holvoet 2001, 112; Paegle 2003, 114–115). The fact that the information has been obtained from a different source, is usually marked by verbum dicendi in the first part of the composite sentence.

As was mentioned before, evidentiality is marked by the oblique mood in Latvian (Holvoet 2007, 80–105), for example:

Evidentiality, that is a reported need, is also expressed by the debitive mood oblique submood, which is often used in spoken language, for example:

Evidential semantics are also typical of the indicative mood in the function of the oblique mood. This usually occurs in a composite sentence with a verbum dicendi in one of its clauses, for example:

5.5 Combining Evidentiality and Modality

As can be seen from the description of the semantics of modality in Latvian, some moods are polyfunctional and, depending on the context, can express a deontic, epistemic, or evidential meaning. The indicative mood as the unmarked element of the opposition of different moods, is the most polyfunctional. The oblique and debitive moods also can be polyfunctional.

The oblique mood, depending on the particular use, can express evidential as well as epistemic semantics. The evidential and epistemic meanings used in the oblique mood can also combine in cases where the author wishes to distance themselves from the contents of the text or to express their doubts about those contents, for example, in the title of an online source:

The oblique mood points out that the text author has heard this utterance from others but does not agree with it; the interrogative form is expressing the same attitude. Thus one utterance can syncretically express both evidential as well as epistemic semantics.

From the point of view of the typology of the modality, the classification of the debitive mood causes problems. In contrast to other moods, the debitive mood can express both deontic and epistemic modality depending on the particular use (see more in Holvoet 2007, 173–195). Nevertheless, one has to admit that most cases of debitive mood use are connected with deontic modality, while epistemic modality is possible mostly in the sentences containing stative verbs (see also Lokmane & Kalnača 2014).

The semantics of the submoods of the debitive mood are not homogeneous. For example, the oblique submood of the debitive mood can syncretically express at least two types of modal meaning:

1. evidentiality + epistemic modality, if the text author reports a well-grounded assessment of some fact expressed in the debitive mood (epistemic judgement):

2. evidentiality + deontic modality in the case of a reported need, see example (5.9).

The conditional submood of the debitive mood expresses a weakened deontic modality, as the auxiliary verb used by the text author points to the author’s wish to distance themselves from the need for the action or is not sure about the the need itself, for example:

6 Voice

6.1 Introductory Remarks

Voice is a lexico-grammatical verb category, which expresses the relationship between the subject of the action, the action itself, and the object of the action. Depending on the fact whether the subject of the sentence in the particular communication process is important or unimportant to the author of the text, the sentence stating a proposition regarding some phenomenon is either in the active or passive voice. (Givón 1985, 203–206; Klaiman 1991, 9; Katamba 1993, 267):

The verb paradigm for voice in descriptions of Latvian has been interpreted differently during different time periods. The present-day Latvian verb voice category is comprised of two voices: active and passive (Nītiņa 2001; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001; Paegle 2003). Latvian grammars from the 17th–19th centuries also postulated the existence of the middle voice (see more on this Veidemane 2002, 423–424; Soida 2009, 207–213). Likewise, Ahero et al. (1959, 548) also propose the voice category as the semantic and grammatical opposition of three voices: active, passive, and middle voice. However, there is no particular description of the middle voice in the grammar, the transitive verbs are examined as a lexico-grammatical verb group in the context of the voice category (Ahero et al. 1959, 554–561). In later studies of Latvian grammar, the existence of the middle voice has no longer been postulated (for more see Paegle 2003, 124–125). Reflexive verbs are usually interpreted as a verbal lexico-grammatical group in active/passive voice in a transitive/intransitive context. As an exception to the interpretation of the voice paradigm, we can consider Holvoet (2001, 188–189), who, referring to Kemmer (1993), states that the semantic diversity of Latvian reflexive verbs allows us to distinguish three members in the voice category:

This voice category distinction would be based on the following oppositions: active: passive, non-reflexive : reflexive/active : reflexive (Holvoet 2001, 204; see also Kalnača & Lokmane 2012).

This study will follow a two-member approach to the voice paradigm description, that of active and passive, as there is no grammaticalised expression for the middle voice in Latvian. The reflexive verbs will be viewed as a separate lexico-grammatical group.

6.2 Types of Passive in Latvian

The choice of active and passive voice results from a context-defined need of the text author to reduce or not reduce the status of the agent (the semantic subject). Grammatically it is manifested in the change of the form of the verb’s voice and the enhancing of the status of the patient (its semantic object) from the accusative (less often genitive) to the nominative case (Plungian 2000, 195–196). The agent status reduction is implemented either by the absence of the agent or a zero agent (i.e., a zero form of the agent) in the passive voice or by the change of the nominative case form of the agent to one of the indirect cases: genitive, instrumental, etc. (Katamba 1993, 267–268; Kroeger 2004, 54). The use of the passive voice with zero agent in Latvian is the most common and most frequent use, just as in other languages (Shibatani 1988, 3–4; Plungian 2000, 202–203):

Latvian can also have a passive voice agent in genitive, usually in present (past or future) perfect:

The opposition of the voice forms in Latvian as well as in other languages traditionally is based on transitive non-reflexive verbs, which can be used with a direct object in the accusative (less often genitive), as these are the only cases that can fully ensure the opposition of the voice forms and the necessary changes in the syntactic structure for the reduction of the agent status and enhancement of the patient status (Klaiman 1991, 3; Kroeger 2004, 54–58; see also Ahero et al.1959, 552; Paegle 2003, 123–124). This kind of passive voice form can be considered a direct object in passive:

The Latvian passive voice is also possible for verbs used with an indirect object (usually in the dative (6.6a) or with a preposition (6.6b)). This is called the indirect object passive:

Passive voice forms also are developed by using intransitive non-reflexive verbs. Usually, this is done to express a generalisation, a regular or continuous action, or an impersonal fact statement (Paegle 2003, 124). This can be considered an objectless passive:

The passive voice of intransitive non-reflexive verbs differs semantically and syntactically from the transitive verb passive, as it results from a different sentence structure in the active voice. In the sentences with intransitive non-reflexive verbs we cannot talk about an agent and patient relationship, as the sentence structure with these kinds of verbs can contain only the subject (i.e., the agent) of the named action. This subject is typically a living being:

Since the intransitive passive form does not have the subject like transitive verbs do, it is the absence of the object that creates the objectless passive:

As passive voice forms can be built both from transitive and intransitive verbs, this suggests that transitivity is not crucial in the category of voice (Plungian 2000, 195–196; see also Givón 1985, 203; Shibatani 1988, 4; Klaiman 1991, 6–11). This can be confirmed also by Latvian syntactic and semantic variations in the passive voice, where next to a passive with a direct object we also can have an objectless or indirect object passive.

6.3 Voice Forms Construction

Voice form construction in Latvian differs from time, mood, and person form construction as next to the change of morphological verb forms, the change of the syntactic and semantic constructions is equally important for voice opposition.

Passive voice forms in Latvian are always analytic and usually consist of at least two elements: an auxiliary verb and a declinable past passive participle (Ahero et al.1959, 688–690; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 223; Paegle 2003, 123). Just like the perfect tense form of the active voice, the passive voice participle in the direct object passive is marked for number (i.e., singular or plural) and grammatical gender (i.e., feminine or masculine) with the predicate forming the agreement in the syntactic centre of the sentence with its semantic object, i.e, the patient:

Since the passive semantic object, i.e., the patient in Latvian, is usually in the nominative case, the declinable participle in the passive voice has singular or plural forms only in the nominative case. The indirect object and objectless passive do not have a semantic object and therefore no agreement, as the passive-forming participle is usually in the nominative case singular masculine gender form (cf. Holvoet 2001, 159–163), for example:

Passive voice indefinite tense forms in Latvian are constructed using the auxiliary verb tikt ‘to get’ in its finite form with a declinable past passive participle:

The passive voice perfect tense forms are constructed with the help of the auxiliary verb būt ‘to be’ in its finite form with a declinable past passive participle:

In modern Latvian mass media, fiction, and other texts we can also find the combination of the two auxiliary verbs :

1. būt in finite form together with ticis, tikusi, tikuši, tikušas in past active participle form

2. būt in finite form together with bijis, bijusi, bijuši, bijušas in past active participle form

Latvian grammars usually do not depict these kinds of passive voice perfect tense variations (see, e.g., Ahero et al. 1959, 688–690; Kalme & Smiltniece 2001, 223; Paegle 2003, 123), except for the Ahero et al. (1959, 552–553) comment that passive simple tense forms constructed with tikt ‘to get’ possess a characteristic process meaning, while the perfect tense forms constructed with būt ‘to be’ possess a state and simultaneous resultativeness meaning (see also Nītiņa 2001, 81). Examples from Latvian show that the use of the passive voice perfect tense form with the auxiliary verbs ticis, tikusi, tikuši, tikušas and bijis, bijusi, bijuši, bijušas resembles the dynamic and stative passive distinction present in many other languages (Klein 1994; Kiparsky 2002 and 2012):

Table 6.1: The dynamic vs. stative passive in Latvian (adapted from Holvoet 2001, 164)

Dynamic perfect

Stative perfect

Present perfect

durvis ir tikušas slēgtas ‘the door got closed’

durvis ir bijušas slēgtas ‘the door has been closed’

Past perfect

durvis bija tikušas slēgtas ‘the door had gotten closed’

durvis bija bijušas slēgtas ‘the door had been closed’

Future perfect

durvis būs tikušas slēgtas ‘the door will have gotten closed’

durvis būs bijušas slēgtas ‘the door will have been closed’

This passive voice problem in Latvian was actualised by Holvoet (2001, 164) who pointed out that depending on the use of the auxiliary verb, we can distinguish dynamic and stative passive paradigms (see also Plungian 2011, 387–388). It should be noted that this kind of distinction in active and passive voice in the perfect tense form and meaning has started developing but has not yet fully grammaticalised, as it has been actualised only in the particular cases when it is important to the text author, but without its consistent implementation in the verb form system. Inconsistency in the use of these forms and optionality of the distinction in meaning has resulted in a lack of descriptions of the distinction between stative and dynamic perfect in Latvian grammars in either active or passive voice. This is despite the fact that its examples are evident in actual language use.

The passive voice forms are possible not only in the indicative mood, but also in the oblique, conditional, debitive, and imperative moods. The particular mood form of tikt is placed next to the past participle for the indefinite tense form and būt for the perfect tense form (it is possible to combine both auxiliary words: būt together with tikt or būt), for example:

The debitive mood passive voice participle takes the dative case, as it agrees with its semantic object (i.e., patient) in gender, number, and case:

Table 6.2 presents the 1st person singular passive form of saukt ‘to call’ and the 2nd and 3rd person singular imperative forms of sveicināt ‘to greet’, slavēt ‘to praise’.

6.4 Voice and the Lexico-Grammatical Verb Groups

With regard to the voice category of the verb we need to examine two lexicogrammatical verb groups, which are directly connected with the construction of the voice forms: transitive and intransitive verbs/causative verbs. Reflexive verbs have also been connected with the expression of the middle voice in Latvian (see more on these verbs in Section 7.2). All three abovementioned lexico-grammatical groups possess a particular grammatical meaning of causativeness, which indicates the agent’s role in making someone do something in the lexeme (Matthews 1997, 49; Paegle 2003, 91). Causative verbs in Latvian are always transitive, non-reflexive, and express a targeted action:

Voice and the Lexico-Grammatical Verb Groups    149

Table 6.2: The passive voice tense and mood paradigm (adapted from Kalnača 2013a, 89)

Mood

Tense form

Indicative mood

Present Indefinite
Past Indefinite
Future Indefinite
Present Perfect
Past Perfect

Future Perfect

tieku saukts, -a ‘I am called’
tiku saukts, -a ‘I was called’
tikšu saukts, -a ‘I will be called’
esmu (ticis, -usi) saukts, -a ‘I have been called’
biju (ticis, -usi) saukts, -a ‘I had been called’
būšu (ticis, -usi) saukts, -a ‘I will have been called’

Oblique mood

Present Indefinite
Future Indefinite
Present Perfect
Future Perfect

tiekot saukts, -a ‘as if …were called’
tikšot saukts, -a ‘as if …would be called’
esot (ticis, -usi) saukts, -a ‘as if … had been called’
būšot (ticis, -usi) saukts, -a
‘as if… would have been called’

Conditional mood

Present Indefinite
Present Perfect

tiktu saukts, -a ‘would be called’
būtu (ticis, -usi) saukts, -a ‘would have been called’

Debitive mood

Present Indefinite
Past Indefinite
Future Indefinite
Present Perfect
Past Perfect
Future Perfect

ir jātiek sauktam, -ai ‘has to be called’
bija jātiek sauktam, -ai ‘had to be called’
būs jātiek sauktam, -ai ‘will have to be called’
ir jābūt (tikušam, -ušai) sauktam, -ai ‘has had to be called’
bija jābūt (tikušam, -ušai) sauktam, -ai ‘had had to be called’
būs jābūt (tikušam, -ušai) sauktam, -ai ‘will have had to be called

Imperative mood

Sg. 2nd pers.
Sg. 3rd pers.
esi sveicināts, -a! ‘be greeted!’
lai slavēts, -a! ‘may [she/he/it] be praised!’

Reflexive verbs can express either autocausative or decausative actions. The action is autocausative if the subject, that is the agent (both living and inanimate), makes one do something (Geniušienė 1987, 86; Siewierska 1988, 267):

The action is decausative if there is no subject and the agent becomes the experiencer in the dative or is dismissed altogether as unimportant (Plungian 2000, 212–213). Decausative action has no purpose, it happens by accident, by itself:

Decausative action is bordering on passive action (Siewierska 1988; Plungian 2000, 214).

With the help of the reflexive endings, causative verbs can be further derived as:

1. autocausative reflexive verbs

2. decausative reflexive verbs

Thus causative verbs (i.e., transitive reflexive and non-reflexive verbs) form a reciprocal grammatical and semantic opposition.

6.4.1 Intransitive/Transitive Verbs

Transitivity is one of the most important features of verbs in the voice form construction. Active/passive voice opposition is usually implemented via the opposition of the transitive non-reflexive verb voice forms. Transitivity expresses the capability of the verb to take on an accusative object (less often a genitive object) without a preposition. Depending on this capability, all verbs can be divided into transitive and intransitive verbs. Transitivity and intransitivity depend on the lexical meaning of the verb and are expressed by the syntactic relations in a word-group or sentence in which transitive verbs connect with an accusative object (or less frequently a genitive object) but the intransitive remains unconnected, for example:

Transitive verbs are usually non-reflexive, although Latvian does have some transitive reflexive verbs (Ahero et al. 1959, 557; Kalnača 2006). These are so called indirect reflexive verbs (see Chapter 7):

1. verbs with a concrete meaning: iegādāties apģērbu ‘to buy clothes’, uzlikties cepuri ‘to wear a hat’, etc.

2. verbs with an abstract meaning whose semantics are connected with memory, thinking, or perception: klausīties ‘to listen’, atcerēties ‘to remember’, mācīties ‘to study’, etc.

Latvian transitive reflexive verbs do not have passive voice forms, therefore they are not involved in the active/passive voice opposition.

The transitive/intransitive category is closely connected with the categories of animateness and person. Every transitive verb usually expresses a targeted action carried out by a living being or describes the feelings or perceptions of a living being (personification being an exception). If the action is carried out by a person or an animal, then it is realised in all three persons:

These verbs can be in the passive voice in the absence of a semantic subject (i.e., in the absence of an agent), as the animated actor is already included in the lexical meaning of the verb,even if formally it has not been mentioned:

An action which is typically carried out by animals is usually expressed in the 3rd person:

If an action usually carried out by animals is attributed to people, it gains stylistic expressiveness and belongs to a conversational style or even slang:

These verbs can also have passive voice forms:

Intransitive verbs, depending on animacy and the personal form can be divided into two groups:

1. an action carried out by a living being, which expresses a state, a change of state, or movement in space, has all the three persons:

2. an action carried out by an inanimate object or an action without an agent which is self-animated can be considered neither active nor passive; this includes processes involving plants, physical processes experienced by a person, natural phenomena; these kinds of verbs usually only appear in the 3rd person unless used in personification:

Passive voice forms, as mentioned before, are possible only for three-person intransitive verbs which express an action carried out by animate beings:

Intransitive single-person verbs, however, are generally not used in passive voice forms.

6.4.2 Causatives

Causatives express the cause of an action or its purpose and express a meaning of making somebody do something, for example:

As remarked by Plungian (2011, 279–281), causatives possess the capability of taking on not only the role of an agent but also an addititonal semantic role, that of a beneficiary. However, although the Latvian causative expresses a meaning of making someone do something, the sentence structure does not contain a dative beneficiary; it can be deduced only from the semantics of the verb while its formal expression is in the form of a patient. The patient is expressed in the sentence structure as a direct accusative object linked to a causative verb:

Latvian causative verbs are usually formed with the help of primary and secondary non-reflexive verb derivatives with the suffix -inā-, although the suffixes -ē- and -ī- are also possible (Soida 2009, 199–202):

Judging by the meaning it is not easy to separate the causative from the iterative verbs (see Section 3.2), as both semantic groups are constructed using the same suffixes. This causes an overlap in the meaning of causative and iterative verbs. Thus, verbs with the suffix -inā- can express both causative and iterative action, for example, ēdināt, drebināt, dzirdīt (see also Ahero et al. 1959, 339). Nevertheless, there are also verbs constructed with the suffix -inā- whose causative meaning has weakened and iterative meaning is dominating, for example:

All causative verbs are transitive and non-reflexive regardless of the transitivity of their source verb (for example, drebēt, raudāt – intransitive verbs, ēst, šūt – transitive verbs). Causative verbs usually express a targeted action carried out by a living being (or a personified inanimate agent). This defines the capability of these verbs to construct their passive voice forms and to conform to the active/passive voice opposition. Thus, the non-causative/causative verb opposition is not only derivative but also morphological and syntactic and closely connected with the voice form construction.

7 Reflexive Verbs

7.1 Introductory Remarks

Reflexive verbs are a lexico-grammatical group, united by formal characteristics: reflexivity is marked in Latvian with a particular postpositive ending -s (for more see Section 7.1).

Originally, reflexive verbs in the Baltic languages had a middle voice (Ahero et al. 1959, 554; Endzelīns 1981, 515) grammatically pointing to an action, which reverts back to the agent that is also the object (i.e., the patient or the experiencer of the action) (Haspelmath 2002, 213):

The middle voice object function is taken on by a reflexive pronoun in the accusative (or dative), which in Latvian has postpositively merged with the finite or non-finite form of every verb (Endzelīns 1982, 585–586). Reflexive verbs are usually considered to be intransitive, as their semantics and their historical development have evolved into a form that does not take an accusative object. The expression of the opposition of the active/middle voice in Latvian historically demanded a non-reflexive/reflexive transitive verb system where both verbs formed a pair with the same lexical meaning and with the grammatical feature of the reflexive verb pointing out that the object of the action is an agent:

The subject and object coreference expression system in Latvian functions only partially and covers just a relatively small number of verbs, which express everyday actions (Veidemane 1972):

In some of the non-reflexive/reflexive verb pairs it is the non-reflexive verb that is used more frequently, for example:

Both verbs have the same meaning, but the reflexive verb form is mostly used in the conversational style, while the non-reflexive verb form is preferred in Standard Latvian (for more see Kalnača 2009). There is no difference in the meaning of these verb pairs apart from the stylistic meaning nuance of the conversational style, for example:

Both non-reflexive and reflexive lexemes function as verbs in the active voice, nevertheless, the members of the pairs have developed stylistic differences (Kalnača 2009, 76–77).

There are also reflexive verbs in Latvian whose non-reflexive counterpart is not used at all:

Thus, we can see that Latvian demonstrates a tendency to avoid reflexive and non-reflexive verb synonymy with the non-reflexive verb usually replacing the reflexive verb. The contrary case is less frequent.

Some verb pairs have lost their lexical connection, for example, (examples from Guļevska et al. 1987):

The non-reflexive verb in these cases is usually the unmarked word, but the reflexive verb, as can be seen in the examples (7.7b-c) is normally a conversational style word. Thus, for example, the reflexive verbs prasīties ‘to ask for’ and bremzēties ‘to fall’ make the text more conversational:

This signifies that the reflexive and non-reflexive verb pairs have divided into separate lexemes. This has mostly happened because of the metonymy based change of meaning of the former middle voice (Gerritsen 1990; Kalnača 2006, 94–95).

There is also a group of reflexive verbs, which describe sudden, unexpected (7.9a), too active (7.9b), or too passive (7.9c) actions and which have developed a specific word formation type in relation to their non-reflexive counterparts:

Taking into account these semantic changes observed among reflexive verbs, Latvian linguists have developed a common view that reflexive and non-reflexive verbs form a derivational pair constructed with the help of a reflexive ending or through the combination of a suffix with a reflexive ending (Soida 2009, 216–219; Kalnača & Lokmane 2012).

7.2 Reflexive Markers in Latvian

Traditionally, it is considered that Latvian markers of reflexivity are the reflexive endings of verbs (also participles and nouns) and in dialects prefix elements that stand between a prefix and verb root. The present study is based on conclusions drawn in typological linguistics and is an attempt to explain in detail the system of reflexivity markers by focusing not only on morphemic elements but also on the syntactic and semantic relations of verbs with the pronouns sevi ‘oneself’, sev ‘for oneself’, and pats ‘oneself’.

This concept for describing reflexivity markers originated from the analysis of the formal and semantic characteristics and grammatical functions of reflexive verbs (see Kalnača 2004; 2006; 2009; 2011). A concise overview of this system can also be found in Kalnača & Lokmane (2012, 232–235); however, due to the size limits for this text a more detailed analysis was not included. For this reason the present study offers a more detailed description of reflexivity markers from the angle of their typology, while also taking into account conclusions from theories of grammaticalisation.

The analysis in this section is primarily focused on the various reflexivity markers within the verb system: the reflexive marker -s (refraining from the specific grammatical forms that are generally connected with this marker) and the pronouns sevi ‘oneself’ and pats ‘oneself’. There are also reflexive nouns and participles in Latvian, but from the perspective of their functions they belong to the semantics of reflexivity as well as to the periphery of grammar and therefore are not discussed in the context of reflexive markers (see in detail Kalnača & Lokmane 2010, also Section 1.4 about reflexive nouns).

Traditionally, the reflexive affix that initially indicated that an activity refers back to its agent is regarded as the reflexivity marker in Latvian. In Standard Latvian, the reflexivity marker is typically the ending, for example:

In some dialects reflexivity can also be expressed by an element that stands between the prefix and the root of a verb for example in the Curonian subdialects of the Middle Dialect (Ozola 2004, 98–99; see also Skujiņa et al. 2007, 52):

The marker -s functions as an agglutinative morpheme that is not typical of Latvian (Endzelīns 1982, 585–586; Veidemane 1972, 440; Kalnača 2004, 52).

Reflexivity has been connected with the system of verbs: the expression of transitive action in which an agent and patient coincide (i.e., the subject and object of the action are the same and thus they are coreferents) and this action is concentrated within the sphere of the subject (Kemmer 1993; Haspelmath 2002; Knyazyev 2007; see also Veidemane 1972). This is schematically illustrated by Haspelmath (2002, 213) in the following way:

Figure 7.1: The subject and object coreference for non-reflexive and reflexive verbs (adapted from Haspelmath 2002, 213).

This function of reflexivity is considered to be prototypical and has grammaticalised in many languages in various ways: as specific reflexive pronouns or as nouns that name the body, head, soul, skin, etc. and have become reflexivity markers through metonymy (Schladt 2000; König & Siemund & Töpper 2008).

This study deals with the prototypical meaning of reflexive verbs, which is subject and object coreference. This is because all other meanings, including reciprocity (i.e., the meaning of reciprocal action), are grammatically and lexically polysemantic in relation to prototypical reflexive verbs (see Geniušienė 1983; Kemmer 1993; Kalnača & Lokmane 2012 and others). It should also be noted that from a typological perspective there are more reflexivity markers in Latvian than are traditionally described (i.e., traditional descriptions list only the reflexive ending and prefix elements in subdialects). In order to prove this, it is necessary to have a more detailed insight into the history of reflexivity marking.

Haiman (1983), on the basis of language typology, has distinguished two types of reflexivity markers: reduced markers that are morphemes (i.e., affixes) and full markers that are lexical units (in Indo-European languages these are pronouns) standing next to verbs. Thus, for example, comparing Latvian and German reveals that reflexivity in Latvian is expressed with a reduced marker (i.e., an affix), while in German it is expressed with a full marker (i.e., a pronoun).

The presence of two reflexivity marker types in a language is also distinguished if alongside the so-called synthetic reflexive verbs there are also syntactic constructions in which the predicate (transitive verb) takes an object. In the Indo-European languages this is a pronoun in the accusative case (or less frequently in the dative) that shows the coreference of the subject and object (Haiman 1983; see also Kemmer 1993, 25):

This division specifies the degree of grammaticalisation of the reflexivity markers (i.e., reflexive morphemes and reflexive pronouns in the function of direct or, less frequently, indirect object). A similar opinion is expressed by Faltz (1985), who, however, used different terminology: primary and secondary strategy instead of the terms reduced and full markers.

Haiman’s idea has been further developed by Kemmer (1993, 24–28) who proposed the typological classification of languages on the basis of reflexivity markers distinguished not only by their degree of grammaticalisation, but also by their mutual relationship. The terminology has also been changed with the terms light and heavy markers proposed instead of reduced and full markers (Kemmer 1993, 251). The languages that possess either the light or heavy marker type are defined as languages possessing a one type reflexivity marker system, for example, German, English, and French. However, the languages possessing both types of markers are defined as possessing a two type reflexivity marker system, for example, Latin, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Norwegian, and other languages. In Latvian and Lithuanian, there is a system of two reflexivity marker types (see also Geniušienė 1987: 26). In the aforementioned languages, the two reflexivity marker types exist on the basis of mutual etymological relatedness (Kemmer 1993, 25–26; Knjazev 2007, 260; examples by Kemmer 1993, 25 and Enger, Nesset 1999, 31):

1. cognate – usually of the same origin (e.g., a reflexive pronoun and an affix that originated from this pronoun):

2. non-cognate – reflexivity markers that have originated from different lexemes:

Enger & Nesset (1999), on the basis of examples from Norwegian, have enriched Haiman’s and Kemmer’s proposed typological system of reflexivity markers with a third element: the super heavy marker. The super heavy marker is a specific lexeme, generally a pronoun, but can also be a noun that serves as an additional indicator of activity performed by the subject itself, for example in Norwegian (examples from Enger & Nesset 1999):

Depending on the language, the super heavy reflexivity markers can be classified into groups: cognate markers as, for example, in Norwegian, and non-cognate markers as, for example, in Latvian pats sevi ‘oneself’, pats sev ‘to/for oneself’ or in Russian sam sebja ‘oneself’, sam sebe ‘oneself’.

Not all linguists support the existence of such a category of super heavy markers. Elsewhere, linguists have referred to the super heavy reflexivity marker as an emphatic reflexive pronoun or intensifier. This is because in a range of languages the super heavy reflexivity marker functions as a specific emphasiser of the activity within the field of the subject and emphasises the meaning expressed by the reflexive pronoun (König, Siemund & Töpper 2008). This type of intensifier, however, is not indispensable to a sentence because its influence on the content is insignificant. Therefore, the emphatic emphasisers in the subject field must be distinguished from the reflexivity markers on the basis of their functions, even if there are languages in which such a division is hardly possible. This is the case in, for example, Norwegian and English where historically the reflexivity marker is a compound of two pronouns (i.e., the combination of the heavy and super heavy reflexivity marker, as seen in English oneself, myself, yourself, herself, himself).

Examples from Latvian also prove that the emphasiser function of the super heavy reflexivity marker is optional. Moreover, the heavy and super heavy reflexivity markers can stand either to the left or right of the predicate. The super heavy reflexivity marker can also be in agreement with the heavy reflexivity marker in the accusative case:

However, there are languages in which the super heavy marker is indispensible, for example in Norwegian (see also the examples from English: oneself, myself, themselves, etc.). Thus, the abovementioned example Jeg elsker meg selv ‘I love myself’ has been viewed in Norwegian linguistics as an example of prototypical reflexivity in which both reflexive pronouns are indispensible. Reflexive verbs with the postpositive marker -s have been used in Standard Norwegian in impersonal and also passive or quasi-passive functions (examples from Enger & Nesset 1999, 37):

If the Latvian system of reflexivity markers is viewed from a typological perspective, it should be acknowledged that this system goes beyond the light markers of reflexivity (i.e., the reflexive postpositive affix -s). Latvian possesses the heavy, or lexical, markers and also the super heavy, or double lexical, marker type. In addition, each of these marker types displays several variations. Geniušienė (1987, 25–26) has labeled the lexical markers as semantic markers and pointed out that they can be used in the Baltic languages (Latvian sevi ‘oneself’, Lithuanian save ‘ibid.’) as well as in the Slavonic languages (e.g., Russian sebja ‘ibid.’).

Taking into account that reflexivity in Latvian can be expressed in various ways, the following system can be proposed:

1. light markers

a. the postpositive reflexive affix -s

2. heavy markers

a. the combination of the verb and reflexive pronoun in the accusative

3. superheavy markers

a. uncorrelated reflexivity markers

a_1. the combination of the verb, the pronoun sevi ‘self’, and the reflexive pronoun in the accusative

The Latvian reflexivity system composed of three types of markers points to the partial or complete grammaticalisation of two syntactic constructions: the transitive verb attracts either a direct object in the accusative case or an indirect object in the dative case. In both situations subject and object coreference is possible. In Standard Latvian, in examples of light reflexivity, words with the dative (i.e., indirect object coreference) have become less common and non-reflexive verbs that are used instead of these have become more common (see in detail Kalnača 2009):

However, both types of reflexivity constructions are used in the heavy and super heavy reflexivity types.

The various stages of grammaticalisation of reflexive elements and the reasons for these grammaticalisation processes in the languages possessing two or three types of reflexivity markers have traditionally been objects of linguistic discussions. Kemmer (1993, 27–29) points out that in languages having two types of reflexivity markers, grammaticalisation tends to affect those markers more substantially that are related to the action performed by a person (i.e., human being) and these tend to change into light reflexivity markers. For example, the verbs mazgāties ‘to wash oneself’, slaucīties ‘to dry oneself’, celties ‘to get oneself up’, ģērbties ‘to dress oneself’, skūties ‘to shave oneself’, krāsoties ‘to make up one’s face’, ķemmēties ‘to comb oneself’, sukāties ‘to brush oneself’. However, heavy reflexivity is more characteristic for verbs expressing an individual’s visual, psychological, or mental activity, for example:

Haspelmath (2004, 2–3) labels this semantic apposition of verbs as introvert and extrovert opposition. Verbs such as mazgāt ‘to wash’, ģērbt ‘to dress’, aizstāvēt ‘to defend’ are introvert, because they embed the predictable goal of the action. Verbs such as ienīst ‘to hate’, kritizēt ‘to criticise’, redzēt ‘to see’, nogalināt ‘to kill’ are extrovert, because they embed an unpredictable goal. Extrovert verbs attract the heavy reflexivity marker, e.g., ienīst sevi ‘to hate oneself’, kritizēt sevi ‘to criticise oneself’, redzēt sevi ‘to see oneself’, nogalināt sevi ‘to kill oneself’, while introvert verbs attract the light reflexivity marker, e.g., mazgātie-s ‘to wash oneself’, ģērbtie-s ‘to dress oneself’, aizstāvētie-s ‘to defend oneself’. Haspelmath also points to Haiman’s (1983, 807) notion that predictable action has a lighter code (i.e., the light reflexivity marker) than unpredictable action (i.e., the heavy reflexivity marker). However, this opposition of introvert and extrovert verbs and its manifestation in reflexivity markers cannot be considered a universal principle, because, as is explained in Haspelmath’s studies, the data verification in the British National Corpus, Czech National Corpus, and other language corpora has only partially proved this tendency. Certainly, there is an observable tendency that generally (but not always) the reflexivity of introvert verbs is coded with the help of affixes, but encoded lexically in extrovert verbs. Still, there is a noticeable inconsistency in this tendency (Haspelmath, 2004, 4). It might also be possible to postulate the abovementioned opposition of introvert and extrovert verbs in reflexivity also for Latvian. However, alongside the verb opposition tendency there is also a noticeable mitigation of this opposition, for example, the use of extrovert verbs with the light marker (nogalinātie-s ‘to kill oneself’). The mitigation of verb opposition refers also to the transitive reflexive verbs relating to an individual’s reasoning and perception, e.g., mācīties ‘to learn’, atcerēties ‘to remember’, skatīties ‘to watch’, iedomāties ‘to imagine’.

7.3 Conclusions

1. The system of reflexivity markers in Latvian corresponds to the existing universal typology: it is a system of two types with cognate markers (according to Kemmer’s classification). The third reflexivity type, the super heavy marker, is distinguished according to Enger & Neset’s theory. It is not related to the light and the heavy marker types, because the pronoun pats ‘oneself’ is not etymologically connected with -s and sevi ‘oneself’:

2. The research shows that the Latvian system can be interpreted in a more versatile way than is offered by existing universal typology. In part, this can be explained by the fact that in Latvian both accusative and dative reflexive constructions are marked with affixes and also lexically as well as with a diversity of the light marker forms.

3. Further research should focus on the functions of the pronoun pats ‘self’ in the marking of reflexivity, paying special attention to the sentences in which pats ‘self’ is used without any other indicators of reflexivity:

The basic function of the pronoun pats ‘self’ in Latvian is the amplification of the subject sphere, i.e., it normally has an emphatic or amplifying usage. Further research should clarify how far this phenomenon is connected with reflexivity.

7.4 Semantic Groups of Reflexive Verbs

Since reflexive verbs are functionally varied and have formed a close relationship with the semantic and grammatical structure of the sentence, it is possible to classify them depending on their relationship with their original or prototypical meaning in which the objects and subjects corefer. Reflexive verbs are verbs whose subject and object refer to the same unit, that is, whose agents and patients corefer (Wierzbicka 1996; Enger & Nesset 1999; Haspelmath 2002; Кnjazev 2007):

In Latvian, these verbs have developed three semantic and functional branches (Kalnača 2011c; Kalnača & Lokmane 2012):

1. subject reflexive verbs, the closest to the prototypical meaning;

2. object reflexive verbs;

3. impersonal reflexive verbs.

The object reflexive verbs and impersonal reflexive verbs are functionally and semantically the most removed from their prototypical meaning. This is marked in the semantic and syntactic sentence structure as the absence of the agent or its transformation either into an experiencer or beneficiary dative. All the semantic reflexive verb groups have developed a variety of mood and aspect forms, which are constructed with the help of the change of the status of the agent or its absence (i.e., the zero form).

7.4.1 Subject Reflexive Verbs

For subject reflexive verbs action is focused on the sphere of the subject, as the agent is the syntactic subject of the sentence. Additionally, the subjects and objects partially or fully corefer (Klaiman 1991, 4; Kemmer 1993, 2–5), for example:

For example, for the verbs celties (no gultas) ‘to raise oneself (from bed)’, slaucīties (pēc peldes) ‘to dry oneself (after swimming)’, mazgāties (vannā) ‘to wash oneself (in a bath)’ the subject and the object corefer fully, but the subject and the object in the verb ķemmēties ‘to comb one’s hair’ corefers only partially, as we normally comb only our hair, and not our whole body.

According to their origin and function, there are two kinds of subject reflexive verbs, which are distinguished by whether their reflexive pronoun is in the accusative or dative:

While the accusative reflexive verb subject and object may corefer either fully or partially, coreference for the dative reflexive verbs can mostly happen only partlialy: apsieties priekšautu ‘to tie an apron around oneself’ means to tie it around one’s waist, that is, around some particular body part though not the whole body).

The subject reflexive verbs are divided into the following semantic groups:

1. Grooming verbs (everyday action verbs) – the patient and the agent corefer with the agent or some part of their body (mazgāties ‘to wash oneself’, ģērbties ‘to dress oneself’, skūties ‘to shave oneself’, slaucīties ‘to dry oneself’, ķemmēties ‘to comb oneself’, etc.), for example:

2. Autocausative verbs – the agent’s body is the patient, which can change its place (i.e., the agent’s position):

a. An animate agent (celties ‘to raise oneself’, piecelties ‘to raise oneself up’, liekties ‘to bow oneself’, noliekties ‘to bow oneself down’, slieties ‘to stand up’, paslieties ‘to slightly raise oneself, etc.), for example:

a. An inanimate agent, where we can use the personification to characterise the situation as carried out by the agent (sārtoties, krāties, glabāties, etc.), in addition the action normally takes place regardless of the person, as if by chance; these kinds of reflexive verbs can be interpreted as objects of the action (i.e., these are passive verbs) as the action takes place without an active agent or without an individual’s participation (for example, see Paegle 2003, 130), as in:

3. Reciprocal verbs – the action is carried out by several (at least two) agents or two patients (satikties ‘to meet’, cīnīties ‘to struggle’, kauties ‘to fight’, runāties ‘to talk’, skrieties ‘to compete’, etc.), for example:

Absolutive reflexive verbs, which contain patient generalisation, are the semantic derivatives of reciprocal verbs, for example:

The absolutive is a syntactic function, which is expressed in a transitive function as a generalisation of the patient (Matthews 1997, 3). In Latvian, the function of the absolutive can be found in the case of transitive verbs losing objective due to generalisation (Mana māsa labi zīmē ‘My sister draws well’) and also in reflexive verb reciprocal action with the loss of indirect object, as we can see in the example (7.41).

4. Indirect reflexive verbs – the agent corefers with the beneficiary (sapirkties ‘to buy for oneself’, sagrābties ‘to snatch up for oneself’, apsieties ‘to tie around oneself’, apvilkties ‘to put on/around oneself [e.g., a coat]’, uzlikties ‘to put on oneself [e.g., a hat]’, uzvilkties ‘to put on oneself [e.g., a sweater]’), for example:

5. Modal and aspectual reflexive verbs are subject reflexive verbs, which have distanced themselves from their prototypical meaning and express different aspectual meanings. In a particular context these can also express the author’s positive or negative attitude towards the action:

a. a negative judgement of the degree of action expressed through a particular word formation type marked with a circumfix (prefix + final -s) pie- ... -s; sa- ... -s, pa- ... -s, pār- ... -s, aiz- ... -s, no- ... -s etc:

a_1. a fully accomplished action (pieēsties ‘to eat a lot’, sadzerties ‘to drink a lot’, nopūlēties ‘to put in a lot of effort’, izstaigāties ‘to walk a lot’, etc.)

b_1. an action that is overdone (pārēsties ‘to overeat’, pārvārīties ‘to overboil’, aizgulēties ‘to oversleep’, nobristies ‘to wade for too long’ etc.), for example:

a. an inchoative action meaning, which expresses the start of a sudden, unexpected, and short action signaled by a specific word formation type, which is characterised by the use of a circumfix pie- ... -s; ie- ... -s; sa- ... -s, pa- ... -s, pār- ... -s, aiz- ... -s, no- ... -s, etc.:

a_1. an animate agent (ierunāties ‘to speak up, to start speaking’, iesaukties ‘to exclaim’, nokliegties ‘to scream oneself hoarse’, satrūkties ‘to start, to be startled’ etc.)

b_1. an inanimate agent (sasāpēties ‘to be affected by pain’, sasvārstīties ‘to become unbalanced’, sasvērties ‘to lose balance’, etc.), for example:

a. iterative verbs that express repeated actions not oriented towards a particular goal (pabraukāties ‘to drive around’, izklaiņoties ‘to wander about’, izkāpelēties ‘to clamber’, etc.), for example:

7.4.2 Object Reflexive Verbs

Object reflexive verbs express an action, which is focused on the object. In this case the patient becomes the syntactic subject of the sentence, for example:

The coreference of agent and patient in such cases is not possible, as the agent is either generalised, as in the example (7.49), or becomes the experiencer in the dative, for example:

Object reflexive verbs are divided into the following semantic groups:

1. Decausative verbs – the agent is either not mentioned at all or it is transformed into an experiencer in the dative. The patient becomes the syntactic subject of the sentence in the nominative, usually expressing an action which is sudden, involuntary, and independent from human will or influence (atsieties ‘to untie’, aizcirsties ‘to slam by itself’, uzlaboties ‘to improve by itself’, pārveidoties ‘to transform itself’, etc.). Some of these verbs, as mentioned above, can be interpreted with the help of personification as autocausative verbs.

2. Reflexive verbs with an aspectual and modal meaning are used as so-called fake passives. This action has a definite agent, but the text author considers the action and the fact that it is not always carried out voluntarily and consciously more important than the agent, therefore the agent is dismissed or becomes an experiencer in the dative. The patient in such sentences becomes the syntactic subject in the nominative. Reflexive verb use is closely connected with their modality and aspect:

a. Imperfective reflexive verbs without an agent or with an experiencer dative point to a positive or negative assessment of the action (sportoties ‘to do sports’, stāstīties ‘to tell stories’, pelnīties ‘to earn’, etc.). This kind of verb use is often not advisable in Standard Latvian, for example:

b. Perfective reflexive verbs are usually followed by an experiencer in the dative. These kinds of verbs point to a sudden, unexpected action with negative consequences and with the author attempting to reduce their own responsibility. This is used mostly in conversational style or child language (apēsties ‘to eat by itself’, izlieties ‘to pour out by itself’, saplēsties ‘to break by itself’, etc.) (Holvoet 2001, 184–189, Kalnača 2006):

3. The meaning of passive can be observed when reflexive verbs are used in the function of the passive voice. There is no agent in the sentence, as the patient in the nominative is the syntactic subject of the sentence (rakstīties ‘to write by itself’, pārdoties ‘to sell by itself’, atvērties ‘to open by itself’, etc.). Standard Latvian advises against this type of verb use:

7.4.3 Impersonal Reflexive Verbs

Impersonal reflexive verbs do not take a syntactic subject. Such sentences either do not have an agent or it transforms itself into an experiencer in the dative, for example:

Impersonal reflexive verbs are divided into three semantic groups where there is:

1. Reduction of the status of the agent with the help of modality – the agent becomes the experiencer in the dative next to a reflexive verb:

a. this is used to stress the positive consequences of the action in particular. It is advised to avoid such forms in the Latvian literary language, but in conversational style as well as in mass media these forms are used quite frequently, particularly in positive wishes:

b. expressing accidental or spontaneous, not really expected or credible action:

2. Inchoative action – a sudden, unexpected, starting point oriented action, which has neither an agent nor a patient. This form contains a reflexive verb followed by an experiencer in the dative. This type of inchoative action is marked by a formal feature: the use of circumfixes ie- ... -ties, as in:

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Index

ablative 1

absolutive 1

accusative 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

adjective 1, 2

adverb 1, 2, 3, 4

agent 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

apophony 1, 2

aspect 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

aspect Perfective 1

auxiliary 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

beneficiary 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

biaspectual verb 1, 2

case 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29

causative verb 1

circumfix 1, 2

conjugation 1, 2, 3

dative 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

declension 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27

deontic modality 1, 2

diminutive 1, 2, 3

ending 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

epistemic modality 1, 2, 3

evidentiality 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

experiencer 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

finite forms 1, 2, 3, 4

future 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

future indefinite 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

future perfect 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

gender 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

genitive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

infinitive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

impersonal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

instrumental 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

interfix 1

lexico-grammatical group 1, 2, 3

locative 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

metatony 1

modality 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

mood 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

mood conditional 1

mood imperative 1

mood oblique 1, 2

nominative 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

non-finite forms 1

noun 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

object 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

paradigm 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

past 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

past indefinite 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

past perfect 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

patient 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

person 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

personification 1, 2, 3

polyfunctionality 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

prefix 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

present 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

present indefinite 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

present perfect 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

pronoun 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

reflexive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

reflexive marker 1

reflexive noun 1, 2, 3, 4

reflexive participle 1

reflexive verb 1, 2, 3, 4

resultativeness 1, 2, 3

stem 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

subject 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

suffix 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

syncretism 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

synonymy 1

tense 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

termination 1, 2

verb 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29

vocative 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

voice 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

zero form 1, 2, 3, 4, 5