On the grammaticalization of the ‘have’-perfect in Slavic
All Slavic languages use compound tenses formed with the auxiliary ‘be’. Kashubian (K, cf. 1)
and Macedonian (M, cf. 2) are the only ones which have fully grammaticalized a compound tense
formed with the auxiliary ‘have’, termed the ‘have’-perfect (HP). Some other Slavic languages (cf.
3 for Czech and 4 for Polish) use a non-grammaticalized type of this construction in limited
contexts, which I will term the ‘stative perfect’ (SP). Diachronic studies show that SP was the
source of HP in Germanic (cf. Hoekstra 1984; Wischer 2004) and Romance (cf. Salvi 1987). This
presentation will study the development of this construction in Slavic.
In HP the auxiliary ‘have’ occurs with an invariant form of the passive participle, which is
always specified for singular neuter (cf. 1 and 2). In SP the participle agrees in φ-features with the
object (cf. 3 and 4). M uses the auxiliary ‘have’ with all participles (cf. 5); K requires that
unaccusative participles are selected by the auxiliary ‘be’ and agree with the subject (cf. 6). In SP
unaccusative participles are disallowed (cf. 7). Moreover, in SP the participles must be specified
for perfective aspect (cf. 8), whereas in HP in K and M both perfective and imperfective variants
of the participle are possible (cf. 9, 10).
I propose that in SP the direct object forms a Small Clause with the passive participle. This is
evidenced by the fact that the object can be pronominalized independently of the participle (cf. 4
vs. 13), which suggests it is not modified by it. In the underlying structure of a simplified version
of (4) in (14), the Small Clause is the complement of the verb mam, and is headed by the
adjectival passive participle upieczone, while the subject of the Small Clause ciasta is in Spec, AP.
The agreement between the participle and the object is an overt manifestation of the Small
Clause relation. Following some insights of Hoekstra’s (1984, 1986) proposal for (Old) Dutch
and Salvi’s (1987) for Italian, I suggest that HP emerges when the adjectival passive participle is
reinterpreted as a verbal category. In syntactic terms this means that it is no longer the head of
the Small Clause, but is reanalyzed as the head of the PartP, which takes the former subject of
the Small Clause as a complement. This eliminates the Small Clause configuration, which results
in the loss of agreement between the participle and the object (cf. 15, which represents 1). The
elimination of the Small Clause relation is also confirmed by the extension of the complements
of ‘have’ in HP to one-place (unaccusative) predicates such as ‘arrive’ (cf. 5, 6), as Small Clauses
may not consist solely of a predicate (cf. e.g. I want *(it) off my list in English).
I submit that the restriction on the occurrence of the participles marked for imperfective
aspect in SP (cf. 8) is due to their adjectival character. Following Embick (2004), I assume that
only verbal passive participles project the verbalizing head v0. v0 is in turn is dominated by Asp0
hosting perfective prefixes. Since adjectival passives are not dominated by v0, they must directly
attach to Asp0 in the course of the derivation. Moreover, v0 encodes eventivity and agentivity,
and therefore it enables adverbial modification, which is compatible with eventive, but not with
the stative reading that is always rendered by the adjectival passive participle (cf. 11 and 12).
Morphologically, the participles in HP are the same as the impersonal -no/to participles (IPT)
in Polish (cf.16) and diachronically, both categories originate from passive participles (cf. Lavine
2000). However, I claim that IPTs represent a higher degree of verbalization than the participles
in HP. This is confirmed by the following properties: (i) IPTs assign structural case and external
Θ-role. HPs do not, and hence always appear with the verb ‘have’, which I claim performs these
functions. (ii) The participles in HPs are morphologically the same as passive participles in K and
M (cf. 17), while IPTs are different than passive participles in Pl (cf. 18), so IPTs are not
interpreted as “passive” by native speakers. (iii) IPTs can be formed from all verbs; HPs show
restrictions and, for instance, disallow modal verbs as participles. Following Jabłońska (2006), I
propose that the degree of verbalization corresponds syntactically to the level that can be
reached by the participle in the VP structure. (21) shows that IPT can raise the highest, as it may
express modal meanings, thus it may target Mood0, and it assigns case and external Θ-role, so it
raises above v0. The past participle in HP may not perform these functions, so it lacks v0 and also
does not raise as high as Mood0. Yet, it admits one-place predicates, so it is more ‘verbal’ than
the passive participle in SP, and thus it may target a higher position in the VP template.
(1)
To
aùto mô rozjachoné
kùrã
(2) Ja
imam skinato mojata kosula
herCL.ACC have1SG tearPTP.N my-the shirtF.SG
thisN carN has run-overPTP.N.SG henF.SG
“This car has run over the hen” (K)
“I have torn my shirt” (M)
(3)
Mám úlohu napsanou
(4) Mam już
wszystkie ciasta
upieczone
have taskF.SG writePASS.ACC.F.SG
have already all
cakesNV.PL bakePASS.NV.PL
“I have written my task” (Cz, Maslov 1988) “I have already baked all the cakes” (Pl)
(5)
Gostite imaat dojdeno
(6) Ta białka
je
precz jidzenô
guests-the have3PL arrivePTP.N
this womanF.SG beAUX.3.SG away goPTP.F.SG
“The guests have arrived” (M, Elliott 2001) “This woman has gone away” (K, Stone 2002)
(7)
*Goście
guests
mają przyjechane
have3PL arrivePASS.NV.PL (Pl)
(8) Mam przeczytane/*czytane
książki
have1SG readPRF.NV.PL/readIMPF.PASS.NV.PL books (Pl)
(9)
Imame pročitano/čitano
knigi
have readPRF/readIMPF.PTP.N.SG books
“We have read/been reading books” (M)
(10) On mô zbudovọné/budovọné
čôłna
he has buildPRF.PTP.N.SG/buildIMPF.PTP.N.SG ships
“He has built/been building ships” (K)
(11)
Imam često pieno
mleko
have
often drinkPTP.N milk
“I have often drunk milk” (M)
(12) *Mam
często pite
mleko
have1SG often drinkPASS.N.SG milkN.SG (Pl)
(13)
Mam
już
je
wszystkie upieczone (14) [VP [V mam [(SC)AP [DP ciasta [A upieczone]]]]]
bakePASS.NV.PL
have1SG
cakeNV.PL bakePASS.NV.PL
have1SG already themNV all
“I have baked all of them already” (Pl)
(15)
[vP [DP To aùto] [VP mô [PartP rozjachoné [DP kùrã]]]]
this car
has
run-overPTP.N.SG henF.SG (K)
(17)
Novoto palto mu
e skinato
new-theN coatN himCL.DAT is tearPASS.N
““His/her new coat is torn” (K)
(18) Dziecko jest kochane/*kochano
child
is
lovePASS.NSG/loveIPT
“The child is loved” (Pl)
(19)
*Jô môm
muszoné
I have1SG mustPTP.N.SG (K)
(20) Musiano to
zrobić
mustIPT this done
“One had to do this”(Pl)
(16) Kochano dziecko
loveIPT
child
“The child was loved” (Pl)
(21)
TP
finite verbs
MoodP
AspP
v
the impersonal participle (case
VP
assigner, may be formed
haveAUX
from modal verbs)
the past participle in HP
(not a case assigner, may be
formed from one-place predicates)
PassP (AP)
the passive participle in SP
(not a case assigner, may not be formed from oneplace predicates, modal and imperfective verbs)
References: Embick, D. 2004. On the Structure of Resultative Participles in English. LI 35:355-392. Hoekstra, T.
1984. Transitivity. Dordrecht: Foris. Hoekstra, T. 1986. Passives and Participles. In Linguistics in the Netherlands 1986:
95-105. Dordrecht: Foris. Jabłońska, P. 2006. Radical Decomposition and Argument Structure. Ph.D diss.,
Tromsø. Lavine, J. 2000. Topics in the Syntax of Nonagreeing Predicates in Slavic. Ph.D. diss., Princeton. Stone,
G. 2002. Cassubian. In The Slavonic Languages, eds. B. Comrie and G.G. Corbett, 759-794. London: Routledge. Salvi,
G. 1987. Syntactic Restructuring in the Evolution of Romance Auxiliaries. In Historical Development of Auxiliaries, eds.
M. Harris and P. Ramat, 225-236. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Wischer, I. 2004. The HAVE-'Perfect' in Old
English. In New Perspectives On English Historical Linguistics, eds. C. Kay et al, 243-255. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Unless indicated otherwise, all language data have been elicited from native speakers by the author of the abstract.