A survey of the origins of directional case suffixes in European Uralic

Abstract

§1. Introduction §1.1. The genetic classification of the Uralic languages §1.2. Proto-Uralic morphosyntax: cases and postpositions §2. The directional cases in European Uralic §2.1. The inventory of the directional cases §2.2. Terminative and approximative cases §2.3. "Tertiary" cases in Permic §2.4. "Familial local cases" in Hungarian §3. European Uralic directional case suffixes by their origins §3.1. Directional cases originating in postpositions §3.2. Directional cases descending from the Proto-Uralic case system §3.3. Directional cases with etymologically obscure coaffixes §3.3.1. Mari and Permic cases with-l-§3.3.2. Finno-Volgaic cases with *-s(-) §3.4. Directional cases with deviate origins: obvious and obscure past of terminative cases §4. Discussion and conclusion §4.1. Explaining the emergence of case markers: remarks on the basic tenets of Uralists and others §4.2. Semantic functions of directional cases in light of their historical development Abbreviations References Finnic (here represented by Olonetsian, Finnish, Estonian, Veps, Livonian): 2-4 / total of 8-22 cases Common Finnic illative *-hen (§3.3.2) Common Finnic (except Livonian) allative-(l)le; Karelian adessive-allative-lla (§3.1) Veps approximative-nnoks (§3.1) Veps terminative-hesai (§3.4) Estonian terminative-ni (§3.4) Livonian dative-n (§3.4) Saami (represented by Lule, North and South Saami): 1 / 6-9 Common Saami illative *-se n (§3.

The origins of the western Uralic s-cases revisited: historiographical, functional-typological and Samoyedic perspectives

“…Even though nearly all modern general descriptions of the historical development of Finnic languages present the received views about the origins of the local cases as quite unproblematic, a deeper exploration into the history of their research reveals serious shortcomings and unanswered questions with respect to both the formal and functional requirements of plausible historical explanations� According to the received view (for quick reference, see Figure 4 in Section 4�1), the element *s of the so-called scases in the so-called Finno-Volgaic languages goes back to the so-called *s-lative case in Proto-Finno-Volgaic, but various alternative suggestions have been presented ever since the advent of historical Uralistics in the mid-19th century� Although none of these neglected hypotheses are more satisfactory than the received view, it appears that the prevailing view is not significantly better founded either� The present paper is a considerably extended and improved follow-up of a previous discussion on this issue in a survey of the origins of directional case suffixes in the Uralic languages of Europe (Ylikoski 2011…”

“…Und doch kämpft sich auch da der menschlich geist allmälich durch in seinem streben zum höheren bewusstsein. (Donner 1881: 251) As stated briefly in the previous section, it is commonly known that case affixes usually arise from adpositions (Kahr 1976;Heine 2009;Kulikov 2009; Creissels 2009)� However, as discussed in more detail by Ylikoski (2011) The naturalness of postpositional origins of case suffixes has not escaped the notion of lative theorists either� However, in referring to the emergence of Hungarian local cases and to the development of the s-cases as well as the Finnic and Permic l-cases, Korhonen (1981b) makes the following statement:…”

“…Much of the neglect of semantic issues in the history of research of the origins of the s-cases can be understood in light of the Neogrammarian paradigm in which the functional aspects had to give way to regular sound changes such as *-sVn > -hVn > -Vn in suffixal positions in Finnish� However, as pointed out by critics (Wiklund 1927) and also admitted by proponents of the *s-lative (Erkki Itkonen 1966a), the lative theory is not without phonological problems either� In addition to the shortcomings already discussed in earlier literature, the research tradition also contains some minor arguments and examples that have never been critically evaluated� The Erzya adverb onsne 'in a dream' is one such example� The forms of the Mordvin inessives (Erzya -so, -se; Moksha -sa) do not contain any perceivable traces of the nasal *n postulated on the basis of the Saami (South Saami -sne, etc�) and Finnic (e�g�, -ssa, dialectal Finnish -hna and dialectal Estonian -hn) forms� To prove the identity of the Mordvin inessive with those of Saami and Finnic, a repeatedly cited example is the Erzya adverb onsne 'in a dream' (← on 'dream') (e�g�, Budenz 1879: 35-36; Donner 1879: 78; Beke 1911: 191)� Even long after Ravila (1935: 46-47) argued that -sne here is best regarded as a sporadic contamination of the suffixes -se and (apparently locative) -ne, onsne has been used as a proof of a more or less regular sound correspondence between the inessives (e�g�, Erkki Itkonen 1977: 124;Bartens 1999: 79) in the various branches� However, onsne is an extremely rare word that is even absent in Paasonen's voluminous dictionary, and in any case we are dealing with a hapax legomenon that can hardly be considered an "example" of anything relevant that could add to our understanding of the s-cases� Moreover, while the consonants of onsne have been presented as a simple proof of the origins of the Mordvin inessive, it is symptomatic that the unexpected vowel disharmony (onsne instead of **onsno; cf� the actual inessive form onso) has not raised any doubts in this context� On the other hand, the Erzya pronominal adverbs kozo 'whither' and tozo 'thither' and especially their dialectal variants kozoŋ and tozoŋ have been mentioned as possible support for the view that the most original form of the Saami and Finnic illative markers *-sin can ultimately be reconstructed as *-sVŋ with descendants in Mordvin, too (Bartens 1999: 115;Ylikoski 2011: 264)� However, it has been pointed out by Inaba (2015: 223) that in the dialects that seem to have preserved the most original forms, an identical final consonant -ŋ can also be heard in words such as loŋ 'snow' (instead of lov < Proto-Uralic *lumi)� Moreover, in old literary Erzya one can encounter nouns like lom 'snow' and directional expressions such as the lative postposition alom (pro alov, aloŋ) '(to) under, below', and for this reason Inaba calls for further research before it will be safe to reconstruct a lative in *-ŋ in Mordvin� Otherwise, it still seems safe to follow Setälä (1915: 23), Janhunen (1998: 469) and Bartens (1999: 76) in considering *-ŋ the most plausible reconstruction of any of the claimed Proto-Uralic lative cases (cf� Ylikoski 2011: 256-257)� If Erzya kozoŋ and tozoŋ are regarded as the most conservative variants of the adverbs in question, the element -zoŋ can also be interpreted as the most original reflex of the Pre-Mordvin illative marker *-siŋ� This in turn would be identical to the more original predecessors of the illative marker *-sin in both the Saami and Finnic proto-l...…”

Tundraa myöten, joen mukana Prosekutiivisijan alkuperästä samojedilais- itämerensuomalaisin vertailuin

“…(Kootusti aiheesta, ks. Ylikoski 2011. ) Spatiaalista sijaintia ilmaisevat, toisinaan edelleen kieliopillisiksi morfeemeiksi kehittyvät postpositiot, ovat monissa maailman kielissä syntyneet suhdesanoina toimineista ruumiinosien nimityksistä: esim.…”

On the tracks of the Proto-Uralic suffix *-ksi

“…1 As the scope of this paper comprises the origins and the long history of research of a number of case suffi xes in a number of Uralic languages, some precautions and disclaimers are in order: This paper in no way attempts to address all relevant details of the use of the Mari lative and its proposed cognates in individual Uralic languages -neither those according to the received view nor those proposed here. This study is not primarily about directional or other local cases in Mari or other languages; more information about the synchrony and diachrony of local cases and local case systems in the languages in question is provided by Kittilä and Ylikoski (2011) as well as Ylikoski (2011Ylikoski ( , 2016. Neither is it possible to present a systematic comparison of the more abstract and grammatical functions and their realizations (see especially Section 3.5), but for a more uniform and typological approach to many related expressions, the reader is referred especially to de Groot (2017) and its individual chapters on the so-called essives and translatives in Uralic languages.…”