러시아어 술어조격의 통시적 발전 재구

Abstract

This paper reconstructs the diachronic development of the Russian predicate instrumental case. After reviewing the previous two influential hypotheses, namely, an analogy-based hypothesis and a language-contact hypothesis, the present work suggests a two-step developmental trajectory, integrating those two lines of the previous researches. At the first stage, it is proposed here that the Indo-European modal instrumental was introduced into the Slavic languages in the prehistoric times. This explains why some exceptional - with the highly innovative features against the received conservative norm of the period - instances are attested in the early attested date. A next stage is conditioned by the language contact with West Finnic languages. At this time, the usage of the predicate instrumental would be reorganized after the model of the forms, analogous to the succeeding Finnic translative case. This proposal is hinted by the crucial observation that the initial locus of the predicate instrumental case is the so-called designative verbs, which have the change-of-state semantics at their lexical bases. By factoring the language contact into the scenario, the areal distribution can be accounted for without further stipulation. According to the proposed two-step development hypothesis, the selection of the instrumental case (over other case forms) is determined in the first stage, whereas its semantics is reestablished at the second stage. The present paper also attempts to provide a typological implication of the predicate instrumental (translative) case, placing it into a wider perspective of temporal arguments.