Discourse-Interactional Functions of Udmurt val and vylem

Abstract

The paper discusses the discourse-interactional functions of the past tense forms of the ’be’-verb in Udmurt (val and vylem). We focus on the analytic past tenses, in which forms of the ’be’-verb are traditionally analysed as auxiliaries. Our main attempt is to characterise these discourse-interactional uses, and their relation to analytic past tense forms and functions. We claim that these discourse-interactional functions should rather be attributed to the past tense forms of the ’be’-verb than to the analytic tenses themselves. In connection, the pragmaticalisation of val and vylem can be postulated. We propose that the use of val and vylem as tools of organising discourse is also linked to intersubjectivity. The results of our study show that val and vylem have a variety of discourse-interactional functions, independently of the tense of the finite verb in the analytic past tense. They are used to mark adversative, contrastive, additive, old, new and emphatic information. Similar phenomena occur in contact languages as well.

Keywords

• udmurt; analytic past tenses; ’be’-verb; discourse particles; intersubjectivity