The lexeme <em>shag</em> (‘time’) and the issues of grammatization in Tuvan language

Abstract

The article analyzes the semantics and function of grammatized structures featuring the lexeme ‘shag’ (time) in Tuvan language. While a number of studies have dealt with grammatization on various levels of Tuvan language, such as phonetics, vocabulary or grammar, there is still no in-depth study of structure, semantics and function of grammatized structures, and a classification framework for such linguistic units is also missing. This article aims to provide a description of a new communicative behavior of lexemes functioning under cultural adaptation, which in turn has enabled them to perform the new functions/ We have studied new words, meanings and morphosyntactic constructions, as well as new roles of existing morphosyntactic constructions in Tuvan which have been added to the existing system of communication. To study the issue, we have used samples from Tuvan literature, dictionaries and grammar books, as well as field materials collected by the author on her expeditions to Tuvan ASSR. The outcomes of the study has allowed us to single out the main trend in grammatization of participial postfix constructions containing temporal lexemes ‘shag’ and ‘үе’ (time). The trend lies in phraseologization of a certain wordset which allows it to become a regularly reproduced element or a starting element in a folklore narrative, or be used at the ending of a sentence. The conclusions contribute to the theory of grammatization by adding Tuvan linguistic material to that of the language group where the corresponding features have been already studied.

Keywords

• лексика
• семантика
• грамматикализация
• фразеологизация
• причастно-послеложная конструкция
• тувинский язык
• послелог
• вводное слово
• устойчивая синтаксическая структура