Nanai

In this paper, non-standard Tungusic lexical borrowings (i.e. from sources other than Ewen/Ewenki) into the Yukaghir languages and dialects are presented. Several of them represent lexical borrowings from southeastern Tungusic sources, seemingly from (Pre-)Nanai as well as a few from Negidal, a northern Tungusic language, and it can be argued that from both a geographical and chronological point of view these findings are both surprising and quite astonishing, seemingly filling in some details about the early history of the Yukaghir languages and dialects. Some borrowings appear to be of high age (at least 2000 BP) which suggests that the Yukaghir languages used to be spoken far down south closer to the native Tungusic homelands, supposedly north of Manchuria, far away from their current locations around the Kolyma River.

Статья посвящена описанию акциональных классов глаголов нанайского языка. В первой части статьи рассматриваются теоретическая база и методы, которые используются при исследовании акциональных классов. Во второй
части статьи обсуждается применение методики С. Г. Татевосова к материалу нанайского языка и связанные с этим
методологические проблемы. Итогом работы является изложение полученных акциональных классов нанайского
языка, обнаруженных с помощью проверки свойств ряда глаголов методом элицитации.

Cento anni fa veniva dato alle stampe Po Ussurijskomu kraju (1921), opera dell’esploratore e naturalista Vladimir Klavdevič Arsen’ev (1872-1930).
Quasi cinquant’anni dopo, Akira Kurosawa girava una pellicola, destinata ad ottenere fama mondiale, basate sulle memorie di viaggio dell’autore, dal titolo Dersu Uzala (1923).
Ad un secolo di distanza, l’opera diventa di innegabile attualità, assumendo i tratti di profezia
autoavverante.

Many English sound-symbolic reduplicatives are known to exhibit the vowel alternation patterns of /ɪ/-/æ/ and /ɪ/-/ɒ/ (e.g. in zig-zag and ding-dong) where the first vowel is higher than the second vowel.

A number of other languages also have their preferred patterns of vowel alternation for disyllabic sound-symbolic reduplicatives (hereafter DSRs).

For example, German, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese DSRs, like English DSRs, show a clear preference towards vowel alternation patterns of the type ↓ 'high-low'.

On the other hand, vowel alternation patterns of the type ↑ 'low-high vowel' where the vowel in the reduplicant is higher than that in the ‘base’ (e.g. tak tuk) is prevalent in Turkic DSRs.

There are also languages in which no clear preferred vowel alternation patterns (↕) are identifiable in their DSRs. Mongolian, which has both far fɜr 'low-high' and fɜr far ‘high-low’ exemplifies this group of languages.

1. Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese belong to different language groups but are geographically close to one another. Their DSRs are mostly of the type ↓ 'high-low'.

2. The vowel alternation type ↑ is utilized in all but one of the Turkic languages investigated here.

3. The only Turkic language under investigation here that utilizes the type ↕ alternation is Tuvan, which has been under a strong influence of (Khalkha) Mongolian, a type ↕ language.

These observations appear to point to the arealty (and perhaps also to the genetic nature) of vowel alternation patterns in disyllabic sound-symbolic reduplicatives.

Les Nanaïs habitent dans la région de l'Amour, à l'Extrême-Orient de la Sibérie. D'après le recensement de 2010, ils sont 12 003 en Russie, principalement dans le district de Khabarovsk (recensement de 2010). Ils représentent moins d'un pour cent de la population locale et vivent principalement dans des villages. Le changement graduel de mode de subsistance traditionnel de chasse et pêche vers une économie mixte a modifié considérablement les systèmes d'échanges traditionnels et l'organisation sociale, anciennement organisée autour de clans patrilinéaires exogames. Aujourd'hui extrêmement russisés 1 , les Nanaïs ne parlent presque plus leur langue vernaculaire. Depuis la fin des années 1990, il n'y a plus de chamanes dits « traditionnels », par opposition aux néo-chamanes que l'on peut trouver dans la région 2 . Les « grands » chamanes (capables d'emmener les morts au monde des morts) ont disparu depuis les années 1970, conjointement avec les derniers grands rites publics, dont faisaient partie les rites funéraires nanaïs . Auparavant, l'utilisation de libations, notamment de vodka, en contexte rituel, permettait d'apaiser les esprits, fonction première des libations, mais également de mettre en avant le contrôle du spécialiste religieux, le chamane, et le statut social des différentes parties concernées par le rite dans certains cas. Cette dimension ritualisée, qui rendait la consommation (parfois excessive) d'alcool acceptable dans certains contextes, se retrouve aujourd'hui dans les rares pratiques chamaniques anciennes qui ont survécu à l'absence de chamane. Parallèlement, la consommation d'alcool est désormais définie par le groupe dominant numériquement et culturellement, les Russes, dans des concepts péjoratifs d'alcoolisme et de suicide, sans toutefois toujours donner la mesure de cette consommation.

Nanai speakers who are fluent both in Nanai and Russian use verb forms with a Russian root and the suffix -la (called further “la-forms”) in their speech. The status of -la is under question: on the one hand, it resembles the Russian past tense form (-l), on the other hand, it can be interpreted as the Nanai derivational suffix -la/-lə, which is used in Standard Nanai for the verbalization of nouns. We argue that in modern Nanai this case turns out to be a complicated one, and that la-forms are maintained due to their links with both of these sources.

The paper deals with the verbal suffix -nda with the meaning of “motion-cum-purpose” (‘to go to do V’)
in Nanai. The discussion of crosslinguistic relevance of the motion-cum-purpose category is focused on the
data of Nanai, and particularly on the possibility of morphological expression of this meaning without combination
with any spatial meaning (including deictic ones ‘here’ / ‘there’). The event structure of the verb
marked by the affix of motion-cum-purpose is also discussed, especially its argument structure — the expression
of both arguments of the initial verb and arguments of the motion verb. Different results are revealed for the finite use of the nda-verb and for the pleonastic construction “converb-nda + motion verb”. The first
one behaves rather like expressing one single event of motion-cum-purpose, while the second one gives evidence
for the bieventual interpretation and shows both features of bi- and monoclausality.

Статья о сравнительном изучении социально-экономического положения коренных малочисленных народов амуро-сахалинской этнографической области (в первую очередь нанайцев). В основе работы - исторические, этнографические, юридические источники на русском и китайском языках, полевые материалы Ю.В. Латушко, включая стандартизированные интервью. Авторы приходят к выводу о наличии у коренных малочисленных народов как схожих тенденций развития, так и определённой специфики. Несмотря на лучшую сохранность языка и традиционной культуры у коренных народов Амура России по сравнению с хэчжэ КНР, последних характеризует более высокий субъективный уровень удовлетворённости жизнью.

The paper deals with future tense in Nanai. There is a well-known
idea of a special status of Future in tense system. It remains
disputable, whether Future can be considered as a tense in the same
sense as Present and Past. These general questions are discussed on Nanai data.

исследование фокусируется на визуально-антропологических материалах из экспедиции известного этнографа Ивана Алексеевича Лопатина 1913 года, хранящихся в архиве Общества изучения Амурского края, и изученных автором статьи в ходе исследовательских работ лета 2020 года. Многие из рассматриваемых фотодокументов, являясь уникальными свидетельствами культурной эволюции народностей Приамурья на рубеже XIX–XX вв., вводятся в научный оборот впервые. Путем сопоставления текстовых и визуальных архивов исследователя выделяются и анализируются ключевые этнографические образы, зафиксированные им среди орочей и гольдов (нанайцев): явления материальной и духовной культуры, промысловые процессы и физические типы.

This study focuses on visual anthropological materials from the expedition of the famous ethnographer Ivan Alekseevich Lopatin in 1913, stored in the archives of the Society for the Study of the Amur Region, and studied by the author of the article during research work in the summer of 2020. Many of the photographic documents under consideration, being unique evidence of the cultural evolution of the peoples of the Amur region at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries, are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. By comparing the textual and visual archives of the researcher, the key ethnographic images recorded by him among the Orochs and Golds (Nanai) peoples are distinguished and analyzed: phenomena of material and spiritual culture, fishing processes and physical types.

The paper deals with the use of reflexive markers in dependent clauses in Nanai (Tungusic). V. A. Avrorin [1959] describes this system in the following way. Light reflexives in dependent clauses behave consistently as long-distance reflexives and heavy reflexives behave as local ones. However modern field data shows another picture: a system with a very limited range of long-distance contexts is attested. The hypothesis is that a rapid grammatical change takes place and that this change is motivated by sociolinguistic factors: contact influence of Russian and language attrition.

Generalova, V. Towards an RRG analysis of constructions with a morphological causative in some Altaic languages. In: A. Tigău (ed.) The Syntax and Semantics of Internal Arguments. Special issue of Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 22.2
https://bwpl.unibuc.ro/vol-xxii-nr-2/

The present paper examines Bashkir and Kalmyk construction formed from transitive verbs by means of causative suffixes. We refer to these constructions to "constructions with a morphological causative". The paper also references other Altaic languages (Mishar Tatar, Nanai, Tuvinian, Khakas). The main focus of the paper is on the valence-increasing behavior of causatives. Primary attention is drawn to the case marking of the Causee since Altaic languages allow several options for that. The paper describes in detail the existing alternation and reviews prior explanations of this phenomenon. It then couches the explanation for the alternation within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. The analysis identifies that Altaic constructions in question are somehow peculiar compared to general trends. After discussing the advantages and drawbacks of various theoretical interpretations of this peculiarity, we conclude that it is best to link two different causative constructions to two different logical structures. We also suggest constructional schemata for Kalmyk and Bashkir to include in the Linking Algorithm.

The paper contains a description of the variety of Russian used by bilingual speakers of Southern Tungusic languages (some Nanai dialects and Ulch). The morphosyntactic contact-induced peculiarities of their speech are the focus of this paper, while cases of phonetic and lexical interference are discussed in less detail. The study is based on the data of a small oral corpus provided with a manual annotation of contact-induced features. One of the practical aims of the study is to test and improve the system of annotation used in the corpus.

This paper is concerned with the structure of relative clauses in the indigenous languages spoken on Sakhalin Island. The Tungusic languages of the region employ relative clauses of the North Asian type, which are prenominal and have nominalized forms as their predicates. In Nivkh, relative clauses are prenominal as well, but their predicates do not demonstrate any signs of nominalization. Other notable distinctions between the languages include the means of expressing connection between the relative clause predicate and the modified noun, and the use of secondary relativization strategies. The study shows, however, that the languages of Sakhalin have also developed some important similarities, which can be explained by the influence of language contact and should be regarded as areal features.

The paper deals with marginal surprising uses of the impersonal construction attested in Nanai and Ulch (Southern Tungusic, the Russian Far East). In these languages, a dedicated R-impersonal construction with no overt subject develops secondary marginal non-impersonal uses with the first person pronoun in the subject position. The main question of the paper is how to explain such uses in a diachronic perspective. I propose the following hypothetical scenario. Initially, the construction under consideration is true impersonal with the main function of deleting or defocusing of the subject. Then, it develops additional modal and aspectual semantics. The modal or aspectual function becomes more foregrounded, than the valency-changing one, and the next step of this reinterpretation from a valency-changing device to a modal one is the possibility to have an overt subject.
IMPS > IMPS + (ASPECT/MODALITY) > ASPECT/MODALITY (+IMPS) > ASPECT/MODALITY (uses with 1st person pronouns).
The special status of the first person subject seems to be motivated by its strong predisposition to the modal and habitual contexts, covered by this construction (cf. 'it is necessary to do > I need to do'). In the paper, this hypothesis is verified on the text data of Ulch.

In this paper I show first that "Moukri," which appears in the letter from the Turk qaghan translated into Greek in Theophylact Simocatta's "History" is a reference to the Goguryeo kingdom, and thus the earliest reference to a term that is the direct precursor of later "Korea." I then explore the variants and origin of this term, proposing that it consists of a prefix mu- meaning "water," and ethnonymic core of k.Ri or k.Re, and sometimes a Mongolic plural suffix of -t. The origin designation was not Goguryeo, but the Amur River peoples, from whom it was then extended to Goguryeo. I conclude with the possibility that this ethnonymic term k.Ri (~k.Re)+t may be the origin of the ethnonyms Merkid and Kereyid (N.B. I am not proposing any ethnic link, but a purely ethnonymic one).

The chapter deals with an overview of the Southern Tungusic languages: Hezhe, Udihe, Oroch, Nanai, Ulcha and Orok. The sociolinguistic and dialectal situation is described as well as the history of the languages under discussion in respect of genealogy and contacts. The most specific features of this language group are observed alongside with the features shared with the other Transeurasian languages. An outline of the Nanai language is given as an example of one of the Southern Tungusic languages with a special focus on historical development of some Nanai peculiarities (derivation of negative forms, substitution of the finite forms by non-finite forms and others). Some of the Nanai features are discussed in comparison with other closely related languages.

The paper deals with differential object marking in the Russian Speech of Nanai-Russian bilingual speakers, namely the variation such as принес рыбу ~ принес рыба ('{he} brought fish-acc ~ fish-nom'). The puzzle is that this peculiarity can result from a number of different processes: morphosyntactic borrowing from Nanai, penetration of dialectal features into the speech of bilinguals, under-acquisition or reinterpretation of the Standard Russian system. The data of a small corpus of contact-influenced Russian Speech is used to test all these hypotheses. The results are following. Nominative forms are used in DO-position in quite a systematic way and such uses cannot be estimated as occasional " errors ". The main factors that influence the NOM~ACC distribution are a) information structure and b) the accentual type of noun stem. The latter fact supports the hypothesis of a systematic reinterpetation of the Standard Russian system in the situation of incomplete acquisition. No significant correlations with animacy, definiteness, verb form and word order were attested. DOM pattern of Nanai Russian differs from those of Russian dialects and reveals some similarity to those of Nanai. However it cannot be considered as a full morphosyntactic calque.

Н. М. Стойнова, ИРЯ РАН, Москва 4 -я конференция-школа [email protected] «Проблемы языка: взгляд молодых ученых» Москва, ИЯз, 24-26.09.2015 Частица =əm(də) в нанайском языке: цитатив и вокруг 0. Введение  В нанайском языке (тунгусо-маньчжурские, Хабаровский край) есть клитика =əm(də) (предположительно этимологически связанная с глаголом 'говорить') с цитативной функцией (оформление прямой речи).

В статье обсуждается нанайский показатель косвенных падежей -wa, статус которого остается неясным до сих пор. Алломорфы этого суффикса употребляются во всех формах винительного падежа, а также в лично-притяжательных формах косвенных падежей. При этом он занимает
разную позицию в словоформе в зависимости от лица обладателя. Рассматривается альтернативная гипотеза о возникновении такого необычного грамматического явления. Кроме того, на синхронном уровне предлагается трактовать этот суффикс не как один, а как три разных показателя: суффикс -a в ряде падежных форм 2 и 3 лица, показатель винительного падежа -wa и суффикс-частица -wa в косвенных формах 1 лица.
The nature of the Nanai marker of oblique cases -wa still remains unclear. The morpheme alternants are used in all accusative forms, as well as the personal-possessive forms of oblique cases. In addition, it takes a different position in the word depending on the person. The author suggests an alternative hypothesis of the grammaticalization path of this unusual phenomenon. Synchronically, the article proposes to consider the marker as three different suffixes — the suffix -a in some case forms of 2nd and 3rd person, an accusative suffix -wa and a suffix-clitic -wa in oblique forms of 1st person.

В статье сравниваются типы употребления глагола bi- ‘быть’ в современном нанайском языке: его функционирование в качестве полноценного смыслового глагола, в качестве глагола-связки, а также в качестве элемента трех аналитических конструкций (в конструкции прогрессива, в конструкции отмененного хабитуального действия в прошлом и в конструкции смены нарративного режима, также относящейся к давнопрошедшему времени). В перечисленных употреблениях глагол bi- проявляет свойства, свидетельствующие о разных стадиях грамматикализации. В последней конструкции (конструкции смены нарративного режима) рассматриваемый глагол оказывается наиболее грамматикализован и ведет себя как частица.

The paper deals with the class of locative nouns in Nanai (Tungusic). This is a geterogenious range of localization expressions which form a continuum from standard nouns to postpositions. The degree of  grammaticalization was estimated for 12 locative nouns through a number of tests. The correlations between formal features and spatial semantics of  particular locative nouns are discussed.

В статье исследуется аспектуальная система нанайского языка с точки зрения наличия в ней признаков словоизменительного и деривационного типов видовой системы. С этой целью рассматриваются устройство видо-временной системы, а также акциональные характеристики нанайских глаголов. Оказывается, что в нанайском языке присутствуют черты обеих систем, при этом ни одна из систем не грамматикализована полностью, что позволяет говорить о наличии в языке видовой системы «смешанного» типа. Ключевые слова: акциональность, аспект, нанайский язык, словоизменительный вид, словоклассифицирующий вид.
This paper deals with the aspect system of the Nanai language. Data are analyzed in the context of two types of aspect systems: inflectional and derivational. For this purpose, tense-aspect system and actionality features of Nanai verbs are described in two sections of the article. It turns out that Nanai has features of both kinds of systems. At the same time, neither of the systems is fully grammaticalized in Nanai. This allows us to conclude that Nanai has a «mixed» type of aspect system.

The paper deals with the suffix of motion-cum-purpose-*nA: ('go to V') in Tungusic languages. The text-data on its uses in two Southern Tungusic languages, Nanai and Udihe, is analyzed in detail and compared to crosslinguistic data on a more general category of associated motion. The features of this marker that do not follow typological expectations are described.

There are more or less comparable inventories of spatial cases in Tungusic languages, and their functions are
quite clear and stable across the cognate markers: Directive, Elative (or two Elatives), Essive (usually also with
the dative function), Prolative (in the majority of the languages).
However together with these cases Tungusic languages have also the so called “locative case” -la. It is
usually polysemous; the set of its spatial meanings is quite intriguing and varies across the languages; it also
tends to have no specialized function: in all its uses it competes to a greater or lesser extent with one of the
main spatial cases. La-case can mark a) LOCATION (essive), b) GOAL (directive), c) PATH (prolative). The
paper deals with the puzzle of the meanings of the la-case and proposes the possible scenario of their diachronic
development. The prolative function of -la seems to be the most interesting in this respect, because PATH
remains underinvestigated in a crosslinguistic perspective in comparison to other spatial roles.
The data of Nanai (including the elicited and text field data) is considered more in detail, because the
central function of -la in Nanai is exactly to mark PATH (prolative). Other data is considered more briefly and
taken from grammar descriptions: the pilot data on Even, Evenki, Neghidal, Orok, Udihe is involved by the
moment.

The paper investigates two classes of verbs in the Naikhin dialect of Nanai (Tungusic; spoken mostly in the Russian Far East) that demonstrate a certain instability with respect to their argument structure in a situation where there is contact with Russian, the dominating language of the region. The avalent verbs tend to acquire a subject, thus turning into intransitives, while ditransitive verbs reduce the original number of possible argument encoding strategies and preserve the dative-accusative pattern only. The general claim of this article is that although there might be some other reasons (structural, typological, etc.) for the argument structure change in an endangered language, language contact also contributes to the process.

Статья посвящена способам выражения каритива в нанайском языке. Исследование основано на полевых материалах автора, собранных методом элицитации, и на материале устных текстов, записанных разными исследователями от носителей нанайского языка. В результате исследования выяснилось, что средства выражения каритивного значения в нанайском языке имеют значительное диалектное варьирование: если в говорах нижнего течения Амура (найхинском, джуенском, горинском) используется специализированный показатель ana, то в сикачи-алянском говоре для выражения каритива употребляется показатель экзистенциального отрицания aba. В статье подробно рассматриваются грамматические и семантические свойства клитики ana. Исследование показало, что в современном нанайском языке ana практически не сочетается с какими-либо морфологическими маркерами, хотя в более ранних текстах середины XX в. встречается употребление ana с лично-притяжательными показателями. Абсенс (зависимый от каритивного показателя) может быть выражен практически любой именной группой, в том числе местоимениями, существительными с их зависимыми и даже прилагательными. В том случае, когда абсенс выражен прилагательным, ana привносит привативное значение, образуя антоним этого прилагательного. Абсенс не может быть выражен глагольной формой, в том числе причастием, несмотря на его грамматическую близость к именным частям речи. Наличие словоизменительных показателей на абсенсе допустимо, однако более предпочтительно употребление чистой основы. С точки зрения семантики, абсенс потенциально может иметь самые разные роли: спутника, инструмента, обладаемого, родственника и др. При этом абсенс не может реферировать к действию или событию. Помимо этого, в статье описано использование вариантов клитик ana и aba. Варианты anaǯi и abaǯi, содержащие в себе показатель инструменталиса, обычно употребляются в том случае, когда ситуация отсутствия/невовлеченности модифицирует другую ситуацию, что коррелирует с копредикативной и обстоятельственной синтаксическими позициями каритивной группы. Вариант ana bi используется преимущественно в тех случаях, когда ситуация отсутствия модифицирует участника-ориентира. Каритивные группы с вариантом ana bi имеют тенденцию занимать атрибутивную синтаксическую позицию.

L’utilisation ancienne de la vodka dans les pratiques chamaniques, chez les Nanaïs de l’Extrême-Orient de la Sibérie, variait en fonction du rite : tantôt destinée aux esprits, souvent par le biais du chamane, lors des rites funéraires, de pêche ou encore de commémoration des morts, tantôt objet d’échange, lors des rites de mariages, la vodka soulignait le contrôle du spécialiste sur lui-même, apportait l’apaisement des esprits et affirmait le statut social. Dans le contexte moderne, dans cette population très russisée, dont les grands rites publics ne se font plus, la consommation d’alcool a changé de symbolisme, rentrée désormais dans la sphère privée, et fait même l’objet d’un combat dans l’implantation de nouveaux mouvements religieux. L’exposition de l’usage des libations dans les rites nanaïs anciens, dans un premier temps, suivi, dans un deuxième temps, de la comparaison avec sa perception aujourd’hui, permettent de montrer en quoi la consommation d’alcool depuis la disparition des chamanes est liée à ce qui a survécu des pratiques chamaniques, tout en étant aussi liée à la définition de l’alcool par le groupe culturel dominant russe.