Introduction

The given paper addresses the paired noun/verb agreement issue in Samoyed languages.  The work involves the application of external comparison based on the thorough analysis of ‘paired noun/verb’ construction agreement of Selkup dialects and Samoyed languages text data. The proposed external comparison and consistent syntax reconstruction of the above-mentioned constructions in Samoyed Languages made it possible to reveal syntactic correspondences and identify the fragments of ‘paired noun/verb’ agreement rules on the Proto-Selkup and Proto-Samoyed level.

Historical background

Selkup belongs to the Samoyed branch of the Uralic language family. The Samoyed group consists of two branches: Northern Samoyed branch and Southern Samoyed branch. Northern Samoyed branch includes Nenets, Nganasan and Enets languages. Southern Samoyed branch is presented by the extinct Motor, Koibal, Kamas, Karagas and Soyot languages and the only living unwritten language ― Selkup.

The Selkup language and its dialects have been studied by the following scholars: Castrén 1855; Donner 1924; Prokof’ev 1935; Hajdú 1968; Dulson 1971; Janurik 1978; Morev 1978; Katz 1979; Khelimskiĭ 1985; Bekker, Alitkina, Bykonya, Ilyashenko 1995. The overview of research work devoted to Selkup dialect division showed that there exist different Selkup dialect classifications. Currently, various classifications of Selkup dialects exist.  At the present time, most linguists adhere the ternary dialect division into Northern, Central and Southern groups of dialects by Janurik [12, P.104].

The Selkup dialect classification proposed in [6] has been taken as background for the study. This research is based on empirical field recording data from A. P. Dulson archive[1] (Southern and Central dialects) and empirical field data from L Varkovitskaya archive[2] (Northern Baikha dialect) and text materials of “ESD. Taz dialect” Volume 2 (1992) [5].

Research Methods

Though there exist numerous works analyzing the grammatical and morphological aspects of Selkup and Northern Samoyedic languages, the concept of number marking of paired nouns has not been investigated in detail. The Selkup ‘paired nouns/verb’ agreement studies are presented in the following research paper fragments or chapters: Northern dialects - “Essays on Selkup Dialects. Taz dialect” (1980) [2]; O Kazakevic (2005) [1]. Central and Southern Selkup dialects were studied by N Kuznetsova (1995) [3] in the chapter “Subject and predicate agreement in number and person in the Southern Selkup dialects” and all Selkup dialects - this issue was described by N P Maximova in “Category of number in Selkup” (1986) [4]. 

In the Selkup language paired nouns belong to the collective noun class: top  ‘foot/feet’, ut’į ‘hand/hands’, tol’​či   ‘ski/skis’, saji ‘eye/eyes' etc., [4, P. 97]. According to above-mentioned linguists, this group of nouns has a specific grammatical feature. Due to this feature the SG marker may either point to a pair of identical objects or to a separate object. It should be noted that the dual wasn’t used to denote the paired parts of the body and the name of the paired objects [1, P. 393]. To denote one item of the paired entity in Selkup dialects, a paired noun combination with the adjective form palaŋ ‘half’ [2, P.168], [1, P. 395] or with the cardinal numeral ukkir ‘one’ was also used: tabinan okir hai ‘his one eye’.

However, according to N. Maximova and N. Kuznetsova, the plurality of paired nouns denoting a pair of identical objects also takes place in the Selkup dialects:

tanan   tob‐λa         kand-Ø-adįt

3SG.LOC2  foot-PL.NOM freeze-PRS-3PL.sub

‘Your legs froze’(Ivan.)

Accordingly, the plural of these text examples is probably influenced by the Russian language.

The plurality of paired nouns is also used to refer to a separate set of several natural pairs:

-ku-λa             tö-mb-adįt             tol'de-λa-za 

 man-PL.NOM   come-PSTN-3PL.sub  ski-PL-INS

‘people skied’  (Ivan.)

Furthermore, this type of nouns can be marked in dual, though, paired nouns in dual agreement occur very rarely, mainly in the Southern and Central dialects’ text recording:

-udo-R

hand-DU.NOM

‘hands-two’

Based on the  above-mentioned examples, N. Kuznetsova and N. Maksimova state that this type of nouns can have different types of agreement and provide text examples demonstrating possible different morphological number markers.

Findings and discussion

To reveal all possible ‘paired noun/verb’ strategies and define a succeeding strategy agreement choice, the empirical text data from A. P. Dulzon archive (Southern and Central dialects); text materials of “ESD. Taz dialect” Volume 2 (1993) [5] and L Varkovitskaya field text recordings (Baikha subdialect) (1941) have been glossed and analyzed. All Selkup dialects findings are presented in [7], as well as in Table 1.

Table 1 Internal comparison of ‘paired noun + verb’ constructions in Selkup dialects