LIETUVIŲ KALBOS MORFOLOGINĖ SANDARA IR JOS RAIDA

LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA

ON THE COMPOUND PERFECT FORMS OF VERB TENSES AND MOODS IN THE LITHUANIAN LITERARY LANGUAGE

N. SLiŽIENĖ

The structure of compound perfect forms

§ 1. Compound perfect forms of verb tenses and moods in Lithuanian consist of the nominative form of a past active or past passive participle of a verb with an independent lexical meaning, and the conjugated forms of the auxiliary verb to be, e.g.: I have invited, you (f.) have invited; I am invited (m.), I am invited (f.); you (m.) had invited; you (m.) will be invited; we would be invited (m.), (f.)...

§ 2. Past participles are often used with the meaning of compound perfect forms of the present tense, especially in the third person, even without an auxiliary verb. E.g.:

Those whose wings have grown strong are not, after all, afraid of the whirlwind. GirR I 137. Where were you, little daughter, where have you been walking? Where is your wreath, fallen with dew? JD I 105. Could she too already have been introduced into life by Vilius and left halfway along the road? SimonVK II 123. — “Are we hired for the nights too?” the men wonder. ZemR II 349.

Such forms are related to the nominal predicate, inherited from ancient times and widely used in contemporary Lithuanian.

§ 3. Some past participles are also occasionally used with the meaning of compound perfect forms of the subjunctive mood! E.g.:

How many years—God knows—I would not have recognized her, had I met her somewhere... VienR V 342. Had we made it in time, perhaps we would have come back to life. Sld LKŽ III 284. I would not have twisted (the nest) if the old man had been there; I twisted it because I was young... JD III 683. Had I known that rogue soldier (= little soldier), I would have hidden away in a chest the wreath of green rue! JD II 493. But she must think hard about why that girl, called Barbė, had looked at her so intently—so angrily, so suspiciously, so jealously, and so full of vengeance—as if Ilžė had torn everything, absolutely everything, from her and carried it away. SimonVK II 123.

¹ Cases of this kind also occur in Latvian; cf. J. Endzelīns, Latviešu valodas gramatika, Rīgā, 1951, § 762.

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§ 4. Compound forms of the auxiliary verb are sometimes also used to form the perfect forms of the conditional mood. E.g.:

Though they were waiting for Antanas, when Gaigalas saw him he felt unease deep in his soul, as if he had somehow been at fault... BilR I 90....(Vacys) seemed rather cold, proud, as if his inner self had been disturbed... TilvU 103. Oh, happiness, the goal of his long years was so near and so attainable that he had only to do something small, insignificant, and it would have been achieved... VienR V 403.

§ 5. In some cases, past participles are used adjectivally and do not form perfect forms with the verb būti ‘to be’. Those participles most often have an adjectival meaning that are formed from telic verbs denoting a change in the mental or physical state of an object or person (paled, swollen, stiffened, enraged, flattened, tousled, exhausted, and so on). When used as predicates, these participles are used adjectivally in the following cases:

1. When the participle denotes a finished property attributed to an object and has no meaning of a preceding action at all. For example, when we say his nose is kunktelejusi, we describe the nose’s appearance, its shape as a permanent feature, not as the result of a nose-twitching action. The thought that the nose in question might once have been straight and then twitched away disappears. E.g.:

He isn’t handsome because his lips are so protruding. Grž LKŽ V 27. He doesn’t have a hump, he’s just hunched like that. Gs LKŽ III 736. That child is a real little dumpling—fat, stout, cheeks puffed out. He eats, but it does him no good; he’s always shriveled up. Gs LKŽ II 793. “What am I, all flabby to you?” Linkus retorted. ŽemR I 252. This year the rye has grown short. Vlkv LKŽ II 122. The dogs were wild too! The serfs had nearly all been chewed up by the pests. The filly is very mischievous (clever)—she understands her master. Brt LKŽ II 370. You know, Mom, that everything is all right with me and my hands aren’t rotten... His nose is bent like a hook. The ash and maple leaves are cut out. Kpč LKŽ V 308.

2. When the pronouns toks, koks, kažkoks, toks pat, and the like are used alongside participles, emphasizing their adjectival meaning. E.g.:

I saw it—the Grim Reaper was sharpening his scythe to cut you down; that’s why you’re so pale and shriveled like a sponge. ŽemR I 346. Ha, I saw how radiant your face was. SimonVK II 17. He had been so unkempt from early childhood. Vkš LKŽ VI 810. All the barley has grown very tall. Dbč LKŽ V 680.

3. When the sentence contains adjectives (sometimes nouns) describing another property of the same object or person and functioning alongside the participles as coordinate sentence elements. E.g.:

Although Gumbas had slept for a long time, he got up glumly; he was frowning and angry, scolded his wife for no reason, and grumbled at the girl. The ceilings of the cabins were smoke-blackened, covered in tar, and so pot-bellied that you would have thought that above Urnas’s head there hung not a ceiling, but a large, di- ŽemR I 324.

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delis skilandis. CvR III 271. The man was a glutton and a profligate, like a bundle of leaves. Brt LKŽ III 270. His hair was short, bristling upward like a hedgehog; his forehead high and smooth, his moustache Lithuanian—drooping downward. Gud-GuzKIT 25.

The past-tense participles of other verbs do not form compound perfect forms with an auxiliary verb only when they occur as part of heterogeneous phraseological expressions. For example:

He is past his prime, while she is still young, just having come of age—is that really a suitable pair? Vlk LKŽ 596. He, who had been so clever, the cleverest in the whole King’s family—is today a madman, out of his mind today. SimonVK II 183. You seem wise and worldly, yet you can remember the contract so hastily! ZemR II 59. What madness of honor! They are just as much fallen from a peasant’s lap as Dovis Plonis. SimonVK II 20.

The principal meaning of compound perfect forms

§ 6. All compound perfect forms share one general meaning. They denote a resultant state attained through an earlier action and persisting at a particular point in the present, past, or future. For example, in the sentence the father has left, the present-tense perfect form tells us that the father left and is not here now. The action took place earlier, while now the resultant state it brought about persists. The principal meaning of perfect forms is close to that of the perfect group of tenses in Greek and Latin (e.g., the perfect and pluperfect).

§ 7. The meaning of perfect forms is both resultative and relative: perfect forms denote a resultant state persisting at a particular point in time and its relation to the earlier action that brought it about. The meaning of perfect forms is most clearly apparent when they are used alongside corresponding simple verb forms. The resultant state attained through an earlier action is simultaneous with the actions or states expressed by the simple forms, while the action that caused it is earlier than they are. For example:

There is the King’s enclosure there, and within it a young herd is milling about—lying here, jumping merrily there. Beside the King’s enclosure is the Wolf’s. The Wolf has let his horses out to graze. The horses roam and frolic, now tossing their legs high, now rearing up on their hind legs. SimonVK I 46.

The relationship in meaning between simple and perfect forms could be represented graphically as follows:

6*

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As we can see, the meaning of compound perfect forms is associated with two temporal planes: the action belongs to an earlier temporal plane, while the resulting state achieved through it belongs to a later one. The earlier temporal plane is secondary, subordinate, since what is relevant to us is only the action expressed by the perfect form, which is associated with the later temporal plane, and not the entire situation of that time. The later temporal plane is primary, because all its actions and states are relevant to us. Only actions and states belonging to the primary temporal plane are directly related to the moment of speaking. The perfect form expresses an action earlier than these. Consequently, in terms of expressing the time of an action, perfect forms have a relative meaning. But the resulting state achieved through that action belongs to the primary temporal plane and is directly connected with the moment of speaking. Therefore, the meaning of compound perfect forms is not only relative but also resultative. The relation to two temporal planes is the principal feature of the meaning of compound perfect forms. It distinguishes the meaning of compound perfect forms from that of the corresponding simple forms².

§ 8. Since the meaning of perfect forms is not only resultative but also relative, they are often used in subordinate clauses when it is necessary to express the temporal relation between the action of a subordinate clause and that of the main clause. Perfect forms express an action in a subordinate clause that precedes the action expressed by the corresponding simple forms in the main clause, while the resulting state achieved through it is simultaneous with the action of the main clause. For example:

Everyone must be content with what God has allotted him. DoneIR 104. I do not believe your words, but if you have thought of something good, speak. KrėvDP 230. You understand now whom you are bewitched by, great vizier? HP 20. Without finishing her sentence, Gretė turned toward the door and left with the same steps with which she had entered. SimonVK II 220. And on the edge of the ditch that morning there was already sitting a woman who had been driven out and truly had nowhere to go. SimonVK II. 230. As though a little volunteer Monika were being seated on their knees at once, handed a sweet or some trinket, and if she had lain down, yanked out of bed. CvR VIII 214. Here are the shoes, Eglužė, you have worn them out! When they are battered, you will get new ones again! NėrP 451.

When the main clause contains verbs of speaking, thinking, mental states, and physical sensations (said, won-

² The meanings of corresponding compound tenses (perfect, pluperfect, etc.) in other related languages (for example, Latvian, Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages) are also generally associated with two temporal planes; cf.: Latvijas PSR ZA Valodas un literatūras institūts, Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika, I, Rīga, 1959, p. 590, 594, 599; А. А. Потебня, Из записок по русской грамматике, I—II, Москва, 1958, p. 256—257; Е. И. Демина, Система прошедших времен в новоболгарских текстах XVII—XVIII веков, «Ученые записки Ин-та славяноведения» (Академия наук СССР), т. 19, Москва, 1960, p. 30—48; О. Есперсен, Философия грамматики, Москва, 1958, p. 314; Г. С. Нечаева, О результативном оттенке значения формы перфекта в современном немецком языке, «Вопросы языка и литературы», Москва, 1959.

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heard, thought, fastened, knew, was troubled, felt, saw and so on), or groups of words that stand in their place (there was talk, rumors spread, it occurred to someone and so on), present-tense perfect forms are used in the subordinate clause, regardless of the tense form expressing the action of the main clause³. For example: Some explained that the future king of Lithuania was descended from Jogaila and even from the lineage of Mindaugas, while others had already gone to Berlin to commission a crown from the goldsmiths... Gud-GuzKIT 189. It seemed to her that the beggar woman, while begging, had heard a great deal about the rebels, perhaps had seen them... perhaps even knew something about Petras. BilR I 234. Nobody did any more work; people just went around everywhere, checking how much of what had been accumulated, where and what had been put, how it had been put, and why. I heard your promises, and I know that the knight will sooner lay down his head than abandon what he has conceived and promised on his word. How many wounded you have gathered, your homeland will ask you. BaltPV I 330. KrėvDP 213. NėrP 309.

Sometimes perfect forms express the action of the main clause, which precedes the action of the subordinate clause expressed by the corresponding simple forms, while the resulting state achieved through it is simultaneous with the action of the subordinate clause. For example: The Taručiai heard the dog barking and guarding the deserted houses of Pašušvys for several more days, and when they thought to take him the mail, he had disappeared. By the time the summer crops ripen, we will already have brought in the rye. When I had tidied up and left my corner, dinner was ready... CvR VIII 137. Knv LKŽ II 793. CvR III 236.

§ 9. The resulting state achieved through an earlier action is understood as the state of an actor or object brought about by that earlier action. For example, in the sentence he has worked tonight, the perfect form tells us not only that he worked tonight, but also what he is like now as a result of having worked tonight. The state of an object is described by passive-voice perfect forms, e.g.: all the flowers had already been picked⁴.

§ 10. Perfect forms of both resultative-meaning and non-resultative-meaning verbs express the resulting state achieved through an earlier action.

Perfect forms of resultative-meaning verbs are most often used when a concrete result of an earlier action has persisted.

³ In these cases, simple present-tense verb forms are used similarly, e.g.: everyone said that he was already working, everyone will say that he is already working and so on. Such usage is determined by the semantics of the verbs mentioned, which allows the time of an action to be characterized not only from the speaker’s point of view but also from that of the person acting; that is, the narrator or author may define the time of an action not by reference to their own moment of speaking, but by reference to the character’s moment of speaking; cf. Е. К р ж и ж к о в а, Некоторые проблемы изучения категории времени в современном русском языке, «Вопросы языкознания», 1962, №. 3, р. 20—22; Е. И. Д е м и н а, min. veik., р. 39.

⁴Passive-voice perfect forms have a more pronounced meaning of a resulting state than active-voice forms. Passive forms show that the person or thing denoted as undergoing the action does not act itself, but is acted upon by someone or something else; consequently, it experiences a state brought about by an action. Thus, the meaning of the passive voice itself is associated with the meaning of a state. It is precisely for this reason that passive perfect forms have such a pronounced meaning of a resulting state achieved through an earlier action.

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The passive perfect forms and the active perfect forms of intransitive verbs, expressing both the result of an action and a resultant state achieved through an earlier action, characterize either the agent (active forms) or the object (passive forms). For example:

The little gifts have been sent by a young lad: a wreath of green rue and a little gold ring. JD III 577. I was born and raised among the forests. BiIR I 128. His lips had become chapped from painful silence. NėrP 378. And what will happen when the time for spinning and weaving draws near, and your little flax plants have been left in the field? DonelR 58. A certain lightness could be seen on everyone’s faces, as though they had gathered for a May festival. CvR VIII 44.

Since the active perfect forms of transitive verbs express the result of an action with respect not to the agent but to the object, they indicate not only what the agent is like as a result of the action performed, but also what the consequences of the agent’s activity are. The meaning of an action’s result is generally more prominent than the meaning of the resultant state achieved through an earlier action and usually overshadows it to a greater or lesser extent. For example:

For what he has thought up over the winter, he must tell everyone, so that they know summer is returning again. DonelR 34. This grammar of the Latvian language has been written by the two best Latvian linguists. BūgKS 199. — “I received these things from a merchant who had found them on a street in the city of Mecca,” said the merchant. HP 15.

The perfect forms of verbs with non-resultative meaning express only the resultant state achieved through an earlier action. For example:

You brought the sheet with its nap raised like this; you must have carried barley chaff with it. Brs LKŽ I 73. But old Vilkas has already said everything. SimonVK I 37. But since the young man had been thinking about one thing all day, it was only natural that their conversation turned in that direction. HP 284. Having arrived in this Samogitian town a week earlier, I had already gone around and inspected everything that interested me with the municipal secretary and the forester. VencIR III 176. Apart from the camps, some of them had also spent several years cooped up in various prisons. SruogR V 26. The roadside shone white, even the stone one might step on; not a trace that anyone had trodden on it with a muddy or even dusty foot. VaižgDD 39.

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§ 11. The relative-resultative meaning of perfect forms follows from the meaning of the past participles that make them up. Perfect forms developed from compound predicates whose nominal part was a past participle denoting a property of an entity that derives from an earlier action⁵. This

⁵ A property of an entity that derives from an earlier action is now denoted only by attributive participles, which most often function as modifiers and sometimes as the nominal part of a compound predicate, e.g.: a lost child, a book that has been read, how pale he is, and so on.

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The meaning is also reflected to a considerable extent in the meaning of perfect forms, but here the meaning of a property of an object is greatly weakened, while the meaning of a preceding action is brought to the fore. The difference between participles used attributively and perfect forms formed with those same participles is especially marked when the participles are derived from imperfective verbs or from transitive perfective verbs denoting actions, cf., for example: a child who has been ill and the child has been ill, a person who has brought a letter and the person has brought a letter; with past participles, alone or with dependents, we say what a child or person is like, thereby distinguishing them from other children or people, whereas with perfect forms we say more about what they have done or accomplished than about what they are like as a result of their activity. Almost the same can also be expressed by simple verb forms of the past habitual tense used with so-called perfect meaning, e.g.: the child here had already been ill, some person brought you a letter.

The difference in meaning between participles used attributively and perfect forms is much harder to discern when the participles are derived from intransitive perfective verbs denoting an involuntary change in the mental or physical state of an object or person, cf., for example: bloomed roses and the roses have already bloomed. In this case, the lexical meaning of the verb hinders the meaning of a preceding action from becoming prominent: after all, even the simple forms of these verbs can have a quite pronounced qualitative meaning, e.g.: the pot has cracked; how will you cook with it.

It is also rather difficult to discern the difference in meaning between past passive participles used attributively and passive perfect forms, cf., for example: cut rye and the rye has been cut. Here, the meaning of the passive voice, associated with the meaning of a state, hinders the meaning of a preceding action from becoming prominent.

Thus, the principal difference between the meanings of perfect forms and past participles used attributively was determined by the different syntactic functions of the participles: the meaning of participles functioning as predicates became more verbal as the meaning of a preceding action grew stronger and the meaning of a property resulting from that action weakened, whereas the meaning of participles used attributively remained unchanged.

§ 12. The primary meaning of compound perfect forms still reflects the grammatical meanings of the participle and the auxiliary verb: the meaning of the resultative state attained through a preceding action follows from the participle’s meaning, while the forms of the auxiliary verb indicate the duration of the resultative state at a particular point in the present, past, or future. However, the meaning of perfect forms is not equivalent to the sum of the grammatical meanings of the participle and auxiliary verb, since the meaning of the participles that make up perfect forms has changed and differs from the meaning of participles used attributively. Therefore, we understand the meaning of perfect forms not as two independent meanings, but as a single new grammatical meaning.

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§ 13. Compound perfect verb forms have two shades of relative-resultative meaning.

In the first case, perfect forms denote a specific resultative state attained through a preceding action, which is understood as a specific, singular act. For example:

Someone has spent the night in the clover fields tonight—the bedding place is left behind. Plt LKŽ III 714. From what I have said here alone, an attentive reader can be convinced that language is in fact an indicator of ancient cultural life. BūgKS p. VII. We have been grazing in the woods for a long time; the master no longer has the power to take us away from them—we have settled in. I can see, men, that you have been talked into this and incited by someone!.. VienR V 106. Juras bent down, wanting to lay Monika’s head more comfortably, and shuddered: the cold had already risen through her limbs. CvR VIII 235. Among the rags in that bundle was also a yellow ticket: Zosė’s “occupation” was marked on it. ŽemR II 234. Strike, and you will have killed your mother, not a stranger. SimonVK II 345. I’ll come before noon to see; if the furrows are so trampled, and you haven’t got anything to eat, you’ll be able to stick your thumb in your mouth! CiurIRR III 93.

In the second case, perfect forms denote a generalized resultative state attained through a generalized action in the indefinite past. For example:

Besides, I have heard the call of the teal, quite quiet and frequent; this voice can be heard when the ducks, unfrightened, feed or swim in some quiet corner of a lake. IvanLP II 88. Is it not enough, Mr. Amtsrót, that, like a father instructing us, you have forbidden us to shoot with guns in the farmyards? DoneIR 100. After all, Vilius has held Ilžė in his arms; perhaps he loved her more passionately than he loved Greitė. SimonVK II 149. Who, then, has achieved them (power, happiness) through nothing but long speeches and empty words? KrevDP 202. I had not seen him for a long time: I wanted to chat with him about the press, about literature—if we could do nothing else, at least to daydream. BilR I 123. All his life he had spoken only Lithuanian with everyone. But this time, when he went to congratulate Karalikė, he offered her his hand, saying: “Guten Morgen, Mariechen!” SimonVK I 304. “King must have sat in this chair while he was ill,” Tūmaitienė says to herself. SimonVK I 179.

In a particular context, the character of a single action in the indefinite past may also become prominent. For example:

At that time, in “Draugija” (III 193—199), I considered the ending -ystė (-ysta) of *tuirtinė* to be of Slavic origin, but today I can no longer do so, because the new linguistic facts no longer allow it. BūgKS 230. You cannot know, nor find in ancient writings, whether Perkūnas had a wife or not. DaukRR 217. Ėvutė once went to Salteikiai Vilkienė’s to get goose eggs. SimonVK I 294.

In such cases, perfect forms of verbs with a resultative meaning do not indicate the result of a specific action that has been retained. For example:

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Sometimes they lay their eggs in the old nests of birds of prey and crows; I myself once found a duck’s clutch in a crow’s nest in a black alder, at Korliškė, near Varėna, about 5 m above the ground. IvanLP II 71. In that same poplar grove, three from the nearby village have settled in; there, by the Piest- River, are graves... BilR I 169.

The meaning of a generalized resultant state is perceived rather weakly, and consequently the meaning of the indefinite past action that gave rise to it becomes prominent. Present perfect forms have a particularly strong meaning of an indefinite past action and a weak meaning of a generalized resultant state.

It is interesting to note that temporal adjuncts are used differently depending on these nuances of relative-resultative meaning. When perfect forms denote a specific resultant state that persists at a particular moment, temporal adjuncts in the sentence may indicate not only the time of the preceding action (a), but also the time of the resultant state achieved through it (b). For example:

a) I myself have only just returned with the brigade from Berlin! Gud-GuzKIT 287. A. Einstein had already established the formula for the relation between mass and energy at the beginning of this century... BarsF 176. Some of those unemployed had come to the factory gates while it was still dark, others at midnight; there were also some who were still standing in their places, having taken them up the previous evening. VienR V 415. Another machine gun was beside the switchman’s hut, while the rest were beyond the grove, where the Germans had built powder magazines during the war. Gud-GuzKIT 389.

In the morning he had been sleeping so soundly that the host could barely rouse him, ŽemR II 313. Where once there had stood a crooked wooden bridge, constantly repaired and continually worn away, an iron one had now been built. VienR I 142. You know what, Vilius, by tomorrow you will have forgotten everything. SimonVK I 108.

However, when perfect forms denote a generalized resultant state, temporal adjuncts in the sentence indicate only the time of the action. For example:

Stories about robbers and murderers, which I had only ever heard, now appeared before my eyes. VencIR III 172. But it is not the plague that ravaged the country a couple of hundred years ago, as is written in old documents or as was described quite recently, in such detail, in some calendar. SimonVK II 325.

§ 14. The use of perfect forms with one meaning or another depends in part on the aspect of the verbs. Perfect forms of perfective verbs are most often used with the meaning of a specific resultant state, whereas forms of imperfective verbs (especially the present tense) are used with the meaning of a generalized resultant state.

§ 15. The meaning of a specific (not generalized) resultant state is considerably more characteristic of perfect forms. A generalized resultant state is expressed mainly by present-tense forms and, moreover, usually only by active forms.

It should also be noted that present perfect forms without an auxiliary verb very rarely have the meaning of a generalized resultant state. For example:

And here Grete stands before old Queen and looks at her with such a gaze, with such flashing eyes, as she has never seen before. SimonVK II 219.

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The Use of Certain Compound Perfect Forms to Express Past or Future Action

§ 16. In addition to the relative-resultative meaning characteristic of all perfect forms, some perfect forms can also denote past or future action. Passive perfect forms are most often used in this sense, since Lithuanian has no simple passive forms that could describe an action directed at the thing or person expressed by the subject of the sentence. For example:

That same night, Mykolas Jonaitis was arrested and taken to the county-town prison. VienR V 195. Though sparse and scant, Kukta’s hair, which had grown only around his ears, was carefully cut, and each lock was placed in a paper box. CvR III 300. Gendvilis reluctantly explained how the “holy Aluminium” had been given to him by the parish priest himself. Gud-GuzKIT 103. So watch out, don’t forget: don’t fool around with girls when drunk, or you’ll be mocked and humiliated. VaižgDD 88. For the ravaged homeland, for our friends’ graves—the fascists will be repaid in full. GirR II 33. If only one of the great ones had been there, the child would have been helped... ZemR I 371. — We are not refusing to work, but we will not yield: we must be paid separately for digging the ditches. VienR V 106.

Passive perfect forms differ from the corresponding active simple verb forms (the subjunctive and compound perfect forms) here only in their voice meaning. Thus, they can be called perfect only by virtue of their structure. Their actual meaning is fundamentally different.

§ 17. Passive perfect forms of telic verbs are used almost exclusively to express past or future action. This is because perfect forms include past-tense participles. A past-tense participle presents an action as a fact that has occurred or been completed, rather than describing it as a process. Telic meaning is closer to this participial meaning, and for this reason past-tense participles are mostly formed from telic verbs. Present-tense participles, by contrast, denote an action in progress and are therefore formed more often from atelic verbs. The difference in meaning between passive present- and past-tense participles also underlies the difference in grammatical meaning between compound passive forms made with these participles. Passive perfect forms made with a past-tense participle generally denote a specific action that occurred or will occur at a particular moment (see the examples above), whereas passive forms with a present-tense participle denote an action in progress at a particular moment (a) or have a generic meaning (b). For example:

a) Before the end of the avenue, Jonas Puodžiūnas looked toward the side of his brother Antanas’s manor, where the happiness and fate of his own life and that of his son were then being decided. VienR V 363; b) Let this stick remain among you; when you look at it, you will remember that your parents, too, were cruelly punished. BilR I 180.

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Only very rarely are passive perfect forms of atelic verbs used, as are passive forms of telic verbs with a present-tense participle that denote a specific action⁶. Passive perfect forms of atelic verbs denote an action in progress at a particular past or future moment and are close in meaning to passive forms with a present-tense participle. Compare:

It had previously been thought that only certain bodies react to a magnet, but in 1845 Faraday established that all bodies react to a magnet, only much more weakly than iron. BaršF 73. — And what’s wrong with them (the bacon strips)? — They’re bad because the hogs were fed only on bran and buttermilk. They’re soft as porridge and browned. VienR V 89. — We aren’t going to dig ditches, uncle, — said his farmhand Mykolas, rolling a cigarette. — Why won’t you dig them? — It wasn’t agreed upon when we were hired. — What do you mean, it wasn’t agreed upon? — cried Jonas Puodžiūnas — I listed all the farm work for you. VienR V 104.

Long ago, even before the war, it was planned to build a new dwelling, but there was never any money. SimonVK II 171:

Passive forms of telic verbs with a present-tense participle that denote a specific action are used especially rarely, and their meaning is close to that of passive perfect forms of telic verbs. For example:

Afterward, a guest room was being furnished with two beds, a marble washstand, and a mirrored wardrobe. SimonVK II 168.

§ 18. Passive perfect forms are not used to describe present action. Forms of telic verbs denoting present action most often have a generic meaning, whereas the meaning of generic action is not characteristic of passive perfect forms.

§ 19. Past action is expressed not only by passive perfect forms of the simple past tense, but also by bare past passive participles⁷. They, too, are mostly formed from telic verbs. For example:

While checking the nest boxes, on May 19 six eggs were found in one box near Lake Lakaika (by June 5 there were no longer any chicks in this box). In the second box, on May 19, nine

⁶ Passive forms of telic verbs with a present-tense participle are generally used only to express generic action, for example: For your sake even the old father’s hair will be cut. PtR I 187. And all this because (steward) he was now well fed and well clothed, with no worry about those things. VaižgDD 19.

⁷Past passive participles were formerly used with the same meaning in Russian literary language as well; see П. С. Кузнецов, К вопросу о сказуемостном употреблении страдательных причастий в русском литературном языке XVIII и начала XIX века, «Труды Ин-та русского языка АН СССР», II, М—Л., 1950.

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the shells of the chicks, which means that the young had already hatched. IvanLP II 97. Finally, a compromise was reached. The negotiations ended, as is well known, with a “goose.” SimonVK I 269. When the second orders had gone out, preparations began for the wedding: brewing beer and slaughtering a cow. VaižgDD 52. Only 50 years ago was it established that the atom is complex, that it consists of even smaller particles. BaršF 176. I certainly don’t need a piglet like that (thought — Eoe) pushing me around and giving me orders. SimonVK II 232.

§ 20. The meaning of a past action is also characteristic of some active perfect forms, namely, forms of the subjunctive mood and, sometimes, of the past simple tense. Active perfect subjunctive forms are used very frequently in this meaning and serve as a substitute for the missing simple past subjunctive. The simple forms of the subjunctive mood can denote only hypothetical present or future actions, whereas its perfect forms denote possible or desired past actions that did not come to pass. E.g.:

Luckily, he fell onto the bed and not onto the ground: he would have hurt himself. ŽemR II 129. If only I had known such a lad, with his stern little heart, I would have bent down to him as gently as the curve of the sun, the edge of the dawn. JD I 843. At least you might have waited until the threshing was finished... BaltPV I 120. With her little hand she stroked Mykoliukas’s face so tenderly and carefully, as if a breeze had kissed him. VaižgDD 55. Yet there was not a single girl in the neighborhood who would have wanted to marry the well-dressed widower. SimonVK I 189.

To express a possible or desired past action, active perfect subjunctive forms are used with both imperfective and perfective verbs.

Active perfect forms of the past simple tense are very rarely used to denote a past action. E.g.:

The other day my man had worked at Stagaras’s. In the evening he brought home a small loaf of bread—Stagarienė had given it to him. SimonVK I 182. Thus, language (its vocabulary) shows that the fields of the Aesti had been plowed, harrowed, and sown since time immemorial. There had not yet been Lithuanians, Latvians, or Prussians as separate peoples with separate languages, but all this was already known to them. BūgKS p. 4. When I returned, they did not recognize me—I had had such a cap. (Kal) DK.

Conclusions

1. Compound perfect verb forms have a distinctive structure and a distinctive basic grammatical meaning, which relates to the meaning of the corresponding simple verb forms. In this way, they constitute a unified paradigm of verb tenses and moods.

2. The basic meaning of compound perfect forms is relative-resultative: perfect forms denote a resultant state achieved through an earlier action and continuing at a particular point in the present, past, or future. The principal feature of this meaning, distinguishing it from that of the corresponding

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the meanings of simple verb forms, there is a relation to two time planes.

3. Compound perfect forms are characterized by two nuances of relative-resultative meaning: the meaning of a specific resultative state and the meaning of a generalized resultative state. The use of perfect forms in one meaning or the other depends mainly on the aspect of the verbs.

4. Although the meaning of a resultative state achieved through an earlier action does follow from the meaning of the past-tense participles that form the perfect forms, it is not the same meaning that participles once had, and sometimes still have, when used as the nominal part of a compound predicate or as an attribute. Consequently, the principal meaning of compound perfect forms is not equal to the sum of the grammatical meanings of their components, but is a new grammatical meaning.

5. In addition to their principal, i.e. relative-resultative, meaning, some perfect forms also have the meaning of a past or future action. The action meaning is most often used with passive perfect forms of telic verbs (except present-tense forms) and with active perfect forms of the conditional mood.

ABBREVIATIONS

BaltPV — J. B alt ū š i s, Parduotos vasaros, I, Vilnius, 1957.

BarŠF — Prof. Dr. K. B a r š a u s k a s, Fizika, d. III—IV, Kaunas, 1950.

BilR — J. B i l i ū n a s, Raštai, I, Vilnius, 1954.

BūgKS — K. B ū g a, Kalba ir senovė, d. I, Kaunas, 1922.

CvR — P. C v i r k a, Raštai, III, VIII, Kaunas, 1949.

CiurlRR — S. Č i u r l i o n i e n ė-K y m a n t a i t ė, Rinktiniai raštai, III, Vilnius, 1956.

DaukRR — S. D a u k a n t a s, Rinktiniai raštai, Vilnius, 1955.

DK — Dialectological Atlas card file, Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR (the locality is indicated alongside, in parentheses).

DonelR — K. D o n e l a i t i s, Raštai, Vilnius, 1950.

GirR — L. G i r a, Raštai, I, II, Vilnius, 1953.

Gud-GuzKIT — A. G u d a i t i s-G u z e v i č i u s, Kalvio Ignot o teisybė, Vilnius, 1952.

HP — V. H a u f a s, Pasakos, vertė J. Balčikonis, Vilnius, 1962.

IvanLP — T. I v a n a u s k a s, Lietuvos paukščiai, II, Vilnius, 1959.

JD — Lietuviškos dainos, užrašė A. J u š k a, I—III, Vilnius, 1954.

Kal — Kalotė, Klaipėdos r.

KrėvDP — V. K r ė v ė, Dainavos šalies senų žmonių padavimai, Vilnius, 1957.

LKŽ — Lietuvių kalbos žodynas, I, II, III, V, VI, Vilnius, 1941—1956.

NėrP — S. N ė r i s, Poezija, Vilnius, 1954.

SimonVK — I. S i m o n a i t y t ė, Vilius Karalius, I, II, Vilnius, 1956.

SruogR — B. S r u o g a, Raštai, V, Vilnius, 1957.

TilyU — T. T i l v y t i s, Usnynė, Vilnius, 1949.

VaičRn — P. V a i č a i t i s, Rinktinė, Vilnius, 1954.

VaižgDD — V a i ž g a n t a s, Dėdės ir dėdienės, Kaunas, 1945.

VenclR — A. V e n c l o v a, Raštai, III, Vilnius, 1955.

VienR — A. V i e n u o l i s, Raštai, V, Vilnius, 1954.

ŽemR — Ž e m a i t ė, Raštai, I, II, Vilnius, 1956.

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ON THE COMPOUND PERFECT TENSE FORMS IN THE LITHUANIAN LITERARY LANGUAGE

Н. СЛИЖЕНЕ

Summary

Compound perfect tense forms in Lithuanian are formed from the active past simple participle, which has an independent lexical meaning, or the passive past participle, and conjugated forms of the auxiliary verb būti “to be,” e.g.: yra pakvietęs,-usi, yra pakvietęs,-tas,-a, buvo pakvietęs,-usi, buvome pakvietę,-os, būtume pakvietę,-usios...

In the meaning of present perfect forms, especially third-person forms, past participles are often used without an auxiliary verb. Such forms are connected with the nominal predicate inherited from the distant past and widely used in modern Lithuanian.

All compound perfect forms share one common meaning. They denote a resultant state in the present, past, or future, attained through a preceding action. This meaning is associated with two temporal planes, one of which precedes the other. Since the action belongs to the preceding temporal plane, it has only an indirect connection with the moment of speech. Thus, the meaning of compound perfect forms is relative. But since the main temporal plane contains the resultant state attained through that action, which, like all actions and states in this plane, is directly connected with the moment of speech, the meaning of compound perfect forms is not only relative but also resultative.

The relative-resultative meaning of compound perfect forms is most evident when these forms are used alongside the corresponding simple tense forms. The action is then presented as preceding not only the resultant state attained but also all actions and states simultaneous with it, expressed by the corresponding simple tense forms. Compound perfect forms are also used to express temporal relations between the actions of a main clause and a subordinate clause.

Two nuances of relative-resultative meaning are characteristic of compound perfect forms. In the first case, compound perfect forms denote a concrete resultant state attained through a concrete preceding action; in the second, they denote a generalized resultant state attained through a generalized action in an indefinite past. The meaning of a generalized resultant state is perceived much less strongly, so the meaning of the action belonging to an indefinite past is particularly prominent. The meaning of a concrete resultant state is more characteristic of perfective verbs, while the meaning of a generalized resultant state is more characteristic of imperfective verbs, especially present-tense forms.

The meaning of an attained resultant state derives from the meaning of the participle included in perfect forms, but it no longer corresponds to the meaning of the participle that once formed part of the compound nominal predicate from which the perfect forms developed. In a compound predicate, the participle denoted a quality of an entity resulting from a preceding action (now only attributive participles have this meaning). In the process of the formation of perfect forms, the meaning of the participle gradually approached that of the verb: the meaning of quality weakened and the meaning of a preceding action emerged. Therefore, perfect forms now denote not so much what the acting person is like as what that person was doing or did. Thus, the meaning of perfect forms is not equal to the sum of the grammatical meanings of the participle and auxiliary verb, but constitutes a new grammatical meaning.

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In addition to their basic relative-resultative meaning, some compound perfect forms also express past or future action. Passive perfect forms of perfective verbs (except present-tense forms) are very often used with this meaning. Active forms of the subjunctive mood can denote a potential or desired, but unrealized, past action. Active past-tense forms are also sometimes found with the meaning of past action.

Since all compound perfect forms have a unified structure and share a basic grammatical meaning characteristic of them, which is correlated with the meaning of the corresponding simple verb tense forms, they form a single conjugation paradigm.