Chapter 10
The perfect in Classical Armenian
The paper discusses the syntax and semantics of the perfect and pluperfect of Classical Armenian. While A
is usually marked for genitive, S may be marked for nominative or genitive. The perfect of terminative unaccusative verbs
(‘fall’, ‘come’) describes the state of the subject after the event has reached its endpoint (‘be fallen, lie’, ‘have come, be
present’). In two-place predicates the majority of perfects occur in a single-actant construction describing the resulting
state of the object of the active clause (‘weave’ → ‘is woven’). If the underlying A is present as oblique subject in the
genitive and the resulting state of O is backgrounded, the perfect may depict A as responsible for the event
(‘characterizing’), or as being affected more than O (‘possessive’). Cases without a clear target state may have triggered the
development of the perfect into a resultative in the modern language denoting present relevance of a preceding state of
affairs.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Syntax
- 3.Morphology
- 4.Semantics
- 4.1Participle
- 4.2Perfect
- 4.3One-place predicates
- 4.3.1
- 4.3.2Stative/ingressive ambiguity
- 4.4Two-place predicates
- 4.4.1Resultative
- 4.4.2Characterizing
- 4.4.3Possessive
- 4.4.4Generalized resultatives
- 4.4.5Continuative/universal
- 4.4.6Relative tense
- 4.4.7Counterfactual
- 5.Later developments
- 6.Summary
-
Notes
-
References
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Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Petit, Daniel
2024.
Existe-t-il un ergatif indo-européen ?.
Lalies 42
► pp. 257 ff.

Meyer, Robin
2023.
Iranian Syntax in Classical Armenian,

Dahl, Östen
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Perfects Across Languages.
Annual Review of Linguistics 8:1
► pp. 279 ff.

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