# Russian Past Tense as Imperative



## Encolpius

I wonder why there is a phenomenon (only?) in Russian they use Past Tense to express "let's go". Are there any other languages using something like that? There is something like that in Hungarian, but it's less common and not the same. Russians say: Пощёл! Пошпи! Поехали! [it's all Past Tense, meaning Let's go]....


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## LilianaB

I think it may come form the subjunctive possibly, or conditional tense, but the "by" is dropped. There is something similar in Polish but without dropping the particle. _Poszlibysmy juz_. Just _poszli_ -- would resemble the past form, but it is really not. It is _mediunk_ in Hungarian, right? Is that a past tense?


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## Encolpius

LilianaB said:


> I think it may come form the subjunctive possibly, or conditional tense, but the "by" is dropped. There is something similar in Polish but without dropping the particle. _Poszlibysmy juz_. Just _poszli_ -- would resemble the past form, but it is really not. It is _mediunk_ in Hungarian, right? Is that a past tense?



No, in Hungarian, you can say: Én mentem! [megy > mentem Past Tense], but it is not the same standard as in Russian. Hard to explain.


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## origumi

Encolpius said:


> Are there any other languages using something like that?


We have this phenomenon in informal modern Hebrew. For example "רואים את הפיסטין ההוא בקו האופק? שלושים שניות *הייתם *שם". It expresses the speaker's (a superior) wish to see the action already achieved (by his inferiors) thus be in the past.

No relation to Russian. Doesn't look like compensation for lack of coniunctivus iussivus in Hebrew.


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## LilianaB

Yes, I don't think it is really the Past Tense in Russian -- the form only resembles the Past Tense.


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## rusita preciosa

origumi said:


> It expresses the speaker's (a superior) wish to see the action already achieved (by his inferiors) thus be in the past.


In Russian it is the same: the past tense generally expresses a rude command where the action is considered accomplished the moment (or even before) the command is uttered. 

Commands like Пошли! Поехали!, addressed to a group of people including the speaker, are an exception, because in most contexts they are not rude.

Commands like Пошли! Пошёл!, Встали!, Быстро оделся! addressed to a group of people not including the speaker or to a single person, are very authoritative and most often purposively rude.

P.S. in Russian for command in the army, court etc... the infinitive is used rather than the imperative.


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## tFighterPilot

origumi said:


> We have this phenomenon in informal modern Hebrew. For example "רואים את הפיסטין ההוא בקו האופק? שלושים שניות *הייתם *שם". It expresses the speaker's (a superior) wish to see the action already achieved (by his inferiors) thus be in the past.
> 
> No relation to Russian. Doesn't look like compensation for lack of coniunctivus iussivus in Hebrew.


Might point out that it exists ONLY in the army.


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## bibax

In Czech we have the same phenomenon: the past tense (grammatically rather past participle, both in Czech and in Russian) can express a rude command. In the past it was used mostly by the members of the upper class to their servants and maids. Nowadays, as we have neither lords nor servants in our country (we all are evenly poor ), we use it exclusively in the jokes about the lords:

- Žán, *přinesl* _(past part. instead of imp.)_ mi piáno! _(Jean, *bring* me the piano!)_
- Jeho Lordstvo bude hrát? _(His Lordship will be playing?)_
- Ne, mám na něm doutník. _(No, I have a cigar on it.)_


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## rusita preciosa

bibax said:


> grammatically rather past participle, both in Czech and in Russian


In Russian partriciple would be пoехавший; поехали is past tense of the verb поехать.


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## bibax

It is a matter of terminology. Generally the participles express the number and the gender, but not the person. The (past active) participles like поехал, хвалил, jel, chválil, etc. are often called l-participles.

From Wikipaedia: OCS grammar


> The l-participle (also known as the resultative participle or second past active participle) is formed by adding to the infinitive stem the interfix -l- and the endings ъ/a/o.
> 
> xvaliti > xvalilъ, xvalila, xvalilo


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## rusita preciosa

My point is that this may be right for Czech, but certainly not for Russian. 

Even if you consider that the Russian past tense does not really express person (?), it still does not make it a participle: 
я поехал, поехала, поехало 
ты поехал, поехала, поехало 
он поехал, она поехала, оно поехало 
мы / вы / они поехали 

In modern Russian all that is past tense, I'd be hard pressed to call it a participle, L- or otherwise.


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## LilianaB

Are you sure it is really the Past Tense or just a similarity on the surface, with some particle dropped, (historically). Re: Russian.


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## Ben Jamin

rusita preciosa said:


> My point is that this may be right for Czech, but certainly not for Russian.
> 
> Even if you consider that the Russian past tense does not really express person (?), it still does not make it a participle:
> я поехал, поехала, поехало
> ты поехал, поехала, поехало
> он поехал, она поехала, оно поехало
> мы / вы / они поехали
> 
> In modern Russian all that is past tense, I'd be hard pressed to call it a participle, L- or otherwise.



The so called “past tense” in the Slavic languages is actually a compound tense, analogical to English present tense, but with the auxiliary verb “to be” not “have”. In different Slavic languages the development was diferent: in Czech, Slovak, Serbian the two elements (past participle and the auxiliary verb) are clearly discernible, in Polish the auxiliary verb has become an ending fastened to the past participle, while in Russian the auxiliary verb disappeared leaving only the past participle.


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## LilianaB

Yes, this is what I thought. I think it sounds right.


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## merquiades

Ben Jamin said:


> The so called “past tense” in the Slavic languages is actually a compound tense, analogical to English present tense, but with the auxiliary verb “to be” not “have”. In different Slavic languages the development was diferent: in Czech, Slovak, Serbian the two elements (past participle and the auxiliary verb) are clearly discernible, in Polish the auxiliary verb has become an ending fastened to the past participle, while in Russian the auxiliary verb disappeared leaving only the past participle.



So would an analogy of what may have happened in Russian be something similar to:

I (was) born

Then over time the auxiliary verb in parentheses was dropped out and it ended up leaving just:  I born?
Я родился


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## Ben Jamin

merquiades said:


> So would an analogy of what may have happened in Russian be something similar to:
> 
> I (was) born
> 
> Then over time the auxiliary verb in parentheses was dropped out and it ended up leaving just:  I born?
> Я родился



Yes, it's that that happened, but a new form was coined to make the function of the past participle. The words ending with an 'L' are not used as partciples any longer and not perceived as ones either.
The new past participles are:
Past active: слышавший [ˈslɨ.ʂɐf.ʂəj] "who heard", "who was hearing"
Past passive: слышанный [ˈslɨ.ʂɐn.nəj] "that was heard", "that was being heard"


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## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> The new past participles are:
> Past active: слышавший […]
> Past passive: слышанный […]


How do you know these are "new"? Don't all of these participles go back to Common Slavic (and beyond)? The _l-_participle has a very limited distribution (used only in the nominative case in copular constructions), but I don't think one can say that these limitations led to the creation of the other past active participle.


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## LilianaB

merquiades said:


> So would an analogy of what may have happened in Russian be something similar to:
> 
> I (was) born
> 
> Then over time the auxiliary verb in parentheses was dropped out and it ended up leaving just:  I born?
> Я родился




I personally don't think so -- the Russian phrase implies that the person did it himself rather than someone else has caused  his birth, so it just uses a regular reflexive ending, as "I washed myself". In makes sense, in fact. I think it is an active, intransitive verb here.


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## Ben Jamin

CapnPrep said:


> How do you know these are "new"? Don't all of these participles go back to Common Slavic (and beyond)? The _l-_participle has a very limited distribution (used only in the nominative case in copular constructions), but I don't think one can say that these limitations led to the creation of the other past active participle.



In fact I don't know if they existed at the same time as the "old ones". May be they did, but their functions were different. My point was, however, that the "old ones" have lost their role as participles.
It may be interesting to look at the contemporary Bulgarian system (the only Slavic language to preserve the Aorist tense).
Verb: правя (pravja) (to do, imperfective aspect)
Present active: правещ (pravešt)
Past active aorist: *правил (pravil)*
Past active imperfect: правел (pravel) (only used in verbal constructions)
Past passive: *правен (praven)*
Adverbial present active: правейки (pravejki)
Here we have both types of participles side by side (but the -ший ending of the Russian active past participle is not there).


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## Gale_

I don't know whether I have any right to answer questions since I'm not a Senior Member (perhaps I've missed some rule), but I have to add one point.
If you pretend to speak Russian correctly and politely, then to express "let's go" you should ruther use Present or Future Tense.  You should say "идём" or "пойдём" instead of "пошли", and "едем" or "поедем" instead of "поехали". 
Concerning Past Tense "пошли/поехали", it's informal speech (not absolutely correct). 
But it's really Past Tense. It implies that "we have already started" although really we have not yet.  
Like intentions passing ahead of acting.


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## Ben Jamin

There was actually no doubt about this being past tense, but there was a discussion about the form being an old past participle, as it is not recognized as such by Russian speakers today (probably by no other Slavic speakers either, except Bulgarians). in Bulgarian the form is an aorist participle, and it probably was the same in Common Slavic.


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## Gale_

Yes, I've read the thread and saw your discussion. But I answered the first question: 





Encolpius said:


> I wonder why there is a phenomenon (only?) in Russian they use Past Tense to express "let's go". ...
> Russians say: По*ш*ёл! Пош*л*и! Поехали! [it's all Past Tense, meaning Let's go]....


I only said that in Russian it's not correct to use Past Tense to express "let's go", and that it's just an informal variant which is allowed only in oral speech. 
And I tried to explain why we use Past Tense for present and future acting ), but it's really hard to explain, because sometimes Russian language is as enigmatic and illogical as we are )))
I think that sometimes we make no difference between our dreams and our reality, or between intentions and accomplished actings, and that's why such mess with Tenses occur.
Concerning "the form being an old past participle", I would say that hardly it could be true for Russian "пошли/поехали". The more so that participles in Russian have endings of adjectives (пошедш*ий*, поехавш*ий*). No, in Russian it has no relation to participles. 
Concerning other languages I don't know.


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## Gale_

I've edited typos in the original post of *Encolpius.*


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## Ben Jamin

Gale_ said:


> Concerning "the form being an old past participle", I would say that hardly it could be true for Russian "пошли/поехали". The more so that participles in Russian have endings of adjectives (пошедш*ий*, поехавш*ий*). No, in Russian it has no relation to participles.
> Concerning other languages I don't know.


How do you know that? And how come that in all other Slavic languages the analogical form actually is an old form of past participle. How could Russian develop an almost identical form in quite a different way than other Slavic languages? And why do you quote only past active participle, and ignore all others? It would be interesting if you gave your sources.


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## LilianaB

I don't know about the participles part here, but it is definitely not a regular Past Tense in Russian -- it is just a form that resembles the Past Tense visually, on the surface.


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## CapnPrep

Ben Jamin said:


> There was actually no doubt about this being past tense, but there was a discussion about the form being an old past participle, as it is not recognized as such by Russian speakers today (probably by no other Slavic speakers either, except Bulgarians). in Bulgarian the form is an aorist participle, and it probably was the same in Common Slavic.


Throughout South Slavic, where the past tense is formed with an auxiliary verb in all persons, the _l_-form functions as a participle. The Bulgarian participle can be used more generally as an adjective or converted to a noun, but this is an innovation within Bulgarian; there is no evidence for such usage in Common Slavic (according to Meillet, for example). Anyway, general adjectival use is not a necessary condition for something to be considered a participle. In English, for example, most active past participles appear only in verbal constructions and cannot be used as adjectives, but they are still participles.

Also, concerning the inaccurate claim that Bulgarian is "the only Slavic language to preserve the Aorist tense", see the following thread:
All Slavic languages: imperfect and aorist


Gale_ said:


> Concerning "the form being an old past  participle", I would say that hardly it could be true for Russian  "пошли/поехали". The more so that participles in Russian have endings of  adjectives (пошедш*ий*, поехавш*ий*). No, in Russian it has no relation to participles.


Forms like пошли/поехали do have adjectival endings: instead of comparing them with -ий adjectives, look at short adjectives like красив.  The endings are not exactly the same, but we definitely have adjectival  inflection in all of these cases: agreement in gender and number but  not person (whereas verbal inflection involves agreement in person and  number but not gender).


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## aefrizzo

Hello.
An old peasant (86) I know, illitterate, who speaks no Italian but only Sicilian, is used to say just before leaving (instead of bye bye):
*I left,*  (he means: I am leaving) or _*I saw you*_ (see you later).
Occasionally, I happen to observe such very local-colloquial use of past tense even among adult italian speakers. 
P.S.I won't report the Sicilian expressions. The Italian ones are "Me ne sono andato" and "Ci siamo visti", respectively.


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## Gale_

Ben Jamin said:


> How do you know that?


Excuse me, I don't understand what you mean. 
How do I know *what*? 
How do I know that participles in Russian have adjective endings? 
How do I know that "пошли" and "поехали" are verbs and not participles?
I've learned it at school to be honest.


Ben Jamin said:


> And how come that in all other Slavic languages the analogical form actually is an old form of past participle. How could Russian develop an almost identical form in quite a different way than other Slavic languages?


Really I don't know that. I've already told that I know almost nothing about other languages.


Ben Jamin said:


> And why do you quote only past active participle, and ignore all others?


1) I quote past participles because we told about the Past Tense. 
If you wish I can quote present form:
идущий
едущий
2) I quote active participles because I can't imagine passive form for these concrete roots. "Идти","ехать" express active doings! Passive doings will be expressed by other words as "нести", "везти". Maybe in English you can say "he goes" and "he is gone" or "he is going" and "he is being gone", but in Russian you will say "он идёт" and "он идущий", but never "его идут" and "он идомый". Sometimes replying a question "Он сам ушёл?" ("Has he gone himself?") we say "нет, его ушли" ("no, he was gone"), but it's such a joke.


Ben Jamin said:


> It would be interesting if you gave your sources.


All my sources (concerning Russian grammar) are in Russian. If you wish I can give you some links. It's about participles: http://www.gramma.ru/RUS/?id=4.34

Returning to the "let's go" theme, this question is often discussed by Russian people. For example here: http://rusforus.ru/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=721


CapnPrep said:


> Forms like пошли/поехали do have  adjectival endings: instead of comparing them with -ий adjectives, look  at short adjectives like красив.  The endings are not exactly the same,  but we definitely have adjectival  inflection in all of these cases:  agreement in gender and number but  not person (whereas verbal  inflection involves agreement in person and  number but not  gender).


I have not understood this part as well. 
"Forms like пошли/поехали do have adjectival endings" - what is it?
These words are verbs and have verb endings.
"Красив"  is really a short adjective form. Some of participles (passive ones) in  Russian have a short form. But all the same they are not verbs.
And endings are not the only part of word which has any meaning in the word formation. There are also suffixes.
"...whereas verbal inflection involves agreement in person and  number but not gender" - is it about Russian?
In Russian verbal inflection involves agreement in gender in the Past Tense:
masculine: он шёл, он пошёл
feminine: она шла, она пошла
neuter: оно шло, оно пошло


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## Gale_

aefrizzo said:


> Hello.
> An old peasant (86) I know, illitterate, who speaks no Italian but only Sicilian, is used to say just before leaving (instead of bye bye):
> *I left,*  (he means: I am leaving) ...
> Occasionally, I happen to observe such very local-colloquial use of past tense even among adult italian speakers.
> P.S.I won't report the Sicilian expressions. The Italian ones are "Me ne sono andato" and "Ci siamo visti", respectively.


We can see the same in Russian! 
Russian can say: "Я ушёл" or "я пошёл" instead of "я ухожу" or "я пойду" (when he wants to say good bye).
It's the same case. Intentions have such great meaning for us that we can identify them with actings, or at least with their starting. If you have an idea of doing something, and it's a good idea, it's like you've already start to do it. Of course if the idea "isn't good", you won't use the Past Tense ) 
For example if you want to propose to your friend to watch a film, you can say: "Пошли в кино!" ("Let's go to the cinema!"), and if he likes the idea, he will answer: "Пошли!", and it's like you've already gone (by your intention). But if he doesn't want to do it, he won't answer: "Не пошли", he won't use the Past Tense. No, he will rather use the Future Tense, he will say: "Я не пойду". 
But all the same if you want to say correctly you should choose "пойдём в кино" or "идём в кино" instead of "пошли в кино". 
By the way the word "пошли" as imperative also means "send" )


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## LilianaB

Hi. What do you think about a form: может пошли бы уже as the source of the other one? Reduced to пошли.


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## Gale_

I think that it could be a possible source (without "уже"), one of them at least, because "let's go" as imperative in Russian often has the inquiring intonation. But some "cases" sound quite affirmatively, so it's a moot point. I can't say for sure.


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## Gale_

Ben Jamin said:


> There was actually no doubt about this being past tense, but there was a discussion about the form being an old past participle, as it is not recognized as such by Russian speakers today (probably by no other Slavic speakers either, except Bulgarians). in Bulgarian the form is an aorist participle, and it probably was the same in Common Slavic.


Oh, I'm sorry! At first I've realized not everything in this post! Indeed if you meant that past verbs have the same form as old past l-participles, then you're right of course! I've heard about that version. And it could be the source of using past verbs as future ones.


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## CapnPrep

Gale_ said:


> is it about Russian?


It is about Indo-European, Slavic, and Russian (from a historical viewpoint).


Gale_ said:


> Indeed if you meant that past verbs have the same form as old past l-participles, then you're right of course! I've heard about that version. And it could be the source of using past verbs as future ones.


How so?


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## Gale_

CapnPrep said:


> It is about Indo-European, Slavic, and Russian (from a historical viewpoint).


Oh, I'm starting to understand. ) 
I'm just stupid indeed and have missed the historical context, so I beg to excuse me. It's because I've been distracted. (


CapnPrep said:


> How so?


I'll quote the fragment (it's in Russian, but I told that I've got only Russian sources) and then try to explain how I get it:


> Будущее сложное II, в отличие от будущего сложного I, имело  относительное значение. Оно употреблялось только в сложных предложениях и  обозначало будущее действие, чьи результаты предшествовали другому  будущему действию. Оно образовывалось сочетанием несклоняемого  действительного причастия прошедшего времени на [-l] с формами простого  будущего времени глагола
> 
> 
> 
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> :


It's from here:http://www.philol.msu.ru/~tezaurus/library.php?view=d&course=1&raz=3&pod=3&par=5
And here they say that one of the future form of verbs was formed by *old past l-participles* and future simple forms of the verb "быти"("быть" or in English "to be"). But those past l-participles had the same form as contemporary Russian past verbs. So in this way the Future Tense could relate with the Past Tense in Russian from the linguistic point of view. I guess that it's that very possibility which was discussed above, have I understood right?


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## CapnPrep

I see. Polish still forms the future tense with the _l_-form in combination with future forms of "be". But it only works for imperfective verbs, while the Russian imperative form in this thread seems to work only with perfective verbs (is that correct?). So it would be necessary to find some direct historical data to connect the two. For example, was it ever possible to say будем пошли in Russian to mean "we will go" or "let's go"?


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## LilianaB

Hi, CarpPrep -- why do you think it is the Past Tense in Polish together with the future form of _to be_ that forms the Future Tense. I personally think it is just an external similarity between forms, and endings -- this is all. As for Russian, I relly think the form in quetsion is derived from the construction I previously quoted.


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## Gale_

CapnPrep said:


> I see. Polish still forms the future tense with the _l_-form in combination with future forms of "be". But it only works for imperfective verbs, while the Russian imperative form in this thread seems to work only with perfective verbs (is that correct?). So it would be necessary to find some direct historical data to connect the two. For example, was it ever possible to say будем пошли in Russian to mean "we will go" or "let's go"?


Russian contemporary imperative is expressed in different ways. It may be infinitive, specific endings of verbs (perfective and imperfective), the particle "пусть" with the present and future verb endings, the verbs "пускай" or "давай" with the same (it's like English "let's"), and that very past perfective form of verbs.
"Будем пошли" isn't correct of course.
1) "We will go" will sound in Russian as "мы пойдём".
2) "Let's go" will be "давай мы пойдём", or the same without "мы", or shortly "пойдём", or "пойдёмте". 
And "пошли" is used rather as an informal variant, but very often.


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## Gale_

The past perfective form of verbs (or the old past l-participles, if somebody insists) is used as imperative for the second person and addressing to yourself (singular). You may give somebody a command "пошёл!", "пошла!", "пошло!", "пошли!", and you may say "пошёл"/"пошла" to yourself. And in these cases it seems that nobody picks on. Maybe it's informal as well, but I never heard any pretensions or reproaches.


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## Gale_

LilianaB said:


> As for Russian, I relly think the form in quetsion is derived from the construction I previously quoted.





LilianaB said:


> I think it may come form the subjunctive  possibly, or conditional tense, but the "by" is dropped. There is  something similar in Polish but without dropping the particle. _Poszlibysmy juz_. Just _poszli_ -- would resemble the past form, but it is really not. It is _mediunk_ in Hungarian, right? Is that a past tense?


I get that you more like the subjunctive/conditional version, don't you?
But as I can see from the same source (http://www.philol.msu.ru/~tezaurus/library.php?view=d&course=1&raz=3&pod=3&par=5):


> Несклоняемые причастия действительного залога прошедшего времени образовывались от основ инфинитива прибавлением суффикса
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> и изменялись по родам и числам.
> Несклоняемые формы причастий на
> 
> 
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> 
> употреблялись только в составе сложных глагольных форм: перфекта,  плюсквамперфекта, сложного будущего II, *сослагательного* наклонения.


It's also about *old past l-participles* and in this text they say that past l-participles were used to form *subjunctive* as well. So we come back to the *Past Tense*.


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## Gale_

But really I don't know, why old l-participles are called *past*. If they are called so by relatively "contemporary" language experts just because now l-forms are used as past verbs, then it may be a *formal* name. Maybe in *Old* Slavic these participles hadn't such temporal colouring at all, and were used for creating past, future and irreal verb forms, couldn't it be so?
Does anybody know?

Or they were called *past* because they described an *accomplished *action irrespective of that when it "was accomplished": in the past, in the future, or in some possible time (I mean irreal forms). 
If that's the case, then it's that very thing I've tried to explain to you when I told about intentions.


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## LilianaB

Hi,Gale. I don't know for sure -- this was more of my intuition. I relaly know more about Germanic languages (in terms of historical grammar) and Baltic. Participles are really mysterious. There are really many of them in certain languages, like Baltic, although not all of them are used all the time, thank God.


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## Gale_

LilianaB said:


> Participles are really mysterious.


Oh, I agree. )
At least I can say the same about old participles! )))
There were some messages (including mine) posted here before the server falling.  





CapnPrep said:


> I would say that most language experts simply call it the "_l_-participle",  but it has always been most closely associated with past tense meaning  (perfect, pluperfect, future perfect). But you are right, it is also  used in the conditional, and the Russian usage we are discussing is also  a kind of irrealis, so we can't just assume that it is somehow derived from the ordinary past tense.







Gale_ said:


> I'm not sure now that it's derived from the "ordinary past tense", maybe quite the contrary. And I can't get what the ordinary past tense is, if there were aorist, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect everywhere. )))
> 
> Although today imperfective past verbs are formed by "-_l_-" as well as perfective ones, but then they were not. The half of past verb forms were formed by other suffixes, but it comes that the participle suffix "-_l_-" has become the verb suffix and replaced others. At the same time contemporary Russian participles are formed by means of "-ющ-", "-ящ-", "-вш-" (active) and "-ан-", "-им-", "-ом-" (passive), but there are no _l_-participles at all.



  So I can't say for sure what was the first: the egg or the hen )
But I can see that -_l_- always meant something performed (if not in reality, then in somebody's imagination)


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## francisgranada

A possible hypothesis:

As the _l-_partciple in Slavic is generally used with the cojugated forms of the verb "to be" (in Russian today omitted), in the past it could be used also with the imperative of the verb "to be" to express the desire that the action be done or accomplished. An example for illustration:

 Bы (_ec__ть_) пошли ("You are gone ") – past (formally present) tense with _l-_partciple
*Bы _бyдeтe_ пошли ("You will be gone ") – future with _l-_partciple (today not used in Russian)
_Бyдьтe _пошли ! ("Be gone!") – imperative with _l-_partciple

The imperative _бyдь _(singlular), _бyдьтe_ (plural) of the verb „to be“ was later suppressed/omitted. In such case this kind of imperative would be originally nothing else but a “regular” (or at least possible) grammatical construction.


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## bibax

In Czech we also use the l-participles as common surnames: Skočil, Vyskočil, Navrátil, Donutil, Skácel, Vychodil, Vyvadil, Pospíšil, Zapletal, Přikryl, Kvapil, Hradil, Prchal, Chytil and many others. In this case the l-participle denotes a person that has done something, for example Skočil is a person having jumped (~ Mr. "Having-jumped").

Thus *"já jsem skočil/skočila/skočilo"* (~ I [have] jumped, past tense, common in Czech) can also be interpreted as "I am a/the person (of m./f./n. gender) having jumped"; "Já jsem Skočil" means "I am Skočil [Mr. Having-jumped]".
In Czech there is also *"já jsem byl skočil"* (pluperfect, bookish, rarely used), i.e. "I was a/the person having jumped".
Now we can understand the "Polish" future tense *"já budu skočil"* (sounds very strange in Czech) as "I'll be a person having jumped".
Somewhat tricky are the present/past conditional *"já bych skočil"* and *"já bych byl skočil"* as _bych (bychom, etc.)_ is originally the aorist of the verb "býti" (to be), the only aorist preserved in Modern Czech, but used exceptionally to form the conditional.

And what is left to explore? Francis' imperative hypothesis:
*Buď skočil/-a/-o! Buďte skočili/-y/-a!*  (not used in Czech, of course), i.e. "Be [a/the person] having jumped!"
Perhaps it is the origin of the command *"Šel/šla sem!"* (Come here!) sometimes used in Czech. Who knows?

One more joke with the l-participle used as imperative:
Žán, *přinesl* mi okno! Chci se podívat do zahrady.
_(Jean, *bring* me the window! I want to look in the garden.)_


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## Gale_

bibax said:


> Žán, *přinesl* mi okno! Chci se podívat do zahrady.
> _(Jean, *bring* me the window! I want to look in the garden.)_


Is it also an _l_-form as imperative?


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## CapnPrep

francisgranada said:


> The imperative _бyдь _(singlular), _бyдьтe_ (plural) of the verb „to be“ was later suppressed/omitted.


It would need to be explained why быть could be omitted in this particular construction but not in other "be" imperatives. Also, does/did Russian have 1st person plural imperative forms? What would be the source of пошли "let's go/let's be gone"?


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## bibax

> Is it also an l-form as imperative?


Yes, přinesl (принёс, -l is missing in Russian) is the l-participle of the přinésti (принести, to bring). In the feminine gender: přinesla (принесла).

ona přinesla =  она принесла;

You can see that it is basically the same (language). We call the word přinesla by the term l-participle (or past active participle). I doubt that the Russian принесла is a newly created past tense form. And it does have an adjectival ending, принесл*а* is like красив*а* ("она принесла" is formally the same like "она красива").


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> It would need to be explained why быть could be omitted in this particular construction but not in other "be" imperatives.


Perhaps because of (one of) the following reasons:
1. The l-participle is today in Russian generally used without any (auxiliary) verb, thus analoguously also in this case 
2. The original function of the l-participle (past active participle) is not "felt" anymore, so the construction _бyдьтe_ plus l-participle would sound innatural
3. As the construction _бyдьтe_ _пошли _has become to be interpreted as an imperative of the verb itself (and not of _быть_), the imperative of _быть _was spontaneously considered redundant or unnecessary


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## francisgranada

CapnPrep said:


> ... Forms like пошли/поехали do have adjectival endings: instead of comparing them with -ий adjectives, look at short adjectives like красив.  The endings are not exactly the same, but we definitely have adjectival  inflection in all of these cases ...


Of course. Even more, the long forms of the l-participles are used in function of adjectives (but not possible for all verbs). An example to illustrate the difference between the “short” and the “long” forms in modern Slovak:

Ja som zrel - I maturated (I was/have been maturating ...) - past tense with the l-participle

but:

Ja som zrelý - I am mature  
Ja budem zrelý - I shall be mature
Buď zrelý! - Be mature!

zrel – the l-participle from _zrieť _(_to maturate_)
zrelý  – the corresponding long form _ (mature)_


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## Gale_

In contemporary Russian "быть" is used as imperative as other verbs,  usually with short adjectives or short adjectivized participles: будь  готов!(be ready!), будь обязан!(be obliged), будьте любезны!(be kind! -  really it sounds politely as "would you be so kind"), будь здоров! (be healthy!). And in plural as well.
In Old Slavic As I Can see:


> Повелительное             наклонение.              Значение: не             обозначает              реального             действия, а             выражает             побуждение             к совершению              действия.             Образование             форм: основа             настоящего             времени +  *i/*ji             (- и-, -Ѣ-)             + личные окончания             (вторичные).             1 л.  ед.ч., 3 л. мн.,             дв.ч. аналитическая             форма: частица             да + глагол  в             форме настоящего             времени.


 imperative was formed by  adding - и-, -Ѣ- (now it's -и-, -ь- and -й-), or by means of particle "да" + a verb in present. Now  we also use "да" as imperative, but with a future form of verbs: "да  свершится чудо!" and "да" is like "давай" which is used oftener.
But I have not found yet, that imperative had such forms as 





> _Бyдьтe _пошли ! ("Be gone!") – imperative with _l-_partciple


The future form had (future of "быть" + _l-_partciple), as I already quoted.

The picture is not very good, but I've taken it from here:http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Древнерусский_язык


CapnPrep said:


> Also, does/did Russian have 1st person plural imperative forms? What would be the source of пошли "let's go/let's be gone"?


There is no specific imperative form as a command (like it is for the 2nd person). Usually future or present form of verbs are used in such cases: _пойдём(те)_, _идём(те)_, or the same with "_давай(те)_": _давай(те) пойдём!_
And for the 1st person singular we just use the same as for the 2d person singular: иди!


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## Ben Jamin

bibax said:


> Now we can understand the "Polish" future tense *"já budu skočil"* (sounds very strange in Czech) as "I'll be a person having jumped".



One thing is wrong here. In Polish you can form future tense in this way only with imperfective verbs. It doesn't work with perfective ones. I understand that *skočil* is perfective.
Perfective future in Polish is formed with the present tense of perfective verbs. 
Skaczę (I jump) imperfective present = present
Skoczę (I’ll jump/ I’m sure I’ll jump/ I will have jumped) perfective present = perfective future
Będę skakał  (or skakać) = imperfective future


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## Gale_

francisgranada said:


> zrel – the l-participle from _zrieť _(_to maturate_)
> zrelý  – the corresponding long form _ (mature)_


In Russian "зрел" has two meanings: 1) it's a past imperfective verb, 2) it's a a short form of the verbal adjective "зрелый", and now it's considered as adjective.
The corresponding participle will be "созревший". We have no l-participles today as I told. And as a rule only passive participles have a short form, for active ones it's rather an exclusion.
I think that it's really hard to get the source of this form (it has features of verbs and adjectives), and what it shows more: action or state (it's like capital repairs at home ).
You both say that l-forms are more like adjectives and participles, because they are inclined in gender and number but not in person.
But anyway in contemporary Russian they are confirmed as the form of verbs which in the Past Tense changes in gender and number, but not in person, *or we would have no past verbs at all*


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## CapnPrep

Gale_ said:


> You both say that l-forms are more like adjectives and participles, because they are inclined in gender and number but not in person.
> But anyway in contemporary Russian they are confirmed as the form of verbs which in the Past Tense changes in gender and number, but not in person, *or we would have no past verbs at all*


The _l_-participle is definitely a form of the verb; nobody in this thread ever said otherwise. But it is a form of the verb that inflects like an adjective, and we can explain why this is the case by taking a comparative/historical approach to Russian (and not just looking at textbooks for today's Russian schoolchildren).

Note that saying that the _l_-form "inflects like an adjective" or that it has an "adjectival inflection" is not the same as saying "It is an adjective, and not a verb". Like all participles, it has both verbal and adjectival properties (that is precisely why they are called "participles" or "причастия").


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## Gale_

CapnPrep said:


> The _l_-participle is definitely a form of the verb


I understand it! I know that any participle is a form of the verb )
But from the beginning l-forms were discussed as participles and not as verbs proper. I see why you do. But from the viewpoint of today's Russian schoolchildren it's so strange, because if l-forms are participles then where are past verbs in contemporary Russian? The word "*old*" in your discussion reconciled me with such point of view ))), but really it feels like I was robbed (it's a joke of course).
But could you tell me, are there _not l_-form in other Slavic languages to express past actions? i.e. are there _"not -l-_" past verbs?
For example in English past verbs and past participles use to have the same endings, and English people live with it somehow.
But in contemporary Russian it's not so. What is it? Is it some nomenclative mess?


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## bibax

> or we would have no past verbs at all


Don't worry! There are even stranger languages in the world. 

It seems that the Russians must always have some exceptions (we say "extravuřty" - extrawursts). According a traditional terminology the verbs have "definite" and "indefinite" forms. The definite verbal forms express grammatical person, e.g. in Latin canto, cantas, cantavi, cantabam, ..., in Slavic nesu, neseš, budu, jest, ... The indefinite forms are infinitives, participles, supine. The participles expresses the grammatical gender like adjectives (laudatus, laudata, nosil, nosila, nosilo, šed, šedši, nesa, nesouc, ...).

According to the traditional terminology the past tense sentences in Russian are nominal (without any definite verbal forms). Something like:

я принёс = I person-of-masc-gender-that-has-brought;

In Old Russian it would be probably: я есмь принёс (with the definite form есмь = am, and the l-participle принёс which is paradoxically without any L - another Russian extrawurst ).


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## CapnPrep

Gale_ said:


> But could you tell me, are there _not l_-form in other Slavic languages to express past actions? i.e. are there _"not -l-_" past verbs?


Yes, see the thread about imperfect and aorist that I linked to in #26 above. I guess the thread is too long now, we're just repeating the same things over and over.


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## Gale_

CapnPrep said:


> Yes, see the thread about imperfect and aorist that I linked to in #26 above


We've lost those forms as independent (((


bibax said:


> Don't worry! There are even stranger languages in the world.


Yeah! I guess )



bibax said:


> It seems that the Russians must always have some exceptions (we say "extravuřty" - extrawursts). According a traditional terminology the verbs have "definite" and "indefinite" forms. The definite verbal forms express grammatical person, e.g. in Latin canto, cantas, cantavi, cantabam,
> According to the traditional terminology the past tense sentences in Russian are nominal (without any definite verbal forms).


So might I say the same about English?
I had, I slept
you had, you slept
he had, he slept
and the same for plural...
And so is the future tense in English nominal as well, at least today when _shall_ oftener is used for another purpose, not to express the simple future action in the 1st person?


bibax said:


> the l-participle принёс which is paradoxically without any L - another Russian extrawurst ).


Yes, it sounds rather strange )
Some of verbs in the Future Tense have _-l-_ in the 1st person singular form such as "куплю", but it's not from _l-_participle as I've heard )


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## francisgranada

bibax said:


> ... In Old Russian it would be probably: я есмь принёс ... and the l-participle принёс which is paradoxically without any L - another Russian extrawurst ).


This extrawurst  can be observed also in the spoken Czech: _já čet_ instead of _já jsem četl_. I think _já přines_ could work as well.


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## bibax

> So might I say the same about English?


The traditional (or classical?) grammatical terminology is especially convenient for such languages like Latin and Old Greek. It is not convenient for, say, Korean. Do you know that Korean has only few real adjectives? Our adjectives correspond to "participles" of the qualitative verbs in Korean, e.g. komda (to be black) -> komyn (black), pparyda (to be quick) -> pparyn (quick), etc. The Korean "participles" do not express gender, of course. So our traditional terminology is quite inappropriate for Korean.

As for English: the past indicative forms had different endings than the past participle in Old English, but Modern English lost most of the old endings. There was "ic hæfde" (I had) vs. "gehæfd" (had - participle) in Old English. Thus "had" in "I had" is not the participle "had", they are merely homonymous in Modern English.

It is not the case in Russian. The Russian participles have not lost their endings (except the unhappy принёс). Russian lost the indicative present forms of the verb to be. So the l-participles became orphans in the past tense sentences. It is a sad reality. Another terminology cannot change it.


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## learnerr

A question: is not that easier to suppose that the origin is very straightforward: from the past tense meaning to the imperative meaning? You can just as well use a plain future tense or a plain present tense for expressing the imperative meaning, so why making a difference for the past tense forms. Is there anything specific that makes impossible such guess?

As for the future: the past tense is used to mean immediate future events often, but only with the verbs "уйти", "пойти", "поехать", "полететь", "потопать", "почапать", "убежать", "побежать" etc, all of which mean "to go". Well, sometimes with expressions like "начать работать" ("start to work", i.e. "I'm going to start (as if already have started) working, please stop talking to me"); if we look more closely at those going-verbs, the same as-if sense of having changed the state is present. Strange to seek for regular grammatical explanations in such restricted case...


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## gburtonio

In colloquial Greek it's also possible to use the past tense of 'come' to create an imperative meaning in this way (e.g. φυγαμε!). My interpretation when I learnt this is that it is somewhat metaphorical, not totally unlike saying in English you want something done 'yesterday', i.e. as soon as possible.


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## Ben Jamin

bibax said:


> As for English: the past indicative forms had different endings than the past participle in Old English, but Modern English lost most of the old endings. There was "ic hæfde" (I had) vs. "gehæfd" (had - participle) in Old English. Thus "had" in "I had" *is not the participle "had",* they are merely homonymous in Modern English.


So what is it, if not a past participle?


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## Christo Tamarin

In Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian, the usage of the L-participle alone for Imperative/Conjunctive/"Desirative" is also possible: Дал Бог добро!
Живела Jугославиjа!


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## Encolpius

To my great surprise it exists in Portuguese as well....here we have been discussing the topic....


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## ger4

In a few cases, the past participle can express some kind of a command in German as well:  
- _Aufgepasst!_ (lit.: 'paid attention') - 'Pay attention!' 
- _Hereinspaziert!_ (lit.: 'walked in', 'wandered in') - 'Come (on) in!'


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## ahvalj

I don't know how old is this usage in Russian, but if it is old, here is a possible explanation for it I have invented right now.

Slavic has lost the original Indo-European Imperative (well, I have some doubts but this isn't relevant to the topic being discussed) and has used the Optative for both its oblique moods: the Present Optative has become the Imperative (Pl. 2 *_bʰeroihₑte _> Old Church Slavonic _berěte_, cp. Latvian _beriet_, Sakskrit _bhareta_ and Greek _φέροιτε_), while its newly formed Perfect Optative has become the Conjunctive (Old Church Slavonic Pl. 2 masc. _bьrali bite,_ where _bite_<*_bʰu̯ihₑte_ is the Optative of _bʰeu̯hₑ_- "to be" and the _l_-form is the Participle used in the Slavic Perfect, cp. also Pl. 2 masc. Present Perfect _bьrali jeste,_ Past Perfect _bьrali běste_). In this connection, I can speculate that the Perfect Optative in some emphatic contexts may have developed an Imperative meaning as well, so the modern_ вынес мусор!_ "take out the trash!" and _вынес бы ты мусор_ "would you take out the trash" may actually continue the same form (Old East Slavic _vyneslъ bi _< PIE_ **ud nekʲlos bʰu̯ihₑs_) with a contrasting semantic development against the proper modern Imperative (emphatic for _вынес_ and subdued for _вынес бы ты_).


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## OBrasilo

Encolpius said:


> To my great surprise it exists in Portuguese as well....here we have been discussing the topic....


Also in Japanese. For example, _Kaette!_ is the regularly used imperative (with _Kaette kudasai!_ being the more polite form), then we have the more rude, -e/-ro/-yo imperative, in this case _Kaere!_, and then we have the "past as imperative" _Kaetta!_ which has the connotation of _Go the hell home!_.

So two Indo-European languages, and one non that use this kind of construct. Well, three Indo-European language, if we count the archaic Czech aristocratic language, in present day only used in jokes (_Přinesl mi okno!_).

In Slovenian, we use _bi_ + _-l participle_ as some sort of imperative, though it's actually considered the polite form, especially when followed by _prosim_ (please), however if used in conjuction with _že_ (yet, already), it becomes stronger,_ Bi prinesel že tisto knjigo?!_, though that is more like _Would you bring me that book already?!_.

I found _one_ use of past tense as imperative in Italian but in a very vulgar phrase and I'm not sure how common it actually is.



			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> so the modern_ вынес мусор!_ "take out the trash!" and _вынес бы ты мусор_ "would you take out the trash" may actually continue the same form


Could the latter be made stronger by turning it eg. into _винес бы ты уже мусор_ "would you take out the trash already", similarly to how it can be done in Slovenian? If yes, then that could have been the basis for the stronger form. It would have just truncated the past participle, and lost the _бы ты уже_.

However, I wonder, whether there could be any Japanese influence on Russian. It prefers the _at me is_ form for possession which is the form used in Japanese too, it prefers dropping the verb for _to be_ in present tense much like it's done in colloquial Japanese, and has strong usage of the past tense as imperative much like Japanese does. It also has this tendency to form syllable abbreviation (eg. _kollektivnoe khozyaistvo_ -> _kolkhoz_) same way as Japanese does (eg. _Tōkyō Daigaku_ -> _Tōdai_) (though it's a feature Japanese borrowed from Chinese).


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## ahvalj

OBrasilo said:


> Could the latter be made stronger by turning it eg. into _винес бы ты уже мусор_ "would you take out the trash already", similarly to how it can be done in Slovenian? If yes, then that could have been the basis for the stronger form. It would have just truncated the past participle, and lost the _бы ты уже_.


This construction is possible but it resembles the way Jews speak in jokes. _Уже_ can as easily be used with the proper Imperative _вынеси уже мусор_ (again, with a strong Jewish vibe, especially when placed before the verb), e. g.:
_
"— Изя, *уже спи*, шо ты так ворочаешься?
— Голдочка, таки завтра мне надо вернуть долг Шниперзону.
— И разве шо?
— А денег нет!
— Изя, ты делаешь мине смешно. Дай телефон. «Алё, это Шниперзон? Изя вам должен денег? Завтра он не отдаст». И всё, пусть теперь Шниперзон ворочается"._




OBrasilo said:


> However, I wonder, whether there could be any Japanese influence on Russian. It prefers the _at me is_ form for possession which is the form used in Japanese too, it prefers dropping the verb for _to be_ in present tense much like it's done in colloquial Japanese, and has strong usage of the past tense as imperative much like Japanese does. It also has this tendency to form syllable abbreviation (eg. _kollektivnoe khozyaistvo_ -> _kolkhoz_) same way as Japanese does (eg. _Tōkyō Daigaku_ -> _Tōdai_) (though it's a feature Japanese borrowed from Chinese).


I suspect the Japanese influence on Russian approaches zero and in any case the Russian construction is attested since the first texts of the 11th century and seems to continue the PIE usage (it was discussed with examples elsewhere in these forums): there are several ways in world languages to express possession, "to have" and "to be at/to" being the most widespread. In Latin, _habēmus pāpam_ replaced the original _nōbīs est pāpa_ (see e. g. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41288906?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents).

Dropping "to be" in the Present tense is also PIE. Curiously, it occurs in English as well: English diagnoses of new biological taxa are written in the latinate manner with this verb (as well as most articles) omitted: _Seeds large, oval. Raphe prominent, reaching micropylar end…  _

As to the syllable abbreviation, I am afraid this again is the Jewish spirit in Russian: the very first examples of such abbreviations seem to appear at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the firm names, their number was slowly rising in the next years until exploded exponentially during the revolution (1917) and the early Soviet times. The only language in Europe that had the tradition of such compounds before 1900 was Hebrew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend_word#Blending_of_two_roots), at the turn of the centuries journalists and businessmen of Jewish origin began to become influential nationwide in Russia, and Jews played a paramount role in the rise and shaping of the Soviet system and its specific language, hence their influence is the only plausible source of the origin of this part of the vocabulary in Russian.


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## 六道仙人

The same thing is used in Tunisian Arabic.

*Mshina*= we went, also it means let's go.
Sometimes we use an intensifer in the imperative _*Ay-ya*_,

_*Ay-ya*_ _*Mshina*_= so let's go already


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## OBrasilo

ahvalj said:
			
		

> I suspect the Japanese influence on Russian approaches zero and in any case the Russian construction is attested since the first texts of the 11th century and seems to continue the PIE usage (it was discussed with examples elsewhere in these forums): there are several ways in world languages to express possession, "to have" and "to be at/to" being the most widespread. In Latin, _habēmus pāpam_ replaced the original _nōbīs est pāpa_ (see e. g. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41288906?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents).


But the weird thing is, the East Slavic languages much prefer "to be at/to" to "to have", while all the surrounding languages seem to prefer "to have". Well, except for Hungarian, which also uses some for of to be to express possession, and it used to be used in Finnish too, but both are non-Indo-European languages. However, Slovak and Croatian was even more influenced by Hungarian (those people were ruled by Hugnary) and their languages _only_ have "to have", so it's weird that East Slavic languages have decided to prefer "to be at/to". Yes, I know the construct existed in Indo-European already (and there's other IE languages that use it too, for example Irish Gaelic), but the odd thing is that all IE languages surrounding East Slavic have largely opted for "to have", while East Slavic opted for "to be at/to". Hence why I have presumed that the _preference_ for that particular construct for possession came to be under influence of a language the Russian Empire had contact with that the surrounding (in Europe) IE speakers didn't.



> Dropping "to be" in the Present tense is also PIE. Curiously, it occurs in English as well: English diagnoses of new biological taxa are written in the latinate manner with this verb (as well as most articles) omitted: _Seeds large, oval. Raphe prominent, reaching micropylar end…_


I'd say the English example is simply Latinate adjective placement. In Latin (and Slavic too), the adjective could be placed after the noun to change the emphasis. And high-register English took that a lot. But you never see phrases such as "I - worker". That again only appears in East Slavic languages (though also Polish) and non-IE languages (Hungarian does it, and I've heard of it happening in Arabic and Hebrew too). Though here, there is more possibility of European non-IE languages being the influence, as Polish shows it too (albeit partially, I think you say _to księga_ but _ja *jestem* prezydent_) and it's not East Slavic.



> As to the syllable abbreviation, I am afraid this again is the Jewish spirit in Russian: the very first examples of such abbreviations seem to appear at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the firm names, their number was slowly rising in the next years until exploded exponentially during the revolution (1917) and the early Soviet times. The only language in Europe that had the tradition of such compounds before 1900 was Hebrew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend_word#Blending_of_two_roots), at the turn of the centuries journalists and businessmen of Jewish origin began to become influential nationwide in Russia, and Jews played a paramount role in the rise and shaping of the Soviet system and its specific language, hence their influence is the only plausible source of the origin of this part of the vocabulary in Russian.


The weird thing is - Russia, Poland, and Germany all used to have big numbers of Jews, but while Russian and German developed the tendency to form syllabic abbreviations, Polish didn't.

- *六道仙人*: You now made me wonder if past tense as imperative is also possible in Hebrew. If it is, then we have the language that influenced Russian on all 4 oddities.


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## 六道仙人

As I told you, Tunisian dialect, it's hardly mutually-intelligible with other dialects, let alone Standard Arabic. The dialect is hugely influenced by French, Amazighi, Italian, Maltese.


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## ahvalj

OBrasilo said:


> But the weird thing is, the East Slavic languages much prefer "to be at/to" to "to have", while all the surrounding languages seem to prefer "to have". Well, except for Hungarian, which also uses some for of to be to express possession, and it used to be used in Finnish too, but both are non-Indo-European languages. However, Slovak and Croatian was even more influenced by Hungarian (those people were ruled by Hugnary) and their languages _only_ have "to have", so it's weird that East Slavic languages have decided to prefer "to be at/to". Yes, I know the construct existed in Indo-European already (and there's other IE languages that use it too, for example Irish Gaelic), but the odd thing is that all IE languages surrounding East Slavic have largely opted for "to have", while East Slavic opted for "to be at/to". Hence why I have presumed that the _preference_ for that particular construct for possession came to be under influence of a language the Russian Empire had contact with that the surrounding (in Europe) IE speakers didn't.


Actually, the preference of "to be at" is particularly Russian (_у меня есть_): Ukrainian rather prefers "to have" (_я маю_), and I can't quite understand the situation in Belarusian as there are very few speakers remaining other than the "professional Belarusians" among the educated classes, who seem to be constructing their language according to their linguistic and culturological ideas.

If we look at the map, we will find that "surrounded" for Russian means something different than "surrounded" for the Central European, as, after the assimilation of the East European aboriginals (Balts, Finnics etc.), most Russian speakers for centuries had very little chance to communicate with foreigners and to get influenced by the foreign speech. The anecdotal evidence says that even in the 19th century many peasants didn't believe that foreign countries exist at all.

Besides Russian, the same situation with expressing possession is found in Latvian, which uses "to me is" (_man ir_) vs. the Lithuanian "I have" (_aš turiu_). While it is usually regarded as a sign of the Finnic substrate influence in Latvian, the construction with the Dative is purely IE: Finnic languages use "at me is", with the Adessive (_minulla on _in Finnish), and the same is found in Russian, which is a true innovation in the IE context. On the other hand, Southern and many Central Russian dialects (including those around Moscow) had no or virtually no Finnic borrowings, so it is hard to imagine how this substrate could have influenced the syntax without leaving traces in the vocabulary. The perceivable Turkic influence began with the Mongol yoke, in the 13th century, when this construction had already shaped, and, anyway, Turkic languages have left no traces in the Russian phonetics, morphology or syntax.



OBrasilo said:


> I'd say the English example is simply Latinate adjective placement. In Latin (and Slavic too), the adjective could be placed after the noun to change the emphasis. And high-register English took that a lot. But you never see phrases such as "I - worker". That again only appears in East Slavic languages (though also Polish) and non-IE languages (Hungarian does it, and I've heard of it happening in Arabic and Hebrew too). Though here, there is more possibility of European non-IE languages being the influence, as Polish shows it too (albeit partially, I think you say _to księga_ but _ja *jestem* prezydent_) and it's not East Slavic.


That is possible also in Lithuanian (_aš — darbininkas_), where it can be freely interchanged with the verbal construction (_[aš] esu darbininkas_), and was the rule e. g. in Hittite and Sanskrit.



OBrasilo said:


> The weird thing is - Russia, Poland, and Germany all used to have big numbers of Jews, but while Russian and German developed the tendency to form syllabic abbreviations, Polish didn't.


I guess, this was related to the extreme popularity and the direct and indirect influence of the left movements, which were very strong in both Russia (obviously) and Germany (including the Nazis in their social aspects), but, as far as I can judge, very limited in interwar Poland. That also applies to the artistic sphere, which in the 20's produced such radical movements as Bauhaus and Constructivism (I hate both), and certainly favored its own newspeak (e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vkhutemas or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberiu).

*Update:* removed the sentence about the anthem since I had misinterpreted the syntax.


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## ahvalj

OBrasilo said:


> But the weird thing is, the East Slavic languages much prefer "to be at/to" to "to have", while all the surrounding languages seem to prefer "to have". Well, except for Hungarian, which also uses some for of to be to express possession, and it used to be used in Finnish too, but both are non-Indo-European languages. However, Slovak and Croatian was even more influenced by Hungarian (those people were ruled by Hugnary) and their languages _only_ have "to have", so it's weird that East Slavic languages have decided to prefer "to be at/to". Yes, I know the construct existed in Indo-European already (and there's other IE languages that use it too, for example Irish Gaelic), but the odd thing is that all IE languages surrounding East Slavic have largely opted for "to have", while East Slavic opted for "to be at/to". Hence why I have presumed that the _preference_ for that particular construct for possession came to be under influence of a language the Russian Empire had contact with that the surrounding (in Europe) IE speakers didn't.


Much of this has been also discussed in another thread, with the same textbook set of examples; in particular, I'd like to reference these three posts: http://forum.wordreference.com/thre...e-on-grammar-phonology.2955857/#post-14944962 . As we can see, Old Church Slavonic (South Slavic) occasionally uses both "at me is" and "to me is".


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## ahvalj

Concerning the Finnish substrate/adstrate influence in Standard Russian, I can recall a single instance of it: the berry names on _-ика/-ika _(_черника, земляника, ежевика, голубика_). If I am not mistaken, all Slavic languages except Russian use for berries the suffix -_ica_<*-_īkā_ with *_k_>_ʦ_ as the result of the Third palatalization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Proto-Slavic#Progressive_palatalization). That palatalization, or at least its final stage, the assibilation of velars, occurred at the period when Slavic dialects had been already dispersed across much of East and Central Europe, and the outcomes of this process are not uniform (e. g. modern Russian has _ль*г*ота/lʲ*g*ota_ "benefit, discount" without the Third palatalization but _нель*з*я/nʲelʲ*zʲ*a_ "it is impossible, it is not allowed" with it, both from *-_li*g*_-; Belarusian has _нель*г*а/nʲelʲ*h*a_). It appears that the Finnic suffix of berry names -_ikka_ (Finnish _mustikka_, _mansikka; _along with _-ukka _in _juolukka, puolukka_), which casually sounded rather similar to the late Common Slavic *-_īkā_, prevented _k_ in this suffix from assibilation (or even from palatalization), so that in Russian we find_ -ика/-ika _for berries and _-ица/-iʦa _elsewhere (_волчица/volʨiʦa _"she-wolf" < *_u̯ilkīkā_).

Compare, e. g.: Finnish _musta_ "black" — _musti*kk*a_ "bilberry" (https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustikka)
Russian _чёрный/ʨornyj_ "black" — _черни*к*а/ʨerni*k*a_ "bilberry" (but _черница/ʨerni*ʦ*a _"nun", both from Late Common Slavic *_ʨirnīkā_)

Russian dialectal: _черни*ц*а/ʨerni*ʦ*a _"bilberry"
Belarusian: _чарні*ц*ы/ʧarnʲi*ʦ*y_
Ukrainian: _чорни*ц*я/ʧorny*ʦʲ*a_
Polish: _czerni*c*a_
Lower Sorbian: _carni*c*a_
Slovene: _črni*c*a_
Serbo-Croatian: _crni*c*a_.

Old Church Slavonic: _чрьни*ц*а/ʨr̥ʲni*ʦ*a_ "Morus, mulberry"
Bulgarian: _черни*ц*а/ʧerni*ʦ*a_ "Morus, mulberry"
Macedonian: _црни*ц*а/ʦr̥ni*ʦ*a_ "Morus, mulberry"
Czech: _černi*c*e_ [various plants]
Upper Sorbian: _čorni*c*a_ "blackberry"
Polabian: _carnai*ć*ă_ "blackberry".

The earliest Finnic contacts with future East Slavs go back to the 6–7th centuries and reflect a pretty archaic stage of Slavic, e. g. _o, ь_ and _ъ_ of the early Slavic documents of the 9–10th centuries were still Balto-Slavic _a, i_ and _u_ at that time (Late Common Slavic *_akuna_, Old East Slavic _окъно/okъno_ "window", Finnish _akkuna_; LCS *_talkuna_, OES _толокъно/tolokъno_ "a kind of flour mixture", Finnish _talkkuna; _LCS_ *paltina, _OES_ полотьно/polotьno "plain weave",_ Finnish _palttina_). These examples also show unmetathesized _al_ (future East Slavic _olo_).

In Greece, the pre-Third palatalization stage is attested e. g. in the toponyms _Γαρδίκι_ (https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/Γαρδίκι) from the Late Common Slavic *_gardikʲi_ "town", Old Church Slavonic _gradьcь_, Old East Slavic _gorodьcь_.


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## Ben Jamin

ahvalj said:


> C
> 
> Compare, e. g.: Finnish _musta_ "black" — _musti*kk*a_ "bilberry" (https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustikka)
> Russian _чёрный/ʨornyj_ "black" — _черни*к*а/ʨerni*k*a_ "bilberry" (but _черница/ʨerni*ʦ*a _"nun", both from Late Common Slavic *_ʨirnīkā_)


If I'm not mistaken *mustikka *in Finnish means *Vaccinium myrtillus *which in English is *blueberry*.


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## ahvalj

Ben Jamin said:


> If I'm not mistaken *mustikka *in Finnish means *Vaccinium myrtillus *which in English is *blueberry*.


This is what I had originally written, but then I checked Wikipedia and found this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccinium_myrtillus


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