Original scientific paper
Past Time Forms in the Croatian, Ukrainian and Russinian Language
Oksana Timko-Đitko
Abstract
The time category in the verb system is closely connected with other verbal categories. Depending on the language, the categories of person, number, gender and aspect have an important role in the formation of past tense forms. The analyzed languages differ in the importance of those categories in the formation of past tense, but primarily with regards to the number of past tense forms. Croatian language has the highest number of past tenses (four), while Ukrainian and Russinian language have only two (whereas the plusquamperfect is practically not used at all). The Croatian language preserves complete paradigm of auxiliary, as well as gender differences in plural, which is lost in the other two languages. Within the existing past tense forms, the analyzed languages have many common characteristics which result from their common past. However, several century long detachments have produced certain differences. Although genetically closer to Ukrainian, more than two centuries of contact with South Slavic languages has had an obvious impact on Russinian language. Contrary to Ukrainian, Russinian uses morphologically marked auxiliary forms when personal pronouns are not used, which is parallel to Croatian.
Keywords
Croatian; Ukrainian; Russinian; verb forms; comparison
Hrčak ID:
10912
URI
Publication date:
27.2.2007.
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