Congruence as a morphosyntactic problem (in synchrony and diachrony)

Abstract

The syntactic congruence is considered, i.e., the likening of one syntactic unit to another one. This likening means that a member of sentence receives some grammatical characteristics, what are not connected with its own meaning and don’t change it. The congruence is realized sometimes with the duplication of the same morpheme in both congruent members of a phrase, or with addition of some new morphs to the dependent member. Some morphems have severalorigin, but identic grammatical meaning. Congruence leads to the formation of new inflectional forms: nominal classes in Bantu; markers of these classes in substantives are repeated in adjectives and verbs. The system o subject and object markers is developed in verbal paradigm in many Caucasian languages. In Finno-Ugric languages so-called object conjugation has markers of a subject-agens. The form of 3 Sg. in “subject” conjugation heas zro ending, in object one an expressed flexion. Such opposition is characteristic for many languages in the World. Calvrt Watkins meant that the form of 3 Sg. is a ground of verbal paradigm: flexions of another person are joining to this form (Poln miał ‘kneaded’ → miałem, miałes). But zero grade is more characteristic for verbs of state. Verbs of action receive expressed ending, what are often originated from demonstrative pronoun of 3 Sg.