Ket irregular verbs in a diachronic aspect

Abstract

The article discusses a number of word forms that are unusual for the structure of the Ket language and, in particular, for the typical structure of the Ket verb. These forms participate in speech as expressing the speaker's actions in the semantic sense, but do not receive the corresponding verb grammatical forms. These are word formations man'a ‘I say’ (the forms of the 1st person singular are given, since, according to the author, the Ket verb has no indefinite form); has'a 'I cut, saw’ (I, you, he, she); s'i 'I eat, you eat, he eats'; dija 'I will become'; kaba 'I will cut it'; itpadam 'I know '; dibo ‘I’m braiding’. If the "correct" Ket verb receives personal subject-object indicators, divided by K. Bouda into groups B and D (group D: di- – 1st p., ku- – 2nd p., du- m. / da- f. – 3rd p. and group B: ba- – 1st p., ku- – 2nd p., -a- m. /-i- f. – 3rd p.), then the paradigm of the considered verbs completely falls out of this rule. The author expresses his point of view on the origin of such linguistic units, considering them to be a manifestation, a relic, of the original words-particles-syncretes. The syncretistic words, which did not distinguish the parts of speech in the class structure, were, according to the author, the primary deixis words, expressing the class of the denotation and the degree of its distance from the speaker. In accordance with this conclusion, the analyzed word forms represent the "hidden memory" of the language, i. e. grammaticalized deictic particles with the structure CV: ma-, n'a-, da-, ni-, ku-, nu-, ba-, ka-, ja-, si-, la-, du-, in which consonants expressed diachronically class, and vowels - the degree of distance from the speaker: -i - "closest", -u – "in the middle, visible", -a – "that far, invisible." Complex verb forms of the modern Ket language with many indicators of grammatical categories are, according to the author's point of view, an advanced stage in the development of the language on the way from the class structure through the active to the nominative-accusative.