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17
'Knowing How' in Slovene: Treading the Other Path*
Barbara Sonnenhauser
University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
'Зная, как' в словенском языке: идя по иному пути
Барбара Зонненхаузер
Цюрихский университет, Цюрих, Швейцария
Abstract
For the linguistic expression of the concept of knowledge, the Slavic languages use verbs deriving from the Indo-European roots *gno and *ueid. They differ in terms of the availability of both types of verbs in the contemporary standard languages and in terms of their semantic range. As will be shown in this paper, these differences are interesting not only from a language-specific lexicological point of view, but also in the context of the intersection of lexicon and grammar. Covering the domain of 'knowing how,' the *gno-based verb in Slovene (znati) has been extending into the domain of possibility and, on this basis, developing into a modal verb. While this development is not surprising from a typological point of view, it is remarkable from a Slavic perspective, since this particular grammaticalisation path towards possibility is otherwise unknown to Slavic. This peculiar feature of Slovene, which most probably relates to its long-lasting and intensive contact with German, is illustrated in the present paper by comparing Slovene to Russian on the basis of three main questions: 1) the semantic range of vedeti / vedat' and znati / znat' 2) the lexicalisation of 'know how,' and 3) the relation between knowledge, ability, and possibility. The focus is on contemporary Slovene and Russian, leaving a detailed diachronic investigation and the further embedding into a larger Slavic and areal perspective for future analyses.
* I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. The research for this paper has been carried out within the project Language Description as Filter and Prism: The 'Individuality' of Slovene funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNF (grant number 10001B_162970/1; http://www.slav.uzh.ch/de/forschunguebersicht/sprachwissprojekte/snf_slovenisch.html).
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Keywords
knowledge, ability, modality, Slovene, Russian
Резюме
Для выражения понятия знания славянские языки используют глаголы, производные от индоевропейских корней *gno и *ueid, но различаются условиями употребления обоих типов этих глаголов в современной литературной норме и условиями их семантического ранжирования. Как показано в настоящей статье, эти различия интересны не только с точки зрения лингвоспецифичности лексики, но также в контексте пересечения лексики и грамматики. Обслуживая сферу значений 'зная, как', словенский глагол с основой *gno (znati) распространился и на семантическую сферу возможности и благодаря этому стал модальным глаголом. Хотя этот сдвиг и не удивителен с типологической точки зрения, он примечателен в общеславянской перспективе, поскольку этот особый путь грамматикализации в сторону семантики возможности в целом не известен прочим славянским языкам. Эта характерная черта словенского языка, которая, скорее всего, связана с длительными и интенсивными его контактами с немецким, проиллюстрирована в настоящей статье сравнением словенского языка с русским в трёх главных аспектах: 1) семантический диапазон глаголов vedeti / ведать и znati / знать, 2) лексикализация значения 'знать, как' и 3) взаимоотношения между понятиями знания, способности и возможности. Основное внимание уделено современным словенскому и русскому языкам, без подробных экскурсов в их историю, но с прицелом на дальнейшее исследование данного вопроса в широкой славянской и ареальной перспективе.
Ключевые слова
знание, возможность, модальность, словенский язык, русский язык
1. Introduction
As concerns the expression of KNOWLEDGE,1 the Germanic and Slavic languages exhibit verbs that derive from the Indo-European roots *gnö and *ueid. The contemporary standard languages differ, however, in two main regards: as concerns the lexical partitioning of KNOWLEDGE by these verbs and as concerns the semantic extension of the verbs based on *gnö. This is illustrated in (1) and (1'):2 Slovene displays *gnö-based poznati and znati alongside *ueid-based vedeti. German, too, has verbs of both roots (kennen and können < *gnö, wissen < *ueid), while Russian and English use *gnö-based verbs only (znat' and know, respectively). That is, the two members of the Germanic family differ in that English has one verb only (know), whereas German displays three different verbs (kennen, wissen, können). A similar relation obtains between Slovene and Russian as representatives of Slavic:
1 Uppercase letters indicate concepts.
2 Eng = English, Ger = German, Ru = Russian, Slo = Slovene.
Slovene uses two different verbs ((po)znati, vedeti), as opposed to one verb (znat') in Russian. Moreover, it does not seem possible to use ru. znat' in translating slo. znam prisluhniti, which points towards a difference in the semantic extension of znat' and znati.
(1) a. Slo: Kdor mepozna, ve, da znam prisluhniti ljudem! [Gigafida: Dnevnik 2000] b. Ger: wer mich kennt, weiss, dass ich den Menschen zuhören kann!
(1') a. Ru: Te, kto menja znaet, znajut, cto ja xoroso umeju prislusivat'sja k ljudjam! b. Eng: [lit.] Who knows me knows that I know how to listen to the people!
Remarkably, then, the differences in the expression KNOWLEDGE by means of *gnö and *ueid seem to be more pronounced within than across the Slavic and German families.
Against this background, Slovene turns out to be quite particular among Slavic in two main respects: First, it lexicalises KNOWLEDGE by means of verbs deriving from both roots, with the *gnö-based verb having entered the domains of 'knowing how' and ability, see (1). Second, and even more particular, this semantic expansion constitutes a recent starting point for the gram-maticalisation of possibility—a path that is not observed for the other Slavic languages. This usage of znati as expressing epistemic possibility is illustrated
in (2):
(2) Do polovice meseca bo sicer retrogradni Merkur delal tezave v komunikaciji, tako da zna priti do kaksnih nerodnih situacij.
'Until the middle of the month Mercury will cause communication troubles, such that uncomfortable situations may arise!
(http://slowwwenia.enaa.com/Novice/Horoskop/Mesecni-horoskop-za-december2011.html, 23.1.2012)
The link between 'knowing how,' ability and modality has been stated previously (e.g., [Kiefer 1997]), as has the status of 'know' as one possible lexical source of possibility (e.g., [Bybee et al. 1994; Auwera, Plungian 1998; Hansen 2001; Narrog 2012]). This has been done mainly retrospectively, i.e., from the perspective of modality. The present paper will shift the focus towards the concept of KNOWLEDGE as the starting point of this development. This allows for stating the links mentioned above more precisely in that a language-independent point of reference is provided. It thus also becomes possible to show the closeness of Slovene to German and its differences from Russian, which is taken here as the exemplary representative3 of Slavic.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 introduces three sub-domains of KNOWLEDGE and their verbal lexicalisation in Germanic and Slavic. The
3 This is, of course, a broad oversimplification, but suffices for the purposes of the present paper.
intra-Slavic differences concerning these lexicalisation patterns of KNOWLEDGE in terms of *gno- and *ueid-based verbs are illustrated in section 3 on the examples of Slovene and Russian. Section 4 focuses on 'knowing how' and its relation to ABILITY on the one hand, and the differences between Slovene and Russian in the lexicalisation of ABILITY by their *gno-based verbs on the other. On this basis, Slovene znati is shown to constitute an emerging modal verb in section 5. In this way, the linguistic expression of KNOWLEDGE becomes relevant from a lexical-typological and areal perspective, as will be concluded in section 6.
2. KNOWLEDGE
In the philosophical tradition (e.g., [Ryle 1945; Vendler 1957; Stanley 2011]), three main domains of KNOWLEDGE are commonly differentiated: factual knowledge ('knowing that'), knowledge concerning how to do something ('knowing how') and acquaintance with something or somebody ('knowing sb / sth'). Apresjan [1995] refers to these domains as propozicional'noe znanie 'propositional knowledge,' znanie-umenie 'knowledge-ability' and znanie-zna-komstvo 'knowledge-acquaintance' and thereby captures the different targets or types of content of knowledge: propositions, actions and objects, cf. table 1. In order to abstract away, as far as possible, from any language-specific connotations, the three domains will be referred to as KNOW-1, KNOW-2 and KNOW-3 in the remainder of this paper.
Table 1. The concept of KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE subdomains target shortcut
'knowing that' / propositional knowledge 'knowing how' / knowledge-ability 'know sb / sth' / knowledge-acquaintance proposition action object KNOW-1 KNOW-2 KNOW-3
In his survey of synonyms for selected basic concepts in the main Indo-European languages, Buck [1949: 1208] notes in the entry for 'know' that "know as a fact" (that is, KNOW-1) and "be acquainted with" (that is, KNOW-3) are both covered by know in contemporary English, while in other Indo-European languages both domains "were originally expressed by different words and still are." These different words typically derive from the roots *gnö and *ueid, which originally described two kinds of knowledge (e.g., [Grkovic-Mej-dzor 2007: 315]4): perceptive knowledge for which the subject is a passive
4 Stating that "[r]ani indoevropski, kao jezik aktivne tipologije, ovu razliku markirao je leksicki" 'early Indo-European, as a language of the active typology, marked this difference on a lexical basis,' Grkovic-Mejdzor [2007: 315] regards the lexical differentiation of both types of knowledge as a characteristic feature of early Indo-European, being in line with its 'active' character (see [Klimov 1972] for more details
recipient (*ueid) and inferential knowledge, in which the subject is actively involved (*gnö). In some languages, the sense of 'know how to do' "became dominant" [Buck 1949: 1208] for *gnö. That is, words of this root developed to cover kNoW-2 and thereby started being "used as 'know how' and so virtually 'can,' like Fr. ilsait lire 'he (knows how to) can read'" [ibid.: 647]. In addition, one further kind of development can be observed, "displacing the older meaning 'know' and the old words for 'can'" [ibid.: 647]. One case in point is English, where large parts of KNOW-2, in particular the possibility readings (see section 5), are expressed by the modal can, leaving know as a lexical verb.
The differences in English and German concerning the linguistic partitioning of KNOWLEDGE by means of the verbs under discussion are illustrated in table 2. English uses know for all three subdomains, distinguishing the content of knowledge—proposition, action, object—on syntactic grounds (complement clause, infinitive, direct object). Within KNOW-2, a particular part has been taken over by can (< cunnan), a cognate of know (e.g., [Watkins 1985: 32]), such that can and know now divide up this domain. German has verbs derived from *gnö for KNOW-2 (können) and KNOW-3 (kennen), whereas *ueid-based wissen is used for KNOW-1. That is, while in English can split off and developed into a fully fledged modal, in German kennen split off as a lexical verb, leaving können with modal functions. Differently from English, contemporary German marks the partition of KNOWLEDGE also on a lexical basis.
Table 2. Germanic
English German
KNOW-1 *gnö> know *ueid > wissen
KNOW-2 *gnö > know, can *gnö> können
KNOW-3 *gnö> know *gnö> kennen
The difference between English and German concerning the expression of KNOW-1 and KNOW-3 by verbs derived from one and the same root (English) or from two different roots (German) can be observed within the Slavic family as well. The contemporary Slavic languages divide into two groups [Popo-vic 1960: 3; Grkovic-Mejdzor 2007: 317-318], as can be seen in table 3. The languages of the former group, which includes East Slavic (except for Ukrainian), Eastern BCS, Bulgarian and Macedonian, employ *gno for KNOW-1 and KNOW-3, whereas the latter—including Slovene, Western BCS, West Slavic and Ukrainian—have *gno for KNOW-3 and *ueid for KNOW-1. As concerns
on active languages). The fact that in Russian, for instance, *ueidbut not *gno appears in the context of impersonal predicatives such as mne izvestno 'I know,' 'I am aware of' (lit. 'it is known to me') might be taken as attesting to this quality.
the lexical expression of KNOW-1 and KNOW-3, Russian thus ties in with the 'English type' and Slovene with the 'German type' (see also (1) and (1') above).
Table 3. Slavic
East Slavic, Eastern BCS, Bulg., Mac. Slovene, Western BCS, West Slavic
KNOW-1 *gno > znat' *ueid > vedeti
KNOW-2 ? ?
KNOW-3 *gno > znat' *gno > (po)znati
As the overview in Buck [1949: 1207] shows, the lexical differentiation of KNOWLEDGE by means of *gno and *ueid is characteristic of older stages of Germanic and Slavic (on Slavic see also [Grkovic-Mejdzor 2007: 317]). This distinction has been lost in some of the contemporary languages, such as English or Russian,5 while others have retained it, such as German, Danish and Swedish, and the Slavic languages given in table 3. The geographical location of the languages of the latter type suggests a division of European languages into a periphery, where the distinction has been given up, and a centre, where it is still kept (see also the overview in [Key, Comrie 2015]),6 albeit with slightly diverging semantic characteristics for the verbs of both roots.
Strikingly, neither Popovic [1960] nor Grkovic-Mejdzor [2007] considers KNOW-2 in their intra-Slavic differentiation. Most probably, this relates to the fact that in Slavic, KNOW-2 is expressed by verbs deriving from the root *mog 'power, be strong' (e.g., Russian moc', BCS moci, Czech moci). At first sight, therefore, the linguistic expression of KNOW-2 does not seem to be relevant for the lexical distinctions within KNOWLEDGE in Slavic.
3. KNOWLEDGE in Slovene and Russian
This section offers a closer look at the semantic characteristics and preferred contexts of the usage of verbs derived from *gno and *ueid in Slovene and Russian as representatives of the two groups introduced in section 2.
5 The question as to when, where and under what conditions *ueidstarted to fall into desuetude in these languages remains to be investigated, ideally taking into account factors such as genre, language contact (written and oral) and prescriptive tradition.
6 This is not congruent with Haspelmath's [1998] distinction of Standard Average European into nucleus, core and periphery, which he bases on morpho-syntactic features dating—with all due caution—to the "time of the great migrations at the transition between antiquity and the Middle Ages" [ibid.: 285]. The lexical partition under discussion here seems to be younger and subject to processes which are still in need of closer inspection. As concerns the Slavic languages, extra-linguistic factors such as translations of prestigious texts (most importantly, the Bible) or the tradition of (mainly German and, secondarily, Czech) grammar writing might have played a role, in particular for the retention of *ueid alongside *gno.
3.1 Lexicological descriptions
According to [MAS], Russian vedat' expresses the possession of information about something or somebody; for this interpretation, znat' is given as a synonym expression. In literary styles, vedat' is described as expressing sentience. However, it is indicated as being outdated in both interpretations and as being restricted to phraseological expressions such as vedat' ne vedaet 's/he does not have the slightest idea' (see also [Ptencova 2008: 267] on the constantly decreasing usage of vedat' as evinced in the Russian National Corpus7).
For znat', [MAS] distinguishes the four main interpretations listed in (3):
(3) a. to possess information about sb / sth
b. to have skills in a particular domain (e.g., znat'matematiku 'know mathematics')
c. to know sb / sth (ja znal korotko etogo starika 'I have known this old man closely'); to experience sth
d. to understand, recognise, comprehend
Since with interpretations (3a) and (3d), znat' covers domains that are also mentioned for the outdated vedat', the contemporary distribution seems to result from the semantic expansion of znat' at the expense of vedat' (see also [Apre-sjan 1995: 46]; Ptencova [2008: 274, 277] dates the beginning of the expansion of znat' into the semantic domain of vedat' to the 15th c.). In none of the interpretations listed is znat' directed towards an action, which suggests that it does not cover KNOW-2. This is also reflected in Apresjan's [2004: 398-399] description, which gives the factive interpretation (i.e., KNOW-1) as the main meaning for znat', alongside 'imet' svedenija o cem-libo' 'have information about something' (i.e., KNOW-3). Two further interpretations, 'obladat' umenijami v opredelennoj oblasti (znat'francuzskij [. . .])' 'possess capabilities in a particular domain (knowFrench)', which is close to KNOW-2, and 'byt' znakomym s kem-libo' 'be acquainted with somebody' [ibid.: 399], which can be regarded as an instance of KNOW-3, are mentioned as additional, but peripheral, interpretations.8
For Slovene vedeti, [SSKJ] lists the interpretations given in (4). All of them testify to the passive character of the kind of KNOWLEDGE lexicalised by
7 Apart from "za poslednee stoletie" 'over the last century,' Ptencova [2008: 267] does not give any details as to the time span covered by her analysis. She neither dwells upon the method of query, but simply notes that "-vedat' vstrecaetsja v 20 raz reze cem znat"' ''vedat'is met 20 times less frequently than znat" [ibid.]. Nonetheless, this can be taken as indicating the general trend.
8 Citing example (i), one of the reviewers points out an additional usage of znat', which does not seem to be related to KNOWLEDGE but instead carries the aspectual meaning of stativity:
(i) fitot gorod znal i vremena procvetanija, i epoxi upadka.
'This city has known times of prosperity as well as epochs of decline.' This usage is not covered by the present paper. However, because it exhibits an inanimate subject, it might possibly be analysed as an expansion of KNOW-3.
*ueid (cf. section 2). The main domain of vedeti appears to be KNOW-1, while KNOW-2 is covered only marginally. It is described as being outdated in usage (4d), i.e., in the sense of KNOW-3.
(4) a. to be aware of sth / have sth in mind on the basis of perception or learning
b. to be aware of / have in mind basic properties of sth on the basis of personal experience
c. to be in a position to carry out some action because of personal experience
d. outdated 'znati': vedeti tuje jezike 'to know foreign languages'
For znati, [SSKJ] gives the interpretations in (5):
(5) a. to memorise what has been learnt and be able to convey and apply it
b. to be able to successfully execute and perform a particular capability
c. vernacular: possibly to be the case: tam bi znala biti zaseda 'there might be an ambush'
d. outdated 'vedeti': za njegov dolg so znali vsi 'everyone knew about his debts'
Being directed towards an action, interpretations (5a) and (5b) cover the domain of KNOW-2. Interpretation (5c) is not captured by the subdomains of KNOWLEDGE established so far; it will be dealt with in sections 4 and 5 (see (2) for a first illustration). There is one usage for which znati is listed as being outdated, namely, as a synonym for a particular use of vedeti, (5d). Taken together, these descriptions suggest a division of labour in Slovene. Contrary to Russian, Slovene *gno (znati) has not ousted *ueid (vedeti). Instead, both still retain the original semantics of active vs. passive knowledge and each cover particular domains of KNOWLEDGE.
The differences between Slovene znati and vedeti on the one hand, and between Slovene and Russian on the other can be seen in (6), a parallel passage retrieved from the Parasol corpus:
(6) a. Slo: (i) Vem, da (ii) nicesar ne znam dobro. (iii) Vem, da nisem lepa. . .
[Parasol]
'I know that I don't know [= don't know how to do] anything well. I know that I am not beautiful. . .'
b. Ru: (i) Znaju, cto (iia) ja glupa. (iib) Znaju, cto nicego kak sleduet (iic) ne umeju. (iii) Znaju, cto ja nekrasivaja. . . [Parasol]
'I know that I am stupid. I know that I am not able to do anything as it should be done. I know that I am not beautiful.'
In Slovene, (6a), vem has a proposition as target (KNOW-1), znam a nominalised action (KNOW-2)—as becomes obvious by the Russian translation. In Russian, (6b), znaju is used as an equivalent for vem (KNOW-1), while znam and its target
nicesar 'nothing' are rendered by (iia)-(iic): (iia) ja glupa 'I am stupid' serves as a general paraphrase, while the actional complement implicit in nicesar is paraphrased by (iib) znaju and its propositional complement (iic) nicego kak sleduet ne umeju 'I am not able to do anything the way it should be done.' The actional content of KNOWLEDGE (KNOW-2) needs to be introduced by umet 'to be able,' since this is not an option for znat'—contrary to Slovene znati. For the second instance of propositional KNOWLEDGE in (iii), Slovene and Russian again use vedeti and znat' respectively.
3.2 Usage
The differences between Russian and Slovene in the semantic coverage of the verbs under discussion surface more distinctly in parallel texts.9 Examples (7)-(9) show different ways in which Slovene vedeti as expressing KNOW-1 may be rendered in Russian: except for a very few examples of vedat' (see (7)), this meaning is expressed by znat' (see (8)), or predicative constructions, such as izvestno 'it is known' (with vest' < *ueid; see also footnote 4) (see (9)).
(7) a. Slo: Kaznovati nekoga, ki ni vedel, kaj dela, je navadno barbarstvo. [Parasol] b. Ru: Nakazyvat' kogo-to, kto ne vedal, cto tvoril, ne cto inoe, kak varvarstvo.
[Parasol]
'Punishing somebody who did not know, what he was doing, is barbarism.'
(8) a. Slo: kajti on dobro ve, da [Parasol]
b. Ru: ibo prekrasno znaet, sto [Parasol] 'since he knows very well that'
(9) a. Slo: nihce ne ve, kaksna misel je tedaj obsla Ivana [Parasol]
b. Ru: nikomu ne izvestno, kakaja tut mysl' ovladela Ivanom [Parasol] 'nobody knew, what thought has crept over Ivan'
KNOW-3 is expressed by means of (po)znati and znat', respectively, see (10):
(10) a. Slo: Seveda vas poznam! [Parasol]
b. Ru: Razumeetsja, ja znaju vas. [Parasol] 'Of course, I know you.'
Example (11) oscillates between KNOW-3, which is suggested by the nominal object, and KNOW-2, which is suggested by the semantics of this object, which includes an action:10
9 It is important to note that the comparison in this section is not to be taken as a detailed corpus study nor does it aim at providing a detailed survey of the means of expressing ability in Russian (see, e.g., [Beljaeva 1990; Belyaeva-Standen 2002; Hansen 2001] for concise overviews and analyses).
10 The further context of this example does not contribute to solving this equivocality, see (ii):
(11) a. Slo: Znam se tajsko masazo. [Parasol]
b. Ru: Ja esce tajskij massaz znaju. [Parasol] 'I know the Thai massage.'
As concerns KNOW-2, znati is common in Slovene, while in Russian, znat' is listed (see 3b) as expressing this sense of KNOWLEDGE only in examples such as (12):
(12) a. Slo: Poleg domacega znam pet jezikov. [Parasol]
b. Ru: Ja znaju pjat' jazykov, krome rodnogo. [Parasol] 'I know five languages besides my native one.'
Actually, however, in cases like (12), knowledge seems to be targeted at an object rather than at an action, whereby such uses of znat' seem much closer to KNOW-3, i.e., know something / somebody. Obviously, we are dealing with the same kind of oscillation as observed for (11), which derives from the divergence of syntax (nominal object) and semantics (nominal object suggesting an action).
Apart from this restricted usage of znat', which is also the only example Apresjan [2004: 399] lists for znanie-umenie, Russian exhibits various equivalents to Slovene znati in this domain. These equivalents encompass, most prominently, implicit coding, (13), umet' 'be able,' (14), and moc' 'be able, can,' (15).
(13) a. Slo: Ah, kako zna streljati! [Parasol] b. Ru: ax, kak on streljaet [Parasol]
'Ah, how he shoots!'
(14) a. Slo: Zakaj hodis na bazen, ce ne znas plavat? [Parasol]
b. Ru: Zacem ty xodis' v bassejn, esli plavat' ne umees'? [Parasol] 'Why do you go to the pool if you cannot swim?'
(15) a. Slo: Tega ti ne znampovedati drugace [Parasol] b. Ru: Ja ne mogu tebe ob'jasnit' etogo. [Parasol]
'I cannot explain this in a different way.'
Based on (7)-(15), the semantic scope of znati / znat' and vedeti / vedat' can be summarised as in table 4: whereas in Russian, znati has ousted vedat' for KNOW-1, both verbs have specialised for KNOW-1 and KNOW-3, respectively, in Slovene. In addition, Slovene znati covers KNOW-2, an option not available for Russian znat'.
(ii) "Znam se tajsko masazo," je rekla . "Kaksna pa je ta?" je vprasal [. . .] "To se dela s stopali. Ulegel se bos na tla, jaz pa bom preprosto hodila po tebi. . ." [Parasol] '"I also know the Thai massage," she said. "What [kind of massage] is this," he asked. "It is done with your feet. You lay down on the floor, and I will simply walk on you.'
Table 4. KNOW-2 in Russian and Slovene
KNOW-1 KNOW-2 KNOW-3
Russian vedat' (+) — (+)
znat' + (+) +
Slovene vedeti + (+) —
znati (+) + +
The data presented in this section show that Slovene is among the languages for which the sense of 'know how to do,' i.e., KNOW-2, became dominant—or at least possible—for *gno (cf. section 2). Being directed towards an action, KNOW-2 is closely related to ability, as will be discussed in more detail in section 4.
4. KNOW-2 and ABILITY
ABILITY is not a uniform concept but comprises several subdomains. Maier [2014] differentiates dispositions, powers and abilities. Dispositions are ascribed to subjects as particular properties (e.g., is-fragile). Powers, such as understand a language, in addition require a subject possessing cognitive capacities. Abilities, such as speak a language, require a cognitive subject, too; moreover, they are actional, i.e., directed towards an activity. This type of singular belongs to what Mele [2003: 447] calls 'practical' abilities. They come in three variants: simple, general and promise-level [ibid.: 447]. Simple and general abilities differ according to whether they depend upon an enabling situation (specific) or not (general), as Mele [2003: 447] illustrates in the following example:
Although I have not golfed for years, I am able to golf. I am not able to golf just now, however. I am in my office now, and it is too small to house a golf course. The ability to golf that I claimed that I have may be termed a general practical ability. It is the kind of ability to A that we attribute to agents even though we know that they have no opportunity to A at the time of attribution, and we have no specific occasion for their A-ing in mind. The ability to golf that I denied I have is a specific practical ability, an ability an agent has at a time to A then or to A on some specified later occasion.
As to the third type, an ability is a promise-level ability of an agent if it is "a sufficiently reliable ability to ground, in an [. . .] agent who knows her own abilities, complete confidence that, barring unexpected substantial obstacles, if she sincerely promises to A, she will A" [Mele 2003: 464]. That is, promise-level abilities can be understood as an agent's assurance and belief in her capacities to carry out a particular action. They concern the estimation as to the possible success of her action and are thereby close to an assessment of the likelihood of the occurrence of a situation.
On the basis of these subtypes of abilities, the uses of Slovene znati and their Russian equivalents introduced in section 3.2 can be classified more coherently. For the expression of dispositions, i.e., property-like 'abilities,' medium constructions are preferred in both languages, see (16). This comes as no surprise given that medium constructions resemble statives, ascribing a state to an individual (e.g., [Spencer, Zaretskaya 2003]).
(16) a. Slo: Pod njegovim pogeldom se je tezko odlocati. [Parasol] b. Ru: Pod ego vzgljadom tjazelo dumaetsja! [Parasol]
'Being exposed to his gaze it is difficult to decide/think.'
As illustrated by examples (17)-(30), Slovene znati is an option for the expression of powers describing a capability of an agent, for general abilities which are independent of an enabling situation, and for specific abilities requiring a particular occasion to be carried out. Russian, however, uses various different means for the expression of these abilities.
Typically, powers are expressed indirectly in Russian, as in (17). Such instances of what Kratzer [2002] calls 'inherent modality' often go by the label of 'potential reading' of the imperfective aspect (see [Sonnenhauser 2008] for more details on this particular interpretation). In addition, moc' is an option, see (18). The rare occurrences found in the NKRJa of znat' expressing powers, such as (19), stem from older and rather literary texts, which suggests that this usage is not—or no longer—very typical for znat'.
(17) Slo: zna dokaj dobro govoriti s tukajsnjimi ljudmi [Parasol] Ru: bez truda razgovarivaet s mestnymi [Parasol]
'he can speak easily with the local people'
(18) Ru: cto mozet ponimat' o zizni devocka v 14 let [. . .]? [NKRJa] 'What would a 14-year-old girl be able to understand about life?'
(19) Ru: — O, boze! — Tol'ko i znaes'pridirat'sja. . . [NKRJa] '—Oh, Lord! —All you can do is carp. . .'
The most common expression of general abilities is umet', as in (20) and (21), with moc' being possible as well, see (22). Rarely, znat' is attested, see (23). But again, such examples appear to be restricted to older and literary texts.
(20) a. Slo: Bog [. . .] pa zna tudi kaznovati. [Parasol] b. Ru: No Gospod' umeet karat'! [Parasol]
'God knows how to punish.'
(21) Ru: Moja mama [. . .] toze umela sit' (eto umeli delat' vse v sem'e ee roditelej [. . .]), no ne vsegda u nee bylo dlja etogo vremja. [NKRJa]
'My mum could sew, too (everybody in her parents' family could do this), but she did not always have enough time.'
(22) Ru: Proizvol'nost' — eto kogda rebenok mozet upravljat' svoim povedeniem [NKRJA]
'Voluntariness—this is when the child is able to control its behaviour'
(23) Ru: Drevnie znali citat eti nacertanija. [NKRJa]
'the ancients could read [knew how to read] these inscriptions'
Specific abilities, which require an enabling situation, can only be expressed by moc' in Russian. In (24), the enabling situation is very general ('in all possible circumstances'), in (25) it is given by 'reasons of illness':
(24) a. Slo: Pilot, ki se ne zna v vsakih okoliscinah orientirati, ali kak pojav traja pet
sekund ali deset, ne bo nikoli kaj dosti vreden. [Parasol]
b. Ru: Pilot, kotoryj ne mozet, nezavisimo ot obstojatel'stv, sorientirovat'sja, skol'ko proslo sekund — pjat' ili desjat', nikogda ne stanet masterom svoego dela. [Parasol]
'A pilot who is not able to orient himself in all possible circumstances whether some phenomenon lasts for five seconds or ten, is for the birds.'
(25) Ru: po bolezni ne mozet ucastvovat v sudebnom razbiratel'stve [NKRJa] 'for reasons of illness, he cannot attend the court hearing'
That the means sketched in (20)-(25) cannot be used interchangeably in Russian but that each have their particular preferences for certain subdomains of ABILITY becomes evident by (26) and (27). These examples illustrate the difference between inherent and overtly expressed ability on the one hand, and between umet' and moc' on the other. In both cases, particular communicative effects arise from the usage of umet' in contexts that, as a default, require a different means of expressing ability. The kind of ability to be expected for a non-intentional subject such as a kitchen machine is a disposition. However, the usage of umet' in (26) suggests an intentional subject, as pointed out, e.g., by Hansen [2001: 182], who describes the semantics of umet' as 'a possibility that is assigned to an animate being because of know-how or practice.' It is this mismatch that underlies the interpretation of the kitchen machine having human-like powers in (26)—an effect that can be exploited in advertising, selling this machine as an active, independently operating helper in kitchen work.
(26) Ru: Novyj kuxonnyj kombajn Philips Essence pojmet vse s pervogo slova. On umeet rezat' lomtikami, [. . .] vyzimat' sok. . . [NKRJa]
'The most recent kitchen machine will understand anything straightaway. It is able to cut slices, to press out juice'
In (27), umet' is used with a cognitive subject for which dumat' is an inherent characteristic. It is nothing that can willingly be brought about by carrying out a particular action. In this case, it is a mismatch in actionality that triggers pragmatic enrichment yielding particular communicative effects (irony, for instance).
(27) Ru: Okazyvaetsja, nas rezisser umeet dumat'! [NKRJa] 'Obviously, our stage director is able to think!
The third type of ability, promise-level ability, can be expressed in Russian only by moc', as in (28):
(28) Ru: Ja ne znaju, gde okazus' cerez 20 minut, [. . .]. Mogu byt' zanjata 8 casov podrjad. . . [NKRJa]
'I don't know where I will be in 20 minutes. I may be continuously busy for 8 hours.'
Remarkably, Slovene znati reaches also into the domain of promise-level ability. This can be seen in (29), where znam biti razumska may be interpreted as expressing self-assessment:
(29) Slo: A to ni res, saj znam biti razumska, [. . .] [Gigafida]
'But this is not true, I may indeed be sensible.' [lit. 'I know to be sensible']
This semantic extension of znati becomes even more evident in (30a). Since pozabljivost 'forgetfulness' is not an agentive, cognitive subject, zna stati may receive an epistemic interpretation only. In Russian, moc' is the only option to express this meaning, see (30b):
(30) a. Slo: Tokrat jih zna pozabljivost stati 1.666.000 tolarjev. [FidaPlus]
'This time, their forgetfulness may cost them 1.666.000 Tolars.'
b. Ru: Durnoe slovo mozet obojtis' vam ocen' dorogo. [NKRJa] 'A bad word may cost you dearly.'
With uses such as (29) and (30), znati clearly reaches into the modal domain. The transition from ABILITY to MODALITY11 will be sketched in section 5.
11 'The transition from ABILITY to MODALITY' refers to the expansion of znati from a lexical to a modal verb. Bybee et al. [1994] show the diachronic path from ability to modality, which consists in the increasing grammaticalisation of lexical elements originally expressing various senses of 'capability.' Kiefer [1997: 252] offers a pragmatic account of the "'genetic' relationship between ability and root modality." Due to this close relationship, ABILITY is sometimes subsumed under MODALITY (e.g., [Auwera, Plungian 1998]).
5. From ABILITY to MODALITY
The subtypes of ABILITY listed in section 4 can be characterised by a specific set of features each, as summarised in table 5. Dispositions are ascribed as properties to a subject which does not need to have cognitive capacities but may well be a simple 'bearer' of properties. This is different for powers, which can be predicated only of cognitive subjects. General and specific abilities have an additional actional component. Both are distinguished by the relevance of situational factors for the latter. With the factor of situation coming to the fore, specific abilities shade into what might be called 'circumstantial' ability. For promise-level abilities, the factors of cognitive subject and situation lose their relevance. What becomes relevant instead is the agent's assessment concerning the likelihood of the successful execution of an action and the concomitant occurrence of a particular situation.
Table 5. ABILITY
Parameter ABILITy
+subject disposition
+subject, +cognitive power
+subject, +cognitive, +actional general ability
+subject, +cognitive, +actional, +situation specific ability
[+subject, +cognitive, +actional], +situation circumstantial ability / possibility
[±subject, ±cognitive, ±actional, ±situation], +assessment promise-level ability / possibility
Based on these feature sets, the relation between ABILITY and MODALITY can be stated more explicitly, in particular, the points of transgression towards the different types of modality. First of all, it becomes clear why dispositions are not expressed by znati: they are not a mental phenomenon and hence outside the range of KNOWLEDGE in general, and of KNOW-2 in particular; actually, it may be questioned whether they belong to the domain of ABILITY at all. Pertaining to an agent's inherent capacities, general abilities are closely related to dynamic modality. With the situational circumstances becoming more important, specific abilities shade into circumstantial possibility (see also [Kiefer 1997]). The more the factor 'situation' comes to the fore, the more all other factors are relegated to the background, as is indicated by the brackets in the table. Once the focus is on the enabling situation, circumstantial possibility shades into deontic possibility.
An example of the transition from ability to modality related to the factor of situation is given in (31). Even though obraz 'face' is not a cognitive agent, znati is used. Here, the enabling background is provided by situational factors—emotional circumstances in this particular case.
(31) Slo: in prvic sem videl, kako zna biti njegov sicer otozni obraz tudi srdit [Parasol] 'and for the first time I saw his sorrow turn into rage.' [lit. 'how his otherwise wistful face could be angry as well]
For promise-level abilities, assessment comes to the fore and a split may occur between the subject as possessor of a particular capacity and an evaluator assessing the likelihood of this capacity being successfully implemented. By this feature of assessment, promise-level abilities bridge towards epistemic modality. Instead of relating an agent to her action, promise-level abilities pertain to the occurrence of a situation.
Along the transition from KNOWLEDGE to ABILITY and MODALITY, it is possible to map the differences between znat' and znati; see table 6:
Table 6. From KNOWLEDGE to MODALITY
\ conceptual \ domain linguistic \ expression \ KNOWLEDGE ABILITy ^^ MODALITy
disposition general power ability specific ability
circumstantial deontic epistemic possibility possibility possibility
Russian medium [znatr] [znatr] implicit umet' moc' moc' moc' moc' moc'
Slovene medium znati znati znati (znati) znati
The Russian equivalents to Slovene znati are restricted to—or at least strongly preferred for—one particular type of ability each: medium constructions for dispositions, implicit expression for powers and umet' for general abilities. Applying to all domains from powers to epistemic possibility, moc' is least specific or, to put it another way, most polysemous. This polysemy is visible in (32), where ne mozet paxnut' is to be interpreted epistemically (note that the infant is the source of sensation, not the experience), while ne mozet govorit', begat' ili pisat' expresses general abilities:
(32) Ru: No on ne slysal nicego. Kak ni staralsja. Verojatno, mladency ne paxnut, dumal on. Navernoe, v etom delo. V tom-to i delo, cto mladenec, esli ego soderzat' v cistote, voobsce ne mozet paxnut', kak ne mozet govorit', begat' ili pisat'. Eti vesci prixodjat tol'ko s vozrastom. [Parasol]
'But he smelled nothing. For the life of him he couldn't. Apparently an infant has no odour, he thought, that must be it. An infant, assuming it is kept clean simply doesn't smell [lit: it is not possible for an infant to smell], any more than it speaks, or walks, or writes [lit: than it is able to speak, walk or write]. Such things come only with age.'
Because of this polysemy, moc' can be considered a prototypical modal verb (e.g., [Hansen 2001]). The domain covered by moc' is congruent with Slovene znati, which covers the lexical meaning of KNOW-2 and various modal possibility meanings. It can thus indeed be considered a modal verb of contemporary Slovene.12
There is one modal domain that does not seem to be covered by znati, namely deontic possibility. Whether this is related to the data investigated in this paper or whether this is a systematic restriction, possibly resulting from the fact that znati as a *gno-based verb expresses 'active' knowledge (see section 2), needs to be investigated in more detail, also on a diachronic basis (see also [Sonnenhauser 2014]).13 In any case, this does not contradict the typologically observable development of participant external possibility towards deontic and/or epistemic possibility. As van der Auwera and Plun-gian [1998: 88-89] emphasise, participant external possibility may develop in both directions with no temporal ordering or implicational relation obtaining between them.
Given that in Bybee et al.'s [1994] database, verbs meaning 'to know' appear as the "most commonly documented lexical source for ability" [ibid.: 190], the fact that Slovene znati has been semantically extending into the domain of KNOW-2 and acquiring modal functions is not very remarkable—at least judging from a general and Euro-typological perspective. It is striking, however, from a Slavic point of view, since this development is not attested for *gno-based verbs in the other Slavic languages. This is shown, e.g., by Hansen [2001] in his diachronic investigation of modality in OCS, Russian, Polish and BCS, which leads him to conclude that for these languages, no other grammaticalisation path besides 'power' (*mog) can be observed [ibid.: 409].14 The path from *mog resembles that of *gno, in that the original meaning of
12 The diachronic development of the modal functions still needs to be analysed in more detail. For a first and very rough overview see [Sonnenhauser 2014].
13 There are very rare occurrences of what might be considered deontic usages in older texts, such as (iii) and (iv). However, for (iv) an epistemic interpretation seems possible as well.
(iii) Vunder si ti Gofpod taisti, / K'dir nam sna grehe odpustit'. [IMP: Gaspar Rupnik, Pesmi krscanskega nauka, 1784]
'You are that wonder, Lord, / You, who can forgive us our sins.'
(iv) Je vze vse e napravlenu? — Zdej vze znajo priti. [IMP: Anton Linhart, Zupanova Micka, 1790]
'Is everything prepared? — Now they can / may come already.' It remains to be investigated how far these uses are influenced by the underlying model texts and the specific language background of the authors. Many texts of the 17th and 18th century are close translations from German, oftentimes by writers who were educated in German (with Slovene still not being a polyfunctional literary language by the end of the 18th century).
14 See also Buck [1946: 648], who notes cognates of *mog as 'general Slavic' in his entry for 'can, may.'
'might, power' [Buck 1949: 647] develops into ability and possibility [Hansen 2001: 414].15
Obviously, Slovene and Russian instantiate the two main paths towards modality in what may be called Standard Average European, corresponding to the cross-linguistic pattern that "ability grams may come either from verbs such as 'know,' which express mental ability, or verbs such as 'have the power or might,' which express physical ability" [Bybee et al. 1994: 191]. They differ in that one path (*mog) is to be expected for Slavic, while the other (*gnö) constitutes a peculiarity within this family.
6. Conclusion and further embedding
As has been shown, with respect to the lexicalisation of KNOWLEDGE, Slovene is special among the Slavic languages in two respects. First, it has preserved verbs based on *gnö and *ueid. While this can be observed for part of the other Slavic languages as well, the semantic coverage of both is particular in Slovene. This is specifically striking for *gnö, which reaches into the domain of KNOW-2. Second, *gnö-based znati has not only been entering the domain of KNOW-2, i.e., the ability domain, but in addition has been continuing to develop into a marker of participant-internal, participant-external and even epistemic possibility. In this respect, Slovene resembles German, which has können (< *gnö) as a fully-fledged modal. By the division of KNOWLEDGE and the particular development of *gnö, Slovene is closer to German than to any other Slavic language. The differences between Slovene znati and Russian znat' on the one hand, and the similarities between Slovene znati and German können on the other concerning the coverage of KNOW-2 / ABILITY are summarised in table 7.
Table 7. Slovene between Slavic and German
ABILITy general specific promise-level
lexicalisation (~> deontic possibility) (~> epistemic possibility)
German *gnö> können + + +
Slovene *gnö > znati + (+?) +
Russian *gnö > znat' — — —
As has been pointed out, there is one feature shared by all Slavic languages that have preserved verbs based on *ueid vs. *gno\ they are the most central of
15 Slovene has also moci, a cognate of Russian moc'. However, moci is restricted to negative possibility in contemporary Slovene, being in polarity-based complementary distribution with lahko (for details cf. [Roeder, Hansen 2006; Marusic, Zaucer 2016]).
their family and have all been in contact with German on various levels: oral contact, literacy contact and contact on the level of grammatical description. The lexical division of KNOWLEDGE therefore seems likely to be an areal phenomenon, with the specific semantic range of Slovene znati being indicative of a particularly close, intensive and long lasting contact to German. Whether the lexicalisation of KNOWLEDGE could also be taken as a feature of a possible Central European area (e.g., [Newerkla 2002]), encompassing Slovene, German, Western South Slavic (i.e., Kajkavian) and West Slavic (in particular Czech), remains to be investigated.
In any case, the linguistic expression of KNOWLEDGE turns from a mere lexicological peculiarity into a grammatically relevant phenomenon. Thereby, the lexicalisation of KNOWLEDGE emerges as a potential object of investigation for lexical typology (along the lines of, e.g., [Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2012; Raxilina, Plungjan 2007]), as indicated in table 8.
Table 8. KNOWLEDGE between lexicon and grammar
concept linguistic level Slovene vs. Russian
KNOWLEDGE lexicon: KNOW 1, 2, 3 znati / vedeti vs. znat' / vedat' ^ different partitions
ABILITy lexicon ^ grammar znati vs. znat' ^ ± grammaticalisation
MODALITy grammaticalisation paths *gnö; *mog ^ typological differences
Moreover, tracing the development of *gnö and *ueid in the European languages might also have implications concerning different 'naive models of the world' (along the lines of [Apresjan 1986]).
From a primarily Slovene point of view, further research needs to take into account the relation between the modal uses of znati as compared to moci and lahko. While the latter prove to be in polarity-based complementary distribution (see [Roeder, Hansen 2006]), the possible functional division between lahko and znati, and between ne moci and (ne) znati, has not yet been investigated in detail. The parallel texts in (33) give a short indication of the kinds of relations between those verbs: German has können used in different senses: (i) and (ii) express dynamic modality (ability), (iii) gives the assessment of the likelihood of the situation, i.e., is used epistemically, with the following context ('would be greater than Frangipani') providing the basis for this assessment. In Slovene, the dynamic meanings are expressed by znati, (i) and (iii), whereas ne more, (ii), gives the epistemic assessment. Whether the usage of ne more is due to the negation or whether this is simply for stylistic reasons remains to be analysed on a more systematic basis.
(33) a. Ger: Ich weiß zwar, dass er das, was er behauptet, (i) nicht kann, ja gar nicht
(ii) können (iii) kann, er wäre denn noch größer als der große Frangipani. [Parasol]
b. Slo: Vem sicer, da tega, kar zatrjuje, (i) ne zna, seveda tega niti (ii) ne more
(iii) znati, ker bi bil sicer se vecji od velikega Frangipanija.
This potential division of labour between the various possibility predicates in Slovene needs to be investigated also from a diachronic perspective. Of particular interest is the rise of modal functions for znati and its possible relation to the 'modal cycle' (as suggested by [Marusic, Zaucer 2016]) underlying the development of the modal adverb lahko at the expense of moci.
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Acknowledgements
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF). Grant No. 10001B_162970/1.
Prof. Dr. Barbara Sonnenhauser
Universität Zürich, Slavisches Seminar Plattenstr. 43 CH-8032 Zürich Schweiz/Switzerland barbara.sonnenhauser@uzh.ch
Received July 2, 2016
