Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 84. kötet (1982)

Tanulmányok - Riese, Timothy: The Conditional Sentence in the Ostyak Language 229

236 TIMOTHY RIESE C dn mannán nr(t)xo%dtth ma sàptèn tëiiBà sëudrmdDem 'gehst du nicht freien, werde ich deinen Hals quer durchschneiden' (VÉRTES 72) Kr. yöu Öt§m ätts Jcàtëèn pît, %öua attèn 'bekommst du Lust, einen langen Schlaf zu schlafen, (dann) schläfst du lange' (VÉRTES 214) Irt. 'en meden, tut en mendam 'wenn du sie nicht gibst, fahre ich nicht' (PATKANOV 74) 4.2. The second major type of conditional sentence in osS is of an interesting nature. It, too, is non-conjunctional ; there is, though, no finite verb in the protasis, its place being taken by a verbal noun. This verbal noun can have one of two forms : 1) „potential" form, the marker being r\ to which the personal possessive suffixes are added, or 2) a participle with or without a personal suffix, followed by a case suffix or a postposition. Strictly speaking, we are no longer dealing with a Compound sentence and thus with a 'classic' conditional sentence, but there is no reason to exclude this sentence type from the présent discussion. This type of sentence represents an ancient feature of PU syntax, i.e. subordination is expressed not with a finite verb in a subordinate clause but rather with some form of a verbal noun, very often a participial construction. This syntactic feature is still wide-spread in the Uralic languages.14 Let us turn our attention irst to the ,,potential" form. It occurs frequently in osS. 34% of the conditional sentences of open condition employ it in the protasis, the apodosis usually containing a finite verb in the indicative or imperative. There seems to be no uniform désignation for this form. FUCHS15 speaks of „Konditional und Potential", KARJALATNEN16 of

,,potentiaali", whereas GULYA17 uses the term „conditional" for the corresponding form in osE. In meaning, the potential form with the marker r\ followed by a possessive suffix is équivalent to the English if -J- subject -f verb. Any conditional conjunction would be redundant and is not found together with this form. KARJALAINEN cites several examples for this foim in various osS dialects, i.a. for the Savodnija dialect: pgdardârjdm 'wenn ich spreche', pödörjem 'wenn ich friere', uèrârjam 'wenn ich mache', etc.18 Examples: Sotn. pirdiDärjdm no%sàt tëup ma pïrainèm, pïrdipèm 'wenn ich nach Belieben wählen kann, wähle ich ihn, ich wähle ihn' (VÉRTES 138) Sav. ma àrdt tÜD3 yui ÙDârjêrn mont'tüm yui ünärjem, iayat nâtuasà tëBarj 'wenn ich ein liederkundiger Mann bin, wenn ich ein märchenkundiger Mann bin, gerate er in seines Vaters Nasenloch hinein' (VÉRTES 170) Irt. menarjen, ti-mendan, %atarjem, ti-%attam\ 'wenn du gehst, so geh, wenn ich sterben muß, so sterbe ich' (PATKANOV 156) 4.2.1. In 14% of the conditional sentences of open condition in osS the second type of verbal noun was found (participle with or without a personal 14 Cf. P. RAVELA: B. COLLINDEB, CompGr. 250 and D. R. FOKOS-FUCHS, Rolle der Syntax in der Frage nach Sprachverwandtschaft. 106. 15 P ATKA KO v, S.—D. R. FUCHS, Laut- und Formenlehre der südostjakischen Dialekte. Budapest, 1911. 16 KARJAIAXNEN, K. F., Grammatikalische Aufzeichnungen aus ostjakischen Mundarten. Herausgegeben von E. VÉRTES. MSFOU. 128. 17 GTXLYA, J., Eastern Ostyak Chrestomathy. Bloomington 1966. 18 KABJAXATNEN : op. cit., p. 64.