Aspect Meanings of Verbal Constructions with the Auxiliary Verb ber- in the Altai language

Abstract

The study presents research on aspect meanings of a multi–valued auxiliary verb ber– in the Altai language. The author describes two types of constructions with ber–, when the notion verb is expressed by a past gerund (–p) and a present gerund (–a). The construction V–p ber– is used to express a benefactive meaning, while the construction V–a ber– possesses three different meanings: ‘acquiring a property’, ‘beginning and continuity of an action’ and ‘a completed movement’. The description of each of the meanings includes the semantic description of classes of verbs that can be combines with the auxiliary verb ber–. The benefactive constructions V–p ber– are opposed to self–benefactive constructions V–p al– with the auxiliary al–. The original meanings of the auxiliary verbs in both of these constructions (ber– ‘give’, al– ‘take’) remain. Verbs from all semantic classes of verbs can be used as notional verb in the construction V–a ber– with a present gerund. This gives the auxiliary verb ber– the same status as other verbs with a high potential to build up verbal collocations. The paper contains an important material on contracted forms of verbal combinations with the verb ber–, which are widely used in spoken speech.