Almost all Turkic modal auxiliary verbs may function as full verbs as well, and many of them are attested either as full verbs or as verbs with both full verb and auxiliary functions in Old Turkic, i.e. either in the Turkic Runic inscriptions of Siberia and Mongolia or in Old Uyghur.
Old Turkic verbs that became involved in Turkic modal constructions include u- ‘to be capable’ (Clauson 1972: 2), bil- ‘to know’ (Clauson 1972: 330) and bol- ‘to become’ (Clauson 1972: 331) for the semantic domain of possibility and küse- ‘to wish, desire, long for’ (Clauson 1972: 749), tile- ‘to seek’ (Clauson 1972: 492) and iste-
‘to seek, pursue’ (Clauson 1972: 243) for the semantic domain of willingness. Inception as the non-modal category consulted for comparative purposes is expressed by bašla- ‘to begin, to lead’
(Clauson 1972: 381–382), which is originally a denominal verb from baš ‘head, beginning’. The present study will focus on these seven
signifies the spontaneous combination of lexical and grammatical items without a pre-existing model.
verbs. All of them are attested as full verbs, so their argument structures and government patterns can be identified for the Old Turkic stage. Bol- as a verb denoting a change of state does not govern any (marked) case; its arguments (maximally2 two) are in the direct case, which is morphologically unmarked in Turkic. All other verbs mentioned could take direct objects in Old Turkic, which appear in the accusative case or, if unspecific, in the unmarked direct case:
(1) Šimnu küč-iŋe qop-uγ u-γay.
NP power-POSS.3.DAT all-ACC be.capable-FUT
‘By the power of Ahriman he will be capable of everything.’
(Old Uyghur, M II 5, 10–11; cited from Clauson 1972: 2)
(2) Eki yiltiz-ig üč öð-ki nom-uγ bil-t-imiz.
two roots-ACC three time-REL doctrine-ACC know-ASP-1.PL
‘We knew the two roots and the doctrine of the three times.’
(Old Uyghur, Xwāstvānift L 158–159)3
(3) Burxan qut-ïn küse-deči bodisatv-lar maxasatv-lar Buddha fortune-POSS.3.ACC desire-PTCP Bodhisattva-PL Mahāsattva-PL
‘Bodhisattvas and Mahāsattvas, which desire the Buddhahood’
(Old Uyghur, Altun Yaroq P1.02.02.r14–15) (4) Alqu-dïn sïŋar nom-uγ tile-yü
all-ABL direction Dharma-ACC seek-CV
‘Seeking the Dharma everywhere’
(Old Uyghur, BT13.19.A.1.l.A01–02) (5) Ïraq-ta iste-d-i tözün-ler iz-in.
far-LOC seek-ASP-3 Ārya-PL trace-POSS.3.ACC
‘In the distance he sought the traces of the Āryas.’
(Old Uyghur, Xuanzang Biography VII: 1465–1466)
2 Argument slots can be left empty in Turkic.
3 If not stated differently, Old Turkic examples are cited according to the VATEC database (see sources). The transcription has been adapted to the principles of Johanson & Csató (1998: XVIII–XIX).
(6) Öz-üŋe öŋ iš-in bašla-γïl.
self-POSS.2.SG.DAT front work-POSS.3.ACC begin-IMP.SG
‘Begin with the work which confronts you.’
(Old Uyghur, TT I 150; cited from Clauson 1972: 382)
Some of these verbs are already attested in auxiliary functions in Old Turkic. Root possibility is commonly expressed by the auxiliary u-, which combines with the main verb by means of a converb (gerund), which is suffixed to the main verb stem: <cv+u->. In Runic Turkic, the converb is -(y)V (see ex. 7), whereas both -(y)V and -GAlI occur in Old Uyghur, the latter form being much more common (ex. 8).
Another possibility marker that is very frequent in Old Uyghur (though nonexistent on Runic monuments) consists of the converb in -GAlI and the auxiliary bol- (ex. 9).4 It seems to be confined to participant-external possibility (for the terminology, see van der Auwera & Plungian 1998). Additionally, there are rare early occurrences of -(y)V bil- as a marker of participant-internal possibility (ex. 10).5
(7) Yaγï bol-up ėt-in-ü yara-t-un-u
enemy become-CV organize-REFL-CV be.suitable-CAUS-REFL-CV u-ma-duq yana ičik-miš.
can-NEG-PTCP again submit-ASP
‘Having become enemies [of the Chinese Qaγan], they who were unable to organize themselves submitted again.’
(Runic Turkic, Köl Tėgin East 10; Berta 2004: 145)
4 von Gabain (1941 [31974]: 127) and Erdal (2004: 259) report the existence of -(y)V bol- as a possibility marker besides -GAlI bol- and cite the example ör-ü bol-maz ‘it is impossible to rise’. However, not a single occurrence of this item can be traced anywhere in the VATEC corpus, and it seems doubtful whether the sole example cited by the two scholars is significant. The claim that -(y)V bol- is “the normal positive counterpart of -U uma- [...] in Uyghur” (Erdal 2004: 259) is not supported by the data.
5 A single occurrence of bil- with another converb as a marker of possibility is even found in the Toñuquq inscription, one of the oldest Turkic texts (726 A.D.): tė-yin bil-mez ermiš ‘one obviously cannot say’ (Toñuquq 5–6, Berta 2004: 46).
(8) Belgürtme et’öz-üg belgürt-geli u-yur.
manifestation body-ACC make.manifest-CV can-ASP
‘He can emanate the Nirmāṇakāya.’
(Old Uyghur, Altun Yaroq B01.25.v05–06)
(9) Ol yol-ča bar-ïp arïtï sansar-dïn oz-γalï DEM way-EQU go-CV completely Saṃsāra-ABL escape-CV bol-maz.
become-NEG.ASP
‘Walking on that path it is completely impossible to escape from Saṃsāra.’
(Old Uyghur, Maitrisimit 0.08.r29–30)
(10) Bir-ig išle-t-ü bil-mek-i üze
ink.brush-ACC work-CAUS-CV know-VN-POSS.3 above
‘As he manages to use the ink brush’
(Old Uyghur, Xuanzang Biography VIII: 1042)
As regards volitive modality (Palmer 22001: 76–78), the auxiliary that is usually employed in Old Turkic is küse-, which follows the -GAlI converb of the main verb (11). The other Old Turkic verbs that developed into widespread volitive auxiliaries, tile- and iste-, do not seem to occur with the auxiliary function in Old Turkic.6
(11) Yėrtinčü-te eðgü qïlïnč-ta yorï-γalï küse-ser world-LOC good deed-LOC walk-CV wish-COND
‘If they wish to dwell in the world in good Karma’
(Old Uyghur, Altun Yaroq P1.02.19.v01–02)
6 A possible exception is iste- in the passage that has been reconstructed as Til[e-geli]
iste-ser tüpker-geli bol-maz töz-in tüp-in ‘If one wants to seek it one cannot fathom its root and its base’ (Old Uyghur, Xuanzang Biography VII: 0044–0045). It seems more likely, however, that the reconstructed part should be read Til[e-ser] iste-ser ‘If one seeks and searches’. Tile- and iste- often co-occur in identical form as a hendiadyoin, in which case both members function as full verbs.
Inception is expressed by the auxiliaries bašla- (transitive) and bašlan- (intransitive), which combine with the main verb by means of the converb either in -(y)V (12) or in -GAlI (13).
(12) Ač-maq tupul-maq-lïγ edrem öz-in ač-ïl-u open-VN
penetrate-VN-DNN
virtue self-INS open-PASS-CV bašla-n-tï.
begin-REFL-ASP
‘The virtue of opening and penetrating started to unfold by itself.’
(Old Uyghur, Xuanzang Biography VIII: 0519–0521)
(13) Yoog šastr nomla-γalï bašla-mïš.
yoga śāstra preach-CV begin-ASP
‘He has begun to preach the Yogācārya-śāstra.’
(Old Uyghur, Xuanzang Biography III: 0815)
Despite rare possible examples to the contrary (Schlüter 2010), grammaticalization is almost always irreversible (Haspelmath 1999).
We may therefore confidently infer that with those Old Turkic verbs that occur both as full verbs and as auxiliary verbs, the full verb function predates the auxiliary function, even if the auxiliary function is significantly more often attested than the full verb function, as is the case with u-. This idea will be pursued throughout the article, hence the combinatory properties of the full verbs will be considered prior to those of the auxiliaries. Moreover, the Old Turkic stage, inhomogeneous as it is due to its temporal extension and its dialectal diversity, will serve as the background against which younger data will be evaluated. Therefore, the situation reflected in the Old Turkic data will be considered the “original” one, from which other situations
“deviate”, although we cannot be sure of the state of affairs in equally old but unattested Turkic varieties. This modus operandi may seem somewhat incautious and dissatisfying, but it is unavoidable as we must rely on data that are actually available.
The data reveal that two converbs, -(y)V and -GAlI, connect main verb and auxiliary. Neither converb is restricted to auxiliary constructions. Both can occur independently to form adverbial clauses. In this case, -(y)V denotes the intraterminal (imperfective)
aspect (von Gabain 1941 [31974]: 123; for the terminology, see Johanson 1971, 2000), while -GAlI has a purposive meaning (‘in order to’). The distribution of these two converbs varies between the individual auxiliaries: while some auxiliaries allow only one converb, others can combine with either of the two. The distribution is shown in Table 1. The data for u- from Runic Turkic and Old Uyghur might suggest that -(y)V is the older formative in auxiliary constructions, but this remains speculative absent data for other auxiliaries. Not at all attested in Old Turkic are constructions involving verbal nouns (with the possible exception of <vn+bol-, see Section 8), which became exceedingly common in later stages.
Table 1. Auxiliary verbs and linking devices in Old Uyghur.
u- structures. Modern Uyghur preserves -GAlI bol- (with slight phonetic changes in the converb segment) as a marker of participant-external possibility (14) and -GAlI bašla- as a marker of inception (15). The converb in -(y)V developed into -(y)A or -A during the Middle Turkic era,7 but apart from this change some of the auxiliary constructions that employ this converb continue to exist. A reflex of *-(y)V u- survives in the Modern Turkish marker of negative possibility -(y)AmA-, e.g. oku-yama-dım ‘I could not read it’ (Clauson 1972: 2), while *-(y)V bil- became quite popular in the Middle Turkic era and is today mainly attested in Western Oghuz as well as in some Kipchak
7 The niceties of phonetic developments in the individual Turkic varieties as well as the morphophonological variation that is triggered by stem features will generally be ignored in this paper except where relevant to the present topic.