Ways of expressing comparison in the Taz dialect of the Selkup language

Abstract

The Taz Selkups are the most significant single-dialect speaking group. Being isolated from the Russian population, they did not know Russian until the second half of the 20th century. The documented texts of the traditional Taz Selkup folklore were analyzed to identify the diachronically early ways of expressing comparative relations. It was found that the equivalent comparison prevails in diachronically early mythological texts and is realized by syntactic constructions denoting similarity. The comparative relation of similarity of the object and the standard of comparison according to a certain characteristic is expressed mainly by postpositions. The postpositions tarД (tar) ‘like’, ‘like someone else’, car ‘how’, saqyn ‘respectively’, ‘similarly’, ‘just like’, and kəpy ‘with value’ are combined with pronouns and nouns in the possessive and non-possessive form of the genitive. The postpositional construction functioning rule is to place the word preceding the postposition in the genitive form. All the postpositions mentioned (except car) are commonly used in non-metaphorical comparisons. The postposition car functions in metaphorical comparisons, requiring the preceding word in the locative adjectival form. A synthetic indicator, the special “coordinate” case affix šaŋ, is sometimes used to express an equivalent comparison mainly in diachronically early constructions of complicated sentences, with verbal nouns and adverbial participles predominating. A non-equivalent comparison reflecting the differences between the object and the standard is realized by constructions including the object of comparison (noun or pronoun in the main case), the standard of comparison (a noun or a pronoun in the form of an ablative), and the sign underlying the comparison (an adjective or an adverb).