Seeing into the Future

Seeing into the Future (continued)
March 17, 2010

The old legal codices of Russia abound in conditionals and future tenses, and also even the future perfect tense, or futurum exactum, as we read it in the elegant language of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed. This means that first there is an alleged crime (‘shall have been committed’), and then the accused shall have the right to a speedy trial. Russian could express this by using a form of ‘be’ (future) and the l-participle (what is now the Russian past tense. Here is an example from the Русская правда, the Russian Law (Правда means ‘law’ here):

Пакы ли боудеть что татебно купилъ вь търгоу, или конь или порть или скотиноу, то выведеть свободьна моужа два или мытника. In contemporary Russian: если окажется, что куплено ворованное, то надо представить свидетелей, ‘if it turns out (= OR боудеть in its conditional sense) that what shall have been bought was stolen (татебно), two free witnesses (моужа два) must show this (that it was bought at market’).

The simple future is, as I mentioned last time, expressed by any of three or four modal verbs, each with basic semantics ‘want’, ‘intend’, ‘begin’, ‘turn out to be’, and so forth. But the senses are very labile. I found this example in Gorshkova and Xaburgaev’s Historical Grammar of Russian”, p. 314. Аже не отложишь лишнего дэла и всякое неправды мы хочемъ богоу жаловатися и темъ кто правду любить (Rizhskaja gramota), ‘If you do not cease (perfective future) from your malevolent act and all illegalities we shall be constrained (хочемь) to complain to God and to those will love the law.’ The first basic meaning of хотэти is ‘want, wish; intend’, and here the writer wishes to show what recourses he may have if the evil work of his opponents goes on: namely, God, and those who stand for righteousness in the law.

The future can, of course, be expressed by a perfective present, as in contemporary Russian.

Мы коня не дамъ ни продамы его ‘we will not give up our horse nor sell him’ (Rizhskaja gramota). Note николи же всяду на нь (коня) ни вижу е более ‘I will not ever saddle him (his horse) again nor see him again’; here, in the famous tale of the death of Oleg by his horse, we find a perfective verb with future meaning followed by an imperfective present, also with future sense. In the Laurentian ms we read: идэте с данью домови а я возвращюся похожю и еще ‘go home with the tribute and I will return (imperfective present) and gather more’.

And, indeed, we find lots of unidirectional motion verbs with future meaning, just as in contemporary Russian, German, French, English and so on. From a birchbark letter from Staraja Russa, 13th century: не шли отрока эду самъ и две гривны везу ‘don’t sense a servant, I’m coming myself and will bring two golden coins’. Contemporary Russian: летом едем в Россию, English: we are going to Russia in the summer, German: wir fahren nach Russland im Sommer, French: nous voyageons en Russie cet été (that French looks funny — can anyone correct me?)

I notice that writing я, ю is standard in Old Russian after hushers; this doesn’t indicate softness, rather a morphological marking, e.g. 1st sg present. Just like our students write хочю, чищю, вижю. I don’t think there is a single student ‘mistake’ — that is, a conscious, deliberate attempt to express something in Russian, not a slip of the pen, or a typo — that doesn’t have a prototype in the history of Russian.

So it you start saying буду посмотреть ‘I will look at’ in place of посмотрю ‘I will look at’ (perfective future), I’ll understand. Indeed, if you start writing буду пoсмотрел in the meaning ‘I shall have looked at (something)’ before event X takes place’, I’ll understand that you are making up a future perfect tense just as the Old Russians did.

Not to encourage mischief. But language is a game, you know, it is meant to be played by young and old.

gmc