Correlative Dependencies of a Suppletive Type in the East Slavic Verbal Paradigm

Suppletive anomalies in Eastern Slavic langs are examined, with emphasis on verbs in Modern Russian, Ukrainian, & Belorussian. "Suppletive" is defined as "the anomalous but consistent semantic association of forms or formants from two or more different roots or paradigms within one grammatical relationship" eg, conjugation or declension. "Correlative dependencies" are suppletive anomalies that correlate with & mutually influence other verbs, & most concern body positions. Verbs relating to position of the human body, putting things in various positions, & movements close to the body involving the hands are examined. It is shown that verbs affected by the kind of suppletion under discussion relate almost exclusively to the human frame & limbs. One common feature of these suppletive forms is the occurrence of the reflexive particle -sja in the imperfective only. It is argued that suppletion may function as a deictic feature. The "near space" surrounding the human frame appears to produce frequent irregularities in some verbs. 5 References. B. Annesser Murray