Past Tense in the Rusyn Dialect of Novoselycja: Auxiliary vs. Subject Pronoun as the First- and Second-Person Subject

Abstract

This article discusses the choice of the past-tense forms in the Rusyn dialect spoken in the village of Novoselycja in Zakarpats’ka oblast’ of Ukraine. The past tense forms for the 1st and 2nd person in Rusyn are formed by a participle accompanied either by an enclitic auxiliary or by a fully stressed subject pronoun (the former construction occurs more often), but not by both. The factors influencing the choice of one over the other have never been clear. I claim that in Novoselycja Rusyn the factor that influences the choice of an auxiliary or a subject pronoun is a discourse factor. The choice between auxiliaries and pronouns generally depends on the position in discourse: the pronoun codes the first mention of the 1st and 2nd person subject and the auxiliary subsequent mentions. The exceptions, auxiliaries in locally initial positions and pronouns in locally subsequent positions, show dependence on the speech genre: speakers prefer pronouns at the beginning of episodes in classical narratives, and auxiliaries in genres closer to interactional conversation.