Grammatikakategooriate sekundaarsest kasutusest: vene ja eesti ajavormid
ON SECONDARY USE OF GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES: RUSSIAN AND ESTONIAN TENSE FORMS

Summary/Abstract: As typological and contrastive studies of languages are becoming increasingly more important in linguistics, the need for generalised systems of grammatical categories applicable to different languages and described by a unified unambiguous terminology is acutely felt. The article focuses on secondary use of grammatical categories in Estonian and Russian. It is noted that while primary meanings of Estonian grammatical categories have already received thorough treatment, their secondary use requires further elaboration. Numerous examples of secondary use of both Estonian and Russian grammatical categories (such as number and, in particular, tense) are presented and analysed. It is shown that secondary use of grammatical categories cannot be considered marginal in either language, nor does it completely overlap in them, thus being a substantial potential source of negative transfer in language learning as well as translation and interpretation. Further contrastive linguistic study of the phenomenon is clearly required. An attempt is therefore made, proceeding from an examination of the varied terms used to designate the phenomenon in pertinent linguistic literature, to suggest a term most suitable for Estonian grammar.

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