SEMANTIC FUNCTIONS AND THE USE OF DEVERBAL PARTICLES DAj/DAVAj

The deverbal particles daj / davaj exhibit a special feature of having different sets of functions, but similar paths of grammaticalisation and partial mutual interchangeability in their main use as imperatives. Functional polarisation starts at the early stages of the emergence of these forms in child language and continues into adult language. The reason for the functional asymmetry can be that there are different degrees of correspondence between the described action and its opposite aspectual characteristics: encoding this action prototypically with the perfective verb daj causes this form to be used in its direct imperative function, while the equivalent imperfective davaj turns out to be well suited for various grammaticalised uses. In the present article we try to add the results of our observations to the information provided in the earlier literature on the question and attempt a more precise differentiation of the types of use and the types of constructions, which contain the linguistic units daj and davaj.