ON THE USE OF PERFECT AUXILIARIES IN CARPATHIAN UKRAINIAN DIALECTS

The article examines the functioning of perfect auxiliaries in five Carpathian Ukrainian dialects, drawing on published dialect texts, field recordings, and literary works written in the authors’ native dialects. The Carpathian Ukrainian dialects are the only East Slavic varieties that, to varying degrees, preserve the ancient system of Wackernagel clitics, including 1st–2nd person auxiliaries. The study analyzes the inventory of auxiliaries, the degree of their preservation across dialects, and their relationship with 1st–2nd person personal pronouns. It also considers the use of auxiliaries and pronouns in coordinated predicates and in chains of clauses sharing a single subject: in Transcarpathian dialects, the grammatical meaning of person in such chains is typically expressed on each verb. The paper further presents cases in which auxiliaries function as personal pronouns, a phenomenon pre viously attested only in Old East Slavic texts. Overall, the data indicate that the surveyed Pre-Carpathian dialects, including Hutsul, are undergoing a significant loss of auxiliaries (as well as other archaic clitics), whereas in Transcarpathian dialects the ancient system remains productive. At the same time, different Carpathian Ukrainian dialects reflect patterns comparable to different stages in the historical development of the Russian language.