Das morphologische System des altkirchenslavischen Verbums by Christoph KochReview by: Gerald StoneThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), p. 731Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211092 .

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Reviews Koch, Christoph. Das morphologische System des altkirchenslavischen Verbums.

Vol. i: Text. Vol. ii: Anmerkungen. Wilhelm Fink, Munich, 1990. 1-50I and 507-794 pp. Figures. Tables. Indexes. DM. i 8o.oo (vols I and ii).

THE author's motto (p. i I) 'Brez izmine nifctair / dugo ftait nemore' (Petar Hektorovic) ('Nothing can stay for long without change') portends reform, and this is indeed a reformative work. H. G. Lunt's assertion, made in the seventh edition of his Old Church Slavonic Grammar (The Hague-Paris, I974, P. I 79) and quoted here (p. 140), that 'OCS presents a homogeneous system where all forms of conjugation are predictable from a single invariant underly- ing stem' is rejected. So are the related single-stem postulates of Roman Jakobson, Morris Halle and T. M. Lightner. They are rejected on the grounds of 'the basic inadequacy of the chosen method of description' (p. I41). The survival for centuries of suppletive paradigms (says Koch) shows that the speaker's competence, directed at the formation of the linguistic surface structure, 'cannot be reduced to the uniform mode of operation of the ultimate components of the generative model' (ibid.). On the contrary, highly inflected languages like Old Church Slavonic 'demonstrate the need for a method of description which takes account of the independence [Eigenstdndigkeit] of the morphological components of the linguistic system' (ibid.).

Koch divides the Old Church Slavonic verb into three classes (thematic, semi-thematic and athematic), which, depending on the paradigmatic corre- lation of their first and second inflexional stems, are divided into inflexional types. The inflexional types fall into three classes on the basis of their underlying aspectual stems (consonantal, vocalic or alternating). These are divided into sub-classes according to the actual sound in which the stem ends. Some of the sub-classes are subdivided, depending on how they form the aorist. One of the two aorist types falls into two sub-types distinguished by the form of the second and third person singular aorist (pp. 235-40). The resultant fifty-four conjugational types with examples are shown in a table on pp. 24I- 42. The second half ofvolume one analyses in detail the paradigmatic relations of verbs belonging to the thematic paradigms with uncharacterized, unmarked first inflexional stem. This analysis takes into account all attested forms of the verbs belonging to the conjugational types in question, an impressive achievement, which has been facilitated by the use of R. Ait- zetmfiller's Belegstellenverzeichnis der altkirchenslavischen Verbalformen (Wiirzburg, I977). The Greek originals from which these verbs were translated are studiously cited, as are the variants found in the various Old Church Slavonic texts. Koch's taxonomy and analysis are rigorous and demanding, but there are rewards for the diligent reader. Hertford College GERALD STONE

Oxford

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