Nyelvtudományi közlemények 91. kötet (1990)

116 EEVA KANCiASMAA-MINN
dialects the form joyau. In principle a noun could survive only as a certain
caseform. The older Cheremis language, however, reserves the genitive case
for animate conceptions — inanimate adnominal genitives are extremely
rare. Adverbial genitives, on the other haiid, are quite common: the ending
an is the usual means for turning adjectives into adverbs, and a few substantives
might also be involved. So e.g. the adverbial genitive or instructive
of the noun sör 'edge' indicates position in the following utterance: samasßlakat
söran kijat ulmas 'The braiiiblers were lying edgewise' (Paasonen-
Siro (1948. 7). There exists in fact a Compound ßozan-jolas 'panties with
open legs' from ßoz 'brandi', where the instructive occurs as the first part
in a noun Compound. Thus joyau-ßüt might translate something like 'in
condition-of-stream-water' and there is one exam])le of joyau separated from
its companion word and occurring as a nominal predicate: Oriayauai ßütsö
pes-at joyau 'The water of the river Oria is very turbulent' (Beke 1961. 320).
These explanations, however, sound very far-fetched when bearing in mind
that there are several words in Cheremis with nominative forms ending in
an: sußau 'lever', porsan 'silk', jalkau 'flash', tolkau 'wave'. Anyway, the
likeliest explanation is that joyau as well äs joyà represents a nominative
form and that the KB variant lias dropped the final -n.
C. Syntactic évidence. Since, as mentioned above, the Cheremis languages
does not traditionally recognize genitives from inanimate words,
Compounds with the first part in the genitive are extremely rare. There
exists a désignation for wild geese juuiau-kombo 'the goose of God (or of
heaven)', where the first part of the Compound might be considered animate
or at least a personification, and the word for children's panties ßozan-jolas,
mentioned above, where the genitive does not indicate possession but condition.
In addition, there are couple of Compounds with the genitive of a verb
stem as the first part: suzen-ij 'famine (starve-year)' and socau-aßa 'beborn-mother
(a deity who helps at child birth)'. Surprisingly, Ivan Galkin
includes joyau-ßüt among thèse last mentioned (1864. 169), although joyau
could not possibly be taken for a gerund, i.e. a genitive of the verb stem:
the form in question is joyen from joyem 'to flow'. With référence to the
preceding: if there would exist in the saine dialect parallel forms of joya and
joyau, the Compound joyau-ßüt might be analyzed as having its first part
in the genitive, but since that is not the case, joyau-ßüt is to be interpreted
the common type of nominative + nomintive.
D. Lexical évidence. The ordinary désignation for river in Cheremis is
eyer, even that considered a Chuvash borrowing (Paasonen-Siro 1948. 18):
joyau-ßüt is restricted to poetica! use. In Chuvash juxuu-sav or joxansav
is the common word Compound for 'river' (RChS 672, ChllS 643). The
Chuvash expression translates word for word as 'flowing water', the first
Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 91. 1990.