A GRAMMAR OF OLD TURKIC MARCEL ERDAL LEIDEN BRILL 2004

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CHAPTER THREE
When added to present or future participles, bol- ‘to become’ describes
transition into new states, presenting the action as the culmination of a
process: ke In ïlar (KP 68,3) ‘They began to grumble
whenever they were serving him food’, bol- expresses the entrance into
a situation characterised by repeated actions (of grumbling at every
meal), i.e. inchoative meaning. Similarly käntü käntü ätözlärintä ... yïd
yïpar tozar ünär boltï in the ms. T III M 168 quoted in the n. to TT VA
117 ‘perfume began emanating from the bodies of each one of them’.
In OTWF 386 examples for the construction -gAn bol- are quoted from
various texts; there, the infinite verb form appears to be used nominally.
¡¡ In bulta ïn ï boltï (U
IV A 265-268) ‘he surpassed all of us and has become destined for
buddhahood before us’ the subject is described as just having attained a
new future: This is a future inchoative. A complex verb phrase of the
- ¡¡ shape - is found e.g. in burxanlarka nom tilgänin ävirtgäli
(Suv 163,18) ‘I beseeched the Buddhas to turn the wheel
¡
of dharma’; in verbal content this is similar to the common phrase
ävirtgäli ötün- (attested e.g. in BT II 114). Cf. also the different
construction in burxanlarïg ... ävirtgükä ... paramïtlarïg tošgurtguka
- ... nom tözin ... ukïtguka ötüg - (Suv 181,17-23). ‘to
become one who does ...’. bol- appears never to be linked with
converbs; see section 3.29 for its use with nominal predicates.
We finally turn to the notion that the action referred to by the lexical
verb has been completed. This is most commonly expressed by tükät-
‘to finish (tr.)’ as auxiliary governing the vowel conver b: bilgülükin
ukgulukïn bulu ï ornatu tükätip temin ök ïlar (HTs VIII
72) ‘They finished determining how they (i.e. the teachings, accusative)
were to be understood and then immediately spread them to all four
directions’ or tükätti (HTs VII 2097) ‘My
powers have waned completely’. Note that kävil- is intransitive: The
auxiliary is in any case tükät-, not tükä- ‘to finish (intr.)’. Other
examples for the ¤ sequence are ärtürü tükät- yarlïkayu
tükät- (HTs V 13 b 27), körü tükätip (HTs V 1 b 13), kïlu tükät- (HTs V
7 b 11), ölürü tükät- (Suv
22,13) and yorïtu tükät-
In some cases there appears to have taken place a semantic shift from
‘completely’ to ‘already’: kïlïn kïlu tükätmiš agïr ayïg ïm
(SuvSündenbek 75) is ‘the gravely evil deeds which I have already
carried out’; similarly ïnlïglar ö elsewhere in Suv