The finite remote past tense in Udmurt

In addition to synthetic past tenses, there are several analytic past tenses in the Udmurt language. The analytic remote past tenses have been scarcely studied and they are inconsistently described in previous studies, grammars and textbooks. The present contribution aims to describe the functions of two finite remote past tenses in Udmurt. The data used in the study are newspaper texts, and the analysis has been conducted with the help of native speakers. I have analyzed two sets of forms: the first representing the finite remote past and the second the finite remote past. The results show that Serebrennikov’s (1960) description of the analytic remote pasts is in many ways accurate, and that contrary to what many newer descriptions suggest, the forms in question do not differ in aspectual notions. The forms have the temporal properties of general remote pasts. Nonetheless, the remote past constructions in Udmurt do not only operate on a temporal level but also bear modal and pragmatic functions. Both forms have a future counterfactual function, which is used to express an unfulfilled action or intention. Both forms may also be pragmatically motivated: the first remote past may be used to mark information as shared knowledge and it may alter the tone of the utterance, whereas the second remote past may imply a combination of evidential, inferential and mirative notions.