«I have everything prepared».
The accusative object also produces a resulting state interpretation:
I-GEN all-ACC prepare-PERF-3SG
«I have everything prepared».
Note that the corresponding grammatical construction is found, though rarely, in the surrounding north Russian dialects, which use a locative possessor with accusative object and a past participle predicative form:
at-father at-your planted-NEUTRE birch-ACC
«Your father has the/a birch planted, has planted the/a birch».
[Kuz'mina & Nemcenko 1971:93]; «possessive perfect» in [Fici Giusti
1995: 222–231].
While it is difficult, if not impossible, to decide whether any areal influence is at work here, we may note that in Komi, there is a construction with the genitive as an agent of participial attributive forms:
old.woman-GEN give-PRTC bag-NOMDEF
«the bag given by the old woman» [Bubrih 1949:128].
In present-day Komi, the genitive seems to have been replaced by the instrumental everywhere, but the former usage can be found in the texts of certain writers; it appeared in the spontaneous dialectal speech in the 1940s as well:
but I-DAT desire go-lNF play-iNF although mother-GEN give-PRTC
task-NOMDEF NEG-PST-3SG end
«But I want to go and play, although the task given by my mother was not finished» [Syijanische Texte 1995:192].
In other non-finite verbal constructions as well, as in gerundials, the genitive may express the agent of the action [Fedjunjova 1998].
With certain verbs, the genitive expresses the non-active subject, as with the verbs
The bare impersonal form without any expression of the agent is nowadays very common, possibly influenced by the literary Russian past passive predicates with
The newness of the Komi possessive impersonal construction can only be presumed, since there is no mention of them in old grammars and descriptions. Perhaps accidentally, there seem to be no examples in the folkloric texts available, which represent the state of the language at the beginning of the XXth century. In the Komi prose of the 1930s, the construction becomes more common in the texts of individual writers. Earlier grammars written by native linguists do not mention it, except the grammar of 1949 by D. V. Bubrih. He gives examples of the 2nd past (=perfect) transitive and reflexive verbs and translates them by using the north Russian impersonal constructions with passive participial predicates:
almost not die-REFL-PERF-3 SG
«(I) almost died».
«Edva ne bylo umerto».
I-GEN evil-ELAT not fear-PERF-3SG
«I was not afraid of evil».
«U menja dumogo ne boeno».
I-ELAT brother-ACCPOSS 1 SG kill-PERF-3SG
«My brother was killed».
«Moego brata ubito».
Iegor-GEN not already little gather-PERF-3SG riches-ACC
«U Egora uze ne malo sobrano dobra».
«Yegor has already gathered not a little riches» [Bubrih 1949:124–125].
The new Komi grammar lists the uses of the genitive agent as follows:
1) a real active subject:
a) in an attributive construction with the participial form:
<…>
God-NOMDEF-GEN give-PRTC beautiful and clean nature
«the beautiful and clean nature given by God».
b) with the perfect:
one-ACCDEF twice say-lNF Jakov-GEN not
get-accustomed-PERF-3SG
«Yakov was not used to saying one thing twice».
2) a passive subject: someone does something because of being told to do so, or someone is in a state:
a) with verbs of passive meaning (
but this match upon Andrej-GEN be-lost-PST-3SG all hope-NOMDEF «But Andrei lost all hope for this match»;
