To the problem of the middle voice in the Surselvan language

this article offers an analysis of the development of the middle voice system in Surselvan, accompanied by a series of transformations, during which the following changes occur: in the 17th century, unstressed clitic object pronominal forms, both direct and indirect, disappear from the Surselvan language, stressed forms appear, used in emphatic and unemphatic phrases; the particle se-, a reflex of the Latin se, increasingly diverges from the irreflexive object pronouns with which it originally alternated; ordinary pronouns and se- tend to differentiate, which is manifested in the spread of se- from the third to the first and second persons. As a result, the language has only one undifferentiated unstressed form for all persons and numbers. In Surselvan and some related dialects of Rhaeto-Romance, se- is attached to the verb as a prefix; se-, as a result of changes in the language, began to perform the function of a reflexive marker. In Surselvan, the particle se- also functions as a marker of the middle voice in a number of different types of verbs. Similar uses of the middle voice are found in texts from the 17th and 18th centuries. That is, the development of the middle voice in Surselvan preceded the appearance of texts. The results of the proposed study may be interesting and useful for students of language theory, and can also be used in compiling grammars of the Surselvan language for comparative-historical reconstructions.

Rhaeto-Romance languages, Surselvan, middle voice, emphatic – unemphatic forms, reflexive clitics