Liikumisverbide semantikast: tulema-verb XVII–XX sajandi eesti kirjakeeles
On the Semantics of Motion Verbs: tulema in the Written Estonian of the 17th–20th Centuries

Summary/Abstract: The verb tulema 'come' is one of the Estonian core verbs. This article offers an overview of its lexical use in the written Estonian of the 17th–20th centuries. The analysis is based on a 5438-pages-strong selection of North-Estonian texts from 1600–1850. Linguistic examples from the late 19th and the 20th centuries come from the Corpus of Written Estonian at Tartu University. When analysing the tulema verb in its lexical function it is possible to distinguish between nine basic meanings: 'move (approaching an object)', 'arrive, come to a place (in a space)', 'start to exist, exist in future, follow (in a temporal sense)', 'arrive (as in 'the time has come')', 'be born, crop up, develop', 'result from, be caused by', 'take place, happen', 'change (into something)', 'be calculated as a sum total (as related to particular amounts or rates)'. The semantics of individual sentences as well as of sentences in the selected texts that could be interpreted in different ways have enabled the author to make some assumptions about the possible genesis of several different meanings.

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