Usage of есть

[giantantattack.livejournal.com]

I'm currently reading a book entitled «Откуда есть пошел букварь» printed in 1983 in Minsk. I was told by some of my Russian-speaking friends that the addition of the word есть is probably a way of stylizing the title so it sounds older. However, they couldn't explain much more about its usage. When was this an acceptable use of есть, and how did it function grammatically in this context?

Comments

[alex-mashin.livejournal.com]

«Есть пошёл» = «is/has come». It is Old Russian analytic present perfect. «Есть» = «is»; «пошёл» = «come» (participle). Modern Russian past tense is derived from it.
The title of the book contains a reference to the first words of the Primary Chronicle («…откуда Русская Земля пошла есть…» = «…whence Russian Land is come…»).

[nugae.livejournal.com]

this is stylizatin for 'past perfect'.

formely the system of tenses in russian was more complicated, but most of it vanished with the developement of the aspect category

[nugae.livejournal.com]

i mean "present perfect"

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

While I'm just guessing, есть is the present, пошел (or better произошел) is the past, so it might've been translated as where the abc has come from, that is, present perfect. :)
In the contemporary Russian there's no such odd use of есть. It sounds pretty much like broken English "what _do_ you _got_?". Есть means there is/are, something exists, something is being owned/possessed. E.g.: У тебя есть время/деньги/и пр.? Да, есть. = Do you have time/money/etc? Yes, I do.
There's a link that I was able to find on this old use of есть as I recall reading it somewhere a couple of times. It appears that there indeed were some documents in old Russian that were written that way, like the ones written by a chronicler, Nestor, some 900 years ago on the origin or the Russian state.
http://www.websib.ru/~gardarika/Knaz%20galeri/index.htm (http://www.websib.ru/~gardarika/Knaz%20galeri/index.htm)
Excerpt: "Се повести временных лет, откуда есть пошла Русская земля, кто в Киеве нача первее княжити и откуда Русская земля стала есть". So, it really looks like есть пошла and стала есть or есть стала is just a way to describe a perfective action, for which one now could use the appropriate verb: есть+пошла->произошла, есть+стала->стала/появилась(?). I'm not exactly sure about the meaning of the latter verb (стала есть) because there already is есть пошла in the sentense, so either the 2nd part just reiterates, emphasizes or echoes to the 1st part or it has slightly different meaning like как Русская земля сформировалась или стала такой какой стала = how the Russian land formed/evolved (sorry, very literal translation) or became what it became. I don't think there's more to it.

[alex-mashin.livejournal.com]

We have aspects since Common Slavic, if not earlier.

[towarysc.livejournal.com]

"Се Повести времянных лет, откуда есть пошла Русская Земля, кто въ Киеве нача первее княжити, и откуда Русская Земля стала есть."

[khathi.livejournal.com]

Well, there wasn't your quote in Primary Cronichle -- at all. ;) There were two very similar, but distinct phrases: "отъкуду есть пошьла руськая земля" и "отъкуду руськая земля стала есть".

[nugae.livejournal.com]

but system of tenses we have since indo-european)))

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Wrong. :)

Aspects are Indo-European. Practically everything in the line of tenses are individual post-IE developments.

[nugae.livejournal.com]

why then are there no aspects in english
french

etc, while its tense system is quite similar to russian historical one?

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

English and French have no aspects because they lost them. Ancient Greek had aspects all right. Modern Greek still has them, I think. The numerous tenses were distributed between them much the same way as the Russian three.

As regards tenses... well, maybe it was an overstatement as, for example, the present tense conjugation endings are as old as anything. But then again, you can't really equate the English and the French tenses. French and German, perhaps, but English ones were a reinvention. Also, some post-IE developments spread by contact and through assimilation. For example, the whole business of centum/satem didn't start until there were several quite independent PIE daughter languages. I won't claim it was the same with grammar, someone with better knowledge than mine is needed here.

[nugae.livejournal.com]

anyway, it's hard to debate without references, but if you are right, you should rewrite my university textbooks, or, at least, wikipedia articles))

[alex-mashin.livejournal.com]

Come on, I meant the first one. My quotation differs only in word order.

[khathi.livejournal.com]

I could be quite a nitpicker. ^_^

[crculver.livejournal.com]

The aspects of PIE, aorist and imperfect tenses that were marked through inflectional morphology, were lost in late Common Slavonic everywhere except for parts of South Slavonic. The aspectual system that now reigns in many Slavonic languages, expressed through prefixes or derivational morphology, are not the same as the IE system.

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected.

[baby-rhino.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by saying that English has no aspects? They teach us at the university that there ARE aspects in English :)))

[nugae.livejournal.com]

but would you kindly provide me with any example, i was sure there are continious forms for that

[baby-rhino.livejournal.com]

yep, that's it, the continuos aspect for example :)

[nugae.livejournal.com]

so it's a kind of а terminology problem

[baby-rhino.livejournal.com]

Yeah, must be. So what do YOU call those then?..

[nugae.livejournal.com]

tenses.

cause it's like...
well, nevermind)