Towards a typology of participles

The dissertation is a typological study of participles based on the concept of participle specifically designed for cross-linguistic comparison. In a few words, participles are defined as non-finite verb forms that can be employed for adnominal modification, e.g. the form written in the book [written by my supervisor]. The study is based on the data from more than 100 genetically and geographically diverse languages possessing the relevant forms. The data for the research comes mainly from descriptive grammars, but first-hand materials from native speakers, including those collected in several field trips, are also of utmost importance. The main theoretical aim of the dissertation is to describe the diversity of verb forms and clausal structures involved in participial relativization in the world’s languages, as well as to examine the paradigms formed by participial forms. In different chapters of the dissertation, participles are examined with respect to several parameters, such as participial orientation, expression of temporal, aspectual and modal meanings, possibility of verbal and/or nominal agreement, encoding of arguments, and some others. Finally, all the parameters are considered together in the survey of participial systems. The findings reported in the dissertation are representative of a significant diversity in the morphology of participles, their syntactic behaviour and the oppositions they form in the system of the language. However, despite their versatility and multifunctionality, participles clearly exhibit enough idiosyncratic properties to be recognized as a crosslinguistically relevant category and studied in their own right.