Converb constructions in Mari and Udmurt

Uralic languages of the Volga-Kama Region, especially Mari and Udmurt, show strong Turkic influence in the range of usages of converbial (gerundial, i.e. adverbial non-finite) forms. Converbs can be found in combination with syntactically superordinate verbs communicating different values, mirroring Turkic structures: modal (“swimming know” = ‘know how to swim’), directional (“crawling leave” = ‘crawl away’), benefactive (“baking give” = ‘bake something for someone’), aspectual (“drinking send” = ‘drink up’). It is debatable however to what extent one can speak of grammaticalized structures and to what extent one should speak of a body of loan translations in individual languages or varieties. The paper explores the prospect of using verbs borrowed from Russian as a metric of productivity: as these were borrowed after the phase of intense Turkic language contacts ended, their usage in Turkic-type structures can been seen as evidence for their grammaticalization, while their absence in such structures can be seen as evidence against it.