Download The Russian agentive passive construction with Agent–Verb

The Russian agentive passive construction with Agent–Verb–Subject word order
Martina Björklund
[email protected]
Åbo Akademi University
In a previous paper (Björklund 2003), taking a cognitive and communicative perspective, I
discuss the Russian agentive passive in its function of thematization of the passive subject and
rhematization of the passive agent, which I compare with the function of the corresponding
active construction. I studied the actual occurrence of three types of action: the simple
observable action of opening a door (открыть/открывать дверь), the observable but complex
action of painting a portrait (писать/написать портрет), and the non-observable action of
breaking the law (нарушать/нарушить закон).
In the present paper, I concentrate on agentive passive clauses with the word order Agent–
Verb–Subject, which are found to be used very rarely in the material studied by VanhalaAniszewski (1992, 1994). In my material, gathered from the Internet (www.google.ru) in June
2005 and January-February 2006 this was true only in the case of открыть/открывать дверь,
for which I found no passive clauses at all with this word order. However, about 30 % of the
perfective passive clauses of написать портрет manifest this word order and near half of those
which involve нарушать/нарушить закон.
Israeli (1997:182) found that agentive passive with Agent–Verb–Subject word order is used in
discourse-initial situations in journalistic and business contexts to introduce a new event. In my
material, however, most of these passive clauses occur in nondiscourse-initial situations. I further
discuss the construal of this type of passive in cognitive linguistic terms and its communicative
function in the types of discourse and contexts where they occur in my material.
.
References
Björklund, M. 2003. On the Russian agentive passive. Glossos. Issue 4, Summer 2003.
http:/seelrc.org/glossos/
Israeli, A. 1997. Semantics and pragmatics of the “reflexive” verbs in Russian. Slavistische
Beiträge 349. München: Verlag Otto Sagner.
Ванхала-Анишевски, М. 1992. Функции пассива в русском и финском языках. Studia
Philologica Jyväskyläensia 25. Ювяскюля: Университет Ювяскюля.
Ванхала-Анишевски, М. 1994. Коммуникативные и прагматические функции пассивных
конструкций с агентивным дополнением в русском языке. Русистика сегодня. 1994:3. 8496.
A New Perspective on the Russian -ovo
Elena Bratishenko
[email protected]
University of Calgary
The paper deals with the substitution of the Gen. sg. masc./neut. ending -ogo of the long-form
adjective by -ovo. This change (first attested in the mid-15th c. yet not reflected in Russian
orthography even today) has been most commonly considered phonetic in essence, although
analogy to the Gen. of possessive adjectives has also been suggested (Tolkačev 1960). The
proposed paper offers a new explanation of this phenomenon, introducing an intermediate stage
into the process. It claims that the Gen. ending -ovo is secondary, in that it comes from the initial
confusion of the Nom. form. Data from two 16-17th c. old Russian texts containing attestations of
this ending, namely the Domostroj and the Life of Archpriest Avvakum, have been examined in
the course of this study.
The hypothesis is based on the status of the formant -ov- as a marker of Figure – the result of
its correlation with the Figure pole of the Figure-Ground continuum represented by masc.
personal, especially proper, *о-stem nouns. (This formant is found in the suffix of the denominal
adjectives (Adam-ov ‘Adam’s’), in the Dat. sg. masc. ending -ovi (David-ovi ‘David’) and in the
Nom. pl. -ove (tatarove ‘the tatars’).) The denominal adjectives in -ov-, on the way to
disappearance from usage in possessive constructions, became productive as last names. Due to
their highly marked suffix, they may have substituted long-form qualitative adjectives in -oj
(Smirnoj ‘the quiet one’), also serving as last names, in the Nom. case: Smirnoj > Smirnov, by
analogy to Petrov. Hypercorrection and social reasons facilitated this process. This confusion in
the Nom. led in turn to the Gen. of the denominal adjective to be used instead of the Gen. of the
qualitative one, initially in last names and subsequently in all long-form adjectives. Doublets of
the type Dolgorukoj/Dolgorukov, Tolstoj/Tolstov may thus be the cause rather than the effect of
the Gen. -ovo.
References
Bratishenko, Elena. 2005. Denominal adjective formation and suffix hierarchy in Old East
Slavic, Slavic and East European Journal 49/3: 361-377.
Bratishenko, Elena. 2003. Genitive-Accusative and possessive adjective in Old East Slavic,
Scando-Slavica 49: 83-103.
Černyx, P. Ja. 1954. Istoričeskaja grammatika russkogo jazyka. Moscow.
Filin, F. P. 1972. Proisxoždenie russkogo, ukrainskogo i belorusskogo jazykov. Leningrad.
Flier, Michael. F. 1983. The origin of the desinence -ovo in Russian, in Markov, Vladimir and
Dean S. Worth (eds.), From Los Angeles to Kiev (Papers on the occasion of the Ninth
International Congress of Slavists), Columbus, Ohio, 85-104.
Kuznecov, P. S. 1959. Očerki istoričeskoj morfologii russkogo jazyka. Moscow.
Plotnikova, Z. 1919. K voprosu ob okončanii rod. pad. ed. č. muž. i srednjago roda mestoimenij i
složnyx prilagatel’nyx, Izvesija otdelenija russkago jazyka i slovesnosti rossijskoj Akademii
nauk, 24: 285-304.
Sobolevskij, A. I. 1907/1962. Lekcii po istorii russkago jazyka. 4th ed. (reprint). The Hague.
Tolkačev, A. I. 1960. Ob izmenenii -ogo > -ovo v roditel’nom padeže edinstvennogo čisla
mužskogo i srednego roda člennyx prilagatel’nyx i mestoimenij russkogo jazyka, Materialy i
issledovanija po istorii russkogo jazyka, Avanesov R. I. (ed.). Moscow, 235-267.
Unbegaun, B. O. 1972. Russian Surnames. Oxford.
Vlasto, A. P. 1986. A Linguistic History of Russian to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Oxford.
The Qualitative Becomes Quantitative:
why the introspectively inclined should take a hard look at quantitative corpus linguistics
Steven Clancy
[email protected]
University of Chicago
Потому что все оттенки смысла
Умное число передает.
— Николай Гумилев
Because all shades of meaning
are conveyed by the intelligent number.
— Nikolai Gumilev
There are many compelling reasons for Cognitive Linguists to turn to more quantitative methods
in their research, yet, as Gumilev notes in his poem, one can truly wonder about the limits of the
Number amidst the power of the Word and the stretching of linguistics from philological and
humanistic origins into a quantitative science. In the introduction to Gries and Stefanowitsch
(2006:1-17), Gries outlines numerous studies utilizing quantitative and statistical methods,
illustrating how the more intuitive practices of Cognitive Linguistics can be supported by “robust
empirical and objective evidence” (8). Clancy (2006) and Croft and Poole (forthcoming) make
the case for using the Optimal Classification method of Multidimensional Scaling (MDS-OC) as
a rigorously defined mathematical method for revealing structure in language in a way that
closely matches traditional cognitive linguistic analyses. Furthermore, these quantitative methods
allow one to tackle large-scale problems that would otherwise be insoluble by introspection or
empirical observation alone. Conceptual spaces and semantic maps created with MDS-OC
provide a means of confirming, refining, or challenging those analyses, while acknowledging
their strengths and fleshing-out their conclusions, giving teeth to the powerful insights of
cognitive linguistics.
This paper will present examples of how introspective and empirical linguistic analyses may be
further refined or improved by MDS-OC (cf. Figures 1 and 2 comparing an earlier analysis of BE
constructions in Slavic (Clancy forthcoming) to a consideration of the same data in MDS-OC)
and in comparison with quantitative pilot study of BE synonyms as analyzed from corpus data for
the Russian BE constructions including: byt’, est’, Ø, imet’sja, suščestvovat’, byvat’, javjlajt'sja,
naxodit’sja, prisutsvovat’, proisxodit’/proizojti, slučat’sja/slučit’sja, tvorit’sja, stojat’, sidet’,
ležat’, predstavljat’ soboj.
Figure 1
Dual Prototype Model for BE and HAVE in RUSS-CZCH-PLSH-BULG
Figure 2
MDS-OC Analysis of BE in RUSS-CZCH-PLSH-BULG
References
Clancy, Steven J. Forthcoming. The Chain of BEING and HAVING in Slavic.
_____. 2006. “The Topology of Slavic Case: Semantic Maps and Multidimensional Scaling”, in
Glossos, Issue 7, pp. 1-28.
http://www.seelrc.org/glossos/issues/7/
Croft, William, and Keith T. Poole. Forthcoming. “Inferring universals from grammatical
variation: multidimensional scaling for typological analysis”, Theoretical Linguistics.
http://www.unm.edu/~wcroft/Papers/MDSpaper-4.pdf
Gries, Stefan Th., and Anatol Stefanowitsch, eds. 2006. Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics.
Corpus-Based Approaches to Syntax and Lexis. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
A Network Approach to the Verbal Prefix po- in Croatian:
Taking a Non-Russian Prefix on its Own Terms
Stephen M. Dickey
[email protected]
University of Kansas
Linguistic descriptions of verbal prefixes have been sparse during and after the Serbo-Croatian
era. As far as I am aware, no study focusing on the verbal prefix po- in Croatian exists beyond
brief treatments in reference works, e.g., Babić 1986.
As Slavic linguists outside the former Yugoslavia lean toward the tacit assumption that
verbal prefixes in Croatian exhibit some trivial variation of the set of meanings attested for
verbal prefixes in Russian, there is a real need for a systematic study of Croatian verbal prefixes.
This applies in particular to Croatian po-, given that its Russian counterpart is generally
recognized as an important perfectivizing prefix that nevertheless resists quick attempts to
ascribe to it a basic spatial meaning.
This paper is a preliminary report of an ongoing study attempting a semantic analysis of
Croatian po- in terms of Langacker’s (e.g., 1987) theory of Cognitive Grammar. In particular it
attempts to answer the following questions: (1) What meanings does po- systematically express,
and which of them are the most salient? (2) Assuming a CG network structure, what is (are) the
central, prototypical meaning(s) of the prefix? (3) What kinds of schemas can be plausibly
assumed for (some subsets of) its meanings, if any?
The first step of the project has been to examine the 487 verbs prefixed in po- in Anić
(2000)1 and categorize them according to the (sometimes clear, sometimes less so) function of
the prefix consulting Panzer (1991) where possible. Given the paucity of descriptions, this has
not been an easy task, and pushes the limits of informant introspection. Nevertheless, some
overall patterns are evident from the following breakdown:
FACTITIVE
TRANSITIVE
SURFACE-CONTACT
DISTRIBUTIVE:
LEXICAL/OPAQUE
PERFECTIVE
ATTENUATIVE
ABLATIVE
ABLATIVE-DEVIATION
INCHOATIVE
ALLATIVE
INGRESSIVE
INGRESSIVE-RECIPROCAL
INTERMITTENT-ATTENUATIVE
DELIMITATIVE
SEMELFACTIVE
1
93
15
56
87
42
30
30
17
14
26
23
16
07
15
14
02
487
19.1%
3.1%
11.5%
17.9% 51.6%
8.6%
6.2%
6.2%
3.5%
2.8% 6.3%
5.3%
4.7%
3.3%
1.4% 4.7%
3.1%
2.9%
0.4%
100.0%
A note about differences between Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian with regard to po-: minor,
though potentially significant differences do exist, e.g., the use of poslikati in Croatian as
opposed to Bosnian and Serbian, which can be explained in terms of theory being developed.
The primary result of this initial data is that Croatian po- is a highly transitive prefix. The first
four categories, FACTITIVE (e.g., pokatoličiti ‘convert to Catholicism’), TRANSITIVE
(pohađati/pohoditi ‘attend/visit’), SURFACE-CONTACT (e.g., popločavati/popločati ‘cover with
cobbles, pave’) and DISTRIBUTIVE (e.g., potrovati ‘poison all of’) consist almost exclusively of
transitive verbs (apart from a very few intransitive DISTRIBUTIVE verbs such as posjedati ‘sit
down [of all]’) and account for slightly over 50% of the sample. These verbs are not necessarily
perfective only (see the above examples), so that the transitive function of Croatian po- cannot be
identified with a perfectivizing function (the high cross-linguistic correspondence between
transitivity and perfective aspect notwithstanding).
Although transitivity is characteristic of a slight majority of verbs in po-, this feature cannot
be viewed as the prototypical function of the prefix. If one keeps in mind the fact that the
SURFACE-CONTACT verbs all involve the complete distribution of the predicate (e.g., placing
cobbles) over a surface, the link between the DISTRIBUTIVE verbs and the SURFACE-CONTACT
verbs is apparent (indeed, the spatial meaning of [complete] SURFACE-CONTACT is the diachronic
source of the DISTRIBUTIVE meaning): full affectation of some object or set of objects. Thus,
taking not only statistics into account—the SURFACE-CONTACT and DISTRIBUTIVE verbs together
account for 29.4% of the sample—but also the high salience of many SURFACE-CONTACT verbs
(e.g., pokositi ‘mow’) and DISTRIBUTIVE verbs (e.g., pojesti ‘eat all of’) in day-to-day life, as well
as the enduring productivity of both, I would make the preliminary suggestion that the semantic
prototype of Croatian po- is COMPLETE AFFECTEDNESS OF THE OBJECT, or very likely a spatial
category COMPLETE AFFECTEDNESS OF A GOAL SURFACE, whereby the surface may be
metaphorically extended to a set of objects. Transitivity would therefore be a schema extracted
from the prototype and other meanings.
This paper will discuss these and other issues in more detail.
References
Anić, Vladimir. (2000) Rječnik hrvatskog jezika. Zagreb: Novi Liber.
Babić, Stjepan. (1986) Tvorba riječi u hrvatskom književnom jeziku. Nacrt za gramatiku. Zagreb:
Globus.
Langacker, Ronald. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 1. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Panzer, Baldur. (1991) Handbuch des serbokroatischen Verbs. Derivation. Heidelberg: Carl
Winter.
ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИЕ ТРАНСФОРМАЦИИ: КОГНИТИВНАЯ ТИПОЛОГИЯ
Алла Диомидова
[email protected]
Вильнюсский университет
(Вильнюс)
В данном исследовании предлагается типология переводческих трансформаций,
основанная на понятии индивидуального когнитивного пространства переводчика.
В рамках нормативной теории перевода понятие переводческих трансформаций
(межъязыковые преобразования, направленные на достижение переводческой
эквивалентности - Бархударов 1975, 190) неразрывно связано с понятием эквивалента и с
поуровневым сопоставлением текстов оригинала и перевода. В современных
исследованиях перевода просматривается тенденция к отказу от нормативного подхода к
переводу, ориентация на целевой язык и понимание перевода как интерпретации. Все эти
положения современной науки о переводе должны выводят на первых план проблему
личности интерпретатора.
Представляется продуктивным для описания видоизменений, происходящих при
переводе (трансформаций) совместить общие установки современных переводческих
исследований с когнитивным подходом к языку как поверхностной структуре сознания
(как культурного, так и индивидуального). Вовлечение аппарата когнитивной науки в
область исследований перевода, которое имеет место в данной работе, позволяет
выстроить типологию переводческих трансформаций не на поуровневом сопоставлении
языковых элементов, а опираясь на понятие, тесно связанное с личностью переводчика.
Индивидуальное когнитивное пространство в современной когнитивной науке
принято определять как «совокупность всех знаний и представлений конкретной языковой
личности» (Красных 1998, 61). Мы полагаем, что, хотя все трансформации являются
обусловленными особенностями этого пространства, однако при различных
трансформациях задействуются различные элементы ИКП.
Данная гипотеза проверялась на материале поэтических переводов, выполненных
известными поэтами. Выбор именно такого материала обусловлен следующими
причинами: необходимы были переводы с высоким креативным компонентом, важна была
яркая индивидуальность переводчика, также важна была степень исследованности как
оригинального, так и переводного творчества поэта.
При восприятии текста перевода новая информация становится частью
индивидуального когнитивного пространства, содержание которого (то есть совокупность
знаний и представлений переводчика) в конечном счете и определяет выбор переводчиком
языковых средств для нового сообщения. Содержание ИКП включает в себя несколько
уровней: уровень универсальной информации, национально-специфической и
индивидуальной. «На выходе», то есть при создании текста перевода, сохраняется
уровень универсальной информации, который содержит знания о том, что называется
переводом. Эта универсальная информация и определяет инвариантную часть текста
перевода, но кроме инвариантной в переводе существует и значительное количество
вариативной информации – это индивидуальная информация. В тех случаях, когда ИКП
автора и переводчика значительно различаются, то можно говорить не о неточности
перевода, а о несогласии переводчика с мировидением автора подлинника, или, точнее, о
расхождении их знаний и представлений о теме произведения. Принимая кантовское
деление сущностей на феномены (предметы, доступные непосредственному восприятию)
и нумены (идеальные, абстрактные сущности), мы рассматривали текст как модель
универсума, содержащую оба вида сущностей, или, говоря семиотическим языком, по
аналогии со знаком. Это позволяет условно разделить текст на следующие уровни:
денотативный и сигнификативный. Отметим, что именно нумены (абстрактные сущности),
или сигнификативный уровень, текста подвергается в переводе наиболее заметным
видоизменениям, так как этот пласт смысла в наибольшей степени является зависимым от
интерпретации как сравнения/сопоставления индивидуального поля сигнификата автора с
собственным полем сигнификата, - индивидуальным. В связи с тем, что сигнификативный
пласт смысла в наибольшей степени подвержен изменениям, именно он является
объектом нашего исследования. Этот пласт смысла реализуется не в сюжетной линии
произведений, а в тех фрагментах, в которых происходит абстрагирующая работа
сознания - в философских монологах или в эмоционально-оценочном дискурсе.
При сравнении текста оригинала и перевода становиться очевидным, что все
многочисленные и многообразные трансформации смысла текста оригинала сводятся к
двум типам трансформаций. (1) Трансформации, при которых выбор языковых элементов
определяется результатами концептуализации, то есть сознательными установками и
убеждениями переводчика. (2) Трансформации, при которых задействованы не результаты
концептуализации, а механизмы концептуализации, в основе таких трансформаций лежат
когнитивные модели (сценарии, схемы). Трансформации первого типа можно назвать
«поверхностными трансформациями», а второго – «глубинными».
Трансформации первого типа отличают видоизменения поверхностной структуры
текста путем введения в текст перевода «дополнительных», не имеющих соответствий в
оригинале, элементов. Как правило, причина таких трансформаций «лежит на
поверхности», в биографии или в мироощущении (имеются в виду установки и убеждения
переводчика, декларируемые им в поэтических и других работах) поэта- переводчика.
Поверхностные трансформации, как правило, не захватывают больших смысловых
пространств текста перевода, им свойственен атомизм. Переводчиком вносятся в текст
изменения (дополнительные элементы), но инвариантная структура текстов при этом
остается неизменной. Между поверхностными и глубинными трансформациями есть
также и сущностное сходство – и те и другие являются результатом взаимодействия теста
перевода и ИКП переводчика. Различие в том, что, хотя все трансформации обусловлены
особенностями ИКП переводчика, однако при различных трансформациях задействуются
различные элементы ИКП. При поверхностных трансформациях задействованы языковые
элементы, выбор которых определяется уже «результатами концептуализации» - это
различные отсылки к фактам личной биографии переводчика, сознательными установками
и убеждениями, то есть тем, что принято называть мировоззрением. При глубинных
трансформациях задействованы не результаты концептуализации, а механизмы
концептуализации, которые могут быть описаны как совокупность когнитивных метафор,
когнитивных моделей, кинестезических образных схем (Лакофф, 1996, 169). Именно этот
тип трансформаций и создает оригинальную смысловую структуру текста перевода. В
отличие от поверхностных трансформаций, которые распределяются по тексту в виде
«чуждых» элементов, но не образуют системы, глубинные трансформации, как правило,
охватывают весь текст.
Литература
1. Бархударов Л.С. Язык и перевод. М.:«Международные отношения», 1975.
2. Красных В.В. От концепта к тексту и обратно (к вопросу о психолингвистике текста) //
ВМУ, сер. 9 (филология), 1998.
3.Лакофф Дж. Когнитивное моделирование // Язык и интеллект. Сб./ сост. В.В. Петрова.
М.: «Прогресс», 1996.
The Function of the Imperative Subject in Russian
Egbert Fortuin
[email protected]
Leiden University
The Netherlands
In many languages the imperative can be used without a pronoun that expresses the potential
subject of the imperative action (see e.g. Dryer 2005). Russian is no exception to this tendency:
(1)
Idi
sjuda!
come-IMP.2SG here
‘Come here!’
In (1), the use of the imperative form implies that the subject of the imperative is the addressee.
However, in most languages, as is the case in Russian, it is also possible to use a pronoun, which
expresses the subject of the imperative with a pronoun. Analyses specifically devoted to the
semantics of the subject or the relation between the semantics and the syntax of the subject in
Russian are quite rare (an exception is Moon 1995). The reason is probably that the function of
the subject is quite difficult to account for. The subject of the imperative may occur in different
positions, with different accentuational patterns, and in each case the subject seems to have a
different function (see for example Xrakovskij and Volodin 1986). Although is some sentences
the use of the subject is clearly to express a contrast with another subject (e.g. (2)), there are
many contexts where the notion of contrast plays no part (e.g. (3) and (4)):
(2)
(3)
(4)
Ty
skaži!
– Net, ty
skaži.
you-NOM.SG tell-IMP.2SG – no, you-NOM.SG tell-IMP.2SG
‘“Tell me!” “No, you tell me.”’ (www.aldebaran.ru/det/vasina/vasina6/?13)
Da ne kriči
ty
tak!
PRT not shout-IMP.2SG you-NOM.SG like.that!
‘Don’t you shout like that!’
[Anja wants to become an actress, but her parents are not that pleased]
Ty
posmotri
na sebja, kakaja iz
tebja aktrisa?
you-NOM.2SG look-IMP.2SG at
self, what from you actress?
‘Just have a look at yourself, what kind of actress are you?’ (Stolica, 1997.09.29)
In such sentences the subject seems to have a subjective function, and plays a role on the
interpersonal level between the speaker and the addressee (see e.g. Verhagen 2005 for the notion
of subjectivity in relation to intersubjectivity).
In this paper I will provide an analysis of the different functions of the imperative subject
in Russian. I will show that these functions can only be accounted for by taking both pragmatics
and information structure into account. I will argue that the subject of the imperative and its
placement displays features of regular subjects (of finite verbs), but there are also important
differences, due to directive meaning of the imperative. Finally, I will also briefly discuss the
question to what extent the function of the subject in Russian is language specific, and to what
extent its function can be accounted for in more general terms. By briefly comparing Russian to
Dutch and English, I will argue that although the general functions of the subject are very similar
in these languages, the specific way in which these functions operate, are language specific.
References
Dryer, Matthew (2005). Expression of pronominal subjects. In The World Atlas
of Language Structures, Martin Haspelmath, Matthew Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie
(eds.), 410–413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moon, Grace (1995). Use of the “subject” in Russian imperatives. In Harvard
Studies in Slavic Linguistics, Volume 3, Olga Yokoyama (ed), 99–126. Cambridge MA:
Harvard Univeristy, Slavic Department.
Verhagen, Arie (2005). Constructions of Intersubjectivity: Discourse, Syntax, and Cognition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Xrakovskij, Viktor & Volodin, Aleksandr (1986). Semantika i tipologija
imperativa. Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Nauka.
Adjectival Emotions in Russian.
A usage-based multifactorial study of an construction alternation
Dylan Glynn
[email protected]
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Slavic languages possess rich a system of relational word classes including two predicative
adjectival forms, the so-called short and full adjectives. The semantic difference between these
two forms is mooted in the literature. Employing a usage-based Cognitive Linguistic approach,
such as that advocated by Geeraerts (2005, 2006), our study aims to do two things. Firstly, we
seek to test the accuracy of the intuition-based descriptions of the semantic distinction. Secondly,
we show how quantitative-corpus driven research can inform the study of conceptual structure
within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics.
There exist conflicting accounts of the distinction in the literature. One position is that the
distinction between short and full adjectives is that the short-form profiles a relative quality
where the full-form profiles an inherent quality (Rosental & al. 1999). Although this position
acknowledges this as a complex distinction depending on semantic, collocation, and stylistic
factors, it contrasts with a second position. Respected grammars, such as Shvedova & al. (1980),
agree upon the stylistic concerns but diverge on the crucial semantic description. This second
position holds that there is little, if any, semantic difference between the two forms. However,
the description of this alternation is further complicated by the fact that full-form declines, the
nominative form being more characteristic of inherent qualities and the instrumental tending
towards less inherent quality ascription. Such a complex semantic-formal-extralinguistic scenario
warrants multifactorial investigation.
Although this is a complex area of research due to the effects of lexical semantics on the
three different profilings, we can focus on two emotion terms. These terms are sufficiently
similar in order to limit the effects of this lexical semantic factor. Both the adjectives schastlivyj
‘happy’ and pechal'nyj ’sad’ are felicitous across all three forms, the short-form and the two
cases of the full-form. Moreover, these semantically rich emotion terms offer good and complex
examples to test these intuition-based hypotheses. Using a sample of 300 occurrences of both
forms for each adjective from three different sources, the Russian National Corpus, Google
Usenet, and on-line diaries (blogs), we manually annotate for a range of semantic, formal, and
extralinguistic features. Drawing on techniques current within usage-based Cognitive Linguistics
(Divjak 2006, Gries 2006, Glynn in press), the results of the annotation are submitted to two
exploratory statistical techniques, Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Hierarchical Cluster
Analysis. The confirmatory method of Logistic Regression is used to verify the findings of the
exploratory methods.
The results of these analyses largely confirm the position that the two forms are
semantically distinct and represent different conceptualisations of the relational content.
However, the two adjectives differ considerably in the factors involved and the degree of
distinctiveness between them. We hypothesise that this is in, part, due to the lexical semantics.
We propose that pechal'nyj is more objectifiable and, in contrast, schastlivyj tends to be
understood in more experiential terms. Evidence for this is found in the variable of animacy.
This raises the complex question of the relationship between grammatical and lexical semantics.
In this light, the study shows how Cognitive Linguistic analysis is fundamentally necessary to
interpret the results of quantitative studies.
References
Divjak, D. 2006. Ways of Intending: Delineating and Structuring Near-Synonyms. St. Gries &
A. Stefanowitsch (edd). Corpora in cognitive linguistics. 19-56. Berlin: Mouton.
Geeraerts, D. 2005. Lectal variation and empirical data in Cognitive Linguistics. F. R. de
Mendoza Ibañez & S. Peña Cervel (edd). Cognitive Linguistics. Internal Dynamics and
Interdisciplinary Interactions. 163-189. Berlin: Mouton.
Geeraerts, D. 2006. Methodology in Cognitive Linguistics. G. Kristiansen & al. (edd). Cognitive
Linguistics:
Current Applications and Future Perspectives. 21-49. Berlin: Mouton.
Glynn, D. In press. Polysemy, Syntax, and Variation. A usage-based method for Cognitive
Semantics. V. Evans & S. Pourcel (edd). New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics,
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Gries, St. Th. 2006. Corpus-based methods and cognitive semantics: the many meanings of to
run. St. Gries, St. & A. Stefanowitsch (edd) Corpora in cognitive linguistics. 57-99. Berlin:
Mouton.
Rosental D. & al. 1999. Spravochnik po pravopisaniju, proiznosheniju, literaturnomu
redaktirovaniju. Moscow: CheRo.
Shvedova N. & al. (edd). 1980. Russkaja grammatika. Akademija nauk SSSR Institut russkogo
jazyka. Moscow: Nauka.
Invitational motion imperatives in Russian
Alina Israeli
[email protected]
American University
The paper will examine the imperatives of invitational motion into the personal enclosed
space of a home. There are a number of quasi-synonyms, such as заходи-зайди, входи–войди,
проходи–пройди, and приходи–приди (as well as their polite/plural counterparts with the
ending –те), which all correspond to the English ‘come’. However, they are not interchangeable,
and the paper will establish the parameters of their oppositions.
The most basic semantic division corresponds to the English distinction between I. ‘come
in’ and II. ‘come to/over’, that is between a responding invitation/permission vs. an initiating
invitation. We will immediately notice that there is an asymmetry as to which verbs fall into the
two semantic groups:
I.
войди, входи, заходи, проходи
II.
заходи, зайди, приходи, приди, пройди, and пройдем(те)
Within the first group, there are additional features that differentiate the use of the
imperatives, including whether or not the speaker can see the visitor/addressee/Figure:
I.
a) When the speaker cannot see the visitor/addressee and grants permission to enter:
войдите; if the speaker thinks that permission is not necessary (an open door policy):
входите (which may be followed by an explanation that the door is unlocked or some
similar instructions);
b) When the speaker can see the visitor/addressee, the distinctions are based on a
combination of house/apartment geography and the host-visitor relationship.
Входи(те) invites the visitor/addressee to cross the threshold, заходи(те) invites
him/her further into the home, and проходи(те) invites him/her deep inside the home.
Заходи(те), unlike входи(те), is an invitation into the home to be one’s guest, while
проходи(те) signifies an invitation for guests who are already inside the home, just
over the threshold, to move “all the way” into the home. Thus there is a three-level
deictic geography of the home: 1) just past the threshold, 2) inside (guest), and 3)
deep inside, which in terms of a container metaphor corresponds to 1) the barrier of a
container, 2) the interior periphery of a container, and 3) the inner area of a
container.
Within the second group, there are also the additional features of topic-initial/non-initial
and authority that differentiate the use of the imperatives and that will form a matrix:
II.
a) topic-initial (приходи) or non-topic-initial (заходи);
b) [+authority] or a stand-in for authority (зайдите) vs. [-authority] or not playing
one-upmanship (заходите) vs. [+authority] and not topic-initial (пройдите);
c) [+Authority], i.e. the powers that be, such as security, police etc. (пройдемте) vs.
all of the above.
Thus in order to distinguish the invitational motion imperatives, one has to take into
account the physical position of the Figure (addressee/invitee), the Speaker’s knowledge about
this physical position, previous discourse or intentions, and the Speaker — Figure relationship,
i.e. the Speaker’s authority (possibly state authority) over the Figure, the Speaker’s intent of
having the Figure as a guest, and so on.
The Historical Development of Aspectual Clusters in Russian
Laura A. Janda
[email protected]
Universitetet i Tromsø
In the past couple of decades, a number of scholars (including Bermel 1997, Dickey 2007, Mayo
1985, and Nørgård-Sørensen 1997) and have advanced the proposal that aspect in Old Russian
was considerably different from what we see in Modern Russian, and that the relationship
between paired perfective and imperfective verbs has been sorted out only in the past few
hundred years. This paper supports this proposal and builds upon it, integrating it with Janda’s
(2007) model of aspectual clusters.
In a nutshell, the aspectual cluster model recognizes four types of perfectives for a given
imperfective verb:
Natural Pefective (napisat’ ‘write’, svjazat’ ‘tie’)
Specialized Perfective (perepisat’ ‘rewrite, edit’, razvjazat’ ‘untie’)
Complex Act Perfective (porabotat’ ‘work a while’, podut’ ‘blow a while’)
Single Act Perfective (dunut’ ‘blow once’, ščipnut’ ‘pinch/pluck once’).
An imperfective verb can be aspectually related to from zero to all four types of perfectives, and
there are thirteen combinations of perfectives found in Russian. Lexical factors determine which
combinations are possible for a given verb. The most important lexical factor is “Completability”
(telicity). Verbs that can express Completable events have Natural Perfectives, but verbs that
cannot express Completability do not (for example dut’ ‘blow’ and rabotat’ ‘work’). Only verbs
that can express Non-Completability can form Complex Act Perfectives. Many verbs are
ambiguous as to Completability and can form both types of perfectives (for example pisat’
‘write’). Only a subset of verbs that can express Non-Completability can also form Single Act
Perfectives.
The verbs of motion are not ambiguous for Completability, for they have separate forms
to mark this distinction: Natural and Specialized Perfectives are formed from the determined
stems (e.g., poletet’ ‘fly’ and pereletet’ ‘fly over’), whereas Complex Act and Single Act
Perfectives are formed from the non-determined stems (e.g., poletat’ ‘fly a while’, sletat’ ‘fly
somewhere and back once’). Janda (forthcoming a & b). Indeed, it appears that the motion verbs,
rather than being exceptional, are actually prototypical in the system, and that Completability,
which is relevant for all verbs, is a metaphorical extension of the determined vs. non-determined
distinction we find among the motion verbs. Metaphorically, all Completable events are
understood as a journey from a beginning to an end, following the logic of a determined stem
like idti ‘walk to a place’, whereas all Non-completable events are metaphorical extensions of
movement without a goal, following the logic of a non-determined stem like xodit’ ‘walk’.
In Old Russian the determined vs. non-determined distinction was much more
widespread, encompassing at least forty verbs (Mayo 1985). This distinction was not limited to
motion verbs and included examples such as vleči/vlačiti ‘pull’, glasiti/glašati ‘call’, kusiti/kušati
‘bite’, mesiti/měšati ‘mix’, prositi/prašati ‘ask’. The goal of this paper is to show that whereas
the use of paired stems to express the determined vs. non-determined distinction has contracted
over time, the concept that it inspired, namely Completability, has expanded to include the entire
Russian lexicon. Furthermore, the development of aspectual relations among verbs in Russian
has followed the structure of the aspectual cluster. According to Bermel (1997), it begins with
“Telic Non-Punctual Acts”, which are equivalent to Natural and Specialized Perfectives, then
progresses to “Atelic Acts”, which are equivalent to Complex Act Perfectives (cf. supporting
evidence from Dickey 2007), and then finally moves on to “Punctual Acts”, which are equivalent
to Single Act Perfectives.
In sum, these facts suggest that the cluster model of aspect has both synchronic and
diachronic relevance for the grammar of Russian.
References
Bermel, Neil. 1997. Context and the Lexicon in the Development of Russian Aspect. (Linguistics
v. 129). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dickey, Stephen M. 2007. “A Prototype Account of the Development of Delimitative PO- in
Russian”. Cognitive Paths into the Slavic Domain. Edited by Dagmar Divjak and Agata
Kochanska. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 326–371.
Janda, Laura A. 2007. “Aspectual clusters of Russian verbs”, Studies in Language 31:3, 607-648.
Janda, Laura A. forthcoming a. “Prefixed Perfectives from Non-Determined Motion Verbs in
Russian”, to appear in a volume edited by Renee Perelmutter and Viktoria Driagina.
Janda, Laura A. forthcoming b. “Totally normal chaos: The aspectual behavior of Russian
motion verbs”, to appear in a festschrift for Michael S. Flier (Harvard Ukrainian Studies
vol. 28).
Mayo, Peter J. 1985. The Morphology of Aspect in Seventeenth-Century Russian (Based on the
Texts of the Smutnoe Vremja). Columbus, OH: Slavica.
Nørgård-Sørensen, Jens. 1997. “Tense, aspect and verbal derivation in the language of the
Novgorod birch bark letters”. Russian Linguistics 21: 1–21.
Van Wijk, Nicolaas. 1929. “Sur l’origine des aspect du verb slave”. Revue des études slaves 9,
237-252.
Русские и финские синтаксические идиомы: интерференция или типология?
Михаил Копотев
[email protected]
University of Helsinki
Как в русском, так и в финском языках существуют предложения без спрягаемой
глагольной формы на поверхностном уровне. Главным образом, это полные предложения,
обладающие специфическим набором прагматических и семантических признаков, а
также определенным набором лексических переменных, заполняющих синтаксические
позиции в таких предложениях. Большинство из этих предложений представляют собой
синтаксические идиомы.
В современных финском и русском языках эти предложения не могут считаться
эллиптическими в строгом смысле, поскольку глагол в таких предложениях не
восстанавливается из контекста так же легко, как например, при анафорическом
эллипсисе. Однако в диахронной перспективе эти предложения являются эллиптическим,
развиваясь в самостоятельные синтаксические конструкции путем устранения глагола.
Игнорируя существенную морфологическую разницу между двумя языками, можно
сказать, что эти предложения формируются путем пропуска следующих глаголов (1-3).
(1) Связка быть/olla ‘to be’
Окно сломано – Ikkuna rikki (lit. ‘The window Øcop broken’)
(2) Полнозначный глагол быть/olla ‘to be located/to have’
Мама здесь – Äiti tässä (lit. ‘Mother Øbe here’)
(3) Некоторые полнозначные глаголы (глаголы движения
(прототипически) и их
семантические расширения: переместить(ся)/ siirtää(siirtyä) ‘to move (yourself)’,
дать/antaa ‘to give’ и др.).
Kaikki ostoksille! – Все за покупками! (lit.: ‘All Øgo for purchases’)
Теоретически такое сходство объяснить действием языковой интерференции, однако
собранные исторические данные показывают, что в обоих языках происходили
независимые процессы со своими прагматическими и семантическими особенностями, не
имеющими прямой корреляции.
Альтернативное объяснение предполагает схожесть процессов развития, основанную на
близких когнитивных стратегиях в исследуемых языках (а так же и в некоторых других,
имеющих сходные синтаксические особенности). Предлагаемое в докладе объяснение
основано главным образом на использовании модели языка, основанной на употреблении
(Usage-based Model; R. Langacker, S. Kemmer, M. Barlow) и положения Грамматики
конструкций (Ch. Fillmore, P. Kay, A. Coldberg).
Объясняя кратко, синтаксическая группа, функционирующая в безглагольном
предложении в качестве предиката имеет семантику, частично совпадающую с
семантикой эллиптированного глагола. Отсутствие глагола не приводит, таким образом, к
разрушению конструкции, поскольку ее значение в целом сохраняется и
идиоматизированность конструкции поддерживает эту синтаксическую модификацию. С
другой стороны, поддерживает развитие безглагольных предложений и тот факт, что
удаляется частотный глагол с ослабленным лексическим значением.
В результате возникает новая конструкция, эллиптическая по происхождению,
но семантически полная. Для сравнения, конструкция (4) невозможна, поскольку глагол и
зависимая именная группа не имеют пересекающихся семантических компонентов.
(4)
*Я Ø кашу
*Minä Ø puuroa
‘I [eat] porridge’
В заключение доклада обсуждаются некоторые более общие принципы синтаксической
идиоматизации.
- Принцип языкового континуума
Устойчивое выражение, существующее как единица словаря, может быть
трансформировано в полноценную синтаксическую модель путем постепенного
расширения списка лексических переменных. При определенных обстоятельствах это
развитие может закончиться
возникновением
новой,
неидиоматизированной
синтаксической единицы.
- Принцип периферийности
Нецентральные, периферийные реализации синтаксической структуры (например,
эллиптические) могут оформиться в самостоятельную идиоматическую единицу. Чем
более она частотна и невариативна, тем более она является лексической идиомой. Чем
более она нечастотна и вариативна, тем более она является синтаксической идиомой.
- Принцип сохранения значения
Количество информации в изолированной синтаксической единице стремится остаться
неизменным, хотя она может менять форму выражения. Так, изначально
композициональный набор семантической информации, представленной лексемами,
может быть частично передан всей конструкции, трансформируя последнюю в
синтаксическую идиому.
Russian and Finnish syntactic idioms: interference or typology?
Mikhail Kopotev
[email protected]
University of Helsinki
There are three types of Russian and Finnish sentences sharing the fact that they have no verbs in
their surface level. They are mainly complete verbless sentences, having lexemic variables and
specific pragmatic or semantic features. Furthermore, most of these sentences are idiomatic,
which means that their meanings are non-compositional. They cannot be considered as being
elliptical (i.e. verb-restorable) in modern Finnish and Russian, nevertheless all these are
diachronically traced back to the lack of a verb. Ignoring considerable morphological differences
between the two languages, these sentences are formed with the absence of the following verbs:
(1) The copula byt'/olla ‘to be’
Окно сломано – Ikkuna rikki (lit. ‘The window Øcop broken’)
(2) The lexical verb byt'/olla ‘to be located/to have’
Мама здесь – Äiti tässä (lit. ‘Mother Øbe here’)
(3) Some lexical verbs (motion verbs (prototypically) and their semantic extensions:
peremestit'(sja)/siirtää(siirtyä) ‘to move (yourself)’, dat’/antaa ‘to give’, etc.)
Руки вверх! – Kädet ylös! (lit. ‘Øv hands up’)
Hypothetically, these can be the result of language interference between the languages, but
collected data show that both languages represent independent historical developments with
specific pragmatic and semantic features that do not directly correspond to each other. Thus, it
demands an explanation that depends rather on similarity of cognitive processes in both
languages (as well as in some other languages that have comparable syntactic properties). The
offered explanations have been mainly based on the Usage-based Model (R. Langacker, S.
Kemmer, M. Barlow) and Construction Grammar (Ch. Fillmore, P. Kay, A. Coldberg).
Speaking shortly, a phrase that functions as a predicate in the verbless sentences has a meaning
corresponding to a deleted verb. As a result, this verb deletion does not destroy the construction,
because the phrase retains the meaning and the idiomatization of the construction on the whole
supports the modification. Both Finnish and Russian sentences are developing into phrasemes,
because there is a light verb lost, and there is next to nothing to be lost in the meaning of the
sentences. Additionally the verbs that have been omitted are the frequently used verbs in the
language and are therefore a subject of semantic bleaching. As a result, the new constructions,
idiomatic by origin, are therefore semantically full even without a verb. On the contrary, the
same cannot be claimed for constructions such as (4), where the verb and its compliment are not
overlapped in this sense:
(4)
*Я Øv кашу
*Minä Øv puuroa
‘I [eat] porridge’
By summarizing all these observations, the following principles of idiomatization
are discussed at length in the presentation:
a. The principle of language continuum:
A fixed expression that appears as a fact of lexicon develops into a syntactic model by
means of an extending list of lexical variable fillers and may, in all probability, be
developed into non-idiomatic item.
b. The principle of peripherality:
A non-central, less prototypical realization of a syntactic structure (such as an elliptical
ones) can be coined into an syntactic idiom; the more frequent and invariable an idiom
is, the more lexical it is; the more infrequent and variable, the more syntactic it is.
c. The meaning conservation principle:
The total amount of the meaning in an isolated syntactic item aspires to remain
constant, although it may change forms. Thus, an initially compositional set of
semantic information represented by lexemes can be partly delegated to the whole
construction, transforming the last into a syntactic idiom.
Evaluation: language, society, man
Jelizaveta Kostandi and Svetlana Jevstratova
[email protected], [email protected]
Tartu University
The axiological component is one of the most important in a human life, because we look for the
guiding lines of our behaviour, evaluating the different events, persons and a world completely.
Cognition of reality is always connected with the evaluation. A speaking person estimates
permanently the facts of the language reality in the process of speech activity as well; moreover,
both a kind of evaluation and the means of its expression are very diverse. An analysis of the
different speech materials demonstrates, that the language means of evaluation and the various
extralinguistic factors which form a concrete communicative situation or have a general
character, are closely connected.
The given report represents a part of the extensive investigation in the sphere of an analysis of
the language means of estimation in the different social and communicative conditions, in the
texts of the various types. The readers of the report have analysed partly or in full the following
material: a Soviet political discourse and a newspapers’ language of the Soviet period, in
particular (Костанди 1988), the modern means of the Estonian mass media in the Russian
language (2002; Костанди 2004, 2005, 2006б; Евстратова 2001, 2002), way of speaking of
the old believers living in Estonia (Костанди 2007), the present-day Russian popular speech,
the texts of the different authors / idiolects (Костанди 2006а; Евстратова 2006). The lecturers
propose to characterize the language means of the evaluation and describe the kinds of the
evaluation which were used in the gathered material. We intend to represent it in this way:
1. The means of evaluation in the newspapers’ language of the Soviet period represented
an entire system, which is demolished now, although its separate fragments are in use in our days
also. The most obvious and regular means of evaluation were, in the first place, the common
words and the lexemes which were used for the estimation only and worked in acoordance with
the strict enough, well-known, but not fixed grammatical rules. The grammatical means (a type
of a sentence, aspect, mood, person, number) were used also. The estimates were given
primordially, they had the common characteristics and influenced effectively. Regularity,
popularity, standard led to the fixation of the estimates and systematization of the means
represented an appreciation.
2. In the modern mass media we do not use the means of evaluation so systematically,
they are more various, the special forms of evaluation prevail (Арутюнова 1998), the normative
and utilitarian estimates first and foremost.
3. The degree of evaluation is very low in the analysed records of the old believers’
texts. The language means are not so diverse there; normative, affective evaluation, moral
appraisal predominate. The evaluation is closely connected with the modality.
4. The evaluation is a constant component in the records of popular speech, but
sometimes it is indefinite both in the set of the language means and in the kinds of the
estimation meanings. The language means of assessment are combined with the extralinguistic
means.
5. The evaluation component of the idiolects is closely connected with the world model
of a concrete person.
It is very important to take into account the correlation between the estimates given by the
representatives of the different languages and cultures in the multicultural society. This aspect of
our investigation is represented in the given report also.
The most important factors in the process of evaluation are:
1. Specific character of the norm of society, social group, individual.
2. Purpose of an author of a text.
3. Oral / writing form of speech.
4. Mass / individual communication.
5. Regularity of a communicative situation and a type of a text.
6. Presence of the extralinguistic channels of translation of an information.
7. Individual peculiarities of an author.
References
Арутюнова Н. Д. Язык и мир человека. М., 1998.
Евстратова С. Функционирование вводных слов в художественных текстах. Slavonic
Traditions of the Baltic area. Scientific Papers University of Latvia. Linguistics. Volume 707.
Latvijas Universitate, 2006, 91 – 98.
Евстратова С. Экспрессивная лексика в русскоязычной прессе Эстонии. Труды по русской
и славянской филологии. Лингвистика. Новая серия VI. Проблемы языка диаспоры.
Тарту, 2002, 82 – 90.
Евстратова С. Языковые средства выражения оценочности в газетных заголовках (на
материале русского и эстонского языков). Труды по русской и славянской филологии.
Лингвистика. Новая серия V. Русский язык: система и функционирование. Тарту, 2001,
7 – 19.
Костанди Е. Языковые средства выражения прагмтической направленности газетного
текста (на материале хроникальной информации). Дисертация ... канд. фил. наук.
Тарту, 1988.
Костанди Е. Оценка как отражение социальных факторов. Valoda 2004. Valoda dazadu
kulturu konteksta. Daugavpils, 2004, 219-224.
Костанди Е. Прагматика новостного дискурса (на материале русскоязычного телеканала
«первый Балтийский Канал»). Взаимодействие языков и культур: русский язык в
культурно-коммуникативном пространстве новой Европы. Рига, 2005, 191-199.
Костанди Е. Характер оценочности как отражение личностного мировосприятия
Кирилло-Мефодиевские чтения. 1. Даугавпилс, 2006, 68-78.
Костанди Е. Отличительные особенности языка современной русской прессы Эстонии.
Slavonic Traditions of the Baltic area. Scientific Papers University of Latvia. Linguistics.
Volume 707. Latvijas Universitate, 2006, 2 3-28.
Костанди Е. Оценочный компонент в устных рассказах староверов Причудья. Humaniora:
Lingua Russica. Труды по русской и славянской филологии.Лингвистика Х. Очерки по
истории и культуре староверов Эстонии. Тарту, 2007, 124-131.
On the syntactic functions of the Russian aspectual forms
Irina Külmoja
[email protected]
Tartu University
In the centre of interests in the Russian aspectology are the questions of aspect’s morphology.
The syntactic functions of the aspectual forms of verbs, that would be taken into account when
we constract various syntactical units — starting from a word-combination and different types of
sentence to a text, are explored remarkably less.
Both formation of the aspectual forms and their use in the sentence and text are the most
difficult themes in the process of studying Russian as a foreign language. It is the reason why the
definite syntactic attributes of the aspectual forms are considered in some educational supplies
for foreigners. Their combination with the various lexical means of repetition, prolongation etc.
is pointed out first of all. However it does not conclude all syntactical functions of the aspectual
forms.
Syntactical functions of the aspectual forms reveal their participation in the expression of
relations between actions in the structure of sentences, word-combinations and texts. These
functions are secondary, depend on the surrounding context, but lean for support of the primary
meaning of aspect ( integrity / non-integrity). They could be divided into the taxis, constructive –
syntactical and textual. Functions of taxis establish correlative connections between predicates,
they could be divided into iterative and non-iterative (однократные and многократные).
Constructive-syntactical functions convey relations between predicates and subjects in the
simple and complex sentences, textual — correlative connections between predicates of
sentences included in a text.
Syntactical functions of the aspectual forms in the utterances which express iterative and
non-iterative meanings, are represented by various combinations of aspects: IMPFV + IMPFV;
IMPFV + PFV; PFV + IMPFV; PFV + PFV . They express various types of taxis relations of
simultaneity and / or non - simultaneity (vide their description in Шелякин 2008, 235 – 239) in
the non-iterative constructions.
The main type of taxis relations in the iterative constructions are relations of nonsimultaneity. It is connected with use of perfective in tense form of imperfect in former times. The
most freguent and typical for the modern iterative constructions, as for the Old Russian, is the
form of imperfect. It admits synonymic use of the form of imperfective — true with a change of a
type of taxis relations between actions.
(1) Как представлю (представляю) себе Париж, так какая-то судорога проходит во мне и
не могу влезть в дверь (М. Булгаков).
Specific mean of representation of iterative meaning is revealed in this type of text — it is
correlation: PFV future – present + IMPFV present. Moreover an order of presentation of
these forms is insignificant (Кюльмоя 1998):
(2) Только что закрою глаза, как ко мне наклоняется лицо в очках и бубнит: «Возьми»...
(М. Булгаков).
(3) Дома или в гостях он сидит, сидит и вдруг вскочит и без всякой видимой надобности
быстро зашагает по горнице (Ф. Сологуб).
Iterative function of such aspectual correlation is proved by the presence of constructions, which
do not include the exponents of reiteration and, on the contrary, content construction with the
part which does not have a verb or represents the other correlation of the tense – aspectual
forms, demanding presence of exponent of reiteration (Кюльмоя 2002).
The aspectual forms realize constructive–syntactic functions in the structure of definite models
of the simple and complex sentences in their typical meanings. Such syntactical functions of the
aspectual forms take place, when the meanings of syntactical structures correspond to a meaning
of one aspect only, therefore it is possible to name them syntactically constrained. Тебе сегодня
дежурить (НСВ); Чем выше мы поднимались, тем труднее становилось дышать
(НСВ+НСВ); Стоило нам съехаться (СВ), как выяснилась наша полная бытовая
несовместимость. Не успел он сделать (СВ) двух шагов, как увидел бегущих навстречу
людей; Боюсь, как бы так не заболеть (СВ), что и в Россию не попадешь.
Use of the aspectual forms in a text is very important for its integrity, establishment of
correlations between its components and expression of the communicative tendency. The textual
functions of the aspectual forms lean on their syntactical functions. So, the expression of
simultaneity of actions with the imperfective forms adds to a text descriptive character;
presentation of succession of complete and partly simultaneous actions with perfective forms
gives a dynamic character.
Thus, use of aspectual forms in the Russian language has its own peculiarities depending on
a syntactically autonomous position of the verbs and caused by syntactical position of the verbs.
Functional-syntactical consideration of the verbal aspect itself deserves to be investigated at
great length..
References
Кюльмоя 1998 — Кюльмоя И.П. Об одном способе выражения итеративности в русском
языке. // Типология. Грамматика. Семантика. СПб.: Наука, 201-208.
Кюльмоя 2002 — Безглагольные кратно-соотносительные конструкции в русском языке. //
Труды по русской и славянской филологии. Лингвистика. Новая серия. VIII. Языковые
функции: семантика, синтактика, прагматика. Тарту, 107-115.
Шелякин 2008 — Шелякин М.А. Категория аспектуальности русского глагола. М.: изд-во
ЛКИ.
Abbreviations
IMPFV (НСВ) — imperfective (несовершенный вид)
PFV (СВ) — perfective (совершенный вид)
Reflexive Space – A Layered Model for the Russian Reflexive Marker
Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen
[email protected]
Department of Russian Studies
University of Turku
There is a growing interest within the cognitive linguistic framework to incorporate corpus
linguistic methodology. The use of large scale corpora allows firmly establishing the usage based
notion of the cognitive approach to language (e.g. Langacker 2006, 1987). In my dissertation, I
explore the use of the Russian reflexive marker (-ся) which is extremely polysemous and gives
rise to multiple construction types. The Russian reflexive marker imposes a number of
difficulties on both theoretical frameworks and descriptive devices. Thus my dissertation links
directly to the tradition of describing polysemous linguistic items.
The term reflexive marker is applied to any construction which bears the reflexive marker,
excluding only participles and gerundives. Thus, arbitrary boundaries are set at minimum in
order to avoid delimiting the possible range of usage of the reflexive marker. Furthermore, the
term construction is understood in the sense of form and meaning (function) pairing (e.g.
Goldberg 2006, 1995). The recognition of constructions is fully consistent with corpus-based
analysis which emphasises the importance of patterns and co-occurrence of linguistic items. In
this sense, constructional and more generally cognitive approaches to linguistic structure are, at
least to a certain extent, compatible with the Russian tradition, especially with the Diathesis
tradition (Храковский 1981; Geniušienė 1987; Падучева 2004, 2002). Both of them advocate
the importance of actual language use. However, the crucial distinction between these two
approaches is the role of surface structure. The Diathesis tradition posits derivational
relationships between different instantiations whereas the cognitive approach builds its
description from the surface structure generalizations. In my presentation, I will briefly illustrate
the difficulties of derivation in linguistic description which leads to a loss of descriptive
adequacy, at least, from a semantic perspective.
My primary interest lies on motivation chains and concrete descriptive devices. The issue of
motivation, i.e. how the different markedness patterns are connected, is typically disregarded in
Russian studies on the reflexive marker and the main focus is centred on different instantiations
and their description (cf. Виноградов 1972; Шахматов 1925). In contrast to this, within the
cognitive framework the concept of motivation is regarded as the primary means of description.
However, at least to my knowledge, there has not yet been any extensive study on the Russian
reflexive marker based on corpus material and combining the cognitive approach to the Russian
reflexive marker (e.g. Janda 1993; Kemmer 1993; Williams 1999).
The data used in my dissertation are fully based on corpus material, and corpus linguistic
methodology is preferred in order to describe the usage of the reflexive marker in contemporary
Russian. Stratified sampling is used to extract instances of use. The Russian National Corpus
serves as the source of the base material. Furthermore, the corpus-based analysis offers the
possibility to posit frequency as one
of the defining properties of the reflexive marker system as a whole as well as accounting for the
possible core instantiations of the Russian reflexive marker.
In my presentation, I will outline the basic principles of the proposed theoretical model used in
my dissertation. Finally, preliminary results based on one data set are demonstrated in my
presentation.
References
Geniušienė, Emma (1987). The Typology of Reflexives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Goldberg, Adele E. (1995). Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument
Structure. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Goldberg, Adele E. (2006). Constructions at Work. The Nature of Generalization in Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Janda, Laura (1993). Cognitive Linguistics as a Continuation of The Jacobsonian Tradition:The
Semantics of Russian and Czech Reflexives. American Contributions to The Eleventh
International Congress of Slavists 310-319. Columbus: Slavica.
Kemmer, Suzanne (1993). The Middle Voice. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins.
Langacker, Ronald W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol I. Theoretical
Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W. (2006). On the continuous debate about discreteness. Cognitive
Linguistics 17, 107-151.
Williams, Adger (1999). Prototype Marker or Reflexive Marker: Russian -sja and Categorical
Change. 1993 Proceedings of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference. Issues in
Cognitive Linguistics. pp. 277-95. Mouton de Gruyter.
Виноградов, В.В. (1972). Русский язык (грамматическое учение о слове). Москва: Высшая
школа.
Падучева, Е. В (2004). Динамические модели в семантике лексики. Москва: Языки
славянской культуры.
Падучева, Е. В.; (2002). Диатеза и диатетический сдвиг. 179-215.
Храковский, В. С. (1981). Диатеза и рефентность. В. С. Храковский, Залоговые
конструкции в разноструктурных языках 5-38. Ленинград: ”Наука”.
Шахматов, А. А.; (1925). Синтаксис русского языка. Выпуск I: учение о предложении.
Ленинград: АН СССР.
Hybrid predications in Russian
Hans Robert Mehlig
[email protected]
Institut für Slavistik
Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel
Besides elementary predications which clearly can be classified as Activities or as
Accomplishments Russian has elementary predications which are hybrid in their actionality and
can be classified as Activities as well as Accomplishments. With regard to the category of aspect
these hybrid predications are characterized by the fact that they can be perfectivized not only by
a paired perfective verb but also by a so called delimitative procedural verb. In the first part I
will examine under which conditions elementary situations can be interpreted as hybrid. In the
second part I will show that elementary predications which are not hybrid in their actionality can
be reclassified in their actionality by temporal distributivity and in this case allow a hybrid
interpretation too. The third part deals with predications with an inner argument modified by
quantifying determiners and measure expressions. I will show that these predications allow a
reclassification by temporal distributivity likewise. However this is only the case if the extent of
the entities involved in the situation is specified beforehand.
The POSSESSIVE PARADIGM in RUSSIAN: A CASE OF SUPPLETION?
Irina Mikaelian
[email protected]
The Pennsylvania State University
The Russian basic predicative possessive construction represents an existential, originally
Locative event schema (Creissel 1979, Heine 1997) with U + GEN group corresponding to the
possessor: U menja est’ mašina (NOM) “I have a car”, lit. 'At me is a car'.
The generally admitted standpoint dating back to the seminal contribution of Isačenko
(1974) affirms the verb to ‘have’ (imet’) derived from an Action (typically transitive) schema, as
a marginal, even alien element in Russian, a language classified as a typical ‘be’-language.
However, as I tried to show in (Mikaelian 2002, 2005) the verb imet’ represents a most
important tool within Russian syntax. Far from being marginal or alien, the imet’-construction is
extremely frequent and is a highly grammaticalized, even if syntactically conditioned, possessive
construction in Russian.
The difference between the two constructions can be considered in terms of the surface
syntax. The [u YGEN] corresponds to the subject of imet’ and the object of the latter corresponds
to the subject of byt’: U nego est’ mašina = On imeet mašinu.
This generally admitted equation, traceable to Benveniste’s (1966) ideas and
reinterpreted within a generative approach (Chvany 1996), reflects, on the one hand, the
universal character of the possessive relation and, on the other is a good example of
“convertibility” of the concepts of existence and possession.
There is, however, an important structural difference between verbal and non-verbal
expressions of possession. The arguments of the verb imet’ are not specific about their semantic
roles and the possessive relation is carried by the verb. In contrast, the prepositional group [u
YGEN] encodes the possessor by itself and can be considered to be a real “possessive case”
(Garde 1983) as long as it can mark both the possessor in the predicative possessive construction
or an external possessor, as in U nego bolit golova.
The distribution of the imet’-construction and the byt’-construction is strongly
determined by their respective structural properties, such as in many syntactic contexts the imet’construction is either preferable or even the only possible construction. Thus, when the use of a
non-finite (infinitive, gerund, etc.) form with a non-explicit subject is required, the use of the
verb imet’ is, in most cases, imperative (Mikaelian 2005). Moreover, some of semantic
restrictions typical for the verb imet’ when used in independent predicative construction (the
verb imet’ tends indeed to express “unbounded” possession (Koch 1999)) are easily overcome,
especially for the embedded infinitive of imet’.
It is known that ‘be’ verbs in some Slavic ‘have’-languages use suppletive ‘have’ forms
in expressing the existence, such as Polish negative construction nie ma ‘there is not’ (cf. Clancy
2001).
Considering Russian data, the construction [U +GEN (byt’) X] and the verb imet’ should
be considered as members of one syntactic paradigm, where the non-finite forms of the verbs
imet’ present a case of syntactic suppletion in the expressing of the existence.
References
Benveniste E.. 1966. “Être” et “avoir” dans leurs fonctions linguistiques”. E. Benveniste.
Problèmes de linguistique générale. 1, Gallimard, 1966, 187-207.
Chvany C. V. 1996. “When Byt’ means Have”. Selected Essays of Catherine V. Chvany,
Yokoyama O. T., Klenin E. (ed.), Slavica, 29-42.
Clancy, S. 2001. “Semantic Maps for Be and HAVE in Slavic”. Glossos, Issue 1, Spring 2001,
http://seelrc.org/glossos/.
Creissels D. 1979. Les constructions dites «possessives». Étude de linguistique génÈ rale et de
typologie linguistique. Thèse prÈsentÈe devant l’UniversitÈ Paris IV, 1979.
Garde P. 1983. “Les cas russes : approche nominocentrique”. Bulletin de la Société linguistique
de Paris. 78/1, 1983, 337-374.
Heine, B. 1997. Possession. Cognitive sources, forces, and grammaticalization. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Koch, P. “Cognitive Apsects of Semantic Change and Polysemy: the Semanic Space
HAVE/BE”. Blank, A./ Koch, P. (eds.). Historical Semantics and Cognition. [Cognitive
Linguistics Research 13], Berlin/NewYork : Mouton de Gruyter.
Mikaelian I. 2002. La possession en russe moderne: éléments pour la construction d’une
catégorie sémantico-syntaxique, Thèse de doctorat présentée à l’Université de Provence.
Mikaelian I. 2005. “To BE and to HANE in Russian: An Apology of the Verb Imet’”. Die Welt
der Slaven, Jahrgang L, 2, 215-224.
The grammaticalizaton of habere-perfect in standard Macedonian
Liljana Mitkovska & Eleni Bužarovska
[email protected], [email protected]
University of Skopje
In this paper we investigate the functional distribution and structural features of the
Macedonian habere-constructions of the type ima ostvareno dobivka ‘s/he has gained profit’ in
some formal written styles of standard Macedonian in order to establish the way it enters the
standard from the southwestern dialects, where it is a fully established form with several related
functions. These have-constructions belong to the category of perfect, along with two more
constructions: the be-perfect as in: Toj nikogaš ne doagal kaj nas ‘He has never visited us’, and
the mixed be-perfect or “third perfect” as in: Toj e zaminat ‘He has left’.
All three perfect constructions are described in the normative grammars of standard
Macedonian, but sufficient attention has not been paid to their functional diversity. This is partly
due to the complexity of the situation – it is often impossible to distinguish whether a speaker
using these forms is doing it because of the influence of the dialect or of the norm. On the other
hand, studies on Macedonian habere-perfect treat it as a uniform category and often provide
examples that obviously come from western dialects. Given the lack of research of the use of
habere-perfect in the standard language, a need arose for a more in-depth analysis of habereperfect in the registers in which the dialectal influence is assumed to be minimal. The research
for this paper involves examples from major daily newspapers, official reports, acts, bills and
regulations. We assume that this type of texts represent formal style where writers, regardless of
their dialectal base, most probably tend to keep to the forms they consider most appropriate for
standard usage. In addition, a questionnaire is used to test speakers’ perception of the standard
norm regarding the use of habere-perfect.
The analysis of the occurrences of habere-perfect in texts of journalistic and administrative style
sheds light onto the status of these constructions in Macedonian standard. It appears that there is
a systematic and regular mechanism that governs the acceptability judgment of most speakers,
regardless of their dialect background. Most probably, the door for the habere-perfect is opened
through the possessive-existential function. Semantically related to the basic possessive
constructions with the verb have, the perfect naturally arises with verbs of acquisition in standard
verb-noun collocations. The implicature of the same subject is thus conventionalized causing
these statal resultative constructions to function as verbal constructions. Namely, the
conventionalization of the “subject” implicature causes the grammaticalization of the resultative
nominal: have becomes an auxiliary, whereas the adjectival participle assumes a verbal function.
In the enriched conceptual structure, the subject performs an activity that results in broadly
understood acquisition of that result. This inherently possessive conceptual frame is most
available in perfect formed from complex predicates.
Both the corpus-based analysis and the results of the questionnaire show that the habere-perfect
enters and spreads in the standard in a systematic way: through certain semantic verb classes (i.e.
light verb collocations) in possessive-existential contexts.
References
COMRIE, BERNARD (1985): Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FRIEDMAN, VICTOR A. (1977): The Grammatical Categories of the Macedonian Indicative.
Columbus, Ohio: Slavica.
GOŁĄB, ZBIGNIEW (1983): Konstrukcii so ima i glagolskata pridavka vo makedonskiot i vo
vlaškiot jazik, in: II Naučna diskusija, Seminar za makedonski jazik,. Skopje: UKiM, 1-13.
GRAVES, NINA (2000): Macedonian – a language with three perfects? in: Dahl, Ősten (ed.),
Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 479- 494
ELLIOTT, ELIZABETH M. (2001): The Sum (‘Be’) and Imam (‘Have’) Resultative Constructions in
Macedonian and Bulgarian within a Typology of Resultative Constructions in Slavic, Ph.D.
dissertation. University of Toronto.
KONESKI, BLAŽE (1987): Конески, Блаже, Граматика на македонскиот литературен јазик.
Скопје: Култура
KONESKI, BLAŽE (1982): Конески, Блаже, Историја на македонскиот литературен јазик.
Скопје: Култура.
MARKOVIЌ, MARJAN (2007): Марковиќ, Марјан, Ароманскиот и македонскиот говор од
охридско-струшкиот регион. Скопје: ИМЈ Крсте Мисирков.
MASLOV, JURIJ S. (1988): Resultative, perfect, and aspect, in: Nedjаlkov, Vladimir (ed), The
Typology of Resultative Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 63–85.
MIGDALSKI, KRZYSZTOF (2006): The Syntax of Compound Tenses in Slavic. Utrecht: LOT
MOTOKI, NOMACHI (2006) Nekoliko napomena o tzv. Posesivnom perfektu u srpskom jeziku, in:
Naš jezik, XXXVII/1-4, Beograd: Institut za srpski jezik SANU, 43–51.
LINDSTEDT, JOUKO (2000): The perfect – aspectual, temporal and evidential, in: Dahl, Ősten
(ed.), Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 366–383.
VELKOVSKA, SNEŽANA (1998): Велковска, Снежана, Изразување на резултативноста во
македонскиот стандарден јазик. Скопје: ИМЈ Крсте Мисирков.
Paradoxes of Russian Motion Verbs
Tore Nesset
[email protected]
University of Tromsø
Russian is notorious for its complex system of motion verbs. In this paper, I will analyze the
Russian verbs of motion in terms of the image schemas PATH and MANNER (Talmy 1985, Dodge
& Lakoff 2005), focusing on the following paradoxes: Why is the contrast between
unidirectional and non-directional verbs limited to unprefixed motion verbs? Why is the contrast
between secondary imperfectives and prefixations of non-directional verbs neutralized? Why are
there no imperfective motion verbs with the prefix po-? Why are so-called complex act
perfectives like poxodit’ ‘walk for a while’ most easily formed with the prefix po-? On the face
of it, these questions seem unrelated, but I will suggest that a unified account is available in
terms of image schemas. Image schemas offer not only a neurally plausible and typologically informed analysis, but also enable us to accommodate the intricacies of the Russian verbs of
motion.
What makes Russian verbs of motion particularly complex is the fact that they involve
three conceptual layers. The innermost layer, which corresponds to the verbal root, expresses
what Talmy (1985) refers to as “MANNER”. The root /l’ot/ indicates that we are dealing with
flying, whereas /polz/ signals another manner of motion, viz. crawling. The outermost conceptual
layer is introduced by prefixes, which in Talmy’s (1985) terminology contribute PATH
information. In image schematic terms, the prefix v– indicates a PATH into a CONTAINER, while
the prefix vy– signals the opposite path.
The intermediate conceptual layer arises when a derivational suffix is added to the root.
For instance, if the suffix /e/ is added to the root /l’ot/ the resulting verb (letet’) denotes flying in
one direction towards a goal. The same root combines with the suffix /aj/, producing letat’ which
lacks the meaning of motion in one direction. A question that has not received due attention in
scholarly literature is how this intermediate conceptual layer relates to the MANNER/PATH image
schemas. I argue that the intermediate conceptual layer concerns the presence vs. absence of a
highly schematic PATH in the meaning of the verb. This approach facilitates the resolution of the
four apparent paradoxes of Russian motion verbs stated above.
The first paradox concerns the fact that Russian distinguishes between unidirectional and
non-directional verbs, but only for unprefixed verbs. Why is the unidirectional/non-directional
opposition neutralized for prefixed verbs? Since the intermediate and the outermost conceptual
layers are concerned with PATHS, there is considerable semantic overlap between stem and
prefix. It is shown that this overlap leads to the neutralization of the directionality contrast in
prefixed motion verbs.
The second paradox also involves neutralization. Morphologically speaking, prefixed
imperfective motion verbs come in two shapes. A verb like uplyvat’ is a secondary imperfective
based on uplyt’, while uxodit’ can be analyzed as prefix+non-directional xodit’. Why is there no
semantic contrast between these two morphological types? Why do they display the same
aspectual meaning? I suggest that a principled answer is possible in terms of the PATH image
schema. When the PATH of the prefix is added to a non-directional verb, the resulting meaning is
the same as for a secondary imperfective from a prefixed verb with PATH meaning.
The third and fourth paradoxes concern the prefix po- (Dickey 2007), which does not form
imperfective motion verbs. I argue that this prefix does not contain the PATH image schema, and
that this accounts for the seemingly idiosyncratic behavior of po-. Since poxodit’ does not
receive a PATH from stem or prefix, it is shown that this verb cannot constitute an imperfective
partner for pojti. At the same time, the lack of the PATH meaning facilitates the formation of
complex act perfectives (Janda 2007, 2008), since complex acts do not involve completablity.
To summarize, the proposed analysis demonstrates the value of image schemas, which
facilitate a unified analysis of four apparent paradoxes concerning Russian verbs of motion.
Dickey, Stephen M. (2007): A Prototype Account of the Development of Delimitative PO- in
Russian. In Dagmar Divjak and Agata Kochanska (eds.): Cognitive Paths into the Slavic
Domain. Berlin: Mouton.
Dodge, Ellen & George Lakoff (2005): Image Schemas: From Linguistic Analysis to Neural
Grounding. In Beate Hampe (ed.): From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive
Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton, 57-91.
Janda, Laura A. (2007): Aspectual clusters of Russian verbs, Studies in Language 31:3, 607-648.
Janda, Laura A. (2008): Utviklingen av aspektklynger ved russiske verb. Paper presented at the
historical linguistics seminar at Lysebu, Oslo, January 3-5.
Talmy, Leonard (1985): Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure in Lexical Forms. In
Timothy Shopen (ed): Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol 3. Cambridge:
CUP.
SUBJECT-PREDICATE INVERSION AND ITS COGNITIVE SOURCES
Elena Paducheva
[email protected]
Institute of Linguistic Studies
Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg
In Russian, moving a word or a constituent from the end of the sentence to its beginning usually
causes inversion of the word order in the remaining Subject-Predicate group. In the examples
below the constituent that is moved to the initial position is underlined; the heads of the subject
and predicate group are italicized:
(1) а.
б.
(2) а.
б.
(3) а.
б.
Высокая шапка была у него надвинута на глаза;
На глаза была у него надвинута высокая шапка.
Реферативный журнал помогает специалисту сэкономить время;
Сэкономить время помогает специалисту реферативный журнал.
Вода делает в пустыне подлинные чудеса;
Подлинные чудеса делает в пустыне вода.
I start from the assumption that the word order of a sentence is to be considered together with its
phrasal accent, so that what a linguist deals with is not the word order but “linejnoakcentnaja
structura” – LA-structure – of a sentence. In fact, LA-structure is the signifiant for the ThemeRheme-structure (= communicative structure) of a sentence (see Падучева 1985/2008, Янко
2001). Semantic relationships between (a) and (b) sentences in examples (1)–(3) can be
accounted for by transformations that are applied to their LA-structures (see Ковтунова 1976).
The following two transformations are in the scope of our attention (both tending to be
accompanied by subject-predicate inversion):
1) EMPHATIC PREPOSITION, i.e. fronting of a constituent preserving the phrasal accent
customary for the end of a sentence, as in (3):
2) THEMATIC PREPOSITION, i.e. fronting of a constituent with a change of the intonation
contour: the fronted constituent looses its rhematic falling accent and acquires the thematic
raising one, as in (1), (2).
Some fronting transformations accompanied by subject-predicate inversion can be found even in
languages with the so called fixed word order. Locative inversion, for example, is widespread in
English, see Циммерлинг 2007 on typology of locative inversion. In Russian fronting is much
more widely spread than in English. For example, split of a genitive phrase in (4a) must be
accompanied either by focalization of Possessor (in the sense of Иорданская, Mельчук 1995),
as in (4b), or by inversion, as in (4d). Sentence (4c) can only be pronounced with accentuated
руки and, thus, understood as equivalent to (4d):
(4) a.
b.
c.
d.
Руки Маши дрожали;
Руки у Маши дрожали;
?У Маши руки дрожали;
У Маши дрожали руки.
It is claimed that subject-predicate inversion in Russian is applied when it is necessary to
overcome the Theme-Rheme partition that naturally takes place in any fragment of a sentence
consisting of a prepositional subject and a postpositional predicate.
References
Ковтунова И.И. Современный русский язык: Порядок слов и актуальное членение
предложения. М., 1976.
Иорданская Л.Н., Мельчук И.А. *Glaza Mashi golubye vs. Glaza u Mashi golubye: Choosing
between two Russian constructions in the domain of body parts. // Мельчук И.А. Русский
язык в модели «Смысл ⇔ Текст». М., 1995, 135-164.
Падучева Е. В. Высказывание и его соотнесенность с действительностью. М.: Наука, 1985;
5-th edition – Moscow: URSS, 2008.
Циммерлинг А.В. Локативная инверсия в языках со свободным порядком слов // Труды
международной конференции Диалог 2007, 242-249.
Янко Т. Е. Коммуникативные стратегии русской речи. М.: Языки славянской культуры,
2001.
On Slavic influence on Albanian:
on the cognitive base for the grammaticalization of an Albanian reciprocal construction
Alexander Rusakov
[email protected]
Institute of Linguistic Studies
Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg
In the Modern Albanian language the reciprocal meaning can be expressed either with the
means of reflexive/passive verbal forms (lexically restricted) or using one of the two pronominal
constructions (both have variants depending of antecedents’ Gender): i) njëri-tjetrin, lit. “one
(Nom.) – other (Acc.)”, and ii) shoku-shokun, lit. “friend (Nom.) – friend (Acc.), comrade
(Nom.) – comrade (Acc.)”. The shoku-shokun construction has a stylistic (?) variant shoqi
shoqin. The two constructions i) and ii) are semantically synonymous and syntactically
equivalent; they may be used in various case forms:
(1)
Studentet
e
ndihmojnë
njëri-tjetrin
(shoku shokun)
stjudents
ACC help
each.other.ACC
‘The students help each other’ (the example is taken from Buchholz/Fiedler 1987: 284).
The construction of the i) type is quite widespread in languages of the world (cf. Nedjalkov
2007: 155), including European neighbors of Albanian (South Slavic languages, Romanian
languages and so on), the construction of the ii) type is more rare but non unusual from a
typological point of view (see e.g. Nikolaeva 2007: 952 for Udehe).
Let us try to explain the possible ways of the emergence of the latter construction. Alb.
shok, which is – along with its pronominal reciprocal use – a widely used noun, is a borrowing
from Lat. socius “comrade, companion”. In Latin, however, this word wasn’t used in reciprocal
constructions; reciprocal meaning was expressed in Latin with the help of pronominal
constructions alius alii or alter altero (both in various case forms), lit. “other other”. We may
suppose that the source of the Albanian construction could have been the Old Slavic reciprocal
construction drugъ druga, lit. “other other-ACC”, which is in its turn a loan translation from the
Ancient Greek ά̉λλος ά̉λλον (lit. “other other-ACC”) or some similar variant constructions. It
seems that the crucial fact that might have shaped calquing this expression into Albanian was the
semantic ambivalence of the Slavic drugъ: 1) ‘other’ (short adjective); 2) ‘friend’ (thus, the
semantic development is opposite to the one attested in Greek, where ο̉ ά̉λλοι means
“enemies”). These seem to be homonyms in Slavic, although clearly etymologically interrelated.
It was noted that in the consciousness of the speakers of Russian the construction drug druga is
often reanalyzed not as “other other-ACC” but as “friend friend-ACC”, cf. colloquial form drug
druzhku, where druzhku is the diminutive form from noun drug ‘friend’ (Nedjalkov 2007: 156 ;
Knjazev 2007: 694-695).
Thus, the speakers of an earlier form of Albanian might have perceived the Slavic
construction as encompassing the noun ‘friend’ and translate it with the use of the Latin
borrowing shok. It is curious that Bulgarian and Macedonian later replaced the old construction
with a newer one (“one other”); thus we may infer that the aforementioned Slavic-to-Albanian
interference influence should have taken place respectively early.
It seems that the development of this Albanian construction may have some theoretical
interest:
1) We see that the grammaticalization development may be not absolutely unidirectional:
both in the history of the construction drug druga in Russian and in the history of the influence
of this Slavic construction on Albanian we observe the “struggle” between more abstract, i.e.
more “grammatical”, and more concrete, i.e. more “lexical” interpretation of this construction. It
is very plausible that in both cases the latter interpretation wins.
2) From a cognitive point of view we may see that some grammatical categories may retain
a very high level of accessibility to consciousness, may be “situated” very near to the lexical
level of the language. The result is the possibility of rapid reinforcement of such categories, see
in this connection an acute note of Vladimir Nedjalkov about the pronominal reciprocal
constructions: “the reciprocal pronouns of the Indo-European languages” are “a relatively late
development and came into being during the time registered in written records” (Nedjalkov
2007: 155).
References
Buchholz/Fiedler 1987 – Oda Buchholz, Wilfried Fiedler. Albanische Grammatik. Leipzig:
Verlag Enzyklopädie.
Knjazev 2007 – Jurij P. Knjazev. Reciprocal constructions in Russian. In: Vladimir P.
Nedjalkov (ed.). Reciprocal Constryctions. Vol. 2. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins,
673-707.
Nedjalkov 2007 – Vladimir P. Nedjalkov. Encoding of the reciprocal meaning. In:
Vladimir P. Nedjalkov (ed.). Reciprocal Constryctions. Vol. 1. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, 147-207.
Nikolalaeva 2007 – Irina Nikolaeva. Reciprocals and sociatives in Udehe. In: Vladimir P.
Nedjalkov (ed.). Reciprocal Constryctions. Vol. 3. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins,
933-967.
Interpersonal effects due to perspective changes
The process of nominal grounding in the family context
Magdalena Rybarczyk
[email protected]
University of Warsaw
In the cognitive grammar approach to discourse, the configuration of relations holding
between the interlocutors and the profiled entity is important in assessing the communicative
import of an utterance. Focusing on the contexts when members of the same family refer to a
third-person individual who is related to each of them via family ties, the present discussion
centers around some factors which pertain to the speaker-hearer relation and which may
influence the imposition of a particular perspective from which the profiled individual is
apprehended. It is argued that certain aspects of perspective can be associated with interactive
circumstances, which, in turn, may be employed by the speaker to implicitly communicate
interpersonal goals towards the hearer. Specifically, a particular vantage point as well as a
particular degree of subjectivity with which the profile and the ground are construed correlate
with a specific type of relation holding between the interlocutors. Thus, the manipulation of
those aspects of construal may bring about interpersonal effects.
The above claims arise from consideration of common English and Polish sentences
analogous to (1). The crucial aspect of the analysis is the speaker’s attitude towards the hearer
suggested in the mode of directing and focusing attention on an individual other than speech act
participants.
(1) the speaker talks to his/her parent about his/her sister
b. English: Dorota doesn’t know the proper way to behave.
Polish: Dorota nie umie się zachować.
b. English: My sister doesn’t know the proper way to behave.
Polish: Moja siostra nie umie się zachować.
c. English: Your daughter doesn’t know the proper way to behave.
Polish: Twoja córka nie umie się zachować.
The manipulation of various aspects of perspective from which a ‘third party’ individual
is apprehended may prompt the redefinition of the interpersonal relations between the
subjectively construed speech act participants. A more general conclusion is that the speaker’s
choice of linguistic expressions is conditioned by the configuration of relations holding between
the off-stage interlocutors and the on-stage profiled entity.
References
Langacker, Ronald W. (Ms.). “On the Meanings of Personal Pronouns”.
Langacker, Ronald W. (Ms.). “Enunciating the Parallelism of Nominal and Clausal Grounding”.
The static and dynamic nature of prepositional semantics:
The troublesome South-Slavic preposition kod
Ljiljana Šarić
[email protected]
University of Oslo
The topic of this talk is the B/C/S proximity preposition kod ‘by, beside, next to, near, at, during,
among’. After outlining its semantics in static contexts, I concentrate on its usages in dynamic
contexts. These usages have been continually present in all stages of the language’s development
in various language registers, although they are far less frequent than static usages. The language
norm for former Serbo-Croatian as well as for contemporary Croatian has banned dynamic
usages, often ascribing them to speakers that “do not differentiate between stationary and
dynamic scenes”. The underlying assumption for the ban on dynamic usages is the inherently
static nature of the preposition kod. Nonetheless, one should bear in mind that it is not
uncommon for even the “unambiguously” directional preposition k ‘to, towards’ to occur in
stationary contexts.
This paper analyses dynamic constructions with kod-genitives on the basis of B/C/S language
corpora reflecting various language registers. I argue that normative proscriptions are untenable.
My aim is to clarify the sources of and motivations for dynamic uses. The analysis demonstrates
that dynamic usages of kod are in accordance with the use of other proximity prepositions and
the overall spatial semantics of the genitive case. It also provides evidence for the importance of
nuances of verbal meaning, and for differentiating between different groups of motion verbs in
dynamic constructions with kod-genitives. Consequently, this analysis contributes to general
questions related to spatial conceptualization and its language coding; specifically, whether the
opposition dynamic/static is reflected in the meaning of a Slavic preposition itself, whether it is a
part of constructional semantics, and to what extent single elements in a construction contribute
to the overall dynamic vs. static meaning.
On the metonymic nature of the “possessive-reflexive verbs” in Russian
Sergey Say
[email protected]
ILI RAN, St. Petersburg
“Reflexive verbs” in Russian are verbs containing the etymologically reflexive marker sja/-s’, that has developed a wide array of functions (reflexive, reciprocal, decausative, passive,
etc.), roughly covered by the notion of the ‘middle voice’. There is a class of such verbs that are
often referred to as “possessive reflexive verbs”. These verbs are usually illustrated by those
cases when there is a “semantically incorporated” object denoting a body-part of the subject;
compare the use of such a reflexive verb with that of its non-reflexive transitive counterpart:
(1)
Olja pričesala-s’.
Olja comb.PST-REFL
‘Olja combed her hair’.
Olja pričesala
svoi
dlinnye
volosy.
Olja comb.PST
one’s.ACC
long.ACC
hair.ACC
‘Olja combed her long hair’.
The semantics of the reflexive verb in (1) has the component ‘hair’, inalienably possessed
by the subject. The meaning of the ‘understood’ object is not explicitly expressed, it is
‘incorporated’ into the semantics of the reflexive verb. The type of object is lexically given: in
most cases there is a unique type of objects that is associated with the particular verb lexeme.
Thus the question is what determines the types of objects that can be semantically
incorporated into such reflexive uses? The best established class is body-parts (see above),
followed by pieces of clothes (cf. zastegnut’-sja, lit. button-REFL, ‘to button one’s clothes’),
means of transportation (zapravit’-sja, lit. refuel-REFL, ‘to refuel one’s vehicle’), and products
of one’s creativity (vystavljat’-sja, lit. exhibit-REFL, ‘to have one’s pieces of art exhibited’).
The central claim of the study is that the cognitive mechanism of such uses is the
metonymic identification (or, to put it in more precise Langacker’s terms, ‘non-distinction’) of
the Actor and the Undergoer. In the core cases of body-part reflexives there is a metonymic
extension of the totum pro parte type, further widened by the more general persona pro re
mechanism.
There are several interesting facets of the aforementioned cognitive mechanisms.
First, it appears that the borderline between possessive-reflexive verbs and reflexives
proper is somewhat elusive. In fact, many transitive verbs allow for the shift in the ontological
class of their subcategorized objects. Thus, the very same verb prichesat’, exemplified above,
can take not only ‘hair’ and names of ‘hairy surfaces’ as its direct object, but also the animate
possessor:
(2)
Olja pričesala
Mašu
Olja comb.PST
Masha.ACC
‘Olja combed Masha’s hair’, lit. ‘Olja combed Masha’.
The phenomena of this kind fall within the notion of “possessor raising” (≈ ‘external
possession’). However, the crucial point is that in both transitive uses exemplified in (3) and in
reflexive constructions in (1) the possessor is viewed as somehow occupying the slot instead of
the expected possessee. It is possible because the possessor in conceived as the affected entity,
the possessee being obvious and thus relatively unimportant in the context. This ‘substitutional
(3)
nature of the metonymy’ explains why the ‘original direct object’, the possessee, is never
expressed in both types of metonymic uses; note that in non-metonymic uses one may overtly
express both the possessor and the possessee. The same holds true for all ‘possessive reflexive’
constructions in Russian.
Second, the versatile nature of the cognitive processes behind the uses just described is
most evident in novel verbs of the ‘possessive-reflexive type’ that are actively coined in the
contemporary informal speech of the speakers of Russian. The range of objects that can be thus
contextually suppressed and, as it were, semantically incorporated into the verb is wider than
described above for well-established lexical phenomena. The crucial property of most such
objects is that they always stay in relations of physical or metaphoric contiguity to the respective
Actors, without being necessarily their posessees sensu stricto, let alone inalienable possessees.
An illustrative example is found in the following occasional usage:
Ja k etomu vremeni uže sovsem nabila-s’.
Lit.: ‘By that time, I have totally stuffed-REFL’, that is, ‘stuffed my shopping cart’.
According to the introspective report of the speaker, she was thinking of herself and the
shopping cart as if of a single entity with a certain load capacity, thus an otherwise unnatural
literal meaning ‘to stuff oneself’.
The typology of various objects that are grammatically viewed as identifiable with human
Actors is proposed in the study. Along with those types mentioned above, more flexible
contextual reflexive uses reveal the ability to identify humans with their intellectual products
(‘brain children’ in Givón’s words), food being eaten, computer programs and accessories,
various artifacts being used in physical labor, etc. Many types of reflexive constructions with
incorporated objects are paralleled by the transitive constructions (not necessarily with same
lexical items) where the same objects being subcategorized for by the verb lexeme are
substituted for the human referents contiguous to these objects.
(4)
Russian folk botany revisited:
the interplay between naive and scientific picture of the world
Elena Shmeleva and Alexei Shmelev
[email protected]
V.V. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
In an earlier paper, we gave emphasis to the distinction between the “scientific botany” and the
“Russian folk botany”, which can be extracted by semantic analysis of linguistic data, and the
“scientific botany” extracted by semantic analysis of the special-purpose language of botany. In
this paper, we will consider the problem of interaction and interplay of everyday views and
scientific ideas.
We should note that this interplay is genuine. On the one hand, the nomenclature of any science
is based on everyday vocabulary; in this respect the model of the world of a given science
depends in one way or another on everyday notions. For example, speakers of Russian use
metaphors of destruction and deformation: in particular, such verbs as резать ‘to cut’, колоть
‘to sting’, сверлить ‘to drill’, ломить ‘to break’, грызть ‘to gnaw’, давить ‘to press on’, and
распирать ‘to burst’ to describe various kinds of pain. Accordingly, medical symptomatology
(in Russian) recognizes the following kinds of pain: режущая ‘lit. cutting’, колющая ‘lit.
stinging’, сверлящая ‘lit. drilling’, ломящая ‘lit. breaking’, грызущая ‘gnawing’, давящая ‘lit.
pressing on’, and распирающая ‘lit. bursting’. One can see that the scientific classification
copies the naive one (which is no surprise for such a discipline as symptomatology). One the
other hand, many of the speakers are inclined to believe that the scientific model of the world
and the corresponding word usage is more “correct” and pattern their own usage on the scientific
one. Here, the effect is reverse: the scientific or quasi-scientific ideas affect the “naive”
conceptualization of the world.
We will pay special attention to the names of plants and their parts. This domain of reality was
chosen not by chance. Its specific character lies in the fact that it is studied at least in two
scientific disciplines: biology and crop husbandry. Each of these disciplines has its own
terminological system, and the models of the world of these disciplines (both of which differ
from the naive model) are not the same (although the world model of crop science is admittedly
much closer to the naive model that the scientific biological model). In many Russian texts (e.g.
in different types of “gardener’s handbooks”) these three models of the world interact in quite an
intricate way.
It seems reasonable to say that a complete lexicographic description should take account of the
usage of “botanic words” in different sublanguages (giving appropriate labels where necessary).
A dictionary entry on the noun цветок ‘flower’ may look as follows:
цветок
1. (pl. цветы) Colorful part of plant located on a branch or stem. На ветке
расцвели
ярко-красные
цветы.
1b. (scientific) (pl. цветки) Sexual reproductive organ in plants.
3. (pl. цветы) Plant branch or stem with цветок 1. Подарить цветы; сорвать
цветок.
4. (pl. цветы) Small plant growing in the ground whose visible part consists of a
stem and цветок 1 or several цветы 1. На клумбе росли цветы.
5. (pl. цветы) Small indoor (growing in earth indoors, located in a pot) plant. В
знак того, что явка провалена, на окне стоял горшок с цветком
We should note that the semantic structure of the English word flower does not have the meaning
similar to the fifth meaning of the word цветок: if the visible part of an indoor plant does not
have a colorful part that catches one’s eye and grows on a stalk or twig, this plant can be only
referred to as a plant (and never flower) in English.
Patience, tolerance, perseverance, and suffering
in the Russian linguistic conceptualization of the world
Alexei Shmelev
[email protected]
V.V. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Tolerance has three main aspects in the Russian linguistic vision of the world.
The Russian linguistic conceptualization of tolerance depends on the fact that the word
terpimost’ ‘tolerance’ is derived from the verb terpet’. This verb and its derivatives can convey
four main ideas. (1) ‘the occurrence of something bad’ (terpet’ lishenija ‘to suffer privations’,
terpet’ xolod ‘to endure cold’, terpet’ krushenie ‘to be wrecked’); hence the word poterpevshij
‘victim’; (2) ‘to bear with patience’ (ne mozhet terpet’ takoj boli ‘cannot stand such pain’,
prishlos’ poterpet’ ‘one had to put up with it’); (3) ‘to resist impatience’ (poterpi, i ja tebe vse
otdam ‘be patient with me, and I will pay you back’); (4) ‘tolerate’ (on ne terpit shutok ‘he
cannot take a joke’, terpet’ ne mogu ‘I can't stand it, I hate it’). The semantic structure of the
family of words in question would show the perception of patience and tolerance by Russian
speakers.
The second aspect of tolerance as it is viewed by Russian speakers is related to the concept of
broad-mindedness (shirota vzgljadov) which constitutes a part of the “broad Russian nature”. It
is considered an excellent quality in so far as it results from the ability to pay little attention to
minor disagreements; however, if a broad-minded person does not see any difference between
good and evil, it turns into moral relativism (discouraged by the culture). In The Raw Youth
(novel written by Dostoevsky), shirokost’ ‘breadth’ (not to be confused with shirota) of the
Russian nature is associated with podlost’ ‘baseness’.
In other words, the Russian cultural tradition encourages tolerance of other people’s demerits and
imperfections of the world if it results from disregarding trivia (melochi); consider also such
expressions as plevat’ ‘not to care (for)’ denoting an attitude encouraged by the Russian culture.
On the other hand, from the worldview encoded in the Russian lexicon, compromising in order
to gain profit deserves contempt rather than appreciation.
Finally, tolerance presupposes “reconciliation with the reality” (encouraged by Russian culture).
This attitude is incorporated in a number of Russian language-specific expressions. Consider,
e.g. the verb smirit’sja, which is etymologically related to the word mera ‘measure’ and
originally meant ‘become humble’. In modern usage, it is associated with mir ‘peace’,
primirit’sja ‘to reconcile’ (by folk etymology) and denotes acceptance of something undesirable.
In that way, the speakers of Russian have associated humility and self-restriction with
reconciliation.
References
Shmelev, A. D. Terpimost’ v russkoj jazykovoj kartine mira [Tolerance in the Russian linguistic
picture of the world], in: Zalizniak, Anna A., I. B. Levontina & A. D. Shmelev, Kljuchevye idei
russkoj jazykovoj kartiny mira [Key ideas of the Russian linguistic picture of the world],
Moscow 2005.
Semantic Enrichment of Pronouns in Russian
Svetlana Sokolova
[email protected]
Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH)
It is acknowledged that in many languages indefinite pronouns can be used with secondary
qualitative meanings, both appreciative and depreciative:
(1) That was SOME meal!; It is somebody for us to a certainty, and my hair is anyhow, and my
eyes are red,… [Haspelmath 1997: 188, 189; Horn 2004, etc.].
Such uses of pronouns are interesting for linguistic theory as examples of the interplay between
communicative intentions and sentence structure.
In (Haspelmath 1997: 186-92) there are two important statements made about qualitative
pronouns. First, it appears that depreciative or appreciative use of pronouns does not as much
illustrate additional truly semantic readings as it actualizes special contextual interpretations
based on conversational implicature: pronouns are intrinsically uninformative, and when
speakers use them in situations without additional information, hearers are entitled to make
additional inferences. Second, depreciative use is typical for those indefinites which have their
primary functions situated on the right side of the implicational map, e.g. for the 'free choice'
indefinites, whereas specific indefinites are used to convey appreciative meaning.
The qualitative use of Russian single pronominal lexemes has not yet been given serious
consideration although Russian data provides us with some interesting examples. It can be said
that semantic enrichment as such is most typical for those pronouns which are part of an idiom
(the semantics of such pronominal idioms is well described in dictionaries, cf. ni k chemu ‘there
is no need to…’, etc.). However, in modern Russian a certain qualitative meaning is quite often
attained by independent pronouns.
The ability to be used with a qualitative meaning has been indicated for such pronouns as chtoto, nechto, which to some extent resemble the situation in English:
(2) Obyazatel’no shodite na vystavku. Eto chto-to!
Without fail visit PREP exhibition. This something!
‘You ought to see the exhibition. It is really something!’
(3) Ego talant – eto nechto!
His talent – this something
‘His talent is really something!’
In this work we will provide evidence that in modern Russian there are 6 individual pronouns
that can be used with a qualitative meaning: those mentioned above and also nikakoy, nichego,
togo, nikuda:
(4) Ya segodnya
nikakoy
I today
no kind of
‘I feel exhausted today/I am good for nothing today’
(5) A ya eshche ochen’ dazhe nichego!
But
I yet very
even nothing!
‘I am still not bad, I should say/ I am still attractive’
(6) Po-moemu,
on
togo…
I think
he
that-GEN SG M
‘I think he is crazy/out of his mind’.
(7) Zdorovye u nego
Health
by him
‘He is in poor health’
nikuda
nowhere
As can be seen, some of the contexts seem to represent a universal property of pronouns (2-3),
others are more unique (e.g 6, 7). In Russian not only indefinite pronouns can be used
qualitatively.
Moreover, sometimes this qualitative meaning comes together with a nominative component
(togo → depreciative: ‘with some deviation from normal’→ ‘with some deviation from the
normal state of mind’=‘crazy’) and thus can be viewed as an example of a truly semantic
enrichment. This could be explained by the fact that all the lexemes under consideration acquire
a qualitative meaning in the predicative function and therefore are to some extent similar to
phraseological sentence structures like Kyda mne bez tebya! ‘I can’t do without you’, etc. As a
result such pronominal lexemes build a transitional class from phraseological structures to
idioms, the main difference being that they are less syntactically bound than pronominal
components in phraseological structures and consist of only one component unlike idioms.
Following the second statement of (Haspelmath 1997), negative pronouns should convey
depreciative meanings, since their primary functions are situated on the right. It is true for
nikakoy, but fails in case of nichego. As our research shows, single qualitative pronouns can be
divided into 3 groups, depending on their “origin”: nechto, chto-to, nikakoy – negative polarity
quantifiers for which connotation is rather typical in different languages; nikuda, nichego –
pronominal lexemes that originally come from the class of phraseological structures; togo –
lexeme that originally belonged to the class of discourse words.
Thus, we can say that Russian is forming a rather rich group of single pronouns which can be
used qualitatively and express different pragmatic meanings depending on the initial sentence
structure where they were used.
References
Haspelmath, Martin. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Horn, Laurence R. 2004. Pick a theory (not just any theory): Indiscriminatives and the freechoice indefinite. Studies in Negation and Polarity, L. Horn & Y. Kato, eds., Oxford U. Press.
A cognitive approach to semantic description
of Russian conjunctions I ‘and’, A ‘and, but’, NO ‘but’
Elena Uryson
[email protected]
V.V. Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
The goal of the paper is to establish semantic oppositions in the subsystem of main Russian
coordinate conjunctions I ‘and’, A ‘and, but’, NO ‘but’. I will demonstrate that the meaning of
these words cannot be adequately described in terms of “common” semantics or logic. An
adequate description of their use requires to take into the account functioning of the human
consciousness.
Our description is based on two well-known ideas.
(I) An adversative conjunction (such as Russian NO, A) is associated with "cancelled
expectations". Cf.:
(1)
(P) Utrom načalsja dožd', NO/ A (Q) detej poveli na pljaž
"(P) It started raining in the morning, BUT (Q) the children were taken to the
beach"
Here, the first conjunct P induces an expectation 'the children were NOT taken to beach', and
this expectation "falls" in the second conjunct Q.
(II) A copulative conjunction (a conjunctive) such as Russian I is the unmarked member of the
sub-system. In particular, I "confirms" expectation. Thus, (2) is grammatical.
(2)
(P) Utrom načalsja dožd', I (Q) detej na pljaž ne poveli
"(P) It started raining in the morning, AND (Q) the children were not taken to
the beach"
In (2), the first conjunct P induces an expectation 'the children were NOT taken to beach', and the
second conjunct Q coincides with this expectation.
In cases like (1)-(2), an expectation induced by the first conjunct P bases on our knowledge of
reality and its laws, that is, of scenarios (frames).
A serious difficulty in semantic analysis of coordinate conjunctions is that they are used not only
in cases of "cancelled" or "confirmed" expectations, but also in other contexts:
(3)
(P) Utrom nachalsja dozhd' i (Q) lil ves' den'
"(P) It started raining in the morning, AND (Q) (it) poured all day long"
(4)
(P) Eti štory byli zelenymi, A/ NO (Q) potom sil'no vygoreli na solnce
"(P) These curtains were green, BUT (Q) then they badly faded in the
sun"
One could ask whether there is any “cancelled expectation” in (4) or any “confirmed
expectation” in (3).
I believe that examples like (3)-(4) illustrate what can be called the “inertness” of consciousness.
In (3), P introduces a certain situation (‘it started raining in the morning’). Having fixed P in his
consciousness, the subject/ reader/ hearer gets used to it, so to say, gets "tuned" to it. It is kind of
difficult to get tuned to a new situation. In other words, because of the "inertness" of the
consciousness, we are ready for the rain to continue rather than to stop. This “expectation” (or,
better say, tuning) holds not because of any scenario (if the rain starts, it may or may not
continue for a long time), but because of the "inertness" of consciousness. Therefore Q 'the rain
poured all day' confirms this "consciousness inertness" expectation. Thus, Q accords to
“expectation”. In this case I (a copulative conjunction, or a conjunctive) is normally used.
In (4), having fixed P ‘the curtains are green’ in his consciousness, the subject gets used to it, so
to say, gets "tuned" to it. So, P is expected to keep. This “expectation” holds not because of any
scenario (any thing can fade in the sun), but because of the "inertness" of consciousness. So, Q is
contrary to “expectation”. In this case an adversative is normally used.
Expectation due to the "inertness" of consciousness is an important case for me because it’s
analysis allows one to understand the metatext (discourse) functions of conjunctives and
adversatives. I will show that discourse functions of coordinate conjunctions can be adequately
described in the proposed frames.
The choice of a conjunction in the P-Q coordination construction can be conditioned by two
factors: (a) the meaning of P and Q; (b) the strategy of linking P and Q chosen by the Speaker. I
will demonstrate some of these strategies preferred in Russian and compare them with English
ones.
A Catalogue of semantic shifts in the languages of the world:
a contribution to Slavic cognitive linguistics
Anna A. Zalizniak & D.S.Ganenkov
[email protected], [email protected]
Insitute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences
The paper deals with a project which is being realized under my guidance by a group of
researchers in Moscow Institute of Linguistics: Maria Bulakh, Dmitriy Ganenkov, Ilya Gruntov,
Timur Maysak, Maxim Russo (see our publications [Zalizniak 2001, 2008 (in print)]; [Gruntov
2007]).
By semantic shift I understand a variation of meaning that occurs, synchronically or
diachronically, within one and the same word, that is, the relation between two different
meanings of a polysemous word or the relation between two meanings of a word in the course of
semantic evolution. Semantic shift is a linguistic unit, i.e. an element of language structure (and
as such it can be borrowed).
The Catalogue comprises the facts of similar semantic shifts from a SOURCE-meaning
to a TARGET-meaning that took place synchronically or diachronically in several words, so that
the semantic shift as a unit of the Catalogue has at least two independent realizations. The fact of
the independent reproduction of a semantic shift in several lexemes in different languages
testifies that the given association of meanings is substantial from cognitive point of view, and it
constitutes one of the means of linguistic conceptualization. In such a way, the Catalogue of
Semantic Shifts might provide:
• a linguistic evidence for cognitive mechanisms of linguistic conceptualization;
• a basis for the semantic typology (understood as the typology of semantic derivation);
• a semantic plausibility criterion for the linguistic reconstruction.
The Catalogue of semantic shifts is realized in a database format. Today, the Database
comprises examples from about 245 languages of 11 language families. In total, database
contains more than one thousand semantic shifts, each of them having from 2 to 37 realizations.
The main phenomenon which provides data for our catalogue is synchronic polysemy.
The entry of the Catalogue contains two parts: 1.A formal description of a semantic
shift. 2. A formal description of each realization of this semantic shift.
We distinguish the following types of realization of a semantic shift:
1. Synchronic polysemy; e.g. Engl. to catch ‘to catch’, ‘to understand’.
2. Diachronic semantic evolution (within one and the same language or from an ancestor
language to a descendant language); e.g. Old Russian постичи ‘to overtake, to run down’ and
Russian постичь ‘to understand’.
3. Cognates (the meanings A and B are represented by the cognate lexemes of closely related
languages) e.g. Russ. мешкать ‘to be slow <in doing something>’ and Polish mieszkać ‘live,
inhabit <in some place>’.
4. Morphological derivation (the meaning B is represented by a morphologically derivative
from the word which has the meaning A); e.g. Russ. сказать ‘to say’, указать ‘to
indicate’(prefixation).
5. Borrowing (the meaning B belongs to a borrowed word, and the meaning A – to its original in
the donor-language), for e.g. Old French joue ‘cheek’, English jaw ‘jaw’.
6. Grammaticalization (the meaning B is a grammatical one), e.g. Port. chegar ‘to come’, ‘to
begin <to to do smth>’.
In principle, the database allows to look at genetic and areal distribution of semantic shifts, i.e. to
investigate whether a particular semantic shift is characteristic of any particular geographic area
or genetic affiliation. In this paper, we will present and discuss semantic shifts confined
exclusively or mostly to Slavic languages. The present version of the database does not contain
enough information to draw any definite conclusions about these issues. However, the database
currently contains a number of semantic shifts found ONLY in Slavic languages, cf. some such
examples (with a light bias towards Russian data):
‘light’ → ‘world’: Rus. свет ‘light’, ‘world’; Pol. świat ‘world’, światło ‘light’;
‘peace’ → ‘world’: Rus., Ukr. мир ‘peace’, ‘world’; Czech mír ‘peace’;
‘edge’ → ‘country’: Rus. край ‘edge’, ‘country’; Pol. kraj ‘country’;
‘gather, collect’ → ‘intend’: Rus. собирать ‘gather, collect’, sobirat’sja ‘intend’;
‘slave’ – ‘child’: Rus. ребенок (from робенок) ‘child’; Bulg. роб ‘slave’;
‘coast’ → ‘hill’: Rus. берег ‘coast’ and Maced. брег ‘hill’;
‘quickly’ → ‘very’: Serb. брзо ‘quickly’ and Polish bardzo ‘very’.
References
Gruntov I.A. (2007) «The Catalogue of Semantic Shifts»: a database for the typology of
semantic evolution // Computational linguistics and Intellectual Technologies. International
Conference Dialogue 2007 Proceedings M., 2007.
Zalizniak Anna A. (2001). Semantičeskaja derivacija v sinxronii i diaxronii: proekt sozdanija
«Kataloga semantičeskix perexodov» // Voprosy jazykoznanija, №2. P. 13-25.
Zalizniak Anna A. (2008, in print). A Catalogue of Semantic Shifts: towards a Typology of
Semantic Derivation // Towards a Typology of Lexical Semantic Associations. Ed. by
Martine Vanhove. Paris: Mouton de Gruyter.