- Vinogradov Russian Language Institute, Sector for Theoretical Semantics, Department Memberadd
- noneedit
We studied the mental representations of literal, metonymical, and metaphorical senses in Russian nouns and adjectives. Previous studies suggested either a single representation, separate representations, or hybrid representations for... more
We studied the mental representations of literal, metonymical, and metaphorical senses in Russian nouns and adjectives. Previous studies suggested either a single representation, separate representations, or hybrid representations for different word senses (metonymy is stored with literal senses, metaphor is separate). We used primed recognition experimental tasks and tested recognition with consistent and inconsistent priming (primed by the same or different sense types). Expanding previous research, we hypothesized that recognition can be affected not only by consistency, but also by sense type (metaphor priming metonymy can yield different results from metaphor priming the
literal sense) and direction (metaphor priming metonymy vs. metonymy priming metaphor). Our hypothesis was confirmed: consistency helps recognition, but only for metaphor and metonymy; metaphoric primes help the recognition of metonymic senses but not vice versa. Literal primes were poorly recognized, as previously seen in both inconsistent and
consistent conditions. We interpreted our results as evidence supportive of the hybrid account; however, unlike previous research, metonymy appears to overlap with metaphor more than with literal senses. Apart from polysemy-related factors, recognition is apparently
affected by general mechanisms of memory: less regular and hence more salient usages (metaphor and metonymy) were recognized better than regular literal usages.
literal sense) and direction (metaphor priming metonymy vs. metonymy priming metaphor). Our hypothesis was confirmed: consistency helps recognition, but only for metaphor and metonymy; metaphoric primes help the recognition of metonymic senses but not vice versa. Literal primes were poorly recognized, as previously seen in both inconsistent and
consistent conditions. We interpreted our results as evidence supportive of the hybrid account; however, unlike previous research, metonymy appears to overlap with metaphor more than with literal senses. Apart from polysemy-related factors, recognition is apparently
affected by general mechanisms of memory: less regular and hence more salient usages (metaphor and metonymy) were recognized better than regular literal usages.
Research Interests:
В статье рассматривается небольшой лексикографический тип, или ЛТ [Апресян 2009: 148–150], в который входят глаголы со значением ‘быть видным наблюдателю’, а именно виднеться, вырисовываться, красоваться, возвышаться, выситься,... more
В статье рассматривается небольшой лексикографический тип, или
ЛТ [Апресян 2009: 148–150], в который входят глаголы со значением
‘быть видным наблюдателю’, а именно виднеться, вырисовываться, красоваться, возвышаться, выситься, вздыматься, возноситься, громоздиться, блестеть, блистать, сиять, сверкать, белеть, зеленеть, краснеться, белеться, золотиться и некоторые другие
ЛТ [Апресян 2009: 148–150], в который входят глаголы со значением
‘быть видным наблюдателю’, а именно виднеться, вырисовываться, красоваться, возвышаться, выситься, вздыматься, возноситься, громоздиться, блестеть, блистать, сиять, сверкать, белеть, зеленеть, краснеться, белеться, золотиться и некоторые другие
Research Interests:
Full paper available here https://rdcu.be/dwhZx We study factors influencing aspectual errors in written texts of advanced learners of Russian with dominant English. Our study is based on the data from the Russian Learner Corpus, as... more
Full paper available here https://rdcu.be/dwhZx
We study factors influencing aspectual errors in written texts of advanced learners of Russian with dominant English. Our study is based on the data from the Russian Learner Corpus, as well as a mini-corpus collected from a group of advanced Russian learners who are native speakers of English. Our findings suggest that the incidence, direction, and type of aspectual errors depend on the level of language mastery. On lower levels, there are more perfective-to-imperfective substitutions (*Я наконец делала уроки ‘I finally did.IPF my homework’ instead of Я наконец сделала уроки ‘I finally did.PF my homework’), possibly due to greater morphological simplicity of erroneous imperfective forms, as well as their earlier instruction and acquisition. However, on higher levels of language mastery, the number of imperfective-to-perfective substitutions increases (*Я не хочу купить ему подарок ‘I don’t want to buy.PF him a present’ instead of Я не хочу покупать ему подарок ‘I don’t want to buy.IPF him a present’). Perfective tends to replace imperfective, irrespectively of the morphological complexity, in cases when the required use of imperfective is driven by grammatical rules rather than the semantics of the form, e.g. in iterative or negative constructions. Possibly, it happens because learners are guided by the aspectual semantics (lexical aspect) and disregard the grammatical rules when they contradict it (morphological aspect). Additionally, it appears that both perfective-to-imperfective and imperfective-to-perfective substitutions are context-dependent. Both tend to happen less frequently in finite, factual past contexts, and more frequently in non-finite, non-factual contexts where aspectual oppositions are mitigated.
We study factors influencing aspectual errors in written texts of advanced learners of Russian with dominant English. Our study is based on the data from the Russian Learner Corpus, as well as a mini-corpus collected from a group of advanced Russian learners who are native speakers of English. Our findings suggest that the incidence, direction, and type of aspectual errors depend on the level of language mastery. On lower levels, there are more perfective-to-imperfective substitutions (*Я наконец делала уроки ‘I finally did.IPF my homework’ instead of Я наконец сделала уроки ‘I finally did.PF my homework’), possibly due to greater morphological simplicity of erroneous imperfective forms, as well as their earlier instruction and acquisition. However, on higher levels of language mastery, the number of imperfective-to-perfective substitutions increases (*Я не хочу купить ему подарок ‘I don’t want to buy.PF him a present’ instead of Я не хочу покупать ему подарок ‘I don’t want to buy.IPF him a present’). Perfective tends to replace imperfective, irrespectively of the morphological complexity, in cases when the required use of imperfective is driven by grammatical rules rather than the semantics of the form, e.g. in iterative or negative constructions. Possibly, it happens because learners are guided by the aspectual semantics (lexical aspect) and disregard the grammatical rules when they contradict it (morphological aspect). Additionally, it appears that both perfective-to-imperfective and imperfective-to-perfective substitutions are context-dependent. Both tend to happen less frequently in finite, factual past contexts, and more frequently in non-finite, non-factual contexts where aspectual oppositions are mitigated.
Research Interests:
Theories of storing the multiple senses of polysemous words in the mental lexicon suggest three key approaches. Some theories assume that only literal senses are stored, while non-literal senses are derived from them via rules; other... more
Theories of storing the multiple senses of polysemous words in the mental lexicon suggest three key approaches. Some theories assume that only literal senses are stored, while non-literal senses are derived from them via rules; other theories suggest that all senses are stored separately. There is also a hybrid approach which assumes that some non-literal senses can be stored as separate units, while others are derived from literal ones. However, the evidence in favor of hybrid models has been obtained mainly from data comparing either metonymy and metaphor, or else proximal and distal metonymy. In this paper, the predictions of hybrid models are tested on proximal and distal metaphors. With the help of an experiment involving a group of adult native speakers of Russian, we demonstrate a difference in sensicality judgment and processing speed between proximal and distal metaphors, as compared to the literal senses of verbs and adjectives. Adjectival distal metaphors are treated almost in the same way as literal senses. Proximal metaphors are processed more slowly and less accurately. For verbs, both proximal and distal metaphors are processed slower than literal senses and are more likely to be evaluated as nonsensical. Such results suggest that verbal metaphors and adjectival proximal metaphors are derived via a reference to the word’s literal sense during processing. Adjectival distal metaphors, in turn, are processed independently. The difference between adjectives and verbs in the processing of metaphors can be associated with the different nature of the mechanisms involved in the development of polysemy.
Research Interests:
The full paper can be viewed here: https://rdcu.be/dfYuC The article discusses the distribution of dative case and prepositional phrases with dlja ‘for’ in Russian. We consider factors affecting distribution both for verbs (for... more
The full paper can be viewed here:
https://rdcu.be/dfYuC
The article discusses the distribution of dative case and prepositional phrases with dlja ‘for’ in Russian. We consider factors affecting distribution both for verbs (for instance, verbs of acquisition, such as kupit’ ‘buy’ or verbs of creation, such as postroit’ ‘build’) and predicatives, such as udivitel’no ‘surprising’, xolodno ‘cold’. We demonstrate the following general tendency: dative tends to be used for marking situation participants who are affected by the situation to a larger extent than the participants marked by dlja-phrases. In terms of semantic roles, dative-marked arguments frequently refer to experiencers and beneficiaries, while arguments in dlja-phrases denote participants who merely assess situations or, if they are beneficiaries, are only indirectly affected. Moreover, dlja can also mark participants with no role in the situation itself. In such cases, it can be assigned the semantic role of a ‘restrictor’ (a participant that only serves as a reference point for the description of a state or property). This opposition, in turn, explains the fact that dlja is easily combined with syntactic heads (nouns and adjectives) that do not have a full-fledged argument structure, while dative marking is often incompatible with these types of heads. Although there is an affinity between certain semantic classes and dative vs. dlja syntactic marking, sometimes members of the same semantic class demonstrate different lexicalization patterns and “choose” one of the two possible markings, while prohibiting the other. Also, marking depends on many contextual factors: apart from the differences in semantic role construal, dative vs. dlja can also reflect differences in referential status and in information structure.
https://rdcu.be/dfYuC
The article discusses the distribution of dative case and prepositional phrases with dlja ‘for’ in Russian. We consider factors affecting distribution both for verbs (for instance, verbs of acquisition, such as kupit’ ‘buy’ or verbs of creation, such as postroit’ ‘build’) and predicatives, such as udivitel’no ‘surprising’, xolodno ‘cold’. We demonstrate the following general tendency: dative tends to be used for marking situation participants who are affected by the situation to a larger extent than the participants marked by dlja-phrases. In terms of semantic roles, dative-marked arguments frequently refer to experiencers and beneficiaries, while arguments in dlja-phrases denote participants who merely assess situations or, if they are beneficiaries, are only indirectly affected. Moreover, dlja can also mark participants with no role in the situation itself. In such cases, it can be assigned the semantic role of a ‘restrictor’ (a participant that only serves as a reference point for the description of a state or property). This opposition, in turn, explains the fact that dlja is easily combined with syntactic heads (nouns and adjectives) that do not have a full-fledged argument structure, while dative marking is often incompatible with these types of heads. Although there is an affinity between certain semantic classes and dative vs. dlja syntactic marking, sometimes members of the same semantic class demonstrate different lexicalization patterns and “choose” one of the two possible markings, while prohibiting the other. Also, marking depends on many contextual factors: apart from the differences in semantic role construal, dative vs. dlja can also reflect differences in referential status and in information structure.
Research Interests:
Цель исследования — мультидисциплинарное изучение феномена полисемии (многозначности) языковых единиц с помощью теоретических, экспериментальных и статистических методов. Хотя полисемии посвящено большое количество работ, это явление... more
Цель исследования — мультидисциплинарное изучение феномена полисемии (многозначности) языковых единиц с помощью теоретических, экспериментальных и статистических методов. Хотя полисемии посвящено большое количество работ, это явление ранее не
исследовалось комплексно. Коллективом авторов было проведено исследование, которое сочетало элементы словарного описания, статистического анализа, опросов, а также изучение электроэнцефалограмм
и движений глаз. Исследование показало, что при развитии полисемии
используется большее количество различных семантических сдвигов,
помимо хорошо известных метафоры и метонимии. Эти сдвиги составляют сложную иерархическую систему и часто комбинируются друг с
другом при образовании новых значений. Наше восприятие значения
как нового связано с когнитивным «расстоянием», которое различается для разных типов сдвигов: так, метафорически образованное значение воспринимается как более далекое от исходного, чем метонимическое значение. Словарное представление значений только отчасти
коррелирует с устройством ментального лексикона и с частотностью
разных значений. Лексикографическое представление, основанное на
семантических принципах, более удобно для восприятия, чем представление, основанное на частоте употребления. В ходе исследования
возникли новые вопросы, в частности, различаются ли представления
далекой и близкой метонимии в нашем ментальном лексиконе.
исследовалось комплексно. Коллективом авторов было проведено исследование, которое сочетало элементы словарного описания, статистического анализа, опросов, а также изучение электроэнцефалограмм
и движений глаз. Исследование показало, что при развитии полисемии
используется большее количество различных семантических сдвигов,
помимо хорошо известных метафоры и метонимии. Эти сдвиги составляют сложную иерархическую систему и часто комбинируются друг с
другом при образовании новых значений. Наше восприятие значения
как нового связано с когнитивным «расстоянием», которое различается для разных типов сдвигов: так, метафорически образованное значение воспринимается как более далекое от исходного, чем метонимическое значение. Словарное представление значений только отчасти
коррелирует с устройством ментального лексикона и с частотностью
разных значений. Лексикографическое представление, основанное на
семантических принципах, более удобно для восприятия, чем представление, основанное на частоте употребления. В ходе исследования
возникли новые вопросы, в частности, различаются ли представления
далекой и близкой метонимии в нашем ментальном лексиконе.
Research Interests:
The paper is a corpus study of Russian frequency adverbs chasto ‘frequently’, zachastuju ‘often’, redko ‘rarely’, izredka ‘rarely’, etc. In Russian lexicographic tradition, frequency adverbs either lack separate entries and are explained... more
The paper is a corpus study of Russian frequency adverbs chasto ‘frequently’, zachastuju ‘often’, redko ‘rarely’, izredka ‘rarely’, etc. In Russian lexicographic tradition, frequency adverbs either lack separate entries and are explained via references to their adjectival counterparts or are treated exclusively as denotations of intervals between events. As our study demonstrates, this covers only a small fraction of their actual corpus usage. Many frequency adverbs can quantify over subjects, and thus resemble classical quantifiers such as ‘many’ or ‘few’. Even when frequency adverbs quantify over predicates, they mostly refer not to intervals between events, but merely to their number. In some cases, they quantify over aspects of events, expressed by adjectives. There are also other important properties of Russian frequency adverbs missed by the dictionaries yet revealed by corpus analysis. Most frequency adverbs have a strong preference for topic or focus position, as motivated b...
Research Interests:
Our study tackles Russian interrogative-relative pronouns ( wh -words) as a lexicographic type which requires a unified treatment. Our objective is to give a systematic description and explanation of the numerous collocational and... more
Our study tackles Russian interrogative-relative pronouns ( wh -words) as a lexicographic type which requires a unified treatment. Our objective is to give a systematic description and explanation of the numerous collocational and constructional properties of the Russian wh -words using lexicographic and corpus methods. The dataset and statistics were extracted from the Russian National Corpus, at least 100 examples for each of the pronouns were analysed. Methodologically the study is based on the principles of the Moscow School of Semantics (namely, integral description of language and systematic lexicography) which are to a large extent rooted in the “Meaning⇔Text” theory. They include analysis of linguistic items on all levels of language; a focus on their semantic and combinatorial properties; acknowledged validity of dictionary as an instrument of linguistic research. The paper considers semantic, syntactic and co-occurrence properties shared by many Russian interrogative prono...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Our study tackles Russian interrogative-relative pronouns (wh-words) as a lexicographic type which requires a unified treatment. Our objective is to give a systematic description and explanation of the numerous collocational and... more
Our study tackles Russian interrogative-relative pronouns (wh-words) as a lexicographic type which requires a unified treatment. Our objective is to give a systematic description and explanation of the numerous collocational and constructional properties of the Russian wh-words using lexicographic and corpus methods. The dataset and statistics were extracted from the Russian National Corpus, at least 100 examples for each of the pronouns were analysed. Methodologically the study is based on the principles of the Moscow School of Semantics (namely, integral description of language and systematic lexicography) which are to a large extent rooted in the "Meaning⇔Text" theory. They include analysis of linguistic items on all levels of language; a focus on their semantic and combinatorial properties; acknowledged validity of dictionary as an instrument of linguistic research. The paper considers semantic, syntactic and co-occurrence properties shared by many Russian interrogative pronouns and analyzes the reasons for their almost entire lack in the pronouns zachem 'what for' and pochemu 'why'. As demonstrated in the study, most of the constructional and co-occurrence properties typical of Russian interrogative pronouns (for example, co-occurrence with particles imenno 'exactly' and khot' 'at least', constructions with mnogo 'many', malo 'few', etc.) are motivated by the semantics of multiplicity and choice, which are incompatible with 'what for' and 'why'. In addition, as the findings show, different interrogative pronouns have different frequencies of occurrence in the described constructions, which is explained not by their general corpus frequencies or by the animacy hierarchy, but by the compatibility of their semantics with the meanings of multiplicity and choice. The obtained results suggest that combinatorial properties of wh-words are motivated by their semantics which, in turn, reflects the meta-linguistic characteristics of the situations to which they refer.
Research Interests:
Работа посвящена одному типу русских дистрибутивных конструкций с двумя вопросительно-относительными местоимениями вида кто куда, кто о чем, когда как со значением 'Разные X характеризуются разными Y'. Мы показываем, что конструкции без... more
Работа посвящена одному типу русских дистрибутивных конструкций с двумя вопросительно-относительными местоимениями вида кто куда, кто о чем, когда как со значением 'Разные X характеризуются разными Y'. Мы показываем, что конструкции без правого предиката образуют особую разновидность, отличную от косвенных дистрибутивных вопросов и квазирелятивов по своим семантическим, прагматическим, синтаксическим, сочетаемостным и коммуникативным свойствам. Опираясь на корпусные данные, мы показываем исторические механизмы их возникновения и современное употребление, а также описываем самые частотные варианты их реализации. Главный вывод работы состоит в том, что частотность употребления, синтаксические особенности и степень идиоматизации разных вариантов исследуемых конструкций имеют семантические, коммуникативные и прагматические основания. Ключевые слова: вопросительно-относительные местоимения, дистрибутивная конструкция, корпусная лингвистика, прагматика, русский язык, семантика, фразема Благодарности: Исследование частично поддержано грантом Министерства науки и высшего образования № 075-15-2020-793 «Компьютерно-лингвистическая платформа нового поколения для цифровой документации русского языка: инфраструктура, ресурсы, научные исследования». Мы благодарим анонимных рецензентов за ценные замечания к черновой версии статьи. Для цитирования: Апресян В. Ю, Копотев М. В. Автономные дистрибутивные конструкции с вопросительно-относительными местоимениями в русском языке.
Research Interests:
The paper is a corpus study of Russian frequency adverbs chasto 'frequently', zachastuju 'often', redko 'rarely', izredka 'rarely', etc. In Russian lexicographic tradition, frequency adverbs either lack separate entries and are explained... more
The paper is a corpus study of Russian frequency adverbs chasto 'frequently', zachastuju 'often', redko 'rarely', izredka 'rarely', etc. In Russian lexicographic tradition, frequency adverbs either lack separate entries and are explained via references to their adjectival counterparts or are treated exclusively as denotations of intervals between events. As our study demonstrates, this covers only a small fraction of their actual corpus usage. Many frequency adverbs can quantify over subjects, and thus resemble classical quantifiers such as 'many' or 'few'. Even when frequency adverbs quantify over predicates, they mostly refer not to intervals between events, but merely to their number. In some cases, they quantify over aspects of events, expressed by adjectives. There are also other important properties of Russian frequency adverbs missed by the dictionaries yet revealed by corpus analysis. Most frequency adverbs have a strong preference for topic or focus position, as motivated by their semantics. Some adverbs are preferable in generalized contexts, while others refer to specific events. Certain adverbs describe violations of the norm or undesirable events. Different adverbs quantify over different time periods: while some require a long time period, others may focus on very short stretches of time.
Research Interests:
Our study investigates clickbait – ambiguous misleading headlines, aimed at exploiting readers’ curiosity gap. Clickbait has two unequally conspicuous interpretations, where the first interpretation is false with respect to the article... more
Our study investigates clickbait – ambiguous misleading headlines, aimed at exploiting
readers’ curiosity gap. Clickbait has two unequally conspicuous interpretations, where
the first interpretation is false with respect to the article content, while the second
interpretation is correct content-wise, but considerably less obvious. We aim at
identifying linguistic structures and pragmatic mechanisms employed in creating
Russian clickbait, as well as testing the effectiveness of clickbait headlines
experimentally. To answer our research questions, we compiled, annotated and
analyzed a corpus of Russian clickbait headlines, as well as designed and ran an
online experiment. We demonstrate that the main device employed in creating clickbait
is a false generalized conversational implicature (GCI), created by flouting Gricean
maxims of Quantity, Manner, or Relevance, which is subsequently canceled by the
content of the article. We identify language-specific contexts conducive to their
occurrence, and show how journalists explore semantic, syntactic, and referential
peculiarities of the Russian language to create GCIs inherent in clickbait. Finally, we
demonstrate that not all clickbait headlines are effective: in order to attract clicks,
clickbait must not be obviously false and must increase the potential appeal and
importance of insufficiently engaging news pieces on topics that do not require
specialized knowledge.
readers’ curiosity gap. Clickbait has two unequally conspicuous interpretations, where
the first interpretation is false with respect to the article content, while the second
interpretation is correct content-wise, but considerably less obvious. We aim at
identifying linguistic structures and pragmatic mechanisms employed in creating
Russian clickbait, as well as testing the effectiveness of clickbait headlines
experimentally. To answer our research questions, we compiled, annotated and
analyzed a corpus of Russian clickbait headlines, as well as designed and ran an
online experiment. We demonstrate that the main device employed in creating clickbait
is a false generalized conversational implicature (GCI), created by flouting Gricean
maxims of Quantity, Manner, or Relevance, which is subsequently canceled by the
content of the article. We identify language-specific contexts conducive to their
occurrence, and show how journalists explore semantic, syntactic, and referential
peculiarities of the Russian language to create GCIs inherent in clickbait. Finally, we
demonstrate that not all clickbait headlines are effective: in order to attract clicks,
clickbait must not be obviously false and must increase the potential appeal and
importance of insufficiently engaging news pieces on topics that do not require
specialized knowledge.
Research Interests:
While there is plenty of research on emotion meraphors, monolingual, as well as cross -linguistic, there is still no answer to the question: why is it that certain emotion metaphors are the same across languages, while others display... more
While there is plenty of research on emotion meraphors, monolingual, as well as cross -linguistic, there is still no answer to the question: why is it that certain emotion metaphors are the same across languages, while others display significant cross-linguistic variance? Whar triggers the conceptualization of emotions in language? In this paper, I propose a tentative answer to this problem. On the basis of the Russian and English data, I suggest that different emotions are linguistically conceptualized through different meraphorization mechanisms, and that linguistic and cross-linguistic behavior of an emotion metaphor depends on the metaphorizarion mechanism employed in its formation.
Research Interests:
We studied mental representations of literal, metonymically different, and metaphorical senses in Russian adjectives. Previous studies suggested that in polysemous words, metonymic senses, being more sense-related, were stored together... more
We studied mental representations of literal, metonymically different, and metaphorical senses in Russian adjectives. Previous studies suggested that in polysemous words, metonymic senses, being more sense-related, were stored together with literal senses, whereas more distant metaphorical senses had separate representations. We hypothesized that metonymy may be heterogeneous with respect to its mental storage. “Whole-part” metonymy (“sad person” – “sad eyes”), which is cognitively closer to the literal sense and more regular, should be stored differently from temporal, causal or resultative metonymy (“sad person” – “sad time;” “sad person” – “sad news;” “lead.ADJ ball” – “lead.ADJ poisoning”), which is irregular and semantically distant from the literal sense. We conducted an online experiment with semantic clustering task in which the participants were asked to classify sentences with a literal, proximal metonymic, distal metonymic, or metaphorical sense of an adjective into virtu...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Валентность Стимула у русских глаголов со значением эмоций имеет гораздо более разнообразное морфосинтаксическое выражение, чем валентность Экспериенцера. При этом роль Стимула при эмотивных глаголах в русском языке принципиально иная в... more
Валентность Стимула у русских глаголов со значением эмоций имеет гораздо более разнообразное морфосинтаксическое выражение, чем валентность Экспериенцера. При этом роль Стимула при эмотивных глаголах в русском языке принципиально иная в семантическом и синтаксическом отношении, чем при перцептивных. Стимулы у перцептивных состояний семантически и синтаксически сближаются с Объектами (Theme в некоторых инвентарях семантических ролей). У эмотивных
глаголов отсутствует стандартный синтаксический способ оформления роли Стимула, а семантика Стимула может окрашиваться семантикой Места,
Адресата, Пациенса, Части. Разброс в наборах семантических ролей и моделей управления у эмотивных глаголов обусловлен различными онтологическими свойствами разных типов эмоций. Изучение частотных распределений разных МУ у глаголов эмоций позволяет обнаружить синкретичные
роли на месте валентности Стимула эмоции, что должно отражаться в толкованиях слов-эмоций и в целом — в лексикографических описаниях глаголов со значением эмоций.
глаголов отсутствует стандартный синтаксический способ оформления роли Стимула, а семантика Стимула может окрашиваться семантикой Места,
Адресата, Пациенса, Части. Разброс в наборах семантических ролей и моделей управления у эмотивных глаголов обусловлен различными онтологическими свойствами разных типов эмоций. Изучение частотных распределений разных МУ у глаголов эмоций позволяет обнаружить синкретичные
роли на месте валентности Стимула эмоции, что должно отражаться в толкованиях слов-эмоций и в целом — в лексикографических описаниях глаголов со значением эмоций.
Research Interests:
The paper aspires to answer the question addressed by many previous researchers of Mikhail Zoshchenko’s short stories: what is the nature of Zoshchenko’s humor? Kreps 1986 suggests that Zoshchenko’s comical uniqueness lies in the... more
The paper aspires to answer the question addressed by many
previous researchers of Mikhail Zoshchenko’s short stories: what is the nature of Zoshchenko’s humor? Kreps 1986 suggests that Zoshchenko’s comical uniqueness lies in the
linguistic devices, or “humoremes”. Zholkovskij 1999 considers Zoshchenko’s comical short stories of the 1920–1930s through the prism of his later psychoanalytical novelsThe returned youth and Before sunrise and presents his humor as a mask hiding the author’s deep-seated neuroses. I suggest that Zoshchenko’s narrative cannot be divorced from his subject matter with its recurrent motives of death, violence, love, marriage, and that his humor functions on all levels – from lexicon and grammar to the storyline and social conventions.
The Incongruity Theory of Humor states that laughter is caused by violations of our expectations. This appears the main device that Zoshchenko uses to create humorous effects. He employs this device on all levels of his writing, using the following types of violation:
– Violation of semantic, syntactic and morphological rules on the sentence
level.
– Violation of semantic and pragmatic expectations on the level of the storyline.
– Violation of pragmatic expectations on the level of cultural conventions
(supposedly shared societal norms and values).
To an extent, all three types of violations can be interpreted as linguistic
phenomena. The first device best yields analysis in terms of construction
grammar, namely the phenomenon of coercion, whereby new meanings
are created by bringing together apparently incompatible linguistic items. The second device might be seen as a kind of a pragmatic garden path. Traditionally, “garden path sentence” refers to grammatically correct sentences that are constructed in such a fashion that their initial interpretation is incorrect. The paper extends this notion to cover pragmatic trickery, when the reader is lured by the narrator to form certain expectations about the plot that are upset later in the story. The third device is considered through the prism of Gricean implicatures, or implicit meanings that facilitate communication when shared by the communicants. Zoshchenko uses this device to introduce implicatures that intentionally conflict with an average reader’s established values.
previous researchers of Mikhail Zoshchenko’s short stories: what is the nature of Zoshchenko’s humor? Kreps 1986 suggests that Zoshchenko’s comical uniqueness lies in the
linguistic devices, or “humoremes”. Zholkovskij 1999 considers Zoshchenko’s comical short stories of the 1920–1930s through the prism of his later psychoanalytical novelsThe returned youth and Before sunrise and presents his humor as a mask hiding the author’s deep-seated neuroses. I suggest that Zoshchenko’s narrative cannot be divorced from his subject matter with its recurrent motives of death, violence, love, marriage, and that his humor functions on all levels – from lexicon and grammar to the storyline and social conventions.
The Incongruity Theory of Humor states that laughter is caused by violations of our expectations. This appears the main device that Zoshchenko uses to create humorous effects. He employs this device on all levels of his writing, using the following types of violation:
– Violation of semantic, syntactic and morphological rules on the sentence
level.
– Violation of semantic and pragmatic expectations on the level of the storyline.
– Violation of pragmatic expectations on the level of cultural conventions
(supposedly shared societal norms and values).
To an extent, all three types of violations can be interpreted as linguistic
phenomena. The first device best yields analysis in terms of construction
grammar, namely the phenomenon of coercion, whereby new meanings
are created by bringing together apparently incompatible linguistic items. The second device might be seen as a kind of a pragmatic garden path. Traditionally, “garden path sentence” refers to grammatically correct sentences that are constructed in such a fashion that their initial interpretation is incorrect. The paper extends this notion to cover pragmatic trickery, when the reader is lured by the narrator to form certain expectations about the plot that are upset later in the story. The third device is considered through the prism of Gricean implicatures, or implicit meanings that facilitate communication when shared by the communicants. Zoshchenko uses this device to introduce implicatures that intentionally conflict with an average reader’s established values.
Research Interests:
Отрицательно и положительно поляризованным языковым единицам (ОП и ПП), т.е. единицам, не употребляющимся вне контекста отрицания или, наоборот, не употребляющимся в его контексте, посвящено большое количество лингвистической литературы,... more
Отрицательно и положительно поляризованным языковым единицам
(ОП и ПП), т.е. единицам, не употребляющимся вне контекста отрицания
или, наоборот, не употребляющимся в его контексте, посвящено большое количество лингвистической литературы, в том числе формальносемантической и типологической. Однако само явление поляризации
рассматривается на достаточно узком языковом материале. Так, описаны отрицательно и положительно поляризованные единицы в сериях
неопределенных местоимений типа any vs. some, в системе наречий времени типа yet vs. already. Известны также отрицательно поляризованные
фраземы типа not to lift one’s finger и положительно поляризованные выражения со значением отношения типа unfortunately и would rather. При
этом основные направления существующих исследований состоят в попытках определить и описать лицензирующие контексты (DE operators,
non-veridicality). В данной работе вводится обширный новый материал
языковых единиц, имеющих свойства ОП и ПП, предлагается семантическое объяснение поляризации для разных семантических подтипов
внутри классов NPI и PPI, демонстрируется, что отрицательная и положительная поляризация пронизывают гораздо большие участки языка,
чем было принято считать ранее, и показывается, что поляризация является шкалярным признаком. Рассматривается явление возникновения отдельных поляризованных значений у многозначных слов (в первую
очередь глаголов), которые не имеют свойства поляризованности в основном значении. Устанавливается семантическая связь между механизмами отрицательной и положительной поляризации. Степень поляризованности коррелирует с семантической структурой ОП и ПП единиц:
чем «весомее» модальная рамка, тем больше поляризована единица.
(ОП и ПП), т.е. единицам, не употребляющимся вне контекста отрицания
или, наоборот, не употребляющимся в его контексте, посвящено большое количество лингвистической литературы, в том числе формальносемантической и типологической. Однако само явление поляризации
рассматривается на достаточно узком языковом материале. Так, описаны отрицательно и положительно поляризованные единицы в сериях
неопределенных местоимений типа any vs. some, в системе наречий времени типа yet vs. already. Известны также отрицательно поляризованные
фраземы типа not to lift one’s finger и положительно поляризованные выражения со значением отношения типа unfortunately и would rather. При
этом основные направления существующих исследований состоят в попытках определить и описать лицензирующие контексты (DE operators,
non-veridicality). В данной работе вводится обширный новый материал
языковых единиц, имеющих свойства ОП и ПП, предлагается семантическое объяснение поляризации для разных семантических подтипов
внутри классов NPI и PPI, демонстрируется, что отрицательная и положительная поляризация пронизывают гораздо большие участки языка,
чем было принято считать ранее, и показывается, что поляризация является шкалярным признаком. Рассматривается явление возникновения отдельных поляризованных значений у многозначных слов (в первую
очередь глаголов), которые не имеют свойства поляризованности в основном значении. Устанавливается семантическая связь между механизмами отрицательной и положительной поляризации. Степень поляризованности коррелирует с семантической структурой ОП и ПП единиц:
чем «весомее» модальная рамка, тем больше поляризована единица.
Research Interests:
The paper considers the less known aspects in the functioning of Russian lexical “xeno” markers, in particular, of the particle jakoby ‘allegedly, ostensibly’. Traditionally described as expressing the falsity of a proposition contained... more
The paper considers the less known aspects in the functioning of Russian
lexical “xeno” markers, in particular, of the particle jakoby ‘allegedly, ostensibly’. Traditionally described as expressing the falsity of a proposition contained in somebody’s utterance, in conjunction with a negative assessment
of the utterer as aware of its falsity, jakoby displays very different usages
in the language of contemporary mass media. Namely, it is frequently used
as a mere marker of evidentiality, without an obligatory assessment of the
proposition as false or of its source as untruthful. In fact, it can even be used
to refer to statements that are treated as true within the very same text, only
to indicate that the source of this information is not the writer herself but
somebody else (e.g., a different news agency), in what might be termed
as “safety” strategy.
Besides, jakoby in its mass media usages demonstrates unusual syntactic behaviors, namely shifts in scope, where it is placed before the
speech verb rather than before the challenged proposition: jakoby utverzhdat’, chto P ‘jakoby claim that P’ instead of utverzhdat’, chto jakoby P ‘claim
that jakoby P’.
However, the study of the Russian-English parallel corpus reveals that
these usages are not as unusual as they may appear. In Russian translations
of English texts jakoby sometimes functions as a translation of the English
supposedly, allegedly, ostensibly or other (e.g., verbal) markers of uncertainty, but more frequently occurs with no apparent stimulus in the source,
merely to mark indirect quotation.
It appears therefore that there is a certain need in the Russian language
for a neutral evidentiality marker. It is occasionally filled with jakoby, which
in this case displays a tendency for grammaticalization: it expresses that
the source of information is other than the speaker herself (but contains
no other semantic components), and takes syntactic scope over the speech
verb instead of the proposition it challenges
lexical “xeno” markers, in particular, of the particle jakoby ‘allegedly, ostensibly’. Traditionally described as expressing the falsity of a proposition contained in somebody’s utterance, in conjunction with a negative assessment
of the utterer as aware of its falsity, jakoby displays very different usages
in the language of contemporary mass media. Namely, it is frequently used
as a mere marker of evidentiality, without an obligatory assessment of the
proposition as false or of its source as untruthful. In fact, it can even be used
to refer to statements that are treated as true within the very same text, only
to indicate that the source of this information is not the writer herself but
somebody else (e.g., a different news agency), in what might be termed
as “safety” strategy.
Besides, jakoby in its mass media usages demonstrates unusual syntactic behaviors, namely shifts in scope, where it is placed before the
speech verb rather than before the challenged proposition: jakoby utverzhdat’, chto P ‘jakoby claim that P’ instead of utverzhdat’, chto jakoby P ‘claim
that jakoby P’.
However, the study of the Russian-English parallel corpus reveals that
these usages are not as unusual as they may appear. In Russian translations
of English texts jakoby sometimes functions as a translation of the English
supposedly, allegedly, ostensibly or other (e.g., verbal) markers of uncertainty, but more frequently occurs with no apparent stimulus in the source,
merely to mark indirect quotation.
It appears therefore that there is a certain need in the Russian language
for a neutral evidentiality marker. It is occasionally filled with jakoby, which
in this case displays a tendency for grammaticalization: it expresses that
the source of information is other than the speaker herself (but contains
no other semantic components), and takes syntactic scope over the speech
verb instead of the proposition it challenges
Research Interests:
Синтаксические свойства глаголов в метафорических значениях часто объясняются наследо-ванием от прямого значения. В работе на примере русских глаголов увеличения и уменьше-ния (вырасти,упасть,опуститьсяи др.) показывается, что в... more
Синтаксические свойства глаголов в метафорических значениях часто объясняются наследо-ванием от прямого значения. В работе на примере русских глаголов увеличения и уменьше-ния (вырасти,упасть,опуститьсяи др.) показывается, что в формировании синтаксическихсвойств метафорических значений важную роль играют когнитивныефакторы. Исследова-ние опирается на данные корпусов НКРЯ и RuSkell. Путем анализаколлокаций сравниваютсясемантические и синтаксические свойства рассматриваемых глаголов в прямом и переносномзначениях. Показывается, что в прямых значениях их синтаксические свойства различаются,однако в переносном совпадают, что исключает наследование в качестве единственногоопределяющего фактора. Все глаголы имеют четыре семантических актанта с одинаковойморфосинтаксической реализацией: параметр (А1), исходное значение параметра (А2),конечное значение параметра (А3) и разница (А4):Ценынанефть(А1)упали<опустились>напятьдесятпроцентов(А4),состадолларовзабаррель(А2)допятидесяти(А3). Частот-ный анализ демонстрирует, чтов реализации актантов имеется диспропорция: выражениеразницы (увеличитьсянапятьдесятпроцентов,уменьшитьсявдесятьраз) преобладает надвыражением начального и конечного значений параметра (увеличитьсяссорокадостаединиц). Частотное доминирование актанта разницы обусловлено когнитивными преимуще-ствами его выражения. Сообщение о разнице лексически более экономно, но при этомнаглядно демонстрирует масштаб изменения:ФНСсообщила,чтоналоговыесборывыросливдвараза. Теоретическим результатом работы является демонстрация того,что семантиче-ская близость слов в переносных значениях не гарантирует однородности их синтаксическихсвойств (например, синонимысложитьдвачислаиприбавитьодночислокдругомунаследуют разные модели управления от прямых значений). Сходство синтаксическихсвойств может быть результатом воздействия когнитивных факторов. Практическим резуль-татом исследования является основа для составления шаблона лексикографического описа-ния глаголов двух рассмотренных классов.
Research Interests:
Цель исследования — мультидисциплинарное изучение феномена полисемии (многозначности) языковых единиц с помощью теоретических, экспериментальных и статистических методов. Хотя полисемии посвящено большое количество работ, это явление... more
Цель исследования — мультидисциплинарное изучение феномена полисемии (многозначности) языковых единиц с помощью теоретических, экспериментальных и статистических методов. Хотя полисемии посвящено большое количество работ, это явление ранее не
исследовалось комплексно. Коллективом авторов было проведено исследование, которое сочетало элементы словарного описания, статистического анализа, опросов, а также изучение электроэнцефалограмм
и движений глаз. Исследование показало, что при развитии полисемии
используется большее количество различных семантических сдвигов,
помимо хорошо известных метафоры и метонимии. Эти сдвиги составляют сложную иерархическую систему и часто комбинируются друг с
другом при образовании новых значений. Наше восприятие значения
Проблемы современного русского языка
C. / Pp. 08–17
9
как нового связано с когнитивным «расстоянием», которое различается для разных типов сдвигов: так, метафорически образованное значение воспринимается как более далекое от исходного, чем метонимическое значение. Словарное представление значений только отчасти
коррелирует с устройством ментального лексикона и с частотностью
разных значений. Лексикографическое представление, основанное на
семантических принципах, более удобно для восприятия, чем представление, основанное на частоте употребления. В ходе исследования
возникли новые вопросы, в частности, различаются ли представления
далекой и близкой метонимии в нашем ментальном лексиконе.
исследовалось комплексно. Коллективом авторов было проведено исследование, которое сочетало элементы словарного описания, статистического анализа, опросов, а также изучение электроэнцефалограмм
и движений глаз. Исследование показало, что при развитии полисемии
используется большее количество различных семантических сдвигов,
помимо хорошо известных метафоры и метонимии. Эти сдвиги составляют сложную иерархическую систему и часто комбинируются друг с
другом при образовании новых значений. Наше восприятие значения
Проблемы современного русского языка
C. / Pp. 08–17
9
как нового связано с когнитивным «расстоянием», которое различается для разных типов сдвигов: так, метафорически образованное значение воспринимается как более далекое от исходного, чем метонимическое значение. Словарное представление значений только отчасти
коррелирует с устройством ментального лексикона и с частотностью
разных значений. Лексикографическое представление, основанное на
семантических принципах, более удобно для восприятия, чем представление, основанное на частоте употребления. В ходе исследования
возникли новые вопросы, в частности, различаются ли представления
далекой и близкой метонимии в нашем ментальном лексиконе.
Research Interests:
The paper is devoted to the Active dictionary of Russian (ADR), which is currently being compiled under the guidance of Yury Apresyan at the Sector for Theoretical Semantics at the Russian Language Institute, Moscow. The paper consists of... more
The paper is devoted to the Active dictionary of Russian (ADR), which is currently being compiled under the guidance of Yury Apresyan at the Sector for Theoretical Semantics at the Russian Language Institute, Moscow. The paper consists of two parts: 1. General principles of ADR as formulated by Yury Apresyan in the Lexicographer/User Guidelines for ADR; 2. Description of color terms in ADR.
Research Interests:
The paper presents a corpus study of the concessive syntactic phraseme pri vsjom X-e ‘with all X’ in Russian. The study demonstrates (a) a strong correlation between the semantics of the phraseme and its other linguistic properties; (b)... more
The paper presents a corpus study of the concessive syntactic phraseme pri vsjom X-e ‘with all X’ in Russian. The study demonstrates (a) a strong correlation between the semantics of the phraseme and its other linguistic properties; (b) pragmatic properties that are typical of syntactic phrasemes in general; (c) language-specific phraseological status. In particular, the combination of concession and intensification in its meaning explains its status as a negative polarity item; the fact that it refers to properties of objects explains its co-referential requirements. Pragmatically, like many other syntactic phrasemes, pri vsjom X-e entails a certain structured worldview. Its linguistic properties are not carried across languages: its closest English counterpart, the construction with all X does not manifest any of its properties. This proves that the status of a syntactic phraseme and all its linguistic consequences in one language cannot be predicted on the basis of the data from ...
RuSkELL ("Russian + Sketch Engine for Language Learning") is a new online resource intended for researchers and learners of Russian. It incorporates a specially pre-processed corpus and the interface which allows users to search... more
RuSkELL ("Russian + Sketch Engine for Language Learning") is a new online resource intended for researchers and learners of Russian. It incorporates a specially pre-processed corpus and the interface which allows users to search for phrases in sentences, extract salient collocates and show similar words. The tool builds upon its English counterpart SkELL (Baisa & Suchomel 2014). The aim of the project is to adapt the existing SkELL tool to Russian, improve its performance and make it user-friendly to Russian users. The existing problems include errors in query output and insufficiently transparent interface. The project aspires to solve them by 1) modifying Sketch grammar rules to exclude irrelevant output and to add informative collocations unaccounted for in the existing Sketch grammar; 2) providing collocation groups with easy-to-understand labels in Russian. We describe the process of building the language data and problems we need to address to accommodate the tool fo...
The paper is a corpus study of the factors involved in disambiguating potential scope ambiguity in sentences with negation and universal quantifier, such as “I don’t want talk to all these people”, which can alternatively mean ‘I don’t... more
The paper is a corpus study of the factors involved in disambiguating potential scope ambiguity in sentences with negation and universal quantifier, such as “I don’t want talk to all these people”, which can alternatively mean ‘I don’t want to talk to any of these people’ and ‘I don’t want to talk to some of these people’. The relevant factors are demonstrated to be largely different from those involved in disambiguating lexical polysemy. They include the syntactic function of the constituent containing “all” quantifier (subject, direct complement, adjunct), as well as the deepness of its embedding; the status of the main predicate and “all” constituent with respect to the information structure of the 6utterance (topic vs. focus, given vs. new information); pragmatic implicatures pertaining to the situations described in the utterances.
Research Interests:
В статье на материале корпусного исследования сочетаний русских пространственных предлогов со словами дверь и окно рассматриваются некоторые ранее не изученные аспекты функционирования нетривиального семантического признака фасадности в... more
В статье на материале корпусного исследования сочетаний русских пространственных предлогов со словами дверь и окно рассматриваются некоторые ранее не изученные аспекты функционирования нетривиального семантического признака фасадности в русском языке. Показывается, что дверь и окно — это особые двуфасадные объекты, которые не могут быть однозначно охарактеризованы по признаку фасадности, в отличие от всех прочих объектов. В силу функциональных и концептуальных различий дверь и окно по-разному взаимодействуют с классическими диагностическими контекстами с предлогами за и перед. Это связано с противоположной концептуализацией дверей и окон в русском языке: дверь воспринимается в первую очередь с точки зрения функции «впускать внутрь», а окно — в первую очередь с точки зрения функции «давать возможность обзора пространства снаружи». Кроме того, если для обычных фасадных объектов положение наблюдателя никак не фиксировано (и не важно), то для фасадных порталов позиция наблюдателя может быть фиксирована — он может находиться как с «главной», так и с «второстепенной» стороны портала, в зависимости от ситуации, которая маркируется разными предложными конструкциями. Наконец, круг предлогов, чувствительных к фасадности порталов, в русском языке шире, чем за и перед: в диагностике участвует и предлог под, часто квазисинонимичный перед, и предлог в, которые в классических работах не считаются диагностиками
фасадности / нефасадности. Это позволяет предполагать, что для других языков множество релевантных контекстов тоже должно быть расширено. В целом можно сделать вывод о том, что фасадность присуща не объекту как таковому, а объекту в определенном положении или в определенной ситуации (например, открытой и закрытой двери). Настоящее исследование доказывает неуниверсальность признака фасадности и создает основу для создания типологической анкеты и семантической типологии этого признака.
Ключевые слова: нетривиальный семантический признак, фасадность, абсолютная ориентация, относительная ориентация.
фасадности / нефасадности. Это позволяет предполагать, что для других языков множество релевантных контекстов тоже должно быть расширено. В целом можно сделать вывод о том, что фасадность присуща не объекту как таковому, а объекту в определенном положении или в определенной ситуации (например, открытой и закрытой двери). Настоящее исследование доказывает неуниверсальность признака фасадности и создает основу для создания типологической анкеты и семантической типологии этого признака.
Ключевые слова: нетривиальный семантический признак, фасадность, абсолютная ориентация, относительная ориентация.
Research Interests:
We studied mental representations of literal, metonymically different, and metaphorical senses in Russian adjectives. Previous studies suggested that in polysemous words, metonymic senses, being more sense-related, were stored together... more
We studied mental representations of literal, metonymically different, and metaphorical
senses in Russian adjectives. Previous studies suggested that in polysemous words,
metonymic senses, being more sense-related, were stored together with literal
senses, whereas more distant metaphorical senses had separate representations. We
hypothesized that metonymy may be heterogeneous with respect to its mental storage.
“Whole-part” metonymy (“sad person” – “sad eyes”), which is cognitively closer to the
literal sense and more regular, should be stored differently from temporal, causal or
resultative metonymy (“sad person” – “sad time;” “sad person” – “sad news;” “lead.ADJ
ball” – “lead.ADJ poisoning”), which is irregular and semantically distant from the literal
sense. We conducted an online experiment with semantic clustering task in which the
participants were asked to classify sentences with a literal, proximal metonymic, distal
metonymic, or metaphorical sense of an adjective into virtual baskets so that sentences
with the same perceived sense were put in the same basket. Our results showed that
proximal metonymies were grouped together with the literal sense and with each other
more often than with distal metonymies and metaphors. Distal metonymies, in turn, were
grouped with literal senses more often than with metaphors. Overall, we concluded that
literal senses and proximal metonymies were stored in single representations, distal
metonymies formed hybrid representations with literal senses, and metaphors were
stored separately from literal senses. Additionally, we discovered that perception of
semantic differences is affected by the surrounding senses: distal metonymies were
more discernible from literal senses when presented with proximal metonymies, and
less so when presented with metaphors.
senses in Russian adjectives. Previous studies suggested that in polysemous words,
metonymic senses, being more sense-related, were stored together with literal
senses, whereas more distant metaphorical senses had separate representations. We
hypothesized that metonymy may be heterogeneous with respect to its mental storage.
“Whole-part” metonymy (“sad person” – “sad eyes”), which is cognitively closer to the
literal sense and more regular, should be stored differently from temporal, causal or
resultative metonymy (“sad person” – “sad time;” “sad person” – “sad news;” “lead.ADJ
ball” – “lead.ADJ poisoning”), which is irregular and semantically distant from the literal
sense. We conducted an online experiment with semantic clustering task in which the
participants were asked to classify sentences with a literal, proximal metonymic, distal
metonymic, or metaphorical sense of an adjective into virtual baskets so that sentences
with the same perceived sense were put in the same basket. Our results showed that
proximal metonymies were grouped together with the literal sense and with each other
more often than with distal metonymies and metaphors. Distal metonymies, in turn, were
grouped with literal senses more often than with metaphors. Overall, we concluded that
literal senses and proximal metonymies were stored in single representations, distal
metonymies formed hybrid representations with literal senses, and metaphors were
stored separately from literal senses. Additionally, we discovered that perception of
semantic differences is affected by the surrounding senses: distal metonymies were
more discernible from literal senses when presented with proximal metonymies, and
less so when presented with metaphors.
Research Interests:
В статье демонстрируется асимметрия между темпоральными значениями слов со значением ‘близкого’ и ‘далекого’, и анализируются ее семантические источники. Одно из основных проявлений этой асимметрии—предпочтительная референция к будущему... more
В статье демонстрируется асимметрия между темпоральными значениями слов со значением ‘близкого’ и ‘далекого’, и анализируются ее семантические
источники. Одно из основных проявлений этой асимметрии—предпочтительная референция к будущему у слов со значением ‘близкого’ (ср. близкие каникулы = ‘каникулы в будущем’) и к прошлому у слов со значением ‘далекого’ (ср. далекие годы
= ‘годы в прошлом’). Однако эта общая тенденция осложняется другими факторами.
Для кратких форм прилагательного близкий темпоральное употребление характерно
(Близок день нашей победы), а для кратких форм далекого—нет (?Далек день нашей
победы). Для предикативного наречия близко невозможно употребление в темпоральном значении с предлогом до (*До Нового года близко), характерное для наречий
далеко и недалеко (До Нового года еще далеко / уже недалеко). Интересно, что
в таком употреблении временная референция далеко меняется: оно указывает не на
прошлое, а на будущее. У дейктических наречий тут и там распределение временной референции в таксисном значении обратное: тут чаще указывает на прошлое,
а там—на будущее: Иду я по улице, и тут мне навстречу медведь vs. Скоро весна, а там и лето. Однако асимметрия сохраняется: тут указывает на немедленное
следование, а там—на большие временные промежутки.
источники. Одно из основных проявлений этой асимметрии—предпочтительная референция к будущему у слов со значением ‘близкого’ (ср. близкие каникулы = ‘каникулы в будущем’) и к прошлому у слов со значением ‘далекого’ (ср. далекие годы
= ‘годы в прошлом’). Однако эта общая тенденция осложняется другими факторами.
Для кратких форм прилагательного близкий темпоральное употребление характерно
(Близок день нашей победы), а для кратких форм далекого—нет (?Далек день нашей
победы). Для предикативного наречия близко невозможно употребление в темпоральном значении с предлогом до (*До Нового года близко), характерное для наречий
далеко и недалеко (До Нового года еще далеко / уже недалеко). Интересно, что
в таком употреблении временная референция далеко меняется: оно указывает не на
прошлое, а на будущее. У дейктических наречий тут и там распределение временной референции в таксисном значении обратное: тут чаще указывает на прошлое,
а там—на будущее: Иду я по улице, и тут мне навстречу медведь vs. Скоро весна, а там и лето. Однако асимметрия сохраняется: тут указывает на немедленное
следование, а там—на большие временные промежутки.
Research Interests:
This paper presents a corpus study of pragmatic factors involved in interpreting potentially ambiguous sentences with negation and universal quantifiers, as demonstrated by the Russian sentence Oni ne uspejut vsjo eto sdelat’ ‘They won’t... more
This paper presents a corpus study of pragmatic factors involved in interpreting potentially ambiguous sentences with negation and universal quantifiers, as demonstrated by the Russian sentence Oni ne uspejut vsjo eto sdelat’ ‘They won’t have time to do all this.’ Ambiguity in such sentences results from potential differences in scope assignment. If negation scopes over the quantifier, we get the interpretation of partial negation: ‘They will manage to do some of these things, but not everything.’ If negation scopes over the verb, we get total negation: ‘They won’t manage to do anything.’ This study is based on Russian and English data extracted from a variety of corpora. We demonstrate that while syntactic conditions where scope ambiguity is possible are different for Russian and English, in situations when both languages allow it, speakers rely on the same pragmatic mechanisms for disambiguation that are based on Gricean cooperation principle and shared background knowledge. Disam...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The paper focuses on syntactic metaphor, which is manifested in the metaphorical mapping across syntactic domains, or in the metaphor-driven polysemy of constructions. Syntactic metaphor underpins the diversity of morphosyntactic... more
The paper focuses on syntactic metaphor, which is manifested in the
metaphorical mapping across syntactic domains, or in the metaphor-driven polysemy
of constructions. Syntactic metaphor underpins the diversity of morphosyntactic
expression of the Stimulus argument in Russian psych verbs. While the
Experiencer role in Russian emotion verbs is normally coded as nominative or
dative, there is no uniform expression of Stimulus. Different emotion types require
specialized Stimulus expression: dative for ‘to rejoice’, instrumental for ‘to be
proud’, genitive for ‘to fear’ and ‘to be ashamed of’, prepositional constructions
for different types of ‘JOY’, ‘SADNESS’ and ‘ANGER’. The paper employs corpus
methods to demonstrate that all of the constructions used to encode Stimulus
in Russian psych verbs are predominantly used to express other semantic roles.
We suggest that, in each case, the role of Stimulus is the result of a metaphoric
mapping from the domain of another semantic role, the latter determined by the
type of emotion and the event structure of the corresponding psych verb. Thus,
Stimulus in radovat’sja ‘to rejoice’ is syntactically metaphorized as Addressee
(dative), because it implies overt manifestation of positive feeling directed at the
stimulus. Anger involves a violent reaction. Hence the Stimulus in serdit’sja ‘to
get angry’ is syntactically expressed as Patient of aggressive physical actions with
‘at’ construction. Other metaphoric mappings between semantic roles include
pride is attracting attention, sadness is thinking and others. The paper
also shows that conventionalized syntactic metaphor can give rise to a novel metaphor
which occurs spontaneously in discourse, such as silence is aggression.
metaphorical mapping across syntactic domains, or in the metaphor-driven polysemy
of constructions. Syntactic metaphor underpins the diversity of morphosyntactic
expression of the Stimulus argument in Russian psych verbs. While the
Experiencer role in Russian emotion verbs is normally coded as nominative or
dative, there is no uniform expression of Stimulus. Different emotion types require
specialized Stimulus expression: dative for ‘to rejoice’, instrumental for ‘to be
proud’, genitive for ‘to fear’ and ‘to be ashamed of’, prepositional constructions
for different types of ‘JOY’, ‘SADNESS’ and ‘ANGER’. The paper employs corpus
methods to demonstrate that all of the constructions used to encode Stimulus
in Russian psych verbs are predominantly used to express other semantic roles.
We suggest that, in each case, the role of Stimulus is the result of a metaphoric
mapping from the domain of another semantic role, the latter determined by the
type of emotion and the event structure of the corresponding psych verb. Thus,
Stimulus in radovat’sja ‘to rejoice’ is syntactically metaphorized as Addressee
(dative), because it implies overt manifestation of positive feeling directed at the
stimulus. Anger involves a violent reaction. Hence the Stimulus in serdit’sja ‘to
get angry’ is syntactically expressed as Patient of aggressive physical actions with
‘at’ construction. Other metaphoric mappings between semantic roles include
pride is attracting attention, sadness is thinking and others. The paper
also shows that conventionalized syntactic metaphor can give rise to a novel metaphor
which occurs spontaneously in discourse, such as silence is aggression.
This paper presents a corpus study of factors involved in disambiguating potentially ambiguous sentences with negation and universal quantifi er all in written English, such as I haven’t heard all these details. Ambiguity in such... more
This paper presents a corpus study of factors involved in disambiguating potentially ambiguous
sentences with negation and universal quantifi er all in written English, such as I haven’t heard all
these details. Ambiguity in such sentences results from potential diff erences in scope assignment. If
negation scopes over the quantifi er, we get the interpreta tion of partial negation: ‘I have heard some
of these details’. If negation scopes over the verb, we get the interpretation of total negation: ‘I haven’t
heard any of these details’.
While there is abundant research on the phenomenon of scope ambiguity and its disambiguation
via prosody, syntax and semantics, less is known about the pragmatic mechanisms that allow speakers
to infer intended scope readings from the lexical environment in actual texts. In order to study the
correlation between the lexical set-up of not + Verb + all sentences, their pragmatically plausible interpretations,
their information structure, and their scope readings in actual usage, we analyze about 1500
sentences extracted from EnTenTen15 Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American. Our study
demonstrates that diff erent lexical instantiations of this construction are associated with diff erent pragmatic
scenarios and, hence, with diff erent information structures and scope readings.
The interpretations of partial negation (quantifi er negation) and total negation (verb negation) differ
with respect to semantics, pragmatics and information structure. Namely, a focused quantifi er produces
partial negation, while a focused verb produces total negation. Quantifi er negation entails literal
interpretation of the quantifi er all in its direct quantifi cational meaning (I haven’t talked to [all] my students);
verb negation mostly entails emphatic interpretation of all in its meaning of negative emphasis
(I don’t [want] to talk to all these idiots).
Quantifi er negation is considerably more frequent than verb negation due to its pragmatic neutrality.
In the absence of verb negation markers, it is the default interpretation of V not all structures. Because
of its association with quantifi cation, quantifi er negation frequently occurs in the context of predicates
that take a quantifi cational argument as a direct object (to include, to list, to fi nish), or easily allow quantifi
able or multiple objects (to know, to meet requirements, to answer criteria). Such predicates are conducive
both to placing the quantifi er in the focus and interpreting it in its literal quantifi cational meaning:
He didn’t list [all] the requirements; The candidate doesn’t answer [all] the criteria. Verb negation
usually occurs with temporal modifi ers containing all (such as all night) because they are conducive
to placing the verb in the focus: I haven’t [slept] all night. Verb negation also occurs with emphatic demonstratives
and negatively connoted lexical items because they consolidate
sentences with negation and universal quantifi er all in written English, such as I haven’t heard all
these details. Ambiguity in such sentences results from potential diff erences in scope assignment. If
negation scopes over the quantifi er, we get the interpreta tion of partial negation: ‘I have heard some
of these details’. If negation scopes over the verb, we get the interpretation of total negation: ‘I haven’t
heard any of these details’.
While there is abundant research on the phenomenon of scope ambiguity and its disambiguation
via prosody, syntax and semantics, less is known about the pragmatic mechanisms that allow speakers
to infer intended scope readings from the lexical environment in actual texts. In order to study the
correlation between the lexical set-up of not + Verb + all sentences, their pragmatically plausible interpretations,
their information structure, and their scope readings in actual usage, we analyze about 1500
sentences extracted from EnTenTen15 Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American. Our study
demonstrates that diff erent lexical instantiations of this construction are associated with diff erent pragmatic
scenarios and, hence, with diff erent information structures and scope readings.
The interpretations of partial negation (quantifi er negation) and total negation (verb negation) differ
with respect to semantics, pragmatics and information structure. Namely, a focused quantifi er produces
partial negation, while a focused verb produces total negation. Quantifi er negation entails literal
interpretation of the quantifi er all in its direct quantifi cational meaning (I haven’t talked to [all] my students);
verb negation mostly entails emphatic interpretation of all in its meaning of negative emphasis
(I don’t [want] to talk to all these idiots).
Quantifi er negation is considerably more frequent than verb negation due to its pragmatic neutrality.
In the absence of verb negation markers, it is the default interpretation of V not all structures. Because
of its association with quantifi cation, quantifi er negation frequently occurs in the context of predicates
that take a quantifi cational argument as a direct object (to include, to list, to fi nish), or easily allow quantifi
able or multiple objects (to know, to meet requirements, to answer criteria). Such predicates are conducive
both to placing the quantifi er in the focus and interpreting it in its literal quantifi cational meaning:
He didn’t list [all] the requirements; The candidate doesn’t answer [all] the criteria. Verb negation
usually occurs with temporal modifi ers containing all (such as all night) because they are conducive
to placing the verb in the focus: I haven’t [slept] all night. Verb negation also occurs with emphatic demonstratives
and negatively connoted lexical items because they consolidate
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Russian reduplicated constructions with colour terms have never previously been an object of a comprehensive corpus study. Nevertheless, they present considerable interest for a researcher because comparative ability of colour terms to be... more
Russian reduplicated constructions with colour terms have never previously been an object of a comprehensive corpus study. Nevertheless, they present considerable interest for a researcher because comparative ability of colour terms to be reduplicated reflects their semantic and pragmatic differences, whereas semantics and pragmatics of reduplication construction are revealed in the properties of colour terms that can fill its slots. Thus, the goal of the paper is to study semantic and pragmatic properties of Russian colour terms and Russian syntactic reduplication construction by analyzing their co-occurrence. We apply corpus methods to the data from the Russian National Corpus, RuTenTen Corpus on Sketch Engine and RuSkell corpus. We analyze absolute corpus frequencies and collocation patterns of Russian non-reduplicated colour terms, as well as their relative frequencies and collocation patterns in the construction of syntactic redupli-cation with a hyphen (belyj-belyj 'white-white, very white, spotlessly white'). Drawing on this data, we establish that absolute frequencies of non-reduplicated colour terms in Russian reflect both Anna Wierzbicka's "universals of visual semantics", as well as certain language and culture-specific tendencies, as evidenced by the prominence of goluboj 'light blue' and ryzhij 'carroty-red' in Russian. We also argue that the Russian reduplication construction with a hyphen (belyj-belyj 'white-white) is semantically and prosodically different from the construction of repetition with a comma (belyj, belyj 'white, white'). The former has the meaning of high degree, and thus attracts only gradable colour terms, such as belyj 'white', chernyj 'black', sinij 'medium to dark blue', and other basic colour terms. There are additional factors that influence colour term reduplication. Collocation patterns suggest that colour terms that co-occur with the names of culturally and cognitively salient objects, such as denotations of human appearance (face, hands, skin, eyes, hair) or landscape features (sea, sky, fire, grass) are more likely to be reduplicated. Moreover, aesthetic or emotional evaluation of such objects ('blue-blue eyes', 'green-green grass') is also a factor that is conducive to their occurrence in the construction of reduplication. Our findings establish the importance of corpus methods in the study of colour terms and reduplication, demonstrate that the use and interpretation of lexical and syntactic items hinges both on semantic and pragmatic factors, and add to the understanding of semantics and pragmatics of Russian colour terms and reduplication construction.
Research Interests:
The paper is a corpus study of the factors involved in disambiguating potential scope ambiguity in written sentences with negation and universal quantifier all, such as I cannot visit all these universities, which, depending on... more
The paper is a corpus study of the factors involved in disambiguating potential
scope ambiguity in written sentences with negation and universal
quantifier all, such as I cannot visit all these universities, which, depending
on topic-focus assignment, can alternatively mean ‘I cannot visit any
of these universities’ (cannot is focus) and ‘I cannot visit some of these
universities’ (all is focus). The factors at play in scope disambiguation are
the syntactic function of the constituent containing all (subject, direct
complement, adjunct); the status of the main predicate and all with respect
to the information structure of the utterance (topic vs. focus); veridical vs. 2
non-veridical context; sentence type (unreal conditional, rhetorical question);
and pragmatic implicatures pertaining to the situations described
in the utterances. The paper also demonstrates differences in the frequency
distribution of various scope readings and their underlying causes, as well
as formulating typical contexts for each scope interpretation.
scope ambiguity in written sentences with negation and universal
quantifier all, such as I cannot visit all these universities, which, depending
on topic-focus assignment, can alternatively mean ‘I cannot visit any
of these universities’ (cannot is focus) and ‘I cannot visit some of these
universities’ (all is focus). The factors at play in scope disambiguation are
the syntactic function of the constituent containing all (subject, direct
complement, adjunct); the status of the main predicate and all with respect
to the information structure of the utterance (topic vs. focus); veridical vs. 2
non-veridical context; sentence type (unreal conditional, rhetorical question);
and pragmatic implicatures pertaining to the situations described
in the utterances. The paper also demonstrates differences in the frequency
distribution of various scope readings and their underlying causes, as well
as formulating typical contexts for each scope interpretation.
Research Interests:
The paper deals with a curious phenomenon of quasi-synonymy that occurs in Russian between sentences with non-negated and negated predicates in the construction with the adverb dolgo ‘for a long time’. Consider sentences like Chainik... more
The paper deals with a curious phenomenon of quasi-synonymy that occurs
in Russian between sentences with non-negated and negated predicates
in the construction with the adverb dolgo ‘for a long time’. Consider sentences
like Chainik dolgo zakipal ‘It took the kettle a long time to boil, lit. Kettle
for a long time boiled’ vs. Chainik dolgo ne zakipal ‘It took the kettle a long
time to boil, lit. Kettle for a long time not boiled’. The paper is an attempt
to define the semantic and pragmatic mechanisms of such quasi-synonymy,
as well as semantic and aspectual classes of predicates where it occurs.
It also considers subtle semantic, pragmatic and communicative differences
associated with non-negated and negated construction, respectively.
Such quasi-synonymy occurs primarily in cases when the predicate belongs
to the aspectual class of accomplishments and denotes a telic process
or action with a desired result (‘to boil’, ‘to cool down’, ‘to warm up’,
‘to grow up’, ‘to finish’, etc.). Those predicates include two major semantic
components, that is, a lasting process or action and an instant result. In the
imperfective aspect they allow at least two possible interpretations, namely,
of a process and that of a result. Similar interpretations of sentences with
such predicates occur due to different scope assignments of negation and
dolgo. In sentences with non-negated predicate dolgo has scope over the
‘process’ component in the verb; in sentences with negated predicate negation
has scope over the ‘result’ component of the verb while at the same
time falling into the scope of dolgo. The former type of sentences describes
long-lasting processes, whereas the latter type describes long-awaited results,
which pragmatically amount to the same thing.
in Russian between sentences with non-negated and negated predicates
in the construction with the adverb dolgo ‘for a long time’. Consider sentences
like Chainik dolgo zakipal ‘It took the kettle a long time to boil, lit. Kettle
for a long time boiled’ vs. Chainik dolgo ne zakipal ‘It took the kettle a long
time to boil, lit. Kettle for a long time not boiled’. The paper is an attempt
to define the semantic and pragmatic mechanisms of such quasi-synonymy,
as well as semantic and aspectual classes of predicates where it occurs.
It also considers subtle semantic, pragmatic and communicative differences
associated with non-negated and negated construction, respectively.
Such quasi-synonymy occurs primarily in cases when the predicate belongs
to the aspectual class of accomplishments and denotes a telic process
or action with a desired result (‘to boil’, ‘to cool down’, ‘to warm up’,
‘to grow up’, ‘to finish’, etc.). Those predicates include two major semantic
components, that is, a lasting process or action and an instant result. In the
imperfective aspect they allow at least two possible interpretations, namely,
of a process and that of a result. Similar interpretations of sentences with
such predicates occur due to different scope assignments of negation and
dolgo. In sentences with non-negated predicate dolgo has scope over the
‘process’ component in the verb; in sentences with negated predicate negation
has scope over the ‘result’ component of the verb while at the same
time falling into the scope of dolgo. The former type of sentences describes
long-lasting processes, whereas the latter type describes long-awaited results,
which pragmatically amount to the same thing.
Research Interests:
Рассматривается полисемия слов семантических полей 'ИСКАТЬ' и 'НАЙТИ' в русском, английском и литовском языках. Выделяется весь комплекс значений, передаваемый глаголами данных полей в этих языках. Анализируются пересечения и расхождения... more
Рассматривается полисемия слов семантических полей 'ИСКАТЬ' и 'НАЙТИ' в русском, английском и литовском языках. Выделяется весь комплекс значений, передаваемый глаголами данных полей в этих языках. Анализируются пересечения и расхождения между структурами полисемии в данных полях. Рассматриваются случаи сближения смыслов 'искать' и 'находить'.
Research Interests:
Negative and positive polarity items (NPIs and PPIs) are one of the well-explored topics in formal semantics and typology. However, the phenomenon of polarization is only addressed on a very limited linguistic material, such as indefinite... more
Negative and positive polarity items (NPIs and PPIs) are one of the well-explored topics in formal semantics and typology. However, the phenomenon of polarization is only addressed on a very limited linguistic material, such as indefinite pronouns (some vs. any), temporal adverbs (yet vs. already), certain idioms (not to lift one’s finger), expressions of attitude (would rather, unfortunately). The main focus of polarity research are licensing contexts, or contexts that allow to use NPIs or PPIs, respectively. The current paper introduces considerable new body of NPIs and PPIs, explores semantic underpinnings of polarization, demonstrates that polarization is an allpervasive property of language and shows that it is a scalar feature. The paper provides evidence for the fact that polarization is a regular phenomenon in polysemy, especially in verbs, where it characterizes single senses of polysemous words rather than words as a whole. It further establishes semantic connections between the phenomena of negative and positive polarization. The degree of polarization depends on semantic structure: the more “weighty” is the modal frame, the more polarized an item is.
Research Interests:
The paper addresses Russian pseudo-synonymous possessive constructions U X-a est’ Y ‘X has Y’ with overt verb ‘to be’ and U X-a Y ‘X has Y’ with zero copula. It outlines their possible interpretations, formulates the rules of their usage,... more
The paper addresses Russian pseudo-synonymous possessive constructions U X-a est’ Y ‘X has Y’ with overt verb ‘to be’ and U X-a Y ‘X has Y’ with zero copula. It outlines their possible interpretations, formulates the rules of their usage, and analyzes the comparative difficulty of their acquisition by foreign language learners.
The results suggest that the usage of both constructions is regulated by pragmatic rules which determine their information structure and lexical co-occurrence. The construction with overt verb denotes possession of an object and stresses the fact of possession as opposed to non-possession. Hence, the verb easily becomes the focus of the utterance, and the construction itself is used only when speaking about objects which constitute non-trivial possession. Thus, certain semantic classes of objects that everybody possesses, such as body parts (eyes, nose) or other inseparable attributes of people (voice, name, surname, childhood), are excluded. The construction with zero copula has three possible interpretations and can therefore appear with all semantic classes of objects, but with certain classes it requires an attribute: 1) with most trivial entities, such as body parts, it denotes a characteristic of the object of possession and is used with an attribute; 2) with less trivial entities, such as personal possessions (clothes, dishes, etc.), it denotes actual possession at the moment of reference and is used with an attribute; 3) with non-trivial entities (such as palaces, yachts, etc.) it denotes permanent possession and its ability to be used without an attribute correlates with the degree of non-triviality of the object of possession.
The error analysis on the basis of RULES corpus demonstrates that zero copula construction presents a greater challenge for non-native speakers: the number of errors in its use exceeds that of the overt verb construction by 2.5 times. It suggests that the ease of acquisition may correlate with the presence of negative rules: if a certain class of lexical items (such as body parts) is entirely forbidden, it reduces the number of wrong usages. Thus, the least number of errors occurred within a forbidden semantic class – inseparable attributes of a person (‘similar voices’, ‘small family’, ‘name and surname’).
The results suggest that the usage of both constructions is regulated by pragmatic rules which determine their information structure and lexical co-occurrence. The construction with overt verb denotes possession of an object and stresses the fact of possession as opposed to non-possession. Hence, the verb easily becomes the focus of the utterance, and the construction itself is used only when speaking about objects which constitute non-trivial possession. Thus, certain semantic classes of objects that everybody possesses, such as body parts (eyes, nose) or other inseparable attributes of people (voice, name, surname, childhood), are excluded. The construction with zero copula has three possible interpretations and can therefore appear with all semantic classes of objects, but with certain classes it requires an attribute: 1) with most trivial entities, such as body parts, it denotes a characteristic of the object of possession and is used with an attribute; 2) with less trivial entities, such as personal possessions (clothes, dishes, etc.), it denotes actual possession at the moment of reference and is used with an attribute; 3) with non-trivial entities (such as palaces, yachts, etc.) it denotes permanent possession and its ability to be used without an attribute correlates with the degree of non-triviality of the object of possession.
The error analysis on the basis of RULES corpus demonstrates that zero copula construction presents a greater challenge for non-native speakers: the number of errors in its use exceeds that of the overt verb construction by 2.5 times. It suggests that the ease of acquisition may correlate with the presence of negative rules: if a certain class of lexical items (such as body parts) is entirely forbidden, it reduces the number of wrong usages. Thus, the least number of errors occurred within a forbidden semantic class – inseparable attributes of a person (‘similar voices’, ‘small family’, ‘name and surname’).
Research Interests:
Работа посвящена феномену двойных семантических ролей (конечная точка — место, цель — причина), заполняющих одну глагольную валентность и вызывающих вариативность ее выражения именной группой в винительном или предложном падежах. Делается... more
Работа посвящена феномену двойных семантических ролей (конечная точка — место, цель — причина), заполняющих одну глагольную валентность и вызывающих вариативность ее выражения именной группой в винительном или предложном падежах. Делается попытка выделить классы глаголов, для которых подобная вариативность характерна в исходных значениях, а также рассмотреть, что происходит с возможностью вариативности при метафорическом переносе. Кроме того, обобщается, какого рода модификации возникают при выражении валентности той или иной семантической ролью. Результаты исследования показывают, что двойные семантические роли и вызываемая ими конкуренция винительного и предложного падежей свойственны в первую очередь глаголам каузированного перемещения, которые в исходном значении принадлежат к пограничным семантическим классам, совмещающим разные компоненты значения (перемещение и размещение, перемещение и деформацию, перемещение и создание образа). Выделяются некоторые семантические особенности реализации двойных ролей, общие для всех глаголов каузированного перемещения. Например, реализация роли места требует, чтобы релевантная валентность выражалась существительным со значением пространства или большой поверхности, но не контейнера (спрятаться в парке); реализация роли конечной точки требует, чтобы эта валентность выражалась существительным со значением контейнера или небольшой поверхности (спрятать в банку, положить на подставку); контекст целенаправленных действий способствует выражению роли конечной точки, контекст нецеленаправленных — роли места; прошедшее время и совершенный вид у глагола, т. е. значение результата, коррелируют с ролью места. Двойные роли в переносном значении присутствуют в первую очередь у глаголов, у которых развилось новое «виртуальное» значение (положить в Интернет / в Интернете). В целом двойные роли гораздо более характерны для исходных значений глагола, чем для переносных, поскольку в процессе семантической деривации семантическая неопределенность, свойственная исходным значениям, сменяется семантической специфицированностью, которая требует единой роли от каждого актанта и, соответственно, отсутствия морфосинтаксической вариативности.
The article examines Russian adverbs of small quantity and small degree. The main semantic divide in this group is between adverbs that can denote a small yet significant quantity or degree of something (e.g., немного 'a little, a few')... more
The article examines Russian adverbs of small quantity and small degree. The main semantic divide in this group is between adverbs that can denote a small yet significant quantity or degree of something (e.g., немного 'a little, a few') and those that can only denote quantity or degree so small as to be almost negligible (e.g., едва 'hardly, barely'). The adverbs in these two semantic groups display distinctly different syntactic, combinatory, communicative and prosodic properties.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper deals with the Semantics/Pragmatics distinction in a contrastive ethnolinguistic aspect. I argue for the validity of this distinction based on cross-linguistic data. My claim is that the specificity of the so-called language... more
This paper deals with the Semantics/Pragmatics distinction in a contrastive ethnolinguistic aspect. I argue for the validity of this distinction based on cross-linguistic data. My claim is that the specificity of the so-called language key words [Wierzbicka 1990:15-17] – linguospecific items particularly representative of a given language speakers’ mentality – is due to pragmatic rather than semantic peculiarities. These pragmatic peculiarities distinguish the key words both from their synonyms within the same language and their counterparts in other languages. The languages under discussion are Russian and English, analyzed within a combined frame of Integral Language Description model and Wierzbicka’s ethnolinguistic approach.
Research Interests:
This paper considers the issues of compositionality, concessive meaning, nega-tive polarity, scalarity, linguistic anthropocentricity, and semantics—syntax interaction in a corpus study of the concessive syntactic idiompri vsem X-e‘with... more
This paper considers the issues of compositionality, concessive meaning, nega-tive polarity, scalarity, linguistic anthropocentricity, and semantics—syntax interaction in a
corpus study of the concessive syntactic idiompri vsem X-e‘with all X’ in Russian and its
non-idiomatic counterpartwith all Xin English. The study demonstrates (a) both compo-sitional and non-compositional components in the Russian idiom on both syntactic and se-mantic levels; (b) strong correlation between the semantic and syntactic properties of the id-iom; (c) semantic properties typical of other syntactic idioms (such as negative polarization);
(d) pragmatic properties that are typical of other syntactic idioms (such as entailments in-corporating implicit scales and anthropocentric evaluation); (e) language-specific idiomatic
status, which cannot be predicted compositionally and needs to be established on an indi-vidual basis, even when a seemingly identical item is present in the two languages under
comparison.
corpus study of the concessive syntactic idiompri vsem X-e‘with all X’ in Russian and its
non-idiomatic counterpartwith all Xin English. The study demonstrates (a) both compo-sitional and non-compositional components in the Russian idiom on both syntactic and se-mantic levels; (b) strong correlation between the semantic and syntactic properties of the id-iom; (c) semantic properties typical of other syntactic idioms (such as negative polarization);
(d) pragmatic properties that are typical of other syntactic idioms (such as entailments in-corporating implicit scales and anthropocentric evaluation); (e) language-specific idiomatic
status, which cannot be predicted compositionally and needs to be established on an indi-vidual basis, even when a seemingly identical item is present in the two languages under
comparison.
Research Interests:
This paper aims at a linguistic description and evaluation of the myth of the Russian soul. This myth is a prominent cultural stereotype centered on mental, emotional, and spiritual concepts. The specific goal of this paper is to project... more
This paper aims at a linguistic description and evaluation of the myth of the Russian soul. This myth is a prominent cultural stereotype centered on mental, emotional, and spiritual concepts. The specific goal of this paper is to project the linguistic “image” of the Russian soul, which consists mainly of emotions, onto the corresponding cultural myth which exists in Russian literature and philosophy, as well as in Russian folk belief. Such a superimposition should reveal whether linguistic evidence does in fact support the Russian soul myth. To test the linguistic specificity of Russian emotions, they are contrasted to their English-language counterparts. The English language material is based on American English since all my informants were American. Literary sources and corpora were also used. The task at hand requires a new framework for a cross-linguistic study of emotions and such a framework is proposed. As distinct from traditional word-to-word contrastive analysis, the proposed approach involves comparing entire emotion “clusters,” i.e. all linguistic means of expressing a particular type of emotion in a given language. The paper also touches upon certain related fields of emotion studies, namely neuropsychology and physiology, as they provide valuable insight into the similarities and differences between the linguistic model of emotions and their scientific counterparts. These fields also provide explanations for the similarity and variation in conceptions of emotions as they are attested across different languages and cultures
Research Interests:
The chapter explores the semantics and pragmatics of the Russian temporal syntactic phraseme ‘X to X,’ (a construction characterized by a semantically restricted set of lexical items able to fill in its syntactic variables) which... more
The chapter explores the semantics and pragmatics of the Russian temporal syntactic phraseme ‘X to X,’ (a construction characterized by a semantically restricted set of lexical items able to fill in its syntactic variables) which expresses either the speaker’s surprise at the fact that events go as planned (surprising punctuality interpretation) or the speaker’s surprise at the fact that unplanned events go as if they had been pre-planned (surprising fateful coincidence interpretation). While the construction is not unique, and occurs in other languages, its preferred interpretations are language-specific. The chapter demonstrates differences between Russian and English outlooks on time, based on their fundamental differences in linguistic worldviews. According to one of the central key ideas of the Russian linguistic worldview, events are difficult for human subjects to control, as they are commonly controlled by outside forces, such as fate, and therefore surprising punctuality interpretation prevails in Russian. English, which does not view punctuality as something out of the ordinary, favours the surprising fateful coincidence interpretation of this syntactic phraseme. The idea of fate in relation to temporality is also found in other languages, as demonstrated by Bernard Charlier’s research on Mongolian temporality in his chapter in the current volume.
Key words. Temporal syntactic phraseme, linguistic worldview, key idea
Key words. Temporal syntactic phraseme, linguistic worldview, key idea
Research Interests:
ельности в русском языке и анализируется семантика выражающих уступительное значение языковых единиц. В первой главе предлагается и обосновывается семантический инвариант уступительности, в основе которого лежат семантические примитивы... more
ельности в русском языке и анализируется семантика выражающих
уступительное значение языковых единиц. В первой главе предлагается
и обосновывается семантический инвариант уступительности, в основе
которого лежат семантические примитивы условия и отрицания. Во вто-
рой главе формулируются основные направления семантических моди-
фикаций инварианта — конверсия, добавление валентности, вероятность,
желательность и степень. В третьей главе описывается семантика более
чем шестидесяти уступительных единиц русского языка. Четвертая глава
посвящена корпусному анализу семантических и сочетаемостных свойств
уступительных конструкций. В пятой главе уступительность рассматри-
вается в контексте близких системообразующих смыслов. В шестой главе
анализируются семантические связи уступительности. В седьмой главе
представлена лексикографическая трактовка уступительных единиц в Ак-
тивном словаре русского языка.
уступительное значение языковых единиц. В первой главе предлагается
и обосновывается семантический инвариант уступительности, в основе
которого лежат семантические примитивы условия и отрицания. Во вто-
рой главе формулируются основные направления семантических моди-
фикаций инварианта — конверсия, добавление валентности, вероятность,
желательность и степень. В третьей главе описывается семантика более
чем шестидесяти уступительных единиц русского языка. Четвертая глава
посвящена корпусному анализу семантических и сочетаемостных свойств
уступительных конструкций. В пятой главе уступительность рассматри-
вается в контексте близких системообразующих смыслов. В шестой главе
анализируются семантические связи уступительности. В седьмой главе
представлена лексикографическая трактовка уступительных единиц в Ак-
тивном словаре русского языка.