The Locative Alternation and the Russian ‘empty’ prefixes: A case study of the verb gruzit’ ‘load’

Sokolova, Svetlana; Lyashevskaya, Olga; Laura, Janda

doi:10.1515/9783110274073.51

Cited by 13 publications

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“…For example, by far the strongest factors relevant for the distribution of Russian gruzit´ 'load' constructions are the contrast among the imperfective and its three Natural Perfective partner verbs nagruzit´, zagruzit´, and pogruzit´, with lesser roles played by the use of active vs. passive voice (with a participle), and the naming of both the theme and the object vs. use of a reduced construction with only the theme or only the object. In terms of meaning, the distribution shows an association of the prefix na-with the goal-object construction, which makes sense given that the prefix refers to surfaces 'on', the use of po-almost exclusively with the theme-object construction, which makes sense since it refers to a change of state for the theme, and mixed use for za-which has many metaphorical uses (Sokolova et al 2012).…”

Section: Variation Across Meaning and Formmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Linguistics: A Neat Theory for Messy Data

Janda¹,

Dickey²

2017

Journal of Slavic Linguistics

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Abstract:We outline some recent highlights in the application of cognitive linguistic theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of Slavic languages. A principal strength of cognitive linguistics is the way it focuses our attention on the continuous nature of linguistic phenomena. Rather than positing rigid categories and strict definitions, cognitive linguistics addresses the messy realities of language, facilitating the extraction of coherent patterns from the noise of human communication.We follow a thematic arrangement motivated by the types of variation we observe in language and the analyses proposed by Slavic linguists. These include variation across meaning and form, across modalities and genres, and across time and speakers.

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Section: Variation Across Meaning and Formmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Linguistics: A Neat Theory for Messy Data

Janda¹,

Dickey²

2017

Journal of Slavic Linguistics

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“…Another alternative is to explore differences in the grammatical constructions associated with competing Natural Perfectives. For example, Sokolova, Janda, and Lyashevskaya (2012) show on the basis of a logistic regression model that whereas the three Natural Perfectives of gruzit' 'load' can all be used with both the theme---object construction (gruzit' seno na telegu 'load hay onto the cart') and the goal---object construction (gruzit' telegu senom 'load the cart with hay'), they show distinctly different preferences: pogruzit' has a very strong preference for the theme---object con---struction, nagruzit' has a preference for the goal---object construction, and zagruzit' has a more balanced distribution between the two constructions (strongly affected by meta---phorical uses). These findings, however, go beyond the scope of the present study.…”

Section: Which Semantic Tags and Whymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study is part of a series of studies that give evidence in support of the overlap model. The semantic profiling method described in this article is part of a suite of related methodologies for probing the statistical behavior of linguistic units, including also constructional profiling (Janda andSolovyev 2009, Sokolova, Janda, andLyashevskaya 2012), grammatical profiling (Janda and Lyashevskaya 2011a), and radial category profil---ing (Nesset, Endresen, andJanda 2011, Endresen et al 2012). These methodologies are inspired by behavioral profiling, which investigates the distribution of a variety of features (morphological, semantic, syn---tactic, lexical, etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semantic Profiles of Five Russian Prefixes: po- , s- , za- , na- , pro-

Janda¹,

Lyashevskaya²

2013

jsl

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We test the hypothesis that Russian verbal prefixes express meaning even when they are used to create a “purely aspectual pair” ( čistovidovaja para ). This is contrary to traditional assumptions that prefixes in this function are semantically “empty.” We analyze the semantic tags independently established in the Russian National Corpus ( www.ruscorpora.ru ) for 382 perfective partner verbs with five of the most common verbal prefixes in Russian: po -, s -, za -, na -, and pro -. Statistical tests show that the relationship between prefixes and semantic tags is significant and robust, and further identify which relationships constitute attractions, repulsions, and neutral relationships. It is possible to specify a unique meaning for each prefix in terms of the semantic tags it attracts or repulses. A detailed analysis of all the verbs in the study shows that the meanings of the prefixed perfective partners yield consistent patterns. Even verbs in repulsed semantic classes are consistent with these patterns. The meaning patterns of verbs with “purely aspectual” prefixes can be compared with the meanings of the prefixes as established on the basis of previous scholarship, which was primarily focused on the meanings of prefixes in their “non-empty” uses. This comparison shows that the verb meanings that appear with “purely perfectivizing” prefixes are the same as those found for “non-empty” uses of prefixes. We conclude that verbs select the prefix that is most compatible with their meanings when forming “purely aspectual” perfective partners, confirming our hypothesis.

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“…In (1), Goldberg focuses on syntactic constructions, and relevant studies couched in the framework of Construction Grammar and other varieties of cognitive linguistics include, e.g., Wulff (2006), Gilquin (2010: 97-143), Klavan et al (2011) and now Grieve (2016). Important studies of seemingly synonymous syntactic constructions include the so-called dative alternation (give Jane an apple vs. give an apple to Jane, e.g., Bresnan et al 2007 andFord 2010) and the locative alternation (load the hay onto the truck vs. load the truck with hay, e.g., Iwata 2008 andSokolova et al 2012). Bolinger (1968: 127) argues that "a difference in syntactic form always spells a difference in meaning".…”

Section: Introduction: Three Hypotheses About Rival Formsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The decade construction rivalry in Russian

Nesset

Makarova

2018

DIA

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This article addresses the diachronic development of so-called rival forms, i.e., words or grammatical constructions that appear to be synonyms, based on a detailed empirical analysis of two seemingly synonymous constructions in Russian. Corresponding to the English ‘decade construction’ in the twenties, Russian has two rival constructions, viz. v dvadcatye gody [lit. “in the twentieth years”] (with the numeral and noun in the accusative) and v dvadcatyx godax (with the numeral and noun in the locative case). Three hypotheses about rival forms are considered: leveling (whereby one form ousts its rival), sociolinguistic differentiation (whereby the two rivals survive in different varieties of a language) and semantic differentiation (whereby the two rivals develop different meanings over time). Contrary to what has been suggested in the literature, we find little evidence for semantic and sociolinguistic differentiation. Instead, we demonstrate that leveling is taking place, since the accusative construction is in the process of ousting its rival. While our study shows that corpus data facilitate detailed analysis of the interaction between leveling, sociolinguistic differentiation and semantic differentiation, our analysis also points to limitations, especially when it comes to corpus-based analysis of sociolinguistic and semantic factors.

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The Locative Alternation and the Russian ‘empty’ prefixes: A case study of the verb gruzit’ ‘load’

Cited by 13 publications

References 0 publications

Cognitive Linguistics: A Neat Theory for Messy Data

Cognitive Linguistics: A Neat Theory for Messy Data

Semantic Profiles of Five Russian Prefixes: po- , s- , za- , na- , pro-

The decade construction rivalry in Russian

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