Russian Journal of Linguistics最新文献

{"title":"An explanatory combinatorial dictionary of English conflict lexis: A case study of modern political discourse","authors":"O. Solopova, T. Khomutova","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-32005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-32005","url":null,"abstract":"Though political discourse is in the mainstream of modern studies, scholars haven’t so far paid much attention to compiling political discourse-oriented dictionaries. The need to further develop lexicographic theory and practice for specific purposes and advance new methods to dictionary making is a challenge that linguists are facing today. The aim of the case study is twofold: to work out the principles for making an Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionary (ECD) of English political conflict lexis and the microstructure of an ECD entry. The source of the data is the NOW corpus; the material is current American political discourse (2022). The ECD is generally consistent with Mel'čuk’s Meaning-Text theory (MTT). The authors describe a process of collecting and processing the data: corpus search and analysis, automatic and manual text processing, glossary compilation with the use of lexicographic, semasiological, and etymological methods and present an example of an ECD entry consisting of semantic, phonological, and cooccurrence zones. The findings prove that the use of electronic text corpora offers an effective way for compiling a specialized discourse-based dictionary. The research illustrates the validity of MTT: though based on the data of “language in context” , the dictionary is synthesis-oriented: it aims at speech production. The paper is the first result of a bigger project sketching the overall framework of the discursive ECD of political conflict lexis, which subsequent studies will hopefully develop with more precision and detail. The dictionary will be helpful for scholars in linguistics, discourse analysis, media and communication, political science, and conflict studies.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82894032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perfective, performative and present: Some non-standard combinations in Slavic and beyond","authors":"V. Plungian, E. Rakhilina, T. Reznikova","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-31252","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-31252","url":null,"abstract":"The combination of perfective aspect and present tense is frequently considered as an example of semantically incompatible grams. If verbal forms including markers of both perfective aspect and present tense do exist in a language, they tend not to express present resp. perfective in the strict sense. Thus, in Russian such forms usually convey the future, as in napishu ‘I will write’. The article discusses a specific type of contexts where these forms develop a less trivial meaning of what can be called “prospective present”. Obligatory components of these contexts are first person of the verb and negation. We focus on three instances of this kind : ne skazhu (lit. ‘I won’t tell’), ne dam (lit. ‘I won’t give’) and ne pushchu (lit. ‘I won’t let’)’. With the data of Russian National Corpus (RNC) and notably of the parallel corpora within RNC, we demonstrate that in certain uses, these constructions correspond to speech acts of refusal or prohibition and can be viewed, accordingly, as expressing a kind of performative meaning. As performatives, these verbs refer to a present situation: the speaker’s refusal or prohibition comes into operation at the moment of utterance, and not at some point in the future. The present-tense reference is corroborated by the translational counterparts of ne skazhu / ne dam / ne pushchu from parallel corpora, as other languages regularly use present forms in these contexts. Thus, performative-like constructions provide new data on potential non-future meanings of perfective present forms.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"118 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81471427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Emotions and attitudes in present day Russian through the prism of new words: Cultural semantics of zhest’ and related concepts","authors":"Anna Gladkova","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-32167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-32167","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary Russian lexicon is characterized by rapid change which involves borrowings, the use of new words and expressions as well as the development of new meanings from the existing word forms. The new meanings are indicative of new attitudes or the reinforcement of the existing ones. In this context, the paper considers the recently emerged colloquial use of the word zhest’ (from the primary meaning of zhest’ ‘tin’ as a type of metal) and the increase of use of the words zhestkii ‘hard/tough/firm’ and zhestko ‘firmly/toughly’ as examples of ‘internal’ language processes. The word zhest’ is a colloquial word mainly used in youth slang, but also infiltrating other types of discourse. We analyze its use as an interjection, as well as a noun in predicative and attributive functions. Zhestkii and zhestko are shown to rise in use and to be prevalent in the political discourse as a sign of power. The paper aims to trace the rise in frequency of the words under the analysis, study their semantics and establish links between the meaning of the words and broader Russian cultural themes. This kind of linguistic analysis with focus on cultural aspects allows us to identify culturally prevalent ideas in present day Russian. The paper uses the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) as a method of semantic analysis relying on data from the Russian National Corpus. Based on a detailed semantic analysis, the paper proposes NSM explications of zhest’ , zhestkii and zhestko , identifies connections between their meanings and the cultural themes of ‘emotionality’, ‘not being in control’ and ‘strait talk’, and recognizes the increased cultural salience of these words in present day Russian. The study uncovers trends of the contemporary Russian language uses and can be applied in culture-enhanced language teaching and cross-cultural training.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"212 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75482264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Semantic decomposition of four Quranic words","authors":"M. Durie","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-30779","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-30779","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, the author proposes Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) semantic decompositions of four difficult-to-translate quranic Arabic words using Natural Semantic Metalanguage (Goddard Wierzbicka 2014, Wierzbicka 2021). This is the first study to propose an explicit semantic explication of these core Islamic lexical items, which are foundational for the spiritual worldview of the almost two billion followers of Islam in the world today. The first word considered is rasūl , which refers to intermediaries sent by Allah to humans and is used in the Quran alongside nabī , which has almost the same meaning. An NSM semantic explication of rasūl is contrasted with explications of biblical Hebrew nābā’ ‘prophesy’ and nabī’ ‘prophet’. In English translations of the Quran, rasūl is usually rendered as ‘messenger’ and nabī as ‘prophet’, yet these translations are misleadingly inadequate. Three further quranic concepts are examined, which have received the most diverse and unsatisfactory renderings in English translations of the Quran: shirk ‘association’ and kāfir ‘disbeliever’ refer to two dimensions of disbelief, and ittaqā , a difficult-to-translate verb, refers to cautious piety. The use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage overcomes the resistance of these terms to translation into English, by means of fine-grained semantic explications using semantic primes. These explications are designed to be readily accessible to speakers of languages other than English.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87877864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Aspectual pairs: Prefix vs. suffix way of formation","authors":"V. Solovyev, V. Bochkarev, V. Bayrasheva","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-27394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-27394","url":null,"abstract":"In linguistic theory, there is no common point of view on the question of whether verbs in aspectual pairs are in inflectional or derivational relations. At the same time, the prefix and suffix methods of forming aspectual pairs are contrasted in this respect. The publications (e.g. Janda Lyashevskaya 2011) pointed out the need to develop new quantitative approaches to this aspect of the text corpus. We propose two new approaches that compare the quantitative characteristics of aspectual pairs of both types. One approach is based on the Google Books Ngram corpus and analyzes the dynamics of the frequency of the use of words in pairs. The aspectual pairs from the databases created by Janda and Lyashevskaya are considered. For a numerical assessment of the degree of proximity of the frequency graphs, the Pearson correlation coefficients were used. The second approach introduces a numerical characteristic of the semantic proximity of verbs in pairs using modern computer methods. Semantic proximity of verbs is calculated as a standard cosine measure between vectors representing the compatibility of the considered verbs in the corpus. Several computer models and text corpora are considered. Both proposed approaches did not reveal significant numerical differences in semantic proximity between verbs in aspectual pairs with prefix and suffix pairing. This is in good agreement with the results of an early study by Janda and Lyashevskaya (2011). Together with the results of this work, our research shows that the suffixal and affixal ways of forming aspectual pairs have an equal status in terms of their classification as inflectional or derivational.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88994215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Russian reduplicative surface-syntactic relations in the perspective of general syntax","authors":"I. Mel’čuk","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-31357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-31357","url":null,"abstract":"The paper considers lexical reduplications in Russian in the perspective of general syntax. The goal is to define and fully characterize special Russian surface-syntactic relations [SSyntRels], that is, the reduplicative SSyntRels, which appear exclusively in syntactic idioms formed by lexical reduplications. The syntactic operation REDUPL is defined, and several reduplicative SSyntRels are introduced. A deductive calculus thereof is proposed, based on three parameters concerning the correlations between the reduplicate and the reduplicand: the reduplicate is anteposed/postposed (with respect to the reduplicand); is in contact/is not in contact (with the reduplicand); represents an exact/inexact copy (of the reduplicand); eight reduplicative SSynt-Rels are theoretically possible. The notion of syntactic idiom (a non-compositional multilexemic expression having a non-segmental signifier) is formulated and illustrated: e.g., the sentence Mne Y prazdnik X ne v prazdnik Lʹ(X) lit. ‘To me the feast is not into a feast’ = ‘I cannot enjoy the feast’, which implements the syntactic idiom [X to.Y] ˹be not into Lʹ(X)˺ ‘X cannot be enjoyed by Y’. Six reduplicative SSyntRels of Russian and one of English are described. These SSyntRels are conceived as a fragment of a general inventory of SSyntRels in the world languages.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88395405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Russian interrogative pronouns as a lexicographic type","authors":"V. Apresjan, B. Iomdin","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-30714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-30714","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82158659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Review of Mel’čuk, Igor. 2021. Ten Studies in Dependency Syntax. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Monton","authors":"O. Solopova","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-32392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-32392","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p>-</jats:p>","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"147 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76440914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"I and Thou: Universal human concepts present as words in all human languages","authors":"A. Wierzbicka","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-31361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-31361","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that “YOU” and “I” (“I” and “THOU”) are fundamental elements of human thought, present as distinct words (or signs) in all human languages. I first developed this thesis in my 1976 article “In defense of YOU and ME” (and before that, introduced it in my 1972 book Semantic Primitives; cf. also my 2021 article “‘Semantic Primitives’, fifty years later”). Since then, it has been confirmed by wide-ranging cross-linguistic investigations conducted in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework. But neither the truth of this thesis nor its importance have become widely recognised in linguistics or anthropology. Influential scholars in both these fields continue to undermine the notion of the fundamental unity of humankind and to put total emphasis, instead, on the diversity of languages and cultures. As cross-linguistic investigations of the last fifty years show, however, despite the phenomenal diversity of human languages a shared “alphabet of human thoughts” was not just a figment of Leibniz’s imagination but a fitting metaphor for something real and immeasurably important. As the present article aims to show, “YOU” and “I” (“I” and “THOU”) are two twin cornerstones of this reality. To quote the entry on “Psychic unity of humankind” in the Encyclopedia of Anthropology, “Ineluctably, the idea [of a deep psychological unity of humankind] has ethical significance. For attempting to inform humans about what they are and what they have in common is not a neutral act” (Prono 2006). As the present article seeks to demonstrate (and as Martin Buber compellingly affirmed a century ago), “I” and “THOU” are an ineluctable part of who we are: how we think, how we speak and how we relate to others.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89029238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lingua-artistic technique of writing and its role in portraying an artist","authors":"L. Kozlova, A. Kremneva","doi":"10.22363/2687-0088-30060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22363/2687-0088-30060","url":null,"abstract":"The theory of intermediality which first emerged within the frame of intertextuality theory has nowadays become a vast field of interdisciplinary research embracing studies in literature, linguistics, art and culture. In spite of the great amount of works discussing various aspects of this complex phenomenon, numerous questions related to the interpretation of its essence, the typology of intermedial interactions and their functions still remain the subject matter of discussions. An important factor determining the topicality of the intermediality issue is a great number of new textual practices which employ various forms of intermediality inviting for description and theoretical interpretation. All these factors account for the necessity of continuing the research of intermedial interactions. The article is devoted to the study of lingua-artistic technique of writing as one of the means of ontological intermediality. The lingua-artistic technique of writing is understood as the use of lingual means and devices activating visual images in the reader’s mind, due to which word and artistic image merge into one whole. The main objective of the article is to present the essence of the lingua-artistic technique of writing, to point out lingual means of its realization and to define their role in character drawing. The research is carried out from the cognitive-semiotic perspective, which is based on the assertion that art is synthetic in its very essence and the interpretation of all culture as Text presupposes the interaction of various semiotic codes participating in the expression of meaning. The empirical material of the study is represented by four novels written by I. Stone, J. Cary, J. Fowles and M. Porter about artists, real or fictional, representing different trends in art. The main methods of the study are the intermedial, inferential and comparative analyses. The research indicates that the lingua-artistic technique of writing is composed by the combination of lingual means and devices which include the nominations of colour and light, form, size, structure of objects, their location in space, composition, a wide use of similes, exfrasis, etc. All these means and their frequency are determined by the author’s cognitive style as well as by the artist’s specific manner of painting. The results of the study prove the considerable explanatory potential of the cognitive semiotic approach aimed at reconstructing the cognitive processes underlying various types of intermedial interactions.","PeriodicalId":53426,"journal":{"name":"Russian Journal of Linguistics","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2022-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88864548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}