Functioning of the verb’s reflexive voice in the modern Udmurt language

Introduction. Any language’s verb system has many resources for denoting various actions of people. The relations of the action or state of the subject to its object are determined by the grammatical category of the voice, represented in the Udmurt language by the pairs of causative – non-causative, reflexive – non-reflexive forms of voices. The article considers the functioning of the verb’s reflexive voice in the modern Udmurt language, including the etymology of the voice’s affix, the grammatical meanings of reflexive verbs. Materials and Methods. The main material of the research is based on the Udmurt-Russian Dictionary (2008) and the texts of Udmurt writers included into the National Corpus of the Udmurt Language. The article used a set of such research methods as descriptive, continuous sampling, contextual analysis, taking into account the situational conditioning of the verb voice. On specific examples, the use of these methods makes it possible to consider the structure, dynamics and features of the functioning of the reflexive voice of the verb in the Udmurt language. Results and Discussion. As a result of the research, for the first time, among the reflexive voice’s groups we include verbs of passive voice. The reason of it is the low probability of using passive constructions in colloquial speech. The frequent cases of using passive meanings of verbs in the literature and in the press are defined by the calcified translation of foreign-language constructions. Conclusion. The grammatical structure of the Udmurt language is represented by two binary voice’s forms: reflexive/non-reflexive voice and causative/non-causative voice. Specific indicators of reflexive voice are affixes -ськ(ы)-/-ск(ы), -иськ(ы)-/-üськ(ы)-. From the point of view of semantic content, five semantic groups of returnable pledges are distinguished: reflexive, medial, reciprocal, impersonal, passive. The proposed classification is determined by the specifics of the relations between the subject and the object of action.

Darinājumu ligzda ar pamatvārdu gādāt senajos latviešu rakstu avotos

In the article, the verb gādāt, an entry for the Historical Dictionary of Latvian (16th–17th centuries), and other formatives with this word are discussed. In the early Latvian texts, a wide and forked word-formation nest forms around the verb gādāt, including, for example, derived words gādāties, negādāt, gādāšana, apgādāt, apgādāties, apgādāšana, atsagādāties, iesagādāties, atgādāt, atgādāties, atgādāšana, atgādināt, iegādāties, sagādāt, sagāds, gāds, gādība, etc. There are several meanings of the word gādāt in early texts, which differ from the ones used nowadays, so the authors of the Dictionary have distinguished three of them: 1) to aim, seek, strive (for something); 2) to take care, to look after; 3) to be concerned, to worry (about). The word gādāt also had a more ancient meaning, ‘to think’, from which these three meanings have developed. Though in early religious texts the meaning ‘to think’ is not common, it appears in some prefixal verbs, for example, apgādāt ‘to consider’, iesagādāties ‘to come to one’s mind’, atgādāt ‘to recall, to remember’, sagādāt ‘to consider, to think’, iegādāt ‘to remember, to recall’. The meanings of the basic word also widely fork in the meanings of the words derived from it. One group of meanings is connected with the ancient meaning of the word gādāt ‘to think’. It is dominant, for example, in such word-formation chain as atgādāt, atgādināt, atgādāšana, etc., while the other group is connected to the meaning ‘to care, to look after’. The last is more common nowadays, so the words gādāt, apgādāt, sagādāt, gādība, etc. are known with this meaning also in modern Latvian. In the texts of the 16th–17th centuries, reflexive verbs are often used; an interesting feature characteristic to these verbs – the reflexive verb is often used in the same meaning as the direct verb. For example, gādāt and gādāties, iegādāt and iegādāties, atgādāt and atgādāties.

"Unity in thinking: transformations of the concept of cooperation in the German cognitive-linguistic continuum"

The work is an attempt to consider the concept of “cooperation” in cognitive-linguistic terms, taking as a syntagmatic basis “thinking”, which contains the motivating feature of the primary basis: the cognitive verb denken [think]. The term “semantic function” is one of the main terms in the work: this function acts as a stimulus for semantic transformation and the formation of a new semantic quality. The aim of the research is to analyze different semantic transformations in: 1. Formation of a derivative prefixed verb mitdenken. 2. Formation of the reflexive verbs sich einigen and sich sammeln. 3. Formation of the construction “adverb and cognitive verb”: miteinanderdenken/ zusammendenken / gemeinsamdenken. 4. Formation of the construction “preposition, pronoun and cognitive verb”: mit anderen erarbeiten. Through the method of componential analysis, the work presents lexemes, morphemes and functional words referring to the same semantic field.

Latviešu valodas apguvēju korpusa (LaVA) izmantošana pētniecībā un mācību uzdevumu izstrādē

The Latvian Language Learners Corpus (LaVA) developed at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Latvia, includes more than 1000 texts created by foreign Latvian language learners studying at Latvian higher education institutions for the first or second semester reaching A1 (possibly A2) Latvian language proficiency level. The size of the corpus is more than 180 000 words. The morphologically annotated texts have been checked manually; the language learners' errors have been manually annotated. In addition, each text is accompanied by information about the author of the text (metadata): gender, age, native language, knowledge of other languages. When analysing the data, this information can be used to determine how the learner's mother tongue and language skills, in general, affect the acquisition of the Latvian language. Users of the corpus can analyse the data both on the LaVA website (see http://lava.korpuss.lv/search) and in the SketchEngine tool, where the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data can be performed. The quantitative approach makes it possible to find out the tendencies of the use of a word, word form, or construction and allows to determine the frequency of mistakes made by language learners. In addition, the objectivity of the research is ensured by looking at the data of language learners from different aspects and performing repeated analysis. For example, by statistically analysing the nouns used in learners' texts, it can be concluded that declension 4 nouns are most often used. The next in terms of frequency of use are declension 1, 5 and 2 nouns, while declension 3 and 6 nouns and indeclinable nouns are used very rarely. Qualitative analysis reveals certain features of morphology and word formation, including aspects of syntax, based on empirical data. It is possible to qualitatively analyse the erroneous use of nouns, verbs, or other parts of speech, trying to understand what rules determine this. For example, consider using non-reflexive verbs instead of reflexive verbs, using infinitives instead of finite forms (person forms), using a suffix that does not fit the noun paradigm, etc. According to LaVA data analysis, including learners error analysis, exercises and tests are generated. The exercises are intended to help the language learner to strengthen the linguistic competence of the Latvian language, for example, the use of verb forms in the indicative mood, both in indefinite and perfect tense forms. Exercise creation consists of three stages: (1) analysis of LaVA errors and identification of typical errors, (2) Collecting of sample sentences from various corpora of the Latvian language, for example, LVK2018, Saeima, with word forms and constructions in which language learners most often make mistakes in LaVA texts, (3) generation of different exercises using the selected sample sentences.

Tendencies in modern verbal derivation

The article examines various types of verbal neologisms functioning in modern Russian speech. The aim of the research is to reveal the tendencies of verbal derivation at the turn and at the beginning of the 21st century. It is noted that verb vocabulary is regularly enriched by neologisms of different structural types despite the fact that this part of speech is less open to neologization. It has been demonstrated that suffixation, prefixation, and postfixation (grammatical suffixation) are the most productive processes of derivation. The following tendences of modern verbal derivation have been revealed: intensive formation of new verbs via borrowing from foreign languages; expansion of denominative derivation of verbs; an increase in the number of reflexive verbs expressing various aspects of subject-object relations. It is concluded that verbal neologisms are consistently used not only in media language, but also in the language of modern fiction where they enhance its expressiveness and imagery.

ВСИЧКО Е НАРЕД С ГЛАГОЛА (ИНОВАЦИОННИТЕ ПРОЦЕСИ ТРАНЗИТИВАЦИЯ И ДЕРЕФЛЕКТИВАЦИЯ С ЦЕЛ ПРИПИСВАНЕ НА КАУЗАТИВНОСТ) / EVERYTHING IS FINE WITH THE VERB (INNOVATION PROCESSES OF TRANSITIVIZATION AND DEREFLEXIVIZATION AS A MEANS OF ATTRIBUTING CAUSATIVITY)

The paper presents a summary of the observations on the tranisitivization and dereflexivization of Bulgarian verbs as a means of attributing causativity. The majority of the newly formed verbs that we analyze are causative while others may, under certain conditions and in particular sentences, exemplify the causative rule. The lability of morphological identification regarding the transitivity – intransitivity distinction is the reason to examine the excerpted verbs as being either A- or Р-labile. The following tendency can be observed: P-lability has to do with causativity, while A-labile verbs are not-causative. In such cases the subject does not undergo changes neither in their intransitive nor in their transitive use. With P-labile verbs, the subject of the intransitive verb becomes the object of the transitive verb. There are some ambiva-lent verbs, such as minavam (pass), premina (pass over), svetna (light up), spomagam (facilitate), stigna (reach), treniram (train). Although the second group contains 40 causatives and the third group has 3 verbs, the lability procedure is not applicable because of the difference between the reflexive with the se- (се) marker and the transitive verb, i.e. the mismatch in form also means non-lability. The examples in the third group can also be viewed as the absolute use of the transitive verb meaning. The changes in the verbs indicate a change in the way contemporary Bulgarians think – the causative verbs serve as an expression of an active position, while the interplay between transitive and intransitive and/or reflexive and non-reflexive verbs has mostly pragmatic purposes, such as achieving a certain communicative effect, attractiveness, informality. Keywords: labile verbs, A-lability, P-lability, the lexico-grammatical category of transitivity ‒ intransitivity, causativity, Bulgarian language

Семантика абсолютивной конструкции В русском языке и антипассив

Данная работа рассматривает абсолютивную конструкцию переходных глаголов в русском языке в соотношении с антипассивом. Переходные глаголы определяются как глаголы, имеющие возмож-ность сочетаться с прямым объектом, т. е. обладают пациентной валентностью. Однако по разным причинам они могут не реализовывать пациентную валентность.Поскольку безобъектное употребление глагола – это результат синтаксической невыразимости пациентного аргумента, логично подходить к нему как к результату сокращения валентностных потенций. С этой точки зрения можно предположить, что безобъектная конструкция переходных глаголов имеет определенные диатетические характеристики. Мы постулируем, что невербализа-ция пациентной валентности сигнализирует о переносе пациентного аргумента на семантическую, коммуникативную периферию, и, следовательно, о его синтаксическом понижении.Выделяются три типа невербализации пациентного аргумента: контекстный эллипсис, семанти-ческая инкорпорация объекта в значение глагола и генерализованная презентация ситуации. Нас интересует прежде всего третий тип, и именно относительно этого типа традиционно применяется термин «абсолютивная конструкция». В отличие от первого и второго типов, в которых невыражен-ный объект восстанавливается через контекст или семантику глагола, в абсолютивной конструкции объект действия не может быть специфицирован, или это делается с трудом. Поэтому абсолютивная конструкция не является неполной конструкцией.Aбсолютивное употребление переходных глаголов – это результат сокращения валентности ком-муникативно нерелевантного объекта, что порождает определенные семантические сдвиги; глагол обозначает не акциональное действие, направленное на какой-то объект, а нечто более стативное, постоянное свойство субъекта, что переносит глагол в иные семантические классы и обусловливает его употребление в определенных контекстах.Абсолютивная конструкция и антипассив имеют общее функциональное сходство, а именно низ-кую дискурсивную выделенность объекта действия и генерализованную репрезентацию ситуации как постоянного свойства субъекта. В русском языке типичным показателем антипассива являет-ся возвратная частица -ся. Поэтому в случаях несущественности, очевидности, неопределенности объекта действия абсолютивная конструкция и антипассивный возвратный глагол могут функцио-нировать синонимично. Ср.: Горчичник сильно жжет Ø / сильно жжется. Следовательно, в данной статье абсолютивная конструкция сравнивается с антипассивными рефлексивными глаголами типа Собака кусается. В русском языке семантический круг антипассивных рефлексивных глаголов от-носительно узок, и это объясняется тем, что их функцию вполне могут заменить невозвратные гла-голы в абсолютивном употреблении.Кроме того, остальные типы опущения пациентной валентности также имеют соотношение с возвратными глаголами других разрядов, но детальное обсуждение этого вопроса станет темой наших дальнейших исследований.This work examines the absolute construction of transitive verbs in Russian in relation to the antipassive. Transitive verbs are defined as verbs that can be combined with a direct object, i.e. they exhibit patient valency. However, for various reasons, this patient valency is not always realized.Since the objectless use of the verb is the result of the syntactic inexpressibility of the patient argument, it is logical to approach it as the result of valency-reducing derivation. From this point of view, it can be assumed that the objectless transitive construction has certain diathetic properties. We postulate that the non-verbalization of patient valency signals the transfer of the patient argument to the semantic, communicative periphery and, consequently, to its syntactic demotion.Three types of non-verbalization of the patient argument are distinguished: context ellipsis, semantic incorporation of an object into the meaning of a verb, and generalized presentation of the situation. We are primarily interested in the third type, for which the term absolute construction is traditionally used. Unlike the first and second types, in which the unexpressed object is reconstructed through the context or semantics of the verb, in the absolute construction, the object of action cannot be specified, or it is diffi cult to do so. Therefore, an absolute construction is not an incomplete construction.The absolute use of transitive verbs is the result of reducing the valency of a communicatively irrelevant object, which generates certain semantic shift s; a verb does not denote an action directed at a concrete object but instead denotes something more stative, a constant property of the subject, which transfers the verb to other semantic classes and determines its use in certain contexts.The absolute construction and the antipassive function similarly in that both rely on the low discursive saliency of the object of action and the generalized representation of the situation as a constant property of the subject. In Russian, a typical indicator of an antipassive is the reflexive -ся. Therefore, when the object of action is insignificant, obvious or ambiguous, the absolute construction and the antipassive reflexive verb can function synonymously (e.g. Горчичник сильно жжет Ø / сильно жжется). Therefore, in this paper, the absolute construction is compared with antipassive reflexive verbs such as Собака кусается. In Russian, the semantic circle of antipassive reflexive verbs is relatively narrow, and this is due to the fact that their function may be replaced by irreflexive verbs in absolute use.In addition, the remaining types of omission of patient valency also have a correlation with reflexive verbs of other categories but a detailed discussion of this issue will be reserved for future research.

The passive of verbs constructed with prepositions (Das Passiv der mit Präpositionen konstruierten Verben )

Verbs in German and Arabic are of two types: active and passive. Passive voice is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. Out of grammatical perspective, each main verb has a form in the active and one in the passive known as a "genus verbi" (type of verb). In passive voice, both in German and in Arabic, the focus is on the action itself or on the result of the action; often the perpetrator is not mentioned. In German, to conjugate verbs in the passive voice, you must know the forms of werden (to become). German uses werden + the past participle and states it at the end of a sentence. In Arabic, the passive is formed by changing the vowels on the verb; the vowel series u-i-a occurs instead of the a-vowels. Transitive prepositional verbs originally are intransitive verb with a preposition added to the action of the sentence. In German, the prepositional group can be combined with the prepositions von or durch, while in Arabic, such a prepositional group occurs only in certain cases. In contrast to Arabic, the passive in German is impossible with reflexive verbs. In some cases, an impersonal passive in German corresponds with a personal passive in Arabic. The present paper discusses some of these verbs traced in a chart that shows the most important results when compared with their Arabic equivalents. In grammatischen Darstellung findet man für jedes Vollverb eine Form im Aktiv und eine im Passiv, es wird von „genus verbi“ (Art des Verbs) gesprochen. Im Passiv steht sowohl im Deutschen als auch im Arabischen das Geschehen selbst oder das Ergebnis der Handlung im Vordergrund; aus der Sicht der betroffenen Person oder Sache; oft wird der Täter nicht gennant. Im Deutschen wird die passivische Verbform mit dem Hilfsverb werden und dem Partizip II gebildet, während die Vokalreihe u-i-a anstelle der a- Vokale im Arabischen eintritt. Die im Aktiv mit Präpositionen verbundenen Verben bilden in beiden Sprachen ein unpersönliches Passiv. Im Deutschen kann die Präpositionalgruppe mit den Präpositionen von oder durch verbunden werden. Im Unterschied dazu tritt solche Präpositionalgruppe im Arabischen nur in bestimmten Fällen mit من قبل auf. Im Unterschied zum Arabischen ist das Passiv im Deutschen bei reflexiv Verben unmöglich. In einigen Fällen entspricht ein unpersönliches Passiv im Deutschen einem persönlichen Passiv im Arabischen.

A Contrastive Study of Reflexive verbs in English and French

This paper describes and compares reflexive verbs in English and French. In collecting the data, a number of books and research works related to the subject have been analysed, using the contrastive method. Results of the analysis indicate that reflexives display a great difference between the two languages. The main observed similarity occurs with the emphatic form. Indeed, the English pronouns “myself”, “himself”, “ourselves” etc, and their French counterparts moi-même, lui-même, nous-mêmes are used in the same way. Points of differences are presented as follows: while French puts the pronominal clitics me, te, se, nous, vous before the verb, English places pronouns after e.g., se blesser “to hurt oneself”. One of most important differences that several verbs take reflexive pronouns in French while their English counterparts don’t e.g., se demander “to wonder”. It has also been noted that, in English, the same pronouns are used to express both emphatic and non-emphatic forms while French distinctively uses toi-même, elles- mêmes etc. to emphasize; and the pronominal clitics in simple forms. In the reciprocal voice, the English pronouns “each other” and “one another” are less ambiguous than their French corresponding ones. For instance, Nous nous aimons means both “we love ourselves” (reflexivity) and “we love each other / one another” (reciprocity). Finally, it is shown that some English verbs do not appear with reciprocal pronouns but their French equivalents do e.g., “to meet” se rencontrer.