“Few people can have seen it” – an investigation into an allegedly non-normative construction with can and the perfect infinitive form

This article discusses an investigation into the English modal predicate with can and the perfect infinitive form of the main verb. The study uses language samples excerpted from The Corpus of Contemporary American English, as well as selected data from The Corpus of Historical American English and The British National Corpus. English grammars tend not to discuss can with the perfect infinitive form, which can give an impression that it does not exist. Nevertheless, the reported study confirms that can with the perfect infinitive form is present in both American and British Englishes, mainly in formal, written communication. In the US, it was used already at the beginning of the 19th century. Furthermore, can with the perfect infinitive form expresses either the speaker’s reasoning about a hypothetical past situation or speaker’s certainty that a situation did not take place in the past. Thus, can interacts with the perfect and yields epistemic readings. Additionally, subject negation extends its scope over the proposition. The propositional negation interacts with can, thus producing the meaning of speaker’s certainty. Finally, the findings of the study are used to determine the norms which may underlie the modal predicate with can and the perfect infinitive form. “Few people can have seen it” – badanie rzekomo nienormatywnej konstrukcji z czasownikiem can i formą bezokolicznika perfect Streszczenie: Artykuł omawia badanie angielskiego orzeczenia modalnego z czasownikiem can i formą bezokolicznika perfect czasownika głównego. W badaniu wykorzystano próbki języka z korpusu The Corpus of Contemporary American English oraz wybrane dane z korpusów: The Corpus of Historical American English i The British National Corpus. Gramatyki języka angielskiego zwykle nie omawiają can z perfectem, co może sprawiać wrażenie, że ta konstrukcja nie istnieje. Niemniej, opisane badanie potwierdziło obecność can z perfectem w angielszczyźnie zarówno amerykańskiej jak i brytyjskiej, zwłaszcza w oficjalnej komunikacji pisanej. Użycie tej konstrukcji w Stanach Zjednoczonych zarejestrowano już na początku XIX w. Can z perfectem wyraża wnioskowanie mówiącego odnośnie hipotetycznej sytuacji z przeszłości lub pewność nadawcy, że sytuacja nie wystąpiła w przeszłości. Zatem can wchodzi w interakcję z perfectem i w efekcie wyraża znaczenia epistemiczne. Nadto, negacja podmiotu obejmuje swym zasięgiem cały sąd logiczny i wchodzi w interakcję z can, w wyniku czego powstaje znaczenie pewności mówiącego. Na koniec określono normy, które mogły były przyczynić się do powstania orzeczenia modalnego z can i perfectem.

Transitivity of Try and V Construction in British and American English

Try and V construction is prevalent in British and American English. This construction is found in both spoken and written English, although with different frequencies. The verb in this construction only appears in in the base form. The lack of research on this verb formation leaves many aspects unexplored, one of which is the transitivity of the verb. Therefore, this study is intended to find out the number of arguments informed by this construction by matching the number of arguments to the verb try and the verb following it after the conjunction and. Two verbs were used to test this match, i.e., give and bring, which are three-place predicate verbs, and other two two-place predicate verbs, i.e., see and answer, were used to validate the finding. British National Corpus (BNC) and Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) were used to collect the data. The findings show that the number of arguments matched the verb following the conjunction and. Therefore, it can be concluded the number of arguments in try and V construction is not unique to this construction, but it is similar to the try to V, where V is the non-finite verb which selects the number of arguments. This result suggests that try and V construction needs to be included in English grammar textbooks in order that non-native speakers can use and understand this rare grammatical rule in appropriate contexts.

Symbolic Macroconcept Strength/Power in the Aspect of Primary Signs

The purpose of this article was to describe the symbolic component among the primary (motivating) signs of the STRENGTH/POWER macroconcept. Objectives of the article: 1) to identify a complete list of motivating signs of the STRENGTH/POWER macroconcept; 2) to single out symbolic signs among them; 3) to describe the ways of objectification of symbolic primary signs and provide examples from the Russian language. This research is relevant due to the importance of describing the special class of symbolic macroconcepts. The scientific novelty of the paper lies in the fact that for the first time the STRENGTH/POWER macroconcept is presented in the aspect of its primary signs. The key research methods used here are descriptive, interpretive, and conceptual, as well as component analysis of dictionary definitions. The author revealed 59 motivating signs of the STRENGTH/POWER macroconcept on the basis of 10 etymological and historical-etymological dictionaries. None of the dictionaries used contain a complete set of primary signs of this macroconcept. The large number of motivating signs indicates that STRENGTH/POWER is an important macroconcept, whose primary signs have syncretic nature. Eight out of 59 motivating signs are symbolic, which is 1/7 of the total number. This ratio is a sufficient basis for classifying the STRENGTH/POWER macroconcept as symbolic. The language material from the National Corpus of the Russian Language shows the relevance of all the identified symbolic signs. Symbolic primary signs of the STRENGTH/POWER macroconcept in Russian linguoculture can be presented in the form of three blocks: 1) the transcendental (‘god’, ‘general name of the second angelic rank’, ‘miracles’); 2) the vital component of a person (‘spirit’, ‘soul’, ‘life’); 3) unusual human abilities (‘divine gift of producing miracles’, ‘ability to make changes in other things’).

East Slavic indefinite pronouns: a corpus-based approach

The paper focuses on the development and functional distribution of indefinite pronouns in Old East Slavic, taking into account different sources, genres and registers. All the examples in the collected dataset were taken from the historical modules of the Russian National Corpus. They were tagged for type of indefinite marker, source (including originality and date), type of reference of the indefinite marker, semantics, type of discourse, and the degree of formality (formal or informal) present in the context. We then applied both descriptive and inferential statistical methods such as Random Forest analysis as well as multinomial logistic regression. Our analysis enabled us to identify the primary and secondary predictors of the choice of a particular indefinite marker and to trace the functional distribution of indefinite markers according to these factors.

Misvaluation: On the Bulgarian Verbs подценявам ‘Underestimate’ and надценявам ‘Overestimate’, their Semantic Structure and Translation into Russian

The article examines the semantic structure of the two Bulgarian verbs of misvaluation, подценявам ‘underestimate’ and надценявам ‘overestimate’. Attention is drawn to the ambivalence of their position in the semantic typology of predicates, notably their features/traits stemming from the presence of an interpretive component. With reference to the Bulgarian National Corpus, the article outlines the most common options for filling the positions of the participants and the main contexts in which the verbs occur. Some issues in translation into Russian are shown, which exist despite the availability of full equivalents in the target language.

Verbalization of basic emotions on the material of the national corpus of the russian language: comparative analysis of the verbalization of emotions fear and horror

Modern linguistics is characterized by anthropocentrism, in the center of its research attention are questions about a person based on his integrity and exclusivity. This article is devoted to the study of the verbalization of such basic emotions as fear and horror. The subject of the research is the features of the basic emotions of fear and horror in the modern Russian language. The work was carried out on the basis of the material of the National Corpus of the Russian Language. The purpose of the work is to identify and define the features of the verbalization of emotions fear and horror in the modern Russian language. The relevance of the study is due to the inevitable dependence of every sphere of a person's life on his emotional state. Despite the extensive study of emotions by psychology, psycholinguistics, linguistics, a number of questions remain in this problem. The materials of the Russian National Corpus provide great opportunities for studying the verbalization of the emotions of a native speaker of the Russian language in various genres and styles, which allows reaching a new level of research. The peculiarity of the study of emotions is found in the variety of linguistic means of their expression, which include the appropriate vocabulary, phraseological constructions and a certain compatibility. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the comparative analysis of the verbalization of the basic emotions of fear and horror is carried out on the basis of the material of the National Corpus of the Russian language. In the course of the work, the following methods were used: descriptive, involving the analysis of both theoretical and empirical material, generalization and interpretation of the results obtained; component analysis; introspection method; comparative and comparative and statistical methods. The practical significance of the study is due to the fact that its materials and conclusions can be used in university courses in lexicology, lexicography, psycholinguistics.

SPECIFICITY OF THE HAPPINESS SYMBOLIC CONCEPT STRUCTURE: COGNITIVE AND LINGUOCULTURAL ANALYSIS

Описывается структура символического концепта счастье на основе соотнесения его мотивирующих, символических и оценочных признаков; впервые среди мотивирующих признаком исследуемого концепта выделяются признаки символические и оценочные. Материалом исследования стали этимологические словари, а также языковой материал Национального корпуса русского языка. The article describes the structure of the symbolic concept happiness in the process of juxtaposing its motivating, symbolic and evaluative traits. The symbolic and evaluative traits of the concept under study are identified on the basis of etymological dictionaries, and the material from the National Corpus of the Russian Language.