Nicholas LeBlanc - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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Université Paris III - Sorbonne Nouvelle
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This dissertation proposes a structured semantic account of the polysemous Russian verbal prefix ... more This dissertation proposes a structured semantic account of the polysemous Russian verbal prefix po- within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics and using corpus linguistic methods. While scholarly consensus identifies five meanings for po- and an additional meaning in conjunction with the suffix -yva-, the relationships among these six meanings have not been fully explored. By means of a corpus linguistic analysis I determine the semantic structure linking the various meanings of po-: I collect a randomly selected sample of po-prefixed verbs (with accompanying contexts) from the Russian National Corpus, the largest annotated Russian language corpus extant. The collected data is manually tagged for a number of collocational, syntactic, and semantic parameters to create a behavioral profile of po-. The behavioral profile is subjected to a hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis, resulting in a dendrogram that illustrates varying degrees of connection among meanings....
Glossos, 2006
Delimitative verbs in Russian place an arbitrary temporal bound on the activity they encode. They... more Delimitative verbs in Russian place an arbitrary temporal bound on the activity they encode. They are usually formed by adding the prefix по-to the verb in an activity predicate (Vendler 1957). Such actions are internally homogeneous and atelic. The verb сидеть 'sit' is an example: By adding the prefix по-we obtain the delimitative verb посидеть 'sit for a while'. Some accomplishment and achievement predicates do allow delimitative formation, however. This usually involves a re-construal of the accomplishment/ achievement predicate as an activity (a process known as secondary homogenization). This paper examines the explanations for the formation of this sort of delimitative as set forth by Mehlig (2001) and Kisseleva & Tatevosov (2004). Within the framework of cognitive linguistics, the present investigation builds on these authors' works and posits the condition ITERATIVITY as a more concise explanation of the delimitatives in question. Data collected from the Russian internet are used extensively to support all conclusions drawn.
Barbara Sonnenhauser. Yet There's Method in It: Semantics, Pragmatics and the Interpretation ... more Barbara Sonnenhauser. Yet There's Method in It: Semantics, Pragmatics and the Interpretation of the Russian Imperfective Aspect. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner, 2006.272 pp. euro26.00, paper.Barbara Sonnenhauser makes an engaging contribution to the ever-growing body of research on Russian aspect. Although the title of her work refers only to the imperfective aspect, she comments on the meaning of the Russian perfective aspect as well (admittedly, it would be difficult to do otherwise, given the interconnected nature of both aspects in Russian) and even examines aspect in Bulgarian and Turkish for comparison. Her thesis revolves around two concepts: first, that the semantics of the imperfective in Russian is highly underspecified, making it difficult to describe in formal terms (despite such difficulty, Sonnenhauser presents a formal description nonetheless); and, secondly, that pragmatic principles-viz., generalized conversational implicatures-constrain the readings of the imperfec...
This dissertation proposes a structured semantic account of the polysemous Russian verbal prefix ... more This dissertation proposes a structured semantic account of the polysemous Russian verbal prefix po- within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics and using corpus linguistic methods. While scholarly consensus identifies five meanings for po- and an additional meaning in conjunction with the suffix -yva-, the relationships among these six meanings have not been fully explored. By means of a corpus linguistic analysis I determine the semantic structure linking the various meanings of po-: I collect a randomly selected sample of po-prefixed verbs (with accompanying contexts) from the Russian National Corpus, the largest annotated Russian language corpus extant. The collected data is manually tagged for a number of collocational, syntactic, and semantic parameters to create a behavioral profile of po-. The behavioral profile is subjected to a hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis, resulting in a dendrogram that illustrates varying degrees of connection among meanings....
Glossos, 2006
Delimitative verbs in Russian place an arbitrary temporal bound on the activity they encode. They... more Delimitative verbs in Russian place an arbitrary temporal bound on the activity they encode. They are usually formed by adding the prefix по-to the verb in an activity predicate (Vendler 1957). Such actions are internally homogeneous and atelic. The verb сидеть 'sit' is an example: By adding the prefix по-we obtain the delimitative verb посидеть 'sit for a while'. Some accomplishment and achievement predicates do allow delimitative formation, however. This usually involves a re-construal of the accomplishment/ achievement predicate as an activity (a process known as secondary homogenization). This paper examines the explanations for the formation of this sort of delimitative as set forth by Mehlig (2001) and Kisseleva & Tatevosov (2004). Within the framework of cognitive linguistics, the present investigation builds on these authors' works and posits the condition ITERATIVITY as a more concise explanation of the delimitatives in question. Data collected from the Russian internet are used extensively to support all conclusions drawn.
Barbara Sonnenhauser. Yet There's Method in It: Semantics, Pragmatics and the Interpretation ... more Barbara Sonnenhauser. Yet There's Method in It: Semantics, Pragmatics and the Interpretation of the Russian Imperfective Aspect. Munich: Verlag Otto Sagner, 2006.272 pp. euro26.00, paper.Barbara Sonnenhauser makes an engaging contribution to the ever-growing body of research on Russian aspect. Although the title of her work refers only to the imperfective aspect, she comments on the meaning of the Russian perfective aspect as well (admittedly, it would be difficult to do otherwise, given the interconnected nature of both aspects in Russian) and even examines aspect in Bulgarian and Turkish for comparison. Her thesis revolves around two concepts: first, that the semantics of the imperfective in Russian is highly underspecified, making it difficult to describe in formal terms (despite such difficulty, Sonnenhauser presents a formal description nonetheless); and, secondly, that pragmatic principles-viz., generalized conversational implicatures-constrain the readings of the imperfec...