Elena Zheltova - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Elena Zheltova

Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, 2020

Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology

The article analyzes the space of meaningful language units, which do not fall under the definiti... more The article analyzes the space of meaningful language units, which do not fall under the definition of morpheme. For such units, K. I. Pozdnyakov has coined a term, "extra-morpheme signs". The authors consider a wide range of phenomena between the traditional non-iconicity of morphemes and the iconicity of ideophone. In this continuum the main place is occupied by "submorphemes", described in the context of submorphemic neutralization, which are adjacent to other phenomena that belong to the field of research within phonosemantics. An attempt is made to classify these phenomena typologically. The first class includes paradigmatic and lexical-categorical submorphemes, which are divided by origin into "old" unproductive morphemes and submorphemes formed in the process of "analogical change", with a separate group of "suprasegmental submorphemes" with an exponent less than a phoneme. The second class is made up of morphological and syntactic phenomena that reveal iconicity to a greater or lesser degree: these are ideophones, reduplication, iconic word order, and some others. The third class consists of phenomena usually considered within the framework of phonosemantic ideas (sound clusters, or phonesthemes), which, in the authors' opinion, have exclusively intralingual significance, that is, they mark the lexical units within a single semantic group, have no connection with the denotate, and, therefore, have no property of iconicity. The proposed classification sketches the contours for the future detailed typology of submorpheme and related phenomena of language.

Статья из выпуска 9 сборника "Philologia classica"Статья посвящена влиянию дейктико-ден... more Статья из выпуска 9 сборника "Philologia classica"Статья посвящена влиянию дейктико-денотативной иерархии (или иерархии одушевленности) на порядок актантов трехвалентных глаголов. Опираясь на анализ более 500 случаев употребления глагола misit и других трехвалентных глаголов с актантами, выраженными существительными и личными местоимениями, автор выявляет зависимость порядка актантов «пациенс — реципиент» или «реципиент — пациенс» от места денотата соответствующего актанта в указанной иерархии.Th e article deals with the infl uence of animacy hierarchy on the position of 3 valency verb arguments. Th e analysis of more than 500 occasions of ditransitive verb “misit” and other verbs with two objects demonstrates strong dependence of order DI or ID (where D — Direct Object, I — Indirect Object ) from the level of denotatum in animacy hierarchy scale. Th us standard DI order in constructions with nominal arguments alternates with diverse ID order in case of pronominal arguments

Clause and Discourse, 2019

Les constructions à verbe support en latin, 2019, ISBN 978-2-84516-823-7, págs. 221-252, 2019

Summary. The article investigates the argument structure of Latin support verb constructions (SVC... more Summary. The article investigates the argument structure of Latin support verb constructions (SVC) with prototypically trivalent verbs. The methodological basis of the investigation is the idea of interaction and competition between the syntactic, pragmatic and deictic-denotative dimensions, which determine various orderings of the arguments in their relation to each other. In Latin constructions with trivalent verbs, the pattern “Direct-Indirect object” (DI) is supposed to be unmarked and determined exclusively by the syntactic factors whereas the opposite pattern (ID) is explained by the animacy of the Indirect object or by the status of speech act participant, if it is expressed by a pronoun. The author analyzes the order of the second and the third arguments in the ten support verb constructions selected from the works by Caesar, Cicero and Sallust (323 occurrences in total). The analysis demonstrates that the order ID is attested three times as often as the opposite order DI because the Indirect objects are usually animate or pronominal in the constructions of this type. In some cases, however, the pragmatic factors such as focus, contrast or emphasis may also influence the ordering. Different preferences in the orderings observed in the selected SVCs are explained by different centers of valency. The degree of consistency in the order of the compliments is supposed to relate to the degree of grammaticalization. Keywords: Latin support verb constructions, constituent order, syntax, pragmatics, deictic-denotative properties of the constituents, grammaticalization, incorporation.

Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, 2021

Graeco-Latina Brunensia, 2020

The article deals with paradigms of the future simple (3rd and 4th conjugations only) and the fut... more The article deals with paradigms of the future simple (3rd and 4th conjugations only) and the future perfect active that can be treated as anomalous since they form the first person singular and other forms by adding different suffixes to the verbal stem. This entails, first, a certain heterogeneity within the paradigms and, second, a partial overlapping of these paradigms with two other verbal paradigms. Although attempts to unify the future simple and future perfect paradigms were made by archaic authors, Classical Latin has preserved this "inconvenient" distinction, presumably, to highlight the first person singular. The question arises as to why Latin sought to single out the first person singular in this particular way. I will explain this phenomenon as a manifestation of language egocentrism. I will argue that the forms under consideration may function as egocentric devices. Since Latin is a pro-drop language, it requires special means to highlight the speaker as the most significant speech act participant and to give him/ her a privileged status with respect to the other speech act participants. Thus, by using an-am form, the speaker received an additional opportunity to express some modal values better than the other participants did, while with the-ero form, the speaker, conversely, could express his/her thoughts more definitely or unambiguously. In both cases, the singling out of the first person locutor seems to be much more significant for the language as a communicative system than the unified character of the paradigms. The argument is based on an analysis of examples from the works of Latin authors as well as comparative material from other languages.

Philologia Classica, 2018

Pallas, 2016

The article deals with some functions of Latin reflexive pronouns (se and suus) which cannot be e... more The article deals with some functions of Latin reflexive pronouns (se and suus) which cannot be explained in syntactic terms. According to the syntactic rules, the reflexive pronoun can refer to the subject of the clause in which it occurs (the direct reflexive) or to the subject of the matrix clause in reported speech (the indirect reflexive), but in fact the antecedent of a Latin reflexive can be a direct object, an indirect object, or a prepositional phrase. These uses of Latin reflexives can be explained if they are analysed from a pragmatic, rather than a syntactic point of view: the reflexive pronouns can refer to the topic of the clause in which they occur, or to the topic of discourse in cases of subordination, independently of their syntactic functioning. The second problem to be explained is the confusion of anaphoric and reflexive pronouns in syntactically similar conditions. The matter is that, in some cases, the anaphoric pronoun is used instead of the reflexive even when the reference is made to a constituent with a topic function. These uses are supposed to depend on the pragmatic function of empathy. I suggest that if the focus of empathy is on the referent with a topic function, the reflexive is used. On the contrary, if the focus of empathy is on the non-topic referent, the anaphoric pronoun is used.

Philologia Classica, 2016

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Series 9. Philology. Asian Studies. Journalism, 2016

Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, Jun 1, 2019

The article attempts to trace how the difference in approaches to the question of language origin... more The article attempts to trace how the difference in approaches to the question of language origin in the Democritus’ and Epicurus’ traditions is reflected in modern linguistics. According to the monograph by Alexander Verlinsky (2006), Democritus insisted on the arbitrary connection between objects and words, while Epicurus insisted on a necessary correlation between them. At first glance, Democritus’ tradition has ultimately won, being reflected in the ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure that remain of crucial importance for modern linguistics. If looking further, however, the research on motivation or iconicity of language sign is still quite alive, with a number of relevant studies. This paper argues that the majority of studies on the motivation of language signs still follow the Democritus’ tradition rather than Epicurus’ one. They tend to find the motivation based on purely intralingual data rather than in the “world of denotata”, the works by Roman Jakobson being of especial importance in this sense. Jacobson offered the idea of paradigmatically motivated signs that are segmentally smaller than morphemes, and this idea was further developed by Konstantin Pozdniakov and other linguists into the theory of submorphemic signs and submorphemic neutralizations. In support of this theory, this paper illustrates how the submorphemic level of the language can be used for the description of Latin personal pronouns.

The relative position of theme (T) and recipient (R) in Latin ditransitive constructions varies: ... more The relative position of theme (T) and recipient (R) in Latin ditransitive constructions varies: theme can precede recipient or vice versa (TR/RT). From this follow two questions to be answered: what is the neutral (“unmarked”) argument order in ditransitive constructions, and what properties of the arguments cause the deviations. In this study, the main focus will be on the idea that the ordering of the arguments in Latin ditransitive constructions results from the interaction of semantic, pragmatic and deictic dimensions. To prove this hypothesis, the constructions with ditransitive verbs mitto ‘to send’, ostendo ‘to show’ and some others were examined. The analysis was conducted with the help of the electronic database PHI-5 and can be considered as a corpus study. After examining all the occurrences provided by the database, I suggest that the neutral order of theme and recipient in Latin ditransitive constructions is TR, and that the alternation of TR/RT order is determined by the competition of the three language dimensions. The findings are summarised in five tables. Keywords: Latin ditransitive constructions, argument structure, animacy hierarchy, competition of paradigmatic dimensions.

The article attempts, firstly, to critically analyze the traditional order of cases in Latin, sec... more The article attempts, firstly, to critically analyze the traditional order of cases in Latin, secondly, to discover an internal mechanism that brings the elements of a paradigm together, and thirdly, to present a new model of the nominal and pronominal case paradigms in Latin. The authors develop the idea that the crucial role in structuring a case paradigm belongs to morphemic syncretism. The syncretism is treated as a systemic phenomenon of morpheme neutralization rather than a result of phonetic reduction. In the paradigm built on this principle, the cases marked with the same endings necessarily take adjacent positions. There is a certain correlation between the morphemic syncretism and the semantics of cases extensively exemplified in the Latin literature. Taking this as reference point, the authors establish a formally motivated paradigmatic order of cases and single out a set of semantic features that shape the case paradigm. This method enables authors to find the non-contra...

Proceedings of the 45th International Philological Conference (IPC 2016), 2017

В статье анализируется порядок прямого и косвенного дополнений в латинских аналитических глагольн... more В статье анализируется порядок прямого и косвенного дополнений в латинских аналитических глагольноименных конструкциях, содержащихся в трудах классических римских прозаиков. Автор приходит к выводу, что на порядок дополнений оказывает влияние дейктико-денотативных статус имен, входящих в данные коллокации, а также что частотность того или другого порядка является свидетельством большей или меньшей степени грамматикализации конструкции.

Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae

Summary:The paper deals with the ways of expressing evidential and mirative semantics in the lang... more Summary:The paper deals with the ways of expressing evidential and mirative semantics in the language of Roman comedy. The author claims that the phenomena under consideration belong to the grammar rather than to the lexicon of the Latin language, and shows that various evidential and mirative values can be expressed by the use of verbal tenses, voices, moods and syntactic construction. It is stressed that evidential and mirative functions in such units result only from the interaction of different linguistic parameters within a certain context and does not reside in the units taken in isolation. The main focus of the study is on the linguistic techniques which were preferred by Plautus and Terence. The comparative analysis of the linguistic strategies found in the author's present and the previous research demonstrates that the choice of a particular strategy depends on a given genre. Thus, some strategies (e.g., impersonal passive, inferential perfect and future, imperfect of ...

Graeco-Latina Brunensia 25 / 2020 / 1, 2020