Abstract
The present study analyzes a group of Russian discursive units with focus-sensitive semantics such as imenno (just/precisely), kak raz (just/precisely), to-to i ono (that’s just it/the point/problem), to-to i est’ (that’s just it/the point/problem) and to-to i delo (that’s just it/the point/problem). They are important elements of communication but have not yet been adequately described. Some of the analyzed lexical units – for example, imenno and kak raz or to-to i ono, to-to i est’ and to-to i delo – are near synonyms. Others, such as kak raz and to-to i ono, are not near synonyms, but they nevertheless belong to the semantic class of focus-sensitive elements. Thus they can all be put into a single group according to the principle of family resemblance. The material itself suggests the logic of the analysis – on the basis of pairs or groups of the semantically closest near synonyms: (1) imenno vs. kak raz; (2) imenno vs. to-to i ono, (3) to-to i ono vs. to-to i est’ vs. to-to i delo.
Near-synonyms within these groups can be distinguished from each other on the basis of semantics, pragmatics, and usage preferences. Identifying differences of various types requires a good corpus with numerous examples, for they can be present simultaneously on several levels: semantic and pragmatic, pragmatic and usual, etc. Often, although not always, pragmatic and/or usual differences are semantically motivated. Syntactic distinctions among near-synonyms, including those in certain syntactic patterns, are also generally motivated by differences in their semantics. In a number of cases the problem is solved through the use of translational equivalents, that is, not on the level of individual lexical units (words and phrasemes) but on that of the entire utterance. Using relevant lexicographic information, text corpora, including parallel corpora, and works of fiction, we shall:
-
(a)
clarify semantic and pragmatic properties as well as usage peculiarities of the focus sensitive discursive units imenno, kak raz, to-to i ono, to-to i est’ and to-to i delo;
-
(b)
analyze their systemic and translational equivalents in English and Swedish.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For descriptions of Russian discursive words see especially Baranov et al. (1993), Kiseleva and Paillard (1998, 2003), Kobozeva and Zakharov (2004), Kobozeva (2006, 2007), Paukkeri (2006), Šaronov (2009) which are specifically devoted to this layer of the lexicon. Such lexical units in other languages are studied, for example, in Fischer (2000), Sorjonen (2001), Travis (2005), Romero-Trillo (2009).
- 2.
We are interested only in the semantic, pragmatic (and to some extent syntactic) differences between imenno and kak raz and between other discursive units treated in the article. Prosodic differences, the importance of which is discussed on the basis of other discursive units in Kobozeva (2006, 2007), Kobozeva and Zakharov (2004), are a topic for a separate study.
- 3.
- 4.
For this reason, imenno is often used in contexts of identification (on contexts of this type cf. in more detail Padučeva 2014). As for kak raz, this discursive unit is more seldom used in such contexts, since the notion of chance coincidence is emphasized in its semantics.
- 5.
According to Levontina 2004, we are dealing with a special reading of imenno in this case, namely “imenno 1” ≈ ‘exactly’.
- 6.
The variant vot imenno occurs not only as a separate utterance, but – albeit more seldom – in the position of a focus particle within the utterance.
- 7.
Analysis shows that imenno as a separate utterance is very similar semantically to to-to i ono. The differences between them will be discussed in Sect. 3.
- 8.
- 9.
Mistranslation – them in the original.
- 10.
Mistranslation – she in the original.
- 11.
To facilitate understanding, the entry is translated into English
- 12.
A search in Google Books yielded 3 examples with to-to i est’-to and 3 examples with to-to i delo-to.
References
Axmanova, O. S., & Smirnickij, A. I. (1985). Russko-anglijskij slovar’ [Russian-English Dictionary]. Moskva: Russkij jazyk.
Baranov, A. N., Plungjan, V. A., & Raxilina, E. V. (1993). Putevoditel’ po diskursivnym slovam russkogo jazyka [Guide to Russian discursive words]. Moskva: Pomovskij i partnery.
Birgegård, U., & Sharapova Marklund, E. (Eds.). (2010). Norstedts ryska ordbok: rysk-svensk, svensk-rysk [Norstedt’s Russian dictionary: Russian-Swedish, Swedish-Russian]. Stockholm: Norstedts akademiska förlag.
BTS. (2002). Bol’šoj tolkovyj slovar’ russkogo jazyka [Comprehensive explanatory dictionary of Russian], (Ed.). Sergej А. Kuznecov. Sankt-Peterburg: Norint.
Davidsson, K. (Ed.). (1976). Russko-švedskij slovar’ [Russian-Swedish dictionary]. Moskva: Russkij jazyk.
Dobrovol’skij, D. O., & Levontina, I. B. (2012). О sinonimii fokusirujuščix častic (na materiale nemeckogo i russkogo jazykov) [Synonymous focus particles in German and Russian]. In Computational linguistics and intellectual technologies. Papers from the annual international conference “Dialogue 2012”. Issue 11 (18), (Vol. 1, pp. 138–149). Moskva: RGGU.
Dobrovol’skij, D. O., & Levontina, I. B. (2014). Timiologičeskij komponent v semantike diskursivnyx slov [The timiological component in the semantics of discursive words]. In A. D. Šmelev (Ed.), Trudy Instituta russkogo jazyka RAN II (pp. 334–343). Moskva: Institut russkogo jazyka.
Dobrovol’skij, D., & Šarandin, A. (2013). Die Fokuspartikel EBEN und ihre Quasisynonyme in deutsch-russischer lexikographischer Perspektive. In E. Breindl & A. Klosa (Eds.), Germanistische Linguistik, 221–222 (19–57). Hidesheim/Zürich/New York: Georg Olms Verlag.
Ermolovič, D. I. (2011). Anglo-russkij i russko-anglijskij slovar’ [English-Russian and Russian-English dictionary]. Moskva: AST, Astrel’, Хаrvest.
Fischer, K. (2000). From cognitive semantics to lexical pragmatics: The functional polysemy of discourse particles. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kiseleva, K. L., & Paillard, D. (Eds.). (1998). Diskursivnyje slova russkogo jazyka: opyt kontekstno-semantičeskogo opisanija [Russian discursive words: an attempt at a context-semantic description]. Moskva: Metatekst.
Kiseleva, K. L., & Paillard, D. (Eds.). (2003). Diskursivnyje slova russkogo jazyka: kontekstnoe var’irovanie i semantičeskoe edinstvo [Russian discursive words: contextual variation and semantic invariance]. Moskva: Azbukovnik.
Kobozeva, I. M. (2006). Opisanie označajuščego diskursivnyx slov v slovare: nerealizovannye vozmožnosti [Describing the signifier of discursive words in the dictionary: Unrealized possibilities]. In Vestnik MGU. Serija 9, 2. Filologija.
Kobozeva, I. M. (2007). Polisemija diskursivnyx slov i vozmožnosti ee razrešenija v kontekste predloženija (na primere slova vot) [Ambiguity of discourse markers – Can it be resolved in clausal context? (the case of vot).] In Computational linguistics and intellectual technologies. Papers from the annual international conference “Dialogue 2007”. Vypusk 6 (13), 250–255. Moskva: RGGU.
Kobozeva, I. M., & Zakharov, L. M. (2004). Types of information for the multimedia dictionary of Russian discourse markers. In Proceedings of the 9th international conference “Speech and computer”. St-Petersburg: St-Petersburg University.
Levontina, I. B. (2004). Imenno 2, kak raz 1. In J. D. Apresjan (Ed.), Novyj ob”jasnitel’nyj slovar’ sinonimov russkogo jazyka. Izd. 2 ispr. i dop. Moskva; Wien: Jazyki slavjanskoj kul’tury, Wiener Slawistischer Almanach.
Lubensky, S. (2013). Russian-English dictionary of idioms. New Haven: Yale University Press.
MAS – Malyj akademičeskij slovar’. (1985–1988). Slovar’ russkogo jazyka v иetyrex tomax [Dictionary of Russian in four volumes]. 3-е, stereotip. izd. Moskva: Russkij jazyk.
Molotkov, A. I. (Ed.). (1967). Fraseologičeskij slovar’ russkogo jazyka [Phraseological dictionary of Russian]. Moskva: Sovetskaja ėnciklopedija.
Padučeva, E. V. (2014). Nestandartnye otricanija v russkom jazyke: vnešnee, smeščennoe, global’noe, radikal’noe [Nonstandard negations in Russian: external, shifted, global, radical]. In Voprosy jazykoznanija, 5, 3–23.
Paillard, D. (1998a). Kak raz ili Mirom pravit slučaj [Kak raz, or The world is ruled by chance]. In Ksenija Kiseleva & Denis Paillard (Eds.), Diskursivnyje slova russkogo jazyka: opyt kontekstno-semantičeskogo opisanija (pp. 278–284). Moskva: Metatekst.
Paillard, D. (1998b). Imenno ili Kak nazyvat’ vešči svoimi imenami. [Imenno, or How to call things by their names.]. In K. Kiseleva & D. Paillard (Eds.), Diskursivnyje slova russkogo jazyka: opyt kontekstno-semantičeskogo opisanija (pp. 285–293). Moskva: Metatekst.
Paukkeri, P. (2006). Recipient v russkom razgovore: o raspredelenii funkcij meždu otvetami da, nu i tak [The recipient in Russian conversation: On the distribution of functions between the answers da, nu, and tak]. Helsinki: Helsinki University.
Romero-Trillo, J. (2009). Discourse markers. In J. Mey (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics (2nd ed., pp. 191–194). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Šaronov, I. A. (2009). Kommunikativy i metody ix opisanija [Communicative units and methods of their description]. In Computational linguistics and intellectual technologies. Papers from the annual international conference “Dialogue 2009”. Vypusk 8 (15), 543–548. Moskva: RGGU.
Sorjonen, M.-L. (2001). Responding in conversation. A study of response particles in Finnish. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Travis, C. E. (2005). Discourse markers in Colombian Spanish: A study in polysemy. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Wheeler, M., Unbegaun, B., & Falla, P. (Eds.). (1997). The Oxford Russian dictionary (Revised and updated Colin Howlett). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on work supported by the RFFI under Grant 13-06-00403. Thanks also go to Pierre-Yves Modicom (Université Paris-Sorbonne), who read a draft version of the present article, for an interesting discussion of theoretical issues raised by us, and to the anonymous reviewers for a number of valuable comments that we have attempted to take into account.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dobrovol’skij, D., Pöppel, L. (2015). Corpus Perspectives on Russian Discursive Units: Semantics, Pragmatics, and Contrastive Analysis. In: Romero-Trillo, J. (eds) Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 2015. Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17948-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17948-3_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-17947-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-17948-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)