No 1 (2023)

In the first half of the 15th century, the word gospodar’ appears in the title of the Grand Princes of Muscovy. In the 16th–17th centuries, gospodar’ was replaced by gosudar’. How did these terms correlate? When exactly and how did this change take place? All researchers, without exception, believed that gosudar’ is the result of a transformation of the word gospodar’, but none of them could explain how it could happen. Meanwhile, these words, apparently, are not related at all: gosudar’ and gospodar’ have different origin, and one form cannot be received from the other. Gospodar’ is obviously connected with such words as Gospod’ ‘Lord’, gospodin ‘master’, etc.; but what is the origin of the word gosudar’? The article offers a solution to this question.

The article describes Russian constructions including the preposition po with respect to grammaticalization, lexicalization, and pragmaticalization as processes often conflicting in linguistic studies. A corpus of constructions with po was created based on specialized dictionaries; dictionary entries in question were critically checked in order to identify all the functions of a particular construction. Some of these constructions required more precise definition of their functions in language and speech. As a result, a typology of constructions including po based on dictionary labels (prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, predicatives, particles, parenthetical words) had to be expanded by adding the class of discourse formulae. The parenthetical constructions including po turned out to be very heterogenous, so they were categorized as follows: parenthetical constructions without any possible argument vs. parenthetical constructions with obligatory or optional argument. Besides that, literature on grammaticalization, lexicalization, pragmaticalization, and some other “-izations” was scrutinized; a consistent approach to them was selected and thus the collected constructions were correlated with the abovementioned linguistic processes. Analysis of the study corpus shows that formation of adverbs and predicatives corresponds to lexicalization; a relationship between notions of lexicalization, phraseologization, and idiomatization is illuminated. We demonstrate on the examples of specific linguistic units that prepositions and conjunctions follow some parameters of grammaticalization, taken broadly (E. Traugott et al.). ragmaticalization, viewed as a subclass of grammaticalization or as a separate process, can be revealed in evolution of particles and discourse formulae; parenthetical constructions are shown to be at the intersection of lexicalization and pragmaticalization. In conclusion, notions of constructionalization and multi-functionality are characterized; multi-functionality is stated to be a typical feature of the constructions analyzed.

The article surveys morphological and syntactic ramifi cations of finiteness and nonfiniteness of verbal forms in the polysynthetic Abaza language (Northwest Caucasian, Karachay-Cherkessia). In Abaza, a whole range of morphological phenomena exhibit more or less robust correlations with dependent resp. subordinate status of the clause. However, I show that none of these phenomena can be treated as an unequivocal indicator of (non)finiteness, paying particular attention to several types of verbal forms that combine morphological features of both finiteness and nonfiniteness. Hypotheses motivating these “paradoxical” constellations of properties are put forward.

We address a possible development of a semiotic theory based on the principle of asymmetric dualism proposed by S. Kartsevsky. We identify its differences from the Saussurean view of sign and demonstrate that, while Kartsevsky adopts the principle of differentiation, he supplements it with a dynamic understanding of intrasystem relations. This makes it possible to construct multidimensional semiotic models describing how new meanings are generated due to the sign’s asymmetric dualism. We consider the semantics of linguistic sign as a structure in the state of dynamic equilibrium. Thus, we clarify Kartsevsky’s concept of transposition, supplementing it with a concept of disposition (situation of the initial semiosis).