Productivity of the verbal inflectional classes

More documents

Recommendations

Info

156 Natalia GagarinaIn case of loan verbs the problem of incompatibility seems to be more salient. Each loan verb(or stem) has to receive a thematic suffix. The examples below are taken from computereseand technology internet chat-pages (an excellent source of neologisms), dictionaries of thenew words and meanings (Levašov, 1984; Kotelova, 1989), and the author’s data collection 5 ,as well as from the other sources.(6) English to over-lock > overloč-it' (the indigenous alternation k//č) MC 3(7) English to use > jus-at‘ 6 MC 1 and perfective zajuza-t‘(8) English to format > two competitive forms format-it‘ MC 3 and format-irovat‘ MC 2 7and the creation of the perfective counter-pair format-nut’ with the additional meaningof expression.The incompatible properties which we observe in the groups of loan nouns and verbs may bedivided into the following groups:i) pure phonological, English foul [aω] > fol [o]ii) morphological (and almost always also phonological) with sub-types: (a) a one-to-onemapping when a given type of a loan word affix receives (or is substituted with) the givencorresponding indigenous affix, e.g. English nouns in –tion receive in Russian final –cija,German verbs in –ieren receive –irovat’ (the unfitting property –ieren of this group of theverbs has got the stable counterpart in Russian and, thus, cannot be considered ‘fullyincompatible’ any more. These loan verbs already fit into the receiving second MC, this wellestablishedpattern is used regularly for several centuries):(9) English falsification > fal’sifikacija, devaluation > deval’vacija(10) German kompostieren > kompostirovat’, klassifizieren > klassificirovat’, stimulieren >stimulirovat’(b) no one-to-one mapping, when the host system has to adopt the loan word on the basis ofits phonological shape or by an indigenous word formation pattern: 8(11) English champion > (čempion) > čempion-it’, upgrade > apgrejd-it’, bobsleigh >(bobslej) > bobsleistcf. loan verb with preposition (12) 9 and perfectivization of the English verb to help (13):(12) English to hang up > s-hengap-i-t’-s’a (the complicated model of word formation: s-pure aspectual perfective suffix + -i- thematic vowel of the MC 3 + -s’a reflexivepostfix),5 Examples (6), (7) and (14) were suggested by Elena Andreeva in personal communication with the author.6 Note the choice of the rare –a-pattern. The verb jusit’ ‘to slide’, ‘to whirl on a slippery surface’ (about thewheels) exists already in Russian.7 The presence of variants may serve as an evidence for the crippling and loosing of codified norms.8 As it is more often the case with verbs.9 This (as well as the example (21)) is the highest level of the incompatibility which has to be overcome.
Productivity of the verbal inflectional classes 157(13) English to help > za-help-it’ (za- pure aspectual perfective suffix + -i- thematic vowel ofthe MC 3)cf. derivation of a verb from the loan noun:(14) English haker > hač-it’ (typical indigenous alternation k//č) and its perfectivecounterpart hak-nut’or from the former loan noun already ‘well-established’ and turned to be indigenous in thelanguage:(15) German Kurort > kurort kurort-ničat’ with two meanings ‘to have a rest at a healthresort’ and ‘to behave like at a health resort’, MC 1.These kinds of incompatibilities seem to be the most difficult to overcome, because severalunfitting properties have to be accommodated. Examples like (12) and (13) show the highestdegree of productivity because the loan verb undergoes indigenous process of perfectivization(together with the accommodation to the system) and, in the case of (12), accommodates theverb with the one element.For a richly-inflected language like Russian it is, probably, more difficult toaccommodate loan words with unfitting properties than for a poor inflected language likeEnglish, where the same phonological word may belong to the class of nouns and verbs. As aresult, a loan word needs less indigenous formation rules to be accommodated to a certainclass and mainly the unfitting phonological shape of a loan word has to be overcome:(16) Russian glasnost’ > English glasnost (Green’s dictionary 1992: 109), [t’] is substitutedwith [t],(17) Yiddish naschen > English nosh (American Heritage Dictionary 1982: 849), the final–en is cut off (a o) and the word is used as a verb and a noun,(18) indigenous English abbreviation nuke ‘nuclear weapon’ (Green 1992: 186): a verb and anoun.4 InferenceVerbs in Russian have a defined stem structure which determines the assignment of averb to a certain productive class or unproductive group. The absolute majority of loan verbsdo not have such structure and, thus, lack relevant compatible properties (although,theoretically, one should admit such a possibility). Some loan verbs (and, generally, nouns),however, develop a certain counterpart – an indigenous affix assigning them to a specificproductive MC. Actually, no productive verbal MC assigns loan verbs according to criteria b)except for the MC 2 which has developed the stable correlate –irova- to the group of Germanverbs in –ieren. As to loan nouns, they can have both fitting and unfitting properties and, thus,will be borrowed according to criteria a) and b).
Page 1 and 2: Published: (2002) in: Future Challe
Page 6 and 7: 158 Natalia Gagarina5 The three low
Page 9 and 10: Productivity of the verbal inflecti
Page 11: Productivity of the verbal inflecti

Productivity of the verbal inflectional classes

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?