Russian constructional idioms of the pattern: independent infinitive + noun in Dative

Larissa Naiditch; Anna Pavlova

doi:10.54103/milanoup.233

Russian constructional idioms of the pattern: independent infinitive + noun in Dative

Authors

Larissa Naiditch

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9807-9893 (unauthenticated)

Anna Pavlova

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4843-5778 (unauthenticated)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.54103/milanoup.233.c764

Synopsis

In this article, we examine some Russian phraseme constructions whose main elements consist of a syntactically independent infinitive and a noun (or personal pronoun) in the dative case. Due to the abundance of idiomatic constructions of this type in Russian, we have focused on just four, grouping them into two pairs of similar-looking constructions and analyzing each pair in detail. We approach the selected phenomena from the perspective of construction grammar, specifically as phraseological-syntactic units. We focus on their semantics, pragmatics, and morphology. Semantics and pragmatics are considered as an integrated complex. Among morphological features, we are particularly interested in the categories of animacy/inanimacy, grammatical tense, and verb aspect. Additionally, we try to find out whether the dative noun is an obligatory or an optional part of the construction. Our goal is to describe the general essential features of these phrasemes and highlight the differences between similar-looking constructions. In doing so, we rely on typical linguistic research methods, especially on the methods of Construction Grammar.

Author Biographies

Larissa Naiditch, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

is a Professor emerita at the Faculty of Humanities at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and holds a Ph.D. in Germanic languages from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). She worked as a lecturer and an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests are: 1) phonology, grammar and dialectology of Germanic languages, 2) theory of translation, 3) languages in contact, 3) grammar and phraseology of Russian. Her publications include: 1.“Und Faustens Silhouette in der Ferne”. Beiträge zu Poetik und Linguistik: Deutsch-Russisch. Peter Lang. 2012. 2 Trubochist ili Lord? Teorija i praktika nemecko-russkogo i russko-nemeckogo perevoda. Zlatoust. SPb. 2015. With Anna Pavlova. 3. Prädikatives Attribut. Eine Vergleichsstudie für Russisch und Deutsch. Frank & Timme. With Anna Pavlova. 4. Das Mennonitenplatt (Plautdietsch) nach den Fragebögen aus dem Archiv Schirmunski. Probleme des Vokalismus. ZDL 2024. 91, 3, p. 347–366.

Anna Pavlova, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

is a Research Fellow at the Slavic Department, Faculty “Language. Translation. Culture” at the University of Mainz (Germany). Her research interests include grammar, translation, phonetics, intonology. Her current work focuses on phraseme constructions and their semantics, pragmatics, grammar, and prosody, with an emphasis on contrastive Russian–German analysis. She is developing a comprehensive, didactically-oriented online repository of phraseme constructions.
Selected publications: Ot lingvistiki k mifu (ed., 2013); Trubočist ili lord? (2015, with L. Naidič); Perevodčeskij bilingvizm (2016, with I. Ovčinnikova); Deutsch-russisches und russisch-deutsches Wörterbuch der Paronyme (2022), Textbook of Russian Phraseology (2022), Thesaurus für die Förderung der Textproduktion für Deutsch- und Russischlernende (2022).