Особенности ассистивных каузативных конструкций в современном бурятском языке

Abstract

Introduction. The paper raises the issues of semantics and functioning of the assistive in the Buryat language. The assistive as a special meaning of causative constructions finds its expression in different languages of the world. Goals. The paper aims to consider some distinctive properties inherent to the functioning of assistivity as a particular meaning of causativity in the Buryat language. The novelty of the work is that this problem has not been studied in the Buryat language. Materials and Methods. The study analyzes speech patterns and fiction texts included in the Electronic Corpus of the Buryat Language. The methods of contextual and distributive analysis are used. Results. The assistive in the Buryat language is identified in accordance with the continuum scale of semantic types of causation which implies three meanings of sociative causation: ‘joint action’, ‘assistive’, and ‘supervision’. The paper notes that the assistive in the Buryat language changes not only the actant structure but also the event-role structure of the causative construction. Our research has shown that a special feature of the role structure of the assistive is that the assistant takes the place of the causer, and the causer here gets the role of a supplement. The work also considers features of constructions with assistive semantics. It is revealed that assistivity in the investigated language is implemented both in mono- and poly-predictive sentence structures. Predicates in mono-predicative constructions are verbs with the affix -lsa, which seems poly-functional in the Buryat language and can express the meaning of sociative causation. The research has shown that polyp-predicative constructions are expressed mainly through the matrix predicate tuhalha and the predicate actant in the form of a future participle with indicators of the dative or accusative case.