LOCATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN MODERN UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN LANGUAGES: FACTS OF CONTRASTIVE ASYMMETRY

Abstract

Closely related Ukrainian and Russian languages show similarities and differences that permeate different language levels. This problem, despite its long existence, is still relevant. Among the differences that relate to the compared languages, there are inconspicuous and contrasting. The object of the proposed study was the facts of contrastive asymmetry at the level of structures with a locative type of determination. Using the methods of synchronous descriptive, comparative-historical, comparative methods, as well as the method of complex analysis of semantic- syntactic structures, we stated the facts of contrastive asymmetry between Ukrainian and Russian syntactic structures with spatial meaning in four levels: 1) formal-grammatical, 2) semantic, 3) syntactic and 4) synonymous. The proposed division is somewhat conditional because semantics organically interacts with syntagmatics it is closely related to synonymy. The formal-grammatical contrastive asymmetry includes the same values of the construction V + PO + Nloc (Ukrainian language) and V + PO + Ndat (Russian language). Their functional possibilities, the lexical-semantic spectrum of verb, and adverbial placeholders are clarified. It is emphasized that the constructions V + PO + Nloc (Russian Ndat) enter into intra-singular synonymy in the Ukrainian language and inter-singular synonymy in the Russian language. It is proved that at the level of distributive possibilities contrastive asymmetry covers first of all the instrumental prepositional case as a representative of locativity. The differences also apply to the main carriers of valence (a specific feature of the Ukrainian language is that this function, along with verbs of purposeful, sometimes unfocused movement perform verbatives of specific semantics of physical and sound action), lexical and semantic composition of adverbial nouns (in Ukrainian, it is much wider), which is extrapolated to such semantic types as proper and common names of land routes, names of types of cover, areas covered with low vegetation, continents, states, geographical and administrative areas, devices and mechanisms that serve to transport something.
 It is established that the semantic asymmetry is manifested by the constructions V + Z-POZA + Ngen, V + Z-POPID + Ngen, V + Z-PONAD + Ngen, V + Z_POSERD + Ngen, V + Z_POMIZH + Ngen, V + POPID + Nасс, V + POPID + Ninst, V + POPERED + Ninst, V + POMIZH + Ninst, which actualize the shade of distributivity with the participation of the preposition component. Constructions with a specific semantic description are also recorded, which function in the Ukrainian language and are absent in the Russian language (V + POVZ + Nass, V + PERED + Nass, V + NAD + Nass, V + MIZH + Nass).