Verbal Prefixation Research Articles

Étude sémantique des verbes préfixés en français dans le discours médiatique sur la crise sanitaire

Despite the tendencies of contemporary French to limit lexical creations by derivation, verbal prefixation remains an active means of linguistic innovation, especially during periods of economic or social crises. To shed light on this phenomenon, but also draw its limits, this article proposes a study of verbal prefixation in media discourse on the pandemic crisis based on a corpus taken from the daily Liberation covering the period from 25 to 31 May 2020. Allow for the semantic opacity of verbal prefixes, this article analyzes the semantic properties of the prefixes identified in the corpus and leads to two complementary results. First, from the point of view of prefix productivity, the discourse on the health crisis differs little from other discourses concerning the types of prefixes used and their capacity to construct verbs. Secondly, as it concerns the lexical innovations observed in the corpus, these are above all already existed prefixed verbs to which a new meaning is attributed. Two cases arise: common prefixed verbs used in new contexts; common prefixed verbs with rare meanings in everyday language. Finally, the only neologism identified concerns the verb “déconfiner” which was very often used during the pandemic crisis.

Verbs with Prefix po- in Russian Dialects of Amur Region

The prefix verbal lexicon is analyzed on the basis of the dialect material of the Russian dialects of the Amur region. The relevance and novelty of the work are due to both the general unresolved problem of describing the meanings of Russian verbal prefixes, and insufficient knowledge of the specifics of verbal word formation in dialects. Verbal derivatives with the prefix po- are considered. The linguistic processes accompanying the formation of these derivatives are characterized. A classification of word-formation types and patterns is proposed based on the material presented in the Dictionary of Russian Dialects of the Amur Region, their distinctive features are noted in comparison with their literary counterparts. Attention is drawn to the phenomena of polyprefixation and substitution, in which the prefix po- is involved. It is concluded that the group of Russian dialects of the Amur region is characterized by agglutination with the prepositive prefix po-. Addressing the problems of verbal prefixation in dialects of secondary formation, localized on a vast territory of late settlement, can contribute to a wider involvement of dialect material to illustrate the controversial provisions of prefixology in modern Russian, as well as to identify the features of the verbal derivation of the Russian language in the aspect of its regional existence.

Verbes français préfixés en „sur-” et leurs équivalents lexicographiques polonais

The present paper belongs to the stream of the verbal prefixation contrastive studies. It aims at conducting a short investigation of French verbs prefixed by sur- and their Polish equivalents found in the “Great French-Polish Dictionary”. In the first part, selected theoretical approaches concerning the French prefix sur- are presented, with particular attention to the semantic-based theories by Danny Amiot and Kristel Van Goethem. The second part focuses on the results of the contrastive French-Polish analysis of 48 verbs distributed into 9 semantic categories: excess, intensity, repetition, posteriority, simultaneity, spatial superiority, hierarchical superiority, notional uses, and lexicalized uses. The goal is to show what linguistic means (grammatical and/or lexical) the Polish language utilizes to express different semantic values conveyed by the French prefix sur- in each of the listed categories. Consequently, the Polish equivalents are divided into several classes, of which the most relevant are: verbs prefixed by prze- and do-, prepositional constructions (with the prepositions na and nad), and periphrastic adverbial constructions.

On the Specifics of Verbal Prefixation in Modern Russian Dialects

The article focuses on the functioning of two-prefixed verbs, in which the second prefix element is the prefix za- (for-). The productivity of secondary verb prefixation in the dialects of the Arkhangelsk region is confirmed, word-forming models are identified, the effect of which leads to a complication of the ways of forming perfect verbs, to the appearance of synonymous pairs of perfect verbs (cover and cover), as well as to the formation of synonymous specific pairs of verbs (cover – cover and cover – cover). The factors contributing to the productivity of verbal prefixation are determined, and its connection with the communicative features of dialect speech is established.

I prefissi verbali dal latino classico all'italiano: problemi di classificazione su base etimologica Il prefisso ad-

Summary:I examine verbal prefixation analyzing the functional changes of the Latin ad- prefix from Classical Latin to Italian. In order to conduct the research properly I needed to separate the verbs in ety- mological groups directly derived from Latin (Classical, Vulgar or Late Latin) from the verbs created in the Romance period and the Latin loan verbs. The different origin of the verbs influences our expectation regarding the analyzability of a given verb (the recognisability of the prefix as an independent element and its semantic value - which can be different from that of its Latin origin). This division is not as clear cut as it seems to be, because, in the case of the Italian, phonetic evidence in favour of one group or another is often missing. I present the possible solutions I found for the grouping problems using semantic evidence, comparison with the other Romance languages, dating of the given verb, etc. Furthermore, I highlight the general and specific factors which determine the assignment of a certain verb to a certain group in order to obtain a precise but still flexible set of verbal categories.

Syntactic and aspectual functions of Latvian verbal prefixes in Livonian

This paper presents an analysis of an assumed contact-induced change in the Livonian modes of expressing perfective aspect: the adoption of Latvian-origin verbal prefixes expressing perfective aspect. The main objective of this article is to determine whether long-standing contact between Livonian and Latvian has led to the introduction of verbal prefixes as both pure lexical elements and, in parallel, as markers of grammatical functions that distinguish Livonian from its closest cognate languages. The current study is based on the data derived from unpublished recordings and published written material representing spoken Livonian, already extinct as a first language in the traditional speech area.
 There are a total of eleven Latvian-origin verbal prefixes in Livonian, a language which usually does not display this category. The prefixes are as follows: aiz-, ap-, at-, ie-, iz-, nuo-, pa-, pie-, pōr-, sa-, and uz-. In Latvian, most of these items can be used as bound verbal prefixes and also prepositions marking adverbial functions. In Livonian, these prefixes can be combined with both Livonian and Latvian verbs but, as a rule – except for pa- – they do not occur as prepositions. The frequency of their occurrence in the data varies considerably and, presumably, corresponds to the degree that a given prefix may derive perfective verbs. In fact, verbal prefixation can be considered, to some extent, a means for expressing perfective aspect in Livonian, thereby adding a secondary strategy to the inherent Finnic way of expressing aspectual oppositions, namely the object case alternation and verbal particles.

Russian Written Speech of Kazakh Students in the Reflection of Russian Learner Corpus: Verbal Prefixation

The article describes Russian Learner Corpus as a tool for the study of Russian of bilingual Kazakh students through the example of their written texts. The article is focused on the markers of inceptivity and verbal prefixation patterns in these texts. It examines the deviations from Standard Russian, caused by the influence of Kazakh, as well as by some other strategies of linguistic behavior of Kazakh-Russian bilinguals. The main mismatch between Russian and Kazakh is due to the fact that Kazakh (like other Turkic languages) lacks prefixal verbs, so that the semantic impact of the Russian prefixes is transferred to other means and is expressed with the help of different strategies – mainly, by periphrastic biverbal constructions. On another level, corpus data analysis can specify the semantic differences between similar aspectual units in Russian viewed through linguistic patterns used by Kazakh bilingual speakers.

“Rapiéçages faits avec sa propre étoffe”: Discontinuity and convergence in Romance prefixation

This article provides a comprehensive overview of prefixation in Romance languages putting in relation the differences between standard and non-standard varieties in the current synchronic stage and, from a diachronic perspective, the different productivity of verbal prefixation and nominal and adjectival prefixation over the history of Romance languages. The article also deals with the relations between system-internal factors, such as the delimitation and interaction between native and foreign word-formation, as well as the competition between verbal prefixation and other linguistic resources through which spatial information can be expressed. The focus will also be placed on system-external factors, including the diffusion in common language of learned terms which have contributed to revitalizing nominal and adjectival prefixation, although not verbal prefixation. Such an approach makes it possible to account for the higher productivity in current standard Romance languages of nominal and adjectival prefixation compared with verbal prefixation. Furthermore, it provides an explanation for the differences between standard and non-standard Romance languages with regard to the productivity of nominal and adjectival prefixation. The replacement of spatial verbal prefixes with verbs expressing path in the root is interpreted as the result of a more general restructuring of space encoding.

Evidence for the Relevance of Secondary Stress in German: Prosodic Restrictions in Verbal Prefixation with ver-

Studies in Polish Linguistics » Special Volume » 1 (2019) » Evidence for the Relevance of Secondary Stress in German: Prosodic Restrictions in Verbal Prefixation with ver- A A A

Semantico-Functional Features of Expressive Derivatives in the Artistic Discourse of V. Makanin

The paper is devoted to the study of semantic and functional features of expressive derivatives, both usual and occasional, in the artistic gist of the novel “Asan” by V. Makanin, as well as their role in structuring the individual-author’s linguistic picture of the world. It has been proven that the derivation of expressive lexemes is the result of improvisation according to established patterns, and that the formation of occasional substantives, adjectives and verbs involved the main methods of the Russian word derivation. It is noted that in the artistic discourse of V. Makanin, in the substantive word-formation, suffixation plays a leading role, which takes place in the sphere of abstractness and includes such lexical-semantic groups as expressive substantives with the meaning of a person, expressive substantives with the meaning of abstracted action or an abstract feature with connotation, as a rule, negative and/or reduced colloquial connotation. While in the sphere of adjectival and verbal word formation, confixation and prefixation, as the formation of expressiveness, is most productive. The paper considers the phenomenon of semantic word formation, describes the formation of semantic derivatives, including in the field of occasional vocabulary. Expressive derivatives in the artistic discourse of V. Makanin are a bright sign of his individual style, an important means of expressing the world view and outlook of the writer.

Verbal prefixation and realizations of antipassive alternations in Polish

Various works on transitivity suggest that aspectual notions may constitute semantic determinants of argument realization. Observations included in these works prompted theories implying that argument realization may be aspectually driven. Following this line of thought, this article presents the results of corpus-based studies on antipassive structure in the Polish language and makes an attempt at confirming the fact that aspectual notion may determine argument realization.
 The article consists of three main sections. The first one focuses on notions of aspect and various aspectual propositions distinguished in the literature on the subject, regarding the Polish language in particular. The second section, illustrated with examples extracted from the National Corpus of Polish (NKJP) and the corpus of Wielki Słownik Języka Polskiego (KWSJP), gives an overview of Polish perfectivizing verbal prefixes, i.e. a roz‑, na-, o-/ob- and u-prefix, and deals with the effect they may have on sentence structure and semantics. It also shows how the prefixed verbs combine with the marker się, which flags antipassive, i.e. is a recurring marker attested in antipassive constructions in the Polish language. In section three, an attempt is made at analyzing the interrelations between aspect and antipassive reading of a structure. As it seems that a perfective prefix used with a verb imposes certain requirements on the argument structure of the verb it combines with, we also offer a possible explanation to different aspectual requirements of verbs occurring in antipassive structures, assuming that projections coded in a verb may play a role here.

In Which Order should Verbal Prefixation in Croatian as L2 be Taught?

Teaching verbal prefixation in the context of Croatian as a second language (CL2) has been receiving an increasing amount of attention recently, and one of the questions which has come up has to do with the order in which verbal prefixation should be taught for the teaching to be more effective. To answer this question, this research, conducted among CL2 learners at the B2 and C1 levels of language proficiency, tests the hypothesis that an understanding of the meaning of a verbal prefix is strongly supported by understanding the meaning of its cognate preposition and directly related to whether a verbal prefix co-occurs with its cognate preposition when a prefixed verb is used in a sentence. Based on the research results conclusions were drawn on the order in which the teaching of verbal prefixation in the CL2 classroom should progress.

Verbal prefixation, construction grammar, and semantic compatibility: Evidence from the locative alternation in Polish

AbstractThis paper aims to analyze the interaction between prefixes, verbs, and abstract argument structure constructions, using as a testing ground the locative alternation. It has been assumed that in order to participate in the locative alternation, a verb must specify a manner of motion from which a change of state can be obtained (see, for instance, Steven Pinker’s

Degrees of affectedness and verbal prefixation in Abui (Papuan)

This paper deals with the encoding of affectedness in Abui, a Papuan language of Indonesia. Abui is a head-marking language of the rare type where the verbs are marked for their undergoer arguments (So, O) formally split into several subtypes. This marking has been previously analyzed as a type of semantic alignment sensitive among others to affectedness. Affectedness is understood here as a scalar property delimiting the predicate (following Tenny 1987 and Beavers 2011). The paper explores the structure of the affectedness scale for Abui, comparing the functions and meaning of three types of person prefix paradigms. We show that verbs with similar meaning, encoding the same type of change (in Beavers’ terms) can differ in their entailments. We also show that there may be additional dimensions in which affectedness can be measured, such as affected agents, and that the interpretation of the degree on the affectedness scale interacts with instigator’s (source of force) status on the referential hierarchy. While human agents in some cases allow lower degrees of affectedness, the inanimate forces select the maximal degree reading. We conclude, that despite a considerable amount of fluidity of marking (Fedden et al. 2013, 2014), the shifts in degree of affectedness can be predicted as lowering of the degree stipulated for the predicate.

Preverbs in Russian: situation or viewpoint aspect?

The present paper has two goals: to present the complex data of verbal prefixation of Russian, and to assess the validity of the Situation Aspect-Viewpoint Aspect (Smith 1991) distinction for preverbs, in particular the thesis that all preverbs are telicity-markers (Borer 2005). First, arguments are introduced to show that all prefixed verbs are automatically perfective (pf), all are subject to lexical restrictions. A preliminary conclusion is that all preverbs are telicity markers, contra Filip (2005, 2008) for whom the preverb is pre-functional (lexical). This raises the question of the exact nature of telicity. In the literature (Dowty 1979, Krifka 1998), telicity is tested by means of in x time frame adverbials. A more relaxed version of telicity is proposed, following Borer (2005) & Lakorczyk (2010): it suffices for an event to be either non divisive or non homogeneous to be telic. The concept is akin to Paducheva & Pentus’ (2008) terminativity: the function of the preverb is to seal off the event. This accounts for the behavior of po-delimitative verbs. The data show that some assumptions are not correct: po-delim verbs are currently extending their functional scope in Russian and often act as pf partners to impf verbs, they do not necessarily indicate short duration, and are subject to lexical restrictions (Dickey 2006). Finally, the role of the preverb with respect to viewpoint aspect is assessed. The conclusion is that it is Situation Aspect that is grammaticized in Russian by means of the preverbs, and not viewpoint aspect, which is derived by means of correlations.

Verbal Prefixation and Metaphor: How Does Metaphor Interact with Constructions?

This article argues that metaphorical and non-metaphorical content find different expression on the constructional level. The hypothesis is supported by two empirical case studies of the Russian Locative Alternation verbs, based on the data from the Russian National Corpus: the unprefixed verb sypat’ ‘strew’ (which does not have an aspectual partner) and the unprefixed verb gruzit’ ‘load’ and its three perfective partners with the prefixes na-, za- , and po- . It is argued that metaphorical extensions of these Locative Alternation verbs have a strong relationship with elaborations (interactions between different constructions), on the one hand, and reduction (Locative Alternation constructions with a reduced or omitted participant), on the other. The results indicate differences in metaphorical behavior of different prefixes (even when they are used to form perfective partner verbs) and different constructions (some constructions are more often instantiated as metaphorical extensions than the other).

Verbal prefixation in German child and adult language

Previous research has demonstrated that children pick up even small differences in the lexicalization patterns of closely related languages quickly and successfully. This study examines verbal prefixation in German child and adult language, using a particularly detailed case study. The data show that the child starts to produce prefixed verbs and prepositional phrases within a few months. More crucially, the child's speech gets attuned to the precise frequency distribution of these constructions in the input. These findings support theories of linguistic relativity whichemphasize the importance of the conventionality in language use for language processing and acquisition. A look at the input language reveals that the adults use hundreds of lexical items per hour which provide information about the use of verbal prefixation. Also, input frequencies did not change over time. This suggests that the structural properties of a given language are very stable, and help the child to become a proficient speaker.

Prefixation of Borrowed Verbs in Serbocroatian

Serbocroatian verbal borrowings have had a long history. Throughout this history the suffixes -ova, -isa and more recently -ira have dominated in the adaption of loan verbs to the Serbocroatian verbal system. Recently, prefixes have begun to play an important role in the adaption of loan verbs to the aspectual system of Serbocroatian.1 This study is intended to shed some light on the use of prefixes with borrowed verbs. The data on which it is based reflect usage in speech and journalism, not the literary (standard) language.2 We will proceed on the assumption that there are two well-established aspectual categories: perfective and imperfective.3 With few exceptions, native Serbocroatian verbs belong to only one of the two categories.4 However, verbs of foreign origin are, for the most part, biaspectual. One cannot determine the aspect of such verbs by inspection of the verb-form: the native speaker determines aspect on the basis of the context in which the verb is used. For example: 1. Dok su organizovale (imperfective) pripremu za do'ek gostiju bile su u ku6nim haljinama. 'While they were preparing the party, they wore housedresses.' 2. Kad su se organizovale (perfective) presvukle su se u ve'ernje toalete. 'When they finished the work, they changed into evening dresses.' Before discussing specific prefixes, let us briefly review verbal prefixation in general. When a prefix is added to any native verb, whether imperfective, perfective, or biaspectual, it becomes perfective. There is the potential for prefixed imperfective through back-formation, for example: prepakovati (perfective) 'to repack' from which prepakivati (imperfective) is formed.