Expressive vocabulary in Russian: Corpus and experimental studies

Russian has expressive words used for depicting specific sounds or movements, which are associated with verbs but lacking tense and agreement markers. They are divided into two types: those derived from sound imitation (‘onomatopoeic interjections’) and those derived from prosaic verbs (‘verbal interjections’). This thesis examines whether these two types show similar properties in terms of their usage and iconic interpretation. The corpus survey has revealed that the expressive words have both non-predicative and predicative use, regardless of their origin. In non-predicative use, the items can be placed at either the right or the left end of an utterance. Expressive words appearing on the left periphery depict an unexpected or instantaneous event, followed by descriptions of its result. In predicative use, they rarely cooccur with second person subjects, which is shared by narrative use of the imperative. In addition to their usage, iconicity ratings of onomatopoeic and verbal...Show moreRussian has expressive words used for depicting specific sounds or movements, which are associated with verbs but lacking tense and agreement markers. They are divided into two types: those derived from sound imitation (‘onomatopoeic interjections’) and those derived from prosaic verbs (‘verbal interjections’). This thesis examines whether these two types show similar properties in terms of their usage and iconic interpretation. The corpus survey has revealed that the expressive words have both non-predicative and predicative use, regardless of their origin. In non-predicative use, the items can be placed at either the right or the left end of an utterance. Expressive words appearing on the left periphery depict an unexpected or instantaneous event, followed by descriptions of its result. In predicative use, they rarely cooccur with second person subjects, which is shared by narrative use of the imperative. In addition to their usage, iconicity ratings of onomatopoeic and verbal interjections have yielded almost equal results for both categories. The iconicity of onomatopoeic interjections has its basis on the association of a specific word with a specific sound or movement, thus familiarity with individual items plays a key role. On the other hand, the iconicity of verbal interjections is an emergent property of the structural relations between base verbs and expressive forms. Therefore, this thesis concludes that onomatopoeic and verbal interjections are used and perceived as iconic in a similar fashion, but they are motivated by different sources.Show less

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Expressive vocabulary in Russian: Corpus and experimental studies