Towards a Semantic Analysis of Russian Discourse Markers: pozhaluj, nikak, vsjo-taki

• Main Authors: Anna A Zalizniak, Elena V Paducheva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2018-12-01
• Series: Russian journal of linguistics: Vestnik RUDN
• Subjects: discourse words; Russian language; egocentric entities; evaluation; supposition; narrative projection; hypotactic projection
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/linguistics/article/viewFile/19350/16164

Investigation of discourse markers has been an actively developing trend of linguistic research in the recent decades. The paper presents an analysis of three Russian discourse markers ( pozhaluj , nikak and vsjo-taki , all untranslatable into English). It applies an approach which integrates the experience of explicating meaning of a lexical unit of different frameworks of semantic analysis. The research is based on the National Corpus of Russian (http://ruscorpora.ru/). It demonstrates that the discourse marker pozhaluj introduces the opinion formed by the speaker as the result of a personal choice between two or several alternatives: the opinion is accompanied by doubts that do not lose relevance even after the decision is made. In the speech register the speaker is the subject of evaluation; in the narrative pozhaluj , as well as vsjo-taki , may undergo hypotactic or narrative projection. The discourse marker nikak expresses an assumption made on the basis of a directly perceivable situation accompanied by astonishment; it is used mainly in interrogative sentences, in particular in those that do not necessarily require an answer; it can also be used in affirmative sentences. Nikak is primarily egocentrical: it can only have the speaker as its assumed subject and it allows neither hypotactic nor narrative projection. The semantics of vsjo-taki includes five components: opinion W; opinion not-W; an argument in favor of the opinion W; an argument in favor of the opinion not-W; the fact confirming opinion W. In an affirmative sentence three classes of uses are distinguished depending on which of the components is prominent: opinion W, the fact substantiating opinion W or the argument in favor of W. In interrogative and imperative sentences vsjo-taki acts upon the illocutionary constituent of the utterance. Such discourse markers as skoree vsego , navernoe , neuzheli , nebos’ , chto , chto li , taki are taken into consideration because under certain conditions they are quasi-synonymous to pozhaluj , nikak and vsjo-taki . Our study offers the prospect of an integral research of discourse words that allows the researcher to combine methods of classical semantic analysis, contextual-semantic method, conceptual analysis and narratology. The obtained results contribute to further development of the semantic theory; they can be used in lexicography and in practice of teaching the Russian language.