Leksikaliseringsmønstre ved verber. Et komparativt-typologisk studie

This paper combines two thematic areas which have been in the focus of linguists’ interest for some years, viz. studies in lexicalization patterns of verbs and grammaticalization studies. Instead of comparing lexicalization patterns of different lan guages I have chosen to compare various stages of the same language, namely Old Russian and Modern Russian. This enables me to analyze the interrelationship between lexicalization patterns and grammatical categories. The paper argues that it is important to distinguish between naming principle and lexicalization pattern. A language may describe an image or an idea and therefore has to make a semiotic choice between these two different naming principles. Having chosen a specific naming principle a language has to determine which parts of the image or which parts of the idea it wants to focus on or specify. My analysis shows that the Old Russian verb describes the idea, i.e. the ground-propositional structure, whereas the Modern Russian verb describes the image, i.e. the ground-situational structure. Moreover, it appears that Old Russian focuses on the state description without paying attention to the activity description, while Modern Russian takes into account both the state situation and the activity situation, but with the main focus on the former – the latter is only treated in prototypical terms. The shift in naming strategy and lexicalization pattern from Old Russian to Modern Russian can only be explained by the introduction of the new category of aspect, a determinant category in Modern Russian

Linguistics as Semiotics. Saussure and Bühler Revisited.

The article identifies some fundamental problems with Sausure’s sign conception and with Bühler’s Organon Model, and presents two new sign and communication models, one for the speaker, the Grammatical Triangle, and another for the hearer, the Semiotic Wheel. It is argued that the arbitrariness of language makes its arsenal of words omnipotent and capable of referring to anything. Exactly because of its arbitrariness language must have a code that can give a semiotic direction to the otherwise completely static sign. The speaker’s model consists of an obligatory choice between three types of code corresponding to the three ways in which states of affairs exist: situations in a real or in an imagined world, the speaker’s experience or non-experience of them or the hearer’s experience or non-experience of them. The hearer uses his model as an information seeker in order to compensate for those pieces of content that were left out by the speaker’s choice of semiotic orientation

Towards a Multifunctional Grammar. 'Language, Reality and Mind' in a Grammatical Description

Previous grammars of the Russian language are written on the same methodological background and with the same purpose and may therefore be characterized in their entirety. It appears that they (1) are oriented towards the interpretive function, i.e. the hearer, (2) describe the different parts of the grammar in isolation without internal connection, (3) lack a contrastive element and finally (4) incorporate only written sources. In that respect previous grammars fail and cannot live up to what could be called modern standards. Against this background a new type of grammar is proposed -a grammar which (1) takes the speaker into consideration, (2) differentiates three types of “wrongness”, (3) views the Russian language as a specific member of a linguistic supertype which is opposed to two other supertypes, and (4) takes its starting point in speech production, i.e. in oral discourse. After a theoretical discussion several pieces of evidence will be presented in favour of such type of grammar

Language, culture and society: Modality, face and societal logic

It is common to distinguish between individualistic cultures typically associated with Western countries and collectivistic cultures normally linked to Asian countries. Some countries are not easily characterized, because they are placed right in the middle of the continuum. This concerns, for instance, Russia. In this paper, I will attempt to demonstrate on the basis of the theory of communicative supertypes that the notion of individualism is intimately connected to the notion of alethic modality – concerned with laws of nature, i.e. what is possible, impossible, necessary and unnecessary – whereas the notion of collectivism is tied up with the notion of deontic modality having to do with laws of society, i.e. permission, prohibition, obligation and non-obligation. Specifically, the British-English speaking speech community is based on the alethic notion of possibility and guided by the hearer's face, i.e. second person, in contrast to the Mandarin-Chinese-speaking community which is based on the deontic notion of obligation and guided by the speaker’s face, i.e. first person. Compared to this, the Russian-speaking community stands out as a third unnoticed variant that seems to differentiate nature and society by making a sharp distinction within their aspectually defined modality system, between alethic and deontic logic expressed by the perfective and the imperfective aspect, respectively. That Russian culture must be a third variant is confirmed by their understanding of face as being defined in relation to the situation itself, i.e. third person

Introduktion til Det Pragmatiske Hjul – En ny tilgang til Direktiver

It will be argued that, despite their obvious anchoring in verbal communication based on linguistic signs (symbols), Directives, i.e. Requests and Offers, have more in common with gestures which primarily involve indexes and icons. It will be demonstrated that this type of speech act should be interpreted as consisting of three indexical sign types: (1) a symptom that points at the speaker and goes back in time; (2) a signal that points at the hearer and goes forward in time; and (3) a model that points at a situation and is timeless, because it can be used at any time. On this basis, a speech act process model for communicationbased problem solving is created specifically for declarative Directives

Etleddede sætninger i russisk

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Lingvistik - nu som semiotik

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Det kinesiske sprog i en supertype-beskrivelse

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Sprog og krop. En kognitiv-semiotisk analyse

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