-
2. Small Prefixes: Radial Category Profiling
- Slavica Publishers
- Chapter
- Additional Information
CHAPTER 2 Small Prefixes: Radial Category Profiling We open this chapter by stating the corollaries of the Empty Prefix and Overlap Hypotheses that we will test. We then discuss our model of meaning and describe our methodology in detail before turning to our analysis. This chapter focuses on the eleven “small” prefixes that form the fewest numbers of Natural Perfectives, as identified in section 1.4 using data from the Exploring Emptiness database: v-‐‑, pod-‐‑, pere-‐‑, pri-‐‑, ot-‐‑, v(o)z-‐‑, u-‐‑, iz-‐‑, raz-‐‑, vy-‐‑, o(b)-‐‑. 2.1. Corollaries to Be Tested Corollary 1 of the Empty Prefix Hypothesis: Because prefixes have no meaning in Natural Perfectives, we expect to find no pattern matching the meanings of a prefix in other perfectives with the meanings of the simplex verbs that form Natural Per-‐‑ fectives with the same prefix. Corollary 1 of the Overlap Hypothesis: Because prefixes retain their meaning in Natural Perfectives, we do expect to find a pattern matching the meanings of a prefix in other perfectives with the meanings of the simplex verbs that form Natural Per-‐‑ fectives with the same prefix. More simply, we could say that the Empty Prefix Hypothesis pre-‐‑ dicts that we should find no systematic relationship between the meanings of prefixes and the meanings of simplex verbs in Natural Perfectives, whereas the Overlap Hypothesis makes the opposite pre-‐‑ diction, namely that systematic relationships between prefixal and verbal meanings should be evident. The two hypotheses are tested via a two-‐‑step process in which the meanings of a prefix are first established on the basis of usage where everybody agrees that there is meaning present, namely the Special-‐‑ 20 SMALL PREFIXES: RADIAL CATEGORY PROFILING ized and Complex Act Perfectives, and second the meanings of the simplex verbs that form Natural Perfectives with that prefix are sub-‐‑ jected to a similar analysis. The results of the two analyses are then compared to check for overlap. Before going into the details of this methodology we must first, however, present the model of meaning that we use in the analysis. 2.2. The Structure of Meaning: Radial Categories All scientific models reveal some properties and obscure others, and different scientific models are better at revealing different properties (Lakoff 1987, Langacker 2006). For example, electromagnetic radiation can be understood as both particles and waves. If we were to model it just as particles, it would be hard to see the wave-‐‑like properties, and conversely a model that focused only on waves would suppress per-‐‑ ception of particle-‐‑like behavior. Fortunately modern theories of physics are able to combine both types of insights in a single model. Scholars of linguistics have modeled meaning in a variety of ways, and the model that we choose matters because we need a model that can accommodate the phenomena we are investigating and give us useful insights. More specifically, we need a way to determine whether there is overlap in meaning. If there is overlap in meaning, we need a way to determine when the overlap is partial and when it is complete (cf. 1.3). In the case of partial overlap, we need to know whether the overlap is patterned randomly or shows a systematic re-‐‑ lationship. We know that many, if not most, linguistic forms are associated with not just one meaning, but several, and this is referred to as poly-‐‑ semy (Greek for “many meanings”). Polysemy is particularly charac-‐‑ teristic of Russian prefixes, as we can illustrate with the sample of Spe-‐‑ cialized Perfectives of raz-‐‑ in Table 1. [3.144.202.167] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 23:38 GMT) 2.2. THE STRUCTURE OF MEANING: RADIAL CATEGORIES 21 Table 1. Some Specialized Perfectives and the Meanings Contributed by raz-‐‑1 Simplex Verb Gloss of Simplex Verb raz-‐‑Prefixed Verb Gloss of raz-‐‑ Prefixed Verb Meaning of raz-‐‑ пилить/ pilit’ ‘saw’ распилить/ raz-‐‑pilit’ ‘saw apart’ APART топтать/ toptat’ ‘stamp one’s feet’ растоптать/ raz-‐‑toptat’ ‘trample, crush by stamping’ CRUSH катать/ katat’ ‘roll’ раскатать/ raz-‐‑katat’ ‘roll out (dough)’ SPREAD дуть/ dut’ ‘blow’ раздуть/ raz-‐‑dut’ ‘inflate’ SWELL грузить/ gruzit’ ‘load’ разгрузить/ raz-‐‑gruzit’ ‘unload’ UN-‐‑ While we see five different meanings for the prefix raz-‐‑ in these exam-‐‑ ples, we also get the sense that there may be some relationships among the meanings. SPREAD and SWELL, at least, seem rather close in mean-‐‑ ing, and can perhaps be related to APART and maybe to the other meanings as well. Polysemy thus presents us with both a diversity of meanings and a possibility that they might...
Buy This Book in Print