Semantics of Inception: A Corpus-Based Research of Inchoative Verbs in the History of the Russian Language

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem of semantic evolution of the language units. It focuses on the semantics and collocation of the inchoative verbs: nachatisja, pochatisja, zachatisja, nastati, nastupiti, vozniknuti, pojavitisja in the Middle Russian writing. The research is based on the historical modules of the Russian National Corpus, historical dictionaries and card indices of the Dictionary of the Russian Language of the 11 th – 17 th centuries. The primary parameter for comparing inchoative verbs is the taxonomic class of a noun used as the main participant in the situation. The author argues that, in earlier period, the main inchoative verbs were verbs with the root -chn- and the verb nastati; their collocation was much wider than in contemporary Russian (they could collocate with almost any class of a noun). The high-code verb vozniknuti co-occurred with nouns that categorize such types of objects that can "rise", i.e., appear moving from bottom to top. On the contrary, the verb nastupiti co-occurred with nouns denoting entities and phenomena, which cover a large space and move horizontally. The verb pojavitisja collocated with the nouns of various phenomena, which can be perceived by senses. The verbs nastupiti, pojavitisja, vozniknuti are noted to have expanded their collocation gradually, taking over some meanings of the verbs nachatisja and nastati, which tended to narrow their collocation. Other verbs with the root -chn- ceased to be used.