Journal | Balcania et Slavia
Journal issue | 1 | 2 | 2021
Research Article | Theme Vowels e and i in Russian: Implementing the Cartographic Approach

Theme Vowels e and i in Russian: Implementing the Cartographic Approach

Abstract

The paper deals with the Russian theme vowels that can be regarded as derivational suffixes, in particular, with e- and i-vowels. The former derives emission verbs or inchoative verbs, whereas the latter derives causatives (both dynamic and stative), unergative behaviour-related verbs, and some others. I propose a uniform explanation of the fact that the same theme vowel can give rise to different structural types of verbs. I argue that, semantically, the best way to capture the differences between the two vowels is to implement the Ramchand’s model of predicate decomposition, where e-vowel encodes the process sub-event and i-vowel the initial sub-event.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: July 20, 2021 | Accepted: Dec. 14, 2021 | Published Feb. 15, 2022 | Language: en

Keywords Stative causativesUnaccusativityTheme vowelsUnergativityRussianDenominal verbsDeadjectival verbs


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