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15Сравнительный анализ грамматических лакунарных единиц германских языков
Никифорова Жанна Александровна,
кандидат филологических наук, доцент, Высшая школа сервиса и торговли, Институт промышленного менеджмента, экономики и торговли, Санкт-Петербургский политехнический университет Петра Великого E-mail: nikiforovash@gmail.com
Романова Лилия Геннадьевна,
кандидат филологических наук, доцент, Оренбургский государственный педагогический университет E-mail: romanovalg@mail.ru
Шевчук Екатерина Владимировна,
кандидат филологических наук, старший преподаватель, Высшая школа сервиса и торговли, Институт промышленного менеджмента, экономики и торговли, Санкт-Петербургский политехнический университет Петра Великого E-mail: ekaterinashevchuk@yandex. ru
Данная статья посвящена изучению лакунарных единиц как одной из наиболее ярких характеристик национально-культурной специфики каждого языка, которая, как известно, может проявляться на разных языковых уровнях. В этом исследовании мы решили сосредоточиться на анализе грамматического уровня. В качестве материала для исследования были использованы интернет-источники, а также толковые и двуязычные словари. Целью нашего исследования является выявление и описание особенностей лакунарных единиц германских языков на материале английского и немецкого языков на грамматическом уровне. В ходе анализа были выявлены грамматические пробелы этих языков и описаны особенности их значения и употребления.
Ключевые слова: национально-культурная специфика, лаку-нарная единица, безэквивалентная лексика, грамматические пробелы.
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Introduction
The specific character of lacunarity has more often been associated with the lexical level of the language. The problem of lexical lacunarity is often addressed within the framework of translation studies. It is much more seldom when grammatical phenomena have been involved in research work devoted to lacunarity. But it is the grammar that represents the main conceptual content of the language, its mental scheme.
The object of our study is the grammatical lacunae, and the subject is the linguistic and cultural features of the lacunary units of the Germanic languages (as exemplified in German and English languages).
The purpose of the work is the explanation and description of the features of lacunar units of English and German languages at the grammatical level.
The material for the study was lacunar units extracted from open sources on the Internet, as well as explanatory and bilingual dictionaries of English and German.
I.A. Sternin, as one of the researchers of the phenomenon of lacunarity, defines lacunae as the absence of interlingual correspondence in one language relating to another. A unit of one language, represented by a lacuna in another language, is defined as non-equivalent [5, P. 31].
It should be noted that lacunarity can be observed at various levels of the language and in various aspects of the study of language and culture. Language lacunae can be split into lexical and grammatical. Grammatical lacunae are the focus of this study, so we would like to enlarge upon that point.
The reasons for the existence of grammatical lacunae, especially within a group of related languages, are much less obvious. Akai notes that grammatical gaps reflect the most significant correlations between objective reality, thinking, and language [1]. The analysis of grammatical lacunae allows for a deeper understanding of the cognitive foundations of the grammatical category itself, as well as gives a notion about the level of scientific knowledge about it [2, P. 11].
In the same place [2, P. 13], as part of the study of the phenomenon of grammatical lacunarity, a typology was proposed, including categorical (partial) lacu-narity, morphological lacunarity (based on morphological meanings such as gender, number, case, tense), lexico-grammatical (based on lexical-grammatical categories within one part of speech), as well as grammatical-emotive and stylistic lacunarity (which occurs in cases of discrepancy between connotative, pragmatic, stylistic and characteristics of similar grammatical forms in different languages).
In this paper, an attempt has been made to take a closer look at the phenomenon of lexico-grammatical lacunarity using an example of the group of stative verbs in English. In German, the verbs that express not an action, but a state, exist, since such verbs are a linguistic universal, but grammarians do not single them out as a separate group, unlike in English.
The verbal paradigm of the English language includes a few forms that are commonly called aspectual-temporal, i.e., two temporal categories - aspect and time - are connected. In some cases, discrepancies between the aspectual nature of a verb and the aspectual meaning of a grammar result in lacunae in the paradigm [7, P. 115]. In the German language, there is no opposition in aspect.
In particular, we see the lacunarity in question in English stative verbs, i.e. the verbs representing a certain event in a static aspect, as a type of relationship. Such verbs include verbs of physical perception (see, hear, sense), verbs of mental activity (think, consider, understand), verbs of emotional state (like, love, hate), verbs expressing desire (want, wish, desire), verbs of possession (belong, owe, possess), verbs expressing correlation (fit, lack, match, involve) and some others.
The paradigm of these verbs is not complete, they lack continuous and perfect continuous tense forms. This can be explained by the fact that according to their semantic features, such as the lack of temporal orientation or fixation, uncontrollability, unmanageability, and inactivity, such verbs are incompatible with the meaning of the form "duration, processuality", which means that they cannot convey the meaning of the course of action.
However, several very important points should be noted here.
From the point of view of communication, the verb is the most important lexico-grammatical class. [3, P. 102] At the same time, the semantic space covered by the class of verbs is very wide, which means that the semes of the periphery can be quite far away from the semes that form the core of the prototype, which, of course, affects the meanings conveyed by the verb.
In addition, many modern researchers hold the opinion that a sentence does not reflect the situation in all its objective connections in the world, but it shows how the speaker comprehended this situation, based on personal experience, mentality, and linguistic capabilities of the language [8, P. 88].
But here we are facing a problem that linguists have repeatedly paid attention to. Stative verbs can actually be used in the continuous / perfect continuous tense forms; however, some stative verbs do not take the forms of continuous / perfect continuous tenses.
Lewis points out that the speaker chooses continuous forms if s/he assumes that the action is going to last for some limited amount of time (i.e., this is not necessarily a process observed here and now) and, in addition, the choice is made by the speaker based on the subjective understanding of the situation at the moment of speaking. The speaker's understanding of the situation, his/her intentions, and interpretation of the facts are central to the speaker's choice of linguistic means, i.e., it is the semantics and pragmatics that
influence how a lacuna in the paradigm of this type of verbs in English is filled in. It should be noted that researchers talk about the trend of increasing colloquialism in the language, which, in turn, affects the filling of lacunae [8, P. 95]. Speakers are trying to find the most appropriate unit to help realize the communicative task in the usage.
Here are some examples of the use of stative verbs. The following examples were found at lexicallab.com [9]:
• So if I'm understanding this right ...
• It's costing me an arm and a leg!
• I've been meaning / wanting. to do it for ages
• I'm thinking of . leaving.
• He's having ... a crisis of confidence.
• Ignore me, I'm just being silly.
• "I'm loving/liking this album more and more, it's growing on me bit by bit".
In this regard, we note that in German there are no equivalents of the English continuous and perfect continuous forms at all, and the meanings conveyed by these tenses are expressed by lexical means.
A good example here would be the slogan of McDonald's 'I'm loving it'. The intentional use of the stative verb 'love' in the present continuous tense indicates that it is not the main seme of the verb "to love something" that comes to the fore, but the peripheral one - "to enjoy something". Enjoyment is a situational process, which is limited in time. McDonald's marketers communicate to the public and reinforce in their minds the idea that every time you visit a McDonald's restaurant you enjoy it. At the same time, in German, the company's slogan sounds like 'Ich liebe es' and does not carry such additional meanings. As can be seen from the example above, there is a verb in German that has the meaning of being in the state of love ('lieben' - 'to love'), but there is no continuous tense and consequently, the extra meaning that the verb might carry being used in this tense is also missing.
Table 1. Examples with stative verbs in English and German
English (Source language) German (Target language)
This color matches your skin tone. [10] Diese Farbe passt zu Ihrem Hautton.
I really think people don't understand it. [10] Ich bin überzeugt, die Leute verstehen es nicht.
He says he'll help us, but I don't believe what he says. [10] Er sagt, er wird uns helfen, aber ich glaube daran nicht.
Thus, there are certain differences between English and German, both in the compositions and in the functional yield of the verbs. Having analyzed English and German Internet sources, as well as explanatory and bilingual dictionaries, we could reveal the relationship between the structural and semantic features of lacunar units of the Germanic languages.
Conclusion
So, in this study, we explored the phenomenon of interlingual grammatical lacunarity. Interlingual lacunae can
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only be identified by comparing two specific languages, which means that the phenomenon of lacunarity is an integral part of all intercultural contacts, i.e., the most important component of intercultural communication, ethnopsycholinguistics, and linguoculturology, which allows emphasizing the national and cultural specificity of each language.
The grammatical system of the language, which is traditionally considered the most rigid and least affected by external factors, is becoming more mobile, which is probably due to the increased colloquialism in the language. In turn, this expands the choice for the speaker, at least in the usage.
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATIC LACUNARY UNITS OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES
Nikiforova Zh.A., Romanova L.G., Shevchuk E.V.
Peter the Great Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University; Orenburg State Pedagogical University
This article is devoted to the study of lacunar units as one of the most striking characteristics of the national and cultural specificity of each language, which, as you know, can manifest itself at different language levels. In this study, we decided to focus on the analysis of the grammatical level.
Internet sources and explanatory and bilingual dictionaries were used as research material. The purpose of our study is to identify and describe the features of lacunar units of the Germanic languages on the material of English and German languages at the grammatical level. During the analysis, the grammatical gaps of these languages were identified and the features of their meaning and use were described.
Keywords: national and cultural specificity, lacunar unit, non-equivalent vocabulary, grammatical lacunae.
References
1. Akai O.M. Grammatical deviations vs elimination of grammatical lacunae // Humanities and social sciences. 2019. № 3. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n7grammaticheskie-deviatsii-vs-eliminatsya-grammaticheskih-lakun (date of the application: 21.02.2022).
2. Akai O.M. Phanomenon of grammatical lacunarity: cognitive amd lingvo-pragmatic aspects: major 10.02.19 - "Theory of Language": dissertation abstract for the degree of Doctor of Philology / Akai O.M. - Rostov on Don, 2020. - 46 p.
3. Kozlova L.A. Comparative typology of Eglish and Russian: tutorial / L.A. Kozlova. - Barnaul: AltSPU, 2019. - 180 p.
4. Radbil T.B. National specifity of Russian Grammar: Cognitive and Linguistic and Cultural Aspects // International Scientific Symposium "Russian Grammar", Collection of abstracts of the International Scientific Symposium (Moscow, April 13-15, 2016 r.) M. 2016.
5. Sternin I.A. Contrastive linguistics. - M.: "Vostok-Zapad", 2006.
6. Chabanenko T.S. Expressive possibilities of verbs with an incomplete paradigm// Put' nauki. - 2016. - № 12(34). - p. 95-98.
7. Shevchuk E.V. Relative and evaluative verbs conveying relations of equivalence, comparativeness, superiority, similarity, and other relations of correlation: major 10.02.04 "Germanic language": dissertation for the degree of candidate of Philology / Shevchuk E.V. - Saint-Petersburg, 2009. - 188 p.
8. Lewis M. The English Verb: An Exploration of Structure and Meaning Published 1986 by Language Teaching Publications Paperback, 182 pages.
9. Grammar nonsense: stative verbs URL: https://www.lexicallab. com/2017/03/grammar-nonsense-2-stative-verbs/ (date of the application: 21-Feb-22).
10. Merriam-Webster Dictionary URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/ (date of the application 21.02.2022)
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