CATEGORY INTERACTION IN VERBAL AND NOMINAL GROUPS WITH A DIRECT OBJECT

Abstract

In the paper, the author continues her research on category interaction, developing the idea of unifunctionality in verbal and noun spheres that has been discussed by Elisabeth Leiss and Vyačeslav B.Kaškin. Leiss has considered this as a category of determination while Kaškin regarded it as a category of indetermination. The author combines their ideas using the notion of the aspectual and determinant balance and supplementing textual analysis with a lexicographical one. Both lexicographical and text analysis are contrastive and use the notions of bathysmatic accumulation as well as inter-science and out-science transfer to uncover hidden categories. Verbal-noun phrases with a direct object tend to an aspectual and determinant balance: aspectual semantics defines the choice of grammatical category of noun’s determination vs. indetermination and influences the category of number for direct objects. In a neutral communicative situation, the Russian transitive perfective verb governs the direct object with the semantics of definiteness, which has no grammatical expression and manifests itself in context only. In contrast, transitive imperfective verbs govern direct objects with the semantics of indefiniteness expressed with a plural form, proving it to be an open class, potentially accepting new additions. On the contrary, verbal aspect in German is not grammatical but semantical. German verbs have a terminative or a
cursive sense in their semantics, although the determination of nouns is a grammatical category. In a neutral communicative situation, terminative transitive verbs govern direct objects with a definite article or a replacement determinant while cursive transitive verb govern an indefinite noun. This pattern is not followed in cases of communicative salience, if required by the cultural situation or when a set expression is present. The governing verb coordinates the bathysmatic saturation of the direct object.

Keywords:

verbal aspect, nouns determination, bathysmatic accumulation, lexicographic analysis, comparative analysis, German language, Russian language