DOI:10.30842/alp23065737193150196
Sinitsyna Yu. V. Sravnitelnyye
konstruktsii v Novom Zavete. Acta Linguistica
Petropolitana. 150–196.
This article discusses equative (e.g., be ye 〈…〉 wise as
serpents [Mat. 10:16]), similative (e.g., Never man spake
like this man [Mat. 3:16]) and comparative (e.g., he 〈…〉
is mightier than I [Mat. 3:11]) constructions in the New Ю. В.
Синицына 151 Testament (The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John;
The Acts of the Apostles; The Book of Revelation). I have used the
Ancient Greek original and its translations into the following
languages: Russian, English, Spanish, Ossetic, Hill Mari and
Udmurt.
Altogether, I have selected 38 comparative and 75 equative /
similative constructions. In its first part, the article defines
the structural and semantic constraints of the constructions. I did
not consider examples lacking a construction component like, e.g.,
the comparee (ye in [Mat. 10:16]) or a standard of
comparison (SoC; serpents in [Mat. 3:11]).
Further, I discuss the criteria used to classify the relevant
contexts. For example, one of such criteria is the prototypicity of
the SoC. This means that the best candidate for a SoC is a pronoun
or a “light” noun without dependents. An atypical SoC, on the
contrary, would be an adpositional phrase or finite clause. Another
criterion is the type of comparison, more relevant for comparative
constructions of equality. Equative constructions compare two
objects possessing some property to the same degree, and similative
constructions compare the manner of the action.
In the second part, the article explores the use of standard
markers in equative and similative constructions in Ossetic, Hill
Mari and Udmurt. This study shows that in different languages,
different criteria may underlie the choice of the standard marker.
The semantics of comparison tends to be the main criterion in Hill
Mari language, while it is the prototypicity of the SoC in Ossetic.
Udmurt has one multi-purpose marker kad’ ‘as, like’ that
does not show any strong correlations between the semantics or
prototypicity of the standard marker. The only type of standard not
allowed with kad’ is clausal.
Keywords
equative constructions, similative
constructions, comparative constructions, corpus linguistics,
typology, Finno-Ugric languages, Indo-European languages
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