DOI:10.30842/alp23065737193285317
Kozhevnikova E. K. Ekzistentsialnyye
predikaty v Novom Zavete. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana.
285–317.
The paper describes the use of existential predicates in the New
Testament on the basis of three books (The Gospel of Mark,
The Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Holy
Apostles) in seven languages (Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian,
English, German, French, and Udmurt). 87 contexts with existential
predicates were selected. From these, I excluded examples in which
an existential predicate was absent from at least two languages or
was used to mark possessive or locative relations. The remaining
contexts were divided into the following semantic groups:
introduction (‘Intr’; 22 contexts), assertion of existence
(‘Assert’; 37 affirmative contexts and eight negative contexts),
generic existence (‘Gen’; three contexts), and inchoative (‘Inch’;
17 contexts). In all languages from the sample, apart from
prototypical existential predicates or existential constructions
(e.g., English there is), other predicates also can
express the semantics of existence. I show that the use of each
predicate or construction depends on the semantic type of a given
context. For example, the existential construction with the
predicate arose is expected in the ‘Inch’ group but is not
found in other types of contexts.
The contexts of ‘Assert’ and ‘Intr’, though very close
grammatically, differ from the semantic point of view. In the
contexts of introduction, a new theme is always introduced, whereas
in assertion contexts, existence is perceived as a permanent
property. The negative contexts, making up less than 10 percent of
the total number of contexts, describe the absence of existence.
Existential predicates also can occur in cleft constructions,
though this type of contexts is not relevant for the semantics of
existence.
Based on the number of discrepancies found in the selected
contexts and their semantic ambiguity, the paper divides them into
core and peripheral contexts. The resulting database can be used
for further cross-linguistic analyses of existential
predicates.
Keywords
existential predication, corpus linguistics,
parallel corpora, database, New Testament, Russian, English,
Ancient Greek, Latin, German, French, Udmurt
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