CHAINED TO EACH OTHER: INTERJECTIONS AND VERBS IN RUSSIAN EVERYDAY SPEECH


2024. № 3 (41), 323-333

Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract:

The article is devoted to a part of speech, which has been under discussion in Russian studies for many years, as a result of which this part of speech still has no universally recognized name. The terms “predicate interjections”, “verbal interjections”, “morphological forms of the verb”, etc. are used for the words it includes. These terms bringtogether units of two diff erent origins: those correlated with primary interjections, e.g. бабах (...вдруг пришло ему в голову: бабах в милиционера! [...suddenly it occurred to him: babakh at the policeman!]), and those related to verbs, e. g. шастать — шасть [shastat — shast’] (...она приезжает, шасть под кровать [...she has come, shast’ under the bed]). A number of problems arise in connection with this part of speech: a) which groups of primary interjections can be sources of verb meanings; b) how verb meanings arise, under the infl uence of context (A. V. Isachenko’ s point of view) or as the result of the development of the chain “interjection — verb — verbal interjection” (S. O. Kartsevsky); c) which groups of verbs can be the basis for the emergence of interjections. The meanings of verbal interjections fully correspond to the meanings of the underlying verbs, which, as the author of the article argues, proves the validity of S. O. Kartsevsky’ s point of view. Verbal interjections, both correlated with primary sound-imitating interjections and formed from verbs, can in their turn motivate interjections signaling a rapid change of situations, e. g., Полетела шторка по сквозняку/ бабах загорелась// [The curtain flew on the draught/ babakh it caught fire//]; думал выпить молока, люблю можайское, хвать, а его нет [I wanted to drink milk, I like Mozhayskoye, hvat’ there’ s none].