Two verb pairs: radovat’ ‘make happy’(IPFV) and radovat’s’a ‘be happy’ (IPFV), obradovat’ ‘make happy’(PFV) and obradovat’s’a ‘get happy’ (PFV) Meaning and Syntax

Based on two pairs of correlative emotive Russian verbs (radovat’ ‘make happy’ and radovat’s’a ‘be happy’ vs. obradovat’ ʻmake happy’ and obradovat’s’a ‘get happy’), the paper looks into their semantic, syntactic, and derivational properties. Intransitive emotive situations include two participants: the experiencer of the specific emotion, and the stimulus producing the experiencer’s corresponding positive/negative emotion. The semantic role of a stimulus differs from all other semantic roles in both formal and substantive status. It can be performed by either a personal participant or an object/situation, with the stimulus’s valency marked by various corresponding formal devices. Notably, this role can be expressed not only in an adverbial argument position, but in the preceding text as well. The meaning of stimulus includes two standard roles: cause and condition. Transitive emotives can have two (causative or conversive) meanings. With a causative meaning, they can show three roles: causer, experiencer, or causation instrument (a potential stimulus). With a conversive meaning, they show the same two roles as intransitive emotives. Thus, in this case correlative intransitive and transitive emotives only differ in their diatheses. The issue of the correlation between the causative and the conversive meanings of the transitive emotives radovat’ and obradovat’ is still unresolved. They are known to have appeared in Russian not earlier than in the 18th c. Initially, radovat’ was only used in its conversive meaning, and obradovat’, in its causative meaning. The paper makes a special focus on negated constructions with the verbs obradovat’ and obradovat’s’a.