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FUNCTIONAL SPECIFICITY OF THE VERBS AND VERBAL PREFIXES IN RUSSIAN: CORPUS ANALYSIS (BASED ON MATERIAL OF VERBS WITH PREFIX PRED-) // Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2021. Issue 4 (216). P. 37-47

Introduction. Modern corpus-oriented linguistics allows us to study the phenomena of language, expanding the database on which research is based, attracting for analysis the wide possibilities of text and metatext markup of corpus. The aim of this work is to describe, based on the data of the Russian National Corpus, the functional peculiarity of Russian verb prefixes (based on the material of verbs with the prefix pred-), which are «responsible» for the use of the prefixal verb in texts of a certain sphere of functioning and subject matter. Material and methods. The object of this study is the prefix pred- with the prospective semantics «to do an action in advance» and verbs with it, formed according to the model introduced into the Russian language from the Old Slavic language. Based on the statement that the prefix, which has a relative independence in the structure of the verb in comparison with the suffix, is able not only to modify the meaning of the verb, but also to change the scope of its use, the article offers a comparative analysis of the functioning of the verb with the prefix pred- and the corresponding non-prepositional verb by analyzing the sphere of use and the subject of texts in which these units are realized. The article analyzes the occurrences of the verbs in the texts of 9 spheres of functioning (artistic, church-theological, educational-scientific, etc.) and 42 subjects (law, science and technology, politics and public life, etc.). Results and discussion. We suggest that verbs with the prefix pred-, due to its Old Slavic origin, are involved in the texts of the church-religious sphere in modern Russian, as well as in the texts of those spheres of use that correlate with the “predictive” function of prospective verbs. Based on this assumption, we consider pairs of units to predict/say, foresee/see, destine/assign, precede/march, prescribe/write; the percentage of their use in texts of a certain sphere of functioning and subject matter is calculated in relation to the number of texts in this sphere and subject matter; we identify the most significant areas of functioning (church-theological, educational-scientific, artistic, industrial-technical) and subjects of texts (philosophy, philology, astronomy, physics, etc.) in which the studied units are realized. Conclusion. The reference to the data of the Russian National Corpus revealed a change in the sphere of use of verbs with the prefix pred- (less often the subject of texts), which allows us to assert that the prefix is really able to influence the use of verbs with it.

Keywords: Russian verb prefixes, prefix pred-, prospective semantics, Russian National Corpus, sphere of functioning, text subject