Russian давать + infinitive: 'to give', 'to let', or 'to have'?

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Authors
Toops, Gary H.
Advisors
Issue Date
1991
Type
Article
Keywords
Russian language--Grammar , Russian language--Verb , Russian language--Semantics
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Citation
Toops, Gary H. 1991. Russian давать + infinitive: 'to give', 'to let', or 'to have'? -- Russian Language Journal, v.45, no.151-152, pp.39-54
Abstract

This article examines a variety of sentence types, differing by virtue of the presence/absence of certain syntactic constituents (direct/indirect object) and the semantic properties of those constituents (animacy, physical transferability, etc.). The conclusion is that the verb давать has thus far undergone only partial grammaticalization towards being a causative auxiliary; that the incompleteness of the verb's grammaticalization as a causative auxiliary is due primarily to the homonymy, and hence ambiguity, of certain surface structures. It is finally proposed that давать be viewed as two distinct lexical items: 'to give' and 'to let' (the latter subcategorized for a number of syntactic and semantic constraints).

Table of Contents
Description
Publisher
American Council of Teachers of Russian
Journal
Book Title
Series
RLJ;v.45 no.3 (Spring-Fall 1991)
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
0036-0252
EISSN
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