The Russian Locative and Accusative and Their Relation to Time and Space

ABSTRACT

The paper analyzes the uses of the Russian accusative and locative in which they are directly opposed to one another. It is demonstrated that in spatial contexts the accusative denotes change of contact, whereas the locative denotes permanent contact. This is a manifestation of the crucial distinction between dynamicity and stativity within the prepositional case system of Russian in which the accusative and the locative are regarded as contact cases while all others are regarded as non-contact cases. In temporal contexts the notion of time is treated as space when the locative is used – either as location or a set of elements. This means that the accusative is alone in expressing time in its own right, where the speaker makes contact with a timeline. In addition, the semantic contribution of the prepositions v ‘in’ and na ‘on’ to the accusative and locative cases is shown.

KEYWORDS:

• permanent contact vs. change of contact
• stativity vs. dynamicity
• set vs. timeline
• interiority vs. exteriority
• time as space

ORCID

Per Durst-Andersen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7998-0977

Elena Lorentzen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5280-5108

Notes

1 For a detailed survey of case theory in Cognitive Grammar, see Malchukov and Spencer 2009.

2 As already stated in 1.2., some researchers apply notions such as ‘contact’, ‘change of contact’, ‘dynamicity’, ‘stativity’, ‘interiority’, ‘exteriority’ etc. in a similar sense, but these notions are used isolated and not in an account of the general distinction between the accusative and the locative. Apart from the above-mentioned Plungjan 2002, compare, for instance, ideja dviženija ‘the concept of movement’ applied in Krejdlin 1997 to the preposition pod; the notion of neposredstvennoe kontaktnoe vozdejstvie ‘direct impact’ applied in Rachilina and Plungjan 2014 to the use of the preposition pod with both the accusative and the instrumental; note also ‘interior locus’ and ‘surface (exterior locus)’ in Sullivan 1998, 17–29, 31–38; ‘dynamic contexts’ and ‘static contexts’ in Šarić 2008, 59–60, 102–104; dinamičeskaja situacija ‘dynamic situation’ in Voejkova 2011, and others.

3 The examples which are not provided with references are our own – PDA and EL. Unless otherwise indicated, examples from the Internet have been last accessed on 3rd February 2017.

4 Fazil’ Iskander. 1977. Morskoj skorpion. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

5 Andrej Platonov. 1942–1947. Baškirskie narodnye skazki v pereskaze Andreja Platonova. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

6 Jurij Nagibin. 1972–1979. Blestjaščaja i gorestnaja žizn’ Imre Kal’mana. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

7 Vasilij Aksenov. 1961. Zvezdnyj bilet. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

8 Retrieved from: http://www.proza.ru/2012/11/20/374

9 Retrieved from: http://in-space.info/news/kitaiskii-lunokhod-vpervye-sel-na-lune-poyavilis-podrobnosti

10 Evgenij Evtušenko. 1999. Volčij pasport. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

11 Retrieved from: http://www.interfax.ru/russia/541958

12 Retrieved from: http://magickum.com/tag/son-golub-stuchit-v-okno/

13 Retrieved from: http://grimuar.ru/primetyi/golub-sel-na-podokonnik-primeta.html

14 Vasilij Ardamatskij. 1971. Leningradskaja zima. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

15 Sergej Dovlatov. 1986. Čemodan. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

16 Michail A. Bulgakov. 1929–1940. Master i Margarita. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

17 Mikhail Bulgakov. 1979. Master and Margarita, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

18 Anatolij Kim. 1985. Poslednjaja nežnost’. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

19 It should be noted that a comprehensive description of the lexical semantics of prepositions used with the locative and the accusative is outside the scope of this study.

20 Cf. a different account of constructions ‘pod + accusative’ in terms of the relationship between time and space where similar examples with the accusative are treated as temporal constructions and analysed as a result of a multistage process of extension of underlying spatial constructions (Kuznetsova, Plungian and Rakhilina 2013; Rachilina and Plungjan 2014).

21 A. I. Musatov. 1957. Bol’šaja vesna. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

22 Konstantin Serafimov. 1994. Ėkspedicija vo mrak. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

23 Cf. a remark about the so-called lokativnaja ideja ‘idea of location’ in Rachilina and Plungjan 2014, 34 which resembles the notion of entailment structure, but it refers only to the valency and semantics of individual predicates in spatial prepositional phrases with pod + the instrumental, as, for example, I ja, pod nabljudeniem rumynskich agentov, vyechal v Bucharest ‘And I left for Bucharest under the surveillance of Romanian agents’.

24 Andrej Volos. 2000. Nedvižimost’. Novyj mir (2001). Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

25 Retrieved from: http://www.spb.kp.ru/daily/26629/3648550/

26 Vasilij Belov. 1976. Vospitanie po doktoru Spoku. Retrieved from: www.ruscorpora.ru

27 Retrieved from: http://fedpress.ru/news/polit_vlast/reviews/tkachev-ustupil-lavry-blogera-evkurovu

28 This is theatre jargon. Retrieved from: http://ps.1september.ru/article.php?ID=200201825