Verbs of emotion with se in Slovene: between middle and reflexive semantics. A cognitive analysis

• Authors: Będkowska-Kopczyk Agnieszka
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article presents a cognitive analysis of Slovene emotion verbs with the personal pronoun se ‘self’, e.g., bati se ‘to be scared’. Slavic verbs of this type are traditionally considered reflexive. The objectives of the article are twofold. First, the article aims to demonstrate that se in Slovene verbs of emotion indicates not the reflexive, but the middle voice construction. However, given specific pragmatic factors, these verbs also form reflexive constructions with the heavy form sebe ‘self’, or even both middle and reflexive constructions with se and sebe, respectively. Second, this article challenges Anna Wierzbicka’s assumption that the Slavic verbs with the light form of the personal pronoun or the -sja affix (Russian) express (almost) volitional, i.e. self-induced emotion. In line with cognitive Suzanne Kemmer, it is claimed that the constructions with the verbs under discussion indicate a low degree of volitionality in the process of emotional change i.e. they lexicalize an event that occurs independently of the Experiencer participant’s will.

Keywords

EN

emotion; middle; reflexive verbs of emotion; intentionality and volitionality; the Slovene language

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Slawistyki PAN
• Journal: Cognitive Studies
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 14
• Pages: 203-218

Dates

published

2014-09-04

Contributors

author

Będkowska-Kopczyk Agnieszka

• Akademia Techniczno-Humanistyczna [University of Bielsko-Biała], Bielsko-Biała, Poland

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Identifiers

DOI

10.11649/cs.2014.017