On the opposite directions of semantic motivation in adjective / adverb derivational pairs in russian
Authors:   Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Medvedieva Liudmyla 
Published: December 2020

The paper analyses semantic relationships in adjective / adverb (ending in –о) derivational pairs in the Modern Russian language in terms of the direction of their motivation. The adverbial element in the derivational pairs is represented by adverbs describing the manner of an action. Derivational pairs such as острый – остро, быстрый – быстро refer to syntactic derivation and include words with the same lexical meaning. Thus, the direction of semantic motivation is irrelevant in this case, and adverbs are seen as derivatives on the basis of their formal compoundness. This approach prevents differentiation of derivational pairs in which the nature of semantic relationships between elements in the pair differ. However, the differentiation is possible if 1) the meanings of the related adjectives and adverbs are seen as close, but not the same; 2) in word comparison, the criterion of conformity / non-conformity of their lexical semantics with the categorial meaning of the part of speech is applied. This criterion, which is well-established in the pairs of ‘бежать – бег, острый – острота’ type in connection with the notion of folded proposition and which underlies the differentiation of isosemic and non-isosemic subclasses of nouns, is not easily extrapolated to the derivational pairs where both words have the categorial meaning of a modifier. Even so, correlating the lexical meanings of adjectives with modifying an object and the lexical meanings of adverbs with modifying an action reveals derivational pairs with opposite directions of semantic motivation. Forming adverbs from adjectives is a common direction in the pairs where the adjective describes an innate feature of the object, e.g. the shape, size, colour, etc., and the adverb describes the action not by its own characteristics, but by relating to the relevant feature of the object: острый нож → остро наточить нож meaning ‘так, что нож острый’. Forming adjectives from adverbs is a normal direction in the pairs where the adverb gives a characteristic of the action, e.g. speed or other peculiarities of the action unfolding in time, while the adjective renders a feature of an abstract action: быстро бежать → быстрый бег, meaning ‘такой, который происходит быстро’. Diachronically, derivational and semantic motivation is generated from the feature of a concrete object: быстрый конь → быстро бежит → быстрый бег, but in Modern Russian, the latter is primary, while быстрый конь comes secondary and is motivated by the meaning of the adverb. The indirect proof that in some pairs the adjective is the base, while in others it is the adverb can be given by the correlation of frequency scores of elements in the derivational pairs, i.e. in the derivational pairs of ‘острый → остро, крупный → крупно’ type, adjectives are more frequent, and in the derivational pairs of ‘быстро → быстрый, внезапно → внезапный’ type, adverbs show higher frequency. The analysis shows the need for further research of the semantic aspect of word-formation relationships between words with the categorial meaning of a modifier.