The Great Russian Language

[David Powelstock]

Olga: "would be *разбушёвывет in imp."

dp: Shouldn't that be *разбушёвывaет?

Cheers,
David

David Powelstock
Brandeis University


-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Olga Meerson
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2009 11:03 AM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] The Great Russian Language

Dear Paul and all,

The verb form разбушевает is aspectually impossible in Russian. What you misconstrue as the appropriate non-reflexive (and Frans is right: the actual verb is reflexive and refers to elemental phenomena!) would be *разбушёвывет in imp. and *разбушует in perf, future. (If the verb indeed meant de-bushizing). Needless to say, neither of them exist, unlike the actual разбушеваться. Also, there is a pun on the Russian title of the 1960s French film series, one of which was called "Фантомас разбушевался". Russians are treating Obama as this weird man posing as a semi-robot, not because of any personal dislike but because of their habitual suspiciousness about the motives of ANY politician's actions. In fact, this seemingly hostile pun may be a term of endearment, as the actual meaning of this verb (for a natural element or a wild person to spin out of control or become tempestuous) is obviously not the primary one he!
 re. It is precisely the fact that Obama is, in fact, keeping his cool and not spinning out of control emotionally that makes the pun--on an pre-existing verb! -- so funny.

As for the logic of the reflexive which is, allegedly self-inflicting, this is not merely factually wrong for this verb but a fallacy linguistically: many reflexives, including especially many of the раз- + -ся verbs, have no transitive source whatsoever. They are just intransitive themselves. The reflexive ending works with the particular prefix to show how exactly this intransitivity affects the actant, as these prefixes usually orient one in space, literally or figuratively. 

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