Kotlovan: such'ya zazhimka

[Edward M Dumanis]

On Mon, 28 Jan 2008, David Powelstock wrote:
.........../snip/............

> The usage of zazhimka attested by Kuznetsov, which I reproduced in my 
> last post, seems to make more sense in the context than an unattested 
> usage of zazhimka as referring to the person, especially if one takes 
> into account the unexplained (but, again, not impossible) use of the 
> feminine noun to apply to a man, when there exists a perfectly 
> synonymous masculine variant, "zazhim."

The reason is very simple: while one can construct the gramatically 
perfect masculine version, it does not mean that this version was used in 
spoken language for this type of context. Please take into account that 
many of the words that might be addressed to the same person do not have 
any masculine gender, e.g, svoloch', zhadina, suka (kobel' - would carry 
quite a different meaning). So, "such'ja zazhimka" would perfectly fit the 
meaning of a nasty greedy person (where one would derive the 
meaning without any knowledge of dogs' sexual life - I do not think such 
knowledge was widespread, or, at least, suggestive even in the rural areas 
- from zazhimat' in the sense of "be greedy").


> Let me give an example of why one shouldn't be too hasty in assuming that
> zazhimka applies to the person. Imagine that you were not familiar with the
> expression, "elki-palki." You encounter the following sentence: "Ia tak i
> znal, chto oni svolochi,elki-palki!" It would be plausible to infer that
> "elki-palki" had the same referent as "svolochi," but in this case the
> inference would be wrong. "Elki-palki" is a generalized The situation at
> hand is analogous. The position of such'ia zazhimka in Platonov's sentence
> tells us little, if anything, about its referent.
>

Yes, "elki-palki" in this text could be a characteristic of a person if we 
knew such a meaning. To avoid the ambiguity, one would write
"Ia tak i znal, chto oni svolochi. Elki-palki!" 
However, if you want to use it as a description of a person, you have no 
choice but to use a comma.

Sincerely,

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>

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