Papers by Alexander Piperski
Вопросы языкознания, 2015
Russian Linguistics, Jul 22, 2022
Recent years have seen considerable debate concerning Russian feminitives, i.e. derived formation... more Recent years have seen considerable debate concerning Russian feminitives, i.e. derived formations that designate female professionals, such as advokatka, advokatša, advokatessa, ženščina-advokat or advokat-ženščina that all refer to female lawyers. In this article, we investigate the use of feminitives based on data from the Araneum Russicum Maximum corpus and the Russian National Corpus. It is shown that the choice of feminitive to some extent depends on the morphophonological properties of the base word. It is furthermore argued that suffixed feminitives are more frequent than compounds like ženščina-advokat and advokat-ženščina, and that the distribution has changed over time. Suffixed feminitives reveal a stronger tendency to combine with gender-related epithets (e.g., obajatel'naja agentka 'charming agent'), while the type ženščina-X is frequently used with the epithet pervyj 'first'. Our article is an empirical study of the actual use of feminitives in corpus data, which we hope will inform future metalinguistic discussion and prescriptivist thinking about feminitives in Russian. В последние годы ведется активная дискуссия о русских феминитивах, т. е. о производных единицах, обозначающих женщин по роду занятий, например адвокатка, адвокатша, адокатесса, женщина-адвокат и адвокат-женщина для указания на женщину, которая занимается адвокатской деятельностью. В этой статье использование феминитивов изучается на основе данных корпуса Araneum Russicum Maximum и из Национального корпуса русского языка. Мы показываем, что выбор феминитива в определённой степени зависит от морфонологических свойств производящей основы. Кроме того, мы демонстрируем, что суффиксальные феминитивы имеют более высокую частотность, чем композиты типа женщина-адвокат и адвокат-женщина, и что их распределение со временем меняется. Суффиксальные феминитивы склонны сочетаться с определениями, так или иначе связанными с гендером (напр., обаятельная агентка), в то время как тип женщина-X часто используется со словом первая. Наша статья представляет собой эмпирическое исследование феминитивов в корпусах, и можно надеяться, что полученные выводы будут полезны для дальнейших металингвистических дискуссий и для формулирования прескриптивных указаний.
Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, 2014
Вопросы языкознания, Apr 1, 2017
Russian Linguistics
Recent years have seen considerable debate concerning Russian feminitives, i.e. derived formation... more Recent years have seen considerable debate concerning Russian feminitives, i.e. derived formations that designate female professionals, such as advokatka, advokatša, advokatessa, ženščina-advokat or advokat-ženščina that all refer to female lawyers. In this article, we investigate the use of feminitives based on data from the Araneum Russicum Maximum corpus and the Russian National Corpus. It is shown that the choice of feminitive to some extent depends on the morphophonological properties of the base word. It is furthermore argued that suffixed feminitives are more frequent than compounds like ženščina-advokat and advokat-ženščina, and that the distribution has changed over time. Suffixed feminitives reveal a stronger tendency to combine with gender-related epithets (e.g., obajatel'naja agentka 'charming agent'), while the type ženščina-X is frequently used with the epithet pervyj 'first'. Our article is an empirical study of the actual use of feminitives in corpus data, which we hope will inform future metalinguistic discussion and prescriptivist thinking about feminitives in Russian. В последние годы ведется активная дискуссия о русских феминитивах, т. е. о производных единицах, обозначающих женщин по роду занятий, например адвокатка, адвокатша, адокатесса, женщина-адвокат и адвокат-женщина для указания на женщину, которая занимается адвокатской деятельностью. В этой статье использование феминитивов изучается на основе данных корпуса Araneum Russicum Maximum и из Национального корпуса русского языка. Мы показываем, что выбор феминитива в определённой степени зависит от морфонологических свойств производящей основы. Кроме того, мы демонстрируем, что суффиксальные феминитивы имеют более высокую частотность, чем композиты типа женщина-адвокат и адвокат-женщина, и что их распределение со временем меняется. Суффиксальные феминитивы склонны сочетаться с определениями, так или иначе связанными с гендером (напр., обаятельная агентка), в то время как тип женщина-X часто используется со словом первая. Наша статья представляет собой эмпирическое исследование феминитивов в корпусах, и можно надеяться, что полученные выводы будут полезны для дальнейших металингвистических дискуссий и для формулирования прескриптивных указаний.
Russian lexical stress exhibits both inter-speaker variation, defined by the speaker’s regional a... more Russian lexical stress exhibits both inter-speaker variation, defined by the speaker’s regional affiliation, social status, age, etc., as well as intra-speaker variation. The latter is difficult to capture due to the need for large corpora of spoken text produced by one speaker. These are lacking, but can be replaced with poetic corpora. We use automatic analysis of poetic texts by 10 poets, drawn from the Russian National Corpus, in order to find word forms that can have stress variation. The number of such forms for an individual speaker ranges between 30 and 200 words, distributed among different parts of speech. We propose a quantitative measure of overall stress variability independent of the corpus size and show that there is a tendency for this variability to diminish over time, at least in poetic texts.
This paper discusses the use of most widely-known Russian corpora, namely Russian National Corpus... more This paper discusses the use of most widely-known Russian corpora, namely Russian National Corpus, ruTenTen, General Internet Corpus of Russian, and Araneum Russicum Maximum, for the theoretical study of Russian language. Based on a sample of papers from 2019, I demonstrate that scholars, especially theoretical linguists, tend to ignore the opportunities provided by a wide range of Web corpora, even though these resources are well-known to the NLP community. I present a selection of case studies to show that data from “non-classical” corpora can be used for studying various linguistic phenomena, such as: 1) variation in morphology and syntax; 2) word formation and lexical change; 3) construction grammar. I also claim that the underuse of non-classical corpora is partly due to the fact that they are (perceived as) not quite user-friendly.
Slovo.ru: Baltic accent, 2020
The paper presents a statistical study of the use of variant forms of Russian personal names. It ... more The paper presents a statistical study of the use of variant forms of Russian personal names. It is shown that Russian names can be divided into two classes: names with full and short forms contrast with names that only have one neutrally used form. For names that have a distinct short form, the frequencies of full and short forms can relate to each other in different ways. This depends on various factors, such as the length of the full name and the gender of its owner: for longer names and female names, the short form is more common. Based on data from the Russian National Corpus, it is proved that the use of the full name as a form of address has been increasing in the last 15 to 30 years.
Linguistic Typology, 2018
The renowned Russian linguist, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey A. Zaliznyak (А... more The renowned Russian linguist, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey A. Zaliznyak (Андрей Анатольевич Зализняк) 1 passed away on 24 December 2017 in Moscow. Zaliznyak's main working place was the Institute of Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, but he was also professor at Moscow State University. He made numerous and diverse important discoveries in morphology and historical linguistics and was instrumental in shaping linguistics education in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. He laid much of the groundwork for the environment which enabled linguistic typology and language documentation to flourish there. Zaliznyak was born in Moscow on 29 April 1935. When he was a preschooler, his mother was advised not to teach him German because he had no talent for foreign languages. However, as a teenager he developed an ardent passion for languages and learned Polish, Latin, English, Italian, and Spanish.
Linguistic Variation, 2020
Our paper investigates lexical stress placement variation in Modern Standard Russian past tense v... more Our paper investigates lexical stress placement variation in Modern Standard Russian past tense verbal forms. This kind of variation has arisen due to complex interactions of various processes in the development of Russian and its present-day state is said (often rather impressionistically) to be conditioned by intra-speaker sociolinguistic factors. However, cases of inter-speaker variation can also be observed. We put forward a proposal that stress placement in forms with variable stress is influenced by the rhythmic pattern of immediate linear context. To support this, we report on a pilot experiment that shows a preference towards alternating rhythm in a sequence consisting of a past tense verbal form of a transitive verb and its direct object, thus conforming to the fundamental principle of rhythmic alternation. The results also raise some questions about the phonology of stress and stress variation in Russian and beyond.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
A CORPUS STUDY 8 In Russian, there are many ways to address a person by name. For instance, a man... more A CORPUS STUDY 8 In Russian, there are many ways to address a person by name. For instance, a man called Aleksandr may be addressed as Aleksandr, Aleksandr Ivanovič, Saša, Sašen′ka, Saška, Sanja, etc. This study aims at analyzing the use of various strategies of naming the listener throughout the last two centuries. It uses the data from the Russian National Corpus to establish the direction of change in address patterns and combines a statistical approach with a manual inspection of selected examples.
Yearbook of the Poznan Linguistic Meeting, 2014
This article introduces a new measure of linguistic complexity which is based on the dual nature ... more This article introduces a new measure of linguistic complexity which is based on the dual nature of the linguistic sign. Complexity is analyzed as consisting of three components, namely the conceptual complexity (complexity of the signified), the formal complexity (complexity of the signifier) and the form-meaning correspondence complexity. I describe a way of plotting the form-meaning relationship on a graph with two tiers (the form tier and the meaning tier) and apply a complexity measure from graph theory (average vertex degree) to assess the complexity of such graphs. The proposed method is illustrated by estimating the complexity of full noun phrases (determiner + adjective + noun) in English, Swedish, and German. I also mention the limitations and the problems which might arise when using this method.
Вопросы языкознания, 2017
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018
This paper discusses terms of address that are used in Russian child-parent communication focusin... more This paper discusses terms of address that are used in Russian child-parent communication focusing on the gender of the speakers. The data for the study come from a large-scale online survey completed by 1103 subjects. We identify 10 basic patterns of addressing parents and six basic patterns of addressing children. The results show that females tend to use more suffixed forms when addressing their parents, whereas males are inclined to use harsher-sounding forms of address like batja 'father (informal)'. When addressing their children, females use suffixed diminutive forms and animal names more frequently than males.
Classifications of everyday items (category words for clothing, stationery, personal hygiene, bea... more Classifications of everyday items (category words for clothing, stationery, personal hygiene, beauty products etc.) are studied. A survey of 40 languages was performed. Several results are reported. Speakers of some languages provide generic terms relatively easy, while for speakers of other languages it is often difficult to perform this task. Some items (such as keys, ear plugs, umbrellas) are virtually unclassifiable in all languages. All languages have covert classes without well-established names (such as personal hygiene or data storage), and people either resort to awkward official phrases like Russian предметы личной гигиены or highly colloquial occasional words like Russian умывалки. For items belonging to such classes, high variation of category words was observed. Classes existing in several languages often overlap and include different items. So, посуда in Russian corresponds to dishes, cookware and cutlery in English. Possible areas of further research are discussed, in...
Niederlandistik und Germanistik im Kontakt, 2014
The paper is focused on self-contained linguistic problems based on text corpora. We argue that c... more The paper is focused on self-contained linguistic problems based on text corpora. We argue that corpus-based problems differ from traditional linguistic problems because they make it possible to represent language variation. Furthermore, they often require basic statistical thinking from the students. The practical value of using data obtained from text corpora for teaching linguistics through linguistic problems is shown. 1
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Papers by Alexander Piperski