Abstract:

The paper focuses on the non-standard use of the possessive verb imet’ ‘have’ in written texts of Kazakh-Russian bilinguals. The reasons and mechanisms of these deviations are analyzed, as well as the limitations in the combinability of the verb imet’ in Russian.

The main method of the research is comparative: we compare two Be-languages (Kazakh and Russian) which have different possessive constructions as well as examples of use of the possessive verb imet’ by the Kazakh bilinguals. We use also a few corpora data: Kazakh sub-corpus of the Russian Learner Corpus (there are the Russian texts written by Kazakh students: http://www.web-corpora.net/RLC), the Russian National Corpus (http://www.ruscorpora.ru), Almaty Corpus of Kazakh (http://www.web-corpora.net/KazakhCorpus/search) and the Sketch Engine corpora (https://www.sketchengine.eu).

Russian and Kazakh are expressed possessive relationships through verbs of existence. However, despite the common typological category, the ways of expressing possession in these languages ​​differ significantly. In Kazakh, possessive constructions involve the predicate adjective bar ‘existent’ (in the present) and the verb bol- ‘to be’ (in the past and future tenses). In Russian, a main possessive construction is U X est’ У (‘X has Y’) which includes est’ (be-PRS). However, there is a construction X imeyet Y with the verb imet’ ‘to have’ that is also actively used. This construction emphasizes the stable state of possession and the self-sufficiency of the possessor.

Such distinctions between be-languages engender some regular deviations in the Russian speech of Kazakh bilinguals when they use the verb imet’. Therefore, in the Kazakh subcorpus of RLC, errors in choosing imet’ are associated (1) with «overcoming» stylistic and semantic restrictions; (2) with using this verb as a conversion of byt’ (‘to be’) and (3) as a syntactic operator in combinations with abstract nouns.

Thus, the analysis of the use of possessive constructions in Russian and Kazakh ​​provides important data on the mechanisms of interlingual influence and adaptation. Comparing Russian and Kazakh ​​emphasizes how different linguistic systems solve the common task of expressing possession, which may lead to a revision or clarification of theoretical models of possession. Observations of non-standard uses of the verb imet’ help determine the boundaries of violated norms, clarifying the contexts in which this verb is used or not used in combinations with abstract nouns.