Article

Name: The ways of expressing activity/inactivity of the noun in Gothic texts (exemplified by the data on natural phenomena)

Authors: Anna I. Silchencko

Tomsk Polytechnical University, Tomsk, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: The paper discusses different ways of expressing activity / inactivity of the noun. Activity is expressed by various means. First of all, it is expressed by marking. The active case is the marked member of the opposition while the inactive case is unmarked. The active participant of a situation is expressed by an animate referent, whereas the inactive participant is most often expressed by the inanimate one; active / animate nouns are usually marked by consonantal stem-building suffixes. Secondly, active nouns are used with active verbs, which denote actions, motions, events, while inactive verbs denote states and properties. Thirdly, active nouns can be used both as the subject and the object of the active construction.

Keywords: activity / inactivity, marking, stem-building suffixes, subject / object

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