Intensifying Constructions in Russian Based on Data from Russian Constructicon

The thesis is about various ways to express degree of intensification in Russian, in particular, constructions of different levels of complexity. Degree of intensity is a fruitful and highly productive semantic field in Russian. The present study is conducted using data from the Russian Constructicon, which is a linguistic repository of constructions in Russian language designed as a free open-access resource for learners of Russian. The Russian Constructicon contains more than 2200 constructions that are classified according to their semantics and syntax. Based on this classification, each construction in the database bears its own set of semantic and syntactic tags. The main goal of the thesis is to 1) demonstrate a great variety of constructions that denote the whole spectrum of intensity: from low to high point; 2) divide constructions denoting various degrees of intensity into homogeneous meaningful classes and analyze their semantic, syntactic and structural peculiarities 3) expand the Constructicon project based on defined groups of intensifying constructions. The group of intensifying constructions was chosen for further analysis for a number of reasons. First of all, the group of constructions with the highest type frequency are the constructions that have the general semantic tag “Degree of Intensity”. Altogether there are 151 such constructions, comprising 12 % of all constructions in the database. This group can be classified according to more narrow meanings and some structural properties, such as reduplication or the presence of negation markers. Secondly, the list of intensifying constructions is not complete yet, therefore further research is needed.