The emotive charge of adjectives and verbs

4. THE DIVERSITY OF EMOTIONAL VERBS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

English is exceptionally rich in "active" emotional verbs. Here are just some of the emotional verbs: rejoice, yearn, be bored, be sad, worry, be angry, worry, be upset, mope, lose heart, be proud, horrified, ashamed, admire, admire, rejoice, be angry, worry, resent, resent, languish, be nervous etc.

This group of verbs of emotions are mostly reflexive, formed formally with the help of the suffix -sya. This property of these verbs reinforces the impression that the corresponding emotions arose not under the influence of external factors, but as if by themselves, as evidenced by the presence of the suffix -sya, indicating the direction of the action on oneself. It should also be noted that many emotional verbs - unlike adjectives - are capable, like the verbs of thought, of subordinating a noun with the preposition o (about, about). This fact serves as an argument in favor of the fact that emotional verbs are associated with feeling through a long and concurrent thought process. Here are a few examples:
Sad about home, sad about missed opportunities, worried about her son.
The active nature of English verbs of emotions is manifested in the peculiarities of their use - they often appear in a sentence along with action verbs, which can be represented by such an example: Yesterday I made a mistake, I was very upset.
The activity of emotional verbs is expressed, among other things, in the fact that many of them (in the form of the perfect form) can introduce direct speech into the text⁹. For example: “Are you already at home?” Sergey was delighted.
In English, the studied seme is represented by the verbs: enjoy, luxuriate, relish with the meaning "enjoy", delight, please with the meaning "please", "enjoy",
“to amuse”, “to have fun”, gloat - “secretly gloat”, rejoice - “to please”, “rejoice”.
"But he was not destined to enjoy that bed"
(J.London. White Fang)
"Are you pleased now, are you happy?" (D. du Maurier. Rebecca)
"The world seemed a long way off, and she relished her seclusion" (Maugham. Theatre.)
It should be noted that in the semantics of the verb gloat - "secretly gloat" - contains a negative connotation of joy.
There are twice as many verbs with a figurative, but similar meaning: bask,
brighten up, crow, glow, light up, revel, savour, shine, sparkle, triumph, twinkle.
"His face lit up as he saw he"r (Maugham.Theater) (At the sight of Julia, his face lit up).
"He shone like a new pin" (Maugham. Theatre)
(The boy beamed like a brass button).
Consider their initial values:
bask - "warm up", beam - "radiate", brighten up
- "cleanse, bring shine", "shine", crow -
"crow", glow - "glow", light up - "ignite", revel - "feast", savour - "taste or smell", shine - "shine", sparkle -
"sparkle", triumph - "win", twinkle -
"shine". Verbs bask, beam, glow, shine,sparkle, twinkle denote a process, and the verb bask - "warm up" - conveys the process of obtaining heat, and the rest of the verbs - the process of emitting light, which is also observed.
In this case, between these types process and state of joy and pleasure a metaphorical parallel appears, pointing to an external change in the subject. Verb crow belongs to a subgroup of sounding verbs,
savour - sensory perception, brighten up and
light up - a specific action, revel and triumph -abstract action.
Emotional verbs, as well as other lexical-semantic groups of verbs, characteristic of causation. First of all, it is worth mentioning that in both languages ​​it can be represented by the internal semantics of verbs (borchu - to disturb, annoy - to annoy), and in English the verb is at the same time can be both causative and non-causative (calm - calm down).¹⁰ however, in English, the semes "entertain", "please", "amuse", "please" are reflected in the following verbs: amuse, beguile, brighten up, cheer, delight, divert:
"I'll have to cheer him up tomorrow" (J. London. White Fang) (I'll have to cheer him up tomorrow).
"For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement of vague forms on the edge of the firelight" (J.London. White Fang) (For a while they both watched with interest vague silhouettes moving behind the fire).
In the passive voice, they often lose the quality of the impact on the object, since by itself a passive structure sometimes does not require the presence of an agent:
"She was pleased that they liked her, these smart, idle women <…>” (Maugham. Theatre.) (To her it was a pleasure to please them, these idle, elegant ladies <…>).
"She was delighted" (Maugham. Theatre) (Julia was delighted).
In English, actants of verbs joys and pleasures are direct additions:
"Yes, they seem to have enjoyed their food" (Maugham. Theatre) (Yes, it was evident that they were enjoying the food).
"Julia enjoyed a happy autumn" (Maugham. Theater) (This autumn was very happy for Julia).
In addition, in addition to abstract nouns (or pronouns replacing them) in actants of the verbs of joy and pleasure are gerundial, infinitive, participial phrases and sentences:
"On this occasion Julia had been very much enjoyed lunching at Hill Street" (Maugham. Theatre)
(On this day, Julia enjoyed lunch in Hill Street very much.)
"She was not pleased to think that the situation between them now was openly reserved" (Maugham. Theater) (It was unbearable to think that their roles changed).
Emotions may share with snow and colors the lack of sharp distinctions, but one clear
dierence has to do with temporal complexity: Emotions are processes, they begin,
get stronger and fade away (cf. Zlatev etal. this volume), and this aspect is conceptu-
alized in a natural way with verbs, being ‘process words’. In emotion verbs, four dif-
ferent ‘roles’ are involved: Causes (‘that noise’ in that noise irritates me), Experiencers
(the person who experiences the emotion, like me in the example just given), Targets,
like that sound in I hate that sound, and (bodily) Eects (trembling in he trembled
with fear).
ere is a whole line of research on mental verbs (psych verbs) (cf. Cro 1993;
Jackendo 2007: Chapter 7), in which the central question is how we can explain
the variable distribution of the semantic roles of Cause, Experiencer, and Eect over
the syntactic subject, object, and predicate. West-Germanic languages have at least
3 classes of mental verbs: (1) Causative verbs: at noise irritates / frightens me, where
the Cause is subject and the Experiencer is direct object; a passive paraphrase is possible
(I am frightened by that noise), (2) Unaccusative verbs, which don’t allow a causative
paraphrase or a passive. e Experiencer object has the syntactic role of indirect object.
German has a dative here (Das gefällt mir, ‘that pleases me’), whereas it has accusative
in combination with verbs mentioned under 1 (Das beängstigt mich, ‘that frightens
me’), and (3) Experiencer-subject verbs: I like/hate/fear that sound.
ree questions are relevant here:
i. Can we predict which feelings are conceptualized by which pattern? If there is a
pattern, it is not absolute, as some feelings can occur in two patterns: at animal
frightens me versus I fear that animal; that pleases me versus I like that. Moreover,
we see changes through time with the same verb, where the Experiencer shis
position from object to subject, cf. the Dutch examples in (1) and (2)
Emotions may share with snow and colors the lack of sharp distinctions, but one clear
dierence has to do with temporal complexity: Emotions are processes, they begin,
get stronger and fade away (cf. Zlatev etal. this volume), and this aspect is conceptu-
alized in a natural way with verbs, being ‘process words’. In emotion verbs, four dif-
ferent ‘roles’ are involved: Causes (‘that noise’ in that noise irritates me), Experiencers
(the person who experiences the emotion, like me in the example just given), Targets,
like that sound in I hate that sound, and (bodily) Eects (trembling in he trembled
with fear).
ere is a whole line of research on mental verbs (psych verbs) (cf. Cro 1993;
Jackendo 2007: Chapter 7), in which the central question is how we can explain
the variable distribution of the semantic roles of Cause, Experiencer, and Eect over
the syntactic subject, object, and predicate. West-Germanic languages have at least
3 classes of mental verbs: (1) Causative verbs: at noise irritates / frightens me, where
the Cause is subject and the Experiencer is direct object; a passive paraphrase is possible
(I am frightened by that noise), (2) Unaccusative verbs, which don’t allow a causative
paraphrase or a passive. e Experiencer object has the syntactic role of indirect object.
German has a dative here (Das gefällt mir, ‘that pleases me’), whereas it has accusative
in combination with verbs mentioned under 1 (Das beängstigt mich, ‘that frightens
me’), and (3) Experiencer-subject verbs: I like/hate/fear that sound.
ree questions are relevant here:
i. Can we predict which feelings are conceptualized by which pattern? If there is a
pattern, it is not absolute, as some feelings can occur in two patterns: at animal
frightens me versus I fear that animal; that pleases me versus I like that. Moreover,
we see changes through time with the same verb, where the Experiencer shis
position from object to subject, cf. the Dutch examples in (1) and (2)
Emotions may share with snow and colors the lack of sharp distinctions, but one clear
dierence has to do with temporal complexity: Emotions are processes, they begin,
get stronger and fade away (cf. Zlatev etal. this volume), and this aspect is conceptu-
alized in a natural way with verbs, being ‘process words’. In emotion verbs, four dif-
ferent ‘roles’ are involved: Causes (‘that noise’ in that noise irritates me), Experiencers
(the person who experiences the emotion, like me in the example just given), Targets,
like that sound in I hate that sound, and (bodily) Eects (trembling in he trembled
with fear).
ere is a whole line of research on mental verbs (psych verbs) (cf. Cro 1993;
Jackendo 2007: Chapter 7), in which the central question is how we can explain
the variable distribution of the semantic roles of Cause, Experiencer, and Eect over
the syntactic subject, object, and predicate. West-Germanic languages have at least
3 classes of mental verbs: (1) Causative verbs: at noise irritates / frightens me, where
the Cause is subject and the Experiencer is direct object; a passive paraphrase is possible
(I am frightened by that noise), (2) Unaccusative verbs, which don’t allow a causative
paraphrase or a passive. e Experiencer object has the syntactic role of indirect object.
German has a dative here (Das gefällt mir, ‘that pleases me’), whereas it has accusative
in combination with verbs mentioned under 1 (Das beängstigt mich, ‘that frightens
me’), and (3) Experiencer-subject verbs: I like/hate/fear that sound.
ree questions are relevant here:
i. Can we predict which feelings are conceptualized by which pattern? If there is a
pattern, it is not absolute, as some feelings can occur in two patterns: at animal
frightens me versus I fear that animal; that pleases me versus I like that. Moreover,
we see changes through time with the same verb, where the Experiencer shis
position from object to subject, cf. the Dutch examples in (1) and (2)
Emotions may share with snow and colors the lack of sharp distinctions, but one clear
dierence has to do with temporal complexity: Emotions are processes, they begin,
get stronger and fade away (cf. Zlatev etal. this volume), and this aspect is conceptu-
alized in a natural way with verbs, being ‘process words’. In emotion verbs, four dif-
ferent ‘roles’ are involved: Causes (‘that noise’ in that noise irritates me), Experiencers
(the person who experiences the emotion, like me in the example just given), Targets,
like that sound in I hate that sound, and (bodily) Eects (trembling in he trembled
with fear).