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Post a Comment The Verb brosat’ ‘throw’: Lexical Semantics and Aspectual Properties
Abstract
The article analyzes lexical and grammatical features of the verb brosat' ‘throw’ and its perfective counterpart brosit' in comparison with other Slavic languages, drawing on corpus data. In Russian, this pair of verbs exemplifies “two-stem” perfectivation pattern, whereby prefixal perfectives derive from different stems depending on the meaning of the prefixal element: cf. nabrosit'/zabrosit' (a single event) vs. nabrosat'/zabrosat' (a repeated action affecting multiple objects). The etymology of the stem bros- remains unclear, with one hypothesis tracing it back to the dialectal phrase brosat' lёn ‘ripple flax’. The verb brosat' enters literary Russian relatively late, becoming frequent only from the 17th century. It quickly rose to acquire the function of a dominant verb for the domain of throwing and developed a wide polysemy network through metaphorization of the physical action (including such semantic components as ‘the object is no longer in contact with the thrower’ and ‘the object changes its location’). Other Slavic languages also have their own dominant verbs (Belarusian kіdac', Polish rzucać, Czech házet, Serbian bacati, Bulgarian hvǎrljam, etc.), none cognate with brosat'. The existence of a basic lexeme and diversity of verbs of throwing proves to be typical of Slavic and stems from the regular lexicalization of verbs of throwing from adjacent lexical domains, particularly ‛striking’ and ‛hitting (the target)’.
DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2026.1.09
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